Innholdsfortegnelse for 15 August 2022 i India Today

Technology has been changing the way we live since time immemorial. Whether it was the invention of the wheel, plumbing, electricity or other such conveniences, we take them so much for granted today. But all these were truly revolutionary at the time of their arrival. What technology does is make human beings more powerful in doing the tasks they do in everyday life. Since the invention of the computer—whether you take the room-sized version of 1945 or the first PC of 1973 as the original one—technological change has accelerated dramatically. Technology is like a fast-moving train that you must board sooner or later. Otherwise, you will be left on the platform and be doomed to irrelevance. With the arrival of the internet and the revolution in telecom, the world has…

Aday before Union home minister Amit Shah publicly advocated the teaching of even engineering, medicine and law in regional languages, the BJP-led Assam government had taken quite a contrary decision on July 28, making it compulsory for all government schools to teach mathematics and science in English instead of Assamese or other vernacular languages from class 3 to class 12. The government also announced that 5-10 schools in each district would have English as a medium of instruction in all subjects, parallel to Assamese, Bodo and Bengali, with students choosing the language they would be taught in from class 6 to class 12. The decision has stirred a controversy as it goes against the essence of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which lays much stress on regional language as…

Just before the two-day national executive meeting of all seven wings of the BJP ended in Patna last week, party workers were sent to spend 48 hours in Bihar’s 200 assembly constituencies. Perhaps the party wants to reduce its dependency on ally Janata Dal (United), which won only 43 of Bihar’s 243 seats in 2020. In public, though, the BJP, or its national general secretary Arun Singh, spout coalition dharma and say they’ll contest the together. JD(U) is taking no chances—national president Lalan Singh was heard talking about fortifying the party in all 243 seats.…

5G uses higher frequencies that are new to mobile phone networks, but are commonly used in other applications such as point-to-point radio links and body scanners for security checks. At these higher frequencies, 5G networks will use a greater number of base stations and of connected objects, which has triggered safety concerns. In January, several airlines cancelled their flights to the US as AT&T and Verizon announced their 5G rollout, fearing that the 5G waves could interfere with instruments such as the altimeters that tell pilots how far they are from the ground. One worry is that, since 5G is new, there has not been enough time to properly test whether it’s safe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), after conducting much research, no adverse health effect has been…

STEP 1 The West Bengal School Service Commission conducts the state-level selection test in 2016 to recruit teachers for Classes IX to XII. Results are out in 2017 but without a merit list. Candidates could only check scores online. So they do not know their ranks, and are uncertain if they made the cut. As some get interview calls, others grow desperate. STEP 2 Word spreads that the jobs are being ‘sold’. Agents allegedly identify candidates willing to pay. There are believed to be various price tags—Rs 8-10 lakh for teachers in Class IX-X, Rs 10-15 lakh for Class XI-XII and Rs 20 lakh for candidates from other states, those who did not have BEd degrees or who did not even appear for the test. STEP 3 Based on payments,…

It’s a strange irony. The Indian higher education universe is one of the largest in the world—populated by more than 1,000 universities and 40,000 colleges, with 248 new universities added in the past seven years—yet its universities remain way below their potential on global benchmarks. There is no doubt among all stakeholders that India’s higher education system needs urgent implementation of reform. The blueprint has been ready for a while. On July 29, the country celebrated the second anniversary of the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It promised to be the catalyst needed to address the multi-dimensional challenges in the Indian education system and transform it. But like much else in India, NEP 2020 too is stuck due to tardy implementation by the concerned authorities. The gap in quality of…

In August, Christ (deemed to be university) will be opening its sixth campus in the country. Located at Yeshwanthpur in Bengaluru city, the new facility will admit about 2,500 students. As Vice-Chancellor Dr Fr Abraham V.M. says, the bigger focus now will be on creating depth. “I want research to grow,” says Abraham, who has set up a new R&D block at the university’s main central campus and invested in state-of-the-art equipment, including a scanning electron microscope. This calendar year so far, the research output is more than 700 publications, he says. The focus areas: physics, chemistry, life sciences and computer science, besides social sciences such as psychology. After two years of online gatherings, Christ recently held its first physical convocation after completing the degree classes and examinations on time.…

Tracing its origins to the ‘Ecole de Medicine de Pondicherry’ established by the French in 1823, as the first medical school in the country, the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), as it is called since 1964, has evolved with a unique medical education ethos. As early as 1977, the National Teacher Training Centre started training teachers in medical education and JIPMER faculty were motivated to carry out innovative teaching activities. What the National Medical Council now expects from its teachers was being done in JIPMER since the 1970s. A thorough foundation of the basic sciences, followed by rigorous bedside teaching by all clinicians starting from the juniormost postgraduate to the heads of the departments put its undergraduate training in a level of its own. The faculty…

Set up in the late 1980s to transform legal education in India, the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) retains its premier position in the annual university rankings despite a number of law schools mushrooming in the country since. This, according to Prof. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, the vice-chancellor of the university, has been made possible by building on the institute’s strong legacy and organisational culture. “We had good founding ideas and we were able to refresh them and apply them rigorously, which is what has helped the university sustain its No.1 rank,” he says. “Secondly, we have a very strong peer culture that sustains high-quality faculty research, writing, teaching and learning.” Currently, NLSIU has 45 full-time faculty and 790 students enrolled in the on-campus programmes. “In the past three years,…

INDIA’S BEST UNIVERSITIES RANKS AND SC ORES GENERAL (GOVERNMENT) INDIA’S BEST UNIVERSITIES RANKS AND SC ORES GENERAL (PRIVATE) INDIA’S BEST UNIVERSITIES RANKS AND SC ORES MEDICAL INDIA’S BEST UNIVERSITIES RANKS AND SC ORES TECHNICAL INDIA’S BEST UNIVERSITIES RANKS AND SC ORES LAW Ranking is based on objective data and perceptual survey data Only those universities that submitted their objective data have been ranked. Universities that did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate have not been ranked Only those universities that fulfilled the following criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: i. Minimum three batches passed out; ii. Offering full-time postgraduate programme All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place. This may result in rounding-off errors while adding the parameter-wise score Those universities…

A revised edition of a precious book, and a rare instance of one notable personality (screenwriter Ghosh) paying tribute to another (Hindi cinema’s first male superstar). Warm and personal, but also analytical. The best of many recent books about specific films, this is a study of Ram Gopal Varma’s iconic 1998 Satya—as a gangster movie, a Bombay movie and a story about outsiders and friendships. Another authorised biography of a star who was once enormously popular but is a distant figure to modern audiences—Rajendra Kumar, one of Hindi cinema’s biggest box-office draws in the 1960s.…

It seems his trusted lieutenants did Sanjay Raut in. Pravin Raut and Swapna Patkar blew the whistle on the Shiv Sena MP, which led to the Enforcement Directorate arresting him on August 1 on money-laundering charges. The source of this rumour lies in an audio clip, purportedly a conversation between Sanjay Raut and Patkar, which went viral two days ago. In the clip, Raut is heard abusing Patkar and asking her to return documents pertaining to some properties. In their statements to the ED, Pravin and Patkar provide a list of benami properties Raut allegedly bought. That’s instant revenge.…

Q. How satisfied are you with the outcome of the 5G auction? It has been a success and reflects the whole series of structural and procedural reform processes across the entire gamut of the telecom sector effected by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji. Before the auctions, all the estimates said we would get between Rs 80,000 crore and Rs 1 lakh crore, but the numbers that have come—Rs 1.5 lakh crore—indicate that the industry is coming out of the deep troubles it had been facing. Q. How quickly can we get 5G on our phones in India? We are working in close synchronisation with the industry. Even before the auctions happened, we had requested them to start setting up the equipment all over the country as far as possible. Before…

Armed with an MBA degree, Partha Chatterjee quit his HR job in Andrew Yule to join politics in 1998. He is an old loyalist of Mamata Banerjee who has stuck by her from the time when TMC’s MLAs accounted for less than one-fifth of the 294-member Bengal assembly. He contested his first assembly polls in 2001 from Behala Paschim and has won it five times in a row. A strong organisation man, he emerged as Mamata’s go-to person in running the party. He has held important portfolios—leader of the Opposition in the assembly between 2006 and 2011, deputy leader of the house in 2011, secretary general of TMC, head of the party’s disciplinary commitee and several cabinet posts. He was education minister from 2014 to 2021. One thing Mamata has…

With more than 1,000 universities, including 522 general, 177 technical, 66 medical and 23 law, the India Today Group’s annual ranking of Best Universities has a special place in the country’s academic calendar. It not only makes critical career decision easier for aspirants based on rich information and data but also provides an overview of the state of university education to other stakeholders such as recruiters, parents, alumni, policy-makers and people at large. INDIA TODAY’s knowledge partner, Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA), a reputed research agency, followed a rigorous methodology while conducting this survey between January 2022 and July 2022. For objective ranking, MDRA carefully fine-tuned 120+ attributes to provide a comprehensive and balanced comparison of universities. These performance indicators were clubbed into five broad parameters—‘Reputation & Governance’, ‘Academic…

Seldom does the setting up of a university hinge on the outcome of a separate statehood agitation. But establishing the 48-year-old University of Hyderabad (UoH) was part of the six-point formula to end the agitation. It has since evolved and was given Institution of Eminence status in 2019 with additional grants of Rs 1,000 crore a year for five years. While the ready recall for UoH may be due to the suicide saga of Dalit student Rohit Vemula a few years ago, its launch of high end experimental research programmes has helped UoH spawn specialised centres in Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Cognitive Sciences, High Energy Materials, Modelling Simulation and Design, Health Psychology, Nanotechnology, Electronics and Tomato Genomics on campus. The university now offers 137 courses—79 post-graduate, 42 PhD and…

In four decades, what began as the Koneru Lakshmaiah (KL) College of Engineering in 1980 has transformed into the KL Education Foundation (deemed to be university) or KLU, with a lush green 100-acre campus at Vaddeswaram, Guntur, on the outskirts of Vijayawada and two others at Moinabad and Bachupally in Hyderabad. It caters to 10,000 students through 10 colleges. In addition, there is a centre for distance and online education. KLU has changed the landscape of education in Vijayawada and the Telugu states. KLU offers a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and research courses in science, law, fine arts, pharmacy, humanities and sciences, management, architecture, agriculture, commerce and new-age disciplines, including animation, gaming, AI, virtual reality, blockchain and cryptocurrency. It also offers PhD programmes in engineering, science and humanities, management,…

The chapter you are learning today is going to save someone’s life tomorrow. Pay attention.” It is what teachers often tell medical students at the King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow. Quality education is a foremost priority for future doctors and KGMU Lucknow is committed to providing it. One of the oldest medical institutions in India, KGMU is the leading medical university in Uttar Pradesh. King George V, then the Prince of Wales, laid the foundation stone of King George’s Medical College in 1906. The college opened its gates in 1911, though the official opening ceremony was delayed to January 1912. The college was directly under the Government of the then United Provinces, and degrees were awarded through Allahabad University. In 1921, the college came under the purview of…

Rinku Singh confesses that, as a child, he had a difficult time comprehending why his father was almost never home. Days would pass, then weeks, months, as Singh grew up with his large family in a one-bedroom home in Holpur, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bhadohi district. “But when I grew up, I understood that he was the only man in our family who was providing us three meals a day, a roof over our heads,” says Singh, speaking to INDIA TODAY over Zoom. “That’s when I made the decision to make my father and mother’s life better. I never needed motivation outside of my dad,” he says. “He is my hero.” Singh’s father was a truck driver, spending many of his nights on the road, often travelling on hazardous…

JESSICA CHASTAIN Run by female executives, Chastain’s production company Freckle Films has made movies like Ava (2020), The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) and The 355 (2022). The Oscar-winning Chastain once said, “I want to see women portrayed like the ones I know—intelligent, strong and vulnerable.” REESE WITHERSPOON This March, Witherspoon was named the richest actress in the world by Forbes magazine, but the actress clearly believes in giving back, too. Launched in 2014, her production Hello Sunshine has bankrolled films like Gone Girl (2014) and women-centric shows like Big Little Lies (2017-19). CHARLIZE THERON Theron’s production company, Denver & Delilah Productions, is said to have been named after her dogs. While she has produced many films in which she had a starring role—Atomic Blonde (2017) and Tully (2018)—she has…

Q. You’ve won national awards before, but does this one feel special in any way? The subject of this song and the documentary [1232 Kms] makes it very special, also since the pandemic affected all of us in different ways. We are the privileged ones who did not have to face survival problems, but the story of the daily wagers and labourers, those who had to travel thousands of kilometres to reach their homes, was such a horrific and painful one. In fact, I felt guilty for being safe and happy with my family at home. The song I composed for this documentary [1232 Kms] was a catharsis. Q. Covid has often left us feeling helpless. At some level, is ‘Marenge To Wahin Jaakar’ a reminder that we can all…

To keep pace with the demanding job of running the world’s largest political party, BJP president Jagat Prakash Nadda has turned to what he calls his first love—swimming. When in Delhi, Nadda does 10 laps in the Olympic-sized pool at the Constitution Club. He has also managed to shed some extra weight. An erstwhile national swimmer, Nadda says swimming keeps him agile physically and mentally. After all, he has to keep his party’s foot-soldiers ready for election battles in 11 sta tes, including home state Himachal Pradesh, as well as the parliamentary election in 2024.…

Former West Bengal minister Partha Chatter jee, currently in ED custody, created a ruckus over the food served to him. He wanted rice, mutton and fritters against medical advice. Exasperated, the ED officers sought the help of who else but Arpita Mukherjee, the minister’s aide who has also been arrested by the agency. Their conversation seems to have had some effect, as Chatterjee was seen eating oatmeal, roti and sabzi the next day. Highly amused ED officers are now in no doubt as to who the real boss is.…

Answer this. You are catching a long-distance flight and just before take-off, you decide to download and watch RRR, the southern blockbuster, which is a three-hour extravaganza, on your iPad. Even if you subscribe to the best broadband service in India, currently it would take close to half an hour to do so. So, you would dump the idea, right? But imagine if you had a network that could allow you to download the full movie in less than a minute. Next, let’s take your favourite sport—cricket, we guess. You think watching it on your high-definition TV on a big-size screen with surround sound is the closest you can get to viewing it live. Well, think again. You can sport a virtual reality (VR) headset and catch the action in…

At over 700,000, India has the largest number of telecom towers in the world, but it still falls short. Experts say that the proliferation coverage of telecom towers has to go up to nearly twice as much for a smooth rollout of 5G Deep fiberisation of the network so that towers do not get choked. Fiberisation is only around 30 per cent at present, and needs to increase to 80 per cent for a meaningful rollout of 5G There are still some 400 million subscribers running on 2G/3G networks and devices, and the industry needs to convince them to move to 4G and beyond As many as 100 million feature phones are still being sold each year in India, while the sale of smartphones is in the region of 170-180…

Born in a middleclass family, Arpita’s fat her was a central government employee. A small-time model, she acted in minor roles in Bengali, Odia and Tamil films. Around a decade ago, she was introduced to minister Partha Chatterjee by a businessman. She soon began accompanying Chatterjee to public events, becoming the face of the Naktala Udayan Sangha Durga Puja committee, of which Chatterjee is the chief patron. Arpita moved to an apartment in an upscale housing complex in south Kolkata, from where the ED recovered Rs 20 crore in cash, foreign currency and a cache of incriminating documents. From another flat owned by her, it seized Rs 30 crore. Arpita claims Chatterjee used her Aadhaar and PAN card to buy properties in her name and that she had little clue…

INDIA’S SUBMARINE FLEET The first submarine, INS Kalvari, Soviet Foxtrot-class was commissioned in Dec. 1967 The Indian Navy had 21 such conventional submarines in the early 1980s Seven Russian Kilo Class or Sindhughosh Class, bought from Russia between 1984 and 2000 Four HDW (German) subs, known as Shishumar Class, bought and then built in India in collaboration with the Germans (1986-1994) Four Kalvari Class Scorpene submarines (under Project-75) built at Mazagon Dock in partnership with France’s Naval Group commissioned. Two more to be delivered soon An Arihant SSBN, a slow-moving ‘bomber’ and a stealth launch platform for N-weapons commissioned. Three more SSBNs under construction, part of the Strategic Forces Command PAKISTAN Pak navy operates three Agosta-90B submarines from France’s Naval Group Signed a contract with China in 2015 for eight…

What you can do to counter the long-term effects of the coronavirus on your brain DIAGNOSIS: The root cause of your symptoms should be ascertained. Blood tests—CRP, IL-6, CBC and D-dimer—are a first step towards finding out if there is a need for brain imaging or a cerebrospinal fluid test REST: Research shows 8-10 hours of sleep in the night is crucial for the brain to heal. Doctors recommend a wind-down routine—eating 3 hours before bed, turning off screens an hour before sleep and meditation or writing down worries DIET: Nutrition helps the brain recuperate—foods rich in vitamin B12, vitamin E and antioxidants are recommended. Nuts, dairy, fish and seeds are rich in serotonin that can help improve mood and reduce stress GRADED EXERCISE: Slowly return to heavy physical exercise—with…

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When Mumbai was a hot spot during the Covid-19 pandemic, IITBombay (IIT-B) came as a saviour with its world-class research. The institute developed technologies for the identification of global metabolite biomarkers in patients for targeted therapy and an incineration device for the safe disposal of masks/gloves. Their mobile app, CORONTINE, for tracking/tracing asymptomatic carriers, was adopted in Odisha and Meghalaya, and partly by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). IIT-B developed an algorithmic protocol for pooled RT-PCR testing of samples and validated using clinical samples at various hospitals in Mumbai and Bengaluru. Its CoviDialysis portal was adopted by BMC for effective hemodialysis patient management. GURUSPEAK “We strive to provide the best career training for our students and focus on research and activities that have greater impact on our society”PROF. SUBHASIS CHAUDHURI…

Established in 1997 through a legislation passed by the Madhya Pradesh assembly, the National Law Institute University (NLIU) was only the second institute to offer the five-year integrated BA LLB programme, after NLSIU. Now in its 25th year, NLIU is introducing two unique courses this academic session—a five-year BSc LLB programme in cyber security, and a two-year Insolvency Programme. “Both courses are born out of demand from industry,” says NLIU vice-chancellor Dr V. Vijayakumar. The idea for the cyber security course, which will have an intake of 60-plus students annually, came during his visits to NACIN, the academy that trains IRS officers, who were grappling with the issue of fake vouchers being raised for GST filing. “In 2021, 546 officers of various government departments underwent training in the cyber security…

TIGER JEET SINGH: For over 20 years, Tiger performed in Japan’s wrestling circuit, where he was famous for rushing the ring with a sword in his mouth TIGER ALI SINGH: Tiger Jeet’s son, Tiger Ali performed for New Japan Pro-Wrestling Dojo before his breakthrough to the WWF in the late 1990s MAHABALI SHERA & ‘RING KA KING’: In 2011, Impact Wrestling (previously known as TNA) held a novel pro wrestling competition in India, ‘Ring Ka King’, where Mahabali Shera (Amanpreet Singh Randhawa) was crowned World Heavyweight Champion KAVITA DEVI: The first-ever Indian woman in the WWE, the former weightlifter and power-lifter from Haryana became a pro-wrestler in 2016 JINDER MAHAL: Entering the ring in a turban and sherwani, the Indo-Canadian (nephew of Gama Singh) leant heavily into his Punjabi heritage.…