Monday, March 2, 2015

Surrogacy - Social And Legal Issues

ITM University, School of Law in association with Sama , a Resource Group for Women and Health, New Delhi organized the screening of the documentary film titled ‘Can We See The Baby Bump Please?’ on 3 February 2015. The theme was related to the problems of women from the economically weaker sections of society who act as surrogate mothers because of its monetary benefits. Agents and doctors of private clinics mint money by exploiting these surrogate women who often face risk to their health as well as their life. The film also highlighted the ethical and legal issues of surrogacy surrounding commercial surrogacy in India. The film explored questions and concerns through the experiences of surrogate women. The film’s narrative traced the ethical challenges, medical malpractices, and potential exploitation that can occur when surrogacy is practiced in a legal vacuum. The film focused on the interplay of surrogate women’s choices, contexts and compulsions and the urgent need for the protection of the legal rights of the surrogate mother and child.

The students and faculty of the University attended the screening of the documentary film and were enlightened about the social and legal issues related to surrogacy in India from the national and international perspective as well as statelessness and health standards in surrogacy. It was followed by an interactive session, with Ms Simran Sawhney from Sama, in which the key features of the proposed legislation related to surrogacy were discussed.

ITM University, Gurgaon Organizes I Love My Tiranga programme


Gurgaon, 20 February: ITM University, Gurgaon welcomed Mr Khalid Qureshi, the initiator of ‘I Love My Tiranga’ programme and organized the event in the University to spread awareness among students and staff of the University on the importance of our national flag. The event was organized under the banner of University’s social club, Yukti on 20 February 2015. The students and staff of the University participated in the programme and ran at the campus along with Mr Qureshi with the tricolor flags.

The concept, ‘I Love My Tiranga, was conceived three years ago in 2012 when Mr Khalid Qureshi, a Ticket Collector in Western Railways, started a marathon with the sole aim to encourage people of the nation to keep Tiranga at their homes. This year the marathon was flagged off from Mumbai by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Shri Devendra Fadnavis on 26 January 2015 along with 65 runners. 


‘I Love My Tiranga’ is a social initiative to inspire and encourage all Indians to embellish their homes and institutions with the Indian national flag. To spread the message, Mr Qureshi completed the marathon run from Mumbai to Delhi holding the Tiranga, covering a distance of over 2000 KM with 10 halts on the way. He has been welcomed and appreciated by all the Chief Ministers on his way, including the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mr Arvind Kejriwal on 20 February 2015 on completion of the marathon. He has visited several educational and religious institutions to encourage them to keep Tiranga in their premises. 

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Qureshi said that one doesn’t need a reason to fly the national flag aloft one’s house. The Tricolour is our pride and we should love and respect it by fluttering it atop our houses and other buildings.

How To Transform India's Education Sector



Jyotika Pruthi
Assistant Professor
Dept of CSE&IT, 
ITM University, Gurgaon
 

None of us is incognizant of the importance of education. “Education” is a word and a world in itself. It is a hand which pulls us from darkness of ignorance into the sunshine of enlightenment. With education alone, social transformation is possible. Just as each seed contains the future tree, each child is born with infinite flair. There is an old Chinese saying, “Give a seed to a potter and you shall have a bonsai.” In a nutshell, as a teacher and parent, become a gardener, not a potter.

The word “Education” itself comes from the word “Educere” which means to bring out what is already in and not blindly stuff in. For this, it is essential that education should be based on application and intelligence instead of trying to test memorized text. It would not be out of place to mention here that countries like Russia have made chess compulsory to force students to think logically. Swami Vivekananda said, “Education is the manifestation of perfection already present in man”. Real education should enable you to find what is unique within you. Talent is more than important than tool (knowledge). It would be wrong not to earn a comfortable income, but to succumb to greed and then earn is wrong. One of the teachings of the Mahabharata is to develop your unique quality and this statement is supported by the fact that Pandavas too were unique in their own way.

Our education system needs to reform without making a compromise on a child’s education just because his family cannot afford it. As per the recent survey, the literacy rate in India is 66% with a child population of about 450 million, which means child dropout rate is 53%. So how and why do we expect to have morally sound citizens when we don’t even have base set for them? As a step to reform education norms for economic, social, cultural and overall national progress all the government scholarship schemes and loans should be increased.

Prof. (Dr.) Yash Pal quotes “Give freedom to education”; it is a very apt quote as there is a need to groom individuals for a life, not a job. We hold a great feeling of proud in our IITs, IIMs but 431 universities along with 21000 colleges in India are still in a darker state. Over 75% of engineering graduates, 77% of MBAs and 85% Arts/Science/Commerce graduates are unwaged. There is a need to give freedom to the foreign universities and let them open their campuses in our country so that Indian students can achieve a good standard of higher education instead of getting a substandard one. We should drift ourselves into the R & D and hold hands together to turn and make India grow and come out as R & D Hub rather than just being an academic warehouse, producing innumerable software engineers, unoccupied technicians and clerks.  

The transformation should be done with a view to fight up with unemployment, poverty, female foeticide, exploitation, corruption rather than maintaining a goal to have a 98.5 % of enrolment in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan just on the grounds of ‘Mid-day meal scheme’. That should be, of course, a part of the Abhiyan, after all it is covering 14 Crore children, but the quality of education should also be maintained with students getting a motivational dose to build up curiosity for themselves. There should be more improvement in the image of women. Girls should be encouraged to achieve higher education and even to do jobs of their choice. Don’t become the murderer of their wishes, their emotions and their dreams. Give them opportunities through which they can also fulfill their dreams, ambitions and wishes.

Education must also impart good vocational and physical training and inculcate values to respect all vocations/professions – this is something we have to learn from the United States where a janitor can talk to a professor on one-to-one basis on the same table as an equal. The caste system which determines occupation by birth is fundamentally incorrect. All this also causes inter-personal problems in practical management. In books like “Karma, Destiny and Career”, it is given what can happen if you try to pursue an exalted occupation (engineer, lawyer, doctor) when in reality your real vocation maybe relatively humble (carpenter, plumber). In New York, a child psychologist became a taxi driver because driving was his passion. (This may seem awkward but normally people seeking artistic satisfaction have such problems). Therefore, formal education should give equal respect to all occupations and people should be respected for what they are instead of snobbishness of degrees and qualifications associated with certain exalted professions. So, we can conclude it in this way, that formal education in its ways should have moral education as its in-depth persona?

It’s the high time to transform the India’s education sector as with change comes spontaneity, a novelty in our life. Education system needs to change in order for us to invent new things, to see life in a different way. And when people accept change, they not only imbibe change, they learn to transform, to adapt, to flow and not stand stubbornly in an unbending way. When Gandhi Ji came to India after the famous South Africa incident, he was a changed man. His ideas of non-violence and equality brought a change in the outlook of people of that time. This changed India like a storm and this gave Gandhi Ji the responsibility of becoming the torch bearer for millions of Indians. Through the amalgamation of the new and old, we will be able to have an amicable society. G-8 and G-20 summits are taking place so that people become aware of the damage they are causing to the environment; this should be tackled up by the educated. Education should include the ill effects of too much pollution. It should be a torch bearer for those who have gone astray. Not only should education be compulsory for children but for adults too. Until our heart beats as one, our eyes see one thing, we unite ourselves in silence, we won’t be able to know the hidden meaning of education.

Innovation In Industry - Why We Need To Redefine Our Education Sector To Promote Innovation?



Ashwini Sharma
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
 ITM University, Gurgaon

Innovation is one of the most common yet most important words in today’s global scenario with the industries to sustain in the market and move on to the ladder of success. It is a fact that the industry which does not focus on innovation will sooner or later perish. One of the finest examples of innovation is TATA NANO. This car is supposedly the lowest priced car in the world, yet there are innovations at every stage from design to manufacturing of it. Another example in line is about the solar panels on the roof top of buildings. These solar panels initially occupied the space on ground resulting in underutilisation of the ground area. Finally it had happened in Gujarat where the solar panels were mounted on the canals to cater for generating electricity from sun and simultaneously preventing the evaporation of the precious water flowing in the canal. Like as above we can find thousands of the innovative products and services and even thinking. Not sure about it? Consider these products and services from different industries: iPhone, Cloud computing, D2H service, home security system, space saving furniture, folding bicycle, LED displays, blind man walking stick, coconut tree climber, bicycle washing machine. Innovation!!!!

‘Innovate’ is a Latin word which means to change or renew. Innovation is a thinking of doing the things in unconventional way and happens when the unquestionable is questioned. It has different meaning for different industries such as for manufacturing industry, innovation can happen when the need is to improve upon the product, processes, systems, working environment, material handling or to reduce the cost of production; for a service industry it can be the improvement in quality of service such as computerised railway booking system or banking system which has made people comfortable doing the reservation and banking operation without being physically present and standing in long queues. The mobile phones initially did not have camera. It was an innovation when the idea to incorporate camera with the mobile phone came. Today it can be seen that virtually every mobile is coming with the camera starting at a price merely Rs. 2500. But after a while these innovations, when liked by the customer, become the need and gets generalised which means they become regular feature and people want it associated with the product by default. Then what next? Answer is obviously further innovation, such as maps with GPS etc. From the above discussion one thing can be concluded that innovation is a never ending process and it can be done anywhere and anytime and to anything; the only requirement is getting the idea to improve.

Indian education system needs to be redefined for nurturing the talent such that the students thinking should not be merely to get better marks, rather it should be driven by creativity and inner desire to become what they dream of. The author who is an engineering teacher would like to share that most of the students opting for engineering do not even know what exactly it is and are studying engineering because somebody from family or relative told them to do so. Interestingly when the country is looking for the bright engineers who will be responsible for taking the nation forward, they are struggling to find out why they are doing it. It is the need of the hour that talent and creativity should be nurtured right from the beginning i.e. from the school level.