New Delhi: In a move likely to irk Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Medical Council of India (MCI) has said compulsory rural posting of doctors was "not feasible" as it would lengthen the medical education course and disturb specialization schedules. Ramadoss had said on Wednesday the government had decided to make one-year combined rural posting mandatory for doctors seeking post-graduation from the next academic session.

Despite slogging it out and shelling out huge fees, the slowdown has forced management and engineering graduates to abandon their hopes of getting jobs that match their qualifications.

"Students from Tier II, III, IV colleges have no choice but to look for low-end jobs like website designing, content designing, customer service agents and tele-sales agents, which may pay Rs 2-3lakh," says Bhupesh Gupta, business manager at Bangalore-based recruitment company CareerNet Consulting.

Like Manoj, MBA student Vinayak K is panicking with each passing day.

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education organises demos, experiments

For Ashutosh Sistla, a class VI student of Atomic Energy Central School (AECS)-II, seeing an actual brain on display was the most "fascinating" aspect of the open house programme organised by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Mankhurd, on Friday.

"You only get to learn about the human brain in textbooks. But seeing an actual brain and also getting to touch it is the most fascinating thing I've done here," said Sistla.

The state has finally succeeded in getting an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

The Central government has agreed to sanction one IIT to the state in the 2009-10 plans.

In a recent meeting with the Planning Commission, the state secretary for higher education had raised the issue. After an hour-long discussion, the Planning Commission agreed in principle to sanction an IIT for Karnataka.

"The officials of the Planning Commission have agreed in principle to give one IIT to the state and they will announce it after the Lok Sabha elections," said AS Srikantha, principal secretary, department of higher education.

Various institutions in the city have made elaborate preparations to celebrate the National Science Day on Saturday.

The day is celebrated every year on February 28 to commemorate the Raman's effect discovered by India's ace scientist CV Raman in 1928.

The National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Metereology (IITM) however celebrated the National Science Day on Friday itself.

At the Nutan Marathi Vidyayala (girls), school authorities said the entire week has been devoted to the promotion and understanding of science.

Principal Madhura Kulkarni said, "Starting with a science quiz for the students of standard VI and VII on Tuesday, we also had a lectures by experts."

The second day of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams was marked by minor issues at several centres across the city. While most of the students were happy to find an easy question paper for English, some of them had trivial grievances.

Question papers delayed

Examinees from a centre in Mulund were harried when the question papers did not reach the centre 10 minutes past 11 am. The papers finally reached Vani Vidyalay, a centre in Mulund, at 11.10 pm. There was a lot of chaos initially, but the board ensured that students get extra 10 minutes.