Doctor accused of filming patients acquitted after woman turns hostile
The woman turned hostile before court. XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, acquitted the doctor.

Published: 25th September 2019 06:20 AM |

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: A 64-year-old doctor accused of filming women patients was acquitted after one of them filed a compromise affidavit in court. Sivagurunathan, who runs a clinic at Mylapore, was arrested in April last year for sexual harassment based on a complaint from a woman.

According to the complaint, the doctor who had allegedly captured 30 videos of women in his clinic, was caught red-handed by the woman’s husband who visited the clinic after she had chest pain. The family alerted police, who in turn booked the doctor.

Police said the doctor’s mobile phone had over 30 videos at the time of arrest. During trial, the woman filed a compromise plea stating that she found that examination for chest pain is done by closely inspecting the body and her husband had acted out of emotion. The woman turned hostile before court. XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, acquitted the doctor.

Surfers, swimmers barred from beaches around Mamallapuram

25/09/2019, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI

Surfers have petitioned the authorities against the ban on surfing activities much ahead of the summit. File Photo

Police have banned surfing activities around Mamallapuram in view of the high-level summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.

On Sunday, the members of a surfing school, free surfers and ocean swimmers were stopped from entering the Kovalam Muttukadu beach by the Coastal Security Group DSP.

“We have many students, children and groups coming to learn surfing.

We understand if we have to stay away from the beach a few days before the PM’s visit.

But 20 days ahead, if we stop our work, it will hit us hard and we will find it difficult to pay rent and salaries,” said Showkath Jamal R., a surfing school owner, claiming that the police action was selective.

However, DSP Balamurugan said, “We have told surfing schools which do not have the necessary NOC to suspend their activities in view of VIP visit to the area.”

Meanwhile, surfers have petitioned the authorities against the ban on surfing activities much ahead of the summ

Direct morning flight from Coimbatore to Delhi likely

25/09/2019, STAFF REPORTER ,COIMBATORE

Members of Kongu Global Forum (KGF), an association of representatives from the industrial houses of the seven western districts, have sought Ashwani Lohani, chairman and managing director of Air India Limited, for a direct morning flight to New Delhi for onward connectivity to Europe.

A representation of KGF signed by its chairman A. Sakthivel and vice-chairperson Vanitha Mohan was handed over to Mr. Lohani, who gave them assurance on the direct morning flight to Delhi.

International destinations

“This flight will help connect passengers to 10 international destinations especially Europe and two in Australia and will significantly reduce the travel time to Europe and Australia (most of the flights leave in the afternoon from Delhi). We also appraised him about the huge cargo potential from this region. He has assured us that the morning flight will be allotted,” said Ms. Mohan.

Representation letters from KGF, Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chamber, and Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association were also submitted to Mr. Lohani.

It has been a long-standing demand to have a direct flight from Coimbatore to New Delhi in the morning to reach the capital city by 11 a.m., as it would facilitate the passengers to opt for connecting flights to European destinations without wasting time on transit.

“With a good number of international and domestic travellers from Coimbatore, the lack of a direct flight to Delhi as a connecting flight to the West is an impediment to those who visit Coimbatore both for business as well as on holiday to travel to tourist destinations like the Nilgiris and Kodaikanal,” said KGF’s letter to Mr. Lohani.

Flight change

International travellers boarding from Coimbatore international airport, which serves Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Namakkal, Karur, Salem and the Nilgiris, are currently forced to opt for a flight change over from Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi or Tiruchi.


AI introduces 'Discover India Scheme'

Air India has introduced Discover India Scheme for travel in economy class within India valid till March 31, 2020.

Under scheme I, passenger can buy five economy class tickets for ₹ 40,000 for travel in five domestic sectors namely Coimbatore/Mumbai/Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram/Mumbai/Coimbatore to be availed within 15 days of the first leg of travel.

Scheme II offers ten economy class tickets for ₹ 75,000 for travel in ten domestic sectors which will be valid for 30 days.

Police has no power to seize assets, says SC

25/09/2019, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday made clear that a police officer is not empowered to seize immovable property under Section 102 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Section 102 deals with the power of an investigating officer to seize any property suspected to be part of a crime.

The question of law regarded by a three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjeev Khanna was whether landed property comes within the ambit of ‘property’ mentioned in the legal provision.

“Given the nature of criminal litigation, seizure of an immovable property by the police officer in the form of an attachment and dispossession would not facilitate investigation to collect evidence to be produced during inquiry and trial,” Justice Khanna observed.

Justice Gupta said seizure of land by a police officer during a probe would lead to an “absolutely chaotic situation”.

Ramanujan prize for U.K. mathematician

Harper’s brilliant work recognised

25/09/2019, SHUBASHREE DESIKAN,CHENNAI

Recognising talent: Adam Harper was awarded the prize for his contributions to analytic & probabilistic number theory.

The SASTRA Ramanujan prize for 2019 will be awarded to mathematician Adam Harper, Assistant Professor with the University of Warwick, England.

The prize carries a citation and an award of $10,000 and is conferred annually on mathematicians from across the world who are less than 32 years of age, working in an area influenced by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan.

“The SASTRA-Ramanujan Award has gained global repute ever since it was instituted in 2005 and today is easily amongst the top five awards of this type for mathematics. Many previous winners, including Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh, went on to win the Fields Medal later,” said Dr. S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice-Chancellor of SASTRA University, in a press release.

Four mathematicians who were awarded this prize have gone on to win the Fields Medal later.

Noted number theorist and former director of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, Prof. R. Balasubramanian observed that the problems on which Mr. Harper works are interesting. “He has improved earlier results obtained by Kannan Soundararajan and Andrew Granville. His paper with Ben Green on large sieve is also worth mentioning,” he said.

The citation said Mr. Harper was awarded the prize “for several outstanding contributions to analytic and probabilistic number theory.”

“The prize recognizes his marvellous 2012 PhD thesis at Cambridge University, and his paper of 2013 in Crelle’s Journal …Harper’s recent brilliant proof of a conjecture of Helson…and a related paper… to appear in Algebra and Number Theory. The prize also recognizes Harper’s seminal work using the Riemann Hypothesis to determine the correct order upper bound for the higher moments of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line…”

The age limit is 32 years to commemorate the fact that Srinivasa Ramanujan accomplished a phenomenal body of work in this short span.

Every year, this prize is awarded by SASTRA University on its campus near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu, on Ramanujan’s birth anniversary, December 22.

‘Avoid travelling from Dhaula Kuan to AIIMS’

25/09/2019,NEW DELHI

Commuters travelling from Dhaula Kuan to AIIMS are likely to face congestion on the route for the next couple of days due to repair work on the flyover, said traffic policemen on Tuesday. PWD will carry-out the repair work on Hyatt Regency Flyover from September 25 to October 6 from Dhaula Kuan to AIIMS, said an advisory, which also asked commuters to take alternate routes.

26 dead, 300 injured as quake jolts Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
Temblor of 5.8 intensity strikes at a depth of 10 km; tremors felt in India
25/09/2019, MEHMAL SARFRAZ ,LAHORE

A road in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir that was damaged in the earthquake. PTIPTI

A powerful 5.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and several cities in the northeastern parts of the country on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 26 people and wounding over 300 others.

Pakistan Meteorological Department’s Chief Meteorologist Muhammad Riaz, told The Hindu that the worst-hit area was Mirpur, where houses had collapsed and roads were ripped apart.

Tremors were felt across several north Indian States, including Jammu & Kashmir, the Delhi-National Capital Region, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said.

Some houses and parts of a mosque collapsed in Mirpur following the earthquake, Deputy Commissioner Raja Qaiser said.

Emergency has been declared in hospitals across PoK. TV channels showed the footage of heavily damaged roads in Mirpur, with many vehicles overturned. Several cars fell into the deep cracks on the roads. The building of the state-run Broadcasting House in Mirpur was badly damaged.

The tremors were felt in several cities across Pakistan including Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Multan.

Director Operations State Disaster Management Authority in PoK Saeed-Ur-Rehman Qureshi said the authorities were waiting for confirmation on death toll.