Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Paras.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  02.07.2020

More than 9,000 municipal teachers and pensioners of North Delhi Municipal Corporation continue to remain unpaid for the past three months. While a section of teachers deployed on Covid duties received a month’s salary, they were left penniless again after using the money to repay loans and pending bills.

The teachers’ union also alleged that the money meant for them was diverted to pay sanitation workers. Kuldeep Khatri, who heads Shikshak Nyaya Manch Nagar Nigam, said, “Our salary is pending from March to June. Around 5,400 teachers who were on Covid duty were paid only for March, but there was favouritism during disbursement. Another Rs 49 crore was released by Delhi government, but it was used to pay sanitation workers.”

Ramniwas Solanki, general secretary of Nagar Nigam Shikshak Sangh, said, “Teachers haven’t been able to pay loans, house rent and even school fees of children. They are being forced to live a life of desperation and economic insecurity. The problem of delayed salary goes back to the faulty trifurcation of the municipal corporation. In 2014, the salary was delayed by a month. But now the dues are of four months.”

“Our job is to teach, but we are being used to distribute rations, carry out surveys and deployed in containment zones. Are we not human? We are being told to find Covid patients without being paid. More than 200 teachers have been infected with the virus on duty, but no one cares about us,” Khatri said.

Jai Prakash, north corporation mayor, said, “It will be wrong to say that only the corporation and not Delhi government is to blame. We were supposed to get Rs 556 crore in the first quarter of the year, but didn’t. Delhi high court also blasted the government. The court said we will be blamed if the teachers don’t get paid. The teachers are being used by Delhi government to distribute rations and fight the virus, so it should help us.”

“We have extended the deadline for paying property tax so that our revenue stream increases and we can pay the employees. The government should help in this extraordinary situation as we are providing it manpower,” added Prakash.

4 9  CRORE RUPEES RELEASED BY DELHI GOVT

Sisodia orders financial audit of women’s college

Sisodia orders financial audit of women’s college

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:  02.07.2020

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has ordered financial auditing of Delhi University’s Bhagini Nivedita College, stating that the government has received several complaints against it.

In an order to the secretary of higher education, Sisodia wrote that he had “received multiple complaints regarding financial irregularities in Bhagini Nivedita College, one of the colleges fully funded by the government of NCT of Delhi”.

Sisodia, who is also the state education minister, said the complaints had come from different stakeholders such as students, parents and teachers. They “allege financial irregularities in tendering processes, hiring of a car for the principal, buying of unnecessary items not needed in an educational institution, etc,” he added.

The matter is serious and the directorate of higher education should immediately get the college accounts of last two years audited, “preferably by a CAG-empanelled auditor”, Sisodia said. A compliance report will have to be submitted in 15 days. “Strongest action must be taken against officials concerned if any irregularities are found in the audit,” he said.

Despite repeated attempts, Charu Sharma, the principal of the women’s college didn’t comment. A senior DU official, however, claimed the auditing had been announced to force the college to accept the government’s governing body (GB) nominee. “The current acting principal has been around for only a year. The government should have done auditing earlier if they had proof of financial irregularities from the past two years,” the official said.

A Delhi government official said financial irregularities in the college were well known and the government was acting on complaints. “This is not related to the GB formation. But it is likely that the college did not allow its formation as they were worried GB would ask for the accounts. That would have been problematic for the college authorities,” he said.

A DU OFFICIAL SAYS

The government should have done the auditing earlier if they have proof of financial irregularities for the past two years

Rush at SDM offices for EWS certificates

Rush at SDM offices for EWS certificates

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: 02.07.2020

As registration for admissions to Delhi University is going to end in three days, students and parents have started thronging the sub-divisional magistrate’s offices in the city to get economically weaker section (EWS) category certificates.

Flouting social distancing norms, parents and students gathered in large numbers at the SDM’s office in Dwarka on Wednesday.

An applicant, Harshit Gupta later told TOI, “While OBC certificates are procured online, there is no such provision for EWS category students. There is a long process that we need to complete at the SDM office and hence, there was crowding.”

The EWS reservation was introduced in the university last year and the number of seats under the category has now increased by 10%.

The university has said that students belonging to the EWS category can submit the application receipt. However, students are even finding it difficult to submit the application in many cases.

Amisha Nanda, a DU student who is helping the aspirants with registrations, said, “We have been receiving a lot of queries from students related to certificates, including caste certificates. Some students are not being able to apply online also, which is adding to their stress and anxiety.”

A DU official, on condition of anonymity, said, “the rules for procuring EWS certificate are set by the government of India and DU cannot do much about them, except extending the dates of the registration period.” The admission branch has asked applicants not to panic as they still have over two weeks to upload the documents.

Shobha Bagai, dean (admissions), said: “We had also put up a video on our website explaining this to applicants and they shouldn’t be anxious. The university has also assured applicants that they can apply online for the certificate and upload that application receipt on the DU admission portal while registering. They can update the form with the certificate later.”

1 0  % QUOTA FOR EWS STUDENTS IN DELHI UNIVERSITY

Kol doctor performing dialysis for ₹50 during curbs for critical kidney patients

Kol doctor performing dialysis for ₹50 during curbs for critical kidney patients

Anuja.Jaiswal@timesgroup.com

Agra:02.07.2020

At a time when instances of hospitals and doctors turning away critically ill patients are surfacing with alarming regularity, a doctor in Kolkata, helped in a non-for-profit initiative by 59 others, is performing dialysis on severe kidney patients for a nominal charge of ₹50.

Dr Fuad Halim, son-in-law of former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Lt Gen (retd) Zameer Uddin Shah, started the service during the lockdown. “I saw the problems that patients were facing due to the Covid-19 lockdown. So many had been rendered jobless and didn’t even have money to travel for treatment. So I decided to charge a token amount of ₹50 for a dialysis at my clinic,” he told TOI. So far, his team of three other doctors and four technicians has conducted 2,357 procedures. Two of the doctors are volunteers.

With Covid-19 status no bar, the clinic has seen a surge of patients. “We are not insisting on Covid-19 certificates from patients. We want to give hassle-free treatment. Approximately, 95 patients are visiting the clinic for dialysis every month as opposed to 70 that were being admitted prelockdown,” said Halim. And patients are turning up even from far-off places like Murshidabad, about 200km from Kolkata.

Across the country, dialysis and cancer patients have struggled to get treatment during lockdown as hospitals were either busy with Covid-19 patients or conducting only emergency surgeries. There were reports of hospitals turned away patients out of fear that they could be asymptomatic carriers and infect others. For many such patients, Halim’s clinic has been a lifesaver.

Halim is being assisted by Kolkata Swasthya Sankalpa (KSS) — a non-profit initiative he started with 59 others — mostly friends and family — to keep the cost of medical treatments down. The association has been providing affordable dialysis services to needy patients for over a decade.

Dr Fuad Halim, son-in-law of former vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) Lt Gen (retd) Zameer Uddin Shah, started the service during the lockdown

UPSC to allow prelims candidates option of changing exam centre

UPSC to allow prelims candidates option of changing exam centre

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

02.07.2020

New Delhi: The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has offered applicants for Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2020, scheduled for October 4, the option of changing their examination centre. The new centres, the choice for which must be submitted to UPSC in two phases —July 7-13 and July 20-24 — will be allotted on a first-come-firstserved basis.

“Keeping in view the large number of candidates of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, 2020 (including the Indian Forest Service (Preliminary) Examination, 2020) and requests received from candidates for changing their centres, the commission has decided to give an opportunity to them to submit their revised choice of centre. The requests of the candidates for change in their centres will be considered against the additional/enhanced capacity intimated by the centres for accommodating the additional candidates,” UPSC said in a press release on Wednesday.

UPSC said all requests for change in the centres will be considered based on the principle of “first-apply-first allot” and once the capacity of a particular centre is attained, it will be frozen. The candidates who cannot get a centre of their choice due to the ceiling, will be required to choose from the remaining ones.

Full report on www.toi.in

IIT Bhubaneswar holds end-semester exams with 100% attendance

-Manash Gohain

New Delhi:

Even as top IITs ditched the final year exams and an increasing number of exams were cancelled in view of the prevailing Covid-19 outbreak, IIT Bhubaneswar showed the way by not only conducting the end-semester exams online, but ensuring 100% attendance. This second generation IIT customised the online exam system so that the examination could be conducted in a comprehensive form without any compromises, yet ensuring that the students are not put at risk.

Indian students from Gulf nations move SC seeking NEET-UG centres abroad

Indian students from Gulf nations move SC seeking NEET-UG centres abroad

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

02.07.2020

New Delhi: Nearly 4,000 Indian students in Gulf countries, the majority from Kerala, moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking examination centres abroad to appear in the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) scheduled for July 26 or its postponement till normalisation of the pandemic situation.

One of the parents, through advocates Pallavi Pratap and Haris Beeran, said most students had registered with Indian embassies in Qatar, Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia to travel to India on Vande Bharat mission flights and appear in the examination for admissions to MBBS and BDS courses in medical colleges. However, they could not be accommodated on the flights as priority was accorded to other categories of passengers stuck abroad.

In their appeal against a Kerala high court order refusing to interfere with NEET 2020 to be conducted by the National Testing Agency, petitioner Abdul Azeez said that the NTA had the capability and willingness to open examination centres in Gulf countries as they had been doing so for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admissions to IITs and NITs. However, the NTA said it would open examination centres abroad only if the Medical Council of India (MCI) approved the proposal.

“The MCI, in its communication dated May 21, informed that online test for NEET is not possible. During these exceptional circumstances, the MCI and the Union government need to be flexible so as to facilitate these students to sit for NEET,” the petitioner said.

Full report on www.toi.in

IN THE LURCH: The National Testing Agency said it would open NEET-UG examination centres abroad only if the Medical Council of India approved the proposal

They should not go scot free: Rajini

They should not go scot free: Rajini

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:02.02.2020

Actor Rajinikanth on Wednesday said those responsible for the twin custodial deaths at Sathankulam should be punished. “We need to ensure that,” Rajinikanth said in a statement, which was his first official reaction on the incident, even though he spoke to the family of the deceased over phone a few days ago.

“Even after people opposed and condemned the barbaric way the father and the son (P Jeyaraj and J Beniks) were tortured and killed, I am shocked at the way some policemen brazenly acted in the presence of a magistrate. All those involved should definitely be punished and we need to ensure that,” Rajinikanth said in the statement.

The statement was tweeted with a hashtag ‘satthiyama vidave koodadhu’ (I swear they shouldn’t go scot free) in Tamil. The tweet, which had a picture of a grim looking Rajinikanth, started trending nationally, soon after. While many hailed his statement as one of the “strongest” on the Sathankulam episode, quite a few questioned his delayed reaction on the episode, which has already been condemned nationally with even Bollywood stars and cricketers joining in.