Animation, Visual Effects Seminar on May 29

Thiruvananthapuram: Toonz Academy, the training division of Technopark-based Toonz Animation India will conduct a workshop - 'Animation and Visual Effects Seminar' here on May 29.

The seminar will focus on the career opportunities in the Animation and Visual Effects sector, Toonz Animation CEO P Jayakumar said.

The horizon that defines animation is now being broadened to include the entertainment as well as non-entertainment sectors, and increasingly to telecommunications, he said.

'Animation is considered to be the most attractive genre for new and emerging platforms like media convergence, mobile media, online games etc. Animation is also increasingly being used for education called 'edutainment', and also in interactive CDs. Fields like Art, architecture, education, engineering, forensics, simulation and gaming industry, space exploration, military etc will all soon find using animation techniques increasingly in their day-to-day activities.' Jayakumar said.

The seminars will be conducted by experts from Toonz. Toonz Academy is the training division of the award winning animation studio, Toonz Animation India Pvt Ltd.

The Academy has also signed MOU's with leading Chinese Universities to set up animation training centres in China and plans to expand its operation to West Africa, Middle East and South East Asia.

80 per cent students clear CBSE exams

New Delhi: Over 80 per cent students today cleared the 2012 Class XII CBSE examinations, with girls once again outshining the boys and the Chennai region beating others in the overall pass percentage.

The results were declared across the country today, with the total pass percentage standing at 80.19 per cent, a fall of 0.69 per cent over last year, said a statement issued by the CBSE.

In all, 8,15,749 students registered for the Class XII examination this year, which was also an increase of about 5.94 per cent over 2011. Girls continued to fare better than boys with 86.21 per cent clearing the exam as compared to 75.80 per cent boys.

Among the regions, Chennai once again put up the best performance with a pass percentage of 90.59. Last year, the pass percentage of Chennai was 91.32.

Pass percentage of regular students stood at 82.51 as compared to 38.85 in case of private/patrachar (correspondence) candidates.

40,000 candidates sit for MBBS entrance exam

Puducherry: As many as 40,000 candidates appeared for the enterance examination for admission to the first year MBBS course at the Jawharlal Institute of Post Medical Education and Research(JIPMER) yesterday.

The examination was held in 12 states all over the country including Delhi, Kolkotta, Pune, Bangaluru,Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai.

As many as nine centers have been opened in Puducherry to conduct the exams. The examination is being conducted to fill up 145 seats in JIPMER, an institute of national importance.

The results would be declared on JIPMER website in a  couple of days, JIPMER sources said.

CBSE class XII results on May 28

New Delhi: The results of class XII Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination 2012 will be announced on May 28.

The results will be declared at 11 am on May 28, said a CBSE statement.

The results will be available on on the websites

www.results.nic.in,

www.cbseresults.nic.in and

www.cbse.nic.in.

Students can also get their results on email by registering themselves on these websites.

Students can also dial 011-24357276 to get their results. Besides, they can get their results through SMSes. The results for class X examination were declared already.

Campaign helps reduce dropouts to schools in rural areas

Bhopal: With children in rural areas shunning school for want of basic requirements like toilet and water, an initiative to make available these facilities has been underway which is helping reduce the number of dropouts.

A senior official of Government Kasturba Girls Middle school said, "We are very happy to see positive developments in the school. The dropout rate, especially the girls, was very high earlier. But now they are attending school regularly and children from other government, private and model schools are also enrolling in our school."

A study indicated that as many as 50 per cent of schools do not have toilets for girls and one in three children drop out by fifth grade while one in two drops out by eighth grade.

A large number of schools in rural and semi-urban areas still lack basic amenities, leading to accelerated student dropout rates in rural areas. "I like going to school now," says 13-year-old Seema who is enrolled in the Government School, Bilkheriya in the city.

There is a smile on her face as she proudly talks about the new facilities that have been installed in her school. Seema and many other girls never wanted to attend
school because of lack of proper sanitation facilities and clean drinking water.

Now, her school not only has separate toilets for boys and girls, but also a library, a sports ground, beautiful plantations and computer facilities. The 'SUPPORT MY SCHOOL' campaign was launched by Coca-Cola India in January, 2011 in association with CAF (an NGO), Sulabh International and UN-Habitat has made school environment conducive for a lot of children like her.

The campaign aims to motivate children to come to school and is creating 100 revitalised schools in the country by dividing them into 14 clusters. As of last week of May, over 100 schools have been completed in different clusters, which includes eight schools in Bhopal.

UGC withholds permission to upgrade IIMC journalism diplomas

New Delhi: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry's plan to upgrade journalism diplomas offered at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) to Masters level has hit a roadblock, with the University Grants Commission (UGC) withholding its permission for the same.

The IIMC in New Delhi has now been asked to revise its proposal and submit it again to the UGC and the Human Resources Development Ministry.

The IIMC, which is the country's premier journalism institute and its three regional centres in Aizawl, Dhenkenal and Amravati, currently offers Diploma courses in journalism and advertising.

In its Standing Finance Committee meeting held on July 15, 2010, the I&B Ministry had prioritised that it would seek equivalence to Masters Degree for the Post-Graduate Diploma Courses from the HRD Ministry.

Consequently, the Ministry took its proposal to the HRD Ministry but the UGC did not agree with the idea after observing that courses and syllabi that IIMC had proposed for its PG Diploma Programmes was not found to be of Masters level in its current form.

Last week while tabling a statement showing Action Taken notes on a Parliamentary Standing Committee's observations on the I&B Ministry's Demand for Grants (2011-12), the I&B Ministry said that a revised proposal was now being worked at.

"IIMC has been advised by the Ministry of HRD to resubmit the revised proposal after taking into consideration the observations of the UGC so that further necessary action could be taken by them," the I&B Ministry had said in its statement.

The I&B Ministry in its statement also said that the need for an act of Parliament for upgradation of IIMC to an Institution of National Importance was also being examined in the ministry.

Girls perform better than boys in University exam

Sambalpur: Girls have outshone boys with better marks in the plus three (BA/BSC/BCOM) final year examinations of the Sambalpur university in Odisha.

Girls had topped the university in 16 subjects as against three by the boys in the examinations results of which were declared.

The pass percentage in commerce with honours was highest at 91.63 per cent followed by 85.04 per cent in arts honours and 69.38 in science honours. Similarly, pass rate without honours was 81.04 per cent for arts, 58.25 per cent for science and 68.09 per cent for commerce.

A total of 3,110 students out of 3,692 in arts honours had passed the final degree examination in the university of them 237 in first division. Altogether 7,637 of the 9,707 students without honours had passed the examination 125 them with distinction.

In science stream, 886 of the 1286 students passed with 270 of them in first division while 586 of the 1012 students without honours had  cleared the examination 51 of them with distinction.

In commerce honours, 383 of 421 students passed the exam with 73 in first division. In nonhonours category, 862 of 1272 students had passed the examination, 111 of them with distinction.