Police bust fake visa racket, nab two, seize 65 passports

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   31.03.2018

Chennai: The Vepery police busted a fake visa racket by arresting two people, including a woman, on Friday. Police seized 65 passports, fake visas of countries, including Canada and the UK, and other documents such as income tax returns, Aadhaar cards and voter identity cards.

Police said John Xavier, 34, a native of Sivaganga, was operating the racket out of an office on Naval Hospital Road, just a few metres from the Chennai police commissioner’s office. A police team first arrested Xavier and later picked up his assistant Venkateswari, 32, from a hotel. Police have also launched a hunt for four more accomplices in the scam.

Xavier has been operating in the city for more than a year as some of the documents date back to 2017, said an investigating officer. “We suspect that his clients submitted original passports to procure fake visas and travel abroad,” the officer said. Police are verifying whether the other documents seized are original.

Following the seizure, sleuths from the Q branch conducted inquiries with the arrested duo. Preliminary interrogations revealed that they charged up to ₹1lakh for each fake visa.

Venkateswari, a BSc graduate in information technology, had been employed by Xavier since 2013, a senior police officer said, adding that she first approached him to obtain a fake passport and later started working for him.

Further investigations are on to find out how many people availed of fake visas from Xavier to travel abroad. Police have gathered a list of people who approached him for this purpose and are likely to question them.

In July 2017, police had arrested a head constable attached to the intelligence wing of the Chennai city police and a postman in a fake passport scam.

Call for reservation of MBBS seats from backward districts

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   31.03.2018

Courts have repeatedly struck down district-based incentives for admission of medical students, but public health experts are urging policy makers to look at reservation in backward districts at the undergraduate level to ensure more doctors in rural areas.

In the past two years, 10 students from Tiruvarur joined a medical college through the state’s single window counselling. From six in 2016, the number dropped to four in 2017 after NEET. The same year, Sivaganga had 13 compared to 712 from Chennai.

Migration becomes another issue when the few medicos from smaller towns move to the city. “Students from the city do not move to rural areas as they are used to the comforts of the city. The government should reserve a certain percentage of seats for those who have studied in a district. Such students should sign a bond to serve in the district for at least five years,” said former director of public health Dr S Elango.

Apart from a bond, it is important to tempt doctors to stay, says Mumbai-based T Sundararaman of school of health systems studies at Tata Institute of Social Studies. “It’s not a problem just in TN or India. It exists across the globe and solutions are the same. In Thailand, doctors working in rural areas are paid twice more than those working in Bangkok,” he said. In addition, uniform equipment and operating procedures will remove the feeling of isolation, he said.

Although TN’s performance in most health indicators is good, it has not been able to achieve uniform standards. “It’s part of our long-term plan. While we are trying to build a medical college in every district (TN has 22), we want to increase seats to 250 in existing colleges. This would mean colleges in rural areas will have the same infrastructure like those in Chennai,” said A Edwin Joe, director of medical education.

City craze ails TN docs, leaves smaller towns ill 

While Chennai Has 18 Doctors For 10,000 People, There Are 2 In Tiruvarur; More Medicos From Districts May Help, Say Experts

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com 31.03.2018

The wait at a doctor’s clinic is usually long, and the queue could be longer if you live outside the city. A recent study by the health department shows that Tamil Nadu isn’t just dealing with a shortage of doctors, an uneven distribution of doctors is letting patients down.

The state medical council register shows an average of eight doctors for every 10,000 people in the state, a little higher than the national average of six. Worse, districts like Chennai have more than 18 doctors per 10,000, but some like Tiruvarur have just two.

Along with Chennai, Tiruvallur (12.4), Namakkal

(11.1) and Kanyakumari (10.2) meet the WHO recommendation of at least 10 doctors per 10,000 people. But at the other end of the scale, districts like Nagapattinam (3) and Tiruvannamalai (2.9) are far below the national average. “The ratio is based on registrations that happened in the past 30 years. There could be slight variations but it is the best indicator we have at present,” said TN State Medical Council president Dr K Senthil.

The poor doctor-patient ratio pulls down health indices such as maternal and child mortality and nutritional status, and leads to under diagnosis of chronic ailments. It also leads to the proliferation of quacks, a large number of whom the directorate of medical services has tracked down in districts like Tiruvannamalai. As there aren’t enough doctors, vacancies in government hospitals and clinics in these districts are proportionately higher.

The absence of data on the total number of hospitals, beds or specialists in each district, makes it more difficult to find a solution for the unequal distribution. In an attempt to find a remedy, Tamil Nadu assembly passed the Clinical Establishment Act last week. “The act will help collate details on facilities available in the private and public sector,” said state health minister C Vijaya Baskar. While the rules of the act are expected to be notified soon, the act will make it mandatory for all clinical establishments to register with the government and provide details about the number of beds, details of equipment and staff.

Last month, a six-member committee, headed by the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation managing director P Umanath, declared at least 16 of the 32 districts in TN to be backward in terms of health due to inadequate doctor-patient ratio and poor health indices. While it said government doctors in remote areas should be given incentives, it had indicated the need for policy changes that would encourage students from these districts to take up medicine.



LONG WAIT: Vacancies of doctors in GHs in some districts are higher

Holding hands, young couple jumps to death in front of train

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  31.03.2018

Chennai : A young couple died after jumping in front of a speeding train while holding hands in Athipattu near Minjur early on Friday morning.

Horrified witnesses travelling on the train from Chennai to Gummidipoondi called the railway police after the incident at around 6am. The bodies of the duo were taken to the Government Stanley Medical College and Hospital for postmortem.

Police identified the couple as A Akash, 21, and S Ramya, 19, both residents of Athipattu. Akash, a contract worker at a thermal power station, befriended Ramya who was a second-year engineering student at a self-financing college. Their families were against the relationship, said a police officer.

“We received a call in the morning and arrived within minutes. Both suffered severe injuries and were dead even before we reached the spot,” said a railway police officer.

The train was halted for about 20 minutes and services were affected for a few hours. However, normalcy returned by mid-afternoon, officials said. A case of unnatural death has been registered.

Data compiled by the Indian Council of Medical Research shows that Tamil Nadu leads the country in the number of suicides. The National Crime Records Bureau has pegged the suicide rate (number of suicides per one lakh population) in the state at around 28% -- three times the national average.

Suicide Helplines: Call 104 helpline or Sneha helpline at 91-44-24640050; 91-44-2464006. Email: help@snehaindia.org

US visa applicants to give social media IDs? 
times of india 31.03.2018

Washington: The US state department has come out with a new proposal mandating all US visa applicants to submit their social media user-names, previous email addresses and phone numbers, vastly expanding the Trump administration’s enhanced vetting of potential immigrants and visitors.

In documents published in Friday’s Federal Register, the department said it wants the public to comment on the proposed new requirements that will affect nearly 15 million foreigners who apply for visas each year. The new rules would apply to virtually all applicants for immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

Previously, social media, email and phone number histories were only sought from applicants identified for extra scrutiny, such as those who have travelled to areas controlled by terrorist organisations. An estimated 65,000 people per year are in that category. AGENCIES

Move may affect 7 lakh immigrant visa applicants

The department estimates it would affect 7,10,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the US for business or education, according to the documents. The public has 60 days to comment on the revised procedures before the office of management and budget approves or rejects them.

If approved, applications for all visa types would list a number of social media platforms and require the applicant to provide any account names they may have had on them over the previous five years.

Only applicants for certain diplomatic and official visa types may be exempted from the requirements, the documents said.

NOW, DON’T GIVE CASH, JUST SCAN AND PAY 
01.04.2018

For 80-year-old pensioner Devaraj, standing in the serpentine queue at the bank to withdraw money for his family’s monthly expense has been a daunting task, every month.

Similar has been the case with Meera, an IT professional. She says, “I hate it when all I have in my wallet is a ₹2,000 note and everybody from the vegetable vendor to the grocery store guy refuses my purchase because I do not have change.”

Although many pay bills online, when it comes to day-today transactions, they are forced to use cash. However, Equitas Bank has recently launched Digi-Chengai — a project initiated to transform Chengalpattu towards a cashless economy by enabling digital payment solutions.

Elaborating on the initiative, Sanjeev Srivastava, President and Country Head, Equitas Small Finance Bank says, “There is no investment or any rentals involved in enabling Scan and Pay. Merchants can increase their revenue, not miss out any customer, and eliminate the problem of loose change, which is a major concern. We hope to lead the way in the digital banking space and promote financial inclusion of the underserved segment with this venture.”

The bank has conducted awareness programs for all shopkeepers and merchants in Chengalpattu and has provided customised QR stickers for about 500 merchant outlets, which would expand to cover over 2,000 merchant establishments of all sizes shortly. Any customer who shops can download the BHIM App developed by the Central Government and link their account and scan the QR code so that the exact money gets transferred. Customers can make such payment from any bank account that they have. The customer and merchant will get a confirmation message instantly.

VP Jeyaseelan, Sub-Collector of Kanchipuram, who announced the initiative, says, “A smartphone can now become your wallet where you can pay anyone and everyone — from a tender coconut seller to a supermarket, without physical cash. I appreciate the efforts of Equitas bank in promoting an alternative mode to cash to transform Chengalpattu town to a cashless economy.”

The bank also offers a variety of other digital services such as POS at merchants, QRbased acquiring, payment solutions, net and mobile banking, mobile top-ups and corporate net banking. 



(L-R) John Alex, Head, CSR Initiatives, Equitas; MB Nirmal, Trustee; VP Jeyaseelan, Sub-Collector; Dr CK Gariyali, Trustee and Sanjeev Srivastava, President and Country Head

THAT VAZHAPPAZHAM SCENE 
times of india 01.04.2018

Ask any Tamilian what the most famous Tamil cinema joke of all time is and invariably there will be only one answer — the ‘Vazhappazham scene’ from Karagattakkaran. I heard of this scene much before I saw it. A friend from school had seen the film and he narrated it to a bunch of us. He could barely contain himself. He would start laughing uncontrollably in the middle, he would wipe the tears from his eyes. We thought he was crazy! Where was the joke? What was funny about one guy repeating a sentence again and again?

Ah! Therein lies the magic of cinema. How we hooted with laughter when we saw it ourselves. I personally got hiccups that would not go away for hours.

That scene is at the heart of the Goundamani-Senthil partnership. They may have acted together before, but this defined their shtick, established the roles each would play and set them up for posterity.

It has been duplicated, remade and recast so many times by generations of comedians that it might well be a genre by itself. The most notable example, Vadivelu’s “Kaiya pudichi izhuthiya?”

Key to the joke is, of course, the performance of both of them, but let’s dig deeper.

Karagattakkaran might well be inspired by the classic Thillana Mohanambal, Sivaji Ganesan and Padmini’s tour de force. As established there and in countless concert halls, the guy playing the melody, whichever instrument, is usually the leader, with the rhythm section cast as his sidekicks. It is interesting to see that Gangai Amaran reverses the roles here — with Goundamani playing the thavil and yet lording it over the nadaswaram-playing Senthil. I have a feeling that the director was making a point.

Now, the joke itself. One of the things that makes Karagattakkaran a classic is how beautifully it nails the rural milieu, which is why I was surprised to hear that the entire sequence was shot in AVM Studios.

Real care has been taken to present the situation authentically. Note the deft touches in the setup scene where Goundamani asks Senthil to get him the two bananas. You know that Goundamani has just had lunch because it’s a very Tamil thing to have a banana after, but also note the toothpick he has in his mouth (Pic 1). The rest of the music troupe is playing cards in the background, again typical (Pic 2). When Goundamani asks Senthil to get him the bananas, Senthil asks “Rasthaliya Poovam pazhama?” Anybody who has ever got bananas from a bunk-shop will know that these are the two breeds always readily available but Rasthali is the more expensive one so one needs to know which is preferred. Even in the bunk-shop, there is a guy working on a maavaatra kal in the background (Pic 4). All these factors contribute to the immersive nature of the film.

Only midway into the scene, after Senthil buys the bananas does Ilaiyaraaja play his iconic BGM (ta ra tatara ta ra ra….not to be confused with Vikram Vedha’s tharara rararara…). If you observe closely, it coincides with the flashpoint of the scene. After buying the banana, Senthil shrugs and starts eating one. That shrug is the smokinggun (Pic 4). Senthil knows the consequences that will come; the crime is premeditated! Much like in the recent balltampering episode this is the important point. Maybe Bancroft should just have persisted with that black cloth he showed the umpires by saying “Adhaan saar ithu!”

What follows is, of course, the stuff of legend. Senthil’s wide-eyed innocence and Goundamni’s slowly escalating fury is outright hilarious (Pic 5). Junior Baliah, who is stunt-cast to reprise the role of his dad in Thillana Mohanambal, tries to intervene (Pic 6), so does Kovai Sarala, to no avail (Pic 7). Like a guilty character in an American courtroom drama that keeps saying “I plead the fifth amendment” Senthil has only one thing to say.

Go ahead, make your Sunday much better by resurrecting your memories of this scene on YouTube.


THE WORD VIEW

CS AMUDHAN

CS Amudhan has a background in advertising and is the director of Tamil cinema’s first spoof film, Tamizh Padam


THE SCENE HAS BEEN DUPLICATED, REMADE AND RECAST SO MANY TIMES BY GENERATIONS OF COMEDIANS THAT IT MIGHT WELL BE A GENRE BY ITSELF. THE MOST NOTABLE EXAMPLE, VADIVELU’S “KAIYA PUDICHI IZHUTHIYA?”