Bits & bytes
Eight Indian teachers get educated in US space science

Eight Indian teachers were part of a group of 200 teachers selected for the Honeywell scholarships for an intensive educator curriculum focused on space science and exploration in Alabama.

The teachers, part of a group of 200 science and math teachers from 19 countries and 43 US states, were sent on scholarships to attend the ‘Honeywell Educators at Space Academy Programme’ from June 16 to 28 at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Hunstville, Alabama, a Honeywell release issued in New Delhi said.

The programme is a part of Honeywell Hometown Solutions — the company’s community outreach initiative which focuses on issues like science and math education, family safety and security, housing and shelter.

"The Honeywell Educators at Space Academy Programme is designed to help teachers inspire the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math," Honeywell International India Country Manager and Managing Director Ash Gupta said recently.

During the programme, the teachers participated in activities like 40 hours of classroom, laboratory and field training, astronaut training exercises including high-performance jet simulation, scenario-based space missions, land and water survivial training and flight dynamics programmes.

Honeywell Interantional is a $ 30 billion diversified technology and manufacturing company with interests in aerospace products and services, control technologies for building homes, automotive products, turbochargers and specialty materials. — PTI

An Institute of Aeronautical Science and Training and Pilots Academy, named after the late Rajiv Gandhi, is to be set up at Sriperumbudur where the former prime minister was assassinated in 1991.

Tamil Nadu Finance Minister K Anbazhagan, said recently that the government had approached the civil aviation ministry in this regard.

He also announced setting up two new technical universities in the state, at Tiruchirapalli and Coimbatore and a centre for educational research at Madurai Kamaraj university.

A centre for research on the Dravidian movement would be set up Madras University to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the university, he said. — PTI

Orissa to have vedanta university

Orissa is set to offer "educational excellence" for "future generations" through the proposed Vedanta University, after it inked a MoU recently with the Anil Agarwal foundation.

Promoted by industrialist Anil Agarwal, who is also the chairman of Vedanta Resources, the foundation will set up a multi-disciplinary world class Vedanta University in the state with an investment of Rs.150 billion in phases.

"The Vedanta University will make global standards of educational excellence more accessible to the future generations of our country, thereby creating tomorrow’s Nobel laureates, Olympic champions and heads of government and state."

"It is my honour and privilege to dedicate the Vedanta University to the people of India," Agarwal said.

The university expects to enroll students from 2008, a foundation release issued in Bhubaneswar said.

The foundation has appointed the globally acclaimed architecture firms Ayers Saint Gross to prepare the master plan for the university.

The firm has designed some of the best campuses in the world and has 90 years of rich experience with specialisation in projects of higher education, said a foundation official. — IANS

The SSN group of institutions, floated by HCL founder Shiv Nadar, is to set up a technical and management university at Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

Shiv Nadar told newsmen recently that the Uttar Pradesh government had agreed to allot 250 acres of land initially against the request of 1000 acres.

The university would be called SSN technical and Management University, he said.

He said the SSN College of Technology here would be upgraded as a deemed university during the next academic year.

The SSN school of Advanced Software Engineering in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University, would offer CMU’s Master of Science programme in Information Technology with specialisation in software engineering, robotic technology, embedded systems engineering and software management, he said. — PTI

The Reliance-NIS Sparta Academy today launched its School of Employability here, the first in Tamil Nadu.

The School would provide the country’s corporate world with trained and skilled students who are ready to work in any industry, Suresh Srinivasan, Tamil Nadu circle chairman of the group’s broadband business told newsmen.

The five to 15 days’ training programme was designed to impart tailor-made skills to students, which would enable them make a career in any industry ranging from telecom, retail, banking or BPO, he said.

Reliance itself needed 7,000 personnel immediately for its various branches and the demand was likely to go up in the coming days, he said.

The students, trained by the NIS Sparta, would be absorbed by the group, on completion of training, he said.

The students would be selected by a simple aptitude test and the training would be free of charge.

The School was inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation G K Vasan. Vasan said the school was aptly launched on the birth anniversary of late K Kamaraj, who was instrumental for opening schools in villages across the state.

Reliance group had taken over NIS Sparta two years ago.

Presently owned by Reliance Infocomm, it has already opened Schools of Employability in Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Kanpur and Lucknow. — PTI