Winners of Wiz National Spell Bee competition with Geetha Periyanayagam (Second from Left),Principal, and Rohini (Right), Coordinator at SBIOA Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Tiruchi on Saturday./ Photo:B.Velankanni Raj
Students from various schools showcased their language skills at the Wiz National Spell Bee competition for Tiruchi zone, here on Saturday.
The contest, which tested both the oral and written skills of students from classes 1 to 12 under different categories, was held at SBIOA Matriculation Higher Secondary School. The competition was conceived by a panel of eminent academicians and experienced teachers across the country.
The winners from SBIOA Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Alpha Wisdom Vidyashram, and Samadh Senior Secondary School were felicitated by Geetha Periyanayagam, principal, SBIOA Matriculation Higher Secondary School in the presence of Josh Sebastian, zonal coordinator, Wiz National Spell Bee, and Yasmin Nazeer, regional coordinator.
According to a press release form the organisers, Wiz National Spell Bee, through its competitions at various levels encourages the schoolchildren to improve their vocabulary. .
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Staff Reporter / Tiruchi – June 22nd, 2014
Health minister Dr C. Vijayabhaskar (centre), along with health secretary Dr J. Radhakrishnan and director of medical education Dr S. Geethalakshmi, release the MBBS toppers’ list on Saturday (Photo:DC)
Chennai:
K. Sundar Natesh of D.A.V. School, Gopalapuram, secured the first rank among the top 10 MBBS aspirants, according to a list released by health minister Dr C. Vijayabhaskar on Saturday. Like last year, only one MBBS aspirant from the city could make it to the top 10. Schools in Namakkal secured six ranks out of the top 10.
“I’ve been dreaming of joining MMC for many years, and hopefully, that dream will come true on June 18 when I will be given admission,” said Natesh. Till Class 10, S. Abhishek, the second rank holder in the MBBS rank list, studied in a Chennai school, but shifted to Sri Vidya Mandir in Krishnagiri as his father hoped he would secure good marks in that school. “My cousin studied in the school and scored well. I too worked hard for two years and now I’m happy that I could join the prestigious MMC and go to college from my home in Chennai,” said Abhishek.
Selection Committee secretary Dr. R.G. Sukumar said that no one had applied under the freedom fighters category. There were 28 from the ex-servicemen’s cagtegory and 79 from the physically challenged.
Speaking about the number of seats available in 19 government medical colleges, officials at the Directorate of Medical Education said that 2,172 seats would be filled under the state quota in 19 government medical colleges and 993 in self-financing colleges.
“The first phase of counselling will be held till June 22 and seats for MBBS in government, self-financing and BDS in government colleges will be filled in. The second phase of counselling will start in the second week of July.
MBBS/BDS admission will be closed by September 30 as per the Supreme Court order. “The academic year will start from September 1,” said Dr. Sukumar. For details, candidates can log on to www.tnhealth.org, www.tn.gov.in.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC Correspondent / June 15th, 2014
The lane called Pathuthoon Sandhu could be easily missed by a first-time visitor to the city as several textile shops dominate it. This protected archaeological site near the historical vilakkuthoon (lamppost) in Madurai was part of the erstwhile Nayak Mahal. It was at Rangavilasam where Thirumalai Nayak’s brother Muthiyalu Nayak stayed. The 10 pillars (Pathuthoon) were part of the palace.
The pillars are 12 meters high and have a diameter of 1.2 m. They were constructed with ring-shape stones placed one above another. The magnificent pillars inside Nayak Mahal are also of the same pattern, but they are plastered, archaeological sources said.
According to historians, Rangavilasam was dismantled when the capital of Madurai Nayaks was shifted to Trichy after Thirumalai Nayak’s rule in 1665. It was Thirumalai Nayak who turned Madurai as the capital of Nayak kingdom, but his predecessors and successors preferred Trichy instead. When they moved the capital again, they moved the materials from the dismantled portion of palace – Rangavilasam -to the new capital, said R Venkataraman, a city-based historian.
British rulers, who captured power in Madurai after the Nayaks, preserved the 10 pillars as they were quite amused by its architecture. “British rulers were curious to learn the architectural methods of the natives and they protected the pillars,” he said, while adding that “silk weavers living near the palace occupied the area after Rangavilasa was dismantled. Pathuthoon Sandhu was a typical silk weavers’ lane.”
There is a reason why the lane is so narrow, Venkataraman said. “After the Gupta dynasty, silk became the attire of royal families for it symbolized peace and prosperity. Silk weavers – predominantly Sourashtrians – were patronized by several dynasties across the country. Chola, Pandya, Nayak and Vijayanagara rulers patronized them in the south,” he said.
“Silk weavers lived near palaces and silk processing and weaving were conducted discreetly. The streets were meant only for use by the weavers. The narrow lanes were used to dry silk threads. Anyone sneaking into the streets was questioned by guards deployed at military outposts near the lane,” Venkataraman explained.
Several textile shops fringe the lane now. “There are not many houses when compared to about 30 years ago. The lane has been turned into a commercial hub for textiles in the last three decades,” said Balakrishnan, a textile merchant.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 09th, 2014
US President Barack Obama plans to appoint a Madras University graduate and alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology as a member of the National Science Board of National Science Foundation.
The proposed appointment of Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan, Senior Vice President of the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at Arizona State University (ASU), was announced by the White House Friday with 15 other key administration posts
“Our nation will be greatly served by the talent and expertise these individuals bring to their new roles. I am grateful they have agreed to serve in this Administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said.
At over thirty, the Obama administration has more Indian-Americans working at high places than in any other previous administration.
Panchanathan, who has held his current position at ASU since 2011, previously worked as a Data Communication Engineer for International Software India Limited in Chennai, India in 1986.
He received a BSc from the University of Madras, a BE from the Indian Institute of Science, an MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a PhD from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Panchanathan has held a number of positions at Arizona State University since 1998.
He has been a foundation chair professor in Computing and Informatics since 2009 and a founding Director of the Centre for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing since 2001.
Panchanathan founded the ASU School of Computing and Informatics in 2006 and the Department of Biomedical Informatics in 2005.
Prior to working for ASU, Panchanathan served at the University of Ottawa as a founding Director of the Visual Computing and Communications Laboratory from 1990 to 1997.
He worked as Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1994 to 1997, and Assistant Professor from 1989 to 1994.
Anuradha Sriram will host a radio show on the Mozart of Madras
Singer Anuradha Sriram has taken on a new role – she’ll be hosting a radio show titled Rahman Ungaludan. As the name suggests, it will talk about everything about the Mozart of Madras – tales and trivia about the man of few words.
For the singer, who perhaps kick-started the idea of reality music shows in television when she hosted shows way back in 1996, it is a challenge and something to cherish at the same time. “Radio is a different ballgame but the fact that I’ll be speaking about a person who has been a mentor to me makes it exciting,” she says. Anuradha first sang for Rahman for Mani Ratnam’s Bombay; it was not a full-fledged song but a few notes that she hummed. “He told me then that my voice was divine,” she says, “With Rahman, there’s always space to improvise and experiment. He lets you be who you are. Perhaps that’s why the output is always good – from then to now.”
It will be a learning experience for her, she hopes. “As a singer and a person interested in music, it’s fascinating to see how great minds work. I hope to track Rahman’s journey in music…and learn from it.”
‘Anbendra Mazhaiyile’, one of her songs for Rahman, remains fresh in the memory of the classically-inclined. “He wanted me to sing that particular song because he felt I evoked divinity in listeners,” recalls the singer, who later also branched into singing fast-paced kuthu songs like ‘Malai Malai’ (Chocolate) and ‘O Podu’ (Gemini).
Few people know that ARR has a sense of humour too – the singer recalls how he used to call her ‘Gnanapazham’. “He was very interested in classical music and used to discuss ragas extensively. I will talk about those sessions in the show and try to provide a perspective of the composer that only a few people know,” says Anuradha, who also ventured into music composing when she, along with husband Sriram Parasuram, worked on Five Star.
Starting tonight, Rahman Ungaludan will play every Monday to Friday at 9 p.m. on 92.7 BIG FM
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Srinivasa Ramanujam / Chennai – June 15th, 2014
Established in 1892 by the British, Arapalayam Water Works is the first modern drinking water scheme in Madurai. An initiative of J A Jones, a British engineer, the project enabled the British to provide drinking water to Madurai city.
However, the scheme was abandoned after 1980 due to contamination of the riverbed and decaying of the stone structure which hosted the water works after city corporation dismantled its roof for renovation. Almost after a year, renovation was not carried out and the otherwise heritage structure is at peril. Residents and conservationists advocate that the structure and place surrounding it – being used as two-wheeler stand at present – can be converted into a beautiful park and heritage centre.
After capturing power in Madurai, the British constituted the city as a municipality in 1866 . To provide clean drinking water, Arapalayam Water Works was developed by the municipal administration by constructing a check dam and sand aquifer wells were sunk. The British were able to pump 30 lakh litres per hour through this system and were able to provide drinking water to the entire city. They also took care in protecting the check dam and aquifers by deploying a mounted horse battalion. According to a book titled ‘Neerinri – the water resources of Madurai’, the project, which had a long run was abandoned in 1980.
R Shivakumar, author of Neerinri, stresses that the structure should be protected considering its heritage value. “It could be turned into a park and the building could be used to host an event exhibiting photos and models of drinking water schemes of Madurai,” he said.
R Jothiram, 60, a resident of Arapalayam, recalled that a park existed some decades ago. “Some 40 years ago there was a park surrounding the water works. The Vaigai river itself was in good condition. The corporation and PWD failed to prevent contamination of the river and subsequently abandoned the project,” he rued. “There is no proper park for Arapalayam and Ponnagaram regions and converting this land at Arapalayam as park will be ideal. Besides hundreds of passengers utilizing nearby Arapalayam bus stand can cool their heels in this park,” said A Ramesh, a resident of Ponnagaram.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 11th, 2014
The 226th birth anniversary of John Sullivan, founder of the famous hill station of Udhagamandalam, better known as Ooty, which falls today, will henceforth be celebrated as ‘Ootacamund day,’ a top official of the Nilgiris Documentation centre said.
“The credit for finding Ooty was given to John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817. As a mark of respect, it has been decided to celebrate June 15, his birthday as Ootacamund day,” D Venugopal, Director of Nilgiris Documentation Centre said.
An announcement to this effect was made by him today at a function in front of twin oak trees planted by Sullivan at Government Arts College.
Venugopal said one has to reflect that when Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are locked in disputes over sharing river waters, Ooty has been attracting more visitors from these states. The Nilgiri mountains have been donating most of its
waters to the surrounding plains even while there is widespread water scarcity on the hills, he said.
John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817.
This co-existence was the guiding spirit for declaring the day to be celebrated after Sullivan’s birthday, Venugopal said.
source: http://www.ibnlive.in.com / IBN Live / Home / by Press Trust of India / June 15th, 2014
A shop in the region with Pennycuick’s face on its hoarding.
With a fan club, several memorials and induction into the local Hindu pantheon, the legend of John Pennycuick, British engineer and chief architect of the disputed Periyar waterworks, lives on in southern Tamil Nadu
The fabled rice paddies of the Cumbum valley in Theni district, one of the most fertile belts in south India lying west of Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, are girded by dense canopies of banana, grape and coconut. Here and there, Jersey cows look up from patches of serrated foliage, and rows of onion and beet saplings dance like so many chiffon-clad starlets before them in these bucolic uplands beloved of Tamil filmmakers. The road to Kumili, on the Kerala border, is a ribbon unspooling atop this parcel of green and surging towards the Cardamom Hills, wherein lies the fount of all this bounty: the 119-year-old Mullaperiyar dam, the source of a long-standing conflict between Tamil Nadu, which wants more of its water, and Kerala, which is concerned about the dam’s safety.
Last month, in a major victory for Tamil Nadu, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld a 2006 judgment on the height and safety of the dam and allowed the water level to be raised to 142 ft. The move could mean that farmers in the state, who had settled into a bi-annual cropping pattern and suffered crop losses after the reduction in the height of the dam to 136 ft in 1979, may go back to raising three crops a year. It was amid this wave of hope that we visited Theni, one of five districts — including Madurai, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and Dindigul — in the barren rain shadow region of Tamil Nadu that sprang to life with the opening of the 155 ft-high masonry dam in Kerala’s Idukki district in 1895. The spirit of the ruddy, mustachioed Colonel John Pennycuick (January 15, 1841 to March 9, 1911), the British chief engineer of the Periyar Waterworks, bestrides the low hills of Cumbum, which he is said to have surveyed on horseback over a century ago with his local aides, Aanaiviratti (tamer of elephants) Aanaithevar and Kaduvetti (clearer of forests) Karuputhevar. Over the years, legend of his largesse has snowballed and he has been assimilated into the local Hindu pantheon, with farming families offering the first harvest of the year in the form of pongal to a kumkum-anointed portrait of Pennycuick — a balding man in a white collared shirt and a dark jacket, his white-flecked moustache carelessly framing thin lips.
The legacy of a man who changed the course of the Periyar river, and the lives of millions of people, with the gravity of his actions and his sheer strength of purpose looms large over Theni. “If it wasn’t for Pennycuick, our fields would be fallow. Over 2.17 lakh acres of paddy, cultivated by 32,000 small farmers, are impacted by the dam. Every day, a crore or more people drink from its waters,” says KM Abbas, president of a farmers’ forum in Cumbum and author of a book on Pennycuick. In Cumbum, says Abbas, children know him as Pennycuick thatha (Tamil for grandfather) and are often named after his associates, a popular name being Logandurai, for ER Logan, who oversaw tunnelling works for the Periyar project.
For most of its 300-km length, the Periyar, literally, the Big River, flows through Kerala before emptying — wastefully, according to Tamil Nadu — into the Arabian Sea. Pennycuick’s great ingenuity was that he dammed the river at its confluence with the smaller Mullaiyar river, and diverted the water from the reservoir through a 1.6-km-long tunnel to Tamil Nadu, where it goes on to feed the Suruliyar river and the Vaigai dam. This water then passes through a grid of canals to irrigate vast tracts of land in the state. It would seem that the man who diverted a river from west to east for the first time in India’s history, charted a similar course for himself as he settled down to work at his modest cottage on the dam site at Idukki. Locals say he spoke fluent Tamil, relished biryani and made sure his workers never wanted for food or liquor. When torrents of rain washed away his labour of love three years into its construction, around the year 1890, he is said to have wept and struggled to gather funds for rebuilding the masonry dam in the face of scepticism from the British government.
In Palani Chettipatti, a small town near Theni through which a canal of the Mullaiyar flows, a legend reverberates with variations: the Chettiars from the area, locals say, donated liberally to the cause and Pennycuick gave them free access to the waters as a token of his gratitude. In yet another elision between fact and fable, solid gold offerings are said to have been consigned to the river at the behest of Pennycuick ahead of the opening of the sluice gates. We find a scant bit of history in Cumbum at the house of the descendants of Angur Rawther, Pennycuick’s contractor and supplier of labour and provisions. Rawther’s grandson, silver-haired Jafferulla, has preserved records of his family’s association with Pennycuick, including a note of thanks from the Government of Travancore for hosting dignitaries on their visits to the Periyar project.
In Thekkady, on the inter-state border, where the language changes abruptly to Malayalam as though we flicked a switch, the Rawthers still grow cardamom on lush slopes dotted with resorts. This side of the border, Pennycuick’s bust is the centrepiece of a well-tended garden facing the PWD bungalow at the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, where the artificial lake formed by the damming of the river is an important habitat for elephants and other wildlife. The 777-sq-km area was declared a sanctuary in 1934 and by 1978, it had become Kerala’s only tiger reserve. “All this tourism here is because of Pennycuick and the dam. But Kerala will never acknowledge him,” says a PWD worker, on condition of anonymity.
In Tamil Nadu, Pennycuick is both hero and victim. His face has became a trope for the troubled history of Mullaperiyar and a receptacle for political interests after the two states came to a head in the late 1970s. Photoshopped posters of chief minister Jayalalithaa and MDMK’s Vaiko sharing the stage with Pennycuick’s likeness are now plastered on public walls across the Cumbum valley. The Colonel even has his own fanclub, the Pennycuick Rejuvenation Forum led by O Andi of Palarpatti, a village near Thevaram in the Cumbum valley that hosted Pennycuick’s grandson in 2003. In December 2011, Andi led an agitation by over 1,200 farmers against Kerala’s stance on the dam. “We used Pennycuick’s posters to communicate our point of view — that the dam, after it has been strengthened, poses no threat to Kerala,” says Andi, in his dimly-lit home where a wall with a large, garlanded poster of the Englishman is the first thing that meets the eye. “We have been working for a decade to raise awareness about the great man,” says Andi, who began printing and distributing pamphlets on Pennycuick while still in college. “Not many people had heard of him before the Mullaperiyar issue became a movement in these parts. Now he is the face of the movement,” he says.
The largest and the latest of memorials to Pennycuick, with a giant bronze statue and black-and-white photographs of the dam, was inaugurated at Lower Camp near Gudalur in Theni last year by Jayalalithaa. It is here that Sanjeevi, 65, and her cousin Maragadham, 57, have come to pay their respects to a man who, they say, “did more than anyone ever could for Tamil Nadu”. “When we heard about the Supreme Court verdict, we set out on this pilgrimage,” says Sanjeevi, who spent her youth gathering forest produce near Gudalur before moving to Coimbatore to find work as a cook. In two days, Sanjeevi will leave for the city, but not before casting a final glance at Pennycuick at the Theni bus stand, which bears his name like so many restaurants, salons and cabs do in the region. “It is believed that his picture brings good luck,” says Rafiq Raja, of Hotel Mullai, a restaurant on the Theni-Kollam highway near Chinnamannur. “He gave us life. This is the least we can do to remember him,” Raja says.
Upon retiring from the PWD, Pennycuick returned to England to serve as president of the Royal Indian Engineering College, an institution on Cooper’s Hill near Egham, Surrey, that trained civil engineers to work in India. But for the people of the Cumbum-Theni region, Pennycuick is forever sutured into their consciousness, a flame of aspiration glowing through their darkest and driest years.
source: http://www.financialexpress.com / The Financial Express / Home> Economy / by V. Shoba / June 15th, 2014
It is a double delight for Sundar Natesh of Chennai who topped the engineering counselling rank list released by Anna University on Monday.
Sundar, 18, also topped the MBBS rank list released by the Directorate of Medical Education on Saturday. “Medicine is my obvious choice, and I will opt to study in Madras Medical College,” said Sundar, who was a student of DAV Higher Secondary School, Gopalapuram.
“I expected to score centum in all subjects but I didn’t think I’ll come first in the MBBS ranking because so many of them have scored full marks in all subjects,” he said. “So, I’m surprised and excited that I topped both medicine and engineering counselling lists.”
Sunder wants to specialise on cardiology.
The chances of the names of toppers appearing on the rank lists of both streams of study is high this year as the top 132 students had scored full 200 marks in physics, chemistry, biology and math on the MBBS/ BDS rank list.
Counselling for engineering seats will begin on June 27.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Education> News / by Divya Chandrababu, TNN / June 16th, 2014
Seven students belonging to a city school bagged prizes at a creative problem-solving competition involving students from kindergarten to college. The annual event called the “Odyssey of the Mind” was held at the Iowa State University in the US last month.
The students of Alpha Wisdom Vidyashram Senior Secondary School who took part in the event came 21{+s}{+t} among the 236 teams that participated in the competition.
The competition was held by Creative Competitions, Inc, based in New Jersey. During the contest, team members work together at length to solve a predefined problem. They also participate in a spontaneously held contest where in players have to generate solutions to a problem they have not encountered before. The seven-member team from the school belonged to Classes 7 to 10. The students are R M Muthumeena, 12, C Indumugi, 14, S M Nhanthini, 15, P Aditya, 14, R Sivaprasath, 13, D Akshay, 14 and S Laushiya, 14.
Seven teams from India took part in the event. The students said that they won the hands-on competition by scoring 93 points. We solved problems with ease despite difficulties, said C Indumugi. Rajeshwari Ramakrishanan, the teacher who accompanied the students to Iowa, said the team also won the floating banner competition wherein they presented a temple-like structure.
Thousands of teams from throughout the US and from about 25 other countries participate in the programme annually. The 2014 event was held from May 28 to May 31. In the contests, team members are asked to apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Trichy / TNN / June 11th, 2014
