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Showing posts from August, 2017

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Resentment against hike in bus fare mounting in Bhopal

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NK SINGH Though a Govt. directive has frustrated the earlier efforts of the MPSRTC to increase the city bus fares by as much as 300 per cent, the public resent even the 25 per cent hike. It is "totally unjust, uncalled for and arbitrary", this is the consensus that has emerged from an opinion conducted by "Commoner" among a cross-section of politicians, public men, trade union leaders, and last but not least, the common bus travelling public. However, a section of the people held, that an average passenger would not grudge a slight pinche in his pocket provided the MPSRTC toned up its services. But far from being satisfactory, the MPSRTC-run city bus service in the capital is an endless tale of woe. Hours of long waiting, over-crowding people clinging to window panes frequent breakdowns, age-old fleet of buses, unimaginative routes and the attitude of passengers one can be patient only when he is sure to get into the next bus are some of the ills plaguing the city b...

COWSHEDS IN JOURNALISM UNIVERSITY

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New academic innovation: Gaushala on campus NK SINGH Madhya Pradesh is blazing new trails in academic innovations. The latest is the plan to open a cowshed in a journalism university. It is a novel concept, the idea of one of the most fertile brains of our times. It’s protagonist, Brij Kishore Kuthiala certainly deserves a Bharat Ratna for that. It perfectly synchronises with his world view of an ideal education system – the Gurukul of Krishna where pupils take cows to graze in surrounding forests, milk the animals, collect firewood, beg for food in villages and then settle down to their studies. Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism & Communication, established by MP Government, has earmarked one-tenth of the area in its 50-acre new campus at Bhopal for establishing a   cowshed. The gaushala, says it’s vice chancellor Brij Kishore Kuthiala, will provide scarce pure and fresh milk and curd to faculty and students. The university will also benef...

Digvijay Singh to quit party posts

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Is his Narmada yatra political pilgrimage or spiritual journey? NK SINGH AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh wants to be relieved of all organisational responsibilities. He has already written a letter about it to his bosses, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her deputy, Rahul Gandhi. Translated in plain English, he has quit party posts and is, at present, serving notice period. Singh is also a member of the powerful Congress Working Committee and is on several important committees of the party. According to party sources, the Congress high command has accepted his resignation and indicated that he will be shortly divested of his position and responsibilities in the organisation. Singh, 70, had asked for sabbatical to go on a six month pilgrimage, walking the 2,600 km long banks of Narmada. The traditional Narmada parikrama (circumambulation of the holy river) starts from its source at Amarkantak hills in MP to the river’s mouth at Bharuch in Gujarat, where it drain...

Touts in Technical Education

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Most private engineering colleges in MP on verge of closure NK SINGH   The 200 odd private engineering colleges in Madhya Pradesh are staring at a bleak future. A sharp fall in the number of students seeking admission to these colleges is threatening their survival. It has led to frayed nerves among touts who run the racket of manipulating admissions. In Bhopal, home to half the engineering colleges in the State, goons have taken to street their fight over shrinking size of spoils. This week an armed gang of touts attacked an engineering student following a dispute over ‘commission’ paid for  admissions. The incident led to hospitalisation of the battered student, a police case and exposed the dirty underbelly of technical education in MP. As desperate managements of these institutions fight over each student, weird things are happening on academic landscape. A group of engineering colleges is known to have engaged about 100 telecallers to lure students. The tou...