Change in the Overdues Structure for Books

GOOD NEWS!!GOOD NEWS!!GOOD NEWS!!

Fine Structure has been changed with effect from October 15, 2015 to mark the Celebrations of Vaachan Prerana Diwas.

Rupees 2/- per day for the first five days

Rupees 5/- per day for the next ten days

Rupees 10/- per day subsequently

An online platform that makes education more personalized

 Vedantu enables students in remote areas to receive tuition from highly qualified teachers

The platform has now completed providing 21,000 hours of live learning to more than 17,000 students through 180 listed teachers.

Bengaluru: Its almost 4 pm on a Tuesday afternoon and Vasavi gets ready to take her daily physics lessons for 9th and 10th graders. An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras graduate, Vasavi, on maternity leave from her corporate job, dedicates three hours daily to tutoring students from Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai and remote towns such as Rudrapur in Uttarakhand.

In Wani taluk, Yavatmal district in Maharashtra, 9th grader Tanusha M. gets ready for her physics and mathematics class. She takes two classes from highly qualified teachers whose location Tanusha does not know. She only knows them through their qualifications and names.

Vasavi and many others like her are teachers by choice and Tanusha is one of the thousands of students they teach daily via Vedantu, an online tutorial service run by Vedantu Innovations Pvt. Ltd. The journey of Vedantu began almost a decade ago when Vamsi Krishna from IIT Mumbai), Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena and Anand Prakash (from IIT Roorkee) got together in 2005 to start something that their parents did not encourage.

Giving into their parents’ demands, they joined corporate jobs, but lasted for only about six months. On 16 December 2005, Anand resigned. The others followed. With a bit of teaching experience gained during their summer breaks at the IITs, they decided to teach. They wanted to challenge conventional teaching methods.

They started by teaching the children of the workers at Trident Group Ltd’s yarn plant at Barnala, Punjab. “That was the pivotal step,” Vamsi says.

This led to more students and their first venture, Lakshya, a test prep establishment where they helped students crack engineering entrance exams. Among the four, they claim to have taught over 10,000 students from 2006-12 in places such as Patiala and Chandigarh.

At Barnala they swept floors, set up classes and even slept at the same place where tuitions were held. “The energy we used to get from these sessions... we could really see the spark that really motivated us to take up the profession of teaching,” Vamsi says.

In 2012, Mumbai-based education coaching service provider MT Educare Ltd acquired Lakshya Forum for Competition Pvt. Ltd. The model had its limitations. “Being there as teachers ourselves, we felt the challenges with the offline set-up... no matter what, there were challenges of scalability.”

Determined, and now equipped with Lakshya’s experience, they challenged institutionalism and generalisation in education to make it more personalised and democratic. But the disparity in learning would remain, which called for a technological intervention.

In April 2014 they started developing a product and six months later Vedantu was live. Vedantu was the so-called anti-model of its predecessor. It developed WAVE (whiteboard, audio and video environment) technology and the teachers marketplace model. In order to get access to more good teachers, Vedantu started developing technologies like whiteboard and audio and is currently developing facial expression reading algorithms for better engagement and greater efficiency from each session.

“We are coming out with engagement metrics. For every session the algorithm analyses the session and goes back to the teacher,” Vamsi says.

Vedantu says, “Innovation has come to facilitate the why.”

Initiatives like Digital India and fast growing Internet infrastructure provide platforms like Vedantu with tools to connect more students and teachers facilitating effective learning.

Though the motivation was not money, the company did not want to be an NGO. The priority was to make a difference; money would follow. The platform has now completed providing 21,000 hours of live learning to more than 17,000 students through 180 listed teachers.

The platform, which charges around 30% of the teachers’ fees, says average tutor earns around `40,000 (depending on the number of hours) and the top earner raked in `98,000 (August 2015). Vendantu has a mix of professional teachers, corporate entities and college students. Vamsi says the presence of teachers working only on Vedantu (10-15%) is where the real disruption is happening.

Vedantu is aware of its limitations. This venture cannot be run as a mainstream institution due to regulatory requirements. “So we can at least be a parallel education system,” Vamsi says.

Vamsi says that there are around 250 million students in India and around 33% of them go to private schools. This hasn’t deterred its global ambitions. “Global expansion can be tempting,” he says about moving to other markets like in South Korea, Singapore and other East Asia markets.

Accel and Tiger Global led a $5 million funding in Vedantu in May this year. Anand Daniel, an early stage investor with Accel Partners, says Vedantu has huge potential. The tutoring market size in India is around $11 billion (2014). “Very few teams in India have a great sense for the education sector as well as how technology can be used for effective scaling Vedantu is one such team,” he says

Mint has a strategic partnership with Digital Empowerment Foundation, which hosts the mBillionth and Manthan awards.

 

Source: Livemint 

Poetry takes musical route to score high with students

MUMBAI: In an effort to garner interest for poetry among students, the state education department will put the poems in textbooks to music in the voice of popular artists with background scores.

Sur Kavitanche, as the initiative is called, is a brain child of deputy director, Mumbai, B B Chavan. It is slated to kickstart with the launch of an album of poems from the Class V Balbharti textbook in Marathi.

"Children learn movie songs so quickly because they are catchy and interesting. We wanted to do something similar for the poems as well. If the poems have a tune to it, students will be able to sing them and teachers too will be able to teach them better," said Chavan.

The album will be launched at the B N Vaidya Auditorium, Dadar, on October 20. To ensure easy and free access to these recordings, the education department will host them on their website. "We want maximum number of teachers and students to benefit from this. We will also be creating a mobile application to enable students and teachers to download it. We will also create ringtones of these songs," said Chavan.

Various musicians and singers have lent their voice for this album without a fee. "Students need to be given the best opportunities to learn and this is a way we can do our bit for them," said music composer, Sambhaji Bhagat. Sachin Khedekar, Sadhna Sargam, Urmila Dhangar and Rahul Ranade are among the musicians and singers who are part of the initiative.

The curriculum for class V was changed starting the 2015-2016 academic year and is expected to remain the same for the next five years. "We thought it was worth putting in the effort because the same recordings can be used for students in the future batches. We are also planning to do the same thing for other mediums like Hindi, Urdu, English etc," said Chavan. It is also expected to be extended to classes VI, VII and VIII when the syllabus changes.

Source: The Times of India dated 14 October 2015

Visitors to Vaachan Prerana Diwas: Day 1 - Sale of Withdrawn books

CELEBRATION OF “WACHAN PRERANA DIWAS” (READING INSPIRATION DAY) IN THE LIRC

CELEBRATION OF “VAACHAN PRERANA DIWAS” (READING INSPIRATION DAY) IN THE LIRC

To mark the birth anniversary (October 15) of our ex-President, Late

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, WACHAN PRERANA DIWAS (READING INSPIRATION DAY) would be celebrated in the Learning and Information Centre from October 13 to 16, 2015.

Following activities would be organized as a part of the 4- day long celebrations; mark your calendars accordingly:

1) Sale of withdrawn book bank books on 13 October, 2015

2) Take Away of books on 15 October, 2015

3) Book Exhibition on 15 – 16 October, 2015

`No school bag' day on Oct 15 as tribute to Prez Kalam

Instead, schools to line up reading activities that day

As a tribute to our former president APJ Abdul Kalam, the state government has decided to observe October 15, his birth anniversary , as Vaachan Prerna Diwas or `Reading Day'. City schools will celebrate this day as `No School Bag Day'.

The mandate recommends all students, from class three to eight, to take to reading non-academic books on that day . Schools have also been directed to conduct events and activities that inspire students to read such books. The state government has set a budget of about `6 lakhs for the day . Let's take a look at the activities that will be conducted as a part of the celebrations.

CONDUCT A BOOK EXHIBITION

Students can plan and organise a book exhibition; it can include all their favourite books.While organising the same, students can interact with each other about their reading habits and also learn about some of the most popular books in the world.

GIFT-A-BOOK ACTIVITY

It can be any book, other than a textbook. Be it story books, comics, classics, fiction or non-fiction, students are being encouraged to gift each other a book of their choice, which initiate discussions and enhance their understanding.

INVITE AUTHORS

Some schools are also planning to invite famous authors to meet the children and share their expertise and experience. It will be an enriching experience as children will get to know in detail about writing as a profession, understand the nuances of publishing and the steps that go into being a successful author.

LECTURES BY LITERATURE EXPERTS

The intention of conducting lectures by literature and other subject experts is to broaden the perspectives of students, who spend most of their time in studies and other extra curricular activities. These experts will share knowledge that's not usually a part of the syllabus.

READING A BOOK, NOT TEXTBOOK

Since students come across only textbooks and worksheets while schooling, the day will be dedicated to taking them beyond that and reading all kinds of books. This will enhance their academic knowledge and get them grades. An interactive activity , it will introduce children to well-known authors from around the world and enhance their experience. Reading books can help them expand their horizons and learn things beyond textbooks.

READ OUT LOUD

Although reading might be practised by students on a regular basis, not many know the benefits of reading out loud. One of the activities lined up for this day is to read out loud, so that you understand each and every word you read, their pronunciations, meaning, the tone in which they are used and the context it is used. Reading out loud also boosts our confidence and generates valuable feedback.

Source: The Times of India dated 13 October, 2015

Why your Facebook account needs to be included in your Will

The Internet has changed the way we live. Technology has taken over our lives in many ways and most of us are a tangled mess of emails, smartphones, iPads and laptops. We use technology for almost everything we do—our morning alarm, daily calendar, correspondence through WhatsApp, emails and SMS, bank accounts and social network accounts. This dependence on the Internet has given us something new to think about—dgital assets. During our lifetimes, they afford us the luxury of being able to do almost everything on-the-go and immediately. But what happens to these assets when we pass away?

Justin Ellsworth died while serving in the US armed forces. His father, appointed personal representative of his estate, sought access to his Yahoo account to make a memorial for him. Yahoo has a policy of not sharing passwords and refused to co-operate.

When Helen and Jay Stassen’s 21-year-old son, Benjamin, committed suicide, the Stassens went searching for answers. They found themselves engaged in a conflict with Facebook and Google. Both companies refused to give them access to their son’s account.

In both these cases, the families had to resort to getting a court order for access to information. These cases highlight the uncertainty about privacy of people’s digital lives in the event of their death.

What are digital assets?

Historically, a person’s estate consisted of a Will, trusts, life insurance policies, and any property that a person owned, including financial accounts. While many people manage their finances, business, and personal lives online, only a few have organised or centralised their online accounts. This can make managing and distributing these assets difficult after the person has died, and can lead to confusion for family members, denial of access, and even an inability to locate the accounts or information in the first place.

What happens to the many posts you made on social networking sites if you die or become incapacitated? What about the emails you stored with various service providers? What happens to the thousands of images you have stored on your Flickr or Instagram accounts? Maybe you run a website or a blog or an online business. What about registered domain names and libraries of movies, digital music and e-books that can be of significant value? Even closely held companies have information that is digital: banking records, documents, spreadsheets, personnel records, domain names.

For the majority of us, these accounts and digital assets are likely to outlive us. And when we die, it is left up to family members and executors of the Will to sort through them all. A digital estate plan is a plan for the succession of your digital assets. It can help your family locate and access any accounts you have online. With the launch of the Digital India campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, our daily involvement with the digital world is only going to rise.

What happens to digital assets without any plan?

It’s almost always in the terms of service of every digital company to not share your account information with anyone other than you. Most companies are aware of the trust placed in them, and take their responsibility to protect the privacy of people who use these services seriously. Companies like Google, Twitter and Outlook may provide content from the account on the receipt of relevant documentation but will not provide passwords or other mechanisms that would enable anyone to log in to a user’s account. Google also goes a step further with “Inactive Account Manager,” which is a way to either share or delete the account after a set period of inactivity. Others like LinkedIn will remove the account without transferring data to related family members. Facebook gives you two options—you can either delete your late family member’s account or to memorialise it. It will not transfer the account to anyone.

Making a plan for digital assets

Many states in the US have enacted laws incorporating certain online accounts or information into the probate process and are taking steps to enact specific laws relating to digital assets. In India, however, this seems some time away. A number of online companies have also started which allow you to indicate who can access your online accounts when you are no longer alive.

Given the lack of legal clarity in this area, it just makes practical sense to get organised now and to take care of your digital assets, to the extent possible. So, here is how you can do it:

1. Make a plan for your digital assets; you may wish to back up data in an external hard-drive to store photos, e-mails, documents, and other work product.

2. Take inventory of your digital accounts and assets, assemble a list of passwords.

3.Store details in an easy to reach location.

4.Give trusted family members information, instructions and authority so that they know what you have, where it is located, and how you want to dispose of it.

The truth is that today more and more of our lives are online and this will only increase. It is imperative to understand what you keep online and what will happen to it once you are no longer there. Careful planning and organisation increases the likelihood that digital assets are handled in a manner consistent with your wishes.

Gautami Gavankar, principal advisor-estate planning, Kotak Mahindra Trusteeship Services Ltd

Source: LiveMint dated 13/10/2015