Ayush courses applications go online
Chennai:9.9.19

The directorate of Indian medicine and homoeopathy has invited applications for admission to bachelor degree in siddha, ayurveda, unani and homoeopathy (BSMS/BAMS/BUMS/BHMS) medical courses for 2019-20 session in government and self-financing colleges of Tamil Nadu from candidates who have passed higher secondary or equivalent exam and have the required eligible percentile in NEET 2019.

Application and prospectus can be downloaded from www.tnhealth.org till August

13. There will be no off-line sale of applications. Filled-in applications with all necessary enclosures and DD should be submitted by 5.30pm to The Secretary, Selection Committee, Directorate of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy, Arignar Anna Govt Hospital of Indian Medicine, Arumbakkam, Chennai – 106. Rank list of the eligible candidates will be prepared on the basis of the marks obtained in NEET UG-2019, the directorate said. TNN

SIGNS OF TURMOIL IN MADRAS HC AFTER THREE YEARS OF PEACE

Madras Bar Association Is Debating The Decision To Transfer The Chief Justice  09.09.2019

A Subramani & Sureshkumar K TNN

The spectacle of belligerent speeches, threat of boycott and conspiracy theories over appointment and transfer of judges has returned to Madras high court, endangering the three-yearlong atmosphere of campus peace.

The famed Madras Bar is frenetically debating the Supreme Court collegium’s decision to transfer the incumbent Chief Justice of the court, Justice Vijaya K Tahilramani, to the high court of Meghalaya ‘for better administration’ of justice.

Now that she has resigned, and made her decision public, too, is there an option for the President or the apex court collegium to either reject it or not take a decision on it? No, said a jurist, adding: “As a constitutional authority, the moment she resigned, she demits office. Only condition being she should have written the resignation letter as mentioned in Article 124(2)(a) and have addressed it to the proper person, which in this case is the President.”

Asked about the Madras Bar Association’s (MBA) resolution calling upon the President not to ‘accept’ the resignation, the jurist said, “now that she has made it public, there is no question of the Bar pleading for such an indulgence. Only notification of the vacancy and entrusting the judicial work to the next seniormost judge till the new chief justice assumes charge, remain.”

Responding to the brewing unrest, designated senior advocate and cochairman of Bar Council of India (BCI) S Prabakaran said, “suitability cannot be questioned either through judicial review or court boycotts, and that is trite law,” adding, “five seniormost judges of the nation have taken a decision by applying their collective wisdom and after due deliberations. Responding to it with a resignation letter cannot be appreciated.”

As for the proposed boycott on Tuesday, which is followed by a court holiday on Wednesday for Muharram, Prabakaran said, “BCI being the highest statutory and regulatory body, it does not comment upon either the collegium’s decision or the local Bar’s boycott call. BCI will not interfere in the issue.”

While senior advocate A E Chelliah too expressed his unhappiness about the Bar going on strike over the Justice Tahilramani issue, president of Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) G Mohanakrishnan said the boycott was because the transfer of the chief justice to the Meghalaya high court was most unusual.

“Though all high courts are on the same footing under the Constitution, shifting her to Meghalaya will morally devastate the judge whose home court is another chartered high court. Had she been shifted to another court of equal or larger size, it would not have mattered,” Mohanakrishnan said.

“It is like transferring a college principal to an elementary school as its headmaster,” he said justifying Tuesday’s boycott call.

Earlier in the day, the Madras Bar Association held an extraordinary general body meeting at 1.45pm and unanimously resolved to appeal to the Supreme Court collegium to reconsider its decision to transfer Justice Tahilramani to the Meghalaya high court. It also made a simultaneous appeal to Justice Tahilramani to withdraw her resignation. It also urged the President and the Union government not to accept her resignation and the collegium’s recommendation. Advocates, headed by designated senior advocate R Vaigai also held a lunch-hour demonstration on the court premises, condemning the transfer.

AT THE CENTRE: Chief Justice Vijaya Tahilramani submitted her resignation after she was transferred to the Meghalaya high court

PIL: Revoke admissions of 5 ineligible medical students

TNN | Sep 8, 2019, 09.58 AM IST

CHENNAI: Almost a year after admission to MBBS course was completed in the state for the academic year 2018-19, a PIL has been moved in the Madras high court seeking to revoke such admission of five students who scored less than 119 (minimum eligibility) in NEET-2018 through management quota.

Admitting the plea moved by Rajendran Chingaravelu of Pudukottai, a division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee ordered notice to the directorate of medical education (DME) returnable by September 26.

According to the petitioner, MCI regulations mandate that every candidate seeking admission to MBBS secure minimum marks in the NEET fixed by the authorities every year.

The rules make it clear that no candidate who has failed to obtain the minimum eligibility marks shall be admitted to MBBS course in the said academic year.

The minimum NEET marks fixed for the academic year 2018-19 was 119. However, bypassing the minimum eligibility, PSG Medical College, Coimbatore and SRM, Trichy have admitted a total of five students who scored less than 119 in NEET, petitioner’s counsel PVS Gridhar said.

A reply to an RTI query made by the petitioner revealed that more than 170 MBBS seats allotted under NRI quota were left unfilled till the last day of counselling for MBBS in 2018 which was also not published in the website nor notified.

Subsequent to the counselling, the unfilled NRI seats were allowed to be converted as management quota seats which can be filled by the colleges themselves.

It is under such seats all the five students who scored less than 119 were admitted, he alleged.

The petitioner claimed that such admissions are made in violation of law with impunity and making unjust gain depriving legitimate meritorious candidates of seats leading to deterioration of quality of medical education by admitting unqualified candidates thereby endangering health and life of ordinary citizens.

Anna University to switch to digital evaluation in November-December

TNN | Sep 8, 2019, 06.48 AM IST

CHENNAI: As part of the effort to curb manipulation of answer scripts, Anna University has decided to introduce digital evaluation system at College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras Institute of Technology, Alagappa College of Technology and School of Architecture and Planning, from the November-December semester exams. After a trial phase, the system will be expanded to the entire state. “We will have regional scanning centres and the entire process will be same for the state,” an official said.

Under the new system, there will be no physical handling of answer scripts. “The answer scripts will be scanned within two days of the exams and sent to faculty members from across the state for evaluation,” an official said.



The system requires state-of-the-art scanning machines. “The university will procure machines that can scan 600 pages to 1,000 pages in a minute. A dummy number will be awarded to the answer sheets to conceal the candidate’s identity,” he added.

To make the system foolproof, the front sheet containing the candidate’s information will be torn off at the examination centre and the plain, coded answer script scanned. The files will then be sent to the evaluation centres where the faculty members will go through each question or page on screen.

“Professors and experts from Anna University are developing an in-house software with salient features to avoid errors during evaluation. For example, as faculty members look at answers for each question, the key answers would be displayed at a corner. To avoid incomplete corrections, they will be able to finish evaluation only after visiting all pages written or unwritten at least once,” a source said.

They cannot exceed the maximum marks for each question while awarding marks. The total marks are saved on the main server. The dummy numbers will be matched with students’ registration numbers before declaring the results.

“After scanning the scripts, there will be no human intervention. The faculty members involved in the process will not know the students and the anonymity will reduce the chances for manipulation,” a professor involved in the process said.

Following successive scams in examination and revaluation, vice-chancellor M K Surappa formed a committee which after visiting Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Belgaum evolved the new system.

More than 6,000 Tamil Nadu students at risk of losing scholarships

TNN | Sep 9, 2019, 08.36 AM IST

CHENNAI: More than 6,600 students declared eligible for this year’s National Merit Cum Means Scholarship (NMMS) scheme from Tamil Nadu might lose out on the grant due to the negligent attitude of schools in finishing the application process. It is the responsibility of schools to upload application forms of these students to the online portal. But only 350 applications have been uploaded till September 5.

The director of school education has fixed September 30 as deadline for the submission, failing which thousands of students will lose out an opportunity to receive their scholarship.

Launched in 2008, the centrally sponsored NMMS scheme awards Rs 12,000 a year to students from Classes IX to XII in government-funded schools to ensure they don’t drop out. Students from economically weaker sections whose parental income is less than Rs 1.5 lakh are eligible for the scholarship. State governments test eligible candidates with a qualifying exam when they are in Class VIII and those shortlisted receive the grant at the end of every academic year, till they complete schooling.

Of the 1.5 lakh students who appeared for the test last year, as many as 6,695 tested eligible to receive the grant from this year. Many among them are from cyclone Gaja-affected districts.

Tamil Nadu government conducts this test in the first week of December every year. A preparatory meeting was held in connection with this in August and schools were told to prepare a list of eligible and interested candidates from Class VIII. Besides this, they were instructed to submit scholarship renewal forms of students from Classes IX and XII. Schools were instructed to finish application submission process (fresh and renewal) before the first week of September. However, only 18 districts have submitted forms so far, of 357 eligible students, and not a single application form has come in from the remaining districts, shows data.

“The scholarship amount comes in handy when we need money to purchase study material for competitive exams like NEET,” said a student from Porur Government Girls Higher Secondary School.

Madras high court Chief Justice VK Tahilramani abstains from court proceedings

TNN | Sep 9, 2019, 01.38 PM IST

CHENNAI: Chief Justice of the Madras high court Justice V K Tahilramani on Monday abstained from court proceedings pending decision on her resignation. She was scheduled to preside over the first bench of the high court on Monday where 75 cases were listed for hearing.

Justice Tahilramani on September 6 tendered her resignation protesting her transfer to the Meghalaya high court.

On August 28, the Supreme Court collegium passed a resolution recommending her transfer to the Meghalaya high court. Subsequently, on September 2, the collegium passed another resolution rejecting her representation seeking to reconsider the decision to transfer her.

On Monday morning, Tamil Nadu law minister C Ve Shanmugam met the chief justice at her official residence and requested her to withdraw resignation.

Meanwhile, various advocates associations in Chennai have unanimously decided to boycott court proceedings on September 10 condemning the transfer of Justice Tahilramani. Lawyers are demanding that the collegium reconsider its decision.

TN govt websites lack updated info about schemes

TNN | Sep 10, 2019, 04.23 AM IST

Chennai: Citizens in Bengaluru from the comfort of their homes or offices find out which roads are pothole-ridden, or track various crime or traffic statistics on the government website concerned. In , Tamil Nadu, a state with one of the highest internet penetrations and tech-savvy people, the various government websites have shoddy data that is either not updated regularly or has the barest of information.

Whether it is basic statistics about a department or updates like minutes of meeting and decisions taken, agencies of the Tamil Nadu avoid making proactive disclosures as is mandatory under section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

For instance, neither the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (popular as Metroater) nor the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) published minutes of its board meetings online, despite taking decisions that directly affects lakhs of citizens.

None of the 17 public universities puts out minutes of meetings of the syndicate, senate or academic council online. At University of Madras, several professors have raised the issue of making the minutes public, but to no avail.

Citizens of Kerala or Karnataka can login to the website of the state assembly and access information about starred and unstarred questions during the session. Such information is yet to be uploaded on the TN assembly website.

Such a method of working indicates poor governance and transparency measures taken by the bureaucrats as well as politicians in the state, activists and retired bureaucrats said.

The state information commission, which had reviewed the proactive disclosures of certain govenment agencies, itself maintains a poorly updated website with the latest data being four years old.

M G Devasahayam, a former TN bureaucrat, said such an opaque and autocratic way of functioning came from a mindset that looks at citizens as subjects of a kingdom. “Our politicians think we don’t have any right to information,” he said.

Jayaram Venkatesan, a social activist and convenor of anti-corruption NGO Arappor Iyakkam, said most of the data that should be made public is already available to government officials. “They just need to make it public for citizens. It needs no extra effort, just political will,” he said.

Jayaram pointed out that information pertaining to beneficiaries of government schemes like free laptops or housing should particularly be published online so that citizens know that the system was transparent. “This is the best way to reduce corruption,” he said.