Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam was conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Law on Wednesday at the convocation ceremony of Kurukshetra University. Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was also conferred Doctor of Law degree in the presence of President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday.
The degrees were conferred by chancellor of the university Jagannath Pahadia, who is also the governor of Haryana. The degree has been conferred upon Dr Ramgoolam in recognition of his many achievements.
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Airbus deal: CBI TURNS down ministry request
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, FEB. 8
The CBI has reportedly turned down a request by the civil aviation ministry for reconsidering action against six officials for alleged irregularities in the over `8,000-crore Airbus deal for supplying 43 aircraft to erstwhile Indian Airlines in 2005.
The agency had approached the ministry in November 20, 2012, seeking sanction to prosecute six of its officials for the alleged irregularities but the ministry had written back to the probe agency asking it to reconsider, sources said.
However, recently the CBI wrote back to the aviation ministry saying that it stuck to its findings.
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Centre mulls faculty development centres
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, FEB. 8
The government has proposed to establish 20 Faculty Development Centres to improve training of university teachers across the country.
The proposed development centres will be mandated to offer discipline wise, specific refresher programmes and ICT-linked teaching-learning-research training programmes which will continuously engage teachers in updating them.
The proposal states that the identification of universities for establishing such centres should be on the basis of the infrastructure developed, past record and the strength of universities in various disciplines.
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Congress told to withdraw naveen cartoon
Bhubaneswar, Feb. 8: Orissa’s State Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday directed the Opposition Congress to withdraw certain objectionable matters from its manifesto released in view of the three-tire panchayat polls, official sources said.
The SEC’s order in this regard came in response to the ruling BJD’s complaint against the Congress’s manifesto which projected the chief minister Naveen Patnaik and the party president as a “ten-headed demon”.
The Congress manifesto also made charges against 14 ministers and dubbed them as “tainted”. The manifesto narrated the BJD government in poor light.
After hearing arguments of both the side on Tuesday, SEC A.K. Tripathy asked removal of the objectionable materials from the manifesto immediately or re-print the same.
While the BJD welcomed the SEC’s order, the Congress termed it as “partisan.” — PTI


