IGNOU, Kanshiram Varsity join hands to promote Urdu

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Kanshiram Urdu Arabic-Persian University will together start study centres in each district of UP to promote teaching of Urdu at certificate, diploma and degree levels. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between IGNOU, New Delhi and Urdu-Arabic and Persian University, Lucknow, was inked on April 1 2011  for cooperation in achieving the common goals of higher education, said an official release. IGNOU presently has enrolment of around 35 lakh students and is the largest university in the world offering more then 300 courses through open university and distance education mode. Kanshiram Urdu University was set up by the UP government in October 2009 to promote Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages and to enable the linguistic minorities to become employable by acquiring higher and need based education. Both the universities have agreed to offer joint degree, diploma and certificate programmes with particular emphasis on the promotion of Urdu, Arabic and Persian along with vocational and other important subjects. This will also include vocational and other courses run through Urdu medium as also through distance learning and online mode. Both universities will undertake and support staff training in the techniques and management, facilitate inter-institutional communication links, support evaluation and applied research.

India drafts agenda to spread IT literacy

According to the draft agenda,the government will make one person Information Technology (IT) literate in every household by 2020

New Delhi: The Government of India plans to make one person Information Technology (IT) literate in every household by 2020.

Giving details of the agenda of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) for 2013, IT and Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said that one IT literate person in 10 lakh households, is the target for the current year.

Have govt schemes failed Muslims?

Six years ago, the Sachar Committee report showed that the Muslim community in India suffers from severe deprivations in education, employment, health services, public infrastructure, access to financial services leading to much higher poverty than other religious groups, somewhat like the condition of scheduled castes and tribes. The government responded by setting up a separate ministry for minority affairs, and launching several programs to provide benefits to the Muslims. 

    How have these programmes fared? 

AND 

What is the condition of Muslims in the key areas that the Sachar committee had underlined? 

    A report authored by Abusaleh Sharif, member secretary of the Sachar committee and the man widely regarded as being the main author of that committee’s report, indicates that not much has changed. The report has been released by the US-India Policy Institute of which Sharif is now the chief scholar. 

    In a unique exercise, Sharif has calculated that providing education to Muslim and SC/ST communities would on its own boost the GDP growth rate up to 12%. At present, Muslims contribute only 11.2% to the country’s GDP while dalits and adivasis contribute only 16.5%. This is because these communities are poorly educated and forced to work in traditional and low value creating occupations. In traditional services, the share of Muslims and SC/STs in the workforce is about 18% each while in modern services their respective shares are just 8 and 14%.

New Year Greetings

Wishing You and Your Family a Very Very Happy New Year 2013. 

May Every Moment of Coming Year Give You Happiness , Peace , Joy 

and Success.

Naveen Raj Bhatia 

01.01.2013