Education Notes

Tripura Decks cleared for IIIT Tripura will soon host an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) with the Centre having reportedly approved it. “Though a formal letter hasn’t been received by the state government as yet, we understand the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry has issued a notification clearing the proposal for establishing an IIIT in Tripura,” Kishore Ambuly, secretary of higher education, informed media personnel in Agartala on July 13. According to Ambuly, Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal had reacted favourably to the IIIT proposal during a recent visit to Tripura. The state government has already identified a 50-acre site at Bodhjungnagar, 12 km from Agartala, for the proposed IIIT to be established on the public-private partnership model, he said. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, ONGC Tripura Power Company Ltd, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd and six private sector corporates based in West Bengal have agreed to invest the Rs.128 crore budgeted for constructing the proposed institute. Gujarat Bar Council protests HER Bill After a successful nationwide two-day strike (July11-12), the Bar Council of India (BCI) has reiterated its resolve to intensify protest against the Higher Education and Research (HER) Bill, 2011. “We achieved a grand success by calling a two-day strike exhibiting our strength and serious objection to the Bill. After seeing our strength and unity, we hope our demands to withdraw this Bill will be met. If not we will intensify our protest,” said BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra at a press conference in Ahmedabad on July 13. BCI is against inclusion of legal education in the HER Bill, 2011. If the HRD ministry doesn’t meet its demand, “thousands of lawyers from across the country will sit in dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi on the opening day of the monsoon session of Parliament,” warned Mishra, adding that “from there we will march to Parliament and demand withdrawal of the Bill”. Introduced in the Rajya Sabha last year, the Bill proposes to establish a national commission which will regulate university education, including legal, vocational, technical, medical and professional education. Odisha Shiksha sathi project for tribal children To retain tribal students in primary schools, shiksha sathis (‘friends of education’) will be appointed in schools in the interiors of Odisha’s Kandhamal region — a stronghold of the state’s insurgent Maoist insurrection — district collector Rajesh Prabhakar Patil informed the media in Behrampur on July 18. The district administration has initially shortlisted 186 schools, mostly in the Baliguda and Phulbani blocks, where shiksha sathis will be appointed. Besides teaching classes I-II, the shiksha sathis will be interpreters between students and teachers of the schools, says Patil. Youth educated upto middle school (class VIII) and fluent in tribal Kue and Odia languages would be appointed shiksha sathis by school development management committees for a period of ten months per year with a monthly honorarium of Rs.1,000. The expenses of the initiative will be met from funds allocated for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Integrated Tribal Development Agency…