AAP to expand network in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf countries

Mangaluru, Jul 19: Palakkad Division of Southern Railway that has jurisdiction over Mangaluru Railway region has established a business development unit (BDU) to cater to the transportation of various sectors, including non-bulk goods traffic, namely, white goods, finished products, manufactured products, agricultural produce and raw material.

In a statement issued here on Sunday said that the BDU’s mandate was to facilitate seamless interaction between the Railways on the one hand and industry, trade representatives and rail freight customers on the other at appropriate zonal or divisional levels. The unit was also expected to help expeditious clearance of their proposals for freight movement.

Palakkad Divisional Railway Manager Pratap Singh Shami established the BDU in line with the similar unit at the zonal level with other divisions of SR too setting up similar units. Palakkad BDU would work under the supervision of Additional DRM-II CT Sakkeer Hussain while Senior Divisional Operations Manager PL Ashok Kumar was its convener with Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Jerin G Anand, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer KV Sundaresan and Senior Divisional Finance Manager AP Sivachandrar were its members.

Kozhikode, Jun 9: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena T is all set to marry DYFI National President and CPM state committee member PA Muhammad Riyas on June 15. Interestingly, it's the second marriage for both. 

Veena, the elder daughter of Pinarayi Vijayan and Kamala Vijayan, is an IT entrepreneur based in Bengaluru.

According to sources, the marriage will be a simple function in Thiruvananthapuram where only close relatives will participate. The marriage registration has already been done. 

"It's only a private affair of two individuals," Riyas told media persons, reluctant to divulge more details. 

The 44-year-old Muhammad Riyas started his political career with the Students Federation of India (SFI) and climbed up the rungs through DYFI. He had unsuccessfully contested against UDF's M K Raghavan from Kozhikode parliament constituency in 2009. 

The son of retired IPS officer P M Abdul Khadar, Riyas is the familiar face of the left in primetime TV discussions, strongly articulating the CPM stance. 

A law graduate, he had begun at the grassroots level and gradually worked his way up the ladder. 

His marriage to Dr Sameeha Saithalavi, a former syndicate member of Calicut University, happened in 2002. The couple separated in 2015 and they have two sons aged 10 and 13. 

The 40-plus Veena is MD of the IT firm Exalogic Solutions since 2014. 

Prior to that, she was the CEO of RT Technosoft, a Thiruvananthapuram-based company owned by NRI industrialist Ravi Pillai. Before that, she had a six-year stint with Oracle. She has a son from her first marriage. 

"They both were divorced for more than five years. They knew each other and the marriage decision was taken by them only. It's completely a private affair," said a DYFI leader.

Kasaragod, May 25: An autorickshaw driver from Belur in Kasaragod was admitted for surgery to a hospital after being hit on the head by a falling jackfruit. He was tested positive for the coronavirus. It is not clear how he contracted the viral infection.

“While he was trying to pluck a jackfruit off a tree, one of them fell on him, injuring his spine. His hands and legs were weakened too. His condition required surgery. Our protocol dictates that we subject everyone who require immediate surgery to the covid test, just to be sure. That’s when he tested positive,” said Dr K Sudeep, superintendent of the Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur.

“He had symptoms of Covid-19. But he has no recent travel history or contact with any infected person. We’re not sure if he got it through one of his passengers in the rickshaw. He had visited the district hospital once so he could have got it from there. Anyway, we are examining it and preparing the route maps,” he added.

His family will be quarantined and health workers have begun to trace his immediate primary contacts.

Though there have been a number of cases in Kerala where a person’s source of infection could not be correctly ascertained, such people have gone on to recover without spreading the infection to others.

The Kerala government is conducting testing of high-risk persons on the frontlines, such as police officials, grocery vendors and health workers, as part of its sentinel surveillance programme, but maintains that there’s little evidence of a community spread in the state.