Medical curriculum to be revamped

The Medical Council of India is all set to revamp the country’s 58-year-old curriculum in medical education. The process includes incorporating the latest medical technology and teaching aids in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and biochemistry at the MBBS level and introduction of new specialities and super-specialities for post-graduation and beyond. The new curriculum and new courses are in the last stage of being finalized.

Furthermore, the council is also planning to obtain a copyright for the curriculum by June 2015. The curriculum will be distributed to medical colleges, which will be required to conduct teachers’ training for the next one year, and by 2016, medical undergraduates can move away from the curriculum established in 1956.

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What every computer science major should know

Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Most of the big names in today’s technology are famous. But did you know that the history of computation science dates back to 2700 BC? Computers in modern times have moved from room sized huge boxes to cubic desktops to laptop to tablets and smart phones.

Although, the real history of machine assisted human existence has been interesting and inspiring. This week let’s look back at the long history of arguably man’s best friend, the computer.

The evolution of man’s digital era is divided into generations. Each generation is an improvement over the previous in terms of ease of use and user interface. Because, these computers have improved programming language and internal organizational systems they make our lives easier with every generation of computer and steadily improving algorithms.

First in the history of computer science was Abacus. The logic behind it was to help traders to count cows and amphorae by hand in order to gain edge in business. While, the oldest known computing device, Antikythera used in navigation and tracking astronomical data while sailing dates back to 87 BC.

Computer Science took a giant leap in 1843 when a woman wrote the first computer program. An English mathematician Ada Lovelace while working as an assistant to Charles Babbage laid foundation of the theory of programmable computers.

1936 was a key year for computer science. Alan Turing and Alonzo Church independently, introduced the formalization of an algorithm, with limits on what can be computed, and a "purely mechanical" model for computing. But the real computing era began in 1937 with Alan Turing’s revolutionary invention, ‘The Turing Machine!’

In the 1960's, computer science came into its own as a discipline. Operating systems saw major advances. At the end of the decade, ARPAnet, a precursor to today's Internet, began to be constructed. This was followed by Douglas C. Engelbart’s computer mouse at SRI in 1968.

Until 1971 computer was majorly used for government purposes, military assistance and heavy mathematical calculations. Gradually the idea of using computers for academic purposes started surfacing when Steve Wozniak put the first Apple computer on table.

And computer science took the information super highway in 1990 with www (World Wide Web) along with Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen’s browser. This was followed with the discovery of C, an influential programming language at the Bell Laboratories by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan and Ritchie.

It is important to know how we came to live in a world where our glasses can tell us what we’re looking at. While entering the era of wearable technology, smart appliances, embedded chips and artificial intelligence, knowing this daily amending expansive field is mandatory. It is becoming challenging to discern what belongs in a modern computer science degree that this inspiring history will help us hit the ground with confidence! 

There is an attempt to create a chilling effect: Greenpeace chief

Interview with Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International

As a young man growing up in South Africa, Kumi Naidoo looked to India for inspiration. Now there is a twinge of disappointment. Mr. Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace International, is puzzled at how the government came to freeze the organisation’s bank accounts in India without giving a reason. Though the Delhi High Court sent a notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs directing it to unblock Greenpeace India’s foreign funds, there is no respite with the Ministry asking for more details on remittances from abroad. Mr Naidoo is in India to discuss the role of civil society in the context of certain individual and non-governmental organisations (NGO) being targeted for being “anti-national".

In interview to The Hindu on Saturday, he said, “Thankfully Greenpeace India is quintessentially an Indian entity, with 60 per cent of our resources coming from individual Indian citizens and 40 per cent from Greenpeace International.”

After the government’s move, Mr. Naidoo sought solace in Mahatma Gandhi. “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win. We are not panicking because of Gandhiji. We take comfort in this that we are being fought and we are one step away from winning the argument for a different development model which includes sustainable meaning for growth,” he said. Mr Naidoo has asked for a meeting with the Home department and the Environment Minister.

It’s a bit disappointing for me to see what’s happening in India. As a young person growing up in South Africa, we looked to India as a bastion of democracy- no country supported us as much as India politically and in terms of skills development. I first came in 1989 first time to India as part of an African National Congress (ANC) delegation. I see India as a vibrant civil society, with its diversity of trade unions, social movements. It is troubling to see an attempt to create a chilling effect,” he said. Any half-intelligent person can see through that, he pointed out, adding that Essar had sued Greenpeace for Rs 500 crore after their protest.

Accusing Greenpeace of acting in foreign interests because it was accepting foreign funds was as absurd as saying that the Indian government was acting on a foreign agenda because it was getting aid from abroad. “We don’t take a single paisa from government or business – all our resources are raised through individual citizens, a small proportion of our resources come from a select number of trusts and foundations which meet certain ethical criteria. We are completely transparent about everything- we are not hiding anything- we have annual report and no attempt to conceal our work,” he clarified.

Keywords: Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo interview, environment issues

Nov 11 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Govt to `Weed Out' Non-practising Lawyers

Aman Sharma

New Delhi





NO DIRECT ENTRY INTO SC Under revised guidelines, Bar Council of India makes it mandatory for fresh law graduates to spend two years in trial court and three years in High Court before becoming eligible to practise in the Supreme Court

The Bar Council of India has revised rules to stop fresh lawyers from practicing in the Supreme Court right away. They will have to spend two years in a trial court and three years in High Court before they become eligible to practice in the Supreme Court. The revised norms will restrict license to practise law only for five years, after which it may be renewed after a review.The Certificate of Practice and Renewal Rules, 2014, aims to give “due weightage and credence to experience” for practising in higher courts and also “weed out” advocates who have left practice. “There is an urgent need for laying down some conditions for practicing law in different courts so as to give due weightage and credence to experience.
Before an advocate could practice law in higher courts, there is need that he is exposed to real court experience in lower courtstrial courts. This will help in integrating the whole judicial system from the perspective of the bar,” as per the statement of objects and reasons for the new notified rules.
It has also been mentioned that concerns have been raised by State Bar Councils and Bar Council of India that trend of advocates switching over to “other professions or services or business” without any information to the State Bar Council has reached “alarming proportions”.
The statement says this trend is “endangering” the legal profession as a whole.
“It has also made a dent in its sanctity and standards. Names of such advocates continue to be included in the ‘roll of advocates’ being maintained by the State Bar Councils, notwithstanding the fact that they have left the legal profession or have since died,” the statement says.
All practicing advocates will hence have file an application for renewal of their license every five year, in advance of six months, before the validity period of “Certificate of Practice” or of its renewal, expires and the same will be vetted by the Bar Council.

Nov 11 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

60% of men admit to wife-beating: Poll

Himanshi Dhawan

New Delhi:





`Use Violence To Assert Dominance'

New Delhi: In a damning indictment, about 60% men have admitted to using violence to assert their dominance over their partner in a seven-state study that has highlighted the high prevalence of intimate partner violence in the country . Uttar Pradesh and Odisha have the highest incidence of such violence at 75% followed by Punjab and Haryana at 43% and Maharashtra at 37%.The study `Masculinity , Intimate Partner Violence and Son Preference in India' by UNFPA and International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) also revealed that 52% of the 3,158 women surveyed reported that they had experienced some form of vi olence during their lifetime.
A higher proportion of women reported experiencing physical violence (38%) followed by emotional violence (35%), which includes insults, intimidation and threats.These were followed by 17% of women reporting that their husbands or partners had been sexually violent against them, and 16% saying they were economically abusive (husband or partner prohibits her from working, takes her earnings against her will).
Regardless of age, men who experience economic stress were more likely to have perpetrated violence.The study , which surveyed 9,205 men, said this may be because of norms related to masculinity , which reinforce the expectation that men are primary economic providers for their households.
Another disturbing factor that the survey revealed was that if men experienced discrimination frequently as children, they were four times more likely to perpetrate violence than men who never experienced childhood discrimination. And women who were discriminated against as children were three to six times more likely to experience intimate partner violence.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Nov 11 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi) Can't let girls in library as boys will crowd in: AMU Eram Agha Aligarh   Turning down the demand of students of Women's College, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), for access to the varsity's Maulana Azad Library , vice-chancellor Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah has said there would be “four times more boys“ in the library if girls were allowed in.“The issue is not of discipline, but of space. Our library is packed,“ the VC said, justifying why the girls were not allowed membership. Women's College principal Naima Gulrez echoed the VC's views. Addressing the audience on Monday during the oath-taking ceremony of the new students' union, she said, “We understand the de mand for access to the library .But have you girls ever seen the library? It is jam-packed with boys. If girls too were to be present in it, the discipline issue might crop up.“ Students of the Women's College are not allowed membership of Maulana Azad Library , reportedly better stocked than the Women's College library . Several previous students' unions, too, have demanded access to the library, located within the university and 3 km from the Women's College. Gulfiza Khan, president of the Women's College students' union, Aligarh Muslim University, said, “We are students of Aligarh Muslim University . We, too, should have the benefit of accessing the famous Maulana Azad Library . The library in the Women's College does not quench our thirst for knowl edge. If space is a problem, we can just issue books and not sit in the library.“ She asserted that access to a good library was necessary for the students. Vice-president of the union, Noorain Batool, and secretary Afra Khanam also emphasized the need for access to the Maulana Azad Library . Librarian Amjad Ali of the Maulana Azad Library said, “If the Women's College library demands books, we send them instantly . The purpose is solved without the students coming here.“ For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com Times View It is really quite retrograde that I girls should be disallowed from using the general library at a university on the grounds that their presence will lead to undue attention from male students.This logic is of a piece with the argument that women should not wear `provocative' clothes if they do not want to be molested or raped. If the fear is that male students will behave in an unseemly fashion, why should girls be denied access to the best library? We hope that better sense will prevail and the vice-chancellor will realise that such a ban is not keeping with modern values.

Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

In the Time of Ebola

Vol - XLIX No. 45, November 08, 2014 

• Editorials

Sound healthcare systems are the only insurance against deadly viruses.

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Editorials A Clever Modus Operandi "Naxalites" are being blamed for inciting dalits, this in order to deflect attention from dalit massacres. Read more	Ht Parekh Finance Column Reflections on Money Avinash Persaud What exactly is money? This is the kind of question that readers of EPW revel in, and I have recently been reflecting on it after reading The Social Life of Money by Nigel Dodd, a professor of sociology at the London School of... Read more
Margin Speak No Swachh Bharat without Annihilation of Caste Anand Teltumbde Bharat will not be swachh unless the caste ethos is completely eradicated. Read more	Commentary Violence in Trilokpuri Hindutva Priming for Delhi Elections Jamal Kidwai The recent violence in Trilokpuri and communal incidents in some other areas of Delhi suggest that these have been instigated with an eye on the coming elections in the city state. The target seems to be to communalise important sections of Delhi... Read more
Commentary Pricing Domestic Natural Gas Some Improvement, But Flaws Remain Surya Sethi The new formula for the pricing of natural gas produced in the country is an improvement on the Rangarajan formula. It corrects many of the computational flaws of the much-criticised approach of the previous government. However, there remain... Read more	Commentary The Greys of Religious Bigotry Reading Nishita Pahuja’s The World Before Her Shoaib Daniyal Religious fundamentalism has been gaining currency in myriad forms, often defining itself as a legitimate aspect of modernity. Nishita Pahuja's The World Before Her tries to address this conundrum. Read more
Commentary Through the Looking Glass The Domicile Debate of Jharkhand Nirmal Sengupta This paper is based on my doctoral work submitted to Jawaharlal Nehru University. I am indebted to Atiya Habeeb Kidwai The local domicile concept is fallacious in India because every citizen has the right to move freely, reside and settle in any... Read more	Commentary Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Implications for India’s Rules of Origin Sanchita Chatterjee India is a party to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations with 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This could have implications for India's stance on rules of origin and also could lead to... Read more
Commentary Dr Manu Liladhar Kothari (1935-2014) Sthabir Dasgupta A tribute to Dr Manu Kothari (1935-2014), Emeritus Professor of Anatomy, Seth G S Medical College, Mumbai, a pioneer of the propagation of fundamental truths about cancer. Read more	Book Reviews So Sharply Delineated A Guernica of Political Prose Bernard D'Mello Calcutta Diary by Ashok Mitra (Kolkata: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta; first published in 1977 by Frank Cass, London), 2014; pp xxvii + 300, Rs 395. Read more
Book Reviews Life in an Indian Prison Monica Sakhrani Colours of the Cage: A Prison Memoir by Arun Ferreira (New Delhi: Aleph Book Company), 2014; pp 164, Rs 295. Read more	Perspectives Population, Education and Development Leela Visaria This article focuses on the lacunae and limited understanding of the linkages between education, population and development. Data on this is important for realistic manpower and expenditure planning in the light of the Right to Education Act... Read more
Special Articles On Controlling Inflation Prabhat Patnaik Under the theoretical hegemony of monetarism, and serving the interests of the capitalists, the government's anti-inflationary policy seeks to lower real wages and reduce employment to achieve its objective, this even as the level of aggregate... Read more	Special Articles An Improved PDS in a 'Reviving' State Food Security in Koraput, Odisha Mihika Chatterjee The public distribution system is widely criticised for being ridden with chronic corruption and failing to deliver benefits in a systematic manner. Using a sample of 793 households in the district of Koraput in Odisha, this article reviews the... Read more
Special Articles Health, Illness and Disease A Political Ecology Perspective Bikramaditya Kumar Choudhary The conceptions of disease and its formulation under different paradigms have made it clear that the approach towards health and medicine has never been completely detached from ecology. Health and disease are thought to be the products of the... Read more	Notes Lady Tata Memorial Trust and Leukaemia Research in Europe, 1932-53 Shirish N Kavadi The Lady Tata Memorial Trust, established in 1932 in Bombay, was among the earliest philanthropic foundations created to support leukaemia research globally. Very little was known about leukaemia, a major mystery in medical science, at the time.... Read more
Economic Notes Foreign Exchange Spending and Earning of Corporates in India J Dennis Rajakumar An analysis of corporate sector earnings and spending reveals that since liberalisation in the early 1990s, Indian companies have become increasingly dependent on foreign inputs, while foreign companies operating in India continue to focus on... Read more	Special Articles The Broken Middle Dilip Simeon The violent events of 1984 signify the breakdown of consensual politics and the ideal of composite Indian nationhood. When communal animosity spreads across society, it corrodes the social conscience and (directly or subliminally) produces a... Read more
Perspectives Wound, Waste, History Rereading 1984 Ravinder Kaur Wounds are expected to heal. Our very conception of victims and victimhood is based on this hopeful axiom. But not all wounds heal, some remain in a constant state of decay, degenerate, and ultimately risk turning into waste too. It is this... Read more	Web Exclusives Plantation Labour Buried by the Neoliberal Company-State Meeriyabedda Landslide Tragedy in Sri Lanka Vijay K Nagaraj The Meeriyabedda landslide tragedy in Sri Lanka in which dozens have died has exposed the condition of workers in tea plantations in Sri Lanka. This tragedy needs to be investigated keeping in mind the historical disadvantage and dispossession...