Both the Union Minister of HRD and Chair of National Knowledge Commission urge private sector to help in higher education; Vedanta University is more than an answer

Among the local opposition to Vedanta University  there are many who are opposed to the whole idea of private higher education institutions. Many others do not get some of the important reasons behind the necessity of Vedanta University. The following excerpts from speeches by the Union HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal and Chair of the National Knowledge Commission Mr. Sam Pitroda explains the important role private higher education institutions like Vedanta University can play and more importantly the country’s need for such institutions. 

We start with an excerpt from a report in Telegraph about Mr. Kapil Sibal’s speech.

Inaugurating it at Nishani Mundali in Koraput, Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said the university’s location was the reflection of pro-tribal policy of the Congress-led UPA government.

“This university will definitely help in development of backward Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) region and western Orissa,” said Sibal.

Stating that the Centre was keen to set up international standard educational institutions across the country through public-private partnership, Sibal said companies should come forward to set up such institutes to help students to pursue higher studies in India instead of going abroad.

Following is an excerpt from a report in rediff.com about Mr. Pitroda’s views.

Pitroda emphasizing the lack of capacity when "you really look at higher education overall in India," said that as much as expanding this on the one hand, "on the other hand, the quality of education needs to be improved substantially."

… Pitroda said that these were the three broad categories "under which the Knowledge Commission started looking at recommendations for higher education."

At the macro level, he said, "We have to create more universities," and argued that "the roughly 400 universities that we have is not enough for a country of a billion people. Roughly 8 percent of our eligible children have the opportunity to enter the higher education and that number ought to be closer to 16 or 20 percent."

"So, we need to expand more colleges, more universities, more research programs, more teachers, more facilities, so on and so forth," he added.

Pitroda said in this regard, "The overall expansion requires not only participation from government, but also participation from the private sector …

August 31st, 2009

What are the other locations for ESI Medical colleges? Work-in-progress

Following is an excerpt from a thaindia report of July 13, 2008.

The Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Corporation that provides healthcare facilities to industrial workers has decided to step into the field of medical education. In an innovative move, it will set up 28 medical colleges and start post graduation courses by the next academic session. “From service provider we are going to be a medical education network. We are setting up 28 medical colleges by the 2009 academic session,” said Pravash C. Chaturvedi, director general of ESI Corp.

“We are aware that there is a shortage of doctors and it’s no different for ESI hospitals across the country. By the next academic year, we are planning to start 500 seats at the post graduation level,” Chaturvedi told IANS in an interview.

He said the ESI Corp, which is under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, aims to set up a medical college in every state and become self-reliant.

“The adding of 500 medical seats will help aspiring students every year, and in return we will get qualified doctors to serve in our own hospitals.

“A while ago we had put our proposal before the health ministry and have already got the go ahead. We have the capital and manpower, and now have the ministry’s support too,” he said.

The ESI Corp is associated with over 331,000 factories and establishments across the country and provides benefits to about 10 million workers and their families. “There are over 40 million beneficiaries,” he said.

It applies to industrial workers drawing wages up to Rs.10,000 per month.

Below we will try to compile information about the location of these medical colleges in various states. (Any pointers from the readers are most welcome.)

  1. Himachal Pradesh – Mandi.
  2. Karnataka – Gulbarga, Bangalore.
  3. Kerala – Paripally (Kollam).
  4. Tamilnadu – Coimbatore.
  5. Bihar – Patna.
  6. West Bengal – Howrah.
  7. Rajasthan – Alwar.

11 comments August 29th, 2009

Orissa govt. goes back to Bhubaneswar as the ESI medical college site; Why did not it push for Rourkela

Following is from Samaja.

15 comments August 27th, 2009

Ranking of Indian Engineering and Technical Institutes based on research: NIT Rourkela at number 20

The following table is from the current science article at http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug102009/304.pdf titled “Ranking of Indian Engineering and Technological Institutes for their Research Performance during 1999-2008” by G. Prathap and B. M. Gupta. It appears in Current Science, Vol. 97(3), 2009.  It gives the top 30 engineering and technical institutes based on publications from those institutes during 1999-2008. Based on this ranking NIT Rourkela is at number 20.

In the table below: P is the number of papers published, C is the number of citations obtained, ICP is the number of papers through international collaboration, h is the H-index and p is a newly proposed index.

There has been some discussin on these ranking in several blogs. Following are some links to those blog entries.

20 comments August 23rd, 2009

IIT Bhubaneswar issues global invitation for Expression of Interest in building its campus

The details are at:

* Global Invitation for Expression of Interest (EOI)
* Drawing of IIT Bhubaneswar plan

Following are some excerpts from the invitation.

GLOBAL INVITATION FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (EOI)

EOI to participate in selection of Campus Architect and Project Management Consultant For Design and Project Management of a State of the Art Academic cum Residential Campus

IIT Bhubaneswar invites Expression of Interest (EOI) for consultancy services from qualified, experienced, competent, financially sound and internationally acclaimed Architectural/Engineering Project Management Consultants (PMCs) including overseas firms for the planning and designing of Architectural, civil, public health, electrical, air conditioning, acoustics and other services for the works: “Construction of Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar complex and residential township along with necessary infrastructure facilities” in 936 acres of land at Argul, which is about 25 km from Bhubaneswar airport. While the work will be completed in phases, the estimated cost for the first phase is approximately INR 400 Crores.

The scope of the work, other applicable terms and conditions including site related information are available at institute website www.iitbbs.ac.in.

The EOI documents can be either downloaded from the institute website or can be collected from the office of Registrar, IIT Bhubaneswar, Samantapuri, Bhubaneswar-751013 from 24th August 2009 to 23rd September 2009 between 1100 hrs to 1600 hrs on all working days on payment of INR 1,000/- through a bank draft drawn on any schedule bank in favour of “IIT BHUBANESWAR” and made payable at Bhubaneswar.

The EOI shall be submitted in duplicate in a sealed cover, superscribing; “EOI for Architectural/Engineering Project Management Consultant (PMC)” either in person or by post addressed to the Registrar. along with a Bank Draft of Rs.1,00,000/- drawn on any schedule bank in favour of “IIT BHUBANESWAR” and made payable at Bhubaneswar towards EMD which would be refunded to unsuccessful bidders. Further, those who have downloaded EOI document from the website of the Institute should also enclose another demand draft for Rs.1,000/- drawn in favour of IIT BHUBANESWAR along with EOI document. The last date for receipt of EOI document is 24 September 2009 upto 1500 hrs B. K. RAY Registrar

No.F.15-2/2009-Estate-A

Continue Reading 6 comments August 21st, 2009

IIT Bhubaneswar notification on Ph.D admission

IIT Bhubaneswar has isued notification for Ph.D admission. The details are at:

Following are some excerpts from the notification:

Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, one of the newest IITs set up in 2008 by the Govt. of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of Higher Education) invites application for admission to full time Ph.D. Programmes in the following fields of research.

Schools and fields of Research

1) School of Infrastructure :   Structural Engineering, Structural Dynamics, Earthquake Engineering, Disaster Mitigation Engineering, Concrete Technology, Durability of Concrete Composites, Corrosion of steel in concrete, Environmental Engineering, Wastewater Treatment and sludge management, Greenhouse gases and global warming, Geotechnical Risk and Reliability, Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, Numerical Modelling, Mitigation of Geohazards, Offshore
Geotechnics, Experimental Geotechnics.

2) School of Electrical Sciences : – Digital Signal Processing, Soft and Evolutionary Computing, Sensor Network, Intelligent Instrumentation, Digital/Image/Distributed Signal Processing, Opto Electronics and Optical Communication, Computational Electromagnetics and Antenna Design, Metamaterials, RFID, Satellite Communication.

3) School of Mechanical Sciences : – Conjugate Heat Transfer, Thermal Engineering, Radiation Modelling, CFD/HT, Transport Phenomena in Material Processing, Ultrafast Radiation Heat Transfer, Technical Acoustics, Noise and Vibration, Industrial Noise control.

4) School of Basic Sciences :

– Theoretical high energy particle physics, Quark model studies, decay and scattering phenomena of heavy flavored mesons, parton distributions in proton and proton spin structure, optical fiber sensors, plasmonics, nanowires, photonic crystal fiber, computational condensed matter physics, nano materials, thin films, deposition and characterization for BEO and environmental sensors application.

– Organometallic Chemistry and Catalysis, Coordination Chemistry, Material Chemistry, Sensor, Theoretical Chemistry.

– Functional Analysis, Artificial Neural Network, Geometric Programming.

5) School of Humanities and Social Sciences :  – Indian English Literature, Commonwealth studies, Indian Diaspora Literature, Autobiographical Travel Literature and Memoirs, international and interregional trade, Rural development and planning, Banking and Finance, Labour economics.

Eligibility: M.E./M.Tech. in relevant discipline with at least 6.5 CGPA (or 60% marks in aggregate) at both B.Tech. and M.Tech. levels OR B.E./ B.Tech./ M.Sc.(Basic Science) in relevant discipline with minimum CGPA 7.0 in a 10 point scale (or 65% marks in aggregate) with a valid GATE score OR M.A. in the relevant field with 6.5 CGPA ( or 60% marks) with NET fellowship.

Admission to reserved-category candidates will be done as per Government of India guidelines.

How to Apply: Application form, downloadable from www.iitbbs.ac.in, should be sent to The Registrar, IIT Bhubaneswar, Samantapuri, Bhubaneswar, Orissa – 751013 along with a Demand Draft of Rs.300/- (Rs.150/- for SC/ST candidates) drawn in favour of "IIT Bhubaneswar" on any nationalized bank payable at Bhubaneswar. Application form may also be obtained from the Academic Section, IIT Bhubaneswar against a demand draft on every working day.

Important Dates:

Application form available from: 12 August 2009
Last date for submitting completed application form: 28 August 2009
Date of Interview (for short listed candidates): 7-8 September 2009
Joining Date: 16 September 2009

 

1 comment August 21st, 2009

NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) to start in a temporary campus in Bhubaneswar in 3 months

Following is an excerpt from a release from the Resident Commissioner of Orissa.

Shri Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister, Orissa met Thiru. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Textiles at New Delhi and discussed various issues relating to development of Handicrafts  and Textile sector in Orissa. Chief Minister requested for establishment of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) at Bhubaneswar  for which Govt. of Orissa has already committed to provide necessary infrastructure including land. The Union Minister welcomed the proposal and assured that NIFT will start functioning  at Bhubaneswar  in a temporary campus within next three months  offering a few certificate courses  and the regular courses will  commence  from the next academic year  i.e. 2010-11.

Pushing for an NIFT in Orissa is good. But the CM has to create a balance. Not everything that he asks for should be about Bhubaneswar. Please write to the CMO cmo@ori.nic.in pointing this out and have some constructive suggestion regarding what he should ask for outside Bhubaneswar and where. In this regard, I just sent the following email:

Dear Esteemed Chief Minister:

I read about your request to the central minister for an NID in Bhubaneswar. Asking for an NID is a good step, but with an IIT, NISER, AIIMS and a National University (all centrally funded) in works in the Bhubaneswar area, there is a big need for balance across the state and people across the state are now becoming more and more critical that adequate efforts are not being made about the rest of the state.

As a constructive suggestion, following is a request voiced to me by one of the vice chancellors of Orissa.

Currently India has a Laxmi Bai National Institute of Physical Education ( http://lnipe.nic.in/default.html ) at Gwalior. Considering the recent success of athletes from Orissa in various sports and events (including Hockey and Football), especially from the Adivasi regions, it would be great if you could push for a similar  National Institute of Physical Education to be established in or near an Adivasi area of Orissa.  Such an institute will go a long way in not only training adivasi athletes but also in providing them jobs across the country.

11 comments August 20th, 2009

Orissa Education and HRD related headlines from our sister site in Twitter

Our sister site in Twitter is http://twitter.com/orissalinks. (Often when we are busy or do not feel like writing a full posting here, we post a micro-blog in our Twitter sister site. The Twitter sister site also automatically adds the headline from this site and the orissagrowth site. Once in a  while we will collect those headlines here. But readers wanting a broader and more immediate coverage should consider following our Twitter site at http://twitter.com/orissalinks.) Following are some selected items from that site since July 12th.

August 20th, 2009

Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik pushes for NID in Bhubaneswar and several coast related research centers

Following is an excerpt from a press release of the Resident Commissioner of Orissa. (See also a thaiindian newsreport on this.)

 

PRESS RELEASE

New Delhi

August 19, 2009

Shri Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister, Orissa met Shri Anand Sharma, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry at New Delhi and discussed various issues pertaining to development of Industry Clusters and handicrafts in Orissa.

 

Chief Minister requested for establishment of a National Institute of Design (NID) at Bhubaneswar for which the Govt. of Orissa has offered to provide necessary infrastructure including land.  As the new National Design Policy of GoI envisages to set-up four new design Institutes on the pattern of NID, Ahmedabad during the 11th Five Year Plan and three locations have already been identified to cover Central, Southern and North-Eastern regions of the country, CM emphasised that an NID focusing on handlooms and handicrafts could be ideally located in Orissa which could serve tribal regions of not only Orissa but also Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and the entire Eastern region. The Union Minister has agreed to consider the proposal.

Following is from another press release of the Resident Commissioner of Orissa. (See also this report in Expressbuzz.com)

 

Considering the largest diversity of Mangrove forests in Orissa,  Chief Minister  suggested that a National Institute of Mangrove Research be established in the State which may  provide required data base for management of mangrove and coastal vegetation and also  develop models for conservation and propagation of mangroves and coastal shelter belt plantations. He also urged  the Union Government to consider setting up  a National Institute of Wetlands and Coastal Ecosystems in Orissa for which the nucleus is already available at Chandraput.

 

3 comments August 19th, 2009

Some plans regarding Innovation/World-class/National Universities; Brain Gain policy

Following are some excerpts from a report in Indian Express.

The HRD Ministry has unveiled a blueprint for world-class universities (WCUs) that proposes a free hand and more autonomy to varsities, exempting them from audit systems and placing them outside the UGC-style regulatory system, offering a range of scholarships and a flexible faculty recruitment process. The ministry has also announced its ‘Brain Gain’ policy to attract quality faculty from across the globe proposing to amend existing legislations to permit foreign citizens to be engaged as faculty in India.

The concept note for the universities, circulated to select academicians, proposes a strong focus on research at these varsities and government aid in the form of a corpus.

…The varsity will have just two pay bands for faculty and the varsity will be free to recruit as many faculty members as its suits them within these two pay bands.

… The ministry also announced its ‘Brain Gain’ policy on Monday which aimed at attracting best quality teachers from across the globe to work at the 14 National Universities, proposed to be set up by the Centre in the 11th Plan. To ensure that quality faculty of foreign nationality join these universities, the government may amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 which does not allow persons of Indian origin, who are citizens of another country, to be appointed to public services and posts.

The government also intends to amend the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Services) Act of 1971 to exempt national universities from the CAG’s scrutiny.

Following is some excerpts from a zeenews report.

These universities will be kept out of the purview of existing regulatory bodies in higher education in academic matters.

"The government shall ensure that the governance structure of the university shall be tuned to towards ensuring autonomy over all matter, specially academic matters, including but not limited to admissions, curriculum, research, assessment, award of degrees, selection of members of the professoiorate and the basic direction of the academic work in the university," the concept note said.

The autonomy will be at various levels — at the level of university via-a-vis government, at the level of faculty vis-a-vis the university and at the level of researcher via-a-vis the faculty.

These proposed universities will get Research Endowment Fund of an amount less than Rs 200 crore each annually.

Following the preparation of the concept note, the Ministry will make a draft bill on setting up the universities which will go to the cabinet for approval and then placed before Parliament.

The universities will have the freedom to get funding from non-governmental sources subject to condition that it will not be from dubious or unverified sources.

An research peer group, comprising eminent academicians, will evaluate the research proposals. The varsities will have the freedom to decide remuneration for research personnel.

As a major exemption, the transactions of these universities will be kept out of the purview of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

  … Accountability will be ensured by the review of the academic research peer group for research work and teachers peer group for course work and teaching.

"To that end, scrutiny and accountability shall be defined by outcomes rather than processes," the note said.

The universities will be free to establish Chairs of Studies with funding through non-government endowments.

Similarly, the universities will have freedom to make appointments by invitation based on the recommendations of a standing search committee.

"Recognising that brilliance is not a factor of age of a person or years spent in research, the appointment by invitation shall not be subject to limitations of age or years of experience of the considered candidate," the concept note said.

August 19th, 2009

The Vedanta University Bill and the Sri Sri University Bill as presented in the Orissa assembly

I was able to obtain the pages of these bills from the site http://www.nsa.org.in/Important%20documents/importantdocument_contents.htm. I have put a local copy of this at https://www.orissalinks.com/000/sri%20sri%20university/ and https://www.orissalinks.com/000/vedanta%20university/. There were some amendments made to both bills; the media mentioned that there were 20 amendments to the Vedanta University bill. We will post them when we get hold of these amendments.

 

1 comment August 14th, 2009

The land use plan of Vedanta University – Why 6000 acres?

Often people question about why Vedanta University needs 6000 acres. I have given my perspective on this in details in the page https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1696 . The short answer is:

  • 6000 acres is not just for the university. It includes several townships.
  • The townships are crucial to make Vedanta University competitive with world class universities, some of which have budgets of $3 billion per year.
  • The township plan is not something hidden, but clearly mentioned in Vedanta University web pages at http://vedanta.edu.in/ .

In my previous article I made some guess regarding the area of the university. The following page from a draft of the Vedanta University masterplan gives the accurate numbers. If one looks at just university, the land use is actually very good. It uses 780+240 acres for a university planned for 100,000 students.

The developed area in the above plan is only 4300 acres. The following two pages from the 250+ page master plan draft emphasize that the remaining area of about 2000 acres is for greenery.

9 comments August 13th, 2009

Anil Agarwal says Vedanta University was originally planned for Gujarat; It gets environment ministry clearance for its Puri location

Following is an excerpt from a report in DeshGujarat.

India’s largest university proposed by Vedanta Resources founder Anil Agarwal is coming up in Orissa, but it was originally planned for Gujarat.

… When asked about his plans to enter Gujarat, if any, Agarwal said, “Gujarat is the most developed. Its amazing how business going on here. While everybody is talking about business in energy, we thought of setting up old time Vaghas based power plant. But I haven’t figured it out. I wanted to set up a university here but then we went to Puri(Orissa). But I will be looking forward for something to start in Gujarat, that’s sure. We have something in silvassa but not in Gujarat.”

This sounds to me like a veiled warning from Mr. Agarwal to people of Orissa. I think he is preparing the ground to move to Gujarat if things get tough in Orissa. If that happens, that would be the missed opportunity of the millenium for Orissa. By saying it was planned for Orissa, he will have a ready made excuse to move to Gujarat.

On another front, Vedanta University received clearance from the environment ministry. Following is an excerpt from a PTI report on this.

A committee of the Environment Ministry has given the green signal to the Vedanta Group to set up its university in over 6,000 acres of land on the Puri-Konark Marine Drive in Orissa, notwithstanding protests from locals and activists.

 

4 comments August 13th, 2009

Proposed Innovation Universities may replace quotas by taking into account socio-economic factors

Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.

Innovation universities, the government’s proposal to build its own Harvard and Oxford, could also bring in transition from the existing reservation system, to one that is based on socio-economic factors. In a concept note commissioned by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) for the upcoming 14 innovation universities, a proposal to make away with outright reservations has been mooted. Instead, the note suggests making admissions based on the socioeconomic background of the candidate.

This would mean that seats will not be reserved for candidates, rather the candidate’s admission test scores would be increased based on deprivations that he or she experiences. The concept note says that the weight would depend on factors such as the educational attainment and earning capacity of the parents and nature of the school from which the student has passed Class 10 and Class 12 (urban or rural).

…The Innovation universities, previously referred to as World-class universities or National universities, was proposed in the 11th five year plan, and would focus on multi-disciplinary research and innovation.

… Interestingly, the note recommends allowing foreign candidates to apply to the Innovation Universities along with Indians.

The note recommends holding the admission tests not only in all the state capitals and metropolitan cities, but also in selected cities across the world. 

… For admissions to undergraduate courses, the note proposes to use a two-stage testing process: a standardized aptitute test followed by an essay type test. For PG courses, graduate scores and aptitude test scores would be used for determining admissions, while admission to doctorate programmes would be done based on results obtained at the PG level supplemented by references from eminent academicians.

1 comment August 9th, 2009

Three more new engineering colleges in the JEE Counselling list; Purushottam Institute of Technology back in the fray

Update, Aug 28 2009: Reader Sabyasachi Kar notices that two more engineering colleges are in the latest counseling list. They are:

  • Nigam Institute of engineering and Technology, Barang,Cuttack
  • Adarsa College of Engineering, Angul

So now, the total number of engineering colleges goes to 94.

Thanks to keen eye of reader Parashar Das, the latest JEE seat availability list shows three new colleges as well as Purushottam Institute of Technology, Rourkela which was earlier prevented from further counselling.

The three new colleges are:

  • VITS Engineering College, Tangi, Khurda (VTK) Pvt.
  • Vijyanjali Institute of Technology ,Gadavanga, Balasore (VTB) Pvt
  • Oxford College of Engineering and Management ,Ramachandrapur, Bhubaneswar (OCM) Pvt.

That takes the total number of colleges in Orissa JEE counselling to 88+4=92 and total number of new colleges in JEE Counseling to 25+3 = 28. (Other colleges/institutions that do not take students via Orissa JEE are: IIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Rourkela, ITER, KIIT, Department of Agricultural Engineering at OUAT and  ICFAI Tech, Bhubaneswar.)

 

14 comments August 2nd, 2009

Update on Medical College to be set up by MCL in Talcher

Following is an excerpt from a report in Statesman.

Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) will set up a 500-bed medical college and hospital at Talcher in Angul district. It will also upgrade its Nehru Satabdi hospital to a super speciality hospital.
This was informed at the meeting between the state health and family welfare minister, Mr Prasanna Acharya, and MCL CMD Mr SR Upadhaya on 31 July.

… the state government recently gave its no-objection certificate, official sources said.

The medical college would be set up on a 60 acre patch of land along the same lines as Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow.

Mr Upadhaya further informed that the state health and family secretary would be the chairman of the medical college’s governing body, while the company CMD or senior director will act as the co-chairman.

19 comments August 1st, 2009

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