A day after Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in Bangalore and Indore raised their fees, IIM-Lucknow has gone in for a hike of Rs 25,000 for the next academic session while the institutes at Kozhikode and Ahmedabad will take a decision on the matter after March 31.

The fees for the postgraduate programme would be raised to Rs 2 lakh from the present Rs 1.75 lakh and come into effect from the coming academic session, IIM-L Director Devi Singh said over phone from Lucknow.

IIM-L would also add 147 seats over the next three years at an additional cost of around Rs 43 crore to implement quotas for OBCs, he said.

Increasing seats in a phased manner, the institute would add 45 seats in 2007-08, 55 seats in 2008-09 and 47 seats the year after, Singh said.

"We are spending the money for enhancing facilities like classrooms, auditorium and hostels. We have already started work on building a hostel in our campus in Lucknow," he said.

The fifth member of the franchise, IIM-Ahmedabad, is expected to follow suit after its board meeting on March 31.

IIM-Kozhikode Director Krishna Kumar said here, "we have discussed the issue in our board meeting and will let you know of the final decision by April 1".

Asked to specify if the board had decided to hike the fee on the lines of the move by the IIMs in Bangalore and Indore, Kumar said: "You may have to wait till April 1."

Sources at IIM-K, however, indicated that the institute might fall in line with the other IIMs to increase the annual fee to improve its infrastructure.

"We are facing several problems at the institute now and are in need of additional resources to improve the infrastructure," a source said.

IIM-Bangalore has hiked the fee for the PG programme in management by Rs 75,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh, while IIM-Indore raised the fee from Rs 1.50 lakh to Rs 1.90 lakh from the coming academic session.

The IIM in Kolkata is also likely to take a decision on the fee hike when its board meets next week.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

Besides microfilming the rare manuscripts of Mahatma Gandhi, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust has drawn a plan to preserve his manuscripts in digital form. A budget of Rs 30 lakh has been set aside and the digitisation work of the manuscripts is to be completed by the end of this current financial year. A website of the trust is also to be floated soon.

A total of 34,117 manuscripts, mostly letters in original and photostat forms, running into 1.5 lakh pages, collected from various sources from all over the country as well as abroad during the last several years have already been laminated with the assistance of experts from INTACH, Lucknow, Nehru Museum and National Archives, New Delhi.

After lamination, the trust embarked on the microfilming of the manuscripts about a year ago. However, only a part of the manuscripts have been microfilmed so far. The work is, however, going on a fast pace and the microfilming work is likely to be over by December this year.

Giving details about digitisation of the manuscripts, trust secretary Amrutbhai Modi said a decision to preserve the manuscripts in digital form was taken recently as a part of info-technology project of the trust costing around Rs 30 lakh. He said a total of Rs 80 lakh had been set aside for various upgradation projects, including a website of the Ashram.

Five copies of digitised manuscripts would be prepared initially, for keeping them at Gandhi museums in Patna, Kolkata, Madurai, Pune and Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.

“The logic behind distributing the digitised manuscripts is that if any damage is done to manuscripts at one centre, it will remain preserved at the other centre,” said Modi.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com