AIEEE CCB

According to the new system outlined by the Central Counselling Board (CCB) of AIEEE, students allotted a seat in any round till the first three rounds of counselling will have to take provisional admission. This change practically extinguishes the option that the students so far had, that of moving to a better institute and a branch of their choice even after reporting for admission. Under the new rules, there is room only for 'internal sliding' (movement of position within the institute) that can be availed of, with the option of movement across NITs over. In short, it will leave students trapped in NITs not necessarily of their choice: an irony in an age where there is so much of premium on choice. With results of third round of counselling to come on Sunday, students from all over the country have launched online protests (protestagainstccb.webs.com and entrancecorner.com) demanding a change in the rules so that deserving students get NITs of their choice. Students have even found a major inconsistency in CCB's argument that "sliding" will be possible within the institution. "If a student cannot change his institution how will a seat be vacated to upgrade any other student's branch," asks one student. The third flaw being pointed out is that after the fourth round of counselling, not so popular branches in top NITs will still be vacant and these will go to low-ranked students. Upgradation in the same NIT, students say, can also create a situation of a low-ranker getting a better branch. How? Students explain it through an illustration. Suppose a student with an AIR of 6,500 gets computer engineering in NIT Durgapur and another student with AIR 6,000 gets computer engineering in NIT Allahabad. In case the second student chooses to join any other engineering college like IIT, BITS and others, the vacancy in Allahabad will go to a student within the institute, whatever be his rank, and not to someone with a better rank. Students feel the flaw can still be rectified. They say there will be a large number of dropout seats after the fourth round of counselling since many students who have got through to other engineering colleges will wait till that round. But the vacancies thus created will not help students who have already taken admission in NITs after the third or fourth round. Therefore, students have demanded open upgradation — from one institute to another. They also want CCB to allow one round of counselling after refunds have been made to those who did not take admission.

UKTU DEHRADUN, COUNSELLING

The Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun has announced its counselling program for the admissions in the first year of B.Tech. course conducted by UKTU and its affiliated colleges. According to an advertisement released by UKTU, the admissions will be based on the state ranks of AIEEE 2010. Hence, the candidates appeared and qualified the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (organized by CBSE) 2010 – and who are domicile of Uttarakhand (UK) state or have passed 10+2 from any institute of UK, are eligible for admission in B.Tech. in UKTU.The UKTU counselling for various branches of B.Tech. first year will held between 8th July and 8th August 2010. The candidates can get all related information from the website ukcounseling.nic.in, which is currently under construction. The counselling fee will be accepted through bank challan. The counselling will be held in three phases starting from 8th July.If you have not appeared in AIEEE, you can still have a chance to get into engineering colleges of Uttarakhand. UKTU will consider such students during third phase of counselling starting from 2nd August.After the last date of online registration on 20th July, students will be allotted seats which will be informed through SMS on 21st July and reporting date will begin from 22nd to 25th of July. Candidate should note that their User-id or login id is their Roll number and candidates should not enter any special characters in address field to avoid error message during registration.Candidates who have deposited fee before 14th can register now, for others bank data will be available shortly. Candidate has to type his full 9 digit transaction id and transaction date at time of counselling For such students, the merit will be generated according to the 10+2 marks. Students are advised to follow these websites for more information: uktech.in, ukcounseling.nic.in, uk.gov.in/uktu.

http://gov.ua.nic.in/uktu/documents/AIEEE_2010_Counseling.pdf

Tathagat Avtar Tulsi

He completed high school at the age of 9, had a B.Sc at 10, an M.Sc in Physics at 12, and a PhD in Quantum Computing from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, at 21. In 2003, Time named him among the world’s seven most gifted youngsters. Now, at age 22, Patna-born prodigy Tathagat Avtar Tulsi has become possibly the youngest assistant professor at IIT. Tulsi will teach Physics at IIT Bombay from July 19, having chosen the institute over Waterloo University, Canada, and the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Bhopal, both of which had offered him jobs.

Mission-Ascribed Career

With 16 of its alumni having made it to the Civil Services this year and another 152 having cracked the IIT-JEE, the government-run Navodaya schools have set their aim higher, at a figure of 10,000. Tying up with coaching institutes and tutorial centres, the chain of 560-plus Jawahar Navodaya schools spread across the country plans to help that many of its Class XII students clear national- and state-level competitive entrance examinations annually. Under the new scheme tentatively christened ‘Mission-Ascribed Career’, the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) will chart out everything from coaching to loans at concessional rates for its students. The 16 alumni who cleared the UPSC Civil Services exam made it to the Indian Revenue Service and Indian Forest Service, apart from other allied services. If some cleared the IIT-JEE, other students secured admission to regional engineering colleges through high scores in the AIEEE and other examinations. Still others cleared medical entrance exams to prestigious colleges.

DU to offer MSc Earth Science course

The Delhi University will offer a five-year integrated MSc Earth Science programme from this year. The course will be conducted by the Department of Geology and will be supported by other departments under the Faculty of Science. The duration of the course is 10 semesters spread over five academic sessions. The number of seats for the course is 25. Candidates who have passed the 10+2 exams in Science will be considered eligible for admission to the course. The admission will be open in two categories for students.
Category-1 will include those who have taken the IIT-JEE. These aspirants will have to submit their score with their application.
Category-2 will be those who don’t have their IIT-JEE score but have passed their 10+ 2 exam with Mathematics.
Initially, the admission will be on the basis of IIT-JEE merit list. However, depending on the vacancies available, students of Category-2 will be also considered for admission. Application forms can be downloaded from the university website, (http://www.du.ac.in).

Coaching Centres To Turn Into Colleges

State government has granted an IIT coaching class permission to convert all its six centres in Mumbai into full-fledged junior colleges. IITian's Pace. It has started a charitable trust, Pace Education Trust, which will run the new junior colleges. The government feels with a large number of students applying for the science stream, there is a need for more science colleges. Hence, the special permission for Pace to start Class XI from the academic year 2010-'11. The new junior colleges will be permanently unaided. In addition to physics, chemistry and math, subjects that are already being taught at the six centres, Pace will now hire language teachers for the colleges.

TUSSLE OVER IIT TOPER

HRD ministry has ordered a CBI inquiry into specific allegations against two IIT coaching institutes FIITJEE and Aakash Institute for misusing the name of Nitin Jain, topper of IITJEE and AIEEE in 2009, for commercial gains.HRD ministry has already set in motion the process of change in JEE to break the stranglehold of coaching institutes. Though the initial inquiry might be limited to these two institutes, sources said making false claims about toppers is quite widespread.The HRD ministry's action comes in the wake of a complaint by Chiranji Lal Jain, father of Nitin Jain, to Sibal seeking his intervention.

IIT-JEE REFORM

The IIT-JEE panel committee comprising of IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Madras, and IIT-Bombay and IIT-Roorkee directors submitted a report insisting on 70 percent weightage to be given to Class XII performance of students while selecting them for admission to any one of the 15 IITs.The panel committee further said for IIT-JEE entrance test to be replaced by a National Aptitude Test (NAT) which will be considered as a comprehensive examination to test the students’ inner talent abilities than confining it to certain specific subjects or objective type questions.The NAT examination being put forward for consideration by the ministry will have questions from all streams of Std XII level, Science and Humanities. About 40,000 students will be shortlisted, who secure good scores in NAT for once again attempting an add-on test to be eligible for admission to any of the 15 IITs.Now, the IITs are acquiring students on the basis of cut-off percent prepared in view of the marks scored by students in IIT Joint Entrance Examination. Consideration of Class XII marks in the cut-off would ensure that meritorious students get into the IIT stream.The HRD ministry and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) seem headed for a confrontation over drastic examination reforms proposed by a panel of IIT directors. The ministry is unlikely to allow the IITs a two-tier entrance exam structure, as proposed by a panel headed by IIT-Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya.The two-tier structure suggested by the IITs comprises a common aptitude test and an additional test for those who cross the first hurdle. The additional test was proposed to accommodate the faculty, who are against scrapping the JEE. Over 1,300 IIT alumni too have petitioned the government against abolishing the JEE. But it had also said it needed further consultations with stakeholders and may fine-tune its recommendations. After the faculty opposed scrapping JEE, the panel suggested an additional test. It hoped JEE could continue as this additional test.