Keep your options open, always

DU isn't the last post. Sons of soil have risen from the east as well. Here are some colleges from Kolkata:

Presidency College, Kolkata
Best (popular) Courses: Economics, Statistics, Physics; History, English, Sociology.

Seats Available: 30 in each subject

Outstation Quota: None. But candidates from all over the country are welcome.

Hostel: Separate hostel facilities for outstation boys and girls.

Entrance Exam: The college gives cut-off marks based on which the candidates can apply online. There is entrance exam for every subject and students have to come to Kolkata to take the exam. All details on the entrance exam are available on college website.

Weightage to CBSE & ISC: No weightage given to students of any board. Merit is the sole criteria for selection.

Website & Phone No.: www.presidencyadmis sion.net 033-22412738

Interesting Add On: The college library not only boasts of a huge collection but has some of the rarest of rare books. The college arranges various workshops for students during holidays. Some departments have the most respected and well-known teachers in the country. The college offers 100 per cent placement in most of its courses.

Campus Feel: The 16-acre campus of this 190-year-old college would instantly take you back in time. The college has a very interesting mix of students who are not only bright but are politically and socially conscious.

Famous Alumni: Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattachajee, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Oscar winning film director Satyajit Ray, national award winning film director Aparna Sen, poet Sankha Ghosh are some of the many illustrious alumni that the college has produced in two centuries.
Head of Institution: "In our college, we have students from every social strata from all over the country. For the past two centuries, the college has helped many poor meritorious students to climb up the social ladder and reach the pinnacle of their sector. We specialise in bringing out the best from our students," said Prof. Mamata Ray, principal.

St. Xaviers' College, Kolkata
Best (popular) Courses: Accountancy, Economics; English, Mass Communication; Physics, Micro-biolo gy and five years' integrated MSc in Bio-technology.

Seats Available: Between 35 and 40.

Outstation Quota: No outstation quota. Merit is the sole criteria.

Hostel: Hostel accommodation for outstation boys available. Girl's hostel under construction.

Entrance Exam: No entrance exam. Admission done through merit list. Students interested in Mass Communication will have to take an entrance exam.

Weightage to CBSE & ISC: The college prepares a separate merit list for ISC, CBSE and state board students. Equal number of students are admitted from each board.

Website & Phone No.: www.sxccal.edu 033-22877278

Interesting Add On: The college has the latest computer and multi-media aided classrooms. Personal attention from the faculty members is the USP of this 147- year-old institution spread over six acres. Laboratory and library facilities are highly rated by students.

Campus Feel: It is the known as the coolest campus in Kolkata. The students are highly fashion conscious.

Famous Alumni: Famous scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, cricketer Sourav Ganguly, actor Utpal Dutta, Union Minister for Commerce and Industries Kamal Nath, parliamentarian Amar Singh, former chief minister of Bengal Jyoti Basu, industrialist Laxmi Mittal, Vijay Mallya, S.K. Birla, Aditya Birla and Sanjeev Goenka.

Head of Institution: "Our college has a very international character. There is no students' politics. We specialise in producing some of the best brains in the country and our placement records can be the envy of any college," said Father P.C. Mathew, principal.

Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Best (Popular) Courses: Physics, Chemistry, Maths; Economics, English, Comparative Literature, History; Computer Science Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering.

Seats Available: Different from course to course. On an average, between 30 and 40.

Outstation Quota: No outstation quota, but students from all over the world come here.

Hostel: Separate hostel facilities for outstation boys and girls.

Entrance Exam: Entrance Exam is conducted for English and Economics. Questions cover the syllabus of Class XII. To get into Engineering, students have to clear the West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam. For other subjects, the selection is made through merit list.

Weightage to CBSE & ISC: The University compiles two merit lists - the first one is for the state board class XII pass outs, the second one is for CBSE and ISC students.

Website & Phone No.: www.jadavpur.edu; 033-24146000

Interesting Add On: The university is set on a 67-acre lush green campus. It boasts of the best placement records. The University is also known for its recreation clubs for students which includes mountaineering, chess, photography, drama and sports. The university has four canteens.

Campus Feel: The campus is cosmopolitan in nature and attracts students from many European and African countries. Lot of students from North-East also come here.

Famous Alumni: Subir Raha, former chairman of ONGC, parliamentarian Md. Salim, state IT minister Debesh Das.

Head of Institution: "Our University is one of the top five universities in the country, according to UGC. We are known for our progressive outlook towards education. The university also offers the best facility in terms of infrastructure and faculty to its students," said Siddhartha Dutta, pro-Vice Chancellor.

Flawed result snuffed out his life

Dilip Kumar Gautam always wanted to be a doctor. And his roll number figured in the revised second list of successful candidates in the Uttar Pradesh Combined Pre-Medical Test declared on Thursday.
But no one was celebrating at his home. The 25-year-old had killed himself on June 15, a day after the Veer Bahadur Singh Poorvanchal University declared the faulty first list of those who had made it.
His family said Gautam was depressed when he did not find his name in the first list. He killed himself on the rail tracks. That faulty list, as admitted by the university authorities, had led to angry protests in the city and had led to a probe ordered by the state government.
On June 16, the university that conducted the examination accepted that a “technical error” had caused gross inaccuracy in the results. Vice-Chancellor Prof K.P. Singh said, “The error occurred while preparing the sequential statement for the answer key.”
But that error caused the death of a young life. There was no way it could be corrected, according to Gautam’s father Omprakash, a pharmacist. Gautam was his only son.
He was informed about his son’s result by reporters who had been keeping track of the developments.
Struggling to hold back his tears, Omprakash spoke of his son and why he committed suicide. “When he did not see his number in the list of successful candidates, he was upset… that’s why the took the decision,” he said.
In the fresh results, Gautam has an overall rank of 9,850 and 735 under the scheduled caste category. The result was good enough for a dental science seat. Former vice-chancellor of the UP King George’s University of Dental Sciences Prof C.P. Govila said: “He obviously could not have made it in to the MBBS course but he could have got a seat in the BDS course.”Vice-Chancellor resigns Soon after declaring the corrected CPMT results, Purvanchal University Vice-Chancellor Dr K.P. Singh tendered his resignation to Governor T.V. Rajeswar who accepted it.
Apparently unaware of Singh’s move, Chief Minister Mayawati wrote to the Governor recommending removal of the Vice-Chancellor.
Singh was the chairman of the committee that conducted the CPMT examination and has been found guilty of laxity and declaring faulty, erroneous and incorrect results, which led to statewide chaos.
Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh clarified in response to Mayawati’s letter. “The Government is not aware till now about the resignation of Dr Singh and the letter recommending his dismissal and action against him was sent to the Governor this morning,” he said.
The Cabinet Secretary, quoting from a inquiry committee report, said that it was detected during the checking that only the chairman, Dr KP Singh had signed on the keys of the CPMT results and four other members of the committee were not even involved in preparation of the results in any manner.
The inquiry committee opined that the entire responsibility of making wrong keys and not rechecking the keys during the processing of the results was that of Dr KP Singh.

DU hands admission data to colleges

Undergraduate admissions moved a step further on Thursday with Delhi University forwarding collated student applications data to various college principals.

In a meeting of principals on Thursday, DU vice-chancellor Deepak Pental underscored the importance of the move, saying it will make the admission process uniform, a process set rolling four years ago with the introduction of the common pre-admission form.

The data CD was handed to various college heads and contains both individual college application data and the combined data for all colleges. “This was not just an innovative decision but a much deliberated one,” said S.K. Vij, dean, student welfare.

“This process will enable colleges to review each applicant’s details, including college preferences. This would help the college decide the number of candidates they can accommodate and if they wish to take in a few extra as there as usually a few students who decide to drop out,” he added. The university has also introduced an ‘admission query system’.

“This would enable colleges to review any individual’s data by name or application number. Similarly, in case a student misplaces his receipt or has confusions regarding the colleges he has applied to, he could access his application information by feeding in his number or name,” said Vij.

According to the dean, students welfare, a trend witnessed since the introduction of common pre-admission forms is that the cut-offs for the so-called ‘elite’ colleges have been restrained and the cut-offs for the lesser-known colleges have gone up.

“Owing to a common admission form, most students apply to a variety of colleges thereby raising the bar for all colleges across the board,” said Vij. This year, in all there were 91,927 applications through the common pre-admission forms, although the total number of actual candidates could be lower owing to multiple applications by an applicant.

A total of 7,209 multiple applications were received. There were 48, 592 male applicants and 43,335 female applicants. “This difference of about 5,000 students between male and female applicants is not so surprising. This has usually been the trend over the last several years,” said a DU admission official. The most sought after courses are B.Com, Economics, English, Political Science and History.

Inspiring Educational Quotations for Students from the Famous and not so Famous:

Abraham Lincoln:
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Epictetus:
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

Anne Frank:
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.

Albert Einstein:
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Albert Einstein:
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.

Booker T. Washington:
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

Richard C Miller:
Even if at first you do succeed, you still have to work hard to stay there.

Anthony Robbins:
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of you life. If you don't, life controls you.

Paul J. Meyer:
The only honest measure of your success is what you are doing compared to your true potential

Barbara Hershey:
We measure success and depth by length of time, but it is possible to have a deep relationship that doesn't always stay the same.

Anonymous:
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.

Anonymous:
Only very foolish people are convinced that they are never wrong. Confess often!

Anonymous:
Loud does not always mean right. Quiet does not always mean fearful.

Anonymous:
What have you learned from your mistakes lately?

IIT JEE 2007 Results out - 7,200 candidates clear IIT-JEE

New Delhi, May 30 (IANS) Of the more than 200,000 students who appeared, 7,200 have cleared the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) 2007 that paves the way for admission into the country's most elite engineering courses.

This year, 243,029 candidates had appeared for the examination to get admission into the seven IITs in Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Chennai and Roorkee as well as the Institute of Technology at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad.

"We are happy with the result and counselling will start from June 19," said Kushal Sen, professor in charge of placement and training at IIT-Delhi.

While counselling will conclude June 22, the courses allocated to the successful candidates will be declared June 29.

Of the 7,200 candidates who had qualified the entrance, 2,235 are from the IIT-Mumbai zone, followed by 1,688 candidates from IIT Chennai zone and 1,398 from the IIT-Delhi zone.

While 137 candidates have qualified from Guwahati, 513 are from Kanpur, 733 from Kharagpur and 496 from Roorkee.

The topper of the all India merit list is A. Bansal (Reg. No. 2088031) from the Delhi zone.

This year, 54,025 girls had taken the exam and 587 qualified.

While 594 Scheduled Caste candidates have made it to the last leg, 109 were from the Scheduled Tribe category. Fifteen physically challenged candidates also cleared the exam.

Delhi High Court allows CFAI to conduct exams in India

New Delhi, May 31 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Thursday allowed the US-based Chartered Financial Analyst Institute (CFAI) to conduct its examination in India from June 3.

Considering the fact that about 7,000 students would be affected, Justice B.D. Ahmed said the CFAI has been allowed to conduct the examinations only for this year.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had recently decided to ban Indian operations of the CFAI. On Wednesday, the high court reserved its order on the AICTE decision.

The matter would be taken up for further arguments in July after the summer vacation.

On May 18, the AICTE, a government body regulating technical and specialised education in India, had served notice on CFAI to cease its operations in India as it was "flouting regulations".

The CFAI filed a petition in the high court seeking a stay on the notice, to be allowed to conduct the examinations.

The AICTE, on a complaint filed by the Hyderabad-based Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India, had asked the CFA Institute to stop its operations in India, as it had not taken the council's clearance.

The CFAI is a correspondence course and had been operating in India since 1987.

On Monday, the Agartala bench of the Gauhati High Court, in an interim order, upheld the notice sent by the regulatory body for technical education asking the foreign institute conducting the course to immediately stop all operations in India.

Students who clear the CFA examinations are mostly employed as financial analysts by investment banks and broking houses. This year, more students from India will appear in the examination than from either the United Kingdom or Canada.

12 new engineering colleges for Rajasthan

Jaipur, June 6 As many as 12 new engineering colleges will be opened in Rajasthan in the new academic session and will account for an increase of 3,000 engineering seats.
"One government engineering college each would be opened in places like Bikaner, Bharatpur, Ajmer and Jhalawar while one private college each would be opened in Jodhpur, Ganganagar, Pilani, Kota and Alwar," Vasudev Devnani, the minister for education, told IANS.
Jaipur will see three new engineering colleges in this session.
Sources in the technical education department said the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has given an in-principal approval for opening these colleges.
Currently there are around 50 engineering colleges in the state of which around five are in the government sector while about 45 are in the private sector accounting for 16,000 engineering seats in the state.

Star exposes Exam fraud: MPs Deora, Jindal, Panda pass Class 10!

New Delhi, June 6 -The names of three young MPs figure in the list of students who passed this year's Uttar Pradesh Class 10 examination, it has been revealed in a TV sting operation conducted to expose corruption in the state education board.
They are Lok Sabha MPs Milind Deora and Naveen Jindal and Rajya Sabha MP B.J. Panda - all of whom actually completed their education several years ago, said STAR News. The channel clarified that "the honourable MPs had nothing to do with the operation except that their identities were used.
"Their candidature was pushed into the system to expose the level of corruption in the Uttar Pradesh Education Board," said STAR News, which conducted the sting along with investigative portal Cobrapost.
The TV channel claimed that the sting exposes the connivance of school officials, board invigilators and board officials.
In the exposé, "Star News and Cobrapost show just how the copy-mafia operates in Uttar Pradesh. All three MPs were registered as genuine students for this exam. School officials of local schools were only too keen to register these 'MPs' as regular students of their school in exchange for money. The necessary documentation to prove that they had studied in the school was comfortably 'forged'," said the TV channel.
"During our investigation these officials readily admitted to filling out numerous such forms illegally every year. A district school invigilator also accepted money on the promise that he wouldn't conduct surprise checks while the exams were being held.
"A board official posted in Meerut readily accepted money, promising to improve their marks if they did not get enough to pass the exams," said STAR News. When the exams drew near, the greedy school officials changed the photographs on the hall tickets and sent dummy candidates to write the Class 10 exam.
"Thus the three MPs, who had nothing to do with the Uttar Pradesh school board, managed to clear these exams without applying or appearing for these examinations," said the Star News/Cobrapost team.
Their names were used to demonstrate just how deep the rot in the school board exams is and how easily officials connected with the High School and Intermediate Board can destroy the sanctity of examinations.

Assocham to provide free MBA education to 300 girls

New Delhi, June 22 (IANS) Leading industry lobby the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) Friday said it would provide free Master of Business Administration (MBA) education to 300 underprivileged girls.

Assocham said it would provide 300 Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe girls having a family income of less than Rs.5,000 a month, free education along with boarding, lodging, clothing and books at MBA level and help them to provide jobs.

"ASSOCHAM and Rai Foundation (a private higher education institution) would be implementing the decision with immediate effect. The eligible candidates could approach ASSOCHAM on singh@assocham.com," an official statement said.

The statement further said that Assocham should train entrepreneurs from socially and economically backward SC and ST communities at district industry centres in association with the local industries and corporates.

The industry body has also proposed to help establish coaching programme in universities to lower dropout rates amongst backward class students.

Dual degrees - a rising trend in Delhi

New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) Dual degrees seem to be catching on among youngsters in Delhi. Thousands of students seeking admission into vocational courses also want a conventional academic degree in hand as a pragmatic ploy to keep all options open.
Neha Phull is studying for a Bachelors degree in Mass Communication from Guru Jambeshwar University in Hisar as a distance-learning student. At the same time, she is pursuing a Bachelors in English Honours through a correspondence course from Delhi University."I don't know whether I will go for a job in journalism after my mass communication course or appear for the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) competitive exams. So I am studying for both," said Phull.Keeping one's options open is not the only motivation behind doing two degrees - it's a way of balancing out a vocational diploma or degree from a lesser-known university."I felt very uncomfortable doing a course from a comparatively lesser-known university in the first year. Therefore I joined a BA pass course in Delhi University in the second year," Sharad Vats, a student of Indraprastha University, told IANS."All my family members are graduates of Delhi University ... how could I have done without it? Now I am at peace with myself," he added.Vats joined Delhi University in his second year of graduation but there are many who are unable to cope with the pressure of studying two courses - and quite a few drop out of one after a year or so."My family was after my life to do two courses and submitting the fees for both. But one day I announced that I couldn't manage both and would do my best in one," said Kritika Bushan."I have already bagged a job as an event manager and I am not missing my Delhi University degree," she exclaimed.According to the human resource development ministry, out of 458,884 students who have taken up vocational courses - apart from medicine, engineering or Bachelors of Education - 38,216 students are also pursuing a bachelor's degree from Delhi University.How do Delhi University colleges perceive this trend?Said Ramesh Sharma, principal of Moti Lal Nehru College, Delhi University: "Morally this is wrong. No one can do two courses from Delhi University. But studying for a regular degree from one university and pursuing the other through a correspondence course from another university is generally taken no notice of. No complaint has been received about this trend but it is common knowledge."There has always been an obsession with degrees in India but whereas some decades ago people would put the letters 'BA' as a suffix to their name, this has now graduated to 'PhD'.Earning two degrees in the same time-span seems to be an easier option to add weight to one's academic qualifications now - a trend that looks set to increase in the years to come...