Odisha HRD

16 Writeup

• 1. Prashant K Sahoo  |  September 6th, 2009 at 10:17 am

  Does Vedanta has any credibility of practical implementation of such rosy pictures earlier ?

  Why the company is blacklisted in USA and being kicked out of Norway. Food for thought , how the Odisha Govt. has considred a company with such bad records of track ? Is there really something wrong.

  Time will tell the validity of such rosy pictures. After hearing the KARTUT and KARYA KALAPA of Vedanta at Lanjigarh I don’t have any hope left however I can not be fully pessimistic. May sanity prevails in case of Odisha and Vedanta bring glories to odisha.

  Whatever be it the Graphics Designer has designed it nicely using some licensed graphics software which looks really good.

• 2. Chitta Baral  |  September 6th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

  I am not aware of Vedanta being blacklisted in the USA. In fact one should watch the interview of Anil Agarwal by the respected PBS personality Charlie Rose.
  See http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/516 .

  Vedanta indeed is blacklisted by the Noway government pension fund; also referred to as the oil fund. But what the people and activists that mention that do not say is Norway government pension fund also blacklists Boeing, Wal-mart, General Dynamics, Honeywell, etc. See the whole list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#Excluded_companies .

  On Lanjigarh, there are claims and counter-claims and I am not sure where the truth lies. Often rich people and industrialists are accused of using heavy handed tactics. But at the same time the activists opposing things also break the law and do many illegal things. (One may google on POSCO violence and one would find violence from both sides and perhaps even more from the opposer’s sides.)

  On environment, Justice Arijit Pasayat’s statement comes to mind. See http://www.e-ir.info/?p=608 where is is reported to have said:

  Opining on the destruction of a forest in the state of Kerala, Judge Arijit Pasayat pressed for a sense of proportionality when weighing the conflicting interests of people, the environment and development in the world’s second most populous country. “No development is possible without some adverse effect on the ecology and environment,” he wrote. “A balance has to be struck between the two interests. Where the commercial venture or enterprise would bring in results which are far more useful for the people, difficulty of a small number of people has to be bypassed.”

  ====

  In general, I feel that many activists are mad at Vedanta because Vedanta under the name of Sterlite essentially prevailed in the Indian supreme court. So they have a vendetta against Vedanta and are going after it without even thinking what is beneficial and what is not. For them politics and one-upmanship (showing that they can harm or stop Vedanta) is more important and if in the process a once in a millennium opportunity is lost for Orissa to rise again, then so be it. There action is a typical example of cutting your nose to spite your face.

  As far as I know Vedanta University people are ready to start building the medical college in the land they have already bought and the activists are stopping them from doing the construction and making the medical college.

• 3. Chitta Baral  |  September 6th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

  http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/video/stockmarket/13/02/newsvideo/414316 has a very recent CNBC-TV 18 program that has Anil Agarwal in it. It may give an idea on what the CNBC people think of him.

• 4. Biswa  |  September 6th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

  I too have heard criticism on Vedanta, Lanjigarh. Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanta_Resources#Criticism.

  What portion of land acquired by Vedanta for University, is fertile? That might be another concern. If it\’s a big chunk, it might adversely affect the food needs of the state. Hope, that angle is taken care by state govt.

• 5. Anand  |  September 7th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

  @ Mr Chitta!!
  Don’t decode Justice Arijit Pasayat’s statement on balancing between the destruction of environment and industrial growth to the destruction of Western Orissa and prosperity of Costal Orissa. It should happen in the same locality.

• 6. Chitta Baral  |  September 7th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

  Dear Mr. Anand Sagar Das:

  The first posting of this forum was about KBK Central University. See http://www.orissalinks.com/archives/date/2006/11 .

  Our quest for improvement of higher education scenario in Orissa started with two simultaneous movements, one for NIS (which was earlier announced for Bhubaneswar) and another for a central university in the KBK region.

  1. http://kbkcentral.blogspot.com/ started October 2005
  2. http://iiser.blogspot.com/ also started October 2005

  By God’s grace both of the goals materialized.

  Currently we are focusing on an ESIC medical college in Rourkela and many of our readers who are from the Bhubaneswar area have written to the CM that the first ESIC medical college should be in Rourkela and not in Bhubaneswar as the later has many medical colleges and the Rourkela area has perhaps more ESIC insured families.

  In contrast, when we were fighting for NIS I never came across anyone from another state saying please take our IISER and give it to Bhubaneswar.

  That should give you an idea what we are about.

  Also, when we were fighting for NIS, we did not say please take IISER from XYZ where it has been announced and have it in Bhubaneswar. Same about central universities and IITs. Our statement was always of the form, you can have whatever in XYZ, but please have one in Orissa.

  That way we were not making other states our adversaries and on purpose avoiding divisiveness between states of India.

  In essence:

  * We don’t want to take away something that is announced for another location to get one for us.

  * However, at times many of us are ready to give up (as in case of ESIC) something for another location in the state.

  ===

  Thus at orissalinks.com we will not condone divisive comments. We don’t talk or even think about destruction of anything here. But pointing out inequal distribution and overcoming that is ok. However extrapolating that to divisiveness is not.

  Hence, please watch out your language and the loaded nature of your comments, otherwise they may be edited out or not approved at all.

  sincerely,
  Chitta Baral

• 7. Anand  |  September 8th, 2009 at 10:10 am

  Dear Mr Chitta Baral,

  Your contribution to the educational infrastructure development of Orissa is beyond doubt. I like the effort you put for the development of Orissa through this website. I am a regular visitor of this site for the last few months. But, What would you say when Vedant group established two aluminum plants in Western Orissa by destroying the environment here, displacing many from their ancestral land and establishing world class university in Puri? How do you think the world class Medical college hospital will serve the displaced tribal here in Lanjigarh??? Actually I don’t like to argue for these things with you as I don’t blame you for that. Neither there will have any outcome by arguing with you. I just wanted to clarify here what Justice Arijit Pasayat has certainly not said. Good wishes!!

  regards,

  Anand Dash

• 8. Chitta Baral  |  September 8th, 2009 at 12:03 pm

  Dear Mr. Anand:

  The solution is not to create divisiveness and take something away from Puri but to propose what Vedanta can do in Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda. In any case, I have had discussions with Diagambar on some strategies for Lanjigarh.

  In regards to Jharsuguda, if you are from Jahrsuguda or know about it well enough, can you educate us a bit. I know the trio of Jharsuguda-Brajarajnagar-Belphara have more than 200,000 people. Also the Ib valley near Jharsuguda is a major source of coal for many things. What I would like to know is what are the major companies operating in Jharsuguda. Also, what are some of the immediate needs and priorities of the people in Jharsuguda. I know people of Jharsuguda were unhappy with having many industries but lacking amenities and that is why the previous speaker of Orissa lost from there. Now he is a Rajya Sabha MP and may be he learnt his lesson and will take better care of the people there.

• 9. Sanjib Karmee  |  September 8th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

  It is a pity that nothing happens in our country unless until people come to street. It is a blunder committed by both Vedanta and Orissa Govt. It would have been nice, if Vedanta would have announced three campus of its University at Puri, Kalahandi and Jharsuguda simultaneously. In principle, Vedanta should immediately announce two of its campuses at Kalahandi and Jharsuguda. Both these places deserve to have Vedanta sponsored educational institutions.

• 10. Chitta Baral  |  September 8th, 2009 at 1:49 pm

  Actually it is the opposite. Too often people come to streets and oppose things without understanding.

  ===

  In any case, see http://www.orissalinks.com/archives/2829 . The education minister convinced Vedanta for multiple regional campuses. Following are some excerpts from the newspaper reports of that day.

  *Pioneer: “We asked the varsity authorities to open regional campuses inside the State. We have also proposed them certain locations in the KBK region, southern and northern Orissa for opening up of the campuses,” Higher Education Minister Debi Mishra said while replying to the amendments brought by the members.

  *Business Standard: The university authorities will set up knowledge centres in different regions of the state for development of higher education in these areas.

  ===

  Now can we counter the propaganda of the people who want to hinder progress, and the let the university and its regional campuses happen.

• 11. Sanjib Karmee  |  September 8th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

  Dear Prof. Baral,
  I think we should not be too serious about what people are thinking or doing for certain issues. As long as we are in a democratic society some will oppose the move some will support the move. It is like the heath care issue in US. While, I was taking about people coming to street, I was taking about people coming to street to demand things not to oppose things. As once you have quoted “Shoila puara bhaga nahin”. I have not heard anything concrete from Vedanta regarding campuses at Kalahandi and Jharsuguda. May be I have missed the news. I think the announcement should come from Vedanta.

• 12. Chitta Baral  |  September 8th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

  My point is there are n number of companies, private sector and public sector, that have exploited Orissa’s minerals and given Orissa peanuts. Often they give couple of crores for flood relief or buy ambulances as part of their CSR.

  Yet, people and the activists don’t pressure NALCO, SAIL, NTPC, Tatas, Jindal, Bhushan, etc. to even make an engg college or medical college, and so on. This is puzzling when that SAIL in Bokaro plans a medical and engg college in Bokaro and NTPC has announced a IIIT in Chhatisgarh.

  What Anil Agarwal has proposed is mind boggling. No other person associated with such companies that are operating in Orissa have done that. But people want to stop that from happening with all kinds of conditions and call Vedanta all kinds of names.

  Normally one can ignore people. But if you read the papers, many people that oppose Vedanta University want to create a violent scenario so that Vedanta will go away and they can get political mileage as it happened in West Bengal.

  That is a likely possibility, and that would result in Vedanta University moving to another state but the factories will still remain.

• 13. Chitta Baral  |  September 8th, 2009 at 7:27 pm

  Having said about what other companies are not doing, my hunch is if local people of Jharsuguda and Lanjigarh come out and say that they would support Vedanta if it were to do X in their area where X is a medical college/ engg college/university then there is a very high chance that Vedanta would agree.

  The only person who has the guts to support Vedanta openly and follow the above approach is Digamabara. If only more people from Kalhandi followed that approach …

  Nevertheless, I hope more details about the regional campus plan will come out soon. One worry is that instead of taking it positively, people will say the regional campus does not have this and that and we will be back to square one.

• 14. Manoj  |  September 15th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

  Dear All ,

  I do not want to argue with you all .

  I was the eye witness for vedanta’s success story for last 7 yrs. Not is impossible for Vedanta.

  Just wait & see ………… What u saw in graphic design …. u will see in Puri (Orissa)

• 15. Krishna Das  |  September 24th, 2009 at 6:47 am

  Hi,
  I grew up in a small industrial township in Orissa(Koraput). Have I not been brought up in a township I would not have got the opportunity to study in good schools and colleges.

  The Adivasis in that area too got greatly benefited by the developments, they got it into good jobs to support their families, the life of those adivasis transformed like anything.

  I am residing in Canada/USA, since couple of years. I feel so nice to learn that Orissa got the opportunity for having a world class university.

  Lets not miss this opportunity, we need to act swiftly and intelligently. If we oppose then some other state is going to grab/steal the opportunity(like TATA walking away from W.B). If Vedanta happens then Orissa is going to benefit massively as it would create thousands of subsidiary/cascading jobs for the local people as its a massive project with roads, airports etc;.
  Chitta Baral, I really appreciate your efforts and initiatives.

• 16. Mr.Bay Leaf  |  October 20th, 2010 at 6:05 pm

  http://www.dailypioneer.com/290822/Vedanta-brings-Dongria-Kondh-music-to-limelight.html

  Look at this.Vedanta’s this initiative is definitely getting positive vibes in their favour.It is an outstanding image building exercise.