Symantec Corp. today announced the 2010 Symantec Luminary Award winners at Vision 2010, Mumbai, Symantec's technical conference for customers and partners. The Luminary Awards recognize IT leaders, across locations and sectors, for their innovative use of Symantec products and services to deliver business benefits to their organization. This year's winners Reliance Communications, Genpact and Aircel have created an environment of trust for simple and secure access to their information, from anywhere. 'The future is about people and information, not just about devices or platforms. Symantec envisions a world that is secure and well managed,' said Bill Robbins, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Symantec. 'We are honored to recognize these Luminary Award winners and celebrate the tangible results they have achieved through the exemplary use of technology for security and management of information.' To secure and manage its critical business information and infrastructure, Reliance Communications (RCOM), one of the leading information and communication service providers in India, has successfully deployed Symantec's enterprise security, availability and information management technology. Alpna Doshi, Chief Information Officer, Reliance Communications, is recognised with the 2010 Symantec Luminary Award for leveraging technology as a strategic business enabler. Overall, RCOM has been able to maximize efficiency, drive down costs and, more effectively deliver services to its customers.
Genpact, a global leader in business process and technology management, enhanced its compliance and regulatory posture with Symantec's offerings while optimizing its existing heterogeneous IT assets. SV Ramana, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Genpact, has been recognized with the 2010 Symantec Luminary Award for significantly saving costs, and reducing overall complexity through the automation of its compliance and governance lifecycle, and utilizing Symantec's storage management software. Ravinder Jain, Chief Information Officer, Aircel, has been recognised for enabling Aircel's aggressive growth plans by building an IT infrastructure that is highly scalable and ensures high availability for its users. Aircel, is a leading Pan India telecom Operator continuously offering customers a rich and engaging experience through a range of Value Added Services (VAS). It has deployed robust disaster recovery and business continuity technology from Symantec that improves network resiliency, ensuring high levels of service to its customers.
The broader perspective of education is to prepare students to become responsible and knowledgeable citizens for a resourceful and industrious life in a globalised world. In this context, it has become mandatory to reform and strengthen the educational system. Evaluation becomes a tool of ascertaining the level to which the educational system has succeeded in achieving its goals. The Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) model seeks to reform the existing examination based assessment system to a more holistic evaluation of students
“The teacher and the student become the key stakeholders in the CCE model. Formative assessments form the crux of CCE and we are coming up with a lot of resources for this”
A new masters degree programme in special education has been launched at Abu Dhabi University (ADU), that aims at qualifying teachers to develop strategic plans in different areas of interest as well as to provide and lead professional development programmes in special education. Scheduled to be offered in 2011, the new programme is developed based on international standards from major universities in Michigan, Ohio and Florida, US, London Metropolitan University and others. It has also been reviewed and assessed by expert teams in the field from the US.
Recently, a national Information and Communication Technology connectivity project was launched at Ghana, for Colleges of Education to ensure that teachers reappraise their methodologies to meet the learning needs of their students. This Government ICT connectivity project would cover around 38 Colleges of Education (formerly Teacher Training Institutions), 37 Public Technical Institutes, 510 Public Senior High Schools, and 23,000 Public Basic Schools with computing infrastructure. Under this project the schools have been equipped with computers, printers, scanners, projectors and servers. The project would significantly push forward the new, ICT policy of the government.
Soon Britain is to roll out new rules according to which school teachers will be allowed to frisk students for mobile phones, electronic gadgets and even pornography and cigarettes in a bid to prevent disruption in classrooms. The same would be inclusive highlights of an education White Paper that are to be published next week outlining the new rights for teachers to be able to search students for any item that can potentially interrupt lessons. Confiscation of mobile phones, MP3 players and other electronic gadgets will be allowed in case of need by the school staff. There are also included in the same plans to simplify rules on the use of physical force, giving teachers greater powers to take disruptive children out of classrooms without fear of legal action.
An application submitted by Mountain Province State Polytechnic College (MPSPC) was approved by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), for the electronic library (e-lib) connectivity which will allow students, faculty, and staff to have a wider avenue and greater access to the newest trends in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry. This project on e-library connection of the state-run higher education, is the first out of the eleven government funded projects that have been realised this year in connection with its pending application for accreditation of some of its courses. Dr Nieves A Dacyon, MPSPC president, said the e-library connection is a collaborative project of the National Library of the Philippines, University of the Philippines system, CHEd, Department of Science and Technology (DoST), and the higher education institution based in the province to boost its chances of being the third university in the Cordillera.
A MoU was signed between Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for implementation of the Unique Identification Numbers (UID) project. According to the MoU, IGNOU will collaborate with the UIDAI in conduction proof of concept (POC) studies; the university will also be a pilot to test the working of the technology and process of enrollment into the UID database and subsequently full roll-out of the UID project. The MOU was signed between UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani and IGNOU vice-chancellor VN Rajasekharan Pillai.
The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) has come up with a pilot drive to train 600 teachers in the state of Gujarat. The aim of the initiative was to improve the quality of education and introduce advanced computerised teaching methods in classroom teaching. Under the project, instead of school principals who used to receive such training so far, teachers will undergo classroom reform training. Known as the ‘ICT Blended Design Learning Education Project’, the initiative will be implemented during the duration of November 22-27, on experimental basis in 60 schools of three districts — Vadodara, Anand and Surat.
Held in August 2010, the Olympiad took place at 102 centres in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, including 83 in India. A total of 4,384 students of the 11th grade participated. Out of these, 41 were selected for their outstanding performance. Twenty-nine prize winners were from India and 12 were from other SAARC nations. The winners received medals, awards, cash prizes and merit certificates. The function coincided with India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s 121st birthday, 25th anniversary of IGNOU and 65th anniversary of UNESCO.
The Indian Human Resource Development Ministry has signed a MoU with Unique Identification Authority of India, realising the importance of Unique Identification Number. The partnership is to support education sector for better implementation of schemes, tracking student’s record and curbing menace of fake degrees. The proposed MoU would be helpful in tracking student’s mobility by creating an electronic registry of all students, right from primary/elementary level through secondary and higher education, as also between the institutions. The agreement was signed between Amit Khare, Joint Secretary, HRD Ministry and Anil Kachi, Deputy Director GeneraL, UIDAI.
According to some officials, soon Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode will sign Memorandum of Understanding with top 10 Chinese universities. Recently, a tripartite agreement was signed by IIM-K with US’ Yale University. Debashish Chatterjee, IIM-K Director also mentioned that IIM-K was looking at other universities, beyond US, in the east. The institute presently has collaborations with 20-25 foreign universities which is likely to go up to 50 in a year’s time, said Chatterjee, who recently returned after a four-day visit to China. The tripartite MoU entered between the Yale University, IIM-K and IIT-Kanpur, to launch the Yale India Leadership Programme, would expose university and academia leaders in India at the level of Vice Chancellors and Deans to the best practices of academic institutional management in the US.
The education sector in India, particularly the higher education segment, is going through a very exciting phase. Not just is investment pouring in, the country's ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is driving major policy changes that would have a long term impact on the overall education sector in years to come.
The School Education Conclave 2010 was organized with the objective of sharing best practices in academic and institutional excellence and to discuss contemporary issues in K-12 education. It highlighted strategies and steps that will help carry forward the educational reforms in India
Rajesh Gupta
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Radio is a cost-effective and has greater learning effect than textbooks or teacher education. Some of the educational advantages of using radio include improvement in quality and relevance, low cost and increase accessibility. The challenges that it presents include lack of dual interaction, lack of clarification, interruptions in transmissions, fixed pace for all and lack of space for reflection on content being taught. Radio is supportive of providing remedial tutorials; providing updates; presenting material in a manner that children can identify with emotions and outlook of the protagonist; and providing an alternate to TV programmes. 
Community Media Centers are the places where opportunities for operating media tools such as community radio are available. Such initiatives encourage the understanding of usage and effects of media over a community. It implies engagement of the local community people, giving them a stake in the dissemination of knowledge. Media literacy comprises of demanding accountability from media. It implies understanding the process of transmitting information. It activates community members to participate and own the content they need and spread. Awareness about media and its potential is another component of literacy. Government formulated policy at different times. In December 2002, the policy was formulated and revamped in 2006 with only difference being that initially only reputed educational institutes were allowed to operate community radio's while lately, NGOs, CSOs of good repute have been allowed to operate on the same. 
Often it is said that multi-media help teachers and education system to go beyond talk and chalk method to impart knowledge in most suitable way. So the issues that rise alongside use of multi media are 
