HRD Minister Smriti Irani Launches Education Portal For Teachers

New Delhi:  Emphasising on the need to ensure quality of teachers, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani today said many people feel nothing is right in the education sector, but it is the responsibility of those holding a position to send a message that solutions are possible in specific time-frame.

Launching a teacher's education portal for District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs)--'Prashikshak', she said the field of education, which many look at with much expectation, is full of challenges.

"When education is discussed in the country, an atmosphere lacking in enthusiasm prevails. Same words 'that nothing is right' are there on everyone's lips," she said.

Referring to state ministers and officials present at the event, Ms Irani said, "The responsibility to send a message that solutions are possible in a specific time-frame lies on them and us."

Ms Irani said that while central grants for teacher education were being provided since 1987 but there was no national mechanism to determine their quality.

She said that a report of National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) had sought a mechanism in this regard, and 'Prashikshak' portal gives a benchmark for quality.

"Quality (of teachers) has become a concern across the country. But what is that quality which is expected? Is it defined by how well your curriculum is devised? Is it defined by when was your last curriculum revised? When was it restructured to meet current needs? Is quality defined by how many people got placements? Such a monitoring mechanism was not available, which through 'Prashikshak' is now available," the HRD Minister said.

She said the portal will provide benchmarks and other vital data related to teachers, vacancies and education which will help the Centre as well as the states.

Referring to Minister of State for HRD Upendra Kushwaha's remarks that often there are gaps between the ground reality and data, Ms Irani said it is true and a result of inadequate monitoring.

Ms Irani said the newly-launched portal would initially contain data on DIETs but soon include other teachers training institutes in the country.

She also said that her ministry had taken up surveys to check the availability of teachers in various areas.

All teaching training institutes will also be geo-tagged by the end of this year, she said.

Ms Irani also suggested that feedback from parents and local people should be used to decide national awards for teachers.

Secretary School Education and Literacy SC Khuntia in her speech said a high 38 per cent vacancies exist in teachers' education institutes.

Source | http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/hrd-minister-smriti-irani-launches-education-portal-for-teachers-1426576

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

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Marrakesh Treaty Brings Treaty into Force

Marrakesh Treaty Brings Treaty into Force

Geneva, June 30, 2016

PR/2016/792

Canada today became the key 20^th nation to accede to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, which will bring the Treaty into force in three month’s time on September 30, 2016.

“This is great news for people with visual impairments. and for the multilateral intellectual property system. The Marrakesh Treaty will, when widely adopted throughout the world, create the framework for persons who are blind and visually impaired to enjoy access to literacy in a much more equal and inclusive way,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “I urge as many countries as possible to ratify the Treaty so that its benefits can be widely enjoyed throughout the world,” he added.

“I am honored that Canada is counted among the countries that together are enabling the coming into force of the Marrakesh Treaty internationally. Together, we are creating a more accessible world for people living with disabilities,” said Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains. “The coming into force of the Treaty will mark the last step of a long journey toward a more inclusive global community, where print-disabled and visually impaired people can more fully and actively participate in society and reach their full potential,” he added.

"Today is an historic day for Canada, as we become the 20^th country to accede to the Marrakesh Treaty, which thus brings the Treaty into force. I am proud that our government is standing up for Canadians with disabilities and providing those with print disabilities more equitable access to alternative-format published materials,” said Canada’s Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities Carla Qualtrough. She added “As the coming into force of this treaty becomes a reality, Canadians will benefit from greater accessibility and opportunities in their communities and workplaces."

Canada’s accession was preceded a day earlier by Ecuador and Guatemala.  Mr. Gurry paid tribute to countries in the Latin American region, who make up half of the contracting parties so far.

India was the very first country to ratify on June 30, 2014. “India is pleased that the 20 ratifications have been achieved to allow entry into force of the Marrakesh Treaty,” said Ambassador Ajit Kumar, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva. Expressing hope that more countries would join very soon, he added “We will now begin to see tangible benefits to the world’s blind and visually impaired communities.”

More than 75 WIPO member states have signed the Treaty, which was adopted on June 27, 2013 at a diplomatic conference organized by WIPO and hosted by the Kingdom of Morocco in Marrakesh. For the Treaty to enter into force, twenty ratifications or accessions are required.

The first 20 countries to ratify or accede were: India, El Salvador, United Arab Emirates, Mali, Uruguay, Paraguay, Singapore, Argentina, Mexico, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, Australia, Brazil, Peru, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Israel, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and Canada.

June 30, 2016 also marks the second anniversary of the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), which was created to help implement the objectives of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled at a practical level through work in three areas: the sharing of technical skills in developing and least developed countries to produce and distribute books in accessible formats, promoting inclusive publishing, and building an international database and book exchange of accessible books.

Marrakesh Treaty – Ending the “book famine”

The Marrakesh Treaty addresses the “book famine” by requiring its contracting parties to adopt national law provisions that permit the reproduction, distribution and making available of published works in accessible formats – such as Braille - through limitations and exceptions to the rights of copyright rightholders.

It also provides for the exchange of these accessible format works across borders by organizations that serve the people who are blind, visually impaired, and print disabled. It will harmonize limitations and exceptions so that these organizations can operate across borders.

This sharing of works in accessible formats should increase the overall number of works available because it will eliminate duplication and increase efficiency. For example, instead of five countries producing accessible versions of the same work, the five countries will each be able to produce an accessible version of a different work, which can then be shared with each of the other countries.

The Treaty is also designed to provide assurances to authors and publishers that that system will not expose their published works to misuse or distribution to anyone other than the intended beneficiaries. The Treaty reiterates the requirement that the cross-border sharing of works created based on limitations and exceptions must be limited to certain special cases which do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonable prejudice the legitimate interests of the rightholder.

Source | http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2016/article_0007.html

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

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HathiTrust Expands Services for Print-Disabled Readers

HathiTrust at U-M, NFB to make 14M+ books accessible to blind and print-disabled users

June 29, 2016

ANN ARBOR—More than 14 million digital books will soon be made available to blind and print-disabled users, thanks to a new collaboration involving the National Federation of the Blind [1] and the HathiTrust Digital Library [2], a digital repository hosted at the University of Michigan.

When launched, the program will dramatically increase the availability of books for users who are blind or print-disabled. According to the NFB, currently less than 5 percent of all published works are estimated to be available to the blind, most of which are popular titles.

NFB President Mark Riccobono says the effort will be an important advancement that will specifically benefit print-disabled students and scholars within the academic community.

"While most barriers that blind people face are artificial ones created by low expectations, access to the printed word has historically been a great challenge," he said. "This collaboration will, for the first time, make millions of books available to blind readers across the nation, giving us access to more books in a single repository than we have ever had. The significance of this development cannot be overstated, and we are delighted to work with HathiTrust to transform this dream into reality."

Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a digital preservation repository with more than 100 institutional academic and research partners that is housed at U-M. Their online archive, a major portion of which was scanned by Google, currently contains millions of digitized titles in different languages from libraries around the world. Users can search not only by title, author or subject matter, but also via page-by-page content within a book.

"Supporting print-disabled users has been a focus of HathiTrust since the very beginning, and we have long provided students at HathiTrust member schools with access to our collection" said Mike Furlough, executive director of HathiTrust. "The collaboration with NFB is an important turning point, because we are now striving to help non-academic print-disabled users for the first time."

Over the coming year, NFB and HathiTrust will collaborate to plan and implement these services. User eligibility will be determined by criteria used by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and similar services authorized under U.S. law. 

According to Furlough, HathiTrust currently provides a similar service to qualified print-disabled students at its member schools [3]. The new program will expand this service to allow similarly qualified users not affiliated with HathiTrust schools access to full-text works in the HathiTrust collection.

NFB and HathiTrust, like the federally operated National Library Service, will lawfully and securely make books available to qualified people in the U.S. who have print disabilities.

Source | https://www.hathitrust.org/

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

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Copyright and Museums in the Digital Age

June 2016

By Dr. Yaniv Benhamou, Attorney-at-Law, Lecturer, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Digital museums disseminated over technology platforms and social networks are fast becoming the norm. But they raise a number of legal issues ranging from copyright to image rights and data protection to contract law. Copyright, in particular, plays a key role in that it governs whether and how content can be used. This article explore some of the key issues facing museums involved in curating interactive online exhibitions or smartphone apps that are backed up with social media strategies and crowdfunding options. It also offers guidance on what museums can do to ensure their activities comply with copyright law.

So what exactly are digital museums?

Digital museums take various forms and serve different purposes. There are “brochure museums” which act as an informative website for a museum; there are “content museums”, which are databases of museum collections; and there are “virtual museums” or “museums without walls”, which offer a variety of online content.

Whether they involve digitization or dissemination of collections over social networks or other technology platforms, digital museums face a number of legal issues relating to copyright, image rights, data protection, traditional knowledge and the law of contracts, among others.

Full Access | http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2016/03/article_0005.html

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

Note | If anybody use these post for forwarding in any social media coverage or covering in the Newsletter please give due credit to those who are taking efforts for the same.

Publishing and the Digital Economy

June 2016

By José Borghino Secretary General, and Ben Steward, Director of Communications and Freedom to Publish, International Publishers Association (IPA)

Publishing can educate, entertain and inform, shape worldviews, make or break reputations and careers. With the right business model, it can also generate revenue by offering the work of talented authors and other creators at the right time, in the right place, at the right price.

Digital technology, with its new and enticing formats, has far extended the reach of book and journal publishing, allowing publishers to find more readers wherever they are and whenever they want to read.

At the heart of this global enterprise is copyright.

Full Access | http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2016/03/article_0007.html

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

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Sudhir Chowdhary picks five widely popular mobile document scanning and sharing apps, which are free, easy to use and a must-have for those who work a lot on-the-go

6 smartphones that put the power of scanning, sharing in your hands

Why rely on a bulky, expensive scanner when you can easily scan documents, pictures and business cards with just one tap of your mobile phone?

Sudhir Chowdhary picks five widely popular mobile document scanning and sharing apps, which are free, easy to use and a must-have for those who work a lot on-the-go

Why rely on a bulky, expensive scanner when you can easily scan documents, pictures and business cards with just one tap of your mobile phone? Sudhir Chowdhary picks five widely popular mobile document scanning and sharing apps, which are free, easy to use and a must-have for those who work a lot on-the-go

Office Lens

Available for Android, iOS and Windows devices, Office Lens from Microsoft is a handy app that turns your smartphone or a tablet into a fast, efficient scanner. If you are taking pictures of receipts, business cards, menus, whiteboards, or even sticky notes then Office Lens will automatically crop, enhance, and clean up the image and export it to OneNote or OneDrive as a JPEG image, or Word, PowerPoint, and PDF document. This free app trims, enhances, and makes pictures of whiteboards and documents readable. Install Office Lens on your device, run the app and you have an efficient scanner in your pocket.

Fast Scanner

Not quite good as a conventional scanner, but does the trick.

Fast Scanner turns your Android or iOS devices into a multiple pages scanner for documents, receipts, notes, invoices, business cards, whiteboards and other paper text. With this free app, you can quickly scan your document, then print or email them as multiple pages PDF or JPEG files. Moreover you can save the PDF files in your device or open them in other apps. The app works very clearly and easily. Images are crisp and clear.

You can even scan multiple-page documents and save it under a customised file name. A must-have for those who work a lot on-the-go.

Evernote Scannable

Scannable from Evernote is a pretty fast and simple to use iOS device-specific app. It instantly recognises business cards, receipts, and any other paper you point it at. Whiteboards, too. Scans are automatically cropped and enhanced, producing crystal clear digital documents. The moment you run the app, it’s ready to start scanning. It’s super quick and gives excellent clarity for documents scanned. Simply position your document so it fits within the viewfinder of your device and the app will quickly and automatically capture it, then straighten, sharpen and improve the quality of the image. You can even share the scanned documents with colleagues via email or SMS.

CamScanner

A popular mobile document scanning and sharing app with over 100 million installs, CamScanner helps you scan, store, sync and collaborate on various contents across smartphones, tablets and computers. You can use your phone camera to scan receipts, notes, invoices, whiteboard discussions, business cards, certificates etc. Then run the app and its smart cropping and auto enhance feature make the texts and graphics look clear and sharp. The app also enables you to easily share documents in PDF or JPEG format with others via social media, email attachment or sending the document link. A useful and reliable app, it’s easy to use and
the best part is, it’s free to download.

Genius Scan

Genius Scan has more than 15 million users. It is a decent productivity app which works on Android, iOS and Windows smartphones and tablets. This app from Grizzly Labs is a simple, cross-platform document scanner that makes snapping quick images or generating PDFs of receipts, notes, sketches, or anything else as simple as a single tap. It enables you to quickly scan documents on the go and email the scans as JPEG or PDF with multiple pages. It detects page frame and corrects perspective, enhances the scan with colour or black-and-white post-processing and creates PDF documents with multiple scans. The app also gives you some basic editing tools, like auto cropping and archiving.

Source | http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/tech/a-scanner-in-your-pocket/301514/

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

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Fee Waiver To Central University Students With Disabilities, Says Smiriti Irani

New Delhi:  The government is mulling fee waiver to central university students belonging to economically weaker sections and students with disabilities, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Wednesday said.

Addressing a gathering of youth assembled by an NGO to promote the use of 'Modi app', Ms Irani said for IITs and NITs the government has waived the total fees for students with disabilities and those whose families have less than Rs. one lakh annual income.

"College students are wondering, when will their turn come... We will make attempt to bring in such a provision for central universities," Ms Irani said.

Recently, in two separate decisions, the HRD ministry while hiking fees for IITs and NITs had also announced full fee waiver for SC, ST and economically weaker section students.

In her address, Ms Irani also claimed while the previous Congress-led government had announced many new institutions like IITs, proper arrangements were not made.

"They (UPA govt) opened IITs in Ropar, Patna, Bhubneswar but they did not made arrangements even for amenities like roads, water or power," the HRD minister said, adding on Wednesday the cabinet has decided to provide all such facilities to these institutes.

"In 2008, Congress made an allocation of Rs. 4000 crore, today we have made it Rs. 14,000 crore," Irani Ms said.

Referring to the case of a Pune-based girl Vaishali, who had approached Narendra Modi for medical help with regard to an ailment and received prompt response, Ms Irani said the Prime Minister has time even for those who have not become voters yet.

She encouraged the youth to connect with the PM through Narendra Modi app and create a positive environment on social media where some people run "negative" campaigns.

Source | http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/fee-waiver-to-central-university-students-with-disabilities-says-smiriti-irani-1426285

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

Note | If anybody use these post for forwarding in any social media coverage or covering in the Newsletter please give due credit to those who are taking efforts for the same.

When machines start writing well

10 Friendly cities for the differently-abled

10 Friendly cities for the differently-abled

This Is How the Smartest Entrepreneurs Lead Teams

Everything ties back to balance.

The Entrepreneur Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question,”What leadership style should every entrepreneur try to adopt?” is written by Aaron Harvey, founder of Ready Set Rocket.

The fast pace and complexity of today’s world means that leaders need to be more purpose driven, supportive, and flexible than ever before. Trends are constantly shifting and shaping companies’ goals. New channels for reaching and interacting with consumers are being developed daily. In this age of expansion, change is the new constant. For entrepreneurs to stay on top, they must create and maintain a leadership style that adapts to these unpredictable times.

There are four key leadership aspects that will help you navigate change while keeping your employees focused on what you set out to do:

Vision

Every company needs a vision—a distinct purpose that runs through all aspects of its business. For some, it’s philanthropic. For others, it’s about user experience or content creation. No matter what yours is, remain unwavering in your dedication to it, but flexible in your means of getting there. Problems will arise that steer your team off course. This is inevitable. However, if your business is aligned around a core belief, everything else will fall into place.

A purpose-driven company will also attract and retain the best talent. Consumers aren’t the only ones craving authentic experiences. Employees do, too. Companies with distinct and recognizable visions stand out to potential hires and keep current team members engaged and passionate about their work.

Empowerment

Smart leaders empower their employees to make tough decisions, engage in controversial thinking, and seek outside learning opportunities. Give your team the room to make mistakes, and the responsibility of fixing them when they happen. Micromanaging hinders employee growth. Too often, employees rely on upper management to clean up the mess when something goes wrong, which results in teams feeling marginalized. This approach can be very damaging to employee confidence, and in the long run, will keep your staff from developing important risk-taking skills.

Don’t limit empowerment to the office. Push your staff to get involved in outside learning opportunities and life experiences. After all, the most well-rounded individuals make the strongest employees. Encourage your staff to go out into the world, engage in experiential learning, and bring that newfound knowledge back into the workplace. That’s what we do at Ready Set Rocket, and it’s done wonders for our employees’ growth within the company.

Stress management

No one in a company fully understands the intensity and breadth of daily stress that an entrepreneur is under. There is pressure from all angles. Whether it be landing a new client or hitting a financial metric, you are reminded every day of the team of people relying on your success. Your ability to lead well depends on managing and controlling these anxieties.

Develop tools and habits that help you bubble out of the day-to-day stress and see the bigger picture of where your company is going, and what you need to do to get it there. If you don’t learn how to do this, you’ll become consumed by your anxieties. When things go wrong, it’s emotional. But learn to ask yourself, “What can I do right now to solve this?” If the answer is nothing, push it aside and focus that energy on something else. Your leadership style is ultimately defined by how you act when the stakes are high.

Balance

Everything ties back to balance: how you balance work and pleasure; how you balance being too hands off vs. too hands on; how you balance your drive and passion for your business with priorities in your personal life. It’s important to remember that working longer doesn’t always mean working smarter. You need to give yourself the space and opportunity to think clearly so you can work efficiently and make smart decisions. Find out what you enjoy doing, what helps you manage your anxiety, and create time for it. For me, surfing and spending time by the ocean clears my head and gives me the perspective I need to run my business. The more you forbid yourself of this release, the more you and your business will suffer in the long run.

Source | http://fortune.com/2016/06/28/leadership-styles-success-business/

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library

Khaitan & Co

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

Best Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23, 2016.  The title of the paper is “Removing Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”

Note | If anybody use these post for forwarding in any social media coverage or covering in the Newsletter please give due credit to those who are taking efforts for the same.