Phone a friend to clear doubts on DU

Phone a friend to clear doubts on DU

Team Of Volunteers Answers Admission Queries On Call And Via Email

Mohammad.Ibrar@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:23.06.2020

Sparsh Singh wakes up early, sets up his laptop and waits for the clock to strike 10am to answer a steady stream of queries from across the country on the Delhi University admissions. He is one of the 22 student volunteers trained online as first responders for any such question as the DU admissions has turned totally online due to the corona pandemic.

They have taken the place of the helpdesk on the campus and to make it convenient for them, DU has shifted the facility from its conference centre to the homes of the volunteers. The team usually daily responds to 250 calls and several hundreds of emails from applicants and their parents.

Singh, a BTech student of DU’s Central Institute of Education, said every department and college was asked to send the names of students who would be willing to volunteer. “After we sent our applications, we were interviewed online and asked if we were familiar with the admission process and willing to help the university,” he said.

In May, the volunteers were trained by faculty members and officials of the admission branch to handle all types of queries. “We had regular sessions with them where we would clear their doubts and also make them aware of the nuances of the admission process,” said admission branch head Shobha Bagai. She pointed out that since the volunteers won’t come to the campus, it was necessary to tell them everything in detail.

Singh concurred and said there were several presentations from various departments and sections like those dealing with sports and extracurricular activity admissions. “We were told about the queries that would come our way and how we would tackle them. We were also asked to go through last year’s bulletin of information.”

The students are connected on WhatsApp and DU has shared the numbers of four volunteers who can forward queries to the rest. “If they get some tough questions, they approach admission branch members and we help them real time,” said Suman Kumar, a member of admission branch.

The volunteers also have to deal with fake news. “From June 8, we started getting multiple calls as some websites reported that DU had released its form. There were other misinformation-related queries too,” said another volunteer. Many have even got a new phone number for this work, the volunteer added.

Pregnancy no ground for leniency: Cops in HC

Pregnancy no ground for leniency: Cops in HC

Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: 23.06.2020

Opposing any relief to jailed Jamia student Safoora Zargar, Delhi Police on Monday told Delhi high court that she was not the only pregnant accused and couldn’t be given preferential treatment.

In a status report filed in the court, police maintained that a clear case has been made out against Zargar and she was not entitled to bail for the grave offences, which “were meticulously and surreptitiously planned and executed by her.”

Zargar was arrested under the anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, in a case related to communal violence in northeast Delhi during protests against Citizenship Amendment Act. She has raised her 23 weeks pregnancy as one of the grounds to seek bail.

“So far as grounds of pregnancy raised by the applicant to seek bail is concerned, it is respectfully submitted that it is not even the case of the petition that she is not being granted proper care during the custody,” police said, adding that till date, as many as 39 deliveries have taken place in Delhi prisons in the past 10 years.

“There is no exception carved out for pregnant inmate, who is accused of such heinous crime, to be released on bail merely because of their pregnancy,” Delhi Police said, arguing that “the very fact of rearing of life ought to have been a check on the activities which had a potential to cause, and did in fact cause, large-scale destruction of life and property.”

The police’s report filed through advocates Amit Mahajan and Rajat Nair claimed there was strong, cogent, reliable and sufficient material available to prove the direct involvement of Zargar, MPhil student of Jamia Millia Islamia.

Zargar, a Jamia coordination committee member, who was arrested by Special Cell on April 10, had challenged the June 4 order of trial court, which denied her bail, in high court.

The report, filed through DCP Special Cell, informed the high court that WhatsApp chats, statements of witnesses and co-accused clearly implicated Zargar as being the co-conspirator in the crime of instigating large-scale disruption and riots, not only in Delhi, but also in other parts of the country.

Police claimed that the protests were organised following the ‘Shaheen Bagh chakkajam’ model and 21 protest sites were converted to chakka jam resulting in heightened tension and riots in parts of the capital.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta and additional solicitor general Aman Lekhi urged Justice Rajiv Shakdher to grant them a day’s time to seek instructions on the issue, saying it will be in the “larger interest” if they were given indulgence. The court, which conducted the hearing through videoconferencing, allowed the request after Zargar’s counsel said she had no objection and listed the matter for Tuesday.

DELHI POLICE SAYS

There is no exception for pregnant inmate, who is accused of such heinous crime, to be released on bail merely because of their pregnancy

Will Provide Pulse Oximeter To Each Patient To Monitor O2 Level At Home, Says Kejriwal

Will Provide Pulse Oximeter To Each Patient To Monitor O2 Level At Home, Says Kejriwal

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:  23.06.2020

With almost half of the total active Covid-19 patients currently under home isolation, Delhi government has decided to give each of them a pulse oximeter to regularly monitor their oxygen level, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Monday. He added that facilities had been ramped up and the number of people being tested daily had been increased from 5,000 to 18,000.

Kejriwal said the novel coronavirus affects the respiratory system leading to a sudden drop in the oxygen level in the body, thereby resulting in breathlessness. With pulse oximeter, a device clipped onto the fingertip, a patient can monitor the oxygen level every couple of hours.

Patients can return the device to the government after they have recovered. A pulse oximeter costs between Rs 1,000-3,000. Delhi government has planned to procure about one lakh such devices.

Doctors say the normal oxygen level in the body is 95-100%, but if it drops to 90% or below, the patient can require hospitalisation.

The CM said a helpline number would soon be provided where patients under home isolation would be able to call for help after a fall in the oxygen level. “Every district will have oxygen concentrators. A team will carry a concentrator to you to regulate your oxygen level. If required, you will be immediately shifted to a hospital,” he added.

According to the health bulletin released on Sunday, Delhi had 23,820 active Covid-19 cases of which 12,106 were in home isolation.

Delhi government, with the help of the Centre, has started using antigen kits for rapid testing of suspect corona patients, which gives results in 15-30 minutes. While about 5,000 people were being tested earlier per day, the CM said that the number had been increased to 18,000 daily in the last one week. He added that some labs were earlier involved in “unacceptable” activities and showing positive results of uninfected people. “Action was taken against them. Now, all labs have been directed to work to their full capacity in a fair manner,” Kejriwal said.

The number of people needing hospitalisation had also decreased, the CM said, adding that 6,200 beds were currently occupied and about 7,000 were vacant. On June 12, 5,300 beds were occupied, which meant only 900 more beds were used in the last 10 days even though the number of cases had surged by 23,000.

“This means either the number of new patients being admitted in the hospitals is the same as those recovering or very few actually require hospitalisation,” the CM said.

Urging all political parties to rise above their differences and work together in this time of crisis, Kejriwal said this was not the time to play politics. “If we fight each other, we will lose our battle against corona,” he added.

Taking a swipe against China, the CM said that people and political parties must stand united against the most populous country. Supporting the Centre on the face-off against China in Ladakh, he added that India was fighting two battles — one by doctors and nurses against the virus spread by the neighbouring country and the second by soldiers at the border.

“Twenty of our soldiers laid down their lives, but didn’t step back. The country will never retract its steps in the fight against the virus,” Kejriwal said.

WAR ON CORONA: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said in the past week, 18,000 were being tested daily in the city against 5,000 earlier

KEJRIWAL SAYS

With pulse oximeter, a device clipped onto the fingertip, a patient can monitor the oxygen level every couple of hours

NEET-UG, JEE (Main) exams likely to be delayed due to Covid

NEET-UG, JEE (Main) exams likely to be delayed due to Covid

Manash.Gohain@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  23.06.2020

Under pressure from students demanding a postponement of the NEET UG and JEE (Main) exams, the government is deliberating pushing back the dates for the key medical and engineering entrance tests due to the prevailing pandemic situation. The HRD ministry in consultation with the ministry of health and family welfare (for NEET-UG) is likely to announce a postponement after the Supreme Court’s hearing on Tuesday on the Centre’s reply to a petition filed by some parents seeking cancellation of pending Class XII CBSE examinations.

As the dates for the NEET-UG and JEE (Main) drew closer, the chorus on social media for postponing the exams got louder with hashtags like #HealthOver-NeetJEE and #Studentslivesmatter. Thousands of students have written to the National Testing Agency, the body which conducts the entrance exams, demanding the same. In fact, every tweet of Ramesh Pokhriyal, Union minister for HRD, has been responded with thousands of JEE (Main) and NEET-UG aspirants asking him to delay the exams further. JEE (Main) has been scheduled for July 18-23 and NEET-UG is supposed to be held on July 26. Even a tweet “Jay Jagannath Ji” from Pokriyal was responded by hundreds of anxious aspirants with hashtags such as #NoExamsInCovid, #postponejee, #HealthOverNeet-JEE and #Studentslivesmatter.

 According to HRD sources, the ministry is waiting for Tuesday’s SC hearing before taking a call on the matter.

Full report on www.toi-.in

SAFETY FIRST: Every tweet of Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal has been responded with thousands of JEE (Main) and NEET-UG aspirants asking him to delay the exams further

Covid could stay till September, indicates IIT-Kharagpur study

Covid could stay till September, indicates IIT-Kharagpur study

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata:  23.06.2020

India is unlikely to get rid of Covid-19 before September, a statistical model created by IIT-Kharagpur has predicted.

“The study indicates that India is yet to achieve a steady pattern in the spread of the disease,” said Abhijit Das, a professor in the department of computer science and engineering, who authored the study.

“The country is unlikely to get rid of Covid-19 before the end of September 2020. This does not leave us in a region of comfort, but we have to accept the reality and chalk out appropriate plans to address all the issues associated with the outbreak of the pandemic,” he added.

There has been considerable change in the spread pattern of the disease in India, said Das and attributed it to various causes, like “different mobility patterns of Indians in different phases of lockdown, large-scale migration of labourers, change in diagnostic facilities, evolution of the coronavirus, and so on. “ “These causes are well beyond the control of the logistics model, or any other predictive model. Although the implementation fails to generate stable and reliable predictions, the trend clearly reveals that the disease is going to stay in the country for many more months,” added Das.

Experts in the field of virology and infectious diseases agree on the primary inference of the IIT study that the disease is not going away anytime soon. “We are now in the exponential phase,” said Sumon Poddar, a microbiologist at the Institute of Child Health, Kolkata.

“The worst could be in July and August, after which we could experience the declining phase from September. And, in between, because of diseases like dengue and scrub typhus, we can never say whether there could be coinfections,” said Poddar.

Full report on www.toi.in

WORST NOT YET OVER:

People wait to board a bus at Esplanade in Kolkata on Monday

Weddings are out, lensmen turn butchers, welders

Weddings are out, lensmen turn butchers, welders

Devanathan.Veerappan@timesgroup.com

Madurai:  23.06.2020

The lockdown in place to contain Covid-19 has forced many wedding photographers across Madurai, who lost their livelihoods, to take up various odd jobs to feed their families during this crisis.

A Sathish Prabhu, 42, a city-based wedding photographer, who lost all his orders worth close to ₹3 lakh due to lockdown is now running his chicken shop full time, which used to be his side business. He said that he had invested close to₹20 lakh towards equipment for wedding photography and videography and has to pay ₹25, 000 towards EMI.

“My chicken shop is not doing well either. Earlier, I earned ₹25, 000 every month from it by operating only for three days in a week. I operate it throughout the week now, but hardly earn ₹15,000,” Prabhu said.

R Raja, another wedding photographer from Vilachery, has returned to his less profitable but physically demanding welding store, which he once ran.

“I have to earn something to feed my family. Apart from welding, I also paint vehicles like auto rickshaw. The work is tiresome but I do not have any other option,” he said.

M R Balakumar, another wedding photographer from Avaniyapuram said he has now taken up his father’s trade of bag making (bags issued in textile stores). The demand for bag has also come down due to low sales in stores.

“I was earning ₹25, 000 on an average in a month through photography. But now, I am finding it difficult to earn even ₹8,000 ,” he said.

It’s not just photographers who have taken to less profitable jobs but many have taken up odd jobs to keep themselves afloat during the troubled Covid times. A businessman, who plied four school vans to ferry students, is now working in an eatery. Umar Ali, a resident of Yagappa Nagar, said that he employed four drivers to run his vehicles. But due to lockdown, there is no income. He spent all his savings to pay salaries to his drivers.

“I am taking up all sorts of jobs coming on my way like loading and unloading vegetables at markets and serving food at an eatery. I would need more than ₹1 lakh to get my vehicles ready to get fitness certificate and to pay insurance, without which I cannot move the vehicle after lockdown is eased,” he said.

LOCKDOWN EFFECT: R Raja, a wedding photographer from Vilachery is doing welding work and painting vehicles, as bookings for functions have been cancelled

Shocked Kaushalya vows to continue battle

Shocked Kaushalya vows to continue battle

Subburaj.A@timesgroup.com

23.06.2020

Kaushalya, the widow of dalit youth V Shankar who was murdered by a gang in 2016, has expressed shock and disappointment over the Madras high court verdict in the case. The court had acquitted her father B Chinnasamy and set aside the death sentence of other convicts imposed by a trial court in 2017.

Expressing disappointment over acquittal of her father, Kaushalya who has since remarried, said she would continue her legal fight till her parents are punished. Her mother Annalakshmi, who was also cited as an accused, was acquitted by the trial court. The government's appeal against the release of Annalakshmi was also set aside by the high court. "Chinnasamy and Annalakshmi should be punished. Only if they are punished, it would render justice to the death of Shankar. I will continue to fight till Shankar gets justice," Kausalya said.

Kaushalya, a Thevar from Kuppampalayam in Dindigul district, had married Shankar, a dalit from Komaralingam village near Udumalpet in 2015, against the wishes of her parents. Despite opposition from her parents, she started living in Shankar’s house. On March 13, 2016, when the couple visited Udumalpet, a gang hacked Shankar to death in broad daylight near the bus stand. Kaushalya was also attacked with sickles, but she survived with severe injuries.

Police arrested her father Chinnasamy, her mother Annalakshmi, her maternal uncle Pandidurai along with eight others.

The principal district judge court in Tirupur sentenced Chinnasamy and five others to death, one of the accused to double life term and another to five years imprisonment. Annalakshmi, Pandidurai and one more accused were acquitted. “I would like to ask who was responsible for the murder of Shankar. Are those who have been sentenced to life are behind the murder or those who have been acquitted? It was the acquitted people who were directly linked to the murder,” she alleged.

Kaushalya said that if her parents were not against Shankar or her marriage, this case would not have surfaced at all, since Shankar would be alive now. "My parents should be punished for the murder of Shankar,’’ she said adding that she would intensify the legal fight now. Kaushalya got married to a parai artist in 2018 and now lives in Nilgiris district.

LET FREE: Kaushalya's parents Annalakshmi and Chinnasamy