New attendance rule for students of DU

New Delhi: Delhi University has come up with new attendance rules for students in the second semester.

According to the new rule, students who have not secured 66.7% attendance will now have to drop a year before they can attend second semester classes again in January 2013.

The DU colleges are very much firm on taking stringent action against defaulting students, though they are still in the process of tabulating attendance for the entire semester, they have sounded out a warning for those students who fail to meet the minimum attendance criteria.

IS Bakshi, principal, Dyal Singh College said that if students have below the minimum requirement of 66.7% attendance, they will be detained. As a result, defaulting students will not be promoted to second year (third semester) and will end up repeating one more year, he said.

While 350 students in total had been detained from the University, Dyal Singh College detained nearly 190 students. SK Garg, Chairperson of DU's high powered committee said that the students who had cleared their first semester but are facing detention in the second semester will not lose their admission. On the other hand, students who are yet to clear their first semester and are being detained this semester, will lose their seat in the college.

Students are of the view that they did not have an idea of their attendance through the semester which is a factor that it would have been a bench-mark for their overall attendance. They said that the authorities have refused to show them their attendance saying that they would get to know every details by May.

Tiny crystal 'revolutionises computer'

Washington: Scientists have made a tiny crystal which they claim will take quantum computing to the next level, creating one of the world's most powerful computers ever developed.
 
"Computing technology has taken a huge leap forward using a crystal with just 300 atoms suspended in space," said Michael Biercuk at the University of Sydney, who led an international team.
 
He added: "The system we have developed has the potential to perform calculations that would require a supercomputer larger than the size of the known universe and it does it all in a diameter of less than a millimetre.
 
"The projected performance of this new experimental quantum simulator eclipses the current maximum capacity of any known computer by an astonishing 10 to the power of 80. That is one followed by 80 zeros, in other words 80 orders of magnitude, a truly mind-boggling scale."
 
The work smashes previous records in terms of the number of elements working together in a quantum simulator, and therefore the complexity of the problems that can be addressed. 
 
In fact, the team, which also included scientists from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, Georgetown University in Washington, North Carolina State University and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, has produced a specialised kind of quantum computer known as a "quantum simulator".
 
It's revolutionary crystal exceeds all previous experimental attempts in providing "programmability" and the critical threshold of qubits needed for the simulator to exceed the capability of most supercomputers.
 
"Many properties of natural materials governed by the laws of quantum mechanics are very difficult to model using conventional computers. The key concept in quantum simulation is building a quantum system to provide insights into the behaviour of other naturally occurring physical systems," Biercuk said.
 
The findings have been published in the 'Nature' journal. 

Microsoft voted 'most attractive employer' in India

Mumbai: Microsoft India bagged the Randstad Award 2012 for the 'most attractive employer' in the country for the second consecutive year followed by Oracle India and Tata Consultancy Services.
 
The Randstad Award 2012 was also given to Volkswagen India and Nokia India as special recognition in the auto and consumer durables industry sector, respectively.
 
The award, instituted globally by leading HR services provider Randstad, aims to encourage best practices and to identify the best 'employer brand' in the country.
 
Global research agency ICMA International surveyed 8,500 respondents from over 150 big companies in the country to find the most attractive employer.
 
"With more and more global companies entering India, we see a healthy competition not only in establishing brands but also in attracting the best skills to work for them," Randstad India Managing Director and CEO E Balaji said at the award function here.
 
The findings clearly suggest that the uncertainty in the market still has an impact on the industry, due to which, financially healthy companies, long-term job security and competitive salary seem to be the top priority factors for the Indian workforce while choosing an employer, he added. 

NITTTR workshop on FDP for engg colleges on May 1

Chennai: The National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR) here is organising a one-day workshop for indentification of thrust areas for faculty development programmes for engineering colleges on May 1.
   
The workshop was meant for principals/senior faculty members of all engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, an official release said here.
   
Participation would be only by registration which is free, it added. 

Turban controversy in Shimla school

Shimla: A controversy broke out here over alleged ban imposed by a Convent school on wearing of turban by a Sikh student, with local Sikh organisation demanding that the administration take action against the school, which, however, denied the charge.
 
A student of local St Edward School complained to his parents that the Principal had asked him not to wear the turban and wear only a "patka" (small headgear) last month.
 
The local Guru Singh Sabha took up the issue with Deputy Commissioner and urged him to  take action against the school.
 
Deputy Commissioner Onkar Sharma said "the agitated members of the Sikh community have given a representation to me against the decision of the school and it is a serious issue that involves religious sentiments of Sikh community.
 
"We will call the parents, the Sikh bodies and the school management and sort out the matter".
 
However, the Principal of the school John Bosco, when contacted, said that he had never disallowed the boy to wear a turban and only asked him on the first day of this session that why he was not wearing a "patka" like other boys.
 
He told me about some religious binding, so "I asked him to call his parents and the matter ended on March 5 after I met his parents and allowed him to come in whatever way he wanted to come".
 
A "non-isssue was being made an issue now with the boy's parents nowhere in the picture", the Principal said.
 
Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha President Jaswinder Singh said an unhealthy controversy had been raised in the school.
 
"We denounce the school authorities for behaving rudely with the boy for wearing the turban and asking him to come out of the class, go back home and come with 'patka' on his head," he said.