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Monday, August 11, 2014

School bags to Enkindle Learning for Rural Kids

lighted school bag
A unique idea to use a school bag as a lamp for students to study in the dark has brought hope to the lives of kids living in the slums and rural areas to get educated.
Anushi Saha, a 34-year-old creative designer, came up with this idea to help children who face problems while studying at night due to frequent power outages in the slum areas. The solution Saha has come up with emanated from a simple idea – to fix a solar panel on school bags to collect energy during the day, which in turn, powers LED lights at night.
The bag has got a nifty device attached to it, which converts every movement of the child into electricity, when they move around during the day with the bag. It looks like a regular bag with a LED lamp in its front pocket. Solar panels are attached to the sides and can power the lamp for more than eight hours. The bag weighs 600 gm and is easy to carry. The solar panels are imported from China, since the locally made panels are very heavy.
Putting this idea into action, however, was not easy for Saha as there were several rejections from the manufactur
- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/08/from-darkness-to-light/#sthash.5vuwbSEX.dpuf
MHRD sets Hari Gautam Committee to Review UGC status -


The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has set up a four-member committee to review the current status of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
As per the decision taken on August 3, Hari Gautam, former chairman of UGC, will head the committee. Other members of the committee will include C M Jariwala, former dean of law, Banaras Hindu University, Kapil Kapoor, former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University and R P Sisodia, Joint Secretary, Higher Education, HRD, who will be the member secretary of the committee.
The committee has been given a mandate to review 14 items. These include evaluation of the performance of UGC in coordinating and determining standards of education in universities and conducting an audit of its regulatory reach and identifying strengths and weaknesses in this aspect.

The report has to be submitted in six months time with suggestions from the committee to reform the panel and perform better to meet the desired objectives.
- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/08/mhrd-sets-hari-gautam-committee-to-review-ugc-status/#sthash.Y3ZE3Rie.dpuf

Journal of Community Practice

Volume 22, Issue 1-2, 2014: Table of Content

Analyzing Current Practice and Assessing Gaps

Exploring Privilege and Expanding Critical Frameworks for the Field

Alice B. Gates
pages 102-129

  • DOI:10.1080/10705422.2014.901270
  • Published online: 29 May 2014
  • Citing articles: 0
  • Article Views: 62
Further Information

Building Intentional and Authentic Collaborations and Coalitions in Our Own Practice

Bridie McGreavyLinda Silka & Laura Lindenfeld
pages 189-209

  • DOI:10.1080/10705422.2014.901264
  • Published online: 29 May 2014
  • Citing articles: 0
  • Article Views: 13
Further Information
Aug 11 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)
Think Beyond a Judicial Commission


The legislature must have a role in judges' selection
It is time the discourse moved away from treating the collegium system of selecting judges and a judicial appointments commission as the only two choices before the nation for fair appointments to the higher judiciary . The trouble with a judges' collegium making the selection is supposedly the possibility of converting the judiciary into a self-propagating oligarchy . The revelation by Justice Markandey Katju is that the executive exerts undue influence on the collegium, not that the collegium is insularly autonomous. The conduct of the present government of turning down the nomination of Gopal Subramanium also makes it clear that the problem that needs to be fixed is not collegiate insularity and unaccountability . Actually , the problem is broader.India's justice system is a mess. It takes decades to settle a legal dispute beyond final appeal. Undertrials waste long years of their life in jail before they are, more often than not, acquitted. As the ultimate repository of popular sovereignty , Parliament has the responsibility to fix this mess that the judiciary has manifestly failed to.
Judges' selection must be seen in this context. It is necessary to ensure the individual independence of those appointed as judges and to maintain the collective independence of the judiciary , to ensure that it retains its ability to act as a check on the executive. While the judiciary is vocal on these themes, its silence on accountability is deafening.
The proposed Judicial Appointments Commission does not address these issues even partially. It only runs the risk of enabling the executive to pack the highest court of the land with people of its own ideological bent.
This is not surprising, considering that its offered solution to the quandaries surrounding fair selection of judges is to transfer such quandaries to the selection of members of the commission. To ensure truly non-partisan selection of judges, the legislature must have a decisive role in the process, whether by committee or majority of an entire House, preferably the Upper House that is less susceptible to the vagaries of electoral mood swings.
Aug 11 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)
Govt Okays Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee
NEW DELHI
OUR POLITICAL BUREAU


Announcement may come before Independence Day; Dhyan Chand & Subhash Chandra Bose other probables
The government is understood to have approved Bharat Ratna for former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and an announcement could be made soon, perhaps as early as this Independence Day.A senior government official, familiar with the matter, said there were a couple of other names in contention as well, including hockey legend Dhyan Chand and freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose, but only Vajpayee’s name had been cleared so far.

The Centre can award a maximum of three Bharat Ratnas in one year. Last year, the UPA government had given the award to cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist CNR Rao.

The BJP, then in the Opposition, had criticized the UPA for ignoring Vajpayee’s contri
bution and said it will bestow the honour upon him as soon as it comes to power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have approved the move and could soon send a recommendation to President Pranab Mukherjee for the same. Vajpayee, now 90, was awarded the Padma Vibhushan way back in 1992. His name was recommended to the PMO by citizens 11 times in 2011 and half-a-dozen times in 2012, records show.

The family of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, meanwhile, said it did not approve the idea of a Bharat Ratna being conferred upon him. “Netaji has been missing since 1945.

When you award him with the Bharat Ratna posthumously, you have to say when he died, but where's the evidence? The best way to honour him is to declassify files which can reveal the truth behind his disappearance,” Netaji’s grand-nephew Chandra Kumar Bose said.