News of the Week (June 11-17)

Welcome back to The Chennai Emailer — a local journalism project that brings out original human-interest features & news compilation from Chennai. It’s run by me —Mohammed Rayaan😊

I’m currently pursuing the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (City University of New York).

I started this newsletter as my passion project to bring out the best of local journalism from this city that I call home. Starting this week, I am trying a new format:

• 📰Every Saturday, you will now get a crisper ‘News of the Week’ edition along with event listings and other interesting social media posts. It takes no more than two cups of filter coffee to read!

• 💌On Sundays, you will get an original human-interest story.

So you will now see me twice a week. Hope you love this. ❤️

😷🦠Covid

📈Covid cases continue to rise in the city. 😷Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin held a meeting to review the pandemic’s control measures. 🎒The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has directed schools and colleges to advise students to wear masks. 🏥GCC is planning to improve the quality of public health centres as several lakh residents from low-income locality depend on them. 🔴Now, citizens can check their blood group at any PHCs.

📚Education

🎓Board Exam results of class 10 and 12 will be out on June 20. 📚Students can visit these websites to check out their marks: www.tnresults.nic.in; www.dge1tn.nic.in; www.dge2tn.nic.in and www.dge.tn.gov.in.

💰As schools reopen for the new academic year, parents say items such as notebooks, uniforms, stationeries, etc., are becoming expensive.

👀Education Ministry has two new plans for this year: 📖one is the ‘Ennum Ezhuthum Mission’ which aims at addressing the learning gap caused by pandemic among students. 🧠The other is inclusion of physical and mental health co-curricular activities.🚭 To prevent the sale of banned tobacco products, the police have “enhanced vigil near educational institutions”.

👥Community

👵🏽A survey by HelpAge India found that 49% of senior citizens in Chennai are dependent on their family for income, highlighting the lack of financial independence. 🚲Madras Vintage Bicycle Club held its first in-person meeting-cum-exhibition after a two-year break caused by Covid.

🚌Transport

✈️While the holiday season has pushed the international passenger traffic at Chennai airport, travellers will have to pay more as ‘User Development Fee’ has been hiked. A site for the second airport in Chennai is to be finalised soon.

🛣️Why are many Chennai roads being dug up?🚦From today, June 18, the city police said the traffic diversion near Nandanam junction will be permanent.

🚨Law & Order

🔫Following the custodial deaths in Chennai, Director-General of Police C. Sylendra Babu has issued standard operating procedures for handling prisoners. 👮🏽‍♀️In a bid to arrest an accused without any harm, women cops are being trained in unarmed combat.

🏢Civic updates

🌊Minister for Water Resources Duraimurugan inaugurated the work on flood mitigation at an estimated cost of ₹165 crore.🌊🚫 Meanwhile, GCC fined three contractors for causing delay to the flood mitigation work.

🏙️GCC is busy developing new projects, including building modern toilets at a cost of ₹221 crore, a solid waste management master plan, four sewage treatment plants, and also wants to reduce vacancies for improved services.

🖥️It is also set to introduce new online services, including “correction of birth and death details, community hall booking and getting information under the RTI Act and streamline existing service delivery for residents”. 📃The Corporation has even kickstarted the digitisation of birth and death records from 1969 to 2018. 🌳“Want to extend a ‘green’ helping hand to the Forest Department’s Chennai division?”

🦜From the Twitter world

Today’s edition is just a trial version and I am planning to add more interesting content in the days to come. I am open to ideas and suggestions. Please feel free to reach me at [email protected]. See you tomorrow! Do forward this newsletter to your family and friends. 😊❤️

To share this post as a web page, click the button below:

Wish to read more? Then do sign up!

Did you like reading this edition? Should I do better? Please don’t hesitate to offer me your feedback. I’ll do my best to improve and deliver better journalism with each edition.😊