JRF foe engineers

CSIR has research fellowship for Engineers. It is called
"CSIR’s GATE qualified Junior Research Fellowship for PhD for Engineering
Graduates". Details could be find from the web address given below

http://www.csirhrdg.res.in/gate.htm


Also in the attachment, please find a newspaper advt (scanned image) from UGC that invites applications for the award of JRF in Engineering and
Technology only.

Maruti reports highest ever monthly sales

The country's largest car-maker, Maruti Suzuki India, reported its highest-ever monthly sales of 1,08,006 units in September, translating into a 29.65 per cent increase vis-a-vis the year-ago period.

Sales in the same month last year stood at 83,306 units, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement.

"This is the highest ever total monthly sales by the company. The previous highest was 1,04,791 units in August, 2010," it added.

This was the fourth time this fiscal that the company's monthly sales figure crossed the one lakh mark.

MSI also posted its best-ever sales of 95,148 units in the domestic market during the month, a 32.90 per cent increase from 71,594 units in September, 2009.

MSI's exports increased by 9.78 per cent in September, 2010, to 12,858 units from 11,712 units in the year-ago period, the company added.

Sales of the company's once bread-and-butter model, the M800, however, declined by 49.86 per cent to 1,608 units from 3,207 units in September, 2009, the statement said.

The A2 segment (comprising the Alto, WagonR, Estilo, Swift, A-Star and Ritz) witnessed a 31.26 per cent growth to 68,921 units from 52,508 units in the same month a year ago.

A3 segment sales (consisting of MSI's SX4 and DziRE models) increased by 43.16 per cent to 10,531 units from 7,356 units in the corresponding period a year ago, the company said.

MSI's total passenger car sales rose by 32.95 per cent to 94,882 in September from 71,368 units in the same month of 2009, it added.

In the first six months of this fiscal, the company's sales stood at 5,96,978 units, 26.23 per cent more than sales of 4,72,917 units in the corresponding period a year ago.

England to be most expensive place to earn a college degree

England is likely to become the most expensive place in the world to take a degree under plans to increase student tuition fees, according to research.

University tuition fees of 5,000 pounds would make England the most expensive country in the world to earn a degree.

An analysis of international data reveals that a small rise would push England to the top of a league table of the most costly places to study - overtaking nations including Iceland and the United States.

According to The Telegraph, the University and College Union, which conducted the research, called on the Coalition to scrap a proposed tuition fee hike to avoid the "unenviable" tag.

It comes just weeks before the publication of a major review of student finance which is likely to lead to a sharp rise in the cost of a degree.

Lord Browne, the former head of BP, is assessing the current system of tuition fees, student grants and Government-subsidised loans.

His report could lead to an increase in the existing 3,290 pounds cap on tuition fees, with speculation that universities will be able to charge between 7,000 and 10,000 pounds.

Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary, said: "We do not want to be the most expensive country in the world for domestic students to do a degree."

Hunt added: "Students have been contributing more and more to the cost of a degree over recent years and now is the time to explore other options."

The research - based on figures published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - analysed fees charged by publicly-funded universities around the world in 2006/07 or 2007/08.

The UCU has called on the Coalition to seek alternatives to a tuition fee rise. 

Force of faith trumps law and reason in Ayodhya case

The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has made judicial history by deciding a long pending legal dispute over a piece of property in Ayodhya on the basis of an unverified and unsubstantiated reference to the “faith and belief of Hindus.”

The irony is that in doing so, the court has inadvertently provided a shot in the arm for a political movement that cited the very same “faith” and “belief” to justify its open defiance of the law and the Indian Constitution. That defiance reached its apogee in 1992, when a 500-year-old mosque which stood at the disputed site was destroyed. The legal and political system in India stood silent witness to that crime of trespass, vandalism and expropriation. Eighteen years later, the country has compounded that sin by legitimising the “faith” and “belief” of those who took the law into their own hands.

The three learned judges of the Allahabad High Court may have rendered separate judgments on the title suit in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi case but Justices Sudhir Agarwal, S.U. Khan and Dharam Veer Sharma all seem to agree on one central point: that the Hindu plaintiffs in the case have a claim to the disputed site because “as per [the] faith and belief of the Hindus” the place under the central dome of the Babri Masjid where the idols of Ram Lalla were placed surreptitiously in 1949 is indeed the “birthplace” of Lord Ram.

For every Hindu who believes the spot under the central dome of the Babri Masjid is the precise spot where Lord Ram was born there is another who believes something else. But leaving aside the question of who “the Hindus” referred to by the court really are and how their actual faith and belief was ascertained and measured, it is odd that a court of law should give such weight to theological considerations and constructs rather than legal reasoning and facts. Tulsidas wrote his Ramcharitmanas in 16th century Ayodhya but made no reference to the birthplace of Lord Rama that the court has now identified with such exacting precision five centuries later.

The “faith and belief” that the court speaks about today acquired salience only after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a political campaign in the 1980s to “liberate” the “janmasthan.”

Collectives in India have faith in all sorts of things but “faith” cannot become the arbiter of what is right and wrong in law. Nor can the righting of supposed historical wrongs become the basis for dispensing justice today. In 1993, the Supreme Court wisely refused to answer a Presidential Reference made to it by the Narasimha Rao government seeking its opinion on whether a Hindu temple once existed at the Babri Masjid site. Yet, the High Court saw fit to frame a number of questions that ought to have had absolutely no bearing on the title suit which was before it.

One of the questions the court framed was “whether the building has been constructed on the site of an alleged Hindu temple after demolishing the same.” Pursuant to this question, it asked the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a dig at the site. This was done in 2003, during the time when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was in power at the Centre. Not surprisingly, the ASI concluded that there was a “massive Hindu religious structure” below, a finding that was disputed by many archaeologists and historians.

The territory of India — as of many countries with a settled civilisation as old as ours — is full of buildings that were constructed after pre-existing structures were demolished to make way for them. Buddhist shrines made way for Hindu temples. Temples have made way for mosques. Mosques have made way for temples. So even if a temple was demolished in the 16th century to make way for the Babri Masjid, what legal relevance can that have in the 21st century? And if such demolition is to serve as the basis for settling property disputes today, where do we draw the line? On the walls of the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi can be seen the remnants of a Hindu temple, perhaps even of the original Vishwanath mandir. Certainly many “Hindus” believe the mosque is built on land that is especially sacred to them. The denouement of the Babri case from agitation and demolition to possession might easily serve as a precedent for politicians looking to come to power on the basis of heightening religious tensions.

Even assuming the tainted ASI report is correct in its assessment that a Hindu temple lay below the ruins of the Babri Masjid, neither the ASI nor any other expert has any scientific basis for claiming the architects of the mosque were the ones who did the demolishing. And yet two of the three High Court judges have concluded that the mosque was built after a temple was demolished.

From at least the 19th century, if not earlier, we know that both Hindus and Muslims worshipped within the 2.77 acre site, the latter within the Babri Masjid building and the former at the Ram Chhabutra built within the mosque compound. This practice came to an end in 1949 when politically motivated individuals broke into the mosque and placed idols of Ram Lalla within. After 1949, both communities were denied access though Hindus have been allowed to offer darshan since 1986. In suggesting a three way partition of the site, the High Court has taken a small step towards the restoration of the religious status quo ante which prevailed before politicians got into the act. But its reasoning is flawed and even dangerous. If left unamended by the Supreme Court, the legal, social and political repercussions of the judgment are likely to be extremely damaging.

Ayodhya Verdict:Historical evidence ignored, say historians

Historical evidence ignored, say historiansPriscilla Jebaraj

With the three judges pronouncing differing opinions on the historical
and archaeological aspects of the case in the Allahabad High Court's
judgement on the disputed land in Ayodhya, many leading historians have
been left bemused.

"It's not a logical judgement with so many parts going 2-1. One
does not accept the logicality of the judgement," said Irfan Habib,
a noted historian and a former Chairman of the Indian Council of
Historical Research who earlier taught at the Aligarh Muslim
University.

He noted that the verdict seemed to legitimise the events of 1949, when
an idol was placed inside the mosque, by constant references. On the
other hand, by minimising any mentions of the demolition of the Babri
Masjid in 1992, the court seemed to be disregarding it, he said.

He also expressed surprise that two judges questioned the date of 
construction of the Babri Masjid, as well as the involvement of emperor 
Babar or his commander Mir Baqi, since there had been clear inscriptions
to this effect before the demolition. "Things that are totally clear
historically, the court has tried to muddy," he said.

"The historical evidence has not been taken into account," said
D.N. Jha, history professor at the Delhi University. Noting the
judgement's mention of the "faith and belief of Hindus" in
reference to the history of the disputed structure, Dr. Jha asked why
the court had requested an excavation of the site.

"If it is a case of `belief,' then it becomes an issue of
theology, not archaeology. Should the judiciary be deciding cases on
the basis of theology is a question that needs to be asked," he
said.

Professional archaeologists also noted that the judges did not seem to
rely heavily on the Archaeological Survey of India's court-directed
excavation of the site in 2003, at least in the summaries of their
verdict available on Thursday evening.

"Somewhere, there is doubt about the credibility of that
report," said Supriya Verma of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, who
acted as an observer during the ASI excavation.

She noted that neither Justice Sudhir Agarwal nor Justice Dharam Veer 
Sharma even referenced the ASI report to support his conclusion on the 
existence of a temple on the site before the mosque was built.

"It is almost as though they themselves were not convinced by the
evidence. They are clearly conceding that there was no archaeological
evidence of a temple or of its demolition…It is a judgement of
theology," she said.

Another observer of the ASI excavation, Jaya Menon of the Aligarh
Muslim University, noted that the ASI report itself did not provide any
evidence of a demolition, and only asserted the existence of a temple in
its conclusion. "So I don't know on what basis they made their 
judgements," she said. The ASI report had been criticised by many 
archaeologists for ignoring evidence such as animal bones, which would 
not have been found in a temple for Ram, and the existence of glazed 
pottery and graves which indicated Muslim residents.

IGNOU to open study centres in six European countries

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the largest in the 
world, will open study centres in six European nations, including Germany and 
France, to offer personalised courses, said Vice Chancellor, V.N. 
Rajasekharan Pillai. The varsity already has a centre in London. 
“We will open our centre in Paris next month. Negotiation is going on with 
Germany. I hope we will start in Germany by the end of this year. Our 
target is to open five-six centres in Europe by July 2011,†said Pillai.
Pillai, who also heads the government’s Distance Education Council, said 
IGNOU would also offer personalised courses in Gandhian studies and some 
Indian languages such as Sanskrit through its new study centres in Europe, 
besides the regular courses. 
“We are in discussion with several institutes in the US, Australia and 
Europe to develop personalised courses. It will be done keeping in mind the 
needs of partner institutes,†he said, adding IGNOU’s low course fee was 
hindrance in forging accords overseas. 
“Our fee is quite low when you compare it with what is charged by 
universities in the developed countries. We are planning to restructure the fees 
for courses offered outside India,†mentioned Pillai. 
IGNOU has presence in 35 countries through 56 study centres. Over 42,000 
students are enrolled at its overseas centres. More than 90 percent of them 
are the people of India origin. The vice chancellor said student enrolments 
at the university have almost trebled in the last four years. 
IGNOU courses were also becoming increasingly popular in Africa and the 
Gulf region that has a large strength of India expatriates.†Many African 
universities have approached us for collaboration. We will help in designing 
course and study materials.†
He said IGNOU will also introduce e-books within six months to increase 
the popularity of its courses among high-tech students.†We will start with 
management and IT and gradually introduce it for all the courses. It is cost 
effective and user friendly.†
The university also plans to introduce video-conferencing facilities for 
all its 56 overseas study centres within a few months. 

ओबामा को भय, भारत मार लेगा बाजी

वाशिंगटन। राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा का कहना है कि अमेरिका अपना प्रतिस्पर्धी स्थान खो रहा है और भविष्य की नौकरियां भारत जैसे देशों के युवाओं के हाथ में होंगी जहां शिक्षा क्षेत्र में भारी निवेश किया जा रहा है।

लोवा में एक सार्वजनिक सभा में ओबामा ने कहा कि आप देखिए चीन, भारत और ब्राजील जैसे देश शिक्षा प्रणाली और बुनियादी ढांचे में जमकर निवेश कर रहे हैं कहां हम अव्वल होते थे, मसलन कालेज जाने वाले छात्रों की संख्या अमेरिका में सबसे ज्यादा होती थी, लेकिन हम अब 12वें पायदान पर हैं। उन्होंने कहा कि वो तमाम चीजें जो हमें दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा उत्पादक देश बनाती थीं, आहिस्ता-आहिस्ता हमारे हाथ से फिसल रही हैं और हम अपना प्रतिस्पर्धी रवैया खो रहे हैं।

अपने बच्चों की शिक्षा पर बढ़-चढ़कर ध्यान देने के लिए भारत, चीन और ब्राजील की सराहना करते हुए ओबामा ने कहा कि अमेरिका के इन विकासशील देशों से कड़ी चुनौती का सामना करना पड़ रहा है और देर-सवेर वे निर्यात के मामले में आगे निकल जाएंगे।

अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा ने कहा कि मेरा आशय है कि चीन, भारत और ब्राजील जैसे देश वाकई आगे बढ़ रहे हैं वे पहले से कहीं ज्यादा निर्यात कर रहे हैं। इसलिए हमें उस स्तर पर प्रतिस्पर्धा करनी होगी जिस पर हमने पहले कभी नहीं की।

स्नातक छात्रों की घटती संख्या पर ओबामा ने भय जाहिर करते हुए आशंका व्यक्त की कि अमेरिका रोजगार के अवसर भारत और अन्य विकसित अर्थव्यवस्थाओं के हाथों खो देगा क्योंकि वे स्वच्छ ऊर्जा के लिए नए संसाधनों का प्रयास कर रहे हैं जो भविष्य के लिए अनिवार्य है। उन्होंने कहा कि चीन, भारत, जापान ये सभी देश स्वच्छ ऊर्जा के लिए नए उपायों के बारे में सोच रहे हैं। हम अब आगे नहीं बढ़े तो भविष्य में रोजगार के अवसर उनके पास होंगे।

ओबामा ने कहा कि मैं नहीं चाहता कि ये नौकरियां उन्हें मिलें। मैं चाहता हूं कि ये अवसर हमारे पास यहां अमेरिका में हों। उन्होंने चेताया कि भारत, चीन, ब्राजील और यूरोप से प्रतिस्पर्धा के लिए अमेरिका ने अब भी कमर नहीं कसी तो हम आने वाले दशकों में अवसरों की भूमि कहलाने के काबिल नहीं रहेंगे।