TIPS TO SCORE BETTER IN BOARD EXAMS

                           TIPS TO SCORE BETTER IN BOARD EXAMS

                       Home Tutors And Private Tutors In Mumbai                          

If you will do proper justice to your studies ,you will score good marks. For that you must strategize your work properly and practice writing regularly. This will help to boost your self-confidence and in the final examination, you will be able to write the paper without any pressure.
Be it CBSE Board, ICSE Board,IB Board,IGCSE Board,ISC Board, SSC or HSC or any other board these tips will help you score better marks in any board exams:
1. A systematically written, clean and tidy paper will impress the paper checker; whereas
an untidy paper will lose a chance to score.
2. There is no hard and fast rule that you should write answers in serial order.But if
you follow a serial order in writing, lt will apper neat and, systematic. It will also
prove your discipline in writing.
3. Bold and clear, legible writing will definitely make a good impression. Your
handwriting is a reflection of your personality. It will reveal your clear thinking
process. So try to write in a clear and bold handwriting, spacing out each word
properly.
4. Go through the question paper and read it carefully. If you read it coolly, the writing of the
answer will be satisfactory.
5. Strictly answer the question as per the given instruction in the question paper. lf the paper-setter
has asked you to write an answer in 5 to 6 lines, avoid exceed the limit and
do not write a very long answer .Notice the marks allotted for each question
and then write the answer accordingly.
6. Do not write your answers in a hurry. If you are in a hurry to complete your paper, you are
likely to make mistakes in spellings and numbers etc.
7.Write the question numbers for every question that you write. If you are writing
short note, write the title clearly and then start the short note. Some students are
Very careless about this. The examiner should not get a chance to get annoyed of
Your carelessness.
8. Language papers line English, Hindi, Marathi, French, Sanskrit are not very scoring subjects. You cannot hope to score as you can score in your Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology , Social Science ( history, civics, geography, economics) Papers. But you should not neglect these subjects just because it
is not scoring.
9.To score better in languages and theory subjects make it a habit to underline the idioms and phrases you have used in your compositions/essays/paragraphs. If you
have used any quotations, make them distinctive by using quotation marks.
10.Underline the key words to attract the attention of the examiner.
Complete the paper in the given time or atleast 10 minutes before the final time. So, plan your writing accordingly. It' you wish to attempt any extra questions, attempt them at the end of the same question.
11.Your presentation of the paper should be so good that the examiner should feel
greatly satisfied and should say - 'This is what I had expected to see!!
We at UNIQORN HOME TUITIONS wish you all the very best for your exams.Create History.Break Records.Emerge As Winner!
VISIT US HERE: http://uniqorn.co.in/About_Us.html

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The real and present threat to our future

India and the world at large are witnessing the kind of change that we have not seen in recent times. We have been witness to worldwide ferment, revolutions, emergence of out-of-the-box ideas, inventions, disasters, untold agony, ecstasy and dramatic political, economic and sociological changes. And as the world changes, we have no choice but to revolutionise the field of education. Only that will help us ride the change.

We need innovations. We need people who will drive it, implement it and open the pathway for change by revitalizing and refashioning it. This is possible only with a dynamic education system churning out innovative students who can independently think, strategise and built the nation's future.

India needs an education system to empower teachers to teach differently. Ironically, ancient India had an ancient holistic education system aimed at creating well-rounded individuals who would reflect the soul of India. But the British changed it to one that historian and politician Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay introduced in 1935 - one that was specifically designed to create an army of clerks to run its administration. After more than 17 decades, the same continues at the primary and secondary school level.

Outdated and archaic

The goal of the British system was not to educate, but to enable people to get basic employment. Ironically, it appears we have even failed to achieve that objective consistently. As teachers and educationists, we have failed to develop the innate talent of our children that can help them do better in life, secure better jobs, get their creative juices flowing and contribute to society. At the moment, there is no foreseeable future effort by parents, teachers, educationists, policy makers and politicians to correct this and courageously bring in radical reforms. Talk to any of the thousands of engineering students passing out every year and the tragedy will be clear.

Politics is important in a democracy and has a rightful place, but if democracy is to succeed, it needs a literate thinking population to drive change and progress. Education should be our number one priority, as it has the potential to drive away many social ills, blind faith and, of course, poverty. It can help us think differently, build aspirations and inherent strengths. Political parties across sections have to realise this and hold hands to help the government in power to bring in reforms. We have already lost a lot of time. We cannot afford to miss this turning point in history.

Unprepared future

In ten years, India will overtake China as the world's most populous country. The good news is that India will be the only country with such a large young population. To turn around this demographic dividend, we need excellent schools, colleges and institutions of higher learning that have a revamped contemporary syllabus to meet the challenges of the future. Learning has to be exciting, proactive and practical.

Rote learning which thrives in India does not focus on learning or application of what is taught. It does not develop critical reasoning faculties. Joint studies by WIPRO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development have shown that rote studies at the primary and secondary school level actually resulted in students regressing in mathematics and science. The emphasis in our schools and colleges is on examinations that rely on such memorisation and not on intelligence, innovative thinking or even problem solving.

The Chinese leadership has realised that it cannot keep sustaining its economy by making cheap imitations but needs bright minds in research and development to compete with the western world that have made impressive strides in biotechnology, nanotechnology, knowledge intensive services and manufacturing. It has recognised rote learning cannot get them to achieve this. We in India need to see the logic too. How much research is done today in educational institutions? Pedagogical methods are archaic. Rarely are teachers sent for refresher courses or exposed to innovative methods of instruction. Teachers need to be paid attractive salaries so as to attract the best talent to the profession.

The challenges to innovation

It is not as if India has not experimented in education - there are schools that teach in innovative ways and create space for children to think independently. There are many experimental schools without examinations, such as the one established by the Sri Aurobindo Society in Pondicherry. The accent there is on learning, not performance. Students are encouraged to question, debate and put to test what they have learnt. They are given the space to think freely, have differing opinions, disagree and not be bogged down with mind numbing theories and ideas. No one laughs at their ideas.

However, parents themselves are wary of sending children to such institutions that operate differently, as they fear that they will not be able to compete with the outside world. This, despite the fact that those who have graduated from these alternative schools have done extremely well in a variety of fields. The need, therefore, is to figure out what ignited their learning and how it can be replicated.

There is no space for original thinking in most traditional schools. Can students have fun doing assignments which call for all their senses to be put to task? It will be tougher for a teacher to assess such assignments, but it is worth the effort as students would remember this more than any lecture. It may also be a good idea to have customised tests and evaluations as students are so different from each other and cannot be tested and evaluated in a general test.

Contemporary teaching today must have a lot of electives weaved into our higher education. Liberal arts should be available for all the streams so that students of both science and commerce students would benefit from learning history, sociology and psychology. And when they do, they will start looking at life around them with a different lens. A business school at Lavale in Pune, is attempting to do this. Business students are exposed to painting, sculpture, music, mask making, theatre, horse-riding and golf.

Minutes before the state board examination, students of Corporation Higher Secondary give their books a final go, after three revision exams and countless hours of in-school preparation during their study leave. Pic: B A Raju.

Serious shortage of skills and talent

In the Indian context, education must be job-oriented. Organisations today invest heavily in training new recruits as the education they completed did not teach them the required skills. Former President of India, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, admitted that only 25 per cent of graduating students were employable. The rest lacked technical knowledge, English proficiency and critical thinking. Sam Pitroda, former chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, also says that only 10,000 of the 90,000 MBAs who annually graduate are employable.

A study by Aspiring Minds of 230 fresh graduates in three out of the top 10 B-schools in India found them lagging in practical intelligence. The study attempted to gauge their mid-level managerial skills in business intelligence, judgement, risk taking ability, decisiveness, leadership, marketing, communication and personal effectiveness.

As various sectors such as information technology, engineering and manufacturing witness a boom, the emphasis will be on skilled and cost-effective manpower. Operational excellence will be the key. International companies are eyeing India as there is a serious shortage of young people in the United States, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In some years, China will also be counted among them. India cannot afford to miss this opportunity . it is the only country that has a young, upwardly mobile class ready to work hard, take risks and dream.

However, the present situation does not show our preparedness in positive light. Take for example the construction sector, which faces a serious shortage of civil engineers. A 2011 report by Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry pegs the overall labour shortage in the Indian construction industry at 30 per cent. The problem is compounded by the fact that there is a significant shortage of civil engineers in the country.

Speaking to an English daily shortly after the Uttarakhand mishap of 2013, Professor C V R Murthy of IIT Madras pointed out that of the 2,700 engineering colleges in the country, civil engineering is taught in only 400. It could also be a classic chicken-and-egg problem as students increasingly opt for the information technology discipline, with prospects in the IT sector appearing to be brighter. The Builders Association of India further adds that the curriculum at engineering colleges do not keep pace with changes in use of technology. The result is that construction firms are now hiring retired personnel at fat pay packages in the face of unavailability of fresh talent.

Various metro rail projects too face a shortage of engineers. Metro wizard E Sreedharan has asked IITs to start a course in metro engineering and is lobbying for a postgraduate course that will churn out engineers to meet the need of metros in the future. The situation is so serious that engineers are being poached by rival metros which are ready to offer them three times the salary! If things go the way it is going at present, India will have to get foreign workers in the years to come as there is not enough trained hands for sophisticated jobs.

The National Knowledge Commission has suggested that premier institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology take lesser-known engineering colleges under its wing so that their mentoring can help raise standards of graduates from these colleges.

The tale is similar when it comes to medical professionals. According to a Planning Commission report, India needs around 6,00,000 doctors, 10,00,000 nurses and 2,00,000 dental surgeons. The health ministry estimates that India needs at least 21,00,000 nurses, if there has to be one nurse for a population of 500. But only 11,00,000 are available. India has only one doctor for every 10,000 people. Compare this with Australia that has around 250 and the United States, which has about 550.

Wanted: Trained hands

Another major challenge for Indian policy makers is to introduce quality vocational training. One way for this to happen is for the government and private sector to hold hands. This is not impossible as the government has the infrastructure, credibility and scale. On the other hand, the private sector is innovative and dynamic with a wide network of industry links. Both training and placement will not be a problem as there is huge demand.

In the overall job market of around 496 million people, 30 million are in the organised sector. Of these 30 million, nearly 24 million are blue-collar workers, says Sudhakar Balakrishnan, chief executive officer of human resource solutions firm Adecco India & Middle East. This semi-skilled worker pool includes mechanics, fitter, electricians, plumbers and other technical hands who usually come out of the industrial training institutes or ITIs. These institutes take in students who have completed their tenth standard and put them through various vocational courses like carpentry, welding, motor winding and the like. There are 1896 of these institutes but most of them are in poor shape with outdated syllabus, equipment or machinery.

Can we ride the advantage?

India is in a singularly commanding position as it has a young upwardly mobile class ready to take the plunge. One opportunity lies in Knowledge Process Outsourcing which is a $3 billion industry. It has opportunities galore like financial analysis, equity research, treasury operations, credit decision processes and accruals. Then, there is Legal Process Outsourcing that has tremendous potential, as law services are comparatively cheaper in India. New opportunities are emerging in areas such as patent application, drafting, legal research, pre-litigation documentation, advising clients, analysing draft documents and writing software licensing agreements. The question is whether our education system is aligned to these realities and fashioned to produce the kind of talent that is needed.

However difficult it may be for students, it has become more important than ever today for teachers to encourage multiplicity of ideas, richness of thought and acceptance of differing viewpoints. They must allow minds to flower, not atrophy. The education system must give students the courage to question what they learn, infer from intelligent reasoning and become thinking individuals instead of senseless robots. One definite way is to stimulate their minds and reasoning by throwing ideas at them. They will be forced to think, analyse and then comprehend.

It is possible to do this, but it needs political will. We need reforms and teachers to drive it. We really do not have a choice. It is only an innovative education system that will help India take the next giant leap.

View the original article here

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Shielding campuses from violence

For most belonging to India’s middle class, politics is a dirty word. Be it the everyday ups and downs at the workplace, or the insidious psychological maneuverings of participants in a reality show, nobody seems to think that “doing politics” (as such situations are often tagged) is essential, or can be a remotely positive preoccupation. Power is widely held as that which erodes a person of her morals and fellow-feeling, and yet is the ultimate intoxicant.

Indeed, in a country where representatives of power often come with the excess baggage of criminal records or proceed to get mired in endless cases of corruption, it is difficult for the average person to accept that politics is not an external entity that one may or may not allow into one’s life, but a precondition of society. Politics is the manner in which we engage with daily structures of power, such as the family, the workplace, the state and the society. It is embedded in our existence, and no amount of non-complicity in partisan politics can erase our identities as political animals.

The erstwhile decision of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal to put on hold elections in colleges across the state, and the spate of events that it unfurled, have given rise to debates regarding involvement of the student community in politics. Views exchanged across newspaper op-eds or television programs have brought to light numerous streams of thought, ranging from the assumption of political naivete of students on the one hand to the fundamental democratic right of political participation on the other. But why this debate now?

A sign outside the Union Room of a college in Kolkata. Pic: Ritaj Gupta

The context of such a decision had been a series of violent clashes that had taken place across various college campuses in the state, most notably the incident at Harimohan Ghose College on 12 February, 2013, in which a fight had broken out between miscreants from the local Congress and Trinamool Congress stables over the filing of nomination papers for the students’ union elections. Caught in the crossfire, sub-inspector Tapas Choudhury was shot dead, and this sparked off discussions about the violent turn that student politics had taken in the state. It was not long before it was found that the clash was, in reality, between local Trinamool Congress councillor Mohammad Iqbal and Congress leader Mokhtar who aimed to settle political scores through union elections at the college.

As the state sought to issue a blanket ban on college and university students’ union elections on 18 February, Education Minister Bratya Basu stated that this decision was not related to the Harimohan Ghose College incident, but rather the imminent state and other Board examinations, effectively denying the increase in violence within the precincts of colleges and universities under Trinamool rule.

Protesting against this crackdown on the political process within institutions, activists of the Left-backed Students Federation of India (SFI) started holding demonstrations. From one such gathering, a group of activists were arrested on 2 April and were being taken to the Presidency Jail under police supervision, when 22-year-old student activist Sudipto Gupta reportedly hit a lamppost and was grievously injured. Within hours, he succumbed to his injuries. The “collision” theory was rejected by many and suspicions were rife that the real cause of Sudipto’s death had been heavy lathi-charge by the police, who have been accused on more occasions than one of acting as agents of the state’s high-handedness.

The entire state went into shock over Sudipto’s death even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed this a “small incident.” The SFI, in retaliation, heckled the Chief Minister and her finance minister Amit Mitra in Delhi on 9 April in Delhi, unchaining a spate of violence from the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad front back in Bengal. While CPI (M) party offices were destroyed across the state, the most notable incident was the ransacking of the prestigious Presidency University and its historic Baker Laboratory the next day.

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

 •  A shocking development
 •  Stemming campus violence

In this entire chain of events, what has emerged is a strengthening of public opinion in many quarters towards one of complete vilification of politics as an aspect of student life. Public pleas for depoliticisation of the student community and college campuses have started surfacing with more regularity and frequency than ever before.

Student Politics and Bengal

While student politics in Bengal has had a long legacy of clashes between different student organizations, it cannot be denied that the current regime has seen a marked increase in the entrance of anti-social elements into the precincts of college. Many, however, see this merely as a continuation of the lumpenisation of student politics that had started under the Congress government of the 1960s and had gathered strength over the long rule of the Left Front.

“There is an imagined sanity of student politics, a naivete of thought that assumes that college politics is dissociated from the general politics of the country”, says Upal Chakrabarti, assistant professor of Sociology at Presidency University and former student activist himself. According to him, the extent to which political parties involve themselves in deciding the fate of student unions across colleges and universities in West Bengal is acceptable per se, as there is a need to stop looking at student politics as an entity that is contained within the walls of the institutions alone. But what is unacceptable is the visible violence and narrow vote-garnering tactics that partisan politics brings into the ambit of educational institutions that is unacceptable.

Indeed, the incidents referred to above have all had direct supervision of ‘bigger’, mainstream politics, and cannot strictly be dubbed as reflections of the increase of violence within the student community alone. Those who feel that students should dissociate themselves from such politics largely predicate their opinion on the belief that student politics is suffering from a poverty of ethics; instead, they should perhaps read this upsurge in violence as part of a larger picture. One cannot view it as an isolated issue outside the presence of violence in the larger political setup and society as a whole. Earlier in February this year, the State Crime Records Bureau, in response to an RTI application filed by a resident, revealed that the state had seen 586 cases of political violence and 56 clashes between student groups between May 2011 and October 2011 - the first five months of the tenure of the present government. At least 926 political workers including 128 students had been injured in such conflict.

Filmmaker Rangan Chakravarty, an SFI activist in his student years at Jadavpur University in the late 70s, admits to an erosion in political ethics within the larger party scenario, which had a direct effect on student politics of his time. “The politics lost its politics,” he says. Subhendu Dasgupta, former Professor of Calcutta University and also a student activist during his college years in the 60s, acknowledges the importance of partisan politics within the campus, but with the caveat that contemporary college politics and its closeness to mother parties is a nexus for producing cadres and garnering votes. “There is an absence of broader politics within the political programs of the parties themselves. The race for votes takes precedence and this obviously introduces lumpenism and muscle-flexing,” he states.

Aritra Bhaumick, an ex-student of Scottish Church College and an SFI activist, sums up the situation that contemporary student politics faces in Bengal. “We feel we are fighting to uphold an ideology, a class, but we end up promoting and serving selfish people and that is exactly the difference between how student politics should be and how it actually is.”

The assumption that while mainstream politics has irretrievably mired itself in violence, student politics has a responsibility to divorce itself from such a brand of realpolitik is an assumption whose practicality and advisability need to be thoroughly questioned. This is not to condone violence within the realm of student movements, but to acknowledge that it is impossible to strictly distinguish or distance student politics from larger political trends. Biman Bandopadhyay, the registrar of Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) and a student activist during his college years, raises some important questions that he thinks are coming out of the present scenario. “If young people are exposed to violence that is a part of everyday life at present, is it possible for them to remain completely outside of it? Furthermore, is it acceptable to argue for a ban on student elections and political participation based on the presence of violence in politics? This ultimately raises the question of whether students have a stake in societal change at all.”

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

“Violence in college politics has been there for a while, but as far as I have seen, always as an ‘anticipation’ of sorts. Union elections would take place under police protection, and while clashes would happen, it was always under control,” says Atreyee Sengupta, ex-student of Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and former member of Federation of Arts Students, an independent political organization. Alluding to the presence of violence on campuses during the Left Front rule, an ex-student of Maulana Azad College mentions that there was no visible sign of an opposition on campus when SFI controlled the union during her time. “The presence of local miscreants and the imminent threat of armed clashes were always there,” she mentions.

Violence, then, as an aspect of student politics in the state, needs to be seen within a historical continuum, and cannot be identified as a reason to dispel political participation from the sphere of education. Says a student activist from the International Relations department of Jadavpur University in the context of violence in union elections, “Shouldn't we be asking the questions then, are state assembly and panchayat elections devoid of violence? I don't think they are. But do you put a stop to them?”

To many students, the role that mass media is playing in this refashioning of student politics in the state as a realm of unbridled goondaism is becoming evident. Shabnam Banerjee, a student activist from Medical College, Kolkata, rightly observes, “The death of Sudipto Gupta had not happened in a clash between students at all. So why is it that the public debate that arose out of it in the media centered around whether students should be allowed to be a part of politics?”

For many like Shabnam, the conflation of student clashes and local gang skirmishes that is being highlighted in mass media representations is influencing the larger understanding of student politics and vilifying political participation in popular belief. Student movements have always played an important role in educating young people to become responsible and conscientious citizens and political beings, and public opinion against collegiate participation in political processes will effectively deny the very human predisposition towards politics, aiding the growth of a culture of uninformed consent.

View the original article here

Read More

Shielding campuses from violence

For most belonging to India’s middle class, politics is a dirty word. Be it the everyday ups and downs at the workplace, or the insidious psychological maneuverings of participants in a reality show, nobody seems to think that “doing politics” (as such situations are often tagged) is essential, or can be a remotely positive preoccupation. Power is widely held as that which erodes a person of her morals and fellow-feeling, and yet is the ultimate intoxicant.

Indeed, in a country where representatives of power often come with the excess baggage of criminal records or proceed to get mired in endless cases of corruption, it is difficult for the average person to accept that politics is not an external entity that one may or may not allow into one’s life, but a precondition of society. Politics is the manner in which we engage with daily structures of power, such as the family, the workplace, the state and the society. It is embedded in our existence, and no amount of non-complicity in partisan politics can erase our identities as political animals.

The erstwhile decision of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal to put on hold elections in colleges across the state, and the spate of events that it unfurled, have given rise to debates regarding involvement of the student community in politics. Views exchanged across newspaper op-eds or television programs have brought to light numerous streams of thought, ranging from the assumption of political naivete of students on the one hand to the fundamental democratic right of political participation on the other. But why this debate now?

A sign outside the Union Room of a college in Kolkata. Pic: Ritaj Gupta

The context of such a decision had been a series of violent clashes that had taken place across various college campuses in the state, most notably the incident at Harimohan Ghose College on 12 February, 2013, in which a fight had broken out between miscreants from the local Congress and Trinamool Congress stables over the filing of nomination papers for the students’ union elections. Caught in the crossfire, sub-inspector Tapas Choudhury was shot dead, and this sparked off discussions about the violent turn that student politics had taken in the state. It was not long before it was found that the clash was, in reality, between local Trinamool Congress councillor Mohammad Iqbal and Congress leader Mokhtar who aimed to settle political scores through union elections at the college.

As the state sought to issue a blanket ban on college and university students’ union elections on 18 February, Education Minister Bratya Basu stated that this decision was not related to the Harimohan Ghose College incident, but rather the imminent state and other Board examinations, effectively denying the increase in violence within the precincts of colleges and universities under Trinamool rule.

Protesting against this crackdown on the political process within institutions, activists of the Left-backed Students Federation of India (SFI) started holding demonstrations. From one such gathering, a group of activists were arrested on 2 April and were being taken to the Presidency Jail under police supervision, when 22-year-old student activist Sudipto Gupta reportedly hit a lamppost and was grievously injured. Within hours, he succumbed to his injuries. The “collision” theory was rejected by many and suspicions were rife that the real cause of Sudipto’s death had been heavy lathi-charge by the police, who have been accused on more occasions than one of acting as agents of the state’s high-handedness.

The entire state went into shock over Sudipto’s death even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee dubbed this a “small incident.” The SFI, in retaliation, heckled the Chief Minister and her finance minister Amit Mitra in Delhi on 9 April in Delhi, unchaining a spate of violence from the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad front back in Bengal. While CPI (M) party offices were destroyed across the state, the most notable incident was the ransacking of the prestigious Presidency University and its historic Baker Laboratory the next day.

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

 •  A shocking development
 •  Stemming campus violence

In this entire chain of events, what has emerged is a strengthening of public opinion in many quarters towards one of complete vilification of politics as an aspect of student life. Public pleas for depoliticisation of the student community and college campuses have started surfacing with more regularity and frequency than ever before.

Student Politics and Bengal

While student politics in Bengal has had a long legacy of clashes between different student organizations, it cannot be denied that the current regime has seen a marked increase in the entrance of anti-social elements into the precincts of college. Many, however, see this merely as a continuation of the lumpenisation of student politics that had started under the Congress government of the 1960s and had gathered strength over the long rule of the Left Front.

“There is an imagined sanity of student politics, a naivete of thought that assumes that college politics is dissociated from the general politics of the country”, says Upal Chakrabarti, assistant professor of Sociology at Presidency University and former student activist himself. According to him, the extent to which political parties involve themselves in deciding the fate of student unions across colleges and universities in West Bengal is acceptable per se, as there is a need to stop looking at student politics as an entity that is contained within the walls of the institutions alone. But what is unacceptable is the visible violence and narrow vote-garnering tactics that partisan politics brings into the ambit of educational institutions that is unacceptable.

Indeed, the incidents referred to above have all had direct supervision of ‘bigger’, mainstream politics, and cannot strictly be dubbed as reflections of the increase of violence within the student community alone. Those who feel that students should dissociate themselves from such politics largely predicate their opinion on the belief that student politics is suffering from a poverty of ethics; instead, they should perhaps read this upsurge in violence as part of a larger picture. One cannot view it as an isolated issue outside the presence of violence in the larger political setup and society as a whole. Earlier in February this year, the State Crime Records Bureau, in response to an RTI application filed by a resident, revealed that the state had seen 586 cases of political violence and 56 clashes between student groups between May 2011 and October 2011 - the first five months of the tenure of the present government. At least 926 political workers including 128 students had been injured in such conflict.

Filmmaker Rangan Chakravarty, an SFI activist in his student years at Jadavpur University in the late 70s, admits to an erosion in political ethics within the larger party scenario, which had a direct effect on student politics of his time. “The politics lost its politics,” he says. Subhendu Dasgupta, former Professor of Calcutta University and also a student activist during his college years in the 60s, acknowledges the importance of partisan politics within the campus, but with the caveat that contemporary college politics and its closeness to mother parties is a nexus for producing cadres and garnering votes. “There is an absence of broader politics within the political programs of the parties themselves. The race for votes takes precedence and this obviously introduces lumpenism and muscle-flexing,” he states.

Aritra Bhaumick, an ex-student of Scottish Church College and an SFI activist, sums up the situation that contemporary student politics faces in Bengal. “We feel we are fighting to uphold an ideology, a class, but we end up promoting and serving selfish people and that is exactly the difference between how student politics should be and how it actually is.”

The assumption that while mainstream politics has irretrievably mired itself in violence, student politics has a responsibility to divorce itself from such a brand of realpolitik is an assumption whose practicality and advisability need to be thoroughly questioned. This is not to condone violence within the realm of student movements, but to acknowledge that it is impossible to strictly distinguish or distance student politics from larger political trends. Biman Bandopadhyay, the registrar of Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) and a student activist during his college years, raises some important questions that he thinks are coming out of the present scenario. “If young people are exposed to violence that is a part of everyday life at present, is it possible for them to remain completely outside of it? Furthermore, is it acceptable to argue for a ban on student elections and political participation based on the presence of violence in politics? This ultimately raises the question of whether students have a stake in societal change at all.”

While campus politics in the state has in the past seen violence in many forms, the death of a peacefully protesting student leader in police custody, or the death of a policeman on duty during college union elections, or the ransacking of a foremost university constitutes events that have not been witnessed in recent times and which bring back memories of the turbulent student movements of the 70s.

“Violence in college politics has been there for a while, but as far as I have seen, always as an ‘anticipation’ of sorts. Union elections would take place under police protection, and while clashes would happen, it was always under control,” says Atreyee Sengupta, ex-student of Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University and former member of Federation of Arts Students, an independent political organization. Alluding to the presence of violence on campuses during the Left Front rule, an ex-student of Maulana Azad College mentions that there was no visible sign of an opposition on campus when SFI controlled the union during her time. “The presence of local miscreants and the imminent threat of armed clashes were always there,” she mentions.

Violence, then, as an aspect of student politics in the state, needs to be seen within a historical continuum, and cannot be identified as a reason to dispel political participation from the sphere of education. Says a student activist from the International Relations department of Jadavpur University in the context of violence in union elections, “Shouldn't we be asking the questions then, are state assembly and panchayat elections devoid of violence? I don't think they are. But do you put a stop to them?”

To many students, the role that mass media is playing in this refashioning of student politics in the state as a realm of unbridled goondaism is becoming evident. Shabnam Banerjee, a student activist from Medical College, Kolkata, rightly observes, “The death of Sudipto Gupta had not happened in a clash between students at all. So why is it that the public debate that arose out of it in the media centered around whether students should be allowed to be a part of politics?”

For many like Shabnam, the conflation of student clashes and local gang skirmishes that is being highlighted in mass media representations is influencing the larger understanding of student politics and vilifying political participation in popular belief. Student movements have always played an important role in educating young people to become responsible and conscientious citizens and political beings, and public opinion against collegiate participation in political processes will effectively deny the very human predisposition towards politics, aiding the growth of a culture of uninformed consent.

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HC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelines

HC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelines - Economic Times You are here: Home>CollectionsHC rejects plea of schools on nursery admission guidelinesPTI Jan 20, 2014, 01.26PM ISTTags:UN Court|nursery admission guidelines|Lieutenant Governor|HC|directorate of education|Delhi High Court|Central Government(The court also made it clear…)

NEW DELHI: In a setback to unaided private schools, the Delhi High Court today dismissed their plea seeking a stay on city government's nursery admission guidelines that included scrapping of 20 per cent management quota.

"We feel that the appellants (Action Committee Unaided Recognised Private Schools and Forum for promotion of quality education for all) have not shown any immediate injury due to the guidelines ," a bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said.

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While paving the way for resumption of admission process in nursery classes as per the Directorate of Education (DoE) guidelines, the bench cautioned the media against running unverified reports pertaining to its judgement on the issue.

"There was no delay in passing of the judgement," the bench remarked.

The court also made it clear that its observations have no bearing on the final outcome of the petition pending before a single judge bench.

"So far as the larger issue of autonomy and the applicability of the government's guidelines on the unaided private schools are concerned, they will be decided by the single judge bench without being influenced by our observations in this judgement," it said.

The private school bodies had moved the larger bench of the HC against the order of its single judge who had refused to grant them interim relief or stay the notification.

The plea was filed challenging the nursery admission guidelines issued by the Lieutenant Governor (LG) by which various steps including weightage to neighbourhood kids and abolition of 20 per cent management quota were taken.

It had sought setting aside of the 2014-15 guidelines on the ground that the LG office lacked the power to frame them.

It had claimed the guidelines were against the principle of autonomy and the recognised unaided private schools were given the power by the Central government to formulate their own admission criteria for 75 per cent seats.

Central government, the Directorate of Education (DoE) and the office of LG were made party in the plea.

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Hippocampus raises $600,000 bridge round from existing investors

Hippocampus raises $600,000 bridge round from existing investors - Economic Times You are here: Home>Collections>Venture CapitalHippocampus raises $600,000 bridge round from existing investorsBiswarup Gooptu, ET Bureau Jan 21, 2014, 08.44PM ISTTags:Unitus Seed Fund|TutorVista|Lok Capital|Liqvid|Learning centres|investors|hippocampus|Acumen Fund(The proceeds from the latest…)

NEW DELHI: Hippocampus Learning Centres has raised $600,000 (Rs 3.5 crore) from its existing institutional investors, the Bangalore-based rural education services provider announced late on Tuesday.

The proceeds from the latest equity investment, which is a bridge round, will be used by Hippocampus Learning Centres to expand its network, particularly in the upcoming financial year. The company currently operates more than 100 rural learning centres across Karnataka, with a student base of about 3,000, a 3X increase from the previous school yea, according to a press release.

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Hippocampus' risk capital investors include, seed-stage venture capital fund, Unitus Seed Fund, social venture capital investor, Acumen Fund, and impact investment firm Lok Capital.

"We are excited about how the Hippocampus team has built a low-cost delivery model which can be profitable at a tuition fee of approximately Rs. 250 per month. Hippocampus is part of an emerging movement in India to bring high-value, affordable services to the masses," said Dave Richards, managing partner, Unitus Seed Fund.

In 2012, the company raised $1.5 million (Rs 9.2 crore) from Lok Capital and Acumen Fund. It was also among the first three seed-stage investments made by Bangalore and Seattle-based Unitus Seed Fund in the same year.

Last year, a senior company executive said that Hippocampus was in the process of raising a fresh round of capital, estimated to be about $5 million (Rs 30.8 crore).

Founded by IIT Madras alumni and former Infosys Technologies employee Umesh Malhotra in 2011, Hippocampus provides quality learning to children in rural India through its pre-school education centres.

Hippocampus expects to expand its enrollments to more than 7,500 students this coming year, the press release stated.

"With this new capital, we will be able to push forward with our expansion plans for the 2014-15 academic year and continue to invest in preparation for further scaling up," said Malhotra, chief executive of Hippocampus Learning Centres.

Early-to-mid stage risk capital firms have once again turned their gaze on India's education service providers. On Tuesday, ET was the first to report that Noida-based LIQVID e-Learning Services had entered into talks with a clutch of venture capital firms to raise up to $10 million in funding.

Separately, investors made a handsome exit from their investment in Bangalore-based TutorVista, after it was acquired by British media Group Pearson Plc last year. However, successes have been few and far in between.

Participation by venture capital in India's broader education space also took a sharp plunge in 2013 when investments dropped to just $13 million (Rs 79.9 crore), compared with $77 million (Rs 473.4 crore) invested in 2012, according to research firm Venture Intelligence.

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CUSAT to have MTech degree in Marine Engineering

CUSAT to have MTech degree in Marine Engineering - Economic Times You are here: Home>Collections>Ship RepairCUSAT to have MTech degree in Marine EngineeringPTI Jan 25, 2014, 03.20PM IST(The two year course will…)

KOCHI: For the first time in the country, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) is starting M.Tech Degree in Marine Engineering from 2014 academic year at its nearby Thrikkakkara campus.

The two year course will have four semesters. The admission for the course is open to graduates in Marine Engineering/Naval Architecture and Ship Building/Mechanical Engineering with minimum 60 per cent marks.

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The syllabus is practically oriented in consultation with M/s Cochin Shipyard Limited. The students obtaining this PG Degree have employment opportunities in Ship building and ship repair yards, Design Offices, Consultancy firms, Classification Societies, among others.

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March 9, 2009IN-DEPTH COVERAGEShip Repair© 2014 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reservedIndex by Keyword|Index by Datewww.economictimes.comFeedback|Privacy Policy|Terms of Use|Advertise with us document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js' %3E%3C/script%3E")); COMSCORE.beacon({ c1:2, c2:6036484, c3:"", c4:"", c5:"", c6:"", c15:"" });

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