Category Archives: Education

Free laptops distributed to Anna University students

Education, Science & Technologies

Chennai. 

The human development index and gross enrolment ratio of students in Tamil Nadu is better than the national average, said Apurva Varma, Principal Secretary, Higher Education, here on Thursday.

Addressing students of Dindigul and Ramanathapuram regional centres of Anna University during a programme organised to distribute free laptops, he said “the national average of gross enrolment ratio is 13 per cent whereas it is18 per cent in Tamil Nadu.”

Last year, Rs 1000 crore was allocated for procurement of laptops and this year Rs. 1500 crore had been allocated.

Cynthia Pandian, Vice-Chairperson, Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education, advised the students to use the laptops for educational activities.

Madurai Mayor V.V. Rajan Chellapa and K. Sivakumar, Director of Anna University’s Madurai regional centre, were present.

gross enrolment ratio, free laptops, human development index, higher education, Tamil Nadu.

source: http://www.news4education.com / Home / January 11th, 2013

Tiruchi college awarded for training 1,000 students

Education, Records, All

K. Ramakrishnan, chairman, K. Ramakrishnan College of Engineering, receiving the award from Governor K. Rosaiah. / Photo: Special Arrangement .

The special award was given as part of the St. John Ambulance’s Iyarkai Mission 2012 programme

K. Ramakrishnan, chairman, K. Ramakrishnan College of Engineering, received a special award from K. Rosaiah, Governor, for enrolling and imparting training to 1,000 students as volunteers of St. John Ambulance (India), Tamil Nadu.

Vijaya Ramakrishnan received a similar award on behalf of K. Ramakrishnan College of Technology.

The special awards were distributed as part of St. John Ambulance’s Iyarkai Mission 2012 programme of creating volunteer force in the colleges and imparting training to them.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Special Correspondent / December 28th, 2012

“I see the change in myself”

Education

Karthikeyan Vaitheeswaran with his friend Siva

Karthikeyan, who did a business management course from Victoria University, is now one of its successful alumni.

Armed with a Masters in NGO management (1997-99) from Madurai Kamaraj University, I started my career in the non-profit sector in Chennai. I specialised in livelihood development of the poor. With four years of experience, I understood that a sustainable model of income generation is the need of the hour to eradicate poverty. I felt the need to do a business management course which would help me in assisting people in developing sustainable income generating activities.

I searched for a university offering business management course which is flexible in subjects offering a variety of specialisations, affordable and of shorter duration. Finally, I found the MBA course at Victoria University (VU), Melbourne, which catered to my expectations. VU has 10 campuses in Australia and I chose City Flinders campus located in the centre of Melbourne. IDP Chennai helped me in the application and visa process. I got an education loan and landed in Melbourne in February 2004. With a semi-urban background from Trichy, it was a culture shock and I felt alien in a new land. Everyone had their own space in terms of privacy and busy with their work. With spoon feeding at home and at college in India, I felt I was not cared for. Later, I understood that, I have to be more expressive of my needs to the concerned authorities.

The orientation program for the fresher’s was useful in getting to know about VU and student life in Melbourne. Students Service Centre (SSC) of VU was helpful in guiding me in understanding the life in a multi-cultural environment like Melbourne. It helped me find a place to stay in, part-time jobs and the use of public transport. . I started working in a gas station in a night shift.

Personal attention

The professors understood my background and abilities and provided extra attention. International exposure and industry-academia experience of the professors helped me in understanding the international arena of business.

I did some of the assignments with senior level business executives and presentation of the assignment work enhanced my public speaking and personality skills.

After the first semester, I felt that VU is the best place to study. I started feeling more confident and had complete freedom to do what I likewhile respecting and recognising others . Today, I am networking with some of the leading business executives across the world.

Self-discovery

I should also mention about the library in VU. It is a store house of knowledge with thousands of books and has subscription to hundreds of international journals. VU encourages students to take part in sports, cultural and community activities. I was part of the Melbourne Tamil Sangham and volunteered in its development activities.

While I was in the last semester, the focus was on how to market myself. VU helped me in improving my writing skills, reorganise my resume and gave me ideas on career options.

After completing MBA, I returned to Chennai in 2005 and joined the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) as Project Officer.

My management studies in VU helped me in managing the time-bound community development projects and excelling in my career. At present, I’m working with the ILO Country Office for India in New Delhi as National Project Officer.

I can see the change in myself after my studies in Australia. I have been making use of the management skills acquired in Victoria University towards building sustainable livelihoods of the poor and marginalized people.

VU has featured my story as one of the International Success Stories on its website which motivates many Indian students to study in VU and understand the education system in Australia better.

In August 2011, I was awarded the “2011 Australian Alumni Excellence Award for Community Service”by the Australian Government. I am proud to be a VU Alumni.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Education> HeadStart / by Karthikeyan Vaitheeswaran / December 24th, 2012

A glorious moment for Jeevana

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Records, All

The runner-up of The Hindu Young World quiz C. Sam Victor and Siddhartha Rao of Jeevana School. — PHOTO: S. JAMES

First from Madurai region to enter finals last year

For Jeevana School, it will be a glorious moment to be remembered. Siddharth Rai Tharkeswar and Sam Victor, ninth standard students from the school, were the first from Madurai region to emerge the first runner-up in the 13 edition of The Hindu Young World Quiz, held in Chennai recently.

This is the first time that Madurai region found a place among the winners in the history of The Hindu Young World Quiz. Incidentally, Jeevana School was the first from Madurai region to enter the finals last year.

It has been nearly two weeks since Siddharth and Sam won the trophy for the first runner up and a cash prize of Rs. 40,000, and their excitement is still intact. Speaking to The Hindu, the two students recalled interesting moments from their journey to the finals of the quiz competition. “From the beginning we were confident that we will reach the finals. Young World Quiz was something we looked forward to every year”, said Siddharth, who had been a part of the quiz for the past three years.

“We learnt how to be patient as we took part in the several rounds of quiz. Besides, the questions that were asked by Mr Ramanan were comprehensive from all the subjects and made us read extensively. The whole thing was challenging, yet exciting”, Sam added.

Siddharth and Sam had a breezy win at the regional finals held in Madurai on November 20. For all those who witnessed it in Madurai, the team’s cool composure was something that was appreciated.

The team did falter in the beginning rounds of the finals in Chennai, but managed to get a grip from the fourth round.

“We were very nervous in the beginning of the finals. We did know the answers to most of the questions, but the team from Trivandrum was swift in answering”, the students said. Nevertheless the modest boys remarked that the team from Loyola School in Trivandrum deserved to be the winners. And the students could not stop raving about the refreshing manner in which Quiz master V V Ramanan conducted the show. “Whether it was the regional finals, the semi finals or the finals, Mr Ramanan ensured that the quiz was interesting. Identifying the people hidden behind the matrix, questions on Google doodles and then the anagrams were riveting”, said Siddharth. However, he confessed that the team found most of the questions on western music quite difficult. “We will guide our juniors next year. They will hopefully bag the trophy next year”, he added.

“We are extremely proud of our students. God has been extremely kind to us in the past two years. We are humbled”, said Nirmala Visveswaran, Principal of the school.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by M. Vandhana / December 22nd, 2012

Google Doodles Srinivasa Ramanujam on his 125th birthday

Amazing Feats, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, Science & Technologies

Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujam is being honored the Google way on his 125th birthday with a doodle. Born on December 22, 1887 in Madras, now Chennai, Ramanujam was mathematical wizard and his birthday is celebrated as National Mathematics Day in India.

Google’s Doodle shows an Indian child scribbling mathematical geometric figures in the formation of the word Google.

http://www.bgr.in/news/google-doodles-srinivasa-ramanujam-on-his-125th-birthday/

Ramanujam was introduced to formal education at the age of 10 and by the time he was 12 years old, he had covered advanced trigonometry and went on to discover his own theorems. As a teenager he carried out research on Bernoulli numbers and the Euler-Mascheroni constant.

While he was a mathematical genius he consistently failed examinations in other subjects that led him to change his college. He then took up a job and then sent samples of his work to the University of Cambridge.

At Cambridge, English mathematician GH Hardy called him to work alongside him. He went on to become a fellow of the Royal Society and a fellow at the Trinity College in Cambridge. He came up with 3900 results in mathematics. Most of these theorems were called unconventional at the time, but later have proven to be true. Prime examples of his work are the Ramanujam Theta Function and the Ramanujam Prime.

He passed away at the ripe age of 32 on April 26, 1920 in Chennai.

source: http://www.bgr.in / Your Mobile Life / Home> Google> News/ by Sahil ‘Bones’ Gupta / December 22nd, 2012

APJ Abdul Kalam uncovers 10-point agenda for India beyond 2020

Business & Economy, Education, Leaders, Uncategorized

New Delhi:

Former President-turned best-selling writer APJ Abdul Kalam uncovered a 10-point agenda for India beyond 2020 as a nation where the rural and urban divide will be reduced to a thin line, distribution of wealth will be equitable and education and value system will not be denied to people. The unveiling was performed on Tuesday.

The 10 commandments included “a responsive and transparent government”, “access to healthcare” and “sustainable growth”.

Outlining his vision of a shining India of the future at the Annual Penguin Lecture Series 2012, “Beyond 2020: Sustained Development Missions For the Nation”, Kalam said “sustainable development of the nation was the essence of India beyond 2012”.

Three aspects were the key to ensure sustainable development of the country, Kalam pointed out.

The nation needs “a steady economic growth of 9 per cent with minor variations of 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent”. The job profile of the future was “futhering of the technological nature of business and market aspirations” for sustainability that would provide continuous income and growth assurance in such a situation, the former president said.

“For millions of years, humanity has been taking more and more resources from the nature. Time has come to take less and less from nature to achieve sustainability, the formula for which is ‘a+b+c’. It will lead to well-being of the people and continuous growth,” he said.

The ex-missile man, who has been working on sustainable model for civic amenities in rural India under the project “Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA)” since 2003, said it could improve the lot of 700 million people who live in 600,000 villages of India by developing systems that would “act as enablers” for inclusive growth.

He said “physical connectivity, knowledge connectivity and electronic connectivity” could bring “economic connectivity” to people in the rural areas by acting as broad enabling systems.

Kalam cited a new concept — user connectivity pyramid — to implement “integrated solutions needed for technologies and applications to be sustainable”. He said “Societal Development Radar” — another new apparatus that he was trying to give shape — could become a watchdog by “monitoring and reviewing the user connectivity pyramid”.

Explaining the nature of the user connectivity pyramid, the former president said it was built on “natural resources, info-communication, convergence of technology, societal business model, applications and at the bottom end, the users”.

He used Uttar Pradesh with its population of 100 million young people as a case study to explain his development model.

Lauding the role of publishing houses, the former President, who has authored books like the “India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium”, “Ignited Minds” and “Turning Points: A Journey Through Challenges” said big publishers like Penguin could become partners in the country’s development success story by “presenting more researches and papers on the country’s success stories in the development in the form of books and e-books”.

source: http://www.pardaphash.com / Home> Education / by Vishal Srivastav / Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

2-day workshop on ‘writing scientific papers for publication’ held at SRM university prior to 64 th IPC

Education, Science & Technologies

More than 100 post-graduate students and research scholars of various  branches of pharmacy from different parts of the country attended the two- day pre-conference workshop on ‘writing scientific papers for publication’ conducted at the SRM university on December 5 and 6, prior to the 64 th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress (IPC) in Chennai.

Hosted by the Indian Pharmaceutical Congress Association, this scientific workshop addressed the research scholars’ questions about scientific writing and trained them how to disseminate information about scientific work carried out by them for effective scientific publication.

“We teach good scientific communications about how to write a scientific paper fit for publication. The workshop will help the students to steer away from possible plagiarism while engaging in scientific writing. Training is provided for practising correct and standard referencing methods, following methods of literary survey and statistical tools that can be employed in their medical and pharmaceutical research,” said Dr Jerald Suresh, chairman of the pre-conference workshop.

He said unless the student knows what has been happening in the field of research, he will not have a clear vision about how to approach a problem in an innovative manner. So the focus of the workshop was to equip the students for research work and scientific writing. The ethical issues concerning plagiarism or copying of someone else’ work have been discussed in detail in the sessions. He said this is the third time a pre-conference workshop was held along with the IPC.

Speakers from US FDA, Auckland and from research institutes in myriad places in the country delivered lectures on how to prepare scientific papers on different branches of pharmacy such as pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacology, pharmaceutical analysis, pharmacognosy and pharmacy practice.

Like the three ‘R’s for basic education, the pre-conference workshop was also supposed to explain the three ‘R’s for a scientific writing, which are the keys to getting started in research. They are Reading & Writing, Reckoning & Figuring and Wroughting (converting) and wrighting (manufacturing). The scientific workshop has close reference to the three ‘R’s of publishing of research papers, Dr Jerald Suresh told Pharmabiz.

The students represented 25 pharmacy colleges from various parts of the country and twenty delegates represented various industrial units. There was a panel discussion at the end of the second day.

G Selvaraju, director of drugs control department in Tamil Nadu, inaugurated the workshop on December 5.

source: http://www.Pharmabiz.com / Home> TopNews> Events / by Pharmabiz.com Bureau, Chennai / Friday, December 07th, 2012

“Make differently abled children feel special”

Education

 Deputy Commissioner of Police (law and order) R. Thirunavukkarasu releasing a handbill during the World Differently-abled day in Madurai, Tamilnadu, on Monday /  Photo: R. Ashok / The Hindu /

Mercy Pushpalatha, the principal of Lady Doak College, signed a MoU with Bethshan Special School pledging the college’s support to them.

“Differently abled children should not be pitied. We should make them feel special,” said R. Thirunavukarasu, Deputy Commissioner of Police (law and order) at the World Differently Abled Day Celebrations, held here on Monday.

“Children with disabilities are more likely to be in low income group, who have less awareness of rights and entitlements. They are subjected to strong social stigma in the community and family. We should lend them help in whatever way we could to support them”, he told the students. Mercy Pushpalatha, the principal of Lady Doak College, signed a MoU with Bethshan Special School pledging the college’s support to them. Mr. Thirunavukarasu then released an awareness handbill on the rights and entitlements of the differently abled.

Caroline Nesabai, Head, Department of Social Studies, Lady Doak College, said that there is a need to promote an inclusive society, in order to help the differently abled integrate into the mainstream.

Ameen from Kalyani Associates Private Limited, said a lot of corporate companies here are eager to contribute a part of their profit to help the differently abled. “We have been associated with Bethshan Special School for nine years. We have recruited a few students from the school to our company to help them enter the mainstream”, he said.

L. Murali Krishnan, managing director, Kalyani Associates, received the first copy of the handbill released by the Deputy Commissioner.

Stephenson, managing trustee of Bethshan Special School, and Jeyapaul, co-ordinator of the school, spoke.

sources: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by Staff  Reporter / December 04th, 2012

IIM-Tiruchi to set up incubation centre

Business & Economy, Education

Madurai, NOV. 27:

Indian Institute of Management – Tiruchi (IIM-T) plans to offer free consultancy through its proposed incubation centre in the areas of finance, branding, human resource management and marketing.

According to Prof Prafulla Agnihotri, Director, IIM, the initiative is intended to impart an economic thrust to the region. It will be akin to OPD (Outpatient Department) in hospitals. Prospective entrepreneurs will be provided space to operate at a very nominal cost and centralised facilities will be made available free of cost.

Even after they moved out after establishing their businesses, the centre will continue to render hand-holding support.

Entrepreneurship in manufacturing sector is the key for the growth of the regional economy. Faculties will visit the incubation centre on a daily basis and render free consultancy for small and medium enterprises.

source: http://www.TheHinduBusinessLine.com / Home> News > Education / by the Hindu Correspondent  / Madurai, November 27th, 2012

Seminar recalls S Ramanujan

Business & Economy, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All, Science & Technologies

On Monday the Society for Promotion of Science & Technology in India organized a seminar on India’s Contribution to Mathematics and Legacy of Srinivasa Ramanujan at DAV College in Chandigarh’s Sector 10.

Professor M. S. Sriram of the University of Madras and Professor A. K. Agarwal of Panjab University spoke. Explaining the significance of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who died in 1920 at the age of 32, they said that during his lifetime, he was as a creative genius who generated a plethora of formulae. His discoveries appeared simple and yet there was more to them than initially met the eye and because of these theorems, new directions of research were opened up, Over the past 60 years, as nearly all of Ramanujan’s theorems have been proven right and appreciation of his work and brilliance have grown.

His work now pervades many areas of modern mathematics and physics. As a tribute to Ramanujan, the Government of India declared December 22 – Ramanujan’s birthday to be ‘National Mathematics Day and  2012 has been designed National Mathematical Year.

Speakers expressed their concern that Indian is not producing enough mathematicians. They said there is a general perception in our society that the pursuit of mathematics does not lead to attractive career possibilities.

source: http://www.DayandNightNews.com  Home> The Capitol / Tuesday, November 27th, 2012