No quota for EWS in engg counselling, this yr, says minister

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:04.06.2019

Due to the lack of official communication from the central government, the Tamil Nadu government will not follow the 10% reservation for economically weaker sections among general category candidates in engineering admissions this year, higher education minister K P Anbalagan has said.

The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions committee on Monday assigned random numbers to 1.33 lakh candidates who applied for online engineering counselling this year.

Interacting with media representatives after assigning the random numbers, the minister said the state government would introduce the quota from next year after receiving the official order from the central government.

“For government quota, we have 1.42 lakh seats. Engineering colleges have surrendered 29,393 seats under management quota to the counselling. So, this year counselling will be conducted for 1.72 lakh seats,” he said.

The number of applications have come down from 1.59 lakh last year to 1.33 lakh this year.

The minister said 494 engineering colleges are participating in this year’s counselling while 15 engineering colleges have opted out due to falling admissions.

The 10-digit random numbers would be used to break the tie when many candidates score the same marks during the ranking process. Certificate verification would be conducted from June 7 to 12 across 42 TNEA facilitation centres in the state. “Initially, we announced that the certificate verification would take place from June 6 to 11. But, due to uncertainty over Ramzan holiday we have now moved it to June 7,” Anbalagan said.

The minister also released a booklet containing information about 494 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. R Vivekanandan, commissioner, Directorate of Technical Education, said efforts have been made for smooth conduct of online engineering counselling this year. “The counselling is being conducted with the help of professors from Annamalai University, Bharathidasan University and those from government colleges,” he said.

NEWS DIGEST

Birth, death certificates to now carry esignatures  05.06.2019

The birth and death certificates issued by Greater Chennai corporation that earlier carried the signature of the city health officer will now have esignatures of the respective sanitary inspectors of the zones. This change will be in effect for births and deaths registered and corrections made after June 1.

In a press release, the corporation has stated that since 1930, they have been registering birth and death registry which was made available online in 2007.

SC stays HC order to demolish 5 floors of Chennai hospital

04.06.2019

The Supreme Court Monday stayed the Madras high court judgement ordering demolition of the top five floors of an eight-storey block of a private city hospital for construction allegedly in violation of the approved building plan.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Indu Malhotra and M R Shah, however, directed Billroth Hospitals Ltd not to use these top five floors for any activity.

The bench, which sought response from the state government on the plea filed by the hospital challenging the HC verdict, granted 10 days to the hospital to vacate the five floors. The high court had ordered the demolition to commence from June 16.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for the hospital, told the apex court it had applied under the 2017 TN building regularisation scheme. He said the matter related to the scheme is pending but while hearing a separate contempt case, the high court had quashed the scheme.

The bench observed, “It is without any authorised plan. Three floors were allowed but beyond that, construction was not permitted.” Singhvi told the bench the hospital, having 250 beds, was operational since 2005-2006 and the authorities can decide on the application for regularisation within a month.

“We are issuing notice only because in a contempt case, the high court has set aside a scheme,” the bench said.

When Singhvi sought a stay of the high court's verdict, the bench said, “For the time being we will grant stay but you will not use these floors (fourth to eighth). You had build it till eighth floor in 2009 with impunity.”

The bench said the matter would come up for hearing after the summer vacation. PTI

TET candidates complain of errors in exam hall tickets

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:04.06.2019

Complaints of missing names, signatures and wrong entry of names have begun pouring into offices even before the Tamil Nadu Teachers Eligibility Test is held on June 8 and 9. More than 6 lakh candidates have applied for the exam.

After the board uploaded hall tickets on May 26, several hundred candidates complained that the tickets contained errors. This has prompted the Tamil Nadu Teachers Recruitment Board to advise candidates appearing for the test, whose hall tickets have errors, to carry an identification proof to examination halls.

Many complained that hall tickets contained many errors like wrong entries of names and missing photos. In order to avoid last minute confusions at examination halls the board has announced that the candidates with hall ticket errors have to take two photographs and one of them has to be attested by a gazetted officer.

“The other photo should be submitted to the hall superintendent to paste it on the attendance sheet,” a release from TRB said. The release further advised all candidates with wrong entries to carry ID proof to the exam hall. Following a major scam in polytechnic lecturers’ recruitment and TET examinations, the government has selected NSEIT, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited, to conduct exam, including TET.

“It is the first examination for NSEIT. So, are were some teething issues. But, we are confident that such errors would be avoided in future,” sources said. The board has made all the arrangements for TET exam. More than 30,000 teachers would be involved in the examination work.

1.68kg gold, fitted to jars and concealed in rectum, seized

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:04.06.20195

Customs officials at Chennai International Airport on Monday detected three cases of gold smuggling. They seized 1.68kg of gold worth ₹56 lakh. One passenger was arrested.

In the first case, gold was discovered hidden inside steel mixer grinder jars being carried by a man named Jabid. The 33-year-old from Rajampet in Andhra Pradesh had arrived from Kuwait on a Kuwait Air flight. He was intercepted by officials and during a search, three steel jars were found in his luggage. On dismantling them, gold discs were found fitted at the bottom. The 24K discs weighed 810 grams and have been valued at Rs 27 lakh. They were seized under provisions of Customs Act, 1962. Jabid was also arrested.

In another case, two passengers, Manaf, 31, and Shamsu, 39, both hailing from Kozhikode in Kerala, arrived from Bangkok on an Indigo flight. During a search, gold in rubbery form was found concealed in their rectum. On extraction, 870g gold of 24K purity and valued at Rs 29 lakh was recovered from them. The same was seized under Customs Act 1962.

Gold discs fitted to jars of mixer grinders seized at the airport

Despite order, law univ denies answer sheets to student

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:04.06.2019

Can a college student access her answer scripts by filing an RTI application that costs only ₹10 or does she have to pay the exorbitant fee set by the university?

The Tamil Nadu State Information Commission (TNSIC) settled the matter with an order that TN Dr Ambedkar Law University must give the answer scripts to the student under RTI. Only that the university has refused to do so. The order, delivered while hearing a second appeal filed by student Pavan Gandhi, quoted the Supreme Court judgement in the CBSE vs Aditya Bandopadhyay case. The order copy was delivered to the university and Gandhi in March 2019. Three months later, however, Gandhi is yet to get copies of his answer scripts. He had filed the original RTI with the university in December 2017. The university’s public information officer refused to oblige, asking him to submit an application form for obtaining a photocopy of the answer sheets and pay ₹500 per paper.

Gandhi challenged it before the commission and got an order in his favour, but the university could not care less. When contacted, university vicechancellor T S N Sastry told TOI that the section officer concerned had dispatched the answer scripts to the student on Monday evening.

Vadivelu clueless about Neasamani storm, says happy to have made people laugh

When informed of the internet circus around his character Neasamani, Vadivelu breaks into amused laughter, barely able to contain himself. 

 

 Priyanka Thirumurthy

• Thursday, May 30, 2019 - 12:06

For over 12 hours, a Twitter storm has been blowing as netizens have come together to pray for Contractor Neasamani, a character played by comedian Vadivelu in the 2001 Tamil movie Friends. But fast asleep through this hilarious social media exchange in Theni district was the actor himself, who was flabbergasted when told about how this scene from two decades ago has become the subject of India's number one Twitter trend.

Speaking to TNM on Thursday morning, a surprised Vadivelu says, "I have no idea what is happening. I haven't seen anything yet."

When informed of the internet circus around his character Neasamani, Vadivelu breaks into amused laughter, barely able to contain himself.

"What? It has become famous across the world? Oh god. It has gone to America and everywhere? Thank you," he says, addressing his fans now. "Yes, the movie was with Vijay and Suriya. I have acted in a lot of movies and made the whole world laugh. But I didn't know about this," he adds.

"This entire trend is a victory given by God, a victory for the movie's director Siddique and the victory for the people who enjoy my comedy," Vadivelu tells TNM.

The actor further told Tamil channel Puthiya Thalaimurai that characters like Neasmani were a god-given gift to his career.

#Pray_for_Neasamani trended after a Pakistan-based meme page Civil Engineering Learners posed a question, “What is the name of the tool in your country?” by posting a photo of a hammer.

A Vadivelu fan was quick to connect the hammer with a scene from Friends, in which Contractor Neasamani ends up with an injury because one of his inept assistants (Ramesh Kanna) drops a hammer on his head after failing to follow the simplest of instructions. The humour in the scene is accentuated by the poker-faced expressions of Vijay and Suriya, who play second fiddle to Vadivelu.

After the user connected the hammer to Neasamani, another Tamil Facebook user, mockingly wrote, “Is he ok?” Now these two decided to rib the entire Facebook culture of praying for someone with #Pray_for_Neasamani which later snowballed into a major Twitter trend with memes and funny responses.

Following this, even journalists and politicians joined the joke and began to add more satirical tweets to the growing trend. Brands too joined in, making Neasamani ads, the latest being Sony Music which has released a special collection of songs for 'Pray for Neasamani'.

Even Manushyaputhiran, a poet and DMK supporter joined the trend, penning a poem for the contractor, who he says, passed away after being in a coma. Linking the Twitter trend to the ongoing political scenario, Manushiyaputiran pointed out that on a day that the PM was being sworn in, the death of Neasamani was seen as a sign of misfortune. Taking a dig at the BJP, the poet adds that nobody is really bothered because bad things happened even when people were promised that 'Good days will come'.

Several social media users pointed out that the entire phenomenon was actually a tribute to actor Vadivelu's evergreen comedy scenes. He has acted in over 100 films in Tamil cinema and received several awards for his comic timing and ability to make members of all age groups laugh. From 2012 however, he slowly began to reduce the number of film he acted in and was last seen in the Tamil movie Mersal in 2017.

But today, as #Pray_for_Neasamani evokes mirth across the world, Vadivelu wants to join the laughter.

"Send me the memes on Whatsapp," he says, before signing off.