Chennai Apr 22 PTI Foreign currencies equivalent to Rs 195 crore gold foils cigarettes and electronic goods worth Rs 4392 lakh have been seized at the airport here in two separate incidents and three passengers arrested in this connection the Customs Department said on Friday In the first incident on Thursday the Customs officials intercepted some passengers bound for various destinations including Dubai and Colombo and confiscated the currencies concealed in their rectum and in the hand baggage Two passengers belonging to Chennai were arrested said a Customs Department press release In the second incident the officials seized the gold foils cigarettes and electronic goods from a passenger who arrived here from Dubai on Friday He was arrested and an investigation was on the release said PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Apr 20 PTI Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras IIT-M were working with the National Health Mission of Tamil Nadu to improve health of newborns as health workers were facing a major challenge at primary health centres PHCs in rural areas of the State A project report SmartNRP neonatal resuscitation programme was released by the National Health Mission Tamil Nadu director Darez Ahamed recently to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the presence IIT-Madras director-professor V Kamakoti among others A team at the IIT-Madras Centre of Excellence on virtual reality identified skill training of the health workers as the major challenge the country was facing particularly at the PHCs Using virtual reality artificial intelligencemachine learning the SmartNRP tool will be used for training the workers at PHCs in Tamil Nadu under the National Health Mission This will be scaled subsequently to other States where NMR is very high IIT-Madras said in a press release If you look at infant mortality the biggest contributor is the neonatal mortality rate NMR which is death within 28 days of birth Around 40 babies are lost per every 1000 births We want to bring this down to single digit and all these initiatives are towards this direction Ahamed said IIT-Madras should also develop tools to train healthcare workers on various other areas such as treating accident victimsthere are numerous other areas that virtual reality can be utilised he said Kamakoti said I am sure virtual reality will make impact not only on healthcare verticals but in other areas as well There are a lot of very interesting ideas from IIT-Madras research scholars and students The projects were supported by corporate social responsibility initiatives of INdiaIdeascomBillDesk This support was crucial in developing the healthcare projects the release said PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Mar 30 PTI Nine fishermen from Tamil Nadu stranded after the boat in which they were travelling suffered a technical snag were rescued in an air-sea coordinated mission the Coast Guard said on Wednesday The fishermen who set out to sea on March 13 were drifting about 95 nautical miles off Andhra Pradesh coast since March 25 after the main engine on the boat suffered the snag an official release said here An ICG aircraft located the fishermen and alerted the Coast Guard ship Priyadarshini which was patrolling in the area for immediate assistance The team in the ICG ship provided technical support rectified the issue and made the boat operational All the nine fishermen were healthy and the boat was escorted near the coast of Andhra Pradesh Noting that the incident highlights the disadvantages of fishing alone the Coast Guard appealed to the fishermen to take up fishing in groups carry adequate life-saving appliances and communication equipment on-board PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Mar 25 PTI The Tamil Nadu government has seized over 400 tonnes of banned tobacco products and shut nine companies engaged in production and retail sale of such products State Minister Ma Subramanian said on Friday The Minister for Medical and Family Welfare at a Food Security Officers conference here said This government considers banning tobacco products as a priority Between May 2021 and February 2022 91 tonnes of banned tobacco products were seized by Food Safety officials while police confiscated over 400 tonnes he said He said the blissful hygienic offering to God BHOG certificates were presented to 379 temples across the State BHOG certification is provided to encourage places of worship to adopt and maintain food safety and hygiene in preparation serving and sale of prasad along with training of food-handlers for safety and hygiene The revenue generated in 2021 through the Department of Food Safety was over three times compared to previous year thereby generating Rs 382 crore as revenue to the Exchequer Subramanian said A total of 64 officials for food safety and senior executives took part in the conference PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Mar 23 PTI Seven districts of Tamil Nadu reported zero active cases on Wednesday but elsewhere in the State 44 infections were reported That pushed the total to 3452534 so far The death toll stood at 38025 with nil fatalities said the Department of Health Recoveries were 3414004 in number with 74 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours There were 505 active cases said a bulletin Chennai saw 16 new cases while the other districts reported them in single-digit Ariyalur Karur Mayiladuthurai Perambalur Pudukottai Tiruvarur and Villupuram recorded zero active infections The State capital that is Chennai leads among the districts with 750955 infections the bulletin said A total of 30455 samples were tested in the last 24 hours Cumulatively the number of specimens examined was 65357953 it added PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Mar 18 PTI Welfare measures announced in the Tamil Nadu Budget presented by the Finance Minister of the State Palanivel Thiaga Rajan would help in its overall economic development an official of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations southern region FIEO-SR said on Friday FIEO-SR president A Sakthivel said the budget was futuristic with long-term vision of Chief Minister M K Stalin to reach USD 100 billion by 2030 The budget will help in creating a large number of job opportunities by attracting new investments and encouraging existing entrepreneurs to do more he said in a press release He congratulated the Chief Minister for steering the State through the path of progress irrespective of the challenges posed by Covid-19 pandemic The Naan Mudhalvan Scheme envisaged by the Chief Minister will help industry to get right kind of talent pool for enabling industries to absorb the talents he said The proposed policy to strengthen the leather and footwear sector would also generate employment opportunities besides boosting exports he said While presenting the budget Rajan said a new footwear and leather industry development policy would be released to promote these employment-intensive sectors PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Mar 18 PTI Emergency healthcare provider - CIPACA - on Friday said it has been awarded the Best ICU Growth Partner for rural hospitals in recognition of the disruptive model The award was presented at the Global Healthcare Summit 2021 held recently This is a new chapter in the growth phase as CIPACA has now transitioned from ICU provider to ICU partner in rural healthcare a press release said According to founder and managing director of CIPACA Raja Amarnath said It is quite an innovative recognition and I thank every member of our family partner-hospitals staff and stakeholders Our partnerships with small hospitals in rural areas have a significant impact on the entire rural healthcare eco system As the future of healthcare lies in strengthening healthcare infrastructure in small towns CIPACAs rural ICU mission focuses on partnerships with small and medium hospitals in rural areas to provide emergency care to lakhs of the population who have been deprived of the same in their regions Until now CIPACA has partnered with 15 hospitals in rural areas across southern western and eastern regions of the country said the release PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Feb 25 PTI NITI Aayog Member Science and Technology V K Saraswat on Friday called on Chief Minister M K Stalin at the Secretariat here and discussed about various opportunities of cooperation between the Centre and the state Under the Cooperative Federalism mandate of NITIAayog Member VK Saraswat met Chief Minister M K Stalin to discuss various opportunities of cooperation between the Centre and State the National Institution for Transforming India NITI Aayog serving as a think-tank to the Centre said in its official handle on the micro-blogging site Saraswat also handed over a report to the Chief Minister that discusses plans to strengthen Tamil Nadus journey towards planned urbanisation NITI Aayogs report on Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India was presented to M K Stalin in the presence of Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan to strengthen Tamil Nadu journey towards planned urbanization another tweet said and shared the image of Saraswat handing over the copy to the Chief Minister PTI VIJ VIJ HDA HDA

Chennai Feb 23 PTI Provider of solutions to information and communication technology Sify Technologies Limited has a plan to tap over 400 MW of renewable energy for its data centre business over the next four years according to an official of the company The Chennai-based Nasdaq-listed company on Wednesday announced its partnership with Vibrant Energy Holdings Ltd a subsidiary of Blue Leaf Energy Asia Pte Ltd and a portfolio company of Macquaries Green Investment Group GIG According to Chief Financial Officer of Sify M P Vijay Kumar the partnership with Vibrant Energy was to set up a 231 MW of solar and wind energy capacity to power Sify unit in Mumbai Recently Sify signed power purchase agreements PPAs with Vibrant Energy Holdings The PPAs are for a total of 231 MW of solar and wind energy capacity to power latest data centres of Sify Of the 231 MW PPA for 67 MW was recently implemented The partnership is the first step in a clear roadmap for the company to minimise its dependence on fossil fuels to power the data centre business At the same time Sify is investing in solar and wind energy to deliver most of the power required for its flagship data centres in Mumbai In Mumbai we have data centres in three locations he told reporters On the partnership with Vibrant Energy he saidAs far as the nature of partnership is concerned it is on a captive power purchase model where the entire facility will be set up by Macquarie GIG- sponsored Vibrant Energy Vibrant Energy would be setting up the facility design construct and operate the facility and make available the power for Sify Technologies for use he said To a query whether the partnership was specific to the data centre in Mumbai Kumar clarified that discussions were on with the Vibrant Energy for other data centres We are scheduled to create about 200 MW of capacity of data centres in the next four years Some projects are underway with construction already having commenced while some are scheduled to commence Kumar said According to him the exposure of Sify to data centre business is spread across six cities with 11 centres We are on track to add another 200 MW capacity in the next four years and spread across multiple cities and beyond he said Chairman of Sify Raju Vegesna said With the constantly expanding need for world-class data centre facilities to meet the burgeoning data-centric transformation of businesses we believe that investing in clean energy sources to fuel this transformation is imperative Sify is proud to be doing its part to help our customers become a part of this clean energy future he said CEO of Vibrant Energy Srini Viswanathan said Vibrant is honoured to partner with Sify on their journey to build sustainable data centre solutions in the market Vibrant is looking forward to continuing its work with Sify to support them in their 100 per cent renewable energy goal he said PTI VIJ NVG NVG

Chennai Jan 29 PTI Tamil Nadu on Saturday added 24418 to the list of Covid infections and they included four infected returnees from overseas This pushed the tally to 3303702 till date as the State continued to report a decline in new Covid-19 cases As many as 46 people succumbed to the contagion in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 37506 till date the Health Department said Recoveries eclipsed new cases with 27885 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours a bulletin said Chennai witnessed 4508 infected cases followed by Coimbatore 3309 Tiruppur 1649 Chengalpet 1614 Salem 1264 and Erode 1198 while the rest were spread across the other districts A total of 140979 samples were tested and pushed the cumulative number of specimens examined to 61487264 the bulletin said PTI VIJ NVG NVG