A speed record to show power of hydrogen

The Racing Car Is Expected To Touch 170Kmph In Its Bid To Become The Fastest In Its Category

Sydney: Researchers have unveiled the first hydrogen-powered racing car that demonstrates the incredible possibilities of hydrogen as the clean, renewable fuel of the future.

The car will be bidding for the title of world’s fastest hydrogen-powered racer when it attempts in early 2009 in Germany to break the Guinness World Records’ mark for speed by a vehicle of its class.

Powered by an internal combustion motorcycle engine that has been modified to run on hydrogen, the racing car is expected to reach speeds of up to 170kmph in its world record bid, according to a statement of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Aleksandar Subic, who heads the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, said the RMIT collaboration with Germany’s Fachhochschule Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences on the hydrogen car project could radically change the world’s approach to automotive technologies.

“This is a demonstration vehicle for the future — a car that is powerful, fast and runs on clean, sustainable fuel,” Subic said. “By aiming to set a new speed record for one-seater, hydrogen-powered racing cars, we want to show the world the possibilities of this alternative clean technology, both for ordinary vehicles and in racing.

“Our work will have benefits for all cars but we also hope it could lead one day to a first in racing — a clean and green Formula 1 competition.”

Texas-based Ronn Motor Company also rolled out its hydrogen hybrid supercar at the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association Show (SEMA) in Las Vegas. The Scorpion is a wildly sculpted exotic vehicle that promises 40 miles per gallon on the highway. Hydrogen is being seen as a realistic option to one day replace petrol, diesel and natural gas as vehicle fuel. AGENCIES

QUICK & CLEAN: The hydrogen car, built by Royal Melbourne Institute Of Technology, can radically change the world’s approach to automobiles of the future.

Maha tops in fake colleges

No Of Institutes Without AICTE Approval Has Gone Up To 203 In Country

D Suresh Kumar | TNN

Chennai: In a major concern for the regulators of higher education, the number of fake technical institutions is growing in India. While last year, there were 169 fake technical institutions, which offered engineering and management courses that were not approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), currently the number of such dubious institutions has grown to 203.

In Tamil Nadu, at least 15 institutions offer engineering and management courses for varying durations, all of which are not recognised by the AICTE.

“The AICTE has during the last three years identified 203 fake technical education institutions in the country. Maharashtra, with 74 institutions, has the highest number of such colleges and institutes which are functioning without approval or recognition. Delhi has 25 fake technical institutions, Karnataka 22, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal 15 each and Uttar Pradesh has 14,” statistics compiled by the HRD ministry revealed.

Union minister of state for human resources development D Purandeswari had recently informed the Lok Sabha that students and parents were being cautioned not to join in these institutions. While some of these institutions offered engineering degrees, some others offered MBA or post-graduate/diploma courses in management. Interestingly, quite a few of them also have tie-ups with foreign institutions, which again is not approved by the HRD ministry. Some of them even declare the fact, although not prominently, that the course offered in their institutions are not approved by the regulatory bodies in India.

The ministry has requested Chief Ministers of all States to issue instructions to the law enforcing authorities “to take punitive action under the Indian Penal Code against fake universities and educational institutions.”

It has also issued show cause notices to the fake unapproved institutions asking them to either seek approval from the competent regulatory body or discontinue offering the courses. “Students can contact the regional AICTE offices before enrolling for technical or management courses,” a ministry official said.

“We will contact our headquarters and obtain a list of such unapproved institutions. In consultation with the headquarters we will host the list of these institutes on our official website and also give it publicity in the media to ensure that students were not mislead,” M S Palanichamy, chairman, AICTE (Southern Region), told TOI.

Students turn up for exam, varsity hasn’t printed paper

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Here’s a scene straight out of the theatre of the absurd. On Monday morning, hundreds of Mumbai University students arrived at examination venues across the city to take their MA Part I examinations in two subjects—History of China and History of South-East Asia. They settled in and waited endlessly for the exam to begin, but it didn’t—because the question papers had not been printed.

“I turned up at the exam centre on time for the paper which was to be held at 10.30 in the morning,’’ said a student, adding that she waited for half an hour as she did not know what was going on. “Even the supervisors at our centre had no clue as to why the papers had not arrived. They even handed out answer papers, on which we wrote our names and roll numbers,’’ said another student.

The supervisors eventually called up the university to find out what the problem was. The students left the exam hall when the peons told them that the papers had been postponed. “I was really tense as I had studied very hard for the paper. This was a most unsettling experience,’’ said a student appearing for the History of China paper. She added that this was to have been her last paper.

Mumbai University controller of examinations Vilas Shinde admitted that papers for the two subjects had not been printed.

Edu bill: A few more hurdles to overcome

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: After a three-year wait, the Union cabinet has finally cleared the Right to Education Bill, a revolutionary piece of legislation that aims to change the face of education in India. But whether the Bill will be passed in parliament before the elections is a million dollar question. If it is not passed, it will lapse and the next government will have to re-introduce the Bill from scratch.

While the next Lok Sabha session will be in December, it will probably be a very short session.“The government will have to be really pro-active if it wants to pass the Bill in the December session,’’ says Vinod Raina, one of the architects of the Bill.

If the Bill is not passed in the December session, and the
elections are held around May, the government will get another shot at passing the Bill if there’s another Lok Sabha session. But if elections are held earlier, the Bill will lapse. This will be the case even if the UPA government wins elections.

There is, however, an alternative. Though ‘Money Bills’ such as this one are normally introduced in the Lok Sabha, if a way was found to introduce this Bill in Rajya Sabha instead, it will not lapse and can be carried forward by the next government.

The Right to Education Bill is revolutionary in several respects. It aims to set minimum standards for both public and private schools so that the quality of education improves throughout the country and current inequities are levelled. The pupil-teacher ratio prescribed by the Bill is 40:1.

A controversial clause in the Bill makes it compulsory for all private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for poor children from the neighbourhood. This includes elite ICSE and IB schools.

In a bid to drastically improve the quality of education, the Bill has outlawed non-formal education. Non-formal schools across the country will have three years to upgrade themselves to formal schools, which provide the minimum standards prescribed by the Bill.

The Bill has also done away with the contract system of appointing teachers. Currently, schools can appoint teachers on a contract basis and pay them a paltry sum of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month. Often, they’re not qualified. According to the Bill, all teachers, both in private and government schools, will be appointed on a permanent basis and given full salary as long as they are qualified.

When the Bill was drafted in August 2005, the government canned it on the grounds that it was too expensive at Rs 3,21,000 crore. The Bill was virtually buried for two years. In between, a mid-census correction reduced the child population by six million, so budgets were halved from Rs 3,21,000 crore to Rs 1,51,000 crore. So a team of educationists, two of whom were involved in the drafting of the Bill, wrote a letter to the prime minister appraising him of the situation.

The PM met them in August 2007 and a new draft of the Bill was created in February 2008. The Bill was tossed between several ministries, including law and finance, before it finally reached the cabinet in August.

They help kids battle brain tumour

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: A happy family portrait that livened up the cover of the prestigious international medical journal Lancet Oncology in October was the artwork of a 12-yearold child Ajit Kholam from the city. Look beyond the colourful paintings and you will discover a silent force which has been helping kids like Ajit who are suffering from brain tumour in braving the odds.

The motivation comes from a support group that works under the aegis of the Brain Tumour Foundation (BTF) at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel which has been bringing together hundreds of patients, drawing out their strengths and financing their treatment. The BTF had been propagating the message of optimism and positivism during the Brain Tumour Awareness Week that ended on Saturday.

On Sunday, the foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients. For some like Mumbra resident Irfan Khatri (22) who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Std XI, the BTF has made survival possible. “The foundation has completely financed my radiation therapy which would have otherwise been difficult,’’ he says. The painting sessions take his mind of the illness and make it easier for him to cope.

Working behind the scenes is Dr Rakesh Jalali of Tata who says, “The purpose of BTF is to ensure that no patient who has brain tumour goes without treatment only because he can’t afford it.’’ According to him, the hospital receives nearly 700 new cases of brain tumour, every year. In India, the incidence of brain tumour is 3-4 per 100,000 persons every year.

Survivors like designer Diya Mohanty have been volunteering for the cause. “We are like a family of patients and I draw strength from the little children who soldier on,’’ she says.

Giovanni D’souza is optimistic as he shows off a scar on his head that he got from brain surgery. “If you had seen me two months ago, I wasn’t like this. I was devastated when doctors told me about my brain tumour and kept wondering why it had struck me,’’ says D’souza, a model by profession, who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Milan. He had to be operated upon overnight and says the “sympathy’’ offered by visitors made him wallow in self-pity for days. However, he got a boost of positivism in Tata.

The BTF crossed another milestone recently, with preliminary findings of ongoing research by Dr Jalali, showing that surgery and radiation therapy used to treat breast cancer among patients did not affect their intellectual ability, an area that has been a major concern till now.

LETTING THEIR IMAGINATION RUN WILD: Brain Tumour Foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely on Sunday. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients.

Street children line up to take the best course

Ranjani Rajendra I TNN

Mumbai: Long queues snaked through the Don Bosco School grounds at Matunga as hundreds of children, unmindful of the scorching heat, patiently waited their turn as the lines wound closer to the stalls. No, this was not a scene from a regular school fete. In progress was a career mela for street children and marginalised children, offering them a host of options to keep them off the street and help them build a stable future.

Pioneered by Don Bosco, the mela saw companies like Mahindra and Mahindra, Lamprell, Otis, Union Bank and Ahar (the restaurant association) step forward to offer career guidance and training courses to the children. As the children pored over forms, counsellors explained what each option entailed and the course of action to be taken. “Most of these children didn’t look beyond masonry, welding and carpentry.This capacity building exercise will offer an opportunity for children from this segment of society to explore diverse career options, foster independent decision-making with regard to career choices and enable them to become financially independent as they move to the world of work in future,” said Father Barnabe D’Souza, director, Don Bosco Shelter, Mumbai.

While some children had come merely to have fun at the mela that also had cultural programmes, most seemed serious about making use of the opportunity. “I want to become a cricketer or join a musical band. I never knew what would be the best way for me to realise my dreams. But the didi at the stall explained what I should do if I wanted to be successful,” said 14-year-old Rahul Shirkar, who plays the drums along with his father at weddings.

Similarly, 18-year-old Rupesh Londe who wants to get into hotel management was guided by Ahar. His father has a menial job with the BMC, and Rupesh is determined to do something different, like a computer course. Others like Mohammed Gouspeer and Bashir Hakim who are interested in the technical aspects of the industry have been recruited by Lamprell, an offshoring company, to be trained in welding and then be sent to Dubai as company employees.

In a new venture, Don Bosco in association with the Union Bank and FINO (Financial Information Network and Operations Limited) provided the children with a chip photo card. With this card they can deposit the savings from their daily wages in the bank. The card will also serve as an ID to get a driver’s license or a ration card.Said Sanjay Kuberkar,Chief Operating Officer, of FINO. “We expect through this scheme to work out a feasible solution that will empower street children by enabling them to open regular accounts with banks and save their earnings.”

“According to our research, we found that 90% of the children we had helped with jobs ended up back on the streets. The reason being they didn’t possess the necessary skills to retain the jobs. Hence we decided that we needed to attend to the root of the problem itself,” said Fr Barnabe.

FOR A BETTER FUTURE: Candidates apply for training courses and jobs at the street mela organised by Don Bosco School, Matunga on Friday.