Category Archives: Education

Student’s struggle rewarded with seven medals

Education

Lucknow :

He cycled 20 kilometres every day for five years to pursue studies. For 22-year-old Ajendra Pal, Sunday was the unforgettable day he received seven gold medals at Lucknow University’s convocation. Having secured 77% marks in MSc physics, son of a farmer Ajendra, said, “I am on cloud nine. It’s a dream come true. There can be nothing more satisfying than this for my family.”

Ajendra now intends to pursue research from The University of KIEL, Germany. He has already been shortlisted for German scholarship. Elated over Ajendra’s success, his sister who recently got job of a patent examiner, Archana said, “He has worked hard and his efforts are reaping fruits. We hope he clears the final interview and get enrolled to the German University.”

Hailing from Hanumanpur village in Sitapur, Ajendra’s journey to success was no cakewalk. While his father remains on the farms, Ajendra lives in Lucknow with his mother and sister.

“The crop this year is bad. We have lost almost 80% of wheat and pulses and God knows how we will manage ” said Ajay Pal, Ajendra’s father, whose annual income is around Rs 50,000 per annum.

When Ajendra completed his school with 88% marks in clss XII, his father had no idea of how to fund his higher studies. Help came in when Ajendra was selected for the DST-INSPIRE scholarship, giving his father a sigh of relief. In LU, he started taking tuitions to fund to lend a helping hand to his family.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / February 01st, 2016

Amitabh bags LU’s gold medal

Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features

Lucknow:

Winner of Chakravarti medal and Chancellor’s Bronze medal in 2013 and 2014 respectively, Amitabh Srivastava is now the recipient of Lucknow University’s prestigious Chancellor’s gold medal for the year 2015, awarded for the best student in all the faculties. A law student, Amitabh scored 73.8% in LLb (hons). He is now pursuing LLM from National Law University, Bangalore.

It’s a perfect New Year gift I could have ever thought of. It’s a dream come true,” said Amitabh, who got to know about his medal from the media while he was in his hostel. I got to know it from the reporters, who started calling me,” said he. Amitabh will be given the medal on January 31 when LU will hold its convocation.

Hailing from Faizabad, Amitabh has participated in several moot court competitions. In a national moot court competition, Amitabh won the first runner-up award.

Son of Raj Kumar Srivastava, a court commissioner, Amitabh’s mother Anuradha Srivastava is a government teacher in Faizabad. From cleaning river Gomti to particpating in co-curricular activities like singing, quiz competition, Amitabh has actively participated in social and extra-currcicular activities. Also, he has to his credit a research paper, which is published in a journal of international repute. He has represented his university in various moot courts.

Apoorv Dev has bagged the Chancellor’s Silver Medal which is awarded to the best student among all students in all faculties in post-graduate classes. Parvish Fatima has bagged the Chancellor’s Silver Medal for being the best woman student in the university. Apoorv, a national volleyball player is currently in final year LLb. He has participated in national rifle shooting competition.

Dr Chakravarti Gold medal has been awarded to Rajat Shukla. The Chakravarti medal is given to the student who is of good behaviour and is found to have been most helpful in the general social life of the university. Rajat, also from faculty of law has also participated in several national and international moot courts. Besides, he has organised legal aid camps, and has worked as volunteers in National Human Rights Commission.

The 10 Chancellor’s Bronze Medal awarded to the best student in different faculties are Shivani Singh and Manvi Tripathi in arts, Shalini Jaiswal and Vibhvantika in science, Arpita Saxena and Shubhagi Dubey in commerce, Pranav Tripathi and Shivangi Tiwari in law, Pramod Kumar and Arti Singh in fine arts.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / January 26th, 2016

‘My parents’ dream has come true’

Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All

Lucknow:

A farmer’s son, Sumit Kumar, who bagged a gold medal for securing highest marks in agricultural engineering in APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University is an example to prove no dream is too big.

A native of Jahangirabad in UP’s Bulandshahr, Kumar pursued his engineering from Aligarh College of Engineering and Technology. Since he couldn’t afford the hostel fees, he lived in a small rented room, near the college. “Living near the college saved my traveling expenses,” said Sumit.

“It’s a moment to celebrate as my parents’ dream has come true. My father always encouraged me to study agricultural engineering and help farmers who are in an extremely poor condition,” said Sumit, who now aims to pursue MTech from IIT and then get into research. Sumit’s father Anil Kumar, a class X drop-out, took a loan to fund his son’s education. “My father could only manage to pay fees for the first year. He borrowed to fund rest of my education,” said Sumit, who is looking for a scholarship for his MTech course. Sumit’s mother Rajesh Devi is uneducated.

With a meager income of Rs 8,000 per month, it was a challenge for Anil to educate his two sons. “Because of climate change, we have lost 70% of our crops. We don’t have grains even for our consumption and will have to purchase from others,” said Anil. Living in a one-room semi-pucca house in Bulandshahr, Sumit completed his class X and XII from UP board in Jahangirabad. He secured 62% in class X and 75% in class XII.

On the occasion, governor Ram Naik, Chancellor of state universities, appreciated the Indian outfit worn by the students. “The caps attached to the black gowns caused inconvenience in receiving the medals. The Indian dress looks good and is comfortable,” said Naik.

The university also conferred honoris causa on ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / January 24th, 2016

Lucknow University faculty receives NASI Young Scientist Award

Agriculture, Education, Records, All

Lucknow :

Smita Kumar of Lucknow University faculty from department of biochemistry has been conferred the prestigious Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award by the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) for her contribution in the field of plant sciences and agriculture.

Smita is among the four teachers to have received this award in her field. The three others, one each from IIT-Roorkee; Ghent University, Belgium and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru in Telangana.

“It’s a privilege to have won the award,” said Smita.

Smita completed her MSc from department of biochemistry, LU in 2007 and PhD from Banaras Hindu University in 2013 while working in National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Lucknow. “I worked on molecular aspects of heavy metal stress in plants with special reference to arsenic which is a big public health menace in Indo-Gangetic plain and causes various skin diseases and cancer,” said Smita.

After completing her PhD, Smita was awarded prestigious DST-INSPIRE Faculty Award, after which she joined LU in June 2014 to pursue her future research on heavy metal stress in Arabidopsis (a small genus of annual or biennial herbs of north temperate regions) natural variations.

Smita was awarded the NASI Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award in the 85th meeting of NASI held recently at Bhubaneshwar.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / by Isha Jain, TNN / January 19th, 2016

Man who cycled 20,000 km across India suggests recycling waste is way forward

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Green Initiatives / Environment, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Nature, Records, All, Science & Technology, Sports, Travel
Abhishek Kumar Sharma has submitted his findings with the Centre (TOI Photo)
Abhishek Kumar Sharma has submitted his findings with the Centre (TOI Photo)

Aligarh :

The year will end on a “clean” note for 28-year-old Abhishek Kumar Sharma, a research student of environment at Kanpur University, who began a journey on bicycle in November 2014 to endorse Prime Minister Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Sharma completed the trip on December 22 and has staggering numbers and remarkable insights to talk about.

Sharma covered 20,000 km across 25 states, met chief ministers of 18 (Kerala was the best experience as CM Chandy was readily available), interacted with 402 district magistrates and addressed lakhs of students in over 200 lectures on environment and cleanliness.

Sharma submitted his findings with the Union urban development ministry on ‘How to Make Waste our Wealth’. The first seven days were tough: starting from Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, he battled cold in December, January and faced extreme heat in May-June in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

In Sharma’s opinion, with sensible solid waste management one can make wealth out of waste. “Mysore is the cleanest city. They have a self-sustainable model of waste management wherein they segregate waste as organic, inorganic, and recyclable. Kachra or junk goes to kabadiwallahs, organic waste is used for bio-fertilizers. I think South India is cleaner than North India,” he said.

Also, on his journey around India he found villages cleaner than cities. “This means educated people litter their surroundings expecting someone to pick it up,” he said. A village in Punjab, which has the same sarpanch for the past 15 years, is mentioned by him because the sarpanch invented interesting ways to keep his surroundings clean and healthy. “He made a biogas plant for all to use free of cost,” Sharma said.

The Smart Cities plan can only be successful if surroundings are clean and waste is managed effectively. “Municipal corporations should go beyond dumping waste – from one site to another, honestly that is all they do. To be able to make wealth out of waste they should segregate waste as organic, inorganic, recyclable and so on and put them to use accordingly.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Agra / by Eram Agha, TNN / December 28th, 2015

Engg student’s app makes marking attendance easier

Education, Science & Technology

Lucknow :

He was often marked absent despite having signed the sheet, a thin lined-piece of paper used for recording students’ attendance in college. Tired of getting the error rectified, 19-year-old computer science engineering student Manav Akela developed a mobile-based Android application, ‘IRegister’ that would help teachers record students’ attendance without mistakes and in a much simpler way using their smart phones.

“The attendance sheet is circulated and every student, one by one, is asked to write his/her name on it,” said Manav who spent almost three hours every day for three months in developing this app. “Sometimes, while circulating it, the paper tears off, or sometimes the teacher misplaces the paper. The app will prevent all such problems and errors,” he added.

Based on the concept of paperless operation, the app will free teachers of the burden of entering data and heavy calculations which take hours. “The app will not only save time but also paper,” said Manav, who lives beyond Rajajipuram and cycles 30 kilometres everyday to and from his engineering college.

One can download the app from Google Play Store or register with iregister.tk to begin. Once the app is downloaded, users will have to get a code by clicking the ‘Get Code’. This will take the user to the ‘Iregister’ website from where the code is generated. On entering the code, users will be shown five different rooms. In these rooms, a user can assign five different classes like CSE for computer science engineering, or ME for mechanical engineering. A user can navigate to the attendance sheet after assigning a class for each room.

Suppose a user has assigned room 1 as CSE class, he will be able to access seven features of the app. Here, he can mark a student present or absent. The app also allows exporting data saved on the app to the Excel sheet. The user can also make modifications like change student details as and when required. The most interesting feature is of sending a SMS to the parent in case a student is absent for three consecutive days. “Teachers can track attendance record of students in several classes,” he said.

The app, said Manav, is also beneficial for home-makers who take the pain of jotting down attendance details of milkman and newspaper vendor on the calendar. It can also be used to record attendance of convicts in jails.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / December 31st, 2015

AKTU to honour Mars Orbiter mastermind

Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Lucknow :

APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University will confer honoris causa on Indian Science and Research Organisation chairman A S Kiran Kumar on its convocation slated on January 22. An accomplished space scientist, Kumar was instrumental in evolving the successful strategy for steering the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft towards planet Mars as well as its Mars Orbit Insertion.

As many as 47 students, gold, silver and bronze in streams like engineering, management, fashion designing and pharmacy will be awarded medals. In the medal tally, girls rule the roost once again. Close to 80% of the medals to be awarded on the convocation ceremony are in the girls’ kitty. Out of 47 medals, 38 will be awarded to girls.

For the first time, graduating students of AKTU will wear a cream-coloured ‘angvastra’ over their traditional dress. Boys will wear white-coloured shirt and dark coloured trousers. Girls will wear saree. Printed on the angvastra will be Lucknow’s heritage and famous historical monuments of UP. In addition, it will also have sermons of former APJ Abdul Kalam. It is also decided that the dignitaries will wear a maroon angvastra and a cream-colour pagadi.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh will be the chief guest at the function.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / December 16th, 20154

KGMU orthodontic dept’s golden jubilee

Education, Records, All, Science & Technology

Lucknow :

As students, they walked through King George’s Medical University’s iconic administrative block umpteen number of times, but students from orthodontic department’s first batch never felt so overwhelmed as they did here on Saturday.

Aboard a golden chariot to take a ride of their campus, the alumni relished each moment of their golden jubilee. The ride ended at Browne Hall which had marked the beginning of their journey as specialist dentists.

First student Dr DN Kapoor, who was given a special welcome, said the face of his college has changed but the spirit remains the same. “We all owe our best to this campus… Once a Georgian, always a Georgian,” he said.

The day also marked 50 years of in orthodontics in the medical university. “We began with just one room in 1965 and today, it is a full-fledged department from where over 200 post graduate students have passed out and are working in different parts of the world,” said head of the department and also the organizer of the event Prof Pradeep Tandon.

A 50-minute video capturing department’s journey from its inception was also screened. It included bytes from scores of teachers and students. The department is the only Orthodontic Centre in India which has exclusively rendered orthodontic teaching and treatment.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / TNN / December 06th, 2015

Lucknow girl to interview UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon at COP21

Education, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, World Opinion

Lucknow :

Here is a proud moment, not only for the city but the entire country. Nineteen-year-old Lucknow girl, Yugratna Srivastava, has been selected to interview UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon at the ongoing climate summit Conference of Parties, COP21 in Paris. Yugratna will interview him at the `Earth to Paris’ event slated on December 7 at Petit Palais.

“I am the only youth to have got the opportunity to interview the UN secretary-general. The best part was a mail (from UN secretary-general’s office in New York) which said they can’t imagine a better person than me to do this interview,” an elated Yugratna told TOI from Paris via social media. The interview, said Yugratna, would be on the Ban’s views on climate change and about negotiations taking place at COP21 and related issues.

“I will be soon briefed on the topics which I should cover in my interview from the secretary-general’s office,”she said. On the opening day at COP21, Yugratna made a presentation to world leaders, including PM Narendra Modi and US president Barack Obama. Prior to COP21, she attended the conference of youths, held from November 26 to 28. Here, her job was to prepare youth from 66 countries to talk about climate change before the world leaders at COP21.

“Youths participating in the conference gave presentations on `climate crisis’ and concerns about environment conservation,” said Yugratna. So, how did she made it to COP21? “I have work experience at the world-level programme, ‘climate strike’. This programme is to put a check on economical and ecological destruction, and to promote green alternatives. I was one of the eight in the core team. I guess this helped me to be part of COP21,” said she. Six years ago, Yugratna became the youngest person to address as many as 100 world leaders at the 2009 United Nation summit on climate change in New York.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Lucknow / by Shailvee Sharma, TNN / December 07th, 2015

Graduate Chaiwale: Three brothers sell a tea dream in Lucknow

Business & Economy, Education
(From left) Govind Tripathi, his friend Rajendra Singh and brother MadhavTripathi at the tea stall on Monday. (Ashok Dutta/HT Photo)
(From left) Govind Tripathi, his friend Rajendra Singh and brother MadhavTripathi at the tea stall on Monday. (Ashok Dutta/HT Photo)

On the road outside Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in the Uttar Pradesh capital, it’s hard to miss a tea shop. Not because the beverage it sells is out of the world, but for its signboard: Graduate Chaiwale.

Owned and managed by three graduate brothers in their 20s, the small stall is a marker of the growing enthusiasm for small-scale entrepreneurship as well as a response to years of struggle against poverty.

“Running my own business is a better idea than working for someone else. I couldn’t afford to start a big business, so I thought it would be better to start with a small one,” says 25-year-old Govind Tripathi, who started the tea stall in August.

The eldest of three brothers worked at Lucknow-based call centres after graduating in computer applications from IGNOU in 2012. But the pay wasn’t worth it, hardly enough to meet surmounting family expenses.

Father Satish Chandra Tripathi, a resident of Hardoi, is jobless and battling a legal case ever since he was suspended from the state road transport corporation in 1996. Mother Aparna, too, was denied a job in a government primary school on compensatory grounds following the untimely death of his schoolteacher-grandmother.

“The degree was not of much help. For better jobs you need to know English, which we didn’t because of our background,” Govind says.

When his brothers — 23-year-old Gopal and Madhav, 21 —graduated from ASBD Memorial College in Hardoi this year, they were sucked into a similar fate.

“They were initially reluctant after I discussed the idea of a tea stall. But I convinced them, it was not a bad idea for financial stability,” Govind says.

The shop fetches them about Rs 350-400 a day after deducting material and operational costs — much more than what Govind used to get at call centres. “I was getting about Rs 5,000 a month. The workload was unbearable and salary irregular.”

In the meantime, Govind found the job of a water plant supervisor in Takrohi — quite an achievement in India’s most populous state which, according to a National Sample Survey Organisation report, will have 10 million unemployed youth by 2017. His younger brothers are preparing for the civil services and bank recruitments exams.

The “Graduate” in the shop’s name reflects the brothers’ idea of trying to be different in a small-time business, considered a stepping stone for big things, as well as their frustration in not getting a decent job.

The siblings now take turns to run the shop. “When we have enough money, we will start a chain of tea stalls in the city,” says an optimistic Govind.

Many years ago, a young man from a humble background sold tea by a railroad in Gujarat and displayed similar optimism. Narendra Modi went on to become the Prime Minister. Time will tell where Graduate Chaiwale will go.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home / Rajeev Kumar, Hindustan Times, Lucknow / Decembr 01st, 2015