Dubai: A 28-year-old Indian engineer in Dubai, who supported his pregnant wife to file a petition in the Supreme Court of India for early repatriation from the UAE during the COVID-19 lockdown, has died in his sleep, a month after he sent her home from here, according to a media report on Monday.
Nithin Chandran, who is from Kerala, was under treatment for high blood pressure and a heart condition and is suspected to have died of a heart attack while asleep, his friends told Gulf News.
Chandran and his 27-year-old wife Athira Geetha Sreedharan, who is also a Keralite, were in news after pregnant Sreedharan filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India seeking help to return home for her delivery due in the first week of July, amidst the international travel lockdown imposed by India over the coronavirus pandemic.
Chandran had stayed back in Dubai after sending his wife home on the first day of repatriation from Dubai on May 7 under the Vande Bharat Mission.
"We got to know about this from one of his friends, Praveen, who had moved in to Nithin's apartment just a couple of days as he was alone after Athira went home," said Bibin Jacob, a friend of the deceased.
Though the case she filed had no desired impact, Sreedharan, an electronics and communication engineer with an IT equipment company, had managed to get a ticket on the first repatriation flight from Dubai to Kozhikode after the Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul gave high priority to her as she would not have been able to travel later due to the advanced stage of pregnancy, the report said.
"I am shocked to hear about the demise of Nithin whose wife is pregnant and was among the first one to be repatriated on Vande Bharat Mission," Vipul was quoted as saying by the Dubai-based newspaper.
"Nithin worked a lot for the community, especially arranging blood donation camps and volunteering during COVID situation. I give my sincere condolences to the family and hope that they are able to withstand this big and untimely loss," the official said.
The couple had been active in social service as members of the Blood Donors Kerala-UAE chapter and the youth wing of expat organisation Incas.
"His work had been hectic these days. He even discussed with me about resigning and going back home. But whenever he managed to get some time, he came for food kit distribution. He was one of our main coordinators for blood donation here," said Jacob.
Another friend said Chandran had been a pillar of a volunteering group called Emergency Team International in Kerala and continued to support its mobile blood donation drive during the pandemic.
"He had arranged some people to donate blood in his homwtown even today. He had helped save many lives in Kerala and here. It is very tragic that he died without getting help," the report said.
The body was shifted to Rashid Hospital from his apartment in International City for collecting the sample for COVID-19 test before shifting to the police mortuary, it said.
The coronavirus has infected over 70,00,000 people and killed more than 4,00,000 across the world. The US is the worst affected country with over 1.9 million cases and more than 1,10,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Kolkata (PTI): At a time when the Election Commission pledges to leave no stone unturned to bring eligible voters to polling stations to exercise their franchise, not many electors are aware of their right to "refuse to vote" even after registering their identities before the presiding officer.
That right, which is separate from the provision to vote under NOTA, can be exercised under the 'Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 Rule 49-O', which elaborates the little-known option for electors to abstain from voting even after reaching the polling booth.
While the NOTA (None Of The Above) option allows voters to express their lack of confidence in any of the candidates seeking mandate, the refusal to vote' option allows an elector to shun the poll process in its entirety.
The 49-O clause directs the presiding officer that once an elector refuses to vote inside a booth after having his credentials verified, the officer shall put "a remark to this effect against the entry in Form 17A and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such a remark".
"This is not a new introduction of rights. It has existed for some time. The electors, though, have very little idea about it. Most people are unaware of this option," a senior official of the EC told PTI.
The abstention from voting would, of course, play no role in affecting poll outcome and the candidate who secures the highest number of valid votes polled, irrespective of his winning margin, would be declared elected, he clarified.
On whether the EC would raise the awareness of the electors in this regard, the official said, "There is no such plan at the moment."
Underlining the advantage of rule 49-O, he stated that the rule "provided an option to reject all candidates while simultaneously keeping a check on bogus voting".
Statistics from the EC state that in the 2019 edition of general elections, 1,389 votes were rejected due to other reasons (at polling station)' across India.
It could not be ascertained, though, whether all or a fraction of these votes were rejected for people exercising their rights under rule 49-O.
The rule states that "if an elector, subsequent to his electoral roll number duly entered in the Register of Voters' Form 17A as well as his signature/ thumb impression duly taken, decides not to vote, he shall not be forced to cast his vote".
"In the Form, in place of 'Under Rule', left without voting or 'Refused to Vote' will be inserted for those electors who after signing in Register of Voters' wish to leave without voting," it says.
In the event of the "allot" button on the EVM's 'Control Unit', which readies the ballot unit for "recording a vote", getting activated when an elector refuses to vote, the presiding officer or the third polling officer should direct the next voter to proceed to the voting compartment to record his/her vote, the poll panel official pointed out.
However, if the "allot" button has been pressed to "release voting" on the ballot unit when the elector refuses to vote, the presiding officer would then have to reboot the control unit by killing its power and disconnect the VVPAT, before enabling the machine to accept the next vote, he said.
"The power needs to be switched on after the busy' indicator goes off and the close' button becomes functional to close the poll," he explained.