‘Blacklist contractors who pack poor quality Pongal’

 ‘Blacklist contractors who pack poor quality Pongal’

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK

22.01.2022

Chennai: Chief minister M K Stalin has instructed officials to blacklist contractors, who were found to have supplied substandard items given in Pongal gift hamper.

Stalin, who held a review meeting on distribution of Pongal gift hampers in the wake of complaints from opposition parties that the items given were of poor quality, told officials to take action against staff who were responsible for bringing disrepute to the government. A statement from the government said Stalin had warned of strict action against those behind the irregularities. “He instructed that only quality products should be given to the public and that officials should not allow anyone to bring disrepute to the government,” the statement said.

Government officials should ensure that all the commodities given in the gift hamper at ration shops are of good quality and of prescribed quantity. “Stern action should be taken on erring staff,” he said.

The statement said that though the gift hamper distribution had received an overwhelming response from the public, there were complaints in few places about the commodities. These complaints were inquired into and action was taken on agencies that supplied the substandard items, the statement added.

Though only six items were given as part of Pongal gift hamper by the previous government, the present government was giving 21 items. The government had taken concerted efforts to procure quality products, the statement said.

Madras varsity forms 5-member panel to probe ‘ghost grad’ scam

 Madras varsity forms 5-member panel to probe ‘ghost grad’ scam

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK

22.01.2022

Chennai: University of Madras has formed a five-memberinquiry panel to probe the ghost graduates scam where 117 students were caught trying to get degrees without enrolling in any programme at the Institute of Distance Education. TOIr eported the scam on December 22, 2021.

The panel is headed by director of legal studies C Chokkalingam. The other members are B Venugopal, head, department of legal studies, Chitti Annapurna, head, department of Hindi, D Sathiyavan, head (in-charge), department of econometrics, and Elangovan, dean (academic) and head, departme nt of biochemistry.

Except Elangovan, other four members are syndicate members. “The panel commenced its probe on Thurs-day. It will inquire into how the racket happened, who were res ponsible and recommend action,” an official said. Based on the committee report, the university will decide whether to file a police complaint."At present, the committee will look only into the

December 2020 semester exams for distance mode students," vice-chancellor S Gowri said.

Institute of Distance Education had decided to allow people to write exams who had enrolled for degrees since1980-81, but didn’t g et degrees due to arrears. The racketeers uploaded fake course completion certificates for new students to enable them to write as old students. They paid exam fees and were given se rial numbers that followed genuine candidates.

As many as 117 students cleared the exams in December 2020. When they sought degree certificates, the university checked if they paid tuition fees and found no record of this or admission details. Provisional/convocation certificates for 117 candidates were cancelled and their names removed from the permanent pass register.

Sources said each student could have paid up to ₹3 lakh to the racketeers. The tuition fees is ₹20,000.

 

Two-way traffic on Pallavaram flyover likely

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Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com

22.01.2022

Chennai: The state highways department and the traffic police are in talks to discuss the possibilities of introducing a two-way traffic system along the Pallavaram flyover.IKarunanithi, MLA for Pallavaram, said that an inter-departmental inspection would be held soon to ensure that the new traffic pattern does not cause any traffic congestion or accidents.

Ever since the 1. 5-kilometre-long flyover w as thrown open for the public in September 2020, residents in areas along Grand Southern Trunk (GST) have been demanding that twoway traffic be allowed on the stretch. Currently, motorists are allowed to travel only in one direction, from Tambaram towards Chennai International Airport. “It is wide enough to support twoway traffic. But for some unexplained re ason, the government has restricted it to unidirectional flyover. This has defeated the very purpose of constructing a flyover at this location,” said V Santhanam, a resident-a

ctivist from Chromepet.

During the evening peak hours, thousands of vehicles leave the city. But they

are forced to use the road below the flyover. As a result, the entire str etch becomes congested, and vehicles move at a snail’s pace. Traffic gets worse on Fridays when the weekly market is organised.

Therefore, it will be good if the government can allow at least cars, minivans and two-wheelers to use the flyover while leaving Chennai. This will reduce the burden on the road underneath the flyover, Santhanam said.

Karunanithi, the MLA for Pallavaram, said that he had already initiated talks among various state g overnment agencies. “Soon, it will be converted into a bi-directional flyover,” he said.

Besides this, efforts are on to widen the roads underneath the flyover and install another traffic signal so that vehicles to and fro Pammal and Kundrathur need not take a detour. This signal will make pedestrian movement also easie r, he said. The state highways department, which constructed the flyover at ₹82 crore, will remove encroachments along the stretch in order to widen it. “It will be converted into a three-lane road (11 metres wide) so that there are no traffic jams,” said Jayanthi, a divisional engineer.

Corona may not die soon, but it’s time to kill fear, say experts Could Turn Endemic And Continue For A Few Years: Doctors

 Corona may not die soon, but it’s time to kill fear, say experts

Could Turn Endemic And Continue For A Few Years: Doctors

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Sumitra Deb Roy & Malathy Iyer

TNN

22.01.2022

Is the end of the Covid pandemic fear near? The Covid-causing coronavirus has stumped experts so often that only a few are willing to give an affirmative reply, but the overwhelming consensus is that “it is time to stop living in fear”.

The pandemic could continue for a “few months more” before transforming into an endemic disease with localised outbreaks for the next few years, said a doctor from a civic hospital. Physician Gautam Bhansali believes cities such as Mumbai should consider Covid-19 as a seasonal  flu. “We dealt with the Omicron wave without any stress on health infrastructure, oxygen shortage or crisis of beds. We cannot ignore the fact that 95% of the people who are testing positive are asymptomatic,” he said.

Epidemiologist Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil, who came under fire for equating Omi- cron with the flu, told TOI the fact remains that the new variant spreads like cold and causes a mild disease. In the UK, 70% of people with cold tested positive for Omicron. “In Washington, they looked at 3,340 Omicron positive cases where mortality was zero. Similarly, in California, 53,000 Omicron infections were studied and negligible mortality was found. The third wave has shown that India’s health system can also handle the load,” said Dr Muliyil.Dr Shashank Joshi, a member of the Maharashtra government’s task force on Covid-19, has a different take on the new liberal Covid policies. “The policies adopted by some foreign countries merely mark a shift in policies (rather than the end of Covid),” he said.

Three factors, said Joshi, have brought about these changes: the new wave is relatively mild, large pockets of the world are vaccinated realisation that continued restrictions would be detrimental to the economy and education.

Daily Covid deaths at third-wave high

India reported a slight drop in fresh cases on Friday, with the day's tally likely to stay below 3.4 lakh, but deaths from the virus rose to 407, the highest single-day toll during the present wave, with data from one state yet to come in. Maharashtra posted the highest tally of cases on Friday at 48,270. Fatalities remained high in Delhi (38), Bengal (35), Tamil Nadu and Kerala (33 each). 

‘Reinfection a possibility’

Amid the Omicron wave, health experts have not ruled out the possibility of reinfection of the variant among patients, bringing back the focus on Covid-appropriate behaviour and vaccination to check spread and deaths. Meanwhile, the Karnataka government on Friday lifted the weekend curfew with immediate effect.

Too much emphasis on wife’s consent: HC

 Too much emphasis on wife’s consent: HC

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Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

22.01.2022

New Delhi: There is a “qualitative difference” in sexual equation between people who are married to each other and between those who are not, the Delhi HC observed Friday, adding one can’t “equate chalk and cheese”.

Justice C Hari Shankar reminded Rebecca John, appointed as amicus curiae to assist the court on the petitions seeking to criminalise marital rape, that while “there is a right to expect sexual relations from both sides in a marriage, there is no such right  when the parties are not married”.

Explaining why he remains sceptical of “too much emphasis” on wife’s consent made by the amicus, Shankar said Parliament did provide “some kind of rational basis” to justify the exception in IPC 375 to protect husbands. “We are obfuscating this entire argument, this entire rationale (provided by legislature) by concentrating on consent, consent, consent. We can’t deny that there is a presumption of constitutionality in the law made by Parliament. Specially in a criminal case we don’t lightly quash a provision that is not deemed an offence,” Shankar said. He wondered if the court can “substitute our sensitivities or sensibilities” and “step into the legislature’s shoes” to overturn a legal provision when there is a “prima facie rational basis” for it given by Parliament.

John however maintained that there is no “right” but only an “expectation” of conjugal relations with wife in a marriage and the same also cannot lead to the husband having forced relations with her. “ In a given situation, the husband may be right and the right may be unreasonable. . . (but) there is no right. There can be an expectation. The expectation cannot lead to forcible sex on your wife,” the senior lawyer noted.

NEET PG 2021

 Students from state fare better in NEET-UG

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21.01.2022

Mumbai: Performances of state students in NEET-UG 2021 has improved over the previous year. The provisional merit list for state students was released late Wednesday night, almost three months after the NEET-UG results were announced. The 100th state rank was bagged by a student with an all-India rank of 1,165 this year. Last year, the corresponding rank was 1,874, indicating students’ performance in terms of rank is better than last year.

On the state merit list,12 from the state bagged all-India ranks within 100, as opposed to only two last year. A few top-ranking students, however, directly apply to central universities such as AIIMS, so may have not featured on the state list. The number of girls qualifying in the top100 state ranks in NEET-UG, however, dropped to 30, from last year’s 41. In all, 59,437 students registered for admissions to health science courses this year, as opposed to last year’s 64,645.

TNN