She criticised Jayalalithaa’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party cadres for trying to convert the house into a memorial.
“The plan is being carried out by those who are trying to take revenge against the two of us who are Jayalaithaa’s blood relatives. Only Deepak and I are legal heirs to all her wealth. We will fight these property usurpers in court,” Deepa said.
Jayalalithaa and her actress mother Sandhya bought the 24,000sq ft Poes Garden property in 1963. She lived there even after joining politics and through her three terms as chief minister. Jaya’s confidante and companion of 33 years, V K Sasikala who is currently in jail for corruption, also lived in Poes Garden with her extended family. Currently the house is vacant and guarded by servants and security guards.
Government plans to revise school syllabus
The Tamil Nadu government is planning to revise the matriculation school syllabus to bring it on par with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum for the 2018 academic year.
State Education Minister K Sengottaiyan said the syllabus had not been revised since 1979 and the current revision would be done in a phased manner beginning with the primary, junior and finally the senior classes.
Besides this, board exams will be conducted for Class XI and Class XII from 2018 with 600 marks for each year. The students’ final grade card would be an average of Class XI and XII exams for a total of 1,200 marks.
He also assured anxious parents that Class XI students would not be failed and could re-attempt their papers in the mid-term supplementary exams.
He added that these reforms would help students crack tough professional and civil service exams.
Court adjourns hearing against eight actors
Eight Tamil actors who were served court notice in a 2009 defamation case got a temporary reprieve when the Madras High Court adjourned the hearing to June 17.
The actors summoned were Suriya, Sathyaraj, Sarathkumar, Sripriya, Arun Vijay, Vivek and Cheran. The case relates to the arrest of a actor Bhuvaneshwari in a prostitution racket in 2009. A Tamil daily did a follow up accusing film actors of financing prostitution and other illegal rackets.
The actors’ association retaliated by accusing the media of false news and this led to the arrest of the daily’s editor. He was later released after a public apology. However M Rozario, a freelance journalist with the daily, filed a defamation suit against the eight actors in a court in Ooty. He demanded financial compensation from the actors.
Former DMK legislator dies
N Periasamy, a former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislator, died of lung infection at a private hospital in Chennai.
He was 76 and survived by his wife, a son and daughter Geetha Jeevan, who is a minister in the state.
A native of Thattarmadam near Sathankulam in coastal Tuticorin district, Periasamy worked odd jobs until he joined the Indo-British spinning mills, Madura Coats. Here he became the trade union president and worked closely with the pro-DMK factory workers.