Police’s response to the major accident in Ariyalur district last week was swift. On realising the gravity of the accident, Inspector General of Police of Central Zone M.Ramasubramani; DIG of Thanjavur Range Sanjay Kumar; SP of Ariyalur Zial Ul Haque; and SP of Thanjavur G.Dharmarajan rushed to the accident spot to make necessary arrangements for moving the injured to the hospital. A posse of police personnel and those attached to the Striking Force were deployed at the hospital to regulate crowd movements. The SPs of Ariyalur, Thanjavur, and Tiruchi stayed put at the hospital to oversee treatment and early completion of post-mortem formalities.
The entire community rose to the occasion on the Black Friday when 13 people lost their lives in a bus-lorry collision at Ottakoil village near Ariyalur. While ambulances shifted the injured and the dead to the Ariyalur Government Headquarters Hospital, members of various service organisations, including the Indian Red Cross Society and Rotary Club of Ariyalur, descended on the scene and coordinated the arrangements. They effectively supplemented the government’s efforts in identifying the relatives and dispatching bodies after post-mortem. These volunteers did not mind the lack of facilities at the hospital, and utilised the available infrastructure optimally. The volunteers apprised the visiting Housing and Urban Development Minister R.Vaithilingam of the need to improve facilities at the hospital to which the Minister responded positively.
The nomination of Nirmala Sitharaman, who has her roots in Tiruchi, as Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in the Narendra Modi Cabinet, has delighted Tiruchiites. The old students of Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College (SRC), where Nirmala Sitharaman did her Pre-University Course and BA (Economics) from 1976-80, are eagerly vying with each other in recollecting their association with the Union Minister. Kanaka Bashyam, Principal of SRC, was a close friend of Nirmala Sitharaman from her student days and could recall her frequent visits to the latter’s house at Kallukuzhi Railway Colony in Tiruchi city. K. Meena, former Vice Chancellor of Bharathidasan University, also an old student of SRC, proudly recalled that Nirmala Sitharaman was her immediate illustrious senior in the college. Meanwhile, another section of academia recalled that Dr. Veeraraghavan, who had served as Professor of Zoology in Jamal Mohamed College, Tiruchi, in the 1970s and 1980s was Ms. Sitharaman’s brother-in-law.
The swearing-in of the Narendra Modi government turned out to be low-key affair in Tiruchi district as a majority of the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party had left for Delhi to greet their leaders. Only the grassroots-level workers of the party gathered at a few centres in the district and distributed sweets, besides raising slogans hailing the government. As the youth wing conference held in Tiruchi city in September 2013 was the first meeting Mr. Modi addressed after his name was announced as party’s Prime Ministerial candidate, the local leaders were eager to greet him in Delhi itself. Otherwise, we would have celebrated the swearing-in in a fitting manner across the district, said a senior member of the party.
(Reporting by Syed Muthahar Saqaf and M.Balaganessin)
