Seven new IIM's approved by cabinet...

The country will soon have seven new IIMs, of which four will start functioning from next year with the Union Cabinet on Thursday approving a HRD ministry proposal to set up these management institutes.

The new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will be set up in Tami Nadu, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.

Aimed at generating a highly competent and trained manpower, the institutes are also expected to act as a major catalyst for developing a knowledge society that would inevitably impact on the economic growth of the country.

In the first phase, four IIMs at Tiruchirappalli (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Rohtak (Haryana) will be set up in 2009-10, which would become functional from academic session 2010-11.

The IIMs in Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan will be set up in 2010-11.

In phase-I there would be an intake of 140 students in the PG course and by the end of phase-II, it would reach 560 students per year.

The 11th Five Year Plan endorsed by the National Development Council (NDC) in December 2007, envisaged establishment of seven new IIMs in the country.

With these new IIMs, the country will have 13 B-schools. The Centre has also established one IIM -- Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management (RGIIM) in Shillong -- which has commenced its first academic session from 2008-2009.

THE TELESCOPE’S 400 AND WE’RE STILL STARSTRUCK

Since the night 400 years ago when Galileo turned his small telescope towards the sky, mankind has made gigantic strides in observing the universe. Today’s telescopes observe all kinds of electromagnetic radiation — the familiar visible light that we can see to infra red and even gamma rays. They are monster machines deployed not just on the earth’s surface but orbiting in space. Here are some of these uber-modern eyes and ears

THE FUTURE | The Gran Telescopio Canaria in Canary Islands has a 10.4m span reflecting telescope, making it the biggest single mirror telescope. Started in May. The Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array is located 16,000ft up in the Chilean Andes. When this array of 66 radio antennas spread across 10 miles opens, it will be the most advanced radio telescope. To start in 2012. The mother of all telescopes is the 30-metre telescope to be set up in Hawaii. Its giant mirror will be made of 492 smaller ones

Life of Galileo

1564 | Born in Pisa, Italy

1574-1589 | Enrolled in a monastery; shifted to Pisa to study medicine; finally settled for mathematics

1591-1610 | Taught mathematics at Pisa and Padua universities
1609 | Used improved telescope to observe heavenly bodies
1614 | His views on earth's motion around the sun denounced by church
1616 | Church tells him not to advocate his views
1632 | Publishes book reasserting his theory
1634 | Papal court finds him guilty of 'vehement heresy'; put under house arrest
1638 | Goes blind
1642 | Dies in Arcetri, outside Florence

Main scientific contribution
Confirmed Copernican theory that earth and planets move around sun; discovered lunar craters, 4 of Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, stars in Milky way, sunspots; stated that bodies of unequal weight experience same force of acceleration when falling to earth; developed maths of parabolas; developed various devices

Books

The Starry Messenger | 1610

The Assayer | 1623,

Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems | 1632

Kepler Apr 1990
Location: 75m km from Earth
Kepler has just settled down in its lonely slot in space. It will trail Earth at a distance which is about half the distance to the Sun. Kepler is a planet hunter — it is searching for Earth-like worlds

Ferni Gamma Ray Space Tech 2008
LOCATION | Low Earth orbit Named after 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, this orbiting telescope measures gamma rays, one of the most powerful radiations. Earth's atmosphere shields us from this lethal cosmic barrage. But Fermi catches these rays miles above the Earth

Hubble Space Telescope 1990
LOCATION | Orbiting the Earth This 20-year-old orbiting telescope has given us some of the most iconic images like those of the Crab and Eagle Nebulas. Equipped with a 2.4 metre wide reflector, this 11-tonne telescope is orbiting the earth 559km above the surface. Within weeks of its launch, a flaw was discovered in its giant mirror, which had to be rectified by a special trip. Recently a space shuttle mission sent astronauts to the Hubble for upgrading it. Its biggest legacy will be the images of thousands of galaxies billions of light years away — called the Deep Field images

Large Binocular Telescope 2005
LOCATION | Mount Graham, Arizona The Large Binocular Telescope gets its name as it has two giant lenses, each of about 8.4m span. Together they provide as much resolution as would be derived from a single 11.8-metre mirror, and are 10 times more powerful than Hubble's

Spitzer Space Telescope 2003
LOCATION | Following the Earth Along with Chandra, Hubble and Compton, Spitzer is the last of Nasa's four great observatories in space. It is made to catch infrared radiation coming from the universe. Human eyes can't detect such rays. It first spied the evidence of ‘hot Jupiters’ —gaseous giant planets in other galaxies, roasting on one side and cool on the other. Nasa thought that it would exhaust its onboard helium supply this April, but in August Spitzer was still sending stunning images of star formation

Old students build house for poor teacher 25 yrs on

Radha Venkatesan | TNN

Coimbatore: A sterling example of gratitude set by ex-students towards a man who turned them into doctors and industrialists is bound to tug at many hearts. It’s just a 1,200 sq ft house in a nondescript village in Namakkal district of western Tamil Nadu. But behind its sparkling beige coloured walls lies a unique expression of love: it’s a gift from students to their poor, old teacher.

For over three decades, from mid-1950s to 1984, Tamil teacher Soballapuram V Venkataraman inspired awe among his students, not with his striking stick, but his stirring Tamil poetry and oratory. Two years ago, when the old boys of the Sengunthar Mahajana Higher Secondary school at Gurusamypalayam village met their 83-year-old former teacher, they were shocked. Their guru lived in a leaky, rented house, with his widowed daughter and an aged wife.

On a monthly pension of Rs 9,000, he was additionally burdened by debts incurred for the marriage of his two daughters. On hearing about the hard times he was fallen in, around 250 of the school’s alumni decided to gift him a Guru Niwas. It was their tribute to an inspiring teacher. “Although he taught me in the 1950s, I still remember his Tamil classes. He was our favourite,’’ says 60-plus, retired municipal commissioner, Ardhanari.

Contributions from old students, including two police officers settled in north India, and many others including doctors and engineers, poured in. ACoimbatore-based industrialist contributed about Rs 1.35 lakh. In less than two years, a two-storey house was ready on a Rs 10 lakh budget. The house would be handed over to him on September 6, a day after Teacher’s Day. “I never asked my old students for help. Neither did I tell them anything about my financial problems. But they offered to build a house for me. I am moved by their gesture,’’ said the octogenarian.

A CLASS APART: Around 250 ex-students of Tamil teacher Soballapuram V Venkataraman (inset) have built their poor, debt-ridden teacher a 1,200 sq ft house in TN’s Namakkal district. The home would be handed over on Sept 6, a day after Teacher’s Day

Teachers threaten to immolate selves

Mumbai: Teachers from Savitribai Phule High School, Chembur, have threatened to immolate themselves along with their families at Mantralaya on Wednesday to protest against the state government’s stay order on the derecognition of the school.

Speaking at a press meet on Tuesday, a teacher said, “The school is run by a bogus management. They have siphoned off scholarship money, collected in the names of backward class students.’’

The school receives salary grants from the government. “The governmentdirectly deposits the salary in our accounts but the school makes us pay a certain amount back to the management. A school teacher, whose services were terminated after three years—just before she was to be made permanent—took the management to court. The HC stayed the government grant to our school last year, with the result that we did not receive salaries for 10 months. In May, we received our dues. But again from June, we have not got any salary, said a teacher.

The school management has denied all allegations. TNN

LOGGING OUT! - Apple's Tablet [I want one!]

Will tablet knock the keyboard out of laptop?

Apple is shrinking its Mac computer and bringing out a tablet that is small enough to be carried in a handbag but big enough for comfortable web surfing, newspaper reading and watching movies. The computer will revolutionize laptops as we know them because it is one flat touch-screen device without a keyboard.

Speculations have reached a feverish pitch that by 2010, the revolutionary touch-screen gadget will be in a store near you. Blogs are alive with rumours that the tablet’s launch will be announced in September by Steve Jobs, Apple founder and CEO, and launched in time for the Christmas market, reports the Telegraph.

The product is believed to have been in development for the past six years, with Jobs personally involved over the last two. If the speculation is true, it could be the next technological breakthrough for Apple, which has sold more than 200 million iPods since its launch in 2001. The tablet will be billed as the solution for people who work a lot on the move, but don’t want to be burdened with a laptop.

Pundits are predicting that our lives will never be the same. “People expect it to be the ultimate Apple surprise. This thing will knock people’s socks off,”Leander Kahney, a blogger and author of The Cult of Mac, told the Observer.

“Apple will totally rejig the computing experience. You won’t manipulate a keyboard and mouse any more but rather use an intuitive touch-screen. It will very tactile. It will be a whole new paradigm.”

Gene Munster, a technology research analyst, estimated that the tablet, with an onscreen keyboard like the iPhone, would cost around $600, putting it between the highestend iPod Touch at $399 and the Mac-Book, which starts at $999. AGENCIES

Nothing can impair his zeal to study

13-Yr-Old Deaf-Mute Boy Travels 120 Km To Ahmedabad School, Is Class Topper

Prashant Dayal

While the rest of the world was bursting crackers to celebrate Diwali, silence had descended on the home of signboard painter in Dhandhuka, Khurshid Hussain Malik. He had just realised that his son, the third of five children, was unaffected by the loudest crackers going off around him. While other children were scared, Jan Nisar did not even flinch. Malik took him to a doctor, who confirmed that his son suffered from hearing and speech impairment. Jan Nisar would never hear a sound or utter a word. Life was already hard, feeding a large family with his meagre earning and now he was saddled with a son who needed special attention.

That was nine years ago. Today, Jan Nisar is 13. And his father no longer sees him as a burden. “He was the source of maximum worry,” says Malik. “Now, he is a source of pride.” This transformation has been brought about by Jan Nisar’s zealous drive to overcome the silence around him through academic excellence. The lengths this boy goes to just to attend class can shame an able-bodied adult.

Jan Nisar leaves home at 8 am, boards a train and travels 120 km from Dhandhuka to Ahmedabad. He then treks 1.5 km on the railway tracks to reach his school and then catches a train back home. He has been doing this every day for the past four years. That is not all. He is among the top three rankers in his class.

Jan Nisar is admitted to the School For The Deaf-Mutes Society. Initially, he stayed at the school’s hostel but did not like the arrangement and convinced his father to allow him to commute between Dhandhuka and Ahmedabad. Malik agreed but railway officials refused to issue a pass for such a young boy. But such was his zest for studies that even the officials relented. Punjabhai Gamara, social worker from Dhandhuka, says, “This is the birthplace of Acharya Hemchandracharya who had a big role to play in spreading education in Gujarat. Little Jan Nisar seems to have taken inspiration from him.”

TRACKING SUCCESS: Jan Nisar leaves home at 8 am and boards a train from Dhandhuka to Ahmedabad. He then treks 1.5 km to school. The boy has been doing this for the past four years

Sibal calls for uniform core science syllabus

Manash Pratim Gohain | TNN

New Delhi: Even as state boards debate suggestions to make the class X board exam optional and to shift to a single board system for secondary education in the country, HRD minister Kapil Sibal proposed a core curriculum for maths and science across all school boards on Monday at the annual conference of the Council of Boards of Secondary Education (COBSE). The minister also stressed on the need to teach the national language and English alongside the mother tongue.

“We should set up a system of core curriculum in respect of professional courses. There should be a core curriculum for maths and science and a one-time exam to enter the university system for professional courses. This will ensure level of uniform and equivalence of quality. Subjects relating to environment and others can be different according to the state and city. But why should science and maths be different?’’ he said and asked representatives of the different boards to come up with a roadmap to be implemented in the next three years.

Sibal said the reforms in the education system should be carried out in a way that helps the country to change from being a “recipient of knowledge to producer of knowledge’’, but admitted that it was a “Herculean’’ task.

Std XII marks may become crucial for IIT admission
Marks scored in the Std XII board exams may become a key factor along with a student’s performance in the joint entrance examination (JEE) for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology by 2011

Sibal bats for three-language system in schools

New Delhi: Advocating a three-language system in school education, Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday that schools need to emphasize on teaching Hindi and English along with the mother tongue so that students can integrate easily. “We need to ensure that our children are fluent in all three languages, English, Hindi and the mother tongue, because the mother tongue would help in cultural integration, Hindi in national integration and English would help us globally.’’

The minister urged the representatives of the boards to make a move towards a grading system “as soon as possible’’. “The grade system will be implemented in CBSE schools soon so that there is no difference between children who score 99% and 98%. Once this is first implemented in the CBSE schools, we will see the paradigm shift,’’ he said.

“I shudder to think how 41 boards in this country will bring this change. How do we interact with each other? We should break the walls and prepare our children for the future.’’ He also placed the proposal for discussion of moving away from state boards to four regional boards with equivalent standards, adding that it was an idea. While welcoming Sibal’s proposal for a core curriculum in maths and science, several board representatives pointed out that the grading system and his plan to do away with the class X exam had their own disadvantages and wondered how the plans could be applied uniformly across the country.

D Mahanta, secretary of the Secondary Education Board of Assam, provided the classic example of his state, which had experimented with optional class X exams from 1960 to 1970 before doing away with it. “The system which we are now proposing is more or less the same which we experimented with for 10 years before abolishing it. We had a system of class X, which was optional, followed by a board exam before going to the undergraduate programme. We found no homogeneity among students who opted out of class X and those who took the exams. In fact, the students who opted out of the class X exams barely had any option other than staying in the same school and pursuing whatever it offered.’’

The representative of the Bihar board said making the class X exam optional to de-stress a child is ideal for a particular environment. “But 80% of our students are from rural areas whose parents are farmers or labourers and have low levels of awareness. In such a situation, the child won’t study at all,’’ he said.

On a similar note, the representatives from Goa, Manipur, Bengal, Orissa, Meghalaya and Tripura ruled out an optional class X board exam. They also said a single board system with uniform curriculum would dilute the sense of ownership among teachers in the states and it would interfere with preserving the language, script and culture of the states.

Kapil Sibal