Police officials held a sensitization meeting with school authorities on traffic safety in Salem on Friday. – Photo: E. Lakshmi Narayanan

City Police organised awareness meeting to sensitise the various school managements on traffic rules and safe driving while transporting children and students in their vehicles here on Friday.

Senior police and transport officials including Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime and Traffic) J. Ravichandran told the managements and their transport crew about the issues that often led to traffic violations and accidents.

Safe driving and adherence to rules were the prime subjects that were discussed.

Speed travel, police said, would always end up in accidents.

The managements of the institutions should educate the transport crew and maintain close monitoring for the safety of their students.

Periodic medical check up also should be carried out for them.

The police also insisted on 10 years experience for recruiting drivers.

Speed limit should be restricted to 50 kilometres per hour and student capacity should be restricted to permissible level.

Vehicles should not have two entry points.

East Regional Transport Officer Uma Sakthi, Motor Vehicle Inspector Ramkumar and other officials took part.

Source: THE HINDU

Applications are invited from Non Governmental Organisations that wish to run a Home for Mentally Challenged for those in the districts of Salem, Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri with headquarters in Salem, with Government support. The applications should reach the Office of Differently-abled Welfare, 146, Venkatesapuram Extension, Kumarasamipatti, Vincent, Salem-7. Phone number is 0427-2415242.

SOURCE: The Hindu

Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam on Thursday visited Salem Railway Junction and held a detailed discussion with Divisional Railway Manager (Salem) P. N. Ram and other officials in connection with the proposed visit of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on August 20.

The Chief Minister will attend the inaugural functions of Super Speciality Hospital and other projects to the tune of Rs. 600 crore. Salem SP Y. John Nicholson and officials accompanied him.

SOURCE: The Hindu

Organised by Institute of Chartered Accountants of India

With the objective of unearthing talent, the Salem Branch of Southern India Regional Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India organized a two-day National schools’ level competition for Plus 1 and 2 students and elocution and quiz contests for students at Bala Bharathi Matriculation Higher Secondary School here recently.

The programme on ‘Our education system prepares us to face the real corporate world’ were presided over by its Chairman, Salem branch G. Goudhaman.

P.K. Srihari, Additional Commissioner, Income Tax, Salem was the chief guest at the programme in which V.S. Venkatavaradhan, former Director, Nehru Planetarium and S. Sriraaman, Past Chairman, Salem Branch acted as judges for the competition.

Selected students from seven schools took part in the competition and debated for and against the topic.

Marks

Based on the overall marks obtained by the students under the various criteria framed by the ICAI, New Delhi, the winner and runner-up were selected.

Students from Cluny Matriculation Higher Secondary School and Golden Gates Matriculation Higher Secondary School were declared winners and runners-up respectively.

Mr. Srihari in his speech said that students should take part in this type of competition leaving aside their diffident attitude.

Branch-level elocution and quiz contests for the students were also organized.

Auditors R. Suresh, S. Natarajan and V.S. Ashok Kumar acted as judges for the elocution contest and Saradha Ashok and S.P. Arunmozhi Varman were quiz masters.

The winners and runners will be sent to the Regional Level Competition to be held at Chennai during August 2010.

The best performers of the Regional Level competition will take part in the National level contests to be held in New Delhi.

V. Jayaprakash, Students Association Chairman proposed a vote of thanks.

SOURCE: The Hindu

Income Tax, Salem covering Salem, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Namakkal districts have opened special counters for the receipt of income tax returns from July 28 to 31 on the IT office premises at Salem, Namakkal, Krishnagiri and Hosur. A press release from the Commissioner of IT, Salem says the counters will function from 9.15 a.m. to 5.45 p.m. on all working days and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 31 (Saturday). The tax-payers are requested to make use of this facility.

Source: THE HINDU

Water gushing out of the Stanley resevior in Mettur on Wednesday. — Photo: E. Lakshmi Narayanan

Amid the showering of rose petals the sluices of the Stanley reservoir were opened here on Wednesday evening to let out a massive sheet of water for delta irrigation.

Farmers and those in the downstream towns who worship the Cauvery river on the ‘Adi Perukku’ day (Aug 3), were delighted.

Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S Arumugam pressed the button atop the dam to signal the opening of the sluices. Staggered discharges of 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000 cusecs were maintained till 10 pm and at the stroke of midnight, it would be increased to a staggering 12,000 cusecs. The water, according to a Public Works Department (PWD) official, is expected to reach Kallanai in four days.

Responding to the demand for water, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had ordered the opening after detailed consultation with PWD officials. The Karnataka government had also been approached to release the Tamil Nadu share. Water managers have been pinning their hopes on the strong second revival of the South-West monsoon, which had been playing truant since its onset.

“The Kabini reservoir in Karnataka has discharged 5,875 cusecs on river course since July 27. This and the rains in the past few days in the catchment areas are expected to bring in ‘decent’ inflows,” said an official. The water to the tail-end areas depends on these sustained inflows.

This was the second time in successive years that the dam was opened on July 28. It could not be opened on the customary opening date of June 12 due to poor storage. The dam was opened 15 times on June 12 and 52 times after June 12. It could be opened 10 times before June 12 and had surplussed 35 times so far.

Apart from the irrigation need, it will help generation of 125 MW of hydropower. Mr. Arumugam said the shortage in kuruvai cultivation could be compensated in samba. Of the total 1.40 lakh hectares under kuruvai, 66,800 hectares had been covered so far and an additional 28,000 hectares would be added. The stock position of fertilisers and seeds was very comfortable. He asked water users to use water judiciously.

At the time of release the water level stood at 82.460 feet (FRL 120 feet) with a live storage of 44.453 tmcft. The inflow was 4,080 cusecs.

Source & Pic Courtesy: THE HINDU

Tamil Nadu Electricity Board will reschedule the load shedding from August 1, says a press release.

The change in timings (new timings in brackets) is as follows: 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. (8 a.m. to 10 a.m.); 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. (10 a.m. to 12 noon); 10 a.m. to 12 noon (12 noon to 2 p.m.); 12 noon to 2 p.m. (2 p.m. to 4 p.m.); 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (4 p.m. to 6 p.m.) and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (6 a.m. to 8 a.m.).

Source: THE HINDU

Tamil Nadu Assembly’s Assurance Committee at the Salem Government Medical College Hospital on Tuesday. — Photo: P. Goutham

Tamil Nadu Assembly’s Assurance Committee led by its chairman and Congress MLA S. Peter Alphonse inspected various development projects here on Tuesday.

The members first visited the mandap at Chinna Tirupathi Temple and recommended that it should have a kitchen, rest rooms etc.

They later went to Fort Sri Periya Mariamman Temple where they asked the HR and CE officials to provide parking space for the vehicles of devotees.

The members inspected the Government Medical College Hospital and saw the latest equipment procured for treating cancer patients. The panel recommended to the government that vacant posts in the cancer department should be immediately filled.

They also reviewed the works carried out for the Under Ground Drainage scheme at Manakkad.

They were optimistic that the scheme would be completed in 30 months.

Later, the committee visited the new building of office of SP. On a request from the SP himself, it had recommended an additional sanctioning of Rs. 16 lakh to purchase tables and chairs and other materials for the office.

They also visited the Aavin plant and assured the officials that they would recommend to the government to erect new equipment for making sachets.

The other places they visited included the IT Park and Asthampatti sub-station.

District Revenue Officer V. Kalai Arasi, Revenue Divisional Officer M.G. Kulandaivelu, Medical Superintendant Dr. N. Mohan, Joint Commissioner, HR and CE, Raja, PWD Executive Engineer Mohanraj and others accompanied the committee members – K.P. Ramaswamy (Rasipuram), Ilamathi Subramanian (Valankaiman), K. Ethiroli Maniyan (Pernamallur) and Latha Adiyaman (Tirumangalam).

Source: THE HINDU

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Sona College of Technology, Salem and ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, in Salem.

Through this MoU, the college has become the Associate Nodal Institution of ICT Academy, which will facilitate the faculty of the college to get trained so that they could assist the students to be readily available for corporate sectors. Faculty members and students would receive funds for research and development activities too.

S. Subramaniam, DGM, Academic initiatives, ICTACT, while addressing the gathering at the function in which the MoU was signed, said that by signing the MoU, the college had joined the select group of institutions. The final year students could post their resume on the website of ICTAC, which would serve as a bridge between students and firms.

Sai Narayanan, General Manager, Research and Development, ICTACT, emphasised the need for quality research at educational institutions. He said that the number of Ph.D holders was very less in India and industry-based research was the need of the hour. ICTACT would help master students and scholars in Tamil Nadu through facilitating quality research and helping them in publishing their research findings in the ICTACT journals.

College secretary A.Dhirajlal underlined the need for product development in academic institutions and called the students to work towards that.

Source: THE HINDU

Salem Corporation has given its 21 wards and Central bus terminus cleaning works to private firm called SRP.

SalemJilla Team

Pic Courtesy: Daily Thanthi