Monthly Archives: December 2017

US college to collaborate with Saharanpur nursing school

Education, World Opinion

Meerut:

The Nebraska Methodist College (NMC) of Nursing and Allied Health in Omaha, US, is all set for academic collaboration with Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur-based Hillary Clinton Nursing School. A four-member delegation of doctors and administrators from the US college visited Saharanpur on Thursday to explore the similarities and contrast in the teaching methods in India and in the US. The academic collaboration, which is most likely to be completed by 2018-end, is aimed at establishing mutual cooperation and professional coordination between the two institutes. The tie-up will also open up learning and employment opportunities for rural and underprivileged youths in Saharanpur area.

Dr Dennis A Joslin, consultant and former president of NMC, said, “We are planning a partnership with the Hillary Clinton Nursing School in Saharanpur soon. In this regard, a team of doctors from the US visited the campus on Thursday with the intention to find out the similarities and differences in health care provisions and teaching methods in India and the US. By this academic collaboration, we aim at providing best education to the professionals in both the countries so that the general public can get the best possible quality of life.”

Apart from Dr Joslin, the delegation of doctors included Dr Linda Hughes, dean of nursing at NMC; Dr Eric Kyle, faculty development, NMC; and Dr Harsha Sharma, professor, Arts and Sciences Division at NMC. These doctors are on a week-long trip to India to facilitate the process of academic collaboration and learning exchange programme with Hillary Clinton Nursing School (HCNS). They are also set to visit some government and private hospitals in Delhi and Saharanpur to get first-hand experience on the functioning of hospitals in India.

“The academic collaboration between the Nebraska Methodist College and the Hillary Clinton Nursing School is in the pipeline. NMC is a 125-year old college, and a delegation from the US visited the school here in Saharanpur to explore how students of this institute and that of the US can share and learn by means of student and faculty exchange,” said Raj Kamal Saxena, president, Ramrati Education Complex.

The Hillary Clinton Nursing School was established in 2012 and is affiliated to UP Medical Faculty and recognized by the Indian Nursing Council, New Delhi, and is situated on a 35-acre campus named Ramrati Education Complex (REC) — which also houses the Bill Clinton School, and Hillary Clinton Institute of Paramedical Sciences. REC is run by the Vinod Gupta Charitable Foundation. Gupta is said to be a close friend of the Clintons. Bill Clinton had even visited the place in 2001, much before it was named after him.

“We plan to call selected students and teachers to the US in July 2018 to complete the cycle of knowing each other’s homeland. Our visit is basically for the assessment stage, and it includes data collection. Once the students and teachers from Saharanpur visit us in July, we can prepare a master plan on how to go about with the academic collaboration,” said Dr Joslin.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Meerut News / by Ishita Bhatia / TNN / December 14th. 2017

State to put fossil park on international map

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives / Environment, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Nature, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

Lucknow :

The Uttar Pradesh government is working on a plan to get international recognition for the fossil park at Sonbhadra, considered to be the oldest fossil finds in the world. This work will be carried out along with the development of Kapilavastu, Kushinagar and Sharavasti, areas closely connected with Lord Buddha.

Speaking in the Vidhan Parishad on Thursday, tourism minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi said a research team has been formed and a roadmap would be chalked out to promote the fossil park internationally. Members of Samajwadi Party had demanded that the government get UNESCO recognition for the site, as it had recently done for Varanasi.

“The fossil park at Sonebhadra is older than even the Yellowstone National Park in the US. Earlier, I could not have taken action as the area came under the environment department. However, recently an MoU has been signed between the departments of environment and tourism for the development of eco-tourism. We will take up the fossil park under this MoU and soon have a plan in place to ensure international recognition for the area as a heritage zone,” she said. The roughly 25 acre-fossil park in Salkhan is believed to be more than 1,400 million years old and is located 12 km from Robertsganj, the district headquarters of Sonbhadra.

The fossils were reportedly first discovered in the 1930s but the area was designated a fossil park only in 2002. Fossils of algae and stromatolites have been discovered in the area, adjacent to the Kaimur Wildlife Sanctuary. A similar fossil park was discovered a few years later close to the one in Salkhan, in Badagaon village under Chopan Vikas Khand. This year, said Joshi, Rs 89.60 lakh has been sanctioned for various development work to be carried in and around the fossil park. She said the Centre had sanctioned Rs 99 crore for a project to develope tourism in areas closely linked with the rise of Buddhism, namely Kapilavastu, Kushinagar and Shravasti.

Outlining works that were already going on, Joshi said the area would be developed as acircuit that would promote tourism in the entire region.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News> Civic News / TNN / December 22nd, 2017

Lucknow to get its first smart bus shelter

Business & Economy, Records, All, Travel

Lucknow :

The first smart bus shelter in the city is coming up on Ashok Marg. It’s nearing completion and will be opened for public on Saturday. It has been done under the smart city project. It will also be the first smart bus shelter in the country to have an e-toilet with water recycle plant.

The smart shelter will have a host of features and facilities for commuters including display of real-time information about arrival of buses, route details, availability of seats, e-toilets, ATM, water vending unit and mobile chargers.

Equipped with GPS and intelligent traffic management system, the bus shelter will have boards that will display the bus route, digital map and weather forecast along with basic information about arrival of buses.

The bus shelter also has a 24-hour power back up.

Naveen Agarwal, managing director of the firm that will construct these shelters said that 200 smart bus shelters, each costing around Rs 39.84 lakh, will come up in the city.

Smart city project general manager SK Jain told TOI, “The Ashok Marg bus shelter will be opened for public use from Saturday. While all other facilities will start with the inauguration, the electronic information system will be made functional after all the transport is made GPS-enabled. In the first phase, 100 such shelters will be built in the next year.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News / by Vidita Chandra, TNN / December 19th, 2017

I give full credit to Lucknow for my win in Mr India

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All

Lucknow boy Jitesh Singh Deo, who won the title of Peter England Mr India World 2017, in Mumbai on Thursday, says he always had the confidence to make it to the top but could hardly believe it when his name was announced as the winner.

The 22-year defeated 15 other contestants in the final round to win the coveted title. Having worked hard for two years to clinch the title Jitesh is “super happy” and is now looking forward to coming back home to Lucknow and celebrating his success with his friends and family. Also on the top of his to-do list, when in Lucknow, is tucking in his favourite Tundey kebabs.

Speaking to us from Mumbai, Jitesh says, “I froze on stage when they announced my name as the winner. And then when Kangana Ranaut put that sash around me, it was the most incredible feeling. I knew I had it in me but frankly, the win was unexpected. But as they say, and now I firmly believe it too, that hard work definitely pays.”

And Jitesh would know that as the engineering graduate also tried his luck in the contest two-years ago but couldn’t make it to the finals. He then groomed and trained himself for this year’s contest and succeeded, and how!

Jitesh Singh Deo, Peter England Mr India World, 2017, in a scene from the film A Disaster….June 16 in which he plays lead (BCCL)

The former City Montessori School student of Mahanagar, third branch, says he is now looking forward to sharing his happiness with his family and friends in Lucknow. “Bas ab Lucknow aa ke celebrate karna hai”Jitesh laughs and adds, “My grandmother and parents are eagerly waiting for me to be there at home.

My grandmother and mom had started crying when they got to know that I had won. My parents were so happy that they cut a cake and partied the whole night the day I won. My friends have been calling me up ki ‘bhai kab aa raha hai, party karni hai’. There’s so much excitement among all my relatives and even our neighbours. Ab bas sabse milna hai. Aur sabse zyada, Lucknow aa ke khoob saare Tundey kabab khaane hain. I am dying to have them. Mein thoda patla bhi ho gaya hoon toh Lucknow aane ke baad khoob sara khana khaunga.”

‘But what surprised Jitesh was a call from his school congratulating him for his win. “I got a call from my school and they said they want to felicitate me. It was a bit surprising kyunki mein aisa koi studies mein bahut achha nahi tha. And now they want to honour me. That’s what I call god’s blessings. It’s all feeling so nice.

My friends are calling me and saying ‘yeh ladka jo hamare saath padhta tha, khada hota tha, aaj TV pe hai aur Mr India bann gaya hai!’

Giving credit to his city of birth for his win, Jitesh says, “All credit goes to Lucknow for my success. Yahan ki tehzeeb, parvarish, grooming, yahi sab zimmedar hain meri kaamyabi ke. My basic personality has been shaped in this city. Yes, I got the exposure and the confidence to face the world in Mumbai, where I shifted six-months ago and also in college in Ghaziabad, but shuruaat toh Lucknow se hi hui hai.”

An aspiring actor, Jitesh has acted as lead in a film made last year on the 2013 Uttrakhand floods. He has also participated in fashion shows in the past and says that Bollywood will be a natural progression, but not just yet.

“As of now, I want to focus on the Mr World title. After Rohit Khandelwal winning the Mr World title and Manushi Chillar being crowned Miss World, I feel my responsibility has increased. I want to retain the Mr World title in India and win it for my country again. So abhi toh usi ki taiyyari karni hai,” says Jitesh, adding, “As a kid I always was interested in singing, dancing and acting but I had never imagined myself to be Mr India. I used to participate in cultural activities in school.

In fact, when I was in class 12th, the school annual function was to be held. And since we had our board exams, we weren’t allowed to participate in it. But I saw these juniors practicing for the group song and I also joined in. On the final day of the event when people saw me as the lead singer in the group, they were shocked ki yeh ladka kaise aa gaya annual function mein, so main aisi cheezen karta rehta hoon. But, eventually, I want to be an actor.”

— Itishree.Misra@timesgroup.com

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News / TNN / December 18th, 2017

Lucknow boy makes it to Stanford University

Education, World Opinion

Lucknow :

Devansh Sharma brought laurels to the city after getting an admission offer from Stanford University on December 9 under the Restrictive Early Action (REA) decision plan for the undergraduate class of 2022.

Devansh’s family has a unique relationship with the prestigious US university as his elder sister Priyanka also got her undergraduate degree from there and is now working in San Francisco. His other sister Divyanka, too, is doing her MBA at Stanford.

A student of Doon School in Dehradun, Devansh had been preparing for his application since class 9. Besides being an outstanding student, Devansh is an avid chess player. He has won prizes in inter-school, regional and FIDE-rated chess tournaments. He has also been chess captain of Doon School.

Stanford University has been consistently ranked in the top three universities of the world. Only a handful of applicants are admitted from India.

Some renowned alumni of the university are: Doug Mackenzie, Reese Witherspoon, Tiger Woods, John F Kennedy, Marc Shapiro and Azim Premji.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> Cities> Lucknow News> Schools & Colleges / TNN / December 19th, 2017

Noted theatre personality Swadesh Bandhu no more

Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Swadesh Bandhu

Lucknow :

Swadesh Bandhu, an eminent theatre personality and a pioneer of the theatre movement in Uttar Pradesh, died following prolonged illness in Delhi on Sunday. He was 77.

For the past two years, Bandhu had been suffering from acute respiratory ailment and had suffered nervous breakdowns a couple of times, said his son Ritu Raj.

A 1978 graduate from Bhartendu Natya Akademi, Bandhu was the founder of Darpan, a theatre group in Lucknow.

Originally established in Kanpur, he opened Darpan’s Lucknow edition in 1971.

He acted in more than 250 plays.It was Bandhu who brought the trend of inviting directors from National School of Drama to direct plays in the city that further helped in creating an environment of theatre appreciation.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News / TNN / December 18th, 2017

Duo give wings to their dreams

Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All
Flying Officers Shivangi Singh and Prathiba Poonia are all smiles at the Combined Graduation Parade at Air Force Academy, Dundigal, on Saturday.

Two more women fighter pilots inducted into IAF

Two more young women fighter pilots, who were inducted into Indian Air Force, were the cynosure of all eyes on Saturday.

The smiles turned to tears of joy and pride for Flying Officers Shivangi Singh and Prathiba, as soon as they came off from the parade ground at the Dundigal Air Force Academy, to meet their families and friends, with hugs, wishes and photo sessions taking over from there.

For them, it was their childhood dream to become a pilot, and their inspiration were Flying Officers Mohana Singh, Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi, first women fighter pilots in IAF.

It was Shivangi Singh’s childhood dream to “fly like a free bird” that inspired her to join IAF. Shivangi, a native of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh who completed her graduation in B.Sc (Physics). said convincing her parents and relatives was a big task for her.

“We stay in a joint family. When I declared that I want to join the forces and serve the nation, my parents and other family members were hesitant . Slowly, I started proving myself in sports and other activities and they finally agreed,” she said.

However, Prathiba said that her father inspired her to join the IAF.

Prathiba, who hails from Rajgarh in Rajasthan, is the daughter of an ex-Army officer Chhoturam Poonia. She did her B.Tech (Computer Science) and then joined the IAF.

The duo will now undergo further training on Hawks in Bidar.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Abhinay Deshpande / Hyderabad – December 16th, 2017

Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University to honour 7 eminent persons

Education, Leaders, Records, All

Lucknow :

Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University will give awards to seven eminent people on its convocation on December 15. The Academic Council meeting held on Wednesday decided to award Vidhi Ratna to chairman, Central Administrative Tribunal, Justice Permod Kohli, and senior advocate HC Ganeshia.

While president, Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Ajay Sood and chairman, University Grants Commission, VS Chauhan will be given Vigyan Ratna; Guru Nanak Dev University vice-chancellor Jaspal S Sandhu will be given sportsmedicine award; and senior RSS leader Krishna Gopal and former chairman, Indian Council of Social Science Research, SK Thorat will be given social science award for their social service.

The convocation will be held in two parts. The first one will begin from 10.30 am which will see President Ram Nath Kovind’s participation. After giving away medals to four toppers and delivering the convocation address, the President will leave at 11.30am. Sharing the dais with chief guest Kovind would be UP chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi, governor Ram Naik, deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and medical and technical education minister Ashutosh Tandon.

In the second shift, the other gold medal awardees will accept it from the vicechancellor.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News> Schools & Colleges / TNN / December 14th, 2017

Youngest PhD girl gets pat from President Ramnath Kovind

Education, Records, All

Lucknow :

At 17, Sushma Verma is used to earning accolades for academic excellence. She is India’s youngest girl to enrol in a PhD programme, that too, at 15. She was also recognised by the Limca Book of Records as the youngest student to pass class X at the age of 7 years, 3 months and 28 days old, in 2007. Yet, being called ‘extraordinary’ by President Ramnath Kovind was an experience in itself.

So stunned was Sushma that she couldn’t focus on whatever else Kovind said about her. “This was so unexpected. I feel humbled and blessed to have him compliment me,” said Sushma.

TOI has been following her since 2005 when she was just five and had enrolled in class IX at the UP Board-affiliated St Meera’s Inter College. Post her graduation, she joined MSc in Microbiology at BBAU. Not only did she complete her course but was the topper and was given medal by PM Narendra Modi in 2016 at the university’s convocation.

Lauding Sushma and Neelu Sharma, who in April won the UGC’s Swami Vivekanand single girl child scholarship, Kovind said, “Babasaheb (Ambedkar) samaanta ke paksh me the, par betiyan aaj unke sapno se aaagey nikal rahi hai (Ambedkar called for gender equality but girls are surpassing his expectations).” Neelu said, “I felt so important when people from President’s secretariat inquired about my work.”

Neelu enrolled in BBAU’s PhD in mass communication in 2015.

She is also a recipient of ‘Films for Change’ fellowship by a London-based Television Environment.

Both Sushma and Neelu were chosen by the university to share their experiences with the President.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News / by Isha Jain / TNN / December 16th, 2017

IIT Kanpur graduate launches new company in Seoul

Business & Economy, Education, Nri's / Pio's

Seoul :

Pankaj Agarwal, a 35-year-old IIT Kanpur graduate, has founded a start-up company, TagHive, with a few like-minded professionals in Seoul to pursue his passion for improving education. His mission is to revolutionise everyday experiences with a smart tag solution — a combination of a button type tag, a smart app and back-end analytics that are targeted at reinventing interactions for kids at play and at school.

Based in South Korea since 2004, he had earlier worked with Samsung Electronics. Samsung encouraged him with support for his endeavour. TagHive is a technology company that was spun off from Samsung Electronics in April this year.

TagHive’s new solutions are TagPlus and LEAP. While TagPlus, an award winning solution, is the world’s first toy-centric social network for kids, LEAP is a low cost clicker (Classroom Response System) along with an app (iOS and Android) that will keep students engaged, parents informed and help teachers effectively manage their classrooms.

Speaking to TOI, Agarwal said that TagHive will commercialise LEAP in South Korea in the first half of 2018 and enter the Indian market in the second half of 2018. “We are looking to partner with schools in India willing to ride the new wave of affordable smarter classrooms,” he said.

TagHive pilot tested the LEAP solution in Ambience Public School in New Delhi, as well as in South Korea, with encouraging response.

Some of the key features of LEAP are “one-click attendance” which reduces the morning chaos of recording attendance with students simply clicking their tags. Teachers can now utilise the time saved more productively in teaching more, Agarwal said.

LEAP allows teachers to have an accumulated score for their students on a daily basis and the students will be given incentives to improve their behaviour. It further allows teachers to create their own quizzes and polls for various subjects. Students can record their responses by clicking their tags.

“Teachers can view all student records like attendance, score and quiz/poll results for one day, one week, one month or for the whole semester,” said Agarwal. It also automatically sends students’ performance updates to their respective parents. Parents will also have an app where they can track their kids’ progress in real time.

“I have a 10-year-old son, and I want the best for him,” said Agarwal.

Agarwal is the founder and President of IIT Alumni Association of Korea (IITAAK). He also has an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School. He said IITians have left their mark in most parts of the world and IITAAK wants to replicate that in South Korea and strengthen the reputation of brand IIT.

“We hope that this will not only make our lives here more meaningful but also help in forging more productive cooperation between South Korea and India,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> NRI> Other News / by Oinam Sunil / TNN / December 11th, 2017