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DU Rejects Plea by CBSE to Grant Concession

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The Central Board of Secondary Education has appealed to the University of Delhi’s Vice-Chancellor, Yogesh Tyagi, to grant appropriate weightage to CBSE students for the undergraduate admissions. The board has done away with the practice of marks moderation and expects to witness a dip in the scores. Consequently, the students might face a disadvantage due to the practice still being adhered to by other boards. However, this plea has been rejected by the varsity.

Last month, in a meeting organised by the CBSE, 32 school boards had undertaken a resolution to scrap off the system of marks moderation, which would inevitably result in a percentage drop. Until now, ‘moderation’ has been a common practice undertaken by school boards to maintain uniformity in the evaluation process. This is done considering the variances in difficulty level and other factors. However, its erroneous usage has also been cited as the foundational reason for the percentage spike every year, leading to cut-offs of 100% for a few courses by various colleges in the varsity since the last few years.

The aforementioned resolution is being implemented by the CBSE from this year onwards. However, considering that certain boards would put this idea into practice from the next cycle, the CBSE students are being put at a disadvantage as opposed to students of other state boards who might receive the inflation in marks. The CBSE chairman, R.K. Chaturvedi, wrote a letter to the DU Vice-Chancellor on May 9th, 2017, alluding to this discrepancy as worrisome:

“CBSE, being a national board, intends to adopt the consensus developed in the (April 24) meeting to do away with moderation of marks in senior secondary examination from the current year examination i.e. 2017 itself, so as to set the trend for other state secondary examination to adopt it on priority.”

“However, different state secondary boards may do away with moderation for the next year as they are in the midst of result preparation during the current year. Therefore, this would place CBSE students at a disadvantage during the admission process in the University of Delhi for the session 2017-18.”

“In view of the above, I would request the University of Delhi to consider awarding appropriate weightage to the students of CBSE applying for admission in Delhi University during the academic year 2017-18 to promote awarding of factual marks by other state secondary boards and do away with unfair practice of upward inflation of marks.”

The request for extra weightage and concession to CBSE students has been rebuffed by the University of Delhi, citing that the “varsity will not offer any special treatment to the UG aspirants from the board.” A senior official in a conversation with a popular national daily stated that “There have been issues with the boards from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, or Andhra Pradesh among others on inflating marks. But they are not exceptions as even CBSE had been ‘inflating’ marks in the past.”

The CBSE board results are expected to be announced by May 25th, 2017. The policy change introduced last month has led to a change of pattern. The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Class 12 results witnessed a dip of 14% in the overall pass percentage as compared to last year. The Karnataka Board Class 10 results witnessed a drop of 7.24% in the pass percentage.

The admission cycle for the University of Delhi shall commence from May 22nd for undergraduate admissions this year. The varsity has also announced that the Open Days will be conducted from May 22nd to May 31st to clarify all queries with regards to the admissions process.

 

With inputs from The Indian Express

Feature Image Credits: University of Delhi

Saumya Kalia
[email protected]

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News

SRCC appoints Simrit Kaur as the new full-time principal

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Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Delhi University, is set to get it first ever woman principal, Simrit Kaur. The college was functioning without a full-time principal since the year 2014, after the retirement of former principal, PC Jain.

Kaur is a professor from the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) which is also where she did her PhD from. She completed her Bachelors from Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) and her Masters from Delhi School of Economics (DSE). Associated with FMS since 1989, she specialises in public policy reforms, macro-economics and economic theory. Earlier, she taught at Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce.

However, the members of Delhi University’s Executive Council (EC) says that university rules were now followed during her appointment. “The rule 7 (2) (b) for the appointment of the principal of colleges other than maintained by the university states that the apex committee should consist of Vice-Chancellor, Pro V-C, visitor’s nominee, chairperson of the college governing body and two members of EC, nominated by it. However, we as EC members never nominated anyone. In fact, we came to know of it after the appointment,” J L Gupta, an EC member, told The Indian Express. The chairman of the college governing body, Ajay Shriram, however, said that all rules were followed during Kaur’s appointment on 12th May 2017.

Simrit Kaur was shortlisted alongside Anil Kumar, a professor at the college, and CP Gupta, a professor at the Department of Finance Studies, South Campus.

 

Anagha Rakta
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Top Societies of DU Fest Season 2017

Top Society of DU Fest Season 2017: Tantrik Steve, Hans Raj College for Battle of Bands

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Every year, societies from colleges across the campus compete neck to neck and put up spectacular performances during the fest season. This year too, saw certain teams shine a little brighter than the rest. We bring you a series with college societies that put their heart and soul into their respective fields and took home the top prizes at various cultural fests.

The best college society in each category was selected by creating a tally of the top 3 positions at competitive events held during various cultural fests of this season. Whenever a society won the first prize they were awarded 3 points, for the second position they received 2 points and for the third position, 1 point was added to their tally.

For the Battle of Bands category, Tantrik Steve scored the maximum points in the tally. Tantrik Steve‘s 8 points were followed by 3 points each with Hindu Collective of Hindu College and Common Threads of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College.

The Winning Society at a glance

Tantrik Steve, Hans Raj College

 

Battle of Bands is the face-off between bands, usually rock or metal bands, but often musical ac. from a range of different styles, competing for the title of the Best Band. This fest season in DU saw variety in the compositions of the different bands of DU. With the magically enthralling performances of the bands captivating the soul of the fests, the bass, drums and the charismatic vocals did not, for once, fail to awe the crowd. 2017 saw the emergence of Tantrik Steve of Hans Raj College as the best band of the season with various wins in different fests throughout the season.

Frontman Abhishek Mittal told, “The DU music scene has taken up a toll and I am really happy with the way bands are experimenting towards newer sounds.” He stated that the band comprises of eight members with different musical backgrounds, having their own flavour that added to the performance of their band. They were open to introducing new parts to the sound and they helped each other sound better apart from making their individual parts fathom into music. They performed their original compositions as well, titled ‘Kaise tum mere‘ and ‘Madhurgaanam‘.

Band Members:

  • Gagan Goel for Hindustani vocals
  • Sarath S Kumar for Carnatic vocals
  • Sayan Sinha on Bass
  • Dimpal Kumar on Drums
  • Abhishek Mittal on Lead Guitar
  • Shivash Chagti on Rhythm Guitar
  • Rohan Prasanna on Sarod
  • Kartik Balan on Mridangam

Winners Tally

Four college fests were referred to while evaluating the top societies tally this fest season which were: Tarang, LSR; Ullas, KNC; Montage, JMC and Mecca, Hindu College.

The society emerged victorious at the following fests:

  • First Position in Montage, JMC
  • First Position in Mecca, Hindu College
  • Second position in Ullas, Kamla Nehru College

The band also won accolades at the fests of SBSC, St. Stephen’s College, PGDAV, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur and Ambedkar University.

(Hover on the icons below to know more about their victories.)

 

Image credits: Alex Arthur
Design by Alex Arthur

 

Radhika Boruah
[email protected]

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Daulat Ram College

Admit Card Blunder Leaves Students Miffed

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Many students studying Journalism Honours and Psychology Honours under CBCS guidelines received information about the Skill Enhancement Course’s external and internal assessments’ final marks distribution from their college’s faculty members close to the date of their final examination. With the dates of receiving this information varying in different colleges, students from Journalism Honours in Kamala Nehru College (KNC) learnt about the same from their teachers hours before their examination. Interestingly, the confusion of the Psychology Honours’ batch of Daulat Ram College (DRC) was clarified only upon receiving the question paper.

The discrepancy was found out in various colleges upon receiving the admit card. Students of Journalism Honours in KNC and Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) found a 50-50 marks distribution for external and practical assessment for SEC in their admit cards. While KNC students had been studying the course keeping the 50-50 distribution in mind, LSR students were uncertain as they had been following the 75-25 marks distribution, with 25 being allotted for internal assessment. Students from other colleges also underwent similar confusion. “Our admit cards said that the SEC paper that was documentary production would be of 50 marks. But the paper actually was for 75 marks.”, said Aditya, a Journalism Honours student from DCAC.

The situation varied across different colleges and different departments. In certain colleges, the final distribution came to the students’ knowledge quite late, while in certain colleges like Indraprastha College for Women (IPCW), there had been no discrepancy about the same neither in the admit cards, nor with the faculty.

The entire situation around the distribution of marks created confusion and hustle among students. “We were pretty confused since we didn’t know how the marks would be divided and how we are supposed to answer had it been for 50 marks.”, said Utkarsha, a Psychology Honours student from Daulat Ram College, where no clarification from the faculty had been received regarding the SEC Emotional Intelligence paper.

DU Beat reached out to faculty members, but received no comments from their end. There is still uncertainty whether the discrepancy had been for the Journalism Honours and Psychology Honours courses only.

Such action by the college administration as well as the faculty members makes us question whether the students’ best interests are really at heart. After all the formalities and unnecessary steps the students are forced to go through to receive their admit cards, such a massive error with regards to the marks distribution is a careless mistake by the authorities. Students who prepared accordingly, having faith in the college administration and the teachers, were shocked on the day of the examination. With all the buzz around exams and the pressure on students, why was this matter handled so inadequately by the authorities?

 

Priyal Mahtta
[email protected]

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Admissions 2017

After a long wait, Delhi University finally declares its admissions open

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The most awaited and important news is here. University of Delhi has announced the admission schedule for the academic session 2017-2018.

The registration process for all programmes, including Sports, Extra Curricular Activities (ECA), Kashmiri Migrants, CW (Defense), and PwD categories, will be completely online.  The details of registration procedure will soon be updated online in the Bulletin of Information.

In a recent press release in the University of Delhi website, the following dates have been announced. The details of each program and its online registrations would start on these dates.

The dates of online registration for various programmes are:

      -Undergraduate Merit Based Programmes: 22nd May, 2017

      -Undergraduate Entrance Based Programmes: 31st May, 2017

      -Post Graduate Programmes: 31st May, 2017

      -M.Phil./Ph.D Programmes: 31st May, 2017

The last date to fill the admission form has not been finalised yet.

Now that the dates have been declared, it’s time to arrange all necessary certificates, documents and passport size photographs in place. Watch out this space for further details on admissions.

DU Beat wishes luck to all the applicants.

Keep following DU Beat for all the recent and accurate updates on Delhi University admissions.

 

Feature Image Credit: University of Delhi

Niharika Dabral
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Srivedant Kar
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Campus Central

Delhi University Star Appearances: 2016-17

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With the DU fest season finally concluded, we bring to you a timeline of all the celebrity appearances that took place throughout the academic year of 2016-17. From movie promotions and musical performances to mesmerising star nights, this fest season has been an absolute feast for any DU student.

Relive it here!

 

Radhika Boruah
[email protected]

Vineeta Rana
[email protected]

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Miranda House

Miranda House Installs Digital Signages

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Under the “mapped by digital vision” program, Miranda House has installed a hundred QR Code acrylic scanning sheets at several important places across the campus like the library, canteen, classes etc. Miranda House’s Principal, Dr. Pratibha Jolly, feels proud on taking a step towards making technology more accessible to the visually challenged.

The digital signages work through a customised smartphone app that sends out digital signals when a user is found in a proximity of three feet of the QR Code. The app identifies that location and gives  signals in the form of verbal messages. These messages direct the visually challenged to the direction and number of steps to be taken to enter a place. “If a student wants to meet me, the digital signage in the office corridor gives a warning about the glass door and verbally directs the student on how many steps she should take to reach the spot”, said the college’s principal.

The digital mapping program was undertaken by the college’s “Enabling Society – Lakshita”. The society also carries out a program, “Samdrishti” under which student volunteers guide the visually challenged around the campus, to metro stations, or to bus stops. The initiative of installing digital signages is an extension to the program which adds to making the college’s campus more accessible to disabled students.

By taking such an initiative, the college has taken a big leap towards making Delhi University’s campus more disabled-friendly. The technology may prove to be a boon for students as well as volunteers during the admission season, enabling students to move around in the campus independently.

 

Feature Image Credits: The Indian Express

Priyal Mahtta
[email protected]

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Uncategorized

Emmanuel Macron Elected as the President of France: End of the era of right wing populism?

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On February 13 of this year, the New York Times published an article citing a pro-Kremlin website about the 39-year- old former minister of the economy who had come up with his independent movement ‘En Marche (On The Move)’ only 9 months ago which read, “His speeches are too long and full of feel-good banalities. He does not have a real program. His time in government was a failure. He is secretly gay. He is developing a personality cult. He favors capitalism, and besides, he is too young”.

Even when this political virtuoso, still mooted as a novice in this ‘unlikely path’, took the world by storm by defeating Marine Le Pen as the new President of L’Elysee by securing 66% of the popular mandate, an article in Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Moscow-based tabloid newspaper, described him as a gay psychopath who hates his own country and is self-obsessed.

What is evident from these two reports from Russia is that the fear and desperation which forms the stratum of the February article, at the time when they were expecting a possible political situation in France on the lines of Trumpism in America and Brexit in Europe have today metamorphosed into delirious insecurity. Much to the frustration of these extremist institutions in Russia, USA and other parts of the world, this resounding victory is a win for Europe in particular and the global community in general.

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In a Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin-Theresa May dominated right-wing world, the election of this centrist leader can be seen as a sigh of relief and a matter of global celebration. With this new leadership, European Union will retain the principles of globalisation of people as much as of capital, through liberalised immigration. In a world increasingly overburdened with the refugee crisis, religious polarisation shall get a much-needed deacceleration, making at the same time German chancellor Angela Markel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau believe that in this anti-protectionism struggle of theirs, this is a return to the era of Barack Obama.

One thing for sure, Macron’s fearless, ubiquitous and unwavering stance on immigration and open borders shall mean a lot to a nation like India, in terms of exchange of capital and a free flow of human resources between the two nations. Particularly, this new political wave of unity in the face of divisive forces would be a lesson for the people ofIndia to identify and rise above the forces behind its ideological divisions and discard the electoral Nazism of the ruling party in the centre and its ideological roots in the Sangh Parivar.

Quite fittingly, European Union anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ boomed as Macron walked to the Louvre stage in Paris for the victory speech.

Image Credits- 1. Marcon during his campaign. The Atlantic

2. Cartoon- New York Times

Nikhil Kumar

[email protected]

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Top Societies of DU Fest Season 2017

Top Societies for DU Fests 2017: Zeal, Maitreyi College for Western Dance

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As the DU Fest season comes to a close, we look back to consistent and fantastic performances of different societies from various colleges and award them with points as per their winning streak and the positions they secure. The excelling society in the Western Dance Category has been Zeal from Maitreyi College who have continued to time and again plant their flag at DU fests.

The best college society in each category was selected by creating a tally of the top 3 positions at competitive events held during various cultural fests of this season. Whenever a society won the first prize they were awarded 3 points, for the second position they received 2 points and for the third position, 1 point was added to their tally.

Zeal secured a grand total of 15 points, taking the lead, and was followed by Misba from Shri Guru Gobind Singh College with 14 points and Verve from Sri Venkateswara College with 6 points.

The Winning Society at a glance

Zeal of Maitreyi College

Zeal has secured positions in majority of DU’s fests like Montage, Nexus, Reverie, Tarang, Crossroads.

Performing Members –

Ishita Kwatra

Jesika Gulati

Shivangi Bhadana

Shivali Bhadana

Anjali Raj

Bhaswati Das

Anviksha Tripathi

Mallika Gupta

Pragya Badbria

Preeti Agrawal

Sanjeevini Singhal

Swikriti Bhatnagar

Tripti Gambhir

Vasundhra Sharma

CHOREOGRAPHER – Akshay Danwani

The President of Zeal explains: “Our name speaks for us, because success takes not only technique but also passion!” When asked about their best performance and why it felt so great, this is what the team had to say: “Talking about our best performance this season, it was definitely our opening performance with the new production at St. Stephens! With all the anxiety and pressure kept aside, the fresh taste of performing felt like coming back home to the stage, and with some crazy energy from the audience, we couldn’t do anything but dance our hearts out!”

Winners Tally

Eight college fests were referred to while evaluating the top societies tally this fest season which were: Tarang, LSR; Ullas, KNC; Tempest, Miranda House; Montage, JMC; Mecca, Hindu College; Reverie, Gargi College; Nexus, Sri Venkateswara College; Crossroads, SRCC. The society emerged victorious at the following fests:

1st Position: Montage, Nexus, Tarang, Crossroads

2nd Position: Reverie

3rd Position: Ullas

Hover on the icons below to know more about their victories.

Feature Image Credits: Ishita Kwatra
Image Credits: Alex Arthur

Design by Alex Arthur

 

Baani Kashyap
[email protected]

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Uncategorized

Study Abroad with Study Overseas Global

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In this world of cut-throat competition, getting a job today mandatorily requires one to have an edge over others, and most times, basic theory-based education, as is the usual norm in our Indian system, doesn’t suffice. To study abroad is to bridge that loophole. So what can we expect when we think of studying overseas? Not only the best academic facilities, but also all-round personality development of the individual. There the course structure is much more research-based which helps provide a different perspective and involves in-depth analysis and understanding of the course one wishes to pursue, which helps students better in the long run. The syllabus structure is flexible, allowing students to opt for various combinations of subjects, for example mathematics and music.

Most of the teaching in universities abroad follows the principle of application of knowledge. Practical and not just theoretical aspects of courses are explored, and implementation of the same is sought from the students. Degrees from some of the best foreign universities are looked at with great respect not only in that particular country, but also back here in India, opening up job opportunities in countries like the UK, Ireland, and Australia, as well as in India. Any kind of international exposure also helps broaden the mind and widen the vision in general. Moreover, going to study in another country helps give a different kind of exposure, as also independence and self-dependency in various facets of life. Apart from this, one can always find opportunities to work while studying abroad. Plus exploring these countries always comes with this package, and isn’t that something we all want to do?

Studying overseas not just brings to you the best in class educational facilities but is also an amazing opportunity to explore the world. In this age of globalisation almost every country offers different opportunities and prospects in the field of education. For students interested in studying abroad and looking for counselling, “Study Overseas Global” will lend you a helping hand in choosing the best university.

Study Overseas Global brings to you the multi-country “Education Fair 2017” on 20th May 2017.

The visiting universities are:

The University of Sydney

University of Westminster

Manchester Metropolitan University

University of Hertfordshire

University of Leeds

University of Central Lancashire

University of Strathclyde

James Cook University Singapore

ONCAMPUS USA

So, hurry and register yourself to get guidance from experts in the field. Don’t miss this chance to shape your career, follow the link to register yourself on our website and on Eventbrite.

Venue: Lutyens Lounge
Eros Hotel, Nehru Place
New Delhi

Date: 20 May 2017

Timing: 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

 

Feature Image Credits: APSense

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