Tutelage Asesor

SCIENTIFIC TERMS

1. specific gravity – the ratio of the density of a body to the density of water, the latter being taken as unity.

2. static electricity – describes the situation where objects carry a charge.

3. stratus cloud – a cloud that forms in a blanket like layer.

4. sulfur (S) – element # 16 on the periodic table, is a soft, pale yellow, odorless, brittle solid. It is insoluble in water. It burns with a blue flame, oxidizing to sulfur dioxide. Sulfur exists in several crystalline and amorphous allotropes. The best known sulfur compound is hydrogen sulfide. This is a toxic gas that smells like rotten eggs; the smell is used in stink bombs, many of which release a small amount of hydrogen sulfide.

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Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

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Current Affairs

1. World Refugee Day Observed Across The Globe.

2. ISRO’s GAGAN To Provide Navigational Support To Railways.

3. Historian Ramachandra Guha Selected For Japan’s Fukuoka Prize.

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CBSE gets a month more, exam results by Aug. 17

The Supreme Court directed the Central Board of Secondary Education on Friday to hold afresh the All India Pre-Medical Test and declare the results on or before August 17.

The court had on June 15 cancelled the AIPMT held on May 3 and ordered the CBSE to conduct a fresh test within four weeks.

However, the Board had returned to the court, saying it was impossible to conduct a re-test by then as at least three months were required.

A vacation Bench, headed by Justice R.K. Agrawal, gave the Board one month extra and went ahead with fixing the schedules for the counselling rounds.

“The first counselling shall be held on or before August 28, the second counselling on or before September 4 and the third counselling on or before September 11,” the Bench said.

The Board, represented by Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi and Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, argued strongly in favour of a three-month extension of the time schedule.

‘Teachers not available’
Mr. Rohatgi said teachers were not available because of the vacation, and 1,050 exam centres had to be arranged.

Additional Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, representing the Medical Council of India, said the schedule should be squeezed as the start of the academic session would be delayed, particularly for students allotted 15 per cent of the seats of the MBBS and BDS courses in the country.

Students in distress
The cancellation of the May 3 test has affected over six lakh students. The court had said that any attempt to save the test, in which massive fraud took place, will “leave merit a casualty and generate frustration among genuine students”.

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Seven students from MP get into IIT

BHOPAL: Besides securing top position in IIT-JEE Advanced-2015 in the country, Madhya Pradesh's seven tribal students studying in various government schools have also secured a berth for themselves in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

IIT topper Satvat Jagwani hails from Satna district of Madhya Pradesh and shifted to Kota for taking coaching for JEE-Advanced.

Besides, seven students from various tribal development blocks in the state have cleared JEE Advanced exam for year 2015, a Public Relation Department official said on Saturday.

Now, these students will study in different IITs of the country.

"Students of tribal areas in the state have met with success on such a large scale for the first time. Most importantly, none of these students underwent coaching in any coaching institute for this prestigious exam," he said.

These seven students incluuded Ajay Basuniya of Excellence Higher Secondary School, Dhar (290th rank), Madhu Rajan Kudape of Excellence Higher Secondary School, Mandla (388th rank), Pushpak Vaskale of Eklavya Model Higher Secondary School, Barwani (408th rank).

Himanshu Badwal of Excellence Higher Secondary School, Jhabua (469th rank), Sumit Arse of Excellence Higher Secondary School, Barwani (851st rank), Bablu Chouhan of Navodaya School Ojhar, district Barwani (874th rank), Kumar Panchweshwar of Excellence Higher Secondary School, Chhapara in Seoni district has also been selected for IIT.

Among them Ajay, Madhu and Bablu are children of labourers while the parents of other four are in govenment service.

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Tamil Nadu govt withdraws 300,000 history text books

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government is recalling around 300,000 economics and history text books in which DMK president M Karunanidhi is still listed as the state's chief minister in the preface, even four years after AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa replacing him.

The government realized the goof in the Class XI economics text book and recalled it first. Later the same issue was found in the history text book.

The error came to light when a teacher in the Coimbatore district pointed it out and the officials in the education department asked the schools to recall the text books, printed by the government-owned Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation.

The preface also mentioned DMK leader Thangam Thennarasu as the education minister.

Apparently a wrong print plate was used while printing the text books for the two subjects that went unnoticed, said an official who did not want to be identified.

The preface in question referred to Karunanidhi as Tamil Nadu chief minister who formed a committee to revise the syllabus and thanked Thennarasu for his support.

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SCIENTIFIC TERMS

1. scandium (Sc) – element #21 on the periodic table, is a soft, light, silvery-white metal, which becomes slightly tinged with yellow or pink when exposure to air. Scandium is almost as light as aluminum but it has a much higher melting point. It is therefore of potential specialty use in aircraft – scandium will not be used generally because it is much more expensive than aluminum. Scandium reacts with many acids.

2. secondary battery – a battery that can be recharged.

3. s*xual reproduction – the production of a new organism from a female s*x cell and a male s*x cell.

4. silicon (Si) – element #14 on the periodic table, is a hard, relatively inert metalloid and in crystalline form is very brittle with a marked metallic luster. Silicon occurs mainly in nature as the oxide and as silicates. The solid form of silicon does not react with oxygen, water and most acids. Silicon reacts with halogens or dilute alkalis. Silicon also has the unusual property that it expands as it freezes (like water).

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Current Affairs

1. Union Government Launched Weather Alert Service.

2. CCEA approved Inclusion of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh In NDP – I.

3. India Ranked 3rd In WADA’s Global Doping Report 2013.
India has been ranked third in Anti-Doping Rule Violations Report for year 2013 released by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). As per the report 91 athletes from Indian have been tested positive for banned substances in year 2013. Of these 91 Indians athletes, 20 were women athletes. Russia and Turkey are ahead of India in this list. Russia has maximum number of dope offenders with 212 testing positive for using banned substances. The figures for Turkey and India were 155 and 91 respectively.

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Enthusiasm moves the world.

Arthur Balfour

Autonomy under attack, feel IIMs

For one of India’s best known global brands, the Indian Institutes of Management, a Bill framed by the Human Resource Development Ministry has brought in worries over their autonomy. The second oldest of these 13 institutes, the IIM-Ahmedabad, has expressed concern over some of the provisions of the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2015, which, it feels, will spell the end of autonomy.

After the treatment meted out to the directors and chairmen of the Indian Institutes of Technology, it appears that the IIMs are next on the block. The recommendations in the Bill, drafted by the Ministry headed by Smriti Irani, on display on mygov.in, are at variance with the recommendations submitted by them last year. The Bill, they fear, carries the trademark signature of overreach as is evident in some of the clauses. For one, they say the government seeks to appropriate for itself the power to decide on academic posts other than the one of director, whereas the draft submitted by the IIM-Ahmedabad wants the institutes to take the decision.

Pankaj Chandra, former IIM-Bangalore Director, who was involved in recommending changes to the structure of the IIMs earlier, says the Bill should grant more autonomy to the institutes in deciding how they wish to structure themselves, as they are governed by societies.

Enabling clauses in IIM Bill offset by autonomy question

Though the Bill does have several enabling provisions in making them more accountable, it leaves the question of autonomy in doubt.

Earlier, in an interview to the Mint newspaper, IIM-Ahmedabad Director Ashish Nanda said: “If the proposed Bill on Indian Institutes of Management is used to bring about centralisation of key processes, it would be bad news for these institutions and their autonomy.”

Perhaps, he was hinting at the Centre’s design to assume control over the institutes.

The enabling clause of giving degrees to students instead of diplomas is a welcome move, Saibal Chattopadhyay, Director, IIM-Kolkata, says. “This is only a draft. It will go to Parliament,” he says.

“Previous discussions were about how to structure the degree in a management course, in place of the diploma awarded now,” Pankaj Chandra, former IIM-Bangalore Director, says.

The draft Bill seeks to do away with the special emphasis on the IIMs by seeking to declare certain institutes of management to be institutions of national importance to empower them to attain standards of global excellence in management, management research and allied areas of knowledge and to provide for certain other matters connected with such institutions or incidental thereto — the IIMs want the Bill to confine itself to them.

Also, the proposed Bill takes away the powers of the institutes to determine fees by making it subject to prior approval of the government. Lastly, the Bill states that in discharge of its functions, the IIM Board will be accountable to the government, whereas the IIMs envisaged accountability only with respect to legal compliance, financial stability and growth of the institutes.

Quite clearly, the last word is not out yet as public comments are still being sought before the government makes its next move.

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Stephen's teachers question interview policy

NEW DELHI: Some teachers at St Stephen's College are raising questions about the college's policy of interviewing just four candidates per seat. They point out that nearly all St Stephen's candidates—like for the rest of Delhi University—apply for more than one subject. A science stream student is likely to apply for all the sciences and an arts student for the arts and social sciences. And with every interview, they say the number of candidates appearing for the next one, shrinks.

"The faculty of management studies, for instance, also has very few seats but the number of candidates called for interview per seat is much higher," says a teacher. "The four-five candidates per seat are presented as an injunction by the court but that's not true. This year, FMS called 10 for each of its 226 seats in the full-time management programme; last year, they'd called a dozen; and that's for one programme. In the case of St Stephen's, the same pool of students will be eligible for interviews in multiple programmes."

"Much the same set will be eligible for interview for economics, English, history and BA Programme. But the time interviews are held for history or BA Programme, many of the students will have opted out," says another teacher. The problem is compounded by the nature of the cut-offs. "Arts students apply for all arts subjects, science ones for all the sciences. If all cut-offs are similar, it'll be the same set qualifying for all. Even 1% can make a difference and we can get some new faces in."

For instance, the cutoffs for economics, English and history are 97.5%, 97.75% and 97.75% for candidates from the science stream. For those coming from commerce classes, the cutoffs for the same subjects are 98.5%, 99% and 98%. Another teacher points out that in the past, the number of candidates being called per subject was not just higher, it also varied with subject.

Stephen's principal, Valson Thampu, however, wrote an open letter "to all those who have not made it to the interview". He offers as consolation his own story. "I, too, dreamt of studying in St. Stephen's. I, too, failed to qualify for the interview," he writes. "In my case, the issue was not cutoff; it was my Kerala background. There was an assumption in those days that students from my state could not measure up to the standard of St Stephen's. But life did not end there for me. I decided to prove myself. Got enrolled in a junior college in Kerala. Studied like one possessed, topped the university and joined St Stephen's as a graduate student. Excelled enough to be invited to join the faculty. The rest is history." He says he hopes the candidates who didn't make it "feel challenged and energized" as "excellence results from lifelong pursuit".

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