CEED 2015: Admit cards are available for download

Candidates who will be taking the Common Entrance Examination for Design (CEED 2015) can download their admit cards now. Students will be able to download their admit cards only until December 6, 2014. The exam is going to be conducted by Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) on December 7, 2014 from 10 am to 1 pm.

CEED is the qualifying examination for admission to postgraduate Master of Design (M.Des.) programmes at the Industrial Design Centre (IIT Bombay), Interdisciplinary Industrial Design Programme (IIT Delhi), Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (IISc Bangalore), Department of Design (IIT Guwahati) and Design Programme (IIT Kanpur) and Ph.D. programmes in Design at IISc. Bangalore and IIT Bombay.

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Australia’s Deakin University commits Research Initiatives to support 'Make India’ Campaign

While India is awakening to a new dawn of global competitiveness through it’s “Make in India” international marketing campaign - a brain child of the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi - Australia’s Deakin University, ahead of his official state visit to Australia; announced a number of key announcements in research initiatives and higher education as its bigger supportive role in Mr. Modi’s dream for India.

While discussing Deakin University’s vision for Indian research and higher education sector the University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander said that through global industry partnerships, by creating a vibrant culture of research and world class teaching environment Deakin University in its 20-years journey in India has created a strong foundation for India to step in to International competitive market better equipped.

She was speaking at Australian High Commission in India’s special ceremonywhere Deakin University was acknowledged for its achievements and contribution across two decades in India.

Ahead of Mr. Narender Modi’s visit to Australia; during her visit to India, Professor den Hollander also made a number of key announcements to support Mr. Modi’s ‘Make India’ Campaign.

Deakin University has committed well over $A10 million in the research initiatives in India, with 20 strategic academic partners, 20 research partners and 15 corporate partnerships.  While discussing Deakin’s expansion plans in India, Professor Hollander said, “we will establish the South Asia operations of Deakin University through our office in New Delhi: a significant step in terms of expansion of the University’s operations in the region and will ensure real-time access and the optimal use of resources to forge new strategic partnerships.”

Professor den Hollander said “Deakin is renowned for its research in advanced materials, nanotechnology, life sciences and health and we have committed ourselves to collaborate with India on high-end research which is helping to develop solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

While quoting Mr. Alfred Deakin – the Australian Prime Minister for whom our university is named – Professor Jane den Hollander said that “it was late Mr. Alfred Deakin’s dream that the students from Australia and India traverse international borders and form lasting intellectual partnerships and with India’s newly elected Prime Minister Mr. Modi’s vision for intellectual partnerships in manufacturing sector; we find that two great prime ministers in different time share the same vision.

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Certificate Course in Human Rights Offered by Vidya Sagar

A Chennai based organization which works for the benefit of people with disabilities, Vidya Sagar, is going to offer a certificate course in Human Rights with special focus on disability rights. The course duration would be off three months and would contain various international conventions, perspectives to various groups of people, national and international instruments and practices, personality development techniques, research methodologies, internship at various platforms and a final evaluation strategy for future endeavors.

On the World Human Rights Day, celebrated widely on December 10, the course is likely to get commenced. The entire course fee would be Rs. 7000 and the medium of instruction would be English so that it could reach to the diversified and multilingual students from all over the country. The students who are willing to take part in the certificate course could do so if they have already passed their 10th grade examinations and are above 18 years of age. The last date for submission of the application forms for the course scheduled to being from December has been set to November 22.
According to a statement released by Vidya Sagar, "The course aims at developing more persons with and without disabilities to be self-advocates, standing up for their rights and at the same time experiencing an inclusive platform to learn and network with their counterparts. This is one among our various measures towards increasing/ensuring disability equity and full human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities."

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Bar Council of India allows DU's fresh law graduates to enrol provisionally

NEW DELHI: The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Tuesday allowed fresh law graduates of Delhi University to get themselves provisionally enrolled as advocates.

In a letter written to Delhi Bar Council secretary, BCI secretary quoted its chairman Birisingh Sinsinwar saying that the enrolment would be provisional and the final call will be taken after the decision of the legal education committee and BCI in the forthcoming meeting.

The move assumes significance as BCI had on September 25 decided to derecognise DU's law course after it failed to seek timely extension of affiliation of its three centres — Campus Law Centre, Law Centre-I and Law Centre-II.

Today's development took place after a letter was sent to BCI by Delhi Bar Council on October 16, requesting it to review its decision barring the law graduates from getting enrolled as advocates.

"The students who have been admitted in the year 2011-12 and passed out in the year 2013-14 from Campus Law Centre, Law Centre I and Law Centre II of the Delhi University are allowed to be enrolled as advocates provisionally subject to the outcome of the decision of the Legal Education Committee and Bar Council of India in forthcoming meeting," BCI said. 

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President asks to establish norms for learning outcomes

NEW DELHI: Emphasising on maintaining quality and standards in fast expanding education sector, President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday sought establishment of norms and performance based system for learning outcomes.

He said with the proliferation of education, we must guard against the tendency to allow quality to take a backseat.

"We must establish norms and performance-based marks for learning process and outcome strictly and enforce them across the schools," he said while addressing the National Education Day function here.

The day is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of India's first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

Remembering him as an "institutional builder", Mukherjee said he was the inspiration behind setting up of prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) which became a symbol of India's human resource development over the years.

The President said universal education coverage should be complemented by universal higher standards in education.

"Our education programmes must be driven by expansion, equity and side-by-side excellence," he said.

The country should also leverage on the advancement made by the technological institutions and narrow the gap between the "digital haves and haves not," he said.

He also reminded of the commitment made during the 8th Five Year Plan on increasing spending on education to 6 per cent of the GDP as against 3.3 per cent spent now. 

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1,010 scholars receive PhD degrees at Anna university

CHENNAI: The premier Indian Institutes of Technology have started taking the 2010 Anil Kakodkar committee's recommendation to lay emphasis on research seriously. State technical universities are slowly following suit with the premier institute.

Anna University, one of the biggest technical universities in the country with more than 500 affiliated colleges, gave away degrees to 1,010 PhD scholars today. In 2010 a mere 264 PhD scholars got their degrees from the university. After seeing a gradual increase from 1984, when only three PhDs were granted, to 2007 (162), the numbers have gone up steeply. Over the last five years the number has gone up by more than 282%.

"We have the highest number of PhD degrees awarded in a convocation by any technical university in India." said university vice-chancellor M Rajaram.

The maximum number of doctorates come from the information and communication engineering department (339), followed by the science and humanities departments at 252, and mechanical engineering 136. The electrical engineering department has produced 128 PhDs this year, while management science has 73 to its credit, civil engineering 41, technology 38 and architecture and planning three.

Director of the university's Centre for Research Usha Natesan said that there is no delay in reviewing the work submitted by the candidates. "Earlier it could even take 10 months. Now candidates can get their research paper reviewed in three months. This has also helped improve numbers to a large extent," she said.

The university continues to remain a teaching institution, as 1,41,726 UG and 42,140 PG graduates received their degrees at the 35th convocation on Wednesday. Academics said that there was a good mix of full time and part time research scholars on campuses. Many of them expect to take up jobs as teachers in the various engineering colleges across the state, while others hope to be able to contribute to meaningful research in centres of excellence or government departments across the country.

M Anandakrishnan, former vice-chancellor of Anna University and current director of the board of governors at IIT-Kanpur, said that the number may be high because the university has more than 500 colleges affiliated to it. However, he added that for the university to reach this number we can assume that there are a good number of professors who can take so many research scholars under their wing.

Comparing Anna University's research output to that of the IITs, professor Anandakrishnan said that all the IITs put together may reach and exceed this number. "The difference may be in the fact that most of the research scholars in the IITs are full-time committed researchers, compared to a good number of part-time scholars likely to graduate from here. This makes quite a lot of difference," he said.

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Nursery admission: HC restrains Delhi govt from issuing fresh guidelines

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Wednesday stopped the city government from issuing fresh notification for nursery admission for the upcoming academic year in the national capital on a plea challenging the last year's guidelines.

Justice Manmohan said the Delhi goverment's education department will not introduce any "fresh guidelines" till the judgement is pronounced.

"No fresh guidelines till the judgement is pronounced," the court said, adding that it would deliver the verdict soon.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by the parents against guidelines issued by Delhi's Lieutenant Governor on December 18, 2013 on nursery admission.

The court, which reserved its order after hearing arguments from both the sides, also said that the petitions will become infructuous if the government issues fresh guidelines.

"All the exercise carried out till date will be futile," it said.

Under the earlier system, out of a total 100 points, 70 were given if the child lives in the neighbourhood of the school, additional 20 were given if a sibling is studying there, five points more if either parent is an alumni and another five points if it is an inter-state transfer case.

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