Archive for March 2010
Knowledge network to benefit all students by March 2011
Thousands of students are expected to have access to the world’s best online study material, research laboratories and faculty members when work on the National Knowledge Network (NKN) is completed by March 2011. Recommended by Sam Pitroda who headed the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), the network has till date connected around 60 educational institutions in the country, and over six virtual classrooms have been set up. The remaining 1,440 institutes are expected to be connected by March 2011. In a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government approved the establishment of the NKN with an outlay of Rs. 5,990 crore to be implemented by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) over a period of 10 years. “This financial approval will help put the entire process on the fast track. While the infrastructure will be in place by 2011, improvements will keep taking place over the next 10 years as users also have to be ready to use the network; connect to the virtual labs, etc., which will happen over the next few years,” said the professor.
The NKN was announced by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech of 2008-09. Initially, Rs. 100 crore was allocated to the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT to establish the network.
The architecture of NKN will be scalable and the network will consist of an ultra-high speed core in the multiples of 10 gbps and upwards. The broadband network will have a 100 mbps or higher access bandwidth — almost all user institutions, therefore, will have to upgrade their networks to be able to cater to these speeds. While several institutions may already have an advanced network, a large number of institutes will need to upgrade their infrastructure on campus.
“The experimental stage has been slowly expanding in the last few months. We have so far connected 60 institutes including all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) including the new ones, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, atomic energy labs and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research. We are hoping to put the entire network in place by March 2011,” confirmed an IIT Madras professor, who is a network expert, involved in the process.
The NKN will have about 25 core Point of Presence (PoPs) and 600 secondary PoPs. It will connect around 1500 institutions. Setting up of core network is expected to be completed in a span of 24 months. This network facility will enable country-wide class rooms to be conducted. This will be especially useful where there is a severe shortage of trained faculty. A lecture by a professor in one IIT institute can be attended to by all institutions connected to this network. The network is expected to encourage sharing of knowledge, specialised resources and collaborative research.
In addition, there will be a one-time capital investment to upgrade the local area networks (LANs) of these institutions to a 100 mbps capability. The NKC also planned to create virtual classrooms through this linking of universities and educational institutions. It is focused on five critical areas of knowledge related to access, concepts, creation, applications and services.
This includes a variety of subject areas such as languages, translations, libraries, networks, portals, affirmative action, distance learning, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, application in agriculture, health, small- and medium-scale industries and e-governance. Once the linking of the colleges is successful, NKC had suggested to extend the concept to schools too. Health, education, grid computing, agriculture and e-governance are the main applications identified for implementation and delivery on NKN.
Source: Business Standard, March 29, 2010
Knowledge network to benefit all students by March 2011
Thousands of students are expected to have access to the world’s best online study material, research laboratories and faculty members when work on the National Knowledge Network (NKN) is completed by March 2011. Recommended by Sam Pitroda who headed the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), the network has till date connected around 60 educational institutions in the country, and over six virtual classrooms have been set up. The remaining 1,440 institutes are expected to be connected by March 2011. In a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government approved the establishment of the NKN with an outlay of Rs. 5,990 crore to be implemented by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) over a period of 10 years. “This financial approval will help put the entire process on the fast track. While the infrastructure will be in place by 2011, improvements will keep taking place over the next 10 years as users also have to be ready to use the network; connect to the virtual labs, etc., which will happen over the next few years,” said the professor.
The NKN was announced by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech of 2008-09. Initially, Rs. 100 crore was allocated to the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT to establish the network.
The architecture of NKN will be scalable and the network will consist of an ultra-high speed core in the multiples of 10 gbps and upwards. The broadband network will have a 100 mbps or higher access bandwidth — almost all user institutions, therefore, will have to upgrade their networks to be able to cater to these speeds. While several institutions may already have an advanced network, a large number of institutes will need to upgrade their infrastructure on campus.
“The experimental stage has been slowly expanding in the last few months. We have so far connected 60 institutes including all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) including the new ones, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, atomic energy labs and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research. We are hoping to put the entire network in place by March 2011,” confirmed an IIT Madras professor, who is a network expert, involved in the process.
The NKN will have about 25 core Point of Presence (PoPs) and 600 secondary PoPs. It will connect around 1500 institutions. Setting up of core network is expected to be completed in a span of 24 months. This network facility will enable country-wide class rooms to be conducted. This will be especially useful where there is a severe shortage of trained faculty. A lecture by a professor in one IIT institute can be attended to by all institutions connected to this network. The network is expected to encourage sharing of knowledge, specialised resources and collaborative research.
In addition, there will be a one-time capital investment to upgrade the local area networks (LANs) of these institutions to a 100 mbps capability. The NKC also planned to create virtual classrooms through this linking of universities and educational institutions. It is focused on five critical areas of knowledge related to access, concepts, creation, applications and services.
This includes a variety of subject areas such as languages, translations, libraries, networks, portals, affirmative action, distance learning, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, application in agriculture, health, small- and medium-scale industries and e-governance. Once the linking of the colleges is successful, NKC had suggested to extend the concept to schools too. Health, education, grid computing, agriculture and e-governance are the main applications identified for implementation and delivery on NKN.
Source: Business Standard, March 29, 2010
IIM-A to explore global tie-ups for doctoral programme
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), is mulling international collaborations for its Fellow Programme in Management (FPM). Speaking at the institute’s 45th convocation, Samir Barua, Director of IIM-A, said, “The doctoral programme of the institute, the FPM, will set a record this year by graduating the largest batch of students in the history of the programme. The institute has received proposals from foreign academic institutions for cross-border collaboration with their doctoral programmes. This possibility will be explored going forward.”
A total of 424 graduating students from IIM-A’s post graduate and fellow programmes received diploma/title at the convocation. Meanwhile, the chief guest, C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said, “While food prices will improve after the rabi harvest, the overall inflation will remain high for the next two months. I don’t think the growth story will be seriously affected. The economy will pick up and I expect it to grow by 8-8.5 per cent.”
Source: Business Standard, March 28, 2010
IIM-A to explore global tie-ups for doctoral programme
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), is mulling international collaborations for its Fellow Programme in Management (FPM). Speaking at the institute’s 45th convocation, Samir Barua, Director of IIM-A, said, “The doctoral programme of the institute, the FPM, will set a record this year by graduating the largest batch of students in the history of the programme. The institute has received proposals from foreign academic institutions for cross-border collaboration with their doctoral programmes. This possibility will be explored going forward.”
A total of 424 graduating students from IIM-A’s post graduate and fellow programmes received diploma/title at the convocation. Meanwhile, the chief guest, C. Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said, “While food prices will improve after the rabi harvest, the overall inflation will remain high for the next two months. I don’t think the growth story will be seriously affected. The economy will pick up and I expect it to grow by 8-8.5 per cent.”
Source: Business Standard, March 28, 2010
Scholarship for south Indians at Cambridge
The signing ceremony for a new long-term endowment, Pemanda Monappa Scholarship, which will guarantee one fully paid annual scholarship for south Indian students to pursue post-graduate studies at Cambridge University, was held at the British Council on March 25, 2010 at Chennai. Speaking at the function, Editor of The Hindu N. Ravi referred to the “long and glorious connection” between India and Cambridge University, an institution which has so far produced three Indian Prime Ministers, including Manmohan Singh. Mr. Ravi added that it would no longer have to be the case that “only those from the most privileged backgrounds in south India” could afford to study at one of the world’s greatest universities.
The generosity of the endowment, said Michael O’Sullivan, Director of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, would ensure the long-term future of the scholarship. He hoped that it would “change the life of someone who will change the lives of others”. British Deputy High Commissioner Mike Nithavrianakis said that he fully supported the new programme, and praised the attitude of Indian students for placing so much importance on their education.
President of the Association of British Scholars and former bureaucrat P. M. Belliappa is responsible for establishing the new scholarship in the name of his father, Pemanda Monappa, a highly decorated police officer who served in all the four southern States. Mr. Belliappa expressed his support for the increased internationalisation of higher education and a hope that the new scholarship, in time, “would produce another Manmohan Singh”.
Source: The Hindu, March 26, 2010
Scholarship for south Indians at Cambridge
The signing ceremony for a new long-term endowment, Pemanda Monappa Scholarship, which will guarantee one fully paid annual scholarship for south Indian students to pursue post-graduate studies at Cambridge University, was held at the British Council on March 25, 2010 at Chennai. Speaking at the function, Editor of The Hindu N. Ravi referred to the “long and glorious connection” between India and Cambridge University, an institution which has so far produced three Indian Prime Ministers, including Manmohan Singh. Mr. Ravi added that it would no longer have to be the case that “only those from the most privileged backgrounds in south India” could afford to study at one of the world’s greatest universities.
The generosity of the endowment, said Michael O’Sullivan, Director of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, would ensure the long-term future of the scholarship. He hoped that it would “change the life of someone who will change the lives of others”. British Deputy High Commissioner Mike Nithavrianakis said that he fully supported the new programme, and praised the attitude of Indian students for placing so much importance on their education.
President of the Association of British Scholars and former bureaucrat P. M. Belliappa is responsible for establishing the new scholarship in the name of his father, Pemanda Monappa, a highly decorated police officer who served in all the four southern States. Mr. Belliappa expressed his support for the increased internationalisation of higher education and a hope that the new scholarship, in time, “would produce another Manmohan Singh”.
Source: The Hindu, March 26, 2010
IIM Rohtak plans tie-up with Indiana University B-school
The upcoming Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Rohtak in Haryana, which will begin its first session this year, plans to tie up with US-based Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “The Kelley School is partnering with IIM Rohtak (IIM-R) and its dean has already visited the site. This would be a strategic partnership for student and faculty exchange, joint curriculum designing and research. It would be a partnership on the same lines as IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has with Harvard University,” said Deepender Hooda, MP from Rohtak, and son of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Incidentally, Deepender himself graduated from Kelley.
IIM Lucknow (IIM-L), which is mentoring IIM-R, has confirmed that the first semester classes will begin from July and end in September. “Kelley school’s dean visited Rohtak and talks are on. But all of this will happen once a full-time director and faculty are in place. However, on an immediate basis, we have to start with the programme and other short courses,” corroborated IIM-L Director Devi Singh.
In August last year, the government approved setting up four IIMs at Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattishargh) and Rohtak (Haryana) in 2009-10, which would become functional from the academic session 2010-11. The Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management would be the flagship programme with an intake of 140 students though in the first year several executive programmes including those in the public policy domain focusing on civic and municipal services would be started. The projected Eleventh Five Year Plan outlay for each of the four IIMs to be established during 2009-10 is Rs. 166 crore. In the second phase, the rest of three IIMs are to be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan in 2010-11. The intake of students would be 560 per year after the second phase.
Singh said the Kelley School had shown interest and a dialogue between the directors was on. The construction of the 170-acre IIM-R campus is on, but for the time being, classes will be held in Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, according to a memorandum of understanding signed between the two institutes.
Source: Business Standard, March 25, 2010
IIM Rohtak plans tie-up with Indiana University B-school
The upcoming Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Rohtak in Haryana, which will begin its first session this year, plans to tie up with US-based Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. “The Kelley School is partnering with IIM Rohtak (IIM-R) and its dean has already visited the site. This would be a strategic partnership for student and faculty exchange, joint curriculum designing and research. It would be a partnership on the same lines as IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has with Harvard University,” said Deepender Hooda, MP from Rohtak, and son of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Incidentally, Deepender himself graduated from Kelley.
IIM Lucknow (IIM-L), which is mentoring IIM-R, has confirmed that the first semester classes will begin from July and end in September. “Kelley school’s dean visited Rohtak and talks are on. But all of this will happen once a full-time director and faculty are in place. However, on an immediate basis, we have to start with the programme and other short courses,” corroborated IIM-L Director Devi Singh.
In August last year, the government approved setting up four IIMs at Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattishargh) and Rohtak (Haryana) in 2009-10, which would become functional from the academic session 2010-11. The Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management would be the flagship programme with an intake of 140 students though in the first year several executive programmes including those in the public policy domain focusing on civic and municipal services would be started. The projected Eleventh Five Year Plan outlay for each of the four IIMs to be established during 2009-10 is Rs. 166 crore. In the second phase, the rest of three IIMs are to be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan in 2010-11. The intake of students would be 560 per year after the second phase.
Singh said the Kelley School had shown interest and a dialogue between the directors was on. The construction of the 170-acre IIM-R campus is on, but for the time being, classes will be held in Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, according to a memorandum of understanding signed between the two institutes.
Source: Business Standard, March 25, 2010
Columbia University to set up research hub in Mumbai
Mumbai will soon have a high-tech research centre, and it will be set up by the world-renowned Columbia University from New York. To be operational from August, the centre will house faculty and students who will work on projects related to sustainable development, energy, climate change, education, water and health among others. The Mumbai centre will explore possible collaborations on research projects with city institutes like IIT Bombay and the Mumbai University. “We already have university-wide research centres in Beijing, Amman (in Jordan), and Paris, and this will be our fourth,” said Nirupam Bajpai, senior development advisor at Columbia’s Earth Institute. He will direct the Mumbai global centre, which was formally launched on March 22, 2010.
For those interested in policy-related matters, health, agriculture, etc., the centre proposes to offer lecture series. “Our faculty can put together lecture series for academicians, members of the Parliament, civil servants and others on issues of global strategy, water management and education where India is grappling to find solutions,” he said.
The centre will, however, not offer any courses, nor will it grant any degrees. Though some US universities have built branch campuses and degree-granting schools abroad, Columbia wants to take a different direction with the global centres. They are meant to act as flexible regional hubs for various activities and resources meant to enhance quality of research and learning. “We’re not thinking of bringing a full-fledged campus here now. We won’t be able to do justice to it. Also, getting faculty will be a challenge,” said Bajpai.
Source: DNA, March 23, 2010
Columbia University to set up research hub in Mumbai
Mumbai will soon have a high-tech research centre, and it will be set up by the world-renowned Columbia University from New York. To be operational from August, the centre will house faculty and students who will work on projects related to sustainable development, energy, climate change, education, water and health among others. The Mumbai centre will explore possible collaborations on research projects with city institutes like IIT Bombay and the Mumbai University. “We already have university-wide research centres in Beijing, Amman (in Jordan), and Paris, and this will be our fourth,” said Nirupam Bajpai, senior development advisor at Columbia’s Earth Institute. He will direct the Mumbai global centre, which was formally launched on March 22, 2010.
For those interested in policy-related matters, health, agriculture, etc., the centre proposes to offer lecture series. “Our faculty can put together lecture series for academicians, members of the Parliament, civil servants and others on issues of global strategy, water management and education where India is grappling to find solutions,” he said.
The centre will, however, not offer any courses, nor will it grant any degrees. Though some US universities have built branch campuses and degree-granting schools abroad, Columbia wants to take a different direction with the global centres. They are meant to act as flexible regional hubs for various activities and resources meant to enhance quality of research and learning. “We’re not thinking of bringing a full-fledged campus here now. We won’t be able to do justice to it. Also, getting faculty will be a challenge,” said Bajpai.
Source: DNA, March 23, 2010
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