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DRDO schools across India to not admit new students

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By Shivani Azad / TNN / Apr 3, 2022

Institute of Technology Management (ITM) School

DEHRADUN: The ministry of defence (MoD) has issued an order to stop admissions at all schools aided by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in the country for this academic session while one DRDO school in Mussoorie – the Institute of Technology Management (ITM) School – was   shut down on April 1. Former President, APJ who served in DRDO for almost four decades, had mooted the idea of DRDO schools to develop scientific temperament among students He had also envisaged the schools benefiting children of  officials of DRDO, which has a network of 50 laboratories working on defence technology. Some of these labs are in remote, isolated areas. DRDO has nearly 30,000 employees

Of the 11 DRDO-aided schools in India, three are slated to   be transferred to Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS): one each in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi

Seven others, including one each in Dehradun (Raksha Anusand  Vidyalaya), Chandigarh (Ballistics Vidyalaya), Pune (R&D E(E) English Medium School), Odisha (Range School, Chandipur Balasore) and Andhra Pradesh (NSTL Visakhapatnam), and two in Telangana (Defence School Lab, Kanchan Bagh, Hyderabad and  DLS Vignyanakancha, RCI Hyderabad) are to handed over to other agencies.

 The order, issued December 21, 2021, bi Vishnu Chandra Jha director, management services MoD reads “The competent authority has decided that there shall be no new admissions tin the entry level classes as well as all other classes in these schools for the next academic session 2022 -23” When quarried about the reasons behind the news, BK DAS, director of instrument and Research Development establishment IRDE of DRDO Dehradun said we are following instruction of the Defence Ministry which said running school doesn’t fall under the mandate of DRDO. The matters are decided at the headquarter level not by is, We are not closing idea is simply to hand over the management of these schools from DRDO to some other reasonable agencies. “ while the reason of handover of the school was not was not made immediately clear, sources  pointed to fund crunch  as a possible reason. A  source in the know said, The decision was taken at the PMO level to curtail the expenses of DRDO”

 Teaching  staff and the parents of the student in these schools meanwhile expressed disappointment  with the MoD decision

Pryanka Bisht,  resident of Mussoorie whose children used to study in the ITM School said covid-19 has hit everyone financially my husband works at the small shop and we cannot afford English medium is education for our children at a private school, the fee was affordable at ITM where my son studies in class 1 and daughter in class 4 we are still banking on the school for reopen.

 Badal  Prakash vice president of Landoir cantonment board  in Mussoorie where the school is located wrote a letter on Friday to officials to reconsider the decision to close the school “Teachers in this school have been working for 15 to 30 years. Now they are unemployed. The  school currently 106 students who will  have to travel far to gett quality education as there are no English medium school within the 5 km radius” Prakash said.

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Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pulls up DRDO, asks it to focus more on research and development

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“I would like to see equal fervour among innovators, among startups, among those who want to do something for defence related activities,” Sitharaman said | Photo Credit: ANI

 Nov 27, 2018 | 21:26 IST | ANI =TIMESNOWNEWS.COM
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Nirmala Sitharaman opined that there is keenness among a lot of young minds to come back to India from abroad owing to the growth of startups in the country.
New Delhi: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday pulled up the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and asked it to focus more on Research and Development (R&D) and exploit the opportunity and support being extended by the central government. Speaking at the launch of the Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti, which aims at increasing intellectual property right (IPR) to reduce the transfer of technology and dependence on foreign companies, the defence minister said, “DRDO should focus, in fact, refocus on R&D and it should be on toes to make themselves nimble to innovations.”

She also called upon all stakeholders to step up, as more was “needed to be done to nurture innovation in Defence, which could be translated into a commercially viable solution.” Sitharaman further said that the present ministry hierarchy should break the traditional barriers to identify, motivate and support people who are “capable to innovate, fabricate and manufacture in-house.”

Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Sitharaman opined that there is keenness among a lot of young minds to come back to India from abroad owing to the growth of startups in the country. “I would like to see equal fervour among innovators, among startups, among those who want to do something for defence related activities,” she said. Crediting Secretary of Defence Production Dr Ajay Kumar for the mission Raksha Gyan Shakti, Sitharaman observed that this operation is giving the “impetus needed for moving towards innovating for defence.”

“Defence is always seen as a very difficult area to come in with a commercialised product in hand. Defence is seen as an area in which probably much transparency doesn’t prevail when you want to buy a thing when you want to procure it for the purpose of defence. We need technical requirement for defence, be it of quality, be it of certain standards for performance or be it a necessity for use,” she explained. Sitharaman also stressed on the hesitancy of innovators to approach the Defence Ministry for the commercialisation of their products.

“Anyone who wants to innovate or anyone who wants do anything towards commercialising some product, which is patented hesitates to approach defiance related sectors. They would rather go to food industry due to preconceived notion that it is very difficult to even break in and then have a dialogue and then see that there is a possibility of commercially producing something that the defence might need,” Sitharaman added.

“Each time an innovation is patented the innovator may not be interested in producing it. You need to find somebody to produce it on a commercial scale. We make sure to facilitate it, make finances available and find a market for it,” the defence minister said.

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BrahMos scientist held on spying charge, 2 others raided in Uttar Pradesh

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Brahmos scientist and BSF jawan were handled by same Pakistani handler: UP ATS report

IANS|Updated: Oct 09, 2018,
In a shocking development, a young scientist working with the BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd (BAPL)’s missile research centre in Nagpur was arrested on Monday on alleged charges of spying for Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI and other countries, informed sources said.

Scientist Nishant Pradeep Agrawal has been working for the last four years in the BAPL, an Indo-Russian Joint Venture, and was nabbed in a joint operation of Uttar Pradesh Police and Maharashtra Police.
The UP-Anti Terrorist Squad (UP-ATS) has also raided two other unidentified persons in Agra and Kanpur in the north India state and seized their laptops, an official statement of the Uttar Pradesh Police said on Monday.

Following a tip-off, he was placed under surveillance for the past few days by the Military Intelligence as well as Uttar Pradesh Police and Maharashtra Police.
The BAPL officer has been booked under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), the sources said.

The UP Police statement said the UP-ATS had monitored fake Facebook accounts originating from Pakistan in the name of women to “honey-trap” key officials working in sensitive defence-related set-ups in India.

The information came to light after the Border Security Force (BSF) recently nabbed a person in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, and two fake Facebook IDs of women created in Pakistan were put under observation after they were found to be chatting with Agrawal.

Accordingly, the UP-ATS acquired a search warrant from a court and along with Maharashtra ATS, swooped on Agrawal’s residence at Ujjwal Nagar in Nagpur.

“We have found certain secret and ultra-sensitive information on his personal computer. It should not been there on his personal laptop. It violates the provisions of the OSA, and hence he has been arrested,” the statement added.

The joint ATS teams of the two states also searched his BMAL office and from another location recovered an old laptop which is being examined to see if it contains anything objectionable.
The UP-ATS has moved a local court in Nagpur seeking a transit remand to take Agrawal to Lucknow for further investigations.

They said that after the investigations, they would be able to know what kind of chats he was having with the fake women’s accounts on Facebook.

Depending on the outcome, the accused may be slapped with additional charges, the UP-ATS said.
As per preliminary information, Agrawal was reportedly passing on certain highly classified information, including “technological and other details”, to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan as well as the USA.

However, official circles are not aware of what kind of access to sensitive information or the security clearance levels Agrawal enjoyed in the company.
Hailing from Roorkee in Uttarakhand, Agarwal had been recently awarded the “Young Scientist Award” for the year 2017-18.

He had got married earlier this year and had been living in a rented house in Nagpur’s Ujjwala Nagar.

Among other things, the BrahMos centre is involved in manufacturing certain critical components for the BrahMos missile, considered the world’s fastest cruise missile that can be launched from land, ships, aircraft or submarines.
The Indo-Russian joint venture’s recent development of the latest version of the BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile has elicited keen interest in global defence circles and several major political powers in the world.

The missile — successfully test-fired on July 16 from the Integrated Test Range at Balasore in Odisha — is an outcome of a joint venture of India’s Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia Corp (NPOM), since 2011.

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DRDO’s evil eye warder

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It’s amazing how technological advancements in India go side by side with the ancient believes that after thousands of years haven’t changed a bit. Just look at the photo – this concoction of green chilies and lime is an evil eye warder, generally known as “nazar battu” or “nimbu-mirchi totka”.

DRDL is DRDO’s missile lab, see the following

Now DRDO will deliver all products with evil eye warder, generally known as “nazar battu” or “nimbu-mirchi totka”.

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SC cancels engineering degrees given by deemed universities through correspondence course

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Amit Anand Choudhary | TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Updated: Nov 3, 2017, 16:26 IST
HIGHLIGHTS
The apex court restrained educational institutions from providing courses in subjects like engineering, in the distance education mode
With its ruling, the SC affirmed the findings of the Punjab and Haryana high court on the issue
Also with its ruling, the SC set aside a verdict by the Odisha high court, which allowed technical education by correspondence
NEW DELHI: Engineering degrees of hundreds of students who pursued education through correspondence course from four deemed Universities — JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education in Rajasthan, Allahabad Agricultural Institute and Vinayaka Mission Research Foundation in Tamil Nadu from year 2001 on wards have been quashed by the Supreme Court.
A bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit, however, allowed students of 2001-05 batch to get their degree by appearing in the examination to be conducted by AICTE but it cancelled the degrees of students of subsequent batches as the deemed university had not got approval from authorities for the course.
“As regards students who were admitted after the academic sessions 2001-2005, their degrees in engineering awarded by the concerned deemed to be universities through distance education mode stand recalled and be treated as cancelled. All benefits secured by such candidates shall stand withdrawn. However, the entire amount paid by such students to the concerned deemed to be universities towards tuition fees and other expenditure shall be returned by the concerned deemed to be universities,” the bench said.
The apex court also restrained deemed universities from offering correspondence courses without getting approval from AICTE. “We restrain all “deemed to be universities” to carry on any courses in distance education mode from the academic session 2018- 2019 onwards unless and until it is permissible to conduct such courses in distance education mode and specific permissions are granted by the concerned statutory/regulatory authorities in respect of each of those courses and unless the off-campus centres/study centres are individually inspected and found adequate by the concerned statutory authorities. The approvals have to be course specific,” the bench said.
The court also directed CBI inquiry to catch the government officials who had allowed deemed universities to offer the distance learning courses which was not allowed. The court asked the government to constitute a high-level committee to examine the functioning of deemed universities.
We direct the CBI to carry out thorough investigation into the conduct of the concerned officials who dealt with the matters and went about the granting permissions against the policy statement, as indicated in Para 49 above and into the conduct of institutions who abused their position to advance their commercial interest illegally.
“The Union of India may constitute a three members Committee comprising of eminent persons who have held high positions in the field of education, investigation, administration or law at national level within one month. The Committee may examine the issues indicated above and suggest a road map for strengthening and setting up of oversight and regulatory mechanism in the relevant field of higher education and allied issues within six months. The Committee may also suggest oversight mechanism to regulate the Deemed to be Universities. The Union of India may examine the said report and take such action as may be considered appropriate within one month thereafter and file an affidavit in this Court of the action taken on or before August 31, 2018” it said.

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DRDO-IR developed bio-toilets is the burning example of misuse of bureaucracy in India

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Real picture of this bio-toilets adventure, a feedback received by website on 30 may 2017

sir, I saw your articles on Bio-toilets and would like to appreciate for writing against corruptions. The so called DRDO-IR developed bio-toilets is the burning example of misuse of bureaucracy in India.

There is noting like innovation/research in developing this toilet. NO where in the world, such toilets are used in Rail coaches except India.

These are big failure. 95 percent of these toilets are running faulty. It gives extremely bad smell, emanating all the time.

You can ask the feedback from railway Carriage and Wagon department staff, those maintain the toilets. This bio toilets concept is presented as a great innovation, but in fact it is a compete failure.

Bio Toilets are not approved by UIC or any other Railways Standard Organisation or any other Railway.sir, I saw your 15 Aug 2016 article on Bio-toilets and would like to appreciate for writing against corruptions. The so called DRDO-IR developed bio-toilets is the burning example of misuse of bureaucracy in India. There is noting like innovation/research in developing this toilet. NO where in the world, such toilets are used in Rail coaches except India. These are big failure. 95 percent of these toilets are running faulty.

here are more complaints of cleaning in bio toilets. Vendors are minting money. Rs1600 cr is the cost of biotoilets project for Railways.apart from this, I can say that these bio-toilets are complete failure. Why Railways, started using Vacuum Toilets, with Bio-Toilets combination, calling it Hybrid, again claiming a great innovation.f vacuum toilets are proven solution, in Aeroplanes, and railways, worldwide,why to incur extra cost of putting bio-toilets in coaches. It certainly needs an extra infrastructure of vacuum system for extracting/pumping out the human waste from toilet tanks in vacuum toilets, at Washing Lines, but the cost of these infra is quite less than the 1600 cr plus operating cost of bio-toilets.
The feedback from concered railways maintenance staff can be taken from Carriage and Wagon department staff in Washing Lines, Dehradun/ New Delhi/Nizammuddin/Anand Vihar and other big maintenance stations

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DRDO goes young with Modi

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By Pradip R Sagar
Published: 02 Oct 2016 The Sunday Standard

Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: In order to weed out the dead woods, country’s premier defence research agency Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which is often faced criticism for its tardy performance, is looking for young scientist to head one of its laboratory. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advise to DRDO to hire young scientists, not over the age of 35 years to head at least five laboratories of defence research agency.

Following PM’s advise, Uttarakhand based Defence Institute of Bio-energy Research (DIBER), which is engaged in research in the first of bio energy and non conventional energy for defence use, has invited applications from candidates before the age of 35 years to head the lab. Officials claim this is the first step in the chain of events to give important role to young scientists, as Modi government has already banned giving extensions to scientists who have completed their tenure. It is notable that till two years back, DRDO’s top 15 scientists were on extension of service.
drdo-logoPM Modi in his first interaction with DRDO scientists had sent a stern message to defence research agency for their ‘chalta hai’ attitude, as most of DRDO projects, ranging from Tejas light combat aircraft to long-range surface-to-air missile systems have been missing repeated deadlines with huge cost overruns.
But sources in the agency said, appointing youch scientists to head laboratories may not go down well with senior scientists working with defence research.

But, officials said that hiring of Director of lab below the age of 35 years will send message to everyone working in DRDO to deliver. Modi has last year short listed Satish Reddy, the youngest ever scientific advisor to the defence minsitry.

“Certainly it’s an effort to get rid of non-performing scientists. Merely age seniority will not matter. If India wants to be a superpower, our defence research has to be cutting edge. India remains to be top buyer of military hardware globally with nearly 70 per cent defence requirements meet by imports,” said an officer. It is the successful government’s failure to build a strong domestic defence industrial base due to sluggish performance of 52 DRDO laboratories, five defence PSUs , four shipyards and 39 Ordnance factories.diber-director

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CBI finds Embraer deal fixer, may unmask bribe recipients

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TNN | Updated: Sep 29, 2016,

embraer-29-sep-2016NEW DELHI: CBI claimed on Wednesday that it has managed to track down a middleman, a foreign national, who was allegedly paid $5.5 million as commission by Brazilian company Embraer to bag a Rs 1,350 crore ($208 million) jet deal with India in 2008.

Sources said investigation has established that the payment was linked to the sale of jets to India. Although sources refused to identify the “middleman” or spell out his nationality citing confidentiality clause undergirding cooperation among investigating agencies, they said he is a controversial figure and has been known to be conduits for arms deals. “We will ask Embraer why did they pay such a big amount to the gentleman in connection with the deal with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for airborne surveillance systems,” said a CBI officer, adding that the breakthrough could put the agency on the trail of other beneficiaries.
CBI sources said they will approch law agencies of some countries, including Brazil and UK, to get details on him and other aspects like the mode of payment. “That is how this business functions. The defence contractor pays the money to the middleman who, after retaining his own share, distributes the money to those who may help him swing the deal,” said a source.

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CBI will probe Embraer deal if evidence of criminality found, says Parrikar

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September 11, 2016 – THE HINDU
‘Will make a statement only after studying the DRDO report’

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday said he might recommend a CBI probe into the Embraer aircraft deal if it displayed “criminal nature” after the DRDO wrote to the Brazilian company seeking details of the deal involving three EMB 145 aircraft.

“I have directed the DRDO to send a complete report on the deal by Monday. I will study the report first before making any concrete statement on the issue but I can tell you as of now that if it displays criminal nature, I will hand over the case for CBI probe,” Mr. Parrikar told media persons in Vadodara.

He said: “If there were procedural issues, then an internal inquiry will be ordered.”

The deal

India has asked an explanation from the Brazilian aircraft-maker Embraer following media reports of an international investigation into the alleged payment of bribes to secure an aircraft deal in 2008.

A U.S.-Brazil investigation into the Embraer deal, uncovered a bribery case, leading to a deal between the company and DRDO in 2008.

According to Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, Embraer had been under investigation by the United States Justice Department since 2010 “when a contract with the Dominican Republic raised the Americans’ suspicions.”

India had signed a $208-million deal in 2008 for procuring three Emb-145 aircraft.

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J&K HC orders FIR against teacher who fails to write essay on cow

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PTI | May 16, 2015, 03.39 PM IST – Times of India
SRINAGAR: The J&K High Court made a teacher write an essay on cow and solve a class IV maths problem in an open court and ordered slapping a case against him when he failed, inviting strong observations from the judge who wanted “soulless” authorities to close down education “tuck shops”.

The direction came yesterday when Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar was hearing a petition challenging appointment of Mohammad Imran Khan as Rehbar-e-Taleem (education guide) teacher in a school in south Kashmir.

The petitioner had alleged that Khan’s certificates — issued by Board of Higher Secondary Education Delhi and Global Open University, Nagaland were not recognised. The marksheet issued to the respondent by the Board of Higher Secondary Education Delhi showed he had secured 74 per cent, 73 per cent and 66 per cent in Urdu, English and Maths respectively.

The court asked a senior counsel to give a simple line for translation from English to Urdu and vice-versa but the teacher failed.

The teacher was then asked to write an essay on ‘cow’ in Urdu, but he failed. Khan sought permission to write the essay outside the court room, which was granted but he failed again.

Khan, who claimed he had better hold on Mathematics, was then asked to solve a maths problem for 4th graders.

As he failed yet again, a visually perturbed Justice Attar said,”In this situation, what would be the fate of the state has to be only visualised. The school going children ….would pass out as blockheads.”

“The authorities, responsible to ensure that the stream of academics and education is not polluted in the state of J&K, however, in view of the facts, which have surfaced in this case, have acted as soulless bodies with ray-less eyes, as they have criminally condoned and over-looked the Himalayan blunders committed in procuring the academic degrees,” the court observed.