Dehradun, May 26
With city students coming out with flying colours in the IIT/JEE entrance this year, Dehradun has undergone a major transformation as far as success in competitive exams is concerned.

As many as 150 students from Dehradun have cleared the examination. A student of Baluni institute, Jyoti Chaubey, has topped the state.

Till a few years ago, students had to go to New Delhi and Kota (Rajasthan) for coaching required to clear the IIT and other competitive exams. Now several coaching institutes have come up in the city.

As many as 86 students of Aakash Institute, 21 of Baluni Classes and 15 of Lakshya Institute have cleared the IIT examination.

Till last year, the city IIT results were not very encouraging. There were few engineering aspirants who prepared for the examination by taking coaching from institutes outside Uttarakhand.

“While only 30 students of my institute cleared the IIT/JEE in 2008, this time the number has risen to 86” said DK Mishra, Aakash Institute.

He said: “Earlier, students felt it would be a waste of time while studying in Dehradun. Now, the perception has changed. The results this year have been wonderful. People must realise that Doon is capable of quality IIT coaching too.”

The director of Baluni Classes, Vipin Baluni, said: “The expenditure incurred on studies here is only half of what one would spend in Delhi or Kota and the pleasant environs makes the city even more suitable for studies.”

Said Jyoti Chaubey who took coaching at Baluni Classes: “I studied six hours everyday and the quality guidance I received at the institute helped me a great deal to clear the IIT. Tanuj Martolia, who was ranked 71 in the ST quota, said he had studied four hours daily.

More Results

Jyoti Chaubey 53, Tanuj Martolia 71 (ST), Prashant Negi 464, Sarvasva Sawhney 5212, Deepan Gupta 6546, Rishi Mehan 8044, Monika Garbyal (208), Vishwas Agarwal (766), Rakshita Gupta (1268), Himanshu Chaudhari (1151), Ambuj Mishra (1591), F.Malik (2960), Prabhakar Goel (5708), Rishi Mohan (8044).

Dehradun, May 26
For Qurban Ahmed, his youngest daughter Sabiya finding a place in the IIT JEE merit list has come as no surprise.

A driver with the Opto Electronics Factory (Ordinance), his other two daughters are already studying to become engineers.

“I am pleased with the performance of my daughter who may not make it to the topnotch IITs. Nevertheless, she will be able to get admission in a prestigious college,” says Ahmed.

“If I do not get admission in any engineering/medical institution, I may drop the year to prepare again for the IIT,” said Sabiya.

Ahmed has taken loan for his eldest daughter Rubina who is in the second year of mechanical engineering at the Dehradun Institute of Technology (DIT).

“A poor man, I always had high expectations from my daughters. All my daughters have studied at KV schools. The guidance from my bosses at the ordinance factory has been of immense help to the family,” he says.

His second daughter has a diploma in engineering from Suddhowala Polytechnic. She is awaiting results for a seat at one of the BTech colleges.

“I’m not a bookworm, but making a career in engineering has been my ambition since childhood. I think my youngest sister is the brightest among the three of us and she will make a good administrative officer,” opined Ruhi, Ahmed’s second daughter.

Dehradun, May 26
A village far away from the city is not the likeliest of places where one would find a group of schoolgirls working near a cow-dung heap, but that’s where Welham’s School girls are putting up these days.

Working among villagers of Ambiwala and lending a helping hand in the construction of toilets, compost pits and clearing a patch of land for vegetable garden, the girls are discovering rural India that they had never seen before.

In order to inculcate qualities of leadership and make them aware of the realities of rural India, the school decided to involve Class XII students in social service.

These students are part of International Award for Young People (IAYP) and
have achieved the Gold category through their exposure in trekking activities
and community service.

Now the school has joined hands with the Himalayan Environment Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO) that has initiated several technology intervention programmes in the village.

The 16 girls have forgone their summer holidays in order to work at the village, “Here in the village, we are seeing a side that was unknown to us and the experience is also a test case for our endurance and will power.

“It may sound clichéd but there is a high degree of resolute among the rural folk who may not have several facilities that we city folk take for granted,” said Pragya Surana, a student of the school.

The thrust of the exposure is to sensitise the students who would shortly be embarking on careers that would require a degree of understanding about the problems of villages and how a change can be wrought through policy interventions.

“Many of these girls may one day become leaders and planners, they need to be given an opportunity to intermingle with the villagers so that they actually get to know the problems plaguing our country side. I believe sensitisation should begin early,” said Dayita Dutta, vice-principal of the school.

Truly, the girls have managed to bridge the urban-rural divide from day one winning the hearts and minds of the women here.

Expectedly prior to the intervention, a survey was conducted at the village to ascertain the occupation and status of the villagers.

“During the interaction of primary import was the issue of toilets and it’s near absence. It concerned the women the most. Most of them still go out in the open to this day as very few houses have toilets. The other issue was agriculture and sanitation, emphasised,” Devanjali Dutt, team leader of the group.

Eager to make their intervention a permanent affair, HESCO has decided to develop Amibiwala as women’s village, so much so 25 women would be able to avail the technological interventions that have been pioneered by the organisaiton.

“We have provided low-cost water filters along with cow dung making machine and fodder cutting machines that would boost the output of women. In fact, students have been using these implements to the hilt, ” said Dr Anil Joshi, patron of HESCO.

Visibly happy with the work done by the girls, he said that gender sensitisation is a must for bringing qualitative changes in the lives of women towards whom not much attention has been paid. “I think the experience for the girls is a stepping stone to the future,” he added.

Dehradun, May 26
Cochlear implant proves to be a boon for deaf and dumb children. The procedure was performed for the first time in the city on a one-and-a-half year child who was suffering from the hearing and speech disabilities.

Giving details about the procedure ENT surgeon Dr DM Kala said a machine was placed inside the ear, which enables the patient to hear. Earlier this procedure was performed only in Delhi.

“A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin,” said Dr Kala.

While performing the procedure Dr Kala was assisted by ENT surgeon, Dr A Lahiri who came from Ganga Ram Hospital, who has performed the implant on 200 patients.

The entire procedure costs around Rs 7 lakh. “It is imperative that the problem is treated as early as possible, once diagnosed. If within six months a child is unable to make baby talk, he should be immediately shown to a specialist and the treatment should be started as soon as possible,” said Dr DP Joshi, a child specialist.

Speech therapy along with the implant could show significant improvement in the patient. Use of a cochlear implant requires both a surgical procedure and significant therapy to learn or re-learn the sense of hearing.

Not everyone performs at the same level with this device. An implant comprises of a microphone, which picks up sound from the environment.

A speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone and a transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses and a group of electrodes that collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve.