Jaya urges PM to pass bullfight bill
Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pass a bill to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act so that jallikattu or bullfight could be held during the harvest festival of Pongal in January in rural Tamil Nadu.
“The inability to conduct jallikattu has caused general disappointment and widespread resentment among the people of Tamil Nadu, particularly in the rural areas. This sport is part of their cherished tradition,” the chief minister said in a letter to Modi. Jallikattu, mostly conducted in Tamil Nadu’s villages, involves overpowering bulls that are allowed to run through barricaded crowds. However it was suspended last year due to unsafe practices that sometimes lead to deaths and public stampedes at the venues.
The chief minister’s request has been backed by opposition parties.

Deaf mute technician wins award
S Poornachandran, 61, a deaf mute technician, won a national award for empowering disabled persons on December 3, the World Disabled Day.  
Poornachandran, works at the Aravind Eye hospitals in Madurai and in 25 years of service has trained 23 ophthalmologists, eight administrators, hundreds of disabled technicians besides repairing as many as 55,808 bio-medical eye instruments. Currently he handles the maintenance of 900 machines with just nine employees.
His trainees speak many languages, but Poornachandran who began with a diploma degree in welding uses hand-eye-brain co-ordination to repair damaged equipment. In sign language he says, “We cannot wait for engineers to come to Madurai to repair imported machines. We touch and feel the damage and begin repairing.”  

Arm surgery on Saudi woman successful
Doctors at the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai have performed a successful surgery on Saudi Arabian national Heyam, 58, who had been unable to use her right arm due to chronic arthritic pain.
Heyam had an earlier surgery in Egypt but it was not effective. The Apollo team found that she had a large tear on her rotator cuff and severe pain in her lower back. They did a corrective reverse arthoplasty surgery that interchanged the position of the ball and socket joint on her shoulder in September.  
She is now able to use her right arm and has shown good progress, doctors said.

Air hostess  commits suicide
An Air India airhostess committed suicide by hanging at her home in the Air India colony near Meenambakkam airport in Chennai last week.
Dhanpreet Kaur, 32, was married to Anoop, a flight steward, and had a two-year-old girl. She had left her daughter with her parents in nearby Teacher’s colony before returning home.  
Anoop found her body and alerted police. Her parents claimed the couple had no marital disputes and suspect that Dhanpreet took the extreme step due to work pressure.
Unconfirmed reports suggested that Air India is understaffed and employees are overworked.

Man kills his wife inside  police station
A man murdered his wife inside a police station at Tambaram in Chennai last week.
Ganapathy stabbed Gowri with a screwdriver hidden in his pocket while they were waiting for marriage counselling.