Willpower unmarred for couple on wheelchair 

They believe wheels do not make a difference, people can lead a very normal life
 
01/09/2019 , Hemani Bhandari , NEW DELHI 


 
Deepak and Achala got married in 2017.SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKARSHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

Around 10 a.m., Deepak Maggo (31) sat on his wheelchair and stepped out of his house. He hopped on to his car and showed how he drives to work everyday using a hand-operated kit.

Deepak’s wife Achala, 32, a senior tax assistant in the Income Tax office, drives an SUV. “Mujhe hamesha bhagna tha, udna tha. Bas rengna nahi tha [I always wanted to run, to fly. I never wanted to crawl],” she said.

Deepak and Achala, both wheelchair users, got married in April 2017 after meeting on Facebook two years before that. Today, their message to wheelchair-bound people is that they can lead a “very normal” life and the wheels should not make a difference.

Ms. Achala took completely to wheels in 2014, months after she met with a car accident near her house in Ashok Vihar. Recalling the incident, she said she had pressed the accelerator instead of applying brake and rammed a car. The incident, she said, left a scarring impact on her mental health.

Spinal illness

“I was about three years old when the doctors diagnosed me with a spinal illness. I was able to walk properly till I was eight, but an operation went wrong. Since then, I used a stick to walk and underwent a series of therapies, including stem cell, but nothing helped. After the accident, I started suffering from mental illness and took medicines. I could not deal with it and thought of ending my life ,” she said.

College dropout

Another setback she recalled, was when she had to drop out of a Delhi University college during graduation. There was lack of infrastructure, classes were on first floor and I was falling randomly, she said. “I recall giving up hope completely that year. But then I studied German and took tuitions at home. Meanwhile, I took Staff Selection Commission Exam and finally got a government job in 2014. Life has been better since then because people are extremely helpful and infrastructure at work is also very supportive,” she said.

Mr. Maggo, on the other hand, comes from a fairly humble background. “I was always independent because I learnt to “crawl” very early in my life. I rarely used a wheelchair till a few years ago. I used to always crawl. I remember crawling in front of 500 people when I was preparing for Chartered Accountant exams and no one made me feel any less,” he said. Mr. Maggo could not clear the examination but now works as a supervisor at the New Delhi Railway Station.

The couple said that wheelchair-bound people connect with each other on Facebook to be able to share their woes and that is how the two met. Mr. Maggo sent a friend request to Ms. Achala. They met, she counselled him into going out of his comfort zone and join sports activities. In the second meeting, he proposed marriage to her.

Ms. Achala recalled taking a year and a half to decide whether it was a wise decision to marry someone who is also on a wheelchair.

“My mother was very possessive. She was not sure whether two wheelchair-bound people would be able to lead a good life. But we discussed how it would be better for us to be together because we were both in the same position and would be able to understand each other better,” she said.

Making trips

The two went to Dubai for their honeymoon and have been taking trips across India since marriage. They make sure the accommodation they are selecting has no accessibility issues. “We also check if the washroom doors can let our wheelchairs in; it is very important,” said Ms. Achala.

She is thankful to her husband for making her confident about travelling, something she was apprehensive about before she met him. “I went to Vaishno Devi with my friends 10 years ago and crawled all the way up. It built my confidence,” said Mr. Maggo.

They have shared travelling videos on their YouTube channel named “Perfect Couple on Wheelchair”. But how do they call themselves a perfect couple? “I support him mentally and emotionally and he supports me physically,” she smiles.

IRCTC to reintroduce convenience fee for online ticket booking from today 

₹15 and ₹30 plus taxes to be collected for sleeper and AC class, respectively

01/09/2019 , Special Correspondent, MANGALURU

The convenience fee was suspended after demonetisation in Nov. 2016.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a PSU of Indian Railways, has decided to reintroduce the convenience fee, which was suspended on the Union Finance Ministry’s advise after demonetisation in November 2016 to encourage digital transactions, with effect from Sunday.

Those booking online train tickets from Sunday through www.irctc.co.in will have to shell out ₹15 and ₹30 plus taxes as convenience fee per ticket for sleeper class and air-conditioned classes tickets, respectively. This is in addition to the payment gateway charges, if any. Those using UPI for the transaction would be charged ₹10 and ₹20 plus taxes for sleeper class and air-conditioned classes tickets, respectively.

In a letter to the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), Indian Railways’ information technology arm, on Saturday, IRCTC said the Railway Board had approved the corporation’s proposal to levy the convenience fee. It asked the CRIS to make necessary changes in NGeT system to apply the changes for online booking of all tickets through IRCTC. The corporation had suspended collection of convenience fee of ₹20 and ₹40 for sleeper and AC classes from November 23, 2016. The Finance Ministry, which used to reimburse part of the expenses, had told IRCTC that reimbursement cannot continue, according to the corporation’s chairman and managing director M.P. Mall.

Mr. Mall told The Hindu, “Every service has a cost and if the cost is not recovered, we cannot sustain.” The corporation may offer some promotional scheme for UPI transactions, he added.

Mr. Mall said the corporation was expecting to earn about ₹550 crore following reintroduction of the fee in 2019–20.

‘Waiver helped Railways’

Sanjeev Dyamannavar from Prajaa.Raag, a mobility initiative in Bengaluru, said no online service provider levies charges like this. Online ticket booking had helped the Railways to maintain minimum number of staff at its reservation counters while people also benefited from round-the-clock booking facility. Now, people may travel distances to reservation counters, he said.

Yogendra Swamy from Mysuru Grahaka Parishat said that while on the one hand, the government says ‘go digital’, and on the other, it levies charges for digital transactions.

New sitting arrangement at Madurai Bench of Madras High Court 

A new set of judges will preside over court proceedings from September 3 

01/09/2019 , Staff Reporter, MADURAI

A new set of judges will preside over the court proceedings at the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court from September 3.

Justice T.S. Sivagnanam will be the Administrative Judge at the High Court Bench for the next three months. A Division Bench of Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and R. Tharani will hear public interest litigation petitions, all division bench writ and appeal matters, criminal contempt and appeals relating to orders in contempt proceedings.

After Division Bench sitting, Justice T.S. Sivagnanam will hear old writ petitions. Justice R. Tharani will hear civil revision petitions of 2014.

A Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and N. Anand Venkatesh will hear habeas corpus petitions, all criminal appeals and criminal cases to be heard by Division Bench, including crime against women and children.

After Division Bench sitting, Justice S. Vaidyanathan will hear old civil revision petitions. Justice N. Anand Venkatesh will hear criminal original petitions and writ petitions (CrPC) of 2017.

Justice V.M. Velumani will hear writ petitions relating to labour and service from 2016 and writ petitions relating to Freedom Fighters Pension Scheme. Justice S.S. Sundar will hear writ petitions relating to labour and service up to the year 2015.

Justice V. Parthiban will hear criminal appeals, including appeals relating to crime against women and children and criminal revision petitions from 2015.

Justice M. Govindaraj will hear writ petitions relating to motor vehicles, motor vehicle tax, all other taxes and duties, export and import, customs and central excise, prohibition and state excise, mines and minerals, forests and industries.

Justice M. Sundar will hear writ petitions relating to general miscellaneous, education, land reforms, land tenancy, land ceiling, land acquisition and other land laws.

Justice J. Nisha Banu will hear first appeals and second appeals up to 2014. Justice G. R. Swaminathan will hear criminal original petitions, anticipatory bail petitions and bail petitions, writ petitions (CrPC) up to the year 2016.

Justice P.T. Asha will hear second appeals from 2015, civil miscellaneous second appeals, company appeals, transfer civil miscellaneous petitions and civil revision petitions up to 2013.

Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan will hear criminal original petitions and writ petitions (CrPC) from 2018. Justice B. Pugalendhi will hear criminal appeals including appeals relating to crime against women and children and criminal revision petitions up to 2014, CBI and Prevention of Corruption Act cases.

Justice Krishnan Ramasamy will hear civil miscellaneous appeals and civil revision petitions from 2015.

Being on alert against fake news 

When it comes to evaluating information on social media, even the educated are easily duped

01/09/2019 , A. Amalraj

The Internet gives access to a vast trove of data, both necessary and unnecessary. A surfer gets information posted by anonymous people who, uninhibited by the fear of law, post anything and escape the consequences.

As Web pages are susceptible to accidental or deliberate alteration, there is little possibility of finding if the information is valid, doctored, morphed or just a figment of the imagination of the hidden author.

Free services that allow encrypted messages, which are easy to access and forward, are the order of the day. Not a day passes without some text, photo or video, often modified to suit the taste of the creator, landing on our mobile phones. This unchecked way of information-sharing often tends to create scandals of mind-boggling proportions. Luckily, most of these scandals have a short shelf life. The importance of the message withers0 away when new information takes its place in quick succession.

Fake news is now a mounting problem as fraudsters and anti-social elements use social media platforms to target people. Factual news is increasingly getting buried in an avalanche of incorrect information with potential to create rifts between communities, castes and religions. An incident of little significance taking place in an isolated area can easily be showcased as sensational news.

Fact checking

Testing the accuracy of the received information is a hard task. Factual information should reveal details of the author and those responsible for the truthfulness of the content. These should be available for verification by independent questioning. The credibility of information depends on evidence. When there is insufficient material to verify the legitimacy of information, doubts arise about its veracity. The origin and the time of delivery of information received in cyberspace cannot be ascertained easily to make proper conclusions.

Combating the information overflow is a daunting task for ordinary citizens. What and what not to trust are never-ending questions that defy easy answers. Faced with a shower of information, the audience at best, ignores it and at worst, believes it all.

Safeguarding information from falling into the wrong hands is becoming increasingly difficult, making it susceptible to modifications. When it comes to evaluating information on social media channels, even the educated are easily duped.

Our education system should be attuned to preventing young minds from falling prey to this deluge. Regular practice of reading, analysing and evaluating information may be the best defence against sinking into misinformation bogs. It is not unusual to see young minds taking extreme decisions and falling prey to the social media circus.

Students in schools and colleges should be given regular opportunities to think about, and evaluate, information harvested from a variety of sources, to learn to recognise their own vulnerabilities to disinformation, and to look beyond sources that reinforce their beliefs.

Unlike in the case of conventional crimes, the criminal characteristics of those who use communication tools to spread false news are not readily definable. The creators and victims of false news could be from any strata of society. Agonising for a prolonged period of time over doctored news and images will take one nowhere, except succeeding in the author’s intention of causing harm.

The personal information available in different social media and Web platforms are a treasure trove waiting to be harvested for nefarious activities. Children get a rap for sharing too much information online, but adults are no better when it comes to online privacy. When in doubt, share less.

Persons and groups authoring malicious news are not restricted by State or national boundaries. The culprit, concealing his identity, may live in any part of the planet. This makes combating the information deluge a challenging task, both for the police and the public.

amalraj8575@yahoo.co.in

ILLUSTRATION: SATWIK GADE

Former MP’s son held for misusing rail pass

01/09/2019 , Special Correspondent, CHENNAI

The Government Railway Police on Saturday arrested the son of N. Selvaraj, former MP who passed away recently, for travelling on his father’s railway pass. He was released on bail.

According to police, Kalairaj, a civil engineer, is the son of the politician who was elected from Tiruchi Lok Sabha constituency in 1980. He travelled in H-1 coach of the Bangalore Mail on Saturday morning.

Railway vigilance officials, at Perambur, found that he travelled on his father’s railway pass.

He was taken to the GRP station in Chennai Central and a case was registered under section 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation) of the IPC. Further investigation is on.

Around 300 UG seats vacant in Anna varsity

01/09/2019 , Special Correspondent, CHENNAI

As many as 300 seats will remain vacant across Anna University’s undergraduate programmes this academic year. The phenomenon of seats going vacant has become the norm over several years due to delay in the conduct of medical admissions.

This year, the online single window counselling for engineering seats overlapped that for medical seats. The first phase of counselling for engineering began on July 3 and candidates had four days’ time to lock in their choices. Counselling for medicine began on July 8. This allowed candidates to withdraw from engineering counselling if they were allotted a seat in a medical college.

“It appears that students with good scores in NEET managed to get into medical colleges but did not release the seats they had registered for at Anna University. They had paid registration fees so we could not cancel their seats,” an official explained.

Anna University Vice- Chancellor M.K. Surappa said, “Many meritorious students have gone to deemed universities.”

He said it would have helped if the medical admissions had taken place before engineering admissions. A high rate of unemployment in the last one year and a greater number of seats compared to demand are some of the reasons for poor admission, he said.

‘More doctors need to work in rural areas’

01/09/2019 , Staff Reporter, CHENNAI

Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Saturday said more doctors should work in rural areas.

Shortly after inaugurating the Fourth International Dental Conference and Exhibition, World Dental and Oral Health Congress- 2019 Asia series, he said, according to the World Health Organisation, the ideal dentist-population ratio was 1:7,500.

“There are about 300 dental colleges in India and nearly 25,000 graduates pass out every year. But most of them settle down in urban areas. Hence, the dentist-population ratio is about 1:10,000 in urban and 1:1,50,000 in rural areas,” he said.

He said such conferences would enthuse more youngsters to pursue dentistry, as it was necessary that there be a greater spread of doctors in rural areas. He emphasised the need for dental awareness programmes, maintenance of standardised patient data and creation of dental software, uniformly put to use all over the country.

The two-day event was attended by students and dentists from nearly 15 countries such as the U.K., the U.S., France and India. Organised by the World Dental Council and Graviton International, the conference will cover all aspects of dentistry, according to Charulatha, organising chairman.

S.M. Balaji, advisory member, World Dental Council, and Shovendhu Jha, registration co-chair, were present.