A 13-year-old girl from Neyveli, Cuddalore district, clinched silver medal in the Asian youth chess championship held at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. L Jyothsna overcame stiff competition from players from 13 countries, to finish second in the under 14 girls’ category in the Asian event.
This is her maiden medal in an Asian event in which she lost a round, drew two and won six. She also clinched bronze medal in the Blitz chess championship and finished fifth in the Rapid chess championship of the same meet. Another girl from India, D Jishitha from Andhra Pradesh, who lost a round, drew one and won seven, clinched the gold medal.
Nurgali Nazerke from Kazakhstan, who lost two rounds, drew three and won four rounds, had to be content with the bronze medal. Indian players fared better in championships, topping the medals tally with 12, followed by the host nation (Uzbekistan) with 10 medals.
A Class 7 student of St Joseph of Cluny matriculation higher secondary school, Neyveli, Jyothsna was selected to represent the country in her category for the second time in an Asian event after her stellar performance in the national level chess championship organised by the All India Chess Federation at Ahmedabad in 2016, where she bagged the bronze. She could not make a mark at her maiden appearance at the 2016 Asian championship at Mongolia in which another Indian Divya Deshmukh bagged the title in her category.
After a disappointing performance in the 2016 Asian championship where she finished fourth she was determined to fare well in this year Asian event. A positional player she played exceptionally well overcoming the attacking game of others and secured silver medal. We are happy about her performance and hope she will improve by leaps and bounds in the seasons to come,” said her father K Lakshminarayanan, an executive engineer at the NLC India Limited, while appreciating the company for sponsoring her expenses.
Jyothsna, whose highest ranking was number two in her category in the country, has been consistently performing well at the national events, winning bronze medal in 2015 (under-11) at Puducherry and finishing fifth in 2013 (under-9) at Chennai, besides bagging last year’s national bronze medal. She had also bagged gold medal (under-11) in the 2015 state level chess championship at Nagappatinam and silver medal (under-13) in the 2013 state level chess championships at Nagercoil.
Her only ambition is to become a woman grandmaster. “There are seven women grandmasters in the country. I would like to play more open tournaments so that I can face many grandmasters and consistently defeat them to achieve my dream. I have been training more than six hours a day for the last two years,” Jyothsna said.
Her coach and NLC India Limited deputy chief manager (sports development centre) Fide master A Pavanasam said Jyothsna is a passive but very solid player. “She does not want to lose and hence tends to play for a draw. We are trying to mould her into an attacking player, which will bear more fruits,” Pavanasam said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Chennai News / by Bosco Dominique / TNN / April 27th, 2017
The sensors are placed on the segments of each finger. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
15 sensors that help gather data on kinematics or hand motion
A data glove, which measures the individual joint angles of all the five fingers to understand the activity of daily living, developed by Nayan Bhatt, Research Scholar from the Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Madras, recently won the Budding Innovators Award given by the Delhi-based National Research Development Corporation (NRDC). Mr. Bhatt has been working on developing models for studying finger kinematics for the past three years.
The data glove has 15 sensors (plus an additional reference sensor) that help in gathering information about kinematics or hand motion. The sensors are placed on the segments of a finger — each finger has three segments and the junction between two segments forms a joint. Each sensor is connected to a microcontroller board using a flexible wire to collect data.
“The sensors measure the joint angles through the change in orientation information. We are interested in gathering information about motion of the fingers excluding the wrist,” said Mr. Bhatt. “In the case of people with Parkinson’s disease, the data glove will provide information about hand kinematics and help clinicians assess the severity of disease. It will complement the traditionally used Universal Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale.”
Avoiding deformation
The development may find application in animation and other industries.
Unlike in the case of the conventional data glove, the sensors are placed directly on each segment of the finger to avoid any deformation. “We placed the sensors directly on the segments of fingers as the use of cloth like in a traditional data glove can hinder natural movements and also cause slippage or deformation,” he said.
Efforts are on to reduce the number of sensors used. “We will first use all the 15 sensors to perform some training postures, which will then be used for developing an algorithm that will reduce the number of sensors used. Currently, with the machine learning algorithm developed by Mr. Bhatt we can use as few as eight sensors. We want to reduce it to six,” said Dr. Varadhan S.K.M. from the Biomedical Engineering Division of the Department of Applied Mechanics, IIT Madras.
“We are using the prototype to develop products for speech-related disability,” Dr. Varadhan said. “By using specific movements of a finger for specific words, the data glove can help speech-disabled people to communicate. We can use a speech synthesiser and speaker to generate sound.” Work has to be done to first map specific words to specific movements of the finger.
21 angles
One finger can move in different directions. So the total number of joint angles is about 21. Sensors have been used to sense all the 21 angles. “Ten predicted angles have large errors of more than two degree, and the remaining angles have less than 2 degree error. The average is five degrees. In a few months, with advanced algorithms, we might be able to reduce the average prediction error to two-three degrees,” Dr. Varadhan said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Technology / by R. Prasad / Chennai – April 26th, 2017
Young talent: Students display their innovations at Sai Ram Engineering College.
Three best projects will be rewarded
Student projects in agriculture, energy, water and environment, manufacturing and technology and infrastructure took the centre stage at Sai Ram Engineering College as part of the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Innovation Ecosystem Awards.
The event seeks to identify the three best innovative contributions in each stream towards promoting application and analytical thought.
‘Will boost research’
“While the number of engineers passing out of colleges in Tamil Nadu has greatly increased over the last few years, there is a need for institutions to expand their horizons and encourage more than just academics. We hope that by encouraging them to innovate, research and development will get a boost,” said Saiprakash Leo Muthu, CEO of the Sairam Group of institutions.
Among the innovations on display, a team of students from Rajalakshmi Engineering College had come up with an IOT-based smart irrigation system using embedded development. “There are sensors on the agricultural field which detect when it needs to be irrigated and when the system can be turned off. This will help the farmer conserve water. The system will be operated by a smart phone app with the farmer. It is our contribution as engineers to farmers to help them have an automated system in place,” said N. Madhumitha, a student from the college.
Students of the Sandip Institute of Technology and Research Centre, Nashik, spoke about their innovation, a WSN-based infrastructural health monitoring and audit system, which would seek to shift the focus from manual auditing of public infrastructure such as bridges and roads towards electronic systems.
Of the 100 projects that were on display, three in each stream from agriculture, energy, water and environment, manufacturing and technology and infrastructure will be awarded cash prizes.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – April 11th, 2017
Delegates of the first all India women’s conference in Pune, which the WIA was part of
Chennai :
It was in the gardens of the Theosophical Society that the idea of the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) came to be in 1917, and so it is only befitting that 100 years later, the association chose the venue to celebrate its centenary.
The 100th year celebrations will be inaugurated by President Pranab Mukerjee on Friday, with Carnatic vocalist Aruna Sairam having been invited to present the invocation song.
Founded on May 7, 1917, by women’s rights activists such as Annie Beasant, Margaret Cousins, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy, Sister Subbalaskmi and Sarojini Naidu, who referred to themselves as the “daughters of India”, the mission of the association to empower women hasn’t changed over the years.
“Times though have changed as have the issues that women have to contend with,” says WIA chairperson Padma Venkataraman, daughter of former president R Venkatraman.
In the early 20th century, WIA battled against the social evils – which ranged from a lack of education of girls, child marriage, and the denial of voting rights.
The WIA took an active part in the political movements of the time. In 1917, for instance, when Besant was arrested and interned, branches of the WIA took active part in obtaining her release.
The WIA also published a monthly journal in English named ‘Stri-Dharma’, which was edited by freedom fighter Muthulakshmi Reddy from 1931 to 1940. WIA was the first women’s association in India to present a memorandum to the Round Table Conference on Women’s Franchise and her Constitutional rights as well as the initiator of the first All Asian Women’s Conference.
From a single branch that fought to make its voice heard, the WIA today has more than 40 branches and affiliations, 9000 members, and looks after the welfare of more than 5000 women.
At the WIA’s present premises in RA Puram, women learn computer science, nursing, and tailoring, and are provided a hostel “We are no longer an association but a federation,” says M Bargavi Devendra, honorary secretary.
“While our monthly activities and programmes change, our sole aim is to work for the socio-economic benefit of women.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Chennai News / TNN / March 03rd, 2017
The two faces of the Galapra period coin | Express
Chennai :
After a gap of several years, a ‘Galapra’ period coin has been discovered and deciphered in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the efforts of R Krishnamurthy, president, South Indian Numismatic Society (SINS).
The coin was collected from the Amaravathi river bed Karur in 1986. The period immediately after Sangam Age in the Tamil Country is called the Kalabhra (also Galapra) Interregnum and an alien tribe occupied the Tamil Country throwing out the ancient Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms and ruled for some period for which there is no proper evidence.
“This is an accidental discovery. When I was rearranging my old collection of Pallava Coins six months ago, I saw a coin which has a different texture not at all connected with the Pallava coin. In the coin holder, I have written in 1986 that the coin was collected from the Amaravathi river bed, Karur,” Krishnamurthy, an expert in deciphering Brahmi scripts, told Express.
He also recalled that in 1986 he had published a square copper coin with an elephant on the obverse and a legend in Brahmi-script “I read the legend as ‘GALAPIRA’. Many scholars did not accept my reading because of some reasons,” he recalled. Krishnamurthy had presented a paper on his recent discovery at the recent conference of SINS at Hyderabad.
Regarding the date of the coin, Krishnamurthy said, “The coin is die struck and the minting is of high quality. It looks similar to the Roman bronze coin of Third century AD. On going through a Roman Coin catalogue, I found a coin similar in diameter and weight. The Galapra coin die might have been designed and made by Roman coin die-makers.”
He further said the ‘Galapra’ coin had four symbols on the obverse top right near the border which are usually seen in Sangam Age Tamil coins.
“So, the coin may have been minted at the fag end of Sangam Age,” Krishnamurthy said.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / March 02nd, 2017
Avudaiyar Kovil in Pudukottai holds magnificent sculptures
‘There is no happiness for him who does not travel, Rohita!… The feet of the wanderer are like the flower, his soul is growing and reaping fruit; and all his sins are destroyed by his fatigues in wandering. Therefore, wander!/The fortune of him who is sitting, sits; it rises when he rises; it sleeps when he sleeps; it moves when he moves. Therefore, wander!’
– Indra in Aitareya Brahmana
About ten years ago, I made a trip to Avudaiyar Kovil, also known as Tirupperunthurai (near Aranthangi in the Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu), simply because I had booked for the whole family on the only convenient train to Karaikkudi from Chennai, but everyone else dropped out for one reason or other. So I decided to go on my own, a first for a trip that wasn’t related to work. Mainly, I did not want to pass up the chance to see the never-before-or-since stone cornices at the Athmanathaswamy Temple.
I spent most of my day on the road, checking into a modest hotel in Karaikkudi for just long enough to freshen up, bussing my way to the hamlet that takes its name from the temple. Avudaiyar Kovil turned out to be little besides its legendary temple, set in the middle of pretty agrarian vistas, the priests given to calm diffidence.
A chattering guide introduced me to the wonders of the shrine to Siva in which there is no lingam, only the avudaiyar (the base to it), with the deity imagined in the steam that rises from offerings of freshly cooked rice, greens and bitter gourd.
I hung around till well after the mid-day ritual (Uchchi Kaala Seva), the quietude of the temple seeping into me as I walked around undisturbed. The adjacent Tyagaraja and Oonjal mandapams in the third prakaram, to the east, hold the most magnificent sculptural riches. Cavalrymen set off to battle, their horses so life-like that flared nostrils and taut sinews rear to gallop beneath enormous stone chains hanging from the ceiling. The famous cornices, their beams, rods and bolts crafted entirely and unfathomably in stone, are here.
Elsewhere in the temple, the immaculately preserved detail in stone is breathtaking — whether in the musical pillars or the royals and nobility bearing swords, bows and spears, each of them rendered uniquely in their facial features, build and attire, . Motes of dust float surreally in the rays of light that enter the cool darkness from holes in the roof, falling upon a fabulously embellished pillar or the regal figure fronting it. I would reach for my camera but never get a picture that came close to what I was seeing. I have returned to Avudaiyar Kovil twice and its preternatural aesthetic never failed to hold me in thrall.
I took the night train back, rather quieter than I was when I had arrived, stilled not so much by lassitude as the wonders of what I had seen and the cordiality of the people I had met.
A montly column on places of religious interest
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Lalitha Sridhar / February 23rd, 2017
Believe it or not, there are a few who want to change the name of Yale University! It was initially named Yale College after Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras (1687-1692), who had, in 1715 and 1721, gifted about £800 worth of textiles and books to what was the Collegiate School of Connecticut. Their reason: The donor had not only kept slaves in Madras but had also encouraged slave exports.
These liberals of the anti-Trump brigade cite precedent. Yale in February re-named its Calhoun College, Hopper College because John Calhoun, a Vice President of America, had been “a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately supported slavery”, according to Yale’s President who amplified, “He was fundamentally in conflict with Yale’s mission and values.” So was Yale, say the liberals pointing to Yale’s Madras record of dubiously enriching himself and supporting slavery.
Writing about the last year of Yale’s Governorship, historian HD Love says, “The use of slaves for domestic purposes in Madras had always been recognised and sales and purchases were invariably registered at the Choultry (a Government office). The iniquitous practice of stealing children for export was, of course, illegal… (In 1683 there was) absolute prohibition against the exportation of slaves of any age. In 1687 (Yale’s first year as Governor), however, the trade was sanctioned under regulation, a duty of one pagoda being exacted for each slave sent from Madras by sea.” In September that year, 665 slaves were exported, giving an idea of the trade. The next year, the export of slaves was prohibited. The Council’s policy kept chopping and changing till, in 1790, the Council “resolved that any Traffic in the sale or purchase of Slaves be prohibited by public Proclamation”.
Yale, whether involved in the trade or not, was, as Governor, permissive about it, it would appear. The records state he permitted 10 slaves to be sent on every ship to England. Citing Yale’s own involvement, the pro-changers refer to three paintings of Yale in the Yale Library collection showing a dark-skinned boy in them. But, the picture seen in all sources and which I found in the first authoritative biography of Yale (by Hiram Bingham) says the boy is the “page boy of the Duke of Devonshire” whose brother Yale’s daughter Anne was to marry.
As for slavery in the Madras Presidency, a 19th Century report says it was commonplace, affecting about 20 per cent of the population (the figure in 1930 was still 12 per cent!). But this slavery was what continues to this day as ‘bonded labour’. The poor borrowed from the landowners and when they could not pay back they entered into a bond to work for the lender for so many years. Laws against such practices were enacted in 1811, 1812, 1823 and 1843, when total abolition was decreed. Selling of slaves became a criminal offence under the Indian Penal Code of 1862.
But to get back to the Yale issue; it’s been said that virtually every old private college in the US was endowed by men from slave-owning families.
Last ‘great white hunter’?
Joshua Mathew from Bengaluru, an IT professional and history buff, tells me that he has the rights for all the books by Kenneth Anderson, the Jim Corbett of the South, who tracked and killed man-eating leopards and tigers and then wrote about them and the southern terrain they flourished in. Anderson, of five-generation British lineage, and his wife Blossom, of Australian and Ceylon Burgher parentage, called Bangalore home. Their son Donald, whom Mathew calls “the last great white hunter-author”, is the subject of a book by Mathew awaiting publication.
Many Andersons married in St Andrew’s Kirk in Madras, says Mathew, but Kenneth Anderson’s greater connection with Madras was his friendship with Wiele the photographer. They hunted and, later, photographed in the wild together, leading Anderson to spend his post-hunting years ‘shooting’ with the camera. His pictures of the Nilgiris in the early 20th Century brought Mathew to my door after reading of Albert Penn, the photographer of the Nilgiris, in this paper.
Wiele, of German origin but who may have been British — I’ve found no mention of his being interned during the First World War — opened a photographic studio in Madras in the 1880s. Around 1890, Theodor Klein, also German, joined him. Their Wiele and Klein photographic studio was at 11, Mount Road, facing Round Tana (later the G Venkatapathi Naidu building). Branches in Ooty and Coonoor were added. Wiele later sold his share to Klein, moved to Bangalore and successfully ran a studio there in the early 1900s (Mathew tells me Wiele’s daughter visits Bangalore every year). In Madras, Klein hired young Michael Peyerl, another German, as assistant, then took him as partner.
Klein died during the Second World War internment. His widow Valeska inherited his share and ran the business with Peyerl till after Independence when they sold it to Indian interests and moved together to Europe. Klein and Peyerl remained a well-known name in Madras till 1987 when a fire wrote finis to it.
The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places and events from the years gone by and, sometimes, from today
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / February 27th, 2017
The building is now being used as a telephone exchange. | Photo Credit: M. Sathyamoorthy
The inspection bungalow built by the British more than a century ago in Kendala, near Selas, from where engineers oversaw the construction of one of India’s first hydroelectric systems, still stands today. Though the main inspection bungalow is in a dilapidated condition, it continues to function as a telephone exchange, where most visitors fail to appreciate its role in the history of the Nilgiris.
The building still possesses a great amount of charm, with the teak roofs and wooden floors of the building still standing strong. Apart from the main inspection bungalows, the smaller buildings, believed to be staff quarters and also stables for horses still remain, although they have fallen into a state of extreme disrepair.
The building has been functioning as a telephone exchange for the last decade, with a sign at the top of the entrance of the building, stating its year of construction as 1902, being the only reminder of its historical significance. Venugopal Dharmalingam, the honorary director of the Nilgiris Documentation Center, said that the bungalow overlooking the Kattery waterfalls and the hydroelectric system was known popularly as the “Kattery bungalow.”
“When the dam was being built in the early 1900’s, it would have been used by the British to oversee the construction” he said. The entire project was designed to power the cordite factory in Aravankadu.
“Kattery itself was a popular picnicking spot for the British, and there are old pictures attesting to its natural beauty. Now, the landscape itself is under threat due to the construction of too many resorts and private buildings,” said Mr. Venugopal.
Apart from the main inspection bungalow, there are also a couple of other bungalows nearby built around the year 1906. Though these buildings are in a relatively good condition, they too require maintenance. These buildings are being used as quarters for Cordite factory workers.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / News> Cities> Coimbatore / by Rohan Premkumar / Udhagamandalam – February 24th, 2017
The 65-year-old former STF chief does push-ups on the Marina in Chennai. | Photo Credit: Dinesh Krishnan
But the country’s most famous bandit-catcher still can’t get his wife to read his book
This is not in his book but Veerappan, India’s most notorious bandit, had K. Vijay Kumar, India’s most famous bandit-catcher, who had been on his trail for most of his uniformed life, in his sights on three occasions. Not more than 500 yards away. All Veerappan had to do was squeeze the trigger, and with even a standard issue .303, which can take a target down at 500 metres, Vijay Kumar may not have got to write a book about how he killed the bandit.
Veerappan was a good marksman, Vijay Kumar says at the Police Club in Egmore, Chennai, where he is hours away from launching his book, Veerappan, Chasing the Brigand. At the back of the Police Club, where he stays in Room 108 every time he visits the city, stretches a lawn that now has shamianas erected to serve, as he puts it, “high tea” to the 300 people he expects in the evening. Many of them will be gun-toting buddies from his Veerappan days. The dais is green like the backdrop, which has hills painted over it; in the foreground are male mannequins wearing camouflage combat fatigues and pith hats with leaves sticking out of them.
As he walks me through the programme for the evening, I can’t help mentally picturing one heavily moustachioed policeman chasing another excessively moustachioed brigand—is this quaintly archaic term the right word for someone who killed 124 people?—through 1,200 square kilometres of forests in three States over several years, each taking turns to scope the other through the business end of a gun. The forensic specialist told Vijay Kumar that Veerappan at 52 had the body of a 25-year-old. At 65, the cop looks just as fit.
Vijay Kumar was lucky he lived to tell the tale, unlike some other policemen. He is not superstitious, just lucky. His lucky charm is about as big as an old 25 paisa coin, maybe a little bigger, with the image of the Hindu god, Ayyappa, whose temple he has been visiting from the time he was in college studying Shakespeare, Milton and Thomas Hardy. He pulls it out of his black wallet and shows it to me. He has carried this charm around for as long as he can remember. He got this particular one after he lost a similar one 10 years ago. There have been times when the wallet had no money, but the charm would always be comfortingly there.
Roughly how many times has he visited Sabarimala, I ask. “More than 35 times,” he says unhesitatingly, “maybe 40”. Sometimes he goes twice a year. And does he follow all the procedures? Ayyappa demands a stringent pre-visit regimen. “Yes,” says Kumar. “So you didn’t have a drink to celebrate the night you finally killed Veerappan?” “No,” he says, “I am fairly abstemious. I had a drink much later, maybe two months later. At that time, I was going to Sabarimala.” I consider his response and say, “That certainly qualifies you for sainthood.” He laughs uproariously and shoots it down, “No, hardly!”
Ultimately, when Vijay Kumar closed the file on Veerappan on Monday, October 18, 2004, at 11.10 pm, he did so without exchanging a single word with the bandit who died under the impression that the policeman who kept chasing him was related to MGR’s nephew, a rumour then floating around.
The mission
By the count of ballistics experts, in the encounter that began at 10.50 pm and lasted some 20 minutes, 24 policemen fired 338 bullets on the vehicle that carried Veerappan and three members of his gang after they had been lured into the kill area, out of the forest and on to the road at Padi, 12 km from Dharmapuri. Only three bullets found the bandit. Of the three, one went clean through the left eye. Veerappan’s moustache, which spread like a tarantula sitting on his face, remained untouched.
I ask Vijay Kumar why so few bullets found the mark. He says that Veerappan might have been hit early on in the ambush and fallen down even as the other bullets slammed all around him. He should have been killed instantly but he wasn’t. Veerappan was still dying when the policemen yanked open the vehicle door. It was the only face-to-face moment between the two foes. No words were exchanged. No words could be. Veerappan was on the verge of death, his remaining eye already losing focus.
Was there anything he would have told Veerappan had he had the opportunity? It is not exactly superstition, but as long as Veerappan was his target Vijay Kumar had always kept a picture of the bandit at hand to remind him of his mission. He now tells me that he would have told Veerappan that it would be a relief to finally throw away the picture; over the years, it had weighed heavier and heavier, like an albatross.
Being a cop
What was easier, I ask. Killing Veerappan? Or writing a book about it? “Both were equally formidable missions,” Vijay Kumar says, laughing. In fact, the joke in his “immediate circle” of friends is that he took almost as long writing about Veerappan as he took to hunt him down. Vijay Kumar had a version of the book ready two years after the mission, but it then became a protracted struggle. Maybe, he told himself, he was too busy for the book. He says, “You know that Wordsworthian quote? The one about the parent hen? I guess in my case the egg took too long.”
My Wordsworth is rusty, but the picture is vivid. As vivid as the frustration that comes through in the book when the reward on Veerappan’s head touches Rs. 5 crore and yet no one comes forward with information. Picture this:
Police officer: You will get five crore if you can help us catch Veerappan.
Villager: Five crore? How much is that in goats?
Police officer: If one goat costs Rs. 2,500, that would be 20,000 goats.
Villager: What would I do with so many goats? They will be unmanageable. It’s better to hold on to my life.
I ask Vijay Kumar if there is anything he put into the book but took out later because he thought better of it. He thinks, then tells me how one night after eating poha, his stomach started rumbling at one in the morning. When he could bear it no longer, he rushed over and shook his buddy awake and both set out. In the jungle, they always followed the buddy system: each had to look out for the other. The buddy kept watch while Vijay Kumar went to answer the call of nature. After he’d squatted, he realised that the spot he’d picked had elephant dung everywhere. It was too late to go elsewhere and he hoped it would be okay. But almost immediately he heard his buddy hissing insistently, “Aiyaaa! Aiyaa! Yaanai! Yaanai!” (Sir, elephant!) He knew if it was a single elephant, he would be done for, but then, barely a few feet ahead, out of the inky black night, several elephant forms began to emerge like dark mountains on the move.
I probe no further, but I realise the episode had a happy ending because it isn’t in the book.
I ask instead: what does your wife Meena think about your book? He begins to smile. “She hasn’t read it,” he says. He intends to try other means to get her to read it but he isn’t sure he will succeed. She usually can’t get beyond five pages, he says. “If she does finally read your book,” I ask, “will you go to to Sabarimala?” He laughs uproariously again. “Of course, I’ll be happy to go again to Sabarimala but I doubt whether even Lord Ayyappa can make Meena read my book.”
The PSBB Group of schools celebrated their diamond jubilee on Wednesday in an event where the the history of the school and its journey so far was brought to the fore.
R. Ravichander, Group President (Business & Development) South, YES Bank, who presided over the event, recalled the growth of the school from a thatched roof at the home of the founder Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, with just 15 students, to the institution that it is today with 7,600 students.
“Mrs. YGP will always be the lady of many firsts as she was the first entrepreneur in education,” he said. Mr. Ravichander was a part of the first batch of students at PSBB.
S. Vaidhyasubramaniam, Dean of Sastra University, and another alumnus of the school, donated ₹9 lakh towards a corpus fund for Sastra PSBB Action For Refreshing Knowledge (SPARK).
Speaking at the event, Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, credited the teachers of the institutions for the school’s journey.
A diamond jubilee planner was unveiled by Deputy Dean and Director of the institutions Sheela Rajendraa. Along with it, a logo to commemorate the milestone. A video screening presented some of the notable alumni who passed from the school, a press release said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – February 23rd, 2017
