IIT-JEE 2010 - Career Point

If Kumar is pressing that the data
be given to him “in the form in
which it is originally available”, it is
because the access to the
electronic data of the previous
three years helped him unearth,
for instance, the shocking fact that
general category candidates got
into IITs after scoring in JEE as
little as little as 5% in Physics and
6% in Mathematics.
Kerala seeks second IIT
report on record
Kerala has filed an application in
the apex court urging it to take on
record the second part of the
report titled Seismic Stability of
Mullaiperiyar Composite Dam,
submitted by D K Paul, Professor
of earthquake engineering
department, Indian Institute of
Technology, Roorkee.
The first part of the report
Structural Stability of Mullaiperiyar
Dam Considering Seismic Effects
— Part I — Seismic Hazard
Assessment was submitted by IIT-
Roorkee in May 2008. The said
report is already before the apex
court, it averred.
Kerala would like to file the
second part of the report in
support of its argument that
Mullaiperiyar dam is not safe for
storage, the application stated.
The report stated that the
earthquake safety of old concrete
or masonry gravity dams under
moderate to strong ground
motions is of great concern.
Although there is no evidence of
catastrophic failure of gravity
dams, yet the possibility of tensile
cracking is never ruled out.
The finite element analysis of dam
subjected to static and seismic
loading shows tensile stresses at
the heel of dam-foundation
interface, the report indicated.
“The Mullaiperiyar dam is a
composite gravity dam built during
1887-1895. The front and rear
faces of the dam were built with
un-coursed rubble masonry in
lime surkhi mortar. The hearting is
constructed of lime surkhi
concrete. It lies in seismic zone III
as per seismic zoning map of India.
The 176 feet-high composite
gravity dam is now over 114 years
old,” the report went on to say.
IITs want to be accredited
by statutory body
As the government wants to make
accreditation mandatory for all
institutions, the IITs have said they
would like to be accredited by a
statutory body and not by the
National Board of Accreditation
(NBA).
The IIT directors have told the
government that they have no
objection to accreditation of the
institutes, but insisted that the
accreditation agency should be a
statutory and autonomous
organisation.
They expressed these views at the
meeting of the IIT Council, the
highest decision making body for
the IITs, held here last month.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, who is
the chairman of the council, told
them that the government would
set up an accreditation agency by
introducing a bill in the Parliament
soon.
"The directors said the
accreditation should be conducted
by a statutory body
IITs told to reveal
candidate details
The Central Information
Commission has ordered the IITs
to disclose most details of
candidates who sat the 2009
entrance examination, rejecting
the institutes’ argument that
revealing candidates’ names would
be a breach of their privacy.
India’s apex watchdog for the
Right to Information Act has
ordered the IITs to reveal the
names, addresses, pin codes and
marks of all students who
appeared in the Joint Entrance
Examination this year.
In its November 6 order, the
commission asked IIT Guwahati,
the chief organiser among the IITs
of the 2009 examination, to
disclose by November 25 the
information sought by the
appellant.
The order follows efforts by the
IIT to withhold information on
candidates who appeared in the
2009 JEE despite earlier orders
mandating the release of similar
data on IIT candidates over the
past three years.
The order is significant because a
similar disclosure in 2006 revealed
discrepancies between cutoff
marks used by the IITs that year
and the cutoffs arrived at by using
the formula the institutes claimed
to have used.
At least 994 students, who cleared
the cutoffs arrived at by using the
formula the IITs claimed to have
used, were denied admission
because the institutes used
different cutoffs.
XtraEdge for IIT-JEE 6 DECEMBER 2009