Culture – Page 2 – Canada India Education Council

Are College Students Buying Required Textbooks? 75% in US Say No

August 12, 2013August 11, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

This summer, E-textbook publisher Bookboon.com conducted a survey of college students in the United States, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. In total, nearly 10,000 students completed a questionnaire found in the Bookboon student newsletter and on Facebook, consisting of eleven questions regarding the use of textbooks. And the results can’t be good news for traditional textbook publishers.

In the United States, over 75% of students decide not to buy the textbooks their classes require, in large part because students find textbooks too expensive and are discouraged by the simple fact that quite often, only a few chapters from the books are needed for study.

On average, US students spend $655 per year on required textbooks. But according to the survey, more than nine out of ten students find textbooks too expensive, resulting in the 76.6% of US students who make the decision not to purchase the required books. (In the UK, the numbers are even more startling, with 83.3% of students not always buying required textbooks.)

So instead, according to the survey, students are constantly on the lookout for cheaper options, including copying the needed chapters, finding online alternatives, or, in the case of 60% of those surveyed, buying their textbooks second hand. Indeed, only 25% of students buy their textbooks new, despite the recommendation of their professors to purchase the latest editions. (The remaining 16% of students find other alternatives, including borrowing or renting the required textbooks.)

Given this, it may not be surprising to learn that 58% of college students in the US prefer digital textbooks: students find them easier to carry, to read from, and believe they are cheaper. But on the other hand, the survey results were very different in Europe. Bookboon’s COO Thomas Buus Madsen wrote, “American students are at least a couple of years ahead of their European counterparts. In countries such as German, the UK, and the Netherlands, only 30-40% of the students prefer digital textbooks. Most European students stick to paper. This is partly because eReaders and e-textbooks are less available. Additionally, publishers, professors and universities in Europe are less active in promoting and adopting the use of e-textbooks compared to the USA.”

Of course to put the $655 yearly price tag for textbooks into perspective, consider this: a 2011 study done by the Student Health Service of the University of Pennsylvania showed that students in the US also spend roughly $900 a year on alcohol. Perhaps, in part, to drown out their sorrow at spending $655 on textbooks.

Read the entire survey here.

Business school scholarships offered for LGBTQ community service

August 12, 2013August 11, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Globe and Mail

Building on an established relationship with those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) – and others who are their advocates – HSBC Bank Canada has established new scholarships at four Canadian business schools worth $80,000 and potential employment over the next four years. The announcement comes on the eve of the Vancouver Pride Parade on Monday.

“Our business model is all about different perspectives and diversity,” says Mike Webb, senior vice-president and head of human resources for the Vancouver-based bank, and also executive sponsor of its internal Pride Network.

For businesses, it is also about the bottom line. “If you look at the incredible economic impact that the LGBT community has in Canada and elsewhere, it is amazing the economic opportunity that is there,” Mr. Webb says. “If you neglect it, ignore it, you are losing out on a phenomenal opportunity.”

The scholarships will be offered to four students a year over four years at each of the following schools: Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto; Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto; Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business in Vancouver, and Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

The award recognizes academically strong students (gay or straight) who demonstrate leadership and community service through participation in LGBTQ organizations or initiatives on campus. Each winner receives $5,000, consideration for summer internships and, after graduation, potential acceptance into management trainee programs at HSBC.

Rotman’s winner for 2013 is Vincent Ho, 20, an undergraduate accounting student who holds a cumulative grade point average of 3.99 out of 4 entering third year in September.

He is the incoming president of the Rotman Commerce Pride Alliance, one of the few LGBTQ-focused student groups at an undergraduate business program in Canada. The group provides a networking venue for students to link to LGBTQ professionals and works with “ally” students to bring awareness and education about LGBTQ diversity and other issues. With host support from KPMG, his organization runs an annual live case competition. He also volunteers for various LQBTQ initiatives on and off campus.

A summer intern at KPMG, Mr. Ho says the HSBC scholarships send an important message to students and business.

“It signals to students that big companies like HSBC want to recognize LGBTQ talent and show they are interested in having these sorts of employees on their teams because they do bring enormous diversity,” he says. “Through that, you are able to better understand your customer and how the business works.”

Haskayne woos new faculty

While a lecturer at Harvard Law School this year, James Coleman saw a posting for a tenure-track job at the University of Calgary that seemed right up his alley: a joint appointment in the faculties of business and law on energy and environmental issues.

His friends thought so, too, sending e-mails of encouragement. “‘They seem to be looking to hire you,’” recalls Prof. Coleman. “Once I started here, I had a lot of people who thought, ‘I got James that job!’”

The Minneapolis-born scholar is one of 10 new faculty members and three new directors recently hired by Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business in its biggest recruitment drive in a decade, according to school officials.

“We are expanding our research capacity by almost 20 per cent,” says Loren Falkenberg, associate dean of research at Haskayne, with nine of the 10 new faculty hires in the research-oriented professorial stream. The new faculty come from eight different countries, though all pursued graduate studies in Canada or the United States.

With 79 full-time faculty, the school now aims to boost its research standing after a period of budget restraint and the loss of professors due to retirement and departures.

For Prof. Coleman, Calgary made sense as a destination because of his research interest in the business and legal aspects of energy and environmental issues. “Regulatory risk is such a big issue for oil and gas companies and for the companies where our students will go work,” he says.

He is based at the law school, but will teach at the business school as well.

As in any decision that involves leaving one’s home country, non-academic issues proved crucial as well. A Westerner at heart, Prof. Coleman is an avid hockey player and looks to join some men’s leagues in Calgary.

Along with new faculty, Haskayne has added three new administrative directors.

Kim Neutens, becomes director of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, after a 10-year stint as director of MBA program services at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Jenny Krahn, a Haskayne undergraduate business graduate, has been named director of the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership. Hugh Evans, formerly vice-dean and director of corporate education at Henley Business School in Britain, has been tapped as director of executive education.

Ask not where the jobs are, but what you want to do

August 1, 2013August 1, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Globe & Mail

Every year, when I welcome a new class to campus, I hear about the decision-making process students have undertaken to enroll in their programs. Some cite the advice of parents or a friend, others refer to teachers, but many times students are clearly unsure of why they have chosen their program. Parents are most often sought out for advice, yet they are often ill-equipped to talk about the full range of postsecondary options.

Recently, I was talking about degree options for students in our colleges and the parent said to me, “Well, those aren’t real degrees.” In fact, the applied-learning focus of the degrees in the colleges is just as real as any BA awarded at a traditional university. I would argue these degrees are even more real because of their concrete connections to industry as well as the field work, internships and co-ops that are linked to these credentials. Many parents are simply working under pre-conceived assumptions about colleges being a lesser-than option when compared to the universities. Indeed, while colleges do offer access programming, we also offer intensive degree programs on par with many undergraduate degrees.

So how can we help students and parents think differently? More importantly, how do we ensure students are receiving and using the right information to make right career decisions? It first begins with strong assessment of their talents, who they are and what they are interested in pursuing. To me this means that we need to better equip students earlier with solid information around the whole range of career options that align to their strengths. In my own institution, we have developed some new online tools and pro-active career advising to support students with this process to ensure they have a more complete picture of themselves and their goals.

Additionally, our education system specifically needs to provide better information to students and parents about career planning. This includes improved career development options for secondary-school students and changing the dominant paradigm in parents’ minds about the value of applied learning available in postsecondary schools and promoting the importance of adaptability for students. This also includes more work-integrated learning opportunities and courses in creative thinking, entrepreneurship and innovation.

It is also about developing a new social contract between students, employers and society related to careers, education and training. We have to change our notions about the skills associated with the future world of work. It is not about simply “skills training.” It also has to be about training for the right skills that are needed now and in the future. This means highlighting the importance of continuing to learn and equipping students to be flexible and resilient. This will allow new graduates to respond to changing conditions, especially in a connected, hyper-competitive global economy.

I would argue in fact that our economy benefits from a differentiated and strongly linked postsecondary system. We need students graduating with history degrees, philosophy degrees and applied–focused degrees that also build in work-integrated learning opportunities and creative thinking approaches.

However our postsecondary system needs more tools to effectively show students what success looks like. It is not about just picking a program because someone told them this is where the jobs shortages are occurring. More often than not in my experience, the students who combine passion, a strong understanding of their strengths and a well-informed support network of parents and friends are motivated to succeed and cross the stage at convocation.

Need for foreign exchange student host families

August 1, 2013August 11, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: News Channel 10

AMARILLO: The new school year is approaching fast but dozens of high school students still don’t know where they’ll be living come the start of the semester.

We’re talking about foreign exchange students. One area coordinator says she still has 100 students that need host families.

Lindy Wakefield has traveled to 45 different countries, and because of those travels she has dozens of friends all over the world.

As a coordinator for an international student exchange program, she wants to help others make those connections.

“We have students in Norway, Spain, Germany, Asia and South America still looking for homes,” Wakefield said.

Texas has more exchange students per capita than any other state, but Wakefield wants to share the panhandle generosity with more international students.

“I can go 120 miles outside of Amarillo, and right now I’ve been focusing on Amarillo and Canyon, but I’m really really hoping, and I can expand at any time, to actively, aggressively expand it next year,” she said.

Wakefield’s organization, the Center of Cultural Interchange is just one of several exchange programs active in the panhandle.

Right now 16-year-old Augusto from Brazil is staying in Amarillo for the summer through a Lions Club program.

“I love the U.S.,” he said.

Augusto’s host mom, Paula Davis, has invited five different students into her home over past years. All experiences she says are shaping her boys into open-minded, well-rounded young adults.

“It helps them understand that people across the world have a lot of similarities,” she said. “Just because we have different backgrounds or different races or different cultures doesn’t make us so different.”

Davis and her boys keep in touch with former students they’ve hosted. So does Wakefield who says an e-mail from a German student she knew in high school highlights how influential exchange programs can be.

“It was the most magical year of my life. It made me fall in love with the U.S. and always made me defend the U.S. when anyone went to criticize it, no matter where I was,” she read. “Thanks for having other exchange students have such an experience.”

India’s newest state has more people than Canada and more Microsoft IT employees than anywhere but Redmond

August 1, 2013August 12, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Quartz

The creation of India’s newest state, Telangana, marks the end of a decades-long quest for self-governance in the country’s south, and was greeted with celebration on the streets of Hyderabad, the state’s new capital city.

But the ruling Congress party’s vote to approve the state’s creation Tuesday night may also usher in an era of uncertainty for dozens of multinational companies with major operations in Hyderabad.

If it was a stand-alone country, Telangana, with a population estimated at 36 million people, would be more populous than Canada, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan or Australia. At 44,300 square miles, Telangana will be about the same size as the US state of Kentucky.

Most importantly for global business, Telangana will share Hyderabad, the south Indian information technology metropolis, with Andhra Pradesh, the state is it separating from, for the next ten years. After that, the city will go to Telangana, whose leaders may have scant business experience, particularly with global corporations.

The city houses the information technology operations of some of the world’s biggest companies, including the largest Microsoft IT center outside of its Redmond, Wash. headquarters. Microsoft’s website calls the Hyderabad center the “backbone” of the company’s IT operations and says it handles IT for more than 1.3 million devices and 194,000 end-users in over 108 countries as well as managing Microsoft’s global data centers and corporate network.

Thousands of employees from other multinational companies including Accenture, Bank of America, Dell, Novartis, JP Morgan, Google, and Facebook also work in Hyderabad’s sprawling business parks.

The Times of India reported that Wednesday “Brand Hyderabad is set to shine once more and brighter at that,” with the Telangana decision made. But Telangana’s independence movement has been tainted by violence, and Tuesday night’s announcement does not seem to have put an end to that. Businesses, schools, and public transportation were shut Wednesday as rock-throwing protestors vented their anger over the decision to give Hyderabad to the new state.

‘ACCESSIBLE ARCTIC’ IN MUMBAI

July 18, 2013July 22, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Zee News

MUMBAI: The Arctic is much more than polar bears, icebergs or auroras. Spectacular photos of Arctic region of Canada are now being showcased in India, a country that has been recently granted observer status at the Arctic Council.

A five-day exhibition “Accessible Arctic” curated jointly by the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Canadian Geographic (CG) begins today at High Street Phoenix here.

The show has been organised by the Consulate General of Canada which aims to provide locals an insight into the extreme and distant Arctic.

“The timing of this exhibit marks India’s newly granted observer status at the Arctic Council recognising, among other things, India’s demonstrated Arctic interests and expertise. Canada as Chair of the Arctic Council welcomes India to this important global body,” Richard Bale, Consul General for Canada to Mumbai, said in a statement.

Photographs range from flowers to fields of grazing caribou to icebergs and polar bears.

The images have been captured over a period of eighty years and the exhibition itself has travelled to places like London, Belgium, Stockholm, Port of Spain, Riga (Latvia), Warsaw, Sydney, Berlin, Bucharest, Wellington, Santo Domingo, Washington and Seoul among others.

A picture from the November-December 1997 shows the late summer colours of fireweed and yellow barley flare in valleys north of Canada’s Dawson City.

Diverse flora and fauna make the area a favourite for hikers and the mountains also contain rich gold and uranium.

Photos by Whitehorse, Yukon Ken Quong for the CG January-February 2007 edition titled “Flight Path” shows swans in flight. The most common of the three species of swans found in Canada, tundra swans fly the winter to California and return to the Arctic in May.

Another photograph in the exhibition is a 1999 photo of a womens’ sprint race at the almost 1.9 million square kilometers, Nunavut the largest territory in Canada. The territory came into being on April 1, 1999 and impromptu ceremonies sprang up at settlements throughout the territory to celebrate the new creation.

In 1970, dog teams were most common transportation means in the Arctic. Speed, strength and endurance were necessary characteristics of the dogs. Today, most dog sledding is done for recreational purposes. A picture of one such dogsled features in the showcase.

Another photograph shows the world’s largest land omnivore, an adult polar bear surveying the horizon. Studied equally by scientists and Inuit hunters, the bears are under increasing pressure as the Arctic warms.

There are also photos of navigational markers, food caches and cultural symbols. Stone markers have long been in use in the Arctic, where natural landmarks are scarce. In recent years, workers in northern parks have had to dismantle inuksuit created by campers and hikers so that the actual markers for trails and food caches would remain clear.

“Accessible Arctic” is the first project to be showcased under “World Wednesday”, the latest property of High Street Phoenix, which aims to showcase various cultures of the world.

After July 7, the exhibit is scheduled to also travel to three other locations including the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

CII delegation on US, Canada tour

July 17, 2013July 16, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

MUMBAI: A CII CEO’s delegation led by S Gopalakrishnan, President, CII and Co-Founder & Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys Limited is visiting the US and Canada from July 15-18.

As part of CII’s ongoing efforts to provide a fillip to economic relations between India and North America, the CII team arrives close on the heels of the US visits of Government of India officials, Anand Sharma, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, who was also accompanied by a CII delegation, as well as P Chidambaram, Union minister of finance.

While in Canada, the CII delegation is expected to meet with Canadian CEOs and partner organizations, Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and the Canada-India Business Council (CIBC) to develop a comprehensive strategy to boost bilateral engagement. The India-Canada bilateral economic relationship remains largely untapped with bilateral trade in merchandize at a mere CAD 5 billion. On the investment front, Indian investments in Canada have seen unprecedented growth as compared to Canadian investments in India. Growing from barely CAD 211 million in 2006, Indian FDI in Canada stood at CAD 4.4 billion in 2011 — nearly seven and a half times greater than Canadian FDI in India in that year, which was less than CAD 600 million.

While the US-India bilateral partnership has grown exponentially in the past few decades, the global economic turbulence that the world is witnessing has had an impact on the economic relationship. While trade in goods and services between the US and India seems to be clocking a healthy rate of growth and are set to cross the $100 billion mark, investments continue to be an area of concern with the US now slipping to fifth position in terms of FDI inflow into India. On the contrary, Indian investments in the US are on the rise, and FDI from India is seen as one of fastest growing sources of investment into the United States.

The CII delegation will be engaging with its partners, the Administration and members on Capitol Hill in the US to find ways and means to place bilateral ec onomic relations between the US and India on a new growth trajectory.

CII feels that there is a tremendous potential for engagement in new areas such as clean and renewable energy, clean technologies and energy conservation and energy efficiency; higher education and skills development; research, development and innovation in agriculture, especially in post-harvest and cold chain technologies and food safety and standards; high technology; health services and innovations in medical technologies among others.

On the trade front, professional, scientific, and technical services, finance/insurance services, and the information services sectors remains a very critical component of the bilateral trade basket.

Unfortunately, recent developments in the effort to reform the US immigration system are likely to throw up challenges to the Indian services companies in the United States. CII feels that both sides will need to take concerted action to minimize disruption in this sector. This is important not just for Indian companies, but also for US companies to maintain their competitiveness in the global market.

Some other issues of concern for both US and India such as GAAR and retrospective taxation, IPR protection, conclusion of the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), among others are also expected to come up for discussion during the visit.

Socio-academic integration a must for students’ success

July 16, 2013July 22, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Written by Diwakar Sharma

Academicians and economists have different views on the education sector as a business entity. Those who are involved in the specialized area of student recruitment clearly understand that education institutions have to adopt a new model. As importance is given to internationalization of education by relaxing student visa regulation, as service providers all academic institutions must redesign academic programs as per the need of the job market. When we look at the mushrooming of private academic institutions operating under affiliation with different Indian universities, a total disconnect between education and job market is foreseen. Rising unemployment in India and an increasing number of graduates with degrees in hand but bare minimum soft skills makes it difficult for the industry to provide employment. It is the responsibility of the student recruiter to provide basic information to aspiring prospective students who want to gain admission in Canadian Universities and Community Colleges.

Education in Canada is structured and regularly monitored by the Ministry of Education and partners from the industry. The education providers constantly make changes in course curriculum as per the demand from industry experts. With updated course curriculum, Canadian Colleges and Universities provide not only the hard skills but the soft skills which make it easier for the candidate to secure a job within six months of graduation. Applicants from India should be briefed about the difference in education standards and they should be well-prepared to cope with the academic pressure in Canada.

It has been noted the majority of Asian students struggle in first semester as they are not aware of policies regarding academic misconduct and many get involved with plagiarism. A proper understanding of APA and MLA style of writing should be given to the students who intend to enroll in Universities and Colleges. Many students assume that they can take on jobs while studying without understanding that employment is not always easy to get. A proper budget should be allocated for room and board and personal expenses so that students don’t have to indulge in antisocial activities. Canada is a friendly country and hosting international students is a matter of pride but this is not sustainable with the unemployment or underemployment rates of permanent, Canadian residents. In the past, legislation prevented international students from seeking employment; with new amendments, visiting students have been given more access to the job market.

While international students contribute to the Canadian economy by paying fees and rent or buying commodities for daily use, people are concerned international students are taking jobs away from local residents. With few jobs available, this puts direct pressure on Canadian society and economy. Various employers provide work opportunities to students as they tend to save money by paying beneath minimum wages to jobseekers willing to take cash-paid jobs. Government resources take a direct hit when people apply for Employment Insurance or try to get welfare because they cannot find gainful employment.

Adaptation and integration are core Canadian values, ensuring the country continues to welcome growing numbers of international students. Student recruiters and education providers do not want to see drastic changes in the student visa process which might yield negative results. If we look at the trends in the UK, it is clear the pressure from local residents pushed the government to impose restrictions on international students and work permit seekers. At the moment, Canada is following a system comparable to the Australian system.

When we examine comparisons across students from China and India, we can see a shift in the policy and planning done by the Chinese parents. It is observed that more students are choosing Canada as a destination and many of them are attending high schools primarily in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. Gaining university or college admission is easier coming from a Canadian high school because of the structure and partnerships between schools. Pathway programs help international students by providing them a direct access to admissions in prestigious universities. High school students are also exempt from IELTS and, once they complete their high school diploma in Canada, they are fully equipped with the necessary tools required for success in universities. Indian students should be briefed about the pathway programs and high schools so that they could take advantage of an early start in Canada.

Diwakar Sharma is the Senior International Recruitment Officer (South East Asia & Middle East) for TAE International Institute. He is also a member of TESL-Ontario, AMIC-Singapore, and PRSI India.

Synergy 2013 just around the corner

June 24, 2013March 27, 2020Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Canada India Education Council (CIEC) is pleased to announce that this year’s 7^th Annual ‘Synergy 2013’ event is just around the corner and will at once feature major stakeholders such as AUCC, DFAIT, Ontario Maharashtra Goa (OMG), Shastri Institute (SICI) and academic experts from India accompanied by 5 Canadian MP’s and key thought leaders from both countries. We are particularly delighted that the recently founded IC-IMPACT which was announced by PM Stephen Harper in Nov 2012 will also be present and discuss opportunities for others to get involved in. Another interesting session will be conducted by representatives of the National Association of Career Colleges (NACC) who will discuss impending legislation and how it could transform ‘Internationalization’ efforts for private institutions. Synergy 2013 will also feature a round table discussion on the intersection of immigration & education in the Canada-India corridor and feature closing remarks by Hon. Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport) and a reception by the co-chairs of the Canada-India Parliamentary Association.

On Oct 3 & 4, join academic experts from both countries as they discuss recent developments and hear illustrious speakers stimulate thought and showcase opportunities in this dynamic and burgeoning education corridor. The seating capacity is only 120 and registration is once again on a first come basis. CIEC has negotiated a special rate for delegates staying at the hotel, which will also provide complimentary airport transfers. To take advantage of the discounted hotel rate, reserve your room by clicking here. For delegates arriving from India, CIEC is pleased to provide 1 night FREE stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in Toronto.

Exchange ideas via a focused networking event to further the interests of those already involved in or contemplating involvement in this dynamic education
Explore opportunities in this burgeoning sector and build an awareness & collaborative approach in sharing each other’s experiences and pitfalls to avoid. An opportunity to highlight your programs to peers and receive effective marketing tips, network with stakeholders active in both markets and benefit from existing connections.

For those who can’t make it, CIEC’s media team will be tweeting and updating you in real time via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

You may find a detailed Agenda here.
To Register, click here.

CIEC is a membership founded, bi-national, independent, event-driven organization established to operate exclusively in the ‘Canada India education corridor’, enhance ties and create opportunities for academic institutions and learners from both countries.

We look forward to seeing you at Synergy 2013.

Regards,

Husain F. Neemuchwala Prof Roseann O’Reilly Runte, President & Vice Chancellor,
CEO – CIEC Carleton University
Academic Advisor – CIEC

Overseas students rarely challenge landlords

June 24, 2013July 22, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Age

Many other students ‘pushed around in tenancies’.

When Yu Mao moved out of a rental property in Oakleigh she thought recouping her bond would be simple enough. But she was shocked to discover her signature on a claim form relinquishing most of the bond.

Ms Mao, who was an international student when she moved in, insisted she never signed the form. So she took it to police for analysis.

‘‘I had been trying so hard to prove I didn’t sign it,’’ she said.

The police analysis found her signature had been forged but was unable to determine who had written it.

Ms Mao has since become a permanent resident but said international students rarely spoke out about unfair treatment in their housing arrangements. ‘‘I don’t think they know there is a way to complain.’’

And the Council of International Students Australia says exploitation of foreign students in the rental market is rife.

The council’s public relations officer, Mohamed Ehsan Ebrahim, urged universities to ‘‘reach out’’ to students and help protect them from unfair situations. ‘‘A significant number of students have been exploited in the private rental market,’’ he said.

Withholding bonds was among the main problems.

Ms Mao said international students often left their tenancies without demanding their bond because they wanted to get home for their holidays. ‘‘Everyone is trying to leave the country as quickly as possible,’’ she said.

Ms Mao said the real estate agency she had dealt with agreed to return her bond after the police investigated.

Tenants Union of Victoria policy worker Mike Williams said international students rarely challenged their landlords.
‘‘Many international students are just pushed around in their tenancies,’’ he said. ‘‘Often they just don’t stand up for their rights.’’

He urged students to seek advice on their tenancies if they felt they had been mistreated. But few international students sought help from the union.

Hadi, who left Germany to do a PhD in Melbourne, never imagined he’d end up on the street when he moved into a house in Frankston.

But hoped speaking out about his sudden eviction would highlight the exploitation of international students in the rental market.

Hadi said in September he signed a contract that said he would mow the lawn and clean and maintain the house instead of paying rent.

Hadi, who did not want his surname published, said the landlord later demanded $150 a week. He said he agreed to pay $60 a week, but negotiations broke down.

Early this year, Hadi was walking outside his Dandenong workplace and found all his possessions dumped there.

He said a colleague handed him an eviction notice that had also been dropped off.

‘‘I went down to the garage and saw the other colleagues were laughing at me,’’ he said.

Hadi spent the night on a Swanston Street bench before crashing at a backpackers’ hostel in St Kilda for three weeks.

He recently challenged his eviction in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and won $1408 in compensation when the rooming house owner failed to appear.

The owner declined to comment.

Nearly half of our millionaires are immigrants, new Canadians

June 19, 2013July 22, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: CTV News

A new survey finds close to half of the country’s millionaires are either immigrants or first-generation Canadians who made the bulk of their money after their arrival to the country.

By comparison, only 20 per cent of respondents attributed at least part of their wealth to an inheritance.

The BMO Harris Private Banking survey found that 48 per cent of Canadians with liquid assets of $1 million or more were either immigrants (24 per cent), or first-generation Canadians (24 per cent), meaning they had at least one parent born outside the country. In British Columbia, a full 68 per cent of the millionaires said they were new Canadians.

One of those newcomer-turned-millionaires is Vikram Vij, who opened up an Indian restaurant in Vancouver five years after immigrating to Canada.

“When I came to this country I realized this was a young country,” Vij told CTV News. “I realized if I worked hard, with honesty and with integrity, this country was going to give me the chance. And that’s what I wanted to achieve in my life in India.”

Vij said when he leased space to open his first restaurant, the landlord complained of the smell of curry in the building.

“I was really slow and I was having a hard time to pay the bills, so just to please him I told my mom and dad to make the curries at home and bring it down.”

Today, Vij runs two restaurants in British Columbia, manages a line of pre-packaged gourmet curries and has published two cookbooks.

“At the end of the day, my journey is not done,” he said. “I’m going to remain focused until the day I die.”

The survey also finds that more than two-thirds of Canada’s millionaires, like Vij, are self-made — meaning they built up their nest egg on their own.

“They are not inheriting the wealth. These are people who created the wealth who made their own wealth,” said Alan Desnoyers of BMO.

The study also revealed that women make up one-third of Canada’s affluent, up from 21 per cent three years ago. It also found that 40 per cent of women generated their own wealth.

Interestingly though, only one-third of the high net-worth women said they managed their own investments, compared to 59 per cent of men.

And education appeared to be a big indicator of wealth: eight in 10 of the Canadian millionaires said they had at least a university degree, including 46 per cent who had a graduate or professional degree.

Just 10 per cent had a technical, trade or apprenticeship degree, and just 9 per cent held only a high school diploma or less.

The online survey was conducted by Pollara between March 28 and April 11, 2013 and involved 305 Canadians with $1 million in assets.

King’s College London Opens first International Summer School in Delhi

June 10, 2013June 9, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Digital Learning

King’s College London has opened its first international Summer School in Delhi, following the successful launch of the university’s India 2013 programme in Mumbai earlier this year.

Classes are being held at Miranda House College, University of Delhi. Courses will cover nternational relations, international political economy and e-business. King’s is working with local partner Think Education to deliver the programme of courses.

The Delhi Summer School builds on King’s extensive connections in India’s capital – the university has strong academic ties with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and a thriving alumni branch of nearly 250 professionals working in law, medicine, management, social sciences and education. King’s India Institute – one of the leading international centres for global engagement with contemporary India – now has an academic based in Delhi whose research focuses on the international politics of South Asia and Indian defence and security policy.

Scholarships will be available on each course of the Delhi Summer School for the best and brightest students to study at King’s College London Summer School in July and August. In addition to this, King’s will offer a scholarship for a member of staff from the host college to visit London and interact with King’s staff working on summer programmes.

Tayyeb Shah, Director of International Strategy at King’s College London, said: ‘This is a great day for King’s as we celebrate the opening of our first Summer School in Delhi.Like the popular original London programme, students can expect innovative, interactive teaching methods, faculty who are motivated by their enthusiasm for their subjects, teaching informed by cutting edge research and an opportunity to reflect on how to prepare for their future. A Summer School is a fantastic way to enrich your portfolio of skills and to get a head start in today’s globalised and fast-moving world. We are grateful to Miranda House College for hosting our courses and for the hard work that they have put in to make this happen.We have been delighted with the success of our tailor-made India programmes this year and the positive reaction from all our students. We hope to build on this success as we look to increase the range and scope of King’s activities and partnerships in India.”

Pakistani TV smashes taboos with its answer to ‘Glee’

May 29, 2013May 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: NDTV

Lahore: Gay romance, Islamic extremism and a soundtrack of classic love songs make for Pakistan’s taboo-breaking answer to the hugely successful US television series ‘Glee’.

Like its smash hit forerunner, ‘Taan’ follows the lives and loves of a group of young people who regularly burst into song. But this time they attend a music academy in Lahore, instead of an American high school.

Taan — which is a musical note in Urdu — tackles subjects considered off limits in Pakistan’s deeply conservative Muslim society, with plotlines including love affairs between two men and between a Taliban extremist and a beautiful Christian girl.

The plan is for the 26-episode series to air in September or October, and while producer Nabeel Sarwar insisted the programme was not a “political pulpit”, he is determined to take on the tough issues.

“Nobody wants to have controversy for the sake of controversy, nobody wants to have an assignment to violence, nobody wants to push a button that would result in a disaster for anyone,” he told AFP.

“But the truth has to come out somewhere. Where are we going to put a line in the sand and say, ‘Look, this is what we are’?”

Taking a public stand to defend liberal values like this is rare in Pakistan, where forces of religious conservatism have risen steadily in recent years.

Risque scenes in foreign films are routinely cut by the authorities and the team behind Taan are acutely aware that they must tread carefully with their challenging material.

In one scene the two gay lovers dance and sing in a small room but never embrace — their relationship is suggested rather than overtly shown. The moment is interrupted when a radical Islamist character bursts in.

Director Samar Raza said representing the lives of gay characters was difficult in a country where homosexuality is still illegal.

“Let’s say in a certain scene, there are two boys talking to each other, they are not allowed to show their physical attachment to each other,” he said.

“So I bring a third character who says: ‘God designed Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’.”

It is not only the sensibilities of the censors the producers must navigate.

While 70 percent of Pakistan’s population is under 35, a huge and potentially lucrative audience for advertisers, it is the head of the household who decides what families watch on TV, explains Sarwar.

“The head of the household during the day is the matriarch and the head of the household at night is the patriarch — they control access to TV,” he told AFP.

“You have to find programming that allows the matriarch and the patriarch to join in and participate, but there has to be room for the younger audience.”

In a bid to appeal to older viewers the makers of Taan have licensed around 100 classic Pakistani songs, some by legendary artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and have reworked them to suit modern tastes, as Glee does.

“We try to find music that resonates with the older generation which control the access to the TV but we contemporise that music so that the younger audience does not feel left out,” Sarwar said.

The show hopes that by taking on difficult issues in a light-hearted way it will both reflect the changing nature of Pakistani society and attract a young audience currently hooked on imported Turkish soap operas.

Local dramas struggle to compete with the likes of “Manahil and Khalil” and “Ishq-e-Mamnu” (Forbidden Love) — Turkish serials starring Westernised characters with fair skin and dubbed into Urdu.

Turkish soaps are widely watched across the Muslim world, but the popularity of “Ishq-e-Mamnu” has prompted a lively debate about the “Turkish invasion” of the small screen in Pakistan, with local production companies complaining that they do not have the resources to rival them.

Yasmin Huq, one of the stars of Taan, told AFP a homegrown show could speak more clearly to Pakistanis than foreign imports.

“Today’s generation is watching Turkish and Indian dramas,” she said. “But no one can make a musical story like Pakistanis. Even if you watch the Turkish and Indian dramas, you will see that nobody can talk about Pakistan like Pakistanis.”

Contraceptive use rises in rural areas of Gujarat

May 29, 2013May 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

AHMEDABAD: Premila Bhabor of Panchmuva village in Panchamahal is a mother of five. After giving birth to a daughter and a son, she wanted another son. “What if the first one does not survive,” was her concern. But that did not happen and she conceived three girls after that. The family lives in extreme poverty. Premila and her husband did not use contraceptives though a health worker had explained how they worked.

This is one story among the hundreds in rural Gujarat where the knowledge of contraception has reached but the message hasn’t yet been conveyed.

May 28 is observed as the International Day for Action on Women’s Health and the theme set by Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) for this year is ‘Access to Contraceptives is a HumanRight’. In rural Gujarat, while the infant mortality rate and the maternal mortality rate have improved over the years, the use of contraception – both temporary and permanent – is still limited.

However, the awareness of contraceptives is on the rise with an increase in its users, from 65% to 67%. “Non-reversible methods of contraception are preferred to reversible methods with female sterilization being the most prevalent form at 41.5%,” says Smita Bajpai, project coordinator, Chetna.

As for the vast number of those who reject contraceptives, Bajpai says: “The primary reason for refusing is the desire for having a male child and the nagging fear that one child might not survive.” To tackle this, a project was launched in 2006 which saw several state NGOs and the department of health and family welfare collaborate to bring about a change in the health statusof women in these areas. This project mobilized couples by counseling them on permanent and temporary methods of contraception provided by the public health system. Individual as well as joint counseling was done to provide complete information about various methods and the couples then chose the method of their choice.

Reports from 17 districts of Gujarat indicated that a total of 1,833 women accepted the temporary method of spacing children – intra uterine contraceptive device or IUCD. A total of 2,955 women accepted permanent sterilization. Interestingly, the state policy provides more compensation to men, but the report indicates only 129 men accepted this method during 2008-13. Men still find it difficult to accept this method as they confuse it with the concept of masculinity, the findings say.

“Women are overburdened with work. There is no one to look after the children at home and health facilities are far off, making it difficult to seek help,” Bajpai says. “Most families in these areas migrate for livelihoods. To track them and to ensure that they receive services at the places they migrate to is a major challenge in these areas.”

India, long the home of outsourcing, now wants to make its own Chips

May 27, 2013May 26, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: New York Times via Indian Economic Business News

The Government of India, home to many of the world’s leading software outsourcing companies, wants to replicate that success by creating a home grown industry for computer hardware. But unlike software, which requires little infrastructure, building electronics is a far more demanding business. Chip makers need vast quantities of clean water and reliable electricity. Computer and tablet assemblers depend on economies of scale and easy access to cheap parts, which China has spent many years building up. So the Indian government is trying a new approach. In October, it quietly began mandating that at least half of all laptops, computers, tablets and dot-matrix printers procured by government agencies come from domestic sources, according to Dr. Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, which devised the policy. At the same time, it is potentially providing as much as $2.75 billion in incentives in front of chip makers to entice them to build India’s first semiconductor manufacturing plant, an important step in building a domestic hardware industry. According to Indian media reports, two consortiums have been in talks with the government to build microprocessor foundries. The first is led by the Jaypee Group, one of India’s largest construction companies, which built the country’s Formula One track in Uttar Pradesh. It has partnered with I.B.M., which will provide the technology. The second bid is from the Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, an American company that, despite its name, does not manufacture any chips. It has partnered with the Geneva-based chip maker STMicroelectronics. Source: New York Times

India introduces Central Monitoring System

May 9, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Register

Phone calls, texts, emails and even social media all now snoopable.

Privacy advocates are up in arms after the Indian government began quietly rolling out a Rs.4 billion (£47.8m) Central Monitoring System (CMS) designed to give the authorities sweeping access to citizens’ phone calls and internet comms in the name of national security.

The scheme is initially thought to have been conceived as a response to the threat of terrorism, such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed over 150 people and injured hundreds more.

However, the CMS will not only be used by law enforcement but also the tax authorities and offers the government a single point of access to “lawfully” intercept voice calls and texts, emails, social media and the geographical location of individuals, Times of India reported.

Unsurprisingly the authorities have been pretty quiet about the scheme, although it is thought to have begun operation last month.

Its activities are backed up by legislation – specifically the Information Technology Act 2000 and its amendments – which allows the government to “intercept, monitor or decrypt” any info “generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource” if security and public order are at risk.

Activists are worried because they claim India’s privacy laws are not strong enough to protect individuals in the face of such potentially invasive powers.

The “StopICMS” campaign blog argued the following:

[Government of India] GoI mainly asks Google to remove defamatory content. Why is that? Security for themselves, in the name of safety of citizens? Content removal requests have increased by 90 per cent from the GoI. 33 per cent of the requests from the GoI are about either hate speech, defamation or government criticism. Therefore, we can conclude that after implementation of ICMS GoI will primarily use it against “hate speeches” and government criticism.

While the concerns regarding monitoring of mobile phone calls are justified, the CMS won’t be able to monitor the private social media conversations of foreign services like Twitter and Facebook without a court order.

That said, the Indian government under PM Manmohan Singh has taken an increasingly uncompromising stance when it comes to online freedoms, with the stated aim usually to preserve social order and national security or fight “harmful” defamation.

In response to bloody sectarian clashes across the country last August it banned the sending of bulk SMS messages and blocked numerous Twitter accounts and content sharing sites.

In August last year it even blocked one of its own websites after a controversial court ruling on defamatory content. According to NGO Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2012 report, India remains only “partly free” with a score of 39 – a notable decline from the previous year. By contrast the UK’s score was 25 and the US 12.

Meghalaya government seeks report on Garo Hills rape

May 8, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

SHILLONG: The state government has sought a detailed report from the West Garo Hills district administration on an incident of rape of a girl by miscreants from neighbouring Assam in Boldamgre village of the Garo Hills.

Social welfare minister Deborah C Marak convened a meeting with principal secretary (social welfare) PW Ingty and other officials in which they discussed the incident. “We have asked the concerned district administration to submit a report on the unfortunate incident,” Marak told reporters.

The state police have also asked their counterparts in Assam to arrest the absconding accused involved in the case.

“On Sunday morning, over a dozen armed miscreants from the Hat-Singimari region of Assam numbering entered the village and raped an 18-year-old girl in the village, about 12 km from Garobadha town. They also went from house to house attacking people and looting them,” a police spokesperson said.

Reportedly, the girl was attacked by the criminals and she was raped by an unidentified person. The dacoits also took away Rs 7,000 from the house of one Gajang Sangma after assaulting his family members.

Meanwhile, several NGOs, including the North East Network, have condemned the rape.

“It’s shocking that despite evidence of increasing sexual violence against women, the state government has not been able to enforce the anti-rape law strictly. The law puts special onus on the police department to act in cases of atrocities on women,” NEN said.

On the other hand, concern over sexual assaults on minors in Meghalaya is on the rise, with even the state home minister, Roshan Warjri, recently voicing her anguish in the state assembly over atrocities on women perpetuated in random in the state, which, ironically follows a matrilineal system.

Investigation is already underway in the incident of gang rape of a school girl in the Garo Hills a few months ago.

Online education growing in popularity, education expert says

May 7, 2013May 24, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

TIMES VIEW

The wave of the future

The observation by Curtis Uhelein, president of US-based Apollo Global, doesn’t come out of the blue. The trend towards online education is something that has been percolating through the world of higher education for a few years now. Given how new the format still is, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, of course. It could mean anything from conventional education supplemented by online methods to online-only education; from material simply being made available online to interactive digital sessions. What is undeniable, though, is that it is good news for both students and educators.

Across the world, there are barriers to higher education. In developed countries, they may be economic or geographical. In developing nations like India, the obstacles are not only economic or geographical in nature but also bureaucratic — the biggest obstacle of all is simply a lack of supply. That is why, far from the popular impression of online education being viable only in the developed world, it is actually in countries like India where it can fulfill its potential. Internet penetration is growing at a steady pace in India — and unlike conventional education where physical infrastructure is a huge limiting factor, internet connectivity alone can enable millions of youth to access quality higher education online.

There is concrete proof that Indians are hungry for such opportunities. They form the second-largest group of people, by nationality, accessing two of the largest online education efforts — Coursera and edX. It’s not surprising, after all, that an Indian student would be interested in the quality courses these initiatives offer — or access Ivy League lectures online, or download podcasts by professors from top global universities, all of which are freely available. With the abysmal higher education situation in this country, online education frees them to seek what they want.

COUNTERVIEW

It can only be a poor cousin

Pyaralal Raghavan

The argument that education has become global and online teaching can ever compete with offline teaching is ludicrous. A global shift towards online education is a mirage that will remain elusive. Certainly online education has some merits. But it can never be a true substitute for real education that happens in a physical classroom. In the end online education is only a technologically spruced up variation of the correspondence courses, that have helped millions of the less fortunate students secure higher education degrees at low quality and minimal cost.

University and classroom education is simply superior not only because it enables face to face interaction between students and teachers but also because it proactively engages students in the learning process and exposes them to work in other related disciplines. Universities usually club together teaching and research. It is those with the best research and teaching skills who climb to the top of the system. So university students not only observe and learn from some of the best brains in the profession but also get access to world class libraries and laboratories. The best part of the brick and mortar universities is the peer group interactions which make it possible to build an ecosystem that ensures lifelong learning.

However, the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of online teaching is not just the unique attributes of the university system but poor infrastructure facilities in India like bandwidth, which is essential for extending online education. Typically, in developing countries like India, the quality of the limited broadband service available is too poor to smoothly stream visual images. The way that India’s telecom policy has been compromised makes it certain that online education will remain a poor and distant alternative.

US, UK, and Canada woo leisure travelers from India

April 30, 2013April 29, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Economic Times

Many Indian families will be visiting their kin in the US this summer; or parents will be visiting campuses where their children are studying. But the US commerce department, along with big tour operators in India, has been working towards making US an independent leisure destination for Indian tourists, rather than just visits to friends and relatives or VFR, as that segment is called.

“Following President Barack Obama’s tourism plan launched last year, we have initiated many business-to-business and people -to-people initiatives to make the US a friendlier destination for tourists from India. This includes simplification and fast-tracking of the visitor visa process and granting of multiple entry 10-year visas,” a senior official at the US embassy told ET Magazine.

Uncle Sam woos visitors

An interesting trend is that different states of the US are making efforts to woo Indian tourists independently. An example is Visit Florida, an organisation that opened an office in India recently and estimates that around 58,000 Indians travelled to Florida during 2012, which was a 16% increase over the previous year.

“India is one of the top source markets for us. We intend to showcase popular cities like Miami, Orlando, and Kennedy Space Center. We also plan to launch a Florida specialist programme for the travel trade,” says Tracy Vaughan, director, international sales and marketing of Visit Florida. Theme parks, beautiful beaches, endless entertainment, and culinary and shopping options are some of the reasons that make Florida an attractive travel proposition for Indian families.

Brand USA, the initiative to encourage international visits to the US and to grow its share of the global travel market, is set to launch a big campaign in India in to showcase, among other things, specific destinations such as Niagara Falls, Disneyland and California and Las Vegas.

Through its Visit USA Committee (Vusacom), the US government has been reaching out to tour operators, hoteliers, airlines and destination management companies in India. “The US has always been a big destination for business, education and visiting friends and relatives. But with the new initiatives, which were unveiled about 18 months ago, we have been seeing a growth in the segment of free and independent travellers too,” says Ashwini Kakkar, executive vice-chairman of Mercury Travels and chairman of Vusacom in India. These are people who are in the mid- to high-end range and can be differentiated from the kind of travellers who would go only to Bangkok or Dubai for shopping holidays. They are much bigger spenders, he adds .

According to Kakkar, the steps taken by the US government to simplify B1 and B2 visas — for tourist and business visitors — have given a boost to US-bound travel. Some 660,000 B1 and B2 visas were issued in India in fiscal year 2012. In 2013 there has been a 20% upswing over the previous year so far.

Being a sport

Like the US the UK, too, has been running campaigns in India to change the perception of the country to that of a leisure destination from one just for family visits.

“Last year, in the run up to the Olympic Games we had unveiled a huge promotional campaign. From India we are looking at sports tourism centred around football, cricket and other niche segments such as film tourism or visits to Bollywood-related locations,” says Keith Beecham, overseas network director, VisitBritain.

Specific regions of the UK, too, are working with Indian tour operators to attract bigger numbers of tourists from India. Wales, for instance, is hoping to see a large number of Indian visitors for the ICC Champions Trophy in June. “The tournament builds on Cardiff’s strong track record as a city that can host truly global sporting events and will guarantee fantastic entertainment for cricket fans,” first minister of Wales Carwyn Jones said.

“With global travel becoming an integral part of the Indian lifestyle, countries such as Canada, the US and the UK enjoy strong appeal. Theme parks are of great interest and have led to increased number of visitors to Disneyland. In the UK, major sights such as the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace are on most visitors’ itineraries,” says Vishal Suri, deputy COO tour operating, Kuoni India.

Another conventional destination, Canada, too, is seeing a shift from Indian travellers visiting friends and relatives to leisure travellers. Visitors in the VFR category are adding on vacations such as an Alaska cruise or an adventure trip to Canadian Rockies.

The state of British Columbia, which has a large population of people of Indian origin, is likely to see a growth of about 10% in the number of visitors from India in 2013. “The trend we are seeing is an increase in independent travellers. We are receiving requests for self-drive itineraries, which is great as BC is a very easy destination to enjoy by driving oneself,” says Clare Mason, manager, Destination British Columbia.

Bangladesh toll reaches 377, building owner arrested

April 30, 2013April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Reuters India

The owner of a factory building that collapsed in Bangladesh killing hundreds of garment workers was arrested on Sunday trying to flee to India, as hopes of finding more survivors from the country’s worst industrial accident began to fade.

Mohammed Sohel Rana was arrested by the elite Rapid Action Battalion in the border town of Benapole, Dhaka District Police Chief Habibur Rahman told Reuters, ending a four-day manhunt that began after Rana Plaza, which housed factories making low-cost garments for Western retailers, caved in on Wednesday.

Bangladesh television showed Rana, a local leader of the ruling Awami League’s youth front, being flown by helicopter to the capital Dhaka, where he will face charges of faulty construction and causing unlawful death.

Authorities put the latest death toll at 377 and expect it to climb higher with hundreds more still unaccounted for.

Four people were pulled out alive on Sunday after almost 100 hours beneath the mound of broken concrete and metal, and rescuers were working frantically to try to save several others still trapped, fire services deputy director Mizanur Rahman said.

“The chances of finding people alive are dimming, so we have to step up our rescue operation to save any valuable life we can,” said Major General Chowdhury Hassan Sohrawardi, coordinator of the operation at the site.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the wrecked building in the commercial suburb of Savar, about 30 km (20 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.

Officials said the eight-storey complex had been built on spongy ground without the correct permits, and more than 3,000 workers – mainly young women – entered the building on Wednesday morning despite warnings that it was structurally unsafe.

A bank and shops in the same building closed after a jolt was felt and cracks were noticed on some pillars on Tuesday.

Police said one factory owner gave himself up on Sunday following the detention of two plant bosses and two engineers the day before.

Anger over the disaster has sparked days of protests and clashes, with police using tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to quell demonstrators who set cars ablaze.

Garment workers blockaded a highway in a nearby industrial zone of Gazipur on Sunday demanding capital punishment for the owners.

The main opposition, joining forces with an alliance of leftist parties which is part of the ruling coalition, called for a national strike on May 2 in protest over the incident.

Built on a filled-in pond

Wednesday’s collapse was the third major industrial incident in five months in Bangladesh, the second-largest exporter of garments in the world behind China. In November, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory in a suburb of Dhaka killed 112 people.

Such incidents have raised serious questions about worker safety and low wages, and could taint the reputation of the poor South Asian country, which relies on garments for 80 percent of its exports. The industry employs about 3.6 million people, most of them women, some of whom earn as little as $38 a month.

Emdadul Islam, chief engineer of the state-run Capital Development Authority (CDA), said on Friday that the owner of the building had not received the proper construction consent, obtaining a permit for a five-storey building from the local municipality, which did not have the authority to grant it.

Furthermore, another three storeys had been added illegally, he said. “Savar is not an industrial zone, and for that reason no factory can be housed in Rana Plaza,” Islam told Reuters.

Islam said the building had been erected on the site of a pond filled in with sand and earth, weakening the foundations.

North American and European chains, including British retailer Primark and Canada’s Loblaw, a unit of George Weston Ltd (WN.TO), said they were supplied by factories in the Rana Plaza building.

Since the disaster, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has asked factory owners to produce building designs by July in a bid to improve safety.

Commonwealth meet in Sri Lanka ‘accommodates evil’, Canada says

April 30, 2013April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

LONDON: Canadian foreign minister John Baird has condemned the decision to allow Sri Lanka to host the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November as “accommodating evil”.

Baird spoke out after his Commonwealth counterparts in London on Friday agreed to press ahead with the meeting despite strong criticism over Colombo’s human rights record.

“We’re appalled that Sri Lanka seems poised to host CHOGM and to be chair-in-residence of the Commonwealth for two years,” the Canadian minister told Guardian newspaper late Friday.

“Canada didn’t get involved in the Commonwealth to accommodate evil; we came to combat it. We are deeply disappointed that Sri Lanka appears poised to take on this leadership role.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada will boycott the November 15-17 meeting unless Sri Lanka investigates suspected war crimes including the alleged indiscriminate killing of civilians by government troops in the climax of the civil war in 2009.

Commonwealth secretary-general Kamalesh Sharma said Sri Lanka had not been on the formal agenda at Friday’s talks but said it had been discussed, and there was no opposition to November’s meeting being held in that country.

It was a “collective decision”, he told a press conference afterwards, adding: “No member of government has indicated remotely that it wishes to change the venue.”

Sharma said the Commonwealth was working with President Mahinda Rajapakse’s regime to address international concerns.

And he said he believed Colombo subscribed to the principles of human rights, democracy and rule of law laid out in the Commonwealth charter signed by Queen Elizabeth II last month.

“All member states subscribe to the same principles and values equally,” he said.

“Interacting with them on many fronts — as I have been doing at all levels — I am fully persuaded that they are sincere in subscribing and following those values.”

‘Teachers’ training has almost collapsed’

April 30, 2013May 24, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: News Track India

New Delhi, April 28 (IANS) A shortage of nearly a million teachers is affecting implementation of the Right to Education Act in India. Compounding this is the lack of government-run training institutes which forces aspirants to go to private insitutions, with the result that just a fraction manage to clear the eligibility test.

The Right to Education Act lays down strict guidelines on the student-teacher ratio, as well as on training, according to which the Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) should be 30:1 in primary classes and 35:1 in upper primary classes.

According to a District Information System for Education (DISE) report, in 2011-12 only 34.12 percent of primary school teachers were graduates, while a meagre 17.05 percent teachers were post-graduates.

National convener of RTE Forum Ambarish Rai said the problem is that there are no proper institutions for training teachers.

“There is a huge shortage of teachers, and the RTE mandates appointing trained teachers to fill the gap by 2015. However, the question is: Where will these teachers be trained,” Rai asked while speaking to IANS.

“Teachers’ training has almost collapsed. Today, teachers’ training is being provided by private companies, but the teachers trained by them are not even able to clear the teachers qualification exam,” he said.

In 2012, more than 99 percent of those who appeared for the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) failed the exam. The competency test, conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), was taken by 795,000 aspirants last year.

Training of teachers is the mandate of The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) formed in 1995. But the council could not perform any impressive task in imparting teachers’ training, says Delhi University Department of Education professor Krishan Kumar.

“Teachers’ training has become an ill sector. The training institutes are in ICU, it is like a situation of helplessness,” Krishan Kumar told IANS.

He said the status of a teacher has been degraded with many north Indian states hiring ill-trained teachers on contract, as adhoc or “para-teachers”.

“In the entire Hindi belt, there is a new phenomena of hiring para-teachers. There is a massive movement going on with teachers across states agitating and protesting on issues like regularisation of jobs and better salaries, but it is not being highlighted by the media. North India has forgotten its teachers,” Krishna Kumar said.

The appointment of lower-paid contract teachers is leading to attrition of talent from the field, he added.

A sample survey by NGO Right to Education Forum revealed that para-teachers now constitute a major chunk in many states.

In Bihar, 50 percent of schools have para-teachers, in Andhra Pradesh the figure is 44 percent and in Jharkhand it is 37 percent. Karnataka (28 percent), Uttar Pradesh (23 percent) and West Bengal (21 percent) also have a large number of para-teachers.

The study also says that one out of 10 teachers are sub-contract or proxy teachers who come in place of government-appointed teachers by bypassing the selection process and with no vetting of their qualifications.

These proxy teachers constitute a substantial chunk in Himachal Pradesh (15 percent), Jharkhand (12 percent), Manipur (9.4 percent), Tamil Nadu (9.6 percent), Karnataka (7.6 percent) and Maharashtra (6 percent).

Experts say the only way to improve the situation is through restructuring the training of teachers.

“There is need to regulate and evolve a methodology for teachers’ training,” said Rai.

He said that recruitment was the second major issue dogging implementation of the RTE as a large chunk of teachers were on contract, while the RTE mandates appointing permanent teachers.

“We have disrespected the teachers’ profession. If we start making teachers count the population for the census and work for elections, we are degrading their status. Their dignity is challenged,” Rai added.

Ladakh incursion: China expresses readiness to work with India deal with differences

April 30, 2013April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

BEIJING: China on Sunday took note of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks over PLA’s incursion into the Depsang Valley and said that it is willing to work with New Delhi to deal with differences while maintaining peace at borders and forging strategic cooperative partnership.

“We have noted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement,” a statement by the Chinese foreign ministry said.

“The two sides have been in communication through the working mechanism for consultation and coordination on boundary affairs, border meetings and diplomatic channels for a solution to the incident in part of the western section of the China-India border,” the statement said.

According to the statement, the reaction was in response to a question over Singh’s remarks that Chinese troops incursion into the Depsang Valley in Ladakh can be settled through talks.

Singh told media in New Delhi on Saturday that India does not want to “accentuate” the situation in the wake of the recent Chinese incursion in Ladakh and is working on a plan to resolve it.

“We do have a plan. We do not want to accentuate the situation. We do believe that it is possible to resolve this problem. It is a localized problem. I think the talks are going on,” Singh said.

China had denied that its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers had pitched tents in Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector in Ladakh amounted to trespass and violation of the line of actual control (LAC).

The Chinese statement said “we stand ready to work together with India to properly deal with differences and maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas in a bid to boost the healthy and stable development of China-India strategic and cooperative partnership.”

It said “while actively developing friendly cooperation in recent years, China and India have committed themselves to settling disputes including the boundary question through peaceful negotiation and preventing the disputes from affecting the development of bilateral relations”.

The two sides are currently trying to resolve the issue through border consultation mechanism inked last year even as external affairs minister Salman Khurshid is due visit Beijing on May 9, which officials said would be followed by new Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visit to New Delhi.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu agree to share water

April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Ministerial-level talks between Kerala and Tamil Nadu on sharing water under the Parambikulam-Aliyar river pact ended here on Sunday on a positive note with TN agreeing to release 100 cusecs per day to Kerala.

In response to Tamil Nadu’s gesture, Kerala agreed to release 40 cusecs per day to Tamil Nadu from Shiruvani river to Coimbatore.

Briefing reporters after the meeting which was attended by Tamil Nadu PWD minister T Ramalingam, Kerala water resources minister PJ Joseph said the joint water regulatory board, consisting of officials from both states, would meet soon to discuss water sharing from Sholayar river.

The meeting was held against the background of Kerala government’s decision to move Supreme Court to get due share of water from the neighbouring state under the Parambikulam-Aliyar river agreement.

Kerala had accused Tamil Nadu of not honouring the pact by not releasing the due share to Chittor river in Palakkad which was facing acute drought situaion.

Kerala had also brought to Tamil Nadu’s notice the drought situation prevailing in Palakkad and non-availability of water under PAP had adversely affected agriculture sector.

As per the Parambikulam-Aliyar project (PAP), Kerala is entitled to get 7,250 million unit cubic feet in a water year (between July 1 to June 30).

A joint water regulatory board of officials from Tamil Nadu and Kerala release the water under a “fortnightly pattern”.

Dikshit accepts protest letters over inflated bills

April 28, 2013May 24, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Hindustan Times

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday accepted the 10,50,000 letters written to her by the Delhi residents over inflated water and power bills following the protest of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at Jantar Mantar in the national Capital.

AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said Dikshit’s agreeing to accept the letters is “people’s victory.”

Kejriwal vowed that the movement against the inflated bills would continue until the tariffs are brought down, and alleged that both the Congress and the BJP have together cartelised the water and electricity sector in the state.

“At 9 am one of my associates, Dilip Pandey, got a call from the chief minister’s Office saying Sheila Dikshit wanted to talk. Dikshit said she will receive the protest letters. She was compelled to do so because of the people’s pressure. She had to bow down to the people,” said Kejriwal, while addressing a gathering.

Since the chief minister agreed to accept 10,50,000 letters of protest to her written by the people of Delhi highlighting the inflated bills, the AAP activists called off their scheduled march to her residence, AAP spokesperson Aswathi Muralidharan said.

In the afternoon, AAP activists Manish Sisodia and Kumar Vishwas along with 10 other party members boarded a bus, carrying the protest letters from Jantar Mantar and handed these over to Dikshit’s staff around 3 pm at her residence at Motilal Nehru Marg in New Delhi’s VIP area.

Kejriwal said the movement against inflated water and power bills would continue till the bills are either waived off or the charges are reduced.

“Our aim is not just to submit these (over) 10 lakh letters, but we are seeking action on them. Our protest is unlike that of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Vijay Goel who simply protests for limelight. We have said we won’t pay our bills and this movement will continue till these bills are reduced,” he asserted.

Kejriwal said the Congress governments both at the Centre and in the state had failed to address the issue of water crisis in the national Capital.

“Every year, the Prime Minister says that we will provide water to every household in this country. They have not been able to provide water to Delhi in the past 65 years. How will they provide water to the entire country,” he asked.

“Sheila Dikshit has been in power for the past 15 years. Why has not the issue been addressed,” he asked. Most of the water tanker companies are owned by leaders of these two parties, and the government was hand in glove with the power discoms, he alleged.

Earlier, Delhi Traffic Police eased the traffic restrictions they had imposed in Janpath-Sansad Marg area due to protests and demonstrations.

Kejriwal fasted for 15 days earlier this month to press his demand for reduction in water and electricity tariffs in the capital.

Samsung to start manufacturing Galaxy S4 in India soon

April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Hindu Business Line

New Delhi, April 28: Samsung India today said it will soon start manufacturing its flagship high-end smartphone Galaxy S4 in India.

“We are planning to start manufacturing of S4 soon at our Noida facility,” Samsung Mobile and Digital Imaging Country Head Vineet Taneja told PTI.

He, however, refused to share any timeframe by when the production will start. The Noida facility is manufacturing about 35-40 million phones annually, including 12 smartphones such as Galaxy S3.

The company currently imports the recently launched Galaxy S4 from South Korea.

Sensing huge demand for Galaxy S4, the company is also looking to double the high-end smartphone (above Rs 20,000) market size in India, which is currently contributing around 10-12 per cent of the overall smartphone market.

The Galaxy S4, which is packed with newer imaging features as well as ‘gesture-control’ technology, has a five-inch full HD super AMOLED touchscreen, 13 mega pixel rear and 2 mega pixel front camera and supports 3G networks.

Although Samsung is the market leader in smartphone market in India, competition from Apple, BlackBerry and Nokia has put pressure on it to add new software features to maintain its lead.

According to research firm IDC, the overall mobile phone market in India reached about 218 million units in 2012, growing 16 per cent year-on-year.

Of this, 16.3 million units were smartphones, but the category saw a growth of about 48 per cent. Samsung was the leader in the quadcore and 5-inch plus screen size models, IDC added.

The demand for smartphones is expected to be around 34-36 million units this year.

Globally, Samsung had 30.3 per cent share of the smartphone market (with sales of 215.8 million units) in 2012, while Apple had a 19.1 per cent share with sales of 135.9 million units, according to IDC.

Bollywood celebrates 100th birthday

April 28, 2013April 28, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: Times of India

One hundred years after the screening of a black-and-white silent film, India’s brash, song-and-dance-laden Bollywood film industry celebrates its centenary later this week.

The milestone will be marked with the release of Bombay Talkies, made up of short commemorative films by four leading directors, while India will be honoured as “guest country” at next month’s Cannes festival.

Exhibitions in the capital New Delhi are showcasing a century of cinema, including onscreen kissing scenes that originally fell foul of the censors.

It is also a time for reflection on how the industry has evolved, from its early screen adaptations of Hindu mythology to the garish romantic escapism of modern blockbusters.

Commercially, cinema is thriving: India produced almost 1,500 movies last year and the industry is expected to grow from $2 billion to $3.6 billion in the next five years, according to consultancy KPMG.

Leading the way is Hindi-language Bollywood, which took the “B” from its home in Bombay and won the hearts of movie-mad Indians.

But old-timers complain that it has become superficial, neglecting to deal with pressing social concerns of the age.

“There’s a dumbing down that has taken place in the content. I think we are suffering from what is called the narrative crisis,” said veteran director and producer Mahesh Bhatt.

He contrasts modern filmmakers with Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, known as the “father of Indian cinema”, who brought the first all-Indian feature film to the silver screen in Bombay (now Mumbai) on May 3, 1913.

A tale from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Raja Harishchandra, quickly became a hit despite its female characters being played by men — women acting was still widely frowned upon.

Phalke made more than 100 films until his silent style fell victim to “talkies” in the 1930s, but the advent of sound technology allowed India cinema to flourish.

Bollywood plot-lines today can involve stars breaking into song, often in picturesque far-flung locations, apropos of nothing — a style that may bemuse a Western audience, but one that helps to set Indian cinema apart.

“If it was exactly the same thing as Hollywood, Hollywood would have run us over. We don’t have that money,” said film critic Anupama Chopra.

For her and many others the “golden age” of cinema was the 1950s, when movie greats emerged such as Satyajit Ray, India’s most renowned filmmaker, who hailed from the alternative film hub of West Bengal.

It was the era of newly independent India, searching for an identity and producing films such as Mehboob Khan’s 1957 hit Mother India, which combined social concerns with popular appeal.

The 1970s and 80s saw a growing commercialism with the rise of the “masala” movie — a family entertainer that typically mixed up romance and action, songs and melodrama, a comedy touch and a happy ending.

Parallel Cinema continued to focus on realism, with films such as Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth (Meaning) in 1982, a gritty tale of an extramarital affair that presented strong female characters.

It was a path-breaker in a decade described as the “dark ages” of Hindi cinema, which struggled with the advent of colour television, rampant piracy and dependence on the Mumbai underworld for funding.

Things improved after India’s economy opened up in the early 1990s, and again a decade later when filmmaking won formal “industry” status. Both steps encouraged foreign firms, such as Fox and Disney, to invest in Bollywood.

But subsequent leaps in technology have not been matched by advances in storytelling, say critics, who lament the formulaic plots, passive roles for women and the copying of Hollywood.

Bollywood’s escapist fantasies have long held mass appeal because “there’s enough realism in the common man’s life”, said Bhatt.

But with ever more TV shows, the Internet and easily available global films, such movies may no longer meet the demands of the educated middle-class.

This expanding group “wants to see something better than trash which caters to the common man who drives auto-rickshaws. They want to see a different kind of cinema,” said veteran actor Rishi Kapoor.

A new crop of experimental filmmakers has started to appear, such as “Hindi indie” darling Anurag Kashyap who is a fixture on the global film festival circuit.

Trade analysts say the growth in multiplex cinemas has also encouraged mainstream films to diversify: a surprise hit last year was Vicky Donor, a romcom about sperm donation.

Raj Nidimoru is co-director of upcoming Go Goa Gone, one of India’s first zombie films, and he believes the move away from staple Bollywood is only just beginning.

“This is just a ripple right now, it’s going to become a wave.”

Canadian Food Festival at Taj Mahal Palace

April 21, 2013April 22, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

By Sparsh Sharma for the Government of Canada

A “Sugar Shack” Experience

The Consulate General of Canada in Mumbai, in partnership with the Taj Mahal Palace, presents the Canadian Food Festival from March 22nd to March 30th, 2013.

Mumbaikars will have the chance to feast on Canadian delicacies with a sweet twist at the Shamiana restaurant. The menu is inspired by the Canadian sugar shacks where maple sap is collected in March and boiled into syrup, toffee and more.

Overseeing the creation of these delights is Chef Louis Charest, Executive Chef to the Governor General of Canada, who has come directly from Canada to prepare sumptuous meals using authentic Canadian ingredients.

On arriving in Mumbai, Chef Charest said “I am excited to share the Canadian sugar shack experience with Mumbaikars. These flavours will serve as an inspiration to display great Canadian cuisine and amazing Canadian products with a fun mix of Indian spices.”

Chef Charest brings the Canadian Sugar Shack dining experience to life through old-time specialties like maple taffy on snow, split pea soup, poutine, maple baked ham, tourtière, and mouth-watering maple desserts.

Following on the success of last year’s Atlantic Canadian Seafood Festival, there will also be a delicious spread of the freshest Canadian seafood, including lobster, scallops, crab, halibut and more. By pairing these delicacies with organic Canadian wines from British Columbia, including dessert wine, and modern Canadian cocktails, the festival is a food lover’s dream come true!

To further capture the true feeling of a Canadian sugar shack, Shamiana is hosting a traditional musical performance at the Sunday Sugar Shack Brunch on March 24th. Mario LeBreton and Philippe LeBlanc will entertain with toe-tapping classics and original music that will transport listeners to a traditional Eastern Canadian party.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency have worked with Canadian suppliers to ensure that only the finest Canadian products are being delivered straight from Canada to your plate during the entire festival. The Canadian Food Festival will be the opportunity to see new Canadian products not yet available in the Indian market.

Canada’s Consul General in Mumbai, Mr. Richard Bale said “Canada has high-quality agricultural products to share with India and this event will give a unique opportunity for Mumbai to taste Canada’s diverse and top-quality products. Canada is already providing pulses, canola oil, fish and seafood, specialty and fine foods, sauces and seasonings, wines, spirits, ice wine, bakery, confectionery, and snacks to the Indian market, and we look forward to new products being available in the marketplace in the near future.”

Background

In his role as Executive Chef to Canada’s head of state, Chef Charest has catered for high-ranking officials, prime ministers, dignitaries, royalty and world leaders including their Royal Highnesses, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip the Duke of Edinburg, and now Chef Charest is cooking for Mumbai!

Chef Charest’s pride in showcasing his talent has been rewarded with 14 gold medals, 3 trophies, 4 grand gold medals, 1 World Cup, 4 silver medals and 3 bronze medals. This has included winning gold at the famed New York Culinary Salon, representing Canada in the World Banqueting Competition at the World Championships, winning an individual silver medal at the World Culinary Olympics in Berlin, Germany, in 1996, and earning five gold medals at the Culinary Grand Prix in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2001.

Engaging Canada: Emerging priorities for sustainable partnerships

April 9, 2013May 3, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

CONFERENCE ON

ENGAGING CANADA:
EMERGING PRIORITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIPS

To be organized by Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute
at the India International Centre in New Delhi
June 1, 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Institute

The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute is a bi-national organization that promotes understanding between India and Canada through academic activities and exchanges. Its broad-based initiatives support the creation of bi-national links between academia, government, the business community and civil society organizations by funding research, faculty and student exchange, conferences, workshops and seminars. With a membership of 93 leading Indian and Canadian universities and research institutions, the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute has facilitated greater collaboration between Indian and Canadian institutions in the humanities, social sciences, arts, science & technology, legal education, and management studies. The Institute, as part of its mandate, has also supported research on sustainable development and other United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

The Conference

The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute is organizing a Conference at the India International Centre, New Delhi on June 1, 2013, to present collaborative research that has been completed, or is currently being undertaken, by Indian and Canadian universities/research institutions in four focus areas.

Energy & Environment
Public Health
Food Security & Sustainable Development
Bi-lateral Trade and Investment

Objectives

Emerging opportunities and strategies to address challenges in these four areas that have been identified as priority sectors by both the Indian and Canadian governments will be the themes of this Conference. One of the objectives of this Conference is to gather experts and a new cadre of researchers to discuss their contributions to higher learning while weaving academic and institutional collaborations between Canada and India. It is expected that strategic recommendations will be derived from the Conference that will contribute to sustained academic and institutional partnerships.

Call for Papers

Papers are invited from faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and doctoral students from Shastri member institutions, as well as faculty/researchers from non-member institutions to present and share work that has been completed or is currently progressing in these four areas. The papers could be the outcome of research funded by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute or by other agencies, universities or research institutions. We particularly encourage submissions that develop inter-disciplinary themes.

Abstract of Papers must be submitted by April 30, 2013, to Dr. Prachi Kaul, Programme Officer, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute by email at [email protected]. Authors must indicate the focus area for which they would like their paper to be considered.

Important Dates

April 30, 2013: Deadline for Submission of Abstracts
May 15, 2013: Acceptance Notification
June 1, 2013: Conference

Travel and Accommodation

Economy class air-fare within India, and local accommodation in New Delhi, will be provided to out-station scholars whose papers have been selected for presentation at the Conference. Travel and accommodation arrangements/ reimbursements will be done according to the travel and accommodation policy of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute.

Conference Coordinators:

Dr. Biju Paul Abraham, IIM Calcutta, and Dr. Ravishankar Rao, Mangalore University
Executive Council

Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute

5 BhaiVir Singh Marg,
New Delhi – 110 001, India.
Telephone: 91-11-2374-6417/3114, Fax: 91-11-2374-6416.
Website: www.sici.org.in
Email: [email protected]

ATN Signs Animated Epic Series The Legend of Ponnivala for Canadian Broadcast: In Tete-a-Tete with Dr. Brenda Beck, Producer of the Series

April 8, 2013May 3, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Sophia Hilton Foundation of Canada

The Sophia Hilton Foundation of Canada and Soft Science Associates, Ltd., creators of the animated Legend of Ponnivala series, have signed on with the Asian Television Network for Canadian broadcast of the 26-episode series. The series is slated to launch in English on ATN in late April, with a Tamil-language broadcast planned for the summer.

The Legend of Ponnivala tells the story of the epic South Indian heroes Ponnar and Shankar. It also relates the origins of their family, back to the founding of the region two generations earlier. It is a surprisingly expansive tale for a local legend, and includes a wealth of historical and social insights into medieval Indian culture. It draws inspiration and characters from the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, while keeping its focus on farming, the lifestyle central to its place of origin.

Speaking exclusively to AnimationXpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala about this broadcasting deal, Dr. Brenda Beck, Creator and Producer of The Legend of Ponnivala shares, “I am very happy about this contract. When I met with ATN’s CEO, Dr. Shan Chandresekar, we realized we were on the same page with this series. He had seen the Legend of Ponnivala trailers and was enthusiastic about the prospect of adding it to the network’s family lineup. I felt that the broadcast potential and strength that ATN was offering would be a great vehicle to get the series out to the widest possible audience, Asian and non-Asian alike. The plan to broadcast in both English and Tamil reflects a fitting balance between the story’s Kongu roots and its modern re-telling in English”

The Legend of Ponnivala has previously been seen only as a feature film in select international settings. One extended excerpt received a nomination for Best Animated Film (Home Video) at the 2012 FICCI BAF Awards in India. Another extract was a featured presentation at the MOSAIC International South Asian Film Festival in Mississauga, Ontario.

Dr. Brenda Beck, Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, adds more, “ Now that its premiere Canadian broadcast has opened the door, we’re looking to build on that momentum and get in touch with additional networks in order to really move the story forward onto an international stage.”

The Legend of Ponnivala is derived from a vast, ancient Hindu folktale tradition from South India’s Kongu region. The story has traditionally been told through song and passed down through generations of singing bards. One such performance was captured on over forty hours of audio tape in 1965 by Dr. Brenda Beck, who directed the series. Art and animation on the project began in 2008. Animator Ravichandran Arumugam, whose grandfather was a traditional singer of the epic, was brought on board to lead the art and animation team.

Informing more on the story line of this series, Dr. Brenda, highlights, “In retelling The Legend of Ponnivala, I have tried to stay as faithful as possible to the story’s original style and content as I recorded it in 1965. At that time, the only place it existed was in the tales of the singing bards of the Kongu region, and it was only by chance that I was able to capture and preserve it on audio tape. This very colourful tale depicts the life of farmers in medieval South India through the adventures of three generations of local kings. Due to a curse, the royal family is forced to confront jealous outsiders who threaten their sovereignty over the land of Ponnivala.

Shares further, “The story has very close ties to other Indian epics, and has even been called a ‘local Mahabharata.’ Because this epic is only really known in selected parts of Tamilnadu, it is fresh and unique, but its size and scope certainly make it powerful enough to stand alongside other great world epics like the Odyssey or Beowulf.”

Also involved in the project is award-winning Celtic musician and world music expert Steafan Hannigan, along with the voice talents of Sivakumar, Sumit Bhatia, Lata Pada, Afroz Khan, Ishwar, and Sanjay Talreja.

“The Legend of Ponnivala” is an epic adventure story for all ages. Part mythology, part fairytale, part historical drama and part action series, Ponnivala promises to delight and entertain viewers of all ages and across all cultures.

On the closing note, Dr. Brenda, expresses, “The Legend of Ponnivala is more than just a TV series. We’ve already released a comic book set in both print and digital formats on our website. It is being taught in elementary schools in Canada, using our lesson plans plus creative added exercises thought up by teachers. The story provides a unique window on ancient Indian culture, and is even being used as an exhibit at Canada’s Royal Ontario Museum this spring. The whole scope of the project is so much more than just a television series, but with this broadcast the breadth of its cultural, educational, and entertainment value will now be revealed to a much wider audience than we could possibly reach on our own.

If you would like to learn more about the Canada-India Legend of Ponnivala project, please contact Dr Brenda Beck at [email protected].

Canada – A growing destination for Indian students

April 7, 2013May 18, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

By Avinav Sharma

Canada has never been so popular with the Indian students as it stands now. It is all thanks to the great and impactful reforms done by the Government of Canada to make Canada an attractive destination for International Education of 21st century. A fact concreting is that in 2012, for the first time Canada welcomed a record number of international students. A first in history, international students in Canada crossed the number of 100,000.

Students from India are very much interested to pursue their studies in some of the best countries of the world. There is no dearth of talent in India. USA and UK have always been old preferred destinations, but now Canada is slowly making its way to the list of most preferred destinations for the Indian students. Canadian institutions are fast gaining popularity with Indian students. Some of the Canadian universities had long been coming to India since the 90s and been engaging with students and educational institutions. Student exchange, faculty exchange and research collaborations have been part of it.

With the passing time and globalization, more and more Canadian institutions have entered Indian market to search for the best and smartest talent. The engagement of Canadian polytechnics and community colleges is increasing with institution representatives doing recruitment events at various cities of India and entering into alliances with reputed and trusted educational agents. Institutions and education agents are working closely on a common goal of matching the students’ academic interest and their educational pursuits to programs available at the institutions.

The quality of technical and professional education is very high in Canada. Strengthening the interest of Indian students is the low tuition fee structure of the institutions. Lower tuition fees and the high global ranking of Canadian universities are of much interest to Indian students seeing the growing cost of getting quality education in India. Another attractive aspect is the Cooperative Education which most of Indian students are not aware of. Co-op as a term is relatively new to students and at first instance students are not able to understand it. With more and more information coming into Indian market on Canadian education, the Canadian education system and terms are being familiarized but a lot needs to be done in this field. Most of the students choose their program unaware of co-op opportunities and realize that later on. Even the students who choose the co-op are not aware of the real value and benefit of a co-op. They end up not maintaining the required GPA or percentage that will entitle them to be placed into the co-op by the institution.

With educational opportunities and systems differing from province to province in Canada, Indian students find it difficult to map their academic interest and choose an institution that can best cater to their needs. Official website like that of AUCC try to bridge this gap by providing comprehensive information on universities, programs offered and their contact details. Still the information is not reaching in that amount in which it should, primarily because of unawareness among Indian students. The university admission procedures, steps involved, international credential evaluation are highly complex and time consuming as compared to the admission systems of countries like Australia, UK and New Zealand which are fairly very simple and easy to understand. The entering admission requirements are also a bit high and some of good and genuine students are not successful in making to their university of choice because of it. With the presence of different central and state school boards and higher education institutions in India, a student’s academic score can vary and not present a true picture of his capability of successfully completing his intended program in Canada. This one aspect should be taken into consideration by the universities and institutes of Canada.

Research opportunities are tremendous in Canada and with funding opportunities available to deserving students at every step; Indian students are now getting attracted to research master and doctorate degrees in Canada. Numerous choices of specializations and research areas available help Indian students choose the field that they may not have even thought of pursuing. It just does not stop here. The flexibility of Canadian institutions also allows student to come with a completely new field in which he may want to pursue research and the institution fully support the students with their research ideas and makes them available proper resources.

I can say that a lot more is still to be traversed in promoting Canadian education among Indian students and making them understand every bit of it. It has to be a continuous and result oriented process.

Avinav Sharma is the Country Head — Canada of Kangaroo Studies Private Limited, India.

Osmania University gets its own international students hostel

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: The Hindu

After a wait of more than 10 years, Osmania University’s dream of a hostel for foreign students has finally taken shape. The modern hostel was inaugurated recently by chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Ved Prakash.

For the moment, the plush two-storeyed building, which can house 172 students, will only be available for male students pursuing their Masters or PhD courses. The reasons being cited are multiple, including security.

The hostel has 16 two-bed rooms and 18 three-bed rooms on each of the two floors.

“Each two-bed room also has a small kitchenette while a common spacious dining hall and kitchen on each floor is available for cooking. A sports lounge and a reading room with television are other attractions,” says C. Venugopal Rao, Director, University Foreign Relations Office (UFRO).

With a built-up area of nearly 50,000 sq.ft., the hostel was constructed at a cost of about Rs. 6.75 crore. Though there are just two floors now there is a provision for adding two more stories.

In fact, The idea of an International Students Hostel was mooted way back in 2002 and a proposal was submitted to the UGC seeking a financial assistance of Rs. 3.63 crores.

The authorities then planned to accommodate 200 students and an International Transit House with a provision of accommodating 50 girl students. However, the idea fructified only in February 2010 when the foundation stone was laid by the then Vice Chancellor, T. Tirupati Rao.

Man attempts suicide after India education loan denial

April 2, 2013March 11, 2015Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Source: gulfnews.com

Father consumes poison in bank over refusal of loan for daughter.

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: A middle-age man in Agali in Palakkad district attempted suicide by consuming poison in front of a public sector bank today, apparently to protest the denial of an education loan to his daughter. The man was identified as Rajan and his condition was reported to be critical.

Initial reports said the man had approached several banks over the past few months to arrange an education loan for his daughter to pursue graduation but had been denied the loan by all of them.

The education loan issue has been a sore point for banks and students in Kerala, with students and parents arguing that banks frequently turn a blind eye to education loan applications and banks taking the stance that repayment of education loans can often be problematic.

The issue had caught state-wide attention in 2005 when a girl student, Rajani S. Anand jumped off a multi-storey building in the state capital, stating that she was taking the extreme step because no bank was willing to offer her an education loan. The uproar over the incident prompted the state government to exercise pressure on banks to be more lenient towards advancing student loans.

MP Shory: Canada does not consider India a poor country

April 2, 2013March 11, 2015Canada India Education Council (CIEC)

Calgary, AB, April 2, 2013 – “Indians and Canadians of Indian descent should be proud of India’s strong economy, particularly that it is no longer considered a poor developing country,” said Devinder Shory, MP (Calgary Northeast) in response to concerns raised by some that Canada was removing India from the list of countries under the General Preferential Tariff (GPT).

As part of Economic Action Plan 2013 the Canadian Government removed India, along with several other BRIC countries, such as Brazil, China, and Russia from the special tariff deduction list. Countries were placed on this list back in 1974 based on criteria set by the World Bank, and had lower tariffs applied to their exports in a bid to give preferential access to the Canadian market for poor developing countries. The removal from the special tariff deduction list will be effective January 1, 2015.

“Removal from the special tariff deduction list is evidence of how far India has come during this period. Its economy is growing each and every year and this growth has lifted millions of people out of poverty and into long-term prosperity.”

“The good news, said MP Shory, is that Canada and India are currently negotiating a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Trade between our two countries could reach $15 billion by 2015, and the agreement, once signed, will help to increase trade between our countries.”

“The removal of India from the GPT will encourage both our governments to finish trade agreement negotiations by the end 2013, which is the target set by both our governments. The goal of the negotiations is not only to eliminate or reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade, but also to increase and improve investment and expansion opportunities for businesses from both countries. Once the trade agreement is signed there will be no discernible impact from removing India from the GPT.”

TIMES VIEW

The wave of the future

COUNTERVIEW

It can only be a poor cousin

Pyaralal Raghavan

Uncle Sam woos visitors

Being a sport

Built on a filled-in pond

A “Sugar Shack” Experience

CONFERENCE ON

ENGAGING CANADA: EMERGING PRIORITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIPS

The Institute

The Conference

Objectives

Call for Papers

Important Dates

Travel and Accommodation

Conference Coordinators:

ENGAGING CANADA:
EMERGING PRIORITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIPS