Banasthali Vidyapith
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Banasthali Vidyapith is a women's university situated in Rajasthan, India, 72 km from Jaipur.
Banasthali Vidyapith is a unique center of learning for girls from nursery to post-graduate stage, offering them modern education without sacrificing India's basic cultural tradition. It emphasizes a synthesis of the spiritual and scientific values of East and West, it inculcates faith in democratic values, in the essential unity of all religions, and in fostering a spirit of national integration along with that of international goodwill and understanding. The Vidyapith has been recognized as an institution deemed to be university.
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[edit] Location
Banasthali Vidyapith is located in village Vanasthali. The village Vanasthali is situated in district Tonk in the state of Rajasthan, India. It is 72 km south of the state capital Jaipur. It is 7 km. off Jaipur-Kota National Highway-12.
[edit] Origin of Banasthali
The origin of Banasthali is unique in more ways than one. The Vidyapith owes its existence neither to the zeal of an educationist, nor to that of a social reformer. It is also not a creation of Philanthropist’s purse. It has arisen like the fabled phoenix from the ashes of a blossoming flower Shanta bai, which had withered before its hour. It is a spontaneous filling up of the vacuum caused by Shantabai's death. Here love, eternal love, has been the foundation head of all the thinking and action and this spirit has been the motivating force.
It was on October 6, 1935 that Smt. Ratan Shastri and Pandit Hiralal Shastri founded Banasthali Vidyapith to fill up the vacuum caused by the sudden death of their highly talented and promising daughter Shantabai. They had high expectation that she would work for women’s cause when she would grow up.
[edit] National institution for women's education
Over the years the Vidyapith has developed into a National Centre for women’s education. Banasthali’s education programme aims at an all-round development of the student’s personality. To achieve its objective of ‘synthesis of spiritual values and scientific achievements of the East and the West, it has evolved five-fold Educational Programme (Pachmukhi Shiksha) comprising of the following aspects: (i) Physical, (ii) Practical, (iii) Aesthetic, (iv) Moral and (v) Intellectual. This way the students develop an integrated and balanced personality.
Since its inception the Vidyapith has felt the need for autonomy in its educational efforts if it were successfully to implement its educational ideas. Though the Vidyapith has enjoyed virtual autonomy for its school programmes since the very beginning, it found affiliation to an outside agency for its university programmes in 1983. On October 25, 1983 the Government of India, on the advice of the University Grants Commission, notified the Vidyapith as an Institution deemed to be University.
Achievement of the University status put great responsibility on the institution. It had to show what it could do in the academic field but which it was not able to do due to lack of autonomy .The Vidyapith embarked upon soon after attaining the university status in 1983 radically restructuring its undergraduate programme. That resulted into several innovative ideas such as dual honours and is appreciated even today. At the post – graduate level the Vidyapith had taken up the task of opening up new and emerging areas of knowledge to women, to give them a competitive edge in their professional life. For example, post – graduate courses in Computer Science (covering both theoretical and application aspects), Operational Research, Electronics, Biotechnology. Teacher Education and Management were started in past ten to fifteen years. Recently new courses in the emerging areas have been started such as M.Sc. (Bio – Informatics), M.Sc. (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) and M.Sc. (Applied Microbiology).
The Vidyapith has found for itself a respectable place remodeled all its post – graduate programme. Along with professional programmes such as MBA and MCA all PG Courses in the Faculty of Science have semester system. This led to a great degree of inter – disciplines of Mathematics, Computer Science, Electronics and Statistics. This model has been replicated in other disciplines as well. From 2004 all Social Science, Humanities and Home Science Post – graduate programme are being run as semester courses. The programmes have been structured in such a fashion that the modular courses being offered provide a lot of flexibility in as far as taking relevant courses from the related discipline. Fine Arts programmes are less attuned to this model but a semester system would provide ample scope for allowing large number of electives to suit the creative pursuit of the student.
[edit] Jaipur extension centre
In addition to constantly upgrading and strengthening its academic programme, Banasthali Vidyapith is conscious of keeping right balance between its education objectives and the market forces commercializing the education.
India’s emerging status as IT superpower and predictions of NASSCOM – McKinsey report and others envisage acute shortfall in trained IT professionals in years to come. In order to meet the heavy demand on IT education the Institute has started an extension center at Jaipur exclusively from April, 2001 for IT courses. Jaipur centre is equipped with fully operational labs, lecture rooms, library and 512 kbit/s Internet leased line. The Jaipur Centre has established itself as a leading center for IT and Management education at Jaipur.
[edit] Infrastructure and learning resources
The Vidyapith is a fully self contained and self sufficient campus.
The Vidyapith has its own land of 850 acres (3.4 km²) in which there are at present 18 academic blocks housing various departments, Central Library, auditorium offices. Being a residential institution it necessarily provides residential accommodation to all its staff and students. There are in all 20 hostels and more than 220 staff quarters and one Working women’s Hostel with 72 seats. The campus has provision for good games and sports programme. The Laxmi Bai maidan (26,690 sq. metres) is used for activities such as parade and annual fares. It also has a storage and projection room for cultural programmes and film shows. The Vidula Maidan (41,950 sq. metres) has fields for games such as Hockey, Volleyball, Basket Ball and Tennis and Yoga, Martial Arts and Mass Physical Display activities in addition, space for indoors games such as Badminton, Table Tennis etc. is also available. There is a swimming pool where students learn swimming as per specified schedule. There is a licensed air strip of 50,191,418 square metres in the Vidyapith which is used for training the students in gliding and flying. This has been one of the activities introduced as early as 1960 even before Banasthali Vidyapith got University status. Another unique activity carried on since long is horse riding for which there are 32 horses and a 25,390 square metres field ‘Veer Bala Maidan’ with expert trainer.
The Vidyapith has its own projector and arranges film shows and cultural programmes on a regular basis.
The Central Library of the Vidyapith has over one and a half lakh volumes and is equipped with reprographic facility. The library is connected to the UGC INFLIBNET programme. In addition there are several department libraries catering to the needs of the respective departments linked through the Vidyapith’s Campus network. The students and faculty have access to internet via a 512 kbit/s BSNL leased line, 512 kbit/s INFONET VSAT connectivity and a Campus wide network having its central server at the Apaji Institute. The network and Internet access have been extended to four hostels housing Postgraduate students where a Computer with network is provided in each room. This provides them unlimited opportunities to unleash the power of the Internet.
A recent notable addition is ‘Community FM Radio Station’ inaugurated as ‘Radio Banasthali’ on January 9, 2005 which broadcasts educative and entertainment programmes locally recorded by the students and staff of Banasthali Vidyapith. It operates at 90.4 MHz and serves the campus and the community within a radius of 30 km around the Vidyapith.
The Vidyapith has its own hospital, “Apaji Arogya Mandir” with 60 beds, three Doctors, one Vaidya and other hospital staff. The hospital works round the clock throughout the year. The location and the Vidyapith being in the interior, it does not have any access to public hostels or guest houses. Round the year there are guests on Campus on University assignments and/or parents and guardians of the students and visitors who are provided accommodation in the guest house. The Vidyapith has its own vehicles-bus, minibuses, jeeps and cars. It has its garage and a number of drivers on duty round the clock. One of the minibuses is run as a shuttle service to the Banasthali-Niwai Railway station 7 km away from the campus. The Rajasthan Roadways provides regular to and from bus service between Jaipur and the campus via Niwai almost every hour from 6.00 am to 6.00 pm.
Besides these, there are adequate basic services made available on campus such as Post and Telegraph Office, PCOs and a Telephone Exchange, Banks Extension Counters, (United Commercial Bank and The Central Cooperative Cooperative Bank Ltd. Tonk), SBI’s ATM Extension Counter Market including Books and Stationery shops and Medical Stores.
