In another major setback, the Madras High Court vetoed a June 22 state government order to reserve 85% medical and dental college seats for state board students and only 15% to CBSE and other board students. The court ruled that the order was discriminatory.
NEET (National Entrance and Eligibility Test), a uniform qualifying exam conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for medical admissions, was introduced in 2013. However several states including Tamil Nadu got a court stay and continued with their own entrance tests. Last year, NEET was made mandatory and exams were held in May and July all over India.
Due to poor pass percentage Tamil Nadu tabled two bills on January 31 for NEET exemptions. The bills were approved by state Governor Vidyasagar Rao but rejected by the federal government despite representations from Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami and his ministers.
The state pleaded for a year’s grace period to prepare its students by upgrading its syllabus to CBSE standards and introduced NEET coaching in schools and compulsory board exams for Class X, XI and XII.
Meanwhile preliminary rounds of single window counselling based on NEET scores began at Tamil Nadu’s eight deemed universities on August 1 and will continue until August 31. Ironically the turnout has dropped due to high fees, NEET and other admission constraints.
Student drowns after saving his friends
A 21-year-old engineering student drowned after saving seven of his friends during a swimming trip at Koonandiyur near Mettur dam about 50km from Salem last week.
The group was in a country-made coracle which toppled. Madanlal Choudary was the lone swimmer and helped his friends reach shore. However he was pulled in by a whirlpool and marshy currents.
His body was recovered the following day.
In a separate incident, two seven-year-old boys drowned in a 15ft pit filled with rain water dug for a bridge at Kalasapakkam in Tiruvannamalai about 195km from Chennai last week. Thangadurai slipped and fell into the pit and Karthikeyan died trying to save him. The accident was not discovered for some time as it was a lonely spot.
Ocean scientist gets prestigious global award
R Venkatesan, an ocean scientist at Chennai’s National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), has won the prestigious Lockheed Martin award for 2017 from the US-based Marine Technology Society.
He heads the Ocean Observation Systems at NIOT located at Velacherry in Chennai. He joined NIOT in 1997 and has 34 years of experience in ocean studies. He has formed a team on par with international standards to detect tsunamis, torpedoes and other natural calamities.
He said: “My team also manages buoys that monitor the weather, recording 100 data points like wave heights, wind speed, humidity and solar radiation. We also track cyclones minutely using software that has been indigenously developed.”
Auto-rickshaw driver rewarded
Muniyappan, an auto-rickshaw driver, stunned police with his honesty by returning a bag containing 60 sovereigns of gold jewellery worth Rs1.5mn that a passenger had forgotten in his vehicle at Panaimarathur in Coimbatore.