Osmania University Various Exam Results 2014

1) APSET 2013 Results  : Click Here

2) B.Pharmacy 2013 Results : Click Here

3) B.Ed Suppl Dec-2013 Results  :  Click Here

4) B.Ed Suppl Dec-2013 Results : Click Here 

5) M.Sc(IS) Dec-2014 Results : Click Here

6) BCA Nov-2014 Results : Click Here 

7) M.Pharmacy Nov-2013 Results : Click Here

8) B.E Nov-2013 Results : Click Here

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Foreign scholars keen to join Nalanda University: Official

A large number of foreign scholars and teachers are keen to join the upcoming Nalanda University in Bihar as its faculty members, an official said on Thursday. 

The process of appointing faculty for the varsity has begun and 500 applications have been received for the 20 posts that will initially be filled. 

"Around 22 per cent of the applicants for faculty posts, including professors, assistant professors, are foreign scholars and teachers," vice chancellor Gopa Sabharwal said. 

The university plans to start with two schools — School of Historical Sciences and the School of Environment and Ecology — by August-September. 

"The recruitment is for 20 faculty members posts — 10 in each school," she said. 

Sabharwal said the recruitment process will be complete by March-end or early April. 

The university will then advertise for student enrolments. 

"Initially, only 15 to 20 students will be enrolled in each school," she said. 

The university is set to come up on 446 acres in Rajgir, 10 km from the site of the ancient university in Nalanda, about 100 km southeast of Patna. 

The university will be fully residential, like the ancient Nalanda university. It will offer courses in science, philosophy and spiritualism and social sciences.

(Courtesy : Times of India)

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IIM aspirants cry foul over CAT, move court

CHENNAI: Alleging large-scale irregularities in the manner in which the Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to 13 Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) was conducted, a petition by eight candidates in Madras high court has sought a stay on the entire admission process this year.

Justice R Subbiah, before whom the petition filed by the eight IIM aspirants from Chennai came up for admission on Thursday, directed the Union human resources development ministry and IIM-Indore, which conducted the CAT 2013, to reserve one seat each to all petitioners who moved the court.

CAT is the first step for joining any of the 13 IIMs, and some other top management institutions too use the scores for their admissions. After a 20-day exercise beginning October 16 last year at 40 centres, the CAT results were published on January 14.

The petitioners assailed the examination format and said: "The computerised format of CAT 2013 was conducted over a period of 20 days and the obvious consequence of it is varying standards of difficulty. The level of difficulty was different for each slot of the testing period. The method of 'equating', 'scaling' and 'normalisation' used by the authorities to normalise the scores is unlawful and erroneous."

The process of equating and scaling, which is otherwise known as normalisation of scores, has caused grave irregularities in the scores obtained by students, the petition said.

"It has been proved that candidates who have not attempted even a single question have been awarded a percentile of 55.46 and this, in turn, implies that more than 50% of the 1.7 lakh candidates who appeared for CAT scored zero or even less."

The entire registration process, setting up test centres, compilation of questions, evaluating answers and calculation and publication of results have all been outsourced to a Gurgaon-based company, Prometric Testing Pvt Ltd.

Describing the January 14 results as shocking and illogical, the petitioners said the normalised scores of several thousand candidates were not in consonance with the number of questions attempted by them.

Citing the case of a faculty member of a coaching centre who writes CAT every year, the petition said he did not attempt any question, but had scored 165 out of 450 marks and had an overall percentile of 55.46. Alleging lack of transparency in the evaluation, they wanted the court to stay the process of admission to IIMs as well as other institutions based on CAT. They also wanted the court to quash the entire CAT 2013 held between October 16, 2013 and November 1, 2013.

(Courtesy : Times of India)

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Career as Gemmologist

The gem and jewellery industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. India is the diamond manufacturing centre of the world — an estimated 14 out of 15 diamonds are processed here. The domestic demand for diamond jewellery too has been growing at an impressive 30-35 per cent. South India has always been recognised for its demand for high-quality diamonds, with cities like Chennai and Bangalore being established consumer markets. All this presents exciting career opportunities.

Diamonds are mainly mined in Africa, Australia, Canada and Russia, traded in Belgium, processed in India and sold in every corner of the world. The global nature of the industry opens doors to those seeking an international career.

These diverse career paths are part of a technical field, so it’s important to pursue a specialised education in diamonds. Whether you are looking at a career in manufacturing, trading, sales, appraisal or design, an understanding of the 4Cs of diamond quality is necessary. The 4Cs (Cut, Clarity, Colour and Carat weight) is a universal standard developed by Gemological Institute of India (GIA) in the 1950s that virtually every professional jeweller in the world uses to describe a diamond. They are the basis for determining a diamond’s quality, and in turn its value.

Skills and specialisation

A gemmologist is someone who specialises in identifying gemstones, including diamonds. The need for trained gemmologists who can accurately identify stones is greater than ever in part due to the increase in gemstone treatments and synthetics. Professional credentials can open the doors to diverse job opportunities such as a buyer, trader or laboratory and research professional. Diamond manufacturers, jewellers, jewellery retail chains and gemmological laboratories worldwide are consistently seeking newly trained talent for their businesses. Each of these careers demands an eye for detail and a dedication to quality.

For a well-rounded and comprehensive education, be sure to choose a globally recognised institute. If you’re interested in diamonds, sign up for a course that exposes you to a variety of actual stones and teaches you to identify treatments, simulants and synthetics through technical concepts and hands-on training. Choosing an intensive course like those offered by the GIA will provide holistic training in the field. These programmes utilise the latest gemmological equipment, including microscopes and refractometers and focus on smaller class sizes.

Another important parameter for choosing a course is personalised attention. A campus tour of the institute will provide clarity on the staff, facilities and course curriculum. Opt for a programme that develops a deep understanding of the diamond industry through research-backed theory and hands-on learning.

Consider your overall development in the vast field of diamonds. For instance, does the programme conduct field trips to manufacturing facilities to demonstrate how diamonds are cut and polished? Does it invite industry leaders to share their experiences and knowledge with students? Does it provide language assistance to understand complex technical concepts? Does it offer networking opportunities at industry events and trade shows? For a newcomer to the industry, these features enhance the overall learning experience.

(Courtesy : The Hindu)

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Google launches online education tool Oppia

Google announced a new educational tool canned Oppia, which is an open-source project to make it easy for anyone to create online interactive activities for others to learn from. The NextWeb reported that with this tool, called explorations, activities can be built and contributed to by multiple people from around the globe using a simple web interface. Users don’t need any programming whatsoever.  

The tool does this by modeling a mentor who puts up queries for the student to answer. Based on the student’s responses, the mentor can decide what question he or she will ask next, feedbacks, and more. One can think of it as a smart feedback system.

Oppia is a free and open-source software released under the Apache License 2.0. Below are a few of its features:

• Learners receive personalized, customizable feedback after submitting answers.
• Explorations are embeddable in any webpage
• An online analytics dashboard that allows explorations to be improved easily over time.
• A full online editor GUI
• A comprehensive extension framework allowing straightforward integration of new interactions and classification rules
• Parameters can be associated with a learner in order to create a richer interactive experience.
• Collaborative creation and editing of explorations with version control
• (in progress) Responsive UI for mobile devices

A disclaimer on the bottom of the Google blog states that Oppia is not a Google product, which puts a question of the amount of resources Google plans to dedicate to Oppia. This could suggest the company is hoping that a community forms and takes the project ahead.

The NextWeb further added that Google’s reasoning Oppia’s existence was fairly simple. Google believes that online education can be conveyed by more than just video, audio or text. Feedback is the main key in learning. Google stated that “one does not learn to play the piano by watching videos of many virtuoso performances.”

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6 Andhra Pradesh varsities on defaulters’ list

Six universities from Andhra Pradesh are among 77 universities across the country which figure in the ‘NAAC certificate defaulters’ list’ released by the University Grants Commission. The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is the country’s accreditation body for higher education.

Two Central universities, namely the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and the English and Foreign Languages University (Eflu), besides state universities — Osmania University, Andhra University and JNTU-Hyderabad — and Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Tirupati, the lone deemed university, figure in the list. The UGC has declared that their accreditation status is “invalid” since they failed to seek renewal of accreditation within the stipulated deadline.

Students opting for admissions in top institutions, especially in foreign countries, would be at a disadvantage if the universities are not accredited.

The accreditation of Andhra University had expired in September 2013, JNTU-Hyderabad in May 2009, OU in February 2013, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth in September 2008, Eflu in January 2006 and UoH in March 2013.

Though the state has 43 universities, only 12 varsities have ‘valid’ accreditation. Of them, state universities Acharya Nagarjuna University-Guntur, Kakatiya University-Warangal, Telugu University-Hyderabad, Sri Krishna-devaraya University-Anantapur, Sri Padmavathi Mahila University-Tirupati and Sri Ven-kateshwara University-Tirupati, deemed universities, namely, GITAM-Vizag, ICFAI-Hyderabad and Koneru Laxmaiah-Guntur, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning-Anantapur — and Maulana Azad National Urdu University-Hyderabad have ‘valid’ accreditation.

The UGC had recently issued a gazette notification making accreditation mandatory for all the universities and colleges. It has threatened to stop grants from 2015 if the universities fail to seek recognition within a year.

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