HC denies nod for Sunday Bible school
Kanyakumari:04.03.2019

The Madurai bench of the Madras high court has dismissed a petition by the bishop of Kanyakumari Diocese, CSI, to construct a Sunday Bible school at Kottanallur village in Kanyakumari district. The bishop had challenged an order by the district collector who held that the school would be within a few hundred meters of the Salvation Army church and two temples and refused to grant permission citing law and order problems.

Bishop rev G Devakadashyam moved the court stating that he sent a petition in 2004 and received a response after four years stating that his application was rejected.

The SP denied permission owing to the likelihood that public peace and order in the area will be disturbed. TNN

Summer travel trend: Families like group tours while youngsters prefer going solo

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:04.03.2019

Summer travel booking trends show that families prefer to travel on group tours to Europe and visit amusement parks like Parc Astérix (Astérix Park- France), Euro Disney and do river cruises while travellers in 18-24 years age category prefer to travel alone or in small groups of friends and prefer adventure.

The well-heeled and seasoned travellers are headed to Morocco, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Cambodia while budget travellers prefer Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. Easy connections from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha makes travelling easy and less time consuming for tourists from Chennai, shows a summer travel trend study by Cox & Kings. An earlier trend analysis showed there was a 30% increase in international travel for this summer.

Neelu Singh, CEO & director, Ezeego1, said mono destinations, long-haul destinations and cruising are trending this summer. “From exploring 7 destinations in 12 days, the discerning Indian traveller has finally arrived at exploring a mono-destination in depth rather than country hopping every few days. There is a shift in the travel pattern of Indians discovering Europe traditionally. It is a mix of the beaten and off the beaten path,” said Neelu.

“They are obviously going to visit the Eiffel Tower, but they will also go wine tasting at Bordeaux, take a hot air balloon ride over Loire Valley, camp in Corsica or enjoy a seven-course meal in Paris. There is a 20-25 % increase in demand for single country destinations in Europe,” she added.

Increased competition and value-for-money cruise and flight offers by leading cruise liners like Star Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Dream Cruises, Princess Cruises is seeing a hike in the number of cruise visitors. Many cruise liners are offering ‘freestyle cruising’ that suits the Indian market well.

Karan Anand, head, relationships, Cox & Kings said, “Azerbaijan is a new destination that’s getting popular. The Baltic countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Poland among others are also popular”.

A BUCKET LIST STAPLE:

Families prefer to travel to Europe as part of group tours and visit the textbook tourist spots

Residents pay more to get less water
Metrowater To Roll Out 90 More 6k-Litre Tankers Today

Komal.Gautham@timesgroup.com

Chennai:04.03.2019

Metrowater’s ‘Dial for water’ mobile app has come a cropper as residents are unable to buy anything less than 9,000 litres of water. Many apartment complexes prefer the 6,000-litre load, which Metrowater is unable to deliver. The agency has promised to roll out 90 more tankers of 6,000-litre capacity on Monday to cater to more places.

As of now, every time a resident makes a booking for a 6,000-litre tanker, the sender gets an automated message that says only 50 bookings are allowed and the resident will have to book a 9,000-litre tanker. As per the Chennai Metrowater Supply and Sewerage Board’s website, the booking can be done only between 6am and 6pm. The options are given as 6,000 litres and 9,000 litre, and the cost is ₹475 and ₹700, respectively.

V S Jayaraman, president of T Nagar Resident Welfare Association, told TOI, “Even when we booked a 6,000-litre tanker at 6am which is the commencement time for bookings, we are told to try again the next day or book 9,000 litres. How can we book higher capacity when our sump’s capacity is only 6,000 litres. How is it that as many as 50 orders get booked within minutes of the opening of the bookings? We smell a rat,” he said.

Some residents are forced to spend more to get less. “Most often we end up buying 9,000 litres by paying ₹700, and collect only 6,000 litres. This is unacceptable. The board must come out with ways and means to meet residents’ specific requirement instead of thrusting large quantities on us,” said B Kannan, another resident.

When contacted, Metrowater officials said the agency has 654 water tankers of which 225 are of 6,000-litre capacity. Each of the 15 zones has about a dozen 6,000-litre tankers, but they are mostly used to supply water to narrow streets and slums. “So we are not able to meet other residents’ demands,” said the official.

There have been reports earlier that Metrowater drivers supplied 6,000 litres of water in 9,000-litre capacity tankers and siphoned off the rest of the water. In 2017, nearly a dozen complaints were registered during summer, resulting in the suspension of a driver. In 2018, Metrowater floated tenders to use GPS to track the tankers but nothing has come of it.

Metrowater supplies 550mld (million litres a day) to the city instead of the stipulated 830mld owing to shortage in the reservoirs.

Ignou staffer among five arrested for paper leak

New Delhi:04.03.2019

A breakthrough has been made by crime branch in the leak of question papers of Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) reported in December 2018. Five people, including an Ignou employee, have been arrested in countrywide raids. The gang had leaked papers of courses like MCA and BCA and sold them to applicants.

The arrested Ignou staffer, Dev Shankar, 31, works at the university’s study centre in Bokaro Steel City. Vivek was arrested from Bengaluru, Ankit from Sambhal in UP, Iqbal from Govindpuri in Delhi and Johnson from Gurgaon. The mobile phones used in transmitting images of the leaked papers have been seized.

Additional commissioner (crime) Ajit Singla said the Ignou registrar had complained to police in December about the leak. He had received emails from two IDs — royalrocky**@gmail.com and hk62632**@gmail.com — in which the senders had claimed that the papers had been leaked. An FIR was registered at Neb Sarai police station, but the case was later handed over to crime branch. TNN

For full report, www.toi.in

NEWS DIGEST

Spice Jet to launch flight to Bhopal

Spice Jet has announced that it will introduce a daily direct flight from Chennai to Bhopal from March 31. The daily flight, which will be operated using a B737 plane, will depart from Chennai at 5.15pm and reach Bhopal at 7.10pm. In the return direction, the flight will depart from Bhopal at 7.40pm. Spice Jet had recently added Bhopal as its 50th domestic destination. The airline had introduced 18 direct flight services on the Bhopal-Mumbai, Bhopal-Delhi, Bhopal-Surat, Bhopal-Jaipur, Bhopal-Ahmedabad, Bhopal-Hyderabad and Bhopal-Shirdi routes. Spice Jet has now further enhanced air connectivity to the capital city of Madhya Pradesh with the addition of two new direct flights.

Probe finds irregularities galore at Central
Unregistered Parcels A Daily Affair At The Parcel Office

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:04.03.2019

Three months after a parcel scam was detected at Chennai Central and subsequently hushed up, an internal 10-day probe by top railway officials has once again detected a host of irregularities at the same parcel office. Sources said the investigation has found that several unregistered parcels enter the platforms and Railway Protection Force (RPF) has been allowing unauthorised outsiders to enter the parcel office. “Many parcels which did not have railway bar code stickers were about to be loaded as part of another consignment. This is one of a modus operandi of overloading scams earlier detected by railway vigilance sleuths,” said a source.

The headquarters commercial branch conducted an inquiry three weeks ago and circulated a report on Friday. Based on the report, the chief vigilance officer of Southern Railway and his officers conducted a review meeting with Chennai divisional railway manager (DRM) Naveen Gulati on Friday. The investigation found that only two RPF personnel man the entry and exit points of Central parcel office. When questioned about the presence of unauthorised outsiders inside the parcel office and platforms, the personnel said their superiors did not give instructions to prevent such unauthorised entry, the report noted.

Rules mandate that leased parcels should be allowed only three hours prior to a train’s departure. However, the team found a consignment of electrical goods on platform 7, a full day earlier. They also found that while booked parcels, which should have been loaded on a train, were lying on the platform, unregistered parcels were found lying on another platform. On February 10, the investigators found a person on platform 4 and 5 moving a trolley with 17 baskets which did not have the requisite permits or bar codes. The chief parcel supervisor was warned about the case.

The investigation found shortcomings in the work of the parcel handling contractor. Only a few labourers were reporting for duty despite the mandated 63 people for every shift. This forced the customers to bring in unauthorised staff. The officers felt CCTV coverage was not adequate and recommended coverage for gate pass counter, entrance gate and delivery office. The probe team has recommended better utilisation of the parcel office, a regular review of all procedures and greater vigilance by RPF.

SR introduces daily express to Kollam

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:04.03.2019

Southern Railway has extended Tambaram-Tirunelveli-Tambaram Antyodaya (Daily) Express up to Nagercoil Junction and has flagged off Chennai Egmore-Kollam-Chennai Egmore daily express.

Train 16101/16102 Chennai Egmore-Kollam-Chennai Egmore Daily Express will have two AC three tier coaches, eight sleeper class coaches, two general second class coaches and two luggage-cum-brake vans. It will leave Chennai Egmore at 5pm and reach Kollam at 8.45am the next day.

It will depart from Kollam at 11.45am and reach Chennai Egmore at 3.30am the next day. It will have stops at Tambaram, Chengalpet, Villupuram, Vriddhachalam, Trichy, Dindigul, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Srivilliputtur, Rajapalayam, Sankarankovil,Kadayanallur, Tenkasi, Sengottai, Aryankavu, Tenmalai, Edaman, Punalur, Kottarakara and Kundara in either direction. Reservations are open. Railways had been running weekly train on the stretch from Tambaram.