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Vol. XXXII No. 15, November 16-30, 2022
Archives: Vol. XXXII No. 15, November 16-30, 2022
Tempting School Children with drugs – the new menace
-- by The Editor
Chennai needs to wake up from its complacence. A neighbourhood paper recently published an article about how school children in its area were systematically being targeted by drug peddlers. The veracity of the article notwithstanding, for it seemed to have plenty of political colour to it, led to comments in social media from people in other parts of the city. They too had a similar story to tell about their neighbourhoods. It was just a small indicator of how far the menace had spread.
The modus operandi is quite simple – vendors who are purveying seemingly harmless items proliferate around schools and children flock to them immediately after school hours. A few of these vendors tempt the children with drugs and over a period of time build a steady clientele, that becomes increasingly addicted. It appears that the target age groups comprise children in the middle and high schools. The friends’ network in the classrooms brings in more buyers and very often peer pressure to try out drugs ‘just for the experience’ proves irresistible. Discovery, as and when it happens, is often very late, by when much damage has already been done.
Preventing this is not easy. Firstly, in today’s world of nuclear families, parents are either too busy or distracted to notice sudden deviant behaviour among their children. More often than not, parents are simply not there when children come home from school, this being the age when both parents are career people.
Funding accelerated for government schools even as TN slips a rung in the PGI Index
-- by A Special Correspondent
Explaining that as many as 15 lakh students had enrolled in government schools over the last two years, Chief Minister Stalin announced in October a sizeable allocation of funds towards the development of government school infrastructure. New schools are to be constructed at a cost of Rs. 1,050 crores, 800 of which is earmarked towards building new primary and middle schools
Heritage Watch
Railway HQ Turns a 100
It is not often that we get to know of the exact date of inauguration of a historic building. That is because foundation and inauguration stones have a tendency to vanish and as for records, if they survive, they are never made available for research. Much of heritage gets by on guesstimates as far as dates and years are concerned.
Centenary of a Loved Landmark
-- by Sriram V
It has stood on Poonamallee High Road for a hundred years, its Porbandar stone cladding giving it a distinct character among the surrounding plethora of red brick Indo-Saracenic structures. The offices of the Southern Railway, just across Walltax Road from Central Station, will complete a century on December 11 this year, for it was on that date in 1922 that they were thrown open by Lady Willingdon, wife of the then Governor of Madras. It is time to look at the history of this stately edifice.
The Madras Railway Company (MRC) came into existence in the 1850s and its first line was from
A device used and some methods practised by Tamil mariners in the mid-19th Century
-- by Anantanarayanan Raman, anant@raman.id.au
Notes of Harry Congreve, Madras Infantry
An article entitled A brief notice of some contrivances practiced by the native mariners of the Coromandel coast, in navigating, sailing, and repairing vessels by a Madras-based British military engineer Harry Congreve is available in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science (1850).
