No limit on BAMS attempts: HC

Fri, Jan 02, 2015

The Karnataka High Court has reiterated that students who have joined the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) before 2012, and studying in various government and private colleges under the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), will have unlimited attempts to clear their subjects.

Earlier in November, the HC had ruled in favour of six first year BAMS students who were not permitted a fifth attempt to write their exams.

In this instance, the students had approached the HC after RGUHS had not allowed the benefits of a 2012-13 regulation -- that did not specify any limit on the number of attempts -- to 164 students who had joined the course between 2007 and 2011.

The Indian Medicine Central Council (Minimum Standards of Education in Indian Medicine), (Amendment) Regulations, 2012 published on April 25, 2012 and amended on May 22, 2013 did not specify any limit on the number of attempts that the medical students could have to clear their subjects.

But RGUHS was insisting that the students who had joined the course before the publication of these regulations follow a 2006 notification by the secretary to ministry of health and family welfare that put a cap on the number of attempts.

The students challenged the dual system and claimed that, "under the 2012 and 2013 notifications there is no restriction with regard to the number of attempts. Despite the same, the restriction on the number of attempts in examinations is being imposed on these students because they were admitted to the course earlier."

Referring to a similar case in the Aurangabad Bench of the High Court of Bombay, the HC bench of Justice AS Bopanna ruled that the notification which imposed maximum number of attempts cannot co-exist with new regulations which do not impose such restrictions.

The Karnataka HC noted that even as of today, the 2012 regulation has not been amended to impose restrictions.

Therefore, the students "cannot be insisted upon to limit their number of appearances when such limitation is not yet brought into force in the regulations 2012. Therefore, until amendment is made to the regulations 2012 to apply a uniform procedure to all students who have been admitted either prior to regulations 2012 or thereafter, the benefit as exists in the regulations 2012 would have to be provided to the petitioners and similarly placed students without limiting their number of attempts."

Admissions Over, But Nursing Seats Still Sell for Rs 2.5L?

Published: 21st November 2014 

BENGALURU: Students can get a BSc Nursing seat even after the last date of admission, provided they are ready to cought up as much as `2.5 lakh.

Though the last date for admissions to BSc nursing courses for the academic year 2014-15 was November 15, some agents reportedly working for colleges are helping students get admissions if they are ready pay anywhere in the range of `2.5 lakh, one of the agents, who claims to have contacts in colleges and the university, claimed.

Following information received from a few students who said that they were approached by agents, Express spoke to an agent, who identified himself as Nideesh.

He claimed that he could get the students a seat and also gave them an option of three colleges. “I will give them three options to choose from — Nightingale Institute of Nursing at Magadi Road, Jayanna College of Nursing and Koshy’s College of Nursing, Hennur,” he claimed.

When asked about the fee for the course, he said, “The fee is `2.5 lakh. You need not worry about the admissions, you can come with me, we will get the application form and submit it tomorrow.”

He also assured there will not be any problems with Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) for approval of the admission.

When Express called Jayakathambari C A, the principal of Nightingale Institute of Nursing, posing as a student, to cross-check the claims, she said, “You come and meet me tomorrow along with original II PUC documents.”

There are over 300 nursing colleges affiliated to RGUHS offering nursing courses.

They offer BSc Nursing (four years), Post Basic BSc Nursing (two years) and MSc Nursing courses. The fee fixed by the government for the BSc Nursing is `6,500 for government quota seats. For management seats, colleges have fixed the fee between `30,000 and `70,000. However, the seats are selling for `2.5 lakh in the black market.

According to the principal of one of the top nursing colleges in the city run by a prime hospital, there is a racket where agents sell nursing seats.

“As the number of admissions of Karnataka students is less, even the government quota seats are vacant most of the times. This helps the agents work with managements,” he said.

RGUHS Registrar Dr D Prem Kumar said, “The university has closed admissions. We request parents and students not to get cheated by such agents.”

How Many Cups of Tea Have You Had?' RTI Queries Stump Delhi Police

 How many bullock cart tracks are in Delhi? How many trees in the capital are green and how many are dead? How many cups of tea are consumed by the police personnel? These are just some of the frivolous and "unreasonable" queries asked of the Delhi Police through what is clearly a misuse of the RTI (Right to Information) Act.

The Delhi Police RTI Cell, established in 2005, has received 152,600 applications over the past five years. In 2014, till September, the number was 15,803. In the previous year, over 30,000 applications were received by the force, according to official data accessed by IANS.

Interestingly, most of the applications are "unreasonable" and "illogical" and some downright ridiculous, officials working in the cell said.

"This is really a very good tool to fetch information which is beneficial for an individual or society. But many are misusing it. Some are frequent RTI applicants and they often ask questions that are neither related to our department nor pertaining to other departments," an officer associated with the Delhi Police RTI Cell told IANS on condition of anonymity.

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In one instance, an applicant sought information on the number of cups of tea consumed by policemen in a particular district. "Such information cannot be accessed," he said. Another application sought information on the number of bullock carts in Delhi and their travel paths.

Apart from English and Hindi, applications in Marathi and Bengali were also received this year. 

The Right to Information Act was enacted in 2002 for citizens to request information from a public authority - for a fee of Rs.10. Replies have to be expedited or filed within 30 days.

The Delhi Police RTI Cell has 12 staffers for compiling the applications and sending them to the unit of the police concerned. The unit is headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police and operates from the Police Headquarters in central Delhi.

Applications seeking the First Information Report on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the caste and religion-wise composition of the police personnel have also been received.

Besides, the status of a case being investigated and matters related to transfers and postings are sought by people. Sometimes service officials also file an RTI application seeking the reason for not getting an off day from the office.

A total of 44,930 applications were received in 2010, 34,384 in 2011 and 27,301 in 2012, the data said. 

Story First Published: January 02, 2015 07:54 IST

DENIED INFO ON SECURITY, PM MODI 'S WIFE APPEALS AGAIN UNDER RTI ACT

Varsities must name officer to see cleaning: UGC

NEW DELHI, Jan 1, 2015, DHNS:

The University Grants Commission has asked the universities to appoint a senior official to supervise cleaning and garbage collection activities in the campus, to ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat campaign continues “in a scientific manner and on a sustained basis.”

The higher education regulator has asked the vice chancellors and heads of the universities and colleges to keep it informed abut the actions initiated by them on a monthly basis in this regard. The monthly report to be submitted by the varsities will be forwarded to the Human Resources Ministry every month as sought by Education Minister Smriti Irani.

”Since, most of the institutions are spread over large geographical areas and they have different units like hostels, playgrounds, teaching blocks, administrative blocks, etc, it is necessary that collection points for these units may be earmarked and a system created to lift the garbage from these points to the main garbage collection point where the entire garbage of the institution shall be collected,” UGC secretary Jaspal S Sandhu instructed the varsity heads two days back.

The local civic authorities should be informed about the main garbage point from where it could be lifted for “appropriate disposal”, he added.

The commission also directed the universities to share all the activities that they undertake to implement the Swachh Bharat programme on MyGov.in, a platform created by the Modi government for “citizen engagement towards good governance”.

On New Year, Tirumala turns into a war zone

Jan 02 2015 : The Times of India (Chennai)

On New Year, Tirumala turns into a war zone

Tirumala: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





A top Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) official was mobbed by angry devotees and dozens were injured here during a nearstampede on Thursday , a rare occasion when Vaikuntha Ekadasi occurred on New Year's day . With more than two lakh people converging on the hill shrine, the 12,000-strong TTD staff, police and volunteers struggled to manage the crowd. Devotees into arguments with TTD staff at several places. It is estimated that of the 2.1 lakh devotees who thronged the temple for the oc casion only 80,000 could get darshan.

Joint executive officer K Sreenivasa Raju was virtually gheraoed by families of re tired TTD employees and police after they were not allowed special darshan.

Raising slogans, the mob threatened the JEO, and po licemen had to escort him out.“It was like war zone. I returned as I sensed that I would not get darshan even after two days,“ B Bhanu Kiran, a devotee from Kurnool said. “There are several people like me who are leaving as the number of visiting pilgrims is only growing by the day,“ he added.

Trouble began around 4am when the VIP `break darshan' was underway . As TTD authorities restricted the entry of devotees standing outside the queue complex, some of them tried to stop VIP vehicles near the Lepakshi circle.“Why only darshan for them, not for us,“ demanded one de votee. The situation got worse after the devotees started joining the queue by breaking the barricades and climbing trees. All careful preparations went out of hand with a near pandemonium-like situation.Tension prevailed near Shankumitta cottage (SMC) for the second day , when a few devotees, including women, broke the lock to get into the queues, breaking iron fencing.

Records show that many devotees had been waiting for nearly 20 hours in the 5-kmlong queues outside the Vaikuntam Queue Complex. The complex was built to facilitate 30,000 devotees).

For chickpea seller doing PhD, no job's too small to be chaff

Jan 02 2015 : The Times of India (Chennai)
For chickpea seller doing PhD, no job's too small to be chaff
Bosco Dominique

Puducherry:

S Saravanakumar and his brother S Palaniraj started selling chickpeas (channa) on the beach in the evenings in 1999. They needed to fund their education and to feed a family of eight after their father S Subramanian quit his job as a salesman in a textile showroom due to poor health.

Eleven years down the line, Saravanakumar had completed an MA, MPhil and BEd, and joined a government college as a trained graduate teacher. Palaniraj, who continues to sell chickpeas, is pursuing a PhD in Tamil from Pondicherry University .

The PhD scholar, who receives university stipend of `8,000 per month since he joined the programme in 2010, completed his junior research fellowship last year. He will shortly receive a stipend of `16,000 per month but he's reluctant to stop selling chickpeas.

“We have to repay huge loans that we took to get our three sisters married,“ Palaniraj said.“We use most of my brother's salary and whatever profit I make to pay installments for the loans.And why should I stop selling chickpeas? I believe that if a person takes up any occupation with genuine interest, he is bound to be doing service to society.“

Unlike many research schol ars, he has to devote part of each day to purchasing peas, oil and flour and other condiments.

“Whoever is free at home prepares chickpeas. Sometimes I do myself when I get home early ,“ Palaniraj said. “I go down to the beach road and start selling chickpeas by 5.30pm. I usually wind up before 11pm.“ He earns around `200 a day .

After completing a BA in Tamil from Tagore Arts College, Palaniraj joined MA in Pondicherry University, where he completed an MPhil and enrolled in the PhD programme in 2010. Palaniraj is researching Sittrilakkiyam (minor literary genres) on 12 Alvars (Vaishnavite sages of the 6th to 12th century AD). His MPhil thesis was on the use of similes in Kurunthogai, a classical Tamil poetic work by numerous authors written between 5th and 7th century AD.