TN-Goverment's Cable TV Corporation

Chennai:The Cable TV Corporation to be formed by Tamil Nadu Government would function under the Information Technology Department. A GO has been issued to this effect.According to an official press release, the Finance Secretary, the Information Technology Secretary, the Managing Director of the ELCOT and the Chairman of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board would function as Directors of the newly formed Corporation.

'Project Selvi' launched

Chennai:Social Welfare Minister Poongothai on Saturday launched ‘Project Selvi’, a Rotary Club initiative to provide vocational training for underprivileged girls.Rotary District 3230 governor A.S. Venkatesh said the project would help girls in Chennai and surrounding areas to learn skills such as catering, driving, tailoring, marketing and computer operations.Vinod Saraogi, district chairman, said the girls will receive free spoken English training from VETA.Call 42111000 for details.

12000 police for I-Day celebrations

Chennai:About 12,000 policemen and officers would be deployed for bandobust duty in Chennai city for the 60th Independence Day celebrations on Wednesday, said G. Nanchil Kumaran, Commissioner of Police.As a precautionary measure, all public installations, cinema houses, places of worship, lodges and major commercial establishments would be closely monitored.Vehicle checks had been intensified during nights. Closed-circuit cameras had been installed at specific points, says a press release.

Sleepless nights for fishermen

Chennai:All along the south Chennai coast, sleep has become elusive after Friday’s seawater ingress, as rumours in the night and countless official visits during the day have given families anxious moments.Along the Srinivasapuram coast late Friday night, several fishermen scrambled to secure their boats and whisk away family members to safety. The ingress had sown enough fear to keep most of the fishermen away from the sea early Saturday morning.“We spent the entire night taking turns to keep vigil outside our huts. It is only now, after nearly three years, that we have managed to break away from debts and another loss would be too hard to handle,” said R. Sarveswaran of Dommingkuppam. However, what has alarmed the fishermen even more is the steady stream of officials who came calling on Saturday.

“Some of them, who claimed to be from the Revenue department, urged us to move to either Ernavoor in north Chennai or Semmencherry, where the tsunami survivors are housed.When we told them we had been resisting such a move for several months now, they told us it was in our best interests, as the sea would always be unpredictably rough and our lives would be in danger if we continued to live in our huts,” said Kanthammal of Nochikkuppam.Fishermen apprehend the ingress is being used as yet another cause to make them give up their huts, something the officials have been at ever since the tsunami. They also point that, on earlier occasions when such ingresses occurred either in Kanyakumari or Tuticorin, the fishermen had been compulsorily asked to relocate.“Relocation is never an alternative. The sea has been choppy over the past few days, mainly due to lunar activity. If we have to relocate every time there is heightened tidal activity, then our livelihoods would be wiped out,” says Sigamani.Revenue department officials said there was no move afoot to force fishermen out of their huts.“We pointed out the dangers of living so close to the shore and asked them to move to drier regions, as long as the seas remain rough,” an official said.

Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital now at Ashok Nagar

Actor Vikram with Joint Managing Director of Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital Amar Agarwal at the opening of the hospital’s Ashok Nagar centre on Friday.Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital inaugurated its latest centre at Ashok Nagar on Friday amidst plenty of fanfare and a large dose of star power. Actor Vikram was the chief guest at the event.Joint Managing Director of Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital Amar Agarwal said, “The idea behind [establishing] these centres is to provide a place in the neighbourhood where high quality eye care will be available. We realised that having only one hospital down Cathedral Road was not enough… ”

The new centre will be a secondary eye care centre with facilities for the simplest of glass treatment to blade free laser treatment. “We have opened 10 centres so far and our target is to open 25 centres by the end of this year,” he said. The new centres would mean that everybody need not come to the main branch for treatment.The Ashok Nagar centre, set up at a cost of Rs.5 crore has three permanent doctors and will be open throughout the week between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Speaking on the occasion, Vikram said the most important thing about the hospital was its accessibility. “The centre has all facilities under one roof. The fact that more of them will be coming up around Tamil Nadu is definitely a good thing,” he said.Also present at the event were film producer Dhanu and Ashok Nagar Councillor K.S. Mani.

Tamil bloggers’ ‘unconference’ to take place on Sunday

Chennai: A group of Tamil bloggers from the city — ‘Chennai Valaipathivar Pattarai’ — is organising an ‘unconference’ style Tamil bloggers’ camp and workshop at the Tamil Department, Madras University Marina campus on Sunday. The workshop will be conducted in Tamil by Tamil bloggers, and in true ‘unconference’ style the participants can nominate themselves as speakers.

Blogging in Tamil has caught up in recent times. According to thamizmanam.com, a leading aggregator of Tamil blogs, there are more than 2,000 Tamil bloggers active in the blogosphere.More than 40,000 articles have been written in t hese blogs by Tamil bloggers, whose age ranges from 7 to 70 years, a press release issued by the organisers said.In addition to blogging basics, the workshop will cover topics such as ‘blogging as a profession’, ‘blogging for social cause’ and ‘corporate blogging’. It is a sincere attempt to take Tamil blogging to the next level. The highlight will be demonstrations by experts on Tamil computer writing and getting them published in blogs. For details call 98407 41478.

New commissioner for Chennai

Commissioner of Police G Nanchil Kumaran being greeted by his predecessor Letika Saran in Chennai on Thursday.Additional Director General of Police G. Nanchil Kumaran took over as the Commissioner of Chennai Police on Thursday.In a brief interaction with reporters, the Commissioner said he would accord top priority to maintenance of law and order, traffic and prevention of crimes.On Day One, he received petitions from the public and also addressed senior officers, officials said.Earlier, outgoing Commissioner Letika Saran handed over charge to Mr Kumaran.

‘International art and craft contest’ inaugurated

Chennai:Pidilite’s ‘International art and craft contest’ was inaugurated here at P.S. Senior Secondary School on Monday.The contest, organised by Pidilite Industries Limited – manufacturers of stationery items such as Fevicol, will cover 10,000 schools in India and abroad. As many as 20 lakh students are expected to participate in the contest.

The competition, which started off as a national-level contest, is being held for the third successive year. Last year the competition was extended to a few other countries. So, this year too students from India will compete with their counterparts in other countries.The contest will be held at four levels: namely school, city, zonal and mega final rounds. The international ‘Art and Craft Champion’ will receive a scholarship of Rs.50,000 from HDFC Standard Life, the partnering organisation.

Speaking on the occasion, P.S. Senior Secondary School correspondent A.N. Radhakrishnan said the contest was a good effort to recognise the artistic and creative abilities of school students. He said he hoped students of the school would give their best and win prizes.The contest was launched at the school, thanks to Sunanda, who won the regional-level contest and the third place in the international contest last year is a Standard V student of the school.Inaugurating the contest, MLA B. Ranganathan, urged students to respect their parents and teachers. “That will take you to great heights,” he told students.

J.M.Jose, Head of Regional Sales and Marketing, Pidilite, eminent artist Maruthi and principal of the school Lakshmi Srinivasan were present.At the end of the contest, apart from student winners, the most creative school, and art and craft teachers will also receive awards at the event. The mega final will be held between October 19 and 28 in Mumbai. For further details, call 3911 4000.

Hutch bill can be paid at post office

Chennai: Hutch subscribers can now pay their mobile phone bills at designated post offices in Tamil Nadu.The Hutch – Postal Department tie-up covers 131 post offices in Tamil Nadu, including 36 in Chennai.To locate a post office closest to them, customers can SMS – PO (area pincode) to 111.Customers will then receive a list of nearest post offices.The post office payment option is in addition to facilities such as tele-shops, self-service kiosks, online payment and drop boxes, said Kumar Ramanathan, Operations Director, Hutch (Tamil Nadu).The post office facility is targeted at customers who prefer cash payments.

422 engineering seats filled on Day One of general counselling

A busy day at the counselling centre, Anna University in Chennai, where general counselling for engineering admissions began on Monday.The first day of general counselling under the single window system for engineering admissions saw 422 seats being filled from among the 620 students who attended it at Anna University on Monday.As per the initial intake, 62,337 seats in 266 colleges were available under the government quota as on Monday. By the end of the day, 61,172 seats were available under all categories.

Earlier, handing over allotment letters to 10 top rankers, Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy said all available seats would be filled this year. Over 25,000 call letters had been issued for the first phase of counselling. A total of 84,000 students had applied for the 65,000 seats that were expected to be filled under the government quota as the counselling proceeds.More seats were expected to come under counselling as the All India Council for Technical Education had given its approval for 15 new colleges. However, no additional seats were available with Anna University.

Of the top rankers eight have been allotted Electronics and Communication Engineering seats and the other two Computer Science seats in Anna University’s constituent colleges. P. Arvind, who was allotted a seat in the College of Engineering, Guindy, was given the first allotment letter.Assuring students from the vocational stream that the Government would heed their demand for more seats, Mr. Ponmudy said separate counselling would be held for them after the first phase was over. A total of 700 candidates had been allotted seats out of the 2,100 who had applied under this stream.

Altogether 1,171 seats have been filled through counselling for special quotas such as physically handicapped, vocational and students from other States.Some of the students allotted seats under medical counselling had given them up in favour of engineering seats, the Minister said.The university has made arrangements to counsel around 1,000 students a day and this would be scaled up to 2,400 as more seats are made available for counselling, Rhymend Uthariaraj, Secretary, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions, said.

Railways announces changes in suburban train services

Chennai:Suburban EMU service AM 24, hitherto reaching Chennai Central, has been diverted to Chennai Beach to run as AB6 with effect from Friday. This service will start as 181 Fast to Tiruttani from Chennai Beach at 6.20 p.m.The Beach-Tiruvallur special will depart at 5.40 p.m.Melmaruvathur - Arakkonam Service will be operated as Fast service between Chennai Beach and Arakkonam. It will leave Chennai Beach station at 6 p.m.

The Chennai Central-Tiruvallur service at 6.15 p.m. has been extended to run up to Arakkonam.The changes came in the backdrop of commuters’ protest demanding restoration of the old time table of suburban EMU (prior to July 1).State CPI secretary D.Pandian on Friday asked the Southern Railway to take steps to redress the grievances of the commuters. Meanwhile, Southern Railway began operating eight 12 car rakes from Friday in the Chennai Beach – Tambaram suburban section, which will increase the peak hour services of 12-car rakes to 15 instead of six.

The 12-car rakes will run in lieu of 9 car services.In all 92 services will be operated with 12 car rakes during week days as against 28 services and 46 services on Sundays against no services.A Southern Railway press release said an increase of 33 per cent in capacity is envisaged by the introduction of 12 car rakes instead of 9 car rakes and there will not be any increase in frequencies.

Hospital’s free orthognathic surgery project

Chennai:The hospital attached to Sri Ramachandra University in Porur will now perform free facial bone deformities (orthognathic) surgery for cleft lip palate.The surgery, costing around Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 80,000, will be done at the Plastic Surgery Department. The patient will be admitted to the general ward only.The project will be supported by Smile Train, a U.S.-based charity organisation. It is already supporting the hospital’s free cleft lip and palate surgeries, V. R. Venkataachalam, Chancellor said on Tuesday.The hospital has tied up with Smile Train to provide Rs. 1,000 to 2,000 each to the families of patients unable to bear the costs of travel and stay.

Power from waste project not powered up

Chennai:The bio-methanation plant near the Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex.The pilot project to produce electricity from the Koyambedu market’s green waste is not functioning at optimal levels, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) officials have said. The agency that clears garbage from the three wholesale complexes has complained that traders do not use the appropriate spots for dumping garbage, often leaving the waste on the floor.Leafy waste such as banana leaves, packaging material which forms a bulk of the disposed material, and muddy green waste cannot be used for power generation, officials said. A vegetable retail chain is also sending some of its waste to the plant currently, but that forms only a small percentage.

The seasonal change in availability of vegetables and fruits also drastically reduces the amount of waste that is usable. The plant, that was to be run 20 hours a day at full capacity, sometimes runs for five to six hours.The CMDA was already saving substantially on the transport of waste to the Kodungaiyur dumping ground, possibly as much as Rs. 13 lakh a year, the officials estimate. However, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Bill (TNEB) bill for the Koyambedu Market Complex was expected to be almost entirely offset by power generated. Officials said that the amount debited for each unit of electricity given to the TNEB as against each unit consumed was lower by Rs. 2 or 3.

The TNEB has said that adjustment for making the costs ‘equal’ is not its policy. The Rs. 5 crore bio-methanation plant was commissioned late in 2005 following an estimation that 30 tonnes of green waste daily would be sufficient to produce 250 kilowatts (KW) of power per hour (One KW per hour is one unit of electricity). Some 40 per cent of this power would be used to keep the plant running and the remainder be exported to the TNEB. These numbers required some intelligent guesswork, as this was the first time such a project was being attempted, officials pointed out. Three quarters of the project cost was funded by the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources.

Since the Wholesale Market Complex generates up to 100 tonnes of garbage a day, it was expected that 30 tonnes of garbage suitable for power generation could be easily segregated. One percentage each of flower, fruit and vegetable waste is required to provide non-fibrous green waste that could be disintegrated into smaller pieces. This would be ‘digested’ in a plant that would produce methane from the waste and the gas operates an engine to produce power.With the time for handover by the contractor who undertook design and construction drawing near, the CMDA will now have to consider such measures as supplementing the waste fed to the plant with hotel waste. A meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday to discuss the course of action. More than 1,000 students would have visited the plant in the nearly two years when it has been in operation and the Pune Municipality is considering replication of the project.

New buildings for police stations

Chennai:The city will soon have new buildings for five police stations, Commissioner of Police Letika Saran said here on Monday. Speaking to reporters after inaugurating a new building for the Otteri police station at Cooks Road, she said Kotturpuram, Red Hills, Madhavaram are some of the stations which would soon get new buildings. The office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Pulianthope, would also function from the Otteri police station buildings, she added.To a query, Ms Saran said that special teams had been formed to nab the culprits who had forcibly taken away a seven sovereign gold chain from a woman who was going on a morning walk in Padmanabhan Nagar in Adyar on Sunday.

The traffic police are examining the possibility of setting up automatic signals at some of the busy intersections in the city. However, she did not divulge the places.Earlier, the Commissioner went around the new building and received petitions from the public. Additional Commissioner S.R.Jangid, Joint Commissioner (North) M.Ravi and other officers were present at the inauguration.

e recharge feci at BSNL

Chennai:BSNL Excel prepaid mobile subscribers need no longer scratch coupons to top up their accounts. The telecom provider will introduce on Monday an ‘e-recharge’ facility that would make the coupons redundant.A press release issued by BSNL Chennai Telephones said subscribers could use the facility to get their accounts topped up at any of the franchise retail outlets or area service centres. The retailers and service centres will have an electronic account with BSNL and they would intimate the service provider the denominations of the recharge done by the customers. After making the payment, the customers will receive an SMS message confirming their top up.

Workshop on brain modelling inaugurated

The brain runs on about 60 watts of power. To make an electronic simulation of the human organ would require a computer the size of India and cost about US $ 30 billion annually for electricity alone, said Henry Markram, Director, Centre for Neuroscience and Technology, EPFL, on Thursday.He was speaking at the inaugural session of a workshop on brain modelling organised by the Waran Research Foundation (WARFT) here.

Dr. Markram is part of the prestigious Blue Brain project, described as the “first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.” According to bluebrain.epfl.ch, this is “a project to create a biologically accurate, functional model of the brain using IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer” that would “help us explore solutions to intractable problems in me ntal health and neurological disease.”Nuclear physics, for instance, hardly involves experiments anymore, as they can be simulated. Life sciences, though, are yet to see simulation-based research. The power of such a brain model would be to provide a new foundation for medicine. It could be used to trace the course of disease or the consequences of a drug, he said.

The WARFT established a Chennai-based Centre for Advanced Research in Brain Modelling and Super Computing to encourage undergraduate students and professionals in science and engineering to look at this fascinating field of research.“The much-hyped information technology boom is drawing away students from research,” rues N. Venkateshwaran, who is called ‘Professor Waran’ by his students. He established WARFT as a non-profit scientific research organisation in 2000. With students displaying a marked aversion to pure sciences, he expressed the hope that the multi-disciplinary nature of brain modelling would encourage them to choose areas of interest within it.

The workshop will feature panel discussions and lectures from eminent people in the field. More than 200 students are expected to participate.K. Kasturirangan, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, inaugurated the workshop. He said the workshop would give undergraduate students an idea of the methodology of thinking and writing a research paper.N. Ranganathan of the University of South Florida said that some 70 per cent of engineering graduates from the institution were Indian, and that the American government was spending a lot of money to encourage students to take up research.

Horlicks Wiz Kids 2007, no kids’ stuff

Chennai:School students performing at the Horlicks Wiz Kids 2007 in Chennai on Thursday.But for the school uniforms, the scene at Kamaraj Arangam on Thursday could have been mistaken for a concert.Hordes of cheering schoolchildren filled the auditorium, and more spilled over onto the grounds. Amid the chaos, competitions were conducted, finalists selected and results announced.The Horlicks Wiz Kids 2007, an inter-school fiesta comprising over 40 art, literary and cultural competitions, started off with a bang.

Over 9,000 students from 126 schools across the city gathered at the hall where the first competition. ‘Indian Film Hits’. was held.Students from several schools performed popular songs from Indian movies such as ‘Dil Se’ and ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’. Free style dance competitions were also part of the event.At the preliminaries of the shipwreck competition held on the grounds students impersonating various personalities had to convince the organiser that they deserved the only life jacket on board the imaginary ship that was sinking. From Angelina Jolie’s impassioned plea to the men in the audience to Michael Jackson’s dancing, the competition had the audience in gales of laughter.

One participating student said the event provided “a great platform to showcase talents.” Also, the number of schools participating made it very competitive, she added.This is the fourth year that the Horlicks Wiz Kids event is being held.The winners at the city level competition then participate in a national level competition, the winners of which are sent to Brazil for a cultural exchange programme.Sumeet Saluja, General Manager, Marketing, Glaxo Smithline Consumer Health Care, the company behind Horlicks, said: “It provides a platform for children to develop into better human beings.” He added that with academics becoming the focus of schools these days, extra curricular activities were being sidelined. A fiesta such as the Horlicks Wiz Kids helped in the overall development of the child through a range of competitions, he added.

Kathipara "grade separator" to be compleated by Year End !

Work on the grade separator at Kathipara junction will be completed by December 31, according to Vijay Singh, Secretary to the Union Department of Road Transport and Highways. Mr. Singh’s statement came after reviewing the project work along with National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairman Pradeep Kumar on Tuesday. Following the on-the-spot assessment, Mr. Singh and Mr. Kumar admitted that the project had been considerably delayed. It was scheduled for completion in April this year. “Our assessment is that the Kathipara grade separator project work needs 1,100 skilled workers. It has only about 600 labourers at present,” Mr. Singh said.

The contractor had agreed to augment the work force, he said. “We are not justifying the inordinate delay by the contractor. However, non-availability of skilled workers, changes in the design of the grade separator, the difficulties encountered in the building demolition process and land acquisition were some of the non-engineering problems that had to be tackled,” Mr. Singh said. The delay in the project had caused great inconvenience to the public, he conceded.The project had caused considerable embarrassment to the Union Ministry of Shipping and Transport and the NHAI because several VVIPs and VIPs pass through the Kathipara junction, he said.

Mr. Singh noted that the contractor had placed orders for 6 shutterings (support structures) that were crucial for the finishing of the project.Mr. Kumar and Mr. Singh, who met Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy earlier at the Secretariat, said they apprised him on the progress of the ongoing works in Chennai and the State.

The Chief Secretary assured all cooperation from the State Government to the NHAI for completion of the mega projects at Kathipara, the flyover in front of the Chennai airport, the grade separator at Koyambedu and the flyover at Padi. Mr. Kumar said he would discuss specific problems relating to the projects with the contractor on Wednesday. The NHAI Member (Technical) A.V. Sinha and Chief General Manager Ashok Vasan were among those who accompanied

Special Train to Nagarcoil on 15th ..

Southern Railway will run the following special trains on the Chennai Egmore - Nagercoil sector to clear the rush of passengers. Train No. 0613 will leave Egmore at 8.15 p.m. on July 15 and reach Nagercoil at 11 a.m. the next day. In the return direction, train No. 0614 will leave Nagercoil at 1.30 p.m. on July s16 and arrive at Egmore at 4.30 a.m. the next day.

The trains will have one AC two-tier, one AC three-tier, nine sleeper class, four general second class, and two luggage-cum-brake van coaches. Advance reservation will commence on July 12, according to a Southern Railway press release.

MRTS Services to Velachery soon

MRTS services to Velachery will become a reality before this month-end. The Commissioner of Railway Safety, who earlier conducted the preliminary inspection of the Tirumailai—Velacheri section, will conduct the final inspection in the third week of July.After his clearance, the line will be opened for passenger traffic, according to Union Minister of State for Railways R. Velu.Inaugurating a PRS centre at Tiruvanmiyur station here on Saturday, the Minister said preliminary work for the next phase of the project i.e. from Velachery to St. Thomas Mount had started. Nearly 75 per cent of the alignment would be along the median of the road. But land acquisition for 25 per cent near St. Thomas Mount would be a problem as there were many buildings on the stretch. If people cooperated with the administration, the extension could be completed before 2009.

The Minister hoped that the patronage for MRTS services would improve once they were extended to Velachery.Lack of inter-modal facilities was the major reason for the poor patronage of the services.Taking this into consideration, the administration had provided bus bays in some of the MRTS stations.Referring to a demand by the Union Shipping and Surface Transport Minister T.R. Baalu for providing a stoppage at Guindy for all trains coming from the South, the Minister said it would be done after completing the platform extension work at the station.As a majority of the trains had 22 to 24 coaches, the platform length should be extended to accommodate the entire train, he added.