PU plagiarism | Punjab class 5 and 8 result

PU professor sacked over plagiarism
Lahore, Apr 05: The Punjab University (PU) syndicate on Saturday, confirming plagiarism charges against the varsity's Institute of Chemistry Prof Dr Zaid Mahmood, penalised him with forced retirement under the PEEDA Act. 

The syndicate also granted ex-post facto permission for re-consideration of an appeal of Abdul Qadir Gilani, son of former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, for restoration of his BA result quashed due to an unfair mean case (UMC).

The decisions were taken in the 1706th meeting of the PU syndicate presided over by Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran. In the last meeting, the syndicate had decided to serve a show-cause notice on Dr Zaid Mahmood under the PEEDA Act and gave him an opportunity of personal hearing in the next meeting, held on Saturday.

Dr Zaid Mahmood appeared before the syndicate members in person on Saturday but it is learnt he could not defend his case. Later, the syndicate, after analysing the relevant record, found that Dr Zaid had plagiarised research articles and decided to penalise him with forced retirement.

However, according to sources, one of the syndicate members, Dr Asmatullah, recorded his dissent note claiming that under the existing rules and policy of both Higher Education Commission (HEC) and PU itself on plagiarism, Dr Zaid's research work could not be termed plagiarised. It is learnt Dr Asmatullah would submit a written dissent note soon, probably on Monday.

Dr Zaid had been claiming that his research papers were published before 2007 and therefore they could not be made a subject of the inquiry as per the HEC's plagiarism policy. The plagiarism issue had been discussed at length in the last five meetings of the PU syndicate.

In 2011, a professor of Institute of Chemistry had filed a complaint against Dr Zaid alleging him that he had plagiarised research articles. An inquiry committee, consisting of Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) Department of Chemistry Chairperson Dr Bushra, DPI Colleges Dr Jaleel and former PU Additional Registrar Prof Dr Aurangzeb Alamgir, compared original sources and Dr Zaid's research papers and found that most of the material was plagiarised.

The PU syndicate also granted ex post facto approval to an independent disciplinary committee, constituted in 2010, and its recommendations. The committee was constituted to hear appeals of candidates against decisions of the unfair means cases (UMCs) committee.

Moreover, the syndicate approved holding a new inquiry into Gilani's case to review other allegations. The syndicate approved the proceedings of the Academic Council and Finance and Planning Committee. The meeting also approved vice chancellor's 17 orders issued using his anticipatory powers under Section 15(3) of the PU Act 1973 regarding appointment of various heads of departments. The news

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Member questions PU Syndicate's credibility in plagiarism case
Lahore: Punjab University Syndicate member Dr Asmatullah has challenged the body's decision of handing down a major penalty of forced retirement to Institute of Chemistry's Prof Dr Zaid Mahmood in a plagiarism case, asserting that the accused has been punished for a crime he did not commit.

"This has raised many questions on the credibility of the Syndicate," he observed.

Dr Asmatullah, in his note of dissent submitted to the vice chancellor's office on Monday, stated the accused had appeared before the Syndicate in person and explained his case duly endorsed with relevant documents and "none of the Syndicate members dared cross-examine him".

Four Syndicate members, Justice Mazahar Ali Naqvi, PEEF Vice President Dr Amjad Saqib, Higher Education Commission representative Rozina Alam Khan and MPA Majid Zahoor, were not present in the meeting.

The Higher Education Department's deputy secretary had attended the meeting in place of the additional secretary (academics).

The governor's nominee Raghib Naeemi attended the meeting even though his tenure had expired.

He said he was attending on the invitation of the university establishment. "The PU establishment has assured me that I can attend the meeting by law till a new nominee is notified," he added.

Requesting the Syndicate revisit its decision taken in its 1,706th meeting on March 29, Dr Asmatullah observed the verdict against the accused had been announced without valid/legal grounds, as justice and fair play demanded a regular inquiry under the law be conducted first.

The matter should proceed further only after holding a regular inquiry strictly in accordance with the Higher Education Commission plagiarism policy, he said.

The Syndicate member said Prof Mahmood had challenged in the Lahore High Court an unlawful plagiarism inquiry initiated against him by the Punjab University on two of his research papers in 2011. The court in its Nov 20, 2013 decision had ordered that "the impugned show-cause notice dated Aug 13, 2011 shall be deemed to be ineffective as it stands disowned by the university".

In the light of the plagiarism evaluation report prepared by the PU Main Library using purpose-built software 'Turnitin', he stated the allegation of plagiarism levelled against the accused was "baseless" as the similarity index stood at 11pc and 15pc, which was "very much within the acceptable limits" given by the HEC and approved by the PU Syndicate.

He said the allegedly plagiarised two research papers had been published before 2007 and could not be subjected to an inquiry as per HEC policy.

Dr Asmatullah stated it was on record that the university administration, after a decision on a writ petition, had placed the case of Prof Mahmood in its 1,702nd Syndicate meeting on Nov 23, 2013 for seeking permission to conduct an inquiry against him.

The Syndicate "granted approval to conduct a regular inquiry" and minutes of the meeting were confirmed by the Syndicate in its next meeting on Jan 4 this year.

But he alleged that the PU administration had distorted facts and wrongly stated that the "inquiry committee after an inquiry has submitted its report/recommendation" in the 1,705th Syndicate meeting held on Feb 1.

In fact, he stated, no inquiry had been conducted and no fresh notice served to the accused for seeking his opinion.

He said the Syndicate could not make an informed decision because proper facts were not placed before the Syndicate.

"Bringing the old inquiry report of Nov 16, 2011 on the agenda of 1,705th meeting of the Syndicate was itself a sheer violation of Syndicate decision taken in the 1,702nd meeting and also tantamount to flouting the order of the LHC."

Dr Asmatullah also brought on record that Prof Mahmood was in litigation with Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran on the issue of fake bachelors degree of former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's son Abdul Qadir Gilani.

The VC had left the Syndicate's Feb 1 meeting when Prof Mahmood's plagiarism case was taken up. However, Prof Kamran continued chairing the latest Syndicate meeting, which took a decision against the accused.

PU Registrar Prof Dr Amin Athar, who is secretary to the Syndicate and had attended the 1,706th Syndicate meeting on March 29, did not respond to phone calls or messages. Dawn

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Over 30,000 books sold at PU fair
Lahore: A large number of people from different walks of life, including students, writers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and journalists, visited Punjab University's book fair on its second day on Friday.

According to organisers, over 30,000 books were sold on the first day of Pakistan's largest book fair.

On the second day, a large number of children, senior citizens and special persons were also seen visiting book stalls and visitors were found taking maximum benefit of concessions on books.

Talking to media while visiting the book fair, PU Vice Chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran said knowledge was a must for the development and prosperity. He said only those nations were wealthy and developed who were knowledgeable. He said parents must attract their children towards books. He said the purpose of book fair being organised by the administration was to provide books of all kinds on concession rates under one roof.

Senior journalist Atta-ur-Rehman, during his visit with the Vice Chancellor, said it was obligation for all the Muslims to gain knowledge. He said it was a matter of pleasure that PU administration had provided a good chance to book lovers. He said the provision of books on low rates was a source to attract people towards books and he was happy to see a great number of people at book fair.

The visitors of the book fair said they were thankful to PU administration for providing varieties of books on reasonable prices which would help promote study culture in society. They also lauded the security and sanitation arrangements. Many visitors were of the view that such activities must be organised continuously in all the universities so that people could purchase maximum books on discounted prices.

The book fair will continue on Saturday (today) till 8:00pm. As per tradition, a large number of families are likely to throng the book fair on the concluding day.

Meanwhile, Jamat-e-Islami (JI) leader Liaqat Baloch also visited the PU book fair and a large number of Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) activists were present there to receive him who also chanted slogans.

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Five PhDs awarded
Lahore: Punjab University (PU) on Tuesday awarded PhD degrees to five scholars in different subjects.

According to a press release, Hamood-ur-Rehman s/o Muhammad Ajmal Khan has been awarded a PhD degree in the subject of Mathematics after the approval of his thesis titled "Use of Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Functions to Solve Boundary Value Problems", Rana Zahid Mahmood s/o Rana Abdus Salam in the subject of Islamic Studies after the approval of his thesis titled "Seerat-u-Nabi and Barre-Saghir Ka Tafseeri Adab...Tehqiq-o-Taqabli Mutala", Abdul Haleem s/o Abdul Hameed in the subject of Medicine (Community Dentistry) after the approval of his thesis titled "School Based Strategies for Oral Health Education and Examination of Adolescents ", Sumaira Aslam d/o Muhammad Aslam in the subject of Zoology after the approval of her thesis titled "Bacteria of Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles from a Chromium Influenced Area for Rehabilitating Contaminated Soils" and Shahla Nargis Mir d/o Sultan Mehmood Mir in the subject of Molecular Biology after the approval of her thesis titled "Association Between Milk Protein Polymorphism and Milk Production Traits in Sahiwal Cattle". The news

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PU ICS students' week began
Lahore: Provincial Minister for Education and Sports Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan will inaugurate the Students' Week 2014 at the Punjab University's Institute of Communication Studies today (Monday). Sports DG Usman Anwar, PU VC Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran, PU Director (Sports) Syed Mansoor Sarwar and Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences Dean Prof Dr Zakriya Zakir will be among other guests. The students' week will include debates in English, Urdu and Punjabi on 'Media Sensationalism Vs Responsibility', 'Andaz-e-bayan rang badal dayta hai' and 'Global Village tay sahafi banan walay munday kuriyan'. Apart from debates, a sports gala, qirat and naat competition and cultural day will also be organised. The cultural day will include stall decoration, national song singing competition, street theatre and fancy dress competition in which students will dress in accordance with different cultures. The sports will include competition and matches of cricket, football, table tennis, badminton, chess, luddo, tug of war and other races. The students are showing great enthusiasm for the event and a large number of students are getting registered for the games. The student's week will end on April 4, 2014. Daily times

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Class V, VIII results declared
Lahore: The Punjab Examination Commission on Monday declared the results of Class-V and VIII annual examinations for 2014 showing 55.95 per cent and 76.83pc results, respectively.

In Class-V examination, as many as 1,378,800 candidates appeared out of whom 756,536 were declared successful showing a pass percentage of 55.95.

The PEC has, however, promoted 82pc students to Class-VI on the basis of 20pc marks in all subjects.

In Class-VIII examination, as many as 1,085,777 candidates appeared out of whom 815,860 candidates were declared successful showing a pass percentage of 76.83. Dawn

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Private campuses notch up top positions
Lahore: The students of private schools from Muzaffargarh and Gujranwala districts outshined others as they bagged overall top positions in grade-5 and grade-8 Annual Examinations 2014.

Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) announced the results on Monday evening according to which the overall pass percentage in Class-5 is 59.9 percent while that of Class-8 is 76.83 percent.

Over two million students had appeared in both the exams, conducted by the PEC on uniform basis across the province in February this year. The Commission was supposed to announce the result on Monday morning however it failed and the result was uploaded on the PEC website http://www.pec.edu.pk/ around 7:00pm.

All day the candidates and their parents remained worried and confused about their fate despite visiting their respective schools and offices of district education authorities. Later in the evening when the result was uploaded on the Commission's website, it also remained chocked for quite sometime owing to heavy load of visitors. This added to the miseries of already suffering innocent students and their parents. Sources in the EDO Education and DPI (Elementary) offices said that, apart from telephone calls, a large number of students accompanied by their parents kept visiting these offices on Monday morning to know about their results but to no avail.

The overall first position in garde-5 examination was shared by three students including Muhammad Kamran of Muzaffargarh, Sobia of Nankana Sahib and M Kumail of Lodhran, each securing 490 marks.

The second position was also shared by three students of Muzaffargarh including Mohsin Safdar, Samiullah and Osama Anees who secured 489 marks each. The third position was clinched by Shoaib Akbar of Muzaffargarh with 488 marks.

The overall first position in garde-8 was bagged by Mahnoor of Gujranwala with 498 marks, Shafeen Bashir Butt of Gujranwala clinched second position with 497 marks while Waleed Ashiq of Muzaffargarh bagged the third position with 496 marks.

In Lahore, Nimra Ali, a student of a public school bagged first position in grade-5 exam with 463 marks, Amna Shafqat second with 452 marks and M Muzzammil third with 449 marks. In grade-8 examination, from Lahore, a private student Fatima Zahra bagged first position with 481 marks, Syed Muhammad second with 478 marks and Muhammad Osama third with 469 marks. The grade-5 and 8 exams were held in February this year and during both exams there were reports of leakage of question papers which caused great embarrassment to the PEC and the Punjab government. The PEC management had to cancel paper of mathematics of grade-8 at the eleventh hour on February 14 following reports of leakage of the question paper while a question paper of grade-5 was also reportedly leaked on February 10.

PEC Chief Executive Officer Nasir Iqbal Malik said the Commission had not announced that it would declare the result on Monday morning. He said it was really a challenging task to declare the result of these huge examinations in such a limited time. He said now the districts had also been provided with result CDs and the result gazette.

The PEC chief executive officer (CEO), confirming the overall pass percentage and names of the higher achievers, said 33 percent was set as a benchmark for qualifying the exams.

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Over 1,000 Punjab teachers unpaid for seven months
Islamabad: The Punjab government which has billions to spend on youth festivals but has very little for education and over thousands of temporary lecturers running the higher education system of the province have not been paid their salaries for the last seven months. 

In order to overcome the shortage of teaching staff in the public sector colleges of the province the Punjab government recruited fresh graduates from the province as a stopgap arrangement. However the Punjab government has failed to pay these more than 1000 teachers for last seven months. Not only this, but the government repeated the same exercise last year and paid their salary (stipend) after six months.

A well-placed source in Punjab's Higher Education Ministry informed that not only this year but 293 interns of previous year's programme are yet to be paid. Majority of them then went to court so that they could get their salaries.

When contacted the secretary Ministry of Higher Education referred to contact deputy secretary budget of the ministry.Deputy Secretary Budget Khalid Bashir confirmed that payments of these interns have been delayed however a summary has already been approved.

"We have sent summary of Rs500 million to Finance Ministry in order to pay the salaries of these interns and hopefully the ministry would approve it in a day or two," said Mr Khalid.The source further informed that the programme since its beginning was controversial as the local political leadership has directly been involved in the process of recruitment as got their closed one appointed as CTIs.

The official further informed that Punjab government normally has the reputation of following the rules in regular recruitment. However the recruitment of CTIs has been made on political basis and local political leaders and MPs of ruling party have forcefully inducted their closed one as CTIs.

Initially the government had planned that these interns would work against vacant posts including those of lecturers and assistant professors in different colleges across the province. The basic qualification required for CTIs was set as Masters degree while both male and female teachers were hired.

Last time the government recruited almost 3000 lecturers in June 2012 and currently almost 4000 seats of lecturers are vacant but the government is running the affairs through these interns.

It is pertinent to mention here that, before last two years the Ministry of Higher Education had appointed around 2,000 Honorary Teaching Assistants (HTAs) against a monthly salary (stipend) of Rs8,000. The HTAs had to face great trouble as most of them were paid after three or four months.

The term HTA was taken wrongly because many of the interns were shifted to school for the teaching purpose. However, this term HTAs was replaced with College Teaching Interns (CTIs) to make it clear that the candidates belonged to colleges only.

Besides non-payment of the salaries these CTIs initially had to face agitation from the regular staff of the colleges concerned as none of them welcomed them warmly. Initially the principals of most of the colleges refused to give them any slot and did not allow them to deliver any lecture however upon the clear cut instruction of the provincial government they were adjusted. The news

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Adult literacy rate increases to 57pc
Islamabad: Pakistan's adult literacy rate has increased to 57 per cent in 2012-13 from 55pc in the previous year.

The adult literacy rate is based on 15-year plus age group. It is on lower side in women all over the country with few exceptions of major cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. It is highest in Punjab with 50pc and lowest in Balochistan with 18pc.

These are the findings of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2012-13 conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

The survey covered 75,520 households all over the country.

The adult literacy rate in Islamabad is 84pc. Karachi with 81pc has highest among districts and Kohlu with 8pc lowest.The literacy level of population in age group of 10 years and above has risen to 60pc from 58pc during the year under review. Literacy remains much higher in urban areas than in rural areas and much higher in men than in women.

Punjab with 62pc has the highest literacy level and Balochistan with 44pc the lowest. Islamabad with 86pc and Rawalpindi and Karachi with 82pc are on the higher side. Dera Bugti with 16pc has the lowest literacy rate in this category.

The net enrolment rate (NER) for primary schools (age 5-9) at national level has increased marginally to 57pc from 56pc. Punjab leads with 62pc and Balochistan with 45pc has the lowest rate.

The NER in Islamabad was recorded at 82pc. At the district level, Chakwal with 83pc is at the top and Dera Bugti with 9pc is at the bottom. Dawn

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PhD awarded
Lahore: University of Education has awarded a PhD degree to Abida Batool, D/O Muhammad Ali, after the approval of her thesis in the subject of Urdu. Her thesis entitled "Urdu Classiki Shaeri Ki Tadveen Ka Fun AurTadveen-e-Nau." The news

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UET student arrested for injuring watchman
Kohat: A clash between the students of Kohat campus of the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Peshawar, and class-IV employees landed a watchman in hospital on Monday.

A student of the final year of civil engineering department, Noor Islam, was handed over to Saddar police and a case was registered against him for beating watchman, Farhan, whose condition was stated to be serious.

According to sources, Mr Islam went home after appearing in the ongoing examinations daily and allowed the watchman, Farhan, to stay in his room in the hostel in his absence.

On Monday, Mr Islam asked the watchman to vacate his room as he would be living there during rest of the examination, but the watchman started using bad language against him and refused to vacate the room, said the sources.

The brawl intensified and the class-IV employees came for the help of their colleague and beat the student.

Later, dozens of students gathered there and thrashed the watchman and other class-IV employees. The watchman Farhan was shifted to divisional headquarters hospital, KDA.

The police arrested the student and registered a case against him. Dawn

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