Students from Jammu and Kashmir will get a special hostel in New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia. The proposed hostel will have capacity to accommodate about 400 students, from school to Post Graduate level. J&K Government, Jamia and Ministry of Home Affairs signed MoU in this regard on Thursday in presence of Union Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram, J& K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Jamia’s Vice Chancellor Najeeb Jung.
The proposed hostel will be constructed in coming two years with an estimated cost of Rs. 16.22 crore, allocated by the J & K government to Jamia. There will be separate hostels for boys and girls students. The MoU has been signed as students from Jammu and Kashmir were finding it difficult to get proper accommodation in the adjoining areas of the university.
Meanwhile, a group of young people from J& K met the Union Minister for Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah and J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in New Delhi. The youth, belonging to families of militancy hit families of J& K, shared their experience about India and its opportunities. The youth are in the capital on ‘Mission Watan Ko Jano’, an initiative by Ministry of Home Affairs, RCI and J&K Government.

But what our Gen-X really believes about our robust election system consuming lot of working days, manpower and money in the process. Recently, I interacted with some of the young students of Delhi University and JNU, mostly first time voters in the recent assembly elections. Students of these universities are known as representative sample of whole country as they come from various parts of the country including North-East. They praised the way elections are conducted in the states but at the same time they said that there were a lot of communication gap between voters and electoral process during the elections. Voters are aware of the political parties, their agenda and manifesto, their past and present through various mode of communication including media. But they do not aware about the candidates to whom they have to choose or elect for their own representation.

They have to rely on media, run by corporate houses or supported by politicians or political parties for the information in this regard. But matter of the fact is that voters do not exact and impartial information about their candidates. Though, these are very simple information like age, qualification, earlier jobs, criminal records, cases against him in the court, assets etc and can be obtained through a simple RTI. But filing an RTI to get information and disseminate it among the voters, without any involvement in politics, is again a tedious process. In such a situation ill-informed voters have to vote on the basis of little information and suggestions given by politicos or their local agents or simply to the political parties.

According to them, the Election Commission of India can bridge the gap easily by taking some simple steps. Conventionally, it used to display name of the candidate and his/her symbol of political parties at polling booths. But a little change can bring big change if go by the young voters. The ECI must display details of all the candidates at the entry gates of the polling booths. This will certainly use little bit more paper and add some extra burden on the Commission but voters will be well informed about their potential representatives, their criminal records, education, assets and other simple but important and impartial information. This way they can choose their representative in a better way without indulging the whole nation in agitation mode or complex process of amendments in the People’s Representation Act. No need to say that collective representation will certainly be better and free from several illness of our society, if it starts from the bottom. A simple step can bring big change. Is our Election Commission is ready for change?

JNU entrance test from 22th May

Admission process in JNU will start from this month with the selling of forms from 6th February. Entrance tests will be conducted on 22nd to 25th May for different undergraduate and postgraduate courses and other programmes at 52 centres. Interested candidates should contact the university for further details.

Notification for JNUSU elections soon

University administration has given nod to issue notification to hold elections for JNU students union (JNUSU). According to university sources the administration may issue notifications for the elections this month considering continuous pressure from the different students’ outfits and university students.

Anugoonj at IP University

Three-day annual festival “Anugoonj” started at Dwarka campus of Indraprastha University on Thursday. Kiran Seth, founder director, Spic Macay, was presented on the occasion. Students of various universities and colleges of Delhi are participating in the festival. Several competitions, music show and dance shows will be organized on the occasion.

The court has also imposed fine of upto five crore on companies.

Over 45% students of Delhi Government schools in the capital city are facing deficiencies and suffering by ailments. About 25% students are suffering from severe ailments and require treatment and proper investigation.
The stunning fact has been revealed in a government programme “Chacha Nehru Sehat Yojna” related to the schoolchildren. According to Delhi’s Health Minister A K Walia 26, 411 school children studying in Delhi Government schools have been screened for deficiencies, diseases and disabilities under the Chacha Nehru Sehat Yojna during the last eight weeks of its operation. Ailments were found in 12,772 cases. 5,527 students were referred for further investigation and treatment, he said.
The scheme has to cover over 14 lakh students studying government schools in Delhi. Only 20 schools have been covered so far and examination in 37 schools are under progress.
“Chacha Nehru Sehat Yojna” is focusing on providing free and comprehensive health services to all school aged children all over Delhi.

Polling has started today for 187 assembly seats in Uttarakhand and Punjab amid tight security. Over 2.3 crore voters will exercise their biggest democratic power through their votes in these states.

A total of 1866 candidates are contesting elections in both the states. These include 156 women candidates. Uttarakhand and Punjab have 70 seats and 117 seats respectively in their respective assemblies.

First time voters and youth are participating in the electoral process despite severe cold in the various areas of both the states and making beeline on polling booths to cast their votes in both the states.

According to Gautam, scores of entrepreneurial efforts go waste in the country despite investing lot of energy and capital by the Indian youth. There may be lack of skill, devotion in some of the cases. But in most of the cases their efforts aborted in the midway due to discouraging environment, created by our so-called steel frame of the country and the political system, irrespective of parties or personalities.

According to government data about 55 percent of the country’s population is young. A good percentage of the young population wants to be entrepreneur. But unfortunately over 90 percent fail to do so despite their honest efforts. According to a data, presented in the Parliament last year, entrepreneurs of only two states could achieve their success rate over 10% in the country – Gujrat, with a success ratio of over 40% and Haryana with about 12%. In other rest of the states the percentage of failure is 90 percent or above. Delhi too, claimed as the vibrant city, is not an exception and it is under the rest of the state category.

Why the situation is so grim in the city like Delhi. Again, reason is discouragement by bureaucratic system and political patronage to the system of ‘as usual’. The government keeps a blind eye on the blunting of the efforts of new entrepreneurs by their own officers and staffs. For instance, the city government, unable to formulate a policy for new media for past several years, thanks to its bureaucratic system and lack of political will. Chief Secretaries changed, Directors of DIP either resigned or transferred but the things remained as usual. Entrepreneurs kept knocking doors of the government, officials, from Chief Secretary to Special Secretary and Directors waiting for years so that things could change. But the system is so callous for the new comers and their nexus with the established conventional organisations are so strong that their all attempt to go to pillar to post becomes a matter of joy for the officials and staffs as well as government. Even, some times they help established organizations by creating new obstacles for the new entrepreneurs. It is another matter of fact that the SME sector is the second largest employer of the country and saved country during recession period.

The recent glaring example of sab chalta hai is the non-participation of Delhi’s tableau in the Republic Day parade. The concerned department did not participate as it had to compete with other states and had to show its ability among them. But the best way was to stay away from it like to keep themselves away from the decisions about new media as policy was not there. So what should a young entrepreneur or an energetic youth do? Wait to be ruined. If somebody even get success despite all these in the dog bites dog environment – Hats off to them to emerge as winner despite all odds.

The promise has certainly projected the impact of party’s young leader and son of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and MP Akhilesh Yadav on the party’s ideology. Akhilesh has been supporter of IT and modern education. But such kind of promises may also change party’s equations with the traditional vote bank of SP. However, the target is to impress first time voters who are ready to play an important role in the coming elections.

Congress, BJP and BSP have criticized the promises and said that the party is trying to create illusion among the youth just to make the government without understanding the reality.