c m y k c m y k

Chennai ●● Sunday ●● 8 August 2010

40 parks willbe openednext week:Kovai corpo-ration chief

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City‘Industrial visit must for students tounderstandwork place.’

‘Indigenoushealthcareequipmentbetter thanimported.’

DDCC

Top honourpredictedfor MSS DC CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI

Aug.7: A Bharat Rathnacould come to Chennai nextyear with it being widelyexpected that eminent agri-cultural scientist Prof. M.S.Swaminathan will be hon-oured by the President withthe country’s top civilianaward in 2011.

“Bharat Rathna is the onlynational award which haseluded Prof. Swaminathan.He has been honoured withthe Padma Sri, Padma Bh-ushan and Padma Vibhu-shan in the past,” R.S. Paro-da, president, Indian Acad-emy of Agricultural Scien-ces said here on Saturday.“Now we are all lookingforward to the day Prof.Swaminathan receives theBharat Rathna from thePresident.”

The observation by theformer director-general ofInternational Crop Rese-arch Institute for Semi AridTropics was well received.

Chennai: A constructionworker, Ezhumalai, 27,died when he fell from abuilding in MogappairWest on Friday.

The police said Ezhu-malai was trying to fit sometiles at a construction sitewhen the platform gaveway and he fell to theground. He died in hospital.

Techies learn from visitsto aid juvenile offendersPRAMILA KRISHNAN

DC | CHENNAI

Aug.7: Several young ITpros from Chennai and Ben-galuru head for Chengalpat-tu, about 45 km south ofhere, to visit a juveniledetention centre, not only toteach the inmates Englishand math but also to learnhow the kids are able toshake off their criminal pastto build a positive futurewith confidence.

The home is perhaps theoldest in Southeast Asia.Built by the British in 1887to rehabilitate juvenileoffenders, it now housesabout 50 inmates aged 14-18. Several of their‘seniors’, released asreformed young men, aregainfully employed acrossthe country and evenabroad. Shah Jahan is one ofthem. The child-thief hasgrown up to be a policemanin Dubai and even visited

his alma mater to sponsor aborewell to provide cleandrinking water for theinmates.

“We were awestruck whenwe heard about Shah Jahan,who is now well settled inDubai and yet visits thisplace now and then. Manyof us IT professionals grad-uated from Indian universi-ties and trained by the com-panies here, fly off to thewestern countries and neverturn back,” said V.

Udhayakumar, an IT prowith IBM at Bengaluru, dur-ing a brief break from hisinteraction with a group ofinmates at the home.

In the adjoining room, M.Karthikeyan of Chennai’sTidel Park was learningfrom 14-year-old Dinesh(name changed) how to setright a fault in his mobilephone.

“That boy is here afterstealing over 2,000 mobilephones. But over the lastthree months, he has learnthow to repair phones andnow is an expert. When werelease him, he will set up amobile repair shop,” saidhome superintendentThansekara Pandian.

Mr Pandian expressedhappiness that IT profes-sionals from Chennai andBengaluru have becomeregular visitors and even setup useful facilities for theinmates, such as an e-learn-ing centre.

DC CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI

Aug.7: Residents ofSadananthapuram nearPeerkangaranai have beenliving in mortal fear of croc-odiles since the reptilesmysteriously appeared inthe area three years ago,entering houses on occasionand even taking the oddchomp on people’s legs.

On public request that thecrocodiles be caught fromtheir haunts in the locality,forest department personnel

on Saturday drained waterfrom an abandoned pond.After six hours, when theforesters returned empty-

handed, wildlife personnelused fishing nets to trawl alake nearby, but there wasno sign of crocodiles there

either.Seven crocodiles, from 1

foot to 4 feet in length, havebeen fished out from thewater bodies in the pastthree years. Forest rangeofficer David Raj, who ledSaturday’s operation, saidall seven rescued crocodilescould have been hatchlingsfrom Vandalur zoo nearby,caught and dropped by birdsof prey.

“A deluge could also havewashed the hatchlings to thefresh water bodies here,” theranger added.

SHRI PRIYA GOPINATH

DC | CHENNAI

Aug.7: Children are toyingwith the 108 EMRI ambu-lance service, jamming theemergency hotline withbaby babble and prank calls.Shockingly, parents offussy kids often let theirchildren dial the toll freenumber and talk to the oper-ator to distract them whilegiving their food, represen-tatives of the service say.

Take the recent case of ahomemaker in the city, whoput her toddler on the phonewith the 108 operator whilefeeding lunch. “After 15back-to-back calls from thesame number in which weheard only jibberish, wecalled the number, and themom confessed that she hadseen posters of the numberacross the city, and had puther kid on the phone, as

there are no charges to callthe number,” says AshwathNarayan, head of the callcentre at EMRI, who saysthat the services receives atleast 10-15 such calls a day.

“Apart from our regularawareness programmes inschools and colleges, wealso call back the childrenwho have misused the num-ber and tell them how theywere preventing actualemergency calls from goingthrough,” he explains.

However, the operatorshave also seen cases wherechildren have saved adultsin distress by reaching outfor the phone and dialing108. Earlier this week, a 10-year-old girl from Cudda-lore rang the number whenher mother complained ofchest pain, and three monthsago, a 12 year-old girlcalled in to report a case ofdomestic violence.

Kids play withemergency no.

DC CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI

Aug.7: The state healthdepartment on Saturdayclarified that there is noproblem with the equipmentat the cardiology depart-ment at the Institute ofChild Health at Egmore, andthat the government hadperformed 15 open-heartsurgeries in June and July.

Deccan Chronicle had in areport on Saturday pointedout that more than 20patients were waiting foropen heart surgeries at theinstitute for a month andthat their surgeries had been

put on hold because theoxygenator, a crucial part ofthe heart-lung machine, hadnot been replaced.

Health secretary V.K. Su-bburaj claimed that the pa-tients are being screened forvarious tests, which is whythey were not operated, andthat there was no shortageof funds to ensure that eq-uipment at the hospital is upto the mark. Even thoughthe CM’s health insurancescheme had given them op-portunity to get their childr-en operated at private hospi-tals, parents preferred theICH because of the servicesrendered there, he said.

All well at childcentre, says TN

Casual labourerfalls to death

The weekend shopping spree in T Nagar hits thetraffic flow even during non-peak hours. A rippleeffect results in traffic snarls on Mount Road nearSaidapet, 2 km from T Nagar bus terminus. — DC

Forest department personnel drain the abandonedSadananthapuram pond on Saturday. — DC

aadi snarl

Croc hunt is wild goose chase FERAL CITY

The home is per-haps the oldest inSoutheast Asia.Built by the Britishin 1887 to rehabili-tate juvenile offe-nders, it now hous-es about 50 inma-tes aged 14-18