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Autonomous Affiliated Engineering Institutions

Recently many engineering colleges have applied for the Autonomous affiliation status from the university from the affiliation status. In the colleges affiliated to the universities all the process will be done according to the university guidelines. In the affiliated engineering colleges university will be responsible for all the processes including framing the syllabus to conducting semester examination for the registered candidates. In whole university will be supreme and the colleges have to run the programs specified by the university.

The scenario is bit different in case of autonomous affiliated engineering colleges. The autonomous affiliated engineering colleges will enjoy all the freedom except awarding the degrees. The degree will be awarded by the university based on the information provided by the colleges. The colleges having the autonomous status can start any course with any specialization depending on the possibility and availability of faculty in the college. The colleges having high intellectual pool can offer better courses in-order to cater the needs of industry and also can develop courses which are research oriented than the regular theoretical courses.

Some aspects of autonomous affiliated engineering colleges which have to be strictly monitored by the university

Framing of Syllabus and setting of Curriculum:
Framing of syllabus will be done forming a board of studies committee. Experts from various other universities will be invited and syllabus will be formed. In case the syllabus is not framed by the experts or without discussion there are chances that curriculum which is not useful in the present scenario can be set and entire process of autonomous may be shattered as it is the basic step in the autonomous.

Independent Examination Branch:
The examination has to be conducted by the colleges on its own. The setting of question papers will be done by the faculty who has taught the subject so there are chances that the question paper will be set only on whatever he or she has taught in the class. Even there are chances that in order to get cent percent result in subject faculty can given the questions to students before examination.

Over the last decade engineering colleges have become money making factories than providing education. To make money colleges can step into any path. Since all the processes will be under the control of colleges including the examination branch there are chances that the degree can be sold for money, making the student to write all the semester exams in a day or two of all semesters keeping the previous dates and recommending those students to university for the award of degree as there will be no proof regarding their registration to the course in the university which can result in producing fake graduates.

Intellectual Pool:
The private engineering colleges will not bother much about the salaries to its employees and no guidelines of AICTE or any other body will be followed. As a result many faculty members don’t like to stay in single place and change the colleges often. Over a period of time if good members are not available to teach or guide, the entire standard or quality of education provided by such institutions will come down drastically.

The concept of autonomous engineering colleges is good and new but how the colleges will make use of it is left to it and only the time can answer.

Unexpected Death of Children inside Car

These two incidents happened recently has grabbed attention of many. I am not able to understand whether it was our negligence or over confidence or life style which resulted in tragic end of children. The incidents happened were similar to each other but both needs serious attention.

First incident:
Micro families have either one or two kids and there won’t be anyone to look after kids if both husband and wife want to go out for shopping. Even many times I have seen couples carrying months old babies to shopping malls.

Similar incident happened; the elder kid was of four years old of a couple fell asleep by the time they reached the shopping mall. Couple decided to take the younger one two years old kid with them and let the elder one sleep in the car itself as it will be difficult to carry if it is sleeping. Couple left locking the car taking the second kid with them.

By the time they returned, it was almost two hours and there was no kid sleeping happily instead there was breathing less kid which died of suffocation in the car. Lack of attention of others in parking lot and in crowd, the shouting of kid might have gone unheard.

Second Incident:
Playing in the parked cars is a fun for kids no matter which car. If they were allowed to press horn, they would be the happiest kids. Central locking system in car provides feature of locking the car doors even by standing outside the car and the kids like the beep when they use the remote to lock and unlock as it will be totally new fun to the kids.

There was a function in the nearby house and many kids were gathered playing with each other and fighting.
Two kids somehow got the car keys, unlocked it using the key chain remote and sat inside it playing for a while. After sometime they felt difficulty in breathing in closed and also it was parked in bright sun light as there was no shade. Kids tried to open the door but couldn’t succeed. Even their shout went in vein as everyone at home was busy in chit chatting with relatives. By the time they realized about kids and searched it was already late. Running to nearby hospital also didn’t help.

Whether it was the elder’s negligence or the over confidence that was ended in tragedy.  We can’t do anything once something happens but we can take precaution to prevent such things.

Please share this post with friends and known ones as much as possible. Hope we won’t hear such things in future because prevention is better in these cases as there is no cure.

42 foot painted QR code on roof of Facebook Head Quarters

Facebook, the social networking giant has held users offering exciting user interface designs very often. On the back end, facebook is popular in providing the best facilities for its employees even bagging the best employer award for many years. Facebook also encourages its employees’ creative ideas and tries to implement them.

One of such employee’s creative ideas was to have QR code on the building roof and it has to be visible from the space or at least by the flight. QR code comprises of black shades on white back ground, scanning those can yield the hidden text, image or URLs present. If the URL length is more the QR code will be more complex and the short URLs will have much simpler QR codes.

Mark Pike, an employee of Facebook planned (actually it is his brain child to have the code) to paint 42 foot QR code on roof of Facebook head quarters new building. He along with his friends was able to do so painting manually on the top of building. The QR code present on the building will redirect to a short URL fbco.de which was in fact registered to keep the QR code simple.
(QR Code painted on roof of Facebook's new Head Quarters)
Image Courtesy: Facebook release


The QR code present on facebook building will redirect to a website which is now under construction, in future will have the puzzles and mind challenging games according to the facebook release.

Someone travelling on the flight above this building can scan and identify it as facebook’s head quarters and also can play few games on that site. No wonder even if astronauts travelling to space can be able to identify the facebook building from the outer space!