Physics, Chemistry and Maths important but not compulsory for certain engineering courses: AICTE
New Delhi, Mar 12: Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics will continue to be important subjects in engineering courses and it is not mandatory for state government or institutions to offer these courses to students who have not studied them in class 12, the AICTE said on Friday.
Addressing a press conference, AICTE chairperson Anil Sahasrabudhe also said students opting for streams like Biotechnology, Textile or Agriculture Engineering will have an option to not study these subjects in class 12.
The clarification by Sahasrabudhe came following news reports about Physics and Mathematics no longer being compulsory for studying engineering as per the approval handbook for 2021-22 issued by the AICTE.
"Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics will continue to be important subjects for certain streams of engineering like mechanical engineering, it's not that these subjects will lose their relevance. However, for streams like Textile Engineering, Agriculture or may be Biotechnology, students will have an option of not studying the three subjects compulsorily in class 12 and make up for them through bridge courses later," Sahasrabudhe said.
In its revised rules aligned as per reforms proposed in the new National Education Policy (NEP), the technical regulator has given a list of 14 subjects - Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Electronics, Information Technology, Biology, Informatics Practices, Biotechnology, Technical Vocational subject, Engineering Graphics, Business Studies, Entrepreneurship.
Students need to pass in any three subjects (from the list) with a minimum of 45 per cent marks in class 12 board examination to be able to apply for admission in undergraduate courses in engineering, according to the revised rules of the All India Council for Technical Education.
"Universities will offer suitable bridge courses such as Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Drawing, for students coming from diverse backgrounds to achieve desired learning outcome of the programme," the AICTE provides in the Approval Process Handbook 2021-22.
According to Sahasrabudhe, the new Approval Process Handbook 2021-22 has been changed to remove the restrictions of the previous rules incase there are states or universities that want to open up "on the lines of the NEP".
"There was a very classic case which came up this year during admission into an Agricultural Engineering or Agricultural Technology course where Physics, Chemistry and Maths (PCM) are mandatory. Now, in open schooling and the CBSE there are subjects like Agricultural Chemistry. However, these institutes are only accepting pure chemistry," said Sahasrabudhe, while highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary approach.
However, the chairperson reiterated that it is not mandatory for states or institutions to change their current mandatory preference of PCM for admission to engineering courses.
"While opening up the window, it is not mandatory to any of the states or universities that they must admit students from any of the three courses or 10 or 12 have listed there.
"Universities and the state governments may continue to have the same three subjects of Maths, Physics and Chemistry, as mandatory. This is purely a window of opportunity which is open, but not restricting, or forcing or making it mandatory that any three subjects can and should be allowed," said Sahasrabudhe.
On offering engineering courses in mother tongue, the AICTE cited its survey recently where 42 per cent of the current second, third and fourth year engineering students said that they would prefer to pursue their course in mother tongue had there been an opportunity.
"No one is being forced. This is an opportunity created and not being imposed. We have this misgiving that we all have to do our engineering in our mother tongue. But also think of those who wanted to pursue in their mother tongue have deprived them of this opportunity till now? We conducted a survey on students who are already in second, third and fourth year. They have already learnt their science subjects in English.
"And, it is not the Hindi speaking students, but majority students from Tamil Nadu said had they got an opportunity they would have studied in Tamil. Second was in Hindi, third was Telugu, fourth was Marathi and fifth was Kannada," he stated.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
