The Punjab Technical University (PTU) is holding a job fair from March 12-13 here, the first such event in collaboration with the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Thousands of students from nearly 300 colleges are expected to interact with companies. According to university officials, over 25 companies have confirmed their participation. “It will provide a wide range of opportunities to the students of PTU affiliated colleges,” said dean A.P. Singh. “Companies like Aegon Religare, Gates India, India Mart, Lupin, Maruti Suzuki, Pfizer India and RedAlkemi have confirmed their participation. The idea is to bridge the gap between recruiters and students from technical courses. Similar fest will also be organized in other Punjab cities.” Students pursuing courses in telecom, banking, insurance, hotel management, media, engineering and manufacturing can participate. PTU was established in January 1997 to promote technical education. A total of 71 engineering and architecture colleges, 117 management and hotel management colleges and 32 pharmacy colleges are affiliated to it.
CBI raids prominent Chandigarh school
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday raided the reputed Strawberry Fields School here in Sector 24 and seized documents pertaining to land records and school finances, officials said. According to CBI officials, they had received a complaint regarding discrepancies in land allotment and construction of the school building. “The land was allotted to an NGO named Bharat Sewa Samaj for some social and cultural work around 15 years back, but it was later transferred to Durga Das Foundation. This foundation started running a school on this land and earned huge money,” a CBI official said here on condition of anonymity. “This foundation is owned by Atul Khanna and the complaint said that it is illegal. On the basis of the complaint, we have started our investigation and conducted this raid today. We have seized various documents and some concrete action will be taken after the records are scrutinized,” he added. CBI sources say some senior Chandigarh administration officials too are involved in the scam. Khanna also runs the Strawberry Fields World School (for senior classes) in Sector 26 here. The CBI is already probing the relief worth Rs.35 crore granted to it by the Chandigarh administration while allotting land.
Mother, daughter appear for secondary exams in Bengal
Displaying a never-say-die spirit, Bharati Devi, a 40-year-old mother of three, is appearing for the ongoing secondary examinations this year along with her daughter in northern West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district. Bharati, who works at a child education centre along with her married daughter Sanchita, is sitting for the examinations at Sunitibala Sadar Girls High School as an external candidate. “Bharati is appearing for the madhyamik (secondary) exams along with her daughter as external candidate. It is an example of empowerment of women. She took out time to study daily after taking care of her work and fulfilling her responsibilities at home,” the school's headmistress Aparna Bagchi said. According to Aparna, Bharati was married off in 1990, when she was in class ten, and was forced to leave school. And even though she got busy with her family duties during the following years, she never gave up her dream of clearing the school exams. “When her daughter Sanchita, who also got married two years ago, decided to sit for the exam, Bharati too made up her mind to do the same. “As far as I know, Sanchita helped her mother a lot in preparing for the exams. She used to take tuitions and also taught her mother. Bharati's husband too was very understanding and supportive of her efforts,” said Aparna.
Hand-held home learning device for students launched
Hyderabad-based Edutor Technologies on Tuesday launched Edutor Advantage e40, India's first hand-held home learning device for school students. After a six-month pilot project, the firm, floated by a group of young IITians, launched the device designed for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students from class 3 to class 10. The touchscreen device is preloaded with a student's class-specific, curriculum-aligned content. Advantage e40's highly intuitive and interactive touch-screen interface and multi-media content ensures children are fully engaged, grasp concepts and remember them far more effectively, said a company official. The device also offers self-assessment with its practice tests and questions for every topic. Advantage e40 is aligned with CBSE's new Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) initiative. The device also features extra-curricular activities like basics of cricket, yoga, karate, spoken English content and Wikipedia topics. Ram Gollamudi, CEO of Edutor Technologies, told reporters that the firm planned to sell 30,000 to 40,000 devices in the next 18 months. “Edutor Advantage is designed to give Indian students a measurable home learning advantage. Advantage e40 user interface is very intuitive and easy to use for children of all ages,” said Ram, an electronics engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras. “Research shows that when multiple senses such as sight, sound and touch are used simultaneously to learn, there is a significant boost in understanding and memory. Our device is based on the multi-sensory learning principle,” said Ram, who spent the last 15 years in the US, working in tech firms. Priced at Rs.5,845 with four percent taxes, Edutor Advantage is available in leading bookstores. One-year content in the form of a chip is available at Rs.1,635. To start with, Edutor Technologies has rolled out its product in Hyderabad and other parts of Andhra Pradesh. It plans to extend its reach to other southern states before targeting the market in north India. As the country has 75,000 CBSE schools, Edutor is targeting a huge market. Ram pointed out that Hyderabad alone has 200,000 CBSE students.
UAE committed to promote entrepreneurship – Minister
The United Arab Emirates intends to promote entrepreneurship in the country and believes it should be made an integral part of the eduction system in the 21st century. Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural meet on Entrepreneurship Education MENA (Middle East and North Africa region), Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, stressed upon making entrepreneurship an integral part of education in the new century. “We are determined to be regional leaders. Successful entrepreneurship, we believe, will contribute significantly to sustainable economic development and the building of a knowledge-based society,” said Al Nahayan, adding that “in the United Arab Emirates, we are committed to supporting entrepreneurship in our own society and in the region”. “This roundtable makes it clear that education and training is (are) a cornerstone of the efforts to promote entrepreneurship and to build the skills needed for its success in our region,” he said. The minister said the meet “also helps build a culture supportive of innovation that leads to creation of regional and global networks of entrepreneurs”. “Hopefully, such networks will promote the very best thinking and practices about entrepreneurship everywhere,” said Al Nahayan, who is also chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology. The UAE has welcomed the efforts of the US' Stanford University for promoting entrepreneurial education in the Middle East and North Africa region
HRD ministry issues notifications for madrasas qualifications
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Minister of State for Human Resource Development (HRD) D. Purandeswari said that the HRD ministry and the Department of Personnel and Training have issued notifications on qualifications and certificates of the State Madrasa Boards that have been granted equivalence by the corresponding State Education Boards. The Secondary and Senior Secondary qualifications of the Madrasas have been equated with corresponding levels of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council of Board of School Education in India (COBSE) and other School Examination Boards, for the purpose of employment and entry to higher levels of education.
Tamil Nadu polls won’t be postponed
The Madras High Court on Wednesday ruled that the Tamil Nadu assembly elections cannot be postponed due to school exams but laid down conditions so that students are not affected. Deciding on two petitions seeking postponement of the April 13 polls, the court held that teachers should not be involved in election duty till the exams get over. It also banned campaigning within 200 meters of schools and ordered that school buses and vans should not be hindered during campaigning. The secondary and higher secondary exams in the state started in March and will continue till the second week of April.
IGNOU holds conference on psychological measurement
Modern societies, including India, are in a flux and need the intervention of disciplines like psychology to understand the complex problems and issues faced by people, said Pro-VC Prof P.R. Ramanujam while inaugurating the two-day national conference on 'Psychological Measurement: Strategies for the New Millennium', organized by IGNOU's School of Social Sciences (SOSS). The conference, held at the Convention Centre on March 4 and 5, focused on two major concerns with regard to psychometry. Firstly, what is the extent to which the contents and methods have changed with the changing world and how do we justify the use of old testing procedures, if we do; and secondly the concerns about the use of American and European testing tools on Indian population – do we have other choices that we can adopt? Can we standardize these tests in Indian context? Can we search for innovative methods? While releasing a souvenir of abstracts, Prof Ramanujam said, “This conference is aimed at evolving strategies to understand the psychological measurement in the context of highly individualized, social and cultural settings, wherein the old techniques may be found wanting.” In his message published in the released souvenir, Vice Chancellor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, remarked, “There has been a dearth of psychological equipment and test material that are entirely standardized in Indian conditions and exclusively for the Indian population. Experts in the field have made many attempts to devise psychological tests, but very little publicity has been given to their efforts.” “Psychological measurement is one of the most significant areas under the field of psychology. Measuring entities is a challenge mainly because these entities are intangible. Within the span of the century, psychological testing has come a long way. But, in the past 20 years, we have witnessed a changed world with the IT revolution. The exposure to information of all kind of age groups has indeed exploded, which has also affected psychometric test administration, scoring and interpretation,” said Prof Gopinath Pradhan, Director, SOSS. Emeritus professionals like Prof A.K. Sen, Professor (Rtd.), Delhi University, Prof Ajit Mohanty, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Prof Amulya Khurana, IIT-Delhi, shared their work and communicated their contribution to this field. They brought forward varied themes like current trends and future prospects in psychological measurement, pschyometrics in India and application of foreign tests in India and latest trends of psychological testing in organizations.
Three day programme on design, construction inaugurated at AMU
A three-day training programme on “Design and Construction of Flexible and Rigid Pavements” for engineers of rural engineering service of the government of Uttar Pradesh was organized by the Department of Civil Engineering of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Inaugurating the three-day training programme, officiating Vice Chancellor, Prof. S. Abrar Hasan said that this type of training will be very useful to engineers associated with the rural engineering service for improving their skills. In his welcome address Department of Civil Engineering Chairman Razaullah Khan said that the present training programme has been planned to focus on the design and construction of rural roads and disseminate knowledge to the RES engineers. Besides the routine lectures by expert, extensive laboratory classes such as soil mechanics laboratory, highway engineering laboratory, concrete and structural engineering laboratory have been planned. He hoped that the integrated approach of classroom teaching along with laboratory practical will help the participants in enhancing their capabilities. Dr. Malik Shoeb Ahmad, coordinator of the training programme said that earlier, this training was organized in IITs but for the first time, the UP government has decided to conduct this training programme at AMU. He said that two batches of 30 engineers are participating in this programme. He said that the rural roads are the basic infrastructure required for the development of rural areas. These roads have been planned and constructed under various Rural Development Programmes of the government, such as Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) focusing directly on the rural connectivity, keeping rural roads of uniform standard as the only deliverable. On this occasion, J.N. Medical College Principal Ashraf Malik, Principal, J. N. Medical College, Prof. S. Mahdi Abbas Rizvi, Dean, Faculty of Engineering an Technology also addressed the inaugural function. Dr. Fareed Mehdi proposed vote of thanks.
Haier launches new range of 3D LED TV
Haier, one of the largest Home Appliances & Consumer Electronics brands, worldwide, and the global no.1 in refrigerators and laundry appliances today, launched their new range of 3D LED TV in India. Haier's 3D LED TV range represents the company's efforts to continuously introduce pioneering, new technologies for the Indian consumer. With movies now being made with the 3D technology, viewers are very keen to experience the same in their drawing room. Seeing this trend, Haier has launched the 3D technology LED Televisions for an extraordinary experience. These 3D LED's pack a vivid punch of clarity, detail and depth in every frame and will be available in 140cm screen size, model no. LE55A310 and the MRP of the product is Rs 1,99,990/-. The most important highlight of the television is that it is equipped with 3D technology which provides a completely immersive and comfortable 3D home entertainment that has never been experienced. Haier 3D LED TV with a metal look and ultra slim design gives a very sleek look to the television. In addition to this, it is an eco-friendly product and saves power through its Optimal Power Control. Announcing the launch of their new range of 3D LED TV's, Mr. Eric Braganza, President, Haier India said, '' India is fast emerging as the key driver in the global television market and 3D LED TV is one of them. Haier's new range of 3D LED TV's provide an experience similar to one in a movie theatre. The new range of televisions from Haier represents companys efforts to continuously innovate and introduce new cutting edge technologies offering convenience to the consumers in the Indian market. Innovation, functionality, durability, eco-compatibility and clear user-friendly functions were the criteria kept in mind while designing these ranges of 3D LED TV's.”
