College suspends student for speech on Kathua murder

Vishnu.Swaroop@timesgroup.com 15.04.2018

Coimbatore: A day after a first year student of the Government Law College here was suspended on the grounds of inciting religious and gender differences on the campus, students of the college on Saturday said there discontent was brewing due to the college authorities’ oppressive methods. R Priya, a first year student, who was suspended on Friday, said that she had given an extempore speech about the recent rape and murder of an eight-year-old Kashmiri girl as part of her English course work, which was misconstrued.

“On Friday, our English teacher asked us to speak on a topic of interest. I chose the minor girl’s murder and said such things happen because the society objectifies women,” Priya told TOI.

“When I was speaking, a few boys from the class went out and stood near the twowheeler parking lot. Professor R Ammu, who came that way, spoke with them and came to the class. She reprimanded me for being a supporter of a students’ outfit. She also reprimanded the English teacher for organising the speech. She then took the students to the principal’s room,” said Priya. She added that she was suspended without being asked for an explanation.

The official communication said Priya had incited gender and religious differences. “She also stopped professor R Ammu, who had gone to investigate the matter, from doing her duty and behaved in athreatening manner,” it said.

Priya was suspended after about 20 students filed a written complaint, college principal KS Gopalakrishnan told TOI.

The suspension order added, “Students, in their complaint, had said Priya had been forcing them to boycott classes to protest against the government and has been posting harsh messages in WhatsApp against those who don’t listen to her. On April 13, she had called some of her classmates male chauvinists and had spoken in a way as to incite religious differences. She had also threatened professor Ammu when she had gone to inquire about her actions,” it said. “It is being ordered that she is suspended from 13.4.2018,” the communication said. It added that Priya cannot enter the college premises without the principal’s permission.

Priya said she was a supporter of the left-leaning student outfit Revolutionary Students’ Front and had participated in the outfit’s activities. “Though I have participated in the outfit’s activities only outside the college, the authorities seem to have acted in undue fear that I would bring the activities into the classroom,” she said.

Tribunal directs MTC to pay ₹3L to accident victim’s kin

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   15.04.2018

Chennai: Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal has directed the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) to pay a compensation of ₹3.35 lakh along with interest to the relatives of a 76-year-old man, who was killed in an accident involving the transport corporation’s bus in Thiruvanmiyur seven years ago.

According to petitioners, the accident occurred on May 3, 2011, when S Devadoss, a security guard at an apartment complex, tried to board an MTC bus at the Ration shop bus stop on LB Road, Thiruvanmiyur. They stated that the bus’s driver drove in a rash and negligent manner, which resulted in the elderly man slipping off the bus’s foot board. The subsequent fall resulted in fatal injuries leading to the death of the septuagenarian.

The petitioners, D Selvi and D Selvam, daughter and son of the deceased, sought a compensation of ₹5 lakh from MTC. However, the MTC, in its counter petition denied the allegation that their driver drove in a rash and negligent manner and argued that their management is in no way liable to pay any compensation.

Principal special judge K Ayyappan, who perused the documents from both the sides, ruled in favour of the petitioners. “No evidence is available to prove that the driver drove in a normal speed except for his testimony,” the judge observed and directed the transport corporation to pay a sum of ₹3.35 lakh as compensation, with interest at the rate of 7.5% per annum from 2011. The son and daughter of the deceased are entitled to half the compensation amount, ₹1.67 lakh each.

Unauthorised ticket checkers pocket fine money on buses
City Depot Managers Assign Juniors Illegal Task

Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com 15.04.2018

Chennai: Unauthorised ticket checking inspectors (CIs) at work on Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses are siphoning off funds collected from passengers for ticket-less travel.

MTC recently intensified ticket checking operations, as the number of passengers travelling without buying a ticket increased after the bus fare hike. Taking advantage of this increased surveillance, depot managers have illegally asked junior-rank officers to work as CIs. The fine collected by such staff is not accounted, allege transport workers unions.

In a video clip shot by one of the passengers available with TOI, a group of men wearing white shirts, are seen boarding a crowded MTC bus at Dunlop bus stand near Ambattur on Friday morning. These men identified themselves as special squad constituted by the local manager to keep a tab on ticket-less travel. None of these men carried the usual name badge (containing employee ID). Instead, they wore a ‘badge’ made of paper. Though the conductor grew suspicious, he didn’t stop the team as he was uncertain.

One passenger in his late sixties, who was travelling on the bus using his concession pass, couldn’t produce his ID card and is seen apologising to the team in the video clip. His repeated claims that he forgot to carry his ID proof along failed to convince the ‘ticket checkers’. The ‘special checking squad’ threatened to penalise the old man, and were forced to alight from the bus after other passengers raised objections.

This team constituted by the Ambattur depot manager is completely illegal. The manager instructed his subordinates in the rank of conductors to work as CIs, said K Anbazhgan of Nethaji Transport Union. “The fund collected by this team is unaccounted”. Only conductors with more than 20 years of experience are promoted as CIs.

Despite repeated attempts, MTC authorities refused to comment on this issue. More than 200 odd eligible conductors were not promoted as CIs in the last 12 months. At present, there are hardly 50 CIs to keep a check on 3,000 MTC buses plying across the city and suburbs.

A video grab showing a ‘ticket checker’ in action

DVAC squad finds ₹1.9 lakh strewn on floor of RTO office

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  15.04.2018

Chennai: Sleuths from the directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption officials (DVAC) on Saturday carried out a surprise check at the regional transport office (RTO) in Sriperumbudur and recovered around ₹1.87 lakh, some of it strewn on the floor or dumped inside bins.

At least 12 vigilance officials led by deputy superintendent of police Balasubramanian conducted the surprise check.

Officials said the staff at the office, in an attempt to conceal the money, hurriedly dumped it in bins sensing the surprise check.

The office is located on Sriperumbudur-Tambaram Road and RTO officer Venkatesan and road transport inspector Kannan were employed at the office.

After the recovery of cash, officials questioned the RTO officer and the RI about the money.

As none of the officials claimed ownership of the cash, the police seized it and claimed it as unaccounted cash. The DVAC officials initiated a departmental action against the officials after the cash seizure.

Earlier, DVAC officials conducted similar raids at the Poonamallee and Gummidipoondi RTOs, based on the petitions received from unnamed people.

The police said they act upon people’s petitions only when people mentions their personal information, and when specific tip is received about illegal transactions.

Neet entry: Get doc seat with 5% in physics, 20% in biology
Percentile Drives Marks To Absurd Low

Rema.Nagarajan@timesgroup.com 15.04.2018

With just 5% marks in physics, less than 10% in chemistry, and 20-odd per cent in the biology section of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), candidates have got admission to medical colleges in the past two years. This was made possible by the “percentile” system under NEET that was supposed to keep non-meritorious students out.

Before NEET was made mandatory in 2016, the cutoffs for admission were 50% marks for the general category, and 40% for the reserved categories. From the 2016 admission year, these were changed to 50th and 40th percentile, opening the doors to candidates with just 18-20% marks in the NEET aggregate.

Here’s how it happened. In 2015, you needed 50% marks for admission in the general category, so you would have had to score at least 360 out of 720 marks. But in 2016 you only needed to be in the 50th percentile, which meant scoring 145 out of 720, or barely 20%.

The reserved categories needed to be in the 40th percentile, which translated to 118 out of 720, or 16.3% marks. In 2017, this fell further to 131 marks (18.3%) for the general category, and 107 marks

(14.8%) for the reserved seats.

NEET to go with same percentile cut-offs this year

This year’s NEET exams, to be held next month, continue with the same percentile cut-offs, so students with less than 20% marks in the entrance exam may be admitted to MBBS courses again.

Percentile measures the proportion of candidates, not scores. Thus, 50th percentile means students with more marks than the bottom half, 90th percentile comprises students with more marks than the bottom 90%, and so on. It does not mean they have 90% marks.

The percentile system not only made low-scoring students eligible to study medicine, it actually got them seats in colleges. TOI found that in 2016, general category students with just 148 marks, or 20.6%, in NEET were admitted to a private college in Uttar Pradesh which is a deemed university. As many as 30 of the 100 students this institution admitted had less than 25% marks in NEET. A Puducherry college admitted 14 students with less than 21% marks, the lowest being 20.1%. Some students admitted in the reserved categories had even lower marks.

Some of the best-known private colleges in the country have admitted students with less than 40% marks in the general category and under 30% in the reserved categories.

The percentile system has played havoc with merit, making it easy for wealthy low-performers to buy seats. Thanks to the low cut-offs last year, 6.1lakh of the 10.9 lakh NEET candidates qualified for admission, 5.4 lakh of them from the general category. With about 60,000 MBBS seats available across India, there were about 10 eligible students for every seat. A large number of affluent students with poor scores got in as many high-scoring middle class or poor students had to opt out because of the high fees.

“Whether it’s an entrance examination or the Class XII exams, students are expected to get a minimum of 50% or 40%, depending on their category, to get into medicine. But with this flawed eligibility criteria of NEET, we saw students with abysmally low scores getting into medical colleges,” said Dr Raj Bahadur, vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences in Punjab. “The quality of medical education is being compromised.” He said the number of qualifying candidates should be capped at three times the number of seats, which will automatically raise the cut-offs.

In his dissenting note on the parliamentary standing committee’s report regarding the National Medical Commission Bill, Tamil Nadu MP K Kamaraj stated that NEET had allowed the admission of candidates with such low scores/ rank who would probably never have been admitted in pre-NEET days. He added that even after two years of NEET-based admissions to private medical colleges, admission procedures remained opaque with nonmeritorious students getting admission and the system had not stopped the collection of high course fees or illegal capitation fees. Often, the weakest student in terms of money and influence, whose only asset may be merit, loses out, he said. 

கவர்னர் மாளிகையில் ரூ.10 கோடி மோசடி இருவர் கைது; 'மாஜி' அதிகாரிகளுக்கும் பங்கு

Added : ஏப் 15, 2018 02:48

சென்னை:கவர்னர் மாளிகைக்கு, 'பர்னிச்சர்' வாங்கியதில், போலி ரசீது தயாரித்து, 10 கோடி ரூபாய் மோசடி செய்தது தொடர்பாக, இரண்டு ஊழியர்களை, போலீசார் கைது செய்துள்ளனர். முன்னாள் அதிகாரிகளுக்கும் தொடர்பு இருப்பதால், அவர்கள் குறித்த விசாரணையை, போலீசார் துவக்கியுள்ளனர்.

சென்னை, கிண்டியில் உள்ள, கவர்னர் மாளிகையில், 2015 முதல், 2017 வரை, பர்னிச்சர் பொருட்கள் வாங்கியதாக, போலி ரசீதுகள் தயார் செய்து, முறைகேடுகள் செய்யப்பட்டதாக புகார் எழுந்தது.

கவர்னர், பன்வாரிலால் புரோஹித், பதவி ஏற்ற பின், இது குறித்து விசாரிக்க உத்தரவிட்டார்.கவர்னர் மாளிகை தலைமை கணக்காயர், சவுரிராஜன், சென்னை மாநகர கமிஷனர், ஏ.கே.விஸ்வநாதனிடம் புகார் அளித்தார். கமிஷனர் உத்தரவின்படி, கிண்டி போலீசார், வழக்கு பதிவு செய்தனர்.
முதற்கட்டமாக, அடையாறு பகுதியில் உள்ள, 'சேட் பர்னிஷிங்ஸ்' கடையில், போலீசார் சோதனை நடத்தினர். அப்போது, கடையில் இருந்து, ஏராளமான போலி ரசீதுகளை பறிமுதல் செய்தனர். பின், முகம்மது யூனுஸ், 57, என்ற, 'சேட் பர்னிஷிங்ஸ்' கடை உரிமையாளரை, கைது செய்து விசாரித்தனர்.
அவர் அளித்த வாக்குமூலம்:அரசு மற்றும் தனியார்அலுவலகங்களுக்கு, பர்னிச்சர் வாங்க வருவோர், பர்னிச்சர்களை வாங்காமலேயே, வாங்கியதாகவும், கூடுதல் விலையில் பர்னிச்சர் வாங்கியதாகவும், ரசீது கேட்பர். அவர்கள் விருப்பம் போல, என் கடையின் பெயரில், போலிரசீதுகள் கொடுப்பேன்.

அதற்கு, நானும் ஒரு தொகையை பெற்றுக் கொள்வேன். அதேபோல் தான், கவர்னர் மாளிகை பர்னிச்சர் கொள்முதலிலும் நடந்தது. இதில், கவர்னர் மாளிகை அலுவலக ஊழியர்களுக்கும் தொடர்பு உள்ளது.இவ்வாறு அவர் கூறியுள்ளார்.

இதுகுறித்து, கவர்னர், பன்வாரிலால் கவனத்துக்கு சென்றதும், அலுவலக ஊழியர்கள் யாராக இருந்தாலும், அவர்கள் மீது நடவடிக்கை எடுக்க, போலீசாருக்கு உத்தரவிட்டார்.இதையடுத்து, கவர்னர் மாளிகையில், போலீசார் விசாரணையை துவங்கினர். அப்போது, வாங்காத பர்னிச்சர் பொருட்களை, வாங்கியதாக கணக்கு காட்டி, போலி ரசீதுகள் வாயிலாக, 10 கோடி ரூபாய் வரை, நிதித்துறையிடம் பணம் பெற்றிருப்பது தெரிய வந்தது.
இந்த மோசடி தொடர்பாக, கவர்னர் மாளிகையில், அலுவலக உதவியாளராக பணியாற்றும், ராஜேஷ், 29, மற்றும் துப்புரவு ஊழியராக பணியாற்றும், ஜஸ்டின் ராஜேஷ், 39, ஆகியோர் கைது செய்யப்பட்டனர். விசாரணையில், இருவரும் மோசடியில் ஈடுபட்டதை ஒப்புக்கொண்டனர்.மேலும், இந்த மோசடியில், முன்னாள் அதிகாரிகளுக்கு தொடர்பு இருப்பதாகவும், போலீசாரிடம் வாக்குமூலம் அளித்து உள்ளனர்.
இதையடுத்து, கவர்னர் மாளிகையில் பணியாற்றிய, முன்னாள்அதிகாரிகளிடம், போலீசார் விசாரணை நடத்த உள்ளனர்.

ஓய்வு பெறும் வரை பதவி உயர்வு இல்லை அரசு சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் விரக்தி

Added : ஏப் 15, 2018 04:24

கம்பம்:''பதவி உயர்வு, சம்பளம் உள்ளிட்ட அனைத்து விஷயங்களிலும் பாரபட்சம் காட்டப்படுகிறது'' என, அரசு சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் குற்றம் சாட்டுகின்றனர்.

மருத்துவத் துறையில் அலோபதி, சித்தா, ஆயுர்வேதம் உள்ளிட்ட பிரிவுகள் உள்ளன. அரசு மருத்துவமனை மற்றும் ஆரம்ப சுகாதார நிலையங்களில் அலோபதி டாக்டர்கள், சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் பணியில் உள்ளனர். தமிழ்நாட்டில் 700 அரசு சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் உள்ளனர்.அலோபதி டாக்டர்களுக்கு உதவிஅறுவை சிகிச்சையாளரில் இருந்து மருத்துவ இணை இயக்குநர் வரை பதவி உயர்வு, ஊதிய உயர்வும் வழங்கப்படுகிறது.

ஆனால் உதவி மருத்துவ அலுவலர் (சித்தா) என்று பொறுப்பேற்கும் சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் 30 ஆண்டுகள் வரை பணி செய்கின்றனர். மாநில அளவில் 24 மட்டுமே உள்ள மாவட்ட சித்த மருத்துவ அலுவலர் பதவி ஒருசிலருக்கு கிடைக்கிறது. மற்றவர்கள் உதவி மருத்துவ அலுவலராகவே ஓய்வு பெறுகின்றனர்.

சித்த மருத்துவர்கள் சிலர் கூறுகையில், '' கிராமங்களில் பணியாற்றும் அலோபதி டாக்டர்களுக்கு கிராம பணிபடி (அலவன்ஸ்) ரூ. 3 ஆயிரம் கிடைக்கிறது. அதே கிராமத்தில் பணியாற்றும் சித்த மருத்துவர்களுக்கு இந்த தொகை கிடையாது. நீண்டகாலமாக நிலவும் இந்த அவலநிலையை போக்க அரசு முன்வர வேண்டும்'' என்றனர்.