Irish historian claimed that British asked their agents to assassinate Bose

The British told their agents to assassinate India's independence war leader Subhash Chandra Bose in 1941, an Irish historian has claimed.

"Two SOE operatives in Turkey were instructed by their headquarters in London to intercept Bose and kill him before he reached Germany," the Irish professor, who teaches at Trinity College, Dublin, said.
Mr O'Halpin said the SOE operatives in Turkey failed to because Bose reached Germany through Central Asia and the Soviet Union. "Every time [the operatives] checked back, headquarters told them the orders were intact and Bose must be killed if found."

Russia unwilling to share Netaji papers with Indian people

MEA conveyed to the CIC that "according to the correspondence received from the Embassy of India, Moscow, the Russian Foreign Office has stated that the documents handed over by them in June 2001 were meant only for the GOI's official use and for the work of the Commission in investigations into the disappearance of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose."

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Government to digitize expensive textbooks, give computers and freenet to teachers

A scheme that could change the face of higher education in the country, the Government is planning to make expensive textbooks available to students in a free digital format.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has indicated that it is willing to share the cost with publishers of digitising study material for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Under the proposed agreement, the Government would compensate the publishers for any losses they might incur.
The Ministry is also considering setting up its own database, which would have top journals of the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science.
The government is even willing to pay half of what it would take to provide a computer to every teacher in the 18,000 colleges across the country.
In fact, the University Grants Commission would provide free Internet connections to institutes, which take up this offer. Also, teachers who provide online coaching to students would be remunerated for their services.

Text of Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (123 Agreement)

Features of the Agreement (from Rediff article at http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/27ndeal4.htm):
The Agreement is "between two States possessing advanced nuclear technology, both parties having the same benefits and advantages".
The purpose of the agreement is to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation between India and the United States. The Agreement provides for full civil nuclear energy cooperation covering nuclear reactors and aspects of the associated nuclear fuel cycle including enrichment and reprocessing.
The Agreement contains a full reflection of the March 2, 2006 supply assurances, and the provision for corrective measures. The Agreement provides for the development of a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India's reactors.
The Agreement provides for nuclear trade, transfer of nuclear material, equipment, components, and related technologies and for cooperation in nuclear fuel cycle activities.
The Agreement provides for the application of IAEA safeguards to transferred material and equipment.
The Agreement grants prior consent to reprocess nuclear material, transfer nuclear material and its products. To bring this into effect, India will establish a national reprocessing facility to reprocess IAEA safeguarded nuclear material and the parties will agree on arrangements and procedures within one year.

BESU to IIEST: Politics won and Academics failed

The governments at the centre and the state finally seem to compromise and find a mutually agreeable psotion on the issue of upgradation of BESU into an Idian Institute of Engineering science & Technology. IIEST, Shibpur, as it will now be called once the IIEST bill passes the Parliament and comes out enacted, will have to take 50% students from the state and will have state's representative(s) on the board of management.

Higher Education Minister of West bengal reportedly described it as a victory for the state (read a victory for a coalition partner).

So, another Institute of National Important (INI) is born to the state and hopefully BESU's signboards will change once again in a month or two. New batches of students will come through new national level entrance test and will pass out as engineering graduates or postgraduates in due course. The people of the state and students and stakeholders of the institute will become used to this new model of quota-based INI and will soon forget to remmber that this institute once had an entrance system which didn't have any reservation for the state's students.

And here lies the politics. When the institute was under the state's control, it didn't need any reservation even though the WBJEE was , and still is, a national level entrance test (and this is what the WB Govt often likes to speak of and boast of). And when the call came for its handover to the centre for a greater national need, the state preferred to seek a quota for the state and that too to the extent of 75%. The teachers, thouh, like to have the best students in their classes. And, for a new brand of INIs that is thought to emerge as one of the best brands of rsearch-intensive instutues of higher learning, any quota in the entrance system can only deter the growth pace of the brand. However, the insiders of the institute has to remain satisfied with the fact that political mentors eventualy could decide on the upgradation plan in the first year of the XI plan itself, allowing the implementation to take place over the rest of the plan period.

July 15, Switzerland

BESU achieves status of IIEST

From chennaionline.com

Kolkata, July 13: West Bengal's premiere Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) at Shibpur in Howrah district has been given the status of Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) by the Centre.
Announcing this at his Assembly chamber, Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury told reporters that altogether five leading institutions in the country had been elevated to this status with BESU on top of the list offering integrated engineering courses at the graduate and post-graduate level.
The other four institutes which were elevated to the status of IIEST were Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kerala, Andhra University College of Engineering and Osmania University College of Engineering and Technology in Andhra Pradesh and BHU Institute of Technology in Uttar Pradesh, Roy Chowdhury said.
The decision was taken on the recommendation of the Ananda Krishnan Committee, appointed by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry.
This would be effective only after legislation in Parliament is passed, indicating the type of governance, rules and regulation, modus operandi for selection of students for admission through a competitive All India Entrance Examination among these five IIESTs, Roy Chowdhury said. (Agencies)

Vigilance probe ordered in corruption cases involving Kerala CPI-M

Thiruvananthapuram, July 13: Kerala's ruling Communist Party Of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Friday suffered a huge setback when a special court ordered a vigilance probe in two corruption scandals involving the party mouthpiece Deshabhimani.Responding to a plea by the Indian Lawyers Congress, the special vigilance court asked the vigilance director to register a case and inquire into the Rs.30 million corruption allegations.The first case pertains to Deshabhimani collecting Rs.20 million in the form of a bond from lottery kingpin S. Martin.The second case involves its general manager K. Venugopal, who has been expelled both from the CPI-M and the newspaper, following allegations that he had taken a bribe of Rs.10 million from a controversial private financial institution, which was closed down last year.