College to hold seminar on declining sex ratio

PATNA: Sri Arvind Mahila College principal Asha Singh on Wednesday said even as India's sex ratio is alarming (it has declined from 976 females for every 1,000 males in 1961 to 914 in 2011), very little is being done to improve the situation. The steady decline in the sex ratio suggests that marked improvement in the economy and literacy rates do not seem to have had any impact on this index, she said.
"In fact, the availability of new technology and its easy access to the urban, wealthy and educated have worsened the trend and harmed the status of women in Indian society. The major barrier to mainstreaming gender justice and scaling up effective interventions is gender inequality based on socio-cultural issues. The systematic discrimination of girls and women needs to be tackled if interventions have to work," Singh observed. She pleaded for a threadbare discussion on this sensitive issue.
With a view to finding ways and means for improving the sex ratio, the college has organized a two-day UGC-sponsored national seminar on "Social and economic impact of declining female-male sex ratio" on December 17 and 18. Nagaland governor Nikhil Kumar will inaugurate the seminar and film star and parliamentarian Shatrughna Sinha will be the chief guest. Eminent social scientists and bureaucrats from different parts of the country, including Sanjay Guha from IIT, Kharagpur, Samanto Ray from Bhubaneswar, Sanjay Kumar, IAS, and Vandana Kinni, IAS, would be addressing the seminar. Bihar State Planning Board vice-chairman Hari Kishore Singh will deliver the valedictory address, Singh added.
NITP placement: As many as 10 students of mechanical engineering branch of NIT Patna were selected for jobs by BPCL on the basis of campus interview here on Wednesday. They will be placed at an annual package of Rs 10 lakh.
Geography seminar: Patna University (PU) geography department has organized a daylong seminar on 'Working for peaceful coexistence and a just world in the context of Bihar and its people' here on Thursday. PU pro-VC J P Singh will inaugurate the seminar and former VC L N Ram will be the chief guest. Magadh University's former VC Shamshad Hussain will deliver the keynote address, said PU geography department head Ras Bihari Prasad Singh.