Reconsider minimum age for admission to professional courses: HC

18/09/2019, MOHAMED IMRANULLAH S.,CHENNAI

The Madras High Court has impressed upon the need for the Centre and State governments, as well as statutory bodies such a Medical Council of India, Dental Council of India and Nursing Council of India, to reconsider the fixation of 17 years as the minimum age for admission into medical, dental, nursing and other courses.

Justice G. Jayachandran said, the minimum age criterion should be revisited at the earliest in view of vast changes taking place in the education system with academically bright students cracking tougher examinations at a young age. Such children’s education should not suffer a break due to the age factor, he added.

The petitioner, S. Malathi, of Nagapattinam, was educationally qualified to be admitted for a bachelor’s course in nursing at a private college. However, she was denied admission since she would be two months short of completing 17 years as on December 31 this year.

Her counsel argued that the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University was not competent to fix the minimum age for admission into nursing in the absence of any instructions from the Nursing Council of India.

On the other hand, the university counsel Ilayaraj Kumar contended that the minimum age was fixed only based on the council’s mandate. The judge held the petitioner would have to wait for one more year to get admission into a nursing course as per the law in force.

Karaikal Exp. gets upgrade

18/09/2019, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT ,CHENNAI

The Southern Railway has given an upgrade to the rake of the Chennai Egmore-Karaikal Express, which was flagged off on Tuesday.

The rake modernised under the Utkrisht phase-II project has better sanitation facilities and other passenger amenities. A release issued by Southern Railway said the Chennai Division had identified the Karaikal Express for enhancing passenger comfort with Utkrisht coaches.

The coaches have epoxy flooring, longer lifespan, eco-friendly bio toilets, auto air freshner system to maintain better hygiene and colourful coating on the wash basin. The coaches have been fitted with fire extinguishers and charging points were provided in all reserved coaches.

4,749 job offers made on a single day at SRM campus

18/09/2019, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

A total of 4,749 job offers were made on a single day at the S.R.M. Institute of Science and Technology’s (SRMIST) campus in Kattankulathur, on Tuesday, by four big companies in the information technology sector.

A statement by SRMIST said this was significantly higher than the offers made by the same “four big” companies — TCS, Cognizant, Wipro and Infosys — last year, as part of the institution’s ‘day one’ recruitment process. Under the process, the four companies visit the campus, and complete the recruitment process in a day, the statement said.

The highest number of offers were made by TCS (1,437), followed by Infosys (1,315), Cognizant (1,175), and Wipro (822). TCS also made offers to 183 students under its ‘Digital track’, with a higher package of ₹7 lakh per annum.

Airlines play safe with A320Neo, lighten load

Manju.V@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:18.09.2019

The core problem that led to the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft worldwide has surfaced on the Airbus 320Neo as well. Both these aircraft have a tendency to pitch the nose up excessively to an unsafe degree during certain stages of flight.

The big difference, though, is that unlike Boeing 737 MAX, A320Neo has never had an excessive pitch problem during flights. The problem came up recently only during laboratory testing carried out by the European aircraft manufacturer. But a wary European Union aviation regulator, which had certified the A320Neo safe to fly, has issued an interim directive asking airlines to load the A320Neo in such a manner that the tail-end stays comparatively lighter. This is why airlines such as Lufthansa and British Airways have recently begun to leave the last row of six seats vacant on their A320Neo.

IndiGo’s Istanbul flights drop baggage

IndiGo has, over the past few days, been leaving behind check-in bags of passengers booked on its Delhi-Istanbul flight so that its A320Neo aircraft can carry more fuel to fly against strong headwinds. Unless IndiGo makes certain operational changes, the problem is likely to stay through winter.

‘Pilots may face more workload due to high pitch altitude’

Unlike the European regulator, the Indian aviation regulator hasn’t put out a directive in public yet. But to comply with the European regulator’s directive, Indian carriers have begun to leave the cargo compartment closest to the tail empty, director general of civil aviation Arun Kumar told TOI on Tuesday.

On July 31, European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued an airworthiness directive, applicable to all A320Neo aircraft. Citing the problem, EASA said that an excessive pitch attitude or a “high nose” could result in increased workload for the pilots. “To address the potential unsafe condition, Airbus (the aircraft manufacturer) issued an aircraft flight manual temporary revision, limiting the centre of gravity envelope, which prevents the aforementioned condition,” said the EASA directive, which came into effect on August 14.

So, what is an aircraft’s centre of gravity and how can it help in preventing an excessive high nose-up pitch?

Centre of gravity is a point around which an aircraft balances itself. An aircraft balances like a see-saw, with its nose on one end and tail on the other. It is loaded with fuel, passengers and cargo in such a way that its centre of gravity remains within a prescribed area through all stages of flight like take-off, climb, descent, and so on.

“If the tail-end is lighter than the nose-end, the aircraft will be nose-heavy and it will tend to pitch downwards. A heavy nose will counteract the excessive nose-up tendency of the A320Neo,” said a senior commander.

India is one of the largest operators of A320Neos with over 100 aircraft in operation. Director-general Arun Kumar said, “On August 7, we held a meeting with airlines and stake holders and asked them to implement the EASA directive. Three out of four Indian carriers that operate the A320Neo have already complied with the directive. These include IndiGo and GoAir.”

Amazon, Barclays among top recruiters at SRM campus

Chennai:18.09.2019

Students of SRM Institute of Science and Technology have received 4,749 offers from top four IT companies in the current placement season, bettering the last year’s count of 3,020 offers.

At the conclusion of day 1of placement, TCS made 1,437 offers, Infosys 1,315, CTS (Cognizant Technology Solutions) 1,175 and Wipro 822. Apart from this, TCS also made 183 offers under its ‘digital track’ scheme (₹7 lakh per annum).

This is the highest number of offers made by these four companies in any single campus in the country, said Sriram Padmanabhan, director, career centre, SRMIST. “More than 120 companies have visited the campus this year since the commencement of the placement season on July 22 and have made close to 6,000 offers as on date,” he added.

Microsoft made the highest offer on the campus, offering ₹41.6 lakh per annum. Recruiters like Amazon (18 offers of ₹32 lakh per annum), Barclays (25 offers of ₹10 lakh per annum) and startup Udaan (4 offers of ₹ 30 lakh per annum) also offered cushy jobs. Veritas and PayPal have made internship offers where selected students will work in the companies during their final semester. TNN

Couple spends ₹40L wrongly credited, jailed

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Tirupur:18.09.2019

In 2012, when ₹40 lakh was mistakenly credited to his bank account, Tirupur-based LIC agent V Gunasekaran saw it as a windfall. Without trying to find out how the amount landed in the account, Gunasekaran and his wife Radha went on a spending spree, bought a property and splurged on their daughter’s wedding. Eventually, the long arm of the law caught up with them. A trial court here on Monday sentenced the couple to three years imprisonment for spending the cash which was credited to one of their accounts by mistake.

The amount sanctioned under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme and the MLA Local Area Development Scheme was meant for civil work to be taken up by the Public Works Department. The PWD authorities had mentioned the account number of Gunasekaran instead of the PWD executive engineer when they took three demand drafts.

According to the prosecution, Gunasekaran, of Rakkiyapalayam, had a savings account in the Tirupur main branch of Corporation Bank, where the EE too had an account. Though the amount was transferred to Gunasekaran’s account, the PWD authorities were not aware of it for eight months. When they realised that the funds had not reached their account, they approached Corporation bank officials who said the money had been credited to the account mentioned in the DD.

When the bank officials checked the account balance of Gunasekaran they found that the entire sum had been withdrawn within days of it being credited.

Senior officials of Corporation bank requested Gunasekaran to re-deposit the money in his account so that the bank could retrieve it. But he failed to do so.

In 2015, assistant general manager Narasimha Giri lodged a complaint with Tirupur city’s Central Crime Branch (CCB) police against Gunasekaran.

CCB registered a case against Gunasekaran and Radha under various Sections, including 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).

The couple obtained anticipatory bail in the case, and were pursuing it before the Tirupur judicial magistrate court II. “Gunasekaran gave an undertaking to the bank that he would return the cash, but did not honour the assurance despite repeated requests. So, it was a clear case of misappropriation, said additional public prosecutor Ibrahim Raja.

As the prosecution proved the case, JM court II judge D Thirunavukkarasu ordered them to undergo three years imprisonment. The CCB arrested the couple who were sent to the Coimbatore central prison.

With IoE status, VIT eyes top 200 global rankings in next 5yrs

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:18.09.2019

After getting the prestigious Institute of Eminence (IoE) status last week, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is now focusing on research, UG and PG programmes with international collaboration to break into top 200 global rankings in next five years, said VIT chancellor G Viswananthan.

Addressing reporters here on Tuesday, he said, “We have already started planning how to compete with most advanced universities in the world and how to come up in global rankings.”

VIT is one of the 10 private institutions chosen for IoE. “We are planning to start many innovative UG and PG programmes in collaboration with Indian industries and reputable universities abroad with focus on artificial intelligence, data science, cyber physical system, cyber security, smart structures,” Viswanathan said.

Besides, the university also plans to hire post-doctoral fellows to increase the research output.

“Details such as budget allocation for moving up in global rankings are currently being worked out,” Viswanathan said.

The university is also planning to set up a technology park, online learning centre, global skill development centre for equipping the Indian workforce.

“The ongoing economic slowdown has not affected our campus. Last year, 719 companies approached VIT for placement. This year, 3,725 students have already been placed,” he added.

VIT vice-chancellor Anand A Samuel said “Multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach will be followed in all academic and research activities and the presence of foreign students and foreign faculty members will be increased considerably.”

“We are moving towards 100% digital university. All our processes have been digitised,” he added.

A total of 40,000 students from across India and 55 other countries, are studying at Vellore and Chennai campuses.