Bill to merge AICTE, UGC in final stages

The HRD ministry’s five-year Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP), which was released in June, called for the need to set up a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).

The official however, refused to share more details about the elements of the bill.(HT image)

A bill that aims to merge the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to create a single regulator for higher education in the country is in the final stages of preparation and likely to come up before the cabinet next month, according to an official aware of the development.

Till now, the UGC regulated the functioning, accreditation and also fund disbursal to 40 central varsities while the AICTE played a similar role for technical institutions. The government has been considering setting up a single regulatory body that would focus on imparting quality education and learning outcomes. The function of fund disbursal would not be a role for such a body.

“The India Higher Education Commission Bill to replace the UGC and the AICTE has been prepared in consultation with the states. The ministry plans to take it to the cabinet next month,” the official said on condition of anonymity. The official added that the bill is in its final stages.

The official however, refused to share more details about the elements of the bill.

The HRD ministry’s five-year Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP), which was released in June, called for the need to set up a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).

The plan envisaged the HECI as a regulatory body to promote the quality and standards of education by merging the UGC and AICTE.

According to the suggestion of the EQUIP report, the HECI will primarily focus on academic and quality matters related to ensuring learning outcomes, mentoring of institutions, training of teachers and administrators. It would also seek to promote education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives.

According to the EQUIP report, which HRD officials terms as their five-year implementation plan, the HECI will grant autonomy to best performing higher educational institutions and award them powers to confer degrees.

The disbursal of funds that the UGC presently undertakes will be kept separate from the commission, according to the EQUIP report. “Disbursal of the funds shall be done through an SPV [Special Purpose Vehicle]. The HECI shall provide for comprehensive and holistic growth of higher education and research in a competitive global environment,” the report said.

A bill seeking the formation of a National Research Foundation (NRF) is also ready and expected to be placed before the Union cabinet for approval.

In her budget speech in July, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to the formation of the NRF to fund, promote and coordinate research in the country. “The NRF will assimilate the research grants being given by various ministries independent of each other,” she had said.

“The need to create an umbrella body for the higher education sector has been felt for a long time. However, what kind of relations it has with other bodies including varsities and institutions would define its success. Its role vis-à-vis all other bodies will have to be carefully defined,” said former UGC member Prof Inder Mohan Kapahy.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bill-to-merge-aicte-ugc-in-final-stages/story-30Q8YPFcgzLBq4OoUQgTsK.html

New Arrivals: September 9-13, 2019

Accession Number	Class No.	Author/Editor	Title	Publisher	Year	No. of Copies	Branch / Subject
27321-27330	343.7309 VIS	VISWANATHAN/ SURESH T.	BHARAT'S THE INDIAN CYBER LAW	BHARAT LAW HOUSE	2015	10	INFT/CMPN/ExTC/ Cyber Security and Laws
27331-27335	620.112 SUB	SUBRAMANIAN/ R.	STRENGTH OF MATERIALS	OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS	2016	5	MECHANICAL/Strength of Materials
27336-27365	005.8 GOD/BEL	GODBOLE/ NINA/ BELAPURE/ SUNIT	CYBER SECURITY: UNDERSTANDING CYBER CRIMES, COMPUTER FORENSICS AND LEGAL PERSPECTIVES	WILEY INDIA	2011	30	INFT/CMPN/ExTC/ Cyber Security and Laws
27366-27370	005.8 CHA/CHA	CHATTERJEE/ MADHUMITA/ CHAUDHARY/ SANGITA/ SHARMA/ GAURAV	CYBER SECURITY AND LAWS: AN INTRODUCTION	STAREDU SOLUTIONS	2019	5	CMPN/Cyber Security and Laws
27371-27440	621.4021 KHU/KHU	KHURMI/ R.S./ KHURMI/ N.	STEAM TABLES WITH MOLLIER DIAGRAM	S. CHAND	2018	70	MECHANICAL/Thermodynamics

The Top Programming Languages 2019

Python remains the big kahuna, but specialist languages hold their own
By Stephen Cass

Welcome to IEEE Spectrum’s sixth annual interactive ranking of the top programming languages. This year we’ve done a major overhaul, changing some of the underlying metrics and building a new streamlined interface. But our basic idea and methodology remains the same: combining data from multiple sources to rank the popularity of the programming languages that are used for the type of coding you are interested in.

We take this approach to get around the two fundamental obstacles to all attempts to determine the popularity of programming languages: (1) No one can actually look over the shoulder of every coder around the world as they tap away at the keyboard, and (2) a language that’s a cornerstone of one programming domain might be utterly irrelevant in another. Spectrum gets data for 11 metrics from 8 sources that we think are good proxies for popularity, and we combine the results in an app that lets you filter languages and adjust the weights given to each metric. The upshot is a ranking that’s right for you. (As part of our overhaul, we’ve retired two metrics that we used in previous years because we didn’t think they were yielding good quality data anymore, incorporated data from the IEEE Job Site, and added some new languages to the list, such as Dart.)

Of course, we’ve also got some preset weightings built in that are optimized for job seekers, for example, or folks interested in diving into an open-source side project. Our default weighting is optimized for the typical Spectrum reader, so let’s take a look at what it shows as the top 10 languages of 2019.

Although the changes in our underlying metrics mean that we have to be careful when directly comparing this year’s rankings to last year’s, the general outline of results remains similar, with Python firmly on top. Python’s popularity is driven in no small part by the vast number of specialized libraries available for it, particularly in the domain of artificial intelligence, where the Keras library is a heavyweight among deep-learning developers: Keras provides an interface to the TensorFlow, CNTK, and Theano deep-learning frameworks and tool kits. Deep learning isn’t the only field where Python is having an impact that could not have been anticipated when the language was first released in 1991. The dramatic increase in computing power found in microcontrollers means that embedded versions of Python, such as CircuitPython and MicroPython, are becoming increasingly popular among makers.

Next comes Java, C, and C++, a group whose members have long jostled with one another and with Python for the top spot, although with our adjusted metrics the distance between these contenders has widened, with C++ coming in with a score of 12.5 points below Python. (In any given ranking, the highest-ranked language is assigned a score of 100, and the scores of lower-ranked languages are scaled to that.) The number-crunching language R rounds out the top five. Despite being a much more specialized language than the others, it’s maintained its popularity in recent years due to the world being awash in an ever-growing pile of big data.

Moving further down the top 10, the presence of Matlab—a proprietary language developed by MathWorks and intended for numerical computing—may be a surprise to some, but it simply reflects the language’s prominence in hardware engineering, especially for those interested in running simulations or creating control systems via MathWorks’ graphical Simulink package.

Below the top 10, some items of note include Arduino at No. 11 and HTML/CSS at No. 12. In previous years, some readers have complained that neither should appear on a list of programming languages. In the case of Arduino, the argument is that there is no such language, that “Arduino” is actually the name of the family of hardware platforms on which the language runs, and that this language should be called Wiring (or sometimes C or C++ for historical reasons). In this, we are led by simple pragmatism: When faced with a programming question, the overwhelming majority of Arduino developers search Google using terms like “Arduino Code for…,” rather than any alternative. By choosing the de facto name, we avoid deeply discounting the popularity of programs written for the Arduino and similar microcontrollers.

Pragmatism is also the name of the game when it comes to HTML, with the objection here that it is not a real programming language because it doesn’t have branching or loop constructs. But given the huge popularity of HTML and CSS among developers, and the fact that they are used to instruct billions of computers to do things daily, we feel any academic arguments about Turing completeness and so on are beside the point. A markup language is still a language.

Finally, some older languages are still alive and kicking. In particular, despite being over 60 years old, Fortran still comes in at No. 38, likely due to the enormous legacy power of being the original scientific computing language. The language is still under active development, with the most recent Fortran standard released at the end of 2018, incorporating improved interoperability with C and better support for massive parallel computations.

Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-top-programming-languages-2019

The Online Test Centre

The Online Test Centre

Whether you are studying for a professional entrance exam—if you’re applying for a job at some of the best software companies—or even if you want to strengthen your problem-solving skills, then head to The Online Test Centre. Here you will find thousands of questions in numerical and verbal aptitude tests, logic and diagrammatic tests, reasoning tests, puzzles, general knowledge questions and GMAT test advice. You will even find a section dedicated to interview questions subdivided into categories like Typical Questions, Sudden Tests, Group Discussions, Tasks at Interviews, and Behavioral Questions. The Online Test Centre is a completely free resource with no login required; all the tests are free and available when you need them. www.theonlinetestcentre.com

Researcher: An App for Academicians

Researcher

Researcher is a valuable resource for college students and academics who want to keep abreast of research papers in disciplines such as Arts & Humanities, Business & Management, Earth Sciences & Geography, Engineering & Computer Science, Medicine & Health, and more. Each discipline consists of at least ten sub-categories: For instance, you can read papers on Gender Studies, Law and Urban Studies within the Social Sciences course. Using the app, you can bookmark technical papers, download them for free to your phone, share them with colleagues via email or messenger, and even read them later from a PC web browser. Once you create an account, you gain access to over 15,000 peer-reviewed journals. The app’s journals database is updated on a weekly basis.

Android, iOS Free

Source: The Times of India (Mumbai edition) dated 11/09/2019

IIM-Udaipur launches course on digital enterprise management

IIM-Udaipur launches course on digital enterprise management

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/71030217.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Small global cos on India hiring spree

Host of product firms have moved tech teams here to leverage cost arbitrage in last 8 months
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It is not just large banks and IT firms that are tapping into India’s technology talent pool. Over the past year or so, a growing number of small American and European product companies have started moving technology development work to India, as they face a battle for talent competing with large companies in their home markets.

Software as a Service (SaaS) firm Quolum, which started operations earlier this year, has hired three people in India out of its four-member tech team.

“Over the last seven to eight months, we have seen a lot of product companies move tech teams to India to leverage the cost arbitrage. These companies have proven business models and find it easy to attract talent by paying 1.3-1.5 times the prevailing salaries in India,” said Joseph Devasia, MD, Antal India, an executive recruitment firm.

Paying a marginally higher salary is not an issue for foreign firms as it is still one-fifth of what they would have to pay in their home markets. Ridecell, which provides amobility platform for shared vehicles, has a 50-member team in Pune.

“Having a tech office in India gives us the strategic advantage to address the huge market potential in India and the growing mobility markets across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Additionally, India is the hub for world-class tech talent, so it made complete sense for us to set up a technology office here,” said Samyak Pandya, VP of business operations and finance, Ridecell.

There has been a spike in the number of small tech companies looking at India, said Gaurav Chattur, managing director-Asia Pacific, Catenon Group, a search firm that helps global firms recruit people for their India operations. “The US and European countries are inherently short on tech talent. The visa norms in these countries are also a challenge, which is why even early-stage firms are considering India,” he said.

A recent study by Cornell University found that foreign-born PhD students in the US were more likely to opt to work at a large tech firm over a startup or smaller product firm, simply because of visa issues.

Smaller firms typically do not have the resources to help procure an H-1B visa — essential for a non-US citizen to work in the US. As a result, many of the smaller firms are struggling to find the right talent locally. With large IT services firms also increasing hiring locally in the US, the talent supply pipeline has been choked for product firms.

Very often, these companies have been started by Indians, or have Indians on the core team. In these cases, the choice of where to set up the India operations depends on where the founder has a personal connection.

Switzerland-headquartered Loylogic started out by outsourcing its technology work, but when it decided to move it in-house for IP and knowledge management reasons, India was an obvious choice.

“India (and Pune) has a mature IT industry with access to large resource pool. There is still cost arbitrage compared to European salaries,” said Piyush Khandelwal, Chief Operations Officer, Loylogic Technologies India.

There may be challenges around getting people to work for an unknown entity, but often the lure of doing differentiated work and a higher paycheck are incentives enough.

Source: https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/corporate/small-global-cos-on-india-hiring-spree/71041251