Odisha HRD

BIT offers attractive scholarships to attract top ranked students

(Disclaimer: I am listed as a "Friend of BIT" and as an adjunct and visiting faculty. So this is a biased posting. Nevertheless, I know many of its founders and am convinced of their sincerity to establish a top notch college in Odisha. Its Chairman, Prof. Rabi Mahapatra, was my professor at IIT Kharagpur. He is currently a full professor at Texas A & M University, a top university, especially in Engineering, in the USA. Even though BIT is new and its first batch has not graduated, I hope more top students will consider going to BIT. Besides the scholarship offer and other things mentioned in this ad, BIT has sent 1-2 of its top students to Texas A & M this summer.)

NOTE: The registration deadline has been extended till 22nd July.

1 comment July 20th, 2011

ESI Corporation is eying the private colleges to increase its IPs (insured persons); that may be the reason it instists that its medical college in Odisha be in the Bhubaneswar area

Following is from the page http://esic.nic.in/coverage.htm.

Applicability
Under Section 2(12) The Act is applicable to the factories employing 10 or more persons irrespective of whether power is used in the process of manufacturing or not.

Under Section 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas including preview theatre, road motor transport undertakings and newspaper establishment employing 20 or more persons.

Further, u/s 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to Private Medical and Educational Institutions employing 20 or more persons in certain States .

Following is from a report in Times of India.

All educational institutions, including public, private, aided or those run by individuals, trusts and societies, and employing 20 or more persons should pay Employees State Insurance (ESI) premium for their employees, the Madras high court has ruled.

Justice K Chandru, dismissing a batch of writ petitions against the legality of a notification issued by the labour department of the Union territory of Puducherry, said: "Any establishment can be validly notified by the appropriate government to be covered by the provisions of the ESI Act."

The writ petitions were filed after the lieutenant-governor of the Union territory of Puducherry issued a notification mandating that educational institutions including public, private, aided or partially aided employees, run by individuals, trusts and societies, would be covered by the ESI Act if they employed 20 or more persons in their organisations on any day of the preceding 12 months.

Consequently, ESI sent notices to the organisations and directed them to cover their employees under the act. The ESI also followed it up with show-cause notices, and later sent prosecution notices threatening to levy damages under Section 85-B of the ESI Act. While some of the institutions paid up the amount, many of them filed writ petitions noting that the territorial administration lacked the legislative sanction to issue the notification as the Centre also could come out with such notifications.

It seems at this time Odisha government has not required private medical and education institutions be covered by ESI.  But perhaps ESI would like that and therefore it is trying to put up its medical college in Bhubaneswar, where 60-70% of the state’s private colleges (engineering, management, etc.) are.

The following ad came in today’s Dharitri.

July 20th, 2011

CDAC offers free courses for women with family income of less than 2 lakhs per annum at its satellite center in Bhubaneswar

The course advertised below is part of ACTS (Advanced Computer Training School) of CDAC. Its website is http://acts.cdac.in/. Following are excerpts from its web page.

C-DAC’s Advanced Computing Training School (ACTS) is dedicated to creating high quality manpower for C-DAC in particular and the IT industry in general through the designing and delivering various courses. The courses are offered through a network of Authorized Training Centres (ATC’s) as well as C-DAC’s own centers. Around quarter million students passed out since inception in last decade and a half. They are today successful employees of many Multinational and Premier Indian IT companies, and many of them have become successful entrepreneurs.

1 comment July 19th, 2011

Web page of Parala Maharaj Engineering College (a govt. college) in Berhampur

http://www.pmec.org.in/. There is not much information there yet. They should at least put a list of departments and their faculty.

3 comments July 13th, 2011

Odisha is one among five destinations for new Manipal universities

Following is an excerpt from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-08/news/29751942_1_universities-manipal-group-students.

Manipal Group is in active talks with Gujarat and Orissa governments for setting up universities in these states. This is part of group’s plan to have a footprint in all parts of the country. The chain plans to roll out five universities in next five years.

Manipal Group advisor – strategy and development – Sudhakar Rao told ET that all these universities would ideally come up across 200-300 acres each with a total investment of over Rs 6500 crores.

"We have identified Bangalore, Orissa, Gujarat, Haryana and National Capital Region (NCR) for the proposed universities. While land for Bangalore is finalised, we have initiated talks with Gujarat and Orissa governments for land and permissions. Other proposed universities are in conceptual stage," he said.

The Manipal group runs 200 courses including engineering, humanities, management, medicine and allied health sciences with four operational universities – Manipal University, Sikkim Manipal University, American University of Antigua and Manipal International University in Malaysia. Recently, the chain has launched its university in Jaipur which would be spread across 300 acres with an estimated investment of Rs 1200 crore over next five years.

… As per group’s plan, a university in Orissa will cater to the needs of students on eastern region, Gujarat university will cover the western region, Bangalore will absorb the spill over of southern region while NCR and Haryana universities will fulfill the educational needs of north and central regions.

"Each of these universities will be built to have 25,000 students on campus by its 10th year of operation. We also plan a university in Jharkhand. But it will come up in next phase," he said.

Odisha government should help them so that their Odisha plan happens smoothly. Any hurdles and they will focus on the other locations.

July 12th, 2011

Regional parameical center to be in Sijua near AIIMS-like institution: Dharitri

July 12th, 2011

Update on the proposed open university (from Samaja)

1 comment July 9th, 2011

Orissa Model Tribal Education Society (OMTES) has so far set up 11 Ekalabya Model Residential Schools and manages 19 Educational Complexes; However, KISS is much more effective

The web page of Orissa Model Tribal Education Society (OMTES) is http://www.omtes.org. Following are excerpts from its "Background" page.

The Orissa Model Tribal Education Society (OMTES), a registered Society supported by the ST & SC Development Department, aims to make positive interventions in the field of tribal education. Since its inception in March 2000, it has been instrumental in setting up 11 Ekalabya Model Residential Schools in different parts of the State with assistance from Government of India. Besides that it also manages 19 Educational Complexes set up for providing education to ST Girls belonging to Primitive Tribal Groups. OMTES continues in its endeavour to serve the tribal population of the State by ensuring them to avail best opportunities in education at par with the non tribal population.

Following are some Q & A from its FAQ page.

How the schools are managed at the district level?

A school level management committee headed by the Collector of the respective districts, members including two educationist of the area looks after the overall development of the schools. Here the collector is the chairman and concerned Principal of ERMS is the Member Secretary.

I am a Tribal, what is the benefit the society has for me?

You benefit, when your child qualifies entrance of the school and receives free qualitative education. The society provides for improving the quality of tribal by promoting educational schemes for tribal community and improves the quality of life of tribal by Ashram Schools, Hostels for Tribal Boys Educational complexes, Post- Matric Scholarships and Book Bank Schemes, etc.

Whom do I contact for more information?

For information you are requested to contact ST & SC Development, Govt. of Orissa.

The 11 schools are listed in the page http://www.omtes.org/Yearwise_establishment_EMRS.html. They are in the districts of Koraput, Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh (3), Rayagada, Koenjhar, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Nabarangpur, and Jajpur.

The 19 educational complexes are listed in the page http://www.omtes.org/Yearwise_establishment.html. They are in the districts of Keonjhar (3), Rayagada (2), Nuapara, Mayurbhanj (2), Deogarh, Angul, Kalahandi, Ganjam, Gajapati (3), Malkangiri (2), Sundergarh and Kandhamala. Each of these complexes have a capacity of 250 making a total capacity of 4750.

In contrast, as of today, KISS has a student body of 15,083, which includes 3553  students pursuing +3. KISS had a student body of 1500 in 2005. I am sure the performance of the students is better at KISS than of the students at the OMTES schools and educational complexes.

So the Odisha government should just give land, seed money and grants to KISS and let them establish and manage much larger facilities in the districts with significant tribal students.

In http://www.kiss.ac.in/admission.html it is mentioned that every year KISS gets 30,000 to 40,000 applications per year for admission and admits between 2000-3000 of them. The government should fund KISS so that if not all who apply are admitted at least half of them are admitted.

It is a pity that other states have taken note of KISS and are inviting KISS to open replicas in their states while Odisha does not seem to be taking similar steps. Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer on other states approaching KISS for replicas.

A branch of the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has been set up in Bastar, a tribal dominated and Maoist infested region of Chhattisgarh with assistance from the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC).

An MoU to this effect was signed between the KIIT and the KISS founder Dr Achyuta Samanta and NMDC director GB Joshi in the presence of the NMDC chairman cum managing director Rana Som at the the latter’s Corporate Office in Hyderabad on June 24.

As per the agreement, the NMDC has provided 30 acres of land along with all financial assistance to the KISS in order to set up its replica in Kankar region of north Bastar district in Chhattisgarh. In the first phase, 1000 tribal boys and girls will be admitted in this school. However, a total of 4,000 students from five districts in and around Bastar will get the opportunity of quality education here in course of time.

After Bastar, the Governments of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi are keen to set up such model schools bearing all financial implications. They have requested Dr Samanta accordingly.

The page http://www.kiss.ac.in/fmngt.html explains how KISS is funded. The total amount there adds up to 18 crores. If 10 such KISS replicas are established in 10 tribal districts of Odisha at an additional cost of 200 crores/year, that will be the best use of such money for Odisha.

July 8th, 2011

BPUT plan diagrams for its main campus (139 acres) in Rourkela and its 10 acre campus in Bhubaneswar

The following is obtained from http://skdas.org/. Thanks to a posting in rourkelacity.com for the pointer.

The 139 acres BPUT Rourkela campus is structured along a pedestrian spine, punctuated by a central court with administrative offices, a central library, and a student complex. Secondary courts occur at the entrance to the various faculty buildings.

The BPUT Bhubaneswar mini-campus is a 10 acres site (5 acres in phase 1) that includes exam evaluation center, JEE building, counseling and admissions center, job placement center, and guest houses.

4 comments July 6th, 2011

Ministry of I & B strategic plan 2011-17 includes new IIMC campuses, upgrading the campuses to IIMC Delhi level, and making them institutes of national importance

(Thanks to Debi Sarangi for the pointer.)

The strategic plan is available at http://www.cable-quest.in/pdfs/StrategicPlan%20of%20I&B%20ministry.pdf. Following are some relevant excerpts.

(viii) INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MASS COMMUNICATION:
The Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in the field of communication teaching, training & research. The Institute was set up on August 17, 1965, as a department of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India in response to a need felt to evolve a methodology for effective use of communication resources as part of the country’s overall development strategy. The Institute was registered under the Societies Registration Act (XXI) of 1860 on 22nd January, 1966 and receives grant-in-aid from the Govt. of India through the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to meet its recurring & non-recurring expenditure. While IIMC provides knowledge and skills to communicators in a variety of disciplines, including print, photography, radio & television, development communication, communication research, advertising & public relations, the Institute also collaborates with national & international agencies in conducting seminars, training, workshops, etc. It also undertakes joint research projects and organizes short- term courses to meet the specific needs of the industry, government and public sector organizations. The Institute presently have a branch at Dhenkanal in Orissa and propose to set up four new Regional Centres in the States of J&K, Kerala, Mizoram and Maharashtra.

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(v)    Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) (http://iimc.nic.in/)

Run courses with the objective to produce well-equipped communication professionals sensitive to needs of changing mass communication scenario; Conduct of short term specialized courses to meet the professional training needs of media personnel working in the Central/State Governments and Public Sector Organisations;

Conduct of seminars, symposia and conferences on various themes of communication with a view to contributing better understanding of communication in the context of India and other developing countries; Provide consultancy services on request to Central/State Government Departments and Public Sector Undertakings, in designing and organizing training and research programmes related to Development communication.

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(a) The following steps needs to be taken –

1.    First step
* Up-Gradation of One-Year PG Diploma Courses into Two-Year Advanced PG Diploma Courses.
* Seeking of Equivalence to Masters Degrees for the Two-Year PG Diploma Courses from Ministry of HRD.
*    Introduction of at least 2 new Two-Year PGD Courses: in Development Journalism and in Corporate Communication & Media Management.
*   Setting up of 4 new Branches ofIIMC in J&K, Mizoram, Maharashtra & Kerala.

2. Second step
*   An Act of Parliament to declare IIMC an ‘Institute of National Importance’ such as the IITs, AIlMS, NIFT, etc., thereby also giving it Degree-granting powers.
* IIMC proposes to continue using its established and well-recognised Brand arne,    as in the case of the above Institutes.

Upgradation of branches to full-fledged Institutes offering all Courses at par with IIMC, Delhi.
*    Provision of Buildings, Infrastructure, and expansion or Technical Equipment and Human Resources at the 4 new Branches of IIMC (DPRs to be prepared after allocation of land by State Governments and in-principle approval of the Planning Commission).
*    Dialogues with various State Governments for opening of new IIMC Branches in their States and pursuing them to allot at least 10-15 acres of land free of cost and also made available temporary accommodation for start of the courses from 2015-16.

3. Third Step
*    Introduction of Specialized and Niche Courses (a)    At least 2 new Two-Year PGD Courses
(i)    Development Journalism
(ii)    Corporate Communication and Media Management (b) More extensive Courses leading to better job prospects for students (c) Advanced academic programmes such as M.Phil and Doctoral Programmes (d) More Post Graduate MA, M.Phil. and Ph. D. Programmes
*    Enhanced National and International recognition of IIMC and its programmes and enhanced interaction with the best international Universities and institutes in the field.
* Access to research and training funds from National and international funding bodies.
*    Creation of IIMC Affiliates abroad.

*    Correspondence with International Media Institutions/Government for opening of Centres in their Countries.

(b) Requirement of resources (i) Financial
*    IIMC has already been sanctioned an outlay of Rs. 51.50 Crores for the activities mentioned in the first step as above
*    Based on the current trend of requirements, provision of buildings, infrastructure and expansion of technical equipments for a branch for establishing a permanent campus will be approximately Rs. 100 Crores, excluding the cost of land, which would be provided by the State Governments free of cost ( Total Requirement for four branches will be Rs. 400 Cr)
*    Financial requirement for the introduction of various Advanced Courses, M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. will be approximately Rs. 10 Crores
* Financial requirement for introduction of new branches in other States will be approximately Rs. 5 Crores in temporary accommodation to be provided by State Governments free of cost

Total Requirement : Rs. 415 Cr

(ii) Human Resources –
*    150 personnel will be required to achieve the activities detailed in the first steps

*    Additional 25 personnel per branch will be required for fulfilling the activities given in the next steps

July 4th, 2011

2011 open-close ranks (after the 1st and 3rd rounds) of EE and Mech of IITs, IT-BHU and ISM

The following table is extracted from http://jee.iitd.ac.in/openclose2011.php at two different times. The black version is after the first round and the red version is after the 3rd round.

 Among the new IITs the preference this year seems to be H > N >> {A, U, E} > J > {C,P}.

• The 2010 open-close ranks are here.
• The 2009 open-close ranks are here.
• The 2008 open-close ranks are here.

June 30th, 2011

Admission situation in Utkal and Sambalpur

Following is an excerpt from Shilpi Sampad’s report in Telegraph.

A university official said the sale of forms have soared this time as compared to previous years. Around 6,100 forms have already been sold at the two counters as against 7,000 last year. “We are expecting 2,000 more forms to come in. There has been an increase in sale of forms probably because more students are now opting for traditional and regular subjects,” the official said …

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

While there is just one applicant for statistics, which has 16 seats, there are very few aspirants for anthropology, food technology, bioinformatics electronics and home science.

Tripathy said there are very few colleges offering statistics at the graduation level. Hence, very few students want to pursue post-graduation in statistics. On the other hand, there are 66 applicants for 16 seats in MA or MSc mathematics.

The home science department this year has just four applicants for 16 seats. "This may be because the course had a new nomenclature this year. It was earlier called MA/MSc in home science. From this year, the varsity has changed it to MA/MSc home science (nutrition and human development) ," Tripathy said.

The varsity has got a record 250 applications for MSc Physics which has 24 seats. Some of these students will be given option to take admission in MSc electronics which has received around 10 applications for 20 seats.

The Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology, which offers the bioinformatics and electronic courses, said students who have applied for MSc life sciences but failed to secure a seat will get a chance to take admission in MSc bioinformatics.

… Besides physics, departments of chemistry, English, sociology and political science also have received huge number of applications.

The varsity has got over 230 applications for 24 chemistry seats and 88 applications for 24 English seats. The varsity has got around 1800 applications this year for various PG courses compared to 1500 applications last session, varsity officials said.

3 comments June 29th, 2011

Manipal group interested in establishing a university and a multi-speciality hospital near Bhubaneswar: Dharitri

More information on Manipal can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipal and its official website at http://www.manipal.edu. 

Among its various constituents the following have been ranked:

• Manipal Institute of Technology is most well known and ranked 36 in Outlook 2009 ranking.
• Kasturaba Medical College (KMC) is ranked 9 in 2009 and 6 in 2010 by India Today in Medicine.
• Kasturaba Medical College (KMC) is also ranked 9 in 2009 and 10 in 2010 by India Today in Healthcare management.
• TA Pai Management Institute is ranked 21 among B-schools in the 2010 Outlook ranking.
• Its hotel management college is also ranked.

Some of its other salient features are (from its factsheet):

• Manipal has several international campuses including the Sikkim Manipal University. The other international campuses are in Malaysia, Nepal and Dubai.
• Over 300 courses offered across 14 professional streams in over 25 colleges
• India’s largest Foreign exchange earner in its category
• Over 1,20,000 students and 3,00,000 alumni from over 52 countries
• Established in 1953, Manipal University is the first educational Institution in private sector to become a deemed University; Over 20,000 students from over 52 countries
• Over 3000 practicing doctors in the US and every 4th doctor in Malaysia is an alumnus of
  Manipal.
• SMU has two constituent institutes – Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (SMIMS) and Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT)
• Dubai Campus: Set up in September 2000 and is currently located in Dubai International Academic City; Has over 1400 students from over 20 countries, enrolled in its various specialized programs

Finally, Manipal is in the process of establishing Manipal International University in Jaipur. They are taking students from this year. Following is an excerpt from that page.

On invitation by Govt. of Rajasthan to Manipal Group, to start a multi-disciplinary Private University, Manipal International University, Jaipur, in the state comprising of courses in different disciplines like Engineering, Medical, Hospitality, Allied Health, Management, Communication, Jewellery Management etc.

… Allotment of 100 Acres of land at Dehmi Kalan Village near Jaipur in for the proposed campus.

June 29th, 2011

Ministry of MSME to establish a Footwear Training Institute in Barang: Samaja

Currently MSME has two central footwear training institutes in Chennai and Agra. Their websites are:

• Central Footwear training institute, Agra.
• Central Footwear training institute, Chennai.

The Ministry of commerce also has similar institutes which are called Footwear design and development institute. The HQ is in NOIDA with campuses in Noida, Fusatganj, Chennai, Kolkata, Rohtak, Chhindwara & Jodhpur. The one in Jodhpur is a recent one; announce in March 2011.

While the Footwear training institutions focus on manufacturing the FDDIs focus on design and management. The former offers short term and diploma courses while the latter offers B.Sc and M.Sc programs.

June 28th, 2011

First cut-offs for the B.Sc/B.A/B.Com admissions in degree colleges via e-counselling

This year 162 degree colleges are participating in e-admission to their B.Sc/B.A/B.Com programs. Following are some numbers on this process from a Telegraph report.

After the announcement of Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) or Plus Two results on May 30, students had applied to colleges of their choice online. Higher education officials said they had received a total of 74,968 application forms.

Around 48,019 candidates have been shortlisted according to the first selection merit list. …

In Bhubaneswar, BJB (Autonomous) College has increased the qualifying marks by one to five per cent in separate subjects for general students. In the arts stream, the cut-off mark for the general category was announced as 63.5 per cent as against 58.67 per cent last year. In commerce, it is 77.58 – an increase of over one per cent from the previous year. The science subjects, too, have seen a substantial rise. For physics-chemistry-mathematics (PCM) combination, it is 84.33 per cent, against last year’s 84.20 per cent, and in chemistry-botany-zoology (CBZ) combination, the cut-off is 80.33 per cent as against 78.5 per cent last year.

… Srilekha Ray, principal of Ramadevi Women’s (Autonomous) College here.

“We have raised the qualifying marks by over 10 ten er cent in PCM, around nine per cent in CBZ, seven per cent in arts and two per cent in commerce for the general category,” she said.

June 25th, 2011

L & T to execute NISER Bhubaneswar construction; work to start next month and be completed in 36 months

Following are excerpts from Bibhuti Barik’s report in Telegraph.

… The master plan is ready and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has selected Larsen and Toubro (L&T) to execute the job. They are expected to start the work next month. The project has to be completed within 36 months … We hope that the Phase-I work comprising four major schools and the administrative block will be over by the end of 2013,’’ said the institute’s registrar, AK Naik.

The campus is coming up on 298 acres near Jatni.

While the forest department has already marked 285 trees for felling top facilitate work, steps to ensure enough greenery are being taken by planting 2,500 saplings along its fenced boundary. “We are planning more afforestation programmes in future,” added Naik.

The project envisages an expenditure of Rs 457 crore in the first phase including Rs 160 core on residential township and Rs 130 crore on academic buildings and a sports complex. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 823.19 core for the entire campus project in Bhubaneswar.

After fencing the authorities have deployed a 25-member security team with a supervising officer to keep watch. … the NISER campus site is safe. A transformer has been installed at the site to ensure uninterrupted power supply. Two corrugated tin sheds have also been put up at the site for the engineers to work out of.

The Registrar added that the construction work was getting delayed as the approval of the one of a senior officials of the Ministry of Finance was still awaited. Once it was available the executing agency would go ahead with the work. Earlier there was some delay on account of the time taken by the department of atomic energy (DAE) to grant certain approvals.

“The DAE technical panel inspected, checked and approved each and every aspect of the engineering drawing which took one year,” said a senior professor, who is an advisor and member on the NISER Board.

Currently operating from a transit campus of 5,000 square metres within the Institute of Physics (IoP), Bhubaneswar premises, NISER has lab, teaching and research facilities. While Rs 12.5 crore has been spent on these facilities for the school of chemistry Rs 13.5 crore for the school of physics, Rs 25 crore for the school of biology and Rs 5 crore for the school of mathematics.

… “We have been promised a three-acre plot by the state government for setting up a city campus in future. This will include a 1,500 seated conference hall,” said the registrar.

1 comment June 24th, 2011