CHENNAI: With its focus on making citizen services easily accessible and its efforts to reach out to the population in the rural areas and also provision of business services, Tamil Nadu has emerged as the pioneer in the e-governance initiative.

According to a recent survey by IDC Dataquest, Tamil Nadu has been ranked No. 1 in e-governance with satisfaction levels among citizens and businesses quite high.

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CHENNAI: Senior citizens longing for companionship in their old age and those forced to live in poorly equipped and ill ventilated old age homes now have help on hand as the Tamil Nadu government plans to set up an ‘eco-friendly’ village for them on the outskirts of the city.

The proposed village, to come up on 10 acres of land at Thundalakazhani, is estimated to cost around Rs 4.7 crore. It will be modelled along the lines of the ‘Tamaraikulam,’ a village for senior citizens set up by Helpage India at Cuddalore, official sources said.

About 160 senior citizens will be housed in duplex residential blocks in this village, four to each block. The village will have all amenities like banks, ATMs, salons, shops, recreation club, medicare unit and a yoga and meditation centre. An open space is also proposed, where they can move about freely.

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CHENNAI: As the world debates ways and means to curb child sexual abuse on Wednesday, the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, the evil may be spreading with impunity in Chennai’s backyard, Mahabalipuram.

What’s more appalling, orphanages, where children are supposed to feel safe, could be turning into hotbeds of child sexual abuse.

An investigation by Times of India has revealed that orphanages - an unusually large number of them for such a small town - are flouting rules to roll out bed, breakfast and more to foreigners, some of whom could be what the world now scornfully calls ‘travelling child sex offenders’.

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CHENNAI: The city corporation’s ambitious project to make available all civic services online has gone down well with citizens across all age groups. But not with some prominent city schools, which reject application forms attached with online birth certificates.

School authorities insist that parents should produce the ‘original’ certificates as proof of age while taking application forms and attach attested photocopies of the original while they are being submitted.

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West Springfield, Pennsylvania: Six Indian nationals who were on their way to visit Niagara Falls were killed when their minivan spun out of control and was hit by an oncoming car on a Pennsylvania highway, police said on Sunday.

Four of those killed worked at the Troy, Michigan-based Syntel Inc, an information technology company, and two were spouses of employees, company spokesman Jonathan James said on Sunday.

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LONDON: Two cousins of Indian origin at the University of Oxford have overnight become millionaires after a free online service they started for students was sold for 2.5 million pounds within months after its launch.

Kulveer Taggar, 24, and Harjeet Taggar, 22, started their company ‘Auctomatic’ as a free online service while studying and working in the university’s student society Oxford Entrepreneurs. Read the full story

LONDON/VIJAYAWADA: The brutal assault and death of the 23-year-old student from Vijayawada in Birmingham continues to be shrouded in mystery, though the police have arrested a youth on suspicion of murder.

A West Midlands policeman on Thursday told TOI that a murder inquiry has been launched into Vempala Samrajya Jyothirmayi’s death in her apartment. “The arrested man, aged around 24 years, is helping us in the probe,” he said, but refused to specify the man’s nationality. “There is no indication of any motive at this stage.”

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In a last-ball finish, with all results possible till the very end, Chennai managed to sneak a four-wicket win, breaking a three-game losing streak in a humdinger watched by near-50,000 at the Kotla.

Shoaib Malik began the last over, with Chennai needing 15, and was dispatched over midwicket by Manpreet Gony for a six straight up. A smear across the line ended in a thick edge for four to third-man, a generous wide helped the score along and when Badrinath chipped inside-out over cover for a controlled brace, the scores were levelled.

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