TIMES CITY

* THE TIMES OF INDIA, CHENNAI

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

100m link holds up Maduravoyal project

`56cr Sewage
Project In
Limbo For 2 Yrs

A Prathap

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: A 100m road remains the missing link in the suspended `56-crore underground sewerage project at Maduravoyal, where the local councillor has stopped work,
claiming that he bought the
stretch of land five years ago.
Challenging the claim, residents of Maduravoyal went to
the Madras high court but litigation has left the project in
a limbo for last two years. More than 20,000 families will have to deal with overflowing
septic tanks yet again this

ROADBLOCK: The road in Dasari Padma Nagar which has stalled work

monsoon.
Maduravoyal councillor E
Jeevanandham said he bought 2.3 acres in Dasari Padma Nagar, which encloses the
30-feet wide road. Maduravoyal resident S Narayanan,
who filed the case against Jee-

vanandham, stated in his affidavit, The 30-feet road is in

existence for the past 30 years. It was maintained by Maduravoyal Town Panchayat
and Maduravoyal Municipality and now by Chennai Corporation. He further stated

that there are electricity

posts and water pipelines underneath the road.
Jeevanandham said, The
piece of land changed many
hands since 1896 before I finally bought it in 2011from Vijay Shanthi Builders. They
said the road was never a public road. The 100m stretch is
no longer used as an access
road by residents in the three
adjoining streets. Maduravoyal Residents Federation
president said, The councillor who owns the adjacent
plot has now cordoned off the
public road by digging pits
and laying construction debris all around.
Work on laying underground pipeline for sewage disposal at Maduravoyal began
after sanction in 2009, following which most of the work

was completed in 2014. Pipelines have been laid on either

ends of the road at Dasari
Padma Nagar.
On the southern side of
the road, pipelines have been
laid across the stretch passing through Krishnamachari Nagar, Natesan Nagar, Sridevi Nagar and Rukmani Nagar. On the northern side,
work has been completed
from Seemathamman Nagar
to Karthikeyan Nagar. All
that remains is the missing
link which will connect the
pipeline from either end.
Jeevanandham said, Opposition parties are targeting
me to bring disrepute to my
party. Some of the residents
are acting on their behalf. I
am ready to give up the piece
of land if the corporation offers me a fair compensation.

Time to amend In cases of drunk driving,

Arbitration Act passengers can be charged too
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Manish.Raj@timesgroup.com

Chennai: Taking advantage of

some provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act,
some multinational companies are incorporating an Indian
subsidiary company with a stipulation in the contract that
the venue of arbitration, in case of a dispute, will be in a foreign country and foreign laws
will apply. This provides them
with leverage vis-a-vis Indian
companies, said Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh, recently, speaking at the two-day conference
on Challenges in Domestic
and International Arbitration.
Because of national and international disputes, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) adopted the UNICTRAL
model
law
on
international commercial arbitration in 1985. Eleven years
later, the Indian parliament
enacted the Arbitration and
Conciliation Act, 1996. This
was amended on October 23,
2015 by Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Ordinance, which subsequently became an Act. On many occasions when one of the companies was from India and the

other from abroad, the foreign

company imposed a condition
in the contract that the arbitration would occur in a foreign
country under foreign laws.
This led to huge expenditure
by Indian companies. This was
because one of the sections
(Section 20) of the Act was unfortunately worded in such a
wide language to even permit
two Indian parties to agree that
arbitration can be outside, he
said, adding, Section 28 gave
an impression that Indian parties executing an agreement in
India have a choice to agree
that the place of arbitration could be outside the country.
Taking advantage of the
two provisions, some MNCs
incorporated an Indian subsidiary and then stipulated in
the contract that the venue of
arbitration will be outside India, and foreign laws will applyeven though the entire
contract is implemented in India without any foreign element, said Justice Ramesh.
This necessitated correcting
the ambiguity in law, he added.
Underscoring the lacunae
in the amendment act, Justice
Ramesh further said the new
law had removed the presence
of time limit adding to the delay in dispute resolution.

Chennai: If the driver of your car is drunk and has caused a fatal accident, the law
says you can be booked with
the same charges as the driver as well as an extra charge: Section 109 of the Indian
Penal Code which deals with
abetting a crime. The Chennai Traffic Police say that
the passenger is abetting the
crime even if he is not directly committing it.
While advocates specialising in road accidents say
that this is not fair as the
passenger was not the one
behind the wheel, in the latest incident involving national racing champion Vikas Anand and his friend T
Charankumar, both have been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to
murder. The car was owned
by Charan. Even if he was
not driving the car, he had
the knowledge that his friend was drunk and this could lead to accidents, said
advocate at the Madras high
court V Kannadasan.
T Charankumar, in his
bail petition to the traffic police, said he was innocent as
he was not driving. The petitioner submits that he is

In a recent incident where the driver crashed a Porsche into a line of

autos, both the driver and the passenger have been charged

innocent of the alleged offence and he did not drive

the car and the car was driven by his friend Anand Vikas and he was only the copassenger, read the petition.
In a similar accident in
February, both the driver
and passenger Mohammad Safiq and Mohammad
Farook were arrested for
culpable homicide not amounting to murder when their car rammed a two-wheeler while traveling at a high
speed. While TOI couldnt
reach the accidents investigative officer for a comment,
an officer at the Anna Square police station where the
R Ramesh Shankar

CITY LIGHTS

C'est la vie
A bunch of youngsters enjoying the first
metro rail trip from Little Mount to the
airport were buzzing with excitement
during the journey as they had heard that
the line runs very close to the airports
runway. As the train drew closer, they got
their mobiles out and waited for the runway
to appear. There was a flurry of activity
when a coastguard plane was spotted
gliding down. The kids kept clicking
pictures and also switched on the video
mode. As they crowded near the window,
the train suddenly dipped into a tunnel. The
sightseers were left dumbfounded at the
unfairness of it all.
- V Ayyappan

Roadside fish vendors near Jayalakshmi

theatre bus stop in Adambakkam were a
worried lot on Sunday morning, after an
Amma Canteen was opened there.
Apparently, an official had suggested that
they relocate since their presence would
inconvenience customers of the canteen.
Why should I shift? a woman vendor
asked. I have been selling fish here for over
20 years while the Amma Canteen has just
arrived, she said, as one of her customers
nodded in agreement. This amma has
been plying her trade here for ages. If

total of 13,362 chiefs of rural local bodies and 1,328 chiefs of urban local bodies will be elected by
ward councillors and other directly
elected members through indirect
polls on this day.
Elections will be held in 91,098
polling booths across the state. Of
these, 62,337 booths are in rural areas and 28,671booths in urban areas.
The Greater Chennai Corporation
will have 5,531polling booths. A total
of 5.80 crore people are eligible to
vote in the direct polls held across
Tamil Nadu for various local bodies.
The state election commission
will use 2,17,500 ballot boxes for local

Using data analytics to

track consumer behaviour
Pic:A Prathap

Aparna.Desikan@
timesgroup.com

ebsite optimisation has

been around
fo r n e a rly
eight years, but startup
Zargets USP has been its
real-time analysis of consumer behaviour.
The differentiation we
provide is that we eliminate
screenshots and track
The
each step of the website users through a startup was
chrome plug-in and founded by 3
the inputs come in former Zoho
employees
real time, as the website runs, says ParTracks heat maps which indicate user reaction to a website
thiban, CEO, Zarget. Other
Founders |
Incorporated |
Initial Capital |
ways to track user behavNaveen
2015
15 lakh
iour could be through
screenshots, which may not
Venkatesan,
Clients | 100
be dynamic, he adds.
Arvind
paying customers
E x - Z o h o e m p l o ye e s
PRESENCE
Parthiban and
including
Naveen Venkatesan, Arvind
INDIA, US
Santhosh
FreshDesk,
Parthiban and Santhosh
AND BRAZIL
Kumar
91 mobiles
Kumar started the company
in early 2015 to provide inbecome leaders in the marh o o t h a m s F re s h d e s k ,
sights on consumer behavketing category, he said.
Zarget went onto raise `10
iour for e-commerce sites.
We now have close to 100
crore in seed funding.
Bonding over weekend
paying clients and 1,000
The startup analyses
cricket matches, they diswebsites using Zargets
data like heat maps, which
cussed solutions to probtool. Freshdesk and 91 moindicate the way users react
lems they had faced during
biles are among our promito the website.
their Zoho stint.
nent users, who are based
Zarget also uses AB testThese discussions led to
out of India, US and Braing to track data on usage
forming Osmnez, which
zil, he added.
of various versions of the
was later renamed Zarget.
Using Zarget, weve
website and funnel analyThe fledgling startup
made tweaks that have
sis, which gives insights
had the unusual distinction
helped boost sign-up by 26%
into what makes the cusof having two global venin three days, says Shihab
tomers interested in buying
ture capitalists Matrix
Muhammed, business head,
a product. Such techniques
and Accel Partners exFreshdesk.
help the startup increase
press interest and sign term
Outlining immediate
the conversion rate at esheets within two months
plans, he adds that in ancommerce, marketing and
of its inception.
other year, the company
SAAS agencies.
Having worked in Zoho
would later go on to personParthiban recalls
for 10 years, we had plans of
alise the website using artilaunching the SAAS tool in
bootstrapping, but the inficial intelligence based on
Product Hunt in December
vestment was a surprise
user experience.
2015, which proved to be a
and we ended up spending
With optimisations and
hit with close to 2,000
close to `15 lakh to set up.
tools to increase conversignups.
Although we had other playsions on websites, ParThe company, which had
ers participating, Accel and
thiban envisions Zarget
six ex-Zoho employees at its
Matrix had done a thorough
would become the Adobe for
inception, has grown into a
background analysis that
marketing.
team of 40.
gave us the confidence to
Taking inspiration
accept their fund(This series
from Zoho, which is among
ing,Parthiban said.
captures the start-up
the market leaders in softIncluding the investment
ecosystem in the state)
ware products, we aspire to
from Girish Mathr ub-

ADOBE FOR MARKETING

Where old vehicles go to die

Invisible
pavement

M
UPROOTED: A tree that has fallen into a pond in Eshwaran Kovil Street in Okkiyam

Having the last laugh

Although Uber passengers can travel to
multiple locations during a trip by changing
the destination on their phone, one driver
clearly doesn't want to lose out on the
minimum fare that a new trip would fetch.
During a trip starting from R A Puram, my
friend and I asked him to stop in Nandanam
for a moment and then head to Adyar. He,
however, insisted that it was a 'point-topoint' drop service only. I stayed calm and
decided to change the destination on my

5cr are eligible to vote in civic polls

From P 1

Company Looks At Website Optimisation For Businesses

NOT IN OUR BACKYARD

anyone should move, it is the other Amma,

he declared. - Salil Jose

Something's fishy

case was registered said:

The passenger was fully
aware of the fact that his friend was drunk and still let
him drive the car. He should
be held equally responsible.
Ideally, the passenger
should be let off with a warning a warning at best file
a case of abetment, say lawyers. What if the driver of a
call taxi was drunk and you
were a passenger?, asked
another advocate at the
Madras high court V S Suresh. The police should
thoroughly investigate the
circumstances and file the
chargesheet accordingly,
he added.

THE S-FILES

body polls in rural areas. For urban

areas, 75,933 electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used.
"Around 12,000 EVMs have been
brought in from Orissa. Around
6,000 jumbo ballot boxes will be
brought from Andhra Pradesh by
our team shortly," Seetharaman
said.
He said that 664 election officers
and 1,836 assistant election officers
would be posted in urban areas. In
rural areas, there will be 907 EOs
and 16,979 AEOs. This is at a rate of
four officers per booth in urban and
seven or eight officers per booth in
rural areas. In total, as many as 6.50
lakh officers will be on poll duty, he
said.

phone as soon as we reached Nandanam so

that he would be forced to take us to Adyar.
But he outsmarted us by ending the trip just
before reaching Nandanam and asking us
to get off. When I threatened to complain,
he was unfazed. My friend tried booking
another Uber cab but our tryst with him
was not yet over. He kept on accepting the
trip request since he was nearby, only to
turn us down subsequently. Fortunately,
another Uber driver accepted our next
request. We complained to Ubers customer
care and got a full refund. For a free Uber
trip, all you need is a rude driver and
endless patience!
- Rashmika Majumdar

Power shutdown
Power supply will be suspended in the following
areas on Tuesday between 9am and 2pm.
CIT Nagar: Model Hutment Rd, 1to 6th cross St, 2nd
to 5th Main Rd of East CIT Nagar, South West Boag
Rd, Sadullah St, Abdul Aziz
St, Moosa St, South Dhandapani St, Part of VN Rd,
Moopparapan St, Canal Bank Rd, Srinivasan St,
Gopal St, Siviaji St, Damodaran St, Part of
Mannar St, Part of South Usman Rd, Motilal St,
Sarojini St, Ramanathan St, Rameswaram Rd,
Ranganathan St, Mangair St, Mooparappan St,
Moosa St, Burkit Rd, Dandapani St, Crescent part St,
Jagathesan St, Mylai Ranganathan St, Part of
Thanikachalam Rd, Lotus colony, Nandanam
Extension 1 to 15 St, Old Tower Black, part of
Chemminars Rd Temple tower Kiviraj Building, EVR
Periyar Building, Anna Salai.
Kolathur: Anjugam Nagar 3,4,6,11th main Rd,
Vetrivel Nagar, 1,2nd St Main Rd, Samdariya Colony
1,4,5th St, East Mada St, Chelliamman Koil,
Bajanai Koil St, CMWSSB, Ganga Devi Nagar, MN
Nagar, Agatheeswaran Nagar, KS Nagar, Lakshmi
Amman Koil St, Virundali 200 ft Rd One Part,
Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Vivekananda Nagar One Part,
Kadappa Rd One Part.
Nolambur: NNS, HIG, MIG, Chinna Nolambur,
Adayalampet, Kongu Nagar, Mugappair WeSt Block
1 to 8th Block, Rajankuppam, Panneer Nagar,
Mohanaram Nagar, Jaswanth Nagar, Reddy
Palayam Area AIBEA Nagar, Vellar Street, Eri
Scheme, Gangai Amman Nagar, Ponniamman
Nagar, Keel Ayanambakkam.
Mellur: Mellur, Vallur, Athipattu, Gounderpalayam,
Subba Reddy Palayam, Nandhiyambakkam, Minjur,
Kesavapuram, Semapuram, Vanipakkam,
Siruvakkam, Naloor, Ariyanvoil.
Perambur Rajaji Nagar: Janagiram Reddy
Colony, Nethaji Nagar, Ranga Doss Reddy Colony,
Rajaji Nagar (Part), Parthibhan St, Goul St, VV
nagar (Part).

GATHERING RUST: These scrap vehicles have been dumped near the Perambur BSNL community
centre and quarters for nearly four years. This is a residential area and they are encroaching on
public space besides being an eyesore. We hope the authorities take action to clear the vehicles
soon- Murali Mohan
OVERT VIOLATION: The
storm water canals on
either side of the
Chennai
Bypass Road between
Mogappair West and
Maduravoyal are being
misused by people who
illegally let out raw
sewage water from
tankers. We request the
concerned authorities to
cover the open canal and
strictly ensure that the
raw sewage water
collected by tankers is
properly transferred to
the nearest Metrowater
sewage treatment plant.
- Balaji Srinivasan

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

OBSTACLE COURSE

any pavements are occupied by vendors and

used as parking lots by vehicles, leaving little or no space
for pedestrians. One such
stretch is South Avenue Road,
Ambattur Industrial Estate,
which houses showrooms of
major car companies and service stations on either side.
Vehicles are parked on either
side of the road and the pavement is not even visible most
of the time. Will the authorities act to ensure that pedestrians are not inconvenienced?

K VASUDEVAN | Ambattur

Public nuisance

lorry seized by the police

department (P5 police
station, MKB Nagar) two
years back has been parked
opposite our flat at M13, Central Avenue, Vyasarpadi. The
space between our compound
wall and lorry is being used
as a public convenience for
pedestrians, a bar for drunkards and a hiding place for
anti-social elements. This has
been brought to the notice of
the police department but no
action has been taken.

VIJAYAKUMAR SIVALINGAM |
Vyasarpadi

NO TAKERS FOR THIS BOX

Available on the

App Store
Available on

Google Play

Be A Smart TOI

Citizen Reporter

PERILOUS: This manhole cover has been

constructed 12 inches above street level on Lady
Madhavan Road, on the way to Iyappan temple, in
Mahalingapuram, and is a potential hazard to
commuters. Will the authorities concerned look
into this? - G P Mohan

STUMBLING BLOCK: This TNEB junction box has been

lying on 4th Street, AE Block, Anna Nagar for more
than six months. It is a big hurdle on the already
narrow lane. To make matters worse, there is
sewage work going on in the block and debris is
being dumped on the box. I request the authorities
to take note and do the needful - Vinod Nair

Keep mobile phones

GPS on while clicking
& sending pictures
Describe exactly
where and when
picture was taken,
giving street names
and other locators