QKolkata: Dengue Kills 6-Yr-Old; Presidency Report on Vacant Seats
Your daily lowdown on all things Kolkata.
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1. Six-Year-Old Boy From North Kolkata Succumbs To Dengue
Dengue claimed yet another life in Kolkata on Wednesday. Six-year-old Tirjak Chakrabarty from Muraripukur in north Kolkata succumbed to the virus at Apollo Gleneagles Hospital.
Tirjak had been suffering from high fever since last Friday and had been admitted to a hospital in Salt Lake on Monday. A day later, his condition started deteriorating and he was shifted to Apollo on Tuesday night. However, he could not be revived. His death certificate stated “cardio-respiratory arrest in a case of severe dengue with multi-organ failure“ as cause of death.
Tirjak had tested positive for dengue in an NS1 test. “My son had high fever since last week. We had admitted him to ILS Hospital in Salt Lake on Monday evening. But we had shifted him to Apollo after his condition turned very serious on Tuesday night. He was in pain and his limbs had turned numb,’’ said his father Tilak.
(Source: The Times Of India)
2. Presi Submits Vacancy Report, Suggests Rule Change To Beat Empty-Seat Problem
Presidency University on Wednesday submitted a report to the higher education department about vacancies in several of its departments, in which it has indicated that a regulation change is necessary to ensure no seats are left empty from the next academic session.
Concerned over the vacant seats in the fledgling university , education minister Partha Chatterjee had sought a report from the authorities, asking them to justify the vacancies.
“In the report, the university mentions that all seats in the unreserved categories had been filled up,’’ said a source. “The report points out that in some subjects, it was after six weeks of attending classes that the students had stopped coming, which led them to believe that they had opted to study elsewhere.“
(Source: The Times Of India)
3. Vector Insurance With E-Wallet
A popular digital payment and e-commerce platform is offering users a dengue insurance scheme.
The move shows how a cover against the mosquito-borne disease is being considered a necessity in the face of the recent outbreak. At least one other private insurer already has a dengue-specific policy.
Paytm introduced the option around a month ago. The cover on offer is for Rs 15,000 for an annual premium of Rs 99. Paytm users aged between 18 and 65 are eligible.
The insured person must have spent at least 48 hours in hospital and the platelet count should have dropped below 1 lakh for the user to avail himself of the insurance.
(Source: The Telegraph)
4. IPhone X Missed Call
Price is not the only bar to acquiring Apple's iPhone X, this piece of bling demands your patience too.
The Cupertino company's latest object of desire would, in all likelihood, miss its date with the Apple faithful in Calcutta on Friday, the day of its scheduled launch in India along with the US and several other countries.
"Till this morning, there was no Calcutta- bound shipment from Bangalore. It is highly improbable that we will have an iPhone X to sell on Friday," said the store manager of a Camac Street reseller.
An employee of a reseller in Quest Mall said the store had received a communication that Calcutta might not receive its iPhone X consignment in time for the launch.
(Source: The Telegraph)
5. Tea Board Days Numbered, City Set To Lose A Landmark
Kolkata is set to lose yet another iconic institution, whose headquarters had turned into a prominent city landmark. The BJP-led Centre has decided to dissolve the Tea Board barely two months after Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee foiled a shift of its headquarters from Kolkata's Brabourne Road to Guwahati.
The Centre has finalised plans to split the board into two or more entities and transfer their governing bodies from Kolkata, India's tea business capital. The board's first non-IAS and non-executive chairman, Prabhat Kamal Bezboruah, who may well be its last head of operations, said the board's days were numbered as the Centre had decided to merge the tea regulator with other agricultural boards by the end of this financial year.
“I will, in all probability, be the last chairman of the Tea Board as the Centre has chal ked out plans to wind up its operations as soon as possible,“ he told TOI on the sidelines of the Tea Association of India (TAI) AGM late on Tuesday.
(Source: The Times Of India)
6. Counselling Could Have Helped Avert Tragic End, Rue Locals
Police on Wednesday rescued 30-year-old Anirban Bose, who had refused to part with the decomposed body of his 67-year-old mother till the stench alerted locals the day before. Meera Bose's body was so decomposed that, prima facie, police suspect Anirban could have been with the body for days. Though the incident brought back memories of the Robinson Street case, for those close to the Bose family, the differences were more striking than the parallels.
Residents said Anirban, known locally as Babu or Babu da, was a bright student of political science from St Xavier's College and a talented photographer, who was misunderstood and required professional help. Some months back, cartoonist Chandi Lahiri's daughter Trina had bumped into her `Meera kakima’. “She looked at me and said: ‘’Aren't you Tuli? Your mother has also aged. Her hair has turned grey . Do you also beat up your mother?’’ By then Trina and her mother Tapati had understood there was something wrong in the Bose family and both mother and son needed medical help. But no one could convince them to do that.
(Source: The Times Of India)
7. Church Seeks Exit From Panel
Two church heads want out of Mamata Banerjee's commission to regulate the functioning of private schools.
Ashoke Biswas, Bishop of the Calcutta Diocese of the Church of North India ( CNI), and Thomas D'Souza, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Calcutta, were among the 15 members named by the chief minister at a gathering of representatives of private schools on 31 May 2017.
Biswas does not wish to be on the panel because of potential "legal complications" arising out of his participation in a regulatory commission set up by the government. Church sources cited the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education ( RTE) Act that bars the government from interfering in the functioning of unaided, minority- run schools.
The two La Martiniere schools, which have had their representatives nominated to the commission, would not remain on the panel for the same reason, the sources said.
(Source: The Telegraph)