The Nursing Homes and Hospital Managements Association, Dakshina Kannada, has decided to stop offering Vajpayee Arogya Shree, Rajiv Arogya Bhagya and Jyothi Sanjeevini schemes from January 16 since the government has not cleared huge dues. Association president Yusuf A. Kumble told reporters here on Friday that the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust that administers the schemes on behalf of the government owes over Rs. 200 crore to many super-speciality hospitals across the State, including 11 in Dakshina Kannada. While reimbursement was made off and on till a year ago, no payment was made for the last nine months. Dr. Kumble, managing director of Indiana Hospital, said that hospitals have been doing social service by participating in the schemes as the reimbursement covers only about 70 per cent of the actual cost (consumables) without including establishment cost (hospital maintenance). In such a situation, they were finding it difficult to continue with the scheme. However, the ...
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“What provision of law is violated by this?” The Supreme Court on Friday said it found nothing wrong in the government’s move to advance the presentation of the Union Budget in Parliament by almost a month, on February 1, amid the run-up to the elections in five States. “So what is the big deal in that? It is only the presentation of the Budget. Everybody will get to know a little in advance on what the government is going to do. Any problems, everybody will get a due chance to object,” Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar told advocate Manohar Lal Sharma. Mr. Sharma, in a PIL petition, had sought the postponement of the annual Budget till after the elections are over. He said it could contain sops to influence the voters in the Assembly elections, and was thus a violation of the poll code. “We do not understand what your problem is. You are saying the Budget is presented usually towards March 1 and this year it is on February 1… We do not find any justification, tentatively, in...
The woollens came off on Thursday, with the city sizzling at a maximum temperature of 31 degrees Celsius, the second highest temperature in December ever. The general chatter was on how hot it was in winter as the day’s maximum was just 0.1 degree Celsius shy of the highest ever maximum temperature recorded for the month, on December 18, 1926 and December 17, 2003. The city recorded 30.9 degrees Celsius on December 14, 2015. On Wednesday, the maximum temperature overshot the 30-degree mark for the first time, by 0.4 degree. The average mean maximum temperature for December is 26.5 degrees C, which means Thursday’s temperature was a departure of 4.5 degrees from normal.
Cost of 1,473.16 acres to be fixed by Revenue Department In a major step towards construction of the atomic power plant at Kovvada in the district, the Andhra Pradesh government issued an order (No.1179) on Thursday giving advance possession of land under its control to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). The NPCIL will take possession of 1,473.16 acres from the government and pay for it as per the value fixed by the Revenue Department. “It is a major step towards the actual construction activity at the proposed site. As it is a government land, there will not be any objection from anyone,” Kovvada Atomic Power Plant Project Director G.V. Ramesh told The Hindu . Villagers briefed Mr. Ramesh and other senior officials visited Kotapalem and Maruvada, and explained to the villagers the details of the social impact survey. He told them that the government would give them the best package for extending support for constructing the plant. The officials plan ...
There has been an unprecedented tie-up between two rival private space novices — both competing to land on Moon. TeamIndus of Bengaluru and Hakuto, the team of Japanaese startup ispace Inc., have signed a ‘rideshare’ agreement. While TeamIndus’s spacecraft will be launched on ISRO’s PSLV rocket on December 28, 2017, Hakuto’s 4 kg robotic rover will be carried on Team Indus’s 600 kg spacecraft. TeamIndus said “the commercial agreement is a first-of-its-kind collaboration of two private space enterprises competing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP).” Rahul Narayan, Fleet Commander of TeamIndus, said the two teams would start working together in the next few months. Mr. Narayan and Sridhar Ramasubban, TeamIndus Jedi Master-International Sales, said the two teams were in discussion for many months and the contract was signed in late November in Bengaluru after TeamIndus sealed its own launch contract with ISRO arm, Antrix Corporation. Comparing with NASA’s twin Mars rovers, Spirit & Op...
The President on Monday appointed Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar as the 44th Chief Justice of India from January 4, 2017. The incumbent Chief Justice T.S. Thakur had on December 6 communicated his recommendation to the government to appoint Justice Khehar. Chief Justice Thakur retires on January 3 after a tenure of a year. Though the government notification informing the President’s clearance of Justice Khehar as next Chief Justice comes close to the swearing-in day, the decades-old convention of following the seniority norm has been duly complied with. Justice Khehar, who led the Constitution Bench which scrapped the government’s National Judicial Appointments Commission law, will be the first Chief Justice from the Sikh community. Justice Khehar will have a tenure for over seven months till August 28, 2017. He assumed office as judge of the Supreme Court on September 13, 2011. Justice Khehar headed the Bench which had set aside the imposition of President’s Rule in Arunachal Pradesh i...
State’s claims belied by data showing 40 per cent of malnourished children in seven regions Maharashtra faces the ‘stark reality’ of malnutrition among children in tribal areas, according to the State government’s own report. The official study reveals that in seven tribal belts, over 40 per cent of children are affected by some form of malnutrition. In comparison, in the best performing block, Harsul in Nasik, 27.3 per cent suffer from malnutrition, down from 42.3 per cent in 2012. Just 24 hours before the report was presented, in reply to a ‘calling attention’ motion moved on Thursday by 86 MLAs in the Assembly — citing around 8,000 child deaths due to malnutrition between April and August 2016 — the State had claimed that its preventive approach on malnutrition is working. The report, titled Malnutrition Status in Tribal Belts, highlights shortcomings such as supply of grains infested with insects, worms and other contaminants to meal schemes, and children getting ...
There is also interest from BRICS countries to commit funds for research, says ICMR chief Hit by funds crunch since 2014, the Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) Project — fronted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and conceived as a unique global programme to find new drugs for tuberculosis — has now been subsumed within a new programme to be led by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The proposed India TB Research and Development Corporation (ITRDC), announced last month and led by the ICMR, has got a Rs. 20 crore infusion by Tata Trusts and expects to be a Rs. 750-crore enterprise half funded by the government and the rest by international donor agencies and private companies, said officials associated with it. “We need to have a nimble agency that can sharply work on, say, delivering diagnostic devices, a short course therapy for TB,” Soumya Swaminathan, Director-General, ICMR, told The Hindu. “It has to be independent and needs to be free o...
The figurehead of foreign diplomats in India has warned that the demonetisation process is likely to hit people-to-people contact between India and the world. Speaking to The Hindu on Monday, Dean of Diplomatic Corps in India, Hans Dannenberg Castellanos, the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, said that tourist flow to India has reduced since demonetisation was announced on November 8 and the government’s plan continues to prevent diplomats from carrying out duties. “Iranian and Sudanese medical tourists are facing trouble due to demonetisation as they mostly do not have bank cards due to sanctions on their countries. Similar is the case with the Cubans and Afghans who are complaining about the currency exchange limit,” said Mr. Castellanos, elaborating that the tourists who chose India months ago as their winter destination have been cancelling travel plans. Mr. Castellanos, as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps first approached the government on November 11 complaining about ...
Global prices are now higher than in Indian market Natural rubber (NR) exports from India, which stood at an extremely low level for the past three years, may pick up in the second half of the current financial year, taking advantage of the spurt in international price, according to the Rubber Board. Owing to the price advantage, the NR exports during this year might touch the 5,000-tonne mark, a Rubber Board press note on Saturday said. The price of NR in the indigenous market was at a higher level over the international market since December 2013. However, this gap has come down in the third quarter of 2016 with global prices picking up from the second half of November. International prices now hover at a higher level than the Indian market prices. A combination of reasons could be attributed to the present spurt in global NR prices, which include increased demand from China, upward trend in crude prices, appreciation of the US dollar, and the speculative trend marked by the surge i...
Visit of Forest Dept. officials to projectsite triggersconcern among conservationists Conservationists are peeved at the repeated attempts of the State government to revive the expansion plans of a mini-hydel project bisecting the wildlife corridor. The proposed expansion of the project, at Sattegala at the edge of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, has been rejected twice by the State Board for Wildlife. The visit of senior officials of the Department of Forests to the site near Gaganachukki–Bharachukki waterfalls and forest area close to the wildlife sanctuary in Kollegal has triggered fresh concerns as it is being perceived that the officials are under pressure from the State government to clear the project. This, despite the wildlife board recommending that the existing plant — for which permission was issued in 2011 — be closed once the lease expires. A senior department official confirmed that senior officials visited the Gaganachukki–Bharachukki area to inspect the site of...
You may soon not have to worry about carrying physical identity documents at metro airports as a plan for biometric authentication of flyers is all set to take off. After the successful pilot run for Aadhaar-based airport entry authentication for passengers at the Hyderabad airport, the Mumbai and Bengaluru airports are planning to take up similar pilot projects. Hyderabad pilot project The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Hyderabad started a pilot project last year allowing passengers to enter their Aadhaar number at kiosks set up at one of the entry gates. The authorities now plan to implement the exercise at all entry gates. However, the move will not be mandatory and passengers without Aadhaar numbers can proceed after showing physical identity documents at the airport entry gate. “After successfully completing the POC [proof of concept] at the Hyderabad airport, we have formally asked UIDAI [Unique Identification Authority of India] to recognise us as auth...
What better use for plastic waste than in the roads we travel on? Using plastic granules, produced from plastic waste, with bitumen will “give 50 per cent additional strength” to the roads in Mysuru, say Mysore City Corporation (MCC) officials. MCC Superintendent Engineer Suresh Babu told The Hindu that the corporation will spend Rs. 25,000 more on laying a 1-km stretch this way. “This technology has been approved by the Indian Road Congress,” he said. A Bengaluru-based company that produces plastic granules was approached by the MCC for experimenting in roadworks in the city. A Rs. 30-lakh roadwork, sanctioned at Railway Layout in Vijayanagar here, was laid with this technology as an experiment. “If the feedback is good, we may continue the procedure on other city roads. A tonne of plastic granules costs Rs. 35,000,” Mr. Babu said. Mysuru generates around 100 tonnes of plastic waste, although the authorities have been claiming that the quantum of waste generated had dropped after the...
Karnataka on Wednesday filed an interlocutory application in the Supreme Court, expressing its inability to release Cauvery waters at the rate of 2,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu. According to Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil, the State has informed the apex court in its petition that the cumulative water storage in all its four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin was just 15.92 tmcft as on December 11. The present storage was not even adequate enough to meet its drinking water requirements, the State said. Such being the situation, which had arisen owing to the failure of north-east monsoon, it was impossible to release water at the rate of 2,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu as directed by the apex court earlier, it said. “The Karnataka government filed the interlocutory application on Wednesday, after a detailed discussion with the State’s legal team. In all likelihood, the case may come up for hearing on Thursday,” the Minister said. Drinking water shortage With depletion of water lev...
Was there a ‘larger conspiracy’ behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi? Who were the ‘real conspirators’? These are the questions that A.G. Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the case, has been asking the courts for almost two decades. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court took up his cause and sought a reply from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Perarivalan’s allegations that there has not been an effective probe into the “larger conspiracy” behind the 1991 killing of the national leader. A Bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and L. Nageshwara Rao issued notice to the CBI on a petition filed by the convict from the Vellore prison in Tamil Nadu. “Why was this further investigation required?” Justice Gogoi asked initially during the hearing. “What was followed by the CBI was a ‘boom theory.’ That is there is a death, followed by an investigation into the boom and trial focusing only on the boom. But they have also to go into whether there was a larger conspira...
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia acted covertly in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances and promote Donald Trump, senior administration officials said. They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organisations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks. In the months before the election, it was largely documents from Democratic Party systems that were leaked to the public. Intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks. Republicans have a different explanation for why no documents from their networks were ever released. — The New York Times News Service
Kannada, English, Hindi, or Telugu? It is never easy for the police control room staff to predict what language the next caller will speak in. This is why they are now being trained to deal with the needs of a cosmopolitan city. Over 100 personnel manning the city police control room and the social monitoring cell are being trained in soft skills and etiquette for communicating with callers and handling different situations verbally. The control room and the newly set up social monitoring cell at the Commissioner’s office receive over 15,000 calls per day and a majority of the callers speak in English. Though the control room staff are qualified, their communication skills need to be upgraded, Nagendra Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Command Centre, told The Hindu . “If the staff are trained to communicate in formal English, half the problem could be resolved on the spot,” he said. Bengaluru-based communication expert Prakurthi N. Banwasi, who is conducting the three-week crash ...
Aspirants vying for government or government-quota seats in medical and dental colleges in the State will have to pin their hopes on the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) from the 2017-18 academic year. The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) on Saturday announced on its website that it would not conduct entrance examination for admission to medical and dental colleges from the coming year. Centre’s ordinance Although NEET was conducted in 2016-17 after the Supreme Court stated that the test should be conducted for admissions to MBBS and BDS seats, several States, including Karnataka, had filled the government and government-quota seats using ranks obtained in the State entrance tests. This was done after the Union government brought in an ordinance as many State governments had already conducted their entrance exams. However, KEA maintained that the State’s Common Entrance Test (CET) will be conducted as usual for engineering, farm sciences, Indian System of Medicine a...
Cyclone Vardah is expected to cross Andhra Pradesh coast between Chennai and Ongole on December 12 evening. This may bring good rainfall over north coastal districts, including Chennai, on Monday. Following the change in course of the cyclonic storm, heavy rainfall is expected in northern parts of the State. Earlier, the system was expected to make a landfall between Nellore and Machilipatnam. According to Meteorological Department, the weather system has now intensified into very severe cyclonic storm and is located 710 km east southeast of Nellore and 660 km east of Chennai. It is likely to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast between Chennai and Ongole on Monday evening. “The system has become stronger and is moving at a speed of 18 km per hour. It may further pick up pace or become slow and may even make a landfall tomorrow. We are monitoring the system. But, it will weaken before making the landfall,” an official said. Rain in Chennai While northern Tamil Nadu and Puducherry will recei...
Under siege since November 1 following a clampdown by the United Naga Council over the creation of new districts, State suffers from an acute shortage of essential goods Manipur, which has been struggling to cope with an indefinite ‘economic blockade’ since November 1, now faces a siege-like situation following a wildcat ‘total shutdown’ imposed by the United Naga Council (UNC) and other Naga organisations since November 25. The latest shutdown follows the arrest of UNC president Gaidon Kamei and information secretary Stephen Lamkang, who have been remanded in custody till December 22. Faced with demands for their release for a lifting of the blockade, Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, however, told The Hindu , “The law will take its own course.” The blockade has emptied the State’s markets of essential supplies. With nothing to buy, demonetisation has, ironically, left the people indifferent. Since November 1, there has been no normal movement of trucks on National Highways 2 and 37 ...