TCS-JSS Tech varsity to offer new course

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

MYSURU, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

Students will be exposed to emerging topics such as Analytics, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence

To address the growing need of engineering talent with skills in digital technology, TCS has designed a curriculum for a 4-year undergraduate programme titled “Computer Science and Business Systems (CSBS)”.

JSS Science and Technology University (formerly SJCE) is the first deemed-to-be-university in Karnataka to offer this course from the year 2019-20.

JSS Science and Technology Universityon Tuesday signed an MoU with TCS to offer the programme to the students in the upcoming batch. The MoU was signed by Registrar, JSS Science and Technology University and Chandra Koduru, Head of Academic Interface Programme of TCS.

The curriculum aims to ensure that the students not only know the core topics of Computer Science but also develop an equal appreciation of humanities, management sciences and human values, according to the university.

The students are exposed to emerging topics such as Analytics, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make them industry ready at the end of four years of study. This curriculum has been approved by the Executive Committee of AICTE and is available in the AICTE drop-down menu of nomenclatures for engineering course.

As part of the MoU, TCS will support JSS Science and Technology University by training and developing its faculty, and organising guest lectures.

Tejas Express chugs on with teething problems

S. Sundar

MADURAI, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

A view of one of the coaches of Tejas Express.G. 

MoorthyG_Moorthy

Swanky coaches, air-conditioned comfort make it a passenger’s dream train

After a long time since the launch of flagship trains of Madurai — Pandian Superfast Express and Vaigai Superfast Express — the Temple City got another Chennai-Madurai-Chennai train, Tejas Express, on March 1.

The service, with air-conditioned swanky coaches, was flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Touted to be the best in class in pampering the passengers with its facilities and comfort at a premium fare, the coaches made at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, got the attraction they deserved.

The train that is operated on six days a week (expect on Thursdays) leaves Chennai at 6 a.m. and reaches Madurai at 12.30 p.m. with just two stoppages at Tiruchi and Kodai Road.

In return direction, it leaves at 3 p.m. and arrives Chennai Egmore at 9.30 p.m. On many days, the passengers say, it arrives the destination before time.

Arun Shankar, 52, a resident of Madurai, who has travelled twice in the train, says he would prefer Tejas to air journey as it gives more comfort at a fare that is cheaper than air fare.

“I bet the comfort of the two + two seating arrangement in executive class is as good as those in the business class in private aircraft,” he says.

Stating that most of his travels are planned at the last minute, he says that he gets an assured seat in executive class on any working day and hence, has become its fan. This businessman has introduced this train to many of his friends and relatives. Railway officials say that the train has become so popular that it runs packed on many days as the summer vacation has peaked. Only a handful of seats are available in both the classes.

Complaints galore

However, within less than two months after its launch, passengers are complaining about malfunctioning of various new facilities in the brand new coaches.

The major complaint is about the breaking down of scores of infotainment system.

The LED screens mounted on the back of seats play pre-loaded movies of different languages or songs. “This was boasted as the major attraction of the train. But, with over 200 LED screens not functioning, the passengers are targeting us,” says one the Travelling Ticket Examiner.

Some of the passengers are not willing to change their seat where the screens function.

“They want us to set right the defect in the screen on their seat,” one of the TTE says.

A group of eight passengers, who travelled from Chennai, are appreciative of the comfort of the seating facility in the train. However, D. Dharmarajan, 52, complains that many of the LED screens are not working. Though he is happy about the service, he feels the food on board is not up to his expectation.

Shanthi Gunasekaran, 56, complains about the choking of toilet.

“We left home at 4 a.m. to board the train at 6 a.m. And should we not get a clean toilet? This problem was there even when I travelled in the train on the second day of its launch,” she says. A sign board on how to use the toilet will help first-time passengers.

Mr. Arun Shankar suggests deployment of on-board cleaning staff to overcome the choking problems in toilets.

He also says that the food served should be fine tuned to meet the expectations of south Indians.

He also feels that Rs. 355 for food is on the higher side and suggests that the running time of the train, if cut by 30 minutes to one hour, will attract more passengers.

Vasuki Vaseegaran, 58, is of the view that employing on-board staff who are conversant in Tamil will help a lot of passengers. “The train runs only in Tamil Nadu and more importantly to and from Madurai. There is no need for all of the staff to speak only in Hindi,” she says.

A veena vidwan, A. Bhalaji, complains of lack of cooling effect in the air-conditioned coaches. “Since the atmospheric temperature has soared now, if the temperature inside the coach is brought down further, it will be more comfortable,” he says.

J. Johan William, 71, is not happy with the rude behaviour of the catering staff who refused to offer him tea as he had not opted for the food served in the coach. “When they are offering me a bottle of water, why should the railway not offer tea? I could have bought a tea, but the staff sounded very rude,” the senior citizen complains. The TTE did not give him a complaint book. “He said he did not have one,” Mr. William says.

Though a few passengers feel that their experience with Tejas is good, a railway source says that the automated doors in some of the coaches — C2, C3 and C4 — are not functioning. “With just a couple of minutes’ halt at Tiruchi and Kodai Road, the doors have to be opened for the passengers to get down and get in on time. Two additional employees have been nominated to open the door manually from outside,” the TTE says.

Otherwise, all the doors of the coaches are operated by the guard.

A few sliding coach doors and electronically-operated Venetian blinds are not working and get stuck in the middle.

Say Hello’ scheme a big hit among senior citizens

S.P. Saravanan

ERODE, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

District police resolve 238 complaints received over phone

The district police have received 249 calls and resolved 238 of these under the “Say Hello” scheme that aims at resolving the problems of senior citizens and the public by receiving complaints over phone. Action is pending for 11 complaints.

The police launched the scheme in January this year through which elderly or affected persons can call the number 96558-88100 and register their complaints related to small disputes and altercations. The complaint is forwarded to the police station concerned for necessary action and the grievance is redressed. Officials said that issues between neighbours over compound wall, cutting trees, problem in fetching water from common tap w were sorted out with the intervention of the policemen at their doorsteps.

After launching the scheme, the police received 249 calls that were related to different kinds of problems - family dispute (69 calls), land dispute (27), burglary (5), altercations (27), cheating (17) and others (72 calls).

Further, a total of 32 calls were received appreciating the scheme.

Superintendent of Police S. Sakthi Ganesan said that calls were made by people of different age groups though majority were by the senior citizens - age group of 20 to 30 years – 11 calls, 31 to 40 years – 23 calls, 41 to 50 years – 20 calls, 51 to 60 years – 44 calls, 61 to 70 years – 76 calls, 71 to 80 calls – 61 calls and above 81 to 90 years – 14 calls. He said that 18 calls were also received from other districts, including Karur and Chennai (1 call each), Salem, Namakkal, the Nilgiris (each 2 calls), Coimbatore (4), Villupuram (1) and Tiruppur district (5 calls).

Those calls were related to family dispute, cheating over financial transactions and hence the complainants were asked to approach the police in their concerned districts.

Mr. Sakthi Ganesan said that most of the calls received comes under the jurisdictions of Erode North Police Station (27 calls), Erode South Police Station (26 calls) and Modakurichi Police Station (14 calls) action were taken accordingly. He requested the elderly people and affected people to contact the number and get their small issues sorted out.

Centre releases Rs. 58 cr. for colleges, varsities

R. Sujatha

CHENNAI, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

Grant for infrastructure, research

The Human Resource Development Ministry has released Rs. 58.92 crore as part of grant to improve higher education institutions in the State.

The allocation is under Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, which envisages improvement of infrastructure, faculty development, research and innovation and upgrade of degree colleges to model institutions.

Sixty per cent of the contribution comes from the Centre.

Institutions that have benefitted under the scheme include Tamil University of Thanjavur and the Physical Education and Sports University, which will receive Rs. 6 crore each for infrastructure improvement. Madurai Kamaraj University has been allocated Rs. 1.05 crore for faculty improvement; Bharathiar University, Annamalai University, Anna University, MKU, Bharathidasan University and University of Madras each have been sanctioned Rs. 4.50 crore towards entrepreneurship and career hub development.

The Government Arts College, Salem; Alagappa College, Karaikudi and Presidency College, Chennai, have each been given Rs. 60 lakh for infrastructure and colleges, including Quaid E Millath, Nandanam, Presidency, Dr. Ambedkar, Queen Mary’s and Bharathi Women’s College, Chennai, have been allocated funds to develop vocational education. Nineteen colleges, including Presidency College, have been allocated Rs. 10.50 lakh for vocationalisation of higher education.

The funds also include the third and final grant to improve infrastructure to Mother Teresa University Bharathiar University and Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.

According to a letter from the Principal Accounts Officer of the HRD Ministry, the State comes under General Category and the funds being released in the first instalment are for improving management, monitoring, evaluation and research component.

Mercury soars to 40.1 degree Celsius in Chennai

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

Hottest day of the year so far in city

Chennaiites, who were expecting summer showers for the past few days, instead had to put up with scorching heat on Tuesday. It was the hottest day of the year as the mercury level soared to 40.1 degree Celsius.

This is the second time in the decade that the maximum temperature has crossed 40 degree Celsius in the city. Chennai had previously recorded 40.8 degree Celsius on April 23, 2016.

Though it was cloudy in the morning, the city sizzled in the grip of heatwave conditions as day temperature quickly climbed several notches above average temperature. The weather station in Meenambakkam too recorded 40.2 degree Celsius, which is nearly four degree Celsius above average.

High humidity

The relatively high humidity at 79% in Nungambakkam and 70% in Meenambakkam led to uncomfortable weather.

Places such as Vellore, Tiruttani and Tiruchi also witnessed scorching heat as the maximum temperature peaked beyond the 40-degree Celsius mark.

S. Balachandran, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Chennai, said such variations in temperature occurred when weather systems were active in the Bay of Bengal. Cyclonic storm ‘Fani’ is likely to become extremely severe and cross the Odisha coast on May 3 afternoon. There may be a possibility of some rain over the State due to feeder bands of the weather system even though the storm has moved away from Tamil Nadu coast.

Dry westerlies

On the rise in day temperature, he said the maximum temperature in the city dropped after sometime on Tuesday. Such oscillation occurred when dry westerlies prevailed over the region.

The land breeze was strong on Tuesday and this was accentuated by the cyclonic storm ‘Fani’. This led to sudden spike in temperature.

However, moisture incursion caused by sea breeze brought down the temperature by afternoon.

Cloudy sky

Officials of the Meteorological Department said there may be chances of rain in one or two places of the State.

Chennai may have a cloudy sky and the maximum temperature may hover around 39 degree Celsius till Thursday.

Such variations in temperature occur when weather systems are active in the Bay of Bengal

S. BalachandranDeputy Director General of Meteorology, Chennai

Madras HC curbs L-G role in Puducherry

Mohamed Imranullah S.

CHENNAI, MAY 01, 2019 00:00 IST

Kiran Bedi

‘Amounts to running a parallel govt.’

The Madras High Court on Tuesday ruled that the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G)of Puducherry could not interfere with the day-to-day administration of the Union Territory when an elected government was in place. The court said incessant interference from the L-G would amount to running a “parallel government.”

Authoring a 150-page judgement, Justice R. Mahadevan said: “The Central government as well as the Administrator [the term used in the Constitution to refer to the Lieutenant-Governor] should be true to the concept of democratic principles. Otherwise, the constitutional scheme of the country of being democratic and republic would be defeated.”

The judge made it clear that government secretaries were bound to take instructions from the ministers concerned and the Council of Ministers, headed by the Chief Minister, besides reporting to them on official matters. “The secretaries are not empowered to issue orders on their own or upon the instructions of the Administrator,” Justice Mahadevan said.

Practice disapproved

He disapproved of the alleged practice of government officials being part of social media groups through which the L-G was issuing instructions to them for redress of public grievances and reminded them that as per rules, they were bound to use only authorised medium of communication when it came to issues related to administration.

The judgement was delivered while allowing a petition filed by Congress MLA K. Lakshminarayanan in 2017, and quashing two clarifications issued by the Union Home Ministry that year with regard to the powers of the L-G.

The judge held that those communications had been issued without reference to the constitutional provisions and other laws.

Though the Centre had primarily questioned the locus standi of the petitioner to file the case, the judge rejected the objections on the ground that such a writ petition at the instance of an MLA was maintainable.

In his judgment, Justice Mahadevan also went on to point out the differences between the powers conferred on the legislatures of Puducherry and Delhi under Articles 239A and 239AA of the Constitution.

The judge said though Article 239AA imposes several restrictions on the legislature of Delhi, no such restrictions had been imposed explicitly in the case of Puducherry under Article 239A.

“The above Article symbolises the supremacy of the Legislature above the Administrator in case of the Union Territory of Puducherry.”

BLDE Deemed to be university Notification 2019