IETD (Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertations) Portal can be accessed from http://ietd.inflibnet.ac.in and Open Journal System @ INFLIBNET can be accessed from http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/ojs. Both the initiatives were launched on 27th January 2010 at the INFOCITY Gandhinagar, the site for the New Institutional Building of the INFLIBNET Centre by Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat, Chairman, UGC and Prof. S K Khanna, Chairman, Governing Board, INFLIBNET Centre. The IETD has two full-text thesis from the Mangalore University, Mangalore and the OJS @ INFLIBNET Centre has one peer-reviewed journal entitled “Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies” being published by Prof. N D R Chandra, Head, Department of English, Nagaland Central University, Kohima.
February 10th, 2010 in
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Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat, Chairman, University Grants Commission and Chairman, INFLIBNET Council laid the Foundation Stone of the INFLIBNET Centre at INFOCITY Gandhinagar and unveiled the Foundation Stone Plaque in the presence of the Prof. S K Khanna, Chairman, Governing Board, INFLIBNET Centre, Dr. Parimal Trivedi, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, Dr. Sudarshana Iyengar, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad, Prof. B V Doshi, Architect of the INFLIBNET’s Institutional Building and Prof. Kale, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Central University alongwith Dr. Jagdish Arora, Director, INFLIBNET Centre and the Staff of the Centre on 27th January 2010. The video of the Foundation Stone laying and Plaque unveiling can be viewed from the INFLIBNET’s Official YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/inflibnet.
On the occasion, Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat also launched the Indian Eletronic Theses and Dissertation (IETD) at the INFOCITY Gandhinagar on 27th January 2010. The INFLIBNET Centre also got an opportunity to launch the Open Jounal System (OJS) @ INFLIBNET Centre by Prof. S K Khanna, Chairman, Governing Board, INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad on 27th January 2010. The photographs of the event can be viewed from http://www.youtube.com/inflibnet#p/a/u/0/L74J6GZLGok.
January 27th, 2010 in
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Deemed university is a status of autonomy granted to high performing institutes and departments of various universities in India. The status of “Deemed-to-be-University” is granted by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India, on the advice of the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi, under Section 3 of the UGC Act 1956.
As per the rules establish, all the Deemed universities can award degrees for courses which are offered at the time of conferment of the status of them and courses allied to the approved courses. The Deemed universities can also award degrees for convetional / general degree programmes leading to B.A./B.Com./B.Sc./M.A./M.Sc.
The UGC came in to existance in 1956 after Indian Parliament passed the University Grants Commission Act “to make provision for the co-ordination and determination of standards in Universities and for that purpose, to establish a University Grants Commssion.”
Various complains made on the functioning of the Deemed Universities, huge number of institutions provided status of “Deemed-to-be-University” in a year and reform on higher education initiated by the newly formed central govt led to review the functioning of Deemed-to-be-Universities. To review the status of these univerities, a Panel of Review Committee was created in June 2009, Headed by Prof. P N Tandon, Ex-President of Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi. The Objective of the Committee was to “review functioning of the existing deemed to be universities, and ensure that standards of higher education and research are maintained by such institutions as to justify their continuance as deemed to be universities.”
In an 11 pages affidavit filled before the Supreme Court on 19 January 2010 by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) on the basis of the recommendations made by the review committee, where 44 institutes have been recommended for closure.
The review committee had invited all 130 deemed to be universities for “face-to-face discussions” during August-September 2009. According to the affidavit 126 institutions attended the sessions. The 44 universities recommended for closure are listed in the website 1, website 2. To see the list of the universities recognised by the UGC, click here. Link to the sources, 1, 2, 3, 4
The govt of India has decided to establish a NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) like institution for higher education called National Higher Education Finance Corporation (NHEFC). A bill will be brought in Parliament for setting up a finance corporation to provide low-interest loans to higher educational institutionals.
The HRD ministry has already prepared a concept note on creation of NHEFC. According to the news, it has started drafting the NHEFC bill.
Earlier, the Govt. was undecided whether to setup this body under an Act of Parliament or register it under the Section 25 of the Companies Act. According to the news, it has been decided to create under the Act of Parliament. As per the HRD ministry’s plan, the proposed NHEFC will be an institutional mechanism to address the investment needs in higher education sector.
The proposed corporation will nurture philanthropic tradition in education by providing loans at concessional rates on interest to such agencies for establishment of higher and vocational institutions in educationally backward areas. As mentioned in the news, according to the senior officers in the ministry, “it will be a NABARD like institution in higher education. it will raise dept by issue or sale of bonds for augmenting resource from the market. It will finance creation of universities. It will grants low-interest loans to philanthropic bodies to come forward in opening institutes.” Link to the source
Professionals, who are looking for submitting the research paper for the PLANNER 2010 to be held at the Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam on 18th to 20th Ferbruary 2010, you have a good news from the convention committee. The convention committee has decided to extend the last date for the paper submission to 30th December 2009. The decision has been taken due to the request made by various professionals who needs some more time in writting their research paper for the convention.
Now, these professionals can take some more time for finishing off their paper. The theme of the convention, PLANNER 2010 is Re-engineering of Library and Information Services in Digital Era alongwith subthemes of
1) Re-engineering Library Acquision
2) Resource Management Re-defined
3) Collaborative Resource Generation and Access
LAST DATE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION: 30th December 2009
Paper submission can be made to planner2010@inflibnet.ac.in or through online. For more details about the convention visit the website: http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/planner2010.
eVidyapeeth, a platform for the University Grants Commission (UGC) to bring all 800 open universities in the country online. In its first phase, the project is likely to take off from the academic year 2010-11 for 50 open universities in the country.
The technology has been developed by the Pune and Mumbai centres of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Zia Saquib, executive director, C-DAC Mumbai said, “Once the UGC gets clearance, the project will begin by the next academic year. There are various government procedures which have to be worked out and then the online procedure for 50 universities will begin.” He was speaking on the sidelines of a workshop organised by C-DAC on Monday.
All major universities in the state including the University of Pune, Nagpur University and Mumbai university are part of this project. This platform will enable students to choose their choice of university, register, enrol for a particular course/degree, pay fees online and later even download study material and tasks.
“A demonstration was made to the UGC this year in May and now we are awaiting for the government nod,” Saquib said. Link to the source
HRD ministry is working on three important aspects of higher education - vocational education, public-private partnership in research and prohibitive cost of education in private unaided educational institutions. Members of the corporate world were invited by HRD ministry’s round table meeting on higher education.
In the first meeting of the round table, it was decided that Analjit Singh of Max will prepare a concept note on vocational education, Hari Bhartia of Jubilant Organosys will prepare a policy outline on PPP in research and Rajendra Pawar of NIIT will brief the government on how to ensure that meritorious students can get funds for education in private unaided institutions as well as how private investment can be incentivised.
It was felt that vocational education needs a different model in which private sector will play a more important role and provide it more flexibility. In order to provide for an alternate method, Analjit
Singh was asked to evolve the concept further. In case of research, it was felt that there should be some synergy between private and public sector so that research can take place in a transparent manner with enough accountability.
They, on the round table, discussed that how finance for higher education can be organized to meet the growing demand. The meeting also discussed possible avenues of investment and what could be the best policy to attract it.
UGC chairman SK Thorat, however, struck a cautionary note by stating that higher education has a greater purpose than meeting demands of the labour market. Stressing that even in the US, only 5% enrolment is set aside for profit by educational institutions, Thorat said emphasis should be on widening access and ensuring equity. Apart from Singh, Bhartia and Pawar, the other members of the round table are Sunil Alagh, formerly of Britannia and now a consultant, Surbhi Banerjee and Thorat. Link to the source
It was a beautiful moment for the INFLIBNET and its family. The Centre had bhoomi poojan on 27th October 2009 of its land at Infocity, Gandhinagar to be an Insitutional building . The staff of the Centre were delighted with the ceremony and celebrated the occassion happily with the pooja.
The Centre is presently located in the Gujarat University Campus since 1992. Three residential blocks of the Gujarat University were hired on lease for accommodating the INFLIBNET’s staff and laboratories. In the year 2007, the Government of Gujarat allocated 2.5 acres of land in the INFOCITY, Gandhinagar situated amidst educational insitutionslike DA-IICT, NIFT and NID. It is expected that the construction of the buiding would be completed in the 2 years time period.
Ministry of HRD in his press release mooted the conducting of common entrance test for admission. According to Sh. Kapil Sibal, Minister of HRD, it will enable common counseling that will save the time and money of the students and their parensts of going to various places for test and counseling.
Sh. Sibal wants see Central universities as a benchmarks for the academic excellences for the rest of the country in future. Stressing to create eco-system of high quality research and and academic courses for creating employment for the region and within the state of the domain.
Sh. Sibal asked UGC to prepare guidelines for bringing world class faculty in these universities. Stressing upon the infrastructure Sh. Sibal said that campus of the universities should be as green as possible adhering to the local eco-system. Building must be world class and aesthetic and each universities should be provided one giga bits of boradband connectivity. Link to the source
Sirpur, a 1,500-year-old city, complete with a palace, temples, houses and a Buddhist educational centre big enough to accommodate 10,000 students. This remarkable complex is slowly emerging out of the recesses of the earth at Sirpur, 85 km from the capital Raipur. Archaeologists, historians and even the Chhattisgarh government are excited by the find. For it promises to reveal what may arguably be India’s biggest ancient seat of learning—far bigger than the world-famous Nalanda in Bihar—and one of its earliest temple complexes with dimensions that may dwarf other similar structures in the country.
To go back in history, Sirpur was the capital of the ancient South Kosala kingdom between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Spread over an area of 25 sq km, the Sirpur archaeological complex is almost four times as big as Nalanda. Lengthwise, the Sirpur site extends almost seven km. In comparison with Bodh Gaya, also in Bihar, is less than three km long.
Hemmed in by forests on three sides and located on the banks of the river Mahanadi, the Sirpur site has already revealed 256 mounds that include 100 Buddhist viharas, four Jain viharas and 108 Shiva temples. An east-facing palace, spread over an area of 60×40 metres, seems to be the site’s epicentre. “It’s a huge structure and to understand it properly, it needs to be completely excavated. What we already know is that the palace was at least three storeys and that teak was extensively used in the construction,” says A K Sharma, Archaeologist, Ex-ASI . A unique finding: a ramp connecting the kitchen with the main hall in the palace.
That Sirpur is an ancient Buddhist site was always known. The Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, who visited Sirpur (then known as Shripur), wrote that it was ruled by a king who was Kshatriya by birth but Buddhist by religion. Hiuen Tsang talked of over 100 monasteries in Sirpur, inhabited by about 1,000 monks belonging to the Mahayana sect of Buddhism. Ancient Sirpur was also at the junction of two important trade routes, to Janakpur and Ajanta in the west and the Deccan kingdoms southwards. The research for Aarang, 55 Km from the Capital Raipur, located in the bank of Mahanadi, seems to be the another trade route of ancient India from the archaeological point of view. Various trade instrument have been found in that area similar to the found in the Sirpur.
“In undivided Madhya Pradesh, Sirpur obviously wasn’t on the priority list of the government,” says P.P. Pant, Chhattisgarh’s director of archaeology and museums. Work began in right earnest after Chhattisgarh came into being in 2000 and almost five years of patient labour has brought to fore a sprawling subterranean complex.
The ancient Sirpur was a city of almost 1.5 lakh residents. The inhabitants were mainly agriculturists and there is evidence to suggest that they used bullock carts with solid wheels. They do not seem to have been aware of the existence of the horse. Interestingly, says Sharma, the principles of vaastu shastra seem to have been the touchstone for builders in ancient Sirpur. “There is not a single structure which is not in consonance with vaastu,” he says. An interesting detail: pathways connecting the temples and residential units with one another.
The work in Sirpur is far from complete. In fact, only a very small percentage of the identified mounds have been exposed. Till date, only 20 mounds have been fully excavated, eight of them within the last one year. But Sharma refuses to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the task before him. “We will excavate and expose only as much as we can maintain,” he says. The digging and discovery continue. The biggest and suppose to be the oldest higher education centre (of Ancient India) of 4th century rises to meet the 21st century. Link to the Source 1, 2
