Odisha HRD

Center for Contemporary Music at Ravenshaw: From Dharitri

April 23rd, 2010

Unnamed industrial house in Bhubaneswar setting up a finishing school

For the many engineering graduates lacking the skills to get a job, finishing schools promise to hone their skills and improve their chances in finding a job. One of the well-known finishing school in India is the Raman International Institute of Information Technology (RiiiT) in Karnataka. It claims to be the first finishing school of India. So far there is no finishing school of that kind in Bhubaneswar or Odisha. (Some of the existing engineering colleges do offer professional courses that make students more prepared to find a job.) The following ad from Samaja suggests that there will soon be a finishing school in Bhubaneswar. My guess is that this will be a beginning. Soon many others will join the fray; especially since for a finishing school one does not need approval from AICTE or a university and one can charge fees as per the market.

April 23rd, 2010

Comparing Maharashtra and Odisha in terms of engineering seats

The Maharashtra numbers are from http://www.dte.org.in/degree/statistics/regionwisetotal.asp?inst_type=ENGINEERING. For Odisha I calculated the numbers using 2009 AICTE data. (Thanks to Bagdu for inspiring us to make this comparison.)

Couple of points to note from the above:

• The number of B.Engg seats in Bhubaneswar is not bad in comparison with the much larger cities of Mumbai and Pune.
• The other three metropolitan areas of Odisha mentioned above need to get to the level of at least 5000 seats (if not 10,000 seats) to make them attractive to IT companies.
• The increasing M.Tech seats will help improve the quality of faculty in the engineering colleges.

4 comments April 22nd, 2010

Ravenshaw to have a convention center named “Seven Pillar of Wisdom Center”: Dharitri

April 22nd, 2010

IIT act to be ammended to include medicine; Despite objections by the Health Ministry IIT Kharagpur to start medical school in collaboration with Indian Railways

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, minister of state for HRD D Purandeshwari said the ministry has decided to amend the IIT Act, the law that governs IITs, to include medical science. The health ministry had said that IITs should not be allowed to start conventional courses in medicine.

The amendment, Purandeshwari said, would help IITs to offer programmes bringing together the diverse disciplines of medicine and engineering. Referring to the health ministry’s objection, she said, "However, appreciating the fact that the modern trends in medical education and research in technology and medicine in all the developed and most of the developing countries are seen hand-in-hand, the government proposes to incorporate `medicine’ in the IIT Act."

Purandeswari said the programme would bring the two important disciplines of medicine and engineering together.

… IIT Kharagpur has come up with a concrete proposal in this regard and plans to start a medical college in collaboration with Indian Railways. At a meeting of experts in the health ministry in February this year, it was observed that IITs should start courses on health information technology, biomedical engineering and e-health rather than running a hospital or starting MBBS courses.

There are several lessons that Odisha can draw from this.

• As Purna Mishra suggested in a comment, VSSUT and the VSS Medical College in Burla should combine to form a single university.
• NIT Rourkela and IIT Bhubaneswar should consider adding a medical college as part of the institute; NIT could include the proposed ESI medical college and IIT could include the proposed Railways medical college.

April 22nd, 2010

Some engineering colleges that are in the pipeline

Although last year several engineering colleges in Odisha could not fill their seats, there seems to be several new engineering colleges in the pipeline for this year. The list for the eastern region is here and here. From those lists my guess is that the following are engineering colleges that are being made in Odisha.

• Bhadrak Academy of Technology, Kantabada, Bhubaneswar (by the same people as Bhadrak Institute of Engineering and Technology)
• Bhubaneswar Institute of Industrial Technology
• Capital Engineering College
• Dadhichi College of Engineering
• Hirakud Institute of Engineering & Technology
• Ideal Institute of Engineering (?)
• International Institute of Engineering Technology, Bhubaneswar
• Radhakrishna Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar
• Rayagada Institute of Technology & Management
• Satyananda Institute of Engineering & Technology
• Udaynath College of Science & Technology

There are many other names in the list; but I am not sure if they are in Odisha, West Bengal or Assam. I am pretty sure that the above (except the one marked with a ?) are in Odisha.

1 comment April 21st, 2010

Odisha proposes upgradation of Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) to a national level institute of MSME

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard by Bishnu Das.

The state government, in its proposal, has proposed to convert the existing Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) at Bhubaneswar, a nodal agency of the Orissa government, to a national level institute for MSMEs. The proposed national institute for MSME would be in line with National Institute of Enterprise and Business Development, Noida, National Institute of MSME, at Hyderabad and Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship located at Guwahati. Since the Union government plans to set up three such new centres in the country, the state government intends to cash in on the opportunity. The state government has offered to provide the infrastructure including land belonging to IED for setting up this institute.

1 comment April 20th, 2010

NISWASS Bhubaneswar gets 20 crores from UGC for infrastructure development

Following is from the UGC report http://www.ugc.ac.in/more/commissiondecision/467.pdf (page 8, item 3.1). Thanks to Prof. Pujari for the pointer.

The Commission considered and approved the recommendations of the Expert Committee to the proposal of National Institute of Social Work and Social Sciences (NISWASS), Bhubaneswar (Orissa) for financial assistance for Infrastructural Development and approved one time financial grant of Rs.20.00 crores to the Institute.

The web page of NISWASS is at http://www.niswass.org/. It has the following departments:

• Department of Social Work
• Department of Social Communication
• Department of women’s Empowerment
• Department of social history philosophy and buddhist studies
• Department of human rights education and ambedkar studies
• Department Of Integrated Community Health Care
• Department of disaster preparedness & environment management
• Centre for computer applications and training
• Department of rural management and gandhian studies

Some of the programs it offers are:

• BA and MA in Social Work
• MA in Social Communication
• MA in Rural Management
• Master in Women Studies
• Master in Buddhist Studies

Admission forms are available every year around 15th May.

Some of the features and achievements of NISWASS are:

• It is affiliated to the University of Utkal, Sambalpur and Berhampur in the State of Odisha. The Vice Chancellors of all these Universities happen to be in the Board of Governors of NISWASS.
• It has also been recognized by each of them as an Advanced Research Centre.
  The Institute has already been recognized by the University Grants Commission under Sections 2 (f) and 12 (B) of the UGC Act, 1956. Utkal University and the Government of Odisha separately have recommended the application of NISWASS filed with the University Grants Commission for conferring on NISWASS of a Deemed University.
• As an Institution catering to teaching and training in professional social work courses, NISWASS has been recognized and taken as a member of the Association of Schools of Social Work in India (ASSWI), New Delhi.
• NISWASS has been recognized as a Nodal Centre for the purpose of evaluation and inspections, Family Counseling Centres, etc. by the Central Social Welfare Advisory Board, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
• NISWASS publishes its research reports in the form of books, monographs and handbooks. It also publishes a journal, The Fourth World (bi-annually in English). Its Journal has been registered under the Press and Registration Act and has also obtained the ISSN number.
• Also, its development workers are active in more that ten thousand villages in Orissa and are engaged in carrying out various development works in addition to implementing education, health, skill improvement training, etc. focusing on women, children, disabled and other rural people and urban slums.
• NISWASS has been accepted by CAPART for training of trainers from various NGOs to conduct training of the Social Animators.
• NISWASS has been able to establish two prestigious Chairs for advanced research and training viz. 
  Dr. Ambedkar Chair on Social Work and Shri K.R. Narayanan (Late President of Indian) Chair on Social Communication.
• NISWASS had entered into international collaboration arrangements with the University of Missouri, Columbia (USA), the South Asian Institute (SAI, University of Heidleberg (Germany) and the Free University of Berlin (Germany) in matters of research, publications, faculty visits, and students’ exchange programmes. “Memoranda of Understanding (MOU)” have already been signed with the concerned University authorities. But relationship is active in the case of the Free University of Berlin.

There seems to be a lot of jobs available at NISWASS. See http://www.niswass.org/career_with_niswass.php.

NISWASS is located in Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar.

The only things that I could not find in their web pages are the names of the faculty and researchers working there. The only name I could find was the name of Dr. R. K. Nayak, mentioned as the Founder of NISWASS. 

April 19th, 2010

Update on the proposed PPP based IIITs

(Thanks to kddf for the pointer.)

Following is from a PTI report in Hindu.

According to a note prepared by the Ministry for these projects, each Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) would be set up at an investment of Rs. 200 crore and the government would bear 85 per cent of the expenditure.

Of the 85 per cent spending, the Centre would provide for 50 per cent and the state government would bear 35 per cent of the expenditure. It means the Centre will provide Rs. 100 crore while the state government will give Rs. 70 crore and the industry will provide Rs. 30 crore for setting up of each IIIT.

“The ministry has prepared 50—35—15 funds sharing pattern between the Centre, state and industry. The Planning Commission has given in—principle approval for it. Now the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) will consider it,” a ministry official said.

… Now if the EFC approves the government’s proposal, it would be moved to Cabinet for final approval.

As per the plan, each IIIT would be a centre of excellence and specialise in specific area. These institutes would concentrate more on basic than applied research.

The ministry would bring in a bill in Parliament to confer them with the status of institutes of national importance. They can offer degree and Ph. D programmes once they become institutes of national importance.

In Odisha the state government has proposed that the PPP based IIIT be in Berhampur. Earlier it established a IIIT in Bhubaneswar and recently a IIIT type institute has been approved as part of Sambalpur University.

April 18th, 2010

IIT Bhubaneswar makes some key hires

Update: IIT Bhubaneswar web site is now updated and lists most of the new faculty that have joined.

A key hire that IIT Bhubaneswar recently made is of Prof. S C De Sarkar.

Prof. De Sarkar was the deputy Director at IIT Kharagpur and my teacher (in the Compiler course) when I was doing my B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering. He was the best teacher I encountered during my B.Tech degree. He has had many star Ph.D students including some who have won the Bhatnagar award.

He has joined IIT Bhubaneswar as the Dean of Faculty. In the words of IIT Bhubaneswar director Prof. Chakraborty: "He is now a great strength of IIT Bhubaneswar."

Some of the other highlights releted to recent hires (obtained from the IIT Bhubaneswar web page) are:

• Dr. C.N. Bhende, Asst. Prof. of Electrical Sciences received the best thesis award at Doctoral level from INAE.
• Dr. Sumanta Haldar Assistant Prof. of school of Infrastructure has been adjudged as the best Ph.D. thesis in India in the field of Geotechnical Engineering by the Indian Geotechnical Society.

April 18th, 2010

Vedanta University Project gets environment and CRZ clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests: IANS

Update: Indian express mentions that the clearance from the center comes with several conditions. Following is an excerpt.

In its letter to the Foundation dated April 16, the Ministry cleared the project while setting about 50 conditions. As per the condition, the Foundation has to get necessary permission and no-objection certificate from the Ministry as the project is situated less than 200 metres of Balukhanda reserve forest and wildlife sanctuary. Besides, the Foundation cannot draw ground water, restrict local fishermen from fishing and construct in CRZ area. The MoEF letter also makes it clear that the clearance order can be challenged before the National Environment Appellate Authority within a period of 30 days.

Following is from this IANS report at Indiatalkies:

… ‘The union ministry of environment and forests (MOEF) has granted the environment and CRZ clearances to the Vedanta University project,’ Sasanka Patnaik told IANS. 

‘We received the letter from the ministry today (Saturday),’ he said.

 The Anil Agarwal foundation is promoted by NRI billionaire and chairman of Britain’s Vedanta Resources Anil Agarwal.

 It has proposed to set up a multi-disciplinary Vedanta University over 6,000 acres of land near the Konark-Puri marine drive, some 60 km from here.

 This not-for-profit university, being built on a global scale, has been envisaged as one-of-its-kind institution for quality higher education and cutting-edge research facility in 95 academic disciplines for 100,000 students.

In March 2009 it had received conditional clearance from the state.

3 comments April 17th, 2010

Current status of Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) Baragarh

It was established in 2008 with the first batch entering in 2008-09. It is the 5th IIHT of the country. (There are now 8 of them.) It now has  a website at http://iihtbargarh.webs.com/. The following information is from that site.

Its current full time faculty and technical staff are:

1. MUKHTAR AHMAD,    Director, B.Sc., B.Text.(t.c.) Kanpur university

2. Y.K.Suryavanshi, Senior Lecturer in textile design, B.Tech. ,Bangalore university, M.Tech. Chennai

3. Jitender Tak, Senior Lecturer in textile chemistry, B.Tech. from Bhilwara(raj.)

4. Siddharth Singh, Sr. Lecturer in text. designs, B.Tech. Kanpur & M.Tech.Delhi

5. Bishu Mondal,  Art Designer, BFA

6. Sandeep Kumar, Instructor cum Demonstrator, Diploma in Handloom Technology from IIHT, Varanas

Its part time faculty for 2009-10 are:

• Mrs. Krishna Dutta                      – Engg. Physics
• Shri Suraj Prakash Bank          – Engg. Chemistry & Pollution, Control in Textile Industry
• Shri C.R.Sahu                              – English I &II
• Shri R.C.Tosh                              – F.S.&C.A. I & II
• Shri Soumyajeet Mishra           – Engg. Drawing & Material Sc. & Engineering
• Shri Rajender Sikandar            – T.D.C. – II
• Shri Dileswar Karmi                  – Engg. Mathemetics & Computer Applications and I.T.
• Shri H.K.Biswal                          – Chemistry Practice
• Shri Bhaskar Bhue                   – Physical Education Instructor

The main course currently being offered there is a 3 yr Diploma in Handloom Technology. There are currently 30 seats in this program with 13 seats for students from Orissa. This is the main course that is offered in the various IIHTs. The IIHTs in Salem and Varanasi are the only ones that offer a post diploma in textile processing.

It is presently functioning in the campus of Panchayat College, Bargarh (a 50 yrs. old college in the district). It is about 4 Kms. from the Railway station, 3 kms. from private B.S. & 2 kms. from Govt. bus stand. The road called as ‘college road’ links the campus with other parts of the town.

Permanent campus of the institute is coming up 8 kms. away from the town on Bhatli road in a 33.02 acres land provided by the Orissa Govt.

The plan of the permanent campus is given below.

April 17th, 2010

BIMTECH campus in Bhubaneswar to start from 2012

BIMTECH’s home page is at http://bimtech.ac.in/. In that page they have a link BIMTECH New Campus/ Bhubaneswar Orissa in the "What’s new" part. Following is the content of that document.

BIMTECH is soon going to Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa, which today, is on a fast track o f development because of the proactive developmental policies of the Orissa Government under the leadership of Mr. Navin Patnaik. We have approached the state government for setting up a campus of our institute at Bhubaneshwar. Mr. B K Das, Advisor to the institute, contacted various government agencies in the months of September and October 2009. A formal proposal indicating our long term plans for setting up a state-of-the-art management institute/private university was submitted to the government. We are delighted that the Orissa Government has taken a quick decision and alloted 29.4 acres land located in a prime institutional area called Gothapatna. It is not far away from the city and the airport. The famous caves of Udaigiri and Khandgiri are in the neighbourhood of this location. Gothapatna has already been developed by the Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa (IDCO). Three other renowned institutions- Navratna National Aluminium Company (NALCO), India Institute of Information Technology( IIIT) and International Management Institute (IMI, Delhi) have been alloted plots in the neighbourhood. Syt. B K Birla and Dr. (Smt.) Sarala Birla, Founders and Patrons of our institute have taken keen interest in this project. Not only have they granted their permission for this project, but also wished that the campus, with all amenities and facilities, should be ready by June 2012. Dr. H Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH alog with Mr B.K.DAS visited Bhubaneshwar on December 5-6, 2009 and met senior officials of the Orissa Government. Dr. Chaturvedi also visited campuses of some reputed educational institutions and spoke to eminent educationists of Orissa. There has been an enthusiastic response to our plans of starting the campus from June 2012.

April 16th, 2010

Regional Institute of Education Mysore offers 6 yrs M.Sc Ed integrated program. What about RIE Bhubaneswar?

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

The MSC Ed, an integrated six-year course (12 semesters), introduced in 2008 is the right way to master teaching skills. Offering quality teacher education programmes is the Regional Institute of Education that include innovative pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes and relevant research, development and extension activities.

The institute started as Regional College of Education in 1963, changed the name in 1994. It is one of the five such institutions established by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi. The other institutes are located at Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar and Shilong.

Prior to the six-year course, there was a two-year MSC Ed course for those who had completed BSC Ed, said Regional Institute of Education Principal GT Bhandage. "It had a good response and the students from all over the country would appear for the entrance exam. This course was conceived essentially to meet the demand of the higher secondary level in specific subjects like physics, chemistry and mathematics. Students who have passed out from this course were absorbed by Navodaya and Kendriya Vidyalaya," added Bhandage.

In 2008, MSC Ed course was introduced after completion of II PUC or equivalent. The idea was to catch them young and train them with pedagogic skills and develop adequate content competency crucial to a teacher education programme, said Bhandage.

The six years integrated course is a combination of BSc and MSC. The first four years, students study physics, chemistry and mathematics while in fifth and final year they can choose a specialization subject.

After completion of the course one can get into Higher Secondary Schools or can do research.

… The admissions are made on all India basis through an entrance exam. The selection will be based on the performance in the qualifying exam and entrance exam.

For details log on to www.riemysore.ac.in or call 514515/ 2514095.

RIE Mysore has a website at www.riemysore.ac.in. I have not been able to find a web site for RIE Bhubaneswar. I wonder if RIE Bhubaneswar offers such a course.

Considering the implementation of RTE, there is a big need for more and better trained teachers and educational administrators (headmasters, principals, vice-principals, etc.). To achieve that the government of India should upgrade the RIEs to National Institutes of Education and make them Institutions of National Importance. This will attract the attention of more good students towards a teaching and teaching administration career. The government should incraese the number of seats and number of programs in these institutes and intrdoce programs for creating top-notch Educational administrators.

1 comment April 14th, 2010

Balangir on the move: expanding its knowledge infrastructure

The recent news of an XIMB campus in Balangir adds a new dimension to Balangir’s knowledge infrastructure. As per the recent Business Standard report:

The XIMB campus at Bolangir will exclusively focus on the Rural Management Programme and will have an intake of 120 students.

“Our campus at Bolangir will be a fully residential facility with a built-up area of 1.55 lakh sq ft and it will only offer the Post Graduate Diploma course in Rural Management. We will phase out the Rural Management programme at our existing campus in Bhubaneswar after the establishment of the Bolangir campus”, Joseph added.

XIMB’s campus will come up about seven km from Bolangir town and the institute wants to offer a rural ambience to the students pursuing the Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management.

XIM should aim to have this institute at the level of IRMA, Anand and put Balangir in the map with respect to rural management institutes. It should rank among the top 3-5 in the country.

Several other knowledge initiatives with respect to Balangir are also in the pipeline. This includes:

• A university and
• a WODC sponsored medical college.

There is also possibility that the state government may make some more state engineering colleges and Balangir should and would be a prime candidate for that. 

Besides the above plans, some of the existing higher education institutions in Balangir are:

• Rajendra College, Balangir
• Govt. College Balangir
• Govt. Women’s College Balangir
• BB Sanskrit College, Balangir
• Food Craft Institute, Balangir (The Odisha govt. has proposed to upgrade it to an Institute of Hotel Management.)
• Government Ayurveda College, Balangir
• Sushree Institute of Technical Education, College Of Nursing, Bolangir (Offers BSc. Nursing)
• Sushree Institute of Technical Education, School Of Nursing, Bolangir (Offers Diploma Course in General Nursing and Midwifery Training)
• Four ITIs: I.T.I., Bolangir; ITI (Women), Bolangir; KBK ITC, Bolangir; Sushree ITC, Sadaipali, Bolangir
• Sushree Institute of Technical Education (SITE),Bolangir (Offering Diploma in Engineering subjects)

Balangir has good connectivity to Bhubaneswar (two daily trains: an intercity day train and Raipur-Puri Express), Sambalpur (daily trains: Koraput-Rourkela, Ispat, Balangir-BBS, Koraput-HWH, Rayagada-SBP, Raipur-Puri, Dhanbad-Allepey), Titlagarh, Jharsuguda and Rourkela in Odisha, and has two daily trains to Howrah, one daily train to Chennai and Kerala, tri-weekly trains to Bangalore, bi-weekly train to Hyderabad, a weekly train to Mumbai, and tri-weekly (to become 5 times a week) trains to Delhi from Titlagarh which is 63 kms away.

The under construction Khurda-Balangir line receiveed 120 crores in this year’s budget and hopefully it will progress at good speed and get similar and larger budgets in the coming years. If that happens then this line could get completed in another 5 years. Once this line is completed the rail connectivity of Balangir will further improve.

Politically, it has an active MP in Kalikesh Singh Deo and MLA in A. U. SinghDeo who is an important minister in Odisha. Also, its interests are being watched over by Balangir natives abroad such as Dr. Sanjiv Karmee.

So things look positive for Balangir.

The most important things to watch for and/or pursue are: Making sure that the proposed university and the medical college that are in the pipeline are indeed established; Making sure that if there are new state engineering colleges then Balangir gets one; Encouraging and enticing other private entities to establish institutes and colleges in Balangir; and Making sure the Khurda-Balangir line gets completed in 5 years.

1 comment April 14th, 2010

SCB Medical College to have a 30 crore center of excellence in Psychiatry: Dharitri

April 13th, 2010