Thursday, December 1, 2016

‘Universities should be free of bureaucratic control’ - chairman Ved Prakash said

‘Universities should be free of bureaucratic control’ - chairman Ved Prakash said

University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Ved Prakash on Thursday said universities in the country should be freed from bureaucratic clutches and other kinds of external control if they are to foster innovation.

Delivering a lecture after inaugurating some facilities at the University of Mysore, Prof. Prakash said there is no motivation or incentives for innovation in the field of higher education because of bureaucratic control. He said higher education in India is in a deep financial crisis and though the funding has increased over the years in absolute amounts, the proportion of funding to the overall plan size is on the decline.

The UGC chairman called for financial reforms to cope with the situation and said that though education cess is in place, it is meant only for promoting elementary education.

Prof. Prakash said modern higher education in India is hardly 125 years old, compared to educational institutions abroad that have evolved over up to 900 years. “Yet, there is no reason for us to be apologetic about the state of higher education as in a short span India has produced outstanding scientists and professionals,” he said.

However, he said the gross enrolment ratio and regional disparities were worrying factors. “While the gross enrolment ratio is as high as 42 per cent in some parts of the country, it is 6 per cent or so in some regions. The disparities are huge, with enrolment at 33 per 1,00,000 population in some areas, and 7.5 per 1,00,000 in others,” he said.

He said there are issues related to transition rate from primary to secondary and post-secondary stages. Some students making the transition are found to lack the competencies to complete higher level courses. He also said that there is a strong disconnect between academia and the industry and that there is a lack of leadership to haul higher education out of the crisis.

Earlier, Prof. Prakash inaugurated the renovated UGS-HRDC building at the Manasagangotri campus. K.S. Rangappa, Vice-Chancellor of the university, Registrar R. Rajanna, and other staff members and students were present.

Source | Business Line | 2 December 2016

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


Website | https://sites.google.com/site/pralhadjadhavlib/home
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AICTE - Collaboration & Partnerships between Indian and Foreign Universities / Institutions in the field of Technical Education, Research and Training

AICTE - Collaboration & Partnerships between Indian and Foreign Universities / Institutions in the field of Technical Education, Research and Training

AICTE has issued guidelines on Collaboration and Twinning Programmes between Indian and Foreign Universities / Institutions in the field of Technical Education, Research and Training. As per the guidelines, accredited FEIs and AICTE approved IEIs with prescribed quality can enter into a bipartite agreement/ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) after getting necessary approvals from AICTE and fulfilling other conditions as laid down in the guidelines. Eligibility parameters, conditions and approval procedure for such collaboration, as contained in the AICTE Collaboration and Twinning Programme Guidelines, are available at www.aicte.org 

Seven Twinning/ Foreign Collaboration proposals have been approved for the Academic Year 2016-17. List of Institute-wise AICTE approved Twinning/ Foreign Collaboration proposals for the AY 2016-17 is as under:

Sl. No.
Indian Institute
Foreign University
1.
Gandhinagar Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad
DE Montfort University, Leicester, U.K.
2.
Daly College Business School, Madhya Pradesh
DE Montfort University, Leicester, U.K.
3.
Universal Business School, Maharashtra
Cardiff Metropolitan University
4.
Institute of Hotel Management, Maharashtra
University of Huddersfield, U.K.
5.
GMR School of Business, Telengana
Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada.
6.
S.R. International Institute of Technology, Telegana
University of Massachusetts
7.
Ansal Technical Campus, Uttar Pradesh
Valiparaiso University, USA.


Source | www.pib.nic.in

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


Website | https://sites.google.com/site/pralhadjadhavlib/home
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UNESCO inscribes Yoga in the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Culture

1st December 2016


UNESCO inscribes Yoga in the representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
Yoga, India’s one of the ancient practices has now been inscribed as an element in the UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of humanity during the 11th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During this session, India’s proposal for inscribing Yoga as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was unanimously supported by all the 24 members of the Intergovernmental Committee.

Yoga has become the 13th intangible cultural heritage that has been listed from India so far with UNESCO. Previous ones includes the Chhau dance( Inscribed in 2010), the Buddhist chanting of Ladakh ( inscribed in 2012), Sankirtana –the ritual singing, drumming, and dancing of Manipur( inscribed in 2013), the traditional brass and copper craft of utensil making among the Thatheras of Jandiala Guru, Punjab(inscribed in 2014) and Ramlila- the traditional performance of the Ramayana ( inscribed in 2008).

Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has played a key role in having the United Nation declare June 21st as the International Yoga Day in 2014. Government of India has been taking forward the momentum created by celebration of International Yoga Day in 2015 and 2016 with greater and more active participation of youth & other stakeholders of the community. The government has continuously been promoting Yoga as a human treasure and a key to noble health.

The delegation from India that attended the Intergovernmental Committee Meeting was lead by the permanent representative of India to UNESCO, Ms. Ruchira Kamboj and a Government of India representative, Shri M. L. Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Culture.

Source | www.pib.nic.in

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


Website | https://sites.google.com/site/pralhadjadhavlib/home
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Kindle to support e-books in five Indian languages @ Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam

Kindle to support e-books in five Indian languages

Amazon’s e-book reader, Kindle will now support content in five Indian languages, including Hindi, Gujarati and Malayalam, a move that will help the US-based firm tap into the niche but growing ‘digital regional content’ market in India.

“We are adding thousands of digital books in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam, including the largest digital selection of best sellers, hundreds of exclusive titles and free classics to the Kindle Book Store,” Amazon Kindle Director (Content) Sanjeev Jha told PTI.

Readers can access these books on Kindle eReaders as well as the free Kindle apps for Android and iOS, he added.

“Subscribers of Kindle Unlimited will also have access to the Indian language content. The new language selection is in addition to over three million books that are already available on the Kindle Book Store,” he said.

Kindle already supports languages such as Chinese, German, French and Japanese among others, apart from English.

While Amazon does not share country specific growth numbers, Mr. Jha said India is among its fastest growing markets globally for Kindle.

Amazon will make available bestseller titles like Ishq Mein Shahar Hona by Ravish Kumar (Hindi), Rajaraja Chozhan by Sa Na Kannan (Tamil), Mrutyunjay by Shivaji Sawant (Marathi), Ek Bija Ne Gamta Rahiye by Kaajal Oza Vaidya (Gujarati) and Aarachar by K R Meera (Malayalam).

The exclusive titles include Banaras Talkies by Satya Vyas, Ki.Mu.Ki.Pi by Madhan and, Draupadi by Kaajal Oza Vaidya and titles like Mayapuri by Shivani will now be available in digital format for the first time.

“We are bringing features like font size adjustment, ability to add notes and highlights, and automatic save and sync of your furthest page read across all your devices,” he said.
According to industry reports, the print book market in India is estimated to be worth about USD 4 billion. India ranks third in English language publishing, after the US and the UK.
India, which is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally, also has a significant number of people reading e-books on their phones.


Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


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The Librarian on the Teaching Team

The Librarian on the Teaching Team

An essential partnership.

I’m here to make the case that a librarian is a key member of a course development and teaching team.

First - before we talk about librarians - let’s talk about teaching teams. My experience with building a team of faculty and non-faculty educators to design and run courses comes out of online learning. 

Let’s get back to librarians.

There are 3 immediate and obvious reasons that a librarian should be included on every faculty / non-faculty educator course development and teaching team:

·         Reason 1 - Experience:

·         Reason 2 - Working Directly With Students:         

·         Reason 3 - Content, Quality, and Open Educational Resources:

What do you see as the roadblocks and the challenges involved in integrating instructors, instructional designers, media educators, assessment experts, developers, and librarians into course development and teaching teams?

How do you make the case for librarians as educators - essential partners and collaborators in today’s high quality residential and online courses?


Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


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Kerala Vigilance ties up with libraries for anti-graft drive

Kerala Vigilance ties up with libraries for anti-graft drive

Local libraries are set to play a significant role in anti-corruption drive in Kerala under an innovative initiative of the state Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau to sensitise local community against graft.

Under the initiative, titled 'On-site On-line vigil visit', regular readers of libraries, known as ''vayanasalas' in local parlance, could report about corruption in their respective areas to the VACB.

A top VACB official said the objective of the initiative was to evolve a good methodology of creating a culture of zero tolerance to corruption at the grassroot level, with local library as the medium.

"Our mission is to nurture a zero-tolerance-to-corruption culture in the society. It should be visible and felt or experienced by everyone in the state. Joining hands with local libraries is one of the steps to achieve this goal," Vigilance Director Jacob Thomas told PTI.

Of the more than 7,900 libraries in the state, at least ten, which are very active, would be identified for this in each of the 14 districts.

A library action group would be formed with selected libraries, which are very active, vibrant and doing socially useful activities, as members and the Research and Training team of VACB would visit them libraries and develop joint plans and activities appropriate for each area.

Posters, urging people to take part in anti-corruption drives, would also be displayed in these libraries.

Thomas said libraries played a significant role in cultural life and the plan was to leverage the regular readers and active members of these vayanasalas to fight against corruption in their respective areas.

The members of libraries can utilise the 'Arising Kerala' and 'Whistelenow', the mobile apps developed by VACB, to document corruption and anti-corruption practices that they observe, hear or learn during their 'on-site and on-line vigil visits'.

They can monitor the progress of various initiatives, being carried out using government fund, in their area and update information about the issues of environment pollution, plundering of natural resources and illegal encroachments. "They can post information in the apps in the form of video, photo or audio and can share among maximum number of people," Thomas said adding they can also suggest remedies in the mobile app and monitor the follow-up too.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Source | Business Standard | 1 December 2016

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


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Oxford University’s lip-reading AI is more accurate than humans

Oxford University’s lip-reading AI is more accurate than humans, but still has a way to go

A new paper (pdf) from the University of Oxford (with funding from Alphabet’s DeepMind) details an artificial intelligence system, called LipNet, that watches video of a person speaking and matches text to the movement of their mouth with 93.4% accuracy.

“The technology has such obvious utility, though, that it seems inevitable to be built,” Clark writes. Teaching AI to read lips is a base skill that can be applied to countless situations. A similar system could be used to help the hearing-impaired understand conversations around them, or augment other forms of AI that listens to video sound and rapidly generate accurate captions.

We proposed LipNet, the first model to apply deep learning for end-to-end learning of a model that maps sequences of image frames of a speaker’s mouth to entire sentences. The end-to-end model eliminates the need to segment videos into words before predicting a sentence. LipNet requires neither hand-engineered spatiotemporal visual features nor a separately-trained sequence model.

Our empirical evaluation illustrates the importance of spatiotemporal feature extraction and efficient temporal aggregation, confirming the intuition of Easton & Basala (1982). Furthermore, LipNet greatly outperforms a human lipreading baseline, exhibiting 7:2 better performance, and 6 : 6% WER, 3 lower than the word-level state-of-the-art (Wand et al., 2016) in the GRID dataset. 

While LipNet is already an empirical success, the deep speech recognition literature (Amodei et al.,2015) suggests that performance will only improve with more data. In future work, we hope to demonstrate this by applying LipNet to larger datasets, such as a sentence-level variant of that collected by Chung & Zisserman (2016a). 

Some applications, such as silent dictation, demand the use of video only. However, to extend the range of potential applications of LipNet, we aim to apply this approach to a jointly trained audio-
visual speech recognition model, where visual input assists with robustness in noisy environments.


Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    


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