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Showing posts from June, 2008

IIT student commits suicide

Indo-Asian News Service Kanpur, May 31, 2008 A fourth year engineering student at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur committed suicide by hanging herself in her hostel room, the police said on Saturday. Toya Chatterjee, 23, was a student of biological science and biotechnical engineering department. She was found dead in her room late on Friday night. The police recovered a suicide note from the room written in Bengali. The note, addressed to her father, said: "I will not be able to get B Tech degree this year. I am ashamed of it. So I am ending my life. Take care of my mother after my death." Director of the institute Sanjay G. Dhande said that Chatterjee was a brilliant student and had recently cleared the Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management. But she was not keeping well for the past one year and was under the treatment of a private doctor. Due to her illness, she was not attending her classes regularly, he said. Dhand

Shillong, June 27: The Centre has agreed to set up a National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Shillong provided land is allotted by the government fo

Shillong, June 27: The Centre has agreed to set up a National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Shillong provided land is allotted by the government for the purpose. Meghalaya chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee, who is camping in Delhi, today said over phone that the Union education secretary had agreed to set up an NIT in Shillong. The Meghalaya capital already has a medical college and an Indian Institute of Management.“The Centre only wanted Meghalaya to provide sufficient land to construct the building and other infrastructure facilities,” Chatterjee said. However, for the time being, Meghalaya and the other states that do not have NITs will be allotted more seats in the ones that do. A meeting was held in Delhi between the ministry of human resource development and the secretaries and commissioners of different states and Union Territories yesterday to discuss the seat allotment at NITs in the country. A state education department official said according to the policy of reservatio

Final decision by Centre after July 13

NEW DELHI, June 25 – Despite protests by States against the new policy of admission in National Institute of Technology (NIT), the Human Resources Development Ministry is likely to wait till July 13 to assess the situation before taking a final decision. There may be a few States, which have apprehensions over not getting seats in various technical institutions at the same level, as they were getting earlier. “The exact position depends on exercise of choices by the candidates and hence, would be clear only by end of first round of counselling by the Central Counselling Board (CCB) on the July 13,” official sources said.Under the circumstances, the June 26 meeting of the Technical Education Secretaries convened by the HRD Ministry may be just a formality. “All efforts will be made to give satisfaction to all States,” Ministry however assured.Conveying the anxiety of loosing out on number of seats, Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi in a letter to Union HRD Minister, Arjun Singh said that the

Tripura loses quota in NITs outside state

Agartala, June 25: The Manik Sarkar government is seething over the HRD ministry’s decision to do away with quota for Tripura students outside the state in various engineering colleges, including NITs. Therefore, the entire quota of 160 seats for Tripura students is set to go. But as a consolation prize, the quota for students of the home state in NIT Agartala will still be 50 per cent of the total number of seats, that is, 456. Earlier, the total number of seats was 420 among which 210 were reserved for students from Tripura. “The matter will be discussed threadbare at a high-level meeting in Delhi tomorrow and the commissioner of the higher education department will attend the meeting and communicate our stand,” the chief minister told the state Assembly today. Sarkar said 50 per cent quota for Tripura students in the newly launched NIT Agartala cannot resolve the problems of technical education in the state. The state government would never accept the unilateral slashing of quota fo

Sarkar opposes admission on merit list in NIT

Sarkar opposes admission on merit list in NIT AGARTALA, June 19 – Tripura Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar today expressed his displeasure over the recent decision of the Union Human Resource Development ministry that the admission in the National Institute of Technology ( NIT ) for non-domicile students would be on the basis of all India merit instead of allocating it among different states.As per the present guideline, 50 per cent of the seats in each NIT were filled by domicile candidates and the rest were filled from different state quotas. But recently the ministry has resolved that no state quota would be entertained and admission for non domicile students would be on the basis of all India merit, Sarkar told reporters here.The decision was not acceptable because infrastructure of education was not equal in every state and in the north eastern region it was poorer than any other states of the country. Sarkar wrote a letter recently to the Union HRD Minister, Arjun Singh and forwarde

HSLC results: it’s time to ponder

HSLC results: it’s time to ponder — Dr. Jyotsna Bhattacharjee The results of the HSLC examination, 2008 were announced by SEBA on May 27. It was a day of joy and sorrow - joy for the successful candidates and sorrow for those who could not succeed. Out of 2,39,606 candidates 140,618 candidates came out successful. Out of hem 17,084 secured first division, 29,714 secured second division and 93,820 third divisions. The pass percentage is 58.68. It is encouraging to note that the pass percentage has increased noticeably from last year’s 54.93.In spite of the improved percentage there have been a huge number of failures. It is true that there must be failures in any examination - but if they are too many it is time to ponder over the matter. Nearly one-lakh students could not cross the line of success. However encouraging is the maxim that “failures are the pillars of success”, there is no doubt that it does not help in mitigating the sufferings of the failed students in any way. The quest

India to upgrade higher education

By Siddharth Srivastava NEW DELHI - Stung by criticism that the lack of higher learning institutions is contributing to an acute shortage of skilled manpower, the Indian government has taken out its red marker and set out to correct its once-renowned education system. New Delhi is looking to start nine new Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) this year, to add to the existing seven. Eight new IITs, regarded as among the top schools in the world, are proposed for Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab provinces. Additionally, Benaras Hindu University will be converted into a full-fledged IIT. The IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which are also to be expanded, are the two pedestals of the Indian education system, with alumni now employed as managers and engineers around the world. The IIMs and IITs function under a government charter and figure among lists of the world's 100 best management and technolog