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Thiruvananthapuram: The Special Judge and Inquiry Commissioner (Vigilance), Thiruvananthapuram, observed that there was no evidence of involvement of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in permitting the shifting of water authority pipeline at Pattoor to aid a builder, as of now before the Court. However, the builder had encroached upon government land.
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The RTI Kerala Federation today urged the Governor not to accept the recommendations made by the selection committee chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy for appointment of Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and State Information Commissioners (SICs) in the State.
Alleging irregularities in the selection and appointment to the posts, Federation president D. B. Binu and secretary A. Jayakumar said in a representation to the Governor that the recommendations were made in violation of the RTI Act and orders of the Supreme Court.
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Fires were raging in Sandalwood Reserve at Chinnar in Idukki district on Friday afternoon.
About 50 hectares of sandalwood forests were reportedly destroyed in a few hours. The fire spread in areas where young sandalwood trees were growing.
Temperatures have gone up across Kerala with Punalur and Palakkad recording 37 degree Celsius. Three estate workers suffered sun stroke on Friday at Meppadi from where forest fires were reported early this week.
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Fires are recurring in the Periyar Tiger Reserve and Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.
A few fires occurred in the South West side of the Reserve during the last 48 hours, satellite images show. Locals say that the fires might have been caused by seasonal traders at Sabarimala. They burn trees every season so that they would have sufficient supply of firewood next season. Dry branches of the burnt trees would remain in the forest which can be collected next season.
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The container traffic through International Container Transshipment Terminal, Vallarpadam has improved.
The total traffic through the Terminal crossed last year’s traffic of 366376 TEUs (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units) last week. The container traffic is expected to touch about 4.15 lakh TEUs by the end of this financial year.
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