Special award for engineering staff

For restoration work on Nilgiri Mountain Railway

Udhagamandalam, India: A special group award of Rs. 34,000 has been given by the Southern Railway to the engineering staff who were part of the restoration works on the landslide-hit Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR).

Stating this in a press note issued here on Thursday, the Public Relations Officer, Salem Division, Om Prakash Narayan said that the award was given during the Railway Week celebrations at the headquarters of the Southern Railway in Chennai recently.

The restoration works done in an exemplary manner had been completed in record time, it was pointed out further.

The award that was given by the Additional General Manager, Southern Railway, K.K.Shrivastava had been received on behalf of the group by the Divisional Engineer, Salem, R.Narayanan who had been entrusted with the task of restoring the badly damaged line, Section Engineer Arunachalam and Blacksmith Krishnan of the Engineering Department, Salem, who had worked tirelessly for putting the NMR back on the rails.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/17/stories/2010041755220300.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

Differently abled to donate organs

Thank government for relaxing age for assistance and forming separate department

A letter was handed over to Collector, carrying their signature, and expressing willingness to donate organs

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— Photo: C. Venkatachalapathy

Expressing gratitude: Some members of the Cuddalore District Handicapped Persons’ Progressive Association who have offered to donate their organs .

CUDDALORE, India: Thanking the State government for age relaxation for assistance and for formation of a separate department for the differently abled persons, 17 members of the Cuddalore District Handicapped Persons’ Progressive Association have given in writing their consent to donate organs.

Association president P.K. Santhosh told The Hindu that he recently handed over a letter to Collector P. Seetharaman, which carried their signature and photographs, and expressed their willingness to donate organs.

Mr. Santhosh said that it was only a token gesture as about 200 of 1,500-member association were ready to follow suit. He said that not long ago, the differently abled were considered a liability on the family and society.

But, with a plethora of schemes launched for their welfare and financial assistance extended, they could lead a decent and dignified life. Moreover, the formation of a separate department for their sake would go a long way in improving their life and providing uplift.

Mr. Seetharaman said that he had instructed Joint Director of Health Services T. Jayaveerakumar to take follow-up action on the letter. Dr. Jayaveerakumar said that the formalities of filling in the prescribed forms had been initiated.

They could donate organs in two ways: in case of brain death following accidents multiple organs could be harvested; and, even while alive they could donate organs such as kidneys, he said.

Mr. Seetharaman further said that identity cards had been issued to all 27,163 differently abled persons in the district who were dominant in the Kattumannarkoil, Nallur, Vriddhachalam, Thittakudi and Mangalore blocks.

In 2009, the district administration had identified 2,591 differently abled persons above 45 years of age and with 80 per cent disability for monthly maintenance allowance of Rs. 500 each.

However, under the Indira Gandhi National Pension Scheme another 1,281 persons in the 18-64 age group were included for assistance. During 2009-10, financial assistance and aid implements worth over Rs. 2.71 crore was disbursed and for 2010-11 a sum of Rs. 2.08 crore would be released for their welfare.

Mr. Seetharaman also said that the number of special self-help groups consisting only differently abled persons would be raised from 167 to 467 by next year.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/17/stories/2010041750750300.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

TNAU moves course contents online

The portal has audia-visual content, slide shows

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Hassle-free: TNAU’s portal carrying lessons online.

COIMBATORE, India: Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, which works on acres and hectares, has ploughed bits and bytes on cyber land to plant its course contents.

In the first phase of ‘Development of E-courses for B.Sc. Agriculture’ project, the University had made available online all the modules of subjects in the graduate course.

“They can be accessed anywhere, even cyber cafe,” says R. Venkatachalam, Co-ordinator, Information Technology, TNAU.

Indian Council for Agriculture Research granted Rs. 13.5 crore for the project under Component I of the National Agriculture Innovation Project.

The portal – http://mms.tnau.ac.in – has audio-visual content, module-wise and it goes with slide shows and text of the lesson taught.

“The videos were shot during class hours at classrooms to make it as real as possible,” he says and adds 1,300 hours of videos have been uploaded.

Efforts are on to replicate the work for Horticulture, Forestry, Home Science, Biotechnology and other courses.

The planting has bore more than the anticipated number of fruits. “One of the benefits of posting the course contents online is that students who are from Tamil medium schools use it to improve English and communication skills,” says K. Ilamurugu, Professor, who is associated with the project.

“The other is that quality of teaching has improved in that faculty, conscious of recording, have made classes lively with interactions and demonstrations.”

The response from other agriculture institutions has been good. Mr. Venkatachalam says faculty and students of institutions in Bangalore, Anand, Aurangabad, Bagalkot and other areas access the content on a periodical basis.

After the project is reviewed, it will be scaled-up to include content from other institutions as well, he adds.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/17/stories/2010041752020600.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

World experts treat kids

CHENNAI, India: A team of 16 experts from three countries, including nurses, cardiac surgeons and biomedical engineers are in the city to treat children with congenital anomalies at KJ Hospital here.

The experts from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, belonging to the International Children Heart Foundation, volunteered to provide professional expertise, manpower and equipment to treat around 20 children under a project called Needy Little Hearts, for which funding comes from the KJ Research Foundation, chairman of the hospital K. Jagadeesan said.

In the last few days, seven children had been operated on. The beneficiaries are aged between four and 18 and were chosen from medical camps conducted by the hospital, said P.S. Sreemathi, cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon.

On Friday, Health Minister M.R.K. Panneerselvam met the children. He said that each year, approximately 2,000 children required heart surgery and the Government Children’s Hospital was unable to cope with the burden. He said that under the Kalaignar Health Insurance Scheme 1.44 crore families had been enrolled as beneficiaries and so far 1.32 crore families had been provided smart cards.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/17/stories/2010041761480200.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu

“Inclusion of disabled in Census a milestone”

Javed Abidi

CHENNAI, India: The inclusion of the disabled in the count in Census 2011 will be a significant milestone crossed for the disability rights advocacy movement of the country, Javed Abidi, founder, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, has said.

While the 2001 Census included a question about the disability issue, after much advocacy from the disability lobby, it was not comprehensive; there was insufficient training for enumerators and no awareness among the disabled. “It is unfortunate how it never occurred to independent India to count the disabled until 2001. It won’t be an exaggeration, therefore, to say that prior to that, we were merely shooting in the dark,” he told The Hindu.

When the Planning Commission sits down to allocate funds, they strictly go by the book. “If you do not have the figures to show them, the funds are not going to come through,” he added. After the 2001 Census, there were widespread complaints from across the country that the enumerators had not even asked the question.

Despite this, the figures reportedly pegged the percentage of disabled at 2.1, though it is estimated to be between four and five per cent of the total population, he said. “It is a big gain to get into the Census.

The cold statistics are so important. So, this time round, we started communicating with the Census Commission quite early.” Since they believed that the last Census had an incorrectly drafted question, the lobby sat down to a consultation in order to revise it.

The decision was unanimous to include seven categories into the definition of disabled: Seeing, Hearing and/or Speech; Movement; Mental Retardation, Mental Illness; Multiple; and Any Other. The recommendations had been forwarded to Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli. The document will come up for approval before the Technical Advisory Committee, which is scheduled to meet later this month. The NCPDEP and its partners were also invited to participate in the training of enumerators.

Reference Link
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/17/stories/2010041763130700.htm

Courtesy
The Hindu