सोमवार, 1 सितंबर 2008

65% rise in girls joining IIT-Delhi

New Delhi: IIT-Delhi has witnessed a significant rise in the number of girls at the undergraduate level। The intake this year has increased by 65 per cent.
“For the last two to three years the number of female students had remained pretty much constant। In 2007, 50 out of the 550 students — 9 per cent — were girls. This year, however, female students have taken up 83 out of the 626 seats, which is 13 per cent. This is a significant increase,” said S.R. Kale, dean, undergraduate studies.
Electrical, chemical and bio-chemical engineering are the popular options among them।
The increase comes across as a pleasant surprise as engineering normally doesn’t figure high on girl students’ list of career options। While girls do better than boys in science subjects in the board examination, not too many make it to engineering.
M। Balakrishnan, dean, postgraduate and research, feels it is the entrance examination that acts as a deterrent.
However, the few who do enroll in the undergraduate courses do better than their male counterparts and are “more focused” in class। In 2007 girls bagged three of the 14 silver medals for undergraduate students.
Though the change is positive, professors at the institute find it difficult to attribute it a particular reason।
“This doesn’t have much to do with the increase in seats as the increase in female students’ enrollment is proportionately a lot larger। Since this is the first year it is difficult to attribute the jump to one reason. It would only amount to speculation,” added Kale.

UP: SP, Cong to jointly contest LS polls

The Samajwadi Party and Congress on Monday decided to jointly contest the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh with the SP also seeking alliance in four other states including Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra and Karnataka ।
After a marathon four-hour-long talk with a Congress delegation led by party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, SP general secretary Amar Singh said that the seat-sharing would be carried out with "winnability" as the ।
Sending out a signal of warmth and goodwill towards the Congress leadership, Singh told reporters that if in any eventuality, the alliance does not work out, "we will not oppose Sonia Gandhi and Rahul in their constituencies"।
The SP leader said that talks in which AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh and UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi also participated, were held in cordial atmosphere and the overriding sentiment was one of unity to face the challenges ahead।
"Just like the Congress is asking for more seats in UP, despite being weak there, similarly we also asked them to help us in states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Karnataka, where we have a marginal presence," Singh said implying thereby that the SP was in favour of a broad-based alliance comprising several states।
"Though Digvijay Singh and Rita Bahuguna Joshi are not authorised to speak about any other state apart from UP, I took the advantage of Rahul's presence and sought the Congress' alliance in other states also," the SP leader said।
He added that in UP, both the parties would field strong candidates with grassroot support and who could give a tough fight to their opponents.