Saravanan's Blog

Slum footballers vow to ‘rise like phoenix’ Published Date: 26-June-2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 25: IT was all over within a few minutes for Suresh, an acclaimed footballer from Vyasarpadi slums, when his settlement was ravaged in a fire accident a few days ago. He had represented Nethaji Sports Club and Central Excise teams in several tournaments and won laurels. The fire licked everything including his house and now, Suresh and his four brothers even do not have another pair of dress to wear or a roof over their head. (Nearly 40 huts and property worth a few lakhs were destroyed in a fire in Vyasarpadi in North Chennai on Monday.) “What can I do if an employer, before whom I gave an interview a few days ago, asks me to produce original certificates for confirming my job there?” wondered an inconsolable Suresh. Not only Suresh but other aspiring footballers from the slum, groomed by the local Slum Children Sports Talent and Education Development Society (SCSTEDS), are in a state o...

Published Date: 24-June-2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 23: FOUR days after the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi shot off a letter to Union External Affairs Minister S M Krishna seeking immediate intervention on the issue related to a ship on a mercy mission to Lanka - but anchored in international waters off Chennai Port for the past few days - there has been any progress on the ground. On Friday last, soon after reports that MV Captain Ali was anchored off Chennai and waiting for a positive response from the Indian government for unloading the relief material since Colombo turned away the ship from its sea territory claiming that it was hired by the LTTE, hectic activities began in Tamil Nadu political circles. Chief Minister Karunanidhi deputed his Higher Education Minister Ponmudy with a detailed letter to meet Krishna in New Delhi personally. Ponmudy met Krishna in Delhi on Friday evening and urged him to persuade Lanka to allow unloading of the relief materials sent by Tam...

Published Date: 20-June-2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 19: THE health condition of 13 crew members of the mercy mission ship, MV Captain Ali, anchored in the international waters outside Chennai, is fast deteriorating and two of them fell sick as the stock of fresh water in the ship went down to alarming levels. According to Agni Subramaniam, executive director of Manitham and coordinator of things in the city for the ship, said, “Of the 13 crew in the ship, two people, one from Iceland and another from Syria, fell sick and they wanted to return to their country for treatment via Chennai.” Both the people who fell sick on board were members of ex-Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM). He also said that the freshwater reserve in the ship has gone down to alarming levels and if they were not given immediate supplies, there is a strong possibility that every one in the ship would fall sick. A c c o rding to an emailed reply to Express from Vanni Mercy Mission headquarters in London, Arjuna...

Published Date: 17/6/2009 - (NIE) G Saravanan Chennai, June 16: SETHU Kannan , an Indian national, has been languishing in a government-run special camp for Lankan refugees at Poonamallee despite a bail issued by a court in a case against him for allegedly smuggling ball bearings, used in ammunition, for the LTTE. The 35-year-old has been illegally detained for the last one year. Three others — Bharathi Dasan, Bhoominathan and Sashi Kumar from the coastal Ramanathapuram district and Pudhucherry, also face a similar fate as the Q Branch of the Tamil Nadu police has portrayed them as Sri Lankan refugees and accomplices in the ball bearings smuggling case. Like his father, Kannan, a resident of Vattamvalsai village near Uchipuli in Ramanathapuram district, used to visit Sri Lanka on business. During one such visit in the late 80s, ethnic conflict in the nation escalated all of a sudden forcing Kannan to return to Tamil Nadu with a group of Tamil refugees. Upon his arrival, local police a...

Published Date: 17/6/2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 16: FOR Sethu Kannan’s illiterate wife Kaleeswari and three children, Sarojini, Sudhakar and Suresh, abject poverty will not deter their hope of bringing their father out of a special camp in the city exclusively meant for Lankan refugees. “We have all the documents, from ration card to passport, to prove that Kannan is an Indian and we will not allow our sole bread winner to languish in the camp under illegal detention,” Kaleeswari told Express over phone from Ramanathapuram. In the 80s, Kannan went to Lanka for business. As the ethnic crisis escalated, he escaped from Lanka and landed in the Tamil Nadu coast along with Tamil refugees. Ever since, he has been in and out of Lankan refugee camps and jails multiple times. The cops claimed that he was working for the LTTE. For a few years, Kannan was allowed to rejoin his family in Ramanathapuram district.That is when Kannan got married to Kaleeswari from a nearby village. This was in t...

G Saravanan: Chennai, June 11: Four Indian Tamils, languishing in special camps for Lankan Tamil refugees at Poonamalle and Chengalpet even after getting proper bail orders, have began their indefinite hunger strike inside the camp. According to sources, all the four persons, three from coastal Ramanathapuram district and one from Union Territory of Pudhucherry, have refused taking food for the last few days apparently over the denial of their basic human rights for the last one-year. However, the authorities managed to convince three others, but Sethu Kannan still continuing his hunger strike, the source added. According to S Manoharan, a lawyer who represented such special camp detenu in Madras High Court regularly, said, “Most of them have sent their representations to the Home Secretary of the state proving their nationality but no one listen to them.” Sethu Kannan was arrested in a smuggling case in 2007 and sent to Puzhal Prison. In 2008, he got bail in the case and released from...

Chennai, June 11: The news of apparent release of two Indian marine officers, who were arrested by the South Korean authorities for causing the country’s worst ever oil spill 17 months ago, came as a big reprieve for sailors community living in the country. Reacting to the verdict setting both Indian mariners free, Capt. Rajesh Tandon, managing director of V Ships India (which employed both), said, “This morning’s verdict by the Appeal Court of the Daejeon District Court Ist Criminal Division in South Korea, to once again find the senior officers of the Hebei Spirit, not guilty of the crime of destruction of property, following the ruling by Korea’s Supreme Court that the two should never have been imprisoned, will be hailed by all in the shipping industry as justice at last.” During the fist week of December in 2007, the Hebei Spirit, a Hong Kong-registered tanker fully loaded with crude, was at anchor off the west coast of South Korea near the port of Taean. A drifting South Korean c...

Chennai, June 10: Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin inaugurated the piling work for the construction of elevated viaduct from Koyambedu to Ashok Nagar for the Chennai Metro Rail project at a venue near Koyambedu. Speaking after the formal launch of works for the ambitious project for the city’s transportation, Stalin said, “The estimated cost of this project is Rs.14,600 crores including escalation, Central taxes and interest during the period of construction.” While 59 per cent of the cost will be met by concessional Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) loan of the government of Japan, Indian government and Tamil Nadu administration would share the remaining 41 per cent, Stalin added. The state Cabinet took a decision to implement the Metro Rail project in Chennai in June 2006. This project aims at providing Chennai with a fast, reliable, convenient, efficient, modern and affordable mode of public transport, as a lasting solution to the city’s growing transport needs. The Government o...

Published Date: 14/6/2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 13: This scare at the aerodrome was of a different kind; And, at the end it was somewhat like a hoax: at least a happy story — well, almost. Health officials at the Anna International Airport swung into action in the wee hours on Saturday after a family of five Indians travelling from California was found with suspected swine flu symptoms on their touchdown here. However, by evening the results of their tests showed the parents and their three children didn’t suffer from the (A) H1N1 pandemic. The doctors, nonetheless, advised the family to be in selfquarantine for a few more days, according to officials at the airport. Earlier in the day, around 2.30 am, Muralitharan, 45, a doctor by profession, his wife Sarika, 35, and their children, aged six and four and six months were suspected to be carrying the H1N1 virus when they arrived in city by a Lufthansa flight. They were found suffering from cough, cold and high fever — visible sympto...

Published Date: 12/6/2009 G Saravanan Chennai, June 11: IN what could have been a clear case of double standards in the functioning of Chennai Corporation, a senior official overruled a subordinate officer’s action to seal shops found selling artificially ripened mangoes using calcium carbide stones in Koyambedu. According to sources, a team of health officials from Corporation’s Zone-V (Kilpauk) recently inspected several fruit shops located inside the Koyambedu main fruit market to check the reported sales of artificially ripened mangoes. After the inspection, the officials collected samples of mangoes from those shops to ‘verify’ if they were artificially ripened. Based on the verification report, an official linked to the civic body’s health department ordered sealing of five shops for selling ‘artificially ripened mangoes’ two days ago. Ironically, another senior official in the zone overturned the sealing order and allowed reopening of those shops the very next day. The turnarou...

Published Date: 10/6/2009 - (NIE) G Saravanan Chennai, June 9: AT a time when the administration is trying to recover areas encroached upon by voiceless people in the state, officials turn a blind eye on clearly established encroachments along the Injambakkam Beach, that too even after judicial orders demanding strict action against the people regardless of their clout in society. At Injambakkam beach, nearly 50 acres of beach area were reportedly encroached upon by several influential people for the last 15 years. The Kancheepuram district administration appears to be still reluctant in clearing them despite three Madras High Court orders asking the removal. The court ordered removal of encroachments at Injambakkam Beach in 1997 and then in 2007, and this time, in December last. But the district officials have not taken any concrete action yet. Braving several intimidation attempts, ‘ Injambakkam’ H Sekar, founder of Nature Trust and a local resident, had filed a writ...

Published Date: 8/6/2009 - G Saravanan Chennai, June 7: WHILE the Chennai Mayor rejoices over Corporation-run schools consistently showing good results and improving the pass percentage in public examinations in the last few years, teachers of the schools, who aspire to move out of the city, are a peeved lot. The teachers from other districts are said to be depressed over what they allege to be a denial of their basic rights to live with their family by getting a transfer to their native places through annual counselling. Though Corporation school teachers are also selected through proper procedures like the Government school teachers, when it comes to transfer counselling, they claim that they feel discriminated. Unlike Government school teachers, Corporation school teachers can not move out unless a replacement is found for the particular post. The Corporation’s stand has almost made it impossible for many teachers to think of a transfer. The situation is so bad for a few teachers ...

G Saravanan: Chennai, June 6: While the Tamil Nadu government boasts as best information technology (IT) destination in the country on one side, browsing through the state-maintained websites reveals that many sites (that serve vital government details to whoever access it) has not been updated for almost six months. There was a classic example to prove the case where the government failed to update its websites in regular basis at Thiruvottiyur Municipality website (http://municipality.tn.gov.in/Tiruvottiyur/who_Deputy.htm), where its vice chairman K Veerasamy was died six months ago, but the site still shows him as alive and serving the people there by holding the post. But the real story at the municipality circles is something different. After the demise of DMK party leader Veerasamy, who was revered as stalwart even among the opponent party leaders in Thiruvottiyur for the past four decades, the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission conducted bye-election in February this year to f...

Published Date: 6/6/2009 - (NIE) G Saravanan Chennai, June 5: TWO months have passed by now, but officials at the Ambattur Municipality are yet to reply to an RTI application filed by Bharathi Cultural and Welfare Association, Korattur, seeking details about the expenditure incurred while desilting North Canal in their locality. In an RTI application dated March 23, 2009, V Jayapalan, secretary of the association, a united body of several TNHB colonies in Korattur, had sought details like how much was really spent on desilting the North Canal and also about the duration of the cleaning work from Ambattur Municipality. “We the residents of Korattur are disappointed with the lackadaisical attitude of the municipal authorities, who possibly do not like people to know the truth,” lamented Jayapalan. The highly polluted and encroached North Canal is a perennial problem for the local residents, said Seshagiri Rao, joint secretary of the association. “The particular canal was not cleaned or...

Published Date: 2/6/2009 - (NIE) G Saravanan Chennai, June 1: TWO buildings located on Anna Salai and Arcot Road, which were constructed in contravention to Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority regulations have ‘escaped’ demolition for the last two decades as files relating to them have mysteriously been either ‘destroyed’ or ‘misplaced.’ R Natarajan, a research scholar who unearthed the startling details, told Express that he had lodged a complaint with the CMDA seeking details about the illegal buildings and, when the agency refused to reveal the facts, also filed an RTI application in May 2008. The agency then tried to delay its response using every option available. Irked over the CMDA’s attitude, Natarajan moved the State Information Commission, which ordered the agency to issue free copies of the files. During the commission’s hearing, the CMDA admitted for the first time that one of the files related to an illegal building had been destroyed and that a file of another bu...

Published Date: 29-5-2009 - (NIE) G Saravanan Chennai, May 28: COME June 10 and Kamarajar Salai and Anna Salai in the city would be graffiti-free.Cracking the whip on those defacing the walls in these areas, the Chennai Corporation said graffiti, posters or hoardings will not be allowed on these roads as they have been designated ‘poster free zones’. Making the announcement during a debate at the council meeting here on Thursday, Mayor Subramanian said that initially, the ban would be strictly enforced on Anna Salai and Kamarajar Salai and later extended to other arterial roads and areas. However, the Mayor did not elaborate on the kind of action the corporation would take against violators. While the 5km stretch of Kamarajar Salai has important government establishments like All India Radio, Madras University campus, Secretariat and Reserve Bank buildings, the 14km long Anna Salai is considered as a gateway to the city for visiting foreign dignitaries. Earlier during the debate, opp...