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Monday, September 9, 2024

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Absenteeism to be treated as service rule violation: CS

Debashis.Konar@timesofindia.com

Kolkata : Bengal chief secretary Manoj Pant issued a missive on Saturday aiming to improve work culture among govt staff and officials, ahead of Monday’s administrative review meeting at Nabanna. The missive was sent to all departmental secretaries as well as to DMs, DGP and police commissioners.

In the directive, the CS stated that “any unauthorised absenteeism from duties or deflection from sincere discharge of official functions shall be viewed as violation of service rules”. He added that implementation of various important projects had been affected due to the Lok Sabha polls and natural disaster in some districts. Pant said that to bring the projects back on track, govt staff “must focus diligently on their assigned works and tasks and discharge their duties during their duty hours with more devotion”. Pant said it was high time efficiency and expediency were brought in for implementation of infrastructure-related projects as well as providing citizen-centric services.

Principal alters birth records of minor to aid rape accused, held

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Jaipur : Rajasthan police on Saturday arrested a 50-year-old school principal in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria for allegedly tampering with the birth records of a 14-year-old rape survivor to help the accused secure bail by falsely claiming the girl was not a minor, thus weakening the Pocso case. The girl reported to Jaipur’s Murlipura police station last month that her father and aunt had sold her to a Haryana-based man named Sandeep for Rs 2 lakh, said DCP Amit Kumar. She alleged that Sandeep raped her. Police subsequently filed an FIR under Pocso Act and arrested the girl’s father, aunt, and Sandeep, all of whom are now in judicial custody.

To undermine the survivor's age and gain a legal advantage, the accused's family members produced a falsified birth record from the school where the minor had been enrolled. The altered documents falsely stated that the girl was born in 2003, making her 21 years old and thus an adult. Police found the birth year had been changed from 2010 to 2003 by principal Vijendra Kumar Mal, in collusion with the survivor’s family, who sought to protect her imprisoned father and aunt. As a result, police filed a second FIR and arrested the principal.

U’khand headmistress suspended for ‘negligence’ after rape of 4-year-old The acting headmistress of a govt primary school in Udham Singh Nagar district in Uttarakhand was suspended for negligence following the alleged rape of a four-year-old girl on the school campus, reports Aakash Ahuja. The incident, involving alleged offenders — one aged eight in Class 2, a 10-year-old in Class 4, and a 12-year-old in Class 5 — came to light on Monday, prompting a departmental inquiry. District chief education officer KS Rawat visited the school on Wednesday to conduct an investigation. While the headmistress and two other teachers said the incident occurred after school hours, the survivor’s family disputed this, alleging it took place between 10.30am and 11am. The family also alleged the principal left the school around 11am on her scooter. Rawat said the school had high boundary walls and secure gates, making it unlikely for anyone to leave the premises unnoticed. He concluded there was a failure of supervision and discipline, leading the education department to suspend the acting headmistress on Friday. The headmaster was also transferred to another school.

Kashi-Delhi Vande Bharat to have Kavach 4.0 from Nov

Rajeev.Mani@timesofindia.com 08.09.2024

Prayagraj : Vande Bharat trains, operating between Varanasi and New Delhi via Prayagraj, will be equipped with the Kavach 4.0 in Nov. On June 24, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav reviewed the advanced version of Automatic Train Protection System Kavach 4.0. It was decided that it should be installed first in trains running on the Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes. Now, preparations are being made to equip Vande Bharat running between Varanasi and New Delhi with Kavach 4.0 first.

Currently, two Vande Bharat trains are running between Varanasi and New Delhi. One Vande Bharat leaves from New Delhi for Varanasi in the morning and the other in the evening from Delhi via Prayagraj. There is a plan to equip both of them with the Kavach System 4.0. After Vande Bharat, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Prayagraj Express, and other premium trains running on this route will also be equipped with it. Kavach has been developed by the railway to prevent accidents.

In case of emergency, if the loco pilot is negligent or fails to apply brakes, Kavach gets activated automatically and averts the risk of an accident by applying brakes to the moving train. Earlier, the NCR zone was to be equipped with the 3.2 version of Kavach, but now it will be equipped with the advanced version 4.0. Some technical changes have been made in Kavach 4.0.

Sandip Ghosh rigged RG Kar’s house staff selections, finds CBI probe

RohitKhanna@timesofindia.com

Kolkata : CBI’s probe into financial irregularities of RG Kar Hospital details how arrested exprincipal Sandip Ghosh and his cronies minted money from diverse sources, including manipulating students’ results and appointing “candidates of his choice” as house staff – internships after completion of MBBS.

In submissions to the special CBI court that remanded Ghosh in custody a few days ago, the agency said it suspected Ghosh “surpassed the process and straight away appointed house staff of his choice” without “adopting a transparent method” or going through any hospital panel. The agency has dug into such recruitments made in 2022 and 2023. The appointment orders only mention final marks of the candidates. Doctors at RG Kar said they knew of no selection panel for house staff. According to CBI, Ghosh had introduced a system of “interviews” for the candidates. Later, a list of house staff was prepared by him and many meritorious students were left out. CBI officers have reasons to believe that scores from such “fictitious interviews” might have been added to the MBBS marks of the candidates picked against payments to Ghosh’s cronies.

The corruption, CBI found, was even more deeprooted and spread to other areas, including “collusive bidding” and “bid rigging” in every tender process for hospital equipment and services. Investigators have come across fake companies, owned by Biplav Singha and his relatives, that took part in the tendering process to help his firm Maa Tara Traders bag the contracts.

Ghosh: Health dept okayed demolition

Former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh said he secured approval of senior officials of the Bengal health department before issuing orders on Aug 10 to demolish rooms near the hospital’s seminar hall, where a junior doctor was raped and killed the previous day, CBI officials said. Ghosh said he had received a 10-point charter of demands from resident doctors on Aug 10, including a duty room with proper toilet near the seminar hal

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Onam bonus: Govt staff to get ₹4,000

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 7.9.24

T’puram : Govt employees and teachers will receive a bonus of Rs 4,000 each, for Onam. Those ineligible for bonus will get a special festival allowance of Rs 2,750, said finance minister K N Balagopal in a statement on Friday. Service pensioners will also receive a special festival allowance of Rs 1,000 each, and retired employees under contributory pension scheme too will receive a special festival allowance. Balagopal said all govt employees in the state will be given an Onam advance of Rs 20,000. Other employees, including parttime and contingent staff, will receive an advance of Rs 6,000. Contract and scheme workers who received a festival allowance last year will receive the same rate this year too.

Over 13 lakh employees will benefit from this special Onam assistance, he added. Despite financial difficulties caused by Centre’s policies, state govt has decided not to reduce Onam benefits for employees. All benefits provided last year will be available this year too, said the minister. Govt has given priority to pension distribution. Monthly pension distribution has been ensured since March this year. This month’s pension is being provided early for Onam, he said. Social security and welfare fund pension beneficiaries will receive two instalments. Balagopal said Rs 1,700 crore has been allocated for this purpose.

Nearly 62 lakh people will receive Rs 3,200 each for Onam. Besides the ongoing distribution of one instalment, two more instalments have been approved, he said. Beneficiaries will start getting the amount from Wednesday. The amount will be credited to the bank accounts of over 26 lakh people. The rest will receive their pension at home through cooperative banks, said Balagopal.

NEWS CLIPPINGS 7.9.24

Probe DoIT tenders of past 5 yrs: HC to ACB

Jaipur : Rajasthan High Court on Friday asked the director general of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to investigate all the tenders issued by the department of information and technology (DoIT) in the last five years and submit a report in four weeks.

A singlejudge bench of Justice Ashok Kumar Jain issued the directions to ACB DG Ravi Prakash Meharda, who personally appeared in the court on Friday in a case related to the approval of the final report filed by ACB in a special court in a disproportionate assets case involving a then officer of DoIT.

While hearing a revision petition filed by one TN Sharma against the ACB’s final report, Justice Jain asked why ACB cannot see corruption in the DoIT. “There is so much corruption there that people do not have space to keep gold in their homes. So they keep gold in the office,” commented Justice Jain in presence Meharda, who had appeared before him at 3.15pm in compliance with the court order.

The HC asked Meharda why ACB filed the final report in the case without probing the case properly.

142 GTU students punished for cheating

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad : The Gujarat Technological University (GTU) on Friday announced punishment for 142 students caught cheating in this year’s diploma, engineering, and pharmacy summer exams. These students will be called to appear before the university on Sep 13 for a hearing, after which the final penalties will be imposed. Sources said that a third semester diploma engineering student threatened the examiner in the answer sheet and wrote abuses, asking the examiner to pass him. This threat was taken seriously, and strict punishment has been decided for the student. The proposed penalties for the 142 students range from level 1 to level 7, with level 7 being the most severe.

The university has punished 52 students with level 1 punishment, 23 students face level 2, 60 students face level 3, one student faces level 4, and six students face level 7 punishment. Level 7 punishment includes cancelling the student’s thesis or project work and imposing a threeyear ban from taking exams. After appearing before the ethics committee, the final penalties will be announced, and students will be informed about the level of punishment they are receiving. Depending on the students’ versions, if the committee feels the student is being wrongly punished, the penalties may be reduced.

Night is long: Why working this shift may raise the risk of cardiac diseases

DurgeshNandan.Jha@timesofindia.com 7.9.2024

New Delhi : Working in night shifts can disrupt the body’s ability to regulate heart rhythm and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, a study published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care (JFMPC) has found. The study was carried out on 38 nurses working at a govt hospital in Greater Noida who worked in day (9 am to 2 pm) and night shifts (9 pm to 9 am) for at least one year.

The nurses underwent sleep quality tests and electrocardiogram (ECG) to measure heart-rate variability. It revealed that the sleep latency time it takes to fall asleep after turning off the lights and entering the first stage of sleep – was longer in the night shift workers compared to the morning shift workers. Also, the night shift worker group exhibited longer total sleep time and greater use of sleeping medication as compared to the day shift workers.

Inadequate sleep, the research led by Dr Aprajita Panwar from Govt Institute of Medical Sciences, Greater Noida states, can dis rupt the body’s ability to regulate heart rhythm and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and mortality. The JFMPC study calls for providing adequate breaks, offering support services like counselling and wellness programs, and implementing flexible scheduling options where possible by healthcare institutions to mitigate the negative impacts of shift work on nurses.

“By implementing such strategies, healthcare institutions can enhance job satisfaction and improve patient care by ensuring that nurses are psychologically prepared to deliver high-quality care to patients,” the study says. Dr Pujan Parikh, consultant pulmonary medicine and sleep medicine expert at H N Reliance Foundation hospital, Mumbai said continuous night shift affects the circadian rhythm i.e. our biological clock. “It leads to a change in our eating habits as well as psychological stress. All these things additionally increase the risk of cardiac diseases in the night shift workers,” he said. “Nurses who are on night shift barely get to take a break because their job involves constant monitoring of the patients and attending to their emergency needs. It is a very taxing job. Once they go back home in the daytime, even then it is difficult to get sound sleep as there are household responsibilities to attend to. It, of course, affects the health,” Anita Panwar, president of the All-India Govt Nurses Federation said.

HC relief for IIT grad in Rlys’ case against Tatkal app

Bengaluru : Karnataka HC recently quashed proceedings against entrepreneur Gaurav Dahake in a case registered against him by Indian Railways, for charging Rs 30 per ticket on his software tool speeding up Tatkal bookings on the official IRCTC website. Dahake, an IIT Kharagpur graduate and native of Maharashtra, had previously founded ‘buyhatke.com’, a product price comparison online browser extension.

In Aug 2017, he developed a software tool, ‘Tatkalforsure’, to help travellers secure Tatkal tickets by auto filling traveller details on the IRCTC website. While the Railways’ website took 5-7 minutes to generate a Tatkal ticket, Dahake’s tool could do it in just 45 seconds. The service was initially free, but in Feb 2020, Dahake limited bookings through his extension to 10 and began charging Rs 30 per booking. HC observed that the ingredients of Section 143 of the Railways Act, under which Dahake was booked, weren’t present in this case as he had neither procured nor distributed railway tickets, which is necessary for an offence here.