Shimla, October 1
With some of the universities plagued by severe financial constraints and lack of genuine autonomy, the Shimla Declaration on Higher Education today sought help from the Centre and the state government on such relevant issues to be able to provide quality education and shoulder social responsibility effectively.

The “Shimla Declaration”, which was issued on the conclusion of the two-day North Zone Vice-Chancellors’ Conference organised by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) at HP University here, will be sent to the Centre and the University Grants Commission (UGC) for taking necessary steps required to make improvement in the field of higher education, said Prof ADN Bajpai, secretary-general, AIU, and Vice-Chancellor of the HPU.

“Today is a historic day as Shimla will be known for another declaration on higher education as vital issues were deliberated upon by around 35 VCs and released in the form of a declaration for government attention,” said Dr PJ Chande, president, AIU.

He said the main highlights of the declaration were greater financial support, autonomy, quality assurance, inter-university collaboration and social responsibility.

The VCs sought the creation of a Corpus Fund, with help from the government and corporate giants to save some of the old universities, burdened with ageing infrastructure and big student strength.

“The Central and state governments must renew their commitment to provide full financial support to universities and also deal with the issue of retirement age of teachers and the tenure of VCs,” said Dr Chande.

It was felt that universities must be given greater and genuine administrative autonomy, thereby eliminating the need for government approvals, which resulted in unnecessary delays.

They also felt that the executive council, the apex decision-making body of the universities, must be drawn from the academia. They also spoke about encouraging original research, nurture new and universal ideas and better internal audit system.

The declaration lays special thrust on inter-university collaboration to avoid intellectual stagnation.

The declaration also makes mention of social responsibility so that universities can serve public causes and help the under-privileged in fulfilling their aspirations.

Shimla, October 1
While urging the teaching fraternity to undertake a soul-searching exercise for the restatement of their values, Chief Justice Kurian Joseph said today that “politicisation” of the “gurus” themselves was the main reason for most of the campuses turning into centres of violence.

Speaking at the valedictory function of the North Zone Vice-Chancellors’ Conference here today, the Chief Justice said considering the overall degradation in society, Vice-Chancellors and other academics must undertake deep introspection and restate the values teachers must possess.

“This document must be made public so that that parents, students and teachers have access to it and they know how a teacher must be and what to expect of him,” he said.

He said creating violence-free campuses would be the biggest achievement of the teaching fraternity as bloody battles among students was posing a big challenge. “Campuses which are meant to be temples of learning have turned into seats of violence because of the indulgence in politics by teachers themselves ,” Joseph regretted.

The Chief Justice said teachers must also take upon themselves the responsibility of undertaking a public audit of the general moral degradation in society.

“We need to assess the magnitude of character crisis in society and depreciation in values among teachers who shoulder the responsibility of shaping the future of the country by instilling the right morals among students,” he suggested.

The Chief Justice advocated increasing the tenure of VCs from the present three years to at least five or seven years as was the case in most foreign universities.

“I would also like to make an appeal to law makers to enhance the three-year tenure of VCs as it was too short a period to be able to bring about some effective changes and steer the ship in the right direction,” Joseph said.

He added that our education system should be able to come up to the expectations of people and become an instrument of social, economic and cultural transformation in society.

Dharamsala, October 1
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sought data regarding tourists enrolled in Tibetan Buddhist schools across the country.

Highly placed sources here told The Tribune that the MHA had sent a list of 122 foreigners to the Himachal Police, who were in India on tourist visa, but were enrolled in Tibetan Buddhist schools in Kangra district and other parts of the country as students.

Police officials were asked to check the details of tourists enrolled in Tibetan Buddhist schools and see if they were violating the conditions in their tourist visa.

The MHA had sought data after getting intelligence inputs over the matter. The Dharamsala police checked various Tibetan schools here and found 49 foreign tourists enrolled in the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives as students. By doing so they were violating the tourist visa norms.

The tourists enrolled as students had later left the place.

Kangra Superintendent of the Police Diljeet Singh said the library had now given a written undertaking that they would not enroll foreigners on tourist visa.

He added that now they were keeping a regular check on Tibetan schools and monasteries to see if foreigners were violating their visa norms as tourists.

A large numbers of foreign tourists coming here get enrolled in schools of Tibetan Buddhism and yoga. Besides, official schools and monasteries of the Central Tibetan administration here, a large number of unregistered schools of Tibetan Buddhism and yoga are being operated in the Dharamsala region.

However, as per the conditions of the tourist visa, foreigners cannot get enrolled as students. They have to get education visa to get enrolled as students in any monastery or school here.

Besides enrolling in schools, many foreigners are running NGOs in the region. Though some NGOs are doing good work in the field of environment and poverty elevation, foreigners working there are violating the tourist visa conditions.

As per the Indian law, no foreigner can register an NGO in India. However, foreign NGOs can work here only with the permission of the Union Government.

In case any NGO working in the country receives foreign contributions, it has to seek permission under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) from the government.

Hamirpur, October 1
Information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has exposed financial irregularities in implementing MNREGA works with the alleged connivance of the president of Ropa gram panchayat of Hamirpur district.

Several cases have come to light where attendance of workers at the works undertaken under the MNREGA have been marked and simultaneously they have been shown working at other places in gram sabha meetings.

A few panchayat members have been shown present in gram sabha meetings, and Ropa panchayat president Raksha Devi had also verified their presence at the MNREGA works during the spot inspection carried by her.

An anganwadi worker, Rekha Kumari, working at Kotlu centre in the Ropa panchayat, had been shown present at the land-levelling work undertaken at Ropa on four different dates and on May 23, 2011, she had been shown present on both the works, despite the fact that she could not be issued a job card for MNREGA works.

In another case, Sulochna Devi, who is a panchayat ward member, was marked present in the panchayat meeting at Ropa and had simultaneously been shown present at the MNREGA works undertaken 5 km away from the place, on May 26, 2011.

Vice-president of the panchayat Ranjeet Singh, who is the president of the Panchayat Sanitation Committee, and panchayat ward member Meena Kumari, along with 15 villagers, who had all been marked present in the sanitation committee meeting on August 4, 2011, had been shown present at the levelling work undertaken under the MNREGA at Ropa village on the same date.

The connivance of the president of the panchayat had also been proved in these irregularities since she had not only verified the muster-roll for the payment, but also verified their presence at MNREGA works during the spot inspection on all the above dates.

Kangra, October 1
The Himachal Pradesh government teachers have strongly opposed the government decision of 25 per cent direct recruitment of headmasters in the department.

Onkar Rana and PC Kapoor, secretary general and Chairman of the Himachal Government Teachers Union, respectively, in a statement here today said this decision would reduce the promotional opportunities of the in-service government TGTs because as per the Recruitment and Promotion Rules-1998, teachers of private schools with five-year teaching experience could also be selected as headmasters who would command over teachers with 24-25 year of service experience in government schools.

The two teacher leaders said rules framed 13 years back had presently no relevance because these appointments would do injustice to those numerous eligible teachers who had crossed the age limit of 35 years during long span of service.

The duo had further said in schools headmasters acted as teacher, guide, director, organiser, planner and administrator, and these jobs could be performed well by an experienced person only.

They demanded to fill up all vacant posts of headmaster on the basis of seniority, and in case any legal problem cropped up in the withdrawal of these rules, then 212 headmasters selected under the 1998 rules should be appointed in Senior Secondary Schools against already created 236 posts.

Bakloh (Dalhousie), October 1
The Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth (SPICMACAY) organised several concerts in Bakloh and Dalhousie from September 26 to 28. This was for the first time that an Oddisi concert was organised in the region.

Padma Shri Ranjana Gauhar performed at the Army School and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bakloh.

In her lecture-demonstration, she explained the genesis of the dance form to students. She also explained the various “bhankimas” or fundamental body positions of the dance.

She also performed on a poem written by Raja Swati Trimal in praise of Lord Shiva and danced on the Push Vatika from the Ramayana. She was accompanied by Pt Raful Mangraj on the pakawaj, Sri Suresh Sethi vocal and Javed Khan on the sitar. The accompanists too interacted with the students.

Ranjana performed at Dalhousie Public School, Sacred Heart Convent School, Hill Top School and Guru Nanak Academy in Dalhousie.

SPICMACAY, a non-profit organisation, promotes Indian classical music, dance and other aspects of Indian culture. Established in 1977, it is now a movement with chapters in over 300 towns and cities all over the world.

It also runs scholarship schemes for students. Under the scheme the students get to spend a month with the guru under the “guru-sishya paramapra”.