Yogesh Avasthi

By Yogesh Avasthi | Sep 19, 2016,  http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/ahmedabad/cover-story/ACPC-shuts-down-ideas-ki-Pathshala/articleshow/54397050.cms Even as the state prepares for a Vibrant Gujarat Start-up Summit on October 21 and 22 at Mahatma Mandir, Gujarat's biggest technological university (GTU) has lost its start-up space provided by the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC) two years ago. The Student Start-up Support System (S4), run by GTU's Innovation Council, operated from the second floor of the ACPC building before it was forced to vacate the place. On September 3, ACPC officials had barged into the hall and interrupted a design seminar before throwing the students out, those who were attending the seminar have alleged. Since then the students have been without a place to brainstorm and hold meetings. THE IMPORTANCE OF S4 Around 150 students have been working on 35 start-ups here and 256 seminars have already taken

By Yogesh Avasthi | Sep 5, 2016, (Ahmedabad Mirror : http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/ahmedabad/cover-story/Teachers-loss-is-state-Govts-gain/articleshow/54008731.cms The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education has ensured that students from underprivileged backgrounds get the best education in classes 1 to 7 in private schools. But the flip side is: with the increasing number of students shifting from government schools to private ones under RTE, a number of teachers will become surplus. Moreover, fresh recruitment of teachers will also suffer. State education authorities, however, will be a pleased lot. On one hand they have succeeded in meeting the RTE enrolment targets, while on the other they will save three times the money on each student who leaves a government school and goes to a private school under RTE. THE NUMBER CRUNCH There are 1.94 lakh teachers catering to 90 lakh government school children in the state. Of these, 51,681 students were enrolled

By Yogesh Avasthi | Sep 3, 2016 (Ahmedabad Mirror) ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/ahmedabad/cover-story/Who-let-the-dogs-in/articleshow/53986325.cms Nothing compares to their love and loyalty, but dogs romping in college classrooms is anything but therapeutic. At LD Engineering College, street dogs skittering in and out of classrooms make the teachers and the students cringe and causes much commotion during lectures. On Monday, Mirror saw dogs straying into a classroom, sniffing and snarling at the students of mechanical engineering. While it did disturb the class, the nervous professor somehow managed to take the lecture. The classrooms have entry and exit doors facing each other and the strays frequent these quite often. Mirror also spotted canines seated inside the modern controller system lab in the electrical engineering department. Though there are a few animal lovers on campus who can been seen feeding the dogs rotis, these are largely a menace and could be carriers o