Dead fishermen’s kin turn to CM for relief

Published Date: 10-July-2009

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 9: FOR Selvi, wife of Panaiyur Kuppam fisherman R Elumalai and who went missing in March 1996 and was later found dead near Nellore in Andhra Pradesh after 10 days, the wait for getting the financial relief from the government gets longer and longer as the official machinery is ‘still processing’ her application.

Thirteen years have passed by now, but the officials in the Tamil Nadu Fisheries Department are still processing my application for financial relief (given to family m e m b e r s o f d e a d fisherman),a visibly upset Selvi told Express.

A lot has changed in Selvi’s life after the unnatural death of the sole breadwinner, husband Elumalai (reg no-156 in Panaiyur Kuppam Fishermen Cooperative Society) 13 years ago.

Though she struggled a lot during these years to bring up her three children, it was her two sons who dumped their school bags to become breadwinners for the family. With their earnings from fishing, Selvi married off her daughter to another fisherman in the locality.

“Within a month’s time, I moved an application with the State authorities seeking financial aid meant for family members of dead fishermen, but my agonising wait for the relief still continues,” Selvi said.

Selvi is not alone, there are more than 400 families across the State still waiting to receive such relief money from the government for years, said K Bharathi, president of South Indian Fishermen Welfare Association (SIFWA).

Of the 400-odd families, around there are 70 missing cases and very few of them (around 10 missing fishermen families) have received financial relief of Rs 50,000 from the government till now.

Since the processing of such claims are getting delayed inordinately (against the stipulated seven years period for settlement), we appeal to the Chief Minister M Karunanidhi to set up a separate committee in the fisheries department to specifically look after the issue, Bharathi demanded.

To render speedy justice for intruding Lankan fishermen, we have a joint interrogation committee (JIC) and the fishing community in the State would be happier if such committee is planned for settling claims of fishermen, he added

After hiccups, relief ship reaches Lanka

Published Date: 9-July-2009

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 8: MV Cap Colorado, the ship carrying 27 containers of relief material for internally displaced Sri Lankan Tamils, ran into rough weather as the Lankan Navy surrounded the ship and prevented it from reaching the Colombo port through Wednesday.

Late in the evening, bowing to pressure from different quarters, including the Red Cross which is consignee of the relief goods, the Lankan authorities permitted the container vessel to berth at Colombo. Earlier, MV Captain Ali, also known as Vanangaa Mann, which was carrying most of the same cargo meant for internally displaced Tamils living in different government- run camps in Northern areas was turned away, leading to its berthing at Chennai recently.

According to Subramanian of Sea Consortium, the vessel operator for Colorado, the ship was stopped when it was entering the Sri Lankan waters. “They also ordered the ship to be anchored in deep sea since the Lankan government was not sure about accepting the particular cargo (relief materials for IDPs) on the ground that it was rejected material,” he told Express.

The vessel operator immediately contacted the consignee (The Red Cross) for their help since the vessel also carrying more than 800 commercial containers primarily meant for customers in Europe and any delay in meeting the delivery deadline would incur severe loss of crores of rupees. Besides pressure from different quarters, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Lankan authorities finally gave in.

The vessel is now expected to berth on Thursday and the containers loaded with relief materials for IDPS would be handed over to Lankan Red Cross officials by Friday. Meanwhile, a statement from Vanni Mission headquarters in UK termed the act as against the contravention of the agreement made between India and Lanka on June 24.

G Subramanian, executive director of Manitham, a Chennai-based Human Rights Organisation and who worked tirelessly to ensure the cargo to reach the needy people, said: “The consignment of relief materials continuously facing trouble and the happenings raise suspicion that whether it would land at the IDPs hands finally.”

Lifeline for Victoria hall

Published Date: 8-July-2009

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 7: DECKS have been cleared to restore the glory of the historic Victoria Public Hall as the Tamil Nadu government gave its administrative sanction to the Chennai Corporation’s multi-crore renovation proposal under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) few days ago.

“As the government sanctioned the project, we will now proceed with the tendering process for selecting the contractor to restore the historic building at an estimated cost of Rs 5 crore,” Mayor M Subramanian told Express. Once the tendering process and identification of contractor are over, the work of restoring past glory of the weathered building would be completed within a few months time, Subramanian added.

A visit to the hall, which is sandwiched between historic buildings like Ripon Building and Chennai Central Railway Station, revealed that the stage, which played host to a number of eminent personalities including Swami Vivekananda, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Subramania Bharati and Sardar Patel to address large public meetings, is in a fully dilapidated condition. Wooden steps leading to balcony and sideways are fully damaged.

In October 1967, former Chief Minister C N Annadurai renovated the building. At present, the South Indian Athletic Association (SIAA) uses the hall and already gave their willingness to Chennai Corporation to handover it for renovation.An example of the Indo-Saracenic architecture, the Victoria Public Hall was designed by renowned architect Robert Fellowes Chisholm and built by Namberumal Chetty between 1888 and 1890.

According to available information, the proposal for such hall was first debated during a meeting in March 1882 at the Pachaiyappa’s Hall in George Town when some leading citizens of Chennai decided to construct a big hall for city’s recreational activities. Based on request, the (Madras) Municipal Corporation leased a 57-ground (3.14 acres) site in the People’s Park for 99 years from April 1, 1886.

Sir Ananda Gajapathi Row, the then Maharajah of Vizianagaram, had laid the foundation stone besides making a hefty donation of Rs 10,000. Contribution for the work poured in from different people and the list included the Travancore Maharajah, Mysore Maharajah, Puducottah Rajah, Ramnad Raja Bhaskara Setupati, Hadji Abdul Batcha Sahib and former Madras High Court Judge Muthuswamy Iyer.

Passengers on mercy mission ship stranded

Published Date:4-july-2009 - (NIE)

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 3: TWO passengers on the Mercy Mission ship MV Captain Ali, ex-SLMM monitor Kristjan Guðmundsson of Iceland and Uthayanan Thavarajasingam, a Tamil volunteer from United Kingdom, have sought chief minister M Karunanidhi’s intervention as Indian immigration officials blocked their departure to their home countries through Chennai.

According to sources, the ship’s local coordinator had arranged air tickets for their departure via Chennai’s international airport twice in the last 24 hours, but immigration officials blocked the move by declining to issue temporary visas to facilitate their visit to the airport.

Agni Subramaniam, local coordinator for the ship, said, “Immediately after docking in the Chennai Port by Thursday evening, we tried to get the consent of the immigration officials about the passengers’ return journey since they were desperate to get back to their countries.”

“They assured us with temporary visas for both since they were just passengers in the Mercy Mission ship, but by Friday evening, they backtracked and said that they have to be with the ship till unloading of relief materials gets over,” he added.

Speaking to Express from the ship, Uthayanan said, “I appeal to Chief Minister Karunanidhi to intervene on behalf of us, since we have travelled for almost two months in rough sea conditions and now want to get back home.” Kristjan too needs to travel immediately as his uncle died on June 23 from a long illness in Iceland.

Captain Ali has been sold to a Kolkatabased businessman and she will start for Kolkata in the next few days. However, the fate of Kristjan and Uthayan is still unclear since they cannot travel along with the remaining crew up to Kolkata as they were just passengers. Immigration officials were not available for comment.

After 56 days in sea, Captain Ali docks in city

Published Date: 3-july-2009

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 2 AFTER weeks of dilly-dallying, Indian authorities on Thursday gave permission to allow ship MV Captain Ali, which was on a mercy mission to Vanni, to dock at the Chennai Port and unload relief materials sent for internally displaced Sri Lankan Tamils from Europe almost two months ago.

According to sources from the mercy mission’s headquarters in the United Kingdom, the ship was permitted to enter Chennai Port around 5 pm and it docked in by 7.30 pm following clearance from the Centre after the shipping agents submitting the necessary papers. Agni Subramaniam, executive director of Manitham, who does the coordination for the ship in the city, said: “There were hectic activities in the national capital for the last many days to get the government’s nod and finally on Thursday evening, the government allowed the ship to enter Chennai Port.”

The ship with loads of relief materials gathered from Europe, set sail on May 7 from Port of Fos-Sur-Mer in France on the second leg of the “Mercy Mission to Vanni”. Captain Ali is carrying around 884 metric tons of food, medicines, and other essential humanitarian relief items for the 330,000 Tamil civilians in the Vanni area of Northern Sri Lanka displaced by the war.

Soon after berthing at the Chennai Port, ship captain Mohamed Mustafa told reporters: “We are disappointed with the denial of the opportunity to unload relief materials meant for internally displaced Tamils in Colombo.” Krishnamurthy, the local shipping agent for the ship, said relief materials would be unloaded and stored at a warehouse within the port in a day or two. Once the materials were unloaded, they would be stuffed in containers and sent to Sri Lanka, he added. Soon after unloading, the ship is expected to leave for Kolkata.

PA holder can obtain RTI info: CIC

Published Date: 2/7/2009 - (NIE)

G Saravanan

Chennai, July 1: IN a landmark order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has said that the power of attorney (PA), given by anybody, could be used to obtain RTI information.

The order has come on the heels of a petition filed by a Chennai-based RTI activist R Natarajan who was denied information on the ground that there was no specific instruction under the RTI Act for providing information to anyone with a power of attorney.

Natarajan had moved an RTI application using power of attorney to obtain information regarding status of his relative’s application to the regional passport office (Chennai) seeking a duplicate passport as it was delayed.

The CIC order allowing people to seek RTI information using power of attorney was an eye-opener for many government offices, which continuously dodge RTI applicants on one or another ground to evade information, Natarajan told Express.

The order eventually became a legal permission for RTI activists to seek information and clearly paved way for everyone to seek details from different government agencies, Natarajan added.

It all started when the regional passport officer (Chennai) inordinately delayed issuing a duplicate passport applied under Tatkal scheme to his relative, working and living in the UK.

“In Tatkal scheme, passport has to be delivered within three days, but in my relative’s case, the RPO took 22 days and when I questioned the delay through numerous letters, the then RPO Sumathi Ravichandran not only went on character assassination against me but also questioned how I sought the information using power of attorney,” Natarajan said.

The denial of information at RPO forced Natarajan to file a petition with the CIC to ascertain whether the power of attorney has the right to inspect the file and obtain information. After examining the documents submitted by Natarajan during the hearing, CIC overruled Sumathi’s contention.

WE CAN’T GO TO COURT EVERY TIME’

Published Date: 27-06-2009 -

G Saravanan

Chennai, June 26: A waste disposal proposal at the Kuthambakkam village has annoyed its residents as they fear the model village will be turned into a dumping yard.

Identifying a meadow in the village as a place for waste disposal for six municipalities -- Ambattur, Thiruverkadu, Valasaravakkam, Maduravoyal, Porur and Poonamalle by the Tamil Nadu government without consulting the village panchayat leader has further irked the villages.

Kuthambakkam has been a model village for total development with the support of the state government. Successful projects like Samathuvapuram, roads under Namakku Naame scheme some examples that can be attributed to this village. In the past the government had also abandoned a massive satellite township project at the request of the locals.

R Elango, former president of Kuthambakkam panchayat staged a massive dharna at the village centre recently to seek government’s attention on the issue. Residents are shocked since they cannot simply go to court every time to claim their basic rights. “Fifteen years ago, illicit brewing was a big problem. Now we fear the return of those days since loss of income seems imminent,” Ramadas, a ward member.