Indians among favoured migrants in UK: Survey

London: Times of India 07.05.2018

Indian migrants have a more positive image in the UK as compared to other South Asian communities, according to a recent opinion poll. In comparison, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were in the negative territory. The YouGov poll, conducted last month among 1,668 British citizens, asked a series of questions about the kind of contribution immigrants from various parts of the world make to British life.

Immigrants from India received a strong figure of +25 on the question about making a positive contribution to British life. In comparison, other South Asian counterparts were in negative territory. Pakistanis scored a negative figure of -4 and Bangladeshis -3. Net figures are calculated by taking away the figure for “negative contribution” from the figure for “positive contribution”.

The figures come against the backdrop of a growing debate around the atmosphere for migrants in the UK.

In a House of Commons debate earlier this week, the Opposition Labour party had warned that the recent Windrush scandal engulfs immigrants from many Commonwealth countries, including “those who came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh”.

The scandal relates to thousands of Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain many decades ago when there was little need for formal paperwork and are now legally resident in Britain but may not have all the documents to prove it. The YouGov survey concluded that overall public opinion in the UK towards immigration remains negative.

Around 63%t of people believe that immigration into Britain in the last 10 years has been too high and around 32% thinking it has been mostly bad for Britain. PTI

4TH DENIED ENTRY

3 NEET aspirants jump gates in B’luru, barred

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru: 07.05.2018
Four students were barred from taking the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam at the Army Public School, Kamraj Road centre on Sunday, when they arrived after gates closed at 9.30am.

While one student was turned back at the gate, three students who scaled the gate were shooed away by police on security duty at the centre.

Drama erupted when a girl from Hassan district, who arrived three minutes past the

reporting deadline, climbed over the gate with her parents’ assistance. She was caught by police and sent out of the centre.

However, that did not deter two others — a boy from Hassan district and a girl aspirant from Anekal — who were also late by three minutes, from vaulting the gate. They too were helped over by anxious parents, but both were barred from taking the exam. The fourth candidate — a girl from Bengaluru — was not allowed to enter after they arrived late.

The CBSE had set a reporting time between 7.30am and 9.30am, a schedule that was communicated to students and displayed on the website.

The parents said that they had gotten caught up in traffic from the railway station to the centre. Other parents, who were locals, also complained of dense traffic around Shivajinagar and Commercial Street.

TAKING A LEAP
Kerala NEET candid

Question papers in Hindi rattle 110 students in Madurai

Padmini.Sivarajah@timesgroup.com

Madurai: 
 
07.05.2018
In a major gaffe by the CBSE, around 110 candidates from various districts who appeared for NEET here were issued the Hindi version of the question paper. They were made to wait till afternoon and given photocopies of the Tamil question paper but asked to answer in the OMR sheet of the Hindi question paper. Many students said their MBBS dreams were over.

The goof-up happened at Noyes Matriculation School at Narimedu which had a total of 568 students sitting for the examination. When the first batch of students came out after the exam around 1 pm, many parents couldn’t spot their wards. C Shanmugam of Theni found that his son Mahendran had come out, but not his elder son. After waiting for about half an hour, the parents gheraoed the school principal who told them that their children had been given Hindi question papers. They were waiting for the Tamil question papers to be sent from New Delhi.

“That was such a mockery as it was clear that it was impossible for question papers to be brought from Delhi today. Later we came to know that the students were given photocopies of the question paper,” said Thirumurugan of Theni. Fourteen students were made to write the examination from 12.30pm to 3.30pm and another 96 students from 3.30pm to 6pm.

A R Olivia of Rameswaram said that she was shocked to see that she was given a photocopied question paper. The invigilators took back the paper after asking them to give an undertaking that they had handed back the question paper on their own and not been forced to do so.

HUGE MESS

TN boy’s dad dies as he gives NEET in Kerala 
 
Suffers Heart Attack After Escorting Son

Vikram Vinod & Sambath Kumar TNN

Kochi/Trichy/Madurai: 07.05.2018
As Thiruvarur native Kasthuri Mahalingam left the hotel to appear for the national eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET), he never expected it to be the last time he would see his father Krishnaswamy Srinivasan, 46, alive.

A few minutes later, as Mahalingam took the test, his father passed away after possibly suffering a cardiac arrest at a Kochi hospital where his friend V P Murugaiyan took him. Mahalingam was left undisturbed to complete his exam. It had been his father’s dream to see him become a doctor “Krishnaswamy had complained of chest pain on Saturday night but said he would be fine today. But it worsened and I had to drop his son at the examination centre," said Murugaiyan, the receptionist at Hotel Airlines where the father and son were staying. Murugaiyan was also a close friend of Srinivasan from his native town.

Murugaiyan dropped Mahalingam at the examination centre, Nalanda Public School, at 7am. When he returned, Srinivasan said he wanted to go to a hospital. “We first went to Krishna Hospital but there was no doctor there. Then I rushed him to City Hospital, where medical care was given immediately; but they couldn’t save his life,” he said. The body was shifted to the Ernakulam government hospital’s mortuary.

Meanwhile, unaware of his father’s death, Mahalingam finished the test and came out only to be greeted by officials from the Ernakulam collector’s office who took him to the government hospital. Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla, who joined midway, told the boy that his father had been admitted to the ICU. It was only after Srinivasan’s relatives reached around 3.30 pm that Mahalingam was informed of his father’s death. The boy was inconsolable as the body was taken in an ambulance arranged by the district authorities after 4pm. Hospital staff said that Srinivasan had hypertension and diabetes and that he had not taken his medication for the past couple of days as he forgot to bring them to Ernakulam and this had probably worsened his condition.

Murugaiyan said Krishnasamy had to sit near the toilet all through his night journey on the train to Ernakulam and he said he had to face such ordeals to see his son become a doctor one day. In fact, Krishnasamy never had second thoughts when it came to helping his son realise his dreams, according to his friends in Tiruvarur.

His son Mahalingam had a similar wish to learn chess a few years ago. Krishnasamy not only encouraged him to pursue his dream but also appointed a dedicated coach for him. Tiruvarur collector L Nirmal Raj who was in constant touch with his counterpart in Ernakulam said that all arrangements had been made to escort Krishnasamy’s body to Thiruvarur at the earliest.

In another incident, a man who accompanied his daughter to the NEET venue at Pasumalai centre in Madurai fainted on the campus and was declared dead at the Government Rajaji Hospital. Police said Kannan,45, of Singampunari in Sivaganga district, ran a lorry service in his hometown. 


Kasthuri Mahalingam’s uncle Mani Varnnan consoles him after the NEET exam in Ernakulam on Sunday

CBI court convicts railway engineer over graft charges

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 
 
07.05.2018

A CBI court convicted a Southern Railways senior section engineer on graft charges and sentenced him to two years of rigorous imprisonment and fined him ₹15, 000.

A special CBI team arrested Thota T Shivakumar for demanding ₹15,000 from a railway contractor to record data of projects the contractor executed in 2014.

The railways in December 2012 awarded L G Ravi a tender, estimated at ₹97 lakh, for work on the Chennai-Gudur section. The project involved the laying of points and crossings between Ennore and Athipattu Pudhunagar.

Under the agreement, the railways would provide raw material and Ravi would hire and pay the workers for the project, which was to be completed by February 2013. But the railways extended the contract till May 2014 due to delays in procuring raw material. Ravi approached the deputy chief engineer requesting to release the payment for work done and to close the agreement. Ravi met officials, including T Shivakumar, at Athipattu station on March 4, 2014.

The CBI said the deputy chief engineer directed Shivakumar to record the measurements of work Ravi had done. When Ravi met Shivakumar at his office two days later, the engineer demanded a bribe of ₹15,000. Ravi filed a complaint and the CBI set a trap to catch the engineer.

On March 7, Ravi met Shivakumar at My Lady Park near Park Town and handed over the bribe. A CBI team caught Shivakumar in the act and booked him under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

Principal special judge for CBI cases A Thiruneelaprasad pronounced Shivakumar guilty after hearing the arguments and going through the evidence. He sentenced the engineer to two years of rigorous imprisonment.

NEET 2018

State handed a raw deal by CBSE again

Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com

Chennai:   07.05.2018
Tamil Nadu has always been given a raw deal by the CBSE as far as the NEET examinations are concerned. The board has only accentuated its callousness by allotting exam centres at other states for examinees from Tamil Nadu.

NEET-PG 2015 scheduled from December 1 to 6 was affected due to the Chennai floods. Those who were supposed to take the exam on December 2 were asked to take it at Nagpur, Pune and other cities outside the state even before the candidates could recover from the damage caused by the floods.

Many candidates, particularly those working in government hospitals, were unable to attend the exam as leave was not granted to them post floods.

Only six centres were set up in Chennai for candidates across the state and despite protests to create additional centres at Madurai, Trichy and Tirunelveli, there was no response from the government.

In 2016, candidates from the state wanted CBSE to postpone NEET-PG as there was a cyclone alert. However, CBSE refused and when applicants managed to reach the exam centre despite difficulties caused by Cyclone Vardah, the board cancelled the exams at the last moment. The exam was postponed to the very next day and that too got cancelled due to power failure.

Candidates again were asked to write the tests at centres set up outside the state.

G R Ravindran from Doctors’ Association for Social Equality (DASE) said it is not incidental but intentional. “This (NEET-UG 2018) is a written test and not a computer-based exam. So, CBSE did not create additional centres despite knowing that there has been an increase in enrolment from the state,” he said

Woman falls asleep with headphones, electrocuted

TIMES NEWS NETWORK


Chennai: 07.05.2018

A 46-year-old woman, hooked up to headphones, was electrocuted in Kanathur on Sunday after falling asleep while listening to music.

The police identified the woman as Fathima.

“Fathima’s husband Abdul Kalam saw her in bed and tried to wake her up but in vain,” a police officer said. “He was alarmed when she showed no sign of life and rushed her to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.”

Hospital officials informed the Kanathur police, who sent the body to Government Royapettah Hospital for autopsy.

The Kanathur police registered a case under CrPC Section 174 (unnatural death).

Doctors at the hospital confirmed that electrocution was the cause of death .

“The woman had gone to sleep while wearing the headphones on Saturday night,” the officer said, adding that a short-circuit may have caused the electrocution.