by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has focused his attention on the “importance of stress-free examinations” and has called on the young students to “pursue knowledge over marks”. In a new book, “Exam Warriors”, he authored, Modi has set out to provide “a handy guide” for students in India and across the world.
“This book seeks to add to the debate and discourse around the importance of stress-free examinations and the need to pursue knowledge over marks. It aims to be a catalyst that will trigger discussions whose ultimate beneficiaries will be our Exam Warriors. The more we talk about these issues, share our views and experiences and learn from others, the greater will be the chances of ensuring that our children have the fun-filled childhood that they deserve.
“It is our collective duty to ensure that their childhood is not overshadowed by the burden of exams and the constant anxiety of ‘what do I do next,” Modi mentions in the author’s note.
The Prime Minister also mentions that the idea of the book came from the various “Mann Ki Baat” episodes that he did on the subject of school exams. He recalls that many students had written to him, saying that those episodes “helped them immensely in their preparation” and reduced their pre-exam stress.
In the book, Modi presents 25 mantras for young students to fight the exam stress. “I have also written about other aspects, such as why one must always pursue one’s passion, try to discover oneself, and why youngsters must play, travel extensively and devote some time in the service of the society,” he adds.
He has also thanked the parents and guardians for “the crucial role they play” and has sought their “continued support in encouraging our exam warriors”.
Modi ends his Author’s note by welcoming feedback and “more ideas on the questions” that he raises in the book.
The 189-page book carries rich illustrations and is printed on fine paper. The book, published by Penguin India and BlueKraft Digital Foundation, is priced at Rs 100 only. Notably, books of similar length and genre from the same publishing house are priced anywhere between Rs 250 to Rs 400.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Success Stories
By Pervez Bari, Maeeshat.in,
Bhopal : Thirteen students of the Delhi based Crescent Academy have successfully cleared the Mains Exam of the IAS Examination, 2017, the results of which were declared recently.
These aspirants who have passed the examination are now a step away from their cherished goal of becoming topmost bureaucrats of the country if they are lucky enough to overcome the hurdle of the final stage of Interview.
Till date the Crescent Academy, in spite of limited infrastructure and resources, has been able to produce more than 100 IAS, IPS, IFS, IRS, Judges and State Civil Servants throughout the country.
It may be mentioned here that Crescent Academy is run by an educational welfare trust registered under the Society Registration Act of 1860. Crescent Academy is a division of M. A. R. Educational Trust, established with a vision of providing proper guidance and training to the Civil Services aspirants with special emphasis on creating a sound academic environment. It was started, over a decade ago, by Maulana Mohammed Fazlur Rahim Mujaddidi, a great spiritual personality, academician and social activist of north India.
According to Maulana Mujaddidi, who is also a member of the Consultative Group for Empowerment of Minorities, Planning Commission of India, the new aspirants who want to appear in the examination of the elite services can visit the Crescent Academy’s website www.cacademy.org for details.
It may be pointed out here that Prof. Ziaul Hasan, retired Principle of Aligarh Muslim University Polytechnic, Aligarh and Mr. Mohammad Iqbal Khan, Director of Crescent Academy, Delhi, are the pathfinders of establishing, guiding and training the aspirants of various competitive examinations countrywide. They have lent their long academic and administrative experience of producing various Civil and Judicial servants for the services of the nation, And, it is a matter of pride that the Academy has succeeded in achieving its objective in such a short span of time.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Hyderabad : The Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) has joined hands with the US Embassy in New Delhi to conduct a five-day training programme for English language teachers of madrassas.
The programme was inaugurated on Tuesday by M. Aslam Parvaiz, Vice Chancellor MANUU, at the Civil Services Coaching Academy at the University Campus here.
Luis Scott, a trainer with World Learning, a Washington based organisation, said the programme was a precursor to an online course that would start soon.
The Centre for Professional Development of Urdu Medium Teachers and Placement Cell, MANUU have extended cooperation in organising the training programme, said a statement from MANUU.
Parvaiz said that languages and cultures help people understand each other better. “English is the language of international communication which empowers the learners,” he said.
Eighteen English language teachers from madrassas in south and central India are taking part in the training programme.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, News, Politics, Startup Basics
By Archana Sharma,
Jaipur : With a view to giving back to their home towns, young ex-IITians are returning to take a shot at creating jobs through their tech ventures in Rajasthan, particularly in the field of education. Many of these tech-savvy youngsters realised that education was in dire need of a major change in the state.
“One day, we discussed that if travel, banking, hotels and food can be on phones, why not education? That was the trigger. We wanted to build a one-point communication between teachers and students,” Madhup Bansal, from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D), and co-founder and Managing Director of Myly, told IANS.
Gaurav Mundra, the other co-founder and CEO of Myly, realised that his son’s school circulars sometimes went missing. “So we brought a centralised app where parents had access to kids’ timetable, results, fee deposits and other information via one mobile app,” he says. Currently working with 800 academic institutions in India, he said they have operations in Dubai and the Philippines and were planning to be in Malaysia soon.
Rishabh Jain, from IIT, Bombay, and COO of Qriyo, India’s managed home tuition app, claimed to be first of its kind, says: “Me and Mudit, CEO of Qriyo, had envisioned to be job creators for around 500 people in our hometowns. So we started operations in Jaipur and Jodhpur. Now, it’s heartening to see that we have evaluated over 15,000 tutors who are serving over 5,000 students in six cities of India.”
Mudit Jain was at the India division of Finmechanics as Country Head and had worked with the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, US. “The idea of Qriyo originated while searching for a yoga teacher. Despite hundreds of providers listed online, I could not find a suitable match.” In January 2016, Qriyo was born, offering over 400 courses in academics, co-curricular, extra-curricular and fitness activities, Mudit said.
The returnees are all youngsters who wanted to pursue their dreams in distant lands, after finishing the most sought-after degree in the country. But a feeling for their roots and a conducive business atmosphere brought them back home, to use their knowledge about the cyber world for the benefit of their fellow residents.
Nishant Patni, founder and CEO of CultureAlley, had finished his IIT from Bombay, his post-graduate degree from the US and worked with the Boston Consulting Group in Chicago and two start-ups in Delhi and California when he went to China and struggled to learn a new language.
“If I am struggling this hard to learn a new language, what might be the case with others, I thought, and came up with ‘Hello English’, which is now India’s No. 1 educational app with over 35 million learners,” Patni told IANS. According to him, Hello English was part of Google’s Editor’s Choice 2017 and the year before, it was named Google’s Best Apps of 2016. It now teaches several other languages.
“We got infrastructural support from our hometown, Jaipur, and this city houses good engineering talent and hence we came here,” he said, adding that the “real Bharat is outside top cities; the people you encounter here give you a real insight into everything”. The company has also got funding from a global venture capital firm.
SRJNA, which brings modern, innovative aids and methodologies into teaching of science, maths and astronomy, is among a few players helping schools to set up “tinkering labs”. They create a design studio kind of place where students can learn via Robotics and 3-D tools. “We help in setting up innovation labs where teachers demonstrate to ensure students learn quickly by using real practical tools,” says Sharad Bansal, CEO of SRJNA and an IITian from Delhi.
So impressed was NITI Aayog by the approach that it had decided to set up 500 such labs across the country calling them Atal Tinkering Labs under the Atal Innovation Mission, named after the former Prime Minister. It provides Rs 10 lakh for setting up such a lab in a school and a similar amount each year for five years, for operational expenses. Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, had said at the time of launching the programme that “it will provide school students the opportunity to work with tools and equipment, fostering inventiveness”.
SRJNA got some benefit from a Rajasthan government’s incubation scheme. Start-up Oasis has been extending a helping hand to provide start-ups with Rs 25 lakh every year for three years, and a built-up area of 25,000 square feet, to make their ventures operational. According to Tarun Agrawal, portfolio manager at Start-Up Oasis, there were 15 IITians who had come back to their hometown to set up tech ventures. But not all took the help of the incubator.
Moinee Foundation, which supports “right to quality education”, was set up by Arvind Thanvi, its Chief Mentor. Thanvi, an IITian from Kharagpur, left his corporate career with Accenture, Mumbai, where he worked for a decade as account director. He started smart class intervention with 12 schools in a district, by reviving their existing ICT labs. That has now reached over 1,500 schools in nine districts of three states.
“Our community eLibrary programme received traction after being nominated for the Prime Minister’s award last year. We are currently setting up over 125 new eLibraries in three states. We also implement community eLibraries in areas without Internet connectivity,” Thanvi told IANS.
The prime crop of IITians in the state is bound to attract many other start-ups. Rajasthan’s tech fields are set to undergo change, led by tech-savvy youngsters who come back.
(Archana Sharma can be reached at archana.s@ians.in)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
London : Apple on Monday announced to support The Malala Fund — led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai — which is focused on advocating every girl’s right to 12 years of free, safe and quality education.
Apple will become the fund’s first Laureate partner, enabling a significant expansion of Malala’s effort to support girls’ education and advocate for equal opportunity.
“We believe that education is a great equalising force, and we share Malala Fund’s commitment to give every girl an opportunity to go to school,” CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
Cook will also join the Malala Fund leadership council.
“Yousafzai is a courageous advocate for equality. She’s one of the most inspiring figures of our time, and we are honoured to help her extend the important work she is doing to empower girls around the world,” Cook added.
With Apple’s support, Malala Fund expects to double the number of grants awarded by its “Gulmakai Network” and extend funding programmes to India and Latin America — with the initial goal of extending secondary education opportunities to more than 100,000 girls.
The fund’s “Gulmakai Network” currently supports programmes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and Nigeria.
Apple will help Malala Fund scale its organisation by assisting with technology, curriculum and research into policy changes needed to help girls everywhere attend school and complete their education.
“My dream is for every girl to choose her own future,” said Yousafzai.
“I am grateful that Apple knows the value of investing in girls and is joining Malala Fund in the fight to ensure all girls can learn and lead without fear,” she noted.
Since 2013, Malala Fund has been working in partnership with other organisations, the private sector and governments around the world to realize every girl’s right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education.
“With an estimated 130 million girls out of school, the importance of their work is increasingly essential,” Apple said.
—IANS
