Rajasthan
Challenged citizens’ PIL order
The Rajasthan high court has issued notice to the state government to provide enabling facilities to the visually impaired in public institutions. A division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Arun Kumar Mishra and Justice N. K. Jain (Sr), issued notice to the state government on May 8 while admitting a public interest litigation filed by Sharat Tripathi.
Citing Census 2011, the petitioner claimed there are 753,952 visually impaired citizens in Rajasthan, to whom the state government has failed to provide basic education, computer literacy in government institutions and Braille books in public libraries. The petition averred that even the state government-funded Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd, which offers IT and computer training programmes to the general public, has failed and neglected to provide special learning facilities for visually challenged citizens.
Responding, the court issued notice to the government and its interim order.
Madhya Pradesh
AIIMS-Bhopal ready to roll
Modelled after the famous AIIMS, Delhi, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal is set to become functional within three months, providing state-of-the-art medical education and facilities to the people of Madhya Pradesh.
“We are striving hard to meet the July-August deadline for inaugurating this prestigious institute with our first batch of 50 students,” says AIIMS-Bhopal director Prof. Sandeep Kumar. Recruitment of 40 faculty members is in its last stage. Construction of staff quarters is already complete while the medical college building on the 154-acre campus is 70 percent complete.
Initially, five departments — anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, community and family medicine, and emergency medicine and trauma — will become operational in AIIMS-Bhopal, and a new 1,000-bed attached hospital will begin functioning within three years.
The entrance exam for admission into the MBBS degree programme will be held conterminously with that of AIIMS, Delhi and six other institutes on June 1.
Uttar Pradesh
AMU’s tripartite programme
Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has entered into a trilateral collaboration project with Ohio State University, USA and Bristol University, UK, for student exchange and faculty training progra-mmes in the fields of stem cell research and physics. The agreement was signed at a meeting of representatives of the three universities in Aligarh on May 15.
The project will focus on cancer research, X-ray nano and wireless technologies and will include an exchange programme under which six scientists from Bristol and Ohio will conduct specially designed courses and guide research at AMU.
Prof. Wasi Haider, chairman depart-ment of physics, says the programme is likely to continue beyond its two-year time frame with institutional support and grants to researchers with the Ohio Super Computer Centre providing state-of-the-art facilities. The tripartite programme will be funded entirely by agencies in the US, UK and the department of science and technology, India, he added.
Bihar
Child rights commitment
Addressing a seminar on ‘Right of Children and Law’ in Patna on May 5, Bihar’s education minister P.K. Sahi confirmed that 13,000 government schools in the state don’t provide drinking water to students. “We have laid stress on improving infrastructure facilities in schools and ensuring quality education,’’ he said, adding that implem-entation of the Right to Education Act which obliges government to provide free and compulsory education to children is another major challenge. “The state government will require Rs.25,000 crore every year for implementing the Act in Bihar,” he said.
According to the minister, while the state government employs 344,000 teachers in 71,855 primary and secondary schools in Bihar, another 300,000 teachers need to be recruited for the 19 million students enroled. “The state government has also developed a programme for child rights protection and law in Bihar. We are irrevocably committed to implementing it,” he said.
Gujarat
GSHSEB cracks down
The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) has cancelled the affiliation of six private independent schools in Rajkot and slapped a fine of Rs.25,000 on four of them.
Following a random survey of 12 private independent schools in Rajkot district on March 27, after the school authorities expressed inability to provide faculty for assessing exam papers of classes X and XII, the board secretary M.I. Joshi wrote to the district education officer advising him of GSHSEB’s decision.
According to GSHSEB sources, the board had issued show cause notices to the schools prior to cancelling their affiliation. Besides, board officials also found irregularities in payments made to teachers and faulted the schools for failure to maintain service books and students registers.
Jammu & Kashmir
Teacher shortage protest
School students of Tagod, in the Kishtwar district of Jammu & Kashmir staged a demonstration and stopped the convoy of Congress MLA G.M. Saroori — on his way to Chatroo to attend a function on May 5 — to protest against shortage of teachers in the district.
The agitating students who were joined by the village sarpanch and locals, blocked the Kishtwar-Srinagar national highway at Dadpath shouting slogans against the state education ministry. The students informed the MLA that four teachers serve in the government middle and high schools of Tagod for nearly 350 students enroled. Of them, only two or three teachers attended school alternately, they complained.
The MLA assured the students that chief minister Omar Abdullah is committed to the uplift of education standards in rural areas and assured them he will submit a detailed report on the acute shortage of faculty in Tagod schools to the state government.