General Awareness

GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION - January 2019

Jan 2019

Oct 03, 2020

Marathi Compulsory in All Schools in Maharashtra

The state school education and sports department announced the formation of a committee to draft rules regarding the implementation of The Maharashtra Compulsory Teaching and Learning of Marathi Language in Schools Act, 2020.
The Act mandates compulsory teaching and learning of Marathi in all schools — government and private — from Class 1 to X across all mediums and boards in Maharashtra.
As per Section 16 (1) of the Act, which allows the state to frame rules for the law that came into being on April 1, the department has formed an eight-member committee to be headed by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Director Dinkar Patil.
For 2020-21 academic year, Class I and Class VI students will be mandated to study Marathi, followed by Class II and Class VII in 2021-22, Class III and Class VIII in 2022-23, Class IV and Class IX in 2023-24 and Class V and Class X in 2024-25.

Reliance Develops R-Green Kit

Reliance Life Sciences has developed an real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kit. It claims to diagnose COVID-19 infection in about 2 hours. Presently, COVID-19 RT-PCR test takes up to 24 hours to give a diagnosis.
The kit has been developed by Computational biologists at Reliance Life Sciences a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd.
This kit is indigenous development of the R&D scientists working at the firm.
They analysed more than 100 genomes of SARS-CoV-2 sequenced in India in order to design RT-PCR primers for developing quantitative-Real Time PCR kit.
The kit has been technically validated by ICMR for satisfactory performance. It does not approve or disapprove the kit design as well as it does not certify user-friendliness.
The kit can detect the presence of E-gene, R-gene, RdRp gene of SARS COV2 virus with Actin as an internal control. According to the ICMR results, the kit is 98.7 % sensitive and 98.8 % specific. The diagnosis time of the kit is approximately 2 hours.

Oct 02, 2020

IIT Delhi Launches BTech in Materials Engineering

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi launched an undergraduate programme, BTech in materials engineering. Enrollment for the course will start from this year itself and students who qualify JEE Advanced will be eligible to apply for the new BTech programme.
The new course will have 40 seats this year. Students will also have the option to select electives in materials engineering, which would be ideally suited for those interested students in exploring opportunities in both basic sciences and engineering, or a combination of the two, claims the institute.
Graduates of this programme will be poised to enter the aerospace, manufacturing, defence, oil and gas, automotive and petrochemicals industry.
Through the course, students will learn about the relationships between structure and properties in various classes of materials including metals, polymers, electronic materials, and biomaterials.

University of Mumbai Online Exams Begin at Few Colleges, Others to Start Exams Next Week

Even as the status of the final-year (summer 2020) online exam lies in limbo across several state universities, the University of Mumbai (MU) announced the successful commencement of online exams in some of its affiliated colleges. Most city colleges, however, have decided to start their exams from October 5.
While exams at five state universities has been indefinitely deferred due to an ongoing pen-down strike of non-teaching staff members, MU said that their decision to decentralise online exams helped ensure the schedule stays as is.

Oct 01, 2020

Gujarat Announces 25% Fee Cut in Private Schools

The Gujarat government announced a 25 per cent fee reduction in private schools for the current academic year across all boards and has directed the schools not to charge any other fee under co-curricular activities
The decision came after a series of meetings with associations of private schools and parents over the aspect of fees.
Also, the schools will not hike the fees for this academic session. Those who have already paid the full fees will get the amount reimbursed as per this decision. However, the fee relief comes with the condition that parents have to pay 50 per cent of the fees by October 31 in order to avail this relief.
The decision taken in the Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani came following the Gujarat High Court's order in September where it had left it on the state government to decide on the school fee relaxation and reduction issue amid the Covid-19 pandemic and reminded that a balanced decision should be taken keeping in mind the intent of all stakeholders involved.

Sep 30, 2020

Former Teacher Starts Mobile Library 'Hope on Wheels'

As the world shut its doors to the outside world followed by the emergence of a deadly virus called Covid-19, the schools were also deserted.
Suddenly, technology became the sole medium of imparting education. Teachers and students started to get used to spending hours in front of computers. The Internet became a very essential part of all.
Sandeep Kumar Badsra, a former teacher from Mohali did think of those students who were losing out on education due to the unavailability of essentials that are needed to cope up with the new normal.
Sandeep Badsra started an initiative of the mobile library in which he carrys books and other essential items for the children of slum so that they can continue their studies.
He provided books and other study material to the underprivileged students who could not afford the technology.
Sandeep Kumar Badsra also initiated a non-government organization called 'Open Eyes Foundation' and he named his mobile library initiative as the 'Hope on Wheels'.
He has equipped one side of the vehicle with a LED screen to be used to teach students and the other side of the vehicle has been made into a mobile library.

Sep 29, 2020

Can Ayurvedic Medicines Cure COVID-19, Clinical Trial Shows Surprising Results

In a significant development, an interim report on a clinical trial has shown that coronavirus COVID-19 patients undertaking natural treatment are resolving most symptoms earlier than those using allopathic medicines. The clinical trial was conducted at three hospitals.
The interim report said that combination treatment of an Ayurvedic remedy called 'Immunofree' by Corival Life Sciences, and Nutraceutical called 'Reginmune' by Biogetica have shown better results than the conventional medicines approved by the government for coronavirus treatment.
The interim report also added that tests such as C reactive protein, Procalcitonin, D Dimer and RT-PCR are also showing 20 to 60 per cent better improvement for the natural treatment when compared to conventional treatment of COVID-19 patients.
According to the report, over 85% of patients on the natural protocol tested negative for coronavirus on day 5 when compared to 60 per cent of patients undergoing conventional treatments. Notably, all patients tested negative when they were tested on the 10th day.

Mehr Chand Polytechnic Inks Pact with Australian Varsity

Mehr Chand Polytechnic inked a pact has signed a MoU with Edith Cowan University, Australia, for a period of three years for exchange of technical education.
The MoU has been signed by professor Daryoush Habibi, executive dean, school of engineering, Edith Cowan University, and Dr. Jagroop Singh, principal, Mehr Chand Polytechnic College, Jalandhar. Jagroop Singh said that under the agreement diploma passed students in any discipline could seek admission in Edith Cowan University through lateral entry directly in 2nd year. Moreover, the university would provide special scholarship to lateral entry students.
The university officials said that a special team would visit Mehr Chand Polytechnic College once or twice in a year.

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