Hyderabad Higher Education Updates

[sonakshi]

top 1000 in IIT-JEE exams every year, the starting and closing ranks of candidates at IIT-H for the past two years range between 1,600 and 2,916.It is not just the older IITs like Bombay and Madras that are preferred over IIT-H, even new IITs set up in 2008 like Patna and Mandi are opted by more Top Engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh students than IIT-Hyderabad. Most of the top 100 rank holders opt for Bombay, Roorkee and Madras. Among the new IITs, IIT-Patna and Mandi are catching up, bagging students with top ranks ranging between 985 and 1,500.

[Gudavalli]

80 colleges face derecognition

As many as 80 engineering and other professional colleges located within the Hyderabad Metropolitan Region limits are faced with the threat of losing their recognition and affiliation.

After a series of warnings, the Hyderabad Metro-politan Development Autho-rity has written to the All-India Council for Technical Education to derecognise these colleges.

The HMDA has also shot off letters to the Jawaharlal Nehru Tech-nological University to cancel the affiliation of these institutions, as all of them are unauthorised by virtue of either violating the land use norms or the building rules, and in some cases, violation of both categories.

HMDA commissioner Neerabh K. Prasad said, “We have also written to the social welfare department to stop all concessions and benefits to these institutions.

Even the higher education department officials have been requested to take stringent action against the managements of these instutitions.”

HMDA had earlier served notices on about 260 engineering, MCA, MBA and other professional colleges to get their land use chan-ged appropriately and also regularise the college buildings after paying penalties.

About 160 colleges have submitted their applications for regularisations. However, nearly 80 of them have not come forward despite repeated notices. So the HMDA has finally written to the higher authorities to derecognise them.

[Gudavalli]

CBSE schools in Hyderabad game for sports

HYDERABAD: It is time you took your child's sports lessons in school seriously as according to a new policy being adopted by many schools in Hyderabad, marks obtained in physical education and sports will have a bearing on the final grades. As part of the newly introduced Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), schools under the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum have decided to keep aside up to 15% marks for physical education for the final grades of students.

About 20 out of the 36 CBSE schools in the city have currently introduced a detailed report card for physical education, which principals say will have a direct impact on the final grades. This decision has been taken to improve the health standards of children due to increase in the number of obese cases in the city. "Parents are interested in overall development of their children. With CBSE promoting skill development in sports, the physical education classes have become rather important for students," said Usha Reddy, principal of Meridian School, where students are being asked to make a choice from three games on the offer.

More schools are expected to follow suit in the coming academic year. From a physical fitness to proficiency in games, assessment will be done at different levels in these schools. While students will be assessed on a 10 point scale over a period of six months in an academic year, expert physical education trainers from reputed fitness solution companies will keep both parents and teachers updated on the status of the child's physical fitness levels.

Among the schools that offer a complete sports package to their students are Meridian School, Euro Kids School, P Obul Reddy School, Geetanjali School, Chirec Publc School and Oakridge International School among others. While Delhi Public School and Chinmaya Vidyalaya are planning to implement it from the next academic session. "We would want to implement a richer programme by the beginning of the next academic year so that the students can opt from a wide range of games. Parent Teachers Association is in favour of the management's decision to better the physical education curriculum here," said Seetha Murthy, principal of Silver Oaks School.

School principals who have implemented the complete sports education pattern said parents are interested in the same. Parents said while exhaustion levels in children are what they are worried the most about, the newly developed physical education classes and assessment gives them a status report on their health. "Children are encouraged to be part of sports, unlike earlier times when physical education was just another hour for teachers to take special classes. The change in focus has brought back leisure to school education curriculum," said Praseetha Reddy, parent of a child in Chirec Public School.

Some said since parks and open spaces in the city are shrinking everyday, the school ground is the only place where children can play. "In this context introduction of a comprehensive sports curriculum will help them a lot," said Md Kareemuddin, a parent of Sujatha School in Chapel Road.

Times view

At a time when children are suffering from obesity and childhood diabetes, which doctors say is mainly due to consumption of junk and unhealthy food, the initiative by 20 CBSE schools to encourage sports in their institutions is a big relief. All schools from other boards should take this matter seriously as today's children are tomorrow's future and their well-being and fitness will have an impact on the country's prosperity in the long run.

[Ron7]

Regional center of NIFTEM to come up in Hyderabad

A Regional Center of the National Institute of Food Technology & Entrepreneurship Management (NIFTEM) is proposed to be located at Hyderabad. Officials said Professional Course in Polytechnics will be introduced which will include development of diploma courses in food technology for employment generation. The course will include Electro-mechanical Aspects, Cold Chain Development, Food Standards & Hygiene and Food Processing Technology.

A Footwear Design & Development Institute (FDDI) will also be established in the State in line with the concept and principle of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT).

[Gudavalli]

Undergraduate textbook revision to give students a shot in the arm

HYDERABAD: Changing with time, the state government is planning a massive revamp of textbooks at the undergraduate level, with changes being done in 16 subjects in science, arts and commerce streams so that students who take vanilla degrees get an edge over the others in competitive exams.

The syllabus revision in most subjects is taking place after a gap of 10 to 15 years and at a time when most education boards in other states have updated their syllabi. The revision has come after the higher education department held year-long meetings with academicians and industry representatives to figure out the changes required in the curriculum.

Universities including Osmania and Andhra University in Vizag have agreed to implement the new syllabus while 21 other universities will consider the same for academic year 2014-15.

The meetings were held after governor E S L Narasimhan ordered a revamp of the educational system in the state in August 2011.

Among the subjects that will undergo revision are economics, history, commerce, zoology, botany, physics, chemistry, bachelor of business administration, mathematics, Telugu, English, civics and journalism & mass communication, officials said.

The higher education department has been contemplating revision of syllabus since the last three years after complaints about outdated syllabus started pouring in from the state's teaching community.

"In the interactions with students and teachers across the state, the department found dissatisfaction with the existing syllabi. Employability was their concern and hence we roped in people from the industry to look at the syllabus. The new syllabus will have a fresh feel which is meant to make studying interesting," said a senior official from the department.

The new syllabus was developed after consulting universities of states including Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

The new syllabus will also make soft skill training and spoken English compulsory at undergraduate level.

"The corporate sector requires students who are not just good at studies, but those who are good at expressing themselves. Osmania University had introduced soft skill training in colleges and now other universities will follow suit," said S Satyanarayana, vice-chancellor, OU, who is part of the syllabus revision committee.

Teachers welcomed the change in syllabus. "In a classroom to sustain the attention of students we need to provide challenging reading material. Currently, different universities prescribe different texts to provide students a holistic learning experience," said Purushotam Rao, faculty member, commerce department, OU.

"But with the revision of syllabus, students across the state are guaranteed richer classroom learning," he said.

When asked about syllabus change, city students said they welcome the same.

"During the recruitment drive each year, industry heads state that there is a huge gap between theory and practice. It is reassuring to know that the new syllabus plans to bridge this gap," said Sunil Reddy, a student of St Mary's College Yousufguda.

[sriece19]

ISB integrates placements for Hyderabad, Mohali campuses

Indian School of Business (ISB), which inaugurated its second campus in Mohali this month, is set to place its biggest batch, as it will have integrated placement for all the 770 students – 570 in the Hyderabad campus and 200 in Mohali. The placement process will commence by the second week of this month.

ISB will be integrating its two campuses and hold unified placements. Day 1 and 2 of the placement season will be held in Mohali where shortlisted students from the Hyderabad campus will also join. The Day 3, Day 4 and the subsequent ones will take place in the Hyderabad campus where students of the Mohali campus will be flown in.

“It is still early days to comment on any specific details related to placement. I think the demand from industry is significantly better compared with the last year. Technology, e-commerce and even financial services are slowly looking better. We will have a clear idea only when people come and make their offers. At this point, the sentiment is slowly shifting towards favourable, but it has to move a lot. It is looking optimistic,” Ajit Rangnekar, dean of ISB, said.

According to him, the way the second campuses of leading B-schools are positioned is not right. At ISB, both the campuses are treated as just one. “In the merit list during admission, we took seven people at a time and put five in Hyderabad and two in Mohali as per the seat capacity and then did the same with the next seven candidates on the list. We ensured that we get the same profile of students in both the campuses and the quality of the students remains identical in both the campuses. The programs and the faculty in both Mohali and Hyderabad are same. Finally, all the students will have their placements together,” Rangnekar said.

On the number of companies coming to ISB for placement this year, Rangekar said, “I can only say that the number will be more than the previous year.”

ISB commenced its Mohali facility in April 2012. The institute has been operating under a ‘one school – two campuses’ model since then. The school’s flagship Post Graduate Programme (PGP) is being offered simultaneously at both the campuses and it will have its first unified and biggest-ever placement season this year.

To ensure successful placements, ISB will seek help from its alumni across programs. The ISB management is conscious of the fact that it has to communicate the value proposition to a lot of firms so that they can hire in more numbers from ISB.

[Gudavalli]

Govt recommended aid of Rs.30 crore for Centre of Excellence at IMH, Hyderabad

Report by India Education bureau, Hyderabad: The Institute of Mental Health, Hyderabad has informed that it has finalized the preliminary designs for obtaining the approval of local bodies for carrying out the construction work. The proposal for creation of faculty posts for the Centre of excellence has been submitted to the State Government and is under process.

After consideration of the proposal received from the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the Standing Committee has recommended a central assistance of Rs. 30.00 crore to Institute of Mental Health, Hyderabad for establishment of a Centre of Excellence in the field of mental health for meeting the cost of capital work, equipment, faculty, technical staff etc.

Out of the recommended amount, the Government had released an amount of Rs.5.28 crores in 2009-10 as first instalment.

Due to non utilization of the funds released to the Institute, no further grant could be released to the Institute

This information was given by Minister for Health & Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

[Gudavalli]

MHRD writes to higher education institutes to launch meta-university

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India has written to as many as seven higher education institutions to launch meta-university. These are apart from the Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia, which have already announced their first course under this concept and Jawaharlal Nehru University and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

According to minister of state, HRD, Shashi Tharoor, "The Central Government has written letters to the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, the University of Hyderabad, the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and the IIT, Hyderabad to launch this kind of model."

The minister, during a reply to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday said: "The University of Calcutta, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta have expressed their interest in meta-universities."

Explaining the concept and purpose of the meta-university, Tharoor, said that the main purpose is to share learning resources with different universities by using the latest technologies available in order to enable the students to benefit from the learning resources available in different institutions.

"The University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to come out with detailed guidelines on meta-universities," added Tharoor.

About the kind of courses to be launched the minister said: "Higher educational institutions being fully autonomous entities, it is now left to them to collaborate and identify the courses/ programmes to be offered in the meta-universities. One such meta-university has already been started in Delhi."

[Gudavalli]

University of Hyderabad advances admissions to Feb

HYDERABAD, DEC 18:
University of Hyderabad, which has been ranked among the top universities in the country, has advanced its admissions for the academic year 2013-14 to February.

“Till now, we had admission programmes and entrance tests in June every year. But from next academic year, the entrance examinations will be conducted during February 21-26, 2013,’’ Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Vice-Chancellor, UoH, told newspersons here on Tuesday.

The online submission of applications on the university Web site (www.uohyd.ac.in) would start from December 21, 2012 and close on January 1, 2013.

The applicants can download hall tickets from February 14. The entrance exams would be conducted in 33 centres across the country, including 10 in Andhra Pradesh.

NEW COURSES

The 40-year-old central university is also offering two new courses from this year – master of Public Health and an integrated masters (five-year) programme in earth and space sciences.

[mydg]

Toefl sınavları üzerine hazırlanmış, sesli ve görüntülü videolar içeren, konusunda uzman kişilerce anlatımlı, toefl sınavları seti.

[Gudavalli]

Pvt college medicos eager to intern at govt hospitals

HYDERABAD: In a move welcomed by government hospitals, more fresh graduates from private medical colleges will get a chance to treat patients in state-run hospitals which treat thousands of patients every week with just a handful of doctors.
The government order giving permission to 85 graduates from private colleges in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the country also provides a rare opportunity for junior doctors to get hands-on experience as government hospitals get more patients when compared to private set ups. The graduates will be working in three centres namely Osmania Medical College (OMC), Andhra Medical College (AMC) at Visakhapatnam and Government Dental College (GDC) in Hyderabad.

While 50 interns from private medical colleges in and outside the country will be able to do their house surgeonship at OMC, 20 will be able to intern with AMC and another 15 will be able to pursue their internship at GDC Hyderabad. With this move OMC will have 250 interns while GDC will have 65 and AMC will have 80 interns.

A senior official at OMC said this new capacity building move will help the 1,400 patients that the hospital caters to every day. "The hospital caters to 70,000-75,000 emergencies annually and around 150 surgeries are performed daily. Because of poor shortage of nurses doctors end up doing their work," he said welcoming the move.

A senior professor from Niloufer Hospital, which is a wing of OMC, said that hospitals attached to private colleges lack patient strength to give students the kind of exposure that they get at a government hospital and neither have the faculty.

"The rush for internship at state-run medical colleges clearly indicates that the hospitals attached to private medical colleges don't have any clinical work going on. It is only on paper," he added. Officials said that interns who seek transfer of internship from one institution to another would have to submit applications for transfer at the office of the director of medical education.

"We have been receiving a lot of applications and the pressure is building up year after year. We had written to the government for sanction of additional seats and the proposal was accepted. Gandhi Medical College is overflowing with interns so there is no chance for enhancement there," said Dr Vishnu Prasad, director of medical education.

[Gudavalli]

Hyderabad second in the race for IITs

Hyderabad: Hyderabad stood second in the country this year for sending the most number of students to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The highest number of students who got into the prestigious institutions came from Jaipur.

This year as many as 2,135 students from the city got selected for IITs as against 2,680 students from Jaipur. Delhi stood third at 2,050 students while only 389 students from Chennai (14th place) made the cut.

Better training facilities offered by corporate colleges and coaching centres in the city that especially train applicants to crack national-level competitive exams is said to be the reason for this flood into the IITs.

Prominent coaching institute groups in AP such as Sri Chaitanya, Narayana, FIITJEE, Delta, Ramaiah etc. have been bagging hundreds of seats in IITs for the last four-five years.
While there are approximately, 9,500 seats in 15 IITs, about 2,375 seats, amounting to 25 per cent, were secured by students from the state alone this year.

Hyderabad also holds the distinction of securing All-India first ranks for two years in a row (the last two years) and of bagging maximum ranks in the top-10 for the past three years.

In the process, the city has overtaken Kota in Rajasthan, which was considered the national hub for coaching for engineering and medical competitive exams.

“The success of our students in IITs is due to increased awareness among parents. They motivate their children to get seats in ins-titutions of national repute, be it engineering, medical or any other course, right from Class VIII. Five years ago, this was not the case.

[mydg]

Toefl sınavı sınavı üzerine yoğunlaşan sitemiz, konusunda uzman kadro ile toefl sınav sistemini her sınav döneminde inceler ve toefl sınavı sınavında başarılı olma yöntemlerini denemektedir ve böylece başarı kaçınılmazdır. Detaylar için sitemizi ziyaret edebilirsiniz.

[Prodigist]

IIT Hyderabad: Creating a New and Innovative IIT

By Uday Desai, Director-IIT Hyderabad

Source: IITB-Fundamatics- Page 19

Creating an institution from scratch is a big challenge and creating an IIT is an enormous challenge. Today, brand IIT is bigger than anyone could have ever imagined. Everyone, from colleagues, peers, students, alumni to the society at large has phenomenally high expectations—it is quite easy to get overwhelmed. The trick is to listen to everyone, but finally go with your vision.

As founding director, it is imperative to have a clear vision for IIT Hyderabad (IITH)—this vision is adaptable and by that, it does not mean that one is wavering in their intentions or principles. It means that I am listening—listening to myself, and to all my well-wishers and critics.

Where does one begin to describe the journey in the making of IIT Hyderabad? As the director of a new IIT, I had to wear several hats. Of course, the Director, then being the Dean Faculty, Dean R&D, Dean Planning, Dean of Academic Affairs, being the HoD of several departments and so on. It sounds daunting, but it is not as bad as it sounds. You have help from the mentor IIT which was immensely valuable—but then there is the inevitable clash of visions—the young one believes in leap-frogging ahead, and the established one believes in relying on timetested approaches. But that is another story for another article.

Upon taking charge, the very first thing was to articulate my vision. Based on this vision I had to define my priorities. For me, the topmost priority was recruiting the best faculty. This was a challenge since everybody everywhere is crying hoarse about the acute shortage of faculty at IITs. To not get confounded with this challenge, I visualised the beginnings of IIT Kharagpur in 1951 and then IITB, IITM, IITK and IITD in quick succession in the late 50s and early 60s. They overcame this challenge with aplomb, and that too in days of scarce resources.

This gave me strength, and today IITH has 85 world-class faculty members, who are not just doing research and teaching (with 50 sponsored projects), but aggressively working towards making IITH a world-class institute. This was not easy; IITH made it a point to have two to three selection committee meetings per department, per year in all of its eleven departments.

A related challenge is to inculcate the IIT ecosystem and IIT culture among the faculty, students and staff. This is not as automatic as one would assume. In my opinion, this is a much harder task, and an ongoing one for
some years to come. Nevertheless, a lot has been achieved in a short time. The faculty at IITH is publishing vigorously, and sponsored research is fast becoming the DNA of IITH.

Obviously I had to lead from the front, but simultaneously I had to make sure that every faculty member felt that she/he had much more stake than me in the future of IITH—directors come and go, but the faculty is there for the long haul. This too is an ongoing task and a lot has been achieved. Faculty at IITH is selflessly devoting enormous time in participating in various functions of IITH, and also the development of the main campus—over and above research and teaching.

They are holeheartedly coming forward to increase the number of students and starting new academic programmes. By August 2012, IITH will have 1,000 students in 11 departments with roughly 1:1 UG:PG ratio. IITH was the first to start the M. Tech. programme, and its first batch of M. Techs graduated in 2011. In the summer of 2012, its first batch of B. Techs., M.Sc. and the second batch of M. Techs will graduate.

PhDs will soon follow. IITH has more than 150 PhD students and many have started publishing in internationally referred conferences and journals. In fact, even undergraduates are actively involved in research and publications.

The next big challenge is the construction of the main campus. It appears that bricks and mortar is not the big challenge. But the plethora of rules, regulations and approvals make this a long drawn out and challenging task. The challenge involves designing for the future—not just the near future, but an appreciably far one. Occasionally, one looks into a crystal ball and hopes that the present decisions will be rendered valuable in the future.

Moreover, these are tasks which range from decisions like the trivial ‘colour of tiles’ to the larger vision of building a technical abode which fosters research and innovations. IITH has more than met this challenge. IITH has a master plan for 6,000 students by 2017 and 20,000 students by 2027. The campus design is modular and innovative, to create an ambience for cross-disciplinary research.

It has Central Core laboratories, a Centers quad and a Commons. IITH will be the first academic institution in India with solar power supply connected to the grid, and district as well as radiation cooling. There are numerous other innovations that cannot be recounted due to want of space.

The academic front also requires major innovations. Being a new IIT, we are agile and are able to quickly implement innovative new ideas, and of course exploit the best practices from older IITs.

Innovations at IITH:

1. Fractional credit courses: we have created quite a disruptive credit structure to enhance industry collaboration, wherein industry relevant credits in cutting-edge areas can be given by industry personnel.
   
2. A 15-day project for freshmen upon entering IITH, to be presented on August 15.
   
3. A one-credit project for freshmen to be presented on January 26. Here, the project topic is defined by the student and all faculty members at IITH are consultant guides.
   
4. The project component comprises 33% of the overall curriculum.
   
5. From 2012, IITH will start a new B.Tech. programme in Engineering Sciences to give a holistic education. For the first 2.5 years, the student will get exposure to several engineering disciplines. In the next 1.5 years, the student will specialise in the discipline of his/her choice—it can be any discipline offered at IITH.

Besides engineering, this can include Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Economics, Psychology, and so on. Perhaps for the first time in India, such a flexible programme is being offered to students. At IITH, we have a Liberal Arts department as opposed to the conventional HSS department. The vision is to incorporate fine arts and performing arts in the curriculum soon.

On the international front, IITH has MoUs with some of the leading universities in the world: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Georgia Tech.; University of Southern California; University of California, San Diego; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Utah and several others. We already have faculty and student exchange with some of these universities. IITH has already received its first donation from Arimilli Rao, a $100,000 donation for faculty development in CSE.

IITH has a very active collaboration with Japan. Japan is investing in some of IITH’s infrastructure and their architects are designing the International Guest House, Sports and Cultural Complex, and the Incubation Center cum Research Park.

To conclude, the journey at IITH has just begun, the road ahead is full excitement, laughter, team-building and joyous experiences—we hope to give a whole new definition to education and research in India.

Uday Desai has been the Director of IIT Hyderabad since June 2009.
From 1987 to May 2009, he was a Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at IIT Bombay. He was Dean of Students at IITB and spent two years as Director of HP-IITM’s R&D Laboratory. From 1979 to 1987 he was faculty at School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Washington State University. He has held Visiting Associate Professor positions at Arizona State University, Purdue University and Stanford University. He was a Visiting Professor at EPFL, Lausanne. He received his B. Tech. degree from IIT Kanpur, M.S. from the State University of New York, Buffalo and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Link to the master plan of the new campus.

[Gudavalli]

Decks cleared for OU PhD admissions

Security to be beefed up at administrative building

. OUTA representatives meet VC
. VC tenders apology to the concerned professor
. OUTA relents after appeals from student unions

Hyderabad: With teachers’ representatives giving their nod, decks are now cleared for PhD admissions in Osmania University. A delegation from Osmania University Teachers’ Association (OUTA) met Vice-Chancellor S Satyanarayana and gave a representation on Monday.They requested the Vice-Chancellor to go ahead with the admissions process. In the letter, the teachers’ community sought an apology from the VC for failing to act when a student leader in his chamber allegedly manhandled a professor from Journalism Department.

Teachers’ representatives informed that the VC tendered an apology to the concerned professor and told them that he would send his apology letter to heads of all departments. It may be mentioned here that teachers’ union earlier sought a probe into the alleged irregularities in PhD admissions process. OUTA informed that VC also responded positively to their demand for providing security to teachers from the attacks of student leaders or anti-social elements.

It is learnt that S Satyanarayana assured them of security at sensitive places like administrative building, Dean and Principal offices in the premises of the Osmania University. The Vice- Chancellor would be speaking to the city police commissioner for deploying police personnel on permanent basis at these buildings, OUTA leaders said.

Explaining about the decision, teachers’ representatives informed that they gave their nod for admissions after appeals for co-operation from various student unions. Keeping the interests of the students in the mind besides not to cause any delay to the academic schedule of the PhD courses, we retracted from our earlier stand, teachers added.

[mydg]

Toefl soruları üzerine her türlü bilgiyi bulabileceğiniz, toefl sınav soruları nı konusunda uzman hocalar tarafından anlatımlı TOEFL soruları seti.

[Gudavalli]

PhD for research on ethics in journalism

Hyderabad: The Osmania University has announced PhD for Ramu Survajjula for his research on ethical aspect of journalism in Andhra Pradesh. It is the first-of-its-kind research on the subject in the State.

Suravajjula has over two decades of journalistic experience in print media and four years of teaching experience in journalism. He is a visiting faculty at University of Hyderabad. He had worked with newspapers like The Hindu, Mail Today, The Sunday Indian and Eenadu. He is a recipient of gold medals in BCJ and MCJ from OU.

An elated Suravajjula said on being conferred PhD that the practice of ethics in journalism is complex and multidimensional; and no single method such as a survey, content analysis or experiment can provide the breadth of information that is required.

Hence, an exploratory study that uses a combination of methods had been used by him. He used interviews, a case study and a focus group discussion to collect data. As many as 163 working journalists of Telugu dailies took part in his survey.

[Gudavalli]

BITS Pilani lines up expansion plans

The institute targets to be among the top three institutes in India by 2015, one of the top 25 in Asia by 2020

The Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, a deemed university, is embarking on an expansion across its India campuses at Hyderabad, Goa and Pilani (Rajasthan).

Under the institute's growth plan 'Vision 2020, Mission 2012', announced by its vice-chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla, it targets to be among the top three institutes in India by 2015 and one of the top 25 institutes in Asia across engineering and sciences courses by 2020.

According to the India Today ratings, BITS Pilani has been ranked sixth after the top IITs of Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras under the public and private engineering colleges in India.

"We have taken up several initiatives, including appointing task forces, to achieve our target. The initiatives include modernising and building campus infrastructure like hostels and academic buildings, increasing student strength, adding new courses and bringing in new innovative technologies," VS Rao, director of BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad campus, told Business Standard.

"The growth plans should be implemented over the next three months," he added.

BITS Pilani has plans to increase its student strength from the current 10,500 to 18,000 across all the campuses. It aims to have 1,500 PhDs from the current 500 by 2015.

Under the mentorship of Birla, the institute is currently working on an investment plan and is in the process of collecting data from all its campuses. "The outlay may reach close to Rs 1,000 crore to execute the mission," he said.

"A Rs 400-crore modernisation initiative is already under way at the Pilani campus. It was started a year ago and is currently in the process of building infrastructure, which is expected to be completed by 2015," he said. In the last four years, BITS Pilani had invested around Rs 300 crore in the Hyderabad campus alone.

To launch a new course on information security

BITS Pilani is planning to start a four-year integrated programme on information security from the 2013-14 academic year. "Information security is going to be a major area in the coming years, as cyber security is emerging as a major threat across the globe," he said. The new programme will have around 40 students per batch.

[sriece19]

NGO plans to set up Arabic varsity in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: A university will soon come up in the city with an aim to promote education and research in Arabic language, city-based NGO Mesco announced here on Thursday.

To be set up by the NGO itself, this would perhaps be the first mainstream university of Arabic language in the country outside the fold of seminaries. The three-decade old voluntary agency, Muslim Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (Mesco) runs several educational institutions, including colleges in professional courses. Some 10 years ago it started courses in Arabic language for students. Now it offers certificate, diploma and degree level Arabic courses for students as well as teachers.

The Arabic Language and English Education Foundation or Aleef University is expected to come up by 2015. "Today was the launch of Aleef University concept," Dr Mohammed Iftekharuddin, in-charge of the Mesco's education activities, said during the inaugural session of a five-day conference titled Education Conclave-2012 at Jubilee Hall, Public Gardens.

Iftekharuddin said that the university will be set up on the outskirts of Hyderabad and a land has been identified for the purpose. The draft constitution of the university has been prepared and the government will be approached soon for recognition. "Initially the proposed university will have five Mesco colleges as its affiliates," he said.

He said that the courses in Arabic language offered by various universities in the country do not meet the standard of education in schools and colleges.

"Our main problem would be getting qualified and experienced teachers. There is dearth of such teachers even at school and college level. Those persons who have the knowledge are not trained in modern methodologies of teaching," he said.

The conference which will discuss different dimensions of education has been organized in association with six organizations from within the country and the US.

[Gudavalli]

Osmania University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University postpone exams

HYDERABAD: All examinations scheduled for Saturday at the Osmania University (OU) have been postponed after the OU Telangana Students' Joint Action Committee (OU-TSJAC) called for a day-long educational bandh after the Centre deferred by a month a decision on the separate Telangana state.
Several schools also declared holiday in view of the bandh call, while Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) postponed the ongoing examinations.

In support of a general strike called by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), in protest against Centre's dilly-dallying on the statehood issue, the Osmania students will take out a rally from the Arts College.

"The new dates for post-graduate and under-graduate examinations will be announced soon," an official release of the university stated.

In what seems to be a novel form of protest, the TSJAC has also given a call to "taint" the politicians who have taken an anti-Telangana stand.

"We have started an SMS campaign where students from across the region have been asked to smear politicians with ink starting Saturday. The students' JAC has christened this form of protest 'ink-pen' rebellion. And this would continue till the declaration of the new state," said M Krishank, spokesperson, OU-TSJAC.

OU-TSJAC members said that students will be in the forefront of demonstration starting next Thursday.

"The state government has not been negotiating earnestly with the Centre on the Telangana issue. This dilly-dallying has to stop. We want the Centre to declare formation of separate state immediately," said Kailash Neta, an OU-TSJAC leader.

The Union government on Friday said a decision on Telangana would come after a month.

OU's teaching and non-teaching staff have also extended their support to the bandh. "OU Teachers' Association (OUTA) has given their support for the bandh. The teachers are planning a pen down strike in January in support of the T cause," said an OUTA source.

Students said that after deliberations they would chalk out their agitational programmes for the coming year.

"The state government will have to face many educational bandhs in the future if they do not give consent to the T people's demand. The people of the region have waited for decades hoping to breathe free in a separate state and they will not wait anymore," said Pidamarthi Ravi, a TSJAC leader.