Mohali, April 6
The Student Scholarship and Monetary Award Scheme 2007 was launched at the Canadian institute of International Studies (CIIS), here, today by Lok Sabha deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal.

Rs 6 crore will be offered as scholarships to intelligent and academically brilliant students who wish to enroll for international studies. Announcing the scheme for the current session 2007-08, Lt Col B.S. Sandhu, president, CIIS, said the scholarships, christened as Monetary Award Scheme, have been specifically designed keeping in mind the requirements of the needy, poor but talented students from rural background or from the families of farmers or defence personnel.

A student will be able to get a scholarship of Rs 1.5 lakh per annum. The scholarships would be provided depending upon the percentage of marks scored in the last examination and an entrance test by the CIIS to assess the merit corresponding to the academic scores of students.

Whereas the average cost of an undergraduate or a postgraduate course at the CIIS is Canadian $5,000, the four scholarship slabs for meritorious students will range from $3,000 to $1000. Students having 80 per cent marks plus will be given a monetary incentive of $3000 with students attaining a percentage between 70 to 80 per cent getting $ 2500. Students scoring 60-70 per cent will be getting $2000 while those scoring between 50 and 60 per cent will get $1000 per annum. IELTS and TOEFL qualifiers will get additional $250.

Panchkula, April 6
Regular study hours and never skipping home work hold the key to success, say students who bagged the first three positions in the district in the Class X exam held by the Haryana School Education Board. The results were declared today.

Priyanka Gupta, the district topper, says:"Five to six hours of strict study and no television during exam days helped me to focus on the examination. After the pre-boards, I remained confined to my books, eating and sleeping, cutting out all distractions. At school we attended extra classes."

Daughter of a shopkeeper, she maintains that she was hoping to top. "My school principal told me that I had topped in the district. Our joy knew no bounds as my parents, friends and teachers crowded around me to congratulate me."

Coming from a farmer's family, Sonika Saini, placed second, explained:"I took no extra classes. Only regularity in school paid off. If you miss a day at school, the link is broken and one is left behind. I was inspired by my cousin who has always come out with flying colours in the examination. Also, I wanted to be a role-model for my siblings." Not happy with the third position, Komal said:"I expected to do better.” Her father works with the Education Department and has been her source of inspiration.

"He would ensure that I kept my chin up. I have lived up to my family's expectations."

Mohali, April 6
The Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication (IETE) Students' Forum has been set up at Indo-Global College of Engineering (IGCE), Abhipur, here, in collaboration with the IETE centre, Chandigarh. The IETE is one of the leading societies in the field of electronics and telecommunication.

A technical committee meeting of IETE students was also held. Sukhdev Kumar Singla, chairman, IGCE, addressed the forum. He highlighted the main objectives of setting up this student forum at the IGCE, Mohali.

Dr S.R. Prabhakar, principal, assured that this forum would provide a common platform for student and industries to exchange ideas and information on the topics of common interest.

Chandigarh, April 6
A meeting of the advisory committee for ‘Campaign for Peace-city Chandigarh’ was held at Dev Samaj College of Education, Sector 36, here, today. Principals and teachers in-charge of the peace clubs in schools and colleges participated in the meeting.

Dr Satinder Dhillon, convenor of the campaign, told that in the past three years starting from initial 32 now the number of peace clubs had reached to 108 which were functioning from various schools and colleges of Chandigarh. And now, including Chandigarh, this programme of promoting the culture of peace and nonviolence in the generation next through formation of peace clubs in educational institutions has reached five cities of India, Nepal and Pakistan.

She also said that to further strengthen the initiative Prof Krishan Kumar, director, NCERT, New Delhi, would be visiting Chandigarh shortly to interact with students and guide the teachers promoting the cause.

Dr Surendra Singh, Principal, Government Model Senior Secondary School, suggested that young students should be motivated to prepare small speeches, poems, drawings/paintings, essays, stories etc on cultivating the virtues of tolerance, forgiveness, nonviolence and justice amongst them. Some selected writings/drawings could be displayed on school notice boards for everybody to see and encourage the peace makers.

Sudesh Chaudhary, principal, St Soldier International School, came up with the idea of beautiful quotations propagating peaceful messages. and motivating all students once a year to take and sign a peace pledge.

Vikramjit Singh, a volunteer of Yuvsatta, told the participants about important upcoming events of the campaign like celebration of April 21 as Chandigarh Bicycle Day, a students peace camp at Sadikabad in Pakistan in August, an international students peace camp in Chandigarh in October and a similar camp in Belgaum in Karnataka in December for local students.

Saroj Sawant, principal of Moti Ram Arya Senior Secondary School, offered to host the inter-school bicycle games as part of Chandigarh Bicycle Day to promote the culture of cycling in Chandigarh.

Dr Shashi Jain, principal, Dev Samaj College for Women, felt that in days to come these efforts would become more significant as the prevention and healing of violence becomes an ever-increasing need.

Chandigarh, April 6
Advocating the smart school concept, the local unit of the Nationalist Congress Party has suggested the extension of “smart section” in four schools - GMSSS-16, 33, 19 and 46 - to other schools of Chandigarh.

The administration had decided to make these sections in the four schools.

The proposal was suggested at a party meeting headed by Principal Gurbachan Singh.

They opined that the scheme should be started in schools situated in other Sectors also and the existing students of the schools be given preference at the time of admission to smart sections.

Among those present at the meeting were Sham Lal Kanoujia, G.C. Dhadhwal, Sushil Gupta and Parwinder Kaur.

Chandigarh, April 6
Rebutting allegations that Punjab Engineering College (PEC) did not follow the reservation policy while selecting faculty, PEC Director Vijay Gupta has in his in reply to the Chandigarh Administration that all selections were strictly within the reservation quota fixed by the director of social welfare for various categories.

The UGC team had in a report filed to the Chandigarh administration a month ago alleged that PEC had appointed 10 lecturers in excess from the general category in the current round of selections, even though seven lecturers belonging to the general category were already in more than the stipulated quota.

The UGC team had recommended the cancellation of all appointments by PEC in the last round of selections.

Describing the observations by the UGC committee in this regard as “hopelessly off the mark” the director has said no post in excess of the quota fixed by the head of social welfare for respective categories has been filled in the current round of recruitment. In fact, the shortfall in the quota from previous years had been made good by the institution in the recent selections.

The UGC committee’s findings, maintained the PEC head, were “so completely untrue as to raise serious questions about the committee’s ability to understand the implementation of the reservation policy.”

An indication of the committee’s “scant understanding of the concept of reservation and rosters,” said the director, was its presumption that PEC was following a 100 point roster system. The point-roster system, he said, had ceased to exist following orders of the Government of India 10 years ago.

PEC was now maintaining a post-based roster system and not the vacancy-based reservation roster, in vogue before 1997. The director stated that the former system stood approved by the social welfare chief.

Admitting that the PEC had not selected any OBC faculty member, the director said this was not because of any bias, but because no candidate of this category was found suitable for the post.

While the benchmark for the general category candidates was 65 per cent in ME and 65 per cent in BE, for the OBC candidates it had been lowered to 60 per cent.

On the charge that the details of reservation had not been given in advertisements issued by PEC, the director said the institute was following the IIT pattern of advertisements wherein such details were not given.

(Concluded)

Chandigarh, April 6
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has ordered the release of salary grants that were not cleared by Punjab Treasury.

A deputation of the Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers Union (PCCTU), led by president H.S. Walia and general secretary Dr Jagwant Singh, called upon Badal and submitted a memorandum.

They demanded the release of lapsed grants, restoration of 95 per cent salary grants, implementation of the decision taken by government headed by him on December 12, 2001 regarding pension gratuity scheme, implementation of CAS for DPEs and librarians, HRA for rural colleges and relaxation of refresher courses.

Badal said the grants could not be released on March 31 due to official reasons and ordered their release while referring the memorandum for action to the department of higher education.

Later, the deputation also called upon Dr Upinderjit Kaur, education minister, who shared their view that the government must meet its liabilities under 95 per cent salary deficit grant-in-aid scheme for the survival of colleges. 

Chandigarh, April 6
Just three days after the commencement of final examinations conducted by Panjab University for various under-graduate and graduate courses, four cases of unfair means (UMC) have already been registered. The exams began on April 3.

The authorities have decided to take serious view of the issue. Speaking on the issue, Puneet Bedi, principal of MCM DAV College, Sector 36 said: “We have already sent circulars to our college superintendents that no book or study material or mobile phone shall be allowed inside the examination hall. Invigilators have been instructed to personally check the roll numbers of all candidates. Superintendents and deputy controller of the college will be take rounds of the examination halls every half hour”.

At DAV College, Sector 10, Dr S Marriya, said: “The police has been deployed in the college in case there is a problem. Also, no outsiders are allowed in the campus during examinations.”

Chandigarh, April 6
Some three decades ago when there was no cluster of local newspapers around The Tribune, nor was there any trend of cultural-colour-pull-outs of the daily newspapers, it was a great honour for an ordinary person to ever be on its front page.

Little wonder when a smiling Kuki Singh featured on The Tribune’s front page in 1977, her whole family was on the top of the world. She was one of the four children who had won accolades for being Rose princes and princesses.

Though her parents were artists, no one had ever thought that she would also emerge as an artist worth reckoning. For, she did not pursue any art course and went into the labyrinth of study, under the usual peer and parental pressure, to be a doctor or an engineer.

But having no interest in these careers, she ended up with a postgraduate degree in Psychology from Panjab University.

Though having a close affiliation with painting Kuki seriously wanted to enter into the colourful world of art, her marriage to an army officer came as a pleasant impediment.

Her husband’s field-postings gave her a chance to remain in touch with the art of painting and finally she decided to take a plunge into the world of art to which she actually belonged.

She is planning to have her first solo show very shortly. Her forte has always been to study human faces. “Every human face has multilayered personalities, it is always fun to look into these layers rather intently,” says Kuki.

Her paintings depicting faces, treated dramatically with varied pleasing shades of contrasting colours, bring out the complexities of human beings rather vividly. In fact, her paintings speak loudly of a chameleon-like character of human beings.

Chandigarh, April 6
It was a small yet motley crowd of Corbusier afficionados that gathered together in the dappled shade of the Rock Garden for the release of yet another book on Chandigarh this afternoon.

Edited by late O.P. Mehta (former chief architect) and his brother V.P. Mehta, “Chandigarh - A city for all times” was unwrapped by Nek Chand, whose name also appears in the list of dedications.

Speaking about the book, V.P. Mehta said when he came to Chandigarh in the 1950s he was “greatly impressed” by the concept of a planned city.

His first book on Chandigarh was published in the 1970s and this one, today, is a consequence of his love for the city.

What sets the book apart is the sense of nostalgia coupled with chapters that deal with the city as it is now. “Most books on the city deal primarily with its architecture. What we have tried to do is write about how it has developed over the years,” said Mehta.

Apart from the writings of late O.P. Mehta on his interaction with Corbusier and other architects, the city evolves in the book through a series of articles specially written by eminent old-timers like S.S. Bhatti (former principal, Architecture College), Prem Singh (former principal, Art College), Dr V.K. Bansal (former head of department of Law, at Panjab University), Renuka Salwan, (deputy director, PR, Bureau of Indian Standards) and even poems by late K.L. Vermani.

All photographs in the book have been taken by V.P. Mehta who has also written extensively on the flora and fauna of the city.

Mehta, while highlighting the changing face of the city, said it was necessary but it should be within certain parameters.

“The basic plan has a certain relevance that cannot be ignored. Open spaces, greenery, water bodies, the sun and the wind, all these are important aspects to the master plan, which must not be compromised,” he explained.

With regard to criticism, he said it was healthy to look for the problem areas but “it is testimony to the timelessness of the city that people are still flocking here.”