MCI gives anxious moments to house surgeons at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad
Medicos at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Adilabad, and Government Medical College, Nizamabad, are tensed as Medical Council of India (MCI) has kept the ‘recognition’ of the two i

Published: 12th August 2018 04:16 AM | Last Updated: 12th August 2018 04:16 AM | By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Medicos at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Adilabad, and Government Medical College, Nizamabad, are tensed as Medical Council of India (MCI) has kept the ‘recognition’ of the two institutes on hold. The students, along with Telangna Junior Doctors Association (JUDA), would submit representations to State Health minister C Laxma Reddy requesting him to look into the issue.

However, officials from the State Health department have urged the students not to worry as steps would be taken to get recognition from the Council.

House surgeons from the two institutes said that their degrees will not be valid and they will not be able to take National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) if the institutes are not recognised by March next year. While the Medical college in Nizamabad was established in 2013, RIMS was established in 2008.
As per procedure, MCI conducts inspection annually for five-years after a college is established and thereafter, inspections are carried every five year.

After recent inspections, the MCI inspection team kept recognition of the two institutes on hold.
“If the institutes are not recognised by March 2019, our degrees will not be recognised,” said a house surgeon from the Medical college in Nizamabad.

The official said that while senior resident doctors signed in registers and left to work in their wards, they were not considered and remarks were made that there is deficiency.

Contingency measures

Director of Medical Education Dr K Ramesh Reddy said as people are not interested to work in interior parts, they are going to recruit professors, assistant and associate professors, tutors on contract basis to fill vacancies

In round two of NEET, most MBBS seats reallotted

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:12.08.2018

In the second round of MBBS counselling that began Saturday, 893 out of 2,273 students, who had been called for counselling, turned up.

While 35 students were allotted seats afresh, 412 of them were reallotted seats in better colleges or colleges of their choice. While 365 students were realloted seats in government medical colleges, 29 were allotted seats in ESIC colleges and 51 in self-financing colleges. Two of them were realloted seats in government BDS college.

“We hoped to get into a medical college, but my son did not get a chance because most students got reallotment by opting for better colleges than what had been allotted in the first round,,” said Krishnan S, a parent. “I am hoping he will get his chance tomorrow(Sunday),” he said.

But N K Adityan, who had secured 84th NEET rank but could not get a seat of his choice in the first round was happy. On Saturday, he walked away with a seat in Madras Medical College.

The seat matrix for second round MBBS counselling, which began on Saturday, opened with 242 MBBS seats including 128 seats in government medical colleges, 26 seats in Annamalai University, 11 seats in ESIC Chennai and 77 seats under government quota in private colleges.

Illegal phone exchange case: Charges to be framed on Aug 17
Maran Brothers Face Trial After HC Junks Their Discharge

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:  12.08.2018

A special court for CBI cases here re-commenced the trial against former Union telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and his older brother Kalanithi Maran in the illegal telephone lines case, a fortnight after the Madras high court set aside their discharge from the case.

The XIV additional judge for CBI cases, R Vasanthi, posted the case to August 17 for framing charges.

On March14, special judge Natarajan passed an order discharging all the seven accused, including the Maran brothers, from all the charges. The judge said he was discharging them since there was no prima facie evidence to prove the charges against them.

Assailing the order, the CBI moved an appeal in the high court. Allowing the appeal on July 25, the high court set aside the discharge order noting that the court was fully satisfied that heaps and heaps of material were available to frame charges against all the accused. “None of the reasons given by the trial court to discharge them is sustained in law. The trial court judge has totally forgotten the fact that he should only weigh the probability of the case for framing charges,” the high court had said.

According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran— between June 2004 and December 2006 when he was Union minister for communication and information technology— misused his office and installed telephone lines at his residences in Chennai and used it for business transactions involving Sun Network, owned by Kalanithi. The CBI said more than 700 telecom lines had been installed in Maran’s residences in Boat Club and Gopalapuram, causing a loss of ₹1.78 crore to exchequer.



Dayanidhi (L) & Kalanithi Maran

State sports univ gets its first-ever woman VC

Chennai:12.08.2018

Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University has got its first-ever woman vice-chancellor (VC).

Sheila Stephen, former principal of YMCA College of Physical Education, has been appointed the VC of the university by governor Banwarilal Purohit for a period of three years.

Stephen comes to the post with rich academic and research experience. She has published more than 70 research publications and international journals, a Raj Bhavan release said on Saturday. Her overseas academic collaborations cover 14 countries, including Oxford University, Springfield College of Physical Education, Massachusetts, US, and Institute of Sport and Exercise Science, Worcester University, UK. Besides, she has guided 110 MPhil and 10 PhD scholars. TNN

TNPSC job scam: HC issues notice to prime accused

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:

The Madras high court on Friday ordered notice to Sam Rajeswaran, the prime accused in the TNPSC Group-I officers recruitment scam, on a plea moved by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) to revoke the anticipatory bail granted to him by a vacation judge in May.

Admitting the plea moved by the CCB, Justice M Dhandapani directed Rajeswaran to file his reply by August 20.

The CCB, in the remand application for TNPSC section officer Kasi Ram Kumar, stated that of the 74 Group-1 officers selected after 2016 examinations, 62 were from Apollo Study Centre run by Rajeswaran. Most recruits, however, could not join duty, as the high court barred allotting postings to the ‘selected’ candidates till the case reached its conclusion.

On May 16, a city sessions court granted bail to Rajeswaran, who apprehended arrest in connection with the scam. Hewasdirected nottoleaveIndia without the permission of the court.

The prosecution lodged a ‘strong objection’ before the trial court against granting anticipatory bail to Rajeswaran and argued that the high court had already given a go-ahead to the CCB and that the probe was proceeding in the right manner.

However, the trial court allowed the bail application concurring with the submission of Rajeswaran’s counsel that the CCB had not recovered a single document against the petitioner so far, despite the arrest of four TNPSC section officers.

According to the CCB’s April 26 remand application seeking judicial custody of Kasi, Kasi confessed to conspiring with Rajeswaran to commit the offence. The application said Kasi was arrested based on the evidence seized during a raid at Apollo Study Centre on January 28.

The information from various documents, phone numbers, and model question papers seized from the centre revealed a clear picture of the crime and its modus operandi including the illegal favours by section officer Kasi for Rajeswaran, the remand memo said.

77% of hotel mgmt grads land jobs, it’s just 40% for engineers

Radheshyam.Jadhav@timesgroup.com  12.08.2018

An engineer or a tech graduate will never be out of a job, right? Well, you’re only 40% right. New data indicates that hotel management graduates are far more likely to be placed than those trained in architecture, engineering or even technology.

In the last four years, 77% (8,761 of 11,388 students) who passed out of hotel management and catering colleges approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) got jobs, while only 40% of engineers and technology graduates (20.7 lakh of 51.4 lakh) managed to find placement. Architects and town planning graduates were even worse off, with 35% (only 5,751 of 16,544) of them getting placed.

Though there are many more engineering and technology pass-outs than other streams, the data does seem to be in keeping with industry’s complaint that poor quality of engineering graduates makes them unsuitable for employment.

Of the seven broad streams under the jurisdiction of the AICTE, ‘management’ was the only one, apart from hotel management and catering, in which placements were more than 50% of the number of students passing out, with 4.2 lakh out of 7.4 lakh or 56% getting placed. Experts say that a comparatively smaller pool of employable youth and a growing hospitality industry are to be credited for this shift.



‘Vocational skillsets being valued more’

Interestingly, boys dominate the enrolment chart in hotel management and catering occupying 86% of seats. In contrast, girls (52%) outnumber boys (48%) in architecture and town planning, where placements are the lowest.

Experts say that a comparatively smaller pool of employable youth and a growing hospitality industry are to be credited for this shift. Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and executive vice-president of Teamlease Services Limited, said that the findings were not surprising. “There is a dearth of qualified trained professionals. Today vocational skillsets are being valued and students are getting placement,” she said. She agreed that the quality was a question when it comes to courses like engineering and MBA and many of these degree holders were not employable.

Manav Thadani, founder chairman at Hotelivate, said the trend was likely to continue. “There is huge scope for service-oriented industries and accordingly the flow of students will increase to these streams,” he said.

UGC cancels the recognition of distance edu courses of 35 univs

Hemali.Chhapia@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:

UGC has ‘cancelled’ the recognition of distance learning courses offered by 35 state and central universities, casting into uncertainty the future of lakhs of higher education aspirants across the country. The institutes have been given a month to submit their explanation to seek reversal of UGC’s decision.

On Friday, UGC notified that universities not running the same/similar course in regular mode for the past five years would also not receive recognition. In case of professional courses such as MBA, MCA, BEd, hotel management and tourism, the UGC, in its announcement, said recognition would not be accorded without the prior approval of the respective regulatory authority. Scrutiny of courses offered by deemed universities was still on, sources told TOI. Fearing cancellation, several universities have reduced their programme offerings, as they did not meet the compliance requirement.

Maha worst hit by UGC derecognition

Last year, a total of 117 institutes, including private and deemed universities, were granted permission to run distance education courses. Maharashtra is one of the worst affected with Mumbai University’s Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL), ShivajiUniversity, Marathwada University and Mahatma Gandhi University losing their recognition.

Besides, Yeshwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) can admit students only to only 17 of its 38 UG and PG programmes in 2018-19.

The open university, which has close to 6.5 lakh students, offers 110 courses, including diploma and certificate courses which do not need the UGC’s recognition criteria. D Harichandan, director of Mumbai University’s IDOL, which sees an annual enrolment of close to 70,000 students, said, “The expert committee had strongly recommended all our courses. We don’t know what happened after that. Mumbai University is an autonomous body and our courses are recognized by our academic council; who is the UGC to derecognize us?”

He felt that the UGC was undermining the autonomy of MU. The cancellation was reasoned to the absence of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation for this university; the grade expired in April 2017. As per the UGC’s notice on February 6, institutes not accredited by NAAC within three months would not be awarded recognition. “We had brought this to the notice of the authorities, but no one was concerned. The deadline was early April,” said a senate member. In case of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the VC said there was confusion over professional courses, in addition to two to three other programmes.

“We have sent our records to UGC for verification,” said VC Nageshwar Rao.