70% of IIT-B students skip daily bath, 40% wish to live on with pals

Hemali Chhapia

Mumbai:





Six of 10 residents at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) showered once every two or three days, finding the “task“ taxing. A small 10% that took a bath just once a week and just about 30% took a bath everyday . This is one of the findings of the second edition of the senior survey at the institute, conducted by students, which received responses from 332 candidates of the passing-out class, including undergraduates, dual-degree students, MSc and MTech graduates.The hangover of hostel life is likely to linger long after graduation, for 40% of the residents plan to live with friends, 27% wish to go back home and 19% would like to live alone. On the other hand, 66% maintained close relations with their folks back home while 29.8% had a lower-than-average interaction with their parents.
While in Mumbai, they had ticked off quite a few items on their bucketlist.Some 52.4% had experienced the classic dream of every college student -a road trip to Goa with friends. Then, 70% travelled ticketless on a local train and 55.7%, on being inspired by the James Bond movie `Casino Royale', have played poker or blackjack.
On their marital plans, the survey found that 39.15% did not wish to dig their own grave until after five years; 31% were clueless while 21.4% wanted to marry between three and five years down the line. On religious beliefs, 39% respondents said they were believers, 21% said they identified themselves as atheists and 39% said they were agnostic.
Almost 70.5% of the respondents graduated as bachelors of technology . 33.75% received an additional minor or an honours degree or both alongside. This year's respondents had an average CPI of 7.87. 163 of them had a CPI greater than 8 while only 43 had CPI greater than 9. “A symmetric distribution across responses saw 35.7% wanting a decent CPI whereas 32.6% were unable to reach their potential,“ said Shreerang Javadekar, chief editor of Insight, the IIT-B newspaper which conducted the survey .
In terms of attendance, 39.75% said they would have attended most classes while 32.5% said they have would have preferred attending as few lectures as possible.Some 7.5% said they would have attended all classes nonetheless. Interestingly , 16.2% have never visited the institute's central library .

Source: Times of India, 1-09-2016

Corruption cases up by 5% in 2015: NCRB

Neeraj Chauhan

New Delhi





Corruption remains a scourge in the country with the number of cases reported showing a rise of 5% in 2015 over the preceding year, data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) showed.According to the NCRB, 5,867 corruption cases were reported in 2015, up from 5,577 in 2014. The only silver lining was that the annual growth rate of such cases came down -from 13.93% in 2014 to 5.1% in 2015. in 2013, 4,895 cases of corruption were registered.
By the end of 2015, 13,585 cases of corruption were under investigation, mostly related to public servant taking bribery and criminal misconduct.
The NDA, coming to power on an anti-corruption plank, has introduced several steps to curb graft in government organisations, public sector units, banks and other departments including increased oversight by the Central Vigilance Commission, streamlining government machinery by fixing accountability on officials, digitisation of government projects and policyoriented decision making.
The government amended the Prevention of Corruption Act last year to classify corruption as a heinous crime and longer prison terms for both bribe-giver and bribe-taker. The amendments also sought to ensure speedy trial, limited to two years, in corruption cases.
However, the problem is far from solved. The highest number of corruption cases were registered in Maharashtra (1,279), Madhya Pradesh (634), Odisha (456), Rajasthan (401) and Gujarat (305). Uttar Pradesh reported only 60 cases of corruption and West Bengal reported 18. Delhi reported a 50% decline in corruption cases with 31 cases in 2015, compared to 64 in 2014.
The report said 29,206 corruption cases were pending trial in courts while accused persons were acquitted or discharged in 1,549 cases in 2015.
Former CBI director Joginder Singh said there was no seriousness on curbing corruption. “If any government (state or Centre) wants to be serious about corruption, there should not be the option of taking sanction for a government official. If a person has been caught red-handed taking bribe, why is there the need for taking prosecution sanction for him. There is also need to make Prevention of Corruption Act stricter,“ he said.

Source: Times of India, 1-09-2016





Cybercrime up 2,400 times in 10 yrs

Vishwa Mohan

New Delhi:





41% More Cyber Thugs Held In 2015

With the internet and social media becoming a way of life, cybercrime numbers have steadily climbed over the years. Such crimes went up 20% last year compared to 2014, logging a 2,400% increase over the last decade.The latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report shows that cybercrime cases rose from 9,622 in 2014 to 11,592 last year, nearly onethird of the crimes committed for financial gain.
The number of people arrested in cybercrime cases rose by over 41% during the same period -from 5,752 in 2014 to 8,121 in 2015.
Besides crimes for financial gain, the motives also included cheating, insulting women, sexual exploitation and personal revenge or settling scores.
The report cited `political motives', which could be related to tarnishing the image of opponents through morphed pictures or fudged data. The report said 44 cybercrimes cases for `political motives' were reported last year.
Data theft, breach of an individual's internet banking or other service platforms through hacking, cyber stalking, digital forgery such as fabrication or destruction of electronic records were some methods used by criminals in the internet space.
An analysis of past NCRB reports revealed that the number of cybercrimes was quite low 10 years ago, with only 453 such cases reported in the country in 2006. Barring 2008 when the number of cases fell compared to 2007, the numbers have consistently risen.
Though the NCRB did not give any reason for the rising figures, they could be attributed to increasing internet penetration in the past few years. Use of internet for various services has led many to use the web for multiple purposes -be it personal and official communication, banking, teaching, e-marketing, digital lockers or social networking.
The latest NCRB report said Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Telangana reported the highest number of cybercrimes last year. All five states are home to several companies dealing with information technology and related services.
In terms of arrests, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Assam made it to the list of top five.Experts said this could be attributed to multiple people's involvement in one case.
Uttar Pradesh recorded the largest number of cybercrime cases largely because of its spread and resultant internet penetration in major cities and in the hinterland as well. The state's figures could also be high due to the IT destination of Noida which has emerged as a hub of cyberattacks in the country .

Source: Times of India, 1-09-2015

Jains top in share of graduates

Subodh Varma





The Muslim community in India has the lo west share of graduates compared with others and just half the share of the countrywide average of under 6%. The Jains continue to be the most educationally advanced community with over a quarter of its members qualified as graduate or above. But, the share of technical diploma holders is highest among Christians at 2.2%, again continuing a previous trend, with the Jains at 1.1% and the Sikhs at 0.8%.A heartening feature is that the most educationally deprived communities like Muslims tionally deprived communities like Muslims and Buddhists are surging forward with shares increasing at a faster pace than other communities when compared to a decade earlier.These details emerge from the latest release of Census 2011data on educational levels across re ligious communities. The Census Office is still in the process of releasing such specific data over five years after the headcount took place. While illiteracy has de clined and educa tional levels at the primary or secondary level have rapidly increased across all communities, at the higher levels the dead weight of the past still casts a shadow. Those of college-going age were in primary school in the early to mid-nineties and enrolment in schools was still deficient especially among Muslims. This historic deprivation is reflected in the current lag in higher education participation levels.
But even the overall share of graduates continues to be abysmally low at 6% while the technical education level at just 0.6% is appalling. Most advanced countries have a graduate share of 30-50% accompanied by a high share of technical personnel also.
The changes between 2001 and 2011 Census show that the Muslim community has seen an almost 60% increase in share of graduates compared with about 55% for Hindus. But the most striking increase is among Buddhists ­ mainly neoBuddhists who were Dalits that embraced Buddhism at the call of B R Ambedkar. The share of graduates among them has jumped by 74%. The country average is about 54% increase in the share of graduates.
The share of technical diploma holders too shows a similar change ­ the most deprived communities are surging ahead, in relative terms. Thus, among Muslims, this share increased by 81% and among Buddhists by a jaw dropping 130% compared with a countrywide average of about 68%.

Source: Times of India, 1-09-2016

The ill health of the nation

The National Health Accounts data for 2013-14 present fresh evidence that India continues to have a non-serious approach to the provision of universal health coverage to all its citizens. India’s health system is one of the most privatised in the world, poorly regulated and accessible only to those with income levels well above the average. All these attributes are, once again, strongly borne out by the NHA data, which lay bare the extremely low government spending on health which, at 1.15 per cent of GDP, compares poorly with even Sub-Saharan Africa. There, World Development Indicators say, the corresponding figure was 2.9 per cent six years ago. The share of State governments, which are largely responsible for provision of health care, in government health expenditure is estimated at 0.75 per cent of GDP. Evidently, a health policy that fails to pool the financial risk of illness at the population level results in impoverishing payments made out of personal funds — and the NHA figures confirm that despite rising government revenues, the bulk of Indian health spending, a staggering 64.2 per cent of health expenditure, is met by households out-of-pocket. That such OOP expenses declined by five percentage points over a decade is encouraging, but this is insignificant in comparison with the achievement in, say, Thailand, where 75 per cent of the population was brought under UHC in just one year.

If the NDA government intends to pursue its promise of universal health assurance in earnest, and wants to make up for two lost decades of reform, it has to act decisively. Raising government expenditure on health, in conjunction with the States, should form the basis of policy change; the road map for this was proposed by the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group in 2011. Remedial policies in two key areas can quickly scale up to reduce the OOP burden on households. One is to put in place a centralised system for procurement of essential drugs, relying mainly on quality generics and distributing them through the State government system. The other is to arrive at the cost of all medical procedures for different classes of hospitals, laying down standards and forming regulatory authorities at the State and district levels under law to enforce the rules. It was estimated by the Planning Commission group, for instance, that spending 0.5 per cent of GDP (compared to 0.1 per cent spent by the public health system) could ensure the availability of essential medicines free of cost to all Indians. Regulatory controls would automatically lead to a reduction in costs, and curbing of unethical and corrupt practices by hospitals and diagnostics centres. It should then be easier to quickly extend free health insurance to more classes of people, such as senior citizens, children and the disabled, and achieve universal coverage early.

Keywords: National Health Accounts, Draft National Health Policy 2015, Total Healthcare Expenditure, health finances, gross domestic product

Source: The Hindu, 31/08/2016

Behaviour and Science

G S TRIPATHI





Science is beyond the grasp of many mainly because it is perceived to be complicated. However, a closer inspection of some of the laws and phenomena in science would reveal how certain types of human behaviour can be interpreted through them.We experience strain if an external stress is very high, or if we are exposed to a small stress repeatedly . This is known as fatigue and it results sometimes in catastrophic conditions without prior warning. Similar phenomenon occurs in material objects and these show sudden breakdown. However, with adequate care and regular inspection, these catastrophic conditions can be avoided.
The stability of material bodies depends on both attraction and repulsion. Consider common salt, or sodium chloride.The electrical charges residing in the sodium and chlorine ions are opposite in nature.Hence, they should always attract each other. But when these come closer because of attraction, collision and instability are prevented due to repulsion, which sets in at close distance. The stability of a relationship, likewise, depends on a judicious balance between attraction and repulsion.
The quest of science, so far, is to unite the smallest, starting from an atom downwards, to the largest, the universe. However, it has begun to extend to such diverse topics as the mystery of life, complexity of social behaviour and financial complexities. These evolve commensurate with the challenges of time.

30% of Indians put info at risk with bad e-habits

Himanshi Dhawan

New Delhi





Over 30% Indians, the highest among 14 countries surveyed, access or share sensitive information using public Wi-Fi putting their personal information like credit card details and work mails at risk of being stolen. The other countries where citizens share such information freely are Mexico (19%) and Brazil (18%).Findings from a global survey conducted by Intel Security revealed that more than one of three Indians (38%) who went on the vacation with the intent to unplug were not successful in doing so. “Findings from the survey indicate that a huge majority of Indians (84%) connect to the internet while on vacation. While doing so, they often access and share sensitive information without considering the potential cyber risks of divulging credit card details, work mails and personal information on unsecured public Wi-Fi,'' Venkat Krishnapur, Intel Security's India Development Centre R&D operations head said.
Indians (31%) lead their global counterparts in willingly sharing personal information such as credit card number or log in name and password. More than one out of three Indians (36%) shared their personal data even when they realise that this will make them vulnerable.About 1,423 people in India, aged 21-54 years were interviewed and about 14,000 consumers were surveyed globally .

Source: Times of India. 31/08/2016