Kerala flood toll at 29; 6 die in 1 day

Thiruvananthapuram:11.08.2018

The discharge of water from all five shutters of Cheruthoni dam reached eight lakh litres per second on Friday, submerging most parts of Cheruthoni town and raising the water level at Bhoothathankettu dam downstream by 1.2 metres. Authorities are preparing for possible flooding in Aluva and other parts of Ernakulam district which lie in the path of the water draining into the Arabian Sea. The Army’s help has been sought to deal with the crisis.

The IMD has forecast heavy rain for the next 48 hours and the government has issued a red alert in Wayanad, Idukki, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Palakkad, Malappuram and Kozhikode districts. The red alert will be in force at Wayanad till August 14 and in Idukki till August 13. Shutters of 25 dams in the state remain open resulting in considerable spurt in water level in rivers. Death toll in the last 48 hours has touched 29, with six deaths in 24 hours and four people reported missing. TNN



OUT OF TIME: Holding a child requiring medical help, a rescuer runs across the Cheruthoni bridge to a vehicle, braving the floodwater gushing through the bridge in Idukki on Friday | P 12

More than 57 tourists, including 22 foreigners, rescued from Idukki

Twenty five people died in landslides while four drowned. Twelve deaths were reported from Idukki, six from Malappuram, four from Wayanad, two from Palakkad and one from Kannur. Three drowning deaths were reported from Ernakulam and one from Thiruvananthapuram. As many as 57 tourists, including 22 foreigners, who were trapped inside a resort at Pallivasal in Idukki were rescued by the Army by constructing a parallel path that led them to the main road.

As many as 439 relief camps have been opened in the state in which 53,502 people from 12,240 families are staying. Most number of relief camps have been opened in Wayanad and Ernakulam districts — 127 and 68 respectively. Over 10,000 people are staying in relief camps in Wayanad and 7,500 in relief camps in Ernakulam.

After reviewing the flood situation late on Friday evening, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan deputed two IAS officers – Mohammed Haneesh and MG Rajamanickam – to coordinate relief measures in Ernakulam. Land revenue commissioner A T James has been deputed to coordinate operations in Wayanad. The review meeting also decided to streamline supply of safe drinking water in all relief camps. On Saturday, Vijayan and revenue minister E Chandrashekaran will inspect flood-hit areas in a helicopter. Chief secretary Tom Jose and additional chief secretary (revenue) P H Kurien will accompany them.

The state police chief has directed all district police chiefs to provide additional security in places where ‘Karkkadaka Vavu Bali’ – the annual Hindu ritual for the departed – will be conducted on Saturday.

Audit of Periyar University finds ₹47 crore irregularity

Senthil.Kumaran@timesgroup.com

Salem:11.08.2018

The Local Fund Audit (LCA) department has raised 691objections amounting to Rs 47.44 crore pending since 1997 in city-based Periyar University’s account auditing.

The audit report for the 2015-16 was placed before the senate meeting of the university recently.

The report has directed the university to settle all the objections at the earliest. “One of the main directions was to settle ₹47,44,16,267 crore pending since 1997,” a senior senator said on condition of anonymity. He said irregularities and misappropriation of funds started in the university since its inception. The university was inaugurated by former chief minister M Karunanidhi in 1997. Subsequently, an audit was carried out by the LCA at the end of 1997-98 financial year. “Irregularities to the tune of ₹14.63 lakh were found in both 1997-98 and 1998-99 financial years,” the senator said.

The irregularities include utilizing university fund for personal reasons and payment of salary for professors and lecturers above the sanctioned strength. A few former vice-chancellors, registrars, professors and lecturers had availed advance salaries and failed to produce proper bills or receipts for the same.

Similarly, an amount of ₹12.22 lakh in 1999-2000 and 2000-01, ₹34.47 lakh in 2002-03, ₹1.12 crore in 2005-06, ₹9.89 crore in 2009-10 and ₹13.18 crore in 2014-15 remain unaccounted for by the university. “Even in 2015-16 financial year, ₹1.73 crore was utilised irregularly by the university,” the senator said. Vice-chancellor P Kolandaivel said of the 691 objections, 100 had been cleared. “Similarly, another 150 objections have been sent for ratification. They will be cleared shortly,” he said. He said at least 300 and more objections would be cleared before the end of this year. The V-C said the university management had not wasted even a single paise.



The irregularities include utilizing university fund for personal reasons and payment of salary above the sanctioned strength. A few former VCs had availed advance salaries and failed to produce proper bills or receipts

DMK demands Bharat Ratna for Karunanidhi

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

11.08.2018

The DMK on Friday demanded in Parliament that the government posthumously confer Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, on party patriarch M Karunanidhi. Several members from the opposition bench supported this.

Raising the demand in the Rajya Sabha, Tiruchi Siva said the award would be a real tribute to the late Tamil Nadu leader’s exemplary work.

Karunanidhi was the “tallest leader of the country and a Dravidian stalwart,” said the Rajya Sabha member.

“He lived five years short of a century, of which he contributed 80 years to public life, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, backward and the suppressed people...He was an outstanding orator, a prolific writer, a novelist, a short-story writer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and also a dramatist. He was an actor and also wrote scripts for 80 movies,” Siva said The lawmaker said Karunanidhi’s life could not be described in words. A staunch and untiring soldier, he was fighting till his last breath, for social justice, secularism, state autonomy and self respect, Siva said.

The MP highlighted some of the laws enacted during the DMK leader’s tenure including equal rights for women in ancestral property, widows’ rehabilitation, slum clearance board and many other boards for unorganised sector and even transsexuals.

“He was the first one to abolish the hand-pulled rickshaw. That was a very radical and progressive achievement. He said that no person should live in slums; slums should be removed; and in their place multi-storey buildings must come. The term ‘differently abled’ was coined by him... He shook hands for relationship and at the same time never compromised in policies and never hesitated to raise voice for the rights,” the MP said.



DRAVIDIAN ICON

40% engg colleges fill < 10 seats each

Vinayashree.J@timesgroup.com

Chennai:

After the third round of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling ended on Thursday, 214 self-financing engineering colleges — which is more than 40% of the total number of colleges in the state — have filled less than 10 seats each, while 71 have not filled even a single seat Going by the trend, educationists say, many colleges will fail to fill the AICTE-mandated 30% seats after five rounds of counselling. Only 47 of the 473 self-financing colleges have filled more than 30% seats so far.

“Given that so many colleges have such low numbers at the end of the third round, many of them will struggle to fill even 50 seats by the end. This year particularly is showing dip in interest in engineering, which started off as a pattern a few years ago,” said educationist and career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi.



‘Anna Univ has to invest in future tech’

Jayaprakash Gandhi said, “This is a wake-up call for both institutions and engineering recruiters. Anna University and its affiliated colleges have to rethink and invest in future technologies and plan their syllabus according to the industry’s needs.”

TNEA officials said the number of eligible candidates in the next round is 23,000, while 26,000 are eligible below the 125 cut-off. As cut-offs drop, the number of absentees increases usually, said a faculty member of a reputed college. “With less than 50,000 eligible candidates left, it is going to be a challenge going forward. The top colleges still have many seats left,” he said.

The veering of students towards other streams including courses in arts and science colleges is a major reason, say colleges. Many top students are also aiming for civil services.

Preferences for even the traditional ‘brand’ colleges had taken a hit this year over previous years, said Gandhi. “Newer ones like Chennai Institute of Technology, Sri Eswar and others have done much better in terms of percentage of seats filled compared to previous years and are competing with the traditional brands.”

Prof Manivannan of RMK Group of Institutions said students and parents were no longer just aiming for an ‘engineering college’ butlooking at placement records and teaching standards. “Engineering aspirants talk to students who have passedoutof a college aswell as the current batch of students and faculty before applying. They are leaning toward easy accessibility, so colleges in cities like Chennai and Coimbatore are faring well,” he said.

Single parenting dangerous for society: HC judge

Sureshkumar.K@timesgroup.com

Chennai:

Can the trend of single parents raising children have wide-ranging adverse effects on society as a whole? The Madras high court thinks so. Noting that a child needs the affection of both mother and father, the court on Friday observed that single parenting is a “dangerous concept for society”. One cannot compensate for the other and the lack of such affection and love might cause behavioural changes, causing the child to turn against society, it said.


Justice N Kirubakaran made the observation while hearing a contempt plea moved against the secretary of Union ministry of women and child development for allegedly failing to comply with the direction issued by the court to check child abuse.

In its order dated October 16, 2015, the court suggested the ministry to consider ‘castration’ to child abusers, particularly child rapists, as an additional punishment apart from other punishments under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act.

This apart, the court directed the Union government to incorporate columns in Indian visa forms issued to foreign nationals to give the details of their pending cases, and cases of conviction as provided in UK Visa form. Among other directions, the Centre was also directed to instruct all state governments to conduct massive awareness programme about crimes against children as provided under the Pocso Act.

The petitioner moved the contempt plea because the Centre failed to implement these directions. When the plea came up for hearing on Friday, Justice Kirubakaran noted that the concept of joint family had initially shrunk to a nuclear, and then to single parenting. Referring to a recent sexual abuse cases reported in Chennai, the court said, “What kind of parents are they to be unaware of what is happening to their child.” The court observed it is time to bifurcate the Union ministry of women and child development and establish a dedicated ministry for child development. The judge asked the assistant solicitor-general, representing the Centre, to get instructions from the ministry as to whether they had issued any guidelines to spend the Nirbhaya fund being allotted to the state governments. He posted the hearing to August 17.

CAN BE BARRED FROM RE-ENTRY FOR 10 YRS

New US visa rules to hit int’l students

Lubna.Kably@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:

International students in the US will find the going tougher after the final policy guidelines were published by the immigration arm of the US government.

Starting August 9, the students and their dependents (namely spouses accompanying them) will automatically begin to accrue unlawful presence in the US, the day after they violate their ‘student status’ even if the period of stay granted to them has not expired. The new policy issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services reverses the prior guidelines, under which the clock to calculate the number of days of unlawful presence began to tick from the day authorities discovered the violation or an immigration judge passed an order.

The tweaked policy has serious repercussions as individuals who accrue more than 180 days of unlawful presence before they leave the US can be barred from re-entry for three to 10 years. After the Chinese, Indians are the largest group of foreign students in the US. International Student Data from the Open Doors Report (2017) shows that there are 1.86 lakh Indian students in the US.

‘Students can land in trouble even if USCIS makes errors’

Unlawful presence can be triggered by various reasons, not just overstay. It could kick in, for instance, if a student does not meet the minimum number of hours per week the educational institution determines is necessary for completion of their study program (this is referred to as falling below a full course of study). It can also be triggered in cases of unauthorized employment or overstaying in the US beyond the grace period available after completion of study.

There is a slight relaxation as compared to the draft policy, as reported by TOI on May 14. Under the revised final policy memorandum, international students who fall out of status and timely file (within five months) for reinstatement of that status will have their accrual of unlawful presence suspended while the application is pending.

If the reinstatement application is denied, the accrual of unlawful presence resumes on the day after the denial, said an official USCIS statement.

Cyrus D Mehta, New York-based immigration attorney, explained to TOI that the improvement is insignificant, especially for a student who may have unknowingly violated his status earlier. If this is discovered many years later, the accrual will be from the day of violation and the student could find himself or herself debarred.

Rajiv S Khanna, managing attorney of Immigration.com , gave TOI a live illustration. “One example of unknowing violation of student status is where the educational institute commits errors in entering information into the SEVIS system (data base to be maintained for foreign students). We had a case where a student authorised to work on campus was the victim of such inaccuracy, where the university authorities wrongly entered the work hours, thus reflecting that he had put in more hours than he was allowed to. Under the new policy, the student would start accruing unlawful presence on the date the violation occurred.”

Mehta added: “Students in practical training can also be found to have violated status if their training is later found to have not been consistent with their degree, and STEM students under optional practical training (OPT) will be even more in jeopardy.”

Khanna pointed out that even errors made the USCIS can land a student in trouble.

Medical counselling 

Special Correspondent CHENNAI 
 
August 11, 2018 00:00 IST

The second round of counselling for medical admission will begin on Saturday with 128 seats in the government medical colleges.

Of the vacant seats, 98 were surrendered under the All India Quota and 30 under the allotment of government seats in self-financing institutions.

A total of 27 seats in government dental college will also be filled during the counselling which will be held till August 13. A total of 113 seats in self-financing institutions will also be filled in this round.

The Directorate of Medical Education has called all the 3,500 candidates as per their ranks for counselling. “Since we permit re-allotment we will call everyone from rank 1,” said selection secretary G. Selvarajan.