Assam to cut pay of staff who neglect parents

RAHUL KARMAKAR

GUWAHATI, FEBRUARY 27, 2019 00:00 IST

State government forms three-member commission to hear cases

The Assam government on Tuesday formed a three-member commission for hearing cases under a pay-cut policy envisaged to make its employees take care of their dependent elderly parents and physically challenged siblings.

The three-member PRANAM (Parents Responsibility and Norms for Accountability and Monitoring) Commission is headed by Chief Commissioner V.B. Pyarelal. Former MLA Alaka Desai Sarma and social worker Jugabala Buragohain are the two Commissioners.

“We hope the policy acts as a deterrent for employees who have been ignoring their parents and physically challenged siblings,” Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said at a programme to announce the panel.

Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had in 2017 said that such a law would be introduced to ensure parents are cared for.

Geriatric care was linked to the State government employees’ pay from the 2018-2019 fiscal. The policy, enforced on October 2 last year, said an employee would be liable to part with 10-15% of his or her pay if found guilty of ignoring their dependent parents and physically challenged siblings.

The deducted money would then be transferred to the bank account of a parent or sibling.

“A few employees do turn a blind eye to the sufferings of their parents. The PRANAM Act was thus a welcome piece of law requiring a neglected parent to lodge a complaint in order to receive sustenance money from the pay of his or her ward. But a commission was needed to hear the cases and ensure no employee is punished arbitrarily,” Basab Kalita, president of the Sadou Asom Karmachari Parishad, a State government employees’ body, told The Hindu .

The Commission’s job would be to weigh each complaint, hear both parties and decide whether or not an employee deserves to be penalised.

Now, women take charge to find life partners

Sindhu.Hariharan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:27.02.2019

Urban migration, improving education levels, better professional status , and changing social constructs of families are driving today’s women in taking charge and making the first move to select their life partner. Data from matchmaking platform suggests that women are not just open to using matchmaking portals to find partners, but also hold control of such searches.

Shaadi.com’s user data over the past 10 years showed that there was a 10 percentage point increase over the past decade in single single women creating and posting profiles on their own, as opposed to the past, when parents did it for them.

“The female self-created profiles have grown from 40% in 2008 to 50% in 2018 largely contributing to the overall growth of female profiles on the platform. However [the ratio of] male self-created profiles have remained unchanged since 2008,” Gourav Rakshit, CEO, Shaadi.com, told TOI.

Women users are “sending out 3.5 times more interests” to men in 2018 than they did in 2008, the data said, noting that today’s women are also taking the first step to interact and assess matched profiles.

Women who create and manage their profiles are 20% more likely to “send interests to profiles from a different community as long as there is a lifestyle fitment and financial independence,” Rakshit said. He explains that while parent-created profiles are more inclined towards family history and community, among other aspects, women (majority of them urban) are looking for matches that meet their expectations of occupation, finances and location.

It is also 33% more likely for such women to chat with matches, than in the case of accounts created by parents, he added. In a separate survey of over 2,800 women users of Shaadi-.com, 84% said they would initiate a conversation with a man if they found his profile interesting. Matchmaking portal Matrimony.com found that “the number of women who self-register has been steadily rising over the past few years,” and currently, 60% of the women users have created profiles on their own. “While traditionally men have been making the first move, nowadays we see that women are confident enough to make the first move and express interest to matching males on BharatMatrimony,” Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO, Matrimony.com, said.

Professor S Anandhi of Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) believes improvements in women education levels are playing out in matrimony, but is quick to add that it’s largely an urban trend.

As per the All India Survey on Higher Education, Gender Parity Index, i.e. the female participation in higher education was 97 women per 100 men in 2017-18, compared to 86 women per 100 men in 2010-11.

Anandhi also notes reducing family pressures for women as more of them enter the corporate sector. “Social transactions in a family were earlier dictated by male lineage, but as women get economically stronger, they are taking charge,” she said.

How a charger can hijack your laptop

Increasing Number Of Computers At Risk Through Plug-In Devices: Study

London:27.02.2019

Many modern laptops and an increasing number of desktop computers are much more vulnerable to hacking through common plug-in devices than previously thought, a study has found.

The researchers from the University of Cambridge and Rice University in the US shows that attackers can compromise an unattended machine in a matter of seconds through devices such as chargers and docking stations.

Vulnerabilities were found in computers with Thunderbolt ports running Windows, macOS, Linux and FreeBSD. Many modern laptops and an increasing number of desktops are susceptible.

Researchers exposed the vulnerabilities through Thunderclap, an open-source platform they have created to study the security of computer peripherals and their interactions with operating systems.

It can be plugged into computers using a USB-C port that supports the Thunderbolt interface and allows the researchers to investigate techniques available to attackers. They found that potential attacks could take complete control of the target computer.

In addition to plug-in devices like network and graphics cards, attacks can also be carried out by seemingly innocuous peripherals like chargers and projectors that correctly charge or project video but simultaneously compromise the host machine.

Computer peripherals such as network cards and graphics processing units have direct memory access (DMA), which allows them to bypass operating system security policies.

DMA attacks abusing this access have been widely employed to take control of and extract sensitive data from target machines.

Current systems feature inputoutput memory management units (IOMMUs) which can protect against DMA attacks by restricting memory access to peripherals that perform legitimate functions and only allowing access to non-sensitive regions of memory.

However, IOMMU protection is frequently turned off in many systems and the new research shows that, even when the protection is enabled, it can be compromised.

Companies have begun to implement fixes that address some of the vulnerabilities. However, the research shows solving the general problem remains elusive and that recent developments, such as the rise of hardware interconnects like Thunderbolt 3 that combine power input, video output and peripheral device DMA over the same port, have increased the threat from malicious devices that take control of connected machines. PTI

HACKING THREAT

I-T search at Malabar Gold jewellery shops

Sivakumar.B@timesgroup.com

Chennai:27.02.2019

The income tax investigation wing on Tuesday morning started searches at Malabar Gold jewellery shops, other business establishments owned by the group and residences of their promoters in Chennai, Coimbatore and various cities and towns in Kerala. Several officials from the wing were involved in the searches in 60 places, said an official.

A senior investigation wing official told TOI that the department had received information about tax evasion by the group.

The group has also not been showing all its transactions in the books for the past few years, the official said. The searches will continue for the next few days, he said.

“The group has several jewellery shops in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and abroad. We have definite information about the tax evasion. We will know about the total tax evasion and the actual turnover of the group after the searches are completed,” said the official.

The group is into construction business in the name of Malabar Developers. It owns Malabar Watches and an IT company too.

“The searches are on in the offices of these business establishments,” the official said.

The gold business headquarters is in Kozhikode and the corporate office of the group is in Dubai.

UNDER SCRUTINY: The Malabar Gold & Diamonds shop at T Nagar in Chennai which was raided by IT officials after the department received an information about the tax evasion by the group

AIIMS

Poor polytechnic faculty strength a risk for students

Govt Needs To Restructure Recruitment System To Restore Student-Teacher Balance

27.02.2019
Adarsh Jain

It is 6 pm on a Monday, and a class at a polytechnic in Tamil Nadu is nowhere near its end. With more than 2,000 students and 12 permanent faculty members, each teacher clocks nearly 12 hours a day. There are another 120 temporary staff members but only on a part-time basis.

This is the predicament of all the 46 government polytechnics across Tamil Nadu. Most institutions are handicapped when it comes to teaching resources, as they are functioning at an average of 20% of teacher strength. It has been nearly six years since a new teacher was appointed in a government polytechnic in the state. This, when the state needs at least 2,000 teachers to ensure smooth functioning of polytechnic institutions, a member of the directorate of technical education (DOTE) says.

In a manufacturing state like Tamil Nadu, which has sectors ranging from automobile to textiles, the crucial young workforce is being deprived of proper training due to government apathy.

The last effort to hire teachers through the state-run teacher recruitment board was made in 2017 for 1,058 vacancies. But when it came to light that 200 candidates had forged their results through agents, the entire recruitment process was scraped. Though the decision was challenged in the Madras high court, the case reached a deadlock since two contradictory judgments were passed. A senior official of the TRB said they are inquiring into the matter and will soon take a decision. The total number of permanent teachers has also dropped over the years as more of them retire.

Harried about faculty shortage, students in polyetchnic colleges say the standards of education have fallen. “Most of the classes are handled by temporary staff. There is no assurance that a teacher will turn up for the next class. In the absence of teachers, we are forced to consider peer-to-peer learning or depend on probable questions from previous years’ exams,” says a Chennai-based student.

Though polytechnics are considered the unglamorous, poorer cousins of engineering colleges, graduates of such institutions are more in demand than engineers in the manufacturing hub in the state. “Most parents force their children to take up engineering, as it has a better brand value, than polytechnic diploma. But in reality there are more job options for the latter,” says a principal of a government-aided polytechnic college. As there are more engineers than jobs, engineers are often seen choosing a different career after completing their degree. From automobile companies to real estate and textile sectors, skilled polytechnic graduates have a plethora of options. “Students with skill might also get opportunities to train abroad in countries like Germany,” says a professor, pointing out that worldwide the focused practical training of a polytechnic specialization is valued more than a engineering degree on a factory floor. Yet, the higher education department and the teacher recruitment board have not made efforts to maintain the standards of colleges.

Senior professors of government polytechnic colleges believe restructuring of the system towards achieving teacher-student balance is required. “After three decades, the government has done a restructuring and we feel this will initiate fresh faculty recruitment to meet the shortage. A step in that direction is awaited,” says principal of an institution.

When asked about the solution, a former senior official of the school education department says, “The state-operated TRB outsources a large volume of responsibilities. An independent recruitment body for higher education is needed to solve the issue,” said the officer. Another proposal suggests shortlisting candidates for assistant professors through Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission. “Universities or colleges can form a panel to choose the best suited candidates,” says an official. This system is followed by Andhra Pradesh. Both proposals have been tabled but not taken shape.

(The author is a freelancer)

HC directs disqualified MLA to return ₹21L salary

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:27.02.2019

In a significant first, the Madras high court on Wednesday directed a legislator, whose election was declared illegal by the Supreme Court after completion of his term, to return ₹21.58 lakh paid as salary and allowances to the Tamil Nadu assembly within four weeks.

Justice V Parthiban passed the order while dismissing a plea moved by P Veldurai, a former legislator of Cheranmahadevi constituency, challenging a demand notice issued by the assembly secretary to recover the amount paid to him as salary and allowances from 2006 to 2011.

Veldurai contested the 2006 general election to the state assembly as a Congress candidate. Veldurai’s candidature was objected to by another candidate on the grounds he was barred from contesting the election since he was a registered government contractor. However, the returning officer of the constituency rejected the objection and allowed Veldurai to contest. Veldurai won the election and became a legislator.

Aggrieved, one of the defeated candidates challenged his election before the high court. As the court dismissed the plea and upheld his election, the defeated candidate approached the Supreme Court. Allowing his plea, the apex court on April 13, 2011, declared Veldurai’s election illegal and void. By the time the court passed the order, Veldurai had completed his tenure.

Based on the apex court order on July 7, 2011, the assembly secretary issued a notice to Veldurai demanding that he pay back ₹21.58 lakh that hereceived as salary for holding the post of MLA . Aggrieved, Veldurai moved the present plea challenging the notice.

Dismissing the plea, Justice Parthiban said, “In a case like this, where the delay in disposal of the election petition has almost taken away the effect of the disqualification, the disqualified member cannot be allowed to take advantage of the passage of time, which allowed him to enjoy the powers and privileges of the office of MLA for a full term.”

The disqualified member cannot be allowed to take advantage of the passage of time, which allowed him to enjoy the powers and privileges of the office of MLA for a full term

Justice Parthiban