The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

PTU students’ fate hangs in balance
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 12
The fate of hundreds of students of Punjab Technical University (PTU) hangs in balance with the reported decision of the university to re-conduct all exams for the second and third semesters held in March because of the “leakage” of question papers at one of the centres in Bathinda.

The university has cancelled two exams of semester I, four exams of semester II and two exams of semester III of the M.Sc (IT) PGDCA students. Terming it to be an arbitrary step, the students alleged that the university authorities had already cancelled several exams of other courses — many of which have already been re-conducted — giving the same reason.

Over 50 such harassed students of a local centre visited The Tribune office here today and complained that instead of catching and exposing the culprits who indulged in the “leaking” of some question papers, the university was targeting hundreds of honest and sincere students because of its own failure in conducting the exams properly. The students asked if the question papers were ‘leaked’ again, will the exams be cancelled and re-scheduled again?

Many students openly complained that the university authorities and other officials of the Punjab Government were known to be biased against the “distance education programme”. They alleged that the whole practice of repeated cancellation and re-scheduling of exams was nothing but a ploy to discredit the “distance education programme”.

The students expressed shock when they got letters stating that the ‘C#’ (read as sharp) paper will be re-held on April 20. One of the students said, “Our next semester started from April 1, why should we appear again for the previous semester when we are not at any fault?”.

A large number of students under the “distance education programme” of the PTU were working professionals. It was very difficult for them to make adjustments in their professional lives to study and appear for the exams again. The students said that they should not be made to suffer due to the inefficiency of the PTU authorities.

The students said the move of the university had come as a rude shock to students who were on the rolls for the M.Sc (IT) courses and they would be forced to move court in this regard. The students also alleged that without the involvement of some senior functionaries, the paper “leakage” was not possible. They said they were being penalised for no fault of theirs.

Quality education need of hour: Johar
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 12
Mr Harnam Das Johar, Education Minister, has said with the recent decision of the state government to do away with the 10 per cent annual cut in the 95 per cent grant-in-aid to government-aided private colleges and enhancement in tuition fee, the standard of higher education will be enhanced substantially.

Addressing a gathering on the occasion of inauguration Eastwood International Public School at Mullanpur, 20 km from here, today Mr Johar said keeping in view globalisation, quality education was the need of the hour and we have to educate our students by using international-level infrastructure and equipment to enable them to compete with their counterparts in developed countries.

He claimed that the government had also removed the parity of fee structure in government and private colleges in the state to ensure equal opportunities for improvement in education in all institutions. Higher Education Minister said without improving the standard of education, the goal of nation-building could not be achieved. He urged the managements of private educational institutions to ensure subsidised education for outstanding students belonging to the weaker sections of the society.

Ch. Santokh Singh, Medical Education Minister, Punjab who inaugurated the school, in his address said to enhance the overall standard of education in the state, it was necessary to bring about a substantial improvement in infrastructure in the institutions and to select highly educated and competent staff. He informed that with this motive they had implemented its new education policy and funds amounting to Rs 64 crore had been disbursed to strengthen infrastructure facilities in the government schools in the state during last year and more such grant would be soon released for the current financial year.

He exhorted private educational institutions to ensure that the standard of education in their schools was at par with reputed schools at the international level. Appreciating the efforts of the management to provide quality education in the rural area, the minister announced a grant of Rs 1 lakh for the development of the institution.

Mr Malkiat Singh Birmi, State Minister for Jails and Housing and Urban Development, Punjab, said the aim of education should be only to produce a highly educated future generation. He expressed concern over the commercialisation of education and urged school management to admit students on the basis of merit and arrange cheaper and free education for the brilliant students who were unable to pay the fee.

Mr Birmi said the menace of corruption had engulfed every field of life, including education and the government alone could not succeed without the cooperation of the people. He claimed that educational institutions could play a vital role in this direction by inculcating qualities of nationalistic and moral values among the students.

Mr Gurcharan Singh Galib MP, Mr R.S. Sandhu Commissioner, Jalandhar Division, Mr Bachittar Singh, DEO(S), and Principal Harbans Singh also addressed the function.

Among others present on the occasion included Mr Nahar Singh Gill, Mayor, MC, Ludhiana, Mr Prem Mittal, Dy Mayor, Mr Mohinder Singh Kalyan, a former MP, Mr Harmohinder Singh Pardhan, Mr Jagpal Singh Khangura, Mr Anand Sarup Singh Mohi, Mr Damajeet Singh Mohi, Member, Zila Parishad, and Mr Mal Singh Guman.

ABVP flays hike in user charges
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 12
A meeting of the district unit of the ABVP was held at its office at Samiti Kendra, Ludhiana, here yesterday. The meeting was presided over by the Ludhiana unit president, Mr Sandeep Kapoor. He condemned the decision of the Punjab Cabinet sub-committee for enhancing user charges on social and economic services.

He was reacting to a news item published in The Tribune under the heading ‘Punjab hikes user charges'. “The facility of free education for girls has been withdrawn. About 10,000 girls will now have to pay fees during 2003-04. It will put an extra burden on people, he said.

He further said the grant-in-aid for private colleges would be Rs 100 crore in the current financial year against Rs 72 crore in the previous years. This amount had been reduced further, he said. How would 75 per cent of students study as only 25 per cent students were enrolled by government colleges. Tuition fees of both graduates and postgraduates had been hiked. Even the annual and other charges had been increased, he said.

He said the government was now targeting students. The MLAs were being given more salaries, perks, and provided various luxuries, while on the other hand, to meet their lavish expenditure, innocent students were being targeted, he said. He also condemned the government for imposing a ban on student council elections.

Rohit Sharma, secretary of the unit, Rajat Sood, Sumedha Gupta, Amitoz Khera, Rohit Sabharwal, Kunal Sharma Prof Rajesh Marwaha, Prof Sanjeev Chauhan and others were present, in the meeting.

100 student-delegates take part in Infovision
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 12
The Guru Nanak Institute of Management and Technology, Gujarkhan Campus, Model Town, Ludhiana hosted a national-level students’ competition, Infovision, and a seminar on Artificial Intelligence here today. The programme was organised under the aegis of the Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) students chapter of the GNIMT.

Around 100 student delegates from as many as 20 institutes hailing from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Chandigarh participated in various competitions. Ten students who came from the Madhav Institute of Technology and Science, Gwalior took part in various event like software development, website designing, debugging, compute quiz and paper presentation.

Competitions were held in two categories — MCA and B.Tech and BCA and state board diploma students. Dr H.S. Sekhon, Dean, College of Agriculture Engineering, PAU, Ludhiana was the chief guest.

He also formally inaugurated the ISTE students chapter of GNIMT. Prof Sadhu Singh, Director, Colleges, PTU, Jalandhar, gave away prizes to the winners.

Prof Syamala Devi, Chairperson, Department of Computer Science and Applications, PU, Chandigarh, delivered a keynote address during the seminar on ‘Artificial Intelligence”. She highlighted the significance of gaining knowledge regarding the upcoming field of Artificial Intelligence and discussed its prominent areas of application, including game playing, natural language processing, expert systems and robotics.

The state-of-the-art Distributed Artifical Intelligence techniques were also discussed, along with various Artificial Intelligence languages.

Among the competitions, software development and debugging events had the participants racking their brains and come up with innovative solutions.

The students were also at their creative best in web-designing. The quiz competition saw an interesting contest between students from several colleges.

The students also competed in the category of paper presentation and deliberated on Artificial Intelligence, along with the potential opportunities being offered by this field.

A writer with sensitivity
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 12
“When nature sends forth flowers of varied colours, emanates delicious scents, beautiful rainbow, rain, varied seasons, these should be enough to intoxicate human beings? Where is the need for drugs? Life itself is so heady? These are the opening lines of one of J.B.S. Nanda’s most famous essay ‘Phoolan Apni Mehak Sambhal’.

The deaddiction wing of Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle has distributed 10,000 copies of this essay to the youth to motivate them stay awary from drugs.

A compilation of this essay and many other essays on several topics concerning mankind, environment, pollution, drug addiction, was titled “Kusumba Chug Chug Hari”.

According to the author, Mr Jitender Bir Singh Nanda, popularly known as JBS, the book has great symbolism. Kusumbas are delicate flowers and wither on touch. Similarly, one should not give too much importance to trivial things like luxuries as these, too, fade away.

Mr Nanda’s book ‘Parsidh Punjabi Nimbandh,’ a compilation of essays, was released yesterday by Kalyani Publishers.

The book has been divided into several sections. The first section deals with the biographies of famous persons like Shaheed Singh, Dyanchand, Amrita Pritam, followed by essays on literary figures, social essays, essays on important festivals, education, and on modern day scientific experiments like cloning, gnomes -world of dreams.

Mr Nanda has compiled a Punjabi English dictionary that has 10,000 words. Presently he is compiling a three language, Hindi, Punjabi and English, dictionary.

Another book comprising several essays titled ‘Rama Nahin Mukdi Phulkari’ depicts the life of women.