General Awareness

GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION - December 2018

Dec 2018

Nov 13, 2020

Tamil Nadu University Scraps Arundhati Roy's Book from Syllabus

A Tamil Nadu University's decision to remove Arundhati Roy's book from their syllabus, based on a petition from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), BJP's student wing, has riled opposition parties in the state.
Although there is no official letter yet in this regard, the Vice-Chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tirunelveli has confirmed on having scrapped the book 'Walking with the Comrades', which is about the author's visit to Maoist hideouts, from the institution's postgraduate English syllabus.
The book was part of the syllabus from 2017 for 3rd semester MA English Literature course. Last week, some controversial contents of the book regarding Maoists were brought to our notice. ABVP gave a written request and other syndicate members also informed us. So a committee was formed involving three deans and two chairmen of the board of studies and took a call to have this book scrapped and replaced from the syllabus.

Online Education System 'CDX' Inaugurated at SPPU

University Grants Commission (UGC) Vice Chairman Dr Bhushan Patwardhan, while inaugurating online education system Content Express Delivery (CDX), said that the technology will revolutionise the field of education. The online education system has been developed by Savitribai Phule Pune University's (SPPU) e-Content Development and Learning Innovation Center (eCDLIC).
SPPU, through its eCDLIC, is providing a learning management system (LMS) that is moodle-based and customised to the needs of academic institutions in the University. The LMS has a user-friendly interface for faculties and students, which enables discussions, reading material being uploaded by faculties, video-based teaching through an asynchronous mode and assignment uploading and evaluation.
SPPU Vice-Chancellor Nitin Karmalkar said that 175 colleges are currently using the CDX and that the SPPU was able to provide e-content to these colleges during the lockdown in a short period of time.

Nov 12, 2020

"MegaScope" for Personalised Healthcare

IIT Alumni Council has launched "MegaScope" for personalised healthcare. MegaScope has been launched to include testing, data analysis and genomics to precisely diagnose infections and to prescribe personalised medicines.
MegaScope will add host genome data mapping along with Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and data backbone to the MegaLab initiative.
The main aim of MegaScope is to improve accuracy of testing, prediction of likely disease severity and progression, enhance efficiency of treatment and avoid casualties.
As per the president of the council, use of the same medicine for all or same test for all is coming to an end now. COVID-19 has shown that pathogens can react differently from one person to another and that is why there is a need of personalized medicine. This need will be fulfilled by MegaScope.

Nov 11, 2020

Lockdown Word of the Year 2020

Collins Dictionary has declared 'lockdown' as its Word of the Year 2020 after it was used frequently due to the Covid-19 pandemic this year. From just 4,000 last year, the usage of 'lockdown' in 2020 rose to 250,000, lexicographers recorded.
Definition of lockdown: Collins Dictionary defines the word as "the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces".
Collins said that the word signifies "a unifying experience for billions of people across the world, who have had, collectively, to play their part in combating the spread of Covid-19."
The word 'lockdown' was used very commonly as governments around the world battled the coronavirus.
The dictionary had shortlisted 10 words in the run-up to select Word of the Year 2020. Most of the other words were also mostly related to the Covid-19 pandemic and they were: Furlough, key worker, self-isolate, social distancing and coronavirus.

Nov 09, 2020

Punjab Engineering College Enters 100th Year

The Punjab Engineering College missed on being an IIT twice in the 1960s — first in 1963 and then in 1965. As PEC entered its 100th year, director Sanghi shared some unknown facts of the college's journey. He called it many a slip between the cup and the lip because it was how India missed having sixth IIT at Chandigarh.
It was in late 1950s, Sanghi said, when no one challenged the establishment of IIT-Kharagpur through an act of parliament. It was time to establish the other three IITs as suggested by Sarkar Committee Report, one each in North, South and West. It was decided to set them up at Kanpur, Chennai (then Madras) and Mumbai (then Bombay). Since IITs were to be at a level higher than any other engineering college in the country, foreign help was sought and received.

Nov 08, 2020

Punjab Launches Mission to Achieve 100 pc School Results

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh launched the 'Mission Shat Pratishat' for 2020-21, aimed at empowering schools to achieve 100 per cent results despite the COVID-19 pandemic. At the virtual event, which connected him to teachers, students and their parents from more than 4,000 schools and ministers, MLAs, officials and non-teaching staff, the chief minister also announced the creation of 8,393 pre-primary school teachers posts and said they would be filled up soon by the education department, according to a government release.
Pointing to the challenges in education in view of the COVID-19 situation, Singh said the mission is aimed at further strengthening the digital education infrastructure in schools through e-books, EDUSAT lectures, e-content, online classes, broadcast of lectures through television and video lectures prepared by the teachers.

Fellowship Program for International Postdoctoral Researchers

The Council for Higher Education in Israel and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities has launched an excellence fellowship programme for international postdoctoral researchers. Under the programme, postdoctoral fellows will have the opportunity to engage in innovative research in one of the Israel-based universities.
Fellows will participate in various activities, such as day trips, seminars, workshops and social events during their fellowship. A total of 20 fellowships will be granted to incoming post doctorate students. At least 15 fellowships will be allocated in sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and up to five fellowships will be allocated in the humanities and the social sciences stream. The fellowships will be awarded for two years for 1,60,000 NIS (approx. Rs. 34.67 lakh).
An applicant must be an international candidate with a PhD from a recognised higher education institution outside of Israel less than four years from the time of application, or who will receive a PhD from a recognised higher education institution outside of Israel prior to the commencement of the fellowship.

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