Noida Tower- Proposed

Noida Tower would be tallest building in india when completed, proposed for construction in the Indian town of Noida, south-east of the capital city, New Delhi.

India-based Hafeez Contractor proposed the Noida Tower. At 710m with 135 floors, it would tower over all except the Burj Dubai, which is top out at 800m.

The building is to look like the peaks of Himalayas. The building will contain a 50-floor five-star hotel, a 40-story glass atrium and 370,000 sq meters of shopping space. It will be part of the Noida City Center built over 140 hectares.

The Noida Tower, conceptualised by architect Hafeez Contractor, can bring India on the world map with a height of 710 metres, but the project is on hold.

10 longest tunnels in India

1. Karbude Tunnel , 6.506 km long , Maharastra by Konkan Railway.
2. Nathuwadi Tunnel , 4.389 km, Maharastra by Konkan Railway
3. Tike Tunnel , 4.077 km Maharastra by Konkan Railway
4. Berdewadi Tunnel 4.000 km ,Maharastra by Konkan Railway
5. Savarde Tunnel , 3.429 km,  Maharastra by Konkan Railway
6. Barcem Tunnel, 3.343 km ,Goa by Konkan Railway
7. Karwar Tunnel , 2.950 km, Karnataka by Konkan Railway
8. Chowk  tunnel ,2.830 km, Maharastra by central Railway
9. Parchuri Tunnel, 2.628 km ,  Maharastra by Konkan Railway
10. Khowai tunnel , 2.472 km , Tripura by North East Frontier Railway.

At Qazigund end of stretch of USBRL Project , kashmir Railway, the longest tunnel on Indian Railways is being constructed ( T-80, Pir Panjal Tunnel). This tunnel is 10.96 km long and will pierce through the Pir Panjal range below the snow line.

Tallest 10 structure in 2020

1. Nakheel Tower, Dubai, UAE ( 1km+ height )- under construction-foundation work
2. Kingdom Tower, Jeddah , Saudi Arabia ( 1km+ height )- proposed
3. Burj Mubarak Al Kabir , kuwait  ( 1km+ height )-proposed
4. Burj Dubai, Dubai, UAE ( 800m+ height )- complete
5. Shanghai Tower , China  ( 632m height )- under construction
6. Russia tower, Moscow, Russia ( 612m height )- under consruction
7. Chicago Spire, USA,  ( 610m height )- under consruction
8. 151 Incheon Tower, South Korea, ( 600m height )- proposed
9. Anara Tower, Dubai, UAE ( 600m height )- proposed
10. Golden Finance 117, China ( 600m height )- under consruction

AIEEE 2011 Paper Analysis

The exam was of 3 hours and there were 90 questions for 360 marks. There were four versions for AIEEE 2011 – P, Q, R & S. The subject order and the choices were jumbled up in all four versions. Each subject had 30 questions with 4 options.


* In Physics, There were 3 questions of the type assertions-reasoning.

* In Mathematics, There were 5 assertion- reasoning type questions and no comprehension questions.

* In Chemistry, there were neither assertion-reasoning based questions nor comprehension based questions.

Correct answers carried 4 marks and -1 was for each wrong answer.


Physics was difficult. Chemistry was of intermediate level of difficulty and Mathematics was easy and interesting.

AIEEE 2012 will go online

After CAT, its now the All-India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) scheduled to be held nationwide on April 29, 2012, which will go online.

Though the online mode was an option this year as well, but a majority of students opted for the conventional pen and paper mode. While the Central Board of Secondary Education had expected 1 lakh students, out of the 11.5 lakh applicants, to opt for the online mode, only 5,000 did so.

Despite the lukewarm response, the board has decided to shun the conventional pen and paper format and go ahead with the online mode in wake of this year’s question paper leak which forced several students to take the exam again. In a circular issued on August 18, the board said, “This year, the CBSE is planning to conduct online exams on a mass scale. Students are advised to acquaint themselves with the new method. An competent agency will be employed to ensure the smooth conduct of the test.”

“Though the number of students who appeared for the online examination was less, but it proved a successful counter to problems like question paper leaks. This year’s exam was like a nightmare where we had to cancel and then re-conduct the examination the same day.

“A majority of students who appear for AIEEE have access to computers in their school or home. They have ample time to get acquainted with the method. We shall be uploading guidelines for the online examination soon,” said a CBSE official in New Delhi.

AIEEE is the admission gateway to various NITS, deemed universities, state owned and private engineering/architecture colleges. The AIEEE conducted in 2011 was delayed by three hours due to a paper leak in Lucknow on May 1. A fresh exam was conducted on May 11 for all those students who were unable to appear earlier.

IITs' PhD jinx: BTechs command higher pay

Foreign universities that would come scouting for young teachers to the Indian Institutes of Technology were conspicuously missing this recruitment season. But a range of private and deemed Indian universities from across the country did land up offering hardly attractive pay scales defined under the Sixth Pay Commission.


When they were pitted against the big guns-the consulting and finance offers-the IITs realized that the PhD jinx continues to haunt them. Every tech school recorded a higher average salary figure for their BTechs as compared to their PhD fellows, most of who joined research labs or signed up for teaching positions.


"It's a trend that continues. The average salary on campus is Rs 7 lakh, but the average salary for PhD candidates is less than that of the BTechs," said an IIT Bombay official. The scenario is same on every campus. The slump in the average salary for PhDs also aggravated as universities from West Asia that came shopping for faculty did not turn up this year.


In the last two years, Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia (which offered an annual compensation to the tune of Rs 19 lakh apart from housing and other facilities), Texas A&M University, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, were among the education providers that visited IITs and paid salaries comparable to industry. This year, most IITs saw a desi crowd as institutes like ICFAI, SRM University, Tamil Nadu; Saroj Education Group, Lovely Professional University, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge, Vigyan University, K L University and Manipal University took a handful of students.


Every IIT saw a fall in students signing up for teaching posts. At IIT-Kanpur, 45 students joined educational institutes last year; this time around the number stood at 32, said Ramkumar Janakarajan, placement head. Annual compensation remained almost the same as last year. Most of the universities offered between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 6 lakh a year.


IIT-Kharagpur's placement head S K Srivastava said 67 master's students and 15 PhD candidates took up teaching jobs this year. "The number was higher last year when more educational institutes had visited the campus." But several research firms, Srivastava added, had offered better salaries to PhD students this year.


IIT-Delhi's placement head Kushal Sen said it probably wasn't correct to compare the salaries of BTechs, MTechs and PhDs as they all took up varied job profiles.


"The salary that an MTech student gets from a core engineering firm cannot match the package that a consulting firm would offer a BTech."


Sure, but the placements again drove home the point that the BTechs at IITs managed to grab the best deals. In 2005-06, Rangan Banerjee and Vinayak Muley, in their report on engineering education in India had mentioned this irony that exists only on Indian campuses.


"The average MTech and PhD salary is lower than the average BTech salary in India. But the ratio of average starting salary of graduates to masters and doctorates for MIT, USA and University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, USA shows that the average masters' salary is 22-26% higher than the bachelors'; the doctorates' salary is 45-58% higher than the bachelors'."

In the batch of 450 at IIM-Indore, 405 are engineers

A mere engineering degree is not enough, one needs an MBA tag too.


This thinking is reflected in the profile of the latest batch of IIM-Indore here.


This batch, enrolled for the flagship two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP) for 2011-13 academic session, has 405 students with engineering background, out of the total 450.


"Fat pay-packets and growing interest in white-collar jobs are the main reasons for this trend," a senior IIM professor said.


"This trend -- of engineers opting for management courses -- is not new in the country... the engineers opt for management degrees to give a boost to the career," said Professor Prashant Salwan, who teaches Strategic Management at IIM Indore.


These days, majority of engineers, instead of working in a manufacturing facility, prefer to work in the management so that they can play a major role in policy and decision making, he said. "They do not want to dirty their hands," he said.


Anand Kumar of 'Super-30' coaching fame, termed the trend as unfortunate. If someone wanted to become a manager eventually, why should he/she seek admission to the prestigious IITs for engineering course, he asked.


The country was facing a shortage of qualified engineers and such students were doing injustice to those who could not get into IITs, Kumar claimed, adding that this trend should be curbed.

I dream of all-India entrance test by 2013: Sibal

HRD minister Kapil Sibal has said it his "dream" to implement a single common entrance examination for admission in engineering and science disciplines at the national level by 2013.


"My real dream is by 2013, I should have the first all India test," he said during an interaction.


A committee chaired by T Ramasami, secretary in the department of science and technology, was constituted to re-look into the test methodology of selecting students and have a common system for admission.


The aim of the National Aptitude Test is to reduce psychological and financial stress on students.


Sibal said Ramasami, who has completed his work, had carried out a study to seek response for a single test and "response is that 80 per cent of the people in India want it," he said.


"No political party has said no to that (to the test)", he replied to a question.


Asked about opposition from Tamil Nadu to this concept, he said "that is a peculiarly Tamil Nadu legislative decision, which is now being challenged in Madras high court. That's entirely different from having a separate test."


He said if there is an all India list and there is an equalisation procedure which takes into account each state board, then every child can get admission to the institution of his choice and there can be no capitation fee.

IIT Ropar students shifted to Chandigarh

The IIT at Ropar began its fourth academic session on Friday, inducting 107 students in its fresh batch. But there was a nasty surprise for over 80 students of its senior-most batch, who were shifted to Chandigarh for want of hostel facilities.


Hostels on transit campus of IIT Ropar are still under construction. To tackle the space shortage, IIT authorities have now taken on rent the hostels of National Institute of Technical Teacher Training and Research in Chandigarh. Students are being ferried daily to Ropar and brought back in the evening in an AC bus, involving a travel time of over three hours every day.


"With 107 new BTech students joining in, we now have 445 students in the institution, but have hostel facilities for only 360 students in the transit campus. That's why we had to hire this space in Chandigarh and shift some of the boy students of 2008 batch," explained IIT officials. They, however, assured that new hostels would be completed in the next 15 days. But, students contest this claim pointing out that one of the two hostel buildings is still under construction, while the other has no proper water or sanitation facilities and can't house students.


Anmol Singh Mann, representative of fourth year students' group, said, "Officials have assured they will provide us hostels on Ropar campus in a month." IIT-Ropar registrar A Palanivel said, "Due to space crunch, we have temporarily shifted some students to Chandigarh. We are speeding up hostel construction."

Spanish research body ranks IIIT-A 53 in South Asia

The webometric ranking of world universities 2011 conducted by a Spanish research organisation has ranked the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad 53rd in the South Asian region out of 20,000 universities surveyed.


Director IIIT-A Dr M D Tiwari said, "It is no less achievement given the fact that it has come within 13 years of it's inception."


The "Webometrics Ranking of World Universities" is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientmficas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain. CSIC is among the first basic research organisations in Europe and is attached to the Spanish Ministry of Education and its main objective is to promote scientific research.


While awarding it 3432 rank globally to this 13 year old institution, the much respected research organisation has awarded the institute 44th rank in the country, much above well established and older institutions like National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (48th), University of Calcutta (49th) and Birla Institute of Technology-Mesra, Ranchi (50th) out 380 higher educational institutions of the country, giving much reason to both faculty and students of IIIT-A to cheer.


It is worth mentioning that since 2004, the Ranking Web (or Webometrics Ranking) is published twice a year (data is collected during the first weeks of January and July for being made public at the end of both months), covering about 20,000 Higher Education Institutions worldwide.


Webometrics rankings measures the volume, visibility and impact of the web pages published by universities, with special emphasis in the scientific output (referred papers, conference contributions, pre-prints, monographs, thesis, reports etc) but also takes into account other materials (courseware, seminars or workshops documentation, digital libraries, databases, multimedia, personal pages etc) and the general information on the institution, their departments, research groups or supporting services and people working or attending courses.


Earlier the institute was ranked 13th in the Dataquest-IDC Technical-School Survey of 2010 and bagged 19th rank in the India Today Best Engineering Colleges in India survey of 2010. Recently the Outlook survey of 2011 also awarded 18th rank to IIIT-A based on its research infrastructure, academic excellence, placement of students and Industry interface, said Tiwari.


He added, "We have been trying to place IIIT-A as foremost institution of the country at the world level and in this regard several steps have been taken in the past and many more are presently being taken."

IISER graduates to get formal degrees

Students of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) will now get formal degree certificates. The first batch of the integrated five-year BS-MS dual degree programme passed out this year, but with provisional degree certificates in hand.


On Friday, the Lok Sabha passed the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Amendment Act, 2010, to include all five IISERs, including the one in Pune, under its ambit as an autonomous institution of national importance. The first batch graduates feared that provisional certificates would not be recognised by universities abroad, but now they are relieved. The decision was pending in Parliament for the past two years.


This year, 42 students from IISER Pune and 38 from IISER Kolkata graduated in the integrated five-year master's programme with a BS-MS dual degree in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. The students had enrolled in 2006. Besides Kolkata and Pune, three more IISERs at Mohali, Thiruvananthapuram and Bhopal are awaiting Parliament nod.


Since IISERs are national institutes like the IITs, Parliament first needs to pass an act to enable them to award degrees to students. In case of state universities, the state assembly has to pass an act.


"Now, we can formally give degrees to students. Since April 2010, the decision was being delayed for various reasons. But, this year we put pressure on the Union Ministry of human resource and development to get the nod from Parliament, since the first batch had already passed out and the students were being given provisional certificates. Now, they can be assured of their degree," said K N Ganesh, director, IISER, Pune.


Getting the nod from the Lok Sabha was most important. Now the bill is likely to sail through Rajya Sabha and after final consent from the President of India, the act will come into being.


Ganesh said, "Each IISER will now be autonomous and each one of them will have the liberty to design its course and curriculum. Except for few administrative rules, for instance, transfer of a student from one IISER to another, all academic rules will be framed by the respective IISER." He said that unlike the Indian Institute of Technology Act, that does not allow any other institution to come under its ambit, the NIT Act permits includion of new institutions.


The other option for IISER was to go in for a deemed university status under the University Grants Commission (UGC). "However, we did not want to go under the UGC as we would have had to follow their rules," Ganesh said.

DU plans new 4-yr maths-IT degree to push innovation

 Taking college education beyond classrooms and textbooks, Delhi University is planning a four-year course that will focus on innovation and hands-on learning through industry-based projects. The proposed degree programme in mathematics and information and communication technology (ICT) will be interdisciplinary as well.


"The four-year programme will encourage students to take up innovations in diverse areas. The course will train them to go into research, engineering, signal processing, electronics and computer science. There will be lots of projects connected with industry," said a senior DU official.


The course will give 60% weightage to projects and innovations and 40% to classroom learning. DU plans to place the new programme before the executive council and academic council soon for approval so that it can be opened for admissions later this year.

Facebook offers NIT Warangal student Rs 45L package job

It's unimaginable for a 21-year-old fourth year BTech Computer Science student to grab the best job of Rs 45 lakh package per annum. But, this has been proved true when facebook made offers and created record of sorts for the students of NIT Warangal. The 51-year-old institute also confirmed that the student will be joining the technical wing of the social networking giant, as soon as he completes his course in March next year.


It is not just the 21-year-old whizkid, but as many as three students from the 2010-11 batch have got jobs that paid them Rs 20 lakh per annum.


According to sources, the salaries offered to students so far range anywhere between Rs 5 to Rs 12 lakh per annum. About 30 students from computer science stream of the institute have already been recruited.


"Companies have now shed the recession blues completely and are looking for fresh candidates to recruit. Many of them like Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Google could recruit more number of freshers than they did last year," said a senior professor at the institute.

AIEEE answersheets to be put on website

 Union ministry of human resource development has announced that students appearing for the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE), 2011, will now be able to see their answersheets on the website to ensure transparency in the examination system. The answer sheets will be uploaded on the website a few days after the results are declared. It will benefit lakhs of students who appear for the exam every year. HRD has directed CBSE to make necessary arrangements for it. Students are terming it an 'eye opener' which will help them assess their knowledge of any subject in detail. "It will help us see our mistakes and improve upon them," Anand Chahar, an AIEEE aspirant, said.


Experts feel that cumulative marks of all subjects do not tell the students anything about their shortcomings.


Thousands of students reappear in the exam every year to better their previous score. "After assessing their mark sheets, students will be in a better position to evaluate their performance. It will help them decide if they should appear in the exam again," said Pramod Maheshwari, CMD, Career Point in Kota.

Refund of Aieee Initial fees

We are happy to announce the successful completion of CCB-2011 counselling and admission process on

23rd August 2011 with the kind support and cooperation of all stakeholders.

We have already started the refund process as per the following priority.

1. Candidates who have reported and withdrawn before the end of third round.

2. Candidates who got seat allotment in the first three rounds, reported and not got admitted in the allotted

Institute.

3. Candidates who surrendered their allotment and not allotted either in fourth or fifth round

4. Candidates who got allotment in fourth and fifth rounds and not admitted in allotted Institute.

5. Candidates who have not got allotment in spot round and not collected their Demand Drafts.

Those candidates who got admitted and cancelled their admission will receive the refund from the admitted Institute. Candidates may please note that we have uploaded a refund module wherein, one can obtain the eligibility and category and refund status through this link. The database is continuously updated. Please send e-mail to CCB incase of any difficulty.

Some Demand Drafts are not realised for want of correct information and hence there may be delay in some cases. In some cases candidates have given wrong bank account number. CCB-2011 would like to refund the money as early as possible. However since reconciliation of banks database is required, candidates and parents are requested to bear with us for any unintentional delay.

Such of those candidates who would like to get the refund by E-transfer to their account may please use the format provided in the website, sign it and send the scanned copy to CCB email-Id .

IIT-Delhi gets new campus

The Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi will soon start its extended branch at Haryana. This development is being planned after the Haryana government offered 100 acres of land to the institute.


According to M Balakrishnan, deputy director, IIT-D , before deciding on how to make the best possible use of the land, permission from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has to be obtained on the same.
"We have already written to MHRD about the land offered to IIT-D and after we hear from them we will use the land as an extension to our current campus," he informed .


As per Rakesh Kumar, registrar, IIT-D , the institute will not conduct BTech programmes at the new campus . It will rather use that land for research related activities and entrepreneurship development programmes. The new campus, when ready, will ease out space-related problems that the IIT is facing now. IIT-D is spread across 300 acres of land out of which 50 acres is forest area.


With the available spread of land already in use, there is no space left to construct facilities like more research labs. Also, the student strength of IIT-D at present is approximately 8000, for which the current campus is not adequate.


The other problem faced by the institute is the shortage of faculty. IIT-D is short of almost 200 faculty - as against the sanction.

Application fee for girls abolished by IITs

The populace at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) will undergo a metamorphosis soon. The IITs are trying to make engineering more reachable for girls and are hoping that the issue of gender asymmetry will be taken care of. With the entrance examination a mere eight months away—on April
8—the IIT-JEE body has now decided to scrap application fee for girls. However, at the same time, it has raised this fee for boys, from R1,000 to R1,600 for online applications and R1,800 for physical applications.




“It is a matter of great concern for the IITs that there are fewer girls who take up engineering. For the boys, the application fee has been hiked to meet the increasing cost of technology,” said Sanjay Govind Dhande, director, IIT-Kanpur.


However, IIT authorities believe that the imbalance in the sex ratio within their institutes is not just due to conservative mindsets of families, but also because of the lack of appropriate infrastructure.


“A lot of families are reluctant to send their daughters to IITs as these are residential colleges. Also a lot of students have to relocate to big cities to join coaching classes. This deters a number of girls from appearing for the exam. But we also feel that hostel infrastructure for girls must increase, especially in IIT-Kanpur,” Dhande said.


However, the IITs have been witnessing a slow rise in the average enrollment rates of women in several programmes.“The enrollment rate for women in 2011 has been 20%. It is a matter of great pride to see women taking up postgraduate study in engineering at our institutes,” said K Gupta, dean of postgraduate studies, IIT.