Maha may impose lockdown if cases keep rising: Health minister

Maha may impose lockdown if cases keep rising: Health minister

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pune:23.03.2021 

Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope on Monday urged the public to follow Covid-19 safety protocols if the state is to avoid another lockdown.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray was of the view that lockdown may become necessary in some cities if new cases continue to climb, Tope told reporters. At the same time, he also defended the state’s response to rising cases and pointed out that in terms of cases per million population, many states have fared worse. “He told me that if the number of daily cases in the state remains in the range of 25,000 to 30,000 for the next some days, then we will have to take some stringent steps. He is of the opinion that if the numbers continue to increase, we will have to impose lockdown in some cities,” the minister said.

He has discussed the latest surge in cases with epidemiologists, the health minister said. “According to their estimate, the graph of Covid-19 cases will remain the same for the next two to three days and after that, it will decline. I think this is a peak and I hope it will go down," said Tope.

The minister said CM Thackeray favoured a lockdown in a few cities if cases continued to rise

67-yr-old retired teacher from IIT-Madras zone cracks GATE

67-yr-old retired teacher from IIT-Madras zone cracks GATE

17-Year-Old From IIT-Kanpur Zone Youngest to Qualify

Yogita.Rao@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:23.03.2021 

A 67-year-old from the IIT-Madras zone and a 17-year-old prodigy from the IIT-Kanpur region were among the only 17.8% candidates who cracked Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) this year.

Ritik Sharma, 17, a thirdyear mechanical engineering student from Dayalbagh Educational Institute in Uttar Pradesh is the youngest to qualify. Usually, BTech graduates or final-year students take the exam.

Sankaranarayanan Sankarapandian is a retired teacher from the IIT-Madras zone and has qualified in both computer science & engineering and mathematics. He had completed his MSc in 1976 from AVVM Sri Pushpam College, Thanjavur. The organising institutes do not impose an age bar on candidates. An 88-year-old was the oldest to register for the test this year but did not appear for it eventually.

GATE is a qualifying exam for those seeking admissions to masters and PhD programmes in science and technology and placements in public sector undertakings. The success rate in the exam is usually below 20%.

Of more than 1.2 lakh candidates who cleared the exam, one-fourth are currently in their final-year, also the highest numbers in any category, said Deepankar Choudhury, from IIT-Bombay, organising chairman of GATE 2021. This could be probably because the final-year students are in their regular studies and GATE is mainly based on undergraduate syllabus, he added. Due to the pandemic, IIT-Bombay, the organising institute for GATE 2021, allowed thirdyear students to appear for the competitive exam too. Close to 10,000 students in this group have qualified in the test. Around 26,000 who qualified, completed their graduation last year and 3,837 candidates graduated in 2015 as well.

GATE, jointly organised by the seven older IITs and IISc-Bengaluru, was conducted in 27 subjects this year, with the addition of humanities & social sciences and environmental science & engineering. Toppers in at least six subjects are from the IIT-Bombay zone, including the linguistics paper under humanities. The institutes had opened the exam to humanities students for the first time. The success rate in each of the subjects varied from 8.4% to 29.5%.

Sankaranarayanan Sankarapandian, 67, has qualified in both computer science & engineering and mathematics. He had completed his MSc in 1976 from AVVM Sri Pushpam College, Thanjavur

CBSE students can now retake exam same year

FOR BETTER SCORES

CBSE students can now retake exam same year

New Delhi:23.03.2021 

Starting this year, Class X and XII students wanting to improve their Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination scores not need have to wait a year for another shot at the exam. Rather, they can appear for an improvement paper in the same academic session. Such candidates will have to appear in the compartment exams conducted a few months after the declaration of results.

The change is in compliance with National Education Policy, which suggests giving multiple opportunities to board aspirants to score well. According to the new rule, the better of the two scores obtained in a subject will be considered for

declaration of the results and candidates who improve their performance will be issued a combined marksheet.

The only rider is that students can apply for improvement in only one subject. TNN

CBSE Class X, XII exams will begin from May 4

Earlier, if students had to improve their performance in board exams, they had to wait for a complete year and appear in the exam with the next batch. “Recently, the government of India has released the national education policy wherein it has envisaged that students must be given multiple opportunities for improving the performances in subjects opted by them. As per the earlier rule, candidates could improve the performance only in the succeeding year. For improving the performance, any student had to wait for complete one year as these candidates were allowed to appear in the examination conducted next year only. Keeping in view the recommendations made in the NEP, CBSE has decided to extend the opportunities,” said Sanyam Bhardwaj, CBSE examination controller.

“This permission will be made available to the candidates appearing in the 2021 examination and if they wish to improve the performance in any one subject, they may again apply in the compartment examination for appearing to improve the performance,” added Bhardwaj. CBSE Class X exams will begin from May 4 and conclude on June 7, while Class XII exams will be held between May 4 and June 11.

ALL FOR IMPROVEMENT

Cutting tricolour cake not an insult to national flag, says HC

Cutting tricolour cake not an insult to national flag, says HC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:23.03.2021 

Cutting and consuming a cake with the icing of Indian National Flag would not amount to insult to the National Flag, Madras high court has clarified.

“…there is no doubt that nationalism in a democracy like India is very vital. But hyper and surfeit adherence to it goes against the prosperity of our nation from all its past glory,” Justice N Anand Venkatesh said.

"A patriot is not one who only raises the flag, symbolises his national pride and wears it on his sleeve, but also a person who bats for good governance. The symbolisation of national pride is not synonymous with patriotism, just like how cutting a cake is not unpatriotic,” the court added. Justice Anand Venkatesh made the clarification while setting aside an order passed by a Coimbatore judicial magistrate directing registration of FIR against organisers of a Christmas celebration where a cake bearing the tricolour was cut.

“For proper understanding, let us take a hypothetical case where there is widespread participation in an Independence Day or Republic Day celebrations. During such celebrations, the participants are provided with a national flag to be worn by them. After the participants leave the venue on completion of the celebrations, they do not continue to possess this flag forever, and it becomes part of any other wastepaper,” the court said.

The judge added, “Will this mean that each of the participants has insulted the national flag and should be proceeded against under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act? The obvious answer is ‘no’. If people can give such broad meaning to the word ‘insult’, many will become uncomfortable and hesitant to handle the national flag,” the court said.

“If people can give such broad meaning to the word ‘insult’, many will become uncomfortable and hesitant to handle the national flag,” the court said

Doctors remove brain tumour after 8-hour surgery

REGION DIGEST

23.03.2021 

Doctors remove brain tumour after 8-hour surgery

Doctors at Rainbow Children’s Hospital, Chennai, removed a large tumor from the base of the skull of a four-year-old boy from the Middle East, through a complex surgery that spanned over eight hours. The tumor had caused a blockage in the circulation of fluid in the brain and had also affected the boy’s ability to see in the left eye, an official release said. The child was brought to the hospital with symptoms of headache, impaired vision, appetite loss and vomiting. After performing an MRI scan and other allied tests, the patient was found to have a large ‘tennis ball-sized’ tumor in his skull base, which was compressing the nerves to his eyes. The tumor was a large hypothalamic chiasmatic glioma. These uncommon tumors account for about 3% of childhood brain tumors. Adults almost never have this kind of tumor. The treatment of these tumors is very challenging due to the presence of many vital brain structures in the tumor’s vicinity. A team of doctors at the hospital decided to do a surgery using a complex skull base approach to remove the tumor. This surgery is used in adult patients to treat brain and sinus cancers but is rarely used in children. The patient was wheeled into the operation theatre for an eighthour-long surgery, wherein the tumor was completely removed with the preservation of his vision as well as his pituitary gland. The accumulated brain fluid was also released, thereby abating the need for a shunt surgery.

City hospital receives JCI accreditation: MGM Healthcare announced on Monday that it has received the prestigious Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, which is considered the gold standard in healthcare worldwide. An extensive on-site audit was conducted at the hospital by a team of international expert surveyors. They assessed the hospital’s patient safety goals, patient assessment and care, anaesthesia and surgical care, medication management, patient and family education, quality improvement, infection prevention and control, among others.

Madras University to offer 12 online courses from 2021-22

Madras University to offer 12 online courses from 2021-22

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:23.03.2021 

University of Madras will offer 12 online degree and diploma programmes in various subjects including economics, psychology, retail management and maths from 2021-22.

The university signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), an autonomous body of the University Grants Commission, to jointly offer online degree programmes.

Madras University vicechancellor S Gowri, CEC director Jagat Bhushan Nadda and joint director Nageshwar Nat signed the MoU to partner to develop content for eLearning initiatives.

“CEC hosts one of the largest repositories of digitised educational content. The MoU will help the university to fasttrack design, development and deploying of these online degree programmes,” Gowri said.

TN colleges, univs go online again

STATE GOVT BARS PHYSICAL CLASSES

TN colleges, univs go online again

Chennai:23.03.2021 

The Tamil Nadu government on Monday ordered all colleges, universities and deemed universities to stop holding physical classes and conduct only online classes from March 23 due to the rising Covid-19 cases in the state.

An order issued by chief secretary Rajeev Ranjan said colleges should complete all practical classes and practical exams before March 31, and must hold end-semester exams only through online mode.

In view of the recent spike in Covid-19 cases, the chief secretary conducted a videoconference meeting with vicechancellors, director of technical education, director of collegiate education, director of public health and preventive medicine (DPH) and other health officials.

“The DPH said there are reports emerging about clusters in colleges and hostels and considering the trend in many states, these clusters have the potential to contribute spread disease in their place of residence and surrounding community,” the government order said. TNN

Final semester exam to be held online

The government order read: “The vice-chancellors said classes can be conducted online as70%to80%syllabushavebeen covered. For science stream students, practical classes and examination are going on,”

“The government after careful examination directs all higher educational institutions under thecontrolof thehigher education department and deemed universities to conduct online classes six days a week from March 23. All practical classes and practical exams for science, engineering and polytechnic shall be completed before March 31, especially for final semester students. The semester examination will be an online exam,” Rajeev Ranjan said in the order.