File report on status of plea for pardon: SC

22/01/2020, KRISHNADAS RAJAGOPAL,NEW DELHI

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu government to file a report on the status of a plea for pardon filed by Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convict, A.G. Perarivalan, before the State Governor. The order from a Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao came after the court found that not much progress has been made by the CBI in its probe into whether the assassination was the culmination of a “larger conspiracy”.

Justice Rao remarked to Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand that the report on the status of the investigation submitted in the court merely makes vague allusions to enquiries abroad in places like London, Hong Kong, etc. It has no specifics.

Turning then to Perarivalan’s lawyers, senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Prabu Ramasubramanium, the Bench asked what relief did they really want from the apex court. Mr. Sankaranarayanan pointed out that his client has been in prison for nearly three decades. They drew the court’s attention to a short order passed by the SC on September 6, 2018.

Cashless rule at ticket counters irks passengers

22/01/2020, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

A recent move by the Chennai Metro to direct passengers wishing to pay for tickets in cash to ticket vending machines (TVMs) has irked many. Those heading to the counter should necessarily pay using either their debit or credit card.

Hari Madhavan, a resident of Nanganallur, said, “This is an absurd rule. The funny part is, many of their TVMs don’t even work. If there are 2-3 in each station, certainly one won’t work. Even if they function, they don’t accept many denominations of new currency notes that were introduced a few years ago. When they have so many flaws in their system itself, how can they impose such a ridiculous rule?”

Passengers said that it is unfair to have such a rule because they have to stand in queue to buy tickets from TVMs even if the counter is empty. Sri Lakshmi M., another passenger, said, “Only now more people are beginning to travel by Chennai Metro. But if they continue to have such rules, the ones travelling will also stop.”

Sources in Chennai Metro said that they receive several complaints every day from passengers but are helpless as they have been instructed to implement this rule. According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited, they have brought in this rule only to save time as passengers buying tickets through TVMs will consume less time. “We have been trying to fix the issues in TVMs as well,” an official added.

RGGGH performs its 11th heart transplant

Patient is recovering well, say doctors

22/01/2020, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

R. Jayanthi, dean, RGGGH, with Mahendran.S. R. RaghunathanS. R. Raghunathan

Doctors at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) completed the hospital’s 11th heart transplant earlier this month, with an organ received from a cadaveric donor, who had been declared brain dead at the hospital.

G. Joseph Raj, Director of the Institute of Cardiothoracic Surgery, RGGGH, said the patient was recovering well and was likely to be discharged by the end of this week.

R. Mahendran, 39, the patient, a mini truck driver from Coimbatore, had been suffering with rheumatic multi-vascular heart disease. His wife M. Amutha said that his condition had worsened around six months ago. “We took him to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital. The doctors there referred us to RGGGH,” she said.

Dr. Joseph Raj said that when Mr. Mahendran came to RGGGH, he had difficulty walking even for a few feet and was feeling breathless. “His heart’s ejection fraction was just 20% while it should have been at least around 60%. Our team of doctors decided that he needed a heart transplant,” he said.

The patient was put on a waitlist for a donor, R. Jayanthi, Dean, Madras Medical College and RGGGH, said. On January 5, 2019, a 27-year-old man, who was admitted to RGGGH after a road accident, was declared brain dead. “As per the procedures of Transplant Authority, Government Of Tamil Nadu, with the consent of the person’s family, his heart, liver, kidneys and bone were harvested. The heart went to Mr. Mahendran and another patient in the hospital, got a kidney on the same day,” she said. Dr. Jayanthi said the cost of the transplant was fully covered under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme.

The Hindu is the fastest growing English daily

It continues to lead in T.N. and Kerala

22/01/2020, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

The Hindu’s Total Readership grew by 11.8% over Q2 2019, registering the highest growth rate among the top 3 national English dailies.

The Hindu added 8,01,000 readers over Q2 to register a Total Readership of 75,74,000 in Q3 nationally.

The Hindu’s Average Issue Readership grew by 9.6% over Q2 2019, registering the highest growth rate among the top 3 national English dailies.

The Hindu’s all-India performance is attributed to sustained leadership in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Kerala and gains in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Karnataka, New Delhi and other parts of India.

In terms of both Total Readership and Average Issue Readership, The Hindu continues to be the largest read English daily in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Hindu’s Average Issue Readership in Tamil Nadu is higher than that of The Times of India and The New Indian Express combined.

L.V. Navaneeth, Chief Executive Officer, The Hindu Group, said, “As an organisation, we have continually worked towards delivering quality journalism, and we will continue doing so. The results have yet again reiterated the trust our readers have on a brand that has a long-standing reputation for credible and accurate news. The Hindu has been witnessing a growing readership in many markets. We are thankful to our readers and advertisers for the confidence and consistent support!”

PVR to open 5 screens at Chennai airport

They are to be located in the parking complex, which will open in 2021

22/01/2020, SUNITHA SEKAR , SANGEETHA 

KANDAVEL,CHENNAI

Landing soon: The PVR Cinemas is looking at 80% of the people from the city and 20% of the transit passengers.

Do you have a lot of time to spend as a transit passenger? Or are you waiting endlessly to receive a passenger outside the airport as his/her flight is delayed? Soon, you can spend that time watching a film.

In a first, the Chennai airport will house five screens of PVR Cinemas, the largest multiplex chain in India.

These screens will be located in the multi-level car parking complex, which is under construction.

This facility, being built at a cost of ₹250 crore by the Olympia Group, will not only have a theatre but also a host of options for food and beverage.

“Yes, we will have five screens with roughly over 1,000 seats. This will come up in the complex which is being constructed by the Olympia Group. We are the cinema partners,” Pramod Arora, chief growth and strategy officer, PVR Limited, told The Hindu.

“This facility will be operational by the second half of 2021,” he said.

On the target audience, Mr. Arora said, “The benefit of the Chennai airport is that it is part of the city... We are looking at 80% of people from the city and 20% of the transit passengers.”

It is learnt that PVR Cinemas’ investment would be around ₹15 crore.

Hypermarket also likely

Two different sources in the Chennai real estate market said the theatre is likely to come up in the third or the fourth level of the parking lot. There are also talks for bringing in a popular hypermarket to the facility. “It would be a mix of retail and food and beverages,” one of them said.

There are 292 active screens in Chennai, with a total of 1,18,500 seats.

Officials of the Airports Authority of India said that the multi-level parking would be completed and thrown open to the public by October.

Sivaganga MCH to begin eye transplant procedures soon

TNN | Jan 21, 2020, 04.43 AM IST

Madurai: ‘Hospital Cornea Retrieval Program’, an eye donation initiative organized by the Government Sivaganga Medical College Hospital (GSMCH) in association with Aravind Eye Hospitals (AEH), Madurai, was inaugurated on Monday.

A human eye can be donated if it is removed within six hours after a person’s death. “Initially, GSMCH will donate the eyes for transplantation and the procedure will be performed at AEH. Within a few months, the procedure will be done at GSMCH itself. We will train a team of doctors for the process and the infrastructure required would be set up here itself by then and only the processing of the eye will be done by AEH, free of cost,” explained dean of GSMCH, Dr A Rathinavel.

Many organ donations and transplants, like the kidney, require an organisational structure at the state level, but eye donations and transplants involve a simpler process. “In this case, since we can remove the eye only from a dead person, all we need is consent from the patient’s kin. This can be managed at the institutional level. We’ve reached out to local groups,” said Rathinavel.

On Monday, Dr N Venkatesh Prajna, opthalmology director, Aravind Eye Hospitals and Rathinavel inaugurated the programme at a special event held on the GSMCH campus. “We’re having public-private partnerships with many government medical colleges. We reached out to GSMCH especially because we want to help start corneal transplantation in Sivaganga as well. The first step is to create awareness,” said Prajna. A special helpline number (7598520007) for eye donation was also released for the public to contact.

Rajinikanth refuses to apologise for his comment on Periyar's 1971 rally in Salem

TNN | Jan 21, 2020, 11.35 AM IST

CHENNAI: Actor Rajinikanth on Tuesday refused to apologise for his recent comment about a rally conducted by social reformer Periyar E V Ramasamy in Salem in 1971. "This (the rally) is not an incident to deny, but an incident to forget," the actor said.

"My recent speech at the Thuglak (a Tamil magazine) function has raised a controversy. I did not say anything out of imagination or anything not true. What I said was based on what I read in newspapers and in an English magazine. If someone expects me to apologise and express regret for it, Sorry. I will neither apologise nor express regret," Rajinikanth told reporters outside his Poes Garden residence in Chennai.

Participating in the golden jubilee celebrations of Thuglak in Chennai last week, Rajinikanth referred to a 1971 rally in Salem conducted by Periyar. He said "portraits of Ram and Sita without clothes" and decorated by garlands made of slippers had been carried. Copies of Thuglak, which carried that photo were seized, leading to a spike in the demand for that magazine, he added.

Denying Periyar had slippered the portraits, Periyarists from various organisations had condemned the speech of Rajinikanth and demanded his apology. Some political parties like VCK threatened to ghereo his residence.

"Let them say what they want. I will stand by what I said," Rajinikanth told reporters, flashing a photo copy of an article that appeared in the English magazine in the year 2017.