Except in city, buses may ply in Aug; CM to decide after talks with experts

But Services To Other States unlikely

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:29.07.2020

The state government is considering resumption of inter-district and intra-district bus services in August, after a month-long suspension. A decision will be taken after chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s meeting with district collectors and health experts on Wednesday and Thursday even as the state braces for one more lockdown phase in August. Opting for a cautious and measured approach, the government will move forward slowly and steadily, highly placed sources said.

There were 57,073 active cases on Monday, while it was 38,889 when the previous lockdown ended on June 30. “The government is considering resuming inter-district as well as intra-district bus transport, barring Chennai. A decision will be taken on July 30 after the chief minister’s meeting with the experts. The zonal system for transport, where districts are divided into zones for movement of buses, may be resumed,” said a source.

Dividing the state into eight zones, the state government resumed public transport with 50% occupancy from June 1, only to suspend the services after three weeks following a surge in cases and difficulties in tracing the contacts.

There is demand for resuming bus services as more and more businesses are opened up in non-containment areas. “But there is a feeling in the government that we should not be in a hurry to open up that may lead to another spurt and then resort to roll back. ‘Let it stabilise, let us watch and then move forward’ has been approach,” said another officer. Interstate bus transport is not on the cards, while educational institutions, shopping malls or cinema halls are unlikely to be opened.

The administrative machinery is making vigorous efforts to ramp up testing and hold aggressive fever camps. There is no backlog of samples for testing beyond 48 hours.

“There are 15,000 samples for a period of 24-48 hours, and 17,000 samples within 24 hours. We are on track and the trend will be known in a couple of days. Relaxations will be progressive,” said a senior official.

Madurai has stabilised with the positivity rate falling to 7.7% on Tuesday from 18% earlier. All southern districts, including Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Virudhunagar have taken up aggressive testing.

On Monday, the government sanctioned ₹69 crore from the state disaster management authority funds for institutional quarantine of passengers, accommodating asymptomatic positive patients in Covid care centres and creation of new Covid care centres in the districts, excluding Chennai. Districts with high load of cases get ₹3 crore each.

Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is meeting district collectors and health experts on Wednesday and Thursday

Air India pilots on rescue missions face 40% pay cut

Air India pilots on rescue missions face 40% pay cut

Ayyappan.V@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 29.07.2020

Air India pilots, who have been manning the Vande Bharat mission flights despite the health risk posed by Covid-19, have been forced to appeal to the ministry of civil aviation against the decision to cut allowances, including flying allowance, which form around 80% of their pay.

Pilots will lose around 40% of 11 allowances which are being given to them ,with some having lost almost ₹4 lakh to ₹5 lakh a month.

A senior pilot said the pay cut has had a negative impact on the morale of pilots who are operating flights amid the pandemic and undergo quarantine periods and repeated swab tests.

“Flying during the pandemic means that pilots have to go into quarantine after returning from abroad and can go home only after test results are negative. There is still a worry whether they will be infecting their family members,” the senior pilot said. Air India has operated around 130 Vande Bharat flights to Chennai airport so far.

“The move will have a tremendous impact on the pilots and can affect the safety of passengers,” said former pilot and air safety expert Mohan Ranganathan. “The airline is also violating key principles of fixing allowances decided around 30 years ago. A special grade was created and allowances were given to pilots following a meeting between the employees and the management. Pilots work round the year, cannot take weekends off and have to work through public holidays unlike other employees. The allowances were allotted to compensate for that. The money is high because pilots stand to lose everything if they have to be grounded.”

Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and Indian Pilots Guild on Monday sent a letter to the ministry of civil aviation asking for an appointment to explain the situation.

“The current industry standard in India is a cut of 15% to 23% on gross salary that is cost-to-company. However, Air India management is trying to show cost cutting by slashing cherrypicked allowances instead of a fair cut on gross wages,” Captain T Praveen Keerthi of ICPA said.

Indian Commercial Pilots Association and Indian Pilots Guild on Monday sent a letter to the ministry of civil aviation asking for an appointment to explain the situation

Madras univ VC search panel to recommend three names today

Madras univ VC search panel to recommend three names today

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 29.07.2020

The race for the post of Madras University vicechancellor intensified further as the search panel interviewed 12 shortlisted candidates on Tuesday. The panel is expected to recommend three names to the governor-chancellor on Wednesday.

The candidates’ list included two former registrars, eminent researchers and senior professors from various universities.

The interview took place at the Tamil Nadu Open University in Chennai. While search panel members P Maruthamuthu, former VC of Madurai Kamaraj University and P Ramasamy, former VC of Alagappa University, were present in person for the interview, the convener of the panel and Jawaharlal Nehru University vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar interviewed the candidates through video-conference.

The interview was conducted in three batches. “The committee members gave ten minutes time for introduction and asked questions related to the expertise of the candidates and academic experience,” one of the candidates who attended the interview said. For each candidate, the interview lasted for around thirty minutes.

From Madras University, four retired professors -- Thangam Menon, N Raaman, K Murugesan and R Sahadevan attended the interview while four professors from Anna University including former registrars S Ganesan and J Kumar were also interviewed. The other two professors from the technical university are S Gowri and Usha Natesan.

Thenmozhi M from IIT Madras, V Ramakrishnan, former director of IISER, Thiruvananthapuram and N Thajuddin from Bharathidasan University and M G Sethuraman from The Gandhigram Rural Institute also attended the interview. In total, 177 professors applied for the post. The panel shortlisted 43 candidates based on age, experience and fluency in Tamil. Of the 43, the panel called 12 candidates for the interview.

Son kills ailing mother out of ‘mercy’

Son kills ailing mother out of ‘mercy’

Says She Had Requested Him To Relieve Her Of Pain

Sindhu.Kannan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:29.07.2020

In a macabre case of matricide, a 36-year-old man murdered his bed-ridden mother, apparently to relieve her of her multiple ailments and pain.

Anandan slit her mother’s throat at their home in Sriperumpudur on Monday and later told police that he euthanised his mother unable to bear her suffering. The deceased, D Govindammal, lived with her husband Durai, 66, and their son Anandan.

The family made a living working as dhobis on Mariamman Koil Street in Sriperumbudur. Anandan was living with his parents as his wife had left him along with their child owing to his addiction to liquor.

Govindammal was diagnosed with tuberculosis in February this year and also suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes. After treatment at Sriperumbudur Government Hospital she was brought back home in the first week of July, police said.

Her condition began to deteriorate since Friday after which she allegedly pleaded with her son to kill her saying she was unable to bear the pain. She also refused to come to hospital saying no treatment would improve her health condition and that she wanted to spend her final days with her family.

On Sunday, Govindammal’s daughter, who lives in Chengalpet, came to visit her after being informed of her deteriorating health. On Monday evening, Durai came back home from work and found his wife lying in a pool of blood with her throat slit. The daughter was at a neighbour’s house when the incident took place.

Based on the information the Sriperumbudur police reached the spot and sent the body for postmortem to a government hospital at Sriperumbudur. Interrogation of Anandan revealed that he killed her because his mother was suffering from unbearable pain and pleaded with him for mercy killing.

“The family members were poor and their business was dull during the lockdown. They couldn’t find money to support her medical expenses,” said Sriperumbudur inspector J Vinayagam.

Anandan who came home at 4.30pm, slit her throat using a kitchen knife and she bled to death on her bed. The Sriperumbudur police booked Anandan on the charges of murder and remanded him in judicial custody.

Anandan slit his mother Govindammal’s throat using a kitchen knife and she bled to death on her bed. The Sriperumbudur police booked Anandan on charges of murder

Anna Univ: 536 colleges seek affiliation extension

Anna Univ: 536 colleges seek affiliation extension

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: 29.07.2020

Anna University on Tuesday uploaded the list of affiliated colleges, number of courses and seats for each course for 2020-21 on www.annauniv.edu/cai/Options.php As many as 536 institutions sought extension of affiliation with Anna University for 2020-21. Of them, around 30 colleges are yet to submit the documents including AICTE approval, sources said. “Few institutions have not submitted statutory documents like AICTE approval for grant of affiliation. Those institutions list will be updated on the website as and when the documents are received,” the university said in a release.

As per the AICTE’s announcement, the last date for grant of affiliation by the university is August 15. Earlier, some fake messages were doing the rounds that the university released a list of colleges with poor facilities. The university has denied releasing any such list. Due to Covid-19, the university is granting affiliation based on AICTE approval and online scrutiny of documents submitted by colleges. Physical inspection could not take place due to the pandemic.

Food delivery apps levy ‘bad weather charge’

Food delivery apps levy ‘bad weather charge’

Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com

29.07.2020

The rain in the city over the past month has led to food delivery rates rising, with online food aggregators collecting, alongside regular delivery and distance charges, ‘bad weather’ fees from users.

For instance, a customer ordering food for Rs 400 from a restaurant 5km from his/ her residence has to pay close to Rs 50 in such ‘fee’ that increases based on distance and weather conditions as well as traffic conditions and seasonal demand..

“I don’t remember paying any additional fee during rain in the past. On Tuesday, I was charged Rs 20 extra,” said Madipakkam resident R Veera, who uses Swiggy for ordering food.

Sources in Swiggy said bad weather fee had always been collected from users across the country and that surge pricings can be avoided on attaining ‘super customer’ status that customers can buy for a minimum of Rs Rs 149 for a month. The scheme, temporarily withdrawn a few months ago because of the lockdown, was revived recently, sources said.

Zomato, which too collects distance fee, was unavailable for comment.

Food aggregators claim additional fee collected is transferred to delivery executives’ accounts to compensate for travelling in tough conditions.

Delivery executives admit getting this incentive but say it is delayed at times. “However, more customers tip us than usual. They understand the risk associated with our work and give 10- 20 extra and sometimes even more,” said Dinesh, a delivery man from Velachery. This comes in handy while refilling vehicles’ fuel tanks as petrol price increased more than Rs 10 in two months.

Meanwhile, layoffs continue with 350 employees being sacked this week. Earlier, Swiggy, Zomato and other firms together let go off nearly 1,500 employees. Firms claim the industry has recovered only by 50% and this was the final round of restructuring but employees’ salaries have been restored.

ALWAYS ON CALL: A food delivery agent braves heavy rain in the city on Tuesday to ferry a parcel

AGGREGATORS SAID EXTRA CHARGES ARE ALWAYS CREDITED TO THE DELIVERY EXECUTIVE’S ACCOUNT

University Notification