Officer probing Ponzi scam takes ₹69L bribe, arrested

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com 09.04.2018

Chennai : A deputy superintendent of police, who had allegedly collected a bribe of ₹68.91 lakh from the managing director of a company running a Ponzi scheme by threatening him with arrest, is in the net.

The directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption (DVAC) has booked A Mohammed Balulullah, former DSP in the economic offences wing-II (EOW) unit and who is at present working as DSP in district crime records bureau (DCRB) in Tiruvarur, under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The FIR, registered on Thursday, has accused him of collecting cash and electronic goods from the company as bribes.

The action was taken based on a discreet enquiry conducted by an additional director-general of police in September, 2014. In 2013-14, the EOW was investigating a case pertaining to M/s Grow Rich Foundation, started by S S Sundaram and Mahadevan, registered as a firm in 2011.

The firm collected deposits from public and invested them in capital market and real estate. It spawned four eponymous companies as well. They had issued advertisments to collect deposits from public, guaranteeing a monthly return of 10% up to 24 months with 100% capital guarantees in forex and commodities trading.

They also announced referral income similar to multi-level marketing (MLM) and incentives in the form of laptops, bikes, cars and villas. SEBI had collected information and referred the guarantee of abnormal returns to EOW, which investigated the issue.

The case came to Balulullah, who collected details and copiesof documents and initiated an inquiry against the firm, DVAC said. EOW found that between September 2013 and August 2014, Balulullah collected a sum of ₹68.9 lakh as cash and household articles on various occasions from managing director of the firm, S S Sundaram, through his administrative executive Mohamed Rizwan. This was allegedly done by threatening Sundaram with a case and arresting him for collecting investments from public without proper approval from regulatory bodies.

Based on this, DVAC conducted a detailed inquiry against the DSP and the then in-charge superintendent of police, an IPS officer.

The latter had forwarded the complaint against Grow Rich Foundation to the accusedfor taking necessary action.

12 LAKH TAKE TEST

Students find Physics portion of JEE difficult

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 09.04.2018

Chennai: Students, who appeared for the Joint Engineering Examination (JEE) on Sunday, found the Chemistry portion easy while a section of them found the physics and maths portions comparatively tough.

In terms of difficulty level, many found that this year’s paper was similar to the papers from the last two

years. The three-hour exam had 90 questions split across three subjects for 360 marks. JEE also has negative marking so a wrong answer would mean a deduction of a mark. Experts expect the JEE Main cutoff to fall between 85 and 105.

Rajshekhar Ratrey, vicepresident of Educational Content, of the coaching portal Toppr.com said the paper was moderately easy and found similarities in the weightage of marks between this paper and the Class XII syllabus. “Surprisingly, physics was the toughest section among the three. The questions were a mix of theory and calculative. However, this section was not lengthy,” he said.

While chemistry was a relatively easy portion, experts added that it was the most lengthy. Initial responses by students also showed that they found more than one option correct in question 63 in Set B of papers.

There were mixed reactions on the difficulty of the maths paper as a section said it was much easier than other portions. Uday Nath Mishra, chief academic officer, of BasicFirst education portal said the paper was based on NCERT syllabus. “Maths was mostly based on Class XII syllabus. Maximum questions were from Calculus. Physics was based on Class XI syllabus and greater portion of mechanics & electrostatics was covered,” he said.

Anand Nagarajan, academic head for school division, T.I.M.E., Chennai, said the Mathematics questions required lengthy calculations. Of the 12 lakh students who appeared for JEE, only 2.24 lakh students will be eligible for the JEE Advanced round on May 20.

48/59 TN emergency docs hold unapproved PGs, shows RTI reply

Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com 10.04.2018

The Medical Council of India (MCI) and Tamil Nadu Medical Council (TNMC) are looking into a complaint that 48 of the 59 doctors registered with the state council as holding postgraduate degrees in emergency medicine actually have unrecognised degrees.

The complaint was filed by Emergency Medicine Association, an organisation of specialists in the discipline, based on information provided to it by the state council after an application filed under the right to information. The association’s complaint has also raised the question about such registrations being allowed in other state councils.

The degrees these doctors hold are from Sree Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute and Vinayaka Mission Medical College. These colleges got letters of permission (LoPs) for a postgraduate course in emergency medicine with two seats each in 2013 and 2012 respectively.

Thus, there cannot be a recognised post graduate degree in this discipline from these colleges before 2015 and 2016. Yet 48 of the postgraduate degrees registered were from before 2015, of which 20 are from before 2009, the year when emergency medicine was first recognised as a postgraduate specialty in India by MCI.


Unrecognised degrees were registered in last quarter of 2017

MCI president Dr Jayshree Mehta told TOI that the complaint had been referred to the relevant section for scrutiny and verification before deciding the further course of action. TNMC vice-president Dr R V S Surendran confirmed that only MCI-recognised degrees could be registered and added that they were looking into the matter. “These registrations happened long ago and we do not allow this anymore,” he added. However, all 48 unrecognised degrees have been registered in October, November and December 2017.

The list of 48 included several office bearers of the Society for Emergency Medicine in India (SEMI), an organisation that was running an unrecogniaed masters in emergency medicine programme. SEMI had said that it was merely a certificate programme that made no claims to being a post-graduate degree or to being recognised by MCI. SEMI’s board is dominated by doctors without MCI-recognised post graduate emergency medicine degrees.

Senior faculty members teaching emergency medicine asked what the sanctity of a regulated system of medical education would be if unrecognised degrees were being registered in state councils.

They pointed out that hospitals employed specialists with registered degrees as they trusted the system of registration.

SC convicts man in 45-year-old murder case

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com 10.04.2018

New Delhi: A farmer was brutally murdered in a village in Sasaram, Bihar, in October 1973, his body was cut into two by rich and influential assailants and 45 years later, the judicial process culminated in the Supreme Court on Monday with life sentence to one person.

A Sasaram trial court took 15 years to find five people guilty of murdering farmer Gupteshwar Singh. He was done to death by influential members of the village for not heeding to their threat that he would be killed if he deposed against them in two theft cases lodged against them by the railway police. The trial court sentenced all of them to life imprisonment in 1988.

The convicts appealed against the trial court order in the Patna high court, which took 22 years to uphold the trial court’s decision. The appeals were filed in the Supreme Court in November 2010 and notices were issued on March 18, 2011. But for some strange reason, the appeals could not be taken up for hearing for seven years.

The task was finally entrusted to a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and M Shantanagoudar, which heard counsel for the accused and the state government on March 22 this year and gave its verdict on Monday. It upheld the conviction of one Kameshwar Singh and sentenced him to life imprisonment, but gave the four others benefit of doubt and acquitted them.

Provisional list of students out for PG med, dental courses in Pondy

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   10.04.2018

Puducherry: All the seats under government quota barring one (under physically handicapped category) in a government college, two unaided private medical colleges (minority institutions) and an unaided private medical college, have been allotted for candidates seeking admissions into postgraduate medical courses for the academic year 2018-19.

Similarly, all the seats under government and management quotas in a government dental college and a private dental college were allotted for candidates seeking admission into postgraduate dental courses. A lone seat under NRI category was not filed.

The centralised admission committee (Centac) on Monday released the provisional lists of students, who were allotted postgraduate medical and dental seats under government and management quotas for the academic year 2018-19. The committee allotted all the seats under government quota in Indira Gandhi government medical college and research institute (three seats), Pondicherry institute of medical sciences (Pims) (religious minority), 25, and Sri Venkateshwaraa medical college, (SVMC) (linguistic minority), 19, for the candidates featuring in the provisional lists evolved by it.

Thirty-six seats in Sri Manakula Vinayakar medical college (SMVMC) have been allotted for the candidates. A lone seat under physically-handicapped category in SMVMC was not filled.

Thirty-eight seats of the total 81 under management quota in Pims and SVMC fell vacant after the Centac released the provisional lists after the first round. Twenty-three of the total 25 seats in Pims and 15 seats of the total 19 in SVMC under management quota fell vacant after the first round.

Can Rajini, Kamal pull off an MGR, turn fans towards poll booths? 

‘MGR Was Unquestioned Leader; Today Actors Need To Be Accessible To Gain Trust Of Cadres’

Jaya.Menon@timesgroup.com   10.04.2018

On March 10, 2018, small-time businessman and Kamal Haasan fan ‘Aanandham’ Rajesh, 38, was in for a big surprise. Crowds had gathered on the street near the Perundurai bus stand in Erode district as the actor’s convoy arrived with a flourish. Kamal Haasan emerged through the open rooftop of his car. “He suddenly extended his hand to me and asked me to hoist the Makkal Needhi Maiam flag. It was an emotional moment for me,” said Rajesh, touched by Kamal’s gesture.

Dravidian politics has come a long way. Charisma of politicians is not any more about inaccessibility, and, wooing cadres to build a party is a harder challenge. With actors and political novices like Kamal and Rajinikanth taking the plunge into TN politics which has well-entrenched parties and seasoned politicians, the trick is to do the act differently. “I told my fans in Perundurai that I may have designed the flag, but it is up to them to ensure that it flies with dignity,” said Kamal.

In October 1972, when matinee idol M G Ramachandran was expelled from the DMK, neither party chief M Karunanidhi nor MGR could have predicted the dramatic impact of his political entry. Since then, MGR’s path-breaking experiment in restructuring his fan clubs into a political party base has inspired many including N T Rama Rao, Vijayakanth and Chiranjeevi.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, hero-worshipping fans dared not question celluloid heroism. Today, with intense public pro-activism, social media and acute disillusionment, political forays could prove a daunting task for Kamal and Rajinikanth. This is exactly why both the actors are following a structured approach towards transforming their fan clubs into a cadre base, their target being the youth at the grassroots.

Kamal says he laid the base for a political party three decades ago, channelising his fan clubs into social work. A team of professionals and experts from various fields are helping him build his party.

With his plan yet to be unveiled, Rajinikanth, who announced his political foray recently, has appointed a core team of office bearers to structure his fan clubs in the districts. District-wise meetings are being held to spot talent and enlist them as office bearers of fan clubs. In every district, the clubs are headed by a secretary, who is aided by office bearers in the smooth transition of clubs into a political party.

“MGR fans were politically aware that he did not really have the need to organise them,” said author and MGR biographer R Kannan. On October 19, 1972, MGR could announce that the ‘20,000’ fan clubs (there were 18,000 DMK units and so the fan clubs had to be higher) had turned into the ADMK.

“After the 1971 assembly election and its good showing, DMK functionaries did not give permission to cadres to sign up as members of MGR fan clubs; instead they recommended that cadres join Karunanidhi’s son M K Muthu’s fan club,” said journalist Sudhangan.

NTR’s decision to enter the public sphere was sudden, pointed out Kannan. His 600 fan clubs became the ‘yuva sena’ (youth force), distributing the Telugu Desam manifesto that sang the prime slogan of ‘Telugu Atma Gauravam’ (Telugu pride) and helped his 1983 campaign. “Kamal and Rajini cannot be compared to NTR. He was virtually ‘god’ for the people,” said Andhra Pradesh Food Commission chairman and J R Pushparaj, who contested and won on a TDP ticket in the 1983 assembly polls.

“Kamal’s party and his fans appear more like a popular NGO than a politically charged party. Rajnikanth’s fans have deified him but their political work or presence on the ground is yet to be felt,” said Kannan. Rajnikanth’s tentativeness makes it all the harder for his fans.

On the other hand the fans need to mature into political workers and organisers. This could happen when the stars themselves become fully committed to the public sphere.

Govt launches on-site NEET coaching camps 
 
3K Students To Undergo Month-Long Training

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   10.04.2018

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday launched month-long residential camps across the state to help government school students crack NEET, the common entrance test for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

An estimated 3,000 students will undergo the training at nine colleges.

School education secretary Pradeep Yadav launched the camp at the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology campus where 400 students from 12 different districts had assembled and will undergo training.

Among the nine centres, three will have tutors to instruct students in English; the six others will coach the students in Tamil.

Allen Career Institute from Kota and Chaitanya Coaching Centre will carry out the training at three centres while another 128 teachers from government schools have been given training in Bengaluru by Chaitanya to coach other students. Students will also be able to access VSAT sessions by Speed Coaching Institute.

Yadav said students were chosen on the basis of their scores in Class X.

“The concept of residential coaching was brought in because we felt students could focus on their studies without any distractions and gain access to all the required facilities. In addition, information sharing between peers is likely to take place when they are together,” Yadav said.

“The level of training at these camps is [on the same level as] at any private coaching centre. Since the test is relatively new to everyone, every student has an equal shot at cracking it,” the school education secretary said.

He said 8,223 students enrolled for NEET coaching in government training centres, including in residential camps, in the state, and enquiries continue to come in.

More schoolgirls have enrolled in both the residential and non-residential centres than schoolboys: 5,850 girls and 2,383 boys are now part of the programme.

In Chennai district, 154 students enrolled for the training. Virudhunagar, Salem and Tiruvallur had the most enrolments and Nagapattinam the least.