The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

PEC students want director to stay
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 31
Setting a rare example in the history of student-teacher bond, hundreds of students from various disciplines of engineering of Punjab Engineering College, Sector 12 got together today in the cricket ground to kick start a unique campaign. They requested Vijay Gupta, director of the institute, not to leave the college.

Vijay Gupta, an alumnus of IIT, Kanpur had announced his resignation on July 28 due to some personal reasons. Students put up a huge graffiti to begin a signature campaign in the college.

Around a thousand students signed the campaign citing various reasons pleading Gupta not to leave. The students were of the view that Dr Gupta had proposed, PEC should be given IIT status and the college was working towards the goal.

He was responsible for bringing the college to such a high academic scale. He played a major role in bringing out student’s charter, teachers manual and creation of academic council of PEC.

The students proposed to submit a memorandum to the governor and Chandigarh administration urging them to convince Gupta to withdraw his resignation. The further added that if the director doesn’t agrees, he should be asked to stay back till a new director from not less than an IIT institute joins the office.

In support of their demands students boycotted their classes today and propose to hold a candle light march in the coming few days.

In an emergency executive body meeting of Punjab Engineering College Old Students Association (PECOSA) held today, the executive body expressed deep concern on the magnitude of loss, which PEC and its students are going to face as a result of Dr Gupta’s resination. All the programs are still at an evolutionary stage and are in the process of documentation. Vikram Hans, president PECOSA said they would soon meet the Chandigarh Administrator and ask him to probe into the circumstances behind his resignation.

Dept gets nod for radio jockey course
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 31
The Chandigarh Education Department has got an approval from the administration for starting a hobby course in radio jockey and for setting up a community radio station.

The process of setting up a radio station will require a time of one year. The education department is also initiating steps to set up a small studio at State Institute of Education, Sector 32 where the students of radio jockey course will be given practical training.

An official of the department disclosed, "We will outsource programmes, production needed for running a radio station. Moreover, we will tie up with the private FM stations and private institutes offering such courses.”

To bring awareness among the kids of rural areas, the education department is also planning to give small radios to the students of Sarv Siksha Abhiyan as prizes.

Meanwhile, the Education Department has proposed to the Administration to start various professional courses in BPO, call centre and retail marketing in the government schools.

“Many malls and retail outlets are coming up in and around city. There are umpteen job opportunities available for the professionals of this field. So, if students pursue this course, they can easily get jobs after completing the course," said an official.

Pharma PhD entrance on Sept 2

Chandigarh, July 31
Panjab University will be conducting an entrance examination for PhD admission in pharmaceutical sciences on September 2. The examination will be held in pharmaceutical technology, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacognosy and pharmacology. The last date for submission of applications is August 10.

Counselling

Applicants who had applied earlier for BA (education) or B.Ed and could not attend the first counselling on July 12 can appear in the second counselling on August 10. Fresh applications are being received up to August 4.

PU results

Results of MBA (executive) 4th semester, MBA (HR) 4th semester, MBA (general) 4th semester, BE (computer science & engineering) 4th & 6th semesters, and M Tech (engineering education) 2nd Spell. held in April and May, 2007, have been declared. — TNS

UT bows to students’ pressure
College fee reduced to Rs 2,400
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 31
Taking a serious note of the agitations by the students, Chandigarh Administration has decided to reduce the fees for the second and third year batches of Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology, Sector 26 and Government Polytechnic for Women, Sector 10.

Their fee structure has been brought at par with the first year students seeking admission for the year 2007-08.

For second year and third year students, annual tuition fee has been decreased from Rs 16,500 to Rs 2,400 and development fee has also been decreased from Rs 2,750 to Rs 1,400. This benefit was already available to the first year students of both the institutes.

With this reduction, the government will suffer revenue loss of about Rs 1.5 crore per annum.

Papers read at Premchand’s birth anniversary
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 31
Department of Hindi at Panjab University celebrated the 127th birth anniversary, of Munshi Premchand.

The celebrations were marked by a paper-reading contest based on the writer’s life, in which 16 students participated. The results of the contest were as follows:

Kamaljeet Kaur 1, Megha Verma 2, Poonam Kataria 3 and Poonam Rani got the consolation prize.

The second in the series of commemorating Premchand will be held on August 10. Apart from an essay writing contest for which the topic will be given on the spot, the department will also screen Premchand’s short stories commissioned by Doordarshan and directed by Gulzar the same day.

CULTURE

City artists put up works
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 31
Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi’s annual art exhibition took off well this evening.

Of the total entries of 163 received from the tricity in the professional category, 57 were selected for display at the show which opened in State Library, Sector 34 today. Of these 57 works, awards went to the creations of the following - Satwant Singh, Aradhna Tandon, Harkanwal, Nirmal Prakash, Rakesh Bani and Parminder Singh.

Awarded works spanned a spectrum of media - paintings, drawings and prints to sculptures. A special corner section displayed the works of senior artists, who didn’t wish to compete. Here HG Jhamp, Vinay Vadhera, Aditya Prakash, Malkiat Singh, Sandeep Joshi among others participated.

In the students section which had 43 entries on display, awards went to Bharpur Singh, Pawan Tikoo, Ankit Awasthi, Sherry Sharma, Bhuvneshwar, Saurabh Saini, Sanjeev Kumar, Sonam Jain, Himanshu Mahajan, Swati Rao, Divya Abrol and Amrit Singh.

Interestingly, this year the akademi had not fixed prices of the works on display. Unlike earlier when it would give away acclaimed artworks for petty sums ranging from Rs 2000 to 5 000, this year the akademi announced that it would not fix any sale price for artworks that are part of the exhibition. Artists were allowed to fix process, on condition that the akademi would get 10 per cent of the proceeds, whatever they are. The exhibition will be open till August 13 from 10 am to 5 pm.

185 participate in Rafi nite
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, July 31
None of the Bollywood singers had elicited such a tremendous adulation as Mohammad Rafi maintained J.P. Kaushik, the Bollywood maestro.

Haryana Finance minister, Birender Singh, and state Congress chief, Phool Chand Mullana, joined him to pay tribute to the legendary maestro on his 27th death anniversary. A musical programme - Mujh ko mere baad zamana dhoondega organised by NZCC and Department of Public Relations and Cultural Affairs Haryana, at the Tagore Theatre, here, today.

Talking to Chandigarh Tribune Bhall Singh Balara, project director disclosed that as many as eight boys and four girls between the age group of 18 to 25 were selected from among 185 aspirants from Haryana for the final show here.