LIRC@SFIT

Indian academia must be a wellspring of ideas, not a morass of regurgitated views The new rules approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) say that researchers will lose their registration and teachers their jobs if found guilty of plagiarising. There will be graded punishment for offenders. This essential move should have come much earlier to ensure that Indian academia is a wellspring of fresh ideas rather than a morass of regurgitated thoughts. Plagiarism — the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own (read cheating) — has been gnawing away at India’s academia for years; even top academicians have been caught at it. For example, Pondicherry University vice-chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy quit in 2016 after a prolonged stand-off with the ministry of human resource development, following allegation that she plagiarised large parts of one of her books. Appa Rao Podile, vicechancellor of the University of Hyderabad, was accused o...

However, it has made installation of vending and crushing machines necessary at starred hotels, malls, tourist places and public places across the state. The government has decided to lift the plastic ban on small PET and PETE bottles with capacity of less than half litre. (HT File (Representational Image)) In a relief to people, the government has decided to lift the plastic ban on small PET and PETE bottles with capacity of less than half litre. However, it has made installation of vending and crushing machines necessary at starred hotels, malls, tourist places and public places across the state. This means that all starred hotels will have to install crushing machines for using PET and PETE bottles in bulk. Similarly, it will be mandatory for big malls to have vending machines for collecting used plastic bottles under the depository buyback scheme. The manufacturers of PET bottles will also have to install vending and crushing machines at tourist and ...

The new syllabus is student­centric. It has been upgraded in a way that our state board students will be at par with their counterparts from other central boards. VINOD TAWDE, education minister MUMBAI: State education minister Vinod Tawde on Wednesday launched new textbooks for Class 10 state board students. The new syllabus which will be applicable from the 2018-19 academic year. Education minister Vinod Tawde speaks at the launch of new Class 10 textbooks in the city on Wednesday. The new syllabus is on par with the central board and will benefit of state board students, said Tawde. “The new syllabus is studentcentric. It has been upgraded in a way that our state board students will be on par with their counterparts from other central boards,” said Tawde. The textbooks were introduced in the city in the morning. Officials from the school education department said the new textbooks will be available in the market in all languages. “Subject experts and our state board...

Apple is said to use its own chips for its Mac products. TECH   Updated: Apr 03, 2018 17:03 IST Ian King and Mark Gurman   Bloomberg Apple’s latest move would be a big blow to Intel’s business.(REUTERS) Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans. The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices -- including Macs, iPhones, and iPads -- work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition. The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple’s Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple pro...

According to preliminary results seen by The Indian Express, students from disadvantaged sections in India make either comparable or greater skill gains than their advantaged cohorts. The World Bank and Stanford University surveyed roughly 5,000 first-year and third-year B.Tech students from 200 randomly-selected public and private engineering institutes last year. A learning outcome assessment of undergraduate engineering students in the country, conducted by Stanford University and the World Bank, suggests that Indian students make substantial gains in Mathematics and critical thinking skills in the first two years of their education compared to their counterparts in China and Russia. But their overall higher order thinking skills are “substantially lower” than the Chinese and Russians. The World Bank and Stanford University surveyed roughly 5,000 first-year and third-year B.Tech students from 200 randomly-selected public and private engineering institutes last ye...