Placing values over a quick buck

Volunteer regrets the failure of the educational system in inculcating moral codes

March 05, 2014 01:14 am | Updated May 19, 2016 06:18 am IST

At an interactive meeting of the Agaram Foundation where several heads of educational institutions participated, a volunteer working with the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation regretted the failure of the educational system in inculcating moral values among students.

He said: “Today those students coming to work in the department ask us how they can share bribe money among the colleagues. It is a pity that these students may be successful in their studies but are really poor in social and moral values; the blame for this should be on educational institutions.”

He wanted the students of the foundation to take an oath they would never accept a bribe.

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Smell the rat

Beware of cons who might be misusing the identities and powers of the police to extract information from you.

Last week, a woman working in an IT firm received a call from a person who stated they needed to contact a friend of hers who had failed to pay a phone bill and they needed information to contact him. The caller identified himself as Sathiyamoorthy, a sub-inspector at the Egmore police station, and said a mobile telephone service provider had filed a complaint. The man asked the woman for her name and address after she provided the friend’s name and personal details. When she refused to reveal them, he repeatedly called her. He said if she did not help the police it could mean trouble. He even gave the police station’s landline number to lend credibility to his claim. The woman then called the Egmore police station to check. It turned out there was no one by the name Sathiyamoorthy there.

Had she not wised up to the foul play, she could have been the victim of a racket.

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When memory slips up

There is a general opinion that people’s memory is short with a tendency to forget, rather quickly, events of the past. This is what happened at a function organised recently by the local Congressmen to mark distribution of welfare assistance to beneficiaries at Muthiyalpet near here.

Like at any other party function, the amplifier service provider was asked to play Congress party propaganda songs hailing both present-day as well as former leaders

Suddenly, the amplifiers started airing a song in praise of erstwhile TNCC (I) president, Krishnaswamy. It took a few seconds for the organisers to realise what was happening; then they ran towards the amplifier operator and forced him to stop the song.

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Auto-upgrade woes

Southern Railway’s auto upgrade facility for passengers can come as a pleasant surprise for many, but not for the head of a women’s college, as she found out recently. She was travelling on a side lower berth in a third AC compartment of the Yercaud Express to Erode on a confirmed ticket. Long after she had fallen asleep, she was woken up by the ticket examiner, who informed her that her ticket had been upgraded to an upper berth in a second AC coach. She tried to explain she would be unable to climb to an upper berth due to a leg ailment, but the staff did not relent. She was forced to travel in the upper berth of the second AC coach, a comfort she just did not want.

(By R. Srikanth, Kannal Achuthan, V. Venkatasubramanian andK. Manikandan )

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