Excluding Married Daughter From Seeking Benefit Of Compassionate Appointment Is Unconstitutional: Karnataka High Court

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மருத்துவ படிப்பு நிர்வாக இடத்திற்கு 19ல் கவுன்சிலிங்

DINAMALAR

மருத்துவ படிப்பு நிர்வாக இடத்திற்கு 19ல் கவுன்சிலிங்

Added : டிச 16, 2020 22:34

சென்னை:மருத்துவ படிப்பில், சுயநிதி கல்லுாரிகளில் உள்ள நிர்வாக ஒதுக்கீட்டுக்கான மாணவர் சேர்க்கை, நாளை மறுதினம்துவங்குகிறது.

தமிழகத்தில், எம்.பி.பி.எஸ்., - பி.டி.எஸ்., படிப்புகளுக்கான மாணவர் சேர்க்கை கவுன்சிலிங், சென்னை, நேரு விளையாட்டரங்கில் நடந்து வருகிறது. அரசு பள்ளி மாணவர்களுக்கான உள் ஒதுக்கீடு, சிறப்பு பிரிவு, பொதுப்பிரிவு மற்றும் இட ஒதுக்கீட்டு என, அரசு ஒதுக்கீட்டு இடங்களுக்கான முதற்கட்ட கவுன்சிலிங் முடிந்து, அரசு ஒதுக்கீட்டில், 921 இடங்கள் காலியாக உள்ளன.

இந்நிலையில், தனியார் மருத்துவக் கல்லுாரிகளின் நிர்வாக ஒதுக்கீட்டில், 952 எம்.பி.பி.எஸ்., - 695 பி.டி.எஸ்., இடங்களுக்கான கவுன்சிலிங், நாளை மறுதினம் முதல், 23ம் தேதி வரை நடைபெற உள்ளது. இடையில் வரும், ஞாயிற்றுக் கிழமை விடுமுறை அளிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.

Dates for JEE-Mains 2021 announced

Dates for JEE-Mains 2021 announced

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: 17.12.2020

The National Testing Agency on Wednesday announced the dates for all the four cycles of JEE (Main) exam to be held between February and May, 2021. With the addition of Marathi, the computer-based competitive exam for admission to engineering and architecture courses will be held for the first time in 13 languages.

Each cycle will have four two-shift exam days, except May with five. It will be held from February 23-26, March 15-18, April 27-30 and May 24-28. The registration for the exam started on Wednesday and will continue till January 16. Aspirants can register for all four cycles and make payment. In case a candidate does not want to appear in a particular cycle, the fee, if already paid, will be refunded.

Since 2016, JEE (Main) has been offered in English, Hindi and Gujarati. Candidates can now also opt to take the test in 10 other vernacular languages – Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. The uncertainty regarding the schedule of Board exams amid the pandemic prompted the agency to offer four cycles from 2021 which, NTA said, “will give multiple opportunities to candidates to improve their scores and reduce the need of dropping a year”.

Full report on www.toi.in

SC seeks Centre’s response on plea for uniform divorce law

SC seeks Centre’s response on plea for uniform divorce law

Also Cautiously Entertains PIL On Maintenance Law

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  17.12.2020

A quarter century after asserting in the Sarla Mudgal case that the country could brook no delay in enacting a Uniform Civil Code, the Supreme Court on Wednesday warily entertained two PILs seeking uniform divorce laws and uniformity in grant of maintenance and alimony to women, and sought the Centre's response.

Appearing for petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, senior advocates Pinky Anand and Meenakshi Arora argued that different modes of divorce and varied means of maintenance and alimony to women provided for under personal laws violated the right to equality and nondiscrimination and were an affront to women's right to dignity, which is part and parcel of their right to life.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian appeared circumspect about entertaining the plea.

‘How can alimony differ for women of different religions’

The court appeared apprehensive whether doing so would mark an intrusion into the personal laws of religious minorities who are sensitive about what they consider to be a constitutionally guaranteed autonomy.

“Can we remove discriminatory practices against women in various religious communities without encroaching into their personal laws?” the bench asked.

However, the Anand-Arora duo, a strategic choice by Upadhyay to argue his case, made a strong pitch for the court to overcome its hesitancy. Anand reminded the bench that the Supreme Court did tread on personal laws when it declared instant divorce among Muslims through triple talaq unconstitutional.

Arora argued for judicial intervention by stressing that despite the SC’s exhortation in the Mudgal ruling, the Centre had not moved to bring in Uniform Civil Code. “Women and gender equality go hand in hand. How can alimony or maintenance be different for women belonging to different religions?” she asked.

The bench was still not persuaded and said it was not the state which was discriminating between women of different communities. “It is citizens who are discriminating against fellow citizens through use of personal laws,”the CJI asked.

However, Arora said, “It is the bounden duty of the state to ensure equality and dignity to all women irrespective of their religion.” Even when the bench came around to issue notice to the Centre, it clarified that it was doing so “with great caution”, its approach offering a stark contrast with the assertiveness it showed in the Shah Bano case in 1985. “A common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to law which have conflicting ideologies,” the court had unambiguously stated at the time.

Full report on www.toi.in

Soon, you can buy insurance and pension products on WhatsApp

Soon, you can buy insurance and pension products on WhatsApp

Digbijay.Mishra@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru:  17.12.2020

Consumers would be able to buy sachetsized health insurance on WhatsApp by the end of the year, said Abhijit Bose, India head for WhatsApp.

The Facebook-owned platform, which launched payments recently, is running pilots to enable financial services companies to sell microinsurance and pension products to consumers by using its application programming interface (API). This is the first time the company has given a timeline for launching these products in India.

WhatsApp has partnered with SBI General Insurance for health insurance, and is working with HDFC Pension and pinBox Solutions to offer pension products. Bose, who was speaking at a company organised event, said WhatsApp plans to also run similar projects in education and agriculture to reach its 400 million users in India. “WhatsApp has been proactively working on several pilots to help ensure that every adult has access to basic and critical financial and livelihood services through their mobile device,” he said.

TOI reported earlier this year that WhatsApp was working with partners in financial services to offer micro-loans, pensions and other such products. Previously, Bose had cited examples of pension products targeted at the 300 million self-employed workers in India at the cost of just Rs 50 a day.

By partnering with WhatsApp, the financial services firms are hoping to tap into a large set of users. “Unfortunately, the penetration of health insurance is very low, which means it leaves out a large population that needs access to affordable insurance cover. We are keen to contribute to the county by not just bringing an easy and affordable solution, but also an easy and simple distribution platform for the end users,” said Prakash Chandra Kandpal, MD & CEO, SBI General Insurance.

EXPANDING BIZ

Singapore prepares to plate up lab grown chicken: Technology is driving the environmental and economic future of food

Singapore prepares to plate up lab grown chicken: Technology is driving the environmental and economic future of food

Renuka.Bisht@timesgroup.com

17.12.2020

Food is tradition for us. It is also an unending adventure.

Homo sapiens have shown a distinct ability to create all kinds of new foods and grow to adore them, like chewing gum which we cannot digest and which is made of synthetic rubber. Even the food that is good for us we habitually refashion to an almost unrecognisable extent. We genetically modified wheat well before 8000 BC and in more recent decades we have persuaded chickens to increase their breast size by 35-85%.

Now a whole different chapter of this journey is being scripted, with the Singapore Food Agency giving the stamp of approval to an American startup’s cultured chicken, which is billed as “real, highquality meat created directly from animal cells for safe human consumption.” This is a long way from 2013, when a burger created from cow cells was eaten at a news conference in London, because this time a commercial launch looks imminent, first in the form of nuggets then fillets.

Before science, technology and data collection, innovation is about the mindset. It is about our attitude to change. For many of us, the instinctive response is to resist change. For Indians specifically, the weakness of the welfare net makes the fear of failure and hence the investment in status quo extra intense. We assume change will be for the worse. But this is a vicious circle that we need to break out of, for change is inevitable, and the only question is whether we can make the most of it, or weakly watch from the sidelines while someone else is always taking the driving seat.

As a low-lying island state Singapore is serious in tackling sustainability as an existential challenge. Moving faster than countries like the US, Israel and the Netherlands which are leading in research in lab-grown meats reflects an exploratory spirit combined with an acute desire to strengthen food security in the longer term, where the environmental costs of current farming practices are crying for change. At the same time Singapore’s high standards of regulating food mean that prospects of cultured meats going to markets in other countries have risen dramatically now.

The “I’m lovin’ it” jingle for a fast food chain does put its finger on humanity’s meatloving pulse. And the plantbased meats that are already on many global shelves have drawn complaints on this front, for not being juicy enough, not having quite as enjoyous a texture etc. Meats being cultured from actual animal cells promise to make up this taste shortfall.

It is true that the bioreactors in which all this cooking takes place are very energy intensive, so the greener the energy in the greener will be the meat out. Still, the ethical, economic and environmental case for such meats is unbeatable. No animal need be killed, no tree need be cut, no biodiversity loss, no zoonotic diseases, no antibiotics abuse, no air pollution. And on the other side, there is the pivotal FAO finding that total emissions from global livestock represent 14.5% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions.

As increases in population and prosperity both drive an increase in demand for meat, diverting more land, water and emission footprints to this is a fool’s game – when a much better alternative is at the doorstep. For India, there are special implications. Research suggests that overall vegetarianism is no more than 30% of the population and likely closer to 20%, but low incomes keep regular consumption of animal protein out of reach. Scaling up current farming practices isn’t a rosy option for this when they are already making parts of India unlivable.

Where there is a will there is a way, the super expedited outlay of the Covid-19 vaccine has underlined. Production costs of lab-grown meats have already come down substantially since 2013 and they are headed definitely south like renewable energy. India needs to be looking at such developments proactively. It bears underlining that the kind of petrified hesitancy it has shown with GM food crops has served the country very ill.

Only the lazy or the duplicitous blame the first Green Revolution for all the lack of environmental upgrades that should have followed it, but didn’t. The same principle applies today, except on a whoppingly bigger scale. New food technologies need a lot of smart monitoring. But running away from the job will only mean more malnourishment for our children. We have to decide whether they will be cursing us tomorrow or eating green chicken and lovin’ it.

By contrast, the petrified hesitancy India has shown with GM food crops has served it very ill