Create The Right Environment
Deemed universities are important in a country like ours which is looking forward to becoming a superpower by 2020. Also, when foreign universities are getting ready to bring world class facilities, technology and academic concepts to India, the government should be creating a conducive environment for our institutions too to excel in all spheres of education.
But unfortunately it is not doing this. The problem is not with the concept of deemed universities or autonomous institutes but in the process of granting colleges such status. The 2007 notification by the HRD ministry laid down that an institute must be assessed for innovation, excellence in all aspects of education, world class infrastructure, qualified faculty, accreditation and so on, before it is granted deemed university status. But unfortunately we messed up everything, creating chaos in higher education.
I believe that deemed university status should be granted to any institute which is excellent in education, research and development, infrastructure, innovation and faculty and is committed to the betterment of society. We should make accreditation by any national or international agency mandatory for granting an institute such a status. Peer review at regular intervals should be done to make sure it retains its high standards of education. Autonomous institutions should be agents of change in this fast changing world where life is influenced by globalisation and technological innovations in a big way.
But unfortunately some are setting a bad example. It may also be true that some deemed universities have failed to perform. But that doesn’t mean the concept is itself bad. Ideally, the government should be encouraging institutes to follow the norms and attain autonomy to excel further. A few bad eggs in the basket should not kill the objective of developing excellent and innovative institutions, which can help the country’s progress. By K. Balaveera Reddy, Deccan Chronicle
Diabetes Spending To Double By 2034: U.S. Study
The number of Americans with diabetes will double in the next 25 years, leading to health spending of $336 billion US, a new study suggests.
The number of people with the disease is projected to grow to 44 million in 2034 from 23.7 million in 2009. And while the population with diabetes doubles, the costs to treat the disease will triple, costing Medicare $171 billion, up from $5 billion currently. These figures do not factor in a rise in obesity among Americans.
In Canada, approximately 1.8 million, or about one in 18 people, had diagnosed diabetes according to the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004-05. The prevalence of the disease increased by 24 per cent between 2000-01 and 2004-05, and the Canadian Diabetes Association predicts there will be three million Canadians living with the disease by 2010.
Researchers at the University of Chicago created a model to determine the cost burden of diabetes on society, which factored in trends in risk factors for the disease, its history and the effects of treatments.
Those studied were between 24 and 85. The findings are published in the December issue of the journal, Diabetes Care.
“Without significant changes in public or private strategies, this population and cost growth are expected to add a significant strain to an overburdened health-care system, write the authors. “We will find ourselves in a lot of trouble as a population.”
The authors say their dire projections are based on the fact that earlier studies failed to represent the scope of the problem, projecting numbers that have already been surpassed.
For example, they cite one study from 1991 that predicted that the number of diabetics would double between 1987 and 2030 — from 6.5 million to 11.6 million. The projected 2030 figure is less than half the cases reported in 2009.
The researchers add that their prediction may be too conservative.
On a more positive note, the authors believe that obesity may level out in the next 10 years and then begin to decline, from 30 per cent in 2009 to 27 per cent by 2033.
“We anticipate that the population will reach an equilibrium in obesity levels, since we cannot all become obese,” write the authors. CBC News
Have All The Right Tools
For the past few months, I noticed that a lot of suggestions and offers about increasing blog traffic, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and little known secrets for easy ways to get followers to my blog and articles have been creeping into my comments corner. Well, though it’s really overwhelming but sad to note, that it is also annoying. Mind you guys, blogs were originally used as online diaries but have recently taken on a business dimension, which is why writing a blog is a good way to drive traffic into your site and increase search engine rankings. But as always, it is vital to make sure you have all the right tools before you can breakthrough into search engines. Although there are software and consultants that may probably helps them improve SEO rankings, but the amazing part is why spend few dollars when you can have the free seo software on the internet absolutely for free?
Reliability & Connection Speed
We cannot deny the fact that blogging nowadays have captured the hearts and minds of people who are into writing. Yet, while it is true that blogging is widely increasing in scope and magnitude, hence, along with its popularity is the looming problems of some individuals who were also motivated and inclined to indulge with it. People write blogs either for personal interests or business reasons. And considering the importance of a reliable hosting to the success of your blog, it’s worthwhile to take some time to find out what hosting is the best for it. There are web hosting companies that offer unlimited bandwidth. Well, this may sounds like a good deal. But bandwidth is a commodity that costs the web hosting company money – unlimited bandwidth is really impossible.
Nevertheless, some web hosting companies have set a limitation to the memory your site can use per second, and once it exceeds this number, your website will be temporarily unavailable. By this method, they can restrict the usage of bandwidth since more bandwidth usually means more memory resource. Reliability and connection speed are something you won’t know until you use their service. So, better select mysql web hosting which can guarantee its uptime, reliability, affordability and technical support. Moreover, what made it more amazing is having the money back guarantee policy, by which your money can be refunded if you aren’t satisfied with their service.
Palestinian Leaders Deny Jerusalem’s Past
Jews have no history in the city of Jerusalem: They have never lived there, the Temple never existed, and Israeli archaeologists have admitted as much. Those who deny this are simply liars. Or so says Sheik Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority.
His claims, made last month, would be laughable if they weren’t so common among Palestinians. Sheik Tamimi is only the latest to insist that, in his words, Jerusalem is solely “an Arab and Islamic city and it has always been so.” His comments come on the heels of those by Shamekh Alawneh, a lecturer in modern history at Al Quds University. On an Aug. 11 PA television program, “Jerusalem—History and Culture,” Mr. Alawneh argued that the Jews invented their connection to Jerusalem. “It has no historical roots,” he said, adding that the Jews are engaging in “an attack on history, theft of culture, falsification of facts, erasure of the truth, and Judaization of the place.”
As President Barack Obama and his foreign-policy team gear up to propose yet another plan for Israeli-Arab peace, they would do well to focus less on important but secondary issues like settlement growth, and instead notice that top Palestinian intellectual and political leaders deny basic truths about the region’s most important city.
For the record: Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism, mentioned more than 600 times in the Hebrew Bible. Three times a day, religious Jews face eastward toward the city when they pray. At Jewish weddings, the couple’s joy is diminished as they shatter a glass to acknowledge Jerusalem’s still unfulfilled redemption. It is a widespread custom then to recite the 137th psalm (“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate. . .” ).
According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem’s designation as Judaism’s most sacred city made it the obvious place for King Solomon to build the Holy Temple following the death of his father, King David. After the temple’s destruction by the Babylonians, it was rebuilt by King Herod before being destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.
Earlier this month, archaeologists with the Israeli Antiquities Authority discovered a 3,700-year-old Jerusalem wall—the oldest and biggest ever uncovered in the region—that they believe was built by the Canaanites before the First Temple period. It’s true: there is scant archaeological evidence of the First Temple. But not so for the Second Temple, which is accepted as historical fact by most archaeologists. From the Herodian period, aside from dozens of Jewish ritual baths surrounding the temple that have been uncovered, one retaining wall of the temple, the Western Wall, still stands.
But Sheik Tamimi doesn’t need to take the Jews’ word for any of this, or that of legions of world-class scholars. For proof of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, he need only look at writings from his own religious tradition.
The Koran, which references many biblical stories and claims figures like Abraham as Islamic prophets, also acknowledges the existence of the Jewish temples. The historian Karen Armstrong has written that the Koran refers to Solomon’s Temple as a “great place of prayer” and that the first Muslims referred to Jerusalem as the “City of the Temple.” Martin Kramer, a historian who has combed through Koranic references to the temples in Arabic, notes surra 34, verse 13, which discusses Solomon’s building process: “They [jinn/spirits] worked for him as he desired, (making) arches, images, basins large as wells, and (cooking) cauldrons fixed (in their places).”
There is still more recent official Muslim acknowledgment of Jerusalem’s Jewish history—a booklet put out in 1924 by the Supreme Muslim Council called “A brief guide to al-haram al-sharif.” Al-haram al-sharif, the Arabic name for the Temple Mount, is currently the site of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque. It is, according to Islamic tradition, where Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Yet it is also, according to the council’s booklet, a site of uncontested importance for the Jews. “The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.” And the booklet quotes the book of Samuel: “This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offering and peace offerings.’” Later, the booklet says the underground structure known as King Solomon’s Stables probably dates “as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple.” Citing the historian Flavius Josephus, it claims the stables were likely used as a “place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D.”
So why do those like Mr. Tamimi deny what their predecessors acknowledged? To undermine Israel, which earned statehood in 1948 and captured the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War of 1967. Since then, Palestinian leaders have fought to erase any Jewish connection to sacred places, particularly the Temple Mount.
While Israel has never hesitated to acknowledge Jerusalem’s holiness in Islam—albeit saying that it has less importance than Mecca—Palestinian leaders insist that Jews are transplants in the region, nothing more than white European colonialists. This denial has formed the foundation for their argument that Jerusalem should become Palestine’s capital. This is why the previous mufti of the Palestinian Authority, Sheik Ikrama Sabri, dismisses the Western Wall as “just a fence.” Yasser Arafat classified it, bizarrely, as “a Muslim shrine.” As Saeb Erekat, Arafat’s chief negotiator, said to President Clinton at Camp David in 2000: “I don’t believe there was a temple on top of the Haram [holy site], I really don’t.”
These sentiments are echoed in Palestinian primary-school textbooks, preached at mosques, and printed in official newspapers. The Palestinian leadership isn’t bellyaching over borders—it is stating, in full voice, that Israel has no right to its most basic historical and religious legacy.
This is no foundation for “peace talks.” By Bari Weiss, Wall Street Journal.