Bengaluru, Bowing to the vociferous demand from anxious students, the Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) has postponed its final semester exams from September 21 owing to the grim Covid situation in the state, an official said on Thursday. "The semester exams for law courses have been postponed from September 21 and intermediate exams from October 5 as sought by the students in view of the pandemic still persisting across the state, a KSLU official from Hubballi in the state's northwest region told IANS. The decision to postpone the exams was taken after consultations with State Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J.C. Madhuswsamy here on Wednesday. "Final year exams, however, will be conducted online in October, as directed by the Bar Council of India," said the official. The university will commence regular classes online from September 1 to make up for the time lost as colleges remained shut since April under the Covid-induced lockdown restrictions. The semester and intermediate exams will be held only after classes resume regularly for 45 days to two months. "Though the students will be temporarily promoted to the next semester based on their performance in the internal exams held till March, but they have to take the exams when they are held in the near future," asserted the official. The state higher education department had earlier decided to promote the under-graduate and post-graduate students to the next semester, as classes could not be resumed due to the extended lockdown and Covid crisis. Hundreds of students of the law colleges across the state expressed relief over the university postponing the exams, as many of them from outside the state and rural areas had been staying back at home as educational institutes continued to remain shut in this academic year. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/defense/news/china-fires-two-missiles-into-the-south-china-sea-and-asian-markets-feel-the-blow/articleshow/77777358.cms">China fires two missiles into the South China Sea and Asian markets feel the blow</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/defense/news/ladakh-will-be-the-front-to-hold-for-india-and-china-for-at-least-a-year-if-not-longer-as-per-experts/articleshow/77779668.cms">Ladakh will be the 'front to hold' for India and China for at least a year if not longer as per experts</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/mars-spotted-first-time-by-uae-hope-probe-on-its-maiden-voyage-in-space/articleshow/77775267.cms">UAE’s Hope probe spots Mars for the very first time on its maiden voyage through space</a>

Karnataka State Law University exams postponed — will now be conducted online in October

(Eds: Fixing typo in header) New Delhi, Jul 9 () Examinations are nerve- wracking and career of thousands of students is at stake, the Delhi High Court said on Thursday, pulling up the Delhi University for repeatedly postponing the exams of final year undergraduate courses in the last few weeks. The court questioned the varsity on pushing the exams from July 10 to a date beyond August 15, even when it kept maintaining that it was ready to conduct the Open Book Examinations (OBE) on July 1 as well as on July 10. A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad directed Delhi University to file an affidavit detailing the schedule of final year undergraduate exams which have been postponed from July 10 to beyond August 15 in view of persisting COVID-19 pandemic. The high court also asked the varsity to explain in the affidavit as to how it proposes to conduct exams -- online, off-line or both modes, besides the complete date sheet, providing clarity to students. It allowed the prayer of senior advocate Sachin Dutta, representing DU, to grant some time as they have to work out a new plan in terms of July 8 circular issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for declaring the manner in which the forthcoming exams are to be conducted. The court directed the DU to file the affidavit by July 13 and listed the matter for consideration on July 14. "We all have gone through the examination process which is nerve-wracking for the students, especially during the times of COVID-19 pandemic," said the bench, which was conducting the hearing through video conferencing. "Why are you pushing the exams to a date beyond August 15, knowing that careers of thousands of students are at stake," the court said, adding that the final year students have to be given passing out certificates and degrees to enable them to pursue higher education. It asked the varsity to mull over the schedule given by the UGC and come back with a firm date sheet and examination schedule. The court was also critical of the way mock exams were conducted by the DU and referred to technical glitches during the tests. The bench did not appreciate the conduct of the varsity which has been "turning turtle" and changing stands frequently. It noted that on June 26, DU informed the court that it will go ahead with conducting exams from July 1 and after less than 24 hours, the university postponed the exams to July 10. The court had on June 29 issued notice to the varsity asking why contempt proceedings be not initiated against it and its officers for trying to mislead the court by withholding information on deferment of the online OBE from July 1 to July 10. The court was then informed that the university was firm on commencing exams from July 10. "We took you (DU) on face value and asked you to file an affidavit for clarity. Now we discover you have again changed the date to beyond August 15 and there is no exact date. What do you expect us to do. You want us to constantly monitor you on conducting exams," the bench said. It added, "Sorry to say the way the university is conducting itself for the last few weeks, we are not impressed with anything. We have to take it with a pinch of salt." In the affidavit filed by DU on Thursday morning, it was averred that meeting of a High Powered Committed of the university took place on July 7 at 9:30 PM to access the exam related matters and taking stalk of the developments pursuant to revised guidelines issued by UGC on July 6. Thereafter, the DU has decided to postpone holding of the examination to some date after August 15. Dutta said the university is still working upon the date sheet for the examination to be conducted after August 15. During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was representing the UGC, informed the court that on July 6 and July 8, it has issued a circular/ guidelines to all the universities informing them that the examination process for final year students must be completed by the end of September and the mode of conducting examination could be online, offline or a blend of both the methods. On being asked by the court as to whether the UGC has insisted that exams be conducted for promoting students, Mehta said exams are compulsory for final year students and the process has to be completed by September 30. The high court was hearing various petitions by several final year DU students seeking quashing and withdrawal of the notifications of May 14, May 30 and June 27 for online exams for undergraduate and postgraduate students, including of the School of Open Learning and Non-Collegiate Women Education Board. As an alternative prayer, one of the petitions has sought direction to the DU to evaluate the final year students based on the previous years' or semesters' results in the same manner as the university has planned to promote the first and second year students. On Wednesday, DU had incurred the wrath of a single judge for "playing with the lives of children" by deciding to again postpone the exams. The court had transferred the pleas to the division bench headed by Justice Kohli as it has already issued contempt notice to the varsity. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for one of the petitioners, submitted that DU be directed to follow all the procedures laid down in law and the court should be informed about the mode of conducting the examinations. SKV HMP SA

Examination process nerve wracking, students' career at stake: HC to DU on postponing exams

I will never play quarterback in the National Football League. I can't plant my feet in the pocket and throw into a tight window. I'm too short and flat-footed, and my asthmatic lungs give up after mere minutes of physical exertion. In high school, the only varsity letters I received were for marching band.But when I recently took the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-nfl-football-streaming-deal-explained-peter-kafka-2024-5">NFL's</a> preeminent player evaluation, it revealed that I have several skills that pro teams are looking for. In fact, I outperformed nearly all draft prospects in certain categories of this test, floundering on only one. The best part? I didn't even break a sweat.I took the exam while sitting in an office chair within the suburban Tennessee corporate headquarters of a testing startup called S2 Cognition. Purporting to be the "only sports evaluation that scientifically measures an athlete's game-speed cognitive abilities down to a millisecond level," these tests — which feel like a cross between playing Pong and taking an eye exam — have fast become part and parcel of how many scouts find the next billion-dollar athlete. More than 52 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/professors-turned-porn-stars-free-speech-campus-battle-wisconsin-2024-6">colleges and universities</a> and 16 of the NFL's 32 teams pay S2 to administer tests to prospective signees and to keep the results confidential.Jack Marucci, the longtime athletic-training director at the SEC powerhouse Louisiana State University, told me the tests helped him identify his athletes' natural strengths and weaknesses and adjust their training to get the most out of them. "We get a lot of Maseratis here," Marucci said, "but we've got to fine-tune the engine a little bit and find out what's going to make them stay at that high gear."While others have questioned S2's professed efficacy, the company is quickly expanding beyond sports and into law enforcement, the military, and even the boardroom. In the not-distant future, as the corporate hiring process grows ever more layered and as the compulsion to measure every conceivable facet of ourselves grows ever more feverish, you might be taking a version of this high-speed, highly stressful test to land your next job.This is what brought me to Nashville. I may be genetically damned to never be a Tennessee Titan, but perhaps my test results can help propel me to become a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/save-tech-industry-fire-managers-ceo-hire-coders-developers-executives-2024-6">titan of industry</a>. Somehow, I have a slightly easier time believing that.<hr />When I arrived at S2's brand-new, still undecorated offices this spring, I was greeted by its founders, Brandon Ally and Scott Wylie, two college athletes turned neuroscientists. After spending their early careers researching individual differences in cognitive deterioration — Ally studied Alzheimer's disease and Wylie studied Parkinson's disease — they founded S2 in 2015, deciding they could apply their work to studying individual differences in cognitive function in world-class athletes. "We are essentially working at both ends of the spectrum, from breakdown to elite expression of cognitive systems," Ally says.They drew interest for their work with quarterbacks, who often need to be the quickest thinkers on the football field. The difference between throwing a touchdown and taking a brutal sack could be that extra tenth of a second the QB takes to see patterns developing downfield. To gauge whether a QB has the brainpower to handle the pressure and noise, S2 has designed a sequence of tests to measure their reaction time, impulse control, and processing speed, among other traits.By 2016, S2 had found a hungry market in the NFL. For general managers, drafting and trading players are high-stakes decisions, with up to hundreds of millions of dollars — and the managers' own jobs — on the line. Selecting the wrong quarterback can set a franchise back years, while nabbing the next <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/patrick-mahomes-defends-dad-bod-great-body-quarterback-nfl-2024-4">Patrick Mahomes</a> or Lamar Jackson (neither of whom was the first quarterback drafted in his class) can catapult a team to year-after-year Super Bowl contention. Small wonder teams would pay a king's ransom for a test that promises to give them an edge in knowing which quarterback to draft out of college or sign in free agency.For many years, the standard-bearer for evaluating the brains of NFL athletes was the Wonderlic, a short IQ test with a series of increasingly difficult questions. While the test is still used in the corporate world, often as part of the interview process, it has largely fallen out of favor in pro sports as research has indicated its scores are not statistically correlated with athletic performance. The Wonderlic has also been criticized as perpetuating racial and socioeconomic biases."We are always living under the ghost of the Wonderlic," Ally says. "People think whatever's between the ears is all sort of the same thing — that it's all IQ." For S2, he says, it's a marketing challenge as much as anything to convince prospective clients that "there are things in the brain, and that the brain does, that can correlate to performance in sports." John Michel, an associate professor of management and organizations at Loyola University Maryland who has extensively studied the efficacy of testing in workplaces, agrees there's a distinction. While the Wonderlic, he says, assesses only crystallized intelligence ("How well can you remember something you've learned?"), the S2 gauges fluid intelligence ("How well can you observe multiple objects moving at once in space? How well can you keep track of things?"). <blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-breakout"> <q class="pullquote-quotation">Can a test designed for pass rushers and designated hitters really help companies evaluate candidates and fast-track potential executives?</q> </blockquote> But not everyone is convinced that S2 is a magic bullet. In April 2023, an independent reporter published leaked test results from the Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud, then favored to be the first player selected in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-draft-first-round-quarterbacks-busts">NFL draft</a>, over the Alabama quarterback Bryce Young. The report indicated that Stroud had bombed the S2, scoring in the 18th percentile, while Young scored in the 98th. One week later, Young was drafted first overall, and Stroud fell to second. But then Stroud, the alleged dolt, went on to have one of the best rookie campaigns of any NFL quarterback, while Young struggled all year. Headlines flooded in calling the S2 the second coming of the Wonderlic, or an outright sham.While S2 won't publicly talk about the details of Stroud's results, Ally said Stroud's reported score was "not legit." Stroud himself seemed to admit he didn't give the test his full effort: "Some things I apply myself to, some things I don't," he told The Athletic.Still, the backlash has continued into this year. In February, the prominent sports agency Athletes First, which represents Stroud, the Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and many other top players, instructed its clients to skip cognitive evaluations including the S2 and Athletic Intelligence Quotient, a rival test.<hr />At the S2 office, it was time for me to take the test. Unlike the Wonderlic, the S2 isn't anything like a standardized exam: It's a rapid-fire battery of pressure-filled visual simulations that require split-second decision-making, conducted on a gaming laptop or Xbox console connected to a hypersensitive keypad. "I don't care if you have Einsteinian-level IQ or you barely pulled a D-minus average," Wylie told me just before I began. "That's not going to help you."We agreed I wouldn't divulge the specifics of the test, but I'll say that there are eight five-minute modules: One evaluates your perception speed, another your tracking ability, and another your abilities to intuit a pattern on the fly. Many of them involve dots flying around a screen or flashing before your eyes, and demand an instant reactions by clicking a button or pressing an arrow.It was grueling, requiring intense concentration and locked-in vision. I wasn't on a football field with 300-pound linemen protecting me from shifty edge rushers, but I felt the pressure. There were moments when I felt completely in the zone, and others when some subconscious impulse led my button-mashing prowess astray. By the end I felt exhausted, and I was certain I'd failed.<hr />Unfazed by the controversy over Stroud, S2 has begun selling its tests to other sectors. The several law-enforcement agencies and special operations military groups it has partnered with so far feel like a natural extension: People in both fields often require the same high-pressure, split-second decision-making skills as athletes.But the company's expansion into corporate settings is a more significant departure. Can a test originally designed for pass rushers and designated hitters really help companies, as S2 claims it can, evaluate outside talent, invest in worker training, and fast-track potential executives?For many metrics-intensive corporations, S2's testing isn't all that different from what they've been using to assess candidates for decades. IQ tests and personality tests like the Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram have long been deployed to evaluate candidates' aptitude, intelligence, and cultural fit. Many of the world's top companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Meta, and Alphabet, already do many of the things S2 is offering, albeit by compiling teams of psychometricians or human-resources experts in bespoke assessment centers. It's no surprise, then, that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-hates-workday-human-resources-customer-service-software-fortune-500-2024-5">Fortune 500 companies</a> have been reaching out to S2. (The company won't disclose its nonathletic clients.)<div type="image" title="A field goal post with a bar graph being hit with a football" height="1500" width="2000" msid="111312818" hostid="261" sizebytes="139608"></div>A few years ago, S2 ran a pilot program at three companies in different industries. Wylie says it focused on evaluating employees and discussing with them, rather than their managers, how their results could help them "understand themselves a little bit better beyond just personality and group dynamics" and find ways to adjust their workflows or different roles they could move to. "If we can help every individual maximize their performance and efficiency," Wylie added, "gosh, that's just going to elevate departments, elevate teams." The S2 team learned that some workers were more sensitive than others about what they wanted their employers to know about them.When Ally and Wylie evaluate so-called corporate athletes — a term that makes even them cringe a bit, though they nevertheless use — they look at dynamic memory systems, including explicit and implicit memory (think recall versus intuition), and executive cognitive systems (such as impulse control and risk-taking). Some of these have crossover with a pro athlete's skill set, while others fall outside.Michel says a fluid-intelligence test like the S2 could be helpful in deciding whether a candidate would make the right hire or whether an employee is right for a managerial role, but only as part of a suite of tests and reviews of their work product, or as a way to narrow down a large pool of interview candidates.Wylie and Ally also say their tests should work in tandem with other evaluations. After all, perhaps there's no bigger red flag for a prospective employee than when your future employer relies on one metric to say whether you're a fit or not, whether you can handle the work and live up to expectations. I know I'd be turned off.<hr />After finishing my test, I nervously trudged down the hall to a conference room, where Wylie had my results displayed on a laptop screen. To my surprise, he was smiling.It turned out that my tracking capacity — my ability to follow movements around a screen — was less than stellar. Among NFL prospects, I would have scored in the 6th percentile. My perception speed was fairly average (48th) and my impulse control above average (84th).But in instinctive learning — in which I had to trust my gut, figure out a pattern, and stick with it despite distractions being thrown my way — I somehow scored in the 97th percentile. "Most people get up and say, oh man, that was tough," Wylie said. "You actually deduced the optimal responses very quickly, very efficiently. A lot of our general managers crush that."Earlier I had told Wylie that I was easily distractible and often struggled to focus. But then I scored in the 98th percentile on the distraction-control test. "I don't care what you say: When you want to lock in and block out distractions, you can," Wylie saidPerhaps, it's time for me, as a worker, to amend my environment so I can find better ways to remove distractions and lock in. When I finally do that, NFL front offices should give me a call. I won't need the tracking ability of an NFL safety watching a play unfold in front of him, but maybe I can run a franchise.<hr /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/scott-nover">Scott Nover</a> is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio. He is a contributing writer at Slate and was previously a staff writer at Quartz and Adweek covering media and technology.

Job interviews are about to get a whole lot more stressful

Chennai, Tamil Nadu's ruling <keyword id="19897149" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="dmk" source="keywords">DMK</keyword>, a key constituent of the INDIA bloc, in its manifesto released on Wednesday promised to repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 if the opposition alliance wins the <keyword id="19895394" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lok-sabha" source="keywords">Lok Sabha</keyword> polls. Restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and holding polls there, scrapping the New Education Policy 2020, slashing fuel prices, annulling Article 361 of the Constitution that provides protection to governors from legal action and appointment of Governors following consultation with Chief Ministers, were among the key promises made by the DMK. The recommendations of the M S Swaminathan committee will be adopted to ensure that MSP for agricultural products "is set at total production cost plus 50 per cent," the DMK said. Also, it announced that if voted to power, the INDIA bloc will withdraw the Agnipath scheme and reintroduce "permanent recruitment service" in the Indian Armed forces. "From now on, population census, including caste-wise census and census concerning people below the poverty line, will be conducted by the Union government once every five years simultaneously." The DMK will firmly insist on the removal of Article 356, which allows the dismissal of duly elected state governments and imposition of President's rule. The Congress party's ally in Tamil Nadu said that "new constraints" on States' borrowing capacity, imposed by the union government beyond the limits in each state's FRBM-equivalent Act will be eliminated. "A recommendation to share cess revenues with states will be made. It will be proposed that the Finance Commission increase the horizontal devolution of tax revenue (to all States together) from 42 per cent to 50 per cent." The Union government's financial contributions to states will be based on the income tax and GST collected in those states. Thus, financial contributions will be assured based on the taxes collected within each state. The finance provided to states will be permanently determined based on the 1971 population. A 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and legislative assemblies will be implemented immediately. "DMK will insist that the Union government enact a law providing menstrual leave to women, emphasizing the journey towards gender equality." Petrol and diesel prices "will be set at Rs 75, Rs 65 (per litre)" and cooking gas cylinders shall be made available at Rs 500 (per cylinder). "The introduction of the Uniform Civil Code will be strictly prevented" to preserve India's secular nature as stated in the Constitution's preamble. "The 2019 CAA law will be repealed, and all minorities will be treated equally without any discrimination. The recommendations of the Sachar Committee for the improvement of the lives of Muslims and other minority communities will be implemented." Facilitation will be provided for <keyword id="21027983" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sri-lankan-tamil" source="keywords">Sri Lankan Tamil</keyword> refugees to get Indian citizenship. Assistance will be provided to those who wish to return to Sri Lanka. Also, the manifesto said efforts will be made to implement reservation for minorities at the all-India level, similar to Tamil Nadu. "The financial assistance previously provided to minority educational institutions has now been stopped. Action will be taken to resume this assistance." For "political" reasons, funding from foreign countries to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has currently been stopped. "The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act will be properly amended, and measures will be taken to ensure these financial aids continue to reach NGOs without any problems." The proposal of 'One Nation, One Election' will be abandoned, and for the allocation of Lok Sabha seats to states, the current practice, based on the 1971 census will continue. All "people-unfriendly" laws introduced by the BJP government over the last 10 years will be reviewed immediately by the INDIA alliance government. The "labour-hostile laws" introduced by the BJP government will be "reformed." Through the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF), the Union government will ensure a minimum pension of Rs 5,000 per month. The number of working days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act will be increased from 100 to 150 days. "A wage of Rs 400 will be provided across states/ union territories nationwide." Disbanding the current NITI Aayog, set up by the BJP regime and establishing again the Planning Commission to draft plans based on the requests of state governments is another assurance the DMK has made. "Measures will be taken to reclaim Kachchatheevu to ensure India's security and to protect the welfare of the fishermen." A mandatory "cooling-off period" of 2 years will be introduced for retired judges and secretaries before they could join private companies or political parties, the manifesto said. Waiving loans and interests for farmers in nationalised and scheduled banks, waiver of educational loans for students, monthly entitlement of Rs 1,000 for all women in every state and formation of <keyword id="21027984" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="state-development-council" source="keywords">State Development Council</keyword> by including Chief Ministers were among the promises made by the DMK. Exemption for Tamil Nadu from the NEET exam and complete removal of toll booths on national highways, forms part of poll promises of the Dravidian party. Further, the DMK said amendments will be made to relevant laws to ensure that state governments, elected by the people, appoint Vice-Chancellors to state-run universities, rather than Governors. Stopping government's divestment from public sector enterprises, implementing the Sethusamudram project, law to ban online gambling, setting up a <keyword id="19895345" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="keywords">Supreme Court</keyword> branch in Chennai, providing statehood for <keyword id="19901639" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="puducherry" source="keywords">Puducherry</keyword>, equal funding for all state languages including Tamil, were among the host of other promises made by the DMK. Establishment of Tamil departments in varsities and stopping construction of <keyword id="19950851" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mekedatu" source="keywords">Mekedatu</keyword> dam were also promised by the DMK. "The <keyword id="19996334" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vishwakarma-scheme" source="keywords">Vishwakarma Scheme</keyword>, introduced by the BJP government to encourage caste-based occupations, will be restructured on the basis of social justice."

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Karnataka State Law University exams postponed — will now be conducted online in October

IANS

Examination process nerve wracking, students' career at stake: HC to DU on postponing exams

PTI

Job interviews are about to get a whole lot more stressful

Scott Nover

DMK vows to repeal CAA if INDIA bloc is voted to power

PTI

At Yale, students found to be sexual assailants return to campus

Abby Jackson