| No leaks, no glitches, CAT goes off smoothly |
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Many complained of tough questions and changed format, as over 150,000 students appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT) across the country Sunday to gain admission to some of the top B-schools.
Many complained of tough questions and changed format, as over 150,000 students appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT) across the country Sunday to gain admission to some of the top B-schools.
Both aspirants and the authorities heaved a sigh of relief, as there was no repeat of last year’s paper leak.
The anxiety surrounding the smooth conduct of exams turned out to be without basis as the exam, held in 24 cities, passed off smoothly amidst tight security. The number of aspirants registered an increase of 20 per cent over last year.
The format of the paper was changed this year with different marks assigned to different questions depending upon their level of complexity. Indira Parekh, dean, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, defended the changed format: The change has been designed to select the best out of the lot.
The changed format explains the diversity of reactions from examinees, ranging from sighs of pure relief to extreme confusion.
Raved a near ecstatic Sunita Chaudhary, confident of scoring in this high-stakes exam, which can open floodgates to India’s most prestigious B-schools. Thank God, it’s over. The questions were not all that tough. I am confident I will make it.
Chimes in Suman Banerjee, in a will-do tone: Overall, it was a fair paper. I was mighty worried, but now I am very happy with my performance.
Not that everyone found the papers a cakewalk though. There were some dissenting voices. Said Nikhil Kumar, his bespectacled face lined with worries. It was a bit tricky. That’s because this year, they changed the pattern of the question paper. Well, I have put in my best.
At his New Delhi residence, Vinay looked stricken. Maths paper was really tough. I am not too sure about the results.
The CAT, generally regarded as one of the toughest examinations in the country, consists of questions in various subjects, including Mathematics, English and Statistics. Out of over 150,000 aspirants who took the exams, only 3,000 successful candidates will get calls for interviews.
The exam is conducted by the six IIMs that absorb 1,600 students each year. The examination is also a benchmark for more than 50 of the top management colleges in the country. Professors from IIM, Bangalore conducted this year’s examination.
The IIM authorities also looked relieved at the smooth conduct of the exams, especially in view of the leakage of question papers last year that had caused the exams to be cancelled and re-conducted on Feb 15. This explains heavy deployment of security personnel outside examination centres.
Besides the assistance of local police, the core CAT group had also deployed special reserve police as contingency.
Special measures -- an increase in administrative staff conducting the exams, a change in the printing press from where the alleged paper leak took place last year and enhanced security for the papers kept at undisclosed locations -- were taken to ensure that the prestigious exam went off without a hitch.
--Indo-Asian News Service
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| India inches closer to eradicating polio - Nov 22, 2004 13:12 IST |
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Over 168 million children across the country were administered polio drops Sunday - including by Congress president Sonia Gandhi - as India enters the final lap of the race to rid itself of the crippling disease.
Armed with around 170 million doses of polio vaccine, over 100,000 volunteers and government officials vaccinated children under the age of five in a bid to make the country polio-free by 2005.
Gandhi, in her capacity as chairperson of the National Advisory Council on major policy issues, including health, gave polio drops to infants at her 10, Janpath residence. It was her way of demonstrating the importance the governing coalition was giving to health issues.
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| Indian, Russian firms to jointly develop gas projects - Nov 22, 2004 13:11 IST |
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Infrastructure major GAIL (India) Limited and Russian energy giant Gazprom have entered into an agreement to jointly develop gas projects in India and overseas.
GAIL and Gazprom of Russia are in talks for cooperation to develop projects in the gas sector in India and abroad. Both companies have initialled an agreement for strategic cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector in India, Russia and other countries, an official statement said Sunday.
GAIL chairman and managing director Proshanto Banerjee and Gazprom deputy managing director A.G. Ananenkov signed the agreement during the meeting here of the Indo-Russian Joint Working Group for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector.
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| Andrew Hall’s wife cheers as he scores ton - Nov 22, 2004 13:9 IST |
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Leanie Hall was the luckiest of the wives of South African cricketers who arrived here Sunday, as she watched her husband, opener Andrew Hall, crack his maiden Test century at the Green Park Stadium.
Others who watched the action on the second day of the first Test against India were Cindy Nel, the fiancée of Jacques Kallis, Minki van der Westhuizen, the girlfriend of captain Graeme Smith, Jill Bracewell, fiancée of Martin van Jaarsveld and Jacques Rudolph’s wife Elna.
Also here are Alison, the wife of South African team coach Ray Jennings, team manager Goolam Rajah’s spouse Poppy and Honey, wife of Gerald Majola, the chief executive officer of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
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| Manmohan lowers rhetoric tempo ahead of Aziz’s visit - Nov 22, 2004 13:8 IST |
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Ahead of Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s visit to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday sought to lower the tempo of rhetoric between the two countries and asked Pakistan not to be swayed by stray words.
On the basis of stray words we can’t say there is no flexibility, the prime minister said while chatting to journalists after a press conference at the Raj Bhavan here.
He was responding to a question about Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s charge of non-flexibility against India, and his threat that if India adopted a maximalist position on Kashmir, Islamabad too would revert to its old stand.
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| South Africa 398 for six against India - Nov 22, 2004 13:7 IST |
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South Africa were 398 for six wickets at tea on the second day of the first Test against India at the Green Park Stadium here Sunday.
Z. Bruyn was batting on 54 and Shaun Pollock on 12.
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| Rajesh debuts as actor in ’Santhosha’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:5 IST |
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Film: Santhosha; Cast: Rajesh, Sidhdharth, Pranathi, Anitha, Anat Nag, Chithra Shenoy, Sadhu Kokila; Director: Ramesh; Music: Prayog; Camera: Krishna Kumar; Producers: Indumathi Ramesh
Playback singer Rajesh makes his debut as an actor in Santhosha, which also introduces Sidhdharth, a Kashmiri Pandit settled in Mumbai, as the hero.
Pranathi, who has made a name from her first Malayalam film 4 the people is the heroine.
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| No breakthrough in engineers’ abduction - Nov 22, 2004 13:5 IST |
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More than two days after the abduction of two engineers in Bihar, police is yet to make a breakthrough.
The houses of several controversial figures, including Lok Jantantrik Party legislator Munna Shukla, were raided Saturday, police sources said.
Police stations all over the state had been alerted and all routes leading to Nepal had been sealed, said Inspector General of Police (Headquarters) Neelmani, who uses only one name.
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| ’Ban on music cost Mughals their empire’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:4 IST |
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A ban on music by controversial 17th century Indian emperor Aurangzeb led to the fall of his Mughal empire, a Cambridge University researcher has claimed.
Katherine Brown, a research fellow from the famed British university, said here the ban caused widespread anger and led to the collapse of the centuries-old empire.
Discussing her research paper ’Did Aurangzeb Ban Music?’ at the Khuda Baksh Khan library, Brown said the ban, imposed in 1668-69, was an important event in the history of India and Indian music.
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| Dileep’s performance in ’Kathavaseshan’ praised - Nov 22, 2004 13:3 IST |
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Dileep’s acting in his latest film Kathavaseshan was one of Malayalam cinema’s best ever performances, ace filmmaker T.V. Chandran has said.
Without doubt, I would rate Dileep’s character Gopinathan Menon as one of the best ever in Malayalam films and it is worth an award, Chandran told reporters here Sunday.
The film explores the issue of suicide, which has a high incidence rate in Kerala.
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| ’Gadar’ director, Rajasthan distributor in money dispute - Nov 22, 2004 13:2 IST |
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A film distributor from Rajasthan has sought help from police here to recover money that is allegedly owed to him by well-known director and producer Anil Sharma.
Film distributor Sanjay Suchanti came to Mumbai Saturday with police officials from Rajasthan who had an arrest warrant for the Gadar director.
Speaking from his office in Oshiwara, Suchanti said he was cheated by Anil Sharma, who had reportedly promised him that he would be given the rights to distribute the film Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyon in Rajathan.
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| Kanpur, where four cricket captains met their ’Waterloo’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:1 IST |
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When Atul Wassan invited Bishan Singh Bedi for his marriage with Kanpur girl Sonu, the legendary Test spinner spontaneously remarked: You know, three Indian captains have met their Waterloo in Kanpur!
Bedi, a former India captain, was referring to his own marriage as well as those of the late Lala Amarnath and Sunil Gavaskar with brides from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh’s biggest industrial town.
What Bedi did not take into account was that former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas too has married a woman from this city.
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| Give up arms, prime minister appeals to separatists - Nov 22, 2004 13:1 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday appealed to separatist groups in the troubled northeast to give up arms and come for peace talks.
I am giving an open invitation to all young men and women who have taken to arms to come for talks with us so that we can usher in peace and prosperity in the northeast, the prime minister told journalists in Imphal at the end of his two-day visit to state of Manipur.
Our government is willing to talk to anybody who shuns the path of violence.
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| PM offers talks to northeast rebels who give up arms - Nov 22, 2004 12:59 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday offered to hold peace talks with all militant groups in the restive northeastern region that gave up arms.
Winding up a 24-hour trip to Manipur, the prime minister assured the people of the troubled state that steps would be taken to prevent the misuse of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, but urged civil society groups not to set any deadlines for withdrawing the anti-terror law.
I am giving an open invitation to all young men and women who have taken to arms to come for talks with us so that we can usher in peace and prosperity in the northeast, the prime minister told journalists here.
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| Ganguly has unpleasant memories of Green Park - Nov 22, 2004 12:57 IST |
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Sourav Ganguly will probably always have mixed feelings when he looks back at his Green Park connection, as it was in this stadium in 1996 that he had to undergo a fitness test during the lunch interval of a Test in front of a packed stadium!
Incidentally, it was also a match against South Africa, when then team physiotherapist Ali Irani made him run two rounds of the stadium on the last day of the match while the two teams ate their lunch.
On that day - Dec 11 - Ganguly completed the first round and was joined by Irani in the second. But the ’Bengal Tiger’ failed to complete the second round and apparently failed the fitness test - and was ruled out of the seventh one-day international played two days later in Mumbai.
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| Army to educate itself on wetland conservation - Nov 22, 2004 12:56 IST |
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The Indian Army will hold a two-day seminar here to educate its personnel on conserving the wetlands, including the Sunderbans, in the country’s east.
With a large number of troops deployed in and around the wetlands, the seminar on the theme The role of Indian Army in the conservation of wetlands, will focus on how the force can help maintain the ecological balance and conserve flora and fauna in the region.
There are a large number of wetlands in the eastern region, three of which are internationally acknowledged -- the Sunderbans, just south of Kolkata, the East Calcutta Wetlands, adjacent to Kolkata and the Loktak in Manipur, said Wing Commander S.N. Mukerjee, a defence ministry spokesman.
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| Shankaracharya should be treated properly: PM - Nov 22, 2004 12:55 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday expressed the hope that arrested Hindu pontiff Jayendra Saraswathi would be treated with all courtesies that are due to a person of his stature.
I hope the Shankarcharya will be treated and extended all the courtesies due to his stature as a person of religious standing, he told reporters here shortly before winding up a visit to the northeastern state of Manipur.
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| Bangladeshi saris, pickles attract crowds at fair - Nov 22, 2004 12:54 IST |
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Crowds are making a beeline for the fine hand-woven saris of Bangladesh at the ongoing India International Trade Fair (IITF) here.
Bangladesh has this year mounted its largest ever participation at the IITF to showcase a range of products that go beyond the country’s exquisite Jamdani saris.
F. Hassan, director of the Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau, is happy with the good response to the large range of products on display at the 25 stalls put up mostly by private entrepreneurs.
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| South Africa 302 for 5 against India - Nov 22, 2004 12:53 IST |
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South Africa were 302 for five 5 wickets at lunch on the second day of the first Test against India at the Green Park Stadium here Sunday.
Andrew Hall was batting on 118 and Z. Bruyn on 27.
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| Myanmar comes bearing jewels to woo Indians - Nov 22, 2004 12:50 IST |
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Indians’ love for jewellery and the brisk sales enjoyed by a company from Myanmar last year has lured more participants to the ongoing India International Trade Fair (IITF) here.
The objective is of course to attract more importers to Myanmar. We came last year to test the market and discovered that Indians love to wear jewellery and like buying it too! So we came in bigger numbers this year, said May Wah Lwin of Kaung Sint Yadanar.
The firm is a family-owned business, and Lwin is one of several family members and relatives who have come to participate in the fair and manage the busy counters.
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| My guru is innocent: Vijayendra Saraswathi - Nov 22, 2004 12:49 IST |
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Chennai, Nov 21 IANS) Vijayendra Saraswathi, junior pontiff of the Kanchi Mutt,
firmly believes that his spiritual guru, Jayendra Saraswathi, is innocent of the charges of involvement in murder slapped against the arrested seer.
I have firm belief in one thing. My guru is innocent. Every allegation made against him is untrue, the junior seer said in his first interview since the Nov 11 arrest of Jayendra Saraswathi.
Amidst reports that there is a move to install the 35-year-old Vijayendra Saraswathi as chief of the powerful Shankara Mutt in Kanchipuram, the mutt has blamed the media for false reporting.
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