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PEC Principal’s plea rejected Chandigarh, April 17 Dr Kapoor, in his representation, had sought that he be appointed the Director without sending the case to the search committee, a mandatory condition to be followed while selecting the Director of the deemed university. Confirming the development, sources in the Chandigarh Administration said Dr Kapoor would continue to be the Principal of the engineering college till the case
of appointing the Director was not cleared by the Union of Human Resource Development Ministry. Under the deemed university status, only 50 per cent of the seats would be available to students of Chandigarh. Earlier, 85 per cent seats were reserved for students of Chandigarh. On the orders of the ministry, the Administration had already notified the status of deemed university on October 27, 2003. The interim board of governors constituted under the Memorandum of Administration (MOA) was the legal body to take any decision concerning PEC as deemed university. The process for appointing the Director of the university, who which has to be a Professor of an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) or an Indian Institute of Management
(IIM) has not been started as the matter is pending with the ministry. Dr Kapoor is also the Principal of the Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology, Sector 26. Meanwhile, the sources said the Administration had taken note of the college authorities advertising 50 posts of non-teaching staff in violation of the Model Code of Conduct for the General Election. |
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Faculty
for environment as compulsory subject Chandigarh, April 17 At present, environment education is only a qualifying subject with objective-type questions of 50 marks at the under-graduate level. Under the new directions received from the UGC, the subject will have 100 marks. While 75 marks have been awarded to the theory paper, 25 marks have been set aside for field work. Field work, as specified in the syllabi approved by the university, will include visiting local areas to prepare a documentary on rivers, hills, polluted sites in urban, rural, industrial and agricultural sectors and study common plants, insects and simple ecosystems. Mandatory for students from all streams, the course will also find mention on the detailed marks card issued by the university to successful candidates. The total marks assigned to the under-graduate course will increase from 2400 to 2500, requiring an amendment to the University Regulation. The item will come up for discussion at a meeting of the Academic Council. However, given the history of the course since it was introduced in 1997 following a Supreme Court order, it is likely to generate a debate Environment studies was started at the under-graduate level in affiliated colleges of the university. In the examination held in the first year, only 5 per cent students managed to secure pass marks. While this result was never declared, the university decided to change the criterion for awarding a certificate. A committee decided that any student attending 14 lectures of the course will be entitled to a certificate of having successfully studied environment studies. Meanwhile, from the teaching community and principals of affiliated colleges, the university was under a tremendous pressure to do away with the paper. The university authorities were warned against “over-burdening” the students with compulsory courses. Following this, the university reduced the number of lectures to seven and allowed students to attend the classes in any of the three years of the under-graduate course. This was done in 2000 and is being followed since then in all colleges affiliated to Panjab University. A Fellow of the university, Mr Charanjit Chawla, said the move of the university to impose the course on students was resisted. “We were against its implementation because no other university had introduced the course despite the directions of the SC. The UGC letter, too, came last year. Are all these directions and letters meant only for PU,” he asked.
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Students relieved after
re-examination Chandigarh, April 17 The examination was held during the school timings. In some of the schools, the authorities had to stop some classes to accommodate the candidates appearing in the PMT. The candidates, who had come from Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh, heaved a sigh of relief after the test was conducted peacefully. Said Parkas from Gurdaspur, who had been staying as paying guest (PG) since April 9, “I have already overspent on staying charges as the paper had been rescheduled”. Since there was no centre in Punjab and Haryana, a number of students came all the way from the distant places to appear in the PMT. A number of students from Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, who had undergone training at local coaching centres, had opted for the city to appear in the examination. Satisfied with her performance, Nishi from Ambala, said he got extra time to improve upon his weak areas. Another candidate, Maninder said the chemistry part of the question paper was tough. Raghujeet from Patiala was, however, satisfied with the question paper. Sources in the CBSE said to ensure that the question papers were not leaked, an official of the board was permanently attached with the sealed packets containing the question papers. The papers reached the examination centers, few hours before the commencement of the test. |
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Shishu Niketan celebrates golden jubilee Chandigarh, April 17 Addressing the students and parents, the UT Administrator, Justice O.P. Verma, who was the chief guest, extended his felicitations to the founder director of the school, Ms Suchinta Khorana. Justice J.L. Gupta, was the guest of honour. Justice Verma said it was an achievement to build an institution from a humble start of mere two students to about 5,000 students on roll today. A performance by tiny tots of the school evoked applause.
Earlier, the school Principal Ms Amita Khorana, read out the annual report of the school. The school authorities honoured Ms Sharanjit Cheema, the first teacher of the school and Lieut-Col K.J. Singh, one of the first students of the school. The other alumni of the school honoured on the occasion were - Ms Asha Sharma, Dr Mangla Dogra, Mr Chander Mohan Behl, Mr K.K. Monga.
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NGO’s initiative to spread peace Chandigarh, April 17 Mr Parmod Sharma, coordinator of
Yuvsatta, said as a creative response to growing violence, an initiative had been taken to identify students, teachers and families who had faith in non-violence. Those identified for the campaign would be asked to take pledge to shun violence. He said the objective of the campaign was to bring a social change for the establishment of a non-violent social order and encourage youngsters to experience the creative aspects of non-violence in their daily life. He said under the campaign, they planned to encourage students and teachers to enroll themselves as peace volunteers and form peace clubs in schools, colleges and other institutions. The target of the NGO was to enroll one lakh families in the campaign for peace in the city. |
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Works of women writers discussed Chandigarh, April 17 It was the first lecture in a series of fortnightly lectures on women’s studies being organised by the centre. Introducing the theme and the concept of the lecture, the Director of the Centre for Women’s Studies, Prof Aruna Goel, said the woman had been called devi-shakti in the
Rigveda. “The woman has also been referred to as mena (a person who is highly respected) in the ancient Indiana scriptures,” she added. Prof Veena Singh, main speaker of the day, asserted that there was an internal conflict going on within a woman, that of being an ideal mother, wife, daughter and a person in her own right. She said Indian women writers had dealt with this issue very sensitively. Women writers of post-colonial India portrayed life and successfully projected the problems, conflicts, dreams and desires of women. Commenting upon the lecture, Prof Meera Malik, Department of English, DCS, emphasised the need for establishing a balancing in various roles of a woman. Prof Jagmohan Chopra of the DCS stressed that any person, men or women could project women in a sensitive manner, provided they were conscious and sensitised to the issues.
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Students get tips on hotel management Panchkula, April 17 Mr Magdy Attalla, president of the college, apprised students of the latest trends in the hotel industry and opportunities in this field at the international level. He claimed the hotel management studies in Switzerland were the best in the world. A visual presentation on facilities, infrastructure, teaching faculty and living standards and studying methods in various countries was also held. Dr V.P. Paul, Principal, who welcomed Mr Attalla, stressed the importance of such programmes in the era of
globalisation. Mr Sushil Kaushal, adviser to the PRG, Education, Chandigarh, was also present.
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NIPER to hold
training programme Mohali, April 17 As many as 35 drug inspectors and senior enforcement staff and 36 speakers from academia, industry and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will participate in the programme that will include classroom sessions and industrial visits. |
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Students
honoured Mohali, April 17 Mr Albel Singh Shyan, general secretary of the society, said the students were given medals for their performance by Mr S.K. Behal, Liaison Officer, Ranbaxy Laboratories, who was the chief guest on the occasion. Mr Shyan said the society distributed items of stationery to all students of the school.
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City B.Ed test on June 6 Chandigarh, April 17
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Romancing frames Chandigarh, April 17 In Chandigarh to hold another photography workshop in collaboration with the Chitkara Educational Trust, Bhaskar talked to The Tribune about his long creative spell as also to rejuvenate photography by emphasising experimentation. “Much of our photography is still conventional. Somehow there is great resistance to trial. That is why infra red films hardly sell at shops stocking photography equipment. Because there is no demand for these, there is no supply as well. I wish to reverse the trend, in whatever way I can. That is why I have chosen to train a line of artists who will not hesitate to create within norm.” Bhaskar is famous for thematic ensembles, which opened to a tremendous response in celebrated galleries of the country. The four collections — “If tomorrow comes”, “Labyrinths of my mind”, “Voices of spring” and “Atlantis” — document Bhaskar’s journey as an artist. They also reflect his comfort with technique. With a new-found appreciation for art, Bhaskar has recently renounced his equipment. He reasons, “Equipment ties me down. I don’t feel free to indulge. That is why I have given up everything, but retained a handy camera with which I span the world. I have told my students to get whatever equipment they want to. I can tell them what to do with it,” says Bhaskar, who began learning photography as a 21-year-old. Interestingly, he never went to any school for training. “I learnt photography by hit and trial. There is hardly any literature on the subject which I have not read. Later, I became a photographer for the India Trade Promotion Organisation, earlier called the Trade Fair Authority of India. I also accepted assignments on architecture, theatre, modelling, fashion and products. But now I am just instructing.” Associated with the British Council for the past six years, Bhaskar has also conducted workshops for the Xavier Institute of Communication, Mumbai, the FICCI Ladies Organisation, New Delhi, India Habitat Centre and Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya. In Chandigarh, he will conduct two workshops at the British Library tomorrow. Meant for children between 9 and 12 years, the workshop titled “The magic camera” will focus on colour panorama, shooting of pictures with photograms and techniques of developing black and white films. |
They recreate the beauty of vintage cars THEY recreate history, painstakingly looking for bits and pieces of heritage to rebuild and redecorate the beauties that once ruled the roads. Mr Satinderjit S. Sarkaria, and Mr Balbir Singh – vintage car restorers — are now the driving force in keeping the automobile heritage on the roads. The city, famous for its vintage and classic cars, is also the only place north of Delhi where these old beauties can be restored and maintained. The credit goes to Mr Satinderjit S. Sarkaria of Apex Motors, and Mr Balbir Singh of India Auto Electric Works, who are also connoisseurs of these cars. While Mr Sarkaria has been involved in restoration of the vintage cars, the latter is the perfect mechanic to make your beauties’ road worthy. Mr Balbir Singh runs his mechanic shop in Sector 17, and is attached with a petrol pump for over 30 years now. Himself a proud owner of a 1928 Ford (which incidentally, is the oldest car in Chandigarh), two Chevrolets (1938 and 1960 models), Belair (1960), Standard Super (1960) and Mercedes (1965), Balbir has kept his “old ladies” at different places. “ I have kept two of these at my residence, and for shortage of space, two of them have been kept in an industrial shed in Mohali, while the remaining ones stand in my garage,” he says. But from where does he buy so many cars, we ask. “Most of them were bought from junk dealers, though some customers too sold them to me in favour of new cars,” he offers. He says that he learnt the mechanics of these “old ladies” in 1957.“I was an apprentice at a mechanic shop in Delhi, and in those times, the cars that are now vintage, were the ones that were in use. I learnt the finer points of repairing these cars then,” he says. This mechanic says that now it is this expertise acquired in his apprenticeship days that is now of use to the connoisseurs of these classic and vintage cars. For any mechanical fault in the cars, the owners simply seek his help, and he is a natural when it comes to detecting and rectifying any fault. It is not without reason that Mr Baljit Singh Manco, general secretary of the Vintage and Classic Car Club, Chandigarh, refers to him as the “driving force of our club”. But is it not difficult to procure the parts of these cars, we ask him. “Yes, the spares are generally difficult to find. I have to go to Delhi to find some spares, like the tyres; spares like door handles, are cast at local foundries; and, for others, we go to old car spare part dealers, most of whom have closed shop, but still have these parts in their godowns,” Balbir says. Agrees Mr Sarkaria, who has restored the glory of many of these vintage and classic cars.” Restoration of cars is a very expensive preposition — a Rolls Royce with a wooden frame was restored at a whooping Rs 4 lakh. The spares are not available, it is labour intensive and restoration work goes on for months together. The mechanical rebuild is easy, because these cars worked on simple mechanics, but body-building is a specialised art,” he says. We agree completely, as we look around his work station in the Industrial Area. Numerous classic and vintage beauties are parked all over the place, some waiting for his time and attention to restore their glory; others being polished and a glowing with pride. This engineer says that it was almost a decade ago that he became passionate about these old beauties. “My son was studying in Delhi, and he saw a Peugeot, and asked me to buy him the car. I told him that the car was not road worthy, but he insisted and I got the vehicle at my service station, and after months of work, got it in order. Since then, I have developed an interest in these classic cars, and now possess a 2000 Roadster (1948), a Singer (1948), a Triumph and am currently restoring an MGVA (1937) and a Riley (1946),” he says. He says that when he sees a vintage beauty, his heart rules over his head, and even if the car is in shambles, he buys it. His Triumph — a red coloured beauty — was in fact a relative’s vehicle dumped in a garage. “The floor was totally damaged and a tree was growing through the floor and hood of the car. We had to cut the tree and then get the car out. It took me months to restore the car,” he says as he stands proudly besides the car, which has also participated in numerous vintage car rallies.
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Bird sanctuary of Art College a parking lot! Severe encroachment upon the green space in the backyard of the Government College of Art, Sector 10, has reduced the beauty of the land to a naught. Only last year, the art college authorities had gone out of the way to plant saplings in this waste patch of land, besides digging water ponds in the area. The effort had resulted in the evolution of a small, but beautiful bird sanctuary that was attracting birds of several descriptions. But with one stroke of indifference the Haryana Government staff, now occupying the “disputed” fourth phase of the college, has rendered all efforts of conserving the green space in the college compound futile. Heavy motor vehicles now stand tall on the patches of forest land which had been cleared of wild growth only last year so that the bird sanctuary project could be completed. The look is now no more beautiful. It is virtually jarring, even as the birds are choosing to stay away from the sanctuary area, which now sports huge tyres of cars and even trucks at several places. If that was not enough, about 25 to 30 vehicles remain parked in the area almost perpetually, giving the forest land the appearance of a storeroom or worse, a junkyard. The stench of rubber sometimes gets too hard to bear. Prof Brahm Prakash, Principal of the college, says, “While we were thinking of getting our land back from Haryana, a new problem has come up. We had already written to the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Haryana, to restore the area to us so that we could use its space to start the Masters in Fine Art courses. However, there has been no response. On top of that, they have encroached upon the land we had laboured hard to conserve as a green space. Last year, we had got this land levelled so as to plant saplings. We were also caring for the trees, so much so that we had converted waste land into a bird sanctuary. But all our labour has been lost now.” While the Haryana Government authorities refuse to say anything about the encroachment of green space, Prof Brahm Prakash informed The Tribune that he had posted the UT Administration on the matter. “We are expecting some response. The practice of using green spaces for parking is being discouraged all over the city. We are expecting the Administration’s intervention in the matter lest our bird sanctuary project should be lost forever.”
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Students of the Canadian Institute for International Studies (CIIS) a campus of Georgian College, Ontario, Canada, here have built a unique car as part of the ‘mini-baja project’ under the mechanical engineering technology in automobile manufacturing, (METAM) programme of Georgian College. Georgian College places a large number of its students in the Canadian automotive studies, through its automobile engineering programme, METAM. This programme imparts knowledge about the manufacturing and the assembly of automobile parts, which go into making a complete automobile. “Our programme inspired us and gave us the confidence to undertake the mini-baja project, pronounced as mini-baaha’’said Avneet Singh, one of the eight-member team that undertook the project. “We had the fire in us to do something different and to be a cut above the rest”. To do this, we decided to make a car with the engine of a Fiat. Later, we figured that the size of the Fiat engine was too large for our purpose, then one of our faculty members told us about the mini-baja project, which basically involves making an off-road vehicle, which can survive the demands of a rough terrain” added Karanjeev Sabherwal and Arjun Ohri, both members of the team. “The first thing we did after deciding to go after this project, was to maufacture the body of the off-roader. After making the body we made the driveline and the suspension system of the car. Most of the parts that we have used in our vehicle come from the Maruti-800, as this car has the lightest components. These are also easily available. But which engine should we use was the question that remained”. We decided to use the engine of a Yamaha-RD 350, as with about 34bhp it is the quickest engine on the block,” said Rajan Vaid and Sunny Walia. “In fact, we couldn’t have made this car without Mr Harmeet Bhullar and Mr Shariq Khan who are the faculty members of our METAM programme. While Mr Shariq Khan introduced us to the idea of the mini-baja, Mr Harmeet Bhullar helped us a lot in our practical work, giving us solutions to our problems, as well as the never-ending encouragement to go on,” said Abhinav Lamba and Shravan Pai of the team. Meanwhile, students and faculty of the CIIS, Phase 1, Industrial Area, here yesterday bid farewell to the Institute Director, Mr Bruce Condie, and Canadian Faculty from Georgian College, Barrie, Ontario who have been here to teach students at CIIS. Lieut Gen K.S. Mann (PVSM) has taken over as the new Institute Director. TNS
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Ajay Sethi takes pride in being the key man behind the new 7 to 9 show on Anjam television in Dubai. Launched in June last year, the show is already garnering positive response for its India-centric packaging. Not just that, it is also rated among the highly watched channels because of its well-chalked out content which includes serials with the “K” factor, mastered by Ekta Kapoor. On his trip to Chandigarh today, Ajay, who spent his early days in the city, said he was looking for avenues in India. During a press conference at the Chandigarh Club today, he said he soon wanted to launch the channel in India. “But my loyalties rest with Dubai first because Dubai is the place which gave me so much of respect. I started with the television industry very late. But now that I have a collaboration with Anjam television in Dubai, I can air a lot of Indian content on my channel. The best part is that the whole of UAE loves to watch serials in which emotions run strong. Family dramas particularly impress them. That is why Ekta Kapoor and her serials are such a big hit in Dubai. In fact, we had the whole team of these serials visiting us earlier during the year,” he said. As of now Ajay has the STAR television licence to run two serials, including “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhie ...” and “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki”. But he is now in the process of striking a better bargain. “We will get the licence for three more serials very shortly. Once we have more Indian programmes on air, it will become easier to expand the viewer base in Dubai,” he stated. Planning to show Indian programmes in Dubai and vice versa, Ajay said business was not all that easy in Dubai. He added, “Our only USP is that ours is a free-to-air channel. Also ours is the first Indian channel outside India on such a major professional scale.” TNS
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