The first bench of the Madras High Court has pulled up the Adhoc Board of Administrators of the Nagore Dargah in Nagapattinam district, who were appointed by the HC in 2017 to look after its affairs just for four months, but continued to function so, even after four years. The bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy, also accusing the interim administrators of unnecessarily spending Dargah funds, called for account statements relating to the income and expenditure of the Dargah.
READ | Madras HC slams interim administrators of Nagore Dargah
AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam on Thursday slammed the Congress for commenting on the AIADMK’s performance in the just concluded urban civic polls saying the party that rides piggyback on the DMK has no moral right to talk about the AIADMK, which had ruled Tamil Nadu for three decades. The Congress did not have confidence to contest elections alone as it has been out of power since 1967, the former Chief Minister claimed.
Tamil Nadu recorded 507 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths on Friday and the total Covid-19 case count reached 34,48,088. Among the freshly reported cases, the highest were 133 cases, logged in Chennai followed by 76 in Coimbatore and 58 in Chengalpet.
People from Tamil Nadu—mostly medical students—stranded in Ukraine are seeking help from the Indian embassy as well as the state government to fly home as the situation there amid the Russian invasion continues to be tense.
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Chief Minister MK Stalin on Friday said the state government would bear the expense of bringing back the students from the east European country. On Thursday he wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar urging him to arrange Vande Bharat-like special flights to evacuate students. He said the government had received hundreds of distress calls from the family members of the students in Ukraine.
Videos of stranded students seeking immediate Indian intervention were shared widely on social media. Many said they were running out of food and scared for their lives. Parents of some of these students approached district collectors’ offices to request their evacuation. (Read More)
The final vote-share of parties in the results to the TN urban local body polls released by the state election commission on Thursday showed the ruling DMK, which tasted a landslide victory, securing a vote share of 43.13% against the principal opposition AIADMK’s 25.15%.
Even as the AIADMK was at a distant second position in the number of seats they won and was seen as a sinking ship with a major split and mutinies in recent years, it is to be noted that the overall vote share stick to the traditional pattern in the state — the two Dravidian majors occupy 68% of the total votes.
If the two powerful Dravidian parties have seemingly retained their minimum cadre, the 13.01% vote share claimed by independent candidates asserts this fact yet again as a good number of independent candidates in urban localities were either DMK or AIADMK who chose to contest on their own due to quarrels or denial of tickets within the party. And these turbulences during the local body polls usually are harmless as all of them usually return to their own parties during the Assembly, Lok Sabha polls. (Read More)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader MK Stalin on Thursday appreciated the children who staged a skit on Dravidian icon EV Ramasamy, also known as Periyar, on a popular television show, which had previously drawn flak from the BJP for its “obnoxious comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
Stalin, whose Twitter bio says he “belongs to the Dravidian stock”, tweeted a video of his interaction with the children. He wrote Periyar is a guide for the human race to live with self-respect and rationality. (Read More)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday sought hearing in the Supreme Court on the appeal of his rival AIADMK leader Saidai S Duraisamy against the Madras High Court verdict dismissing the election petition against him that had alleged corrupt practices on his part in the 2011 assembly polls. The bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana took note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal and lawyer Amit Anand Tiwari that the plea against the Chief Minister has been pending since 2017 and the election case pertained to 2011 assembly polls. Read more
Former interim general secretary of AIADMK V K Sasikala on Thursday urged everyone to ponder upon the party’s recent performance in the urban body polls which the DMK swept.
Speaking on the sidelines of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s 74th birth anniversary on February 24, Sasikala said that in AIADMK’s 50-year-long history, the Iyakkam (movement) has never faced such continuous electoral defeats. “At least at this juncture, everyone should ponder. For the benefit of the Iyakkam, if we all work together, Kazhagam will definitely become stronger,” she added. Read more
Over four kilograms of gold ornaments were recovered in a raid conducted under the operation 'Satark' in trains to curb illegal transportation of the precious metal, the Southern Railway said. The Southern Railway RPF wing has embarked on the operation 'Satark' (Be Careful) from January to prevent illegal transportation of jewellery and other illicit drugs.
Acting on specific inputs during such an operation, the special team of the RPF wing undertook intensive checks between Karaikkal and Tiruchirappalli in the Ernakulam Express on Wednesday, a press release said. The team examined the baggage of a passenger and recovered 4.90 kg of gold ornaments as the passenger did not hold any valid documents for the yellow metal. The special team handed over the gold items and the passenger to the tax department, Tiruchirappalli. (PTI)
Minister for Medical and Family Welfare Ma Subramanian and senior health department officials inspected the first batch of CORBEVAX vaccine that has been sent to the state by the Union Health ministry. Briefing reporters, Subramanian said 21.66 lakh vaccines were allotted to the state, of which 3.89 lakh doses were received today and they would be administered to children between the age group of 12-15 years as and when the Centre issues necessary instructions.
“There are about 10 lakh children who fall in this category (12-15 years). After receiving the necessary instructions and the details about the commencement of the vaccination, we will administer the doses to the children,” he said. “We have planned to inoculate the kids at their respective school, itself,” he said responding to a query.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday said the state government would bear the cost of bringing back students from the state who are stranded in Ukraine. Around 5,000 students from Tamil Nadu, mostly in professional courses and other emigrants, are stranded in Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia.
Stalin on Thursday urged the Centre to arrange special flights like the Vande Bharath Mission to immediately evacuate Tamil Nadu students. In a letter addressed to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Stalin said, “I request the Government of India to arrange for Special Mission flights like Vande Bharath Mission to evacuate them from various parts of Ukraine.” Read more
The Tamil Nadu government has opened 24×7 help desks and appointed a state Nodal Officer to facilitate evacuation of stranded Tamils in Ukraine to coordinate with the government of India, their families and district administration.
Here is a list of helpline numbers set up by the government.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday said that the state government will bear the travel expenses of Tamil Nadu students stranded in Ukraine to return home.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said about 5,000 students from Tamil Nadu, mostly in professional courses and other emigrants from the state were now stranded in Ukraine.
“We have been receiving hundreds of distress calls from the family members of the students studying in Ukraine requesting for their urgent evacuation. However, it has come to our notice that airports in Ukraine are closed. They are in need of our support to be brought back to India safely,” the chief minister said in the letter addressed to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
DMK MP Kanimozhi on Friday shared a list of helpline numbers for students from Tamil Nadu stranded in Ukraine, amid the on-going tensions between Ukraine and Russia. "To assist in the evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine, MEA Teams are being sent to the land borders with Ukraine in Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic and Romania," she said.
Here's the list of numbers:
AIADMK leader and former minister D Jayakumar, who has been re-arrested on the charge of disobeying a provision in Chennai City Police Act, was granted bail by local court on Thursday. XVI Metropolitan Magistrate M Dayalan, attached to the court complex in George Town area, granted the bail after listening to the arguments advanced by senior counsel A Natarajan.
Section 7(1)(a) of the Criminal Law Amendment (CLA) Act was used to re-arrest Jayakumar in the second case. This section says that preventing a person from doing or to do any act which such person has a right to do, is punishable. Read more
The Pulse Polio Immunization campaign in Tamil Nadu will be conducted on Sunday. As many as 43,051 booths have been set up in all the primary health centres, government hospitals, anganwadis, noon meal centres, schools and other public places in the state.
As per a release from the health department, elaborate arrangements have been made to vaccinate 47.36 lakh children while adhering to Covid-19 norms like wearing face masks, maintaining social distancing and sanitizing hands. Children, parents or officials with Covid symptoms won’t be allowed inside the booths, which will function from 7 am to 5 pm. “Overcrowding at booths should be avoided. Only one caregiver can accompany each beneficiary,” the release read. Read more
Continuing to report a sharp decline on the new COVID-19 infections, Tamil Nadu reported 575 cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 34,47,581 while four more fatalities took the death toll to 37,997 the Health department said on Thursday. Recoveries reached 34,00,144 as 1,913 people were discharged in the last 24 hours, leaving 9,440 active infections, a medical bulletin said.
Puducherry posted 18 new cases of coronavirus during the last 24 hours ending 10 a.m on Thursday pushing the total positives to 1,65,676. The 18 fresh cases identified at the end of examination of 2,000 samples were spread over Puducherry 12, Karaikal (five) and Yanam (one). Mahe an enclave of Puducherry in Kerala registered no fresh case of infection.
No fresh fatality was reported from any of the four regions and the toll remained 1,960. Director of Health G.Sriramulu said in a release that 52 patients recovered and were discharged during the last twenty-four hours and the overall recoveries so far were 1,63,489.
The active cases were 227 which comprised 19 patients in hospitals undergoing treatment while the remaining 208 patients were in home quarantine. The Director noted that the test positivity rate was 0.90 percent while the fatality and recovery rates were 1.18 percent and 98.68 percent, respectively. (PTI)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday appealed to the Centre to arrange special flights, like the Vande Bharath Mission, to evacuate students from Tamil Nadu stranded in Ukraine, following the Russian offensive against the Eastern European country. Urging the Centre to take up the matter with the authorities there, Stalin said, “I request the Government of India to arrange for Special Mission flights like Vande Bharath Mission to evacuate them from various parts of Ukraine.”
Parts of Chennai will face a power shutdown from 9 am to 2 pm, with supply expected to resume before 2 pm if the work is completed. Here are the areas that will be affected today:
Poonamallee: Part of bye pass road, Part of Senneerkuppam, Poonamallee Trunk road, Vaitheeswaran koil, Pillaiyar koil street KAVANUR P.K street, Yadhavar street, Thideer nagar, NSK nagar, Ranganathar nagar KOVOOR Entire Kumaran nagar, Part of Kundrathur main road, Arumugam nagar, Melma nagar, Ragavendra nagar and above surrounding areas.
Pammal: Annai Theresa street, Kamarajapuram, Thendral nagar, Srinivasapuram, EB colony KRISHNA NAGAR Erattai Pillaiyar koil street, Elumalai street, Devadoss street, Prabhakaran street, Anna nagar 4 th main road & 3 rd main road, Gandhi road, Radhakrishnan street POLICHALUR Thiru nagar, Padmanaba nagar, Bhavani nagar, Pasumpon nagar, Udhava moorthy street and above all surrounding areas. Here's the full list.
Vanakkam Chennai! Welcome to today’s live blog. We bring to you the latest news on Covid-19, politics, features, entertainment, sports, weather, art and culture from across Chennai and Tamil Nadu. Follow our live blog and @ie_chennai to stay up to date with what’s happening in the state.
The ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu registered a landslide victory in the urban local body elections, winning all 21 city corporations in the state. Hardly a year since they came to power, urban local body poll results mean a lot for the DMK and its allies, including Congress, Left, Dalit and minority parties.
DMK victory
The party won all 21 city corporations in the state, including Chennai. In Chennai city corporation, the party won 153 seats against AIADMK’s 15 seats in the 200-member city urban council. Even the DMK ally Congress managed 13 seats while others such as CPI(M) (4) and Dalit party VCK (4), too, have ensured an impressive presence. Read more
While the ruling party’s victory in the local body polls isn’t a first for Tamil Nadu, the magnitude of the DMK’s landslide win in the urban body polls held on Sunday has taken all political parties by surprise. While a final picture is yet to emerge – indirect polls are yet to be held to elect mayors and council heads – in all likelihood, the DMK is set to rule all the 21 city corporations, not less than 128 of the 138 municipalities, and at least 400 of the 489 town panchayats. While the DMK walked away with a vote share of around 60 per cent, ally Congress too put up a decent show, bagging 4.6 per cent of the votes.
For DMK chief M K Stalin, this unprecedented victory means more responsibilities considering the Lok Sabha elections are at least two years away and the challenge would be to retain until then the goodwill the party evidently has among voters now. While there were a number of factors that worked in the DMK’s favour – from a steady alliance with the Congress, Left parties and Thol Thirumavalavan’s Dalit party VCK, to the popular schemes announced by the party since it came to power in 2021, and the advantage of having the government machinery at its disposal – the single biggest factor was that the Opposition AIADMK put up no real fight. Read more
The Pulse Polio Immunization campaign in Tamil Nadu will be conducted on Sunday. As many as 43,051 booths have been set up in all the primary health centres, government hospitals, anganwadis, noon meal centres, schools and other public places in the state.
As per a release from the health department, elaborate arrangements have been made to vaccinate 47.36 lakh children while adhering to Covid-19 norms like wearing face masks, maintaining social distancing and sanitizing hands. Children, parents or officials with Covid symptoms won’t be allowed inside the booths, which will function from 7 am to 5 pm. “Overcrowding at booths should be avoided. Only one caregiver can accompany each beneficiary,” the release read. Read more
Parts of Chennai will face a power shutdown from 9 am to 2 pm, with supply expected to resume before 2 pm if the work is completed. As per a press release given by the company, the following neighbourhoods in Chennai will be affected:
Porur: Thiruverkadu Kaduvetty, Veeraragavapuram, Avadi Main Road, Arunachalam Nagar, Kavanur Sirukalathur, Kalatipet, Saraswathi Nagar, Periyar Nagar, Ambedkar nagar Kovoor Periyapanicheri, Ambal Nagar, Ram Nagar Thirumudivakkam Thiru Oooraga Perumal Nagar, Om Prakash Nagar, Temple Wave and above surrounding areas.
Sembium: Kodungaiyur complete Area, Sembium complete Area, Moolaikadai complete areas, Muthamil Nagar complete Area, Vyasarpadi Area, Periyar Nagar Area, Perambur High Road, B.B Road and Surrounding Area, Madhavaram Area, Thiruvika Nagar and above all surrounding areas. Read more
The Madras High Court has upheld a corrigendum issued by the Tamil Nadu Text Book and Educational Corporation for supply of foot-wear for school children worth several hundred crores of rupees for the year 2022-23. Justice Anita Sumath upheld the corrigendum issued by the Corporation recently, while dismissing a batch of writ petitions from Lehar Foot Wears Limited in Jaipur, Rajasthan and four others.
The corrigendum stipulated an additional condition to the effect that the supplier/tenderer should have supplied the foot wears to any government or board or local body or University. As the petitioners had not supplied to a government/Board/Local Body/University, they lost their eligibility as per the amended criterion and were thus, aggrieved. They contended that the amendment was motivated, unworkable, designed to benefit a small group of interested persons, besides being unreasonable and arbitrary. (PTI)
A 108-foot high idol of Lord Hanuman, the third in the series of ‘Char Dham’ (four abodes or pilgrimage sites) in the country, will be installed in Rameshwaram by Shree Harish Chander Nanda Education and Charitable Trust. The foundation stone-laying ceremony for the idol was held in Rameshwaram on Wednesday. The two other idols are in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. There are plans to identify a site for the fourth idol. Read more
The Sri Lankan Navy has arrested 22 Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing in its territorial waters, a senior Tamil Nadu Fisheries department official said on Thursday. The fishermen-- 13 of them hailing from Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu and the rest from Karaikkal in neighbouring Puducherry union territory, were apprehended in two separate instances on Wednesday, the official said. Further, two of their boats have also been seized, he added.
On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin had written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, seeking the Centre's intervention to secure the release of 29 fishermen and 82 fishing boats that are still under the custody of the Sri Lankan government, besides engaging with Colombo at the highest level to initiate bilateral talks between the two countries to find a permanent solution to this long pending issue. (PTI)
The Madras High Court on Wednesday rejected a PIL plea for a direction to the Tamil Nadu government to introduce the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) pattern of education for State Board schools also. The first bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy rejected the plea, while dismissing a writ petition from J A Joseph, who claimed himself as the founder-president of J J Party, not yet registered by the Election Commission of India. Read more
Moments after the results of the Tamil Nadu urban local body polls were announced and although the DMK won majority of the seats, state BJP president K Annamalai Tuesday said his party has registered a remarkable victory and it has reached places where it didn’t have representations before.
“The expectation with which we had announced that we will contest alone in the polls has been fulfilled. In many places, BJP candidates have lost the victory by very few votes. The work that will be exhibited by the BJP candidates who had won in this election will serve as an example for candidates of other parties,” he said. Read more
After his party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) drew a blank in the urban local body polls in Tamil Nadu, actor Kamal Haasan on Wednesday claimed that the defeat was only a micro failure.
“I thank all the candidates who honestly faced the elections. You should think that you have won in your ward and continue doing welfare activities. We came to politics to serve the people. Your work should make people regret that they didn’t vote for you,” he told his party workers. Read more
Although the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) secured a landslide victory by capturing all the 21 corporations and grabbing the lion’s share of seats in the municipalities and town panchayats, the BJP sprung a surprise with one of its candidates winning in a ward of the Chennai Corporation. The results of the state urban local body polls, held on February 19 across the state, were declared Tuesday.
Uma Anandhan (66), who contested from ward 134 in the West Mambalam area of the Kodambakkam zone, defeated the Congress candidate by a margin of more than 2,000 votes. Uma had earlier embroiled in a controversy when four years ago she had said in an interview that she is a supporter of Nathuram Godse. The video was shared widely on social media with many condemning her for her remarks. Read more
Tamil Nadu recorded fresh 618 coronavirus cases and four deaths on Wednesday. So far the state has recorded 34,47,006 cases and 37,993 fatalities. As many as 2,153 got discharged and the number of total active cases fell to 10,782.
Vanakkam Chennai! Welcome to today’s live blog. We bring to you the latest news on Covid-19, politics, features, entertainment, sports, weather, art and culture from across Chennai and Tamil Nadu. Follow our live blog and @ie_chennai to stay up to date with what’s happening in the state.