Indigenus

There are murmurs in Vigyan Bhavan about a proposal to set up the country's first all-women engineering and technology institute in President Pratibha Patil's hometown in Maharashtra. The HRD ministry is mulling over the proposal for this exclusive women's technology school in Amravati near Nagpur on Patil's recommendation. The country's first woman president was apparently worried about the small number of girl students getting into the IITs.

The proposal has met criticism on these accounts: 1) Will there be enough women qualifying to fill up one IIT-type school if there aren't enough in the existing ones? 2) WIll the standard of students not suffer if the target is to fill the school up somehow? 3) Is it prudent to make technical education gender-specific?

What are your views?

Posted by Subhra Priyadarshini on June 26, 2008
Categories: Education, Gender, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

On Technology Day today, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decorated rocket scientists V. K. Saraswat and Dipankar Banerjee. The two scientists have long been involved in developing critical materials for aircraft carriers. Leader of the Agni-III missiles team Avinash Chander was decorated with the DRDO Award for pathbreaking research.

Pune's High Energy Materials Research Laboratory that makes explosives for many strategically important missile programmes got the prestigious Titanium Trophy. The Aeronautical Defence Agency of Bangalore was feted for defense research. So were Raju Venkata Narayana and his team from the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment, Bangalore and R B Subramanyam and his team from Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad.

A befitting to salute the men shaping the strategic technology of this country!

Posted by Subhra Priyadarshini on May 12, 2008
Categories: Technology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)