Odisha HRD

NISER course structure for Years 1-3 is in their web site

NISER course structure for Years 1-3 is in their web site at http://www.iopb.res.in/niser/NISER-Course_Structure.pdf. One thing that is missing in  the course structure is Computer Science and programming courses; it does have numerical analysis and Bioinformatics though. If I were making the course structure I would at least add the following Computer Science courses, each with a programming lab.

• Data Structures and programming
• Theory of automata and languages
• Design and analysis of algorithms

2 comments November 16th, 2007

More news on the 1 lakh/year scholarship for science students

Following is an excerpt from an Economic Times report on this.

If you figure in the list of meritorious 1 lakh students, you will get Rs 1 lakh annually for pursuing university education in science stream and the amount may continue up to five years. The government is planning to institute scholarships to encourage education in science and technology. While modalities of selecting meritorious students are yet to be worked out, it is proposed that the future scientists would be caught young in the 12th class itself.

The financial assistance would be given to such students while pursuing BSc and MSc courses. “We have proposed to give adequate financial support to sufficient number of students to foster talent in scientific research. The government is considering to award 1 lakh scholarships of Rs 1 lakh each.

Meritorious students pursuing university education in science stream would be eligible for the award. The proposal is expected to be incorporated in the 11th Five-Year Plan, and expected to be announced in the forthcoming National Development Council (NDC) meeting,” a source in the government said.

It is understood that the proposed scholarship would be modelled on the line of INSPIRE programme mooted by the department of science & technology (DST).

INSPIRE stands for innovations in science pursuit for inspired research. The programme aims at reaching out to the young talent and help them to pursue their interest in science.

“It is also an intervention devised to redress low entry of students into science and technology streams,” a DST source said. After the programme would get a formal approval, the selection procedure for the meritorious students would be announced.

… It is expected that the budget allocation of scientific departments would be enhanced significantly in the 11th Plan. The plan allocation has been doubled from about Rs 12,000 crore in the 9th Plan to about Rs 25,000 crore in the 10 Plan and it is planned to increased it approximately four fold in the 11th Plan, official sources said.

10 comments October 26th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar: Tender Watch

Following are the latest tender related documents from http://www.dcsem.gov.in/Page/Tender.htm.

Earlier tender related news is at https://www.orissalinks.com/?p=214. Some of the links from that page do not work any more.

October 21st, 2007

Arjun Singh at odds with the PM, Planning Commission and the Knowledge Commission?

Our earlier report https://www.orissalinks.com/?p=746 supports this to some extent. Following is  from an article in merinews.com written by Ashok K. Jha.

This government, …, had constituted a knowledge commission under Sam Pitroda who, encouraged by Rajiv Gandhi, had set up Centre for Developments of Telematics and C-Dot in the early eighties, which proved a catalyst for the Telecommunication Revolution that we are witnessing today. Many prominent personalities are also the members of this commission. After months of brainstorming and research the commission recommended its suggestions to the government.

 

But there are some politicians in our country who accord their personal ego and interests above country’s welfare and progress. Many analysts feel that there are some ministers in this government who embody that description.

 

Human Resource Minister, Arjun Singh kept ignoring the recommendations of the commission for reasons best known to him only. But recently, the minister hesitatingly met the Knowledge Commission Chairman, Sam Pitroda for a few minutes and heard him out. It is speculated that the minister might have been asked to mend his ways and cooperate with the Commission.

 

Arjun Singh was not impressed by the recommendatation of the commission and deliberately chose to ignore the suggestions of the commission until the Prime Minister himself took up the matter and declared the road map that his government intended to follow in accordance with the recommendations. Prime Minister had announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that very soon every state would have a central university and the number of premier engineering and management institutes would be increased. He also said that in order to impart technical training at the grassroot level, thousands of technical institutes would be opened and the private sector will also be encouraged to participate.

 

But the fact is that there is a shortage of technical professionals and the situation will continue to look grim unless some drastic measures are implemented speedily. Manpower has become an asset for India and this will play a greater role in the future as the world population is ageing whereas the youth constitute greater percentage of India’s population.

 

The world has become a global village now and if India is not able to match its pace with the rest of the world, then, very soon it will be another story of opportunity missed.

 

Arjun Singh does not seem to care a bit and is not willing to act unless it results in some kind of a political dividend for him.

 

It might sound amusing as he might himself not remember when he won any election last. In fact, in spite of being beaten in elections repeatedly, he became a minister only for his consistent loyalty to the Gandhi family. He should have realised his limitations and spent his energy in keeping his benefactors in good humour. Strangly, he became ambitious and started tinkering in everything like his predecessor, Murli Manohar Joshi used to do.

 

Whatever developmental strides India is making now is due to its ‘knowledge workforce’ and to gain the much aspired momentum, our education system needs to be drastically changed. But what would be the result if the minister himself starts obstructing all such initiatives on the ground that any such move would not yield any political dividends for him? The Prime Minister should act firmly now otherwise there are many politicians who can’t foresee beyond personal interests. They must be made to realise and mend their follies in the larger interest of the public they are elected to serve.

1 comment October 20th, 2007

NISER ad for teaching assistant in Biology

The following is from http://www.iopb.res.in/niser/NISER-Advt16-10-07.pdf.

National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) is looking for bright young people as teaching assistants in biology to help in teaching and carryout supervised research. The candidates are also expected to maintain laboratory and mentor undergraduate students. There will be opportunity to register for Ph.D. degree for those who perform exceptionally. The maximum duration of the position is five years subject to yearly evaluation. The candidates must have a 1^st Class M.Sc./M.Phil. degree.

The interested candidates may send an application in plain paper with their ’Resume’ along with two letters of reference from their former teachers/supervisors and a statement of career goal to Director, Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar-751 005. 

2 comments October 17th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar instructions for the second list of candidates

The following is from a NISER announecment.

The admission process for the second list will begin on 17th September, 2007 at
10.00 a.m. The classes have been going on since 12th September, 2007. It is therefore desired that the students should take admission at the earliest and begin their academic activity without delay. The admission process will come to close on 27th September, 2007.

Students have been allotted the stream of their first choice provisionally. The final allotment of streams will be done at the end of the first year based on their overall academic performance in semester I and semester II.

Students will receive scholarship at the rate of Rs. 3,000/-per month.

All the students will have to register for all the courses which are to be credited by all the entrants to NISER’s 5-year integrated M.Sc. programme. The details of course descriptions are being posted in the webpage of NISER.

All the students are required to bring with them at the time of admission the originals of the following documents:

                    (a) Class X and Class XII Mark Sheets,

                    (b) Class X certificate,

                    (c) Caste / Tribe certificate (in case of SC/ST candidates).

In addition they should also bring four passport size photographs and two stamp size photographs and a Demand Draft for Rs. 13,000/= (Rs. 7,000/-for SC/ST students) towards payment of tuition fee, caution money and mess advance. The DD should be drawn in favour of NISER, payable at Bhubaneswar.
Hostel accommodation

All the students will be provided hostel accommodation. They are expected to register for the hostel accommodation at the time of admission. Details about the availability of hostel accommodation for boys and girls will be posted on the web soon.

September 17th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar has a second and final list of candidates

The following list is from NISER’s web page.

September 15th, 2007

Some numbers related to IIT Kharagpur : a reference point to NISER

Update on April 14, 2008:  IIM Kozhikode has a faculty of 17 against the sanctioned strength of 40 members, IIM Calcutta has 70 against a sanctioned strength of 88; IIM Bangalore has 74 as against the sanctioned strength of 89.

Update on Oct 16, 2007: IIT Delhi has a sanctioned faculty of 583, with 130 vacancies.

Update on Oct 2, 2007: IIT Bombay has a faculty strength of 420, with 100 vacancies.

Frontline has a nice article on IIT Kharagpur.  Following are some excerpts.

it has 19 departments, eight multidisciplinary centres and schools and 13 schools of excellence besides laboratories and central research facilities. It employs 1,600 employees, including 460 faculty members, and has 7,000 students on a sprawling, green campus of over 2,100 acres…

In comparison, according to various reports NISER (New Indian Express, Kalinga Times) would have 250 faculty, 2000 students, 761 employees and will be built in 300 acres with a project cost of 823.19 crores. Thus, in terms of faculty size and employee size it is envisaged to be about half the size of IIT Kharagpur.

Some information on IISER as was given in a recent PIB is as follows:

The Government of India has set up three Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), at Pune, Kolkata and Mohali. Two more IISERs are being set up at Bhopal and Thiruvananthapuram. These Institutes have been/are being set up on th3 recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (SAC-PM). The total estimated project cost of each IISER is Rs. 500.00 crores which includes Rs. 241.00 crores fro construction of building and other infrastructural facilities and Rs. 259.00 crores as recurring expenditure, spread over a period of 7 years.

2 comments September 12th, 2007

NISER will be a world class deemed university: Samaja and others

2 comments September 12th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar gets cabinet approval

From http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=31005.

The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for establishment of National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) at Bhubaneswar at an estimated cost of Rs. 823.19 crore and also creation of 761 posts in academic, scientific, technical, administrative and auxiliary categories.

NISER will start functioning initially from the campus of Institute of Physics (IOP) and its academic programme will start from September, 2007.

The said institute will conduct the following programmes in science education for bright and meritorious students selected on all-India basis :

a) An integrtated 5 year M.Sc. programme in the core and emerging branches of Basic Sciences to students after their 10+2 Higher Secondary schooling. This in turn will be integrated with Ph.D. programme on the one hand and employment in various R&D organizations and industry in the country on the other.

b) Integrated m.Sc. + Ph.D after B.Sc from other Universities.

c) Ph. D. programme after M.Sc. from other universities.

(The PIB for the cabinet approval of IISER Kolkata and Pune is here.)

September 7th, 2007

Urgent important information and instruction from NISER, Bhubaneswar

The following is from http://www.iopb.res.in/niser/important.html.

All the students selected for admission to NISER are requested to reach Bhubaneswar positively on 9th September 2007. They will be provided temporary accommodaion within Institute of Physics campus. Accompanying parents/ guardians will also be provided accommodation within the campus.

Please note that there will be general strike on 10th September 2007. However, work within the IOP campus, both for NISER admission and inauguration of NISER Academic Programme will be held on 10th September 2007 as announced earlier.

The Orientation classes will be held on 11th Sept. 2007 followed by medical examination by Institute Doctor.

Regular classes will start on 12.09.2007 at 08:00 Hrs.

Break-up of charges to be paid at the time of admission to NISER

List of materials to be carried by the student for staying in the hostel

Students will be provided a cot with mattress and pillow, one study table with chair and one medium sized almirah for storage. They should bring their own linen, pillow cover, towel, mosquito-net, curtain, bucket, glass etc. for their own use.

1 comment September 4th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar list of successful candidates and admission information

The following is from the NISER web pages, particularly from this page.

General information regarding admission

Admission and registration to NISER is scheduled on 10th Sept. 2007 at 10 a.m. The inauguration of the academic programme of NISER will be held at 5 p.m. on 10Sept. 2007. Students have been allotted the stream of their first choice provisionally. The final allotment of streams will be done at the end of the first year based on their overall academic performance in semester I and semester II. Students will receive scholarship at the rate of Rs. 3,000/-per month.
All the students will have to register for all the courses which are to be credited by all the entrants to NISER’s 5-year integrated M.Sc. programme. The details of course descriptions are being posted in the webpage of NISER.

All the students are required to bring with them at the time of admission the originals of the following documents:

                    (a) Class X and Class XII Mark Sheets,

                    (b) Class X certificate,

                    (c) Caste / Tribe certificate (in case of SC/ST candidates).

In addition they should also bring four passport size photographs and two stamp size photographs and a Demand Draft for Rs. 13,000/= (Rs. 7,000/-for SC/ST students) towards payment of tuition fee, caution money and mess advance. The DD should be drawn in favour of NISER, payable at Bhubaneswar.

The selected students are required to deposit tuition fee and other charges latest by September 14, 2007 failing which they will forfeit their seat in NISER.
Hostel accommodation
All the students will be provided hostel accommodation. They are expected to register for the hostel accommodation at the time of admission. Details about the availability of hostel accommodation for boys and girls will be posted on the web soon.

5 comments September 3rd, 2007

NISER in Rajya Sabha

Following is from a PIB report about NISER, Bhubaneswar.

In a Writ Petition (C) No. 10836 of 2005, the Government has submitted before the High Court of Orissa that the Government is taking follow up action for implementation of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 28.8.2006 regarding setting up of a National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) at Bhubaneswar under the Department of Atomic Energy and that it is proposed to start the academic session from August, 2007. Taking cognizance of this, the Orissa High Court has disposed of the Writ Petition with a direction to the Government to ensure that the NISER is established at Bhubaneswar pursuant to the decision of the Government of India.

The Department of Atomic Energy has informed that 300 acres of land has been allotted by the government of Orissa for setting up of NISER. NISER has been registered under the Societies Registration Act and infrastructural facilities are being put in place. In addition, for admission to NISER, an NISER Entrance Screening Test (NEST) followed by interview has been conducted and admission will commence on 10th September, 2007.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shri M.A.A.Fatmi in a written reply to a question raised by Ms. Pramila Bohidar and Shri B.J. Panda in Rajya Sabha today.  

August 29th, 2007

India produces 40 PhDs in Computer Science/yr to US’s 1400/yr and China’s 3000/yr

Dr. R. K. Ghosh pointed us to a Forbes article by the Editor in Chief of JACM. Following is an excerpt from it.

The U.S. produces about 1,400 Ph.D.s in computer science annually and China about 3,000. By stark comparison, India’s annual computer science Ph.D. production languishes at roughly 40. That number is about the same as that for Israel, a nation with roughly 5% of India’s population size.

While India needs all the new IITs, IIITs and Central Universities that the PM announced during his Aug 15 speech, one wonders where from these institutions will get Ph.Ds for their faculty. The government and the IT industry must brainstorm together and come up with a strategy to tackle this. Following are some initial un-coordinated half-baked thoughts.

• Start motivating good students from an early age about the value of research. This can be done through science magnet schools.
• In IITs and IISc and may be a few other selected institutions have a track similar to MD/PH.D tracks in US medical schools. Students in this track would pursue a B.Tech-P.hD program (no need for MS) and would be given a generous stipends.
• To allow more time for IIT/IISc faculty to pursue research and guide Ph.D students these institutions (especially their CS depts.) should take in more M.Tech students and let them do most of the teaching.
• Government should open special graduate centers in IT/Computer Science (may be as branches of exisiting IITs) that only focus on research. For example, the IIT Kharagpur center in Bhubaneswar may house a faculty of 5-10 CS  professors and offer *only* a Ph.D program in computer science. Such centers may have affiliated faculty (who have Ph.Ds) from nearby engineering colleges. Such centers should be slowly opened in every metropolitan area with 15+ engineering colleges.  (The IIITs could have served this purpose but it seems most IIITs are focusing on undergraduate education. Exceptions are IIIT Hyderabad, which has a good research program; IIIT Bangalore which only offers M.Tech and Ph.D and the nascent IIIT Bhubaneswar which will also only have M.Tech and Ph.D program, at least in the beginning. )
• Government needs to offer better salary and perks to professors so that more students are attracted to a career in academia.

82 comments August 17th, 2007

Analyzing the educational aspect of the PM’s independence day speech and its implication to Orissa

The PM’s independence day speech will be remembered for a long time for its groundbreaking educational steps. Here, we analyze them vis-a-vis Orissa.

• K-12
  • "We will support 6,000 new high quality schools — one in every block of the country"   [Orissa has 314 blocks. Currently the central govt has three kinds of schools: Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Ekalabya Vidyalayas. My guess is these will be Navodaya Vidyalayas. Until now, Navodaya Vidyalayas were being made one per district. Extending it to one per block will do wonders.]
• Higher education
  • "We will also ensure that adequate numbers of colleges are set up across the country, especially in districts where enrollment levels are low. We will help States set up colleges in 370 such districts."  [Orissa has 30 districts. As per the NSSO study of 2004-2005, Table 3.14.1 shows that in the 15-19 age group 29% people in Orissa are attending school/college and in the 20-24 age group this number for Orissa is 6.1%. (Both numbers are lowest among all but the small states/UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep.) For the Scheduled Tribe population these numbers are 17.1% for the 15-19 age group and 4.1% for the 20-24 age group.]
  • "We will set up thirty new Central Universities. Every state that does not have a central university will now have one." [Orissa does not have one so it should get one. But considering that there are 23 other existing central universities, making it a total of 53 central universities, Orissa should get two.]
  • "we are setting up five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research" [The five IISERs are at Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal, and Trivendrum. A NISER is being set up in Bhubaneswar.]
  • "eight new Indian Institutes of Technology" [Three of these IITs are announced to be in Bihar, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Orissa should get one of the other five IITs.]
  • "seven new Indian Institutes of Management" [Announcements have been made with respect to Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Shillong. If Orissa gets a new IIT then its chance of getting a new IIM this round is much less. Orissa should try though.]
  • "twenty new Indian Institutes of Information Technology." [There will be one in each main states, including Orissa, which does not have one. Existing ones are at Allahabad, Amethi, Jabalpur, and Gwalior and a new one is being established at Kanchipuram. ]
• Vocational Education
  • "We will soon launch a Mission on Vocational Education and Skill Development, through which we will open 1600 new industrial training institutes (ITIs) and polytechnics, 10,000 new vocational schools and 50,000 new Skill Development Centres."
  • "We will ensure that annually, over 100 lakh students get vocational training – which is a four-fold increase from today’s level."
• More scholarships
  • "We should seek not just functional literacy, but good quality education – education that is affordable, accessible, equitable – and available to every boy and girl who seeks to study. For the needy we will provide more scholarships."

5 comments August 16th, 2007

NISER Bhubaneswar: NEST 2007 Screening test result out

The NISER (National Institute of Science Education and Research) web page has a list of candidates who have been called for interview in Bhubaneswar. The list for the candidates invited for interview in Mumbai in connection with UM-DAE is here. Following is the information for interview for the interviews in Bhubaneswar, as given in the NISER web page.

Continue Reading 12 comments August 11th, 2007