A College Reaching Out to Society

The article is based on the study of nutritional status of girl students attending an Urban College in Kolkata, India. Their nutritional status was evaluated through their food chart, weight and height measurement, their family socio-economic condition and female nutritional condition under disproportionate male female ratio present in the family. The data collection was made through direct interaction and also through questionnaire containing information sheet to learn the regular diet chart of the respondents, number of members in the family and family income. The arrangement for occasional and need based involvement of medical practitioner was made to investigate significant cases of special nature. The overall aim of the research was to set up a cue to the family socio-economic condition and its correlation with women nutritional position. The data collection method was innovative because it was conducted following parallel interaction method through students to students interaction in the class room situation. The data collectors included the girl students from Human Rights Cell, and the respondents included the willing girl students from the basic streams. The method of information gathering was evolved through direct interaction and also through questionnaire. The research aimed at imbibing nutritional awareness along with the nutritional analysis of the students (both the investigators and the investigated) through interaction and through discussion awareness. The awareness part aimed to inform the young women about their nutritional position and the need for their better nutritional condition as the future mothers. The uniqueness of the program includes data collection and information dissemination through peer group interaction. The overall outcome was to reach out to the women students with low cost nutritional chart and awareness against junk food with fitness diet chart prescribed by the medical practitioner. As a Best Practice Measure, the proposed research cum nutritional awareness program aimed to adopt corrective and remedial measure for students` general health. To find out the causes and consequences of sudden illness (attack of pain, fits and other ailments) as an outcome of nutritional deficiency detected among them through nutrition study and general health trend as observed from daily incidence. The overall aim of the nutritional study was to aware the students regarding their rights to stay healthy and receive proper attention of their nutritional condition as a matter of their rights. The overall aim of the study is to help the young women to stay healthy as a matter of their rights...

Sericulture Industry

India has a huge potential for sericulture development unlike other agro industries since sericulture is a unique agro-based industry comprising of several components such as mulberry cultivation, silkworm rearing, silk reeling and other connected activities. Each of these components appear to be independent but closely linked with one another having intricacies of their own. The major activities of these components comprises of mulberry food-plant cultivation to feed the silkworms which spin silk cocoons and reeling the cocoons for unwinding the silk filament for manufacturing silk goods, subjecting them to the process of degumming, bleaching, dyeing, weaving and printing. Thus sericulture industry provides employment to approximately 7.85 million in rural and semi urban areas in India. Of these, a sizeable number belongs to the economically weaker sections of the society, including women. In addition to this, India has the unique credibility of producing all the five known commercial silk viz., mulberry, tropical tasar, oak tasar, eri and muga of which muga with its golden yellow glitter is unique and prerogative of India. Though silk is a luxury item, it is produced by the rural populace and purchased by urban rich, causing money to flow from urban to rural. It also prevents rural people to migrate to urban areas. The United Nation's recent endeavor “Millennium Development Goals” has an eight point programme to make our earth more healthy wealthy and free from inequalities by 2015. Sericulture being a rural and women friendly business aligns well with many of these ideas which are explained in detail in the chapter.

Image Processing

This chapter gives an introductory to intermediate level text on the science of image processing. It employs the Matlab programming language to illustrate some of the elementary key concepts in modern image processing and pattern recognition. The approach taken is essentially practical and the chapter offers a framework within which the concepts can be understood by a series of well-chosen examples, exercises and computer experiments, drawing on specific examples from within science, medicine and engineering. Particularly, the modern applications such as agriculture, aquaculture, food industrial analysis and Hyperspectral images analysis are discussed in this chapter with illustrations using Matlab.

ICT-Based Outreach Programs

To meet the increased demand of speech and hearing professionals in the rural areas of the country, All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru started a diploma level program through virtual class rooms connecting AIISH, Mysuru to 11 centres geographically distributed across the country. Being a clinical program, conventional distance learning models were not feasible. The feasible solution was to implement virtual class rooms in these 11 centres where the classes conducted by the experienced faculty at AIISH, Mysuru will be delivered live. The efficacy of the program was analyzed through a survey among the students, which showed positive results. The technology implemented is robust considering its successful operation for the past eight years and hence can be considered as a model for outreach programs with similar objectives. This chapter describes the technological aspects of this model, its implementation and the key factors leading to its success.

“Bottom of the Pyramid” Community Outreach Programs

Public universities in Malaysia have recently established additional administrative divisions called the Industry and Community Network (ICN). In its various forms as manifested through different higher learning institutions, ICN seeks to engage with the industry and community towards achieving sustainable development and transformation of the economy, culture, education, health and environment of the society and nation. Diverse approaches are henceforth being promoted in developing communities surrounding the ivory towers. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), as the second oldest university in Malaysia which was accorded the APEX (Accelerated Program of Excellence) status by the government in 2008, has launched Community Outreach Programs (COPs) towards realizing goals of its ICN. Employing primary data from in-house publications of the ICN Division of USM, this chapter seeks to shed some light on the role and impact of COPs conducted under the auspices of USM's ICN, covering the years 2008-2014.In line with its quest towards the accomplishing the ideal of a humanized university or ‘humaniversity' that not only focuses on academic excellence but also contributes to the development and well-being of its surrounding community, USM's ICN has embarked on a series of ambitious COP projects.

Intellectual Property Rights on Traditional Knowledge and their Significance in Sustainable Societal Development

Rich biodiversity and equally rich cultural heritages are the two invaluable assets of most of the Third World Counties (TWC). Biogenetic resources are the primary source of valuable genes, chemicals, drugs, pharmaceuticals, natural dyes, gums, resins, enzymes or proteins of great health, nutritional and economic importance. Biodiversity regulates and maintains overall health of the life support systems on earth and is the source from which human race derives food, fodder, fuel, fibre, shelter, medicine and raw material for meeting his other multifarious needs and industrial goods required for the ever changing and ever increasing needs and aspirations. TWC members are still at the receiving end as far as the development of special value added products and herbal technologies are concerned. The developed countries, on the other hand, are emerging as super powers with their biotechnological strength. IPRs emerged strongly during the industrial revolution and it has been an important driving force behind rapid industrial growth and prosperity of the Western countries during the last 3 centuries. Nowadays Access and Benefit Sharing issues have become a central theme for subsequent detailed discussions and decision making under CBD, TRIPS and the WIPO. It is therefore increasingly urgent for the CBD to make ABS work as was intended. The entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol represents a step in this direction. In India, we can be proud of having the distinction of the first country in experimenting a benefit-sharing model that implemented in Letter and Spirit Article 8(j) of CBD.

Collaborative Outreach by Industries to Promote Education and Employment Leading to Regional Development

India is the third largest country in the higher education space with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. There is clear gap between academic deliverables and expectation from the employers and industries. Experimentation based learning is not leveraging actual knowledge as the process based learning happens while the candidate is on the job. The current employment greatly depends on the industry, academia, research and government sectors. To gain an entry in to each of these segments, the candidates need skillsets ranging from strong technical background, aptitude, communication skills, and working in teams. There are multiple ways through which the skill building is carried out by independent, government and industrial organizations. As an ecosystem, both academia and the industries should step forward to bridge the gap and utilize the human potential to the fullest to drive the growth of each industrial sector andthe region at large. This chapter outlines the outreach of industries through initiatives to bridge the gap between the academia and industry to promote regional growth. The opportunities, the gap that exists, various initiatives are discussed in detail.

Social Science Education and Outreach as a Tool for Regional Development and Institutional Building

The purpose of this Chapter is to delineate how Outreach of Social Science Education can become meaningful for Institution building as well as for society. The case of how an aided college in India run by private management facing the perils of post liberalization adjustments in governance and funding for higher education is able to create social relevance in its existence. The main factors that make outreach possible is the values of social commitment among the faculty and students. It shows that formative attitudes for such outreach, its implementation and monitoring through specified pedagogical perspectives, play a major role in bringing out effective development in the region causing institution building. The challenges and constraints embedded in its growth were no impediments to the institution being accredited as the best in the category for Arts and Science Colleges in India.

Metabolic Syndrome Challenges and Opportunities in the Indian Scenario

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) refers to clustering of lipid abnormalities and insulin resistance in an individual. Its increasing prevalence in children and adolescents can be curbed by generating pertinent awareness among students at educational institutions regarding importance of BMI, nutritional content of food, food habits etc. Its prevalence is reported to vary according to racial and ethnic groups urging the need for focused studies by educational institutions on the risk factors relevant to the Indian population. Universities can also aim at introducing information regarding lifestyle interventions, plan outreach programs to ingrain the information not only in the student population but also the society as a whole. In this book chapter, we propose to review literature which will help in identifying areas that need immediate attention, possible implementation strategies in the education system along with the efforts of our lab towards understanding the etiology of this epidemic.

Strategizing the Role of Local Actors to Enhance Outreach

The reach of open universities in any society can be gauged by how well their practitioners are able to sense the information needs of their prospective clientele and put in place responsive information and guidance systems. The Open Universities in developing countries face a challenging situation to create such information services because their prospective clientele are too vulnerable, live mostly in geographically inaccessible areas and are nearly cut off from traditional systems of information dissemination. It's due to this reason that the Indian open universities have long been trying to explore innovative ways of community sensitization. India offers a challenging situation primarily due to its diverse socioeconomic and cultural settings. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), having jurisdiction over the entire country, has to face this heterogeneity while planning out its programmes and policies. During three decades of its existence, IGNOU has been using variety of strategies to sensitize the people, enroll them and provide support services right at their doorsteps. However despite the overwhelming response from urban areas, the participation of disadvantaged communities living in deep rural interiors is still a major cause of concern in the university. This chapter critically reviews the issues involved in community sensitization and seeks to evolve a roadmap to reach communities, cut off from the mainstream. The need for information and guidance services has been described in detail. The author's engagements with socioeconomically disadvantaged communities of Madhya Pradesh (India) have been described. The analysis presented here helps to evolve new paradigms for involvement of local actors and gives the recommendations for successful implementation of outreach programmes. Lessons learnt out of such experimentations will be crucially important to implement India's ambitious University's Outreach Programme called “Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan”.