New Delhi, August 9
The Ministry of Human Resource Development has initiated a process of ending the system of multiple entrance exams for admissions to undergraduate (UG) courses across India. This is to be replaced with a national exam featuring a national aptitude test (NAT) and subject tests, both to be held together.

The two will be conducted by the proposed National Testing Authority and will capture the students’ subject knowledge and their ability to analyse situations without putting them through a string of exams like JEE, AIEEE, CBSE PMT etc.

Presently, 50 lakh students annually seek admission to UG courses, the number will be 100 lakh by 2020, say Ministry estimates. While barring entrance exams for the UG admissions (even before the IIT-JEE reform panel report is out), the HRD Ministry’s ambitious National Testing Scheme Draft circulated last week for response prescribes admission criteria for institutions: “Institutions can structure admission methods around any of the following - Class XII boards, Class XI and XII exams with relative weights, NAT scores; scores of subject tests, group discussions, any other criteria except an entrance test.”

The guidelines are meant to help colleges in the wake of the Prohibition of Educational Malpractices Bill-2010, which makes it mandatory for colleges to declare admission methodology in the prospectus at least 60 days before the start of admissions. The testing scheme draft says institutions would be free to assign relative weights to prescribed admission parameters.

Interestingly, the draft, in possession of The Tribune, seeks to reserve “special weightage” for marginalised students “It will only be proper to weight the test scores with a measure for the socio-economic background of the candidate. The weight will depend on factors like educational attainments of parents, their earning capacity and the nature of school the candidate comes from (rural/urban). A national consensus will have to be achieved for this weightage,” it says.

The draft talks of bringing a law to establish National Testing Authority (NTA) to conduct the national exams and end institutional testing by the colleges, besides providing for state testing agencies to hold subject tests in social sciences, humanities and Indian languages. However, tests in physical sciences, chemical sciences, life sciences, basic math, advanced math, economics and commerce and accountancy will be conducted by NTA, which is proposed to have a branch each in 600 districts and 2,500 subdivisions.

The NAT will be administered at two difficulty levels - moderate and high - to minimise stress on students, while subject tests (to be held twice a year; frequency to be improved) are being proposed to enable students to improve subject scores of Class XII and help those who miss the school-leaving exam for some reason. Students can sit for one test or a combination depending on which institution they want to join. Although initially, computerised testing methods will be adopted along with paper-pen format, gradually all testing will be online. 

Chandigarh, August 9
Blogger judges are causing quite a twitter. The Union Ministry of Law wants to know whether high court judges are logging on to misconduct by airing their voice through blogs and Twitter.

The ministry has shot off a communication to the Secretary-General of the Supreme Court, and the registrar-generals of all high courts in the country. The letter comes after Justice DV Shylendra Kumar of the Karnataka High Court courted controversy by airing his views on a blog.

Available information suggests, the letter, received by the Punjab and Haryana High Court Registrar-General today, has been circulated among all judges here for their comments on the issue. They have been asked to furnish their observations at the earliest, and latest by August 11.

The letter questions whether the Government of India is aware that the high court judges are airing their voice through blogs and Twitter? The other questions are: Whether it is not against the code of conduct of the judges?; and if so what preventive measures are being taken to check the trend?

The urgency can be gauged from the fact that the letter says the information has to be faxed “immediately”.

Justice K Kannan of the Punjab and Haryana was, perhaps, the only judge here airing his views through a blog. It is believed Justice Kannan, the first sitting judge to make public his assets, was also India’s first sitting judge to air his views on court judgments and other issues on his personal blog.

Right from advocates failing to switch off their mobile phones inside the courtroom to strikes by lawyers; from abortions to homosexuality; from unregulated fertility clinics to a court judgment on unshorn facial hair being an essential condition for securing admission to a Sikh educational institute; Justice Kannan had written on myriad subjects.

But he stopped blogging much before the Karnataka High Court approached the Supreme Court against Justice Kumar, accusing him of “berating” Chief Justice PD Dinakaran by using “intemperate” language in his blogs. Known as the blogger judge, Justice Kumar used his writings to openly criticise Justice Dinakaran, who is facing an impeachment motion. 

New Delhi, August 9
India’s first official study on honour crimes questions the role of law enforcers in protecting vulnerable couples, saying that the police, in most reported cases of violence, remained mute spectators where they could have saved lives by employing the existing laws.

In the past two years, 560 cases of honour crimes were reported (actual numbers would be more) across India, involving 121 killings. In all these cases, the couples had to approach local courts for protection. Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 48 killings, Haryana came next with 41 such crimes and Delhi reported 15.

The practice, however, is most prevalent in Punjab, which constitutes half of all reported cases -- 283 out of 560. Punjab, Haryana, UP and Delhi with 283 (50 per cent); 190 (34 per cent), 51 (9 per cent) and 18 (3 per cent) cases, respectively, account for 96 per cent of all honour crimes. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat reported three cases each followed by Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Maharashtra (two cases each), Assam, Arunachal, and Jharkhand (one case each). The practice cuts across rural-urban divide, with the majority of the runaway couples coming from educated families.

The most significant finding of the 260-page study, submitted to the government today, relates to the perceived role of khaps in such crimes. Contrary to perception, same-gotra marriages account for only 3.2 per cent of the 560 honour crimes.