Terminated nurses seek job extension, pending salary

Terminated nurses seek job extension, pending salary

A total of 44 nurses were recruited by the hospital as contract workers in May. However, they were all terminated after three months and their salary is yet to be settled.

Published: 21st September 2021 05:38 AM 

By Express News Service

KARUR: Nurses, who were appointed on a temporary basis at the Karur Government Medical College Hospital during the second wave of Covid-19, submitted a petition at the Collectorate on Monday, seeking job extension and settlement of pending salary.A total of 44 nurses were recruited by the hospital as contract workers in May. However, they were all terminated after three months and their salary is yet to be settled.

One of the nurses, Hemalatha, told TNIE, “The Deputy Director of Health Services recruited us on a 3-month contract. We worked very hard braving risks, but were terminated on August 15. Nobody is bothered about us . Despite approaching the Deputy Director of Health and the hospital Dean, we received no proper response. We are yet to get our salary too. Meanwhile, the officials are now looking to recruit 75 nurses to tackle a probable third wave.”

Teen flags bug in IRCTC’s system

Teen flags bug in IRCTC’s system

Hacker could have accessed details of passengers

21/09/2021

P. Renganathan

S. Vijay Kumar CHENNAI

A city school student has helped the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) fix a bug on its online ticketing platform that could have exposed private information of millions of passengers.

Acting on his alert, the Computer Emergency Response Team, India, conveyed the vulnerability to the IRCTC that fixed the glitch, preventing a possible hacking of the largest online ticketing portal in the country.

According to P. Renganathan, 17, a Class XII student of a private school in Tambaram here, he was booking a train ticket by logging into the IRCTC portal a few days ago when he found certain vulnerabilities that could compromise the security of the site. The critical Insecure Object Direct References (IDOR) vulnerability on the website enabled him to access the journey details of other passengers such as name, gender, age, PNR number, train details, departure station and date of journey.

“Since the back-end code is the same, a hacker would have been able to order food, change the boarding station and even cancel the ticket without the knowledge of the bonafide passenger. Other services like domestic/international tourism, bus tickets and hotel bookings would have been possible in the user profile of other passengers. Most importantly, there was a risk of a huge database of millions of passengers getting leaked,” Renganathan said.

Issue resolved

On August 30, 2021, he reported the vulnerability to the CERT, India, which raised a ticket within minutes. Five days later, the bug was fixed and acknowledged by the IRCTC, says Renganathan.

The teenager says he has got acknowledgements from LinkedIn, United Nations, Nike and Lenovo among others for reporting security vulnerabilities on their web applications.

Renganathan wants to pursue a career in Computer Science, while continuing independent research on security of web applications.

SC not to interfere in reopening of schools

SC not to interfere in reopening of schools

21/09/2021

“The situation may vary according to factors like the size of the State to density of population. It’s the decision of each State to see the areas where there is a spike in cases and act accordingly. Ultimately, it’s best to leave it to the governments to decide. We cannot take over governance,” he noted.

Justice Nagarathna pointed out that teachers had to be vaccinated and children had not been vaccinated yet.

“The government is ultimately responsible to bring children back to school. We cannot direct them to open up in a time-bound manner. We have just come out of the second wave. There may be a third wave, though it may not be as devastating,” Justice Chandrachud remarked. The issue of whether to send children to school for physical classes or not and when to do that concerned the “complexities of governance which makes it eminently a case on which the court should not interfere”.

Advocate Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, for the petitioner, said the plea was not meant to be “publicity seeking”. Instead, it focused on the psychological and physical damage children were being subject to by not going to school. Many thousands of children also depended on schools for their midday meal. Justice Chandrachud agreed that there was a need to balance the need to keep children safe from the virus with the requirement to keep them physical and mentally healthy.

No-dowry bond a must in Calicut varsity

No-dowry bond a must in Calicut varsity

21/09/2021

Staff Reporter Kozhikode

More universities seem to be following Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s dictum to collect a ‘no-dowry’ bond before awarding degree certificates as the University of Calicut has now asked students and parents to sign such a declaration during the ongoing admissions to undergraduate courses.

As many as two lakh students seek admission to various undergraduate courses in Calicut University, which has a jurisdiction over six of the 14 districts in the State. The students are being asked to sign an undertaking that any breach of the rules relating to taking or abetting the taking of dowry shall render them liable for appropriate action, which include cancellation of admission, withdrawal of degree or refusal to grant degree.

Rajan panel wants deemed varsities under govt. purview

Rajan panel wants deemed varsities under govt. purview

But State is not inclined to implement the recommendation as experts opined that it may not have been legally correct

21/09/2021

Dennis S. JesudasanCHENNAI

The high-level committee, led by the retired High Court judge, A.K. Rajan, has recommended that all deemed universities be brought under the Tamil Nadu government’s purview. The committee, constituted to study the impact of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) on medical admissions in the State, submitted its report two months ago.

“As far as the deemed universities are concerned, an Act has to be passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly to bring all deemed universities of Tamil Nadu under the government’s purview, as under Act 3/2007, and the President’s assent has to be obtained,” according to the last of the seven recommendations made in the 165-page report. Act 3/2007 refers to the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act, 2006, passed in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. It received the President’s assent in 2007.

However, sources in the government told The Hindu that the government was not inclined to accept the last recommendation. Incidentally, the committee's report was the basis for the government to table a Bill against the NEET in the Assembly last week. It went through.

“Some of the legal experts opined that it [the Act for bringing the deemed universities under the government’s purview] may not have been legally correct. The part that recommended an Act against the NEET and admission on the basis of the Class 12 marks was taken up, and the Bill was passed,” an official said.

Though the report recommended bringing “all deemed universities of Tamil Nadu” under the government’s purview, another official pointed out that since the committee was constituted to study the impact of the NEET on medical education, “it most probably could have meant only those deemed universities that offer medicine as a course of study”.

One of the opinions received by the committee contended that the NEET nullified the opportunities for students of the tribal and rural communities and the oppressed sections to pursue medical education. “Especially, it has helped the private and deemed universities prevent the students of the oppressed sections from pursuing medicine,” the report said, citing the feedback.

“After the NEET, students who got a mere pass were able to get admission at private medical colleges by paying a huge amount of money. Rich people can buy seat by paying ₹25 lakh per annum at deemed universities even if they get a low score, and the total cost of the entire course would be around ₹1.50 crore,” the report said, again citing the feedback.

When contacted, one of the members of the committee told The Hindu, “Education is in the Concurrent List, and the State government can enact laws to bring deemed universities under its purview.”

Passenger books an entire business class for pet

Passenger books an entire business class for pet

Maltese Bela travels by Mumbai-Chennai flight in style

21/09/2021

Rare privilege: Bela, the Maltese, that travelled in the Mumbai-Chennai flight. ANI

Staff ReporterCHENNAI

On the morning of September 15, the crew of Air India at Mumbai airport were in for a surprise as they had an adorable white furry passenger carried into the business class of the aircraft. A woman passenger had booked 12 seats, the entire business class in the Airbus 320 to ensure a comfortable flight for her Maltese Bela from Mumbai to Chennai.

One way fare for a single business class seat on the flight is about ₹20,000 and the passenger may have spent about ₹2.4 lakh to ensure a comfortable flight for her pet.

Air India sources said while was rare for a passenger to book the entire business class, it was not uncommon to see pets taking a flight in the economy class. “We have seen dogs and cats on numerous occasions in the economy class; once, we even had hamsters on a flight from Delhi to Chennai,” a source in Air India said. For those who wish to carry their pets, Air India says it can be done either in cargo or cabin but there has to be a health and rabies vaccination certificate. “Also, the weight of the pet should be less than 5 kg and the animal must be carried in a soft-ventilated bag or kennel,” the source said.

The flight AI671 left Mumbai at 9 a.m. and landed in Chennai at 10.55 a.m. with the fur ball getting all the attention as it walked out of the terminal.

Air Canada resumes direct flights to and from India

Air Canada resumes direct flights to and from India

New Delhi:21.09.2021

Direct connectivity has resumed between India and Canada after almost five months. Air Canada restarted Delhi-Toronto non-stop flights with a new protocol that WHO approved vaccinated passengers must undergo an RT-PCR or a rapid PCR test within 18 hours of boarding flights from Covid testing centre and lounge at Delhi Airport’s terminal 3, reports Saurabh Sinha.

“Air Canada requires either of these specific tests as no other test from any other clinic within India will be accepted,” Air Canada says on its site for “testing requirements for flights from India.”

“The following conditions to travel still remain: All travellers must be double vaccinated. Only the following vaccines are recognised by Canada : Johnson / Moderna / Pfizer/Covishield,” it has told travel partners in a communique accessed by TOI. TNN