KERALA

Kerala: Commission soon to review university laws, says Higher education minister R Bindu

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The higher Education department will set up a university law reform commission to study and report the changes required in the statutes and rules governing the university education system in the state, said higher education minister R Bindu.

Presently, the university education system in the state is being governed by statutes and rules framed about 60 years ago. Many of them have become outdated and have been found to be inadequate to address the challenges being thrown up by the drastic changes like digital education systems taking place in the field. The commission, to be announced soon, will be tasked to frame legal and regulatory frameworks, factoring in the transformations that have taken place in the educational ecosystem, Bindu said.

The minister said another commission will be appointed to suggest reforms to be implemented in the examination systems in universities so that the students will undergo a more effective and authentic evaluation process. She said that 30 centres of excellence would be set up across the state to conduct in-depth and focussed research. These centres will have inter-university links and will be undertaking interdisciplinary research. Efforts will be made to woo the best talents available in the country to these centres. They will also strive to inculcate research Aptitude among the students at the degree and postgraduate levels, she said.

14,000 houses in state to get high-speed internet services

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The ‘s K-FON project aimed at providing high-speed Internet connectivity to government offices, educational institutions and economically-weak households will be launched by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

In the initial phase of the project, K-FON will offer internet Services to 14,000 households that are financially backward and 30,000 government offices through an optical fibre Network. The commercial website of K-FON and the K-FON mobile application will also be launched. During the launch, the chief minister will virtually interact with selected K-FON subscribers, including representations from beneficiary families, residents of tribal hamlets at Panthaladikkunnu in Wayanad, school students and government institutions.

Presently, KFON has been successfully installed in 26,492 government offices, of which 17,354 offices have live internet access. According to K-FON officials, internet connectivity will be made available to all government offices by June-end this year as per the provided list. Currently, K-FON has more than 1,000 household subscribers, and optical fibre cables for providing over 7,000 connections have been laid.

Despite being educated unemployment rate among Kerala youth huge: Shashi Tharoor

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Unemployment rate among the youth in Kerala is huge and there is a need to make the state more attractive for its younger generation to prevent them from going outside for jobs, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor said.

Mannam Jayanthi is held to celebrate the birth anniversary of NSS founder and social reformer Mannath Padmanabhan.

He said only Jammu and Kashmir was in such a situation, but that was due to militancy problems there.

Tharoor said 3.5 lakh professional and technical job-seekers, including 9,000 medical graduates, were registered as job-seekers in the southern state’s EMPLOYMENT exchange.

Of the 3.5 lakh job-seekers, around 71 per cent have ITI certificates, he added.

Kerala SC/ST students to get scholarship to learn to fly

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The Kerala government will now bear the entire expense of students who pass the entrance examination to the state-run Rajiv Gandhi Aviation Academy, which gives training for a Commercial Pilot License (CPL).

Consequent to this, new directive the will fund the entire fees which come to around Rs 2.5 million for each student.

From now on, each and every student from the SC/ST community who gets admission will be able to study for free, as earlier it was limited.

My Kochi App launched

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The app designed as per the instructions of mayor M Anilkumar will be implemented in 61, 62 and 65 divisions of the corporation as a pilot project from Tuesday. User fee collection from those divisions, especially from merchants, will be through the app from November 1. All the 74 divisions of the corporation will be under the limits of the app by December 31.

Integrated approach key during health emergencies

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Rather than a pluralistic approach, an integrated approach may be more viable in theKeralascenario in public Health emergencies, said a paper on ayurvedic response to Covid-19 and its impact on quarantined individuals.

The paper published in Frontiers of Public Health is the first of its kind that talks of strategies adopted by the in battling a public health issue using ayurveda as part of an integrated public health system to combat a disease that had no medical solutions initially.
It talks of how the state set up 1,206 Ayur Raksha Clinics and associated task forces in April 2020 to improve the reach of ayurvedic preventive, therapeutic and convalescent care strategies for Covid-19.

The paper said that 1,206 life clinics covered all the 941 villages with a jurisdiction of over six million households. These clinics have been functioning adequately in tandem with the existing conventional medicine-oriented public health machinery. As of June 28, 2021, over 3.1 million people in Kerala received the benefits of different ayurvedic programmes for the pandemic.

KIIFB to get assured funding from Kerala government, says minister KN Balagopal

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Finance ministerKN Balagopalsaid that the government was committed to give enough funds toKIIFBto meet the unexpected slump in proceedings from motor vehicle tax and petroleum cess, following Covid-related Stress on states economy.

KIIFB is a unique finance model devised to meet developmental needs ofKerala. It invests in projects by sourcing funds from various agencies. There was a significant dip in the collection of motor vehicle tax and petroleum cess, the major source of assured funds for KIIFB.

Government has given relaxation to private bus operators for payment of tax in view of theCovidsituation. These extraneous factors cannot be a reason for the government to go back on its original promise, he said.

As per KIIFB Act, government is supposed to transfer a portion of the motor vehicle tax. According to this arrangement, KIIFBs share of motor vehicle tax has reached the maximum ceiling of 50% this year.

Based on an analysis of the Covid-19 situation in the state, the state government has found that micro-containment zones need to be set up in all places where clustering of cases is observed. Further, the surveillance action to trace the contacts and quarantine them effectively needs to be strengthened.

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The decision has been taken as part of the measures being planned to ease the lockdown restrictions in the entire local bodies if the TPR is above 15%. The government is gearing up to provide relaxations in other wards and only those wards which have more TPR will be treated as micro-containment zones.

State made remarkable progress in edu sector

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Higher Education minister RBindu launched a thinly veiled attack on governor A M Khan for the latters remarks against the quality of higher education inKerala.

Kerala has made remarkable progress and it was unfortunate that people occupying constitutional positions are trying to undermine them, the minister said.

Bindu indirectly refuted the observations of the governor, raising doubts on the authenticity of the rankings given to some of the higher education agencies in Kerala, without mentioning his name.

She argued that the rating agencies were credible institutions from outside Kerala. Also, they are giving rankings based on definite parameters. Nearly 21% of the total superior quality educational institutions in the country are located in Kerala, the minister said.

Mahatma GandhiUniversity has been included in the top 100 educational institutions selected from across the globe by the Time Magazine.
Kerala University has wrested A++ rank in NAAC accreditation, and is occupying 24th position in the NIRF ranking.

Kerala: Industries need to focus on ESG, says Industries minister P Rajeeve

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Industries minister P Rajeeve on Saturday visited Indo Japan Chamber of Commerce Kerala (INJACK) to discuss the Indo-Japanese tie for the https://exam.pscnotes.com/Growth“>Growth of business in Kerala. The minister said that the is committed to focus on businesses focusing on environmental, social, and Governance (ESG) aspects where one fourth of the global business is focusing.

Rajeeve, during his visit to Nippon Kerala Centre, Kalamassery, the headquarters of INJACK, offered government support for INJACK in its ventures such as Japan Mela and formation of a Japan Business Cluster in Kochi. The business cluster will focus on areas like shipping, tourism and various businesses. The minister informed the meeting that Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) will be asked to associate with INJACK for the formation of Japan cluster in Kochi.