Smile not always a sign of happiness

It Can Be For Social Reasons, To Put People At Ease Or To Show Complex Emotions

London:11.09.2018

Smiling does not necessarily indicate that a person is happy, according to a study. It is widely believed that smiling means we are happy, and it usually occurs when we are engaging with another person or group of people. Researchers from the University of Sussex show this is not always the case. Sometimes we do smile simply because we are happy, but we also smile for social reasons and to put people at ease, as well as to show more complex emotions, such as resignation.

The way people often behave during one-to-one Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) is as if they were socially engaged, researchers said. They asked 44 participants aged 18-35 to play a geography quiz game consisting of nine difficult questions so that they often got the answer wrong. Seated participants interacted with a computer alone in a room while their faces were video recorded.

After the quiz, the participants were asked to rate their subjective experience using a range of 12 emotions including ‘bored’, ‘interested’ and ‘frustrated’. Their facial expressions were computer analysed frame by frame in order to judge how much they were smiling based on a scale of 0 to 1.

“According to some researchers, a genuine smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement,” said Harry Witchel from Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). “However, Behavioural Ecology Theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions; that theory claims that cheerfulness is neither necessary nor sufficient for smiling,” Witchel said.

“Our study showed that in these Human-Computer Interaction experiments, smiling is not driven by happiness; it is associated with subjective engagement, which acts like a social fuel for smiling, even when socialising with a computer on your own,” he said.

The analysis broke down each of the questions into a question and answer period. Participants did not tend to smile during the period when they were trying to figure out the answers, researchers said. However, they did smile right after the computer game informed them if their answer was correct or wrong, and surprisingly, participants smiled more often when they got the answer wrong. “During these computerised quizzes, smiling was radically enhanced just after answering questions incorrectly,” Witchel added. PTI

DECODING A SMILE

Woman delivers boy on train for the second time

Ravindra.Uppar@timesgroup.com

Belagavi:11.09.2018

Yallawwa Mayur Gayakwad, 23, returning home to Raibag from Kolhapur for her third delivery, suffered labour pains mid-journey and gave birth to a baby boy on the train. The entire railway machinery got into a tizzy, organizing a makeshift ward and ensuring a safe delivery, but Yallawwa wasn’t too flustered. She had done the exact same thing a year ago.

Yallawwa lives with her husband and children in a rented house in Kolhapur. While Yallawwa works as a domestic help, her husband is a construction labourer. The couple have a girl and a boy, who was born in a running train near Hatakanagale railway station on the Maharashtra border a year ago. Expecting for the third time, Yallawwa boarded the Haripriya Express on Monday morning to return to her house in Shahu Park, 7km from Raibag town, for the delivery. Her sister-inlaw accompanied her on the less than three hours journey.

Around 9.30am, as the train neared Chinchali, about 15km from Raibag, Yallawwa developed labour pain. Sources said she was travelling in a crowded general compartment and seeing her in pain, passengers offered her a seat. But the pain intensified and Yallawwa realized it was time.

The railway staff called for the 108 ambulance to stand by at Raibag station but Yallawwa seemed ready to deliver on the running rain. The staff quickly vacated the compartment and covered it with bedsheets to create a labour room. Yallawwa’s sister-in-law and some elderly woman passengers then delivered the baby.

When the train pulled into Raibag, the ambulance staff gave first aid to mother and child and shifted them. The station master stopped the train for half an hour at Raibag, allowing for their safe transfer.

Health officer RH Rangannavar said mother and child were doing well at the Raibag taluk hospital and would be discharged in a day.

ALL IS WELL: Officials said the mother and child were doing well at the Raibag taluk hospital

Wedding called off as ‘bride is always on WhatsApp’

Nazar Abbas@timesgroup.com

Amroha:11.09.2018

A family in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha called off the wedding of their son, alleging that the bride uses too much time on WhatsApp. According to a police complaint filed by the bride’s father, the groom’s father called up the family on Wednesday, the day of the wedding, and told them about their decision.

“We had no inkling about what was coming to us. My daughter was in the middle of preparationsfor her wedding and was very excited. We were waiting for the baraat and all the guests were present inside the house. Suddenly, the groom’s father called me up and said they were cancelling the wedding,” the bride’s father told TOI.

He alleged that the groom’s father had also demanded ₹70 lakh in dowry, a demand which they could not fulfill.

Amroha superintendent of police Vipin Tada said, “The bride’s father had approached the Naugawan Sadat police station with the complaint that the groom’s father had called off the wedding saying the girl uses too much WhatsApp. He also alleged that the groom’s family demanded ₹70 lakh in dowry.”

Woman wins 41-yr fight over ₹312 fee 13 years after death

Binay.Singh@timesgroup.com

Varanasi 11.09.2018

: Ganga Devi was always a fighter. So when the Mirzapur district magistrate served a property attachment notice on her after a dispute in 1975, she protested vehemently. Then 37, she challenged the action before the civil judge and won the case two years later in 1977.

Fate though had another, harder battle in store for her. During the course of the trial, the judge had asked Ganga to pay a court fee of ₹312, which she did. But just as she was ready to get the final copy of the order that was in her favour, someone noticed that Ganga hadn’t attached a receipt of the ₹312 that she had already shelled out. The “vital” document was missing.

It being her wont, Ganga refused to pay up again. The case hanged in court for 41 years as Ganga wouldn’t budge. The suit, filed in 1975, was finally disposed by Mirzapur civil judge (senior division) Lovely Jaiswal on August 31, 2018. Again in her favour. Ganga, of course, wasn’t there to witness the momentous occasion. She died in 2005. “Ganga Devi just didn’t want to pay the court fee of ₹312 for the second time,” a lawyer involved in the proceedings said.

Case continued due to an error in the file, says judge

Requesting anonymity, the lawyer added,“One must remember that Rs 312 four decades ago wasn’t such a small amount. She protested but her plea was not accepted and a case of ‘non-payment of court fee’ continued against her for the next 41 years. The file went through 11 judges, but Ganga Devi remained unheard.”

By the time the matter came up before Jaiswal, who detected the anomaly and after fresh probes found that the fee had indeed been deposited on April 9, 1977, Ganga’s family had given up on justice.

In her judgment, Jaiswal observed that no court fee was pending. “It seemed that the case continued due to an error in the file. Hence, the case is fit for disposal,” the civil judge pronounced. Nobody from Ganga’s family was present in court to celebrate. One of her family members received a copy of the order through speed post last week.

By the time the matter came up before the civil judge, the family had given up on justice

AIADMK to launch its own television channel, News J

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:11.09.2018

The ruling AIADMK will soon boast of its own brand new television channel. Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam will launch the logo, mobile application and the web portal of the channel, News J, on Wednesday at an event in Kalaivanar Arangam in Chennai.

Funded by senior members of the cabinet, the company will launch a bouquet of three channels - beginning with a dedicated news channel to take the government’s achievements and programmes to the masses. “There is a need to counter the opposition’s criticism in the digital space. With Sasikala clan owning Jaya TV, we are left with no option but to go in for one of our own,” said a senior minister.

The trial run of the channel is likely to be completed in a month and a grand event is being planned in the city for the mega launch. A general entertainment channel (GEC) and one for music is also planned, post launch of the news channel.

Earlier, the party launched Namadhu Amma, a Tamil daily in February on the sidelines of Jayalalithaa’s birthday.

Interestingly, the party has roped in Hansraj Saxena, a former close aide of Sun Network’s chairman Kalanithi Maran, and that organisation’s chief operating officer. With kith and kin of the senior ministers occupying the higher posts in the channel, it will be a news channel with a difference with plans to do away debates, sources said.

“As the opposition parties are taking on the government for deteriorating law and order situation, the channel will boast successful cracking of cases by the police,” an insider said. The party is facing the heat of corruption charges against CM, deputy CM and ministers like S P Velumani and C Vijayabaskar. The I-T and CBI searches have been latest embarrassment.

The channel comes in the wake of leaders complaining that the achievements, including Cauvery Water Management Authority, have been overshadowed by the opposition allegations. The management has deployed correspondents and stringers in all districts going by the soaring popularity of Tamil news channels in the last two decades.

Funded by senior members of the cabinet, the company will launch of a bouquet of three channels - beginning with a dedicated news channel

Med student turns farmhand to bail out family

Balajee.CR@timesgroup.com

Trichy: 11.09.2018

The hands that train with scalpels through the week pluck weeds on weekends. P Kanimozhi’s impoverished family to mortgaged or sold everything it had to fund her MBBS course at a private college and she is now making sure it doesn’t starve.

During weekends, Kanimozhi, who belongs to the Arunthathiyar community, works on a farm for a meagre ₹150 a day to supplement what her father P Pichaimani, 45, a farmer at Veppanthattai in Permabalur, makes.

The 21-year-old, who in 2014 managed to secure a government quota seat at Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College at Siruvachur in Perambalur, fears she will have to discontinue her studies in the final year if she is not able to pay the fees.

The annual fee, Kanimozhi said, was around ₹5 lakh, of which around ₹3 lakh was provided by the state government as scholarship under the scheme for scheduled castes. But the scholarship is only for 4 years and 6 months.

Kanimozhi’s paltry earnings can only pay for her family’s daily expenses. “Along with my mother, I go to farms and do various types of work like removing weeds. My family has been struggling with poverty and meeting the medical expenses of my sister, who has a hearing impairment,” she said.

N Selvaraj, at whose farm Kanimozhi has been working from 7am to 1pm a day during the past few weekends, said: “In Veppanthattai, dailywagers go to farms wherever required. As far as I know, Kanimozhi has been doing this work for over two years and in recent weekends she has been working at my farm. Though I have advised her not to do such work as she’s an MBBS student, she said that she was doing it so that she could help her family.”

Her father said he had mortgaged all he could to pay ₹8,80,000 as fees so far and he had nothing left. “I was a daily-wage worker in Dubai for a few years, but after suffering an accident I returned home and have been farming on a one-acre plot of land. I sold my wife’s jewellery and mortgaged my farming land to pay Kanimozhi’s fees. My only dream is to make sure my daughter finishes her MBBS course,” he said.

College sources said the due date for Kanimozhi to pay the pending fee was in February. They said that knowing her situation, at no point did they compel her to pay the fee or ask her not to attend classes. “We always understand when a student is struggling financially. She’s regularly coming to college. If she had brought up the issue straight to us, we would’ve seen what could be done,” the source added.

SUPHILL BATTLE: P Kanimozhi works on a farm on weekends for just ₹150 a day so that her family does not starve

TN made its own interpretation

Jayaraj Sivan & Julie Mariappan | TNN  11.09.2018

The Tamil Nadu cabinet’s decision to release all the seven convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and the debates surrounding the issue turn out to be a case of the political class in the state making much sound and fury about the Supreme Court observation in the A G Perarivalan case.

The September 6 observation of the apex court - which states that Tamil Nadu governor is naturally “at liberty to decide” on Perarivalan’s application filed before him under Article 161 of the Constitution “as deemed fit” – is not an adjudicatory judgment and does not make any marked difference in the earlier stated position regarding the jurisdictional aspects of the case.

While considering the state government’s remission power under Section 435 of CrPC, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the SC, on December 2, 2015, had ruled that states could not remit sentences of convicts in cases investigated by central agencies under any central law. The Constitution Bench made it amply clear that the Centre’s concurrence was mandatory for states to decide on remission in cases involving heinous crimes, especially when national interest was at stake. Now, Tamil Nadu government is invoking Article 161 of the Constitution, arguing that it can decide on the remission of not only Perarivalan, but the remaining six people as well.

Following the cabinet decision, the government on Monday sent individual case files of all the seven convicts to governor Banwarilal Purohit, seeking their release. The government has also enclosed the legal opinion provided by its advocate general Vijay Narayan to drive home its argument.

The opposition parties in Tamil Nadu, including the DMK and the PMK, jumped the gun to celebrate the SC order following incorrect reporting by a section of media. Perhaps, sensing that the issue lends itself for some political mileage, the state government has sought to play it to the gallery. “In this case, TN government has kept the political reasoning to the fore, pushing the law around the case to the back seat,” said senior advocate K M Vijayan.

Law minister C V Shanmugam said the convicts had completed a quarter century in prison. “The government is very firm. After the SC order, we wasted no time in adhering to it,” he said, expressing hope that Purohit also would act fast.

“The Supreme Court has specifically given the liberty to the governor to consider the application of Perarivalan under Article 161 of the Constitution. My opinion goes on to say that what transpires in the case of Perarivalan will apply to all since they have also made similar applications to the state. That is logical,” Narayan told TOI. His argument is that since the only sentence they serve now is under Section 302 of IPC, which falls in the state list, Tamil Nadu government is well within its rights to decide their release. Given the Centre’s objection, the governor may not play ball though.