Following is an excerpt from a news item in indiaprwire.com.
Technopark-headquartered Toonz Animation’s sister company Toonz Academy announced Friday plans to open a centre in Hyderabad later this month.
A press release issued here said this would be the latest centre after the opening of the previous one in Delhi last month.
Their other centres are at Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai and Nagpur.
‘The opening of these centres is just one among the major expansion plans we have in store. We will be opening the academies in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar in the coming months,’ said Binu Raj, national marketing head of the company.
Toonz Academy is a fully owned subsidiary of Toonz Entertainment Pvt Ltd, Singapore, which also owns Indian animation studio Toonz Animation India Pvt Ltd.
December 8th, 2007
Update: Tathya.in has an article on this vis-a-vis neglect of Orissa.
Following is an excerpt from a report in http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=3591.php.
Union government has identified Bangalore among the three cities in the country for the promotion and development of Nanotechnology under the Union government grant of Rs 1,000 crore (approx. $225 million). The other two cities are Kolkatta and Mohali. As part of the nanotechnology research and development efforts, the Centre has called upon to set up the Indian Institute of Nano Sciences (IINS) at the three locations. Karnataka has already been granted the Rs 100 crore from the Centre for the commencement of the project and the State government has provided the possession certificate of the 14 acres of land to construct the IINS in Bangalore. The Institute will primarily focus on advanced scientific research. The other two cities will also have to set up similar institutes.
December 7th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a news report in Telegraph.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have found a magic wand to make industrialisation acceptable to masses: bring more youngsters under the technical education umbrella.
“I want each of the industry and corporate houses in our state to have a greater involvement in the technical education sector. The greater the mass of technically qualified manpower, the more will be the demand for industrialisation from the common people. It will make industrialisation a more widely acceptable way of improving life and enhancing regional growth,” Naveen said, …
Stating that he has a vision of establishing at least one industrial training institute in each block of the state, Naveen urged the industry captains to choose any zero-ITI block of their choice and immediately start the establishing an ITI offering trades that they think have market demand.
He advised the industries department to facilitate the process and guide the industrial and corporate houses in this regard.
Stressing the theme of this year’s event — “Building People, building Orissa” — the chief minister said meeting mandatory stipulations under different laws or complying with the guidelines of the resettlement and rehabilitation policy is just one small component of the corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Perhaps keeping the resistance by the locals to several industrial projects in mind, the chief minister advised the industries to have good relationship with the people and entities around their plants.
December 7th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a report by Chetan Chauhan in Hindustan Times on this.
The HRD ministry will soon seek Union Cabinet’s approval to set up a statutory body to recognise and regulate all distance education and all online courses in the country.
The body will also monitor courses being provided by foreign education providers through the Internet. The ministry has prepared a draft law to provide legal backing to the Distance Education Council (DEC), at present a body under Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
… The proposed law is based on the recommendations of a committee appointed by the ministry last year. The committee had felt that regulation of online and distance education is imperative as in the next five years admissions in online courses will double with increase in internet connectivity.
December 6th, 2007
See http://jee.iitd.ac.in/ and http://jee.iitd.ac.in/advt.html. Following are some excerpts:
ELIGIBILITY (See http://jee.iitd.ac.in/eligibility.html)
A candidate has to satisfy all the eligibility conditions given below:
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A candidate can attempt JEE only twice, in consecutive years.
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Candidates appearing for JEE-2008 should have either passed in 2007 or should be appearing in 2008 in the qualifying examination listed in section 7.1 and should satisfy the eligibility criteria listed in section 7.2.
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Candidates should meet the age requirements given in section 7.4.
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Candidates should not have accepted admission by paying full fees at any of the IITs, IT-BHU, Varanasi and ISMU, Dhanbad, through earlier JEE.
December 5th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh is yet to decide the fate of the proposed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Orissa. Repeated reminders by the State Government and demands continuously raised by the intelligentsia seem to have no effect on the Centre.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his address to the nation on the Independence Day this year, had, inter-alia, announced the setting up of eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the country during the Eleventh Five Year Plan.
On December 3, after five months of the Prime Minister’s announcement, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development D Purandeswari told Rajya Sabha that no decision has been taken on Orissa and Uttar Pradesh in this matter. She said the Central Government has received requests from various State Governments, including Governments of Uttar Pradesh and Orissa, to set up new IITs in their States.
Based on the recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) to the Prime Minister, the Union Government has already decided to establish three new IITs, one each in Bihar in the East, Rajasthan in the West and Andhra Pradesh in the South, during the 11th Plan period, she said.
The SAC to the PM was set up under the chairmanship of Prof CNR Rao. The decision on the locations of the remaining institutes has not yet been taken, Purandeswari said.
Recently, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had also written a letter along with a Vision Document asking for an IIT, IIM and IIIT for the State.
December 5th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.
Henceforth, headmasters of the eligible block-grant schools will be regarded as secretaries of the school management committees. They will enjoy the power of the disbursing authority. The Government will send the salaries of the teachers and other staffs in the account of the headmasters for disbursement. Earlier, secretaries of the management committee received the money, for which various problems cropped up. The same principle will also be applicable for the ME School teachers.
The Government doubled the salaries of the High and ME School teachers. As the Government has not been able to provide full grants to the schools due to an MoU signed by the then Congress Government in 1999 with the Centre, it has decided to double the block grant amount given to the schools. Henceforth, a Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT) will receive a salary of Rs 3,330 instead of Rs 1,579. A Sanskrit and a Hindi teacher will receive salary of Rs 2,997 instead of Rs 1,523. A Physical Education Teacher (PET) will get Rs 2,398 instead of Rs 1,218, a clerk Rs 2,031 instead of Rs 1,072 and a Peon Rs 1,698 instead of Rs 846.
Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai said teachers and staff of the 100 girls’ high schools, high schools of 169 Gram Panchayats (GPs), 102 ‘Left’ High Schools and another 59 High Schools would benefit. "The Government will have to bear an additional expenditure of Rs 167 crore on this account only," he said.
He further said the ME Schools would receive a block-grant of nearly Rs 68 lakh instead of Rs 33 lakh. Those ME Schools and High Schools eligible to receive block-grant by June, 2004, will come under the block-grant-fold. All the decisions would come into effect from April 2008.
December 5th, 2007
Update: Tathya.in wrote an article on this. Pioneer also wrote about this.
Following is from the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=33600.
Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh in his address delivered to the Nation on the occasion of the 60th Independence Day had, inter-alia, announced the setting up of eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the country during the Eleventh Five Year Plan. The Central Government have received requests from various State Governments including Governments of Uttar Pradesh & Orissa to set up new IITs in their States. Based on the recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, under the Chairmanship of Prof. C.N.R. Rao, the Government have already decided to establish three new IITs, one each in Bihar in the East, Rajasthan in the West and Andhra Pradesh in the South, during the 11th Plan period. Decision on the location of the remaining Institutes has not yet been taken.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Smt. D. Purandeswari in written replies in Rajya Sabha today.
Following is from another PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=33599.
Madhya Pradesh is already having various centrally funded technical educational institutions viz. Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal; Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (ABV-IITM), Gwalior; Pt. Dwarka Prasad Mishra Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing (PDPM-IITDM), Jabalpur and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Indore. Further, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) has been approved to be established in Bhopal. Planning Commission has given its ‘in-principle’ approval for setting up a School of Planning and Architecture in Bhopal. At present there is no proposal to upgrade Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior (ABVIIITMG) as an IIT.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Smt. D. Purandeswari in a written reply to a question by Smt. Maya Singh in Rajya Sabha today.
December 3rd, 2007
Ashram Schools in tribal areas is another central govt. scheme. However, as the following PIB shows, Orissa has not been taking advantage of it in recent years. (Orissa did take advantage of it in the past.) Its not clear if this is because Orissa decided to focus more on the Ekalavya Vidyalayas as in case of the Ekalavya Vidyalayas the funding is 100% from the central govt. while in case of the Ashram Schools the funding is 50% central and 50% state. In any case, here is the recent PIB on Ashram Schools.
Ministry releases grants to the States for construction of Ashram School in Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) Areas, boys and girls hostels and Post Matric Scholarship is a continuous process. The grant-in-aid is released only if the proposals are complete in all respects including availability of land free of cost, confirmation about availability of matching share in the State budget, Utilization Certificate for grants released in previous years and physical progress reports in respect of proposals sanctioned in previous years and the availability of funds. This was stated by the Minister for Tribal Affairs, Shri P.R. Kyndiah in a reply to a question by Shri M.A.M. Ramswamy in Rajya Sabha today.
The scheme-wise and year-wise funds released to States/UTs including Karnataka during last three years are as follows:
Grant in aid released under the scheme of Ashram Schools in TSP Areas
|
S.No.
|
Name of State/UT
|
2004-05
|
2005-06
|
2006-07
|
|
Amount
|
Amount
|
Amount
|
|
1.
|
Gujarat
|
86.49
|
200.00
|
156.52
|
|
2.
|
Madhya Pd.
|
300.00
|
200.00
|
624.01
|
|
3.
|
Karnataka
|
77.51
|
150.00
|
400.00
|
|
4.
|
Maharashtra
|
86.00
|
50.00
|
256.71
|
|
5.
|
Chattishgarh
|
0
|
0
|
112.76
|
|
|
Total
|
550.00
|
600.00
|
1550.00
|
Grant released under the scheme of Boys/Girls Hostel to various State Govt. during the last three years.
(Rs. in lakh)
|
S. No.
|
Name of State/UT
|
2004-05
|
2005-06
|
2006-07
|
|
Amount
|
Amount
|
Amount
|
|
1.
|
Andhra Pd.
|
0
|
0
|
120.00
|
|
2.
|
Gujarat
|
67.60
|
0
|
0
|
|
3.
|
Himachal Pd.
|
0
|
108.18
|
82.39
|
|
4.
|
Madhya Pd.
|
300.00
|
724.00
|
305.00
|
|
5.
|
Manipur
|
0
|
142.70
|
123.51
|
|
6.
|
Meghalaya
|
0
|
0
|
200.00
|
|
7.
|
Orissa
|
0
|
0
|
56.50
|
|
8.
|
Rajasthan
|
0
|
0
|
190.50
|
|
9.
|
West Bengal
|
0
|
6.71
|
0
|
|
10.
|
J & K
|
0
|
0
|
204.99
|
|
11.
|
Karnataka
|
120.00
|
86.00
|
170.79
|
|
12.
|
Maharashtra
|
242.04
|
194.46
|
0
|
|
13.
|
Nagaland
|
151.00
|
116.52
|
221.09
|
|
14.
|
IIT Delhi
|
234.88
|
64.21
|
440.91
|
|
15.
|
Jharkhand
|
98.86
|
0
|
250.16
|
|
16.
|
Chattishgarh
|
0
|
0
|
165.00
|
|
17.
|
Arunachal Pradesh
|
20.50
|
21.43
|
180.07
|
|
18.
|
Punjab University, Chandigarh
|
65.12
|
100.79
|
0
|
|
19.
|
Delhi University
|
0
|
0
|
100.00
|
|
|
Total
|
1300.00
|
1565.00
|
2810.91
|
December 3rd, 2007
Following is an excerpt from a news report in Telegraph.
The seventh Indian Institute of Management will begin its first academic session next June on a temporary campus in Shillong that previously housed the North Eastern Hill University.
Union human resource development minister Arjun Singh will lay the foundation stone of the permanent campus of the IIM, named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, tomorrow.
Chief minister D.D. Lapang and Union minister for tribal affairs P.R. Kyndiah will be present at the ceremony.
“While construction of the permanent structure is going on, the institute will start functioning at the Mayurbhanj complex in Nongthymmai,” Rathindra Nath Datta, ex-chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers (India), who has been appointed the chairman of the board of governors of the institute, said.
The Meghalaya government has provided 120 acres of land free of cost in the new satellite township of Mawdiangdiang, 20km from Shillong, for the permanent campus.
The institute will get a grant of Rs 120 crore for non-recurring expenditure over five years and Rs 45 crore for recurring expenditure over six years.
Ashok Kumar Dutta, who is at present the director of Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management in Calcutta, is the frontrunner for the post of IIM director.
A post-graduate diploma course in business management will begin in June with an annual intake of 60 students in the first two years. This will be doubled in the third year and increased by another 60 in the sixth.
December 1st, 2007
