Patna University observed World Environment Day on Monday, planting saplings and discussing environmental issues.

Vice-chancellor Rash Bihari Prasad Singh, pro-vice-chancellor Dolly Sinha, registrar Ravindra Kumar and other officials planted saplings at Swami Vivekanand Garden in the Wheeler Senate Hall where the main function of the day was held.

"Heads of colleges and departments should encourage students to plant more trees," said Singh. "College teachers should tell the students about the benefits of trees and plants."

Atul Aditya Sinha, the National Service Scheme coordinator of Patna University, also said the volunteers will carry out planting drives on the university campus in phases.

Anshuman, one of the university students who attended the World Environment Day programme, said: "Protecting the environment is the need of the hour. The university should make environment protection and ecological balance a mandatory course."

New session

The 2017 admission season took off in Patna this past week, as various colleges and universities started the process to take in new students.

The first set of the Patna University Common Entrance Test was held on Tuesday (June 6) with the commerce test. Candidates went to four centres in Patna to write their exam, and were relieved to find an easy question paper.

Garima, one of the students who sat for the entrance exam at Magadh Mahila College, said: "The paper was easy; only the mathematics portion was a little tricky and needed some calculations."

Entrance test for the humanities courses will be held on June 12, and the next day has been kept for the science courses.

While Patna University is conducting entrance test for its undergraduate courses, colleges affiliated to Magadh University in Patna will admit students on the basis of their marks in Class XII or Intermediate examinations. The College of Commerce, Arts and Science will issue the undergraduate admission form on June 12 and the last date to apply is June 30.

Tarique Fatmi, an official from the college, said: "This year students can apply online and even offline after purchasing the application from the college counter."

Arvind Mahila College will also issue its admission form on June 20, while forms at Ganga Devi College will be available from June 21. The last date to submit the forms is June 30 at both the institutions affiliated to Magadh University.

Sources said Magadh University has been late in issuing admission forms because of the delay in declaration of the Intermediate results.

Summer interns

Eighteen media students from Central University of South Bihar have bagged summer internships with various media organisations in Patna and Delhi. The university's public relations officer, Mohammad Mudassir Alam, said the students have undertaken the internships in their summer vacation.

Most of the students have got opportunities with television channels and local newspapers in Patna, while two students - Aayush Anand and Vikas Kumar - have got a paid internship with the National Council of Rural Institutes, a unit of the human resource development ministry. The internship programmes started from the third week of May and will continue till July 16.

Alam said the National Council of Rural Institutes interns will conduct surveys in villages assigned to them.

They are required to document submissions, field visits and make open presentation at the end of the period to the other students in the department and university apart from preparing a final project report after their internship. The National Council of Rural Institutes will pay them a financial support of 10,000 per month for a maximum of two months.

Head of the Centre for Mass Communication and Media Atish Parashar said: "I appreciate the initiative of assistant professor Anindya Deb for grabbing this opportunity for the students. Our department is looking forward to work extensively with similar projects related to rural development in collaboration with the National Council of Rural Institutes."

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