Madras high court helps medical student join Jipmer

Madras high court helps medical student join Jipmer

Sep 12, 2020, 02.34 PM IST

PUDUCHERRY: The Madras high court came to the rescue of a medical student in securing admission for post-doctoral certificate course (PDCC) in paediatric oncology in Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) after a private medical college refused to return his original certificates despite two directions from the court.

Justice N Anand Venkatesh, while restraining Jipmer from cancelling the student's allotment in PDCC, passed an interim order directing the institute to provisionally admit him in the course. The judge passed the interim direction following a petition filed by Alpoor Tharun Tej, who had completed MD (paediatrics) at Aarupadai Veedu Medical College and Hospital (AVMCH) in Puducherry, a constituent college of Vinayaga Missions Research Foundation (VMRF), a deemed university. Advocate Stalin Abhimanyu appeared on behalf of the student.

Tej had earlier accused the college of refusing to return his certificates unless he paid 'exorbitant' fees over and above the fees he had already paid. The high court had directed AVMCH to return all certificates of Tej after getting an affidavit from him declaring that he would pay the fees fixed by the fee committee constituted by the Puducherry government.

However, AVMCH refused to honour the high court order and insisted on the student to furnish a bank guarantee for balance fees of Rs 57.6 lakh in favour of VMRF until the fee committee fixed the fees.

The student again approached the high court, which declared that 'furnishing a bank guarantee is not within the scope of the orders passed by this court' earlier and directed the AVMCH to abide by the interim orders. AVMCH yet again refused to honour the high court's order.

The time offered by Jipmer to the student to submit his certificates and join PDCC expired on September 10. The student approached the high court highlighting his plight that on the one hand AVMCH refused to issue his original certificates despite two directions from the court and on the other hand Jipmer fixed September 10 as the last date to submit his original certificates to join PDCC and praying for an appropriate direction to Jipmer. The court directed Jipmer to admit the student in PDCC.

Plan to let private hospitals offer standalone PG courses

Plan to let private hospitals offer standalone PG courses

At present, only medical colleges that have been offering the MBBS programme for at least three years are allowed to offer PG (MD and MS) courses, once they fulfill the specified criteria.

Published: 19th September 2020 08:26 AM 

By Sumi Sukanya dutta

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In what could open the door to a major shift in the way specialist doctors are trained in India, the country’s top medical education regulator is considering allowing private hospitals to offer standalone postgraduate degrees without having the prerequisite of an MBBS programme.

At present, only medical colleges that have been offering the MBBS programme for at least three years are allowed to offer PG (MD and MS) courses, once they fulfill the specified criteria. The Medical Council of India’s (MCI) Board of Governors has recently constituted a five-member committee, under AIIMS, Delhi director Dr Randeep Guleria to examine the proposal and finalise its modalities.

“The move is aimed at fulfilling the wide gap between demand and supply of specialist doctors within a few years,” said a senior member of the MCI Board of Governors. Certain private hospitals are allowed to offer two-year DNB degrees under the National Board of Examination, now considered equivalent to PG, but the training offered through the programme is often viewed as inferior when compared to PG degrees, said sources in MCI. 

Officials in the medical education regulator said the proposal was being taken forward to ensure the issue of shortage of specialists in even states with limited numbers of medical colleges is addressed. “Medical colleges in the country are concentrated largely in southern states and Maharashtra. States with the highest population have the worst doctor-population ratios,” said an MCI official. “This issue won’t be resolved unless we come up with major reforms, like the proposed one,” the official added. 

Expert feels MCI should rethink plan

The proposal comes close on the heels of another plan by the MCI-BOG to allow PG doctors to complete a three-month residency in district hospitals across India under the District Hospital Medical Residency Scheme which may push the PG seats by about 10,000 within a year. As of now, there are about 40,000 PG seats in medicine in the country.

Not everybody however is enthused by the idea.“I feel that the regulator is confused and many of its proposals and decisions contradict its stance and this includes the present plan,” said Dr Arun Kumar, former director of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna.

“For instance, many private medical colleges which are designed to train doctors are not allowed to offer PG courses due to the strict MCI norms while DNB courses are offered in hospitals which are only focused on the clinical part and don’t provide quality training,” he said.

“If private hospitals are given permission to offer PG, how will the students get trained in basic sciences and pre-clinical and para-clinical subjects?” Shouldn’t the regulator pay attention to ensure medical colleges are competent instead of allowing revenue stream for private hospitals, he asked.

Varsities to launch new courses

 Varsities to launch new courses

State panel recommends inclusion of four- and five-year programmes

20/09/2020

 G. Krishnakumar KOCHI

The Higher Education Department has asked universities in the State to initiate steps to launch new undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in innovative areas by November 1 this year.

These include four- and five-year programmes recommended by an expert committee set up by the government. The universities have been told to receive applications from accredited government and aided colleges and unaccredited aided colleges managed by Scheduled Tribe trusts.

Each college could apply for short-listed courses in the order of priority. As these courses are suggestive, any other course recommended by the universities concerned may also be included, according to a directive issued to the Registrars of Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut, Kannur and APJ Abdul Kalam Technological Universities. All varsities need to seek the permission of the Chancellor expeditiously to start the programmes by November 1.

The four- and five-year courses may be launched this year only in colleges with adequate facilities and having a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) score of 3.26 or ranking under 100 in the National Institute Ranking Framework, 2020. The universities should recommend the courses considering the syllabus and evaluation. The assistance of faculty from outside higher educational institutions offering similar courses can be sought while preparing the syllabus and credit requirements.

The universities should consider and implement changes in the examinations proposed by the committee headed by Sabu Thomas, Vice Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi University, this year itself. It should shift from memory-based testing to creative learning expressed through assignments, presentations and academic writings and earning of substantial credits through online courses from the prescribed list of global online courses. The government order said the target of increasing the gross enrolment ratio in higher education to 48% from the present 37% by 2030 can be achieved only by a collective effort by all stakeholders. This called for timely changes in the exam system as well to ensure qualitative improvement of the learning outcomes.

Some of the innovative programmes suggested by the expert committee included four-year courses in Epidemiology, Nanoscience and triple-main programmes in Modern Biology, Astrophysics and Disaster Management.

Salary cut may be limited to five days instead of six

 Salary cut may be limited to five days instead of six

20/09/2020

Special Correspondent THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Amidst opposition from many quarters, the government has commenced the groundwork to deduct the salary of employees for six months to raise funds to overcome the financial crisis in the wake of COVID-19.

To give relief to employees, the government is considering deducting salary for five days instead of six days every month till February 2021. Relief from the salary cut for those who have availed themselves of the refundable loan from the provident fund and those who have taken the Onam advance and to exempt those having salary up to ₹30,000 is also under consideration.

Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has already held talks with the recognised unions. Most of the union representatives have opposed the move. Dr. Isaac has asked the union leaders to give their views in writing.

Prof-Left unions such as the Joint Council, Federation of State Employees and Teachers Organisation, NGO Union, and the Secretariat Employees Association came out with statements on Saturday opposing the salary cut.

As per rule, the government has to issue a Government Order for all Cabinet decisions within 24 hours. The delay in issuing the salary cut order was reportedly due to the consultations with the recognised unions as announced by the Chief Minister. Following opposition from the Left unions, Dr. Isaac has convened a meeting of employees unions on Tuesday. With three consecutive holidays from Saturday, the department is trying to issue the Government Order on Tuesday itself. The proposed salary cut from September, to be known as COVID-19 Income Support Scheme, will also attract 9% annual interest till it is deposited in the PF on April 1, 2021.

Students face problems in uploading answer scripts

Students face problems in uploading answer scripts

20/09/2020

P.A. NarayaniMADURAI

A section of final year students from various institutions affiliated to Madurai Kamaraj University, including autonomous colleges, have flagged several issues while scanning and uploading their answer scripts in PDF format after the completion of the examinations.

G. Balamurugan, a final year undergraduate student from an autonomous institution, said there were several technical snags with the college server, when many students tried to upload their scanned answer sheets after completion of the exam. “They have set a deadline of one hour after the completion of the exam to upload the answer scripts. Students often get apprehensive as they are unable to upload them within the deadline,” he said.

Also, there are difficulties in scanning and uploading all the pages of the answer script in PDF formats from mobile phones as it consumes a large quantum of data, he added.

For many students, especially those from interior pockets, the options of sending the answer scripts by courier or submitting them in person at the educational institutions are not viable, said Students Federation of India district secretary S. Veldeva.

G. Senthil, another student of an autonomous college, said they were instructed to submit the scripts in person at the college, in addition to uploading them. “Many students from rural pockets cannot reach the college on time,” he said.

Karthik of District Youth Federation of India said many students from underprivileged families do not have access to the necessary digital infrastructure to complete the online exams. “There are a few cases where two students from a family have to upload the answer scripts within an hour by using a single smartphone,” he said.

Mr. Veldeva said many students were unable to attend the online classes that were held for the last semester during the pandemic. “Hence, the online exams must be scrapped. Instead, they can evaluate the students based on an assignment,” he said.

Civil hospital ‘forgets’ to do postmortem

 Civil hospital ‘forgets’ to do postmortem

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Rajkot: 19.09.2020

A 70-year-old accident victim’s grieving family in Gondal were subjected to more trauma after they were asked to bring his body to the Rajkot Civil Hospital allegedly because doctors there forgot to conduct his postmortem.

The furious family members of Batuk Kandoria, who died in a road accident on September 12 in Gondal town, had a heated altercation with the staff at the hospital on Friday. After Kandoria succumbed at the civil hospital at around 5am on Friday, his body was handed over to the family who took it to Gondal, 40 km from Rajkot.

Babu Kandoria, younger brother of the deceased told TOI: “We completed all the post-death rituals at home. Just as we were about to start for the crematorium, I got a call from hospital saying that we are required to take my brother’s body back Rajkot civil hospital.”

“The person who called me said they had forgotten to perform the mandatory postmortem,” Babu said.

At around 10:30am, the deceased’s kin again travelled to Rajkot with his body for the procedure. Finally, it was handed over to them again at 2:30pm.

Dr. Pankaj Buch, medical superintendent of the civil hospital, could not be contacted for comments despite several attempts.

“Had there been even half an hour’s delay in calling us, how would they have conducted the postmortem?” Babu asked.

Relatives of accident victim forced to bring back his body from Gondal to Rajkot Civil Hospital just 30 minutes before the cremation

45% engineering seats likely to go vacant in Gujarat’s colleges

 45% engineering seats likely to go vacant in Gujarat’s colleges

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad:19.09.2020

The Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC) today announced the provisional merit list for engineering courses according to which 27,261 candidates have been chosen. This will leave about 45% seats or about 22,791 seats vacant for the admission committee.

In all there are 64,782 seats this year of which ACPC is given the task to fill 50,051 seats. The remaining seats are to be filled by the self-financed colleges. In the provisional merit list, 23,483 candidates are from Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Board, 3,390 are from CBSE, 256 are from ICSE, NIOS 87 and 45 are domicile candidates. This year, the total number of seats for engineering has reduced as compared to 73,345 engineering seats last year. As many as 6,000 seats have been reduced after closure of five self-financed colleges. In the case of government colleges, there is a reduction of 2,130 seats in faculties like EC, IC, power electronics, mining and production engineering.

Earlier this week, 900 new candidates were registered after ACPC extended the deadline for online registration for the third time. The final merit list is expected to be announced next week. The deadline was first extended from August 8 to August

28. It was later revisited and a new deadline of September 5 was given for registration. By then, as many as 29,000 students had registered online. The admission committee however decided to extend the deadline given the large number of vacant seats in engineering colleges. But only 900 fresh candidates have registered, leaving about half of the total engineering seats empty.

There are currently 66,128 seats available in degree engineering colleges.

Of these, 9,086 seats are of 16 government run colleges, 1,622 seats of four grantin aid colleges, 543 are of 2 engineering institutes run on PPP model, 29,134 are of 72 self-financed institutes (SFIs) affiliated with Gujarat Technological University and 24,013 are of 38 SFIs associated with private universities in the state. The remaining 204 seats are of an autonomous college.

The admission process for engineering and medical courses is expected to be completed only by November following which students will start attending college from December, according to sources. As a result, students are likely to be behind schedule by at least one semester in the new academic year, sources added.