Girls undertake bucket struggle

By Itishree Samal

Demanding a solution to the problem of water shortage, inmates from ladies hostels marched towards the administrative block with buckets and sticks and gheraoed the VC’s office on February 24, 2010. Irregular and inadequate water supply has been a major issue for the girls for some time now. Frequent complaints and several visits to the administrative and engineering department have served no purpose.

Bagmi Priyadarshini, an MPhil student said: “We are denied basic amenities which we have been assured both by the university and the UGC. The administration is not responding even after various complaints made to the warden and the DSW.”

In LH 5, with the tanks being situated at heights, water fills up in the end and finishes first. From February 17 to 19, there was no water in LH 5. A tanker of water was provided to the residents by the Department of Horticulture. The situation in LH 4 is worse, where half of its water goes to the food court.

V Venketesh, Junior Engineer of university electrical department said, “There is just one water connection to all the ladies hostels. There are proposals of a separate water connection for LH 5. After the VC and the Registrar approve, the work will start.”

The students had gone to report their concern to the DSW Prof. Rajashekhar with buckets and tooth brushes in their night clothes on February 21. They were assured of immediate action and regular water supply by Prof. Uma Maheshwari from the Amenities Maintenance.

Chief Warden Prof. B S Surraju said, “Already, separate bore well has been dug up behind LH 6, and there is another proposal to replace existing smaller water tanks with bigger ones. The proposals have been given, but it may take one month to buy those tanks. It is taking time as it has to go through various departments.”

“We are trying to ensure that the water flow is consistent. The main problem was that the plumbers were on strike for months. Also, girls keep the taps open when water is not there. Precious water, when made available with great difficulty, is wasted. We should create awareness to save water,” he opined

With the temperatures already soaring high and the administration cooling its heels, the upcoming months are sure to prove extremely tough for the girls.

ABVP makes a clean sweep

The two-month long election drama on campus ended last Saturday with the ABVP making a clean sweep winning all four posts for which polling happened: President, Vice-President, Cultural Secretary and Sports Secretary.

2503 votes were polled in the re-election, which happened on October 9, 2009. The post of President went to ABVP candidate Chaitanya Prasad who got 1015 votes followed by SFI candidate Sipoy Sarveshwar who garnered 805 votes and the NSUI-ASA candidate Krishna Murthy who got 656 votes.

Trends were similar for other posts. Shashank B Baruah became the Vice-President with a total of 990 votes. ABVP candidates Priya R and Sardar Gaganjot Singh won the posts of Cultural Secretary and Sports Secretary with 1049 and 923 votes respectively. The rest of the panel had been decided unanimously.

Counting began at 10 am promptly and continued till evening. Spread over 25 rounds, trends beginning to emerge by around afternoon, though all sides were equally hopeful with cheers emerging from all quarters. However, by early evening, the mandate in favour of the ABVP was clear. Students from the ABVP were visibly jubilant at their win and celebrated by cheering and applying tilak after which, a victory procession complete with drumbeats and crackers was led through the campus.

All set for re- election

By Mohammed Shareef M P & Deepti Nair

As the re-election is only hours away, the candidates and students organizations supporting them are brushing up on their last minute strategies. Meetings and crowds abound in places like the shop com and gops in which discussion of the impending elections dominate. Around 4000 students are all set to exercise their right to vote tomorrow. But it is a common fear if the political drama that preceded this re-election would lead to a lesser turn out of voters this time. To quell this fear, all student organisations are trying to encourage more people to cast their votes and ensure a more representative Students’ Union.

The candidates got a chance to present their manifestos and agendas at the open dais session held yesterday at the DST auditorium. But surprisingly, the auditorium was quite empty at 3 p.m. when the session was supposed to start. The Returning Officers, who were conducting the session, were waiting for the candidates and students to arrive and take their places. The session eventually started by 4.30 pm but even then, the turn out of students was sadly less. A majority of the students present there were supporters of the candidates and the student organisations.

Returning Officers Dr. Rajashekhar read out the code of conduct for the open dais session while Mr. Vasuki Belavadi oversaw the proceedings. Each candidate was given a specific time period to present their election manifestos. The Candidates standing for the post of President and General Secretary were given five minutes to speak while all others were given three minutes. While the students were allowed to ask two main questions and four supplementary questions to the former, they were allowed to ask one main question and two supplementary questions to the latter. The questions had to be confined to the agendas presented by the candidates in the specified time.

Most candidates talked about providing certain facilities like hike and timely disbursement of the fellowships to the students, providing internet connectivity to all hostels, better quality of food in the mess, immediate development of infrastructure in the South Campus etc. Though the proceeding started smoothly, it turned quite noisy near the end with some students shouting and passing loud comments.

The open dais session was conducted amid tight security and was also captured on video by the authorities. Security will also be ensured for the polling tomorrow and the counting which will happen on Saturday.

We are No:1

Here is another feather in the cap of the University of Hyderabad. UoH has been ranked as the No:1 University in the country for its research quality, impact of research and several other indicators.

SCOPUS, world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources, ranked UoH as number one among the 400 universities in the country for its overall excellence.

The output of publications during the 10 year period between1999 to 2008 was considered for the ranking.

“Last year, we were ranked second highest in science and technology by the Union ministry of science and technology, but the latest ranking is awarded after taking all the parameters from all the departments into consideration. It is a comprehensive ranking,” Vice Chancellor Prof. Seyed E Hasnain announced at a press conference on September 30.

“We are way ahead of competing with other universities in the number citations per paper and overall performance in teaching,” he said while highlighting various achievements of UoH.

As per the ranking, Delhi University bagged the second place. Punjab University, Jadavpur University, Banaras University bagged third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.

The University has also got highest rank (A Grade, 97%) by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

Jayant Das, a research scholar, said, “I feel very good about the achievement of our university. It gives impetus for striving towards further excellence. I believe more funds will come in and we will get more facilities. We should now try to maintain the position we got.”

“I feel proud being a part of this great university,” Jhansi from the Department of Communication commented.

The indicators considered by SCOPUS include publication quality, citation, international participation, quality of teaching, number of publications, impact and overall performance.