OHERALDO
INDIA
Pg 5
GOA, MONDAY, 16 MAY, 2011
SC slams unrecognised teachers training institutes PTI NEW DELHI, MAY 15
Observing that teachers from unrecognised institutions will not be able to impart valuebased education and merely train students to succeed in life by manipulations, the Supreme Court has dismissed a bunch of pleas filed by various such institutes seeking recognition. A bench of justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan said granting recognition to undeserving institutions would be detrimental to national interest and noted that appellants did not approach the court "with clean hands and succeeded in polluting the stream of justice by making patently false statement" on their status. The apex court rejected the plea of the institutes that the career of hundreds of students trained by these unrecognised institutes would be in jeopardy if the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE) was not asked to grant them recognition. "There is no valid ground much less justification to confer
legitimacy upon the admission made by the appellants in a clandestine manner. Any such order by the court will be detrimental to the national interest. The students who may have taken admission and completed the course from an institution, which had not been granted recognition, will not be able to impart value based education to the future generation of the country," Justice Singhvi said in the judgement. "Rather, they may train young minds as to how one can succeed in life by manipulations. Therefore, we do not consider it proper to issue direction for regularising the admissions made by the appellants on the strength of the interim orders passed by this court," it said. Dismissing the appeal of Maharashtra based-Abhyudya Sanstha and six other teachers training institutes, the bench imposed a fine of Rs two lakh each on them for filing misleading claims before the apex court. The institutes had come to the apex court after the Bombay High Court upheld the Western
Regional Committee, NCTE's decision not to grant recognition to the institutes in the backdrop of the recommendations made by the Maharashtra Government that there was no requirement of trained teachers in the state. The appellant institutions had sought recognition in 2006 and 2007 for starting D.Ed courses. The aggrieved institutes claimed that infrastructure has been created by investing huge amount and cancellation of recognition will cause irreparable loss to them. The High Court dismissed their plea following which they approached the apex court. In the apex court, the institutions claimed that they were recognised institutions and the High Court had erroneously quashed recognition of 290 other institutions. They claimed that the High Court's orders would adversely affect their right to continue the D.Ed. courses. "Each of the appellants consciously made a statement that it had been granted recognition by the NCTE.
India developing interceptor missile with 5,000 km range PTI NEW DELHI, MAY 15
India has started working on a network of air-defence systems which would be able to shoot down any enemy missile even at a distance of 5,000 kms, before it can enter the Indian air space. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has already developed a missile that can intercept an incoming aerial threat 2,000 kms away under the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) System and is now working on the second phase. Under the second phase, missiles are being designed and developed in a manner that would enable them to shoot down any incoming missile at a distance of 5,000 kms, DRDO chief V K Saraswat told PTI here. The 5,000 kms interceptor missile is targeted to be ready by 2016, he said. "Presently, our missiles are designed to engage targets within 2,000 km range. Later on, we will be making 5,000 km range class of interceptor missiles. That will be Phase-II of the BMD system," he added.
Delhi govt says no power shortage, CM pulls up discoms PTI NEW DELHI, MAY 15
With several areas reeling under long outages and severe water shortage, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today directed discoms and DJB to pull up their socks and ensure uninterrupted supply to residents sweating it out in the searing heat. In an emergency meeting to review supply of power and water, Dikshit insisted that the city has surplus power and told the three power discoms to take all necessary measures immediately to ensure un-interrupted supply of electricity in all the areas. The chief minister told the discoms that there should not be any power cuts as the city has more power than the current demand and directed them to rectify local faults immediately and strengthen the distribution network. "Discoms have been categorically told that there is no shortage of power in Delhi and in fact the city has surplus power as it has been under-drawing power from the National Grid," an official, who attended the meeting, said. The discoms were also told to improve functioning of their complaint centres. Meanwhile, protests took place in several areas of West Delhi over shortage of power and water in the capital which simmered at 42.6 degree celsius. A number of areas across the city faced power cuts ranging from one hour to three
hours. "There was no power in our locality for almost three hours," said Amit Goel, a resident of Janakpuri in West Delhi. In the meeting, Dikshit told top Delhi Jal Board officials to make arrangements to ensure equitable distribution of water in all areas of the city, besides deploying ample number of water tankers in those localities which are not covered by DJB's supply of water through pipeline. The DJB and discoms have been told to come out with advertisements in local media underlining the need for conservation and judicious consumption of water and electricity. The advertisements will also have telephone numbers of all complaint centres and senior officers. Asking discoms to attend to incidents of local faults swiftly, Dikshit told their CEOs to take effective steps to address the problem and warned that any casual attitude in attending such complaints will not at all be tolerated. The Chief Minister instructed the discoms to provide back up power supply to the Delhi Jal Board so that supply of water does not get affected due to power cuts. The maximum demand today was recorded at 4,071 MW while the minimum demand was 2,840 MW. With the rise in demand, almost all areas in the city have been facing power cuts in the range of one to three hours for last few days.