[Breaking] Permitted To Conduct Final Year Exams After Taking Into Account The Academic Interest Of Students: Home Ministry Tells SC [Read Affidavit]

[Breaking] Permitted To Conduct Final Year Exams After Taking Into Account The Academic Interest Of Students: Home Ministry Tells SC [Read Affidavit]: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has informed the Supreme Court that it permitted the conduct of exams by Universities and Institutions vide notification dated July 6, 2020, after taking into...

Baalu writes to Union health minister on FMG exams

Baalu writes to Union health minister on FMG exams

Chennai:14.08.2020

DMK parliamentary party leader T R Baalu on Thursday wrote to Union health minister Harsha Vardhan urging him to issue early notification of examination centres for candidates taking up the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE), 2020, slated for August 31.

“Some of the FMGE candidates used to be allotted exam centres in neighbouring states in the past. Travelling long distances has become costly in the absence of public transport. While inter-district travel requires e-passes, their availability has become next to impossible for the poor and common people,” Baalu said. Considering the difficulties, he urged the minister to notify exam centres early and help candidates from Tamil Nadu write exams at centres within the state. TNN

Ambattur, Alandur zones record rise in active cases

Ambattur, Alandur zones record rise in active cases

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:14.08.2020

At a time when the number of active Covid-19 cases across zones of Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is decreasing, Ambattur and Alandur zones are the only ones to record an increase in active cases over the last two weeks, corporation data shows.

Interestingly, these are zones which managed to buck the trend of a wide spread of Covid-19 during the months of April and May, but are now showing an uptick.

In fact, as on Thursday morning, Ambattur had the highest number of active cases (1,475) in the city. This forms 20% of the total cases in the zone so far.

Meanwhile, Alandur has 569 active cases which formed 15% of the case load so far.

While Ambattur had 1,266 active cases exactly two weeks ago, Alandur had 563, a minor increase of only six cases. This comes at a time when eight of the 15 zones have 10 or lesser percentage of active cases. These zones are Tiruvottiyur, Manali, Tondiarpet, Royapuram, TVK Nagar, Anna Nagar, Teynampet and Kodambakkam. The total number of active cases in the city is only 10,953 as on Thursday morning, which is only 10% of the total number of cases so far.

Official sources say that in Ambattur zone, the wards which are proving to be a headache for control are 80, 82, 83, 87 and 88. This includes the Padi area where many cases have come up, say sources. Around 300 cases in the last two weeks have been detected at the fever camps alone.

As a means of tackling this, Greater Chennai Corporation has started increasing awareness of fever camps in the city. This has meant that the average number of outpatients per camp in Ambattur is now the highest in the city.

Sources say that since this is an industrialised area, many of the infections are spreading through the factory workers.

In Alandur, officials say that the number of fresh cases being recorded everyday is dropping and the trend shows a decline in the spread, despite a slight increase in the number of active cases. Sources said that the number of active cases has dropped from 18% to 15% in two weeks.

As on Thursday morning, Ambattur had the highest number of active cases (1,475) in the city. This forms 20% of the total cases in the zone so far

SRM hospital inks MoU on eye treatment

SRM hospital inks MoU on eye treatment

Chennai:  14.08.2020

SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre (SRMMCHRC) and Aravind Eye Hospital signed an MoU to provide regular retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening for high-risk babies by a team of experts on its campus in Kattankulathur.

SRMMCHRC said Aravind Eye Hospital will provide a team of experts and expertise to conduct the screening at SRM’s Kattakulatur campus. Apart from screening, experts from the eye hospital will provide treatment advice, perform interventions in the form of laser or intravitreal injection or surgery free of cost.

Pro vice-chancellor (Medical) Dr A Ravi Kumar said, “The idea is to catch the illness early and treat it. This process is a welcoming effort, and this opens new avenues for treatment.”

Dr Prabhu Baskaran, vitreoretinal surgeon from Aravind Eye Hospital, said ROP screening will be done by a trained technician while the intervention will be done by a doctor. TNN

UGC: Final yr exams must, states can’t cancel them

UGC: Final yr exams must, states can’t cancel them

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

14.08.2020

The UGC told the Supreme Court on Thursday the decision of Maharashtra and Delhi governments to cancel final year college exams citing the pandemic was void ab initio (invalid at the outset) and couldn’t override the UGC’s directions to universities to conduct final year exams by September 30 through online or offline modes.

“Neither the Disaster Management Act, 2005, nor the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, empower the state… to take decisions that affect or impact the standards of higher education. Under the UGC Act, it is the UGC alone which is mandated to maintain such standards,” the University Grants Commission said in its affidavit. “Therefore, the decisions of the state authority and the state government (to cancel final examinations) are an encroachment on the legislative field of coordinating and determining the standards of higher education.”

Final exams are a crucial step in academic career of students: UGC

In an earlier statement, the UGC had said of the 640 universities that had submitted responses, more than 400 had either completed final exams or planned to do so using the prescribed modes. The UGC, in its affidavit, said Maharashtra could not fall back on the DM Act to encroach into a domain exclusively reserved for the commission.

“The state disaster management authority’s June 18 decision not to hold last year final semester examination of both professional and non-professional courses and the consequent government resolution dated June 19 as well as the state authority’s July 13 decision reiterating nonholding of examination, are in violation of the UGC’s April 29 and July 6 guidelines, which must be followed by universities/institutions and, as such, are void ab initio,” the commission said.

The UGC emphasised the need to conduct terminal or final examinations, saying it was acrucial step in the academic career of a student. “Therefore, the UGC has issued such guidelines to protect the academic future of students across the country which will be irreparably damaged if their final year/terminal semester examinations are not held,” it

Indians having any valid visa can now fly to the UAE

Indians having any valid visa can now fly to the UAE

Centre lifts curbs imposed for pandemic

13/08/2020

S. Anil Radhakrishnan THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

With the Union government lifting the pandemic-induced curbs on tourist and visit visas for travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after five months, airlines can now carry any Indian national holding any type of valid UAE visa to the seven emirates.

Till now, only Indian and UAE nationals having resident visa, fresh job visa or student visa were allowed to travel on flights operated by Air India Group and Air India Express and on chartered flights to the UAE.

“It would be for the airlines concerned to ensure that there is no travel restriction for Indian nationals to enter the UAE with the particular visa category before issuing ticket and boarding pass,” the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a communication

The Centre was under pressure to allow everyone with valid UAE visas to travel after the General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs in Dubai started issuing new visit visas for Indians. Relatives of NRIs were not able to fly to the seven emirates due to the restrictions.

Why Online Option For Exams Can't Be Given When Viva Was Done Online?, Karnataka HC Asks VTU

Why Online Option For Exams Can't Be Given When Viva Was Done Online?, Karnataka HC Asks VTU

12 Aug 2020 2:34 PM

Mustafa Plumber12 Aug 2020 2:34 PM

The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday asked the Visvesaraya Technical University (VTU) to respond by tomorrow on why online examinations cannot be held when the viva was done online.

A bench of Jusitce Sunil Datt Yadav also asked the VTU to place on record the reasonable gap for conducting special exams. The University will have to respond as to the time within which the second chance will be accorded to students.

Further, the bench asked the State Government to clarify the relaxations in quarantine requirements of students.

The Court was hearing a petition filed by students of Bangalore Institute of Technology seeking the option of exams through online mode as well.

Advocate Bhargav Bhat, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that the VTU held viva through online mode.

"If you can do one exam online, it is not fair to say that you cannot do written exams online", he said.

He added that many universities like Christ, NLSIU etc conducted online exams, and VTU cannot claim difficulties in following the same path, especially so being a 'technical university'.

"Unprecedented situation needs creative solutions", Bhat said.

The bench suggested that the University should provide the options of online and offline exams.

"They are not seeking for postponement; they are only seeking for online option for exams", the judge told the counsel for VTU.

"You will have to respond. Place it in witting why exams cannot be done online when viva is being done online", the bench told the VTU.

In the morning, the bench had asked the counsel of VTU to get instructions by 1.30 PM as to whether online option can be given for exams.

In the afternoon, the VTU told the bench that at this moment, it was not feasible for it to offer online exams.

When the bench pointed out that the UGC guidelines provide for the online option, the UGC's counsel replied that the guidelines are advisory in nature and University has to chart out its own rules.

During the morning session, the petitioners' counsel pointed out that the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Human Resources Development provide for the option of online exams.

"Not once VTU has said why it has decided to hold offline exams only. The current situation in Karnataka is not conducive. Travel is a problem, stay is a problem. 14-day home quarantine is mandated", Bhatt submitted.

The counsel for VTU cited practical difficulties in holding online exams.

"There are 70,000 students who will be appearing for exams and around 1 lakh students who have backlog will be appearing. The first issue will be the distribution of exam papers. Second will be who will monitor the students who opted for online exams", he submitted.

Bhatt sought to counter these submissions by saying that 95% of the students took internal exams via online mode only.