Future Group ties up with NSDC, to train seven million people

ew Delhi: Future Learning, the education arm of Kishore Biyani-led Future Group, has tied up with the government-backed National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to train seven million people in handloom, carpentry and retail services, among other areas, over 10 years.
 
The company will open 1,680 multi-skill training centres across India, according to the agreement with NSDC. Future Group plans to hire as many as 650,000 people from these centres over the next decade for its group companies including Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd and Future Capital Holdings Ltd.

“Currently, we give employment to around 150,000 people both directly and indirectly,” Goutam Roy, chief operating officer of Future Learning, said on Friday. “This number will be 800,000 in 10 years, and invariably we will source our requirement from our skill centres.”
Muralidhar Rao, chief executive of Future Learning, said the entry into education has the potential to generate revenue of around Rs. 1,000 crore for the group over the next decade. Last year, the company had started management education centres.
As part of the financial arrangement, NSDC will give a loan of Rs. 38 crore to Future Group and buy a 10% stake for Rs. 5.4 crore in the skill development unit, Future Sharp. The rest will come from the the parent. The investment in the venture will total Rs. 58 crore.
Dilip Chenoy, managing director of NSDC, said that by tying up with big corporate houses, his organization will achieve the target of training 150 million people by 2022. NSDC is backed by the Indian government and industry bodies as the first public-private partnership to promote skill development in the country.
Information technology education firm NIIT Ltd on Friday also tied up with NSDC to train seven million people by 2022 across sectors with an investment of Rs. 377 crore.
Vijay Thadani, chief executive of NIIT, said the partnership will give the company “an opportunity to reach out to a vast audience whose need for skill development has largely remained unaddressed, thus furthering our objective to develop talent and create employable workforce”.
Separately, Agre Developers Ltd, Future Group’s mall management arm, on Friday said its shareholders have approved a proposal to merge three group firms—Future Realtors India Pvt. Ltd, AIGL Holding and Investments Pvt. Ltd and Prudent Vintrade Pvt. Ltd—with itself. The merger would be pending approval from the Bombay high court.

Women’s indices devp in India worst: Anari

Vice President M Hamid Ansari Friday said women’s indices development in India are worst than those in Sub-Saharan African countries. Addressing the 19th convocation of the North Eastern Hills University, Ansari said, “Every third women in India suffers from energy deficiency.

This level is higher than all Sub-Saharan countries. 55 per cent of adult Indian women – every second women – suffer from iron deficiency. Here too the Sub Saharan African countries do better.”

He added: “Even as the country has witnessed good economic growth in the past decade, the benefits of such growth and macroeconomic initiatives to women are mediated through their position in homes and workplaces, and access to, and ownership of, productive assets.”

Expressing concerns with India’s sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years continues to decline since 1961, he said, “We (India) stand ninth, with only China at 926 behind us.

In our own region, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal have more females in their population, while Pakistan and Bangladesh with a sex ratio of 943 and 978 have in comparison done better.” He, however, said the only silver lining is provided by Mizoram and Meghalaya having child sex ratio in this age group at 971 and 970 respectively.

Stating that discrimination and deprivation is disturbingly stark, the Vice President said that the participation of women in political decision-making at middle and higher levels is abysmally low.

He said less than 11 per cent of the seats in the Indian Parliament are held by women. The situation is worst in state Assemblies. Moreover, women hold less than ten per cent of the Ministerial position at the centre with a lone Cabinet Minister.

 “Women hold less than 10 percent of Ministerial positions at the Centre with a single cabinet minister, and there have been only five women Judges of the Supreme Court since independence, constituting around 3 percent of appointments,” he added.

With regard to education, the Annual Status of Education Report 2010 shows that in all of rural India, Ansari said, 5.9 per cent of girls in the age group 11-14 years were out of school.

According to Census 2011, though there has been more rapid improvement in female literacy, there still exists a gender gap of 16.7 percentage points.

The level of female economic activity is lower and so is female participation in professional and technical works. The Vice President, said that according to the Five Year Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Women and Child Development for 2011-2016 it has been noted that just 14 per cent of women are employed, while 54 per cent of men are employed in the urban sector.

In the rural sector, the figure is 31 per cent for women and 55 per cent for men. “Since Independence there have been only five women judges of the Supreme Court, constituting just 3 per cent of appointments,” Ansari pointed out, stating: “thus the picture of discrimination and deprivation that emerges is disturbingly stark.”

He said the way out was “not to camouflage reality” by restoring to tokenism and parading exceptions, but by addressing the problem head on. He said the National Policy for Empowerment of Women, 2001 has outlined three policy approaches to do away with gender inequality and therefore a beginning was made.

Stating that mere government intervention was not enough, Ansari said, “Better results would be produced by women citizen empowering themselves and being encouraged to do by enlightened segments of public opinion.”

College going students doubled in Himachal Pradesh

Shimla: Number of college going students has doubled in the State which has to 24 percent as against 12 percent last year as per the latest evaluations made in a report of the Government of India. This was revealed by Prof. Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, while addressing the foundation stone laying ceremony of Administrative and Science Block of Rajiv Gandhi Government Degree College, Kot Shera, estimated to cost Rs. 3,28,46,000, here today.
Chief Minister said that Himachal Pradesh had excelled in the education sector, attained top position in the country and won awards for its achievements. He said that the State had accorded priority to education sector and enhanced budgetary provisions to 18 percent of its annual plan which was highest in the country. He said that quality infrastructural facilities were being created to cater to the world class educational facilities to the students as also attract students from other states to study in the clean and peaceful environment of the State, where participation of private experienced and financially sound players was being encouraged. He said that Himachal Pradesh happened to be the only State in the country which had constituted Private Universities Regulatory Authority empowered to inspect the private universities for quality adequate infrastructural facilities to the students as also determine the fee structure. He said that the Authority was empowered to fine erring universities fine of upto Rs. five crore besides taking other appropriate action deemed fit in specific cases.
Prof. Dhumal said that with the setting up of private universities the students of the state were able to get world class vocational educational facilities near to their home without paying any capitation and hidden charges etc. He said that the standard of education, facilities to students and all other allied activities of private universities were being monitored by the appropriate authorities. He said that majority of students and faculty members in the established private universities belonged to Himachal Pradesh. He said that Himachal Pradesh was emerging 'Education Hub' with the setting up of Central University at Dehra, IIT and ESI Medical College and Hospital in Mandi district, Technical University and Hotel Management Institute in Hamirpur, Food Craft Institute, National Institute of Fashion Technology in Kangra district adding that the state had already established National Institute of Technology at Hamirpur and similar other higher learning institutes in private sector. He said that such quality educational institutions would be instrumental in giving boost to tourism promotion activities as well, since large number of students coming from different parts of the country would also be taking benefit of tourism facilities as well.
Prof. Dhumal said that the State Government was spending 18 percent of its budget on education and related activities during current financial year. He said that many landmarks has been established in all the three State owned degree colleges in Shimla where quality infrastructure had been provided to the students. He said that the Arts Block building would be completed by next year and electricity transformer installed and made operational on priority adding that efforts would also be made to explore possibilities of providing hostel accommodation to the students within the campus.
Shri Ishwar Dass Dhiman, Education Minister, thanked the Chief Minister for according priority to the education sector and enhancing budgetary provisions for infrastructural developments by 142 percent. He said that pupil teacher ratio in the State was 18:1 against national average of 40:1 and added that 81.6 percent of students were getting education in state owned primary education centres and budgetary provisions of 18 percent was the highest as compared to 3.8 percent at the national level.
Shri Suresh Bhardwaj, local MLA said that it was during the earlier regime of Prof. Dhumal that Yashwant Gurukul Yojna was launched in the State to provide residential accommodation to the teachers serving in the tribal and difficult areas which had been a great success.
Dr. O.P. Sharma, Director of Higher Education said that out of 18,000 posts of teachers sanctioned by the State Government 13,000 had been filled up and process was on to recruit remaining 5,000 which would add to the teachers' strength.
Dr. Mrs. V.P. Mahajan, Principal of the College, welcomed the Chief Minister, Education Minister and other dignitaries and read out the annual report of the college.
Shri Rohit Mehta, President, Central Students Association, proposed vote of thanks.
Shri Rajesh Sharda, President, Shimla BJP Mandal, Shri Gaurav Sharma, President, Old Students Association, Shri Dharam Pal Mehta, President, Parent Teachers Association were present among others.

Engineering education in national development

Engineering represents the single most important sector vital for national development. Expertise in engineering lies at the heart of all national development strategies as it determines the level of industrial growth as well as self-reliance in defence manufacture. The steel industry, special alloys, engineering goods, manufacture of industrial machinery, automobile manufacture, electronic, household appliances, robotics and computer science, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, industrial design – indeed every sector of the national economy depends on engineering.

The emphasis on human resource development, with a special emphasis on engineering, has resulted in the growth of a strong middle class in India that today accounts for about 32 percent of its population, which is increasing by about one percent each year. In Pakistan our neglect of education over the decades has meant a much smaller middle class, only about 12 percent of our population, which is shrinking due to increasing inflation, growing poverty, mounting debt that has doubled in the last three years and rampant corruption.

India collaborated with various technologically advanced countries to help establish seven world class engineering institutions, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in different cities of India.

The extremely poor state of our engineering universities in Pakistan in the year 2000 is reflected from the appalling fact that in the 53 years between 1947 to 2000 our nine engineering universities had together produced only about 10 PhDs in all! In comparison IIT Delhi produced 176 PhDs last year while Tsing Hua university in Beijing produces over a thousand PhDs annually. This is truly shameful for Pakistan, a country claiming to be a nuclear state. Indeed in 2003 we did not have a single genuine engineering university. They were, at best, low level colleges labelling themselves as universities.

Realising the importance of engineering education and research we created significant endowments of Rs100-200 million for every engineering university to promote research. The key to a high quality university is faculty. Good universities are not developed by building beautiful buildings but by training and attracting highly creative and eminent faculty members. Some 11,000 scholarships were awarded, about 5,000 of them to send our brightest students to top universities in the USA, Europe, Australia and China. Almost 2,500 of these were in engineering sciences, including IT and computer sciences.

The availability of liberal research grants and other such measures resulted in a spectacular increase in international research publications from only 500 per year in the year 2000 to about 4600 per year by 2010, about a 900 percent growth. Pakistan was producing only 200 PhDs annually in 2002, but this increased to 700 PhDs per year by 2010. The PhD output of our engineering universities also grew from a total of 10 PhDs in 55 years (an average of 0.2 PhDs per year between 1947-2002) to an average of about 14 per year by 2010, a 150 fold growth.

By the year 2009, two of our engineering universities were ranked among the top 300 of the world (NUST and UET Lahore). While this represents a promising beginning, our international standing is still dismally low. All our nine engineering universities have together produced only 131 PhDs in the last seven years (an average of about two PhDs per year per university), a 70-fold lower productivity than that of IIT Delhi.

Rapid advances being made in Pakistan during 2003-2008 under the Higher Education Commission caused alarm bells to ring in India. A detailed presentation was made by Prof C N R Rao (adviser to the Indian government on Science & Technology) to the Indian prime minister about the rapid progress being made in Pakistan in the higher education sector (article by Neha Mehta “Pak Threat to Indian Science”, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1082216661.html). This resulted in far reaching decisions by the Indian government to accelerate the development of its higher education institutions.

Over the next five years India will establish 29 new universities and 40 new high level institutes. Nine additional IITs will be established so that India will have 16 world class IITs providing state-of-the-art engineering education. In international rankings of engineering universities, IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi are already ranked at 47 and 52, respectively in the world while IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur are also ranked in the top 100.

In 2005 we embarked on an a visionary project to establish several world class engineering universities in collaboration with Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, China and Korea that would provide world-class engineering education in Pakistan with degrees being awarded by top foreign universities. Each university was to be established in collaboration with a consortium of top foreign universities. Thus nine top German engineering universities formed a consortium of nine top German universities to establish the Pak-German university in Lahore.

Similar consortia were formed with the other countries to establish universities in Karachi, Islamabad, Sialkot, and later when the security situation improved, in Peshawar and Quetta. An attractive feature of each university was an integrated technology park in which foreign companies such as Siemens and Eriksson had agreed to establish their Research & Development Centres.

This would have led to a surge in international patents of new products and processes and a huge increase in high tech exports. Pakistani parents spend about Rs100 billion each year on sending their children to foreign universities. Besides saving this expenditure, the scheme would have led to significant earnings of foreign exchange due to many foreign students coming to Pakistan for study.

The development schemes to establish four of these foreign engineering universities were approved by ECNEC in February 2008, and classes were scheduled to begin in October 2008. Unfortunately disaster struck. The HEC budget was slashed in 2008, scholarships frozen and most development projects, including the establishment of the foreign engineering universities in Pakistan, halted.

A wonderful and unique opportunity to provide high quality engineering education from top foreign universities within Pakistan and to make rapid advances in industry and defence was thrown away. When the scholarships of thousands of Pakistani students studying abroad, many in the engineering sciences, were withheld, causing huge misery in 2008, I resigned in protest in October 2008.

Things did not stop there. A notification was issued by the government on November 30th, 2010 shredding the HEC into pieces. HEC was almost destroyed. Fortunately the Supreme Court of Pakistan accepted my appeal and declared the government notification unconstitutional. HEC has fortunately survived this onslaught. It continues to exist and limp along under difficult financial circumstances in a hostile environment.

The claim that sparked a row

The Planning Commission's affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming that Rs 32 in urban areas, and Rs 25 in rural areas is adequate to meet expenditure towards 'food, health and education' has sparked widespread condemnation, disbelief, outrage. There is a division within the planning commission itself with two members making their displeasure evident. At the end of the two-day politburo meet, Prakash Karat has said said that the poverty line is a starvation line and that any caps on social security should be scrapped.

Jairam Ramesh, minister of rural development says India's very approach of estimating poverty needs a re-look, adding that he does not agree with caps either.

On the 3rd of October, deputy chairman of the planning commission will meet all concerned members, Jairam Ramesh, Aswini Kumar in an attempt to forge a way forward. Meanwhile, Colin Gonsalves, the lawyer who is arguing the 'right to food' case in the Supreme Court is planning to argue that minimum wages or at least 100 rupees to be made the poverty line. Ambika Soni, minister of information and broadcasting says that she's been given to understand that the planning commission's affidavit is not the final one. Will the planning commission submit a new affidavit? Here is the open letter that the Right to Food Campaign has written to the Deputy chairman of the planning commission.

Texas Instruments, CORE launch education tech solution in India

NEW DELHI: Chip-maker Texas Instruments, in association with CORE Education and Technologies, launched its STEMpowereducation technology solution in India, which promises to facilitate a better, tailor-made learning experience for students in classrooms across the country.

STEMpower is touted as combining Texas Instruments' (TI) education technology solution with CORE's content, teacher education programme and support in one integrated solution that enables effective teaching and learning of math and science.

STEMpower, which works on TI-NSpire technology, connects a teacher's computer in a classroom with handheld devices designed by the company for the use of students.

This will facilitate personalisation of teaching methodologies to fit classroom needs and promote student collaboration, besides instant assessment, CORE India President Anshul Sonak said.

The companies have implemented trials of the technology in nine schools across the country and are targeting private CBSE schools to drive STEMpower's growth.

STEMpower enables teachers to ensure that every student has an opportunity to explore, learn, apply and succeed by integrating real-world data, simulations, pictorial aids and multiple representations such as graphs, spreadsheets, equations and questions, Texas InstrumentsEducation Technology President Melendy Lovett said.

According to CORE, the solution is cost-effective and would reduce schools' investment on a science and math labs, which approximately is around 10 lakh each, by 50 per cent.

"STEMpower is a portable solution... (with) few infrastructure needs and can be shared by many classrooms," Sonak said.

CORE will train teachers to effectively use the technology.

Lovett said, "At TI, it is our mission to ensure that every student has an opportunity.

‘Selective Coverage Undermines Task Of Media in India’

Srinagar, Sept 30- Veteran journalist and parliamentarian, H K Dua and chief editor of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), Tarun Basu held separate interaction sessions with students of Media Education Research Centre, Kashmir University on Friday.

In his address, Dua talked about the state of press in India. He listed  the contemporary trends and  referred to the role of press in the freedom struggle of India.

Dua’s journalistic career spans over four decades, having served as editor in Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Tribune and as editorial advisor of The Times of India.

“Though the media has become more vibrant in the country, it should do better than what it is doing,” he said, commenting on the status of the fourth estate in India.

Dua talked about the basic journalistic dilemma between press freedom and responsibility.

“Indian media has developed shortcomings over the years, particularly television news channels, as they focus more on the ‘shining India’ aspect of the country while ignoring some of the most pressing issues facing the majority of its population residing in rural areas,” he said.

“The urban-centric reporting has meant that problems faced by people in the villages in the interiors of the country as well as the peripheral parts like North-East go unreported or are given cursory coverage,” Dua added.

The Rajya Sabha member said the “selective coverage” undermines the responsibility of media.At a time when media has focused on India as an emerging economic power, he said, it has been negligent in covering the other side of the picture.

Media, he said, is also giving more coverage to bad news ,highlight upheavals while downplaying good news.Dua talked about the ‘Breaking News’ syndrome whereby TV news channels sensationalize and trivialize the news.

He also referred to the “irresponsible” coverage by the media. “We see glorification of crime. Sometimes media holds an accused person as guilty till proven innocent contrary to the notion of innocent till proven guilty,” Dua said.

The veteran journalist also delved in detail about the competition between news channels for higher TRPs.

“The commercialization is taking its toll on the objectivity of journalists. Private interest is being given precedence over the public interest,” he said.

This, he said, has also hit the credibility of media.

Dua also talked about restrictions on media, referring to the curbs imposed  during emergency.“That time press did not fight back barring some exceptions ” he added.

Dua also touched on the role of media during sensitive times like communal riots.

After his address, he also responded to the questions from MERC students.Earlier, the chief editor and director of one of the leading news agencies of India, IANS, Tarun Basu discussed  the opportunities in media today besides future prospects for  media professionals.

News, he said, will be increasingly served on mobile platforms in the wake of exponential increase in the number of mobile subscribers in India.

“800 million mobile sets are sold every month in India,” he revealed.

Basu said the media has become compressed, informal and chatty.

Talking about the emerging trends in media industry, he said earlier only journalists had access to news first and the people only came to be informed in the morning through newspapers or before that through radio news bulletins.

“Today news has become instant. In some cases, people come to know about the stories even before the journalists. Journalism has never been more involved, more participatory. People have also come to influence media agenda,” Basu said.

He said earlier there used to be compartmentalization of news into print and broadcast. “Now journalists are expected to have multimedia skills.”

He referred to the use of blogs and social networking sites like facebook, orkut and twitter by journalists for news gathering.

IANS chief also talked about the growing influence of vernacular press.

“Future lies in local media and regional languages.”News, he said, has become more localized and more digitized.

Basu also talked about the growing penetration of internet US  which has resulted in decline in the sales of newspapers there.

In India, Basu said, the internet penetration is slow owing to limited access and reach, particularly in rural parts of the country.

“In India, people still prefer their morning tea over a newspaper.”

Basu said now-a-days journalists face competition not only from their fellow journalists, but also the citizen journalists.

“Now-a-days lot of information sharing takes place on social networking sites. A non-journalist may break news first, which a journalist should be able to analyze and interpret,” he said.

On the occasion, former student of MERC and IANS staffer, Sarwar Kashani also interacted with the students. He said some journalists track the discussions on social networking sites for good story ideas.

Basu told the students to be wary of relying on social networking sites only.

“News has to be accurate, so verify the information on sites like facebook with other sources.

Lot of news channels rely on such sites and end up losing credibility on account of the factual errors in the copy.”Assuring students of all possible help from IANS, Basu said their contributions will be carried by the reputed news agency along with their byline.

Earlier, senior faculty and I/C HoD MERC, Nasir Mirza welcomed both the guests and conducted the interaction sessions. He hailed the contribution of the two veteran journalists- Dua and Basu- and urged the media students to learn from their valuable experiences.

Quoting the founder editor of the Tribune, Mirza said, the time has come to ‘create a new idea on the new forces of vitality and old elements of wisdom’.

In his presidential remarks the acting Vice Chancellor Prof Muhammad Amin Sofi, emphasised on the larger role media has to play in the society.

He expressed satisfaction over the visit of the veterans  of journalism. “They are a source of inspiration for the new crop of journalists”, he remarked.

In the concluding remarks Registrar Prof Syed Fayaz thanked the guest speakers for an  ‘enlightening discourse’. "The credibilty,integrity and balance are something ajournalist cannot live without" he said.The session with H K Dua was coordinated by Muslim Jan Editor.

On the occasion a set of latest publications of the department, Fortnightly MERC Times and half yearly Media Times was presented to the guests.

K Asif proposed a vote of thanks. Students of both the batches at MERC attened. The faculty members Dr Sabeha Mufti, Dr Aaliya Ahmed and Malik Zahra were present on the occasion.