Vijay Sethupathi in Rajinikanth’s film with Karthik Subbaraj


Suganth.M@timesgroup.com 27.04.2018


While it has been a rumour for the past few weeks, finally, we have got an official confirmation that Vijay Sethupathi will be acting alongside Superstar Rajinikanth in his next, which will be directed by Karthik Subbaraj. While there is speculation that the Makkal Selvan will be playing the antagonist, the director tells us, “Vijay Sethupathi’s role will be a very important one in the film. However, I cannot reveal if he will be playing the villain character.”

He informs that the team is currently busy with the pre-production work related to the film, and will start shoot in the next couple of months.

Vijay Sethupathi is currently shooting for Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam in Chennai.




Vijay Sethupathi



Rajinikanth

Pay ₹2L relief to man sent to mental hosp by judge for losing temper, says Delhi HC

Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com 27.04.2018

New Delhi:

It is rare that a high court of the land apologises. The Delhi high court did on Thursday, to a 71-yearold man who spent 20 days in a mental health hospital last year on the orders of a judge hearing his compensation case because he had lost his temper over the slow pace of the hearing.

“This court expresses its apology to Ram Kumar and his family members, including Ravinder (the petitioner), for the unlawful orders passed by the magistrate,” a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta observed, adding that Kumar, “a heart patient, was subject to tremendous stress on account of his illegal confinement at IHBAS. In short, there was a cascade of violations that had a domino effect on Kumar, denuding him of his rights to life, liberty, dignity and privacy.”

Taking a grim vew of recurring instances of persons being taken illegally to mental health hospitals, the HC ordered the legal services authority to “conduct a survey of mental health institutions and facilities in Delhi to ascertain how many inmates are being illegally held, in violation of the Mental Healthcare Act and the Constitution of India”. Last year, the court had quashed the magistrate’s order after Kumar’s distraught family filed a writ questioning his forcible confinement at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS).

In its final verdict the HC ordered the Delhi government to compensate Kumar for his “illegal detention” at the IHBAS in November last year.

The court was appalled that Kumar’s family was not even informed that the 71-year-old had been sent to a hospital for a mental check-up, because he vented his frustration in court over the slow pace of hearings.

The HC also ordered the Medical Council of India to take note of the actions of IHBAS doctors who forcibly kept Kumar with them on the basis of illegal court orders and directed the Delhi Judicial Academy to regularly train judges, police officers and doctors in the mental health laws of the country.

“The genesis of the problem that Kumar faced was the case before the MACT (Motor Accident Claims Tribunal) which he was defending as party in person. The 10-year wait had obviously tested his limits. Litigation fatigue had set in. Every day’s wait for a litigant who has had to spend a decade defending a case is bound to aggravate his litigation neurosis,” the bench observed.

It said the “annoyance caused to the presiding judge of the MACT was not unexpected” in light of the fact that the judicial system is overburdened but it took exception to the illegal order mandating a mental check-up.

“Judges, too, are human. Most of them are overworked. Their patience gets tested often, particularly by litigants in person who, in the process of navigating the legal maze on their own, disrupt the orderly functioning of the court. However, being part of an imperfect judicial system, a judge must be prepared for an outburst every now and then from a disgruntled user of the system,” the bench observed. 

Madras university mulls bringing in external examiners

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com 27.04.2018

Chennai:

University of Madras will review its Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) and include a provision for bringing in external examiners to evaluate answer scripts of students of the university departments.

Thiswasindicatedby vicechancellor P Duraisamy during his inaugural speech at the senate meeting on March 31 and reiterated during the syndicate meeting last Thursday. It came up when the marks in four of the six answer scripts of students from the journalism department had changed after reevaluation.

At present, professors teach the classes, frame the syllabus, set the question papers and also evaluate the answer scripts. CBCS rules mandate showing the scripts to students before making it public. “But there have been complaintsfrom studentsthatthissystem was notbeing followedin many departments,” said a university official.

Varsity professors said some heads run their departments like ‘personal fiefdom’. “They take only a few classes and set question papers as per their will. The marking also is random, with many getting too high and many getting too low marks. Another issue is that many departments have only oneor twostaff,with parttimelecturerssharing theburden,” said a university official.

This issue recently croppedup when 12studentsof the journalism department protested againsttheir headof department G Ravindran alleging that he was not taking classes regularly.

The system of external examiners is followed in autonomous colleges which charge students a higher examination fee.

“This can be replicated in the university departments, butitwillcostRs10lakh per year,” theofficialsaid.

A couple of department heads TOI spoke to said the university’s statute did not providefor such a rule. “Bringing in externalexaminerswill curb the academic independenceof thedepartments.The CBCS was framed to protect that,” a professor said.

Former headof thelibrary sciencedepartmentAAmudavalli said she was in favour of the change. “The university’s quality and integrity are at stake. There will be no room for manipulation if external examiners are brought in,” shesaid.

Duraisamy said in his speech that the purpose of CBCS would be defeated if transparency and a fair and objective evaluation system were not maintained. “We need to have aconduciveteaching-learning environment in the University departments,” hesaid.

DVAC cannot probe modus operandi of gutka mafia: HC 
 
Wants The CBI To Investigate ‘All Aspects Of Underground Biz’

Sureshkumar.K@timesgroup.com 27.04.2018

Justifying the transfer of investigation into the alleged multicrore gutka scam to CBI, the Madras high court said though the DVAC had powers to curb corruption and take action against government servants, its power would not extend to an inquiry into the modus operandi of the gutka mafia.

“The underground gutka business is a crime against society which needs to be curbed. We deem it appropriate to direct the CBI to investigate into all aspects of the offence of illegal manufacture, import, supply, distribution and sale of gutka which is banned in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,” the first bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose said.

Rejecting the argument of the state that the court should not entertain a politically-motivated writ petition filed by a member of a rival party, the bench said, in exercise of power under Article 226 of the Constitution it could entertain a petition in public interest whenever its attention was drawn to any injustice or patent illegality.

This apart, the court concurred with the submissions of P Wilson, senior counsel for petitioner who said that in a democracy, the political opponents played an important role by being the watchdogs of the government. “They are the mouthpiece to ventilate the grievances of the public at large. A petition filed by such persons cannot be brushed aside on the allegation of political vendetta if it is genuine and raises a reasonable apprehension of likelihood of bias in the dispensation of criminal justice system,” Wilson said.

Asserting that there can be no cast iron formula for directing transfer of investigation to CBI, the bench said, “This order is, in our view, not only imperative to stop the menace of the surreptitious sale of gutka which poses a health hazard to people in general and in particular the youth and to punish the guilty, but also to instil faith of the people in the fairness and impartiality of the investigation.

“We see no reason for the state to view the entrustment of investigation to the CBI as an affront to the efficiency or efficacy of its own investigation system and we make it absolutely clear that this direction is not to be construed as any definite finding of this court of the complicity of any constitutional functionary or of any specific official of the state,” the bench said.

Doctors in Chennai re-model man’s cornea with donor human tissues

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   27.04.2018

Chennai:

City-based interior designer Mohan Kumar realised something was amiss when he struggled to draw a straight line despite using a ruler. It wasn’t until two years — and change of multiple spectacles — later he realised he was progressively losing his vision.

For people with normal vision, the cornea — the transparent layer at the front of the eye that focuses light into it — is dome-shaped. For Mohan, it was conical, a condition doctors here diagnosed as keratoconus.

Although little is known about the genesis of keratoconus, doctors say frequent rubbing of the eyes and genetic factors could increase chances of the cornea thinning and eventually degenerating. It affects people around 10 years old and then progresses for a decade or longer.

By the time Kumar, 25, consulted doctors at Dr Agarwal’s eye hospital here, his vision was distorted in both eyes. “We had two options: strengthen his cornea by introducing synthetic implants or a complete cornea transplant,” said Dr Soosan Jacob from the hospital who led the procedure. The first option was ruled out as the layer would continue to be misshapen. Besides, introducing synthetic implants could raise the risk of infections later.

There was also a third option – an idea Dr Jacob and her team had presented as scientific papers. It involved implanting donor cornea in the form of two semi-circular rings that alter the shape of the cornea. “While in complete cornea transplant, we use 8mm of donor tissue, in this, we need only 400microns of it,” said Dr Jacob. While corneal transplant involves at least 16 sutures in the eyes, in this procedure the donor tissues are introduced through laser. The cost of the procedure, called Corneal Allogenic Intra-Stromal Segement (CAIRS), is around ₹50,000, half of what inserting a synthetic implant would cost.

Kumar was monitored for more than a year after the procedure. “All it took was 20 minutes to correct a condition I struggled with for 3 years,” said Kumar, spoke to the media on Thursday. He said it took a week for his vision to be restored completely. 

Hotels full as city turns into wedding destination

Rajesh.C@timesgroup.com   27.04.2018

Chennai:

The occupancy rates of luxury hotel rooms in the city have shot up in April on the back of bulk bookings for weddings and the Defence Expo.

“It has been a very good month and we hope it is not a blip,” said T Nataraajan, honorary secretary, Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association (FHRA). Occupancy rates rose to 75% on average from 50% earlier.

TheApril2017highwayliquor ban, which stopped liquor sales on highways, pushed the hospitality industry into an abyss. The delayed denotification of highways in Tamil Nadu resulted in the state losing out on meetings and weddings to other neighbouring states.

“We had a full April on the back of the return of wedding bookings and the Defence Expo which added to the excitement,” said Anil Chadha, general manager, ITC Grand Chola. Chennai has a luxury room inventory of 7,000 across four and five star categories. “The sentiment appears to have turned positive. We hope this is sustained going forward.”

Chennai is slowly becoming a city for destination weddings. “Our one-placesolution for big weddings is getting popular,” Chadha added.

Nataraajan said that business activity was picking up across the state and the government should push for more meetings and international conventions as it had a huge trickle-down effect. “It would be helpful if large international events happen regularly in thecity,” hesaid.

Tariffs too have moved north. A luxury hotel room was sold for upwards of ₹20,000 per night in a couple of cases during the DefExpo. “Overall tariffs rose 30% on average,” sources said.

The big dampener has been the shifting of IPL matches from Chennai to Pune owing to protests. “Crowne Plaza has said in a court affidavit that they lost out on 150 room nights due to the shifting of IPL matches,” industry sources said. This impacted other luxury hotels too, as teams coming to play in Chennai need at least 60 rooms for a match.

Hotels add that bookings are on a high since the end of last year, with an increase in conferences and business bookings.

“This April in particular, the occupancy level has shot up by 12-14% since last year. Even otherwise, sentiments have been high since October and the forecast also looks positive,” said Ronald Menezes, director of sales and marketing, Taj Coromandel. 



USHERING PROFITS

'நீட்' மையம் விவகாரம் சி.பி.எஸ்.இ.,க்கு உத்தரவு

Added : ஏப் 27, 2018 01:14

சென்னை, 'நீட்' எனும், தேசிய தகுதி நுழைவு தேர்வை எழுத, தொலை துாரங்களில் மையங்களை ஒதுக்குவதற்கு எதிர்ப்பு தெரிவித்த வழக்கில், சி.பி.எஸ்.இ., இயக்குனர் பதில் அளிக்க, சென்னை உயர் நீதிமன்றம் உத்தரவிட்டுள்ளது.வழக்கறிஞர், காளிமுத்து மைலவன் தாக்கல் செய்த மனு:தமிழகத்தில், நீட் தேர்வுக்கு விண்ணப்பித்த பலருக்கு, வேறு மாநிலங்களில், தேர்வுக்கான மையம் ஒதுக்கப் பட்டுள்ளது. திருநெல்வேலி, துாத்துக்குடி, திருச்சி மாவட்டங்களை சேர்ந்தவர்களுக்கு, கேரள மாநிலம், எர்ணாகுளத்தில் மையம் ஒதுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. சிலருக்கு, ராஜஸ்தான் மாநிலத்தில் மையம் ஒதுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.இவ்வாறு, தொலை துாரங்களில் மையங்கள் ஒதுக்குவதால், மாணவர்கள் பாதிக்கப்படுகின்றனர். எனவே, தமிழகத்தை சேர்ந்தவர்களுக்கு, அவர்கள் வசிப்பிடத்தின் அருகில் உள்ள மையங்களை ஒதுக்கும்படி,உத்தரவிட வேண்டும்.இவ்வாறு மனுவில் கூறப்பட்டுள்ளது.மனு, நீதிபதிகள், எச்.ஜி.ரமேஷ், தண்டபாணி அடங்கிய, 'டிவிஷன் பெஞ்ச்' முன், விசாரணைக்கு வந்தது. மனுவுக்கு பதில் அளிக்கும்படி, சி.பி.எஸ்.இ., இயக்குனருக்கு உத்தரவிட்டு, விசாரணையை, இன்றைக்கு தள்ளி வைத்தது.