000-tobecategorised

From PSF Statement:1st July 2024  the termination of 55 teachers and 60 non-teaching staff has been withdrawn. This decision came in response to a huge public outrage against the current TISS administration This decision came in response to a huge public outrage... Even teachers in the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies (ACWS), whose salaries were paid from the plan grants of the UGC, were terminated. .. the press release from the TISS administration raises new questions and concerns.

1. No Clarity on the Period of Extension
2. Silence on the Termination of UGC Positions in Women's Studies
3. Degree Programmes Are Not Projects, and Teachers Are Not Project Staff
The press release unfortunately refers to the terminated teachers and staff as “project/programme faculty and non-teaching staff”. ..According to our understanding, these “project/programme faculty” were reported as regular teachers when TISS applied for NAAC and NIRF rankings.
4. What Should the Non-Teaching Staff Do?
5. Who Failed TISS Now? The TISS administration leadership was also unable to convince the TET to continue funding, leading to this mass termination. All indications are that it was the TET that reached out to the TISS administration to temporarily resolve the matter, and not the TISS administration that reached out to the TET.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences sacks around 100 staffers, including teachers, across all campuses  https://scroll.in/latest/1069963/tata-institute-of-social-sciences-sacks-around-100-staffers-including-teachers-across-all-campuses  This includes half of the institute’s teaching staff and all of its non-teaching staff at its campus in Guwahati...“Nearly a hundred institute staff members which were previously funded by the Tata Education Trust will become unemployed after years of service at TISS,” the institute’s Progressive Students’ Forum said in a statement. “It is completely a failure of the current leadership of TISS administration in running the institute and apathy of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government.”..

The termination letters, signed by officiating registrar Anil Sutar, said: “The institute tried its best for the release of grant from Tata Education Trust for the purpose of salary…through official correspondence and personal meetings…The decision regarding further extension of grant period has not yet been received.”...Changes to the University Grants Commission’s regulations last June had brought the institute under the Centre’s administrative purview.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8zjjdkvjO_/?igsh=MThncWg0MndudmV4bw== 

Last year, the BJP-led union government took over TISS, making it a fully 'public-funded institute'. The result has been that students are facing delays in receiving student aid and are being threatened in the name of fee payment. While becoming a public institute should have relieved the pressure from students coming from economically and socially marginalised backgrounds, the central government takeover has resulted in added monetary pressures. The latest move of robbing a hundred teaching and non-teaching staff at the institute of their jobs highlights the BJP government's anti-education and anti-TISS stance.

The BJP-led central government and the current TISS administration are directly responsible for taking away the livelihoods of nearly a hundred employees and putting the future of its students also at risk.

https://indianexpress.com/article/education/tiss-withdraws-termination-letters-staff-members-tata-education-trust-funds-9424269/ 

A statement issued by the institute on Sunday signed, by the Registrar of the TISS, states, “TET has committed to releasing funds for the salaries of TET project/programme faculty and non-teaching staff.” The institute’s administration confirmed that a funding of a total of Rs 4.79 crore has been sanctioned by the Tata Education Trust...  the institute in future will work on identifying the requirements of the staff and appoint them with a regular process of advertising for the post as per the other UGC-approved appointments,” said an official from the institute’s administration.

Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter from  Tim Berners-Lee https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/marking-the-webs-35th-birthday-an-open-letter-ebb410cc7d42 Mar 12, 2024

Underlying its whole infrastructure was the intention to allow for collaboration, foster compassion and generate creativity

the web was decentralised with a long-tail of content and options, it created small, more localised communities, provided individual empowerment and fostered huge value.

when the web turned 30, I called out some of the dysfunction caused by the web being dominated by the self-interest of several corporations

..in the past decade..From the centralisation of platforms to the AI revolution, the web serves as the foundational layer of our online ecosystem ..

The first is the extent of power concentration, which contradicts the decentralised spirit I originally envisioned. This has segmented the web, with a fight to keep users hooked on one platform to optimise profit through the passive observation of content.

Compounding this issue is the second, the personal data market that has exploited people’s time and data with the creation of deep profiles that allow for targeted advertising and ultimately control over the information people are fed.

Part of the solution is the Solid Protocol, https://solidproject.org/  a specification and a movement to provide each person with their own ‘personal online data store’, known as a POD.

 Why Cities Flood https://www.youtube.com/embed/U70egbUZ2Pg?start=136&end=1036 15 min slide presentation   Dr Priyadarshini Karve Pune River Revival Jun 27, 2024 #riverfront #pune #saverivers
Dr Priyadarshini Karve explains why Indian cities flood, with a little rain. What can we expect in monsoon? Is there a solution