I think the best possibility is to work on upgrading VSSUT, Burla (formerly, UCE Burla) to an IIEST. UCE Burla alumni is fully supportive of this. In general, such a proposal has and will continue to have support from all circles of Odisha. Also, the CM has in the past written to Delhi about upgrading this.
To do this first the state government needs to be pushed to give a one time allocation of a significant amount (say 100 crores) to improve the infrastructure. In addition the faculty size needs to be increased to be at the level of the colleges mentioned below. Simultaneously there should be a campaign to convince the central government to upgrade it to an IIEST.
The Congress MP from Sambalpur should do all he can for this.
For some background on IIESTs see http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/psearch/QResult15.aspx?qref=89897. Following are screen capture of that page.
August 18th, 2010
I noticed that the fact that NISER currently has 43 regular faculty and 18 visiting faculty is not by accident or not because the institute is new and it needs visiting faculty to help in teaching, but is because NISER is designed to have additional 40% faculty as visiting faculty.
This comes out clearly in the design specs for the academic campus. For example, in https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1820 it is clearly stated that there will be offices for 250 faculty and additional 100 visiting faculty. This is in addition to having space for 150 post-doctoral fellows. (IISERs talk about 200 faculty and do not mention visiting faculty.)
This feature of having about additional 40% visiting faculty is more of a feature of DAE institutes like TIFR and is in contrast to most MHRD institutions. For example, the IISERs do not have that many visiting faculty.
Having such a high percentage of visiting faculty will enrich NISER’s environment and will be one of its signature distinguishing features. It will also help in faculty recruitment in that it can take in some highly regarded prospective faculty immediately as visiting faculty while they go through the formal approval process of a regular faculty position.
NISER has not yet advertised or highlighted about this feature of having such a high percent of visiting faculty positions. It should. Also, it should spread the word about its visiting positions widely to attract visitors from all over the world.
Another design feature of NISER vis-a-vis IISERs is its lower faculty student ratio. Its target is to have 250 regular faculty plus 100 visiting faculty and 1750 students (including 150 post-docs); making it a target ratio of 1:7 (if one just counts the regular faculty). In comparison IISERs are designed to have 200 faculty and 2055 students (including post-docs); making it a target ratio of 1:10.
While NISER’s target faculty-student ratio is 1:7, its current regular-faculty-student ratio is about 1:4.6. That means NISER is ahead in its faculty recruiting. For this all kudos go to the NISER director Prof. T. K. Chandrashekar.
August 16th, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in indiaeducationdiary.in.
Sri Sri Ravishankar University would start enrolling students for MBA and BBA courses for first batch from July 2011. This was announced by chairman of the Sri Sri Ravishankar Vidya Mandir Trust of Governors Srinivasan on Thursday.
According Srinivasan, the work for the proposed university has already started and they would start to enroll students for 120 seats for common MBA programe, 30 seats each in Agro-MBA and Entrepreneurs MBA from next academic session. Similarly, there are 60 seats for the BBA programe.
The authorities of Sri Sri Ravishankar University have also informed that the courses in medical, engineering, vedic school and other courses would be launched subsequently.
The state government had signed MoU with Sri Sri Ravishankar Vidya Mandir Trust in December 2006 for the university project pegged at Rs 350 crores. The proposed campus is likely to come up in approximately 200-300 acres of land in Naraj, 10 km from Cuttack. The campus will include academic buildings, recreational facilities, meditation halls, and a sports complex. It will be designed to cater to the needs of 1,500 faculty members, an equal number of non-academic staff members, and 15,000 students.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Economic Times.
THE ICFAI Group, known for its chain of B-schools, is planning to set up eight universities in as many states in the next two years with an investment of Rs400 crore, says a senior official.
It has received the necessary approvals from the governments of Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, said SK Sharma, director, planning and coordination, ICFAI.
The universities are expected to be operational first in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh next year. “The construction work at these campuses is almost through. The state government has to inspect the facilities,” said Mr Sharma. The universities in Gujarat, Assam, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh will follow suit in 2012.
August 16th, 2010
Following is from PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=64351.
The Union Cabinet today approved the proposal for formation of societies for each of the six AIIMS-like institutions being set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). These societies will be functional till the AIIMS-like institutions are brought under an Act of Parliament.
Creating legal entities in the form of a society for these institutions will facilitate greater autonomy and faster execution of the projects and will expedite release of funds from the Government. Each of these institutions will be registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
Each society will have a two-tier Organization and Management structure. The Governing Council under the chairmanship of the Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare would have appropriate representation from concerned Ministries/Departments of the Government of India and other related organizations. This will be the apex body deciding all policy matters.
There will also be a Board of Governors with Secretary (Health & Family Welfare) as chairperson with appropriate representation of State Governments. Persons with special knowledge in the field of science and medicine will be nominated by the Governing Council.
Background:
The Union Cabinet approved the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) in March, 2006 with the objective of correcting regional imbalances in the availability of affordable/reliable tertiary healthcare services and also to augment facilities for quality medical education in the country. Under Phase-I of PMSSY, six AIIMS-like institutions are being set up, one each in the States of Bihar (Patna), Chattisgarh (Raipur), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Orissa (Bhubaneshwar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur) and Uttarakhand (Rishikesh) at an estimated cost of Rs. 840 crore per institution including nursing colleges. The formation of societies will give these institutions a governance structure, which is not there at present.
Related links from the past:
August 9th, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
The National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with two city-based institutes for analysing the origin and progression of stress and metabolic syndrome (SMS) and its links with diabetes.
The NISER signed an MoU with the Kanungo Institute of Diabetes Specialities (KIDS) to carry out a collaborative project on clinical, behavioural and epidemiological data on SMS and diabetes yesterday.
It also roped in the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) to use the KIDS’ expertise in genomic studies, laboratory facilities and library for research.
… Chairman and managing director of KIDS Dr Alok Kanungo said: “While India has the highest prevalent diabetes – about 20 per cent of the total diabetic population in the world, there are 40 lakh diabetics in the state. As per statistics released by the state health department, the number of patients has been increased upto 5 lakh in the past five years.”
… “Currently more than 20 per cent of the adult population are suffering from stress related diseases due to change in lifestyle. This also leads to the pre-diabetes stage. However, we are yet to get the Indian database either on SMS or pre-diabetes. This collaboration is expected to let us know the role of Indian genetics in diabetes,” he added.
“The KIDS has a state-of-the-art super speciality diabetes centre with latest infrastructure,” he said.
“Our focus area of research will be SMS leading to diabetes and other physiological abnormalities at molecular level. The clinical, behavioural, epidemiological and susceptibility aspects of the patients of the KIDS will be studied to understand the link in Indian genetic perspective. The research is based on the private public entrepreneurship model of the NISER,” said Palok Aich, the chairperson of School of Biological Sciences, NISER.
“The ILS, being a leading centre of studies in genetics, will help our students and researchers regarding infrastructure and library use,” he said.
This is really great. Once the AIIMS-like institution gets operational it will further increase such collaboration the Biology, Life science and Human Health areas.These kind of collaborations is one of the motivation behind having clusters of institutions nearby. Their impact gets multiplied and the overall impact becomes many times the sum of their individual impact. However, Odisha needs multiple such clusters. Hence my suggestions on several tiers of clusters. See http://www.orissa2020.org/home/area-wise-plan.
Some past relevant articles:
August 9th, 2010
Following is from the PIB http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=64336. The part relevant to Dhenkanal has been put in a different colour.
Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Smt. Ambika Soni has said that under the new initiatives taken to position IIMC as an apex institution for providing quality education in the field on Media and entertainment, the endeavour was to establish facilities, curriculum and courses at par with Global Standards. A roadmap to initiate the process had already begun wherein classes at the four Regional Centres at J&K, Kerala, Maharashtra and Mizoram would commence from the next academic session at the facilities being provided by the State Governments. For this purpose, under the 12th Plan, funds would be provided to establish the full fledged facilities at the four Regional Centres. The Minister stated this while delivering her address at the 43rd Convocation of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication here today.
Elaborating on the details of the up-gradation being undertaken at Delhi and Dhenkenal, the Minister said that an up-gradation of the One-Year PG Diploma Course to Two-Year Advanced PG Diploma Course would be undertaken along-with seeking equivalence to Masters Degree for the Two-Year PG Diploma Courses from Ministry of Human Resources Development. As a new initiative, introduction of at least two new Two-Year PG Diploma Courses (one each in Development Journalism and Corporate Communication & Media Management) would be undertaken. For the infrastructural development, expansion of the existing buildings at Delhi and Dhenkanal and construction of new buildings for accommodating two batches of students at a time would be undertaken along-with procurement of latest technical equipment and filling up all vacancies in the teaching as well as non-teaching category. The Minister added that these initiatives would not only provide quality manpower to the industry, the training imparted would also ensure availability of skills, talent and professionalism with proper grooming at the inception level.
Smt. Soni further said that the growth of the media and entertainment industry had been one of the success stories of the Indian Economy. The growth of the media and entertainment industry was expected to grow provisionally at Rs.652billion in 2010, culminating to Rs.1091 billion in 2014. The CAGR was for the period was expected to be around 13%. This growth rate was due to the development in regional markets as well as different media formats. This growth, the Minister added could be sustained only if talented and skilled persons added value to the sector through their professional inputs. Hence ,capacity building was a major challenge for any Government. As a consequence, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting had also undertaken specific measures to look into the needs of the Human Resources and skill upgradation in the film and animation sector.
The Minister further added that apart from IIMC, efforts were being made to reposition the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune as a world class Institute by upgrading and modernising its infrastructure and facilities. A Detailed Project Report was being finalised. An outlay of Rs.52 crore has been proposed for this scheme during the 11th Five Year Plan. Similarly, in order to look into the growing demand of trained professionals in the sphere of Animation, Gaming and Visual Effects, it has been decided that a specialized National Centre for Animation, Gaming and Visual effects will be set up to provide training and upgrading skills. For this scheme also, a DPR is under preparation. For the animation sector,Smt.Soni said, the ministry was open to the idea of developing a Public Private Partnership model with interested stakeholders.
A total number of 259 students were awarded diploma for courses in Hindi & English Journalism, Advertising & PR, Radio & Television and Oriya Journalism. 44 students of IIMC, Dhenkanal were given diplomas in English Journalism.
August 7th, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in tathya.in.
Meet Kamalakshya Mahatab, the genius and product of the IMA has B.Sc(Hons) in Mathematics & Computing programme which is designed to orient students to pursue mathematics as a research career.
He completed the B.SC.(Hons) in 2010 at IMA and see the results of his.
Appeared in IIT JAM and stood first to qualify for Indian Statistical Institute.
Faced the All India Examination for Integrated Ph.D program at TIFR Centre Bangalore and stood first.
He qualified join the integrated Ph.D Program of Indian Institute of Science, Banglore.
Again he has qualified for the integrated Ph.D programme of Institute Mathematical Sciences Chennai.
He also qualified to join the integrated Ph.D programme TIFR, Mumbai.
Out of these six options he is opting join the TIFR, Mumbai.
From the first batch in the year 2009, eight students took admission in this batch.
02 qualified in the IIT JAM, 02 qualified for Central University Hyderabad, 03 joined Utkal University .
One of the boys who qualified in the IIT JAM joined as integrated Ph.D Programme.
… The Student who was second in 2003, RMTS, Himalaya N. Senapati, went on to represent India in Astronomy Olympiad at Semiz, Crimea, Ukraine and earned a silver medal.
Professor Pattanayak has mentored nearly 60 plus scholars of various background, who are doing Ph.Ds in various IITs, Math institutes of India at this time.
… Interestingly nearly 15 of Ph.D students are SC/ST students – who are supposed to be weak in Math.
… One of his mentored student, Abhilash Mishra of Sambalpur is now a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, who has come back to support the program both financially and physically, by teaching students.
The other of the 08 students of 2009 batch is Deepak Kumar Sahu, who is from Nuapada district, is actually in a job in Pune which pays him 9.5 lakhs per annum.
He has personally mentored many math Olympiad students since 1988 and Somani Pattnayak last year was selected directly by MIT, USA.
Interestingly she spents most of her winter vacation last year in Math Camps in IMA …
Related pointers from the past:
August 4th, 2010
It seems like Vedanta University is seriously considering to move to a location in the Southern states. (For those who may not know much about Vedanta University; it is a university proposed by London based industrialist Anil Agarwal who has pledged $1 Billion = 5000 crores of his own money towards this university which will have an overall budget of 15,000 crores. Note that the budgte of a new IIT is about 800 crores, a new AIIMS is about 850 crores, a new IIM is 215 cores, a new IISER is 500 crores. So just the 5000 crore is greater than having 2 IITs, 2 AIIMS, 2 IIMs and 2 IISERs. See http://vedanta.edu.in/ for more details.)
Following are some excerpts from recent news items:
(i)
http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2010_07_24_The_Learning_Curve.html
“Agarwal’s other project in Orissa — Vedanta University — seems to be going nowhere. It appears it would take years before the first brick is laid on his most ambitious, and grandest, education project…. Agarwal, founder of London-based Vedanta Group, turned heads in 2006 when he said he would set up an 8,000-acre, $3-billion university under the aegis of Vedanta Foundation (which later changed its name to Anil Agarwal Foundation or AAF) in the state’s coastal town of Puri. He also offered $1 billion from his personal funds. Agarwal’s holding in his companies is worth more than $10 billion (as on 31 March 2010). …
Two states have extended an invitation; a decision is likely to be taken on a new site in two months,” says Ajit Kumar Samal, in-charge of the university project. He, however, refuses to divulge more details. Experts say the alternatives to Orissa could be Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which have good educational infrastructure.
(ii) http://sify.com/finance/vedanta-may-shift-varsity-to-southern-states-news-default-kgobu9ifgjb.html
The Anil Agarwal Foundation’s plan to set up a Rs 15,000- crore varsity in Puri (Orissa), called Vedanta University, has come a cropper. The management is now in talks with two southern states for alternative land to set up the varsity.
Although there has been opposition from inside Orissa mainly because some people are against Vedanta due to its Kalahandi operations and partly because some people are against the huge land requirement for this university, the last straw seems to be the action taken by the Minister of Environment in Delhi Mr. Jairam Ramesh. His action stopped the construction that was about to happen. See http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/env-crz-vedanta.pdf.
After granting conditional clearance, it has now put on hold the clearance. Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindustan Times:
While the environment aspects of a mine is understandable, using environment as an issue to stop a university looks somewhat fishy. Especially, consider the following:
(i) The same Jairam Ramesh and his ministry has this week granted environmental permission to construct the Polavurum dam in Andhra Pradesh against the objections of the Orissa and Chhatisgrah government. See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Environment-ministry-clears-Andhra-project/articleshow/6233874.cms .
Even Times of India is surprised with this. It wrote: "Oddly, while the ministry had set up separate committees to investigate the settlement of rights under the Forest Rights Act in other high profile cases such as Vedanta and Posco which propose to displace far lesser people, in the Polavaram case the ministry has decided to accept the state government’s compliance report on face value. The mega-project is expected to submerge 276 villages displacing upwards of two lakh people by some estimates. "
(ii) In the past IIT Madras was built on the land of Guindy National Park. Following is from IIT Madras’s web page at http://www.iitm.ac.in/biodiversity
The IIT Madras Campus was carved out of a natural forest that formed part of the Guindy National Park.
(iii) IIT Bombay is in close proximity to the Sanjay Gandhi national park
Jairam Ramesh’s bias against Orissa was earlier evident when in 2007 when he questioned how an IIT would benefit Orissa. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/286 .
I worry that Mr. Ramesh may be scheming to take the 15,000 crore Vedanta University to the south. He is originally from Karantak and is currently a Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh. Regardless, losing this would be a great loss for Orissa.
I know oppositions in Orissa have raised many questions about Vedanta University. I have tried to answer their criticisms and questions. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696
My basic point is that this university with a budget of 15,000 crores out of which 5,000 crore is personal money pledged by Anil Agarwal (who has a net worth of several billion pounds, thus making this believable) can completely change the situation of Orissa and make the Bhubaneswar-Puri area a viable competitor to Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad in terms of being a knowledge hub. This is a once in a century type of opportunity and letting it go would be foolish for generations to come.
Sorry for being so long, but this is a complex issue and I had to explain the background. We need to do something about this so that Vedanta University is established in Orissa, if not Puri, somewhere else in Orissa is fine too. If we let it go to some other state generations of Oriyas will repent for having lost this opportunity.
What can we do?
To start with please consider sending a version of the following letter (make changes to your liking).
To: pmosb@pmo.nic.in, kapil@kapilsibal.com, kapilsibal@hotmail.com, sam.pitroda@c-sam.com, s.pitroda@nic.in, jairam@sansad.nic.in, jairam@jairam-ramesh.com, secy.dhe@nic.in , skumar-mail@nic.in
Cc: cmo@ori.nic.in, bmahtab@sansad.nic.in, jayarampangi@gmail.com, pyarimohan@yahoo.co.uk, office.bjpanda@gmail.com, k.mangala@sansad.nic.in, mohan.jena@sansad.nic.in, rb.pradhan@sansad.nic.in, sushila.tiriya@sansad.nic.in, pyarimohanap@sansad.nic.in
Bcc: ajit.samal@vedanta.co.in, brajakmishra@gmail.com, Itishree.Devi@vedanta.co.in, cv.krishnan@vedanta.edu.in
SUBJECT: Please stop putting hurdles on the Vedanta University project and facilitate its establishment
Dear Esteemed Prime Minister Dr. Singh:
I am very concerned that various bureaucratic hurdles have been put by your environment ministry on the Vedanta University Project (in Puri, Odisha), which is the only current initiative that has a decent chance of becoming the first (and perhaps the only for several decades) world class university of India.
I have no association with Vedanta University except that I would like India and Odisha to have world class universities and I see the best hope of that happening soon through the establishment of Vedanta University. I am making this clarification of not having any association with Vedanta University because in India many people are afraid of speaking out in favor of industrial houses lest they be branded as being bought out by these houses.
The annual expenditure of typical state university [1] in the USA is 1.785 Billion USD, which comes to 8211 crores of INR at One USD=46 INR rate. Even taking the purchasing power index according to which 1 USD has the purchasing power of Rs 17, 1.785 Billion USD comes to about 3000 crores of INR using the purchasing power parity (PPP) numbers. Among other universities, Harvard with 20,000 students has an expenditure of 3.756 Billion USD [2] which comes to 6385 crores INR using PPP. Stanford’s budget for 18,500 students is 3.65 Billion USD [3]. In comparison, the 2010-11 budget for IISc Bangalore is 221 Crores INR and the total budget for the seven older IITs is 1600 crores.
The only Indian institution that ranks very high (at number 15) in global rankings [4] is the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad. According to a Times of India report [5]: "Indian School of Business (ISB) pays over Rs 20 lakh to its Assistant Professors (APs). Against this, an IIM-Ahmedabad AP gets only Rs 5.5 lakh as starting pay annually."
Based on the above two numbers one can guess estimate that a university in India aspiring to be world class would need to have an annual budget of 1000-1500 crores INR. I am not sure what budget estimates have been made for the innovation universities. The closest number that I came across was the estimate (in 2008) of 720 crores [6] over a nine year period.
The Vedanta University as planned has an overall budget of 15,000 crores with 5,000 crores being pledged from personal funds of the Anil Agarwal foundation. So the scale is way beyond what is mentioned with respect to the other institutions and universities in India.
As per [6,7,8,9] the budget towards making a new IIT is 760 crores, a new IIM is 210 crores, a central university is 300 crores, a central university with a medical school is 720 crores, an IISER is 500 crores and an AIIMS is 850 crores. These all add up to 3340 crores which is much less than the 5000 crores Mr. Anil Agarwal has pledged to contribute personally (through the Anil Agarwal foundation) towards Vedanta University. In addition the 15,000 crore overall budget and the plan for Vedanta University [10] which includes a township of 500,0000 and research institutes and centers a la Stanford Research Institute suggest a way to get enough income to match the annual expenses needed to operate a truly world class university. Thus when Vedanta University website talks about being world class [10], the numbers seem to add up.
I am not sure if the proposed innovation universities will be able to pay about 4 times the salary that is paid to faculty at IIMs and IITs. That is what ISB Hyderabad, the only globally top ranked institute is paying. That is what Vedanta University with its planned budget could possibly pay.
Under the above circumstances, Vedanta University seems to me as having the best chance to be India’s first comprehensive world class university.
While the honorable HRD Minister has been visiting around the world to get help in establishing innovation universities, does it make sense to create unreasonable hurdles (as the environment ministry seems to be doing) to the only one foundation that seems to have a real plan [10] and that has pledged money to back up that plan to create a truly world class university.
India’s laws and its constitution are sacrosanct. But as everyone knows one can use laws to create hurdles and one can also facilitate the establishment of one of a kind potentially real world class university while making sure that those laws are in compliance. It is my sincere opinion that the environment ministry is creating hurdles instead of just making sure that the laws are followed. Also, it is unfortunate that the HRD ministry has not taken notice of Vedanta
University and has not facilitated the creation of this potentially world class university. Please note that, as per [11] "the IIT Madras Campus was carved out of a natural forest that formed part of the Guindy National Park."
In any western country a foundation with a $1 Billion donation towards a new university would have been given red carpet treatment. In India, the HRD ministry does not even notice it and the Environment ministry is bordering on harassing the project. No wonder we do not have any world class university yet.
I know that there are various people and organizations that are opposed to the Vedanta University. Many of them because they have issues with the Vedanta company. Also, most of them do not have a grasp of what a world-class university is, and some with political objectives have even floated malicious rumors. Many of those objections have been addressed in great length at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696.
I sincerely request that you urgently have a meeting with the HRD ministry, the environment ministry and the government of Orissa and facilitate the establishment of Vedanta University with full compliance of the laws of the land. In addition, please help Vedanta University to immediately start graduate programs in 2-3 areas of need while the various issues are expediently sorted out with your help.
Finally, Vedanta University was in the process of constructing the buildings for a top-notch medical school which would have been part of it. The environment ministry has stopped that. How much sense does it make to stop construction of a medical school in a state (Orissa) that lacks adequate medical facilities and that is at the bottom of many health parameters?
Please allow the medical school construction to resume at the earliest as by stopping the construction of a medical school, your environment ministry is playing with lives.
[1] http://budget.asu.edu/all-funds-budget-0
[2] http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/Provost_-_Harvard_Fact_Book_2009-10_FINAL.pdf
[3] http://www.stanford.edu/dept/businessaffairs/cgi-bin/downloadpdf_v3.php?file=BudBk_2010-11_sec1.pdf
[4] http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/indian-school-of-business
[5] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/ahmedabad/IIM-A-dons-want-Harvard-like-status/articleshow/4974404.cms
[6] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=37684
[7] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=12975
[8] http://www.financialexpress.com/news/aiims-to-start-functioning-in-jodhpur-in-23-yrs-azad/517370/
[9] http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=29814
[10] http://vedanta.edu.in/
[11] http://www.iitm.ac.in/biodiversity
sincerely
July 31st, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in c2clive.
Addressing academics at IIT-Madras Research Park, Mr. Willetts said eight U.K. universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Essex, Birmingham, Newcastle, Exeter and the Open University – are eager to forge links during the design and eventual creation of the new Innovation Universities.
“We are keen to identify 14 British universities that can work alongside from the beginning. After talks with Kapil Sibal, I will go back to Britain to identify the 14 British universities to match up with the universities here,” the British Minister said.
I think the idea of each of the 14 innovation universities having a partner from UK is a great idea. Similar partnership from universities in US, other parts of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and top universities in the East (Japan, S. Korea, Singapore and Hongkong) would be great.
July 29th, 2010
Following is from a report in Times of India.
The National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) will soon start a research programme on subjects significant for the state’s development such as mineral resources and marine biology.
… Kakodkar said, "NISER is going to be the dream institution of our vision. Research and innovation must go hand in hand. Research on one side would facilitate growth of knowledge and bring about innovation while on the other hand the innovations would make the societies prosper and evolve. NISER has started establishing linkages with institutes in the neighbourhood."
NISER is planning to start integrated PhD programme where students will be selected after their BSc degree. The institute has signed an MoU with the Institute of Life Science (ILS), Bhubaneswar, to establish collaboration of research and educational programmes, exchange and complement facilities available in both institutions. The collaboration would also allow PhD students of ILS to take pre-PhD course work at NISER and take up joint research on subjects of mutual interest.
Similarly, NISER has also decided to tie up with the city-based Kanungo Institute of Diabetes Specialties (KIDS) to do research in areas such as correlating stress and diabetes, correlating stress, behaviour and other metabolic syndromes. The KIDS clinicians and researchers would collaborate with NISER researchers in areas of mutual interest by using each other’s facilities.
Director of NISER T K Chandrasekhar said the institute was getting a large number of applications for pure science courses. "This year, about 15,000 students applied for the integrated MSc course. As many as 9000 appeared in the National Eligibility Selection Test (NEST) for the 60 seats in the course," he added.
Out of the 60 undergraduate students that have been admitted to this fourth batch 9 have Odia sounding names which makes it about 15%. Similarly out of 23 Ph.D students that have been selected this year 9 have Odia sounding names.
NISER Bhubaneswar, which started classes in 2007, and hired its first regular faculty (other than the Director who joined in late 2008) in mid 2009 now has 61 faculty out of which 42 are regular faculty and 19 are visiting faculty. The school wise break-up is as follows: Biological Sciences (12 regular + 3 visiting), Chemical Sciences (12+5), Mathematical Sciences (5+2), Physical Sciences(13+5), Others (0+4). All the faculty have very strong research records.
In comparison the faculty numbers in the IISERs (as of today and not counting faculty who will join after July 2010) are: Kolkata – started classes in 2006 (62 regular), Pune – started classes in 2006 (47 regular+4 visiting), Mohali – started classes in 2007 (33 regular +1 visiting), Bhopal – started classes in 2008 (30 regular + 2 visiting) , and Thiruvananthapuram – started classes in 2008 (20 regular + 2 visiting).
Related Links:
July 29th, 2010
