Panel to probe harassment complaint
The Madras Medical College has formed a five-member committee to probe an anonymous sexual harassment complaint filed against a few teaching doctors at Government KasturbaGandhi General 
Hospital, 

 Published: 02nd May 2018 02:51 AM | Last Updated: 02nd May 2018 04:59 AM

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Madras Medical College has formed a five-member committee to probe an anonymous sexual harassment complaint filed against a few teaching doctors at Government KasturbaGandhi General Hospital, where students of the college frequent for training sessions. Reliable sources privy to the issue said the complaint filed with the Chief Minister's cell, read almost similar to the allegations made against Aruppukottai Devanga College lecturer Nirmala Devi.

The complaint alleges that a woman professor tried to convince a few students to extend sexual favours to a few male professors, said a health department official. He said in the last two weeks the Directorate of Medical Education received the same complaint twice and they had already conducted enquiries with all students. None of the students came forward to file a complaint. We suspected the role of outsiders who might have differences with the accused professors, said the official.

But since the same complaint, this time also anonymous, has been filed again with the Chief Minister's cell, R Jayanthi, Dean, Madras Medical College, on Monday constituted the five- member committee. The action was taken on instructions of Health secretary J Radhakrishnan. The committee is said to have begun the probe on Monday and continued iton Tuesday also.A few departments of the Government Kasturba Gandhi General Hospital function under Madras Medical College and the rest under Multi- Super Speciality Hospital, Omandurar Estate.

Students hack college website 

Staff reporter 
 
Hyderabad, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST

As the college kept a backup in separate drive, the discrepancy was noticed

Over a dozen students of a reputed engineering college near Shamshabad hacked the official website of the college and manipulated the examination results.

The incident which left the college management red-faced, reportedly, took place hours ahead of declaration of the results of the third-year Computer Science course.

According to a top Cyberabad police official, the incident took place a few weeks ago. The students who had failed the examination allegedly hacked the website and altered their results. Suspicion was aroused by the faculty that it was difficult for some students to have passed the examination. Surprisingly, the students did not realise that the college had kept a backup of the results in a separate drive.

Backup drive

“The faculty compared the data of the results from the official website and backup drive and found the glaring discrepancy. They then understood that the results were tampered with,” the official said.

As the engineering college enjoyed the autonomous status, it conducted its own examinations and published the results, the official said.

“It was a preplanned act. They tampered with the results, showing the backlog as cleared. Some of them also scored high marks in some subjects, which were difficult for them. This raised doubts among the faculty,” said the official.

Officials who refuse to join election duty to be arrested 

Special Correspondent 
 
Bengaluru, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST

The Election Commission, which is struggling to bring together the number of employees required for election duty, on Tuesday said that those officials who refuse to join duty would be arrested and action taken against them.

The threat came after it found several officials, especially in urban areas, showing reluctance to join electoral work. In Bengaluru alone, 1,500 cases of officials skipping election duty has been reported and they have been warned.

‘Mostly in Bengaluru’

“We will take strict action against those who refuse to work on election duty. The problem is more in Bengaluru,” Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told reporters here on Tuesday.

The Election Commission is trying to rope in about 3.5 lakh people for election duty across the 224 constituencies. Failure to report for election training, mustering and election duty is an offence as per the Representation of People Act, 1951, a release said.

NEET: mock test held 

Staff Reporter 
 
COIMBATORE, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


S. Krishnan releasing a compact disc containing question bank for NEET in Coimbatore on Tuesday.M. Periasamy
Organised by The Hindu Edge, and Motion Kota Rajasthan

Candidates who had applied for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2018 got an opportunity on Sunday when the took the free mock test The Hindu EDGE had organised in association with Motion Kota Rajasthan with Sri Ramakrishna Institutions as the venue partner.

B. Pavitra who took the test said it had helped her assess her preparation and improve upon it. “The mock NEET test was as good as the entrance examination in that it helped me assess how many of the 180 questions I can attempt, how many I cant get right and why I found a few questions tough.”

She had come all the way from Ettimadai to take the test.

A.D. Sangireeth had come all the way from Coonoor to take the test because he said he wanted to plan his preparation. The student said that he had attempted 100 of the 180 questions and found several questions tough, particularly that were from physics and chemistry.

P. Ranganathan, director, Coimbatore branch, Motion Kota Rajasthan, said 220 candidates had taken the test and of those around 170 had applied for NEET this year. His organisation had prepared the mock test question paper based on questions asked to candidates in the past seven years in the All India Pre Medical Test and last three years in NEET.

The organisation would upload the answers in a day or two to help the students assess where they had gone wrong. It would also send them the results.

Mr. Ranganathan told students that it was important for them to practice time management while taking the test and avoid questions they were unsure of answering correctly, for NEET carried negative marks for wrong answers.

Ramya Ranganathan, Coimbatore branch in-charge, Motion Kota Rajasthan, said with only four days left for the NEET examinations, candidates would do well to revise what they had studied than attempt to study chapters that they had skipped thus far.

S. Krishnan, Head of Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, College of Pharmacy, Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences, spoke on various courses available in the paramedical field.

HC backs official’s demand for change in date of birth 

Special Correspondent   THE HINDU
 
CHENNAI, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


‘Genuine request backed by valid proof should be entertained’

When a public servant demands correction of date of birth in service register neither at the fag end of his/her career nor in anticipation of any promotion and if the claim is supported by impeccable public documents, courts must be inclined to consider the request favourably, the Madras High Court has said.

Justice S. Vimala made the observation while allowing a writ petition filed by IPS officer M.T. Ganesamoorthy. The petition had been filed in 2014 seeking a direction to the Home Secretary and the Director General of Police to alter his date of birth from October 20, 1961 to October 10, 1962 in the service records on the basis of his birth certificate.

In 2007, a civil suit filed by him was dismissed by a lower court prompting him to file the present writ petition. Allowing the writ, Justice Vimala said the civil court decree should be considered as void and non-existent since the issue raised by the petitioner ought to have been considered only by an administrative tribunal.

In so far as the reasons adduced by the Home Secretary for rejecting the petitioner’s plea was concerned, the judge said the rejection based on the provisions of All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules of 1958 was not correct since those rules would not be applicable to the petitioner who had been recruited by the TNPSC.

Though the government had stated that the petitioner’s father was a Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies and such a learned person could not have given a wrong date of birth while admitting his son in school, the judge said the officials had failed to take note that it was his illiterate mother who had reportedly given the wrong date of birth.

Taj Mahal turning brown and green, says worried SC 

Legal Correspondent 
 
NEW DELHI, May 02, 2018 00:00 IST


In distress:Environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta said the upkeep of the UNESCO World Heritage site was in a shambles.PTIPTI
Asks govt. whether it has expertise to conserve monument

The Taj Mahal was yellow and now turning brown and green, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta found from photographs handed over to them by noted environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta in open court on Tuesday.

Mr. Mehta said the upkeep of the UNESCO World Heritage site was in a shambles. River Yamuna, which used to flow nearby, has dried up. Encroachments and industries have cropped up in the neighbourhood of the white marble mausoleum. CCTVs hardly work. The government merely views the Taj as a money-making venture.

“Perhaps you do not care,” Justice Lokur addressed Additional Solicitor General A.N.S. Nadkarni.

‘Seek help’

Looking at the photographs repeatedly, Justice Lokur wondered whether the Taj Mahal in its present discoloured form would end being the “eighth wonder of the world.” Justice Lokur asked the government whether it has or not the expertise to conserve the 17th century monument.

“Even if you have the expertise, you are not utilising it,” the court observed. It urged the government to get help from international conservation experts, if required, to restore the monument to its pristine glory.

Foreign dignitaries

The court observed that foreign dignitaries are still given a tour of the Taj Mahal. This would surely mean that the government is interested in its preservation.

Mr. Nadkarni submitted that the maintenance is done by the Archaeological Survey of India. He said there were also expert bodies like the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), which has worked to preserve an ancient fort in Goa.

“These photographs show a lack of will... when was the last time you visited the Taj?” Justice Lokur asked the government lawyers. When they replied that it has been over a decade, Justice Lokur replied, saying “well, you better go and take a look again.” ASG Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, said the State could assure the court that steps to protect and preserve the monument would be accelerated.

( With PTI inputs)

Facial-recognition tech to spot ‘lost’ flyers at airports

Singapore: 02.05.2018 TIMES OF INDIA
Have you ever been delayed on a flight because of straggling fellow passengers?

That might be an annoyance of the past at Singapore’s Changi airport which is testing facial recognition systems that could, in future, help locate lost travellers or those spending a little too much time in the duty-free shops. Changi Airport is looking at how it can use the latest technologies to solve many problems — from cutting taxiing time on the runway to quicker predictions of flight arrivals.

Steve Lee, Changi Airport Group’s chief information officer, said that the airport’s experiments are not from a “big brother” perspective but solve real problems. “We have lots of reports of lost passengers...so one possible use case we can think of is, we need to detect and find people who are on the flight. Of course, with permission from the airlines,” said Lee.

Facial recognition technology typically allows users to match the faces of people picked up on cameras with those in databases.

Lee said they have tested technology that could allow for this, and are working with businesses that should have some capability to do this in a year’s time.

Changi’s newest terminal, T4, already uses facial recognition technology to offer self-service options at check-in, bag drop, immigration and boarding. This means there are fewer queues. Luggage is dropped at unmanned booths that take your photo and match it with your passport. You are snapped again at an automated security gate at immigration to verify your identity at the boarding gate.

“Today you take passport, you show your face and you show your boarding pass,” said Lee, adding it may, however, be possible to use biometrics instead.

“Then actually in future, you just take your face. You don’t need your passport,” he said. REUTERS 


Facial recognition technology allows users to match the faces of people picked up on cameras with those in databases