You can find images of birds in flight, birds feeding, preening of just doing their thing at
http://umangdutt.blogspot.com or you could also check out my photogallery at
www.flickr.com/photos/snapflickr.

Both these sites have some amazing pictures along with details of the birds including scientifc names and other details.

Check them out and please feel free to leave your comments / suggestions.

Happy birding ! :icon_lol:

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“India could challenge the position of China as the manufacturing centre of the world in next three to five years.

Companies are planning to offshore manufacturing activities primarily to India that will surpass its IT and BPO activities,” global consulting, technology and outsourcing services major Capgemini said in its latest report.

At present, manufacturing is the least offshored activity to India, but the survey respondents expected the country to become the number one outsourced manufacturing destination due to its competitive cost advantages over China, Capgemini added.

“Current developments suggest that some of the main manufacturing locations in China are becoming too expensive relative to other countries in the region, which includes India,” the report added.

Emerging economies like India and China have the largest market share of offshoring activities. India is diversifying from its stronghold in the IT and BPO segment to the manufacturing segment, which is currently dominated by its neighbour.

The report, however, highlights that India has to make significant investments for improving its infrastructure to cater to the increased demand of manufacturing and supply chain operations.

The Indian government is eager to attract foreign manufacturing activities, but it will need to make significant investments to harvest this potential, Capgemini added.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

State vice-president of the Nationalist Congress Party, Jaykumar Sanghavi, said, “If the entertainment zone would like the ones in Goa, where entertainment starts from wine and ends at women, then we do not want live Baywatch in our courtyard. We too are for development of tourism here, but not like this. We will oppose this move through public demonstrations and also write protest letters to the government.”

Sanghavi further said that that his party had held an informal meeting this morning to condemn “the ugly and uncivilised move of the Modi government to freely allow use of liquor in the public. The party had decided to meet again shortly to decide on new measures to stop this development.

Vasant Doshi, founder president of the Mandvi Chamber of Commerce and Industries said, “We want the development of Mandvi beach sans liquor-based entertainment zone. We oppose this decision.”

Journalist and social worker Dhirubhai Shah said that the vices like drinking, gambling, prostitution, which were already rampant in the port-town, would become official if the entertainment zone comes up. He added that recently, a dance bar was found at Mandvi.

Even local BJP leaders are not happy with the idea of an entertainment zone. “We are opposed to such move by the government. But we cannot air our anti-government sentiments as per the latest instructions received from the party. If I say anything, I will be suspended,” a top BJP leader of Mandvi said.

Ajit Sadhu, president of three-decade-old cultural organisation Yuva Kranti Dal, said that the latest move from the Modi government was to attract votes from the youths. He also said that crores of rupees have been wasted in the name of tourism in Mandvi.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

In a meeting held with the representatives of self-financed medical, dental, physiotherapy and homoeopathy institutes on Tuesday, the committee decided on having three parallel admission processes, each run by a consortium of colleges.

The committee allowed the institutes to have their own separate admission process, including distribution of admission forms, drawing up merit list and conducting counselling. The decision has come under fire from parents and students alike. They feel the institutes will now indulge in all kinds of malpractices in admissions.

Following several litigations filed by parents against some “irregularities” in admissions, the session was delayed by 211 days last year. The parents say the new system will delay the admissions this year also, though the committee has claimed to finish the process by August 1.

“With this new system in place, there is a good chance of malpractice in admission as this will create a lack of coordination between the Shah committee and private institutes. Also, if any case of an institute exploiting students comes to our notice, a litigation is bound to follow, as we won’t let any malpractice go unnoticed. This will definitely delay the admission process and the Shah committee will be blamed for it,” said M D Rana, president, Parents’ Association for Medical/Paramedical Admission.

The committee, however, defended its decision. “We will monitor the admission process and will have a final say in the admissions so that chances of any malpractice are ruled out,” said C B Rawal, spokesperson of the committee.

“We have given these institutes time till July 30 to finish counselling. Also, we have specifically asked them to have a transparency in the system, prefer merit and follow a non-exploitative system, to which they have agreed,” said a senior official of the committee.

While four institutes in the state — DDIT Nadiad, Dental College Vadodara and Visnagar, and Karamsad Medical College — have agreed to process admission on the guidelines of the Centralised Medical Admission Committee, a consortium of institutes, including Kesar Sal Medical College, CU Shah Medical College, Karnavati Dental College, Ahmedabad Dental College and Bopal Dental College, will follow their own admission process. The third party, belonging to the association of close to 25 self-financed physiotherapy and homoeopathy institutes, will also have its own admission process.

The decision is also being seen as a violation of the Supreme Court 2005 judgment in PA Inamdar case, in which the apex court had argued for a single window and centralised admission system for unaided colleges.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

Among companies that have already been allotted land for setting up IT parks are Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), ICICI Bank, US-based Syntel Inc, Mumbai-based Patni Computers and e-Infochip. Two more IT giants — Satyam and Wipro — are also reportedly evincing a keen interest in setting up IT and IT-enabled service parks in the same place. Besides this, some private developers including real estate players like DLF and Raheja have acquired land and initiated the process of setting up IT parks and SEZs near Gandhinagar and on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway. In fact, Raheja has already started construction work and creating necessary infrastructure facility on 90 acres of land for an IT SEZ at Koba near Gandhinagar.

When contacted, Secretary (Science and Technology) Raj Kumar told the Express Newsline on Monday that Adani Group had also acquired 50 acres to develop IT/ITES SEZ behind the Nirma University on the S G Highway, while real estate giant DLF has been allotted 26 acres near Gandhinagar to develop an IT park. Raheja and Adani Group have already been given approval to develop IT parks in SEZ. DLF’s application for IT SEZ approval is still pending with the Centre.

Kumar said that even TCS, which is developing a mega IT park on 25 acres of land, would soon apply for SEZ status for the park.The Government is in discussion with Satyam which proposes to set up an IT park on 26 acres of land, while parleys are on with Wipro, too.

“When mega IT parks become operational in the next two years or so, they will generate over 1 lakh jobs”, he said.

The IT parks being developed by Raheja and ICICI Bank alone would create 40,000 and 25,000 jobs, while the one to be set up by DLF will generate another 20,000 jobs for youths, the official said, adding that ICICI Bank has drawn up plans to create a western regional financial processing hub that will carry out transactions related to loans, accounts and other financial services. The bank has also plans to shift its western region call centre from Mumbai to Gandhinagar once its mega IT project is completed.

“Unless we have top class mega IT/ITES parks coming up near Gandhinagar and elsewhere in the State, we will not be able to create the right kind of work environment for young software engineers in the State,” Kumar said, adding that to encourage more IT companies to set up shop here, the Government has requested Union Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to allot at least four more STPIs (Software Technology Park of India) one each in Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar.

One STPI already exists in Gandhinagar.

Courtesy: Expressindia.com

For instance, the index page of the English programme synopsis says that the subject is to be at taught BA, BCom, BSc level, but excludes Fire Technology and Nursing where the subject is taught at the undergraduate level. Sources say that these courses were included in the earlier syllabus. However, lecturers teaching these courses have not yet received an intimation whether they have to continue with the old course or not.

Moving further, on page number 3, the heading states that the FYBA, BCom and BSc programmes have Compulsory English common for both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ streams. However, while the ‘A’ stream is meant for students from English medium, ‘B’ stream refers to students who did not take English as a subject in Class XII. Hence, the subject cannot be common for both the streams. Also, in many parts of the syllabus, headings are missing. For instance, the synopsis for the academic year 2007-08 sans any heading — which adds to the confusion as to whether the text is for the students of ‘A’ stream or ‘B’ stream.

In another part of the syllabus where the text for SYBA, stream ‘B’ is given, an above given paragraph is without a heading. There are also major problems in the way the syllabus is structured. For example, on page number 18, where the English Special course for third year students is given, the topics prescribed for Paper VI: History of English Literature, cites a range of topics beginning from Romantic Poetry to Pre-Raphaelite Poetry. However, according to sources in the English department of the University, most of these topics are already being taught in SYBA.

Moreover, the course content of English Language Teaching and Spoken English says that 28 marks have been allotted to Section-II, merely for Phonetic Transcription, for which, usually lesser marks are allotted. A source in the English department says that almost 14 marks of questions have been skipped over in this section. What’s more, the revised syllabus has not even seen the approval of the faculty of the Arts department as a meeting of the faculty was never called by the University to discuss the syllabus. Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Pradeep Prajapati says, “Although in a meeting of the Arts faculty conducted on December 20 last year, a resolution was passed to improve the existing syllabus and submit the same before February, 2007 and conduct a meeting of the arts faculty, no such meeting was called.”

Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat University, Parimal Trivedi, however, said that no mistakes have been found in the syllabus by him so far. He said, “We have already corrected the mistakes. However, it is the fundamental responsibility of the Board of Studies to correct these mistakes if there are any.”

Source: expressindia.com