AICTE accepts panel proposal on fee cap for private institutes

AICTE accepts panel proposal on fee cap for private institutes

As reported by The Indian Express on November 19, a 10-member panel headed by former Supreme Court Judge B N Srikrishna had proposed a range of maximum fees to be charged by private institutes.

Moving a step closer towards fee regulation at the national level, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has accepted the report of the government-appointed committee, which had recommended a ceiling on the tuition fee charged by all private institutes for technical courses including engineering and MBA.

As reported by The Indian Express on November 19, a 10-member panel headed by former Supreme Court Judge B N Srikrishna had proposed a range of maximum fees to be charged by private institutes.

For instance, the committee has fixed the maximum (tuition and development) fee for a two-year MBA course at Rs 1.57 lakh to Rs 1.71 lakh per annum, depending on the location of the institute. The annual fee for a four-year engineering degree (BE or B Tech) has been fixed at Rs 1.44 lakh to 1.58 lakh. It has also proposed the maximum fee for technical courses like B Arch, B Pharma, MCA and M Tech.

The Justice Srikrishna committee was set up by the AICTE to honour the Supreme Court’s direction in the TMA Pai Foundation case.

Moving a step closer towards fee regulation at the national level, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has accepted the report of the government-appointed committee, which had recommended a ceiling on the tuition fee charged by all private institutes for technical courses including engineering and MBA.

As reported by The Indian Express on November 19, a 10-member panel headed by former Supreme Court Judge B N Srikrishna had proposed a range of maximum fees to be charged by private institutes.

For instance, the committee has fixed the maximum (tuition and development) fee for a two-year MBA course at Rs 1.57 lakh to Rs 1.71 lakh per annum, depending on the location of the institute. The annual fee for a four-year engineering degree (BE or B Tech) has been fixed at Rs 1.44 lakh to 1.58 lakh. It has also proposed the maximum fee for technical courses like B Arch, B Pharma, MCA and M Tech.

The AICTE accepted all the recommendations at its council meeting on December 11 and decided to draft a regulation on the fee to be charged by private institutes. But before that, it will share the committee’s report with state governments for their comments, and to apprise them of the additional financial burden which they will have to bear because of increased scholarships, said sources.

The HRD Ministry too has been requested to consult the Finance Ministry on the funds required for scholarships once the recommendations are implemented. The AICTE, however, hasn’t decided on a timeline to introduce the fee regulation.

The Justice Srikrishna committee was set up by the AICTE to honour the Supreme Court’s direction in the TMA Pai Foundation case. The apex court had ruled that to prevent commercialisation of technical education, the fee charged by private institutes should be decided by the state governments until a national-level fee fixation committee gives its recommendations.

Once the report is implemented, all private institutes which take more than the prescribed fee will have to fall in line. The report makes an exception for institutes of excellence by allowing autonomous and accredited institutes to charge 10 per cent and 20 per cent additional tuition fee respectively.

However, it is not clear what will happen to reputed institutes which charge more, despite the exception made for excellence. The Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) in Jamshedpur, for instance, takes Rs 9 lakh per annum for its post-graduate diploma in management, which is equivalent to a two-year MBA. The TA Pai Management Institute in Manipal or TAPMI charges Rs 7 lakh for the same.

Source | http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/aicte-accepts-panel-proposal-on-fee-cap-for-private-institutes/

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Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co

Mobile App Vs Web App

Mobile App Vs Web App

App streaming: Paradigm shift in mobile apps

The mobile app versus web app dilemma continues to haunt the major e-commerce firms in the country. While Flipkart partially rolled back their plan to go ‘mobile app only’ version and have introduced ‘Flipkart Lite’ that enhances the user experience of their web app, especially over mobile browsers.

The mobile app versus web app dilemma continues to haunt the major e-commerce firms in the country. While Flipkart partially rolled back their plan to go ‘mobile app only’ version and have introduced ‘Flipkart Lite’ that enhances the user experience of their web app, especially over mobile browsers. Myntra, which became the first app-only e-commerce firm in India, has taken a step back to introduce a mobile-friendly web app similar to that of Flipkart. Such companies are now focussing on a ‘mobile only’ strategy rather than an ‘app only’ approach.

There are various reasons why this debate of mobile app versus web app has taken centre stage in India, more than in other countries. Smartphone shipment in India contributes to about 7% worldwide and is expected to reach 10% by 2017 (Statista.com). As per IDC, the Indian smartphone market saw 26.5 million units being shipped in the second quarter of 2015, which is up 44% from the same period last year. The mobile broadband subscriptions are growing almost double from last year to reach 100 million. At the same time, mobile apps allow companies to deliver more customised and targeted information to their consumers, improving customer engagement, Hence, with the near universal access though mobiles, and a more compelling user experience, it is only natural that most of the e-commerce transactions are being done using mobile devices. It is estimated that for the larger e-commerce players, anywhere from 50-90% of their transactions would be mobile originated.

On the other hand, this is not the most convenient usage for most of the users in India who use sub $100 phones, with limited phone memory and hence need to juggle which app to keep on their phones. Further, while companies would want to ‘lock in’ users and encourage them to use only their apps to launch a service, this is historically not the way users have engaged on the web. In many situations, we would still prefer to use a search engine to identify potential providers of information or services, and then navigate through to one or more of them, based on the information available on each of them. This is particularly true for services or information we access occasionally. Since apps are often ‘closed systems’, they are not indexable by search engines, and hence may not appear in search results—essentially creating a divide in the Internet between the ‘web world’ and the ‘app world’. This clearly presents a challenge for smaller and lesser known players while potentially reducing the information available to users.

The third set of players affected by the ‘app only’ trend is the search engines, particularly the giants like Google. The closed app systems can potentially make large parts of the Internet inaccessible to the search process, impacting the business model of such firms. As a first step to address this, Google introduced App Indexing—and deep links—which allows developers to introduce hooks into their apps, so that aspects of apps can also be discovered, ranked and delivered as part of search results. This could enable users to discover information in apps they have already installed, or be informed about apps they could install. This feature is currently available for Android and iOS developers.

While this begins to address the possible web/app divide, it still requires users to install apps before they can access a service provided through that app—which implicitly would limit the number of apps a user installs. To address this, Google announced last month an experiment that lets Android users ‘stream’ a select handful of apps through mobile search without downloading them. The enhanced mobile search on Android smartphone will fetch not only web pages but also related mobile apps. If the user decides to use the app, it will be streamed on to the browser without the need for the user to download the app. As per Google, the user experience of the streamed app is almost the same as that of a native app. Using this clever move, Google gets the eyeballs of app users for possible ad-based monetisation and is likely to garner a stronger hold of the mobile search space.

While it is still uncertain whether the app steaming will work in the poor network conditions in our country, it will definitely save precious phone memory, and save time for downloading. On the other hand, it has moved the native app providers to a level playing field. While this move by Google will be welcome by the app providers who have a smaller user base, it is likely to threaten those with a larger user base who enjoy their comfortable niche position of customer engagement.

It is only natural that Google will be keenly interested in how this debate shapes up in India as it is the second largest mobile search market in the world, next only to US!

Both the writers are Professors at IIIT-Bangalore

Source | http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/tech/app-streaming-paradigm-shift-in-mobile-apps/183246/

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co

E-commerce not a viable option for sales of academic book

E-commerce not a viable option for sales of academic book

Academic book publisher and distributors are finding online platform like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Paytm, unviable and less profitable as the associated costs with the marketplace is higher.

Academic book publisher and distributors are finding online platform like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and Paytm, unviable and less profitable as the associated costs with the marketplace is higher. Charges such as collection fee, marketplace fee, shipping fees, payment gateway fee, packaging cost, and service tax of 14.5%, which otherwise would not be applicable in the offline market, takes away major chunk of their earnings. Even if the distributors are purchasing the books at 40% discount from the publishers, they hardly tend to make any profits for books sold online.

For instance, assuming that a book priced at Rs 300 and weighs less than 500 grams is purchased by the seller at 40% discount. Considering the various charges – the sellers are incurring a loss of Rs 18-20 on each book sold on online market places (Except in case of Paytm where there is a nominal profit of Rs 2.48. If the book weighs more (particularly the engineering, law, accounting and IT related) the shipping cost increases accordingly and the losses tend to get higher.

The only respite the book sellers have is when the customers are charged for the shipping, which online platforms like Flipkart and Snapdeal discourage and Paytm and Amazon allow to pass the burden on to the customer. Though the online marketplaces are now giving discount to attract more customer, in future, if the sellers are asked to take the burden of discounts, it would further hit their margins. And in the case of Flipkart and Amazon, if the fulfillment is done by these players, the shipping and packaging cost is reduced resulting in about 10-15% profit to the sellers.

Speaking to FE, Amit Karki, Sales head at S Chand and Co. Pvt ltd, one of the largest publishing company in the country said, “For academic books, offline market is still stronger and in no way will the online marketplaces hamper the offline sale. Ideally, the sellers would prefer to go offline as the sales and margins are higher and the associated costs are less.”

Some of the publishers and distributors like UBS Publishers Distributors and Shroff Publishers who sell books both in the online and offline market, say that the latter is the preferred choice, because the associated cost with the online marketplaces are higher.

“It is a myth that purchasing on online marketplace is cheaper. The only advantage online marketplaces offer you is the convenience of sitting at home and ordering anything with just a click of the button, but for the price-conscious consumer, it is more beneficial to call up the local bookshop and ask for home delivery with discounted prices,” Aziz Shroff of Shroff Publishers said.

While Amazon and Flipkart decline to comment on the sales numbers, Amazon India, this year, while the overall book category growth has grown by 200% in terms of units sold, test preparation books, competitive exam books. UPSC, CAT, GATE & JEE books were the ones in high demand.

Source | http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/companies/e-commerce-not-a-viable-option-for-sales-of-academic-book/183282/

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co

Maharashtra government proposes flexible duration undergraduate courses

Maharashtra government proposes flexible duration undergraduate courses

A three-year undergraduate course may be the thing of the past. Passing out of college can either be speeded up or slowed down.At the same time you needn't be a student of just Mumbai or Nagpur university; no matter which varsity you signed up at, you can pick a political science course from Pune University or a sports' physician's programme from the Maharashtra Uni versity of Health Sciences.

Flexible duration to complete courses, setting a comfortable pace of learning and free mobility among universities will all be available to students of the state. The freshly drafted Maharashtra Public Universities' Act, 2015, states that academic bodies must design procedures, policies and practices to introduce more flexible approach to education and of “adaptive pace of learning“ with minimum and maximum duration for completion of a degree and other academic programmes.

Similarly , it must “create a policy for mobility of students among various universities of the state and also lay down the policy for giving flexibility to choose and learn different course modules among different faculties in a university or other universities in the state“. A copy of the draft with TOI shows that universities will set up departments for interdisciplinary studies, for linkages with corporates, a board for extension and lifelong learning, a wing for innovation and incubation, schools for skills, among some other forward-looking academic renovations.

With the affiliation system getting unwieldy , the draft also proposes that subcampuses be set up and a board for the same be established. “Also, the fact that a board for postgraduate studies in colleges is being set, shows the importance PG-level education will get in the future,“ said a principal.

There is an idea to harness technology at a grand scale. A board of information technology will be created to use technology in academics, finances and administration. But some aren't very happy with the draft bill for it vests more powers in their vice chancellors. For, university bodies, the organs that carry forward its workings, will now have more members nominated by vice chancellors than those that walk in through a democratic election process.

C N Dhanagre, former VC of Shivaji University , Kolhapur, said “This draft is very authority heavy; the fact that the number of nominated members on various bodies is more than elected members vests more powers in the hands of the VC. That will defeat the democratic functioning of the university .“

Source | http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Maharashtra-government-proposes-flexible-duration-undergraduate-courses/articleshow/50303288.cms

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Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co

Development of Public Libraries Under National Mission on Libraries

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Culture

23-December-2015 17:29 IST

Development of Public Libraries Under National Mission on Libraries

The National Mission on Libraries (NML) will upgrade infrastructure of selected libraries and upgrade technology in 35 State Central Libraries and 35 District Libraries (to be identified by State Governments) and 6 Libraries under the Ministry of Culture. So far 11 State Central Libraries and 11 District Libraries in Twelve States have been approved for development as NML Model Libraries.

It has been reported that 77% of survey of the libraries have been completed. The expected date of completion of survey cannot be indicated at this stage.

This information was given by Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge) and Minister of State for Civil Aviation Dr. Mahesh Sharma in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

*****

Sanjay Kumar/jk/Culture/Parl. No.-1/ 23-12-2015

Source | www.pib.nic.in

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Librarian

Khaitan & Co