Online quiz to up discussion skills of Class X students

 Online quiz to up discussion skills of Class X students

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:11.10.2021

The school education department is conducting weekly online quiz every Saturday to spur Class X students to take part in classroom discussions, The basic quiz is aimed at bridging the gap in learning for government school students who have been learning through Kalvi TV video lessons in the past 18 months.

The quiz is designed based on the learning outcomes of Class IX and X lessons. A quiz is conducted for 90 minutes and students have to attend 10 objective type questions from each of the five subjects at a hi-tech lab in high and higher secondary schools.

After each quiz, the department sends questions with correct answers for classroom discussions.

"The questions will not be directly from textbooks and the performance will not be counted for any evaluation. The main purpose is to initiate classroom discussions as these children were away from schools for a long time," an official from the school education department said.

The department is planning to conduct eight quizzes, and so far, four have been completed.

However, teachers said students are finding it difficult to answer the questions as a majority of the questions are from outside the textbooks.

"It's a good move, however, the internet speed in hitech labs is very slow and many students could not submit their responses due to poor net connection. The state government should provide high speed internet connectivity to government schools on priority basis," said A Peter Raja, president, Tamil Nadu High and Higher Secondary School Headmasters' Association.

Railways wants to shut down schools, shift students to KVs

Railways wants to shut down schools, shift students to KVs

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:11,10,.2021

The Railway Board has once again mooted a proposal to shut down schools run by zonal railways which don’t have a significant number of students on their rolls. Those schools with substantial number of students may be merged with Kendriya Vidyalayas, the board said.

In a letter issued on September 28, Mahesh Kumar Meena, joint director (establishment) in Railway Board wrote to zonal railways to assess schools managed by them.

This is in line with the board's instructions which stipulate that ‘efforts should be made to progressively close down existing railway schools matching the expansion of KVs and other nonrailway schools.’ Eventually, railway schools would be transferred to Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS).

This is being done to optimise the utilisation of resources spent on running schools, the letter stated. “A quota for children of railway employees might be given in KVs,” the letter stated.

The letter has asked zonal railways to identify railway schools which can be handed over to KVs and also close down schools where the enrolment is small and where it is not feasible to merge it with another institution.

Southern Railway runs seven schools (six of which are in Tamil Nadu), which has a total enrolment of 2627. Amount allotted to them is around Rs 20 lakh. These schools are in Perambur, Arakkonam, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Erode, Pothanur and Palakkad.

M Suryaprakash, working general secretary of Southern Railway Employees Sangh (SRES), which is one of the unions representing employee issues, said that this was a move keeping in line with the Union government’s plan to privatise railways.

“Facilities like schools and hospitals were created by Railways for the benefit of its vast number of employees. It is the government’s responsibility to maintain and upgrade them, instead of shutting it down. Railway schools can offer some special railway related subjects that can help students prepare for a career in the organisation,” he said.

Met dept predicts more rain

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:11.10.2021

The city will continue to receive thunderstorms and moderate rain at a few places on Monday.

An IMD forecast said the sky condition will likely be cloudy, with thunderstorms and rain in some areas.

The city received heavy rain on Sunday evening. Nungambakkam recorded 20.6mm, Meenambakkam recorded 23 mm, Anna University 16mm, Taramani 14.5mm, MRC Nagar 5.5mm rain till 7.30pm. OMR got a good amount of rain, clocking 40mm.

Weather bloggers said more rain is expected due to an upper air circulation and convergence of wind from north west over northern parts of the state.

Govt to take over Air India’s unpaid bills of ₹16,000 crore

Govt to take over Air India’s unpaid bills of ₹16,000 crore

Sidhartha & Surojit Gupta TNN

New Delhi:11.10.2021

The new holding company for Air India floated by the government, which will take over its non-core assets, will also be saddled with a heap of unpaid bills from the bleeding national carrier, besides bank loans.

These “excess liabilities” being transferred to Air India Asset Holding Company Ltd add up to ₹15,834 crore — more than a quarter of the airline’s total debt, pegged at ₹61,562 crore in end-August.

What are these “excess liabilities”? Government sources said these are largely dues of oil companies, airport operators and vendors that AI managed to avoid over the years, being a wholly-owned government company. The government too has some part in this as it often delays payments, including for tickets purchased for its employees through another public sector company, Balmer Lawrie. “The sale will not just stop the hit that the government has to take on a daily basis but also help clean up the system and release funds,” a government official told TOI.

Liabilities to be taken over by new entity immediately

While the liabilities, including loans and unpaid bills, will be taken over by the new entity immediately, it will only be able to monetise the assets over the next few years, depending on the market condition. In the interim, it will have to work out arrangements with banks and other creditors to rework the terms, which the government believes should not be an issue as the government has guaranteed 94% of the loans used to keep the airline afloat, against accumulated losses of nearly Rs 84,000 crore at the end of March. Besides, the terms of the transaction provide for the government to bear the financial impact of AI operations until the company is transferred to its new owner by the end of December, officials said. Looked at another way, these excess liabilities are more than the book value of non-core assets of Rs 14,718 crore that have been transferred to the new entity and 35% of the total liabilities of Rs 44,679 crore that the new entity will have after factoring in the Rs 18,000 crore of debt and cash from TataSons and the non-core assets.

New proposal to nullify pilots’ flying licence if not used for over 3 years

New proposal to nullify pilots’ flying licence if not used for over 3 years

Manju.V@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:

Pilots who don’t use their flying licence for over three straight years stand to lose it, according to an amendment to the existent aviation regulations, proposed recently by the civil aviation ministry. For thousands of jobless pilots in India, the draft amendment, if passed, would mean spending thousands of rupees every three years to fly in order to hold on to their flying licences. Currently, that minimum mandatory flying to keep a licence valid needs to be done only once every five years.

The extraordinary gazette, published on September 30, lists the draft rules amending the Indian Aircraft Rules-1937 and is currently open for objections and suggestions till the month-end.

The draft rules increase the validity of a Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) and the higher, Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) to ten years from the current five years. But with a condition, which appears on page 18.

It states: “In case where the privileges of the licence has not been exercised during the validity period of licence, for a period exceeding 3 years, the applicant shall be required to requalify in examinations and skill tests required for issue of such licence before exercising the privileges of such licence.”

“The new rules will reduce the workload on aviation regulator as each licence will come up for renewal every ten years and not five years,” said a flying instructor.

“But it adds to the woes of jobless pilots. A student spends ₹25-30 lakh to earn a CPL. India has over 5,000 jobless CPL holders currently. The proposed change will send them to flying school every 3 years where they will do some minutes of flying with an instructor to hold on to their licence. With Covid and Jet Airways’ closure, life was anyway tough for jobless pilots burdened with heavy education loans and EMIs,” he said. “

Full report on www.toi.in

Kids’ vaccine ZyCoV-D to be given to pvt hospitals too

Kids’ vaccine ZyCoV-D to be given to pvt hospitals too

25L Doses To Be Set Aside For Pvt Sector Initially: NTAGI Chief

Umesh.Isalkar@timesgroup.com

Pune:11.10.2021

ZyCoV-D, the first vaccine to be approved for use in children in the age group of 12-17 in India, will also be made available to private sector hospitals across the country. The Centre’s supply principle in the ratio of 75:25 for public and private vaccination will remain applicable for this vaccine as well. ZyCoV-D is going to be introduced in the country’s Covid vaccination programme by October 20.

“If there are buyers, up to 25 lakh doses of the ZyCoV-D would be made available to private sector hospitals every month as the initial monthly vaccine availability will be one crore doses,” NK Arora, chairman of the Centre’s Covid-19 working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) told TOI on Sunday.

The needle-free ZyCoV-D vaccine, manufactured by Zydus Cadila, has received emergency use authorisation for being administered to children between 12 and 17 years of age in India. The three-dose vaccine is to be given with a 28-day gap between each dose. “The biggest hurdle with this vaccine is its slow production. Initially, the manufacturer can only make available one crore doses every month,” Arora said.

He, however, added that the private sector had not shown much interest in vaccine purchases after the new guidelines about Covid-19 vaccine supply in the ratio of 75:25 came into effect. Sanjay Lalwani, medical director of Bharati Hospital in Pune, said: “It is a three-dose vaccine, hence the vaccination cost is likely to be high, which may negatively impact purchase in the private sector.”

A woman dressed as Goddess Durga distributes masks in Kolkata

States, UTs given 96cr doses: Govt

Around 96 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states and UTs so far, the union health ministry said on Sunday. Around 8.3 crore balance and unutilised vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs, it said. The vaccination drive has been ramped up through availability of more vaccines and advance visibility of vaccine availability to states and UTs. PTI

Ready to join hands with anyone to fight Centre: Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao

Ready to join hands with anyone to fight Centre: Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao

Speaking in the Assembly, Rao said that his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin had written to him expressing concern over the way the Centre was acting vis-a-vis states.

Published: 08th October 2021 11:38 AM 

By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Taking a strong exception to the Centre usurping the powers of States, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday said: "Not satisfied with what it has done so far in emasculating the states, the Centre recently tried to bring the sale of petroleum products under the ambit of the Centre. It later beat a hasty retreat after BJP-ruled states opposed it vehemently."

Speaking in the Assembly, Rao said that his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin had written to him expressing concern over the way the Centre was acting vis-a-vis states. "I am ready to join hands with anyone who wants to fight with the Centre to safeguard the interests of the State," the CM asserted.

He referred to the "cold response" from Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he met the latter recently and proposed the development of five metro cities excluding Delhi by allocating Rs 20,000 crore each. The CM had suggested that the states concerned could contribute half the sum.