CM Palaniswami lays foundation for Kallakurichi Medical College

CM Palaniswami lays foundation for Kallakurichi Medical College

College in Kallakurichi to come up at cost of Rs 381.76 cr; EPS also inaugurates slew of projects 

Published: 05th July 2020 05:56 AM 

CM Edappadi K Palaniswami (centre) lays the foundation for Kallakurichi Medical College and inaugurates several projects through video conferencing on Saturday

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Saturday laid the foundation for the Kallakurichi Medical College to be established at a cost of Rs 381.76 crore, through the video conferencing facility at the secretariat. The college will come up in 8.328-hectare land at Siruvangur village in Kallakurichi district. This college will be started with 150 MBBS students.

In 2019, the State government obtained permission for 11 new medical colleges, and of them, the foundation had already been laid for the colleges at Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, Dindigul, Tiruppur, Namakkal, Nagapattinam, Krishnagiri, and Tiruvallur district. 

An official release here said of the Rs 381.76 crore, the Central government’s share is 60 per cent (Rs 195 crore) and the State government’s share is 40 per cent (Rs 186.76). In the first phase, the Tamil Nadu government has released Rs 110 crore while the Centre has disbursed Rs 50 crore. The buildings for the new medical college will be constructed at a cost of Rs 132.50 crore, the hospital buildings attached to the college will be built at a cost of Rs 182.79 crore and Rs 66.47 crore will be spent on building hostels, residential quarters, etc.,

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister also inaugurated a Primary Health Centre at Nettur in Tiruveliveli district (Rs 1.20 crore), new buildings for PHCs at Kallankurichi (Ariyalur district), Pelara Halli (Dharmapuri district), Thirupachethi (Sivagangai district), Kasankadu and Kathiramangalam (Thanjavur district), P Dharmathupatti (Theni district), Melathevanallur (Tirunelveli district) and Velliraveli (Tiruppur district), at a total cost of Rs 4.72 crore.

Committee to advise on semester exams formed

Committee to advise on semester exams formed

The Tamil Nadu Higher Education Department on Saturday formed a 11-member committee to make recommendations regarding the conduct of University semester exams.

Published: 05th July 2020 06:36 AM |

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Higher Education Department on Saturday formed a 11-member committee to make recommendations regarding the conduct of University semester exams.The committee, headed by the principal secretary to the higher education department, was formed based on the guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

“Universities under the aegis of the higher education department are not in a position to conduct the semester exams in view of the pandemic outbreak,” the order noted. The committee has been asked to make recommendations about semester exams based on UGC guidelines. 

The committee also comprises of of the principal secretary to the Youth and Sports Welfare Department, Secretary to the Tamil Development and Information Department, Commissioner of Technical Education and the Vice Chancellors of Anna University, Bharathidasan University, Annamalai University, Alagappa University, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamil University and Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University.

‘Govt should pay school fees for students’

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday ordered notice to authorities, regarding a plea that sought quashing of a GO preventing school and college managements from collecting fees. According to Arulraj, the petitioner, the management of St Francis Xavier’s Matriculation School in Alwarpet ran an unaided school and depended wholly on fees paid by students to pay salaries to its employees. He argued, with the GO being issued, the government was disrupting the educational process. “Thus, the government should pay the fees,” he submitted

No decision on college exams, students in a limbo

No decision on college exams, students in a limbo

While sources said that the government has held discussions on whether to promote students or not, Pradeep said that it would require amendments to rules and approval from the governor.

Published: 05th July 2020 06:38 AM 

By Express News Service

BENGALURU: College students are still unsure whether or not they will have to write their final exams this year, as the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, which was expected to take a decision on Saturday, has not yet taken a call.Although the State government is deciding on the pros and cons of holding the exams, it will decide based on guidance from the MHRD. However, until Saturday evening, there was no word from the Union ministry, Commissioner for Collegiate Education, Pradeep P told The New Sunday Express.

While sources said that the government has held discussions on whether to promote students or not, Pradeep said that it would require amendments to rules and approval from the governor. These steps have to be followd even if the MHRD allows promotion without holding exams. In accordance with MHRD directives, the State government had mandated that lecturers complete the syllabus by June 15 and declared holidays till the end of the month. But on June 30, the MHRD allowed work from home for teaching and non-teaching staff until July 31. The state government, however, limited the extension of holidays for teaching staff to July 15. 

“Even if we continued classes, would it be for the same batch or the next one? This would solely depend on the government’s discretion,” a lecturer told The New Sunday Express. Should the department decide to hold exams, students must have four weeks of classes prior to that, said Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University. Prof K R Venugopal. 

President of Karnataka Government Teachers Association H Prakash said it would do a large number of undergraduate students great injustice if online classes are not compensated by real classroom teaching. “Even in the IT capital Bengaluru, a large number of students (in his estimate, 40 per cent) lack the necessary infrastructure for online classes. Several come from economically weaker backgrounds,” he said.

The Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT) has drawn the government’s attention to yet another hurdle to a seamless academic experience for students -- differing exam calendars among universities. It has urged the government to focus on a common curriculum system.

Delhi HC declines to entertain plea against K’taka quota in NLSIU

Bengaluru: The Delhi High Court on Friday declined to entertain a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Karnataka government’s decision to provide 25 per cent reservation to students from Karnataka. A division bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad declined to entertain the petition on the ground that it did not fall under its jurisdiction, but that of Karnataka, and permitted the petitioners the liberty to approach the relevant courts. The petitioner then withdrew the petition.

Not Happenin’ no more!

Not Happenin’ no more!

As 50-odd Chinese apps get the boot, its ardent fans down south talk about how much they will miss its services, and the inevitable task of finding an alternative, however less attractive they may be

Published: 04th July 2020 06:49 AM |

Highly popular 'TikTok' is just one among the 59 banned Chinese apps. (Photo | AP)

By Express News Service

CHENNAI : Arun Parthiban, marketing strategist and vlogger

Among the popularly used Chinese Apps, SHAREit did make life easier for transferring huge files. I am still searching for an alternative for that. CamScan was of a lot of help in my line of work but Adobe Scan is a superb alternative that we found after the ban. TikTok will be dearly missed by our youngsters and the UC Browser that people used to download movies from unauthorised sites will have to rest in peace. 

Maleeha Hasan, engineering student

The app I am going to miss the most is SHEIN. Of all the apps, this was the one I enjoyed using the most. Not only did this online shopping platform have some gorgeous styles and accessories, but it also had amazing flash sales where we could get anything listed for a huge discount (sometimes as much as 85 per cent!). I am missing all the clothes I had in my cart!

Rikit Shahi, law student

I miss CamScanner because it was my saviour during exams or when filling online applications. During exams, my friends used to circulate handwritten notes by scanning it on CamScanner. Like many students, my friends and I used to start studying one night before the exam and would keep calling the ‘topper friend’ to send these notes. If it wasn’t for these scanned notes, my friends and I would have submitted blank answer sheets.

Krithika Ramani, digital marketer

My dad was using CamScanner almost every day for his invoicing work. Now, I have to teach him to use Microsoft Lens or Adobe. He’s in the pharmaceutical field and works from home during the lockdown. Invoicing and getting the purchase order documents is very crucial for him. I told him to download other apps and try. It’s going to take a while for him to get used to it. But he’s quite upset; mainly because CamScanner correctly crops the documents for him.

Apoorva Mohan, psychology student

I’d say 50 per cent of TikTok content is problematic with sexist, violent, misogynistic tones, not to mention all the self-acclaimed experts who cropped up. I would definitely not miss that. On the other hand, it has been a great platform for small-scale content creators. For people who wanted to eventually move to large-scale sites like YouTube, TikTok was a great platform for them. Especially for queer people. There was also a lot of rural content like from farmers and truck drivers, which I would miss. Those were very wholesome to watch. Even if some of the content creators can afford a VPN (virtual private network) to bypass the ban, the same can’t be said for their target audience. And India is a huge demographic out of which maybe 20 per cent or even less will want to pay for a VPN. 

Vijay Ashokan, filmmaker 

As filmmakers, we usually have a lot of video files and photograph references to be shared between smartphones, and between smartphones and PCs or laptops. Especially during video-editing and voice-recording. SHAREit saves a lot of time that is spent towards uploading video files in the drive and downloading it on the phone. It’s a fantastic app among animators and filmmakers because we can easily share files between teams during a creative workflow. SHAREit for PC comes with a special feature that allows group sharing for up to five devices. So when a creative team is working on a project, we can send work files to them simultaneously. Despite other technological advancements, this one hasn’t lost its sheen.

Saranyaa Murkesh, programme producer (TV)

I still remember the day I installed SHEIN and spent the next few days pouring over its pages — all those dresses. I think there is no other online store that gives you such dresses for such prices. It had a winning combination of trending designs, decent quality and affordable rates. SHEIN made fashion easy for all of us. It was painful to see my favourite shopping app being banned.

Taha Naveed, engineering student

I’ll miss Xender because the best aspect of it was that it did not have intrusive ads. The app features swipe and shares, which allowed sharing with a single shake of the device. It could share any type of files from simple images to high-quality videos with great speed, which saved time and allowed multiple connections and simultaneous file-sharing between all of them.

Nausher Din, lead technology analyst

Everyone is missing TikTok, CamScanner and SHAREit, which were the most popular Chinese apps, but I’m missing Clean Master.For my Vivo Android phone, I had Clean Master to clear and optimise my storage. It used to delete all duplicate images downloaded by WhatsApp. The app also used to protect my phone from viruses. I found the app very effective for my phone. Now, until I find a better alternative, I’ll have to manually clean my phone storage.

(Inputs by Kannalmozhi Kabilan, Naaz Ghani, Tamanna S Mehdi and Vaishali Vijaykumar)

With intense lockdown coming to an end in Chennai, here's what will be allowed from July 6

With intense lockdown coming to an end in Chennai, here's what will be allowed from July 6

The Chief Minister also said that apart from these new steps, the lockdown till July 31 will continue with the measures that were in force before June 19.

Published: 04th July 2020 06:46 PM |

A medical team take the swab test to find Corona at a street off Kummallamman Koil street Tondiarpet on Thursday in Chennai. (Photo | P Jawahar, EPS)

By Express News Service

CHENNAI: Just as the complete lockdown comes to an end in Chennai on Sunday, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Saturday announced some more relaxations and restrictions for the city from July 6.

He also said that apart from these steps, the lockdown till July 31 will continue with the measures that were in force before June 19.

The additional relaxations and restrictions that will be in force from July 6 in the Chennai police commissionerate limits are as follows:

1. Only takeaways are allowed in hotels between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. Delivering food items from hotels through telephone orders will also be allowed till 9 p.m. Employees delivering food items should have their identity cards.

2. Only takeaways are allowed in tea shops between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

3. Except for malls, all showrooms and large format shops (viz. jewellery and textiles shops) can function between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. with the guidelines already issued.

The Chief Minister said all other activities within the limits of the Chennai Police Commissionerate can take place as per the relaxations and restrictions that were in force before June 19.

Covid hosp at KGMU centre spurs protest

Covid hosp at KGMU centre spurs protest

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow  05.07.2020

 A group of differently abled persons staged a protest at Rehabilitation and Artificial Limbs Centre on King George’s Medical University (KGMU) campus on Saturday against the authorities’ decision to convert the building in to a Covid-19 hospital.

“Artificial limbs are made in this workshop for hundreds of patients, who are waiting to get a prosthesis since the lockdown was enforced. If the workshop is shifted to another, it will take months more to reassemble the workshop and further delay the delivery of the prosthesis,” said Suraj, secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Viklang Manch, the organisation which staged the demonstration.

The differently abled persons protested by holding placards. They wrote a message for the Prime Minister to save the building.

Differently abled persons protest at KGMU limb centre

SBI asked to pay up ₹6.36 L for misplacing title deed

SBI asked to pay up ₹6.36 L for misplacing title deed

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Hyderabad: 05.07.2020

A district consumer forum here has directed SBI to pay ₹6.36 lakh to a senior citizen for misplacing his title deeds, which were in the bank’s custody.

According to the complainant, Syed Baquar Hussain, who is a retired government officer, he mortgaged his house with State Bank of Hyderabad, Darussalam Branch to provide higher education to his sons. He submitted his original documents and title deed to the bank and took a loan of ₹22 lakh from SBH, now SBI. Hussain further submitted that he cleared the loan in 2008, but the bank failed to return all his original documents. He said that on May 2, 2012, the bank gave a letter saying that his documents have been misplaced. This caused him “ mental tension” as he was scared that someone might misuse the documents, he added. The complainant said that he even filed a writ petition to get the issue resolved, but in vain as the bank failed to comply with the orders issued by the court.

The opposite party, in its written version, submitted that as the loan documents of the complainant are misplaced, the bank manager was not in a position to return them after the loan clearance. They said that aggrieved by the same, the complainant already approached HC and got a remedy/direction, and therefore, he is precluded from approaching this Forum once again. They claimed the bank has complied with directions given by the court and said that the allegations made are utterly false and are denied.

The opposite parties utterly failed in keeping title deeds safely without any proper security. Even though the complainant cleared his loan by September 2008, till today he has been struggling to get justice

District Consumer Forum