Mediocore Geography in Queen's country?

UK school inspectors term geography teaching ‘mediocre’

LONDON: Geography teaching in English schools was slammed as “mediocre” in a damning report by government inspectors on Thursday which said children are not learning about climate change or eco-sustainability. Neither are enough pupils going on field trips, it added, partially because of health and safety concerns.
British schools inspectorate Ofsted said there has been a significant fall in the number of children studying the subject at the upper levels of secondary education. In primary schools, the achievement of pupils and the quality of teaching is weaker than in other subjects. “Many primary teachers are still not confident in teaching geography and have little or no opportunity to improve their knowledge of how to teach it,” the report added. — Reuters

eBooks v/s Ink n Paper - Economic Times - 18/01/2008

Net books are cool, but readers still love their ink and paper

Robert MacMillan NEW YORK

THE number of people subscribing to newspapers may be shrinking as they flock to the internet, but electronic book readers won’t shred the market for ink, paper, glue and binding anytime soon.
After years of promises and false starts, booksellers and technology companies are diving into the world of digital books. Sony is selling the Reader Digital Book for $299, while giant online shopping company Amazon.com offers the Kindle for $399. New readers are lighter than the average hardback fiction best-seller, easy on the eyes, and let readers carry around as many as 200 titles in hardware that weighs less than a pound.
But to some people, there’s something missing. “It’s, I guess, the feel of holding a book that someone really put a lot of effort into writing, and you kind of lose that a little bit with a digital product,” said Katy Farina, 21, of Montgomery, New Jersey.
Farina, a student at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, was browsing at the Borders bookstore near Madison Square Garden. As shoppers lined up at closing time, the subtle, comforting aroma of books permeated the store.
“It feels real, whereas (the reader) kind of separates you a little bit from the story,” Farina said.
Harry Howe, who had picked up “Surrender Is Not an Option” by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, said he might use an e-book reader for blog or website material that he wanted to read while away from home, but not for reading a novel. “It’s just not a physical experience that I’m yet comfortable with,” said Howe, 55, who teaches accounting at the State University of New York’s Geneseo campus and lives in Rochester. “On the other hand, I didn’t grow up reading things on various websites.”
Farina said she would like a reader for travelling because she would not have to transport so many books. This is something that HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide Chief Executive Jane Friedman said is a prime advantage.
“To put 10 books on your Sony reader or on your Kindle is a lot better than carrying 10 books,” she said. Readers often shy away from using the devices until they discover how pleasant reading on them can be, Friedman said.
“I was always the person who said, ‘how can you have any kind of experience but the tactile experience of holding a book in your hand?’,” she said. “And I still feel that way about certain books; but I don’t feel that way about every single book I read.”
Sony’s eBook Store offers downloads through its own software to a buyer’s PC. The volumes are then sent from the PC to a Reader Digital Book through a USB cable.
And for people wavering between paper and pixels, Sony does offer a concession — an optional leather cover. “I think it’s a shrewd move,” said Howe. “How retro is that!”— Reuters
Hymn book goes online
LONDON: Churches across the world are able to sing the Lord’s praises online after the launch of the first major digital hymn book on Thursday. Mission Praise — which has sold more than 2m copies as one of most popular hymn books in Britain and around the world — is now available at www.missionpraise.com. Visitors will be able to search through more than 1800 songs and — for an annual subscription of $79 per book — download words, sheet music, accompanying audio backing tracks. — Reuters

Taare Zameen Par - in real life - I salute Amol n Aamir and everyone behind the beautiful movie :)

Taare... effect: Dyslexia course gets a star billing

The Aamir movie inspires men to sign up for dyslexia remedial training programme

DIPTI SONAWALA

After the success of the recent film Taare Zameen Par, about a male school teacher and a child with dyslexia, many men are signing up for a remedial training programme for the otherwise little known learning disability.
The Maharashtra Dyslexia Association (MDA) has reported that in the last one month, 112 men have shown their willingness to train in the subject, while only 48 women showed interest. Some of the men realised late that they are themselves dsylexic and want to be trained to cope with their learning disablity. Some others are signing up out of curiosity.
Masarrat Khan, CEO of MDA says, “Compared to the knowledge people had about dyslexia a few months ago, there is more awareness about the subject. People have realised that anyone can face learning disablity and so they want to know more about it.”
Khan says that a dyslexic person faces learning disability through his life, and remedial training helps the person learn skills and strategies to cope with the problem.
She informs that some of the men also want the training to help their own kids, and some want to be trained to work towards creating awareness in society.
According to a High Court judgement in 2006, dyslexic kids can be certified from the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General hospital (LTMG) hospital at Sion, after which they can get special privileges provided to dyslexic students by the state education department.
Rayomand Pavri (25), a web designer, has just completed his remedial training programme. Says Pavri, “ I realised that I have learning disability two years ago. I searched and went through a lot of information about it. When I joined the remedial training programme, I finally learnt how to cope with my problem.”
Says Shashank Tiwari (26), a computer engineer who wants to opt for the remedial training programme, “I was unaware about the term dyslexia and learning disabilities. After watching the movie, I surfed the internet with the motive of acquiring more information about dyslexia and then decided I want to undertake remedial training programme”.

The Maharashtra Dyslexia Association (MDA) has reported that in the last one month, 112 men have shown their willingness to train in the subject

Making Education a Business - How low can they get? - A TOI article - 18/01/2008

Ruia sells students books for five times the MRP

Students have started a signature campaign to protest against the unreasonable prices of science journals

YOGITA RAO

Students of Ramnarain Ruia College in Matunga have started a signature campaign to protest against being asked to pay Rs 2,400 for books.
An SYBSc student says, “They are giving us four science journals and six longbooks, which we can get for a few hundred Rupees in the market. Why should we pay five times more?”
Students, who bought the books, were given receipts on behalf of Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali, Pune, a trust that runs the college, while fee receipts given during admissions are on behalf of Ramnarain Ruia College, which has angered the students even more.
A final year student says, “We paid the amount at the beginning of the year and could not protest as our ID cards, examination forms, everything is given upon showing the fee receipt. Now that the second year students have taken on this campaign, we have also signed up as a mark of protest.”
Students of Computer Science were told that the amount is for journals, long books and internet access. A surprised student says, “The Computer Science course is self-financed, and the amount is included in the tuition fees. So why pay extra for computer access?”
Principal Suhas Pednekar says, “There has been some miscommunication. The amount is not compulsory; it was for add-on materials for science students. And we have to give the trust’s receipt as these materials are not included in the fees.”
The students have approached National Students Union of India (NSUI) with the issue. Sadaf Aboli president of NSUI says, “I have met the principal, and though he claims that the purchase of add-on materials was not compulsory, students have been forced to pay the amount. Why would then the college ask the students to pay up now, after most of them have already purchased the things from outside?”

Principal of Ramnarain Ruia College says the amount is not compulsory

8The Wonders of Nature and Science :) - TOI - 18/01/2008

A BIZARRE WORLD: IN THE JUNGLE, IT’S SURVIVAL OF THE STRANGEST

Parasite turns ants into ‘berries’ to entice birds
Washington: A parasitic worm can make its ant victims swell into what looks like a delicious, juicy berry to birds, which apparently eat the ants and help the worm spread and reproduce, US researchers reported on Wednesday.
The nematode, a type of roundworm, changes not only the appearance of the ant but also its behaviour, with the ants holding out their bloated, glowing abdomens to entice the birds, the researchers report in The American Naturalist.
Robert Dudley of the University of California Berkeley and Steve Yanoviak of the University of Arkansas said the parasite and the way it works are new to science. The black ants, found in the forests of Panama, are foul-tasting and not usually eaten by birds, they said.
Yanoviak acknowledged the team never saw birds eating one of the swollen ants but strongly suspected that they did. “I definitely saw birds come in and seemingly stop and take a second look at those ants before flying off, probably because the ants were moving,” he said in a statement.
“So I really suspect that these little bananaquits or tyrannids (flycatchers) are coming in and taking the ants, thinking they are fruit.”
The researchers said that if the birds ate the ants, they could spread the worm’s eggs in their droppings. These eggs would then be gathered by other ants who then feed and unwittingly infect their young.
“It’s just crazy that something as dumb as a nematode can manipulate its host’s exterior morphology and behaviour in ways sufficient to convince a clever bird to facilitate transmission of the nematode,” Dudley said. “It’s phenomenal that these nematodes actually turn the ants bright red, and that they look so much like the fruits in the forest canopy,” added Yanoviak.
Yanoviak and George Poinar, now at Oregon State University in Corvallis, have written another study describing the nematode in the journal Systematic Parasitology. They named it Myrmeconema neotropicum. REUTERS Giant palm, visible from space, flowers to death
Paris: Botanists on Thursday announced that they had identified a new species of palm that is so enormous it can be spotted from space and whose bizarre life cycle requires the plant to kill itself after it has flowered.
The gigantic, pyramidshaped plant was discovered accidentally by a French family walking in remote northwestern Madagascar, according to the publishers of their study. The palm’s trunk is over 18 metres high and its leaves are an extraordinary five metres in diameter, which could make them the largest ever known among flowering plants.
It is not only a new species, but also a new genus — the taxonomic term for a group that incorporates species. In layman’s terms, the plant is in a classification of its own.
Experts at Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London, say the plant grows to dizzying heights before the stem tip bursts into branches of hundreds of tiny flowers. “Each flower is capable of being pollinated and developing into fruit and soon drips with nectar and is surrounded by swarming insects and birds,” British journal publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd said in a press release.
“The nutrient reserves of the palm become completely depleted as soon as it fruits and the entire tree collapses in a macabre demise.” It added: “The plant is so massive, it can even be seen on Google Earth.”
The paper was to be published on Thursday in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. The Londonbased Linnean Society is an international association of naturalists devoted to the naming and classification of biodiversity. Secrecy, though, surrounded the palm’s taxonomic name.
The nomenclature was being kept closely under wraps until publication, in line with tradition involving new plant finds, the Royal Botanic Gardens said on Wednesday.
A French couple, Xavier and Nathalie Metz, who run a cashew farm in Madagascar, stumbled upon the palm as they were walking with their family at a limestone outcrop in the hills of Analalava district, Blackwell said. Stunned by the sight, they took pictures of it and posted them on the web.
Kew research fellow John Dransfield, an expert on Madagascar’s palms, saw the photos and asked a local researcher to send him material. DNA analysis proved the plant to be a new genus within a palm tribe called Chuniophoeniceae. Only three other genera within this tribe exist, scattered across the Arabian peninsula, Thailand and China.
“Coupled with the great scientific interest of the palm is the fact that it is such an amazingly spectacular species and with such an unusual life cycle,” said Dransfield. “In a way, this palm is every bit as significant from a biological point of view as when the extraordinary Aye-aye lemur was first discovered.”
The Aye-aye, a denizen of Madagascar first described in 1788, is the largest nocturnal primate in the world, and is believed to use echolocation to detect grubs in tree branches, which it extracts with its long fingers. Less than a hundred individuals of the palm probably exist, which means protecting it from habitat loss and bounty hunters will be a huge challenge. AFP

ENTRAPMENT: Image of an ant which had swelled into what looks like a juicy berry to birds after being infested by parasitic worms

BLOOM DOOM: Image of the newly discovered species of palm tree on the Indian Ocean Island of Madagascar that flowers once every 100 years and then dies

Evolving Science and Theories - TOI - 18/01/2008

The Truth About Models

Scientific explanations are never regarded as infallible

John Gribbin

What do scientists mean when they say that they “know” what goes on inside an atom or what happened in the first three minutes of the life of the universe? They mean that they have what they call a model of the atom, or the early universe, or whatever it is they are interested in, and that this model matches the results of their experiments, or their observations of the world. Such a scientific model is not a physical representation of the real thing, the way a model aircraft represents a full-scale aircraft, but is a mental image which is described by a set of mathematical equations.
The atoms and molecules that make up the air that we breathe, for example, can be described in terms of a model in which we imagine each particle to be a perfectly elastic little sphere (a tiny billiard ball), with all the little spheres bouncing off one another and the walls of their container. That is the mental image, but this is only half the model; what makes it a scientific model is that the way the spheres move and bounce off one another is described by a set of physical laws, written in terms of mathematical equations.
In this case, these are essentially the laws of motion discovered by Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago. Using those mathematical laws, it is possible to predict, for example, what will happen to the pressure exerted by a gas if it is squashed into half its initial volume. If you do the experiment, the result you get matches the prediction of the model (in this case, the pressure will double), which makes it a good model.
Of course, we should not be surprised that the standard model of a gas which describes it in terms of little balls bouncing off one another in accordance with Newton’s laws makes this particular correct prediction, because the experiments were done first, and the model was designed, or constructed, to match the results of the experiments. The next stage in the scientific process is to use the model you have developed from measurements carried out in one set of experiments to make predictions about what will happen to the same system when you do different experiments.
In fact, all scientific models have restricted applicability. None of them is “the truth”. The model of an atom as a perfectly elastic little sphere works fine for calculating changes in pressure of a gas under different circumstances, but if you want to describe the way an atom emits or absorbs light, you
need a model of the atom in which it has at least two components, a tiny central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Scientific models are representations of reality, not the reality itself, and no matter how well they work or how accurate their predictions under the appropriate circumstances, they should always be regarded as approximations and aids to the imagination, rather than the ultimate truth.
When a scientist tells you that, say, the nucleus of an atom is made up of particles called protons and neutrons, what they should really say is that the nucleus of an atom behaves, under certain circumstances, as if it were made up of protons and neutrons. Lesser scientists, and many non-scientists, often think that the role of scientists today is to carry out experiments which will prove the accuracy of their models to better and better precision — to more and more decimal places. Not at all! The reason for carrying out experiments which probe previously untested predictions of the models is to find out where the models break down. It is the cherished hope of the best physicists to find flaws in their models, because those flaws — things that the models cannot predict accurately, or explain in detail — will highlight the places where we need a new understanding, with better models, to make progress.
The archetypal example of this is gravity. Newton’s law of gravity was regarded as the most profound piece of physics from the 1680s to the beginning of the 20th century. But there were a few, seemingly tiny, things that the Newtonian model could not explain (or predict), involving the orbit of the planet Mercury and the way light gets bent when it goes past the Sun. Albert Einstein’s model of gravity, based on his general theory of relativity, explains everything that Newton’s model explains, but it also explains these subtle details of planetary orbits and light bending. In that sense, it is a better model than the older model, and it makes correct predictions (in particular, about the Universe at large) that the older model does not. But Newton’s model is still all that you need if you are calculating the flight of a space probe from the Earth to the Moon.
The trick is to use the right tool for the job. Just as a carpenter has many tools in his toolbox, and would never dream of using a chisel instead of a screwdriver, so the scientist has many models in his kitbag, and needs to choose the right one to apply in different circumstances. By doing so, he has been able to tell the whole story of the universe, from its birth 13.7 billion years ago, right up to the present day. This is surely the greatest achievement of the human intellect.

This is not my article - The writer is a visiting fellow in astronomy, University of Sussex - as printed in TOI

The issue of reservation in Education - TOI - 18/01/2008

CAT OUT OF THE BAG

6% OBCs make it to IIM shortlist sans quota

Hemali Chhapia I TNN

Mumbai: The latest figures on admissions to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) lend a new twist to the debate on quotas for Other Backward Class (OBC) students.
Data collected by TOI from six IIMs (all barring IIM-Shillong) shows that the IIMs have shortlisted over 575 OBC students for group discussions and personal interviews (GD/PI) on the basis of their performance in the common admission test (CAT-2007). In all, OBC students shortlisted for the GD/PI process form a little over 6% of the total students selected and all of them have made it without any reservation.
The data thus debunks claims by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry about the lack of OBC students in the “elite’’ IIMs. The figures also prove that a section of OBC students have made it to the IIMs on sheer merit. The government is keen on introducing a staggered 27% quota for OBCs over a three-year period but the Supreme Court has ordered a stay for more clarity on the issue. Albeit, all seven IIMs have reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Since the policy is still on hold, OBC applicants this year were considered on par with general category students for admission to IIMs. IIM-Kozhikode shortlisted the maximum number of such meritorious OBC students (254) while the least enrolments were made at IIM-Bangalore (two). The overall percentage of enrolment is lower than that for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) last year. TOI had reported that the seven IITs had shown that almost 14% of those in the general category were OBCs.
As with the IITs, the IIMs, too, had asked students to declare whether they were OBCs in their application forms. “Students were also asked to submit caste certificates with their CAT forms,’’ said Ashish Bhattacharya, admissions chairperson at IIM-Calcutta.
But unlike the SC/ST and physically challenged categories, no separate cut-off score was used to shortlist OBCs.
Admissions chairperson P R Bhatt at IIMKozhikode explained that the institution had sent letters to 1,400 students from the general category. Of these, 254 had declared themselves as OBC candidates. “There was no separate cut-off for OBC students,’’ Bhatt added.
IIM-Indore, where 141 of the 1,730 shortlisted candidates are from OBCs, also noticed that there was barely any difference in the performance of general and OBC candidates. While the minimum score of general candidates was 98.09 percentile, that for OBCs was 96.76 percentile. However, the minimum scores drop significantly when one looks at the SC (84.40 percentile) and ST (76.30 percentile) candidates shortlisted.
Even if the Supreme Court stay remains in force until the admission for the 2008 batch is completed, IIM-Ahmedabad will manage to fill 138 open seats, 38 SC seats and 19 ST seats, besides eight slots for the physically challenged.
But if the apex court rules that Other Backward Class s have to be included from the coming academic year, IIM-A will have to add more seats and take in 192 open category students, 17 Other Backward Class students (6%), 42 SC students and 21 ST candidates.
hemali.chhapia@timesgroup.com

Fund crunch at IIT's - TOI article - 18/01/2008

Reserves fill Rs 30-cr gap

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The current fundcrunch in the IITs repeats itself from one campus to another.
Hefty donations from alumni and corporates are being ploughed into the IITs to build infrastructure and set up research programmes, but this cannot conceal the fact that government grants for regular expenditure on water, power, materials for labs, etc, are not in keeping with rising costs.
In the last three year, IITBombay, as a result, has drawn Rs 30.89 crorefrom its endowment fund to meet the shortfall in non-plan expenditure.
“This is not conducive for an institution that depends on its savings from capital expenses for future growth,’’ said a senior professor. “The money that has been saved over the years is meant for expansion, not for running the institute on a day-to-day basis.’’
The endowment fund is made up of savings accumulated for upgrading facilities and infrastructure. IIT-Kanpur director Sanjay Dhande pointed out that his institute had also been utilising a part of the interest earned on the reserves. The IITs have now asked the HRD ministry to not just replenish their endowment fund, but also increase the allocation of grants by 30% year-on-year.
Despite the prestigious status of these colleges, the government currently pays paltry salaries to IIT faculty members. Realising the mismatch, alumni across IITs have provided financial help to offer bonuses to professors. Like the class of ‘82 at IIT-B has given the institute Rs 4 crore so that the Powai school can continue to attract good faculty and offer a signing bonus to them.
Similarly, at IIT-Delhi, Kanpur and Madras, alumni have contributed to faculty funds, so that the institute can offer higher compensation to achievers.
Sources said that the IITs have been appraising the HRD ministry about the fund crunch regularly, but officials have been looking the other way.
“The endowment savings are set aside for development works, but all the IITs have been drawing money from them since the last three years,’’ said another IIT director.
hemali.chhapia@timesgroup.com

Shocking News - India's premier institutes struggle to pay off daily bills! I really doubt the authenticity of this news!

No money to pay even daily bills, IITs tell govt

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are rated as the world’s third best in engineering education, but the directors of the seven elite institutions are currently trying to get the Union HRD ministry to pay their electricity bills on time.
In an indication of the fund crunch at India’s finest educational institutes, IITBombay has recently written to the HRD ministry that it is not in a position to pay next month’s salaries to its staff members. All seven institutes have complained that government allocations are not keeping pace with the rising costs being incurred in their day-to-day running.
“We have been drawing money from our corpus and we cannot continue doing that,’’ said IIT-Madras director M S Ananth. The IITs have now asked a Standing Committee headed by Union HRD minister Arjun Singh to release Rs 20 crore per year per IIT so that their money can be returned to the endowment fund, which is usually set aside for longterm use.
Since the inception of the first IITs in the 1950s, the institutes have relied entirely on government patronage. The budgetary allocation in recent years was roughly Rs 550 crore. However, over the last decade, the IITs have had to tap an extensive network of alumni here and abroad to meet their growing requirements. A large number of new initiatives is also being driven by industry partnerships.
The HRD ministry, which allocates money to the IITs for recurring expenses on routine bills for electricity, water, laboratory material and salaries, has not increased the annual grants since 2002. CD has cash register ringing at IIT Alma Mater Uses News Bulletin Format To Update Ex-Students, Raise Much-Needed Funds
Mumbai: When Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay kicked off its golden jubilee celebrations last year in September, ex-students — many of them abroad — received a package from their alma mater. It was a news capsule on the engineering college they had graduated from. Playing anchor was faculty member Deepak Phatak, who rattled off everything that had happened since they had graduated from the premier tech school.
For many, it evoked warm memories of a leafy campus where they had spent their best years. Along with the CD, the institute had also sent them details of the forthcoming celebrations and a donation form. It was like the perfect marketing pitch: the response was “phenomenal’’.
IIT-B has been snowed under with funds in the last five months. “Marketing cannot be connected to fund-raising, but the response from former students was exceptional,’’ said professor Phatak, who is spearheading the golden jubilee celebrations.
His team had sent out almost 4,000 such packages to alumni in the US and 12,000 to former students across India. Apart from immediate donations, the phone calls too haven’t stopped coming, many of them from people who have pledged for the future. “As part of golden jubilee celebrations, we want to raise Rs 100 crore for funds that we have set up for students, faculty, staff, institute and hostels,’’ added Phatak.
To acknowledge each and every donor, the institute is building a ‘Brick Wall of Fame’. The glass wall will have one lakh bricks, 30,000 for those who have passed out and 70,000 more, for students who will graduate in the years to come. Every donor of Rs 1 lakh will find his name on this wall.
“We will put up a plaque of every student who walks into the institute on this wall, and keep it turned the other way. When that student passes out and contributes to the institute, the plaque will be turned around to show his name,’’ said Phatak.
This, he said, was being done to encourage “the culture of giving back’’ among students right from the outset. The institute has even set up a call centre and 40 students, after undergoing training, are involved in alumni networking and raising funds.
DOING THEIR BIT FOR THE ALMA MATER
In the last one-and-a-half years, IIT-B has received several hefty donations from alumni:
Victor Menezes, ex-senior vice chairman of Citigroup, gave $3 mn for setting up a convention centre. Former executive vice president and CEO of TIBCO Software Raj Mashruwala donated $1.8 mn to set up a computer centre on the Powai campus Students from the class of ‘75, Syntel CEO Bharat Desai ($1.5 mn) and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Hemant Kanakia (Rs 4.8 cr) donated for a gymkhana Naushad Forbes, director, Forbes Marshall (India) and consulting professor at Stanford, contributed Rs 1 cr for an Energy Systems Engineering School.

A NEW BEGINNING: Infy chief Nandan Nilekani (class of ’78) and wife at an IIT ceremony

Finally....moving towards Mass Quality Eduction - a long way yet!

JOINT EFFORT

IIT-B plans to become tech varsity, double student intake

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Imagine a whopping 20,000 student population on the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) campus. That’s not a pipe dream but an achievable target for the centre of excellence as it aims to double its intake.
Outlining the scope of the institute’s plans for the next half of the century, professor of aerospace engineering K Sudhakar presented a vision statement on the second day of the international vice-chancellors’ conclave: “We are looking at growing in terms of discipline— more like a University of Technology.’’ There is also a plan to increase student intake to 15,000-20,000 from the current 8,000.
While the institute director Ashok Misra said broadening IIT-B to a fullfledged university would be difficult, “offering economics and some other subjects like MIT University, as well as growing to a technological university could be a distant possibility.’’ What is holding back the institute currently, Misra said, was the lack of infrastructure. “This campus cannot accept more students and we are keen on a second one. However, the government is not in favour of the idea and they are more keen on setting up new IITs.’’
On a personal level, Misra said he is against the idea of setting up new IITs. According to him, a lot has gone into the making of the IIT brand and the government is free to set up new institutions. The IITs could help them incubate, but the institutions could be named differently. “Let’s keep the excellence,’’ he said. However, Misra said that the seven IITs must be expanded.
In the last 12 years, the Powai school has doubled its capacity. A tutorial that had about 15 students, now sees an attendance of 30. “Earlier, we knew every student’s name. That intimacy is already lost,’’ pointed out Misra. But, with over 3 lakh students taking the entrance test, “taking in only 4,000 is also a crime,’’ he added.
Interestingly, the IIT-B alumni office that has been putting together a directory of graduates who have passed out of this institute, said of the 30,000 scholars who have walked out of the Powai institute’s portals, merely 7,500 are based out of India. “Just as TOI had reported last year, most students were right here in the country, many were on their way back,’’ said Pradipto Banerjee, dean (alumni affairs and international relations).

Helping Children Grow Up! - A TOI article - 14/01/2008

Help for youth to meet challenges of growing up

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: In keeping with the growing need to address the concerns of the youth and promote healthy attitudes and behaviour in them, the Times Foundation launched “Growing up Challenges’’, a project for adolescents on Saturday at Anjuman-I-Islam School.
The programme is targeted at 35 schools across Mumbai that admit children from low income groups, who otherwise do not get the opportunity to learn about various issues they have to cope with while growing up.
The programme also runs in tandem with the women empowerment initiative, which aims to spread awareness about the potential of women. The project, which will help adolescents meet challenges of growth and change, will address their concerns through informative workshops and deliberative sessions conducted by resource partner for the project—Family Planning Association of India (FPAI).
“The age group of 10-21 years is very crucial. There are many changes that take place in a child’s life and it is very important to inculcate the importance of responsible behaviour and value system,’’ said gynaecologist Dr Mahender Watsa. “They should have the courage to say no when an embarrassing situation arises,’’ he added.
Experts felt that this kind of awareness programme is critical especially in this technological world, where the child is a global citizen and is exposed to several things through the internet. “We will help them deal with the various psychological and physical changes they are faced with. Parents and teachers should come ahead and support the kids’ curiosity and provide answers to their questions,’’
said Dr Ashwini Bhalerao.
Former hockey player and coach Mir Ranjan Negi, the chief guest, emphasised his faith in women and the need for their empowerment while sharing his experiences in coaching the Indian women’s team. “The sincerity and devotion with which they take up their job is wonderful. It is important for the youth to realise their dreams and it is the parents’ duty to encourage them,’’ said Negi.