BRAINBUXA

Friday, August 3, 2018

JEE Advanced 2018 | Number of successful girl candidates has increased

This year, only 18138 students were able to qualify the JEE Advanced exam following which the government intervened and ensured that SC/ST students and OBC students get the admissions on the seats reserved for them, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said. The minister said “the percentage of girl students in the undergraduate programs of these premier institutions had also seen a rise” as he responded during the question hour. “The IIT system reconsidered the matter and issued an extended merit list, thereby qualifying 31,988 candidates. In view of the proactive action taken, 11,961 seats have been filled this year compared to 10,876 filled last year,” he said. He also said that only 18 seats remained unfilled and that too in courses such as agricultural engineering and biochemical engineering because the demand for them is not too high. This issue will be discussed in the IIT council meeting too. Responding to another question, Javadekar said that oversupply of the seats in engineering curriculum was a legacy problem as AICTE used to give approvals to start a college to anyone. Now, the states have been asked to prepare a perspective plan and many of them have responded positively.

Deemed University status for the Indian Institute of Mass Communication

The University Grants Commission (UGC) recommended the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) for the deemed University Status as it advised the government to issue Letter of intent (LOI) to the institute under ʼDe Novoʼ category. ‘De Novoʼ refers to an institution which focuses its teachings and research in the emerging areas of knowledge. The LOI will be issued to the Institute on five conditions and by fulfilling them the institute will be granted the deemed status. Currently, IIMC offers one-year postgraduate diploma programs and after the deemed status, the institute will be able to award degrees to the students instead of the diplomas. Last year, IIMC received approval from the I&B ministry to apply for the deemed status following which it sent a proposal to the HRD ministry on June 8, 2017.

For the high-integrity news in India, Facebook and Asian College of Journalism joined hands

In an attempt to curb the fake news and ensure quality journalism in India, Facebook entered into a partnership with the Chennai-based Asian School of Journalism (ACJ). “The association with ACJ reflects our commitment to support the journalism ecosystem by training future journalists,” said Campbell Brown, Facebookʼs Global Head of News Partnerships. “By partnering with ACJ, Facebook that has 270 million users in India will be able to help train journalism students on fact-based and high integrity journalism in the digital age,” the social media giant said in a statement. The program will support the five students from ACJ in the field of print, new media, radio and television. “We are happy to partner with the Facebook Journalism Project. It will provide valuable hands-on experience and the expertise to distinguish informative and trustworthy news,” said Sashi Kumar, Chairperson, ACJ. Facebook also took the opportunity to announce its collaboration with the Mumbai-based BOOMLive, an independent digital journalism initiative. “Through our partnership with BOOMLive, we hope to encourage the systemic growth of fact-checking on all platforms,” Brown added. BOOMLive is certified by the Poynter Institute, the international fact-checking network. “Following fact-checking in English during the Karnataka pilot stage, BOOMLive will now also provide fact checking capabilities in Hindi and Bengali, and will also fact-check photos and videos, in addition to article links,” Facebook noted.

The Government nod ‘Yes’ for the 13 new KVs

On Wednesday, The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi noded in yes thereby, giving approval for establishing 13 new Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) and one Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV), which will cater to the educational needs of the 13,000 and 560 students, respectively. The 13 new KVs will be established in: Banda (Uttar Pradesh)Washim (Maharashtra)Chakpikarong (Manipur)Parbham (Maharashtra)Nawada (Bihar)Mirjapur (Uttar Pradesh)Bhadohi (Uttar Pradesh)Palamau (Jharkhand)Siddipet (Telangana)Kudamalakunte, (Karnataka)CISF Surajpur (Uttar Pradesh)Devkund (Bihar) Baoli (Uttar Pradesh) The single Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) will be established at Alot, Ratlam district, Madhya Pradesh. “Ratlam district in Madhya Pradesh has a high percentage of SC/ST population and there is a huge demand for establishing an additional JNV. Moreover, the state government has also shown readiness to earmark the required extent of land and temporary accommodation for setting up the Vidyalaya,” the government said in a statement. The proposal for new KVs was examined by a committee under a challenge method where those scoring maximum weight points were approved. “At present, the KVs are imparting quality education to more than 12 lakh students and JNVs are providing modern education free of cost to nearly 2.50 lakh students in different parts of the country,” it said.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

India has 200+ fake engineering colleges and New Delhi tops the list

There are around 277 fake engineering colleges functioning in India and with NEW Delhi being the home 66 such fake institutions, the city tops the list. According to a document tabled in the Lok Sabha by Satya Pal Singh, Minister of State Human Resource Development, Telangana and West Bengal have 35 and 27 such fully functioning fake institutions respectively. Apart from the above-mentioned states, Karnataka houses 23, UP 22, Haryana 18, Maharashtra 16 and Tamil Nadu 11 fake engineering colleges. These colleges are running their courses without the approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). As of now, these institutions have been asked to take the approval from the AICTE or else they will be shut down. In addition to this, the UGC is also monitoring the issue and has asked the respective heads of the states to take necessary actions against such institutions running in their jurisdiction. The commission has already maintained a list of 24 fake universities on its official website. List of fake engineering colleges in India Delhi- 66Telangana- 35West Bengal- 27Karnataka- 23Uttar Pradesh- 22Himachal Pradesh- 18Bihar- 17Maharashtra- 16Tamil Nadu- 11Gujarat- 8Andhra Pradesh- 7Chandigarh- 7Punjab- 5Rajasthan- 3Uttarakhand- 3

Comparing students with peers does more harm than good: NCERT

Teachers and parents are advised not to label the kids based on their performance or compare their grades with the fellow classmates or with anyone else for that matter, advised National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT). “Evaluation often is thought as labeling or comparing the performance of children against one another through marks, grades or any other means by pointing out their weaknesses, which only humiliates them and lowers their self-esteem,” the NCERT said in fresh guidelines for Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). “Comparing the performance of a child with her/his previous performance, instead of comparing it with that of her/his peers, can be used to identify her/his learning and developmental needs (and) to provide the required support without any humiliation. This not only enhances learning but also boosts their self-confidence,” the guidelines said. The council also said that the CCE is not the sole responsibility of the teachers and that parents too have an important role to play. “CCE may not be seen as the sole responsibility of teachers. It reduces their burden as it places the onus of learning on different stakeholders, thus, making it a collective responsibility of all, especially parents, children and teachers in addition to the principal, head teacher and others,” it said. Children’s previous knowledge and learning experience needs to be kept in mind and should be used to develop new learning methodologies. It is important that to appreciate the difference between children during the teaching and assessing the children as they all learn and respond in different ways, said NCERT guidelines.

CAT 2018 | JNU to accept CAT scores for its MBA program

JNU announced itself as the new entrant on the list of institutes which accept CAT scores for giving admissions into the MBA programs. JNU VC, Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, confirmed the same with the tweet. The official notification for the CAT 2018 exam has been released and the registration for the same will begin from August 8, 2018 and the last date of registration is September 19, 2018. This year, CAT is scheduled for November 25, 2018. It is a computer-based exam which is divided into three sections namely: Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR) Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA) The paper consists of 100 questions and is conducted in two shifts. In order to ensure that students of one shift are not at disadvantage, the authorities normalize the scores obtained by the students and the results are released in the form of percentile. After the results are declared, each IIM and non-IIM announces its criteria for selecting the students and students have to apply institute of the desired institute separately.