Orissa task force to improve higher education

September 20th, 2009 LONDON - Pakistan and Britain have decided to create a joint task force to reform the education system in the Islamic country, Geo TV reported Sunday. The decision was taken during a meeting here Saturday attended by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, among others.

September 1st, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Orissa government has linked 40 schools in the state to the Edusat network with an aim to modernising the school education. "We have connected 40 schools on an experimental basis.

August 18th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Orissa government has asked the centre to enhance its assistance under the police modernisation scheme from Rs.42 crore to Rs.80 crore, official sources here said. Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik made the demand Monday in New Delhi while addressing a conference of chief ministers on internal security chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

July 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Friday said the government was considering allowing new autonomous colleges to be set up independent of universities but with stringent quality parameters. Addressing a meeting of principal secretaries and secretaries of higher education from various states here, Sibal said: "The government is thinking in terms of allowing the setting up of autonomous colleges." Elaborating on his idea, Sibal told IANS: "Right now, there is no institution that starts as an autonomous college.

July 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Friday said the government is considering setting up autonomous colleges independent of universities. Addressing a meeting of principal secretaries and secretaries of higher education from various states here, Sibal said: "The government is thinking in terms of allowing the setting up of autonomous colleges." The minister's day-long interaction with the officials was his first initiative to evolve a consensus of the states for reforms in the education sector.

July 1st, 2009 NEW DELHI - Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi Wednesday said that the Congress-led government lacked a road map to improve the education system and added that it should evolve consensus among all stakeholders before introducing reforms. "The government has no direction and no road map about the changes it wants to make in the education system.

June 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Stating that the government was committed to improve and reform education standards in India, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said Wednesday an apex panel on higher education will be formed soon. The autonomous National Commission for Higher Education and Research, which will encompass in itself the existing professional councils and regulatory agencies, including the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Medical Council of India and the AICTE, will be formed within the first 100 days of the new government, Sibal told reporters.

June 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Saying the government was committed to improve education standards in India, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said Wednesday a new apex panel on higher education will be formed soon. The National Commission for Higher Education and Research, which will encompass in itself the existing professional councils and regulatory agencies, including the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Medical Council of India and the AICTE, is likely to be formed within the first 100 days of the new government, Sibal told reporters.

June 19th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - Orissa minister Pratap Jena said Friday that not having a school building was "not a problem" and was no reason for students "not to turn up to school to study". "This is not a problem.

June 12th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Orissa government has identified 575 acres of land in tribal-dominated Koraput district for setting up of a central university, an official said Friday. The land has been identified near the Koraput railway station, some 499 km from here, a senior official of the state higher education department told IANS.

June 7th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Orissa government has started the process of forming a State Industrial Security Force of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to combat the threat to different mining and industrial establishments in the state. "An official of the rank of inspector general of police will be commandant of the proposed SISF," said the state's Director General of Police, Manmohan Praharaj.

June 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - President Pratibha Patil Thursday announced that the Manmohan Singh government would focus on passing the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill pending before parliament, while it was committed to making every woman in the country literate in the next five years. "The focus (of the new government) will be on making quality education a right through the enactment of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill now under consideration of parliament," the president said.

April 8th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Nationalist Congress Party alliance with the Left parties and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Orissa is 'only Orissa-specific', NCP chief Sharad Pawar said here Wednesday. 'Our arrangement is only Orissa-specific,' Pawar told a press conference, addressed jointly with Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury and BJD chief Naveen Patnaik.

March 27th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday announced several sops for farmers and youths if it retains power in the next month's assembly elections in Orissa. The 40-page manifesto released by Patnaik here announced that the party would provide free electricity to farmers as well as farm loans at interests as low as three percent.

February 10th, 2009 BHUBANESWAR - The eighth regional office of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to be inaugurated in the Orissa capital Thursday will benefit schools of three eastern states affiliated to the board, an official said Wednesday. The centre, to be be inaugurated by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, will initially function from a rented building, the regional office in charge, Piyush Sharma, told IANS.