Friday, January 16, 2015

Housing scheme in very sorry state


Adivasis flock Jangubai temple

Adivasis of Mankguda in Danthanpalli to Jangubai temple
All roads are leading to cave temple of Jangubai located in the deep jungles in Kerameri mandal on the borders of Telangana and Maharashtra states.

Thousands of Adivasi devotees from Maharashtra and Telangana districts are coming here to have darshan of Goddess Jangubai to fulfill their vows.

As Adivasis believe that goddess Jangubai used to stay in the caves, the religious heads of eight Gond clans are now lighting an earthen lamp in the cave. Having darshan of Jangubai gives a spiritual experience which cannot be described in words.

Adivasis come with their families and other villagers as a group. They stay in the jungles only during the night time and start their journey covering all their religious places enroute to the Jangubai temple. 

The pilgrimage to the Jangubai may even take one week or more for the people of distant places in the Adilabad and other parts of Telangana and also bordering Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Odisha.

The material required for religious event and other luggage will kept in bullock carts and some time place their children in them and the elders walk on foot.

They strongly believe that Jangubai is powerful goddess and their wishes will be fulfilled if they pray for her. Though they have been performing special pujas at Jangubai from the time immemorial, the number of devotees coming to the temple is increasing now.

Jangubai temple chairman Marapa Bhajirao, said the special pujas will be performed at the temple thrice in a year and it starts in the pusyamas and will continue in the entire month and added the drinking water has become major problem for the devotees and the Telangana government must make proper arrangements.                               

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

KCR following Ambedkar: Dy.CM

No cells in schools , colleges

The Telangana government has banned the use of mobile phones in all educational institutions in the state. The move follows the rise in misuse of cellphones in schools. As of now, neither students nor teachers will be allowed to carry mobiles into class rooms.

Commissioners of school education, Telangana, issued the orders to this effect on December 31, 2014. He has asked the district education officers and the regional joint director of school education to implement the instructions.

The orders stated that ‘use of cellphones in educational institutions is prohibited’ and that “neither teachers nor students should be permitted to carry mobiles in classrooms”.     

Mixed reaction to mobile ban, parents for counseling :

In view of the orders issued by the commissioner of the school education, Telangana issued orders that cellphones would not be allowed in classrooms. The school managements are making provisions for lockers for the safe- keeping of mobiles. 

However, it is not clear if the students can avail of het same facility.
The move was recommended by the Committee on safety and Security of Women and Girls in Telangana under the chairmanship of Poonam Malakondaiah, the principal secretary to the government, agriculture.

She said, “We had undertaken a detailed exercise and the committee spoke to head of over 100 private and government educational institutions found the use of cellphones to be a diversion”.

Students, however, nurse their own concerns. Namerah, a student of Class VIII, said, “It is not that all students misuse the phones. I want a mobile with me so that I can call someone if I don’t feel safe or if something happens.”

Taking pictures or videos of girls will definitely go down if the order is implemented. However, misuse outside the school can’t be ruled out. Students should be counselled in schools”, said Rafia Syeda, mother of three school- going children.

TS United Teachers’ Federation district general secretary A. Venkat welcomed the move and said a few union members including cellpones in the classroom since 2012. He said cellphones disturbs teachers and students.                                

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Colleges stoop to conquer students

The fee- reimbursement scheme seems to have done much bad than good to the students pursuing engineering in various private colleges. However, the scheme has enabled managements of private engineering colleges to mint money for some time.

Now, a majority of them are reeling in financial crisis due to inordinate delay in release of funds for the scheme. The students have got engineering degrees but are not able to secure proper jobs due to lack of necessary skills.   

Initially, there were four engineering colleges in the Adilabad district. Now, there are only two- one at Mancherial and other in Adilabad district headquarters.

The two other colleges, one at Kagaznagar and the other at Nirmal, were closed down. The college in Nirmal was shifted to Hyderabad.  The less number of colleges in Adilabad has been promoting managements of other colleges in Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Hyderabad to lure the students belonging to the district.

Despite lack of infrastructure and qualified faculty, these colleges even offered seats on ‘Buy one get one free’ basis to attract more students to their institute. If a student gets ready for admission in college, the managements promised to offer one other seat in same college to the kin of the candidates.             

Some managements even offered Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 as good will to the students taking admissions in their college eyeing the reimbursement scheme. The government reimburses Rs 35,000 tuition fee in addition to the hostel charges for the each student.

Just as the scheme, which was introduced by former chief minister late Chief Minister Y.S Rajasekhar Reddy promoted many to set up private engineering colleges, many students, through not having command on sciences and mathematics , got admitted to the colleges because the state was paying their fee.

Some management ran the colleges in poultry sheds too and recruited jut passed B.Tech students as faulty members.

However, in separate Telangana, the ‘FAST’(Financial Assistance to Students of Telangana) scheme proposed by the Telangana state government in place of fee reimbursement scheme which declared 1956 as the cut off date for being considered as native of the state and eligible for FAST, hit the admissions to  engineering colleges.

It was reported that nearly 80 engineering colleges in the state are on the verge of closure due to lack of infrastructure and teaching faculty after inspections conducted by the committee constituted by the state government.

Deputy Director of Social Welfare Ankam Shankar said nearly 600 students were studying in the two private engineering colleges in the district. Students belonging to previous batches have also not got their post matric scholarships (including fee reimbursement) renewed for the 2014-15 due to delay in issuing of guidelines for ‘FAST’.