Denied money for booze, man kills elderly parents

TNN | Feb 9, 2020, 04.06 AM IST

Coimbatore: An elderly couple were hacked to death by their 31-year-old son at Vellimalaipattinam on the outskirts of the city in the early hours of Saturday after they refused to provide him money to buy liquor. The Alandurai police have arrested the murderer.
A police officer identified the deceased as 75-year-old P Sundaram and his 70-year-old wife S Thulasi, of Indira Colony at Vellimalaipattinam near Viraliyur. They are survived by four daughters, who have been married off and settled in various parts of the district, and a son. According to the officer, the couple made a living by grazing goats.

He said their son Karthikeyan was an alcoholic and used to fight with his wife often. “Unable to bear his torture, she had left him a few months ago and moved to her parents’ house at Kaliyapuram village near Madukkarai. A daily wage labourer, he also stopped going for work properly,” the officer said.

Karthikeyan, the officer said, then started to fight with his elderly parents and assault them in drunken state. At one stage, his parents lodged a complaint against Karthikeyan and police warned him severely. “On Thursday (Feb 6) night, he consumed alcohol and assaulted his parents. They again lodged a police complaint against their son. Police picked him up for questioning and he was let off later,” the officer said.

On Friday night, Karthikeyan consumed liquor and fought with his parents, before going to bed. On Saturday around 2am, he hacked his parents, who were asleep, to death with a sickle and left the house.

As the couple didn’t come out of the house in the morning, neighbours went to their house and found them lay dead in a pool of blood. They alerted the Alandurai police, who sent the bodies to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital for postmortem. They also registered a case against Karthikeyan under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and formed a special team, which arrested him near Narasipuram. Further investigation is on.

WhatsApp complaints on food, edible items on the rise

TNN | Feb 9, 2020, 04.42 AM IST

MADURAI: The Madurai district food safety department has received 209 complaints over WhatsApp related to bad food and sub-standard edible items in 2019, which is one of highest number registered in the state.

Officials said that of the 32 districts, only four districts, including Madurai, had received WhatsApp complaints crossing the 200 mark. They said that it was result of the kind of awareness measures carried out and publicity taken up by pasting stickers at eateries and hotels. In fact, Chennai had received more than 500 complaints, while Kancheepuram received more than 300 complaints. Sources said that of the 209 complaints received, action was taken against the concerned eateries with 24 hours, while action against 29 eateries was taken between 24 and 48 hours. However, all the complaints have been addressed subsequently. WhatsApp method, which was popularized a couple of years ago by the food safety department, is the most preferred means for raising complaints.

Designated officer for food safety, Madurai district, Dr M Somasundaram said that most complaints were related to food served at hotels and eateries. There were fewer complaints in connection with adulteration or substandard food materials. All the complaints were taken seriously and checked at the earliest by pressing the food safety officer for the area concerned, he said.

Officials lifted 88 samples in 2019 from food business operators dealing with various food products of which 77 were sent to laboratories for testing. Of the 77 samples, 36 were found unsafe and 52 did not confirm to the standards set by the Food Safety and Standards Authorities of India. As on December, 2019, 21 civil cases filed by the food safety department were pending before the RDO court. As many as 62 criminal cases were filed from Madurai district, sources said.

GRH employee sacked after being found to be ex-prisoner

TNN | Feb 10, 2020, 04.32 AM IST

Madurai: A female daily wage worker employed at Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) was sacked after complaints arose that the woman has been employed despite being released from the prison only around four months ago.

The woman, Gowri, was employed as a daily wage worker at the Department of Surgery at GRH, shortly after being released from prison. Though initially there were rumours that she had previously been sent to jail regarding her involvement in a case related to child kidnapping at GRH, the hospital dean Dr Sangumani J denied the rumours.

“After we received complaints from daily wage workers, we came to know that the woman had only shortly been released from jail in a case related to her private affair. We later held an inquiry as well regarding her appointment and removed her from service,” he said.

The dean also said that an inquiry was held in the presence of a professor from the Department of Surgery and that Gowri herself admitted that she was indeed released from jail four months ago.

“The appointment of daily wage workers happens at the levels of Resident Medical Officer (RMO) and Sergeant on a daily basis. There has also been no evidence of any wrongdoing by senior officials. As soon as we found the complaint valid, we removed her. The matter has been put to rest,” added Dr Sangumani.

Securing duplicate school marksheets a herculean task

TNN | Feb 11, 2020, 04.13 AM IST

Madurai: Obtaining one’s lost school education certificates, especially the SSLC and higher secondary mark sheets, have become a herculean task in the state. Neither the local education department officials nor the online website is apparently of much help.

Recently, Karthik (name changed), who had completed his higher secondary examination nearly a decade ago, found that he had lost his file and bag containing all the originals of his school education certificates. Panicking, he rushed to the chief education officer’s office in Madurai. “From what I know, you have to pay a challan for a specified amount at the treasury, attach a missing certificate and send it to the department, but you may get a better idea from the people selling forms for certificates outside the district collectorate,” said one of the staff there.

Those selling forms for certificates outside the district collectorate are not recognised persons. Kavitha (name changed), who was also trying to get a duplicate SSLC mark sheet, said that a man outside the collectorate offered to give her a printed application form and also helped in filling it for Rs 200. “However, he said he would only help fill the form and did not give me much information about the whole process so it is difficult to know who to go to,” she said.

After finding the information he got from the CEO’s office confusing, Karthik rushed to another officer of higher ranking. “Oh everything is online and you will not have to do anything manually, so just go on the school education site,” he said. The desperate candidate found that only the application form for a duplicate certificate was available online, and it had to be downloaded and filled up to start the process.

The application form says, you should pay Rs 505, at the treasury, get a missing certificate duly signed by a gazetted officer, an affidavit signed by a notary public and a missing notice published in a newspaper to be duly submitted with the application. But all this have to be submitted only after getting a copy of the FIR from the police, in the limits of which the documents were lost. “This is the easiest part of the entire process, thanks to the e-seva website of the Tamil Nadu police, where you can get a lost document report by logging into the site and a payment of Rs 50 for each document lost,” he said.

Next is to get the affidavit signed by the notary. The affidavit needs to be printed on a Rs 20-stamp paper, and the numerous shops near the collectorate type the affidavit and get it signed from a notary public for a payment of Rs 500, if you go in person and have authentication to prove your claim. A Notary public will sign the certificate only if the Lost Document Report from the police is furnished.

Armed with these two certificates, you have to go to a local newspaper for publishing the notice for a payment that may range between Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500. When it appears in the newspaper, you have to approach the government treasury.

The person at the treasury would not be very helpful if you do not produce the last part of the application form downloaded from the website, which has details of the challan and fees to be paid. He will only put his seal and signature on the challan, but the money has to be deposited in the specified branch of the State Bank of India. Here the bank officer will give you the receipt and challan number, which have to be kept carefully to file with the application.

Further, you need the signature of a gazetted officer or Tahsildar vouching for the missing mark sheets on a certificate that you can obtain from agents outside the collectorate premises. “Going to the Tahsildar’s office to get the signature was difficult and time consuming. Already we had to keep running from one office to the other during the process,” said Rajesh (name changed), who recently applied for a duplicate higher secondary mark sheet. Finally, the application form downloaded from the directorate of government examinations has to be filled up carefully and taken to the school where the candidate studied, where the principal or headmaster would authorise it at their convenience.

Though the application form says the school would forward the application to the department of examinations, it is often the candidate who is forced to do it, said the applicants. Then, he/she has to keep their fingers crossed and wait for the certificate for a period of at least two months. Both schools and education department officials said that they get only few applications every year. “We hardly get even 10 applications in a year sometimes. So, that is also again a reason why many are not aware of the processes, which keep changing as well. Many don’t even bother applying unless they desperately need it for a job or such,” said the principal of a private school.

Counting to start at 8am, trends to start pouring in 3 hours later

TNN | Feb 11, 2020, 04.40 AM IST

New Delhi: Counting for the 70 assembly seats in Delhi will begin at 8am on Tuesday and trends will start pouring in around 11am. Officials said the votes will be counted at 21 locations in 11 districts. About 2,600 administrative officials will be involved in the process.

Though the official announcement of results will be done only in the evening, Election Commission officials said the winning candidate and the estimated margin of votes will be known by the afternoon. The smaller the size of the constituency, the sooner the result will be announced.

East Delhi district election officer Arun Kumar Mishra said the counting centres have a three-tier security involving the local police, CAPF and paramilitary forces. “The outermost ring will have Delhi Police personnel, while the second ring will have local police and CAPF. The innermost security ring will have paramilitary forces,” he added.

The counting centre at Commonwealth Games Village has been set up as a model centre with state-of-the-art facilities, Mishra said.

In all, 33 counting observers have been appointed to oversee the process. The counting of votes will start with postal ballots. Votes polled in EVMs will begin only after that. The EVM votes will be counted simultaneously at 10-14 tables set up for each assembly segment. Depending on the size of the constituency, the votes will be counted in 10-16 rounds.

After each round, the results will be uploaded on the “Suvidha” mobile app. Once all votes are counted, election officials will randomly pick VVPAT slips from five polling stations in each assembly segment and match the results with those generated by EVMs.

Paper chits with the number of each polling station in an assembly constituency will be put in a container and shuffled in presence of all candidates or their agents. The returning officer will then pick up five slips to tally with the EVM results.

“The paper trail of votes will be kept in separate bundles and then matched with the EVM results. The tabulation of paper trails will be carried out simultaneously. The result will be declared after completing the entire exercise,” said an official.

Anna varsity to intensify scrutiny for affiliation

TNN | Feb 9, 2020, 10.08 AM IST

CHENNAI: To ensure minimum standards at colleges, Anna University will include 600 faculty members from IIT Madras, IISc Bangalore, NIT Trichy and Indian Institute of Management Trichy in inspection committees for affiliation for 2020-21.

Every inspection team will have a faculty member from IIT-M IISc Bangalore or NIT Trichy to ensure proper inspection. Besides focusing on infrastructure and labs, the committees will focus on faculty-students ratio, cadre ratio in departments and will also verify PhD degree certificates.

There are 70,000 faculty members in more than 500 engineering colleges across the state. Among them, nearly 10,000 are PhD holders. Following complaints that many faculty members are working with fake PhD certificates, the university had asked colleges to ensure genuineness of PhD certificates from respective universities.

"If any faculty member is found with fake certificates, the university will initiate severe action against them. As per the court order, if colleges lack basic amenities and faculty members the university would cancel the affiliation for courses. If the facilities are poor, the university may disaffiliate the colleges too," said Anna University vice-chancellor M K Surappa.

Inspection committees will give more weightage to basic infrastructure such as labs, teachers, grounds, hostel and mess facilities and access to internet.

They will also verify Aadhaar cards and PAN cards of faculty members to eliminate fakes.

"Last year, many colleges showed fake faculty members during inspection and in other instances a faculty member was shown as working in multiple institutions. To weed out such malpractice, the university will undertake Aadhaar card and PAN card verification during inspection," sources said.

More than 500 engineering colleges in the state have sought affiliation from Anna University while around 10 colleges decided to not admit any students for next academic year. "The inspection is likely to start in the third week of February and end before March 31. Following inspections, the university will summarise reports and send deficiency reports to colleges. The colleges will be given two weeks time to file compliance report and after verifying them, the university will allow continuation of affiliation to engineering colleges," officials said.

Last year, about 170 faculty members from eminent institutions such as IIT Madras and IISc Bangalore had visited more than 530 engineering colleges in the state for inspection. Based on their reports, the university reduced intake in 92 colleges which had more than 25% deficiency in labs, library, faculty members and classrooms.

Man commits suicide after friend’s daughter dies in TN road accident

TNN | Feb 9, 2020, 06.51 PM IST

NAGAPATTINAM: A 45-year-old flower vendor committed suicide in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu on Sunday after his friend’s daughter died in a road accident while he was taking her to school on a two-wheeler on Saturday.

The deceased man has been identified as Veeramani of Pookara Street in Velankanni.

On Saturday, Veeramani’s friend Mathiazhagan called him over phone and requested him to drop his daughter, M Mahara Jothi, 16, in school. Jothi was a Class XI in a private school in Nagore.

While Veeramani and Jothi were going to her school, an SETC bus hit his two-wheeler at Paravai on the East Coast Road. The accident happened when Veeramani tried to cross the ECR without noticing the bus. The bus driver's rash driving was also a reason for the accident, according to the Velankanni police.

Jothi and Veeramani sustained injuries. They were rushed to Nagapattinam Government Hospital where she died.

Veeramani returned home after being treated as an outpatient in the hospital. However, he appeared depressed as he felt guilty. He was lamenting that he was the reason for the death of the girl.

On Sunday morning, his body was found hanging from a tree in nearby North Pogainallur village.

Veeramani is survived by his wife and two sons.