Mumbai University admissions: Commerce stream biggest draw

Yogita Rao| TNN | Updated: Jun 18, 2018, 06:18 IST

Mumbai University (File Photo)

MUMBAI:Around 31% of students enrolled in colleges affiliated to Mumbai Universityare from Thane (31%) alone–the highest enrolment among the districts—followed by Mumbai city (29%) and the suburbs (22.5%).

 
Records from the university, show that 1.8 lakh of the 5.65 lakh students enrolled in various undergraduate programmes are from Thane. While commerce is the most popular stream among students in the city, BA and BSc have more takers in Thane, records reveal.



Engineering, too, has the highest enrolment in Thane among all seven districts. Mass media (BMM), which is increasingly becoming popular in the city, does not have a large fan base in Thane.

With little scope for expansion in the city, Thane is evidently the choice for managements to set up new colleges, say educationists, leading to the rise in the numbers of enrolments. Thane alone has 214 of the affiliated colleges, when Mumbai city and suburbs put together has about 296.

“For the last few years, approvals to start new colleges are being given in Thane and Palghar districts. In Mumbai, there is almost no growth. Due to lack of infrastructure for expansion, not many colleges can offer multiple divisions for popular self-finance professional courses,” said former dean of commerce, Madhu Nair, also the principal of Nirmala Memorial Foundation College in Kandivli.

He added that some of the colleges in Mira RoadVasai-Virar region have a large intake capacity, adding to the total enrolment in Thane. Thane, unlike the city and suburban districts of Mumbai, has a rural component too. “Courses like mass media do not appeal to students in the rural belt,” a principal said.

BMS believed to be job-oriented, hence popular, says principal

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On the contrary, professional courses such as Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) and B Com (Accounting and Finance) of BAF and B Com (Banking and Insurance) or BBI are popular in Thane, as many believe that they are job-oriented,” the principal added.

Among all the districts under Mumbai University’s jurisdiction, BAF, BE (engineering), BBI, BMS and even law, which are job-oriented, have the highest enrolment in Thane. The data from the university covers students’ enrolment over first, second and third year of the programme. 

“More students from Thane district, which includes rural areas too, are inclined towards pursuing a career in the government services or in teaching. For them pursuing a BA and B Sc makes more sense than a B Com degree, to prepare for MPSC/ UPSC or even a B Ed course. Though B Com will remain the most popular choice across regions, arts and science are likely to have more takers in the rural areas,” said Naresh Chandra, from Birla College in Kalyan.

Newly formed Palghar has about 2.8% of the total students in the university. Palghar was initially a part of Thane too and has around 54 colleges. Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg which together have 197 affiliated colleges, makes up for 8.3%, 3.9% and 2.3% of the total enrolment in the university.

Source : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-university-admissions-commerce-stream-biggest-draw/articleshow/64626802.cms

Mumbai degree colleges’ first list today, no quota in minority institutes

tnn | Updated: Jun 19, 2018, 03:29 ISTIllustration for representational purpose

MUMBAI: The first merit list for degree college admission on Tuesday will be rather different than what students have seen over the years. There will be no names of backward category candidates in minority institutes, both religious and linguistic. Also,open category seats will almost double in count.

Some of the most prominent colleges are minority institutes like St Xavier’s College, HR, Mithibai, Jai Hind, KC and Narsee Monjee. A recent Mumbai University (MU) directive stated that colleges must conduct admission in line with the November 2017 high court ruling. The court had set aside as unconstitutional a circular issued 16 years ago by MU which stated that minority colleges need to reserve seats for backward category candidates.

“We have received the university directive and prepared our first merit list based on the same...now, there are more seats now available for open category students,” said a principal of a prominent south Mumbai college, which has about 1,000 seats.

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This is how reservation in minority colleges will now play out: If there are 100 seats, 15 will be set aside for management quota and of the 85 remaining seats, 42 (or 50%) will be for minority students, first for in-house candidates and then outsiders. The remaining 50% or 43 seats will be for open category students, again available first to in-house students and then for outsiders in case of BA, BCom and BSc.

“In case of professional and unaided courses, the reservation rules will be the same, but admissions will be on merit. Like for BMS or BSc (IT), no preference is given to in-house students,” said another principal.

MU has 250-odd minority institutes affiliated to it. “This is a huge blow for backward candidates. The state and MU should have appealed in the Supreme Court,” said Santosh Gangurde, vice-president, Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena.

Sunil Mantri, secretary of the Minority Colleges’ Association, said, “With the court ruling now in place, our colleges do not have to reserve seats for backward students. This process is already followed by junior colleges, but we used to abide by the university directive till last year and divide our 50% quota between open and backward students.” The 2001 MU circular imposed a 50% reservation for backward classes in minority colleges offering arts, science, commerce and other professional courses. St Xavier’s College and Maharashtra Association of Minority Educational Institutions had challenged its validity, fairness and constitutionality.

Source : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/degree-colleges-first-list-today-no-quota-in-minority-institutes/articleshow/64640871.cms

University of Mumbai to provide research degree details on website

The University of Mumbai (MU) has put in place the implementation of a revised set of guidelines to award MPhil and PhD degrees, which was introduced two years ago by University Grants Commission (UGC). The implementation was set by Vice Chancellor's Director (VCD).

As per the VCD, the varsity would now conduct the pre-entrance test (PET) for admissions into research degrees online with multiple choice questions. The direction also paves way for having Open Defense Viva with the submission of thesis, a practice which was not followed for years.

In 2009, the UGC first introduced a set of minimum standard guidelines making mandating universities to have research centres, having a software to detect plagiarism in research and making open-defense vivas compulsory across UGC recognised institutes in the country.

The guidelines were later revised in 2016 with clearly laid down criteria for conducting examinations, admissions and submission of research work. Despite these norms in place, the MU was yet to implement some of the standard procedures thus facing criticism from educationists across the country.

The varsity aims to make the entire process of MPhil-PhD online and to enable students to see the list of available guides and vacant seats as per their subjects on MU's website. The varsity would then conduct PET only for the vacant seats. "The UGC has come up with a set of guidelines to ensure improvement in research quality. We are hoping this would be achieved," said Suhas Pednekar, VC, University of Mumbai.

WHAT'S NEW?

• Students can register, appear for the entrance, get to know about vacancies for their subject all on the varsity's official website  
• Open defence viva would be made compulsory with the submission of thesis  
• Students have to submit a progress report every 6 months to their designated research centres  
• Theses would be checked for plagiarism and would be uploaded on INFLIBNET — a national repositor

Source : http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-university-of-mumbai-to-provide-research-degree-details-on-website-2626433

Expect results soon: Mumbai varsity done checking 50% answer papers for 6th semester

Data shared by MU’s examination and evaluation department revealed that assessment of answer papers for BCom, BA and BSc are way ahead of other courses

Hindustan Times | Shreya Bhandary | MUMBAI : Jun 13, 2018|

To speed up the assessment work, MU is contacting teachers daily to encourage them to complete their quota of work.

Though a few answer sheets from the fifth semester exams await assessment, University of Mumbai (MU) said assessment of semester six answer papers has started.

Data shared by MU’s examination and evaluation department revealed that assessment of answer papers for BCom, BA and BSc are way ahead of other courses. While the varsity has stopped sharing figures on the status of assessment after orders from the new vice-chancellor, examination department officials said almost 90% of papers from the fifth semester have been assessed.

“BCom, BA and BSc paper assessment is ahead of other unaided courses for the sixth semester. Almost 50% work is done, so we can expect results soon,” said an official For other courses, BMM and BCom (Accounting Finance), teachers recently started assessment of sixth semester answer papers through on-screen marking (OSM) system.

“Teachers have recently finished assessment of papers form the fifth semester and have started work on the sixth semester answer papers for unaided courses. The work is going smoothly, thanks to little or no technical glitches in OSM system,” said a senior professor.

To speed up the assessment work, MU is contacting teachers daily to encourage them to complete their quota of work. “We have also requested college principals to spare third-year teachers any kind of admission duty, so that they could continue focusing on assessment of papers,” said an official from MU.

For the past few weeks, several meetings were held between MU officials and technical experts to ensure minimal glitches in OSM system, which delayed declaration of results for earlier semesters.

“The complaints from teachers and assessment centres have gone down when compared to the previous two semesters. The main reason why assessment is taking place continuously, despite holidays, is because of those the teachers who report to work ,” said T Shiware, president, Association of Non-Government Colleges.

 Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/expect-results-soon-mumbai-varsity-done-checking-50-answer-papers-for-6th-semester/story-onvt1vXHAXiGNpiQIvawqJ.html

The Best Places to Find Free Audiobooks (Legally)

The Best Places to Find Free Audiobooks (Legally)

Audiobooks are great for commutes, long trips, and dull tasks. Here are a number of places you can download Audiobooks legally, and for free. And they’re not all public domain stuff.

Many of the audiobook sites you can find on the internet let you download classic books in the public domain for free, but some sites have better quality books than others. We’ve rounded up some of the best of those sites, plus some ways you can get other kinds of audiobooks for free, too.

Project Gutenberg & LibriVox

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer-run repository, started in 1971, that works to digitize and archive cultural work to encourage the distribution of eBooks. But they’re not just about eBooks. Project Gutenberg also has an extensive library of human-read and computer-generated (read by a computerized voice) audio books from the public domain.

LibriVox.org is another volunteer-run initiative that aims to release public domain audiobooks. Volunteers read chapters of books, and then LibriVox releases that audio back into the public domain for anyone to download.

The two services work together, with most audiobooks available on Project Gutenberg coming from the LibriVox site. Each site does have some books the other doesn’t have, so it’s worth checking them both out. Both sites let you listen to books right on the website, subscribe by iTunes, or download the book to your device in various formats.

Since they use books no longer under copyright, most of the books on the sites were written before 1923. So keep that in mind when searching for something to listen to. And if you enjoy the service and like what they are doing, it’s easy to volunteer if you have spare time to read a chapter or two and be part of history.

Spotify

Spotify now has a playlist of audiobooks added to its repertoire. Again, most of them are classic works in the public domain. They don’t have near as many titles as sites like Project Gutenberg and LibriVox, but if you’re already a Spotify user, access the books is super easy. Just hit up the playlist.

You can listen to audiobooks on Spotify with a free account, but you will have to listen to adds at the beginning of each title. If you subscribe to a premium account, you can listen without ads.

NewFixtion

NewFixtion is in a category all to itself. It doesn’t have many titles, but what it does have are original stories delivered in daily episodes. Each episode is voiced by trained actors, which gives it a more rounded feeling. It’s really more like listening to an old-time radio drama than simply having a book read to you.

You can’t download titles from NewFixtion, though. You have to listed to them through your desktop or mobile browser.

Digital Book

DigitalBook, formerly Librophile, lets you search through a database of public domain books from places like Librivox, Gutenberg, Open Library, and also includes books from Amazon (and Audible). Although not all books are free, a large number of them are, and they boast a catalog of over 100,000 free audiobooks and eBooks.

If you sign up for a free membership, you can save books on a personal bookshelf to read later without having to download.

Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a non-profit archive of internet sites and other cultural artifacts, made available to users in digital form. It’s one of the larger and more well-known sites out there for access pretty much anything in the public domain. Providing free access to an archive of over 4 million audio recordings, 11 million books and texts, and 3 million videos.

Learn Out Loud

LearnOutLoud is home to thousands of free audiobooks ranging from fiction to educational. They offer content through their website and a couple other sites already mentioned in this post.

In addition to audiobooks, LearnOutLoud gives access to some of the best audio and video learning content on the web, including courses, documentaries, lectures, interviews, and speeches. It’s easy to lose track of time while scrolling through the amount of content they have to offer.

Don’t Forget Your Public Library

No longer do you need to leave the house in order to borrow a book from the library. Now, with the help of a couple sites and apps, you can access thousands of audiobooks from your mobile device. All you need is a valid library card.

• OverDrive is the collection of more than 30,000 libraries across the world. It’s a site that allows you online access to the catalog of a library near you, where all you need to ‘rent’ a book is a valid library card number. The use of LibbyApp, the mobile and tablet version of OverDrive, lets you check out audiobooks straight to your handheld device. It’s available for iOS, Android, and Windows.
• RBDigital offers an extensive collection of audiobooks, magazines, and eBooks, with the largest independent collection of unabridges audiobooks.
• YourCloudLibrary is an application for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android that offers access to millions of ebooks and audio to download.
• HooplaDigital also lets you check out audiobooks, ebooks, music, movies, and TV shows from local libraries straight to your computer, tablet, or phone.

What apps and services you use will just depend on what your library’s chosen to go with.

Source | https://www.howtogeek.com/354016/8-places-you-can-find-free-audiobooks-legally/