Latest news with #Chithirai
Time of India
2 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
DMK obstructing Murugan meet: L Murugan
Madurai: Union minister of state L Murugan on Saturday accused the DMK government of deliberately creating obstacles to the Murugan Devotees Conference in Madurai, with the support of the police. He claimed the state's actions reflected fear over the growing influence of the event. "Despite the DMK's anti-Hindu stance and pressure tactics, the conference will proceed with full enthusiasm," Murugan said after visiting the venue. "Lakhs have already arrived in Madurai. The scale of participation is comparable to the Chithirai festival." Highlighting the BJP's past campaigns, he said, "We responded to those who insulted Kanda Sashti Kavasam with the Vel Yatra. This conference is our answer to the controversy in Thiruparankundram. Tomorrow, lakhs will sing the Kavasam in unison, and we urge other devotees to join in from their homes."
New Indian Express
7 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
DMK attempting to destabilise PMK ahead of TN polls: PMK president Ramadoss
CHENNAI: For the first time, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss has broken his silence over the ongoing differences between him and his father, party founder S Ramadoss, asserting that neither of them was responsible for the internal rift, which he attributed to external interference. He further alleged that the ruling DMK was attempting to destabilise the PMK by sowing confusion and internal discord ahead of the forthcoming elections. Addressing the PMK's Kancheepuram Revenue District General Council meeting held at a private marriage hall on Monday, Anbumani said the DMK was feeling unsettled by PMK's recent mobilisation, particularly after the success of its Chithirai full moon state conference held in Mahabalipuram on May 11. 'The chief minister is rattled by the momentum our party has gained. The DMK is the root cause of the ongoing confusion. They are trying to divide us from within and weaken the party,' he also alleged that certain individuals within the PMK were complicit in these attempts and warned that they would soon expose their names. 'The DMK's conspiracy will not succeed. My silence should not be mistaken for weakness – it is my strength,' he said.
Time of India
09-06-2025
- General
- Time of India
Residents relieved as Panthalkudi STP is reactivated after one year
Madurai: The Panthalkudi sewage treatment plant (STP) on the northern bank of the Vaigai river is back in operation after lying idle for more than a year, providing relief to residents concerned about untreated water entering the Vaigai river ahead of the monsoon. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The two-million-litre-per-day (MLD) facility, built at a cost of 3 crore in 2021, was dismantled a year ago when work on the 1.3km main arm of the Goripalayam flyover sliced through its site. With the flyover's deck-slab work now underway, Madurai corporation has reconstructed the plant a few metres downstream on land identified in consultation with the state highways (SH) department, which bore the relocation cost of roughly 1 crore. The restart comes barely a week after chief minister M K Stalin inspected the heavily silted Panthalkudi channel during his city visit. Civic officials hope the revived STP will prevent raw sewage from flowing directly into the Vaigai, especially when lakhs of devotees converge on the riverbank for Chithirai festivals. A senior corporation official said the plant was commissioned last week after trial runs showed "satisfactory treatment efficiency." "We re-laid the inlet mains, repaired the clarifier, and installed new disinfection lamps. All parameters are within permissible limits," the official told TOI. Civic activists, however, have criticised the relocation as a symptom of poor planning. "How could the corporation miss the flyover alignment when it set up an STP just three years ago? Now we're spending another 1 crore—public money wasted," said M Rajan, president of Vaigai Nathi Makkal Iyakkam. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Calling the present capacity "woefully inadequate," he pointed out that roughly 8 MLD of sewage flows through the channel on peak days. "At the very least, they should have doubled the capacity while shifting the plant," he argued, adding that the facility remained shut throughout the recent Chithirai festival, when demand is highest.
The Hindu
22-05-2025
- The Hindu
Police constable recruits save boy's life during Chithirai festival
Some of the police constable recruits who were deployed for bandobust duty for Chithirai festival in Madurai acted swiftly and saved the life of a young boy who had suffered accidental electrocution at Tallakulam on May 11. Amid a sea of devotees, the boy collapsed after he suffered the electric shock. The police constable recruits - N. Chandramohan and T.R. Chinthanaivalavan - administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a life-saving technique. As they realised that an ambulance could not reach the spot as it was teeming with hundreds of thousands of people, the two, along with two of their colleagues E. Saranraj and L. Siman, carried the boy on their shoulders and rushed him to the Government Rajaji Hospital, finding way amid the crowd. Commissioner of Police J. Loganathan on Wednesday honoured the recruits for their timely and courageous intervention that got him prompt medical attention to save the boy's life.
The Hindu
16-05-2025
- The Hindu
Law and order: Good planning and meticulous execution by police helps Chithirai festival pass off incident-free
A meticulous and elaborate planning with some innovative ideas coupled with perfect execution by Madurai City Police saw the crowd-pulling Chithirai festival pass off incident-free in the last one week. Having learnt from bitter lessons in the past, the police left no stones unturned right from regulating the crowd to providing them safe and secure space and keeping trouble mongers away. 'We tried to fill up all the small gaps in security arrangements to avoid untoward incidents as hundreds of thousands of people from children to aged persons turned up for the mega events like car festival (of Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple) and Ethir sevai and the ritual of entry of Lord Kallazhagar into Vaigai river,' said Commissioner of Police, J. Loganathan. After having made the decisions at the drawing board, the police officials had a thorough follow up with officials of all departments concerned to i implement the time-consuming work. The Corporation officials removed encroachments from roadsides and took up patch works on the road. Engineers of Highways Department cleaned up the dug-up Alagarkoil Road from Tamukkam to Goripalayam and also covered the under-construction sites and scaffolding to make them out of bounds for the enthusiastic crowd of devotees. The police also drew elaborate arrangement for jam-packed crowd that would stay put on Alagarkoil Road along Prasanna Venkatachalapathy Temple where Lord Kallazhagar stays for Tirumanjanam ritual. Filtering trouble-mongers To keep the trouble mongers away, the police had different layers of picketing at multiple points on all roads leading towards Tamukkam and Goripalayam junction. 'Men in civvies were deployed at 51 tracks to filter drunk persons, crime offenders and trouble mongers. These teams were able to pick up some 60 persons and also seize some weapons much before these people could mingle in the crowd,' Mr. Longanathan said. These people could have created some nuisance like harassing women if they had got into the crowd. Similarly, some 100 CCTV cameras were erected on this stretch. 'These cameras with artificial intelligence facility were put up to detect a long list of history-sheeters and property offenders from across the State. Six drones were set off in the air by the police to have an aerial view of the choc-o-bloc crowd. 'We were able to alert the nearest police teams around to manage the crowd throughout the night at Tamukkam and also on the Vaigai riverbed,' he added. Watch on Vaigai water The police also kept a watch on the depth of water flowing in the Vaigai riverbed so that it did not pose danger to the devotees wading through it to have a glimpse of Lord Kallazhagar. Despite that, teams of firemen and swimmers from police were deployed at vantage points to rescue people in distress as a precautionary measure. The Commissioner said that the identity tags distributed among hundreds of children paid off. 'Though only one incident of the police having to restore a missing child with its parents happened in the entire Chithirai festival, the very tying of tags by police made the parents more conscious in taking care of the children in the crowd,' he added. The QR codes displayed in over 100 places came handy for three persons to contact the police during emergency. The Commissioner said that a gangway put for the second year helped the massive crowd of devotees from Goripalayam junction to trickle into riverbed via Moongilkadai Street smoothly without interrupting the pathway of the deity. 'This helped melting of crowd without any resistance at the junction,' he added.
