Latest news with #FergussonCollege
Hindustan Times
13-07-2025
- General
- Hindustan Times
Fergusson College adds two divisions for FYJC admissions
The School Education and Sports Department has approved two additional Class 11 (FYJC) divisions for the junior college section of Deccan Education Society's Fergusson College, according to principal Dr Shyam Mude. The increase in intake capacity means more students will have the opportunity to opt for Fergusson College. (HT) Fergusson College remains one of the top choices for students who have passed the Class 10 examination in Pune, as well as for those from other districts. With the completion of the first round of FYJC admissions, students are now submitting their preferences for the second round. The increase in intake capacity means more students will have the opportunity to opt for Fergusson College. DD Kumbhar, vice-principal at Fergusson Junior College, said, 'At Fergusson College, admissions are granted solely based on merit. We do not have any other options, such as a management quota. Many students and parents had been requesting additional seats because some students with only slightly lower marks, eg, 94% or 95%, when the cut-off was 96%, were getting rejected despite being bright students.' In Round 1 of Maharashtra's Centralised Admission Process (CAP), Fergusson Junior College recorded the highest cut-offs in Pune city for both the Science and Arts streams. For the science stream, the general category cut-off was 95.9% in the aided section and 95.4% in the unaided section. In the arts stream, the aided category cut-off reached 96.4%. With the latest approval, the college has added a new self-financed (English medium) division in each of the science and arts streams. Fergusson College now offers a total of eight science divisions and four arts divisions, with each new division accommodating 120 students. 'I had selected Fergusson College in CAP Round 1, but couldn't secure admission. I want to pursue Arts, and now that there are four divisions, I'm hopeful about getting a seat in the second round,' said Parag Mahale, an FYJC applicant. FYJC admissions are being conducted through the CAP, and the deadline to finalise preference lists for Round 2 is Sunday, July 13.
Indian Express
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Pune Book Festival to be held from December 13 to 21; Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar venues to be added next year
The third edition of the Pune Book Festival will be held from December 13 to 21 at the Fergusson College campus, National Book Trust (NBT) Director Yuvraj Malik told reporters on Monday. The nine-day event is being organised by NBT, a body under the Union Ministry of Education, in collaboration with Pune Municipal Corporation, Savitribai Phule Pune University, and other local organisations. Malik said that book fests on the lines of those being held in Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik are being planned in cities such as Nashik and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar from next year. He stated that Pune Book Fest will also feature a photography exhibition themed on 'Joy of Reading', and a prize fund of Rs 1 lakh has been earmarked for the winners. Thousands of e-books will be available for download using a scanner at the festival. In 2024, the book fest was held on a grand scale at the Fergusson College grounds with 600 stalls, more than 100 book launches, and the participation of thousands of visitors. It conducted workshops on storytelling, painting, dance, and music. The previous edition saw the participation of over 10 lakh visitors, the sale of 25 lakh books, and a revenue of over Rs 40 crore, said NBT Trustee Rajesh Pande. 'After Delhi, the book festival in Pune is the second best across the whole country. A book festival is not a festival of the NBT, the government, the corporation, or anybody; it is the festival of the people. There is a rich legacy of Marathi literature preservation in Maharashtra,' said Malik. He added that enhancing the quality of the festival is the goal of the organisation. Soham is a Correspondent with the Indian Express in Pune. A journalism graduate, he was a fact-checker before joining the Express. Soham currently covers education and is also interested in civic issues, health, human rights, and politics. ... Read More
Hindustan Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Pune Book Fest 2025 to kick off in Dec at Fergusson
The Pune Book Festival 2025 will be held from December 13 to 21 at Fergusson College under the theme, 'Joy of Reading'. Organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), the festival is part of a nationwide initiative to promote reading culture among the youth. The festival will also provide free access to download 3,000 books and a 'book bus' for touring rural areas around Pune. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC) After the overwhelming response to the previous festivals, Pune now ranks second only to Delhi in terms of book fair popularity. Similar book festivals are now being planned in Nashik and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, following successful events in Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune. Addressing a press conference, Yuvraj Malik, director of NBT, announced that, this time, special awards will be given for outstanding media coverage and impactful photography that supports and promotes reading culture. The festival will also provide free access to download 3,000 books and a 'book bus' for touring rural areas around Pune. Strict measures will be undertaken to check piracy and stealing of books. A special committee will be set up to monitor vendors and uphold copyright norms. Additionally, the NBT plans to organise separate exhibitions for Marathi, Hindi and English books, making the event more diverse.
Time of India
07-07-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Earth's largest camera will sweep the sky like never before
The LSST Camera A top a mountain in Chile, where the days are dry and nights are clear, a team of scientists and engineers is preparing for one of the most important astronomical missions in recent times. Among them is Kshitija Kelkar , whose life has taken an interesting turn. Twenty years ago in Pune, the city she's originally from, Kelkar sent a photo of a lunar eclipse she had taken with a digital camera to Sky and Telescope , a popular astronomy magazine. The publication accepted the photo and released it on its website under 'Photo of the Week'. Inspired, Kelkar would turn astronomy into a career, and after degrees from Fergusson College, Pune University, University of Nottingham and doctoral work on how galaxies transform in their clusters, she arrived in Chile on a grant to use telescopes for her research. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Providers are furious: Internet access without a subscription! Techno Mag Learn More Undo Today, years after that photo she took on a tiny camera, she's an observing specialist at the Vera C Rubin Observatory, looking at the sky through the largest digital camera ever assembled. On June 23, that camera released a set of photos that stunned astronomers. Caught in unprecedented detail were galaxy clusters, distant stars and nebulae. In one photo, the camera — the size of a car with a resolution of 3.2 gigapixels — snapped a nebula around 4,000 light years away. The Rubin observatory could even save Earth. In May, within just 10 hours, it found 2,104 previously undetected asteroids. Since its telescope takes images in quick succession, it's able to catch moving objects from the crowd of stars in the background that tend to stay in place. If even one space rock is headed our way, chances are first alerts would come from Rubin. Humanity does have other powerful telescopes. There's James Webb , for instance, 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth with its own very dark sky. But it's mainly for zooming into specific targets. There's James Webb's predecessor, Hubble, currently in orbit over 500km above Earth. In 1995, it took Hubble nearly a week of long exposure to generate the now-famous Hubble Deep Field image, which showed about 3,000 very distant galaxies. The Rubin Observatory, during its first test run in April, generated an image that revealed 10 million galaxies, in a matter of hours. Part of the reason why it could do that is its very mission. Unlike James Webb and Hubble, which take in small parts of the sky, Rubin is a survey telescope, which means it shows the entire big picture, not specific objects. An image it takes covers a swathe of sky equivalent to 40 full moons — Webb's cameras show a size lesser than a full moon. A single photo from Rubin is so large, one would need 400 ultra-HD TV screens to see it in its full glory. Large is ideal, given Rubin's purpose. Its primary optical instrument, named Simonyi Survey Telescope, is set to embark on a 10-year project called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), to map the visible sky in extraordinary detail. The telescope is more than 300 tonnes of steel and glass, which is regularly cleaned using CO 2 . Over the next decade, this telescope and the giant LSST camera will take photos of the southern hemisphere sky, every 3-4 nights, to create the largest time-lapse film of the Universe ever made. Why time-lapse? Imagine you're on the terrace of your building with a camera pointed at your neighbourhood. Time-lapse would reveal the windows that opened, the lights that came on, the cars and curtains that moved and the doors that opened. Rubin observatory will do that to the Universe, find new objects and previously unknown interactions between them. 'We're going to be continuously taking 30-second images all night in different filters,' said Kelkar. 'And since we'll be observing the night sky every 30 seconds, in two back-to-back images of 15 seconds each, we'll catch any object that has changed its position or brightness.' These objects may be stars, asteroids, unnamed comets and even potential sources of gravitational waves. This is where Kelkar said it would be unfair to compare Earth's telescopes — they're meant to complement each other, not compete. Scientists, amateur astronomers and space enthusiasts the world over can sink their teeth into this data. 'People once thought the Earth was at the centre of the system. But then someone came along and said 'no, it's the Sun'. Similarly, we may find something absolutely mind-boggling, even evidence of life elsewhere,' Arvind Paranjpye, director of Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai, said. Kelkar has been at Rubin for over a year, living in the town of La Serena — a twohour drive away. Her commute to work is through scenic valleys and along the 'El Camino de las Estrellas', or the 'Route to the Stars', because of the number of astronomical observatories along the way. The route also needs light discipline, which means those driving there after dark cannot really use full-beam headlights. 'We usually have our hazard lights up,' said Kelkar. At the observatory, work begins shortly before sunset. After a check of all systems, by Kelkar and the rest of the observing specialists, they open Rubin's massive dome for night operations. The observatory's placement atop the Cerro Pachón mountain puts it well above the localised turbulent layer where warm air mixes with cooler air from above, offering a clear view of the stars. Right now, trials are on as crews perform final checks before Rubin, 20 years in the making with $800 million in construction costs, formally begins its survey later in 2025. The Legacy Survey of Space and Time will be of unprecedented scale. Remember that image Rubin released of 10 million galaxies? Well, they make up just 0.05% of nearly 20 billion galaxies the observatory will have imaged when LSST ends in a decade. Rubin may see millions of distant stars ending in supernovae and into new reaches of our own Milky Way galaxy. Some 10 million alerts to scientists are expected from the observatory every night — whenever a change is detected in the series of photos it takes. Software will automatically compare new images with the stack of older ones. If an object has moved in those photos, flashed, exploded or streaked past, the software will detect the changes and dispatch an alert, all within minutes. There's no other telescope that can do these things — detect real-time changes in the immediate sky and flashes of light from distant objects, and at such scale. In just one year, Rubin observatory will have detected more asteroids than all other telescopes combined. There's more. The Simonyi Survey Telescope, set up on a special mount, is also fast. It can quickly swivel from one wide area of sky to another — within five seconds. Nothing will miss this allseeing eye. Kelkar said word has already been sent out to experts worldwide to investigate the 2,104 newly detected asteroids. 'The telescope will be a game-changer,' she added, 'because we're giving a common dataset for all kinds of science at once. We don't need specialised observations. It's one data for all.' Kelkar was in the control room at La Serena when the first images landed. 'Twenty years of people's professional lives had come down to that moment. We're about to make a 10-year movie of the night sky, with the fastest telescope and the biggest camera ever made. It's going to be fantastic,' she said. LAST WEEK ' S QUICK QUIZ Question on June 30: Challenging the belief that oxygen is produced only through photosynthesis, scientists have found polymetallic nodules deep in the ocean producing oxygen. What's this oxygen called? Answer: It's called 'dark' oxygen Earth's Largest Camera Will Sweep The Sky Like Never Before
Indian Express
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
GURU DUTT @ 100: Granddaughters recall their grandfather's legacy
THE presence of legendary filmmaker Guru Dutt is apparent at the Mumbai home where his daughter-in-law Iffat, the wife of his son, late Arun Dutt, and his granddaughters, Karuna and Gouri, reside. The poster of Pyaasa (1957) hangs in the living room while another wall is adorned with black-and-white family photos featuring Dutt, his singer-wife Geeta Dutt and their children. These images are not mere reminders of the cinematic legacy that the sisters have inherited, they are a celebration of the brilliance of their grandfather and the life he led. 'Though our grandfather, Guru Dutt, has always been a big presence in our lives, this year we are experiencing it more since his birth centenary is coming up on July 9,' says Gouri. While growing up in Pune, they realised the significance of his legacy during their college days; Karuna studied at Fergusson College and Gouri at Nowrosjee Wadia College. 'When we were kids, we were introduced to our grandfather's work by our father. In Pune, we used to have frequent power cuts in the evenings and Dad used to talk about his parents as we waited for the electricity to be restored,' recalls Gouri. Iffat points out that Karuna is more social like her grandmother Geeta Dutt while Gouri is introverted like her father and grandfather. Getting reintroduced to his movies as teenagers had its advantages. 'We were able to look at his work objectively and understand his craft. The film that hit me the most was Pyaasa. But it is Mr & Mrs 55 (1955) that I believe has not got its due appreciation. Even today, it is relevant and entertaining,' says Karuna, while Gouri cites Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) as her favourite. The family moved to Mumbai a few years ago when the sisters started working as film professionals. ALSO READ | Inside Raveena Tandon's Rs 70 crore sea-facing home Neelaya designed as per Vastu Shastra with Nandi and Ganesha statues. See here For the birth centenary, the family has not made any special plans yet. 'We celebrate such family occasions privately. However, we follow the tradition of cooking and feeding the favourite dishes of the deceased family member to birds. This tradition was started by Arun. So, on July 9 we will make simple Mangalorean dishes that Papa loved such as dal chawal and aloo saung (a spicy dish of potatoes and onions),' says Iffat. When they were younger, people assumed that Karuna and Gouri would join the film industry. 'When someone mentioned that, I found it annoying. However, when I was around 18, I wanted to become a film professional. My father, however, was not keen. That was strange because while growing up we were encouraged to explore theatre, singing and dance,' recalls Karuna. She struck a deal with her father that she can pursue a career in films if she is interested in it even after her graduation. When Karuna stuck to her decision, Arun started teaching her filmmaking. Incidentally, from 2010 to 2013, Arun ran Guru Dutt Films Acting Academy in Pune. But he had to close it later due to ill health. He also produced and directed the last film under Guru Dutt Films Private Limited, titled Khule-Aam (1992). ALSO READ | Filmistan Studios, founded by Kajol and Rani Mukerji's grandfather, sold for Rs 183 crore to real estate company Karuna entered the film industry as assistant director no 13 on the sets of That Girl in Yellow Boots (2010) and went on to be associated with several projects such as Ugly (2013), Masaan (2015), Trapped (2016) and Jubilee (2013). Gouri became a volunteer at Prithvi Theatre in 2010. 'I worked on the theatre productions of Manav Kaul and Rangbaaz group. I adapted Albert Camus's novella The Outsider as a play. The first film I worked on was Nitin Kakkar's Ram Singh Charlie (2020),' says Gauri, who was part of Victoria & Abdul (2017), Girls will be Girls (2024) and Tanaav (2024). She was first AD on the last two projects. The Dutt sisters aspire to make their own movies eventually. 'We already have started the process of writing and pitching,' says Karuna. They are clear that their stories and choices will be guided by their interests and the life they have experienced. The influence of Guru Dutt, they expect, will nudge them to achieve perfection in their craft and storytelling.
