Hand over public exam results to parents: Madras HC notice to education secretary 

DECCAN CHRONICLE.

Published May 10, 2018, 3:41 am IST

Some students who fail in the examinations attempt suicide and in few cases, students have died. 


Madras high court

Chennai: The Madras high court ordered notice to the school education secretary and director of school education on a public interest litigation, which sought a direction to the authorities to hand over the results of the public examinations to the parents of students in a parent-teacher meeting and not to publish the results directly in newspapers and websites, so as to prevent students who fail in the examinations from committing suicide.

A division bench comprising Justices V.Parthiban and P.D.Audikesavalu posted further hearing of the PIL filed by A.Senthil Kumar of Chennai after four weeks. According to Senthil Kumar, the results of the public examinations conducted by government for the 10th, 11th and 12th standards were published directly in newspapers and websites, enabling students who wrote the examinations to know about their results.

Some students who fail in the examinations attempt suicide and in few cases, students have died. Therefore, there is need for an alternative method of announcing the results. If the results are handed over to the parents of students in a parent-teacher meeting in the school premises, suicide attempts by candidates who fail in the examinations, can be prevented, he added.

The petitioner said that he had already sent a representation on April 14, 2018 in this regard to the authorities concerned, but there was no response so far. Therefore, he filed the present, he added.

People in frenzy as Hyderabad ATMs run dry 

DECCAN CHRONICLE. | COREENA SUARES

Published May 10, 2018, 1:16 am IST
Citizens said that they had to visit a minimum of 4 ATMs to find cash. 


A bank staffer told DC, “Cash crunch may be the result of panic withdrawal by customers who anticipated cash crunch. (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

Hyderabad: “After trying 6 ATMs unsuccessfully, I went into a bank. They too had no money and gave me Rs 10,000 in 50 rupee denominations. I had to pay my electricity bill in cash as one of my cheques in November was dated 2016 instead of 2017 which meant that only cash would be accepted from the “defaulter” for one year,” says Vimala Madan from Sainikpuri. This is not an isolated case and there have been many complaints about ATMs running dry in the first ten days of May that usually sees high withdrawals by salaried persons and pensioners. Citizens said that they had to visit a minimum of 4 ATMs to find cash.

Ms Shalini Dubey of Anand Bagh said, “Out of all the ATMs working in my locality, only one percent of the ATMs hold cash. We are forced to stand for more than 30 minutes as even banks cite cash deficiency. Also, the ATMs that hold cash are not dispensing large currency notes.”

While the cash crunch was going on, SBI offered cash withdrawal using credit card for their customers. Mr Mahender Reddy a techie and resident of Khairatabad says, “The ATMs were running dry in my area and ironically I received an option to withdraw money using my credit card at zero interest. The issue of cash crunch should be addressed first before giving such offers.”

A bank staffer told DC, “Cash crunch may be the result of panic withdrawal by customers who anticipated cash crunch. Especially employees and pensioners tend to withdraw the entire amount fearing no cash will be available in the near future. However the ATMs are being timely refilled.”

SBI authorities state that 82 per cent of SBI ATMs across Telangana are operational and there is sufficient cash flow.

Many employees at Flipkart become dollar millionaires

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru: 10.05.2018

Walmart’s buyout of Flipkart will make a host of former and current employees with shares in the latter rich, and quite a few will become dollar millionaires. Some 3,000 or more employees, current and former, are said to be holding shares. The company has a total strength of about 10,000.

At the employee town hall on Wednesday, there was a big cheer when Flipkart co-founder and group CEO Binny Bansal announced a 100% buyback of vested ESOPs (employee stock options. Sources told TOI that the buyback could be at around $150 (Rs 10,000) a share.

Among those turning dollar millionaires are said to be Sameer Nigam, CEO and founder of PhonePe, the payment arm of Flipkart, Amod Malviya, former chief technology officer, Sujeet Kumar, former president of operations, Vaibhav Gupta, former business finance chief, Mekin Maheswari, former chief people officer, Ankit Nagori, former chief business officer, and Ananth Narayanan, CEO of Myntra and Jabong.

Malviya, Kumar and Gupta went on to found trading platform Udaan. Nagori started healthcare platform Curefit, together with Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal.

Maheswari recently started Udhyam Learning Foundation, which works on developing entrepreneurial mindsets amongst youth from difficult backgrounds.

Flipkart was quite liberal in granting stock options to employees. But it would still not be able to rival Infosys, which is said to have created 20,000 rupee-millionaires and 500 dollar-millionaires in the 1990s and 2000s.

“Infosys grew organically, taking in less capital and creating sustainable cash flows. Flipkart has consumed huge amount of capital, which has gone into building the business and funding losses. But they need to be congratulated for creating value,” T V Mohandas Pai, former board member at Infosys, said.








(Clockwise from top left) Sameer Nigam, Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, Ananth Narayanan, Ankit Nagori and Mekin Maheshwari

Harsh Vardhan calls Tagore ‘Sir’, says slip of tongue

Krishnendu.Bandyopadhyay@timesgroup.com

Kolkata: 10.15.2018

Rabindranath Tagore, who renounced knighthood to protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre 99 years ago, was referred to as “Sir Rabindranath Tagore” on his 157th birth anniversary in Kolkata in the course of a speech by Union environment and science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday.

Several members of the audience who were listening to the speech gasped in disbelief. When asked, the minister told TOI that it might have been a “slip of the tongue”.

“I have great admiration for Gurudev and I got a little emotional while praising the great men Kolkata produced. I cannot recollect in my conscious memory whether I called Tagore Sir or not. But what happened was definitely inadvertent,” he said.

The minister heaped praise on Tagore and other luminaries after inaugurating four galleries, three belonging to the Zoological Survey of India and one to the Botanical Survey of India, at the Indian Museum, along with Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi.

However, his use of the word “Sir” did not go unnoticed. Indian Museum officials were taken aback.

“We are surprised because he is otherwise very thorough about the city and its contribution to freedom movement,” a senior Indian Museum official said.

Tagore expert Amrita Sudhan Bhattacharya, explaining the probable reason for the gaffe, said: “Tagore accepted knighthood and then denounced it. The minister must have been confused.”

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in April 1919. There is a growing demand in India to seek a formal apology from the British government before its centenary. 

Modi-Rajinikanth combine can do wonders to TN

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 10.05.2018
Aligning with the BJP would help veteran actor Rajinikanth assume power in Tamil Nadu, according to Thuglaq magazine editor S Gurumurthy, who said that the combination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajinikanth would do wonders for people of Tamil Nadu.

Speaking on the sidelines of the national executive committee meeting of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), in which Rajini's political opponent Kamal Haasan also participated, Gurumurthy said that bringing together the administrative nous of Modi and the mass appeal of Rajini would work like magic. He, however, denied that he was advising Rajini on his political entry. "If people think I am advising Rajinikanth, then I am proud of that," he said.

Haasan and Gurumurthy did not share the dais during the event. Kamal, who spoke earlier, was on his way out when Gurumurthy walked in. The duo acknowledged each other and shook hands.

Both were asked to comment on the ongoing Cauvery water sharing dispute. While Gurumurthy sought to shift blame for the delay in setting up of Cauvery Management Board away from Modi, Haasan said the issue was not insurmountable. "If politics will just stand aside, then logic and logistics will fall into place. Then, we can quickly solve the problem," Haasan said, adding that the issue should be "left to actual users" of Cauvery river like farmers.

Yet to contest polls, Haasan was asked by an audience member if defeat would mean the end of his political journey, to which Kamal retorted that it wouldn't be. "I will continue my (political) journey despite failure. I started the journey to challenge status quo, to tell my people that integrity and honesty has a place in politics. This (politics) is the rest of my life," he said. 


S Gurumurthy with Kamal Haasan at the FICCI event in Chennai on Wednesday

MKU sex scam: HC says it will not stall probe by guv panel

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 10.05.2018

Upholding the claim of Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit that he has powers as the chancellor of state universities to appoint a committee to inquire into the alleged sex scandal involving assistant professor Nirmala Devi, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court on Wednesday refused to stall the probe conducted by the R Santhanam commission.

Noting that the courts cannot interfere in the powers of the governor, a division bench of Justices M Govindaraj and G R Swaminathan dismissed a public interest litigation moved by Selvagomathy seeking to declare the committee headed by former IAS officer R Santhanam as null and void.

Instead, the petitioner wanted the court to direct the Madurai Kamaraj University to discharge its powers under the provisions of the University Grants Commission (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment against Women Employees and Students in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations - 2015.

The petitioner sought a direction to hold an inquiry of the sexual harassment complaint by a local complaints committee as required under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.

The governor had appointed former IAS officer R Santhanam as the inquiry commission on April 17. Soon after the appointment, questions were raised about the Raj Bhavan instituting a probe into the case of a woman assistant professor allegedly asking students to offer sexual favours to higher-ups. However, the governor defended himself saying that, as the chancellor of the university, he had the authority to do so.

‘NEET Tamil paper riddled with errors’ 

NGO Claims Translation Lapse In 49 Of 180 Questions

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   10.05.2018

Chennai:

There were translation errors in 49 of the 180 questions in NEET Tamil medium paper claimed Teach For All, a Chennaibased NGO, which conducted special training classes for theexam for below poverty line students in Tamil Nadu.

At a press meeting on Wednesday, representatives of the NGO pointed out the translation errors in the Tamil question paper of the NEET held on May 6.

Pointing out to an example, they said that the Tamil translation of cheetah is ‘siruthai’, but instead it appeared as ‘seetha’ on the question paper (question no. 75). Another error is that of the word ‘multiple allele’ (a technicalwordin biology)in question number 77, which was printed as ‘pala kuttu allelgal’ instead of ‘pal kootu,’ they said.

Similar errors had occurred in 47 other questions and the CBSE should provide grace marks for all these questions, said Teach For Allfounder GBRam Prakash. “This means, every candidate who took up the test in Tamil should get 196 points as grace marks,” he said.

According to him, the reason for the confusion is that there are no NCERT books availablein Tamil and that the CBSE failed to standardise technical words in Tamil.

Last year, different question papers were given to English and Tamil candidates and the CBSE had assured the Supreme Court that the errorswould notbe repeated this year, he said.

In case of ambiguity in translation of any question, its English version shall be treated as final says a disclaimer printed on page one of the question paper in Tamil. “It’s okay to ask the students to refer to the English version of the questions in case of one or two errors. Students will not be able to find enough time to do that for 49 questions,” he added. Around 24,000 students took NEET-UG in Tamil this year.

CBSE authorities at the Chennai regional office refused to comment when TOI contacted them.