IIM Bangalore professors receives international recognition

Higher Education

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May 12, 2011

Two members of the IIM Bangalore faculty recently received recognition in international for their contributions to research and practice in their respective fields.

Professor Ramadhar Singh, Distinguished Professor of Management at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore has been featured in a book entitled Most Underappreciated: 50 Prominent Social Psychologists Describe Their Most Unloved Work (The Oxford University Press, New York, 2011). The book's Editor, Professor Robert M. Arkin of the Ohio State University, Columbus, USA, called the contributors the “North Stars” who describe how their one very important piece of research had gone unnoticed, unappreciated, or misquoted in social psychology. Each essay, a personal recollection of an established social psychologist's labor of love, is intended to educate young scholars how to navigate the ebb-and-flow of the professional journey they have undertaken. Singh's essay is on how people impute values to missing information from the information given.

Professor Pulak Ghosh, Associate Professor in the Quantitative Methods and Information Systems area, has received the Young Scientist award in the Statistical Applications category for Year 2011 from the International Indian Statistical Association. The award recognized his outstanding contribution and innovative work on applied statistics. The award ceremony was held on April 24, 2011 at Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. This is a significant recognition and highly prestigious honour given to a researcher 45 years old or younger. It is keenly contested and nominations are screened on the basis of published work, its impact on the practical field, and contribution to the body of knowledge in the field of statistics.

According to Professor Trilochan Sastry, Dean, IIM Bangalore, “IIMB congratulates Professors Singh and Ghosh on their achievements. These, as well other equally prestigious awards and recognitions received by other members of the faculty add significantly to the evolution of the Institute being acknowledged as a centre for management research and education on a global basis.”

IGNOU celebrates 150th birth anniversary of Tagore

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May 12, 2011

Tagore had an enduring faith in the creative power of young minds which today is marred by artificiality. He provided philosophical underpinnings and led a life of aesthetic simplicity, said Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) during the day long celebrations jointly organized by the School of Humanities (SOH) and Tagore Chair of the university.

IGNOU paid homage to the most revered noble peace prize winner by also organizing dramatic performances in the latter half of the day based on Tagore's story 'Samapti' by National School of Drama's troupe.

Eminent guests like Prof. U.R. Ananthamurthy (contemporary writer, critic and Padma Bhushan awardee), Prof. Manoj Das (recipient of Sahitya Akademi Award, Padmashri and the Saraswati Samman award), Prof. Indranath Choudhury, Prayag Shukla, Dr. C.K. Ghosh and Dr. Nandini Sahu discussed various aspects of Tagore's personality and creativity in the light of his humanism.

“The wise/ intelligent people have meanings/words in their minds and choose some language to vent their expressions but there are other people called 'rishis' who go after language/rhythm/musical notes and find their thoughts hidden in them. That is what makes any writer great and Rabindranath Tagore was one of them,” said Prof. Ananthamurthy while delivering his keynote address during the seminar. He further added that there were dark corners of Tagore writings which could be accessed only through his paintings.

Prof. Manoj Das talked about the humanist aspect of Tagore's writings and said, “His greatest characteristic was his sublime simplicity with which he wrote stories, legends, novels, songs, dance, dramas, essays, etc, reflecting a spiritual aspect.”

Prof. Rita Rani Paliwal, Director, SOH, IGNOU, recalled the ecological issues that Tagore felt concerned about. The panel discussion included sessions on various art forms of Tagore by Mr. Prayag Shukla, a literary critic, who emphasized the need to spread awareness about Tagore's works in the society, Dr. C.K. Ghosh, who presented the community development initiatives undertaken by Tagore and explained how Shantiniketan and Sriniketan are the two faces of Visva-Bharati and Dr. Nandini Sahu presented some of Tagore's poems and read the translations.

Mexus Education plans to target smaller cities

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May 12, 2011

Eduvate India 2011 has been initiated by Mexus Education over a year ago with an objective to bring together prominent educationists and academicians for panel discussion to express their perspective on adding value to current education system through technological innovations. These discussions are conducted at a regional level for a constructive and specific discussion, the inputs of which can be incorporated in actual product development.

The panel discusses the gaps in current educational system and how technological innovations would make learning more qualitative, interesting and meaningful experience. The panelists all around have been of unanimous opinion that information and communications technologies are improving the quality of life in every aspect of life.

Over last one year, Mexus Education has hosted Eduvate India across 25 locations across the country, not restricting to Tier I cities. Anil Goyal, the director of Mexus Education, believes that all school must have equal privilege to contribute to enhancement of the Education System as a whole. Following the premise, Eduvate India has spanned not only to Tier II cities like Indore, Ahemedabad, Nagpur but to Tier III cities and even remote cities like Ludhiana, Ambala, Ganganagar.

Speaking of the further plans, Anil Goyal commented “This endeavor has been extremely successful and extremely appreciated by the academicians. We are planning to target more of smaller cities in the next quarter and develop products more suited to these cities. Smaller cities have their specific concerns that largely remain unaddressed as most of the digital content providers tend to extend the existing solutions to these cities.”

IT@School Project to impart animation skills to school students

K-12

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May 10, 2011

IT@School Project is all set to empower the student populace in Kerala with animation movie making skills entirely based on free and open source software, through massive state-wide training programmes. The innovative training session would take the students to walk through the entire animation movie making process comprising of phases such as identification of a story line, development of script and storyboard, drawing the cartoon characters, animating them, giving sounds to characters as well as providing background music, creating titles for the films and so on.

As part of this, a special state level training was provided to five students each from the districts who secured top positions at the School IT Fests. These students would also act as resource persons in the massive training programme which would be conducted Statewide using the video conferencing facility in EDUSAT network, the first batch of which would be held from May 3rd to May 6th. Similar to the routine training programmes of IT@School Project, students who would be attending the above training at the District Edusat centre would be able to interact with the experts in this field who would be based at the Studio at Thiruvananthapuram via video conferencing. This specific training would be imparted to more than 700 selected students in the State during the first spell. Later on, additional batches which are scheduled on May 16th, 20th and 24th would witness as many as 3000 more students getting trained in animation during this vacation time itself. These students along with the Resource persons would in turn train their schoolmates in training sessions which would be held in their schools.

The free software based application- Ktoon is majorly used in creating animation films. Apart from Ktoon, similar FOSS based applications such as GIMP imaging software, Open Shot video editor which could be used for editing cartoon pictures and sound mixing, Audacity, Kden Live etc would also be used for the training purpose. As we all know, a normal animation course demands huge fees for the students and to practice these at home they have to pay huge amount as license fee for the proprietary graphics, editing and animation software. Here the course is absolutely free for the student and all these packages and applications have already been included in the operating system which was provided to all schools and teachers. “The creative output of students as a result of this ongoing process could also be used for classroom transactions as well as for content for IT@School ViCTERS channel. At present, audio recording and image editing are part of the newly introduced ICT education text book for Std 9. We would also take in to account the experience which would be gathered through the massive training programme while considering the possibilities of including animation development as a part of ICT education in Std.10 from next year onwards.”, said Shri. K.Anvar Sadath, Executive Director, IT@School Project and ViCTERS educational channel.

IGNOU launches UG and PG programmes with FDDI

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May 10, 2011

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has launched five undergraduate and three post graduate programmes in collaboration with the Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI).

The eight new programmes viz, M. Sc. (Fashion Merchandizing & Retail Management), M. Sc. (Footwear Technology), M. Sc. (Creative Designing CAD/CAM), M. Sc. (Leather Goods & Accessories Design), M. Sc. (Visual Merchandizing & Communication Design), B. Sc. (Fashion Merchandizing & Retail Management), B. Sc. (Footwear Technology) and B. Sc. (Leather Goods and Accessories Design) have been launched keeping in mind an urgent need to orient footwear industries and their R & D laboratories to initiate new educational programmes to upgrade the knowledge of practicing workers, semi-skilled and skilled personnel in footwear industries keeping in view the demands of technological revolution at work place.

Shiv Nadar University set up in Greater Noida

Higher Education

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May 9, 2011

The Shiv Nadar Foundation has established a university in Greater Noida to offer undergraduate, postgraduate and professional degrees across a number of disciplines.The Government of Uttar Pradesh has enacted the necessary legislation for the establishment of the Shiv Nadar University in the State. TSR Subramanian, Trustee Shiv Nadar Foundation said, “Uttar Pradesh has an extremely progressive approach towards education and we are thankful for the support of the state government which has approved our proposal to establish the Shiv Nadar University. The Foundation is committed to setting up an institution bench-marked to truly global standards, which will offer Indian as well as foreign students a first-class research driven and interdisciplinary educational experience. Apart from the students it will benefit directly, it will also contribute to the development of Uttar Pradesh by enhancing its position as an education hub.” Welcoming these developments, Shiv Nadar, Founder, HCL, Chairman, HCL Technologies and the Shiv Nadar Foundation, said, “While India can be justifiably proud of having a robust education infrastructure, it has not uniformly kept in tune with the current Indian and global needs in higher education. The progressive outlook of Uttar Pradesh has enabled us to set up a University with a multidisciplinary and research led character to address many of these issues. We are delighted with the long association and deep roots we have within the State, which also happens to be HCL's birthplace”. The Shiv Nadar Foundation also announces the appointment of Dr. Nikhil Sinha, as the founding Vice-Chancellor of the Shiv Nadar University. According to Dr. Nikhil Sinha, the founding Vice-Chancellor of the University, “We have already begun the process of recruiting top class talent in both faculty and administrators for the University. Our goal is to recruit exceptional faculty from India and around the world by offering them competitive benefits, opportunities and resources for research, the best and brightest students to teach and a commitment to academic freedom. Students will have the opportunity to be taught by outstanding faculty, to participate in research and experiential learning programs, to enhance their degree programs with international educational experiences and live and learn in a campus with world class infrastructure and facilities”.

Rural Development Through e-Learning

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May 1, 2011

The Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development (APARD) has initiated an e-learning model to deliver its courses on rural development to officials at district and state level, elected representatives of Panchayati Raj and Farmers

More than 70 percent of India’s population lives in rural areas. Educating people in rural areas is essential for substantial development and rural economic competitiveness of our country and challenging at the same time as issues of equity, quality and access remain areas of concern. However, ICT in education is fast emerging as a solution for transforming education and percolating learning to remote rural areas.

For rural empowerment, it is mandatory to empower those who are appointed as the agents to bring change to the rural areas. Following the wind of change, Andhra Pradesh adopted e-learning for rural empowerment.

The Andhra Pradesh Academy of Rural Development (APARD) is the apex training institute in the Andhra for capacity building of rural development officers and Panchayat Raj officials. The institute, consistently focuses on research to offer high quality consulting services in rural development, has initiated an e- learning project and a number of e-learning products have developed for various target groups for continuous learning.

Highlighting the importance of ICT for capacity building of rural development officers, Phani Kumar, Former Commissioner, APARD said, “In Andhra Pradesh, we have about 2.61 lakh elected representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions. There are another two lakh of mates and field assistants working for NREGP. We can deliver face to face training to them once a year in a cascade mode for about three to four days. If we have to deliver training for more days, then it has to be only using IT and relevant androgogy,”

APARD reached out to vulnerable and hard to reach communities, managing projects in sectors that include community development, natural resource management, environment and disaster management, women empowerment and children development, land administration, social empowerment and equity.

Solution

To accomplish the task of addressing such a diversified stake holders (literate, semi literate and illiterates), APARD developed its own Learning Management System (LMS). “We have used Moodles as the LMS. For the semi literate, we have used books in the comic book format like Amar Chitra Katha, Phantom or Tarzan. For the illiterate; it was completely through audiovisuals.”

APARD wikis were formed for collaborative learning. The difference between the teacher and the taught will be reduced, if not eliminated. WEB 2.0 technologies enabled them to depart from traditional androgogy. PR comprehensive helpline consists of a traditional helpline using a BSNL phone line, and USHAHIDI technologies have been incorporated. People can lodge their complaint through phone, email, SMS or register on the website. As Google maps are a part of the USHAHIDI system in use, APARD also know the location of the complainant. “We have encouraged our instructors also to use the helpline for clearing the doubts of participants if the instructors do not know the answers themselves. We have used social networking sites primarily to hold the instructors, field officers and interested members of the public together in a learning community. A lot of bonding has taken place between them,” added Kumar

APARD has also taken the route of offline training with manuals, illustrated books, CBTs etc. For online tools like WBT (web based tutorials,) wikis, and ebooks and educative movies on Youtube are being used. Content posting on the web has saved from the trouble running out of print while training. APARD’s LMS site is called Knowledge Commons.

On the acceptance of the training he commented, “It is really amazing to see how willingly and easily people adapted themselves to new ways of capacity building. Computer and telecommunication penetration, above all, mobile penetration in rural areas has been responsible for this acceptance of new technologies. Mobile phones have taught them how to download caller tunes, ring tones and upload pictures, etc.”

Multimedia content helped this project as is easy to develop multimedia content and transfer it to any location. Kumar said that APARD have copied content from their CBTs onto SD and micro SD cards and gave them to participants to use them in their mobiles at their leisure. “It is much more fun to watch a video or listen to a podcast than to read a look,” Said Kumar

“Computer and telecommunication penetration, above all, mobile penetration in rural areas has been responsible for the acceptance of new technologies”

Phani Kumar
Former Commissioner, APARD

APARD collaborated with HCL in creating and deploying e-Learning courses on rural development. The courses were designed considering the low literacy rates of the rural development as well as its implementation in hard to reach village areas of Andhra Pradesh.

Monitoring and assessment

Firstly, APARD has monitored the use of this content through our machinery. Then the third party assessment was subjected by Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), and National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD). This project’s main deliverable is bringing about an acceptable change in the mindset of participants regarding self paced electronic learning. I think we have achieved that, by and large.

APARD organised a workshop to build a collaborative learning community in October, 2010 with the selected group of officers to build a community of learners. “The October 10 workshop was organised with intent to make APARD, a learning organization. We wanted to develop champions of this cause.”

ICT and multimedia enabled APARD delivering credible, stimulating and relevant training to the diversified target audience. E-learning enables one to gain subject knowledge anytime and anywhere without any geographical barriers and empowers learners through access to a wide range of learning resources both online and offline.

Bid Adieu to Vulnerabilities

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May 1, 2011

e-Learning in K-12 education, college education, competitive or professional courses have many security challenges.There is a pressing need for solution providers to address these issues

By Pragya Gupta, digital LEARNING Bureau

E-Learning has been realised as one of the biggest tools in the education reform strategies. ICT in education has taken various shapes with the changing time from one sided learning tool to social learning. Today’s Learning 2.0 is out of the conventional e-learning systems based on instructional packets using internet technologies, however, new e-learning emphasis on the use of social platforms like blog, wikis, podcasts and virtual worlds.

It is becoming more and more popular as universities strive to cut costs and reach larger students who are adopting e-learning solutions. Considering the huge costs involved in creating and maintaining courses, security has not yet been considered as an important issue.

With the increasing popularity and penetration of e-learning solutions, emerging security risks are making systems vulnerable. Protecting digital content from copying, printing and distribution should become an integral part of content generation, especially when relying on revenue generation for that work. Protection of both the information and the tools are of equal importance. There are number of issues that can create nuisance among practitioners like Secrecy which is one of the key issues. They need to be ensured that objects are strictly accessible to the authorised person and the person they are not granted access to information must not see or modify data or programmes. New grade based examination system has given the need of non-repudiation. It is mandatory to keep track on whenever grades of students are changed and it must be possible to reliably trace who has performed the modification and also deny the person with unauthorised access.

e-Learning in K-12 education, college education, competitive or professional courses have many security challenges and there is no single solution, which can address those challenges largely.

Sharing solutions, Rana Gupta, Safenet says, “Earlier there were many touch points in education at the backend, inviting paper leaks and information leaks but now only authorised users have access to particular information and data modification. However, the management is important. There are rising threats related to IP, content and applications security for which we offer right management products called Safenet Right Management (SRM) products to manage rights for e-learning. It helps in encrypt the content which is accessible by those who have token to decrypt that can be in the shape of hardware, software or a combination.

The youth today is very active on social networking as they use this platform to keep themselves abreast with information and stay in touch with friends, it thus opens up a good hunting ground for Cyber Criminals. According to the Amit Nath, Country Manager India and SAARC, Trend Micro, “Cyber criminals misuse the credibility and popularity of such sites for their own benefits. They could play with users’ personal information in order to commit ID theft. For example: recently, cyber criminals used Twitter as a technique to lure users into clicking a malicious link. Since Twitter is a trusted source, users May think the email they received is legitimate.”

He further suggested that students thereby should realise the significance of the kind of information they are uploading on the web. Personal information such as date of birth, email, job and marital status should not be shared on the Internet as criminals can access such valuable information to steal the identity of an individual.

It is also observed that there is a significant increase in traffic to different community blogs or portals. The criminals also have become quite active on these sites. It is also important for users of these community sites to be wary of messages received, even if supposedly sent from friends. With some crafty social engineering, unsuspecting users May visit the first of the fake pages, where they discover they cannot view their video and are told to download an updated version of Adobe Flash Player or another plug-in or codec. A second fake page informs users that the video they were trying to view cannot be shown, making users think nothing has occurred when, in fact, downloading the supposed plug-in imported malware.

With the increasing threats, for secure computing and adequate trust and confidence in the electronic transactions, Department of Information Technology, Government of India has come up with the National Cyber Security policy’s draft and invited stake holders’ response. The draft proposed that the children and small and home users on the internet for criminal, special campaigns are required to promote an acceptable and safe use of information technology. This combines the knowledge of the needs of protection while understanding the power of information technology. In addition, campaign May also be directed to raise the awareness among the parents about the means of helping children to go online safely.

Awareness is an important tool for creating secure practices among students and educators. In order to create awareness, Business Software Alliance (BSA) has started B4U Surf campaign where BSA and its partners aim to provide educators, parents and students, information and educational resources to help them understand the dangers that exist online for safe computer usage. BSA is a non-profit association dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world. ‘B4U Surf’ campaign focuses at spreading awareness about cyber wellness including cyber-safety and cyber-ethics among the youth, aged 10- 12 year old, tion of security is not up to the mark. She further suggested that Intellectual Property should be included in course curriculum of computer science to make students learn new wave of cyber safety and ethics.
Along with awareness, best security practices and mechanism is mandatory. “It is important for institutions and universities to opt for an enterprise protection mechanism to shield the systems used by their students from any cyber threats. Our Enterprise Protection Strategy
combines multiple layers of products and services for intelligent, comprehensive protection against known and unknown threats,” added Nath At the education level, security is equally crucial when we are relying on ICT at a great level .

Business News: May 2011

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May 1, 2011

Microsoft Office 365 Public Beta available in India

Microsoft has announced the public beta of Microsoft Office 365, the company's next generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes, in India. Office 365 was introduced in limited beta last year, bringing together Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. The public beta allows millions of people in India and across the world to try Office 365 for the first time. Globally, more than 70 per cent of the organisations that signed up for the limited beta were small businesses with fewer than 25 employees.

Aruba Wireless Solutions introduced in IIT

Aruba Networks, the global leader in distributed enterprise networks has announced the successful deployment of 'Aruba Wireless Solution' in the academic section and workshops in one of the highly renowned institutions of India- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Prior to approaching Aruba Networks, IIT Delhi functioned on a wired network, which started to pose as a challenge when it came to safety and cost effectiveness. Aruba Networks provided the institution with a centralized Wireless LAN solution, a centralized management and authentication for AAA servers, which aimed to deliver stability, performance, security and features like Adaptive Radio Management (ARM). “Mobility is the keyword nowadays, as majority of the people have mobile gadgets that need to connect to the Internet through WLAN,” says Shalendra Singh, Country Manager India, Aruba Networks.

P&G's Shiksha to build 20+ schools all over India

Procter & Gamble's signature CSR Program “Shiksha” has come up with more schools all over India after it was launched a few days back. Shiksha has, so far, impacted lives of 150,000 children till 2010, aims to take number to 200,000 in 2011. By this initiative P&G has given its consumers a simple yet powerful way to participate in building India's educational future. Every time a consumer buys P&G products in the month of April, May and June, Shiksha contributes a portion of the proceeds towards children's education. Now in its seventh year, Shiksha is back with an even stronger commitment – to take its current impact of 150,000 children to the 200,000 mark. In 2010, Shiksha took initiative in building over 20 schools all across India, supported 100+ existing schools and now aims to build at-least 20 more in the coming year.

Azim Premji Foundation partners with TISS to launch APSE

The Azim Premji Foundation has joined hands with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to set up the Azim Premji School of Education (APSE). The APSE at TISS Hyderabad will offer Degrees and continuing education programmes and conduct research in the field of education. Under the MoU, Azim Premji Foundation will provide financial support to APSE including for research, programs and infrastructure. Foundation CEO Dileep Ranjekar, who is also Azim Premji University Board of Governors member said, ''improving the quality of education must be one of India's key goals. We think this task needs organisations who have shared vision to collaborate deeply.''

Intel ICT to boost rural health care services in Abuja

As part of its corporate social responsibility efforts, Intel Corporation has decided to launch a pilot electronic health (e-Health) programme in Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to address some of the challenges that the nation is facing in healthcare. In early 2009, the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory Millennium Development Goals Unit (FCTMDGU) health officials and Intel Corporation began discussing ways that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) could be used to improve health and healthcare delivery in rural areas. According to the Business Development Manager, Intel Nigeria, David Ibhawoh, the company observed that a large percentage of the people in the country do not have access to health and also where there were any they lacked the specialist, especially dermatologists. Intel with 80 per cent of the world's market for microprocessors, the brains of personal computers, he said, decided to take healthcare to the communities through mobile health (m-Health) and telemedicine that eventually gave birth to the Mailafiya Health Programme.

Corporate News: May 2011

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May 1, 2011

QDE launches vocational courses in financial study

Quantum Dynamics Education, an institute of life skills, has introduced short-term vocational courses on financial study that will help people understand and upgrade their fundamentals of investment and wealth management in an interesting and engaging way. Spanning across diverse range of subjects elucidating fundamental concepts on smart investing in Stock Markets, Financial Instruments, Real Estate, Gold and Equities, the nouveau courses are created using the vast experience of experts at Quantum Dynamics Education.

Pearson’s new approach to business education

Textbook learning, with the help of Pearson and Languagelab.com, will be taken to the next level of 3D experience besides interactivity and socialsing. Market Leader Live transforms the case studies from the bestselling Market Leader Business English series. It provides students around the world with a unique opportunity to use English in the actual situations they are preparing for, allowing them to practice and learn with qualified teachers.

APMDC to educate tribals as per CSR
The Andhra Pradesh state government enterprise, AP Mineral Development Corporation (APMDC) Ltd, has resolved to spend 20 per cent of the amount realised from M/s. Orient Cements towards higher education of tribals in Utnoor agency area of Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh. Orient Cements is MDC’s joint venture company that extracts limestone in the agency area of Adilabad. Even as a debate rages in the country on finalising the quantum of mining profits to be shared towards corporate social responsibility, a state government enterprise has taken the lead by deciding to spend 20 per cent of the profits towards higher education of tribals in Adilabad. Official sources said the joint venture company had paid Rs 3
crore as royalty to stat government and the net profit of the company was around Rs 3 crore. “An amount of Rs 60 lakh has been earmarked to cater to the needs of higher education among tribals in the agency area. The Utnoor Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) project officer has been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring higher education to tribals in the area. We have finalised the guidelines of the policy regarding spending 20 per cent of profits in consultation with the tribal welfare commissioner,” said Praveen Prakash, MD, APMDC.priority attention.”

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