The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 21, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reporter's Diary

Future blues

An anxious mother called this newspaper office reading reports about the scrapped common entrance test. She wanted to know about the prospects for Central Board for Secondary Education students, in particular.

Her son was studying under the CBSE syllabus, she said and feared that the future looked bleak for her son.

When asked which class the boy was studying in, she stunned the reporter with her answer. "Class I!" Talk about a concerned parent thinking far ahead.

`Safe' hands

Guess what a few passengers on board Air Deccan flights have been up to?

They have been taking home the safety jackets from beneath their seats!

An announcement on an Air Deccan Flight from Madurai to Chennai on Sunday went roughly as follows: We have come across instances of some passengers removing the safety jackets.

If you see any passenger doing so, please report it to the cabin crew!

Most sought-after

With Old Mamallapuram Road witnessing a boom in the Information Technology sector, real estate rates soaring high and the hi-tech software corporate gurus all over the place, the entertainment corridor on East Coast Road is abuzz with weekend revellers.

Mayajaal, MGM, the VGP Universal Kingdom, the drive-in-theatre, Prarthana, and other eateries have turned out to be sought after as they offer different types of visual delights along with culinary delicacies.

And if there are new movie releases, the Saturday nights turn out to be movie mania as the multiplex at Mayajaal is the most sought after as there are shows beginning at 11-20 p.m. "We cater to the specialised requirements of the movie buffs and weekend revellers", explain the marketing staff of the multiplex. Come weekends, the ECR becomes an "active zone" as the city police have tightened their noose around discotheques and pubs.

All for survival

Every child is entitled to minimum education, say activists. While some of the less privileged children are lucky enough to catch the attention of the NGOs , there are hundreds still languishing without basic needs.

While most of the schools reopened after the summer vacation, the not so lucky ones who roam the streets for alms present the other side of the story.

These children say their parents force them to begging. The younger malnourished ones are even objects to attract the sympathy of the public.

Most of these children in the 5-12 age-group on an average earn Rs.25 a day.

None of this money goes for their improvement.

It seems there is no government agency to stop this menace. Be it in front of a temple, traffic signals or on trains, scores of children are forced to forsake dignity to keep hunger at bay.

A green wedding

The rules laid down by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board against the use of plastics in kalyana mandapams are being followed in Tiruvarur district in letter and spirit.

At a wedding at a kalyana mandapam near the Thyagarajaswamy Temple at Tiruvarur, the dining tables had recycled paper sheets instead of the usual polythene sheets. Water and coffee were served in paper cups and the food in plantain leaves.

To top the `green wedding', Nammalwar, leader of the organic farming movement in the Cauvery delta region, gave away leaflets to the guests on the importance of trees and the ecological cost of cutting trees.

Even as one wondered about a lorryload of saplings that landed just around the muhurtham time, the guests were surprised recipients of a coconut or other tree sapling each, instead of the usual coconut given in the "thamboolam" bag.

(Contributed by Dhanya Parthasarathy, R. K. Radhakrishnan, T.S. Shankar, T. Madhavan and Swahilya.)

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu