The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

Discourage gender segregation in education: Gill
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 4
Mr M.S.Gill, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, feels that co-education could bring a transformation among students. Gender interest prevailed in society, if boys and girls studied together, things would have been much different. The government should discourage segregation of boys and girls in educational institutions.

On a visit to SCD Government College here today as the chief-guest, Mr Gill said he had nostalgic memories about the institute. Talking to the Ludhiana Tribune, he said in 1953, when he was a student of this college, things were different. The faculty was specially brought from Lahore to bring the college on a par with those of the best in Delhi. They were real learned people. The beauty of surroundings could not be expressed in words. The college had more than 20 lawn tennis courts, which were tastefully maintained.

“But the beauty is all gone”, he said. Mr Gill said he always opposed the idea of VIPs landing at educational institutes. “During my tenure as the Chief Election Commissioner of India, the then Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had to visit the college and orders were issued to cut the beautiful, shady green trees for security reasons. I opposed this idea, but to no avail”, he said.

Mr Gill said he would like to spend the entire amount of MP Local Area Development (MP LAD) fund on education with focus on girl education and border area development. “I will not let it lapse at any cost”, he said.

Mr Gill felt sorry to see the plight of colleges. He said it was disturbing to see that the development or maintenance of colleges was being done from the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) funds. “How could colleges survive on charity like this”, he asked.

Later, Mr Gill inaugurated a computer centre in the college. Ms Indra Bhatia, Principal of the college, said that centre was established with the grant of Rs 5 lakh received from Mr Gill’s MP LAD fund and Rs 2 lakh from the PTA fund. Fifteen computer sets with modern and the latest technology have been installed out of the grant. The college aims at running basic courses in computer, to make students and faculty computer literate, said Ms Bhatia.

Ms Bhatia said the college had got grade A from NAAC which increased its responsibility to excel further. NAAC, in its assessment report, had underlined computerisation and Internet-Networking as a grey area for which the college had to give attention to make the education system more impressive and viable in the wake of WTO and globalisation.

MP confers degrees on 850 students
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 4
The 43rd convocation of the Khalsa College for Women, Civil Lines, was held here today. The function was presided over by Dr M.S. Gill, MP, Rajya Sabha. The Principal, Dr Varinder Kaur Thind, read out the annual report.

Degrees were conferred on 850 students. Students were also honoured with roll of honour, certificates and college colours.

The academic roll of honour was given to Shilpa Ahuja (B Com II), Enu Arora (BBA II) and Priya Gupta (BCA II) for getting first position in Panjab University; Shweata Jain (M Sc IT I) and Gagandeep Kaur (BBA II) for standing second in PU; and Geeta Sharma (MA II FA), Inderpreet Kaur (BCA II), Shifan Kohli (BCA I) and Sakshi Malhotra (BBA I) for standing third in PU. The roll of honour for cultural and social activities was awarded to Himani (BA III), Harpinder (BA III), Rupinder Kaur (BA III) and Shruti Sood (MA II FA).

The roll of honour for sports and NCC was given to Sandeep Kaur (handball), Kuldeep Kaur (hockey), Sandeep Kaur (hockey), Narinder Kaur (hockey), Rupinder Kaur (powerlifting), Joginder Kaur (volleyball), Cadet Deepika Sharma, Cadet Kamaljeet Kaur and Cadet Kanchan Pali.

The college colours for cultural activities were awarded to Kanwaljeet Kaur Dhillon, Nancy, Sheetal Dhawan and Sawita Joshi and the sports college colours were given to Manpreet Kaur, Kawaljeet Kaur and Mandeep Kaur.

From Colleges
Seminar on software development held
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 4
The Guru Nanak Institute of Management and Technology (GNIMT), Gujarkhan Campus, organised a seminar on software development under the aegis of the ISTE Chapter. The seminar was organised in association with IBM Trident group. Mr Neeraj Kumar (Business Development Manager) and Mr Jitender Sharma (IBM Technical Consultant) were the resource persons. They gave a presentation on their software product ‘Rational Rose’.

‘Rational Rose’ was a software that helped in the development process of a software product. It helped the software developer in analysing the software requirement specifications, preparation for design and documentation and listing of the product. It also enabled object-printed analysis and design using UML (Unified Modelling Language). ‘Rational Rose’ was highly useful in the corporate world as well as educational institutes where students could learn new techniques of software development, claimed the resource persons.

All students of the MCA and faculty members of the GNIMT attended the seminar and found it informative.

Farewell party: BA II students of Guru Nanak Khalsa College for Women, Gujarkhan Campus, arranged a farewell party for BA III students. The students presented many cultural items, including individual dance items and group dances. Several games were arranged by the juniors to entertain their teachers and senior girls.The girls dressed in glittering sarees walked down the ramp to vie for the title of ‘Miss Farewell.’

Ms Sheetal Chawla of BA III won the title of ‘Miss Farewell’, Ms Manu Dawar of BA III was adjudged ‘Miss Personality’ while Jasmeet of BA III was chosen as ‘Miss Cat Walk’. Honey was given the prize for wearing the ‘Best Smile’, Ramandeep as ‘Best Dressed-Up’ while Harneet and Ravleen of BA III were the first and second runners-up, respectively. Principal Manju Chawla wished the outgoing students all the best.

HEALTH

6 city doctors for national conference at Hyderabad
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 4
A 20-member delegation from Punjab, including six doctors from the city, will attend the 7th National Conference of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) to be held on March 5 and 6, 2005, at Hyderabad. The theme of the national-level meet will be ‘peace and development through health’.

According to Dr L.S. Chawla, president, and Dr Arun Mitra, general secretary of the IDPD, over 250 delegates were expected to participate in the conference from all over the country. The conference will deliberate on healthcare in the country, with special emphasis on challenges in the future, heath hazards of nuclear weapons, from production to delivery, impact of small arms violence on society, disaster management and remedy in case of a nuclear fall out.

The main speakers at the conference will include Dr Ron McCoy, co-president, International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), from Malaysia, Dr Gunnar Westberg, co-president, IPPNW, from Sweden, Dr Maheh Maskey, South Asian regional vice-president from Nepal, Prof Kamal N. Kabra, leading economist from New Delhi, Mr Praful Bidwai and Dr J. Sri Raman, both prominent columnists from Delhi and Chennai respectively.