The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

DAV College opens door to girls
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24
DAV College, Sector 10, has decided to admit girl students to all courses/programmes from the new academic session, beginning July, 2006.

This was announced at a press conference by college Principal S.C. Marriya today.

The courses include all postgraduate degree/diploma programmes and all Bachelor’s degree programmes except BA.

The new session will also see the introduction of Master’s in Business Economics and two postgraduate diploma programmes — one in Insurance Management and the other in Business Management.

Besides, BA students will have the option to choose from two additional elective subjects — Statistics and Computer Science.

At the undergraduate level, the college offers (other than BA), BCom, BCom (Hons), BCA, BBA, BSc (Hons) in Bio-Technology, BSc (Hons) in Bio-Informatics, BSc (Medical), BSc (Non-Medical), BSc (Bio-Technology), BSc (Bio- Informatics), BSc (Computer Science) and BPEd (four years degree programme) will now become co-education courses.

Mr Marriya said the college had also gone in for large-scale revamp of the various facilities given to the students.

New classrooms and laboratories with latest multimedia equipment have been set up specifically for postgraduate students. A girls’ common room has also come up in the college.

Internet facilities will now be available in all departments in the college.

The college prospectus for admissions is available in the college and admission forms can be downloaded shortly from college website www.davchd.com .

KV teachers hone their teaching skills
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24
Twentynine teachers from Kendriya Vidyalayas of Chandigarh, Delhi, Dehra Dun and Jammu are participating in a 21-day inservice course for Trained Graduate Teachers, which concludes at KV No 2, 3 BRD Air Force Station, Chandigarh, on May 26.

The training programme, directed by Mrs Ranjana Bassi, venue Principal, is being held to hone the teaching skills of the teachers. Mr S.S. Sehrawat, Assistant Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Chandigarh Region, is taking care of all the details of the training.

Mrs Amrita Sharma, Vice-Principal, KV, High Grounds, and Associate Course Director, is looking after the teaching tasks. Imparting training to the participants are Ms Jatinder Kaur, PGT (English), KV, Sector 29, Ms Neena Bhardwaj, PGT (English), KV, High Grounds, and Ms Narender Kaur, KV No 5, Bathinda Cantt.The schedule has been chalked out by Mr P.R.L. Gupta, Director, ZIET, Mumbai.

An exhibition put up on teaching aids and impressions of the course by the participants reflected three innovative ideas. The stage show put to test their artistic capabilities was the centre of attraction.

CULTURE

Actor in love with Chandigarh
Gayatri Rajwade
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24
With a mission to "just chill", actor Jas Arora saunters around completely at home in Chandigarh's blistering heat. Having come off a grilling schedule of his mega serial 'Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan' on Star Plus, being filmed in Baroda where the temperatures reach a scalding 45 degrees Celsius, he seems enamoured by Chandigarh.

"I went for a walk in the morning after the rains. Everything was beautiful, green and lush. I love being here," he waxes eloquent. On his way to Shimla with friends, he decided to stay put because the city's brand of warmth and hospitality had them all overwhelmed.

His role as Someshwar Chauhan, Prithviraj Chauhan's father, has been appreciated but it means working a gruelling 15 to 20 days a month which includes, "riding horses, wielding swords, wearing heavy clothes" and of course the heat of Baroda. But the role has him hooked. "It is amazing because the serial starts with me and if my character does not hold, then it's a no-show," he explains.

Jas believes he is lucky for he had just returned in March this year after a three-year acting stint in Singapore as the main lead in a sitcom called 'Achar' about an Indian boy married to a Chinese girl on Singapore's only English channel when he was convinced to sign up for this serial. Also on the cards is an interesting cameo in Pritish Nandy Communications, Mallika Sherawat-Rahul Bose starrer, 'Pyar Ke Side Effects'.

So how did it all start? "Quite by accident" he recalls, "photographer Pabuddha Dasgupta offered me my first ever job in a Nivea advertisement." A sting of hit Punjabi videos with Deepti Bhatnagar and Malaika Arora-Khan (remember 'laung gawacha' and 'gur nal ishq mitha') and this Mumbai boy had arrived in the Bollywood fraternity.

"I feel blessed to have come this far because I have left a lot of good work which I thought did not make sense for me to do. If I have come so far I cannot make a deliberate effort to mess it up," he smiles.

Despite the vagaries of getting up in a new city, a new hotel and around new people every so often, it is his tea and coffee cups and a good round in the gym that gets him going.

"The strain of shooting a serial of this magnitude is big, so working out keeps me fit and mentally alert."

What has also kept the buzz going is that recognition does not elude him yet and the women still flock. "The girls here are very sweet. They do not tear at your clothes," he laughs.

Jas goes back to Mumbai tomorrow but not without the oodles of warmth he has experienced here.

Mohali gets its first art gallery
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24
The region’s growing interest in art got another fillip today with the inauguration of Mohali’s first art gallery, Artizen, the brainchild of former Merchant Navy officer Manmant Singh. Harbouring the dream of opening a gallery for three years finally bore fruit today after three months of hard work.

A spiffy basement replete with colourful, vibrant walls, cheery lighting to highlight the paintings and beautiful stained glasswork dotting the ceiling, Artizen seems all ready to woo artists looking for an appropriate space to showcase their works.

What made the opening today so unique is that, Artizen, managed to rope in most of the leading artists of the region with works ranging from Viren Tanwar, Bhim Malhotra to J.S. Garcha, Madal Lal, R.M. Singh, Satwant Singh Sumail, Balwinder, Rakesh Bani, Madhu Pandit, Malkit Singh, Mahesh Prajapati, Raman Bhardwaj, Gurjind Sandhu to photographs from Diwan Manna and Vinay Malik and even sculptures and paintings from students of the College of Art like Shiven and Sumit Kathuria whose works show tremendous promise.

Peppered with some of the artists who graciously answered all queries regarding their works, the evening was a heady mix of art and warmth.

The Director of the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Sector 10, Chandigarh, Dr V.N. Singh impressed with the effort said the growing art activity in the city needed a place like this. “I am very pleased by what I see here today”.

Artizen was inaugurated by Ms Aditi Dua, wife of Editor-in-Chief, The Tribune Group of Publications, Mr H.K. Dua, and an art aficionado herself.

Photo exhibition from tomorrow
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 24
The Friends of Photography, a group of photo-artists, will hold its annual exhibition of photographs at the Art Gallery of the Government Museum in Sector 10 here from May 26 to 30.

Stating this here today, Friends of Photography president V.S. Kundu said the exhibition would be inaugurated by Chandigarh Administration Home Secretary Krishna Mohan on May 26.

A total of 58 black and white and coloured prints would be displayed.

These prints would include 15 prints by Amitabh Sil, Abhoy Nath Ganguly and Anil Risal Singh.

Members of the Friends of Photography whose prints would be on display were Adit Agarwala, V.S. Kundu, O.P. Gupta, Subhash Sapru, Amardeep Singh Samra, Deep Ram Bhatia, B.S. Sodhi, Inderjit Premi and B.S.N. Reddy.