UGC NET 2017: Make corrections in application from today at cbsenet.nic.in                       

The aspirants can log on to the official website cbsenet.nic.in and make the necessary changes, if needed, in their data. The facility is available till September 25.

The candidates who have applied for the National Eligibility Test (NET) 2017 can do the corrections as the CBSE, conducting body, will start the facility from tomorrow, that is, September 19. The aspirants can log on to the official website cbsenet.nic.in and make the necessary changes, if needed, in their data. The facility is available till September 25. The UGC NET 2017 exam will take place on Sunday, November 5. CBSE conducts the test every year on behalf of the University Grants Commission (UGC). In a press note, the board has clarified that the additional amount (if applicable) should be paid by the candidates through credit/debit card or e-challan in the Canara/ICICI/Syndicate Bank by September 25. UGC NET 2017, steps to make corrections:

Step 1: Log on to the official website, cbsenet.nic.in

Step 2: On the homepage, towards the bottom, click on the “Login for Correction” button

Step 3: You’ll be taken to a new page. Follow the steps as given and make the corrections.

Step 4: Make sure you check every detail entered twice as you won’t be able to make changes again.

Step 5: Make sure you take a print of the page after you make the required changes or payment.

The application process had begun from August 11 this year and ended on September 11, 2017. The exam fee for general category candidates is Rs 1000, for OBC is Rs 500 and for reserved classes is Rs 250.

A school for grannies: All students, 92-year-old among them, can now sign

Sheetal More (26), the sole teacher at ajibaichi shala or granny’s school located in Fangane village at Murbad in Thane district, says proudly, “All my 29 students can sign now.” One of the objectives of the seniors’ education initiative was to ensure all the students, women above 60, learn to sign, putting an end to thumb impressions on official documents. The school was started on International Women’s Day, March 8, last year by professor Yogendra Bangar. While the school had started out with 30 students, one of the “grannies” passed away last year.

The unusual nature of the school, that also has a 92-year-old student, demands unusual teaching methods. Sheetal, who had left education after she failed Class 10, is taking her SSC exams this year again. She says, “One of the things that I have to do is ensure I do not praise any student individually.”

Explaining the reason behind what would, at first glance, not come across as the best method, Sheetal says, “If I praise one aaji (granny), the other aajis feel bad and complain that if I would focus on them, even they would perform as well. Over a period of time, I would either praise the entire class at once, or not praise anyone. It has worked so far. I have learnt many aspects of teaching on the go.”

What further complicates things for Sheetal is that one of the first benchers in the class, Kantabai More, is her mother-in-law. “Sometimes I have to be strict with the aajis if they are not focusing. It would feel very odd to pull up my mother-in-law in the class,” Sheetal says, bursting out laughing before adding, “But you cannot get angry at them. They feel really upset.”

Other challenges Sheetal faces include the deteriorating senses of her students. “Some of them are hard of hearing so I go near them and explain things. Same is the case with some of the aajis who suffer from poor eyesight. The oldest student we have is a 92-year-old aaji. Her hand shivers when she tries to write something on a slate. In that case, I hold her hand while she writes. So far we are focusing on barakhadi (alphabets) and numbers,” she says.

The uniform at ajibaichi shala is a pink sari. “Some of them have lost their husbands hence they were not willing to wear green saris we had earlier decided on. Hence, we changed the uniform to pink sari,” Sheetal explains.

The structure from where ajibaichi shala operates is undergoing renovation. In the meantime, it operates from the only school in the village that teaches up to Class 5. It is run by the zilla parishad. The classes are between 2 pm and 4 pm on all days except Thursday when most “grannies” attend a satsang and, hence, cannot make it to school. Gangubai Kedar (65) says, “When we were at the age when most people went to school, we did not have the time to attend school. We had to wash utensils and clothes, and generally the atmosphere was such that no one wanted girls to get educated. So we are glad to get this opportunity to learn, even though much later in life.”

Sheetal adds, “I think the only reason we could run the school is that the aajis were so excited about it. Unless there is some work, none of them like to miss a single day at school.” The idea for opening the shala came to Bangar after he found that nearly all the women in the village were illiterate and unable to recite the epics on Shivaji Jayanti. The grandmothers too expressed interest in being taught so they could read epics and also sign their own names on official documents.

The grannies gather inside the school today and start with a poem, “Me mothi zhalyavar shalet jaaein dada barobar (When I grow up I will go to school with my elder brother).” Some of them forget the lines and all of them stop abruptly. When their teacher asks why they stopped reciting the poem, all of them start giggling, like schoolgirls do.

IIM Bangalore Launches India-Japan Study Centre

On September 14, during the occasion of the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurating the Rs.1.1 trillion high speed rail project, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) is all set to deepen India and Japan's bilateral engagement - especially economic and educational ties. IIMB will inaugurate the India-Japan Study Centre on campus on the same day. The aim of the Centre is, according to a statement from the premier Business School,  to promote understanding of Japan in India and India in Japan through research, teaching and policy outreach efforts.

"At a macro level, there are complementarities between India and Japan in the sphere of economic development. We have a lot to learn from Japan on infrastructure and technology management, and we can offer them insights on the start-up culture," said Prof. G. Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore.

Responding to the launch of the Centre, promoter-industrialist Vikram Kirloskar, Vice Chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt. Limited, said: "I am very pleased to hear that IIMB is setting up the India-Japan Study Centre. India and Japan have become not only business partners or trade partners, but also strategic partners. Japan is investing in India in a big way, in transportation - not just in cars but also in the bullet train. It is the perfect time to start such a Study Centre. It is not only about understanding management. The understanding of culture, psyche and thinking will improve bilateral business in a big way."

"The India-Japan Study Centre at IIMB can also provide a synergistic platform for mutually beneficial academic and inter-governmental initiatives to contribute to the shared ethos of the 'Resurgent Japan, Vibrant India' agenda," observed Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairperson, Board of Governors of IIMB, and Chairman, Biocon Ltd.

Highlighting the fact that IIMB has had an abiding and continuing interest in Japan, IIMB Director Prof. Raghuram said the school's faculty have collaborated with Japanese institutions, conducted joint research and offered Executive Education Programmes.

"The India-Japan Study Centre will build on these initiatives and take the collaboration to the next level," he added.

IIMB has launched a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Sustainability in Japanese.

The school already offers an elective course, 'Business Planning for International Markets', with specific focus on Japan, along with a Japan language elective course. Senior executive programmes have been conducted for Japanese companies. IIMB has an industry relationship with Mitsubishi for support towards classroom technology.

With the compelling business and national interests propelling the fast-evolving India-Japan business collaborations, IIMB conceived the idea of establishing the India-Japan Study Centre.

The Centre will facilitate collaborative initiatives among academia, industry and government agencies of both the countries to work on areas of mutual interest. These would include domains such as business environment, government policies, innovation, project management, sourcing, technology transfer, development and management, sustainability, intellectual property rights, and understanding of local culture and business practices. The sectoral focus would be on infrastructure including energy and transportation, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Currently, there is no focused initiative in India among academic institutes, particularly, in management institutes, to create, share and disseminate knowledge in the relevant areas of Indo-Japanese business.

New Arrival of Central Library

Higher education through digital transformation the only way forward in Young India

World over universities are disrupting and innovating on teaching and learning pedagogues. But in India, universities are still characterized by impractical learning, out-of-touch faculty, exorbitant fees (in private universities) and diminishing employment as job seekers outnumber opportunities.

According to Harvard's Prof Clayton M. Christensen, Disruptive Innovation brings to the market a product or service that isn't as good as traditional but is less expensive and user friendly. Online learning is such a technology-enabled option that is making the world reconsider higher education models. Indian universities have talented faculty and good students, but suffer from slow processes, non-digital pedagogues, and theoretical rather than experiential learning.

Disruptive innovation requires education to be in a self-paced mode which can be only available through online "flipped" class rooms, MOOCs, SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) and still shorter micro-credentials. MITx and EDx run a very popular and affordable Micro-Master's program in management for students who are edged out of admissions or find the costs high. However, completing the course online can get you a job which pays $80-100,000 annually and further allows direct admission to a Masters in MIT with reduced course fees and credits. In fact, Nano-Degrees by Udacity and Badges online are of much shorter duration and teach soft, social and professional skills, much sought after by companies.

According to Ryan Craig ('College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education') students may one day find they don't need a Bachelor's degree to become employable. Thus, self-paced and re-bundling of short courses could soon make the traditional degree college experience sound as "old-fashioned and elitist." While no one is sure of a date by which this unbundling of higher education will happen, clues are available to show an inevitable arrival by 2020's. The 4th Industrial Revolution technologies are blurring lines between the physical and digital. Big Data and digital technology will be game changers such as Li fi in place of Wi Fi (speed of Internet in Gigabytes), Internet of Things, Wearable for Virtual reality, DNA mapping and 3D printing.

It is now important to move towards blended online learning or 'flipping class room' where we have more e-material, audio and video lectures on line and more case studies, projects and practical experiential learning. Nano-degrees by Udacity make you a graduate in 12 months in courses like Artificial Intelligence, VR developer, Self-Driving Car Engineer, IOS or Android Developer etc. in partnership with Amazon Alexa, Google, Mercedes Benz etc. These companies foresee demand through big data analysis for e.g. in 2020, 10 million self-driving cars will be manufactured and would be in use.

We must remember that we have less than 24% Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education while spending approximately Rs 15,000-20,000 per annum for each student. Out of this, more than 50 % are failures and dropouts producing a dismal 53% of unemployed graduates and 89% unemployed engineering graduates in a population of more than 350 million young in the age bracket of 18-35. It means that we have already wasted 85% of the higher education budget since independence. We must be more cautious about our education strategy for social and ethical harmony of the country as these young must be educated for the welfare and prosperity of India.

MHRD should start working on a common LMS (Dashboards) and Enterprise Resource Programs for ready infrastructure for user friendly assistance to students and faculty for blended learning and for managing 'Big Data'. It should plan to procure mobile learning solutions and tablets with the above so that economically weaker sections in Digital India become technology savvy and get their digital learning assistance in a costumed mode.

New UGC policy: Research scholar could lose registration for plagiarism

NEW DELHI: Soon a research scholar could face cancellation of his or her registration if found to have plagiarised someone else's work and a faculty, if found guilty of the same, could be debarred from publishing any work, denied annual increments and disqualified from supervising any student or scholar.

As part of its effort to have zero tolerance towards plagiarism, the University Grants Commission has drafted a new policy to curb the menace. It says the authorities of higher education institution (HEI) can also take sue mote notice of an act of plagiarism and initiate proceedings. As per the draft policy, three types of penalties would be imposed on those found guilty of lifting someone else's work.

While in case of "Level 1 and 2" offence, the researchers would get a chance to revise their work, "Level 3" offence, which is "60% similarities”, would result in cancellation of the researcher's registration. That's for plagiarism in non-core areas.

However, for plagiarism in core areas, there will be 'zero tolerance'.

As per the new policy, "The core work carried out by the student, faculty, staff and researcher shall be based on original ideas and shall be covered by Zero Tolerance Policy on Plagiarism. In case plagiarism is established in the core work claimed, then Plagiarism Disciplinary Authority (PDA) of the HEI shall impose maximum penalty."

Core work shall include abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions and recommendations. The draft calls for setting up of PDA, Academic Misconduct Panel (AMP) and installation of software to detect plagiarism, among other reforms at universities and colleges across the country.

As per the new policy, if any member of the academic community has reason to suspect a case of plagiarism, he or she shall report it to the competent/ designated authority of the university. Upon receipt of such a complaint or allegation, the university authority shall refer the case to the AMP, which in turn shall submit a report to the PDA.

All students submitting thesis, dissertation, term papers, reports or any other such documents to the HEI shall submit an undertaking indicating that the document has been prepared by him or her and that the document is his/ her original work and free of any plagiarism.

Every faculty, researcher and MPhil/ PhD student should be provided access to plagiarism detection tools for checking the content of their scripts and the undertaking shall include the fact that the document has been duly checked through a plagiarism detection tool approved by the HEI.

It will also be mandatory for the HEIs to submit to INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network) soft copies of all M Phil., PhD dissertations and theses carried out in its various departments after the award of degrees for hosting in the digital repository under the "Shodh Ganga e-repository" programme.