Later on, Sibal too apologised for the episode and said that he had constituted a committee to remove all ‘objectionable’ cartoons from the books. He said that the book has already been withdrawn from the course in this regard and new books will not have such kind of objectionable cartoons.

It seems that the admission reforms has first brought metamorphosis in the process of distribution of the admission forms of the colleges. Thanks to the tacit support (& guidelines) of the Ministry of HRD and IT & Communication, colleges will be stayed away from the admission process starting from 4th June 2012, at least from the distribution of the admission forms. The offline forms for admission in various undergraduate courses will be made available to the 12 post offices in the city. A decision in this regard has been cleared by the standing committee regarding admission.
Though online mode for application will also be open for the students but offline forms can be obtained only through the post offices. Admission process for SC/ST students will be centralised, as announced by J M Khurana, Dean, Students’ Welfare, Delhi University.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of United Nations has exhorted Indian youth to write a new chapter in the history. Ban Ki-moon, who was conferred Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi on Friday, shared several nostalgic experience with India during his speech at the university.

“For decades, I have been a student of India. Now I finally have a degree to prove it…I arrived in New Delhi exactly 40 years ago, on my first diplomatic posting. It was one of the best things that happened to me,” said the Secretary General.

The UN Secretary General also talked about global changes taking place on the political and economic fronts and said more and more people are beginning to shape their own destiny.

“You are the world’s largest democracy. You are an emerging economic leader. You are a superpower on the information superhighway. You are a beacon for the world – proving that democracy and development are one and the same path” he said adding that India had elected more than one million women to local village councils – a remarkable achievement.

When I was growing up, I did not have to worry about power blackouts – there was no electricity to begin with. I studied by kerosene lamp. That was a long time ago. But today, 1.4 billion around the world are still living in the dark. Here in India, 55 per cent of the rural population lacks electricity, he added talking about energy problem of the country.

“Some of you may know my own story – a child of war … growing up in poverty … going to school under a tree because my school had been destroyed. The UN saved me and my country and helped us rebuild. Now I look out at you, the young people of India.
We hear of Generation X … Generation Y”, he said while talking about himself and India’ Gen-X.

I call today’s youth “Generation UN” — a generation that is global … a generation that understands our common bonds … a generation fluent in networks. I imagine all that you can accomplish with your desires and your dreams. The story of India’s rise is your story. It is time for a new generation of Indians to write a new and dramatic chapter in your nation’s history.

The main thread in that story will be India’s role in a wider world. India as a global power, and yourselves as global citizens…Look beyond your community. Look beyond your country. Be a global citizen.
Bring your energy and your ideas to the United Nations. Be part of our quest for peace, development and human rights everywhere.Remember the words of your own great poet Rabindranath Tagore.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and, behold … service was joy”, added UN Secretary General addressing the gathering of the students and teachers of the university.

Delhi, the capital city of India, does not possess any authentic data on number of Madrasas in its jurisdiction. The stunning fact came out during a high level meeting at Delhi Secretariat on Friday.

The meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and attended by the Minister of Social Welfare and Women and Child Development, Kiran Walia, Minister of Labour & Industries Ramakant Goswami, Chairman Delhi Minorities Commission Safdar H. Khan, Secretarty(Education), Director of Education, Mission Director Samajik Suvidha Sangam, other senior officers of all concerned Departments and representatives of Madrasas.

The meeting though, called to emphasize on computer education in madrasas and to provide financial assistance to these institutions but in absence of the authentic data has appeared as a big hurdle in this regard. However, interesting fact is that the provision for the advertisement for the newspapers has been approved in the meeting and education department has been asked to advertise for registration in this regard.
The Delhi Minorities Commission has been asked to facilitate registration/identification of eligible Madrasas for grants.

“What has pained the President the most is the fact that she is now being portrayed by some people as one who, by agreeing to accept a defence accommodation for her post retirement home, is insensitive to the cause of war widows and ex-servicemen. But facts are to the contrary”, the release says adding that
women’s issues have always been her concern and those of war widows particularly occupy a very special place in her mind.

Citing some previous examples of welfare of war widows, executed by her as Governor of Rajsthan she says that the accommodation proposed to be allocated to her by the Ministry of Defence was never indicated as one earmarked for war widows…Hope this will put an end to all misgivings in this regard.

Controversy erupted after the decision of the Pratibha Devisingh Patil to opt for an official accomodation for post- retirement, provided by the Ministry of Defence. She was probably the first President to opt for such accomodation, provided by MoD.

Sir,
Subject:-
1. Request for amendment in 90% and 50% credits rule or the YEAR BACK SYSTEM..

2. Against difference in internal/external ratio 25:75 in affiliated colleges and 40:60 in university colleges.

We are the aggrieved students of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and would like to bring to your notice a few arbitrary decisions/rules laid down by the university and which are affecting us directly.

1. The passing percentage of every subject is 50% which is extremely high considering the Delhi University, IIT and all the other recognized institutions have only around 40% as passing marks. In many institutions pass mark is below 40% also. But out university has kept pass marks as 50%. An RTI was filed seeking an explanation for relatively high pass marks of 50%. Another RTI was filed with IIT, Delhi Technology University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Islamia University, Punjab Technical University, Rajasthan Technical University, Maharashi Dayanand University with regard to the passing percentage which has been followed by these universities. It is pertinent to state that all these universities in terms of ranking are much higher placed than our university. In all these universities/colleges, the passing percentage is around 40%.

2. The colleges which are affiliated to university have internal examination of only 25 marks. There are about 106 colleges functioning under the university. Out of 106 colleges, only 10-12 colleges are run by the University where the internal and external examination is of 40:60 marks respectively. Meaning thereby more than 95 colleges which run under the auspicious of university have internal and external examination in the ratio of 25:75 marks respectively. More than 90% of the students of university herein belong to the affiliated colleges. University cannot frame Rules and Policies by considering only small group or percentage of colleges and students. Students have suffered extremely high pass marks because of one side, irrational and arbitrary criteria adopted by the university.

3. That a new rule was made by the University in the year 2009 according to which the students had to attain 50% of the credits (In total of both the semesters) in order to be promoted to the next year. And after being promoted, they had to clear/attain 90% of credits of their backs/failed subjects in order to be promoted to each subsequent year. This rule has very detrimental effect on us students as it has for clear reasons brought onto us immense pressure to perform well in the semester exams.

4. The worst affected are the poor students who take a loan in order to study in the University, because if they are not promoted into the next year their loans are discontinued and it becomes a burden on them to repay these loans.

5. The deserving/studious students are also suffering because if the student is unable to give/appear in his odd semester examination due to any ailment/personal difficulty, they would not get promoted into the next year due to the unequal distribution of credits in both odd and the even semesters (e.g. b.tech 1st semester exams have 28 credits, whereas their 2nd semester exams have 26 credits).

6. The semester results are declared approximately one month after they appear/sit in the next year/promoted sections classes, but , due to this rule, the affected students are left humiliated at the hands of the University because they are detained and sent to attend the classes with their junior batch.

7. There are approximately 6000 students which have been affected by this rule and are not promoted to their next year. This toll may rise when the next criteria, that is, the clearing of 90% of the backs/failed subjects, which is very much difficult to attain.

That before this rule came into effect, that is, before the batch of 2009, there was no such need and a student could even give their back/failed subjects in the subsequent years without being detained in the same year.

Another malpractice which should be brought to your notice is that the back paper examinations coincide which the regular paper examinations thereby curtailing the students from doing well in any of them. This has to be changed because the students face real difficulty in appearing in any of them because the time interval in between both the examinations is just 1 hour, when they have to study and appear in these examinations.

We would like to request you to kindly look into this matter as the new changes in the rules and the arbitrary passing criteria are affecting us students tremendously leaving us disturbed both mentally as well as physically. Hope our request would be entertained and you would take it seriously.

Thanking You
Yours Sincerely
Students
Guru Gobind Singh Inderprastha University