India – Right To Education

Right To Education

On 1st April 2010, India joined a group of few countries in the world, with a historic law making education a fundamental right of every child coming into force. Making elementary education an entitlement for children in the 6-14 age group, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 will directly benefit children who do not go to school at present.

In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the operationalisation of the Act. For the first time, education will become a constitutional right. It is a tryst with destiny in the area of education. Children, who had either dropped out of schools or never been to any educational institution, will get elementary education as it will be binding on the part of the local and State governments to ensure that all children in the 6-14 age group get schooling. As per the Act, private educational institutions should reserve 25 per cent seats for children from the weaker sections of society. The Centre and the States have agreed to share the financial burden in the ratio of 55:45, while the Finance Commission has given Rs. 25,000 crore to the States for implementing the Act. The Centre has approved an outlay of Rs.15,000 crore for 2010-2011.

The school management committee or the local authority will identify the drop-outs or out-of-school children aged above six and admit them in classes appropriate to their age after giving special training.

My gentle request to share with everyone you know, it may benefit someone directly or indirectly who really in need…..

Hike in UK student visa fee

LONDON: Britain on Thursday announced a steep hike of £54 in the student visa fee and introduced a new category of ‘dependent relative’ visa as a part of its effort to attract those migrants and visitors who can “make a valued contribution”.

The fees for the students’ visa was raised from £145 to £199 while the dependent relative visa would be charged £1,680.

The increased fees will come into effect from April 6.

“The new visa category of ‘dependent relative’ will allow the grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles and siblings over the age of 18 to join family members settled in the UK or being admitted for the purpose of settlement,” an official announcement said.

The fees for short-term visit visa has been marginally increased from £67 to £68. The Tier 1 General, Investor, Entrepreneur visa fees has been increased from £675 to £690 while Tier 2 visa for skilled workers will charged £270 from £265.

The 5-year multiple entry visa fees increased from £400 to £429 while charges for 10-year visa increased from £500 to £610. The Tier 4 student visa fee increased from £145 to £199. Settlement visa fee will be £585 to £644.

Gujarat’s 1st IT SEZ hires 800 engineers

L&T’s Rs500 cr Knowledge City began operations in January 2010

Gujarat’s first IT/ITeS special economic zone (SEZ) is now humming with activity, what with hundreds of engineers and others working in it. No, it is neither in Ahmedabad nor in Gandhinagar. Instead, engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro’s ITeS SEZ, known as ‘L&T Knowledge City’ is located near Waghodia, in Vadodara.

It has a strength of about 800 engineers. With the beginning of its operations, L&T Knowledge City has become Gujarat’s first IT/ITeS SEZ among 17 notified IT/ITeS SEZs in the state.
The L&T Knowledge City is spread over 112 acres while its SEZ is spread in 10 hectares. The SEZ got approval from the Board of Approval (BoA) in November 2008. But, it could start its operations in mid-January this year after getting all necessary approvals from the Union government. The first phase of the knowledge city has been completed at an expenditure of Rs500 crore. It will meet the high-end design and engineering needs of the hydrocarbon and power sectors. “At present, we are in a transit mode – moving from STPI zone to SEZ. We started with 130 people and later around 700 engineers were recruited. Currently, we have 800 engineers in the Knowledge City,” said a source.

Apart from Vadodara, the company has six other facilities in the country. “We have two facilities each in Bangalore and Chennai and one each in Mysore, Mumbai and Vadodara,” he said.
He did not put a number to exports from Vadodara. “But, with seven facilities we have set a target of exports of $125 million in 2010-11,” he added.

GESIA president Nirav Shah said, “This SEZ has been developed for the company’s own use. But, yes, it has become the state’s first IT SEZ to start operations.”

The condition of other IT/ITeS SEZs is not exciting, says the director of STPI, Gandhinagar, Ajay Sharma. “L&T’s SEZ in Vadodara has been developed by the company, and not by any developer; hence, it could start its operations early compared to other SEZs in the state,” he said

Wipro employee commits $4 Million fraud

Wednesday,17 February 2010

Bangalore: IT major Wipro has tightened internal control in the finance division after it was noticed that one of its employees embezzled crores of rupees in the last three years. The employee, who was working in the ‘controllership’ division within the finance department in the last three years, stole a password and transferred funds from Wipro’s account at a bank, reports M.V. Ramsurya and Pankaj Mishra of Economic Times.

Suresh C Senapaty, Wipro’s CFO has also confirmed the incident. “This has been a case of embezzlement, which we discovered in December, and it’s very unfortunate that this person succumbed to this,” he said. According to him, the company has carried out an investigation and is undertaking actions with respect to stricter adherence to processes.

Following this, Wipro has disbanded the controllership unit. Wipro officials have succeeded in recovering about half the money, but will still face a loss of about $2 million. The CFO said the incident did not involve more than one Wipro employee. “Our investigations have revealed that only this employee was involved, and nobody else in the team had any clue,” Senapaty said.

Apart from setting up an internal investigation team, Wipro has also taken help from external auditors and investigation experts who will vet its processes and certify the soundness of its controls. Wipro has always taken pride in the sound work ethics of its employees and in the strictness of its controls. “We have to be more alert in monitoring, and we need to tighten the processes for ensuring an early warning system and make it tougher,” Senapaty said.

Now, Wipro plans to make it compulsory for its employees to sign an undertaking about sharing of passwords and any unauthorized transactions. The company is also planning to frequently rotate its employees, who are working in sensitive functions within the finance department. Currently, employees in such functions spend around three years before a transfer.

Govt to connect schools and colleges

CHENNAI: The Centre has given its in-principle approval for a project aimed at connecting hundreds of educational institutions in the country
through virtual classrooms, according to Sachin Pilot, the minister of state for communications and IT.

Mr Pilot, who was in Chennai last week for an ICT event called CII Connect, said the ministry plans to provide broadband connection to 5,000 schools and 20,000 colleges located in rural and semi-urban areas to foster e -learning. This project has got the in-principle approval from the government.

“We are holding discussions with the Finance Ministry to work out the modalities and the funding required,” Mr Pilot said. Mr Pilot added that they could dip into the USO fund for the connectivity project, which would give these educational in-stitutions access to a virtual classroom of sorts. The USO or universal services ob-ligation fund was initially set up a few years back through a Parliament Act to fund the government’s rural telephony initiatives.

The Centre will also look at bringing down the cost involved in software develop-ment by different state governments on e-governance projects by developing uni-form common software.

Earlier speaking at the valedictory session of CII Connect, Mr Pilot that the resur-gence of ICT is a Herculean task that needed the collective efforts of industry and government. He also said that while the economic indicators were looking north-wards, IT companies must look at diversifying their portfolio in terms of geogra-phy, as they now derives most of their revenues from the US. They also need to in-novate more to ensure that IT services they provide don’t get commodotised.

Mr Pilot also said that the government is working to improve the rural tele-density from 15% to 40% over the next few years.

Massive search operation underway to trace YSR’s chopper

From remote sensing satellites, IAF’s Sukhoi-30 jet and military helicopters to special commandos and army soldiers a mission of a huge magnitude was underway on Wednesday night to trace the missing helicopter with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy on board.

And no possible rescue tool was left out with local villagers even provided with torches as the search covered six districts most of it in Nallamala forests that used to be dominated by Naxals. Tribal teams, forest and revenue officials were also scouring the area.

ISRO’s Radar Imaging Satellite had been pressed into service and will click photographs of a area on the route of the helicopter while the IAF pressed into service a Su-30MKI fighter aircraft with synthetic aperture radar for high-resolution ground mapping.

The radar of the Sukhoi aircraft which can sweep the six districts in a jiffy can help in finding out if anything is amiss. And two mid-air refuelling aircraft will be in service so that the Sukhoi does not have to go their base.

The air-to-air refuelling will help the Sukhoi to continue its search for longer hours as the aircraft is capable of operating day and night. The Sukhois have an endurance level of three to four hours of continuous flying, but it could be enhanced to about 10 hours at a stretch with refuelling.

Several boats were also scouring River Krishna. Chief Secretary P Ramakanth Reddy said the state government is also trying to seek help of the US Defence department to have real-time satellite imagery of the area where the Bell-430 helicopter went missing.

Eleven choopers including four from the IAF were also pressed into service. The Indian Army has deployed over 250 personnel with night vision devices to carry out search operations in the Nallamala forest area.

EU, African Pact Aims to Boost Trade

Six African countries say they will open up their markets to goods and services from the European Union.

Four of the countries – Mauritius, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe – signed the agreement with the EU Saturday, while two other countries – Madagascar and Comoros – say they will formally sign the deal in the near future.

The African countries have been able to sell many goods to the EU since 2008, and the deal ensures full access to the EU market will continue. In return, the African countries have agreed to remove tariffs on EU goods over the next 15 years.

EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton says the deal will help the eastern and southern African nations diversify their economies and create a more stable economic environment.

She says several other countries from the region – Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi and Sudan – have also been involved in trade talks and could also join the pact.

Goods from the six countries that have already agreed to the trade deal make up only a fraction of a percent of all EU imports, worth almost $4.6 billion in 2008.

The African countries imported about $6.2 billion worth of goods, mostly mechanical and electrical components and vehicles, over the same time span..

Suicide Car Bombers Kills 15 in Northern Iraq

Iraqi police say two separate suicide car bombings in northern Iraq have killed at least 15 people and wounded at least 30 others.

Police say the first attack came early Saturday in the town of Shirqat. They say a car bomber targeted a police station killing at least nine people and wounding several others.

The second attack came about two hours later in the town of Sinjar near Mosul where several people were killed when a car-bomb exploded.

The attacks are the latest in a rash of violence in Iraq, particularly in the north, where security is not as tight as elsewhere.

On Friday, U.S. military officials in Iraq said two American soldiers died from wounds suffered in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad.

Also Friday, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad to mourn the death of Shi’ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. His body arrived in Iraq for burial, two days after he died in neighboring Iran from lung cancer.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says Hakim’s loss comes at a “sensitive” time for Iraq, with Parliamentary elections set for January.

Hakim headed Iraq’s largest Shi’ite political party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. His death comes just days after Prime Minister Maliki’s Dawa party split from a Shi’ite coalition that has dominated Iraq’s government since 2005. On Friday, Hakim’s son, Ammar al-Hakim, called on parties that decided not to join the coalition to reconsider their stance.

Security was tight around Shi’ite mosques, shrines and political party offices in Baghdad during the massive funeral procession, which is expected to end with Hakim’s burial Saturday in the southern holy city of Najaf.

Kennedy Death – Spotlight on Brain Cancer

Senator Edward Kennedy, a legendary political figure in the United States, died on Tuesday after a year long battle with malignant glioma, the most common type of brain cancer among adults. Although he had the most up-to-date treatments – surgery at Duke University Medical Center, chemotherapy and radiation – he was not able to survive the disease. Doctors still don’t know what causes brain tumors and the National Cancer Institute says the outlook for patients with malignant gliomas is poor.

Senator Kennedy’s brain tumor was diagnosed in May 2008 after he had a seizure, a frequent symptom of brain cancer.

At Duke University Medical Center, he had surgery to remove the tumor. His doctors said it was a success and Kennedy was discharged six days later.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Anthony Caputy says success means removing about 90 percent of the tumor. “Because then, the outcome is much better for the other treatments if you get to 90 percent,” he said.

Kennedy had what’s called a craniotomy, which involves opening the skull to expose the surface of the brain.

Surgeons then determine the exact location of the tumor, often with the help of an MRI or CT (cat) scan.

During part of the procedure, patients can be brought back to consciousness. That helps the doctors avoid cutting in areas that control speech. “The brain will not feel any pain, so you can stimulate while the patient is awake and test the motor function, the speech functions while the patient is awake which allows very accurate determination of where these eloquent areas of the brain are,” Dr. Caputy explains.

Doctors still don’t know what causes brain tumors. They do know what the risk factors are and Senator Kennedy had them all. Men are more likely to get brain tumors than women, as are white people and those 70 years or older.

Researchers are trying to discover the cause so they can treat it better. Dr. Markus Bredel at Northwestern University analyzes the genetic makeup of brain tumors, specifically gene mutations within glioblastomas, an even more aggressive form of the disease. But there are hundreds of thousands of genes in the tumors’ genome.

“The difficult question is which of those many, many genes are actually important in the disease process and which are just simply bystanders to the process,” Dr. Bredel said.

Senator Kennedy’s outcome was expected. And American flags are now at half staff in his honor. The National Cancer Institute says brain tumors rank among the highest causes of cancer deaths.

Doctors caution that even with treatment, these aggressive tumors always come back. What’s not known is when.

by VOA

Apple Signs Deal to Launch iPhone in China

By VOA News
28 August 2009

China Unicom Chairman and CEO, Chang Xiaobing, speaks next to a screen showing the 3G iPhone, Hong Kong, 28 Aug 2009

China is the world’s biggest mobile phone market with more than 650 million mobile phone accounts.

Unicom would be the first Chinese phone company to formally support the iPhone network, although thousands of counterfeit iPhones have been smuggled into the country.

Details of the agreement are yet to be announced, but news reports say the sales will start in the last quarter of this year.

Reports also say the iPhone version for the Chinese market will be modified to satisfy a government rule that requires the removal of the phone’s wireless Internet function.

China Unicom expects to attract some of the users from rivals China Mobile and China Telecom.

Apple is competing in the market for touch-pad smart phones with rival Blackberry (by Research in Motion) and devices that use Google’s Android software.

VOA