The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday raided the state-run Punjab Engineering College (PEC) in Chandigarh and booked 11 students, including five girls, for submitting forged documents to secure admissions under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota.

The raid was conducted following complaints of irregularities in admissions to seats reserved for NRI students, CBI officials said.

PEC is the alma mater of famous astronaut Kalpana Chawla, the first India-born woman and the second person of Indian origin to fly in space.

"During the last few days, we had received a couple of complaints regarding students taking admissions in various engineering streams at the PEC under the NRI quota by procuring forged documents. Therefore, we conducted a surprise raid at the PEC campus today," Mahesh Aggarwal, deputy inspector general of the CBI, Chandigarh, told IANS on Wednesday.

"During the raid, we found gross irregularities in the documents submitted by some students. We have booked 11 engineering students and several others and started our investigation. The accused students, who originally belonged to different districts of Punjab and Haryana, submitted the documents showing themselves as Nepal residents," he added.

CBI sources said the agency had received complaints that irregularities had been committed by the college authorities in admissions to NRI seats.

Talking about the modus operandi, the official spokesperson of CBI said here late Wednesday, "The accused students had secured admissions under Direct Admissions of Students Abroad (DASA) scheme. Under the DASA scheme, foreign nationals, persons of Indian origin and Indian nationals studying abroad are eligible for admissions. The students are required to appear in Scholastic Aptitude Test- II, besides fulfilling other academic qualifications.

"The mastermind behind this organized crime is Nishi Kant, a resident of Hisar town in Haryana," said the spokesperson.

CBI officials said that Kant had managed these admissions on the basis of forged documents by charging Rs.10 to 15 lakh from each student. A CBI team from Chandigarh also raided Kant's residence in Hisar on Wednesday.

The PEC is a leading engineering institution in the region and is run by the Chandigarh administration.

"We have seized some documents for further scrutiny. We will see whether any PEC official is involved in this racket," said Aggarwal.

When Pranay Vats couldn’t do well in CAT last year, he pinned all his hopes on the FMS entrance, which is normally held after most of the other B-school entrance tests. Though the syllabi of both CAT and FMS are similar, the major difference lies in the length of the FMS paper, and one needs to be relatively faster to solve it.

Thus, one must practise as much as one can in the time left after the CAT exam. In CAT, you are supposed to solve 60 questions in two hours and 15 minutes while for FMS there are 200 questions to be solved in just two hours.

“After having scored 98 percentile, I didn’t get a single call from any of the IIMs, but was very happy to have got through to FMS last year. As I am a Delhiite, my parents wanted me to study here instead of the IIMs,” says Vats, now a first year MBA student.

Quantitative abilities
For sections in quantitative and analytical abilities, he suggests only one solution – to practise. “You must understand the concepts well and then practise a lot. You must attempt the test papers of the last three years carefully,” he says. Being an electronics and communications engineer from the Delhi College of Engineering (Now DTU), he didn’t face much difficulty in preparing for the quantitative and analytical section. “For engineers, it doesn’t require much preparation in maths but I certainly did a lot of practise to get the best score,” he says.

While talking about the highly competitive nature of the FMS test, he says: “If you look at the ratio between the number of applicants and the seats, you will find that it is highly skewed (More than 75,000 students are expected to sit for a handful of seats - this year, the number is 226). To be among the select few, you ought to be thoroughly prepared in quant (quantitative ability).”

Verbal ability
About verbal ability and English comprehension, Vats relied completely on reading. “For other sections, I read the notes provided by the coaching academy while in English, I did exhaustive reading from multiple sources. From reading a business daily (Mint) to fiction and non-fiction, I laid my hands on myriad styles and genres. From Harry Potter to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, I read everything," he says.

Vats doesn’t approve of the tendency to mug up word meanings from the study material to enhance vocabulary. He resorted to a slightly improved approach – carrying a pocket dictionary while preparing for the exams and referred to it whenever a “new” word in the text caught his eye. “If you constantly refer to the dictionary while reading a book, there are greater chances that you will not forget their meanings,” says he.

Besides reading books and papers, he used to watch the debates on the national English news channels regularly. “These debates help you develop a perspective of your own, which will help you at the time of GD and interviews too,” he adds.
FMS entrance exam for 2011-13 batch
Date of entrance: December 5, 2010
Registration closes: October 15, 2010
Number of seats in full time MBA: 226
Number of expected applicants: More than 75,000

Eligibility criteria: Any graduate with a minimum of 50 per cent marks in arts/ commerce/ social sciences; 55 per cent in sciences or 60 per cent if it's in maths/ statistics/ medicine/ engineering or 60 per cent in the case of second degree

As the city counts down days to the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) being hosted by Delhi, Delhiites have a lot to look forward to. A three-week campaign, called ‘Go India! Go For Gold!’ has been launched by the CWG Organising Committee in collaboration with HT Media Limited, in order to keep

the game spirit up. Lately a lot of negativity and controversies had surrounded the Games and now it is high time that we become proud of the fact that our city was chosen as the venue for holding CWG.
Apart from creating awareness about the Games, this unique HT initiative will provide moral support to Indian athletes who are participating in the mega event, and encourage them to strive for gold at the Games. Some of the best names in Indian sports, such as badminton champion Saina Nehwal, Olympic Gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, Olympic bronze medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar and champion boxer Vijender Singh, will be part of the gala affair.

The ‘Go India! Go For Gold!’ campaign hopes to involve as many people as it can. Giant canvas panels will be installed all over the city. They will be seen schools, colleges, offices, markets and malls for people to show their support with colourful ‘high five’ hand imprints. This will be followed by a public march called the Go for Gold march on September 19. All the canvas panels filled with handprints will then be put up on both sides of the marching route.

Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the CWG Organising Committee, was one of the first people to put his handprint in green colour on the canvas. He said, “Ultimately, people after the games will ask how many medals India won. They will probably not talk how beautiful the stadium is. So this (campaign) is to encourage the sports persons.”

The initiative has got the youngsters throughout the city excited about the Games. “This is very cool way to create awareness about the games. It will definitely get all of us excited as we people will get to be a part of this in such a fun and novel way. I’m excited,” says Richa Chaturvedi, a student of Jaypee University.

“I think it is good that they are building poistivity around the Games,” says Rohit Madhok, first year student of Atma Ram college, South Campus, Delhi University. “I mean I have had enough about everybody blasting the Games. People should now start appreciating the hard work that this city is putting in for the Games. Let’s make it memorable.”

A University Grants Commission (UGC) expert committee has suggested that committees in universities must be set up for the purpose of reviewing the safety measure undertaken while handling and disposing of radioactive as ell as other hazardous substances by at institutions.

The decision was taken by UGC in order to ensure that the guidelines stipulated by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and the Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules are being strictly implemented at varsities.

According to the panel constituted after the Cobalt-60 mishap of Delhi University, the University Safety Committee that will be set up for the purpose would help in ensuring that all institutions are implementing the safety guidelines issued to them for the management and disposal of toxic or hazardous substances.

The expert committee has presented its interim report to the UGC and has recommended that an apex committee at the level of the UGC must be formed in order to monitor the safety committees at university levels.

The apex committee at the UGC level would consist of experts from the fields of radiation safety, radioactive waste management and hazardous materials management. Safety committees of universities will be required to send their annual reports on the safety measures undertaken by varsities to the apex committee.

Universities would also be encouraged by the UGC to promote refresher courses for students as well as staff members. The syllabus for new entrants to the varsity would have to include courses on safety.

Also, according to the recommendations of the expert committee, it would be necessary for laboratories at universities to prepare Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) which would have to be displayed prominently in both English as well as the vernacular languages in laboratories.

UGC has also been asked to ensure that reports in the prescribes format are received from all universities and institution and have been signed by their Vice Chancellors or other head of institution.

The expert committee revealed that it had asked for information regarding storage and handling of hazardous substances used by students from over 500 universities but only 21 had responded back.

At a time when the Commonwealth Games are mired in one controversy after another, here's one reason to feel proud. The training grounds at Jamia University are not only complete but have been constructed at lower than what was budgeted.

How has the university managed to pull this off at a time when the might of the Organising Committee and the Sports Ministry has failed to deliver?

The Commonwealth Games Organising Committee gave Jamia University Rs. 40 crore and 22 months to build a rugby training ground, and an indoor table-tennis court for training purposes.

Well within that cost and time Jamia University has also built, a lawn tennis court, a basket ball court, even a jogging track.

All of them at par with international standards.

''We made a quick assessment that we can do it, and save money. They gave us Rs. 40 crore and we finished it in Rs. 38 crore,'' said Najeeb Jung, Vice Chancellor, Jamia Milia Islamia.

Ironically finishing work early has not got the university any praise.

On the contrary the Organising Committee is yet to take charge of the venues which have been ready for the last two months.

This has posed additional burden on the University as it has to shell out money for its security.

"The inauguration was done by Mr. Gill on the August 3. And since then we have been ready for the takeover. But I think that they have been busy with sundry works,'' said Najeeb Jung, Vice Chancellor, Jamia Milia Islamia.

At a time when most venues are under the scanner for cost overruns and missed deadlines the Jamia training ground is an exception.

And while investigators seek answers of just what went wrong at the other venues, it may be well worth the while to find out how Jamia got it right.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cwg-venues-jamia-gets-it-right-50733?cp

The Delhi High Court today flayed the Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU) for not conducting the entrance test for 2010 for a post-graduate course in medical science, as per the Indian Medical Council (IMC) Act and for creating confusion among students. A Division Bench of Chief

Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan also asked the Centre not to enhance the number of seats and allot the same to the state quota. "We require the University to be well-guided and remain within the framework of IMC Act. We expect the erstwhile Medical Council to make its position clear so that this kind of confusion does not occur," the Bench said.

The Bench was hearing a batch of petitions filed by students who were not able to qualify the common entrance test 2010-11, challenging the single judge’s order to the GGSIP University to hold the second entrance test on April 30.