madurai l Saturday l June 21, 2025 l `9.00 l PAGES 14 l late city EDITION Govt panel to check fairness of entrance exams, need for coaching The Ministry of Education has set up a panel to suggest ways to reduce students’ dependency on coaching centres for transition to higher education To plug Gaps in current schooling system flags proliferation of ‘Dummy schools’ “The committee will examine the gaps in the current schooling system that contribute to students’ reliance on coaching centres, particularly the limited focus on critical thinking, logical reasoning, analytical skills and innovation and the prevalence of rote learning practices,” news agency PTI quoted a senior Ministry of Education official as saying on Friday ■ ■ Many students prefer to take admission in ‘dummy schools’ so that they can focus solely on their preparations for competitive exams. They don’t attend classes and directly appear in the board exams The panel will also study the effectiveness and fairness of competitive entrance examinations and their influence on the coaching industry 9-member Committee to be headed by Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Iran eases curbs to fly out 1,000 stranded Indians moved to Armenia, flown to Doha, and finally arrived in IN a major diplomatic move, Delhi on Thursday morning. Iran has eased its airspace reIran’s deputy chief of misstrictions to facilitate the evac- sion in New Delhi, Mohammad uation of Indian nationals. The Javad Hosseini, on Friday reitdecision, described as a special erated Tehran’s commitment to gesture by Iranian the safety of foreign authorities, allows nationals and highEU-Iran talks I n d i a t o o p e r at e lighted the cooperain Geneva emergency evacuation between the two Iranian Foreign tion flights to bring countries in times of Minister Abbas its citizens home crisis. Araghchi on Friday safely . He said about T h r e e s p e c i a l held talks with his 10,000 Indians are livBritish, French, flights operated by ing in Iran and those German, and Iran’s Mahan Air wishing to return are European Union will carry 1,000 Indibeing evacuated. counterparts, in ans, including a large The evacuation number of students, Geneva, marking a comes amid mountfrom Iran’s Mashhad fresh bid by Europe ing regional instabilto revive dialogue and Ashgabat to New ity as the conflict beon Tehran’s nuclear tween Iran and Israel Delhi, sources said. programme The first flight will entered the eighth reach India on Friday on Friday . day at 11.30 pm. The Iran continued to other two flights will land at launch ballistic missiles at Is3.00 am and 4.30 pm on rael, hitting buildings in Haifa Saturday . and injuring 31. Israel said it The evacuation effort comes carried out air strikes targetunder Operation Sindhu, which ing Iran’s missile launchers. successfully brought back 110 Meanwhile, several Indians Indian students from Iran. remain stranded in Iran and ]The students were first Israel.  P11 J aya n t h J a c o b @ New Delhi leeds from front India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal and captain Shubman Gill score hundreds in the first Test against England at Leeds on Friday. Gill became the fifth Indian to score a hundred in the first Test as leader. India scored 359 for 3 on Day 1 | AP express read Sun TV says Dayanidhi statement defamatory Contempt: HC summons chief secy, predecessor Chennai: A day after DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran slapped notice on brother Kalanithi alleging fraud in transfer of Sun TV shares, the firm said the statement is defamatory and not based on facts | P4 Chennai: HC has ordered Chief Secretary N Muruganandam and his predecessor Shiv Das Meena to appear before it on July 21 in a contempt of court case regarding government appointments | P4 ‘Declined Trump’s invitation to be in Jagannath’s land’ E x p r e s s N e w s S e r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he declined US President Donald Trump’s invitation for a recent luncheon meeting in Washington since he did not want to miss being in Odisha, the sacred land of Mahaprabhu Jagannath. Addressing a massive gathering in Bhubaneswar to mark the first anniversary of the Mohan Charan Majhi-led BJP government in the state, the prime minister said it was more important for him to be in the land of Jagannath. “Just two days ago, I was in Canada attending the G7 Summit when I received a call from President Trump. He said since you are already in Canada, why don’t you come down to Washington? We will have lunch together and a conversation. He extended a very warm invitation. I thanked him for the invite but told him it was very important for me to visit the land of Lord Jagannath. With due respect, I declined his offer,” Modi said. Launching various projects worth over `18,600 crore and releasing the Odisha Vision Document @2036 and @2047, Modi congratulated Chief Minister Majhi for giving a fresh momentum to the development of the state. Modi said in recent years, the country has experienced the BJP’s development model. Tasmac case: HC relief to bizman, film producer R SIVAKUMAR @ Chennai The Madras High Court on Friday stayed all further proceedings of the Enforcement Directorate against film producer Akash Bhaskaran and businessman Vikram Ravindran regarding money laundering probe in connection with the alleged `1,000 crore scam in Tasmac. A bench of Justices MS Ramesh and V Lakshminarayanan passed the interim order on the petitions filed by Bhaskaran and Ravindran after finding that the ED’s search operations were “wholly without jurisdiction” as the agency had no incriminating material against the petitioners. “Interim stay on all further proceedings (by the ED) against the petitioners pursuant to authorisation on 15.5.2025 pending disposal of the (main) writ petitions,” the court said in its order.  P7