top 10 young emerging universities of the world/

Education is what makes us different from our predecessors and that is exactly why it is a critical decision when it comes to selecting the institution where you want to study. The institution can and does play a vital role in determining just how far you will groom intellectually. Keeping all this in mind, we have decided to bring to you a list of top 10 engineering universities which, when compared to old universities are relatively newly established. To be exact; we are talking about universities which have been established in the last 50 years and are excelling in global rankings.

Go ahead, browse through the list and see what these young universities have to offer to their students.

10. University of Antwerp

First off, we have the University of Antwerp which was established at Belgium back in 1971. It is ranked 185 in the QS World University Rankings 2013/2014. The university has a score of 34.5 when it comes to teaching.  The university has 620 tenured professors while 2,478 tenured researchers. It has a score of 100 when it comes to industry income (entrepreneurship) and a score of 33.2 when it comes to research.

9. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

Next stop is at Spain where we have Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona that was established in 1968 and enjoys the rank number of 177. The university has a score of 30.6 when it comes to teaching with a total of 3,514 research and teaching staff at its disposal. The university has a score of 28 when it comes to research (a total of 57.07 million Euros were spent during 2012-2013). The industry income of university has a score of 39.1 with 53 spin off companies that were established during 2012-2013.

8. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Next stop we have the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, which was established in 1994. The university enjoys a position of 161 as per QS World University Rankings. The university has a score of 28.4 when it comes to teaching with 1,250 academic staff. It has an industry income score of 40.3 and a research score of 35.7 with 2,769 projects which are underway since 2011-2012.

7. Maastricht University

Next stop is at Netherlands where we have Maastricht University that enjoys a position of 122. The university was established back in 1967. The university enjoys a score of 33.1 when it comes to teaching with total of 1,815 academic staff. The university has a score of 47.1 in research and a score 98.2 in industrial income.

6. Pohang University of Science and Technology: POSTECH

Next stop is South Korea where we have the Pohang University of Science and Technology. The university was established back in 1986 and enjoys a ranking number of 106. The university has a teaching score of 54.2 with 411 faculty members while, 788 researchers prove why the research score is 49.0. The industry income score stands at 100.

5. City University of Hong Kong

Next stop is Hong Kong where we have the City University of Hong Kong. The university was established in 1984 and currently enjoys the position of 104 as per QS World University Rankings. It has a score of 30.9 when it comes to teaching with a total of 806 academic staff. The research score is 33.5 with ample research centers in the unversity. The university has an industry income score of 55.7.

4. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Next stop is again at South Korea where we have the famous Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The university was established in 1971 and ranks in at 60th position as per QS World University Rankings. It has a teaching score of 65.6. The university has a research score of 60 with only contracted research projects in 2012 measuring in at 1,809. The industry income score is at 100.

3. Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

The next stop is in Singapore where we have Nanyan Technological University (NTU), which was established in 1991. Its QS World University Rankings position is 41st. The university has a teaching score of 37.7, an industry income score of 100 while research score is 54.3.

2. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

The second last on our list is Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). This university is ranked at 34th position as per QS World University Rankings. The university has a total of 174 faculties for engineering and has a score of 52.4 in teaching and a score of 59.7 when it comes to research. The university has an industry income score of 58.5.

1. National University of Sciences of Technology, Pakistan

The first on our list is the National University of Sciences and Technology located in Pakistan. The university was established in 1991. Why this university is ranked at number one in our list? To put it simply although the university was established in 1991, the main campus upon which its ranking is based was established in 2008.The campus was built on a whole sector in the capital city of Pakistan; Islamabad. NUST’s ranking, as per QS World University Rankings, is among the top 500 universities of the world.  NUST has managed to reach top 500 in shortest time when compared to other universities of its size. The university allows entrepreneurial opportunities for its students who are allowed to bring their ideas to the forum and are then provided with a portal to industry. The university is rapidly building links with more and more industries in Pakistan and abroad to facilitate its students.  The university is the leading university when it comes to research and faculty in Pakistan and has made a name for itself in quite a short span of time. The university has also been awarded the “International Quality Award” at 2014 Asia Pacific Quality Network Conference and Annual General Meeting held in Vietnam.

Peaches Geldof found dead aged 25

Peaches Geldof: 'the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us,' said her father Bob. Photograph: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

The Geldof family was struggling to come to terms with the latest chapter in its tragic history after the sudden death of Peaches Geldof, aged just 25, at her home in Kent on Monday.

"We are beyond pain," her father, Bob Geldof, said as he confirmed the news.

The journalist and model was pronounced dead by a crew from South East Coast ambulance service after they were called to her home near Wrotham at 1.35pm on Monday "following a report of concern for the welfare of a woman". The news broke 24 hours after Geldof, who had 169,000 followers on Twitter, posted a picture of herself as a toddler being held by her mother, the TV presenter Paula Yates who died from an accidental heroin overdose in September 2000. She captioned it simply: "Me and my mum".

A spokesperson for Kent police said on Monday night: "At this stage, the death is being treated as an unexplained sudden death. Officers are working to establish the circumstances around the death."

Her father, the musician and campaigner Bob Geldof, issued a statement on behalf of his family, which he described as "fractured so often, but never broken".

"Peaches has died," he said. "We are beyond pain. She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us. Writing 'was' destroys me afresh. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? We loved her and will cherish her forever. How sad that sentence is."

Peaches Geldof with her husband Thomas Cohen at the London premiere of the final Twilight film in November 2012. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images

Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof was married to Thomas Cohen, a 23-year-old musician, who she wed at the same church in Davington, Kent, where her parents married 26 years earlier. It was also where her mother's funeral was held in 2000. They had two young sons, Astala, one, and Phaedra, who will turn one this month.

"Tom and her sons, Astala and Phaedra, will always belong in our family," Bob Geldof continued, before signing off on behalf of himself and his partner, Jeanne Marine, Peaches' older sister Fifi Trixibelle, her younger sister Pixie and her younger half-sister, Tiger Geldof, whose father, the INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, killed himself in a Sydney hotel room in 1997.

In a separate statement, Cohen said: "My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons, Astala and Phaedra, and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever."

Her most recent appearences included attending a fashion show for Tesco, taking part in a challenge for Sport Relief with her dog Parper and backing a fundraising campaign for Cancer Research UK. The news of her death was received with shock by colleagues in the entertainment industry. The TV presenter Phillip Schofield said he was "utterly stunned" at "the dreadful loss of a really lovely woman". Myleene Klass tweeted: "The news of beautiful Peaches is utterly devastating. God bless her babies".

Movie review: The Lego Movie - outside the box

In the digital age, there may still be place for brightly coloured building blocks.

Think back to when you used to play with Lego bricks — chances are that you don’t remember the very first time. Now, with the arrival of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s bizarre but beautiful The Lego Movie, your first viewing shall remain etched in your memory forever.

With its array of bankable pop-culture references and glorious visual trickery to keep the little ones entertained, The Lego Movie is an out-and-out winner, but the real key to its success is entertaining the grown-ups too, the people who have paid for the tickets.

This film, which has breathed life into characters lifted from popular films with the aid of a Danish toy manufacturing giant, has a narrative heavily inspired by The Matrix which evoked a lot of initial skepticism. But somehow, the makers have managed to miraculously make this film funny and clever enough, without any guilt on the viewer’s part.

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is an average construction-site worker, who sees the world through rose-tinted glasses. Everything is Awesome is the song he plays on a loop where he lives and works and the irony is lost on nobody — while the song is clearly awesome and catchy, nothing else is. Emmet’s fellow men, or rather fellow bricks, are all living a meaningless existence, blindly following orders by Lord Business (Will Ferrell).

When Emmet notices the mysterious Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) at his construction site, he follows her and from then on his life changes completely. Emmet is thrust into a world that, it seems, has been cooked up by a child given free rein to assemble a user-defined Lego set at his or her will. Batman, Superman, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Potter and Han Solo are just some of the many characters featured in the ensuing narrative. Some cameos are wittily blink-and-miss, which is just as well, as The Lego Movie demands repeat viewings. Liam Neeson’s bad cop/good cop routine alone is worth the price of admission. It’s the film’s highlight; a note-perfect performance that outdoes any action film the Irish actor has done in the past few years.

As far as Emmet is concerned, he is fulfilling a quasi-prophesy from Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), a wizard who blabbed something in the film’s prologue about a certain ‘Special’, who will prevent Lord Business from using a dodgy-looking super weapon called the ‘Kragle’ (a superglue, which will render the Lego figures immobile). What that really means is where the film falters slightly. Lord and Miller turn their climax into an anticlimactic affair, trying too hard to convey the core message with Brechtian techniques that feel a bit patchy. It’s not terrible, but the scene’s enjoyment depends on how much thought parents put in building their kids’ toys.

The film feels like a whole-hearted Lego endorsement throughout, but our world and the times we live in have ingeniously been tackled head on by corporatism itself. In the end it all comes together though, as smooth as two interlocking Lego blocks, with Emmet’s robotic superficiality being replaced by a profound sense of self belief.

China to become biggest film market in next five years

American actors feel that a stop at Beijing and Shanghai is a must for the success of their films. PHOTO: FILE

India makes the largest number of films in the world, about 1,300 every 12 months. The figure remains more or less the same year after year. China on the other hand, produces just about half that number. Yet, the country remains the most sought after spot for Hollywood. A – listers visit the country regularly to  promote their blockbusters. India, despite its extraordinary number of films, is sidelined by Hollywood stars.

After producing films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, Chinese cinema garnered respect and support and managed to captivate audiences across continents.  Several countries went to China for co-production deals, and in 2012, it became the second largest market in the world after America. Last year, China grossed $ 3.6 billion at the box office, reported Hindustan Times.

It is predicted that China will be the biggest film market in 2018 and a major hub for Hollywood studios.

With China’s movie market now stealing the show from Tokyo and Hong Kong, American actors feel that a stop at Beijing and Shanghai is a must for the success of their films.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Hollywood stars take a flight to China to promote their movies. Recently, Johnny Depp was in the country selling his new sci-fi movie,Transcendence, which opens there on April 18. During his tour, he showed off his I-Ching inspired tattoo, answered questions about Chinese food and taped a special segment of the variety programme, Chinese Dream Show for Zhejiang TV. He attempted calligraphy with a giant brush and picked up an electric guitar to perform with Taiwanese musician David Tao.

Last week, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx were in Beijing to promote The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans were also there for their Marvel superhero film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

With some of the Hollywood productions making more money in China than in the US, stars feel obliged to fly into the country to talk about their movies.

Did you know? Sana Bucha and Ayesha Omar to make big screen debut

Did you know?: Sana Bucha and Ayesha Omar to make big screen debut

Waar’s record-breaking success at the box office didn’t give its film-makers a lot of time to celebrate as they already have their hands full with the next project.

Before the awaited Waar 2 hits the floor, producers of Waar have geared up for another action flick, Delta Echo Fox Trot.

The production of Delta Echo Fox Trot had been unveiled earlier this year, but now the cast has also been finalised and it features some of the most talked about names of the industry.

Well-known news anchor Sana Bucha will be making her big screen debut alongside the much-criticised Ayesha Omar. The ladies will be joined by none other than the blue-eyed boy of Pakistani cinema, Shaan and actor-turned-producer Humayun Saeed. Omar has previously made a guest appearance in Main Hoon Shahid Afridi.

The film is, as was expected, based on the life of Pakistani soldiers and how their personal lives are affected by the wars that they are a part of.

“This one is going to be a mind-blowing experience and something definitely way bigger and better than Waar,” Dr Hasan Waqas Rana, writer, director and producer of the film told The Express Tribune.

The film enters the production phase in a week’s time and after a 45-days shoot, its slated for a late 2014 or an early 2015 release.

Nadia Hussain on playing her most challenging character

A still from Nadia Hussain’s upcoming drama serial. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: 

From a perfect pout to paan stained lips, model-actor Nadia Hussain has taken up the most intersting of roles in her latest acting venture. It is rare for a model to realise that her career is one that won’t last too long, especially once she has reached the age of 40. Nadia Hussain is one such Pakistani model, who thinks likewise and has always shown interest in venturing out and doing other businesses.

Interestingly, she will be acting out a supporting role in a drama serial, Mitho aur Appa. She asserted that this was certainly a difficult character to play out: “It was something different, that’s why I accepted to act in it. In this play, the girl belongs to a low-income neighbourhood, I am playing a girl from that background. She is seen as a flirtatious kind, who is making things work for her much-older husband and herself; I myself wanted to give it a shot and do it and that’s what I have done.”

This role however, is  very different from her refined personality and on that she commented saying, “This was a very challenging role for me. The production house asked me to bring my own collection of saris, but I didn’t have those kinds of  gaudy saris and eventually they had to provide me with them. The role itself is very loud, my make-up is loud, it is not polished; it has been done very roughly. I had to eat paan to a great extent. Paan, was something I hadn’t envisaged it in my dreams that I would be eating so much, but I did. Can you imagine? That too, with chaaliyah. She is seen as a very crass and raw person who is an unkempt filmi person to begin with.”

If her character is appreciated by the masses, then she looks forward to doing more of such interesting roles.

After having seen all that glitterati, when the models start fading away from the limelight, they opt for the screen. Hussain was asked if this is the case because television is an emotionally and economically satisfying alternate to modelling on the ramp, Hussain rdenied this, saying: “I have been  on the television screen for years; it’s not now that it is happening. It is emotionally satisfying, but you need to prove your acting skills. There have been models in Pakistan who have been good at modelling per se but were not liked much due to their acting spree on TV screen. TV is a different kind of a medium, the more exposure you have, the more work you get.”

With all this going on for her, has modeling then taken a back seat? Hussain wasn’t shy enough to admit that it certainly has, for one, she is not participating in PFDC, this year, because she was informed at the 11th hour about it. She commented on the profession that earned her fame to a great degree: “I will continue, but for how long? This business that is underway and soon to begin, is more long-lasting; I believe this is the perfect time for me to venture in this business which is more of a substantial work. My business will take priority.”

Since so much is up her sleeve, how will she be able to maintain and juggle work and family life, on this she commented saying, “Meticulously. I am planning things properly. I have my husband’s and family’s support behind all of this. Let’s see how things are going to be and how I will manage; only time can tell.”

Did you know?: Only Babar Khanna and Jaffer Zaidi retained for Coke Studio 7

According to sources the keyboard player for Coke Studio and the front man of Kaavish, is the only other member from the old house band, apart from the brilliant percussionist Babar Ali Khanna.

Earlier this year, Rohail Hyatt, the genius behind the success of Coke Studio decided to depart from the project due to personal reasons, leaving all the fans in a state of shock and surprise.  although, a lot of other names were in consideration for Hyatt’s chair, Strings came forward as an out and out favourite.

However, it seems like Strings is looking for a complete overhaul of the sound as they have retained only two musicians from Rohail Hyatt’s house band and rest are all new faces. Sources told The Express Tribune that Jaffer Zaidi, the keyboard player for Coke Studio and the front man of Kaavish, is the only other member from the old house band, apart from the brilliant percussionist Babar Ali Khanna.

Contrary to the expectations that some of these well-known musicians may be retained, Asad Ahmed, Omran Shafique (Momo), Louis. J. Pinto (Gumby) and Kamran Mannu Zafar have all been replaced by new musicians.

Imran Akhoond, a not-so-talked-about, but a prolific musician, who plays with Shehzad Roy, will play the guitars, whereas, Khalid Khan, the bassist, previously associated with Aaroh and Mizraab, will play the bass guitars. The young and talented Ahad Nayani will be playing the drums.

The show will feature a number of guest musicians, with the likes of guitar virtuoso Aamir Zaki already in consideration. Strings were not available to comment on these recent developments.

Coke Studio 7 will be recorded in June-July and slated for airing in October 2014.