Ms. Luo Mei, in New Delhi

Shri Ajay Maken meeting Ms. Luo Mei

The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs and Sports, Shri Ajay Maken meeting the Secretary, Secretariat, Central Committee, Communist Youth League of China Ms. Luo Mei, in New Delhi on February 27, 2012. [PIB photo]   

Ms. Nandita Das addressing a press conference

A day long Children’s Film Festival on Tagore

The Chairperson, Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), Ms. Nandita Das addressing a press conference on the occasion of a day long Children’s Film Festival on Tagore, as part of the 150th Birth anniversary celebrations of Tagore, at Nandan, Kolkata on February 27, 2012. The Director, Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Shri Anup Motilal and the Chief Executive Officer of CFSI, Shri Sushovan Banerjee are also seen. [PIB photo] 27-February-2012

Aim now to Eliminate

Measles Related Child Deaths and Neonatal Tetanus: Azad 

The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad delivering the valedictory address at the conclusion of two-day Polio Summit 2012, in New Delhi on February 26, 2012. [PIB photo] 26-February-2012

Special Focus on 207 Distts Recording low Routine Immunization Coverage 

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad has said that learnings and lessons from the Polio programme could prove to be extremely useful in accomplishing the tasks of elimination of measles related child deaths and neonatal tetanus in India. Shri Azad however emphasised that continued vigil, effective emergency preparedness and response needs to be maintained as we cannot afford to let our guards now on polio virus. Addressing the valedictory session of the two-day Polio Summit 2012, Shri Azad reaffirmed commitment to funding the Polio program fully with domestic funding and willing to lend all possible support for global eradication of polio. He recalled that Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh at the inaugural yesterday said that Government of India stands committed to increasing public investment in health. 

Shri Azad informed the gathering that President of the Republic of India, who launches the annual National Pulse Polio round, has conveyed her personal greetings and commendation on the historic public health milestone that has been achieved with WHO’s decision to take India off the list of countries with active endemic wild poliovirus transmission, 

The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister said “strengthening routine immunization is an imperative if we wish to sustain our gains in polio and guard ourselves against both distant and international importations. Thus 2012 has been declared the year of the intensification of Routine Immunization. We intend to accelerate routine immunization activities from 1st April itself through special immunization drives, with a special focus on 207 districts recording low routine immunization coverage”. Shri Azad added that 26 million mothers and children have already been registered under the web enabled mother and child tracking system set up by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The system generates weekly work plans for the Auxiliary Nurse Midwives through SMS. Alerts are also sent to the beneficiaries to remind them of the date of the due health services. Shri Azad urged Rotary International, WHO, UNICEF, CDC, Gates Foundation, GAVI and other partners to now work to provide impetus to routine immunization and synergize polio eradication and Routine Immunization strategies. He informed that in 14 States where coverage is less than 80 percent, introduction of second dose of measles has been started. Our target is to cover more than 130 million children under this campaign. 

The two-day Summit emphasised perseverance, innovation and accountability as the hallmarks of India’s polio programme. Shri Azad said he would look forward to another polio summit after January, 2014 when, hopefully, India would be declared Polio Free. 26-February-2012 17:38 IST

"Calypso 2102" Held at Christian Dental College

An energy packed evening of dance competition

Ludhiana, 26th Feb, 2012 (Shalu Arora and Rector Kathuria) The Student’s council of Christian Dental College, CMC Ludhiana organized ‘CALYPSO 2012’, a cultural and sports interclass competition. The historic ‘Lady Willingdon Hall’ played host to the inauguration of this year’s competition which started on 13th February 2012 with the ‘anthakshari’ competition which was won by the 4th years. The two weeks witnessed both students and faculty pitted against each other, taking part in a variety of sports, games, literary competition and music and dance. The last 3 days of the two week long event saw participants showcasing their musical talent belting out popular contemporary and classical Hindi songs  in ‘Raag’ and English songs in ‘Juke Box’.  The extravaganza was brought to a fitting finale with ‘To the beat’ an energy packed evening of dance competition. 

The prizes for the competitions were distributed by Dr.Rajender Gyani, Chairman, Christian Medical College Ludhiana Society and Executive committee member, Dr.Ajit Singh. Dr.Abi Thomas, Principal, Christian Dental College in his closing remarks congratulated all the participants and acknowledged the encouragement and support of Dr.Abraham G Thomas, Director, and the entire administration of Christian Medical College and Hospital. The overall championship this year was won by the faculty then the interns and in the third place were the third year BDS students.

Virtual Labs Project Launched

A collection of ninety-one virtual laboratories

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development and Communications and Information Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal launching the Virtual Labs under National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), in New Delhi on February 23, 2012. (PIB photo) 23-February-2012

The  Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India today launched Virtual Labs—a collection of ninety-one virtual laboratories containing hundreds of experiments in nine disciplines of science and engineering. As part of Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD)’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), Virtual Labs is part of a comprehensive undertaking to provide easily accessible and high quality education throughout India.

Virtual Labs’ primary focus is to provide graduate and undergraduate college and university students with the ability to perform their required laboratory experiments using only the World Wide Web, a standard computer, and an Internet connection. Virtual Labs allow students to practice and better learn the science and engineering behind the experiments that they are required to perform. Virtual Labs also allows the sharing of costly equipment across the country, and in very rural areas, students will be able to perform experiments that they would not otherwise be able to access.

Nearly 300 department heads, faculty, and staff representing 152 institutions have been trained across India. Over 20 Nodal Centres have been created, institutions who have expressed their interest to champion Virtual Labs in their organisations and geographical areas.

The Pilot Phase of the Virtual Labs project started in April 2009.  During this phase, approximately twenty labs were developed as proof of concept.  The Main Phase began in April 2010.  So far, over 80 Virtual Labs have been developed, and are undergoing field trials in various parts of the country.

Two types of virtual labs have been developed under this project. In the Simulation Based Virtual Labs the experiments are modeled using mathematical equations.  The simulations are carried out remotely at a high-end server, and the results are communicated to the student over the internet.  Simulation based Virtual Labs are scalable and can cater to a large number of simultaneous users.

Using the Remote Triggered Virtual Labs the actual experiments are triggered remotely.  The output of the experiment (being conducted remotely) is communicated back to the student over the internet.  This class of Virtual Labs gives the student the output of real-time experiments.  Typically, time-slots are booked before conducting such experiments.

All Virtual Labs can be accessed through a common website:  www.vlab.co.in . At the user end, a PC and broadband connectivity enables the user to access Virtual Labs.

These Virtual Labs will be very useful for Engineering College Students who do not have access to good lab-facilities, High-school students, whose inquisitiveness will be triggered, possibly motivating them to take up higher-studies, Researchers in different institutes who can collaborate / share equipment and engineering colleges, who can benefit from the content and related teaching resources.
Currently 85 Virtual Labs have been developed comprising of 769 experiments. Trainings and workshops have been held all over India to disseminate knowledge of these Virtual Labs. Future efforts will involve development of virtual labs in different subjects and wide dissemination of this knowledge.

A Collaborative Platform for Development of Virtual Labs has been created that assists the faculty with authoring and maintaining Virtual Labs. The platform hosts over 825 experiments developed by many of the partner institutions. The Collaborative Platform provides the server side architecture for ensuring that virtual labs run securely, can effectively serve thousands of students simultaneously, and reserve time slots for experiments that require scheduling. The Collaborative Platform also provides tools to help teachers monitor their students’ progress and make changes to the instructional material.

Student interest in Virtual Labs has also been enthusiastic. The Virtual Labs site (vlab.co.in) has had 233,570 site visits and 1,034,443 page visits in just the last 6 months. There are over 4500 registered users from 134 countries and handles around 100GB of traffic per month with visitors from India, United States, Malaysia, Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Pakistan and so on.

With the launch of Virtual Labs Indian students will have easy access to an encyclopedia of science and engineering knowledge presented in a way that is engaging, immersive, and enjoyable. Virtual Labs will allow students to explore, discover, and learn wherever they are and at their convenience.

List of Virtual Labs that are ready
A.        Electronics & Communications      
·         Virtual Advanced Lab for Interactive Design and Test in Electronics
·         Virtual Microwave Laboratory
·         Wireless Lab
·         Engineering Electro-magnetics Laboratory
·         Queuing Networks Modelling Lab
·         Hybrid electronics Lab
·         RF microwave characterization Lab
·         Transducer and instrumentation virtual lab
·         Electronic design using DSP,FPGA,CPLD and Micro controllers through simulation and direct access of the hardware
·         Digital Electronic Circuits Laboratory
·         Digital Signal Processing Laboratory
·         Fading Channels and Mobile Communications
·         Basic Electronics
·         Systems, communication and control laboratory
·         Speech Signal Processing Laboratory
·         Digital VLSI Design Virtual lab
·         Signals and Systems Laboratory
·         Electromagnetic Theory
·         Virtual Electric Circuits
      
B.        Computer Science & Engineering      
·         Problem Solving
·         FPGA & Embedded systems lab
·         Computer Architecture & organization
·         Advanced Network Technologies
·         Software Engineering
·         Data Structures
·         Computer Programming
·         Data Mining
·         Databases
·         Computer Organization
·         VLSI
·         Digital Logic Design
·         Speech Signal Processing
·         Mobile Robotics
·         Computer Graphics
·         Image Processing
·         Pattern Recognition
·         Artificial Neural Networks
·         Virtual Advanced VLSI Lab
·         Cryptography Lab

C.        Electrical Engineering      

·         Sensors Modeling & Simulation
·         Industrial Automation Laboratory
·         PLC
·         Analog Signals, Network and Measurement Laboratory
·         Real Time Embedded Systems Laboratory
·         Electrical Machines Laboratory
·         Creative Design, Prototyping & Experiential Simulation Lab
·         Ergonomics Lab for Assessing Physical Aspects of Design
·         Virtual English and Communication
·         Virtual Anthropology Lab

D.        Mechanical Engineering
·         Metal Forming Lab
·         Vibration and Acoustics
·         Micromachining laboratory
·         Kinematics & Dynamics of Mechanisms
·         Mine Automation and Virtual Reality

E.         Chemical Engineering     
·         Process control, reaction engineering and unit operations lab
·         Chemical Engineering
·         Simulation of Control of Magnetic Levitation System
·         Virtual Lab for Mass Transfer

F.         Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering   
·         Bioreactor Modeling & Simulation lab
·         Biomedical and Signal processing Laboratory
·         Virtual Proteomics Laboratory
·         Neurophysiology (pilot)
·         Neuron Simulation Lab (pilot)
·         Biochemistry Virtual Lab I
·         Biochemistry Virtual Lab II
·         Population Ecology I
·         Population Ecology II
·         Immunology Virtual Lab I
·         Immunology Virtual Lab II
·         Microbiology Virtual Lab I
·         Microbiology Virtual Lab II
·         Molecular biology Virtual Lab I
·         Molecular biology Virtual Lab II
·         Cell biology Virtual Lab I
·         Cell biology Virtual Lab II

G.        Civil Engineering
   
·         Strength of Materials Lab
·         Fluid Mechanics Lab
·         Soil Mechanics Lab
·         Basic Structural Analysis Lab
·         Surveying Lab

H.        Physical Sciences     
·         Physical sciences
·         Virtual Advanced Mechanics Lab
·         Virtual Optics Lab
·         Virtual Electricity & Magnetism Lab
·         Virtual Heat & Thermodynamics Lab
·         Virtual Modern Physics Lab
·         Virtual Harmonic Motion and Waves Lab

I.          Chemical Sciences      
·         Analytical Lab
·         Virtual Chemistry Lab
·         Virtual Lab in “Charge and Particle size Determination in Colloidal Systems”
·         Virtual Lab in “Absorption Spectroscopy”
·         Virtual Lab in “CD Spectroscopy”
·         Physics of Biomolecules
·         Physical chemistry lab
·         Physical Chemistry
·         Organic Chemistry
·         Inorganic Chemistry
                                                                                        23-February-2012 16:43 IST

Launch of the Virtual Labs

National Mission on Education

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development and Communications and Information Technology, Shri Kapil Sibal addressing at the launch of the Virtual Labs under National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), in New Delhi on February 23, 2012. The Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr. (Smt.) D. Purandeswari and the Principal Director General (M&C), Press Information Bureau, Smt. Neelam Kapur are also seen. [PIB photo] 
(23-February-2012)

Attacks on Journalist​s

Press Council chief serves dismissal notice on CM
22.2. 2012

Shri Prithviraj Chavan,
Chief Minister of Maharashtra,
Mumbai,

Dear Chief Minister,

A delegation of eight journalists from Maharashtra met me today and apprised me of a large number of physical attacks on journalists/media houses in the State of Maharashtra including the recent one on Times of India building in Mumbai allegedly by Shiv Sena people.

I was informed that in the last ten years well over 800 journalists were physically attacked, while in the last two and half years
213 journalists were attacked by political workers and anti-social elements. More shocking was the day light – murder of veteran journalist J.Dey.

In this connection I had written two letters to you but there was no response from your side to either of them. Did I not even deserve the courtesy of a reply?

Freedom of the Press is a guaranteed Constitutional right under Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution, and it is the duty of the Press Council of India to uphold the freedom of the press in view of section 13 of the Press Council Act.

It is the duty of the State Government to maintain law and order in the State, but it seems to me that your Government is neither able to maintain law and order nor prevent attacks on journalists, which seriously imperils freedom of the press.

You are, therefore, requested to now show cause why I should not recommend to the President of India to dismiss your State Government under Article 356 of the Constitution since your Government apparently seems to have failed to uphold the Constitution as it has failed to uphold the freedom of the press under Article 19 (1) (a).

Please give a reply to this letter within three weeks from today after which I will take such action as is fit in the circumstances.

Yours sincerely,
(Markandey Katju)
Courtesy: kracktivist 
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