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http://www.academics-india.com/side_story1.htm
BHU has solemn convocation
(President of India, Shrimati Pratibha Patil)
VARANASI: Unaffected by the disturbing undercurrents, the 91st convocation of Banaras Hindu University took place in poise on March 13 where 369 medals, including 28 BHU medals, were awarded during the solemn function.
Vinita Lal, topper of M. Sc (environmental science) examinations received the prestigious Chancellor's Medal for all-round first in all the examinations at postgraduate level in the university.
As many as 6,372 students of BHU and its affiliated colleges, including Arya Mahila Degree College, Vasant Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Vasanta College for Women and DAV PG College, were awarded degrees on the occasion.
The President, Mrs. Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, delivered the convocation address on March 13 and the degrees were distributed to the students on March 14.
The Chancellor of the university, Dr Karn Singh awarded the degrees to the students.
The Vice-chancellor Prof D P Singh welcomed the dignitaries on the occasion. Devi Singh Shekhawat attended the convocation as the guest of honour.
The campus of Banaras Hindu University in Lanka was all decked up for the convocation.
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(Prof. D P Singh, VC of BHU presenting bouquet to President Pratibha Patil)
VARANASI: Women play a special role in the overall development of the country. Universities should work towards women education and development of their skill and knowledge. Equal opportunity in education should be available to all. Such views were expressed by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil while delivering the convocation speech at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Friday.
Highlighting the importance of education, she said it was education that ensured all-round development of a nation and brought prosperity. The educational institutions work like heart to energise all components of the society by producing skilled human resources, she said and added that it was the responsibility of the educational institutions to produce efficient students for the development of the nation and society. The level of university education is the yardstick to measure the progress and prosperity of a nation, she pointed out.
Expressing her concern, she said the country was passing through a challenging phase. "While on one hand there are problems like poverty, starvation and ailments despite prosperity, on the other hand challenges like organised crime and terrorist activities are also present," she said adding in such a situation, the institutions of higher education would have to play a special role. Patil also denounced the increasing trend of consumerism and greed that damaged the social fabric. "It is true that adequate money is needed to lead a good life, but one should earn money only through just means and also contribute towards social welfare," she said. The increasing greed was escalating corruption and criminal tendency among the youth and it was a matter of serious concern, said the President. She further stated that the present era was the era of science and information technology. Developments and new inventions in the field might help in human welfare. "The universities of the country should give lay emphasis in research so that India could take a lead in science and technology," she hoped.
Calling upon the youth to come forward to take part in the process of nation building, she said the future of India was in the hands of the youth. "I think that the educated youth have to play an important role in creating an atmosphere of equality and dispelling darkness of ignorance," said the President adding that the youth would have to work in the interests of the nation, giving up their narrow self-interests.
She also highlighted the role of BHU and its founder Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya in propagating value-based education. She congratulated the students who received their degrees at the convocation and exhorted them to follow the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
Earlier, the President landed at the Babatpur Airport from where she moved to BHU in an Indian Air Force helicopter.
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Photo courtesy of “Banaras Hindu University Speaks” blog.
http://www.bhuspeaks.com/
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Varanasi/BHU-set-to-realise-future-goals/articleshow/4260839.cms
13 Mar 2009, 2207 hrs IST, Binay Singh, TNN
VARANASI: While President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil is on a two-day visit to the city to take part in the 91st convocation of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Friday, the varsity in its centennial decade is all set to move forward to materialise its future goals.
(Banaras Hindu University)
At the time of the inception of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1916 by the illustrious founder Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya, the university adopted a set of objectives that guided its functioning and growth for over nine decades. Now, in this decade of centennial year of BHU, it is time to reflect its strength and plan for future challenges.
The university has prepared a vision document 'Challenges and Opportunities 2016'. This document has been prepared with a view to focus and concentrate on important challenges the university is facing. BHU, the largest residential university in Asia, is spread over an area of over 15 square km with majestic buildings of great architectural delight. It enshrines within its precincts a phenomenal range of faculties incorporating diverse disciplines of science, humanities, social science, commerce, law, education, visual and performing arts, management, medicines- both modern and ayurveda, engineering and technology, agriculture, library science, and many Indian and foreign languages.
As per the document, it its last decade of the centennial year, BHU resolves to take all necessary steps to propel it into a world-class institution. As a first step towards realising the university identified some areas to address on priority infrastructure strengthening, attracting and retaining talented faculty, university governance, academic reforms, and development of south campus.
"While other Asian countries are upgrading higher education with the aim of building world class universities, in India BHU is among the front runners for achieving excellence in higher education," said V-C BHU Prof DP Singh. According to him, in the XI Five Year Plan, high priority has been assigned to science and technology, ethics and peace, equity in education, improvement of medical education and hospital services and development of Rajiv Gandhi South Campus. The BHU is going to establish its fourth institute Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development with financial support from University Grant Commission (UGC) under the XI Plan. A special grant of Rs 7.50 crore for the institute has been allocated. The UGC has also raised its planned funding from Rs 32 crore in the X Plan by almost 10 times to Rs 283.76 crore in addition to OBC budget of Rs 561.25 crore.
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http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?p=999
Scientists use RustMapper to track the spread of Ug99.
Scientists around the world are struggling against a deadly strain of stem rust disease known as Ug99. All you need to know about the fungus is that it seems to have started in East Africa and has been migrating eastward, threatening wheat production in Central Asia, India, and China. Many of these scientists — led by Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug — descended on Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, earlier this week to collaborate. The coloring of reportage ranged from the dire — “‘Stem rust’ fungus threatens global wheat harvest,” said The Guardian – to the mildly triumphant — “Scientists gain in struggle against wheat rust,” said the AP. For the science, click here or here, for the layman; for the international efforts to stop it, click here. We consulted a number of scientists to get reports from the front.
“At present the Indian wheat crop is free from Ug99,” Dr. P.N. Rasal, a wheat specialist in India, told Bellum. “But it is predicted to happen and I have no reasons not to believe it,” his colleague Dr. Mohinder Prashar added. Indian agriculture expert Ramesh Chand noted in an e-mail to us:
Ug99 is a major threat in India since the pathogen is migrating from its center of origin, Kenya. Now it has reached Iran and there is unofficial information that it has also reached Pakistan. Since a major wheat growing area of Pakistan and India is Punjab, and the two border together, if it is present in Pakistan there is maximum possibility that Ug99 migrates to India. Wind is an innocent carrier of this pathogen… Rate of migration of Ug99 and its versatility to grow and reproduce at a wide range of temperature has been viewed very seriously in India. We have initiated our breeding programme against the race of the pathogen. [emphasis added]
(Photo: Yue Jin, USDA)
Arun K. Joshi, a genetics and plant breeding professor at Banaras Hindu University and currently working on the Ug99 problem from Kathamandu, contributes this:
There is no denying that Ug99 is a big threat. However, there is nothing to panic about since India is working in strong collaboration with CIMMYT to get Ug99 resistant and high yielding wheat lines. Already some such lines have been identified and are under testing in trial. The challenge will be to replace susceptible varieties with the resistant ones. Of 27 mha wheat, around 24 mha is under varieties that do not carry good resistance to Ug99. However, the pathogen is still in Iran and not yet reached India. The pathogen takes 2-3 years to multiply to enable itself to become capable of causing serious threat. By that time, India through its massive seed production program would be able to produce sufficient seed. We are hoping for the best. The network of India-CIMMYT-KARI will keep the disease at bay…Any rust pathogen will take time (2-3 years) in order to increase its spores in large number so that it becomes really dangerous. This will start when first spore shall arrive in a location. [emphasis added]
Dr. Xianchun Xia, a Chinese geneticist also working on the project, reports from China:
Since the 1960s, stem rust has been basically controlled, because the varieties with 1B.1R translocation that are widely used in China have still showed effective resistance to stem rust. Nevertheless, the new race Ug 99 could be a potential threat to Chinese wheat production because the 1B.1R translocation with Sr31 is highly susceptible to the race. Thus a joint China-CIMMYT collaborative program has been established to breed wheat cultivars against Ug99…I am sure that the collaboration will succeed. We have made many crosses in wheat breeding program to transfer the stem rust resistance genes Sr25, Sr26, Sr33, Sr45, SrTmp and Sr1A.1R from CIMMYT wheat germplasm into Chinese wheat background to breed wheat varieties against Ug99. [emphasis added]
We first noticed the story two months ago, when we read the Joint Forces Command’s JOE 2008 report:
Natural disease will also have a say in the world’s food supply. The Irish potato blight was not an exceptional historical event. As recently as 1954, 40% of America’s wheat crop failed as a result of black-stem disease. There are reports of a new aggressive strain of this disease (Ug99) spreading across Africa and possibly reaching Pakistan. Blights threatening basic food crops such as potatoes and corn could have destabilizing effects on nations close to the subsistence level. Food crises have led in the past to famine, internal and external conflicts, the collapse of governing authority, migrations, societal collapse, and social disorder. In such cases, many people in the crisis zone may be well-armed and dangerous, making the task of the Joint Force in providing relief that much more difficult. In a society confronted with starvation, food becomes a weapon every bit as important as ammunition. [emphasis added]
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About Bellum
http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?page_id=2
Bellum is an autonomous project affiliated with The Stanford Review. Our mission is to provide uncommon insight and rigorous analysis of geopolitics and international security affairs. Please see “Why We Blog” for a statement of our philosophy.
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http://www.livemint.com/2009/03/29092228/Nearly-five-lakh-students-to-a.html
A record number of nearly five lakh students, up from about three lakh last year, will appear in the IIT Joint Entrance Examination on 12 April
PTI
New Delhi: With an overall increase in the number of seats in IITs due to implementation of OBC quota, the number of aspirants for studying at the prestigious institutes has gone up by nearly two lakh this year.
A record number of nearly five lakh students, up from about three lakh last year, will appear in the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) on 12 April. The test will have no change in the question pattern from last year.
“About five lakh students will appear in the test. This time the seats in the old IITs will be increased by 18% to implement quota for the OBCs,” Prof Gautam Baruah, director of IIT Guwahati, told PTI.
To implement the 27% OBC quota, the IITs are increasing their seats in a staggered manner over the period of three years from last year. They had increased the seats by 18% in 2008-09. There will be another 18% increase in 2009-10, while another 18% seats will be increased in 2010-11.
Besides this, six new IITs have started functioning from last year.
The government has also decided to make two more new IITs functional from this year. They are IIT-Madhya Pradesh and IIT-Himachal Pradesh. The two new IITs will offer 120 seats each.
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http://business.rediff.com/pix/2009/mar/19/iit-rti-mantra-when-in-doubt-confront.htm
A Ganesh Nadar | March 19, 2009
Some of the finest brains of the IIT Bombay alumni came together to celebrate the institute's Golden Jubilee at the Lalit Ashok in Bangalore recently. Rightly named Kal Aaj aur Kal, the event focused on the past, present and future of IIT.
Rediff.com caught up with a few of them to get an insight into their views, ideas and opinions.
Speaking to chief information officer Shailesh Gandhi, for instance, was a scintillating experience. He decided to take on the government both at the Centre and the states with a new weapon -- the Right to Information Act. He used it effectively to elicit information about delays, favouritism and other partisan stands taken by the bureaucracy.
His enlightening speech, addressed to the audience at the Bangalore event, was punctuated with wit and humour. "As an RTI activist, I used to think there are individual cases of corruption. As a part of the government, I realised that the very system is diseased.
"Every chief minister, police chief, even the prime minister tells the police that the crime graph should not rise. Therefore, what do they do? They simply do not file cases so that the number of crimes never increases.
"The population of Mumbai has risen by 50 per cent but the number of crimes has not gone up as the police have not registered more cases than last year".
"I will give you another instance. Each IAS officer needs to have an annual confidential report. About 45 per cent of the IAS officers do not make confidential reports at the end of a year; 30 per cent have no annual confidential report even after two years and for another 22 per cent, there is no ACR even after four years."
"Therefore, the annual confidential report of the IAS officers is a sham, it's a joke. Promotions are given on what your boss or your minister thinks of you".
"When I entered the government I was given three officers. The seniormost was called an under-secretary. He did not know how to use a computer. Six months later, they still cannot find a computer-literate under-secretary for me.
"In Karnataka, every officer, who knows how to use a computer, is given two PCs. But at the Centre, 80 per cent of the officers do not work on a computer. One person had filed 15 complaints against the municipal corporation of Delhi three years back. He got no reply because no one bothered to even look at it. This is what is happening in every state.
"We have installed the best software system in the world but no one uses it because they don't know how to. In banks and airlines, everyone has adapted themselves to computers barring the bureaucrats.
"In Maharashtra, I learnt to my horror that the government had given Rs 4,000 to every employee to learn computers. Ninety-five per cent of them claimed the money but no one learnt anything. Most government employees being in their 40s and 50s, don't even touch computers, let alone use them.
"The government says we will not give new jobs. This is where the contractors come in. They do nothing but take a percentage of the employees' earnings. They exploit the employees as they have no rights, no personal provident fund, no unions and they are insecure.
"The young man who mans the computer works for less than 33 per cent of the salary that a government employee gets. But he cannot object because he is on contract. Thus, all the laws of the land are being government constantly.
"We need to change this. Unfortunately, no officers in government are trained to change anything. They follow the Newton's law of motion -- they continue to what they are doing.
"They first take a couple of papers, punch a hole in one corner and tie it up.
Then they bunch a few more papers, put a cardboard cover on it and tie a nada around it. If an officer looks at 50 files a day, he wastes 25 minutes tying and untying this nada. I told them to stop doing this in my office and thus saved time."
This had the crowd in splits.
Gandhi said it was sad government employees still pile up files in cupboards and do not use filing cabinets where the files can be visible and easily accessible.
"If we do not force the government to change for the better we will never get better governance. If all private sector companies made their memorandum of understanding with the government in the public domain, we will see a sea change in no time," he said.
"We should Use the RTI to good effect," he added.
During his exclusive chat with rediff.com later, Gandhi said that thegovernment had increased his staff to seven but lamented that he still did not have a computer-literate under-secretary.
The biggest problem, according to him, lay in the backlog of complaints. "I think and I have told the government that this backlog will kill the act. Only if we give the reply on time we can be useful to the people".
"Now we have brought down the waiting time to three months for a reply. I have also employed four whom I pay from my salary."
He said that every state has its own information commissioners, while the central government has seven, including him.
Explaining the RTI usage, Gandhi said, "First you file a question to the concerned officer and stick a 10-rupee stamp on it. If he gives a reply and you are not satisfied you can go back to him with another question. If he doesn't reply, you file the same question with the commissioner in the state.
"If you have a problem with a central government body like an university, you come to us."
Though Gandhi wants to educate the public on the RTI, he says he doesn't have funds to do it. The government obviously doesn't think it's important to train people about its own act.
How can one put the information to use, once it is received?
Shailesh Gandhi said, "You have three options. You can use that information to complain to a higher authority in the same department or you can file a public-interest litigation. The latter, however, is a cumbersome process.
"But the best thing to do is to go to the people and build a public opinion. Tell the people what you discovered and how important it is to take the offender to task. Go to the press. That is your biggest weapon to bring any one to book. As an RTI activist, I used to use the media tool all the time.
"I used to hold small meetings comprising 40 at a time, followed by more meetings. This is how one should build a public opinion. One also needs to talk to elected representatives, corporators and others. Raise your voice and ask a question, always.
"Approach them, confront them. We never confront people. We always talk among ourselves -- that MLA is doing this and that. That is a wrong approach. Why don't we go to the MLA and pose a question to him?
"No matter whom you vote, start confronting. Changes are bound to occur.
"If you don't bribe your work will not be done and you will suffer. To make the government servant suffer bribe him and have him arrested too. Only then will your work be done and next time they will respect you."
Image: Shailesh Gandhi speaks at the IIT event in Bangalore. | Photograph: Sanjay Sawant.
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Additional link
Blog run by Shailesh Gandhi
http://shaileshgandhi.rediffiland.com/iland/shaileshgandhi_diary.html
The Right to Information Act, India-official website
http://www.persmin.nic.in/RTI/welcomeRTI.htm
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a) IITs go artsy, to offer courses in music, architecture, performing arts
b) Mount of unrest at IIT-Kharagpur
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090325/jsp/bengal/story_10720699.jsp
c) IITs seek raise for researchers
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090401/jsp/nation/story_10755154.jsp
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3 Apr 2009, 2215 hrs IST, TNN
(S M Bhardwaj, GM, Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi)
VARANASI: Management practices are essential for optimisation energy conversion and it's use, said SM Bhardwaj, general manager, Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) while inaugurating a seminar on `Energy conversion and management' in Banaras Hindu University on Friday.
Management of energy conversion techniques is the key for increasing the efficiency, he added that there is a growing need for management functions in every discipline of engineering to make it cost-effective and user friendly. Director, Institute of Technology (IT), BHU, Prof SN Upadhyaya presided over the inaugural function.
Dean, IT, BHU, Virendra Singh, head, department of Mechanical Engineering, IT, JP Dwivedi, course coordinator, SK Shukla and other faculty members were also present on the occasion. The department of mechanical engineering, IT, BHU had organised the programme. The All India Council for Technical Education
(AICTE), New Delhi had sponsored the programme.
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Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi
http://www.diesellocoworks.com/index.htm
Seminar on Energy Conservation (April 3-9) at Department of Mechanical Engineering, IT-BHU
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/mec/conferences/icem2009/workshop.html
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4234808.cms
(Prof. S.K. Sharma)
6 Mar 2009, 1654 hrs IST, TNN
VARANASI: Students should be tuned to the requirements of industries to emerge as successful entrepreneurs of the country: Opined Prof SK Sharma, dean of students, Banaras Hindu University, while addressing a workshop on 'entrepreneurship development programme' at the department of journalism and mass communication (BHU) on Friday.
Emphasising on more freedom of work and change in the traditional performance evaluation system of the university, he said it was important to train students to be accepted by various industries. "It is equally important to convert idea into action with full facilitative and supportive system of the institution," he pointed out.
Earlier, local entrepreneur Keshav Jalan formally inaugurated the one-day workshop that witnessed three technical sessions on different aspects of entrepreneurship including its conceptual dimension, project management and institutional support system. Six successful entrepreneurs from different sectors participated in the programme.
“The Banaras Hindu University has witnessed establishment of Malviya Centre of Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (MCIIE) to promote students of various departments with innovative ideas,” said Dr PK Mishra, the secretary of the newly constituted centre and chief coordinator, Institute Industry Partnership (IIP) Cell of the Institute of Technology (IT), while participating in the workshop organised by the department of journalism and mass communication, BHU, on Friday.
Saying the centre would help young talents with innovative ideas to become successful entrepreneurs, he emphasised that it would provide full facilitative and support services to the students. "Any student of BHU with creative idea can approach the centre that will look after the sponsorship and other training activities, provided the idea is accepted by the evaluation committee of the centre," he informed.
It may be mentioned here that IIP cell, IT, BHU is already looking after a number of innovative proposals and projects under Techno Entrepreneurial Promotion Programme (TePP), approved by the department of Science and Technology, New Delhi. In addition, grant to the tune of Rs 45 lakh is also being provided to the entrepreneurs for establishing their production units in the region.
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(Chronicle note: Veer Bhadra Mishra is the founding president of the Sankat Mochan Foundation. He is a former professor of hydraulic engineering and former Head of the Civil Engineering Department at the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. He is also the Mahant of the Sankat Mochan Temple, Varanasi)
(Original article viewed only in Google Cache)
STEPHANIE NOLEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 7, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT
VARANASI, INDIA — Every day for almost 70 years, Veer Bhadra Mishra rose before daybreak and descended the 60-odd steep stone steps that lead from his airy but simple white house to the slow-flowing, agate-green water of the Ganges River.
As the sun came up over the opposite bank, he gazed at the river with reverence, stepped into it, cupped his hands and raised the contents to his lips: This is how he, how any devout Hindu, must give praise to Ganga Ma — the mother goddess brought to earth.
He owes her devotion. He also knows her water may kill him. "Typhoid, polio, jaundice. I drink it and I have suffered. But I am living — what to do?"
Indeed. For nearly 30 years, he has been a fierce, tireless and woefully unsuccessful champion of his goddess, the river.
Veer Bhadra Mishra, the Gandhi of the Ganges
Here in the holy city of Varanasi, people bend to touch his feet and call him Mahantji, in deference to his status as the spiritual leader of a huge sect of Hinduism. People also call him Dr. Mishra. He is a professor emeritus of civil engineering at the huge Banaras Hindu University, an authority on hydraulic systems. He has, he says with a grin that crinkles his cheeks, the rational mind of a scientist, balanced by the passionate heart of a devotee.
And although the river has grown steadily more polluted through his years of work, he is convinced that he and his band of loyal Ganges champions are now poised on the edge of a breakthrough, when a combination of spiritual and scientific wisdom will finally restore the purity of the river.
And if they do, their victory may reinvigorate a tired environmental movement in a nation where water-borne illnesses are the leading cause of child death — and a world in which unsafe water and sanitation are the source of 85 per cent of all disease.
One in every six people on Earth has no access to clean drinking water, and last year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon complained that that "progress is hampered by population growth, widespread poverty, insufficient investments ¡K and the biggest culprit: a lack of political will."
These are obstacles that Dr. Mishra knows all too well
The Ganges is perhaps the most sacred body of water on Earth — 60,000 people go to its banks to worship every day, and every year millions make a pilgrimage to Varanasi, which has been considered a holy place for thousands of years.
The Ganges is also one of the world's most polluted waterways. It runs 2,525 kilometres from its source in the Himalayas to empty into the Bay of Bengal. There are 116 cities along its banks, all expanding rapidly, none effectively treating its sewage.
The Ganges basin is home to 40 per cent of India's 1.2 billion people. Here in a city of two million in the heart of that basin, the river's fecal-coliform count is 3,000 times the level recommended by the World Health Organization.
The WHO calls the Ganges "an environmental hazard." To look at the river here, it seems obvious why — the people bathing, doing laundry, washing dishes, watering livestock and burning their dead.
Hindu scripture says a person whose ashes are placed in the river goes straight to Nirvana. But cremation costs at least $100, so some poor people secretly dump their dead into the water, a practice that is nominally illegal but still frequently practised.
All this is, as Prof. Mishra says, "eye-catching," but such use of the river causes only an estimated 5 per cent of the pollution. More comes from industries, especially leather-goods factories that dump effluent from tanning, loaded with chromium and arsenic, into the water. But the vast bulk of the pollution comes from domestic sewage: In Varanasi alone, along the seven kilometres of ghats, or steps, that lead down from the temples and shrines, there are 32 open sewage drains, spewing constantly.
"Next to where people are doing their prayers and their holy dip, sewage is pouring into the river," Prof. Mishra says, flinching a bit.
Meanwhile, mining companies build dams near the source of the river — despite laws forbidding them — and have cut the water flow sharply, reducing the power of dilution; the ever-growing population of 500 million along the river siphons off ever more for irrigation.
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(Prof. V K Srivastava)
VARANASI: European Community, Belgium has awarded Prof. VK Srivastava, department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Technology, BHU, with Erasmus Scholar Award for 2008-2010 for expertise given to the staff and students of Technical University of Humburg, Humburg, Denmark University and Portugal University in the area of advanced composite materials.
According to BHU spokesperson, Prof. Srivastava will organise all the research activities at Technical University of Humburg, Humburg, Germany. He is actively involved for the development of high temperature ceramic composites. The US Air Force, USA and JSPS, Japan have sanctioned international project to repair the defects of space shuttle during flight. The US Air Force had always invited him under WOS programme to visit US Air Force Research Institute. Prof. Srivastava has also received various prestigious awards and fellowship to work at UK, Germany, France, Japan and the USA.
Prof. V K Srivastava can be contacted at: vijayks@bhu.ac.in
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Additional Links:
Erasmus Award by European Community
http://www.fundacionprincipedeasturias.org/ing/04/premiados/trayectorias/trayectoria788.html
Prof. V K Srivastava home page
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/mec/index.php/people/faculty.html
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/mec/index.php/people/faculty/76.html
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IT-BHU, Varanasi, India
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/mec/index.html
Technical University of Humburg, Germany
http://www.tu-harburg.de/index_e.html
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26 Mar 2009, 1841 hrs IST, TNN
VARANASI: The deputy principal (pro vice chancellor) St Georges University of London, Prof Sean Hilton arrived on Wednesday, he attended a meeting at the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) on Thursday.
During meeting he interacted with the faculty members and took note of the academic activities at the institute. Later he also visited the Faculty of Science and the Institute of Medical Science (IMS). Earlier, he called on the vice chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) Prof. DP Singh. Before leaving the city he will also visit the Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU, on Friday.
Seminar: On the second day of the seminar on foreign impact on Indian culture, organised by the department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, BHU, more than a dozen research papers were presented by the scholars, on Thursday.
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Additional link:
St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, London
http://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/
Our board- St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust
http://www.stgeorges.nhs.uk/media/docs/OurBoard.pdf
Professor Sean Hilton Non-executive director
Professor Sean Hilton joined the Trust Board as a non-executive director representing the Medical School and the University of London. He has been a general practitioner in Kingston upon Thames for 25 years, and since 1993 has been Professor of General Practice and Primary Care at the Medical School.
His main academic activities have been in undergraduate education and in research in primary care. From 1997-2002 he was Dean of Undergraduate Medicine in the School.
His interests include development of the NHS at the primary/secondary care interface, disease prevention and medical professionalism.
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First Published: 30 Mar 2009 04:27:00 AM IST
BANGALORE: Distinguished faculty members from premier institutes such as IISc, IITs, IIMs, and IISERs can look forward to continuing at the institute even after retirement -- if the report of the pay committee for central technical institutions is accepted. In a report submitted to the Human Resources
Ministry last month, the committee has recommended the creation of a ‘Scholars in Residence’ position to enable retired professors
to continue working.
The six-member committee, headed by former IISc director Professor Govardhan Mehta, says in their report: “The institutions must retain their own faculty even after they have formally superannuated from service.
Such distinguished members of the faculty not only serve as mentors and inspirational figures but also help sustain an environment of academic excellence on the campus by being around and available to other colleagues and students
for guidance and consultation.” The committee has recommended the creation of 10 such positions in each institute, to be invited by the Board of Governors for a period not exceeding 3 years. The scholars will be paid an honorarium in the range of Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000, along with the necessary facilities.
To facilitate professors with extraordinary academic achievements from being entrusted with administrative responsibilities, the committee also recommended the creation of the post of ‘Institute Professors’.
These professors will receive a minimum basic pay of Rs 62,000 and a grade pay of Rs 13,000.
Pay recommendations Recognising the alarming shortage of faculty in the IIMs and IITs, with as much as 25 to 30 per cent in some institutions, the committee has recommended a significant hike in salaries to improve research. Currently, a professor receives a basic pay of around Rs 20,000; under the new scheme he or she stands to make a minimum of Rs 48,000.
The committee has adopted the system of pay bands over pay scales as the Sixth pay commission has done, but has made two structures -- one for institutes with a four-tier faculty structure and another for a three-tier one(see Table). The recommendations of the committee will apply to central technical institutes
such as the IITs, IIMs, IISERs, NITs, IIITs, IISc and other institutions.
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP