IIT Kharagpur Faculty to go on hunger strike to Protest Director and SIbal

New Delhi: Differences have begun to emerge among the IITs over HRD Minister Kapil Sibal's proposal for the entrance exam procedure. The Director of IIT Kharagpur, Damodar Acharya, is the first to go against the wave of opposition, endorsing Sibal's idea.
This has upset the institute's senate, which is to come out with its action plan on Monday, against the common entrance test. In a statement, All India IIT Faculty Federation said that it was "shocked to learn that the Director, IIT Kharagpur has made public statements which are in contradiction to the resolutions made by the Senate of IIT Kharagpur."
Acharya had said on Saturday that the institution does not have any objection to the Centre's move to conduct a common entrance exam for central engineering institutions.

While IIT Kharagpur has opposed the idea of a common entrance exam, the institute's director has endorsed Kapil Sibal's move.

The Federation said that resolutions of the IIT Kharagpur Senate did not recommend inclusion of Class XII board marks, and conduct of JEE by a third party.
"IIT Kharagpur Senate categorically said that till 2014, no change should be made and status quo be maintained," it said. We have no option but to go on hunger strike... Proshanta guha, General Secretary, of IIT -Kharagpur Teachers Associaton. 
Separately, faculty of the IIT-Kharagpur also issued a statement rejecting the Centre's proposal for a Common Entrance Test into IITs, NITs and IIITs.
"The trust that IIT-JEE has earned over the last five decades is due to the continuous evolution of processes and unflinching devotion of the faculty and staff of IITs.... Any test leading to ranking in IIT admissions must be wholly owned by IITs," it said.
Meanwhile, IIT Guwahati and Delhi still remain non-committal on the agitation. In fact the Delhi faculty is to come out with its plan some time later this week.
The director of IIT Guwahati had also endorsed the new entrance exam idea. Criticising the decision taken by IIT-Kanpur Senate, Director of IIT Guwahati Gautam Barua had said he was "surprised" at their "reaction."
"I am sad actually that they have to take this extreme step for such a small matter," he said.
"Right now, we are not talking about one common entrance exam. We are basically talking about.... for having a common exam for NITs, IITs and IIITs. Whether this lead to a common exam for everybody, only time will tell," Barua said.
IIT Kanpur, the first to publicly boycott the exam, remains firm on holding its own independent entrance exam in 2013.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal had on May 28 announced that from 2013, aspiring candidates for IITs and other central institutes like NITs and IIITs will have to sit under a new format of common entrance test, which will also take the plus two board results into consideration.
Sibal had claimed that it was approved without dissent at a council consisting of the IITs, the IIITs and the NITs.

Source: NDTV and Times of India

IIT Delhi alumni write to PM against common entrance exam

Report from ndtv.in

New Delhi: The alumni association of the IIT or Indian Institute of Technology Delhi has written to the Prime Minister, attacking Education Minister Kapil Sibal over his one-nation one-exam policy. The association writes that "IITs are being destroyed by mindless tampering by people in the HRD (Human Resources Development ministry)." It also warns that decisions like forcing a common entrance exam for all engineering colleges not only affect the autonomy of IITs but its world-renowned brand as well.

Reacting to the letter Kapil Sibal said, "I have not failed on my promise. This is a misrepresentation of facts. I had said even if there is one dissent in the IIT Council, I will not take the proposal forward. This is not a government decision. I am the Chairman of the (IIT) Council." The minister has the approval of four of the seven IITs: Kharagpur, Guwahati, Roorkie and Chennai who are in favour of the new exam.

The powerful association had last week threatened to take Mr Sibal to court for impeding upon the autonomy guaranteed to the different branches of the IIT through the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961.

Last week, Mr Sibal said that there was a unanimous decision taken in consultation with the governing bodies of all centrally-funded engineering colleges to introduce a common entrance exam. There would be two stages -the main paper, and then, for those who qualify, the advanced exam. Class 12 board exams are also to count for 40%.

The IITs objected to this formula and were allowed to form their own equation. Starting next year, IITs will give equal weight (50 per cent each) to Class 12 results and to the performance of the candidate in the main exam. 50,000 shortlisted students will then move on to the advanced exam. 

Full text of IIT Kanpur's resolution over conducting its own entrance test from 2013

IIT Kanpur will conduct its own entrance test from 2013. This was decided at a meeting of the institute's 210-member senate today. The senate rejected Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal's 'one nation, one test' proposal.

Here's the text of the resolution passed by the Senate of IIT Kanpur:

The Senate of IIT Kanpur resolves that:
1) a. The recent IIT Council proposal on admissions to IITs is academically and methodically unsound and in violation of the Institutes of Technology Act (1961) and IIT Kanpur Ordinances (Ordinance 3.2 (Admissions)).

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b. In view of the Senate resolution adopted in its 2011-12/9th meeting held on April 10, 2012, invoking Ordinance 3.2 the Senate resolves that IIT Kanpur will conduct the entrance examination for admissions to its undergraduate programmes in 2013.

c. Given the present exigency, the Senate authorizes the Chairman Senate to constitute a Committee with the help of DOAA for conducting JEE 2013 by IIT Kanpur.

d. The Undergraduate Admissions Committee will organize the entrance examination and counselling, and deal with all other matters pertaining to the undergraduate admissions in 2013.

e. To the extent possible, the committee will coordinate with other IITs to conduct the entrance examination jointly.

2) In order that the views of the IIT Kanpur Senate on the issue of undergraduate admissions are represented in the public domain adequately and accurately, the Senate authorizes the following senators as its spokespersons till further order: Profs. Y. N .Mohapatra, Harish Karnick, Somenath Biswas, H. C. Verma, A. K. Chaturvedi, C. S. Upadhyay and Deepak Gupta.

3) IITK Senate reiterates the stand it took as represented by its Chairman in the May 12, 2012 meeting of the IIT council. Consequently the Senate resolves to record its forceful dissent of the Council resolution related to JEE. This dissent may be recorded by a letter to the Chairman, IIT Council and Chairman, BOG from the Chairman Senate.

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Family planning counsellors at district hospitals?

 

source: firstpost.in....8th june, 2012

The government will depute family planning counsellors in district hospitals.

“States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have been poor performers when it comes to family planning. But we are aiming at a country-wide reach for counsellors,” added Dureja.
The move is one of the steps adopted by the government to stabilise population growth, experts said.
While large population size in the reproductive age group has been one of the reasons for population increase, high fertility rate due to unmet contraception is another reason.
According to the Census 2011, India’s population rose to 1.21 billion people over the last decade — an increase by 181 million.
“For birth control, we already have a scheme in practice where ASHAs deliver contraceptives at doorsteps,” Dureja said on the sidelines of a national consultation by Family Planning Association of India.
ASHAs or accredited social health activists in the rural healthcare system have been involved in the project of contraceptive distribution spanning across 17 states.
While the counsellors will be available for a range of services such as birth control, spacing, post-partum planning and maternal health among others, experts said the government needs to counter other problems such as limited access and poor services also.
“Firstly, there is poor counselling and low-quality services combined with limited access. Now that there is thought on providing counselling, it is a must at the primary health centre level,” said Poonam Muttreja, executive director at the Population Foundation of India, here.

IIT Kanpur to conduct its own entrance test from 2013

Source: ndtv.in

Kanpur: Rejecting Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal's 'one nation, one test' proposal, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, has decided it will conduct its own entrance test to undergraduate programmes from next year.

IIT Delhi is also likely to follow the Kanpur model and hold its own entrance tests for 2013

In a resolution, IIT Kanpur's 210-member senate slammed the proposed common entrance test, and said the "decision was academically and methodically unsound and in violation of the IIT Act."

A senate consists largely of professors who are made responsible by the IIT Act of 1961, "for the maintenance of standards of instruction, education and examination."

The students of IIT Kanpur have also strongly condemned the proposed common entrance test.
.
The proposal to hold a common test under the new format was cleared at a meeting of the Councils of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) on May 28 chaired by Mr Sibal.

Mr Sibal had, on Thursday, said that senates of IIT Guwahati, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee had suggested the final formulation. "Guwahati, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkie were the four supporters of it. Incidentally, as far as Bombay is concerned, they also supported," he said.

The common entrance exam would have two steps - a "main" and "advanced" stage. The results of Class 12 board exams would also play a role in deciding whether a student gets into an engineering college.

Engineering colleges will use a 40:30:30 formula - with Class 12 board results counting for 40 per cent, and the two stages of the entrance exam counting for 30 per cent each.

Some IIT officials objected to this one-size-fits-all formula and won the right to form their own criteria. Starting next year, most IITs will give equal weightage (50 per cent each) to Class 12 results and to the performance of the candidate in the main exam. 50,000 shortlisted students will then move on to the advanced exam.

But striking a note of dissent, the IIT-Kanpur faculty federation had last week called the introduction of this new format a "breach of trust."

"The examination announced by the HRD Ministry is a unilateral decision of IIT Council against the advice and decisions of IIT-Kanpur Senate, which has the prerogative of deciding its admission criteria," it said in a statement.

The All India Faculty Federation of India has written to the Prime Minister's Office, asking for Dr Manmohan Singh's intervention. Members of the federation are scheduled to meet Dr Singh on Tuesday.

The IIT Delhi Alumni Association has also threatened to sue Mr Sibal over the decision. The body has also sought an appointment with the Prime Minister, slamming the HRD ministry for what they call "tampering with the autonomy of the insitutions". 

Young jobseekers prefer PSUs, domestic companies

Samidha Sharma, TNN | Jun 2, 2012, 03.11AM IST: The Times of India Report

MUMBAI: Indian students are veering towards public sector jobs and domestic firms to find a cushion against an uncertain economy, which clocked its lowest quarterly growth rate in nine years at 5.3%. This trend, visible globally as well, reflects on how youngsters are looking at job security as one of the most important parameters while choosing their future employers.

While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and State Bank of India (SBI) emerged as the most preferred employer for under-graduate business students in the country, engineering and MBA students chose technology giant—Google as their ideal employer in a survey conducted among 8,356 students across Indian colleges by Universum, a global consulting firm that helps companies improve their attractiveness to prospective jobseekers.

The rankings also show that Indian business students (under-graduate) associate banks with greater level of responsibility, secure employment and high future earnings. Also, more women find banks to be an attractive workplace compared to men while in most other markets it is the opposite, said the survey.

"In a flight to safety we see globally as well as in India that students want to work with domestic employers, so for instance, in Germany a lot of young students are opting to work for the automotive sector which is one of the biggest industries in the country. We see a clear trend that banks and professional services are more attractive as employers among business students in India," said Joakim Strom, Universum's APAC managing director.

While security is a big factor driving students to opt for a job in the public sector as well as in Indian firms, a chance to grow their careers is another reason why youngsters get attracted to these companies. "The career advancement that one can manage in the Navratnas, the best PSUs in the country, is great for young employees. Whether it is a BHEL or an ONGC these are great learning grounds and they hire in big numbers as well," said Nishchae Suri, MD, Mercer India, a global HR consulting firm.

Among engineering and IT students, technology firms dominated the top rankings with Microsoft and IT bellwether Infosys taking second and third place, respectively.

The average expected monthly salary for undergraduate students was Rs 49,729, while it was Rs 51,161 for management students.

What stood out significantly was that there was a gap in salary expectations of anywhere between Rs 7,000-13,000 (monthly) for women compared to men at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, according to the survey.

"The IT companies have been popular for many years now and we are not surprised to see that a newcomer, Facebook, takes the fifth place on the engineering/IT ranking this year," said Raghu Krishna, Universum's country manager for India. MNC firm Hindustan Unilever stood out as the only FMCG employer in the top ten choices for Indian students. 

सामान शिक्षा के बिना, सामान परीक्षा प्रणाली की बात बेमानी है

सिबल साहब,

सामान शिक्षा के बिना, सामान परीक्षा प्रणाली की बात बेमानी है

बोर्ड परीक्षा का महत्व बढे, ये अच्छी बात है

पर अभी तो आप CCE का ही मूल्यांकन नहीं कर पाए

इन बच्चों को Grade कैसे देंगे...

शिवनाथ झा.....opined in Mediadarbar.com...photo also from the same article

आज भले ही स्कूली छात्र-छात्राओं और उनके अभिभावकों द्वारा केंद्र सरकार की नवीनतम शिक्षा प्रणाली Continuous & Comprehesive Evaluation System (सीसीई सिस्टम) का विरोध ना किया गया हो, आने वाले दिनों में यही वर्ग भारत के शिक्षा-प्रणाली के इतिहास में   मानव संसाधन मंत्री कपिल सिब्बल का नाम “काले अक्षर” में लिखेंगे जब “विषय के मूल ज्ञान  के आभाव में” बेरोजगारों की अनंत-कतार में अपने “भविष्य” को आंकेंगे।