Sri Lankan Airlines to operate daily service to Colombo from March 27

Sri Lankan Airlines to operate daily service to Colombo from March 27

02/03/2022

Special Correspondent TIRUCHI

Sri Lankan Airlines will operate a daily service on the Tiruchi-Colombo sector from March 27. The airliner is presently operating four flights a week .The flight is being operated on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday now.

As per the revised plan, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, it will depart from Tiruchi at 3.30 p.m. The flights on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday will leave Tiruchi at 9.40 a.m. The proposed increase in service is expected to scale up international passenger movement at the airport.

Cash-strapped Madurai Kamaraj University starts paying salaries from pension fund

Cash-strapped Madurai Kamaraj University starts paying salaries from pension fund

By Jeyalakshmi Ramanujam| Express News Service 

| Published: 02nd March 2022 05:36 AM

Madurai Kamraj University

MADURAI: With the State government refusing to release funds to Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) owing to audit objections, the university administration has started using Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) funds to pay salaries and pension.

MKU needs around Rs 12 crore every month for salary and pension. Of this, Rs 4.9 crore is for 1,165 pensioners. Remaining amount is spent on the salary of 202 UGC-scale teaching staff, 303 administrative staff, and more than 500 consolidated salaried non-teaching staff.

MKU Pensioners Association President and former syndicate member R Srinivasan said the university has already exhausted a corpus fund of around Rs 400 crore, kept for paying retirement benefits. “Now, the university has started using CPS, which is against MKU’s statutes,” he said.

A panel appointed under retired HC Judge Akbar Ali had pointed out violations made in faculty appointments but no remedial action was taken, he said. The documents related to the 3,000 audit objections, accessed by TNIE, reveals that most of the objections are related to appointment of teachers and excess non-teaching staff.

An MKU professor said from 2010 onwards there has been lot of irregularities, including appointment of project assistants and appointment of associate and assistant professors at the Department of Film Studies.

Save Higher Education Forum Co-Convener and former General Secretary of Madurai Kamaraj, Manonmaniam Sundaranar, Mother Teresa and Alagappa University Teachers’ Association (MUTA) P Vijayakumar said, “For more than 10 years, there have been no elected representatives in senate and syndicate. The present senate and syndicate have only nominated members,” he said.

According to Registrar VS Vasantha, the university started utilising the CPS fund as it does not have enough money. “The university’s main source of income of fee from students and affiliated colleges is not enough to meet the expenses. A proposal for `27.50 crore funding has been sent to the government,” she said.

“A committee led by syndicate member R Lakshmipathi was appointed to clear objections in teaching staff recruitment. Another committee led by syndicate member A Meshach Ponraj was appointed for non-teaching staff appointments. Of the 102 teachers recruited over the past 15 years, audit objections have been raised in 70 cases,” she added.

This doc lived amid Covid infected for 2 yrs, unscathed

This doc lived amid Covid infected for 2 yrs, unscathed

Mar 2, 2022, 03.41 AM IST

Hyderabad: Lakhs of Covid-19 patients, some very severe cases, were treated under his watch, yet Gandhi Hospital superintendent Dr Raja Rao is a medical marvel, who has remained uninfected since the pandemic began and even after the widespread Omicron wave. He is the first medical professional in the state to treat Covid-19 patients, interact with them and even touch them.

Dr Rao himself is perplexed by the fact that though he tested himself four times, at different intervals despite not having symptoms, as he had close contact with severe patients, but the results proved him lucky. Even antibody tests to check for asymptomatic infection ruled out any infection.

"At first, we used personal protection equipment (PPEs). Since then, I've been using double masks, taking vitamins, eating eggs daily and non-veg once a week. As a result, I've gained weight," Dr Rao says.

He did not take a day off since the first case was reported in 2020, as did many other Gandhi Hospital medical staff. For him, the whole experience at Gandhi Hospital is surreal.

"I completed MBBS and PG (general medicine) from Gandhi, joined as an assistant professor in the same hospital in 1998 and eventually took over as superintendent in April 2020, exactly a month after the first Covid-19 patient was admitted. Since then, I may have touched nearly 8,000 patients. They would hug me in emotion and pain," he told TOI.

When the first few cases were reported, Gandhi was the only centre treating patients, and the doctors were directly in video conferences with doctors in the United States, he added.

"When I used to tell them I touched patients, they would wonder or warn me about an infection. In fact, it is a puzzle and a wonder to me as well," he explained. Surprisingly, none of his family members was infected, including his wife, son, and daughter till now.

"I lived separately in the same house for a year, used to drive back home alone at night, used to wash my clothes, it was a strange feeling those days, I would pray for traffic on those days during the lockdown," he explained.

The deaths and births during the pandemic have moved all the staff at Gandhi. "However, one death that moved me was that of a bodybuilder from the city, who spent three months in the hospital during the second wave. I would give him courage for days on end, until one day when I went to see him, he was just lying there, and when I touched him, he just fell apart, and I realised he was dead. I couldn't stop crying, but many recovered patients offer me many things with love; one tailor who recovered sent me clothes stitched after he returned home; there are many such accounts; this would not have been possible without our staff," he said.

COURT NEWS

Miffed assistant stabs magistrate in Tamil Nadu

TNN | Mar 2, 2022, 06.17 AM IST

SALEM: A judicial magistrate in Salem was stabbed in his chambers on Tuesday by his office assistant who was angered that his request for a transfer was not granted.

M Ponpandi, judicial magistrate-IV, was at his chambers on Tuesday morning, when his assistant A Prakash, 37, of Annadhanapatty, stabbed him thrice with a knife.

"A few minutes after Prakash entered the room, officials in the court hall heard the cries of magistrate Ponpandi," said an official at the Hasthampatty police station. They rushed in and found the magistrate bleeding from the injuries.

An officer said, “His assistant was standing near him holding a knife.” “The magistrate received a deep stab injury on the chest, close to the heart and lungs,” a source at Salem Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College and Hospital told TOI. Prakash was first posted as night watchman in the Sankari sub-court in 2015. Later, he was elevated as office assistant in 2019 and transferred to Mettur subcourt. “From there, he was transferred to Omalur subcourt in January 2022,” the police officer said, adding that from Omalur, he was again transferred to Salem district combined court a few days ago. He joined duty on Monday.

“He approached the magistrate with a request to transfer him back to the Omalur court,” the police officer said, adding that the magistrate had asked him to approach the principal district judge. “Irked over this, Prakash stabbed the JM,” the police officer added. Hasthampatty police registered a case and arrested Prakash. Further inquiries were on.

Anna univ increases research fellowship at par with IITs, NITs

Mar 2, 2022, 03.47 AM IST

Chennai: To attract talented students towards research, Anna University has increased the monthly research fellowship to PhD scholars from ₹20,000 to ₹38,000, which is at par with IITs and NITs.

Each year, the university offers research fellowship to 50 PhD scholars joining various departments.

The university’s syndicate, which met on Monday, approved the proposal to increase the fellowship.

“Since central institutions offer better fellowship, we could not attract good talent towards research. The enhancement of fellowship will attract good students,” vice-chancellor R Velraj said.

The university will evolve a different selection process to award the fellowships. As per the existing method, top 50 students of the entrance test get the fellowship.

The university’s syndicate has also given permission to start 11 centres of excellence for driving the research in emerging areas like automobile technology, robotics and automation, IoT, e-vehicles, AI and data science research and application, wireless system and design, multi-disciplinary system research and energy storage.

“Some of the centres established by former VCs Kulaindaiswamy and Anandakrishnan at Anna University are doing better research compared to IITs. However, the university has not started any centres in the past two decades. Now we are creating 11 centres that are important for societal and technological development,” Velraj added.

Among the centres of excellence, two are unique. Bose-Einstein Science and Technology Centre for Fundamental Research is aimed to focus on research in basic sciences. The Centre for Liberal Arts for Science, Engineering and Technology will offer arts courses such as public policy, economics, history and archaeology to engineering students.

“Engineering students will get creative ideas by studying some arts subjects during their course,” the vice-chancellor said. Each centre will get ₹25 lakh seed funding from the university. The university also got permission to relax the norms for industry experts to do PhDs.

Madras HC slams teachers for private tuitions

Madras HC slams teachers for private tuitions

TNN | Mar 2, 2022, 06.25 AM IST

MADURAI: Government teachers running tuition centres or taking private tuition, engaged in private business or part-time employment beware. The Madras high court has ordered the principal secretary of the education department to form district-level teams to take action against such teachers, as these activities amount to misconduct.

Justice S M Subramaniam, blaming the deterioration of the education system in Tamil Nadu on teachers and teachers' associations, directed the government to provide telephone numbers to enable parents, students and the public to provide information on irregularities and misconduct by teachers, inside and outside the schools.

Such numbers must be legibly displayed in all education department offices and government and aided schools in the state, the court said.

The judge further directed the principal secretary to collect information, complaints, materials regarding activities of the recognized / registered teachers’ associations in the state to ensure that they are functioning according to the statutes and rules in force. If any illegality or irregularity is identified, all appropriate actions are to be initiated against all such associations and their office bearers. “In many countries, the government schools are considered as the best educational institutions.

However, even after spending huge funds for the development of the government institutions in Tamil Nadu, we are unable to create a competitive atmosphere in government schools on par with the private institutions. This situation must be changed,” observed Justice Subramaniam. The government is allocating a considerable amount of funds for the improvement of government schools across the state and is paying a decent salary to the teachers. Unfortunately, the students in government schools are not coming out with an expected level of standard on par with the private schools.

The judge observed that teachers are largely indulging in the practice of taking private tuition classes, doing business or part-time employment etc. This is because they get more holidays and a considerable amount of free time.

The working days and hours of the educational institutions are far less than that of the working hours and working days of other government departments. In the event of allowing such misconducts, undoubtedly, the government cannot expect better performance of the duties and devotion to duty from the teachers. Justice Subramaniam observed that the activities of these associations are to be monitored by the government.

The court passed the directions and made the observations while rejecting the plea moved by K Radha, a secondary grade teacher in the panchayat union middle school at Eachangudi at Papanasam union in Thanjavur district, seeking a direction to consider her transfer to a school which is within 30km radius from the school where her husband is working in Thanjavur town, under the spouse category as per GO passed by the school education department in 2021.

NMC fee plan for pvt med seats could face challenges

NMC fee plan for pvt med seats could face challenges

TNN | Feb 28, 2022, 07.10 AM IST

The National Medical Commission's (NMC) decision that fees for 50% of seats in all private medical colleges, including deemed universities, should match those in government colleges in the respective states seems unlikely to be implemented this academic year and could face challenges even further down the line.

The decision would have added nearly 22,000 seats to those with relatively affordable fees. However, it is not being implemented for the academic year for which counselling is ongoing as the NMC communication came out too late for it to be implemented, argued officials from many states and colleges. The NMC office memorandum (OM) on fee regulation was dated February 3 while registration for the first round of counselling started on January 19. Several states had issued notifications on fees by end of 2020.

Private college representatives also argue that NMC does not have the power to regulate their fees as the NMC Act only allows it to "frame guidelines for determination of fees and all other charges in respect of 50% of seats in private medical institutions and deemed to be universities" governed under the Act. That raises prospect of the OM being challenged and getting embroiled in litigation.

The nearly 22,000 fresh seats that would become more affordable would have taken the total number of relatively affordable seats to over 68,000 or about three-fourths of the 90,675 MBBS seats currently available. While many states already have 50% of MBBS seats in private colleges set aside for government quota, the fees for them are the same as in government colleges only in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In most states, government quota seats in private colleges cost double or even several times what is charged in government colleges, though much less than management and NRI quota seats.

States like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Kerala do not have a 50% government quota in private colleges. In such states, about 5,800 seats will come under fee control if and when the NMC decision is implemented. Another 4,000 seats in 44 private deemed university colleges would also have to match government college fees. Deemed university medical colleges are under the jurisdiction of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and usually have had no state government quota. NMC's decision would impact deemed university medical colleges, 38 out of the 45 of them being in Maharashtra (12), Tamil Nadu (11), Karnataka (11), and Pondicherry (4).

The NMC's OM not only stipulates fees equivalent to that of government medical colleges for 50% of the seats, it also says that fees for the remaining 50% in deemed universities would be fixed according to the detailed guidelines laid down in the OM on how to calculate fees for private colleges. If implemented, private deemed universities would be coming under the ambit of state fee regulatory authorities for the first time.

Deemed universities have been challenging the authority of state fee regulatory authorities to fix their fees for several years, arguing that they come under the UGC and not under state governments. The UGC itself has been threatening to regulate fees in deemed universities for over a decade. Finally, on court directions, the committee appointed by the UGC to fix fees for deemed university medical colleges had put out a draft of the fee regulation rules by end-2019. By then, the NMC Act was passed by Parliament and the new commission took charge in September 2020.

An expert on regulatory issues related to medical colleges pointed out that according to the NMC Act it could only frame guidelines for 50% of seats and had no jurisdiction over the remaining 50%. "If it is stating that 50% of the seats will have fees equivalent to government medical colleges, how can it regulate the remaining 50% seats?" he asked. He added that NMC's OM did not have the force of law without notification in the gazette.

NMC's OM is issued under section 10 of the NMC Act pertaining to powers of the commission which allows for only framing of guidelines on fee fixation. "The OM is not issued under section 56, which pertains to regulations. Section 56 has a detailed list of the areas for which the commission can frame regulations and fees is not listed there. This loophole was pointed out to the government when the NMC Act was framed, but the government did not make the necessary changes that would have given the commission the power to regulate fees in medical colleges. The NMC can regulate the fees only if the NMC Act is amended to include fees in the list of areas identified for regulation," said an advisor to several private medical colleges.

Under the circumstances, it remains to be seen whether the OM will get mired in court cases, where most earlier attempts at fee regulation ended up.