Somaiya colleges to seek deemed university status

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The Somaiya group of colleges has decided to cut ties with state universities and apply for a deemed university status.

The group will approach the University Grants Commission (UGC) sometime this month for the deemed status. The UGC will then set up a committee and conduct an inspection at the colleges before granting the deemed status.

For the thousands of students currently enrolled in any of their 34 institutes, the deemed status will mean that the final degree will be that of Somaiya University. For instance, a student of K J Somaiya Medical College and Research Centre who now receives the final degree from the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, or an engineering student of K J Somaiya Engineering College, who till now graduates out of the University of Mumbai, will receive his degree from this deemed university after the UGC grants the deemed status.

The decision to apply for deemed university was announced by the college trustee. The Somaiya Vidyavihar campus was started by the late Karamshi Jethabhai Somaiya in 1959. Now in its 50th year, the group is one of the largest private educational campuses in the city with 34 educational institutes with 27,000 students.

Samir Somaiya, a trustee said, “We want both flexibility and freedom for drafting curricula and designing courses. We want to shift to a system which is more elective based like in the Western countries.’’

Elaborating on the elective system, he added the group wanted its engineering students to be able to pick electives such as political science or Mandarin or even life science.

The group’s chief adviser V Ranganathan said, “To begin with, we will apply for a deemed university status for some of our institutions. But then year after year, we will try and cover most of the institutes we run under the deemed status.’’

Sources said the group will first apply for deemed status for its management and engineering and education colleges. The institutes that will be granted the deemed status will not only be free of government regulation, but also from regulation by agencies like the All India Council for Technical Education and the Medical Council of India.

A creche course in HINDI and GOOD MANNERS

Pronoti Datta | TNN

Mumbai: Nandini Dhanani takes her task as a Teach India volunteer very seriously. Even though she’s required to work just two hours a week, she spends an hour five days a week teaching the kids of migrant construction workers at a creche at the Gundecha Symphony building site off Veera Desai Road in Andheri. The creche is run by Mumbai Mobile Creches (MMC), an NGO that runs shelters for children of itinerant labourers. She also buys the children books, gives them photocopies of alphabet worksheets and even rewards them with sweets. “All the volunteers have done such wonderful work,’’ raves Neeta Khajuria, general manager of Mumbai Mobile Creches. “They bring such a lovely smile on our kids faces. Particularly Nandini. Her dedication, commitment and efforts are unmatched.’’

An attractive woman who looks unforgivably young to be a mother of three, Dhanani isn’t new to volunteer work or teaching. She worked briefly in an old age home in Malaga in Spain, where she lived for 21 years when her husband ran a garment business there. But the experience wasn’t as fulfilling as she had hoped it would be. “Everything looks so perfect there,’’ she says, referring to the high quality of life. “You feel they don’t need you.’’ She cut her teeth as a teacher in Spain where she taught Sindhi to youngsters of the community as she felt they were losing touch with their language. “We started with five or six students and ended with 60,’’ she says.

At the creche, it’s obvious that Dhanani is a natural born teacher. She’s firm yet warm with the kids and clearly popular by the way they clamour for her attention and diligently carry out tasks assigned to them. They seem truly happy to learn and are oblivious to the din of construction work and a leaky roof that lets water drip when it rains. The more studious ones, Dhanani says, even demand more homework than they’ve been given. “You plant a seed,’’ she points out. “Then even if you’re not around, they will make an effort to learn.’’

Many of the children barely speak Hindi, the language of instruction at all MMC units. But in the one month that Dhanani has been teaching, the kids have picked up enough Hindi to communicate. On the day we visited, Mujibur, a Bengali, was making a valiant effort to read a page of the story ‘Theli kiski?’ His tenses were muddled and his speech awkward as he articulated unfamiliar pronunciations. Yet he rattled off an entire paragraph displaying the speedy aptitude for language that only the young have. “It’s a challenge to teach them in Hindi,’’ Dhanani says. “You feel so happy that they are progressing.’’ The desire to reach out to underprivileged children seems to run in the family. Dhanani’s 14-year-old son spends a part of his Saturdays conducting English classes for the kids at the creche.

Dhanani’s curriculum isn’t limited to teaching the alphabet and numbers. She teaches her pupils the basics of etiquette as well. For instance, the kids are told not to prod people to get their attention. Instead they must politely say, “excuse me’’. Dhanani gently reprimanded one of the girls for smacking her classmate to attract his attention. The class we sat in on ended with the kids chorusing greetings like “good morning’’ and “goodbye’’.

When Dhanani’s not educating children, she’s pursuing a career that couldn’t be further from philanthropy. She reports on Bollywood gossip for Aaina, a weekly newspaper for Europe’s Sindhi community that’s published in Tenerife. She even does the odd celebrity profile and has interviewed film personalities such as Jackie Shroff, Pahlaj Nihalani and Preeti Jhangiani. Her current target is actor Vidya Malwade.

MOBILE CRECHES
Established in 1969, Mobile Creches is a non-governmental organisation that runs creches for the children of migrant construction workers in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. The Mumbai wing, Mumbai Mobile Creches, runs temporary shelters in 25 building sites. The creches function as informal schools as kids are given a basic education by teachers and volunteers. They’re also shelters where parents can safely leave their kids. In the absence of these creches, kids often wander around hazardous construction sites unchaperoned. The children are fed cereal in the morning, lunch and an evening snack. A large part of their day is spent doing drawing and craft, colourful evidence of which is plastered all over the walls of MMC creches. For information on MMC call 2202-0869.

IMPARTING KNOWLEDGE: Nandini Dhanani spends an hour teaching the kids of migrant construction workers at a creche at the Gundecha Symphony building site off Veera Desai Road in Andheri.

Netas swallow farmers’ aid.

Affluent Ex-MP, MLAs In Vidarbha Milk Govt Relief Packages

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Nagpur: In a bitter twist to the Vidarbha farmers’ tragedy, a simple RTI (right to information) query has revealed a huge scam in cash and kind in the CM’s and PM’s special relief packages.

A six-time former MP and relatives of a sitting MLA besides several former MLAs are among the well-off people who have helped themselves to the relief measures meant for poor, bereaved families in Yavatmal district, the epicentre of the farmers’ suicides.

The revelations point to large-scale corruption and irregularities in the implementation of the schemes. Social activist and journalist Vilas Wankhede, who made the RTI query, alleged that undeserving beneficiaries had abused the scheme in which 50% of the cost of purchase of a cow or a buffalo was subsidised by the government. The scheme was meant to help the near and dear ones of those indebted farmers who were the sole breadwinners of their families and who had ended their lives, or other BPL families living along the state dairy’s milk procurement route. Its purpose was to enable the distressed families to supplement their income as farming had become uneconomical in this mainly unirrigated cotton-growing region.

After Wankhede applied for data under the RTI Act, the deputy commissioner of Yavatmal’s animal husbandry department provided the list of beneficiaries. While former Congress MP Uttamrao Patil and his family members got ten cows under the subsidy scheme, sitting MLA of Digras Sanjay Deshmukh’s wife and mother got a cow each. Ex-minister and former guardian minister of Nagpur district Shivajirao Moghe’s near relations got eight cows. Wani ex-MLA Wamanrao Kasawar’s four relatives got eight cows, while Congress leader Suresh Lonkar’s relatives bagged six.

More suprisingly, the contractor who supplied the cows, Amol Kshirsagar, was himself a beneficiary and got subsidy for two cows. All the leaders belong to the Congress, the NCP or other parties in the ruling alliance.

State BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who introduced Wankhede at a crowded press conference here on Friday, said the RTI data only related to one district. “This is the tip of a scam iceberg, since the packages were to be implemented in six suicide-affected districts of Vidarbha,’’ he said. Demanding a CBI probe into the relief packages, Gadkari also sought the PM’s intervention.

THE GOLD-DIGGERS Ex-MP Uttamrao Patil, wife Sushilabai, sons Rajendra and Manish, and anemployee of their education society, Laxman Pawar. Together, they got ten cows with subsidy amount of Rs 70,000.

Ex-minister Shivajirao Moghe’s brother Anand Moghe and his sons Vijay Moghe, Bharat Moghe and daughter-in-law Sunita Moghe. The family got 8 cows with subsidy of Rs 7,000 on each
Digras sitting MLA (independent) Sanjay Deshmukh’s wife and mother got a cow each
Local Congress leader and ZP member Suresh Lonkar’s three family members got six cows
Cattle supplier and contractor of the scheme Amol Kshirsagar enlisted as beneficiary and got two cows.

‘Cong, NCP men misused relief scheme’
Nagpur: Demanding a CBI probe into the relief packages scam, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari on Friday said, “If the government fails to order a CBI enquiry, we will file a public interest litigation,’’ he added.

“What is disturbing in the whole affair is that needy and deserving people were left out and well-heeled politicians mainly from the Congress and the NCP misused the scheme,’’ said Gadkari. More shockingly, journalist Vilas Wankhede pointed out that despite distributing thousands of milch cows, each costing Rs 14,000, the milk collection in the district showed a decline. The collection figure on June 1, 2006 was 6,521 litres, but on the last day of that month, it was 5,359 litres. The beneficiaries also took advantage of funds provided for fodder and many availed of insurance by claiming that the animal had died. TNN

British kids help rural French schools survive

Eymet (France): The avalanche of English people moving to the southwest Dordogne region of France each year is having an unexpected benefit on rural French schools once in danger of closing.

“The current political will is to close down schools and services in small rural areas and centralise them in towns. Happily, the English like to live in small, rural areas and send their children to local schools,” said Bruno Arfeuille, a roving teacher who gives French lessons to new arrivals.

Because not only do the schools welcome the children with open arms, they also provide them with French lessons.

Arfeuille is one of two such teachers and currently has more than 100 students in different schools around the area, which counts between 5,000 and 10,000 Britons. They have been drawn by the laidback lifestyle, warm climate and the lower cost of living. “The girls are always faster than the boys, but it takes about three months to a year for the children to learn French, depending on their level when they arrive,” Arfeuille said.

At the local school in Eymet, a village of 2,600 inhabitants with such a high population of English speakers that one was recently elected as a town councillor, Arfeuille has a class of six.

Arfeuille, who is paid by the state, also gives French lessons to other new arrivals: from Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Russia, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. He started in 1999 when he was asked to teach children of refugees who had fled the fighting in Kosovo.

According to his figures, between 200 and 300 new children arrive every year to start school in the Dordogne area. Over the last three years the figures have tapered off somewhat from 336 new foreign children in 2005, to 203 this year.

Asked if there is any resentment at so many new arrivals, Arfeuille says not at all. “They bring life to the area, and to the schools.” AFP

LEARNING CURVE: Bruno Arfeuille, a roving teacher, gives French lessons to new arrivals at a school in France

Fine print: Published in India

High Textbook Prices In US Force Pupils To Buy Cheap Indian Editions Online

Textbooks in the US are priced so high that even used versions can give students a sharp pain in the wallet. The seventh edition of Francis A Carey’s Organic Chemistry—a standard text for pre-med students—costs $213 new and somewhere around $150 used. Add to that the companion study guide ($113 new; $90 used) and a student would pay between $326 and $240 for just one class. With four to five classes a semester—many assigning multiple textbooks—the costs multiply.

The same edition of Organic Chemistry, however, is available on a Canadian website called Abe-Books.com for $12, Time magazine said. The book is an international edition, printed in English but sold in India, and identical to its pricey American counterpart except for its soft cover. With a click of the mouse, a cash-strapped student could save hundreds of dollars.

According to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, US textbook prices rose 186% between 1986 and 2004, or twice the rate of inflation. College students now spend roughly $900 on textbooks every academic year, books they are required by their professors to purchase. This disconnect between the buyer and the seller allows publishing companies to inflate prices for textbook editions evem on subjects that haven’t changed. “Of course you’d update the computer science textbooks every year, but do you really need a brand new edition of a calculus book?” asks Luke Swarthout, a higher education advocate at the US Public Interest Research Group.

International textbooks are printed—regularly in India, although sometimes in other Asian nations—under copyright agreements with Western publishers that allow the books to be sold for a discounted price. “The reasoning is that people in other countries can’t afford the higher prices,” said Swarthout, “so this is a way to provide them with the same quality of education as we get in America.”

But just as the internet has enabled illegal access to music and movies, so too has it opened the international book market—especially to the hands of college students, Time said. International textbooks are available on major bookselling websites including Amazon and eBay. It’s legal for students to buy them for personal use, but illegal for anyone to resell them outside of their intended country. “It’s a copyright infringement not for the person buying but for the person selling,” says Jane Ginsburg, a professor at Columbia Law School.

Individual sellers that use eBay or AbeBooks are breaking the law, says Ginsburg, but whether the sites are also liable for the auctions is unclear. Ebay recently won a court case absolving it of responsibility for policing its auctions for counterfeit items but international textbooks are not technically counterfeit. Like eBay, AbeBooks acts as a third party for sellers—generally stores in foreign countries. One copy of Organic Chemistry found on its site was being sold by a bookstore in New Delhi.

Last year, Stephanie Rodgers, then a senior at Vanderbilt University, bought a brand new, international edition of a physics textbook for $75 on eBay instead of the $298 US version for sale in the university’s bookstore. The only difference between the two was the fact that the US textbook was divided into three separate volumes, while the international version came as one book. Rodgers also purchased a $68 mathematical logic textbook ($130 new), which was nearly identical to her classmates’ version except that it was paperback instead of hardcover. “Which is fine, because I prefer paperback,” says Rodgers. AGENCIES

Rambhai chaiwalla ban gaya IIM prof

Vijaysinh Parmar & Ashish Vashi | TNN

Ahmedabad: The view that he gets of the IIM-Ahmedabad campus is from a tiny hole in the boundary wall through which he delivers cups of tea to the students and faculty inside. But when Rambhai Kori, 51, who runs a tea stall near the IIM-A gate, sat in a classroom on Thursday on a chair meant for professors, the chaiwalla had arrived in life.

The moment captured the strong links with Rambhai’s kettle (RBK, for short) cherished by every individual who has been to this premier business school in the last 25 years. The bond got cemented on Thursday in a paper titled ‘RBK—A Role to be Understood’ presented in the Faculty Development Program-08 at IIM-A.

Rambhai, who still remembers his first customer Omprakash Manchanda, seemed at home in the classroom when Umesh Neelakantan, Sonal Katewa and Jaspreet Ahulwalia made a presentation on him. He made interventions during the discussions and spoke confidently. The comfort level came from the fact that there’s hardly anyone on campus he doesn’t know by name. And it’s not without reason that the alumni have been staying in touch for years together on www.rambhai.com. Students described him in the presentation as “light hearted, simple and loveable’’. “His way of talking and mingling with students and delivering products to clients says so much about his time management,’’ observed Katewa. “Rambhai is a great human being and a great brand by himself. Relationships are the life and blood of his business,’’ said Ahulwalia.

Within minutes of the presentation, Rambhai was back at RBK. “Maja aaya,’’ (I enjoyed it) he remarked to his clients, as he served tea. “I interact with these students every day, but it was a different experience doing the same on the other side of this boundary wall.’’

CUPPA OF JOY BRIMMETH OVER: Rambhai Kori at his tea stall outside IIM-Ahmedabad

Workshop to deal with vandalism in school

Mumbai: While activists and government bodies have set up countless organisations to combat violence against children, vandalism in schools and the resulting fear that spreads amongst staff, has rarely found a voice.

In order to help heads of educational institutions deal with vandalism, both by political parties as well as individuals, Coffeetable, a support group for principals set up by the Counsellor’s Association of India (CAI’s), is organising a workshop for principals and counsellors where they can share their own experiences and learn how to handle a mob in the classroom. The workshop will be held on September 16 at St Xavier’s Academy in Marine Lines. Minister of state for higher education Suresh Shetty will be present at the workshops.

For details on the workshop, contact coffeetablemumbai@yahoo.in or call Adelaide Vaz 22014666 or Harish Shetty on 9820032178. TNN