Kerala Blaster’s Victor Bertomeu scores the second goal against Mohammedan Sporting Club during an ISL football match in Kochi on Sunday, May 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT

Kochi:

A young boy from Kerala faced a life-threatening situation due to acute jaundice followed by acute liver failure. But, his mother who donated a part of her liver, and his entire village’s help with finances helped him survive just within 24 hours.

Alan, a resident of Kottyam’s Mundakayam Chittadi, was severely ill recently and admitted to the Rajagiri Hospital in Kochi. A team of doctors from the hospital – Dr Biju Chandran, a multi-organ transplant surgeon, and hepatologists Dr John Menachery and Dr Cyriac Abby Phillips – told him that a liver transplant was his only hope.

Within hours of looking for a donor – which usually may even take days or months – the boy’s mother, Reena, was found to be the right donor, officials said.

Amid this, several people from the boy’s village, his school administration – Edakunnam Government School, and the Malanad Development Society – a social services organisation set up financial aid for Alan’s surgery and post-operative care.

A day after completing the required formalities, Alan went through a liver transplant surgery, officials said.

“This success is a shining example of what can be achieved when a community, driven by compassion and love, unites for a common cause,” one of the doctors who performed the surgery, Dr Biju Chandran said.

The boy is going through the recovery process at home currently, the doctors said.

Kochi:

A female teacher of a play school near Mattancherry was on Thursday arrested for cruelly beating up a three-and-a-half-year-old boy with a stick, leaving marks on his back, police said.

The woman was booked under section 118 (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 75 (punishment for cruelty to child) of the Juvenile Justice Act, police said.

The beating came to light as the child showed reluctance in going to the play school and on being questioned, revealed what had happened, an officer of Mattancherry police station, where the case is registered.

“There were marks on the boy’s back. A case was registered against the teacher and she was arrested,” an officer said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kochi:

A district consumer forum here has directed a private company to pay over Rs 20 lakh to a couple to whom it had sold a flat in Maradu here, which was later demolished on the orders of the Supreme Court.

The Ernakulam District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission directed Holy Faith Builders and Developers to refund over Rs 17 lakh to the couple as balance consideration of the flat and also Rs 5 lakh as compensation for the deficient service and unfair trade practice on the part of the realty firm.

The Commission also directed the firm to pay Rs 25,000 to the complainant couple towards the cost of litigation.

The Commission said that the Supreme Court had found that the apartment complex constructed by the builder was in violation of the law.

“This unequivocally establishes that the first opposite party’s (builder) actions amount to a deficiency in service and unfair trade practices,” it held.

The consumer forum further held that the firm “inadequately performed the service as contracted with the complainants and hence, there is a deficiency in service, negligence, and failure on the part of the first opposite party (builder) in failing to provide the complainants the desired service which in turn has caused mental agony and hardship, and financial loss, to the complainants”.

The complainants, a retired Naval officer and his wife, had bought a flat from the firm by availing a loan and claimed that they were given false assurances by the builder regarding the legality and approvals for the apartment complex constructed by it.

The Supreme Court had in 2019 directed the Kerala government to demolish the apartment complexes in Maradu that were built in violation of the coastal zone regulations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)