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Showing posts from February 23, 2014

CBSE bans coaching for JEE, schools look to dodge rule

Schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will have to stop conducting courses that integrate the regular syllabus and coaching for competitive exams like the Joint Entrance Examination for admission to the IITs, the board has said. In a circular criticizing schools for commercializing education, CBSE directed principals of all institutions affiliated to the board to immediately stop offering such coaching programmes as part of the regular workday or otherwise. "It has been reported that some of the schools are running coaching institutions on the school premises under the pretext of providing preparations for entrance examinations. This is not approved by the board and schools need to stop such malpractices immediately," said the CBSE circular from CBSE secretary Joseph Immanuel to principals. It said the board is liable to take "appropriate action" against schools that do not adhere to conditions stipulated in CBSE's affiliation by

Alok Nath in IIT Bombay's mid-semester question paper?

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Actor Alok Nath really gets around. His popularity wave has now apparently swept the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, off its feet. A screenshot, purportedly of a mid semester paper of IIT-B, is doing the rounds of Facebook and Twitter. It shows a question that has the actor starring in it. We cannot vouch for its authenticity as most memes that pop up online are spoofs. But this is amusing nonetheless. The question states "Alok Nath had decided to celebrate a sanskari Valentine's Day by climbing the Kailash mountain" and then goes on to the actual problem. Alok Nath in IIT Bombay's mid-semester question paper

IIT-Madras launches online study material for engineering students

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Human Resource Development (HRD) minister MM Pallam Raju launched the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras. It is a distant education course for a large number of participants who can become a part of it through internet. It will provide an interactive platform to students and teachers. Videos, text materials and problem sets will all be provided to the students. Around four million engineering students will be able to receive quality education through this distant online course rolled out by IITs in association with partners such as Nasscom and Google. The best part about the entire project is that students will get to learn from the best professors. The objective behind this initiative is to provide IT industry-ready and job-ready courses to the students. The emphasis has been given on foundation skills in IT and engineering proficiency programme. In order to sign up for the programme, the willing candidates need to visit onlin

IIT professor creates 'E-dog' to sniff bombs

On its way to developing an ultra-sensitive low cost explosive detector, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, will soon unveil an "e-nose" that will be several times stronger than a dog's olfactory power. This device, which is also informally called 'E-dog' by the developing team, will find out traces of RDX that existing machines fail to point out. It will be able to detect RDX from 1.5 feet. The e-nose, which uses a sensor coated with nano materials, is currently under development. V Ramgopal Rao, chair professor at the department of electrical engineering, IIT-Bombay and principal investigator at the institute's centre of excellence in nano-electronics, spoke about the device on the sidelines of the 8th Chandigarh Science Congress (CHASCON) at Panjab University on Wednesday. CHASCON is being organized by PU in collaboration with various leading educational and research institutions of the Tricity. The Electronic Nose, or E-dog, is the result of

IIT Bombay emerges as top Indian institute in global top 50

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QS World University Rankings by Subject 2014 released a comprehensive list of top 200 universities around the world in a range of popular subject areas. Four Indian institutes including IITs in Delhi and Mumbai, are among the global top 50 in 30 disciplines covered. IIT-Delhi achieved country's highest position, ranking 42nd in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. IIT-Bombay stood 49th in electrical engineering and 50th in civil engineering, IIT-Madras achieved 49th in civil engineering. Apart from this, Indian Institute of Science was ranked 46th in materials science. The annual QS World University Rankings by subject is a comprehensive guide to the world's top universities and using data on reputation and research citations, it highlights the rankings of 200 top universities in the world for 30 individual subjects. However, the lack of quality education in arts, humanities and social sciences continue to be a concern and therefore, no Indian unive

IIT boy's body not yet found

The search for the body of Sahil Jalan, an IIT-Kharagpur student suspected to have drowned in the Cauvery at Mekedatu, about 95km from Bangalore, ended unsuccessfully on the fourth day on Wednesday. District authorities confirmed that the body of the fourth-year architecture student was not found, despite expanding the scope of the search. Kuldeep Jain, assistant SP, Channapatna, said: "We formed five teams today, comprising personnel from the National Disaster Response Force and the fire department searched more than 20km of river. We didn't find the body till evening and had to suspend operations. We'll resume the search tomorrow (Thursday)." On Tuesday, the district administration had even got an Indian Air Force helicopter to search for the body. Sahil and four of his friends had gone on a trip to Mekedatu, where he was sucked in by deep currents. He had come to Bangalore in December last for a six-month internship with an architecture firm.

IIIT student commits suicide rages protest

About 8,000 IIIT students at Basara staged a 'rasta roko' in front of the institute accusing the authorities of not allowing an ambulance into the campus immediately after one of its students jumped off the hostel building around 7.30am on Sunday.  A final year engineering student, S Nagaraju, 23, of IIIT committed suicide by jumping off his hostel building at Basara town in Adilabad district. The student died while being shifted to the hospital.  Vehicular traffic on Nirmal-Nizamabad main road came to a halt for about three hours as the students alleged that security personnel stopped the ambulance for about 20 minutes outside the institute for permission from higher officials leading to a 45 minute delay in shifting a severely injured Nagaraju, left on the campus without any medical attention, to a hospital. The ambulance was allowed inside only after they got permission from the OSD, IIIT, said students. Although thousands of students study at the institute, there is no hea

IIT-Delhi: Major fire breaks out in campus

A major fire was reported at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) - Delhi campus on Monday.  According to reports, the fire broke out after a low explosion in the Chemistry lab and then it spread to a nearby hostel located in one of the blocks on the campus. The fire brigade department was immediately informed and at least seven fire tenders were rushed to the campus to douse the fire.  The fire has now been fully contained and all are said to be completely safe.  However, what caused the fire is still unknown. 

IIT-Indore bus driver ends life due to harassment by seniors-colleagues

A 38-year-old driver working with Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT-Indore) committed suicide by consuming poison over alleged sustained mental harassment by colleagues and seniors, here on Sunday afternoon. Ashok Billaure, a resident of Moosakhedi-Indore, has been working as a contractual bus driver at IIT-I . He consumed poison and went to the institute being run from the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) campus at around 2.30 pm. After he started vomiting inside the institute premises, his colleagues rushed him to MY hospital, where doctor declared him brought dead, said sub inspector at Bhanwarkuan police station and investigating officer, Y S Kushwah. The police subsequently recovered a suicide note purportedly written by him from his pocket. The suicide note written in Hindi language, mentions sustained mental harassment by his transport supervisor Kulwant Singh Bhatia, Bhatia's son Harsimran and two other IIT employees -- Kailash Ajmeri and Narendra Yadav

Minor raped twice in a day by 2 men in Kota

A 16-year-old girl was raped twice in a day by two different persons in Kota city on Friday. According to the police, an acquaintance took the girl — a 9th class student — to his friend’s room in Keshavpura area of the city where he later raped her. After the accused dropped the girl near a private school, another acquaintance named Ravi Nagar (23) offered to help her after learning of the incident. Ravi took the girl to his computer training institute where he raped and later locked the girl inside. The girl called up his father and brother who informed the Dadabari Police Station and was later rescued. The police lodged case under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and are looking for both the accused.

IIT-Delhi graduate at WhatsApp

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Fast-growing startup WhatsApp was the talk of tech town on Thursday after social media giant Facebook announced a $19 billion buyout of the mobile-messaging application. While the deal created an instant global buzz, an Indian took centrestage in the aftermath. Having crossed 450 million active users, WhatsApp’s business head Neeraj Arora (35) has had a lot on his plate in the past few months. He told an Indian business news channel in November last that WhatsApp had no plan of selling out to Facebook or Google. Now, with a stunning price tag of $19 billion for a company that employs just 55 people, Arora’s portfolio has grown remarkably. Arora has two US patents to his credit — methods and systems for email attachment distribution and management and second for an email integrated file delivery. According to Arora’s LinkedIn profile, he takes care of  “all things business at WhatsApp”. He has previously worked at Google as a senior member of the corporate development