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Grooming future defence officers
Challenges for creative minds Campus
Notes
ADMISSION DEADLINE
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Grooming future defence officers Sainik schools are considered to be nurseries to groom future defence officers, and their importance has increasingly been acknowledged, especially by the armed forces. The contribution of Sainik schools to the total intake into the National Defence Academy (NDA) has varied between 16.9 per cent and 25.1 per cent during the last five years. Sainik schools, which were established as a joint venture of the Central and state governments, are under the overcall governance of the Sainik Schools Society. Minister of State for Defence M. M. Pallam Raju is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the society. At present there are 22 Sainik schools located in various parts of the country. They are located at Nagrota (Jammu and Kashmir), Sujanpur Tira (Himachal Pradesh), Kapurthala (Punjab), Kunjpura (Harayana), Chittorgarh (Rajasthan), Chorakhal (Uttarakhand), and Chittorgarh (Rajasthan), Chorakhal (Uttrakhand), Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), Gopalganj and Nalanda (Bihar), Tilaiya (Jharkhand), Goalpura (Assam), Purulia (West Bengal), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Balachadi (Gujarat), Satara (Maharasthra), Korukonda (Andhra Pradesh), Imphal (Manipur), Bilapur (Karnataka), Amravati Nagar (Tamil Nadu), Kazhakootam (Kerala), Punglwa (Nagaland) and Kodagu. The last two became the youngest members of the Sainik schools family in the academic session 2007-08. The Minister of State for Defence had announced in Manali the other day that keeping in view the good results of the Sainik schools and the entry of the students of these schools to the NDA, other states were also demanding that such schools should be opened in their areas. He also said there was a proposal to open such schools in the first phase in Mizoram, Sikkim and Chhatishgarh, while Haryana and Jharkhand would be included in the second phase . Chandigarh is also interested that a Sainik school should be established in the Union Territory, as it will fulfil the aspirations of the people of Tricity and adjoining areas. There is Western Command at Chandimandir, Panchkula, and hundreds of ex-servicemen, both officers and other ranks, have settled in Chandigarh and they would like to send their wards to Sainik schools as their entry into the armed forces would become easy. S. K. Setia, Director of Public Instructions (Schools), Chandigarh, has said that he would explore all possibilities. He has further said that the Chandigarh Administration, Centre and the Defence Ministry would also be approached for this purpose. The objectives of Sainik schools include bringing quality public school education within the reach of the common man, all round development of a child’s personality and to remove regional imbalance in the officer cadre of the armed forces. The Sainik schools prepare boys academically, physically and mentally to join armed forces through the NDA. Sainik schools admit boys into Classes IV and IX. Their age should be 10-11 years for Class VI and 13-14 years for Class IX as on July 1 of the year in which admission is sought. The admissions are made strictly on the basis of merit of an all-India entrance examination held in January each year. In order to achieve optimum utilisation of available infrastructure and to provide a more competitive environment to the aspiring cadets, the admission to Class XI on the basis of Class X board examination results was introduced in Sainik schools from the academic year 2006-07. Sainik schools are wholly residential run on public school lines. All the Sainik schools, according to the annual report of the Ministry of Defence, are also the members of the All-India Public Schools Conference. They offer a common curriculum and are affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi, and follow the 10+2 pattern of education. The schools impart instructions in English, although knowledge of English is not pre-requisite for admission. They offer only science stream at the plus-two level, enabling candidates to appear for the NDA entrance examination. Sports and games, co-curricular activities, educational tours, excursions, adventure courses and socially useful productive works aimed at developing the dignity of labour, form an integral part of the training imparted in Sainik schools. Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has provided Rs 44 crore, Rs 2 crore for each of the 22 Sainik schools, for the modernisation of laborities, libraries, upgrading infrastructure, etc. Such a step perhaps has been taken by the Centre for the first time. Pallam Raju has also appealed to the Members of Parliament to dish out a portion of their MPLADS (Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme) funds for the development of Sainik schools and many MPs are learnt to have responded to his appeal. About 80 MPs are learnt to have given positive response and they included Jaya Bachchan, Rajiv Shukla, M. S. Swaminathan, Karan Singh, Union Minister Saif-u-Din Sez and Shyam Benegal. He has also written to the Chief Ministers of those states where Sainik Schools are there, for providing more facilities in the schools. These institutions also aim at developing the cadets’ sound character, team spirit, dedication to duty, patriotic outlook and desire to serve the country with efficiency. More than 6,000 officers of the defence forces, including the present Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor, are alumni of Sainik schools.
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Challenges for creative minds Human beings are endowed with intellect and imagination. Our social and intellectual leadership is also constantly exhorting young people to become innovative. However, we should make a clear distinction between invention and innovation. An invention is the manifestation of a creative mind and is capable of standing on its own even in isolation. It becomes an innovation when it is incorporated into the mainstream and combined with existing knowledge in such a manner that future developments are influenced by this incorporation. About three years ago, I met a girl student who was doing M.Sc in life sciences. For her dissertation, she had identified an extract from a plant that had birth control properties. Was she planning to obtain a patent? No. The reason: her guide was very keen to publish a joint paper in an international journal for her own career advancement. Recently, a doctoral student from Lucknow identified ingredients from a common weed which could be used to store post-harvest grains. Did he realise the significance of his discovery? Yes. Did he plan to file for a patent? No. His guide as well as well-wishers felt that his chances of getting employment would increase, if he published a research paper instead. Thus, it is meaningless to ask youngsters to be innovative, instead we should be asking ourselves whether we are creating an innovative system or not. If a student or a young scientist comes up with a new idea, do we have a mechanism in place that will beneficially exploit the new idea and reward him? Regrettably, the answer must be an emphatic “no”. As a society, culture and nation we have attributes that are anti-innovation. We are afraid to take risks and are scared of failures. We are mortified at the thought of being disowned by our peers if we outshine them. We do not want to be thrown out of the group, rather we want to be recognised as marginally superior in the same group. We can’t bring ourselves to say publicly in a loud and clear voice that the horse should rank higher than the ass. We are happy to leave the task of judging to those people who we consider more powerful than us or culturally and racially superior to us. It is creditable for the British that they conferred a knighthood on C. V. Raman even before he got the Nobel Prize. On the contrary, India decided to bestow the Bharat Ratna award on Satyajit Ray when he had already received all conceivable honours from across the world. The national honour in fact was dispatched in an indecent haste, so that it reached him before his last breadth. Today, we are busy patting ourselves on the back that many famous foreign companies have opened their R & D centres in the country. The unadvertised fact remains that these centres are more for partial development than original research. The fact is that the patents are owned by the parent companies, even if Indian names are listed as authors. We are happy to see ourselves as employees rather than as entrepreneurs. We seem to be so content with wages that we do not covet royalties. The CSIR has instituted invention awards for schoolchildren. My own suspicion is that many of the submitted projects are prepared not by the students themselves but by their elders. What would the award-winning students like to do next? Their answer was revealing—they wanted seats reserved for them in government engineering colleges. Admittedly, things are changing, even if slowly. India is probably globally far more ambitious now than ever before. Yes, but what are the state institutions doing to advance this culture? I remember a cartoon showing a mountaineering institute atop a high peak. The institute declared: “We do not offer any courses. Any one who can reach here gets the degree.” We are one better. We create all sorts of obstacles to demoralise and debilitate. Any one who achieves in spite of us is then honoured and felicitated. Asking fellow human beings to be creative is an insult to human intellect. Our task should be asking ourselves whether we have created a system which can encourage, recognise, and most importantly, benefit from their inventiveness.
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Campus
Notes The MDU vice-chancellor, Prof R.P.Hooda, has nominated Dr Pushpa Dahiya, Reader, Department of Bio-Sciences, as member of the university academic council as per provisions under Statute-13 of the MDU Act. The nomination has been made for a period of two years. The VC has also nominated Dr Harish Dureja, Lecturer, Pharmacy Department, to the MDU academic council. This has been done with effect from June 8, 2008 for two years. New course under SFS
The Department of Geography at MDU plans to start a PG diploma course in remote sensing and geographical information system under the self-financing scheme (SFS) of the UGC from the coming academic session. The course coordinator, Prof Neena Singh, said there would be 15 seats and admissions would be made on the basis of academic merit. A state-of-the-art laboratory was being set up for the said course, she added. Officials felicitated
The MDU Non-Teaching Employees Association felicitated the university officials excelling in the veteran sports meet and the officials who had retired from MDU at a recent function. Association president Ishwar Sharma, general secretary Subhash Chawla and other office-bearers gave a warm send-off to seven employees on their retirement. The superintendent, botanical garden, Surender Bhardwaj, was also honoured for his quality research work. — Contributed by Sunit Dhawan
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ADMISSION DEADLINE
Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Krishak Nagar, Raipur 492006 (CG)
Armed Forces
Art & Design
Engineering
Finance
University of Delhi, Department of Business Economics, Delhi 110007
Law
Management
Punjabi University, Punjab School of Management Studies, Patiala 147002
(Punj) www.punjabiuniversity.ac.in
Jaipuria Institute of Management, Vineet Khand, Gomtinagar, Lucknow 226010 (UP) www.jiml.ac.in
Medicine
Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Research (DIPSAR), Pushp Vihar, Sector-III, MB Road, New Delhi 110017
www.dipsar.in
University of Delhi, Faculty of Ayurvedic & Unani Medicines, 6th Floor, VP Chest Institute Building, Delhi 110007
www.du.ac.in
Dr BR Sur Homoeopathic Medical College, Hospital & Research Centre, Nanak Pura, Moti Bagh, New Delhi 110021
www.delhihomeo.com
Scholarships
National Board for Higher Mathematics, Anushakti Bhavan, CSM Marg, Mumbai 400001 (Mah) (D/o Atomic Energy,
GoI) www.nbhm.dae.gov.in
M/o Social Justice & Empowerment, Room No 622, 'A' Wing, 6th Floor, Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi 110001
(GoI) www.socialjustice.nic.in
National Film Archive of India, Law College Road, Pune 411004 (Mah)
Sciences Biology
Biotech Consortium India limited, 5th Floor, Anuvrat Bhawan, 210, Deen Dayal Upadhayaya Marg, New Delhi 110002 (M/o Science & Technology, D/o
Biotechnology, GoI) www.bcil.nic.in
Sciences Physical
University of Delhi, Department of Physics & Astrophysics and Department of Chemistry, Delhi www.du.ac.in
University
Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa 125055 (Har) www.cdlu.edu.in
Annamalai University, Directorate of Distance Education, Annamalainagar, 608002 (TN) www.annamalaiuniversity.ac.in
Punjabi University, Patiala (Punj) www.punjabiuniversity.ac.in
Pervin Malhotra,
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