1. Flood Warning System Continues to Hang Fire
The lack of coordination between the central and the state governments on completing an aerial survey for the development of a flood warning system has led to delay in generating the required data. This has left residents of flood-prone areas in the city and suburban areas wondering about their safety this monsoon season.
Residents have been waiting for a flood-warning system covering the Cooum, Adyar, Buckingham Canal, Kosasthalaiar, Araniar, Nandhiar and Nagariar. Even after several meetings of officials concerned, the delay in taking up the survey has persisted, affecting flood preparedness during the monsoon. Owing to the presence of strategic installations in the city, getting clearance for an aerial survey remains a challenge.
(Source: The Hindu)
2. Chennai Reservoirs Gurgling With Water, Thanks to Northeast Monsoons
Water managers are heaving a sigh of relief as the copious rains in the last three days are slowly filling up the city's reservoirs that have nearly dried up. Currently, the city has around 4 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water as against the capacity of 11.257 TMC which officials hope may help the city survive the summer.
But then water managers say it is not enough and hope another spell of rain would bring in more water. Poondi and Red Hills reservoir has crossed 1TMC of water. Interestingly, even Chembarambakkam is nearing the 1TMC mark. It has 913 million cubic feet of water. Last year at this time, almost all the reservoirs have dried up except Red Hills reservoir which had 1.09 TMC of water.
(Source: The New Indian Express)
3. Govt Hospital Gets First Transgender Nurse
It was a day that took 25-year-old Anbu Ruby a step closer to her dream to do her bit for the transgender community: she became Tamil Nadu’s first transgender staff nurse to be appointed to a government hospital. On Monday, Ms Ruby received the appointment order from Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami along with several other staff nurses, village health nurses and laboratory technicians recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board.
A resident of Thoothukudi, Ruby wanted to pursue nursing to contribute to the transgender community and society at large. After completing B.Sc Nursing from a private college in Tirunelveli in 2016, Ruby pursued MBA in Hospital Management through distance education and completed the course this year.
(Source: The Hindu)
4. Sunday Downpour Reminds Chennai of 2015 Floods
Horrors of the 2015 floods resurfaced in the minds of citizens after the skies opened up on Saturday and incessant rain continued on Sunday too, resulting in water stagnation for hours, inundation of roads in suburban areas and water entering several houses. Pallavaram, Chromepet, Kundrathur, Chitlapakkam, Medavakkam, Madambakkam and Tambaram among other areas in the suburbs were the worst affected.
Most complaints raised by residents on Sunday were over stagnant water on street roads not draining out. “The Thirumalai Main Road towards Hasthinapuram was laid only three months ago and now the whole stretch has submerged in water,’’ said Nivedya Nair, a resident of Hasthinapuram near Chromepet.
(Source: The New Indian Express)
5. 'Don't Let Chennai Become Delhi'
The Madras High Court on Monday strongly batted for saving the available Urban Green Regions (UGRs) in Chennai city. It impressed upon the need to avoid cutting trees and find alternative solutions such as utilising available vacant lands and demolishing dilapidated buildings to raise new vertical structures for developmental needs.
A Division Bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar directed the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and Government Ophthalmic Hospital at Egmore here to find out if it was possible to avoid even transplantation of trees on its campus since there was no guarantee for the success of such transplantation.
(Source: The Hindu)
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