More seats for general students in St Stephen’s
Students who are keen to join the most sought-after college of Delhi University, St Stephen’s, have a reason to rejoice. There will be more general category seats at St Stephen’s this year. As per a report in The Times of India, the college has reduced the ‘merit gap’ allowed for Christian candidates, which insiders say will lower the number of minority admissions and leave more seats for general students. Principal Valson Thampu has recently revealed the new admission guidelines.
Till last year, Christian candidates with 60% marks were eligible for admission is Stephens. But, now with the college authorities announcing new admission guidelines, the norm now has been changed to 15% less than the general cut-off in each stream.
So, if the cut-off for a course is 95% for general students, only Christian candidates with minimum 80% marks will be eligible. The merit gap between general and minority students was as high as 35% in some cases last year.
Another important change which will ensure more minority seats go to general category students is that the guidelines say “up to” 50% seats will be reserved for Christians. Last year, the quota was 50%.
These guidelines came to be implemented after the supreme council meeting on May 26, in which the college decided to stick to admission norms practised before 2008 — during the tenure of former principal Anil Wilson. This decision has been hailed by teachers and students alike.
Source Link: http://delhiuniversity.learnhub.com/news/1172-more-seats-for-general-students-in-st-stephen%27s
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Malaysians to graduate in Indian classical music
Malaysians to graduate in Indian classical music
Come August and Malaysia will see the first batch of graduates and diploma holders in Indian classical music trained at a state-of-the-art school affiliated to an Indian university.
Malaysian students intending to study Indian classical music now pursue their interest in their own country through the Sangeetha Swara Laya, media said today.
The academy has 12 centres in Malaysia and is affiliated to the Alagappa University in Tamil Nadu, India, and the Alagappa Performing Arts Academy in California, US.
The academy, which has 700 students, offering various certificate, diploma and degree courses in Indian classical music, according to the academy's founder and principal Hariharan Subramaniam.
The academy is the first in Malaysia to offer structured and proper training courses in Indian classical music, the official Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.
Malaysia, home to 1.7 million ethnic Indians, a bulk of them Tamils, also has advanced training institutions in Indian classical dance, including Bharatnatyam and Odissi. (IANS)
Source Link: http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/india-and-world/international-affairs/malaysians-to-graduate-in-indian-classical-music-51960.html
Come August and Malaysia will see the first batch of graduates and diploma holders in Indian classical music trained at a state-of-the-art school affiliated to an Indian university.
Malaysian students intending to study Indian classical music now pursue their interest in their own country through the Sangeetha Swara Laya, media said today.
The academy has 12 centres in Malaysia and is affiliated to the Alagappa University in Tamil Nadu, India, and the Alagappa Performing Arts Academy in California, US.
The academy, which has 700 students, offering various certificate, diploma and degree courses in Indian classical music, according to the academy's founder and principal Hariharan Subramaniam.
The academy is the first in Malaysia to offer structured and proper training courses in Indian classical music, the official Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.
Malaysia, home to 1.7 million ethnic Indians, a bulk of them Tamils, also has advanced training institutions in Indian classical dance, including Bharatnatyam and Odissi. (IANS)
Source Link: http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/india-and-world/international-affairs/malaysians-to-graduate-in-indian-classical-music-51960.html
Jr college admissions: Maharashtra govt in the dock again
Jr college admissions: Maharashtra govt in the dock again
Mumbai: As junior college admissions draw near, the state government finds itself at the doors of the judiciary again. This time around, twenty-one parents of students from the ICSE board have challenged the state’s Best of Five policy, which allows colleges to take into account only the best five subjects for state board students, but calculate scores of ICSE students based on all seven subjects.
“It is ridiculous to have separate rules for ICSE and state board students. The government should not be surprised that it has
been challenged again, as this is not a well-thought out policy,” said Seema Buch, principal of Gundecha Education Academy (GEA), Kandivli.
“The state government has been meting out step-motherly treatment to students from other boards. Every year, they come up with policies that favour state board students. They don’t seem to have learned anything from their past experiences,” said Carl Laurie, principal of Chirst Church School, Byculla, a member of the Association of ICSE Schools of Mumbai (AISM), which had participated in the protest against the 90:10 policy last year. The court had shot it down.
Xavier Louis, a father of an ICSE student, who had moved court against the state’s percentile system in 2008, and won, said, “I am glad that parents have approached the court again. The state did not even take any efforts to let parents know about the new resolution. The admission season becomes more chaotic thanks to these policies, which do not allow a level playing field for students from across the board.”
The parent-teacher organisations are protesting the move by parents of ICSE students. “They should not have raised this issue after the results were declared, when the decision was known to them in advance. The government issued the resolution on February 25, and had even sought public opinion,” said Jayant Jain, president, Forum for Fairness in Education. He added that the forum will intervene to support the government.
Arundhati Chavan, chairperson, PTA United Forum, also supported the government stand. “How is the state government wrong in issuing the policy which has given relief to students?
Even the CBSE students are benefiting from it. The ICSE board has to correct itself, instead of pointing fingers at the state government,” she said.
Source Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_jr-college-admissions-maharashtra-govt-in-the-dock-again_1393296
Mumbai: As junior college admissions draw near, the state government finds itself at the doors of the judiciary again. This time around, twenty-one parents of students from the ICSE board have challenged the state’s Best of Five policy, which allows colleges to take into account only the best five subjects for state board students, but calculate scores of ICSE students based on all seven subjects.
“It is ridiculous to have separate rules for ICSE and state board students. The government should not be surprised that it has
been challenged again, as this is not a well-thought out policy,” said Seema Buch, principal of Gundecha Education Academy (GEA), Kandivli.
“The state government has been meting out step-motherly treatment to students from other boards. Every year, they come up with policies that favour state board students. They don’t seem to have learned anything from their past experiences,” said Carl Laurie, principal of Chirst Church School, Byculla, a member of the Association of ICSE Schools of Mumbai (AISM), which had participated in the protest against the 90:10 policy last year. The court had shot it down.
Xavier Louis, a father of an ICSE student, who had moved court against the state’s percentile system in 2008, and won, said, “I am glad that parents have approached the court again. The state did not even take any efforts to let parents know about the new resolution. The admission season becomes more chaotic thanks to these policies, which do not allow a level playing field for students from across the board.”
The parent-teacher organisations are protesting the move by parents of ICSE students. “They should not have raised this issue after the results were declared, when the decision was known to them in advance. The government issued the resolution on February 25, and had even sought public opinion,” said Jayant Jain, president, Forum for Fairness in Education. He added that the forum will intervene to support the government.
Arundhati Chavan, chairperson, PTA United Forum, also supported the government stand. “How is the state government wrong in issuing the policy which has given relief to students?
Even the CBSE students are benefiting from it. The ICSE board has to correct itself, instead of pointing fingers at the state government,” she said.
Source Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_jr-college-admissions-maharashtra-govt-in-the-dock-again_1393296
IP varsity introduces 5 new courses
IP varsity introduces 5 new courses
New Delhi: Five new programmes have been introduced by the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIP) this year, namely, M.Tech (regular), MBA (weekend), MA in Criminology, M.Sc Forensic Science and M.Tech (weekend).
The weekend programmes would be of benefit to students who are already in their chosen professions. Professor Yogesh Singh, Controller of Examinations at GGSIP has said that they have begun the weekendprogrammes as there were expectations from them to organize courses for professionals.
Students wishing to pursue M.Tech programmes can now choose between Engineering Physics. Nano Science and Technology, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology, Digital and Wireless Communication, VLSI Design, Signal Processing, RF and Microwave Engineering, Information Security and Digital Communication.
MBA aspirants too have several options such as Consultancy Management, Banking and Insurance, Real Estate, Disaster Management, etc.
Anup Singh Beniwal, acting Vice Chancellor of the varsity has said that students would not have to worry about University Grants Commission (UGC) certification as all the programmes being introduced have been granted recognition by UGC.
The university has also introduced 40 common entrance tests for seats that were left unoccupied after the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). The last date for applying for the common entrance test is June 30 and the examination has been scheduled for July 7.
Source Link: http://www.indiaedunews.net/Delhi/IP_varsity_introduces_5_new_courses_11778/
New Delhi: Five new programmes have been introduced by the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIP) this year, namely, M.Tech (regular), MBA (weekend), MA in Criminology, M.Sc Forensic Science and M.Tech (weekend).
The weekend programmes would be of benefit to students who are already in their chosen professions. Professor Yogesh Singh, Controller of Examinations at GGSIP has said that they have begun the weekendprogrammes as there were expectations from them to organize courses for professionals.
Students wishing to pursue M.Tech programmes can now choose between Engineering Physics. Nano Science and Technology, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology, Digital and Wireless Communication, VLSI Design, Signal Processing, RF and Microwave Engineering, Information Security and Digital Communication.
MBA aspirants too have several options such as Consultancy Management, Banking and Insurance, Real Estate, Disaster Management, etc.
Anup Singh Beniwal, acting Vice Chancellor of the varsity has said that students would not have to worry about University Grants Commission (UGC) certification as all the programmes being introduced have been granted recognition by UGC.
The university has also introduced 40 common entrance tests for seats that were left unoccupied after the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). The last date for applying for the common entrance test is June 30 and the examination has been scheduled for July 7.
Source Link: http://www.indiaedunews.net/Delhi/IP_varsity_introduces_5_new_courses_11778/
Inside XLRI’s revised curriculum: fewer classroom hours, more time for homework
Inside XLRI’s revised curriculum: fewer classroom hours, more time for homework
Jamshedpur’s Xavier’s Labour Relations Institute, now known as XLRI Jamshedpur School of Business and Human Resources will implement a revised curriculum for students joining the two-year Business Management (BM) and Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (PMIR) programs in June 2010. The new curriculum would reduce the number of contact hours in both BM and PMIR from 1230 to 1050 hours. The idea is to make time for more projects and fieldwork and implement the 2009 AICTE guidelines for PGDM programs by bringing down the classroom hours, said XLRI’s Prof Madhukar Shukla.
Of the 1050 hours, the institute would devote 630 hours to the core courses and 420 to elective courses in both the BM and PMIR programs. Effectively, it would mean 570 hours of classes in the first year and 480 hours in the second year. The number of electives on offer would remain unchanged.
According to Prof Shukla, who teaches Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management at XLRI, the new curriculum also reduces overlapping content between a few courses and frees up time for students to spend more time doing field activities.
An institute report on the course restructuring says, “While students are required to spend 30 hours per course in the classroom, they also need to spend 70 hours per course outside the class for class preparation, case analysis, assignments and term papers.” According to the institute, adhering to this guideline would increase the students’ gain from the course.
While in BM the number of core courses have been brought down to 22, in PMIR they now stand at 21. The institute has combined a few courses and removed overlapping content from existing courses in order to achieve this. For example, it has clubbed the Fundamentals of Management and HR and Fundamentals of Labour Laws into one course titled Fundamentals of HR and Labour Laws. Similarly, the new ‘Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility’ course is a combination of last year’s Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility as Business Strategy.
While the elective courses on offer remain more or less the same, the number of electives allowed have been reduced from 18 to 14. Students wishing to study more courses over and above the 14 would need to pay Rs 3,000 per full-credit course.
The second-year of MBA in business schools is known to be less rigorous than the first. With the electives cut-down further, would the rigor of the programs diminish? Prof Shukla explains that the decrease in classroom time will be made-up by increased depth and number of assignments and projects in each of the electives taught. He also adds, “All of us in the faculty wanted students to go to the field more frequently. There are many opportunities in the industries in and around Jamshedpur for students to take up field projects with.”
While Jamshedpur is an industrial enclave, the town may not present field-work opportunities for all electives, such as those in areas of Finance that have industry manifestations only in Mumbai or New Delhi. To this, Prof Shukla says, “I agree that we have a traditional locational disadvantage in this regard. It gets addressed by ideas such as one by a professor who organized a full-day trading center on the campus where students were brokers and investors. On a few occasions students have been known to go to Kolkata for projects too.”
The XLRI course restructuring report concludes that the revised curriculum will free up time for the faculty to engage in research, while allowing time for students to submit ‘quality work’.
Source Link: http://www.pagalguy.com/2010/06/inside-xlris-revised-curriculum-fewer-classroom-hours-more-time-for-homework/
Jamshedpur’s Xavier’s Labour Relations Institute, now known as XLRI Jamshedpur School of Business and Human Resources will implement a revised curriculum for students joining the two-year Business Management (BM) and Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (PMIR) programs in June 2010. The new curriculum would reduce the number of contact hours in both BM and PMIR from 1230 to 1050 hours. The idea is to make time for more projects and fieldwork and implement the 2009 AICTE guidelines for PGDM programs by bringing down the classroom hours, said XLRI’s Prof Madhukar Shukla.
Of the 1050 hours, the institute would devote 630 hours to the core courses and 420 to elective courses in both the BM and PMIR programs. Effectively, it would mean 570 hours of classes in the first year and 480 hours in the second year. The number of electives on offer would remain unchanged.
According to Prof Shukla, who teaches Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management at XLRI, the new curriculum also reduces overlapping content between a few courses and frees up time for students to spend more time doing field activities.
An institute report on the course restructuring says, “While students are required to spend 30 hours per course in the classroom, they also need to spend 70 hours per course outside the class for class preparation, case analysis, assignments and term papers.” According to the institute, adhering to this guideline would increase the students’ gain from the course.
While in BM the number of core courses have been brought down to 22, in PMIR they now stand at 21. The institute has combined a few courses and removed overlapping content from existing courses in order to achieve this. For example, it has clubbed the Fundamentals of Management and HR and Fundamentals of Labour Laws into one course titled Fundamentals of HR and Labour Laws. Similarly, the new ‘Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility’ course is a combination of last year’s Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility as Business Strategy.
While the elective courses on offer remain more or less the same, the number of electives allowed have been reduced from 18 to 14. Students wishing to study more courses over and above the 14 would need to pay Rs 3,000 per full-credit course.
The second-year of MBA in business schools is known to be less rigorous than the first. With the electives cut-down further, would the rigor of the programs diminish? Prof Shukla explains that the decrease in classroom time will be made-up by increased depth and number of assignments and projects in each of the electives taught. He also adds, “All of us in the faculty wanted students to go to the field more frequently. There are many opportunities in the industries in and around Jamshedpur for students to take up field projects with.”
While Jamshedpur is an industrial enclave, the town may not present field-work opportunities for all electives, such as those in areas of Finance that have industry manifestations only in Mumbai or New Delhi. To this, Prof Shukla says, “I agree that we have a traditional locational disadvantage in this regard. It gets addressed by ideas such as one by a professor who organized a full-day trading center on the campus where students were brokers and investors. On a few occasions students have been known to go to Kolkata for projects too.”
The XLRI course restructuring report concludes that the revised curriculum will free up time for the faculty to engage in research, while allowing time for students to submit ‘quality work’.
Source Link: http://www.pagalguy.com/2010/06/inside-xlris-revised-curriculum-fewer-classroom-hours-more-time-for-homework/
Indian, Canadian institutes sign MoU on food processing research
Indian, Canadian institutes sign MoU on food processing research
The Indian Institute of Crop Processing Technology (IICPT) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, for collaborative research and training in the field of food processing and exchange of faculty and students.
The MoU was signed here by IICPT director K. Alagasundaram and Venkatesh Meda, professor of bioprocess engineering at the university, on behalf of the Canadian institute. Food Processing Industries Minister Subodh Kant Sahai and Saskatchewan's Education Minister Rob Norris were present on the occasion.
"This agreement will help in the development of post-harvest management and food processing (in India) and a lot of exchanges of scientists, teachers and students will take place," Sahai told the media after the signing of the MoU.
The minister said the University of Saskatchewan has partnerships with over 150 business houses for new innovations in food technology, food taste and food products.
"This is definitely going to help issues related to the Indian food industry," he said.
The IICPT, based in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, is a national level institute and its mandates include basic, applied and adoptive research and development in post-harvest, processing, education and training to create a strong human resource base for the food processing industry.
The university at Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is an over 100 years old institution.
Speaking about the Indian food processing industry, Sahai said he was aiming at taking the processing levels in the country from the current 10 percent to 20 percent by 2015.
"The agricultural sector is huge in Canada and the country is known for its expertise in food technology and post-harvest processing," he added.
He said that the agreement between the two institutes would help in India's efforts to make its farmers go for market-driven farming and reduce the annual wastage of agricultural produce worth around Rs.500 billion.
Norris, who led the Canadian delegation, said the MoU "allows us to highlight the significance of the partnership in agriculture, agro-food and, more broadly, biosciences, not only between the countries but most importantly, between the two institutes".
Earlier, addressing the Canadian delegation, Sahai said through such MoUs, scientists could meaningfully contribute to the development of technologies for food processing by adoptive and applied research and exchange of knowledge and information.
The MoU enables, among other things, long and short-term exchange of faculty and students for research, sabbaticals and advanced training, development of mutually beneficial academic programmes, coordination in joint research and development and exchange of research materials and technologies. (IANS)
Source Link: http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/education-news/pacts-with-foreign-universities/indian-canadian-institutes-sign-mou-on-food-processing-research-52020.html
The Indian Institute of Crop Processing Technology (IICPT) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, for collaborative research and training in the field of food processing and exchange of faculty and students.
The MoU was signed here by IICPT director K. Alagasundaram and Venkatesh Meda, professor of bioprocess engineering at the university, on behalf of the Canadian institute. Food Processing Industries Minister Subodh Kant Sahai and Saskatchewan's Education Minister Rob Norris were present on the occasion.
"This agreement will help in the development of post-harvest management and food processing (in India) and a lot of exchanges of scientists, teachers and students will take place," Sahai told the media after the signing of the MoU.
The minister said the University of Saskatchewan has partnerships with over 150 business houses for new innovations in food technology, food taste and food products.
"This is definitely going to help issues related to the Indian food industry," he said.
The IICPT, based in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, is a national level institute and its mandates include basic, applied and adoptive research and development in post-harvest, processing, education and training to create a strong human resource base for the food processing industry.
The university at Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is an over 100 years old institution.
Speaking about the Indian food processing industry, Sahai said he was aiming at taking the processing levels in the country from the current 10 percent to 20 percent by 2015.
"The agricultural sector is huge in Canada and the country is known for its expertise in food technology and post-harvest processing," he added.
He said that the agreement between the two institutes would help in India's efforts to make its farmers go for market-driven farming and reduce the annual wastage of agricultural produce worth around Rs.500 billion.
Norris, who led the Canadian delegation, said the MoU "allows us to highlight the significance of the partnership in agriculture, agro-food and, more broadly, biosciences, not only between the countries but most importantly, between the two institutes".
Earlier, addressing the Canadian delegation, Sahai said through such MoUs, scientists could meaningfully contribute to the development of technologies for food processing by adoptive and applied research and exchange of knowledge and information.
The MoU enables, among other things, long and short-term exchange of faculty and students for research, sabbaticals and advanced training, development of mutually beneficial academic programmes, coordination in joint research and development and exchange of research materials and technologies. (IANS)
Source Link: http://headlinesindia.mapsofindia.com/education-news/pacts-with-foreign-universities/indian-canadian-institutes-sign-mou-on-food-processing-research-52020.html
IIT-JEE merit lists show a rise in cut-off marks
IIT-JEE merit lists show a rise in cut-off marks
Mumbai: First, the joint entrance examination (JEE) results showed a slight increase in success rate across India. Now, the merit lists recently released by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have revealed that the entry bar across categories (both open and reserved), too, has gone up marginally.
The qualifying score in the open category has climbed from 178 in 2009 to 190 this year. It implies that the last candidate on the open merit list has scored 190 out of a total of 480. For the other backward categories (OBCs), the merit list cut-off stands at 171 — a 10-mark climb from last year’s 161.
“The qualifying scores for all categories have gone up marginally this year,” Anil Kumar, IIT-Bombay JEE chairman, said.
The cut-offs for reserved category candidates (scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and candidates with physical disabilities) have gone up by a nominal 2%. The qualifying mark for SC/ST/PD candidates had been 18% (89/480) last year. This time, it is nearly 20% (95/480).
The IITs give the SC/ST/PD candidates a 50% relaxation on the score of the last-ranking general category candidate. Those who still fail to qualify are given a further 50% relaxation, and sent to the preparatory course. This year, the number of SC candidates qualifying has exceeded the number of available seats. But for STs/PDs, the cut-offs have been lowered by another 50% (48/480) for the preparatory course.
Subject wise cut-offs continue to remain low, though they have improved a bit from those of 2009. For instance, in the open category, it stands at 19 (Chemistry and Physics) and 17 for Mathematics. Last year, it had been 11 (Chemistry and Mathematics) and eight (Physics).
For SC/ST/PD candidates, cut-offs have gone up from six (Chemistry and Mathematics) and four (Physics) in 2009 to 10 (Physics and Chemistry) and nine (Mathematics). The IITs have often been criticised for their low subject cut-offs. However, Kumar said that subject cut-offs are “used only as the first filter to decide whose result needs more detailed analysis.”
“In actuality, numbers obtained by the last-admitted candidate are much higher than these (cut-off) marks. For example, in 2009, the subject cut-offs were 11 for Chemistry and Mathematics and eight for Physics. But the scores of the last general candidate selected were 72 (Chemistry), 31 (Mathematics) and 75 (Physics),” Kumar said.
Source Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_iit-jee-merit-lists-show-a-rise-in-cut-off-marks_1393283
Mumbai: First, the joint entrance examination (JEE) results showed a slight increase in success rate across India. Now, the merit lists recently released by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have revealed that the entry bar across categories (both open and reserved), too, has gone up marginally.
The qualifying score in the open category has climbed from 178 in 2009 to 190 this year. It implies that the last candidate on the open merit list has scored 190 out of a total of 480. For the other backward categories (OBCs), the merit list cut-off stands at 171 — a 10-mark climb from last year’s 161.
“The qualifying scores for all categories have gone up marginally this year,” Anil Kumar, IIT-Bombay JEE chairman, said.
The cut-offs for reserved category candidates (scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and candidates with physical disabilities) have gone up by a nominal 2%. The qualifying mark for SC/ST/PD candidates had been 18% (89/480) last year. This time, it is nearly 20% (95/480).
The IITs give the SC/ST/PD candidates a 50% relaxation on the score of the last-ranking general category candidate. Those who still fail to qualify are given a further 50% relaxation, and sent to the preparatory course. This year, the number of SC candidates qualifying has exceeded the number of available seats. But for STs/PDs, the cut-offs have been lowered by another 50% (48/480) for the preparatory course.
Subject wise cut-offs continue to remain low, though they have improved a bit from those of 2009. For instance, in the open category, it stands at 19 (Chemistry and Physics) and 17 for Mathematics. Last year, it had been 11 (Chemistry and Mathematics) and eight (Physics).
For SC/ST/PD candidates, cut-offs have gone up from six (Chemistry and Mathematics) and four (Physics) in 2009 to 10 (Physics and Chemistry) and nine (Mathematics). The IITs have often been criticised for their low subject cut-offs. However, Kumar said that subject cut-offs are “used only as the first filter to decide whose result needs more detailed analysis.”
“In actuality, numbers obtained by the last-admitted candidate are much higher than these (cut-off) marks. For example, in 2009, the subject cut-offs were 11 for Chemistry and Mathematics and eight for Physics. But the scores of the last general candidate selected were 72 (Chemistry), 31 (Mathematics) and 75 (Physics),” Kumar said.
Source Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_iit-jee-merit-lists-show-a-rise-in-cut-off-marks_1393283
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