Result of the National Entrance Test declared

 The result of the National Entrance Test conducted by the Residential Coaching Academy (RCA), Aligarh Muslim University for admission of the candidates of various Civil and Judicial Services has been declared.Prof. Ziauddin Khairoowala, Director of the Academy said that the Interview and Group Discussion of the candidates who have qualified the written test will be held on September 15-18, 2010. He further said that 617 candidates appeared in the written test out of which 293 were declared qualified for Civil Service and 42 applicants for PCS (J) who will undergo an Interview and Group Discussion for their final selection for admission. The results may be viewed on www.rcaamu.com and www.amu.ac.in.

Mumbai Looks to Sea to Solve Traffic Mess

Mumbaikars may soon be able to avoid the snarling traffic on the city’s roads—by taking to the sea.The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd., or MSRDC, which is the state’s road and infrastructure development arm, started accepting bids this week for building the city’s first water transport system.

The financial bid was opened to the sole bidder, a consortium comprising of two local firms, Pratibha Constructions and Kakade Infrastructure, and Inaikara, a Malaysian infrastructure company.

The planned project will ferry commuters from the southern business district of Nariman Point to the far flung Western suburb of Borivli in just about 40 minutes. The 45-kilometer commute can now take up two hours by road. Even with a train it takes between 50 to 80 minutes.

Though Mumbai is a peninsula surrounded by the Arabian Sea on three sides, water transport has not been an option for its giant army of commuters who travel from the northern suburbs to the business district on its southern tip. While there are a few private ferries that ply between the Gateway of India and Alibaug or the Elephanta Caves to the East, those boxy boats are mostly for tourists.

The north-south route will be the first such passenger ferry initiative for the city and will carry 35,000 commuters back and forth each day, according to Sonia Sethi, the Road Development Corp.’s vice-chairman and managing director.

The Passenger Water Transport project will be executed in four phases and take as many years for completion. It will include building six terminals—Nariman Point, Bandra, Juhu, Versova , Marve and Borivli. The stretch from Nariman Point to Versova will be the first phase of development and is expected to be completed in one-and-a-half years once the project gets approval.

The waterway is expected to cost 12 billion rupees ($260 million) and will work on a Public Private Partnership model based on division of risk.“The MSRDC will provide the operator exclusive rights to ply on the west coast, in addition to real estate for developing terminals and customer related facilities,” Ms. Sethi said. “The consortium in-charge will be responsible for the financing of the project,” and given a concession period of 29 years to recover its investment.

However, this project may still be six months away from a take-off. The Road Development Corp. has yet to present the plan to its board, which is scheduled to meet next week. The recommendations will then be referred to the state government’s Cabinet Committee.

Any citizen of Mumbai, or most other megacities in India, will be skeptical of the timeline as the city rarely delivers on its promises. Others have tried to capitalize on the city’s waterways and failed.

In the 1970s one city organization’s hovercraft service from Navi Mumbai lasted only a few days because of the high cost of tickets and maintenance. Again in the late 1980s, a joint venture of private companies attempted hovercraft services from Juhu to Belapur via Nariman Point, but had to shut down due to financial problems.

Prof Rashid appointed as Pro Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia

Prof S M Rashid from the Department of Geography, Jamia Millia Islamia has been appointed as the Pro Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia. He took over charge on Friday the 13th of August, 2010.
 
With 38 years of experience behind him, Prof Rashid was serving as the Dean of Faculty of Natural Sciences prior to taking up this new assignment. He has held other administrative positions in the University too.
 
Prof Rashid has been associated with Jamia for the last 50 years. He joined Jamia School in 1961 and went on to complete his schooling and graduation from Jamia Millia Islamia. Thereafter, he went to Aligarh Muslim University for higher studies. He joined Jamia as a lecturer in 1973 and has been in Jamia since then.  Prof Rashid specializes in Remote-sensing and has been working in the area of Cartography.
 
On his new appointment, Prof Rashid says, "I would work in the best interest of the University and my job as Pro Vice-Chancellor would be to lend support to the Vice Chancellor, Mr Najeeb Jung. I would see to it that his dream of making Jamia Millia Islamia a world class university gets fulfilled".     
 

CWG-effect: Living in the city becomes costlier

The plight of Delhi University students who have been evicted from their hostels ahead of the Commonwealth Games is much talked about, but what is even more alarming is that the accommodation crisis is resulting in the city becoming a costlier place to live.

Areas, mostly around the University campus, which were until a few months back considered affordable for those staying on rent, are suddenly going out of reach, and the affected people believe this hike is here to stay.

Hostel and PG accommodation that were last year available for Rs 5,000 now cost anywhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 9,000, and this steep hike has been most visible in areas around the campus like Mukherjee Nagar, Indra Nagar, Vijay Nagar and Civil Lines. This steep hike is not only affecting students, but is rather having a blanket impact.

"This is not a student-centric issue. It has larger implications as it is affecting the lower middle class and the working class people in several areas of the city," said Priyanshu, who is one of the activists leading a campaign seeking government intervention to regulate rents.

He said the sky high rents are in no circumstances likely to come down post Games, and have effectively made the areas costlier, hence education for students who come from smaller places has also become more expensive.

Students might have been the hardest hit by the inflated rents and limited accommodation but University officials say jumping on the Games bandwagon was a rare opportunity to get much-needed funds to renovate hostels, something the colleges would not have been able to accomplish on their own resources.

Some 3,000 undergraduate students of DU were evicted from their hostels in July when repair and restoration started, and are currently living around the campus. "UGC has disbursed around Rs 58 lakhs for civil work and Rs 20,000 per person for furnishing, and this amount of money was not coming otherwise," said Chandrachur Singh, Warden of the Hindu College Hostel at DU.

"Our hostel was in bad shape, and the funds we get from the government for upgradation are minimal. So we wanted to avail whatever funds were coming our way ahead of the Games. Now when our students return, they will have a 500 lph RO, a much better mess, toilets, beds and linen," he told PTI.

However, his only concern is the maintenance of these renovated hostels and where will the money come from for that purpose once the Games are over. Presently, he acknowledged, the students are facing a lot of problems outside the campus. "We were initially not so perturbed by the eviction, as we were told we will come back to much better hostel facilities, but we had not seen this coming," a final year student of Kirorimal College said.

US admits Iran N plant for civilian ends

Following the inauguration of the Bushehr power plant, Washington has acknowledged that the Iranian nuclear facility carries no risk of proliferation.Iran began injecting fuel into the Bushehr power plant on Saturday with the attendance of UN inspectors. "We recognize that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk," AFP quoted State Department spokesman Darby Holladay as saying on Saturday.

Holladay, however, repeated the claim made by White House Spokesman Robert Gates that launching the Bushehr power plant "underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful," since Russia is providing fuel for the plant. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi rejected the claim, saying, "Suppose we receive the required nuclear fuel for the plant from the Russians for the next ten years, what are we going to do for the next 30 to 50 years?" Head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi has said Tehran pursues enrichment to provide fuel for its power plants, "because the West cannot be trusted, and Germany, France and the US have not met their commitments in this regard." Iranian officials say they expect to use nuclear-generated electricity two or three months following the fuel launch of the plant.

Moon may be shrinking

The moon is smaller than it used to be and could still be shrinking, NASA scientists said Thursday pointing to new evidence that the moon has contracted relatively recently.

New high-resolution images have turned up geographical features on the moon that indicate it has shrunk within the last 800 million years - or practically yesterday in astronomical terms, said Tom Watters, a scientist at the Centre for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The findings could indicate that as the moon has cooled since its formation it has contracted and could still be tectonically active today, Watters said.

The images come from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been mapping the moon since last summer as part of a two-pronged mission that also involved crashing a rocket into the moon's surface

Maruti planning a rival to the Tata Nano

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), the maker of the People's Car, is planning to come up with a car costing under Rs 2 lakh to regain its market share in the small car segment that it lost to rival Tata Nano.

For this, it has entered into price negotiations with component suppliers. Maruti Suzuki has asked auto component firms providing parts to Tata Nano for customised cheaper components.

A person close to the development said the firm is seriously planning a car priced closer to Nano. This would take the price point well below the recently relaunched Maruti Suzuki Alto.

"The plan was there for a long time after it announced the phasing out of Maruti 800. However, it was closely watching and waiting for the economy to turn around. Now the plans are back on the front burner. As per the plans, the car will be priced below Rs 2 lakh," a company official told MAIL TODAY on condition of anonymity.

"Negotiations are already going on and the company has asked us to cut the prices of our parts by at least 15-20 per cent for one of their new models," an official of an auto component company told Mail Today . When contacted, a Maruti Suzuki spokesperson, however, denied any such plans.

Maruti's entry-level car Maruti 800, non-air conditioned, is priced at Rs 1,92,936. It was the cheapest car that earned the firm the image of the 'People's car-maker'. It sold the largest number of cars in the small car segment.

However, with the adoption of strict emission norms, the car had to be phased out in 13 cities in the country. The base model of Alto currently sells at Rs 2,29,055.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors' Nano has managed to establish itself as the cheapest car in the world costing Rs 1,23,361 (ex- showroom New Delhi).

Maruti plans to change this picture with its new model. During April-July, Maruti Suzuki sold 8,586 units of Maruti 800 compared with 23,779 units of Nanos.

"What the company is looking at is quality better than Nano so there would be little difference of margin. Talks are already going on with various auto component companies. The company is re-negotiating deals with component providers for Alto," the official added.

After the launch of Nano, the market was full of speculation about the company's next move but Maruti Suzuki made no official comments on its plans for a new car.

The company is also working fast to expand its assembly line capacity. The company expects to start its new assembly line at its Manesar factory nearly seven months ahead of its original plan.

"I am not aware of any announcement made so far but yes, making a car like Nano is possible and feasible as well.

Although not all can repeat the Nano story, Maruti has resources and expertise to come up with such a model at a cheap price without compromising on quality," Vinnie Mehta of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India ( ACMA) said