The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

Popularising classical music through ‘Swar Udgam’
Our Correspondent

A student performs at an inter-school competition on classical music at Mount Carmel School, Sector 47, Chandigarh, on Saturday. — A Tribune photograph

Chandigarh, July 19
To popularise classical music among youngsters Mount Carmel School, Sector 47, organised “Swar Udgam”, an inter-school competition in Hindustani classical vocal, geet and ghazal, on the school premises here today. About 13 city schools took part.

The competition was conducted in two categories— classical vocal for the students of classes VI to VIII and geet and ghazal for the students of classes IX to X.

The event was judged by O.P.Gupta and Nirmal Gupta, Hindustani classical vocalist of the region. In the classical vocal category the contest was won by Prabhkirat Kaur of Vivek High School, Sector 38. The second and third positions were bagged by Aman Gurmeet of Ajit Karam Singh International Public School, Sector 41, and Navjot Singh Palai of Shivalik Public School, Sector 41.

In the geet and ghazal category Gargi Halder of Chandigarh Baptist School won the first prize, followed by Parul Khullar of Stepping Stones School and Nishank Jarua of St John’s High School in the second and third positions, respectively.

The prizes to the winners were given by the judges. Dr D.S.Gupt, education adviser of the school management committee presented mementos to the judges.

The programme concluded with a geet presented by Stuti Vashisht, a student of the host school.

Girls stay away from ‘repair courses’
Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 19
Reservation has not helped the UT Education Department to attract girls for its vocational courses of automobile repair and airconditioner and refrigerator repair in government schools at the plus- two level.

These two courses have attracted no girl student ever since these were introduced in 1990. The department gave the go-ahead for reservation of 20 per cent seats this academic session as an incentive to girl students. Of the 25-seat courses available at GMSSS-23, five seats per course were reserved for girls.

After over 12 years of lack of interest shown by the girls for the two courses, the department had taken the chance of opening doors for them through reservation and they were expecting a positive response.

However, their efforts came to naught after no girl student during the recently concluded admission counselling opted for these courses while boys competed with each other to get seats in these job-oriented courses.

These seats were reserved by the department on the lines of Bangalore, where girl students who passed out with a degree in a course similar to automobile repair opened a garage of their own. This proved to be a big hit with women customers who preferred this work station for car repairs to those managed by men.

“Our city doesn’t seem ready to experiment and conservative parents like me are happy to follow the beaten track. Unable to secure a seat in a vocational course of our choice, we are willing to switch over to Humanities rather than be a little adventurous,” says Mr Banarsi Das, a parent of a girl seeking admission to Class XI.

Meanwhile, officials of the UT Education Department, disappointed after the admissions, said the seats reserved for women stood cancelled automatically. “These seats were created in addition to the 20 existing seats in the courses with the sole purpose of attracting girls. Without them, these have no meaning and can certainly not be converted to the general category,” an official said.

While other vocational courses being offered at the plus-two level have always drawn both boys and girls, these two courses have had only boys for students. Though all boys completing this course have found employment with private companies or are self-employed, it has never attracted any girl students.

School set to open gym
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, July 19
A gymnasium equipped with various facilities for physical conditioning exercises will soon be opened in Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 33. Set up in a hall, this centre will cater to school sportspersons.

Mr D.S. Mangat, DPI Schools, UT, said the school had taken over the centre stage in sporting activities. He said the school currently had facilities in basketball, volleyball, karate, tennis, ball badminton and fencing. He said the formal inauguration of the gymnasium would take place next week. Mr Karan Singh, Principal of the school, said they had trained coaches and senior players for each sport. He said the school had shown excellent results in sports.

The school had spent most of its funds on improving the sports infrastructure. He added that the school would also open a multi-media centre, which would be the first in any government school in the city.

300 BEd seats granted to college
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 19
Three hundred seats for BEd (General) have been granted to the Government College of Education, Sector 20, here from the 2003-2004 academic session. A special communique from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), New Delhi in this regard has been received here. This order has been issued in the wake of a special petition filed by the Principal of the college with the NCTE head office in June, 2003.

The hike in the number of seats is the outcome of an almost year-long efforts of the Chandigarh Administration, under which at least 10 fresh appointments of lecturers through the UPSC had been completed in January, 2003, to have regular faculty to fulfil UGC as well as NCTE norms.

The seats were reduced in 1997 following the stringent norms of 1:10 pupil-teacher ratio laid down by the NCTE. The college already has the approval of Panjab University in this regard.

Workshop on communication skills
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, July 19
“English in the 21st century has to be accentless in order to reach out to the global community,” said Dr I.D. Shukla, while addressing participants of a one-day workshop “Communication Skills for the 21st Century” organised by The British Library in association with Griffins at Library Hall in Sector 8 here today.

Dr Shukla, Director of Griffins and former Principal of Gandhi Memorial National College, Ambala, said to attain the world standard of spoken English, influence of regional accent had to be neutralised first. “This can be achieved through familiarising oneself with the sound of English,” he said.

Around 100 corporate executives and students took part in the workshop. They were selected on a first-come-first-serve basis. “We have organised this workshop for spoken English in the region to enable the youth graduating from city institutions to compete for jobs in the IT sector,” said Mr Sushant Banerjee, manager of the library.

COURTS

Whither District Courts’ computerisation plan?
Kiran Deep

Chandigarh, July 19
Lack of political will and paucity of funds have sounded the death-knell of the ambitious computerisation drive to upgrade the District Courts computer here. The drive was launched five years ago by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Besides upgrading the complex, the drive aimed at linking it with the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Apex Court.

The project, aimed at strengthening the technological base at the lower courts. Basic information pertaining to cases was to be made available online to reduce the burden of litigation as also the ire of litigants. Courtesy official apathy, the project is still waiting to be taken up.

The first ray of hope emerged on July 17 when the High Court, taking up the long-standing issue, observed that it was proper to call upon the Senior Standing Counsel for the Government of India to get in touch with the Ministries of Law, Finance and Home to find out whether the Government of India was willing to provide funds for the drive. The observation was made following a statement of the UT Administration counsel that “he has discussed the matter with the Adviser to the Administrator for getting funds released for the computerisation drive in the absence of specific requisition”.

The NIC had launched the scheme in April, 1999, proposing to link the District Courts at Chandigarh with about 500 district courts all over the country, besides linking these with the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Supreme Court.

Entire information about old and new cases, the latest date of hearing, as also the next, was to be made available at the click of a mouse. Surprisingly, the Administration did not understand the importance of the drive and failed to take up the issue properly.

On an average 1,000 cases are listed every day in the 19 courts in the District Courts complex. Hundreds of advocates and litigants have to face problems to go through the old files manually to know the exact status of their cases.

The NIC has been providing computer training to court staff every year, but the effort has gone down the drain, as the project is on the verge of being shelved.

Legal luminaries are of the view that if the scheme launched by the NIC had been implemented, it would have helped advocates and litigants to check the status of their cases at one place using a computer.

The UT District and Sessions Judge, Mr H.S. Bhalla, said the computerisation would definitely help in the efficient functioning of the courts. He, however, said he had not got the copy of the High Court orders in the case yet.

Bhardwaj case
CBI seeks time for reply on clerk’s bail plea
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, July 19
The CBI today sought time for filing a reply on the bail application moved by a clerk with the UT Labour Court, Mr Satinder Singh, in a corruption case involving suspended Jalandhar’s District and Sessions Judge R.M.Gupta and the UT Judicial Magistrate(First Class) S.S.Bhardwaj.

The CBI counsel stated that the CBI had received a copy of the bail application yesterday.

Meanwhile, a local court has adjourned the hearing of the case till July 23. The bail application moved by Mr Bhardwaj will also come for hearing in a local court on July 23.

Satinder Singh had stated in the application that he had surrendered before the CBI on July 10 and was taken into custody. Now he had given statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. He added that his name was not mentioned in the FIR and was not involved in the case.