Supreme Court to examine if a person with 'low vision' become doctor

dna

Written By
PTI Updated: Jun 15, 2018, 09:01 PM IST

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine whether a person suffering from disability of 'low vision', in which eyesight cannot be corrected or improved, can be allowed to pursue MBBS course and treat patients..

This contentious issue came up before a vacation bench of justices U U Lalit and Deepak Gupta which wondered whether it would be feasible to allow a person with visual impairment to become a doctor and treat patients.

The bench issued notices to the Centre and the Gujarat government on a plea filed by a student suffering from 'low vision', who has cleared the NEET 2018 undergraduate examination, seeking a direction for issuance of disability certificate as per law so that he could take admission in MBBS course.

"If you talk about any other profession like legal or teaching, it can be understood that even a blind person can successfully pursue the career. As far as MBBS is concerned, we have to see, how much it is feasible and possible," the bench said.

Recalling his personal experience with an intern who was blind, Justice Lalit said that he had difficulties in reading the documents and used to convert digital documents into brail form, for reading and understanding them.

"After successfully completing his internship with me, he has now become a Rhodes scholar studying at the University of Oxford," Justice Lalit said.

Senior advocate Sanjay Hegde and advocate Govind Jee, appearing for minor student Purswani Ashutosh through a doctor, said that there was already a provision for reservation of five percent seats of total intake capacity in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

He said that a direction should be issued to the Centre and Gujarat government for implementing the reservation scheme for persons with benchmark disability as mandated by provisions of the Act and issuance of certificate of disability.

To this, Justice Lalit said that he had studied law from a government law college and a professor who taught him Company law was blind but he remembered everything by heart.

"So in teaching or legal profession, there is no problem but when it comes to medical education, can a person with a disability of low vision be allowed. This we have to see," the bench said.

It directed the student to be present before the committee of B J Medical College, Ahmedabad within three days from today, with the copy of this order.

"The petitioner shall be medically examined and the appropriate medical certification regarding the claim of the petitioner that he suffers from 'low vision' shall be transmitted to the Registry of this court within four days therefrom," the bench said and posted the matter for further hearing on July 3, before an appropriate bench.

The student, in his petition, has claimed that he had appeared for NEET UG examination 2018 under physically handicapped category and has scored all India rank of 4,68,982 and category Physically Handicapped rank as 419 and said that he has fair chance of getting a seat in medical/dental colleges in All India Quota/ the State Government Medical Colleges under the special category.

He said that on May 30, he had visited Vardhman Mahavir Medical College, Delhi for disability certificate as notified by the central government but they had refused to assess his disability.

The students in his plea said that on June 6, though his father had even met the doctors concerned of the committee at the BJ Medical College at Ahmedabad for issuance of disability certificate, they received no response from the state government.

He sought urgent disposal of his matter as the counselling process for admissions in MBBS course is going on.

In a landmark move, the apex court had on September 24, 2017, opened the doors for colour-blind students to pursue MBBS course by ordering admission of two such candidates, who had scored high marks in the entrance examination.

The apex court had said that peculiar facts and circumstances of the case required it to invoke special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution as it was a matter of "transcendental importance of justice", .

The two students had secured high marks in the entrance examination conducted by the Tripura government in 2015 during the pre-NEET period.

Without any statutory provision barring students from pursuing MBBS course, various colleges and Medical Council of India (MCI) were arbitrarily denying admissions to candidates suffering from Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD), popularly called colour blindness.

MP NEET Counselling 2018: DME, Madhya Pradesh Begins Registration For 85% State Quota Seats

DME, Madhya Pradesh has begun the online registration process for MBBS and BDS counselling for NEET UG qualified candidates. 

Education | NDTV Education Team | Updated: June 15, 2018 15:32 IST


Online registration begins for state quota seats' counselling in Madhya PradeshNew Delhi: Department of Medical Education (DME), Madhya Pradesh has begun the online registration process for MBBS and BDS counselling for NEET UG qualified candidates. Candidates can register online from the official website. The seat distribution for MBBS and BDS courses at medical and dental institutes including those in private institutes is also available on the website.

The online registration which began today will end on June 25, 2018 at midnight. The State Merit List of registered candidates will be displayed on June 26, 2018.

The choice-filling and choice-locking process will be carried on from June 27, 2018 to June 30, 2018 till 12:00 midnight.

The first allotment list will be announced on July 4, 2018.

The New Registration link is available on the home page for DME, Madhya Pradesh (www.dme.mponline.gov.in) under the 'under graduation' admission tab.

Candidates registering for the state counselling will have to upload the following documents at the time of counselling:
NEET Admit card/NEET UG Registration slip
Class 10th marksheet
Class 12th marksheet
Domicile Certificate
Caste certificate (if required)
Affidavit of not being domicile of state other than MP
Income certificate (if required)
Candidate Class Certificate (PH/SN/FF) (if required)

Apart from Madhya Pradesh, other states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Kerala have also begun the registration for the State Quota seats.

0 CommentsMedical Counselling Committee (MCC), which is responsible for counselling for the 15% All India Quota seats, has also begun the online registration for NEET qualified candidates.

Medical Council of India allows Uttar Pradesh to offer 400 MBBS seats 

Written By
dna Correspondent Updated: Jun 16, 2018, 02:55 AM IST

Four days ahead of NEET counselling, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh got major relief from the Medical Council of India (MCI) on Friday when it allowed the state government to accept admissions for 400 MBBS seats in four of its upgraded district hospitals for the academic year 2018-19.

Last month, the MCI had denied permission to the state government to begin MBBS courses for 400 seats in Banda, Saharanpur, Jalaun and Azamgarh district hospitals due to lack of infrastructure, faculty/nursing staff, CT Scan machines and other medical equipment mandatory for MBBS studies.

The MCI had also rejected requests of 1,700 seats in over a dozen private medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh to conduct the MBBS course for similar reasons. The MCI, however, did not allow the private medical colleges to seek admissions for those 1,700 MBBS seats.

MCI's decision had caused a flutter in the State Medical Education and Health department and had also put a big question mark on future of MBBS aspirants who had qualified the NEET last month.

Counselling for NEET qualifiers will begin from June 19 in state and private medical colleges for admission in the MBBS course. The MCI has directed the state government to furnish a fresh undertaking by June 18 to fulfil all mandatory requirements before the academic session for the MBBS course begins by mid-July in these four medical colleges.

With this, the seats for MBBS course in state medical colleges has gone up to 1,900 in Uttar Pradesh. Hailing the MCI decision, Dr KK Gupta, Director General Medical Education, said that it will help the state to produce more doctors in its medical colleges for meeting the acute shortage.

"We will submit the fresh undertaking by June 18. We have almost fulfilled all requirements in the four medical colleges and those left will be met before the MBBS course begins," said Dr Gupta
NEET COUNSELLING

Counselling for NEET qualifiers will begin from June 19 in state and private medical colleges for admission in the MBBS course. The seats in state medical colleges has now gone up to 1,900 in UP

Delhi HC instructs AIIMS to pay fine to the student who was debarred because of Aadhaar Mismatch

by Manish Chaturvedi | Jun 14, 2018 | AIIMS, NEET UG 

The Delhi High Court has directed the AIIMS to pay Rs. 50,000 as costs to an MBBS aspirant, who was not allowed to write the entrance exam after his Aadhaar card could not be scanned at the centre, and also issued a slew of direction to avoid a repeat of the incident.

The court observed that the controller of examination of AIIMS adopted a callous attitude in unnecessarily depriving the student from appearing in the exam. Turning back a student from an entrance examination centre would result in a fait accompli, as has happened in this case, which has to be avoided under all circumstances, it said.

The court, however, refused to order a re-exam, saying it would cause a lot of disturbance to other students who have already appeared in the test and it would be unfair to impose the burden of another exam on the other candidates.

“In view of the non-responsive attitude of AIIMS, both to the candidate’s representation and before this court, the petitioner deserves to be compensated with costs for the treatment that has been meted out to him. In view of the harassment and frustration caused to the petitioner, AIIMS is directed to pay costs of Rs. 50,000 to the petitioner,” Justice Prathiba M Singh said.

When the matter was initially listed for hearing, the court had issued notice to AIIMS and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), asking them to file their response within a week.

While UIDAI filed a response confirming that the student’s Aadhaar card was genuine, AIIMS failed to file a counter affidavit.

The court also issued a slew of direction to avoid students and candidates, appearing for the AIIMS examinations, being confronted with such incidents.

It directed the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to include in its brochure the manner in which examination centres respond to various situations such as identification of documents, medical conditions, discrepancies in admit cards and question papers and manner of marking answers.

“In future, the controller of examinations of AIIMS shall ensure that a response team is constituted to deal with issues raised on the day of the examination and such a team should also be able to respond immediately in such emergent situations.

“Since the examination is conducted in centres across the country, the heads of examination centres ought to be given uniform set of instructions to ensure that students are not made to suffer in this manner,” the court said.

It added that if the examinations are conducted online, there ought to be an emergent technical response team to deal with any technical glitches that may arise.

The plea was filed in the high court during vacations by a student from Karnataka, who was not allowed to take the AIIMS entrance examination on May 26 as the Quick Response (QR) code of his Aadhaar card could not be scanned by staff carrying out verification through a mobile phone application at an examination centre in Kalaburagi.

The student was barred from taking the exam and was told that his Aadhaar card was not genuine. It was later established that the document was indeed genuine.

It was also established that this method of verification through mobile application had not been uniformly applied, and that several centres had, in fact, granted admission to candidates after a physical verification of documents.

The student had written a letter to the authorities but when he did not receive any response, he approached the high court seeking a stay on the publication of the results of the examination, scheduled to be declared on June 18, and for conducting the exam afresh. Comments

Rs. 2.8 crore pedestrian subway in Tambaram likely to be ready by Sept. 

T. Madhavan 
 
CHENNAI, June 17, 2018 00:00 IST

The construction of a pedestrian subway across the track near the Tambaram railway station is expected to be completed by coming September.

Originally the Rs. 2.8 crore project, which started in April 2017, was scheduled for completion in September of the same year. However, due to the monsoon and soil conditions, the work got delayed. The subway has been readied using the ‘box jacking’ (or box pushing) technology. Concrete boxes are prepared at the construction site and pushed into their places using hydraulic power, railway officials said.

Sriperumbudur MP K.N. Ramachandran said he was receiving numerous complaints on the slow pace of the work and had urged the railway officials to speed it up.

The pedestrian subway will come up close to the existing one for two-wheelers and light motor vehicles near Suddhananda Bharathi Street, East Tambaram. It will connect residents of East and West Tambaram.

To improve pedestrian safety, the Southern Railway has proposed to construct two pedestrian subways — one at Tambaram and the other at Perungalathur.

Educational institutions built before 2011 can get DTCP approval 

Staff Reporter 
 
CHENNAI, June 17, 2018 00:00 IST

Move expected to benefit those operating with partial approval

The Tamil Nadu government has announced that buildings of educational institutions in non-plan areas, which have been there before January 1, 2011, could get clearance from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP), and has issued guidelines for the same.

According to a Government Order from the Housing and Urban Development Department, a one-time charge of Rs. 7.50 per square feet of the floor space index (FSI) area would have to be paid by the institutions concerned as part of the infrastructure and amenities fund. The order was issued on June 14, 2018, and the concession would be valid for a period of three months from that date.

R. Visalakshi, president of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association, said the order would help facilitate the approval process for several schools, which had been functioning with partial approval.

“The existing buildings of old schools were not able to get approved by the DTCP and had been functioning on the basis of an approval from the local bodies as several rules had changed over the years and they had not been able to meet a few norms. This will mean that they can now apply for fresh concurrence,” she said.

‘Worth paying the price’

The consortium of self-financing professional arts and science colleges as well as private schools associations had submitted representations to the Commissioner of Town and Country Planning for according DTCP approval for buildings functioning before 2011.

“While the amenities fee might be high for schools with a larger area, schools will be ready to pay it since it means that through this process, they don’t have to face the possibility of getting their recognition revoked by the Education Department,” she added.

A. Narayanan, director, CHANGE India, said the announcement was long-pending.

“There are several schools functioning in the State that fall short of meeting the infrastructural norms. Following the Kumbakonam fire tragedy, several directions have been given to schools, including one that they must comply with the provisions of the National Building Code of India,” he added.

Sathya Sai Seva is always there for Muslim brothers 

DECCAN CHRONICLE.

Published Jun 17, 2018, 4:50 am IST

25 volunteers distributed rose milk and mithai saadam, a Ramzan delicacy, to over 1500 worshippers breaking the Ramadan fast .


Despite allegations of religious hatred among Hindus and Muslims, Sri Sathya Sai Organisation at Baqeer Lapai Jamad mosque in Triplicane distributes sweets to celebrate Ramzan on Saturday. (Image: DC)

Chennai: Demonstrating brotherly love towards the Muslims, allegations of Hindu-Muslim hatred and one community inciting violence on the other, the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisation distributed sweets and soft drinks to those breaking the Ramadan fast and celebrating Eid-Ul-Fitr here today.

25 volunteers distributed rose milk and mithai saadam, a Ramzan delicacy, to over 1500 worshippers breaking the Ramadan fast at the Fakir Labbai Jama-ath Masjid in Triplicane and the Masjid-e-Mohammadiya and Madarasa in AGS Colony, Adambakkam today to spread the message of brotherhood as was taught by their patron Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

“This practice is not new. When worshippers used to break their fast by the beach at Marina, we used to distr ibute milk and sweets. However, the pra ctice was discontinued after worship by the sea stopped,” said Anand R, Zonal Coordinator at Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisation.

“We want to spread the message of love and brotherhood,” said Sarveswaran, District Service Coordinator of the Chennai Metro South zone of the organisation.