Corporation to sell ad space on its website

By G Saravanan

Published on April 7, 2010:

CHENNAI: With the Chennai Corporation website (www.chennaicorporation.gov.in) registering more than 5,000 hits per day in March this year, the civic body is exploring possibilities of auctioning space (available on its website) for online advertisements to private players.
According to sources, the proposal has gained importance after the hits crossed 5,000per day a few days ago as it would help the Corporation increase its revenue.

The Corporation’s website ever since its inauguration in 2000 has been registering steady patronage in pageviews.
While hits on its webpage per day were a few hundreds initially, it has reached more than 3,000 hits per day after the civic body launched several online services two years ago.

Besides, the introduction of online services for property tax payment, tax status, tax calculator and town planning status, the click rates are now hovering around 5,000 per day during weekdays and around 4,000 on weekends, sources say.

In the last financial year, more than 10,000 people used the civic body’s online facility to remit their property tax dues amounting to above Rs 3 crores. For qualifying for hosting online advertisements, any website needs a sustained 3000 hits every day and the civic body’s website has crossed the mark several months ago.

If the proposal sees the light of the day, it would not only help the civic body meet its website’s operating expenditure (Rs 1.5 lakh per year), but could also help the Corporation get sustained income as the website would become a one-stop shop for all services in future.

According to www.serversiders.com that keeps track of the most popular domains on the Internet across the globe, the Corporation’s website is the 692nd largest site in India (within .IN) and the 116334th largest site in the world.

அந்தமான் தமிழோசை: பிரதிகள்

அந்தமான் தமிழோசை: பிரதிகள்

Chennai looks up to arrival of ‘pied pipers’

Image courtesy: http://loveforlife.com.au/

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, on April 4, 2010:

After fighting a near-successful battle with mosquitoes, the civic body is now turning its focus towards another growing menace: the rodent population, which could open Pandora’s box during outbreak of any diseases.

Chennai Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said the pertinent tender would be floated in a fortnight, seeking bidders who could play the role of the ‘pied piper’.

“We are working out the modalities in involving private players for the massive programme, and are examining issues of payment for eliminating each rat,” he told Express. If the rode nts were controlled and eliminated, the civic body could reduce chances of several diseases including the leptospirosis and plague, Lakhoni noted.

Another senior official of the civic body said several MNCs involved in pest control across the country have expressed interest and approached the corporation for the programme.

The Tamil Nadu Pest Control Association said it would be almost impossible to estimate the city’s rodent population. “But we can certainly identify the highly infested areas,” said P Thanigai Arasu, its president.

“We have classified rat-infested areas based on complaints, especially from places like Koyambedu fruit and vegetable market, all railway stations and Ranganathan Street in T Nagar where we estimate high level of rodents’ infestation,” he added.

Shore leave: Mariners feel like prisoners

By G Saravanan
Published in The New Indian Express on April 3, 2010:
Chennai, April 2:Even though the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has declared 2010 as the ‘Year of the Seafarer,’ Indian seafarers, whether working on foreign going or coastal ships, are increasingly finding it difficult to go ashore in Indian ports as their shore leave, a legitimate due, was overlooked under the pretext of security.

Shore leave is a kind of permission to sailors to spend their time on dry land. In India, for lakhs of sailors, (including Indian seafarers) it has been restricted to just 12 hours a day, from 8 am to 8 pm. Urgent and medical emergencies (from sailors) require advance permission from Immigration authorities to leave their ship to visit land.

With the Indian government not in a mood to listen to the woes of sailors, especially on shore leave, mariners has now started feeling like prisoners in their own country.

On the occasion of the National Maritime Day, which is falling on Monday, they have planned to register their strongest ever protest against the government.

Reacting strongly to the issue, Capt.Vipan Kumar, said, “I have been a sailor for more than 30 years and never saw this kind of situation in my life. I landed on one ship in Mumbai port recently and was shocked to see that Indian seafarers were not given shore leave by port authority in the name of increased threat to Indian ports.” How can threat to Indian port become less if I am not allowed to go outside the port, he questioned.

Seafarers sail through seas in difficult circumstances and when they come back to Indian waters with a hope that they will be able to see their own kith and kin, they are denied access outside the port. Instead of beefing up their security and becoming vigilant, an easy route is taken by the government to stop seafarers from visiting their own country, many seafarers rue.

While 12-hour shore passes issued on a per day basis, by the time the pass is issued, it is often close to lunch time, and the seafarer has to return by 7 pm so as to enable the agent to return the pass to the authorities by 8 pm.

Capt. K G Ramakrishnan, another experienced sailor said, “The Indian seafarers are issued identities by their government and should not be seen as aliens. We need the same rights as a labour in the port who has access in and out at any time based on a port pass issued on the recommendation of a shore agency.”
Source: http://expressbuzz.com/cricket/shore-leave-mariners-feel-like-prisoners/162204.html

Taiwan may pay couples to have babies

Source: http://www.fijilive.com/news/2010/04/02/24824.Fijilive

Taiwan said Friday the government may start paying people to have children in order to boost the island's dwindling birth rate, one of the lowest in the world.

Among the proposals being considered is a monthly subsidy of 5,000 Taiwan dollars (160 US dollars) for all children under the age of three, the interior ministry said, a move which would cost 36 billion Taiwan dollars a year.

"The ministry hopes to raise the public's willingness to have children with measures that help them look after their children and improve their living standards," it said in a statement.

Taiwan's authorities have been offering various incentives to encourage births, amid growing concerns that a severe manpower shortage will trigger serious social and economic problems.

The ministry last month kicked off an on-line contest for a slogan that would "make everybody want to have children" with a cash prize of one million Taiwan dollars for the winner.

The response was overwhelming, with more than 1,000 entries only hours after it started, causing the ministry to upgrade its systems after its website was temporarily paralysed by the traffic.

The island's birth rate stood at 8.29 per 1,000 people last year, according to official figures. That compares with a global average of more than 20 births per 1,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Lao Song Elementary School in Taipei -- which set a world record in 1966 as the school with the most pupils at 11,000 -- now has only 778, the China Times newspaper said.

Last year 191,310 babies were born in Taiwan, down almost four percent percent from the previous year.

600 Karen Refugees Return to Burma

By LAWI WENG
Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18172

About 600 Karen refugees return from Thailand to Burma, despite what has been described as the “very unstable” situation there.

The Karen Information Center (KIC), based on the Thai-Burmese border, said the refugees had returned voluntarily but after pressure by Thai authorities.
KIC editor Nang Paw Gay said: “The people lost hope after the Thai authorities told them many times to return to Burma. They decided that whatever happens to them they would go back home.”

Sally Thompson, the deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), said the situation in eastern Burma “remains very unstable. For any of these people returning, it is going to be difficult for them.”

Many human rights groups, including the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, have appealed to the Thai government not to repatriate the refugees in areas where is the risk of landmines, forced labor and army recruitment.

Kitty McKinsey, regional spokeswoman for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told The Irrawaddy that there is a procedure in place for refugees who choose to return to Burma. The Thai military noted their names and handed the list to the UNHCR, which then interviewed them.

McKinsey said the UNHCR had interviewed more than 700 people over the past few weeks and they said that they wanted to go home.

“What they are telling us is they wanted to go back because they wanted to prepare their field for planting before the rains,” she said.

“From the point of view of the UNHCR, they shouldn't be forced to return. All return to Myanmar [Burma] should be on a purely voluntary basis.”

About 3,000 Karen refugees in the Tha Song Yang District of Tak Province fled to Thailand in June 2009 following clashes between Karen soldiers and a joint force of Burmese government troops and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army.

The Thai military planned to deport all 3,000 to Burma in February, but then shelved the plan after pleas by human rights groups and the international community. Nevertheless, about 300 Karen refugees have returned since February.

Meanwhile, a Karen refugee child was admitted to hospital in the Thai border town of Mae Sot on Wednesday with injuries sustained after reportedly handling an unexploded mortar shell in the landmine-sown border area of eastern Burma. A second Karen child reportedly died in the explosion.

CHENNAI Corporation betters last year’s tax record

By G Saravanan
Published on April 1, 2010:

CHENNAI: For the first time in the history of Chennai Corporation, a total collection of its property as well as professional tax revenue reached the Rs 490-crore mark. Last year, the collection of these taxes stood at Rs.414 crore.

According to sources, the total revenue from these taxes have exceeded their own target for 2009- 10 and finally stood at Rs 490 crore. While the property tax collection for the year was Rs.363.83 crore, revenue collected under professional tax reached Rs.126 crore.

On the last day of the financial year, the local body had collected Rs.20 crore. It may be noted that the civic body had collected Rs.18 crore on the last day of last financial year (March 31, 2009).

For 2009-10, the civic body’s revenue department had fixed a target of Rs.350 crore for property tax collection, while Rs.101 crore has been fixed as target for professional tax.

The urban body had collected Rs.323 crore as property tax during 2008-09 against its target of Rs.290 crore. Likewise, for the same period, the Corporation collected Rs.91 crore as professional tax, thus making it to Rs.414 crore in total.

According to Corporation sources there were about 48,000 commercial buildings in the city and were subjected to pay commercial tax every six months. But during the last three to four years there have been reports of under assessment by several tax collectors across all the 10 zones of the Corporation and after the top brass cracked the whip against errant tax collectors the tax revenue had witnessed a steep rise.