Nit fee hike from next academic session
New Delhi: The Council of National Institutes Technology (NIT) has decided to hike the fees of B Tech, M Tech and MCA programmes from next academic session to Rs70,000 from the existing Rs30,000. However, the council decided not to hike the fees for SC and ST students. The decision was in line with the recommendations of Kakodkar Committee which had suggested steep hike of tuition fees from the next academic session. There are at present 30 NITs in the country, of which 10 have been set up in recent years. The IITs had earlier this year also effected a steep hike in tuition fees for undergraduate programme from Rs50,000 to Rs90,000. The council meeting was chaired by Higher Education Secretary Ashok Thakur in the absence of HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju, who have not been attending any ministry programmes or meetings ever since he submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh protesting the creation of Telangana.
Seminar on insurance, bank frauds in Amity
New Delhi: Amity University organised a two-day seminar on “Prevention of Frauds in Insurance & Banking Industry” last week in its Noida campus. PK Malhotra, Advisor, Central Vigilance Commission, Niraj Kumar, General Manager, Oriental Insurance Co. ltd, Prof RR Grover, Advisor, Amity School of Insurance, Banking and Actuarial Science and Dr B Shukla, Acting Vice-Chancellor, Amity University were present. Malhotra stressed that the number of frauds are increasing in Society owing to our growing carelessness and neglect in routine works. Human greed and temptation also lead to frauds, he said. Grover opined that it is not very difficult to prevent frauds and whistleblowers are the biggest source of discovering frauds, along with increased vigilance and due diligence.
FAO: over 7% drop in malnourishment
New Delhi: In the wake of a recent Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report that proportion of undernourished has dropped from 25.5 per cent in 1990-92 to 17 per cent in 2011-13, Association of Biotech led Enterprises-Agriculture Group (ABlE AG), an industry association of agri biotech companies has suggested efforts to ensure greater food production with scientific developments. “The Food Security Act is a giant leap forward and will entail enormous benefits to those at the bottom of the pyramid. The provisions of the Act will also require much higher availability of food grains. For shared growth to further eliminate this scourge and to fulfill the United Nations’ (UN) Millennium Development Goal 1 of reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger such steps are significant,” said Dr N Seetharama, Executive Director, ABlE-AG, in a Press statement.