The Pioneer and others have reported on it. Following is a short excerpt from the Pioneer report.
Computer Science will no more remain confined to the Science and Commerce Stream. It will also be taught in the Arts Stream too.
Firstly, it will be introduced in the Ravenshaw Deemed University.
A decision to this effect was taken at a high level meeting convened by the Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Triapthy on Tuesday. Henceforth, computer science will be a compulsory subject in the graduation level in Arts, Commerce and Science Stream.
The State Government has proposed to the newly formed Ravenshaw University to introduce Computer Science as an elective subject in all disciplines.
… Keeping in mind the importance of information technology in the present scenario, computer education should be offered as a subject in all disciplines – art, science and commerce, the meeting observed.
The Government has also decided to fill up all teaching posts in the university this year and as a first step, all teaching staff position [*corrected*] of the erstwhile Ravenshaw College would be transferred to the university. The posts lying vacant would be filled up through recruitment. Out of the total sanctioned teaching posts of 144, as many as 26 posts are presently vacant, official sources said.
A decision has also been taken to transfer the existing lecturers to government colleges in phases and make fresh recruitment in their place. The non-teaching staff would be given an option to continue in the university or go to any government college on transfer. The meeting resolved that a decision on the introduction of new subjects in the university should be taken only after reviewing the existing self-financed courses.
Indiaedunews.net has more details on UGC’ s support to Ravenshaw. Following are some excerpts.
Cuttack: The newly-formed Ravenshaw University (RU) has become eligible to receive Central financial assistance under section 12 (B) of UGC Act 1956. The university authorities recently received a letter from UGC undersecretary Urmila Gulati.
The communique states that: "The University shall abide by the instructions, guidelines, notifications, rules and regulations as issued by the UGC from time to time". It may be noted here that a team of members from UGC had visited the campus earlier this month to verify the facilities available at the university that was last year upgraded to its present status from an autonomous college.
As per the UGC norms, the varsity would now get an immediate assistance of Rs.1 crore for development under "Young University" scheme. "The Government is now going to abolish all existing posts of the erstwhile college and in their place, fresh recruitments will be made soon for the newly formed university," said Satyakam Mishra Registrar of RU.
Ravenshaw University is a state University which came in to existence on 15th November, 2006. The university has been upgraded from the erstwhile Ravenshaw College established in 1868 which was one of the oldest and largest autonomous colleges in India.
Following are some excerpts on this topic from a report in Hindustan Times. However, the numbers below look wrong. A previous article had mentioned the total cost to be 5000 crores. That number appears more reasonable.
In a bid to have similar higher standard of education in the new 14 Central Universities proposed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government wants to bring a uniform legislation to govern them all. The new universities would cost government Rs Rs 41,802 crore.
… Recently, Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia had told HT that the government intends to develop these institutes into “centers of excellence” at part with one of the best in the world.
The decision to have a uniform legislation is said to be a step in this direction. HRD ministry officials, who deliberated on the issue on Monday, said uniform legislation would ensure better regulation and maintaining of high standards of education. “It will also give a sort of uniformity to higher education system in India, which is lacking,” a ministry official said.
The government has also proposed that the new Central universities should be modeled on Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, the only university in the country among top 200 in the world.
The proposed law will also ensure linkages between Central universities enabling easy mobility of students from one university into another and a centralized admission system. However, the HRD ministry has some reservation on whether the centralized admission system would be possible for graduate and post-graduate studies in arts or commerce as evaluating students’ ability through a test may not be possible.
Government officials also said the proposed law will frame complete autonomy for these universities based on JNU governance model to check “political interference” in appointment of vice-chancellors and faculty. The law would provide complete autonomy to the executive and academic council on how to run the university within University Grants Commission guidelines.
The government also plans that 14 Central Universities will have an engineering school, a management school and a law school. But, the decision on the fees to be charges will rest with the university, an official said. The Planning Commission had recommended that the fee for undergraduate courses should be Rs 12,000 per annum with 40 per cent of students getting substantial scholarships. “The fee structure should cover 20 per cent of the cost for running the university,” the official said.
The Pioneer reports on demand of KBK central university by all KBK districts. It says,
All KBK districts are echoing with the demand for a Central University in the region, thanks to the initiative of the intelligentsia in the area. For the last one-week, concerned citizens of the KBK districts have been meeting at different forums raising the demand. Meetings were organised at Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Jeypore, Koraput and Sunabeda, which culminated at a workshop in Koraput on Sunday.
People’s representatives, intellectuals and a number of other leading citizens assembled at Koraput to chalk out the future plan. A well-documented presentation of Chitta Baral, professor of Arizona State University was discussed at length over the status of educational standards of the KBK districts vis-à-vis other parts of the State. Organisers like Umi Daniel and Saroj Padhi presented the research document.
Baral, sitting thousands miles away, was able to make an impact on the minds of all the 50 participants at the workshop. Agriculturist Bibhu Mohanty of Jeypore, who improvised Kala Jira Rice in Kalahandi on behalf of the Swaminathan group, highly appreciated the detailed study done by Baral.
Lalit M Patnaik of Agamee Odisha harped on the improvement of the poor standards of higher education in the State.
The meeting decided that crying over the poverty index is bringing shame to the State. So, the Infrastructure of progress should be referred to rather than the poverty index, which in itself is misleading about the progress of the State.
By taking seven sub-sectors of the infrastructure such as transport, energy, irrigation, banking, communication, education and health, one can really compute the composite development index of infrastructure for different districts of the State, said speakers.
I came across this Allahbad bank site about education loans. They give loans up to 4 lakhs without any collateral security to students of a selected list of colleges/institutes. The current list includes four Orissa institutes. They are:
Entire KBK districts are echoing with the demand for a Central University, thanks to the initiative of the intelligentsia of the area.
For last one week, concerned citizens of the KBK districts have been meeting at different forums, while raising their demand for a Central University.
Meetings were organized at Malkangiri, Nawrangpur, Jeypore, Koraput, Sunabeda, which culminated at Koraput on July 29.
The people’s representatives,intelectuals and a number of leaders assembled here to chalk out the future plan.
A well documented presentation … was discussed at length over the status of educational standard of the KBK districts vis-à-vis other parts of the state.
The organizers like Umi Daniel and Saroj Padhi presented the thorough researched document in a lucid manner, which has a long lasting impression on the participants of the workshop. …
Agriculturist Bibhu Mohanty of Jeypore, who improvised "Kala Jira Rice" at Kalahandi on behalf of Swaminathan group, highly appreciated the detailed study …
Lalit M Patnaik of Agamee Odisha harped on the improvement of the poor standards of higher education in the state.
Mr.Patnaik said that “they are not alone rather a large group of intellectuals inside the country and in abroad are behind the struggle to make Orissa the Major Destination of Higher Education”.
The meeting decided that crying over the poverty index is bringing shame to the state.
So the Infrastructure of Progress should be referred rather then the Poverty Index, which in itself is misleading about the progress of our State and it’s Districts.
By taking seven sub-sectors of the infrastructure such as transport, energy, irrigation, banking, communication, education and health, we can really compute the composite development index of infrastructure for different districts of Orissa, said speakers in the meeting.
That is my opinion after reading the following. Both the culture department of the Orissa government as well as the university leadership should be ashamed of the performance of this university. Its been 8 years since it was established in 1999 and it is yet to get the "funded by UGC" tag. Perhaps the government and the university leadership will learn and be inspred by what has been acheived at Ravenshaw University in 8 months. Ravenshaw has done it in 8 months what Utkal University of Culture has not been able to do in 8 years. Fakirmohan University, North Orissa University and BPUT leaderships should also be ashamed of their incompetence in not being able to make a case with the state government as well as UGC to get the "funded by UGC" tag. Hopefully, they will also be inspired by Ravenshaw University. Following is Dharitri’s article on Utkal University of Culture and the dire financial situation there.
"KIIT National Law School (KNLS) fills up the absence of a national law school in Orissa and will meet the surging demand for legal professionals in the wake of globalisation and rapid expansion of corporate sector and influx of multinationals in the country," according to an official release issued by the University.
N. L. Mitra, a renowned law academician, has consented to be involved with KNLS as its chief advisor, giving a boost to its mission to be at par with the best law schools.
Mitra has been instrumental in setting up almost all reputed national law schools in the country. He is former Director of National Law School of India University, Bangalore and former Vice-Chancellor of National Law School, Jodhpur.
KNLS is offering five year integrated law programmes (B.A.LL.B; B.Sc. LLB; and BBA.LL.B) as well as three Year LL.B course from the current academic year. …
The School is headed by Faizan Mustafa, who is former Dean and Registrar of Law School, Aligarh Muslim University.
The last one, by virtue of the little time it took, is an *unbelievable* achievement for Ravenshaw and opens the way for it to take big steps towards its future. For this all Ravenshaw administrators deserve mega kudos. The difficulty of getting the "funded by UGC" status can be judged by the fact that several other universities established by the Orissa givernment, some for more than 5 years, do not yet have the tag. This includes BPUT, North Orissa U at Baripada, Fakirmohan U at Balasore and Utkal Univ of Culture. Sure, Ravenshaw’s past history must have helped; nevertheless this is a great achievement.
One can also have a look at the presentation that Ravenshaw VC gave at Detroit on July 1 2007 available at https://www.orissalinks.com/?p=323
and notice how the VC and his staff have made a visionary plan; and not just a plan, they have acted on some of it already. The later includes convincing the
government of Orissa to promise (allocate?) land and funds for a new campus.
I had the opportunity to meet Devdas babu (VC of Ravenshaw) in January and also in July in Detroit. He has been very receptive to ideas. He suggested that it would be great to have an electronic gathering place for friends and alumni of Ravenshaw. Hence, I have created a yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ravenshawnet/
If you are serious in suggesting ideas, and not just that but in acting towards the fulfillment of those ideas, please consider joining the group to network with
like-minded people. For the next week or so, I will open up the group so that people can join directly, without needing an approval.
best regards
Chitta
ps — I am not a Ravenshaw alumnus. I think Ravenshaw is Orissa’s pride and we must help make it a top university in the world and an opportunity where we
have a VC who welcomes help, and who has shown his ability to do things and cut red tapes should not be missed.
pps- PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO OTHERS WHO HAVE CONCERN FOR ORISSA.
FOLLOW-UP
How will this group be different? How exactly can it help Ravenshaw?
Let me illustrate this by an example.
After many people heard Devdas babu (VC of Ravensha) in Detroit a group of them decided to help develop a school of contemporary music, possibly named as "Akhaya Mohanty School of contemporary music" at Ravenshaw. They are now in the process of raising an amount of money suggested by Devdas babu. Devdas babu said that if they raise X then he will be able to use it to get 5-10X from the government.
Another group (mostly consisting of professors in science disciplines in North America) has discussed with Devdas babu about renovating the Science curriculum at Ravenshaw.
Yet another group is interested in the establishment of Creative Writing program where budding poets and novelists can learn and practice their art. Apparently their are not many programs like that in India. I wonder if there is any in Orissa.
Other groups have suggested their help in establishing a Journalism program and making Ravenshaw, perhaps the first university in India to have its daily newspaper, if not paper based, but at least in the web. (Most US Universities have daily newspapers.)
Yet another group is interested in helping Ravenshaw to use the availability of past judges in the Cuttack area (including some supreme court judges) to establish a law school in the mold of National Law School in Bangalore.
These are some of the ideas that are under works. Devdas babu has said that he welcomes more such ideas, and actions towards the fulfillment of those ideas.
Devdas babu has done it! While universities like Fakir Mohan University, North Orissa University, BPUT and Utkal University of Culture are yet to get "funded by UGC" tag, Ravenshaw which was made a university on November 15 2006 has received UGC approval to get into the "funded by UGC tag." Mega kudos to Devdas Chhotray, the VC of Ravenshaw University, who made this possible within so short a time. Following is Sambada’s report on this.
The document has many details on what kind of funding UGC provides to state universities.
I came across the IIIT proposal that Orissa had prepared in 1997. Here it is (7MB). Since that proposal, its been 10 years and finally we will have the IIIT. During these 10 years many IIITs were established in other states: Gwalior (1997), Hyderabad (1998), Allahabad (1999), Bangalore (1999), Kolkata (2000), Pune, Kerala, Jabalpur and Amethi (Campus of Allahbad).
Tathya.in has a biographical article on Prof. Gopal Nayak. Following are some excerpts.
Prof. Nayak is the product of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur was born at Berhampur in Ganjam district to a family of teachers.
An electrical engineer with a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from IIM Bangalore did his Ph. D from IIT, Kharagpur.
He has done his Ph. D under the guidance of Prof. Damodar Acharya who was the Vice Chancellor of BPUT, Chairman of AICTE and at present the Director of IIT, Kharagpur.
Prof. Nayak has spent a few years on Industry.
He has worked for Nelco in Mumbai in the product development area and for NTPC in the Procurement automation area.
Prof. Nayak has spent about 20 years in academics.
He is one of the founding Professors of Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar.
As the Professor of Information Systems, he was instrumental in transforming XIMB into the most technology intensive campus in India.
XIMBans give credit to him in creating several firsts management education field: a campus network, providing PC to each student, making Internet accessible 24×7 and giving a technology orientation to the curriculum at XIMB.
He held important positions at XIMB such as the Dean (Academics), IT services and Admissions Co-ordinator.
Prof. Nayak’s most notable contribution is development of Academic Information System (AIS) and PAMIS.
The AIS is being used by many top business schools in the country such as XLRI Jamshedpur, IIM Indore, NITIE Mumbai.
PAMIS has been implemented in 314 blocks and 30 DRDAs in Orissa and is one of the most successful e-governance projects in Orissa.
With this background the Government of Orissa has roped in Prof. Nayak for the IIIT.
With a director of such background IIIT Bhubaneswar should also start offering degrees that relate to business and information systems such as MBA and MIS (Master in Information Systems). One may note that some of the IIITs, such as IIITM Gwalior, do offer such degrees.
The Union Human Resource Development Ministry is ready with a draft Bill for establishing 16 Central universities across the country.
The draft of the umbrella legislation that will govern all the new proposed Central universities — for the first time — has been sent to various Ministries for their comments. All Central universities so far have been established under different Acts.
As of now, there are only 22 Central universities in the country with Delhi having as many as four while 16 States have none. The proposed universities are believed to have been modelled as unitary, non-affiliating universities on the pattern of the Jawaharlal Nehru and Hyderabad universities.
The States identified for setting up these universities in the next five years at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore in addition to the annual grants are Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Punjab. …
Dr. Singh’s initiative for improved university system came in June when he announced at least one Central university for each State and a degree college for every district following a meeting on higher education with Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, and Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
Comparing the above list with our list of 19 states which do not yet have central universities following are some observations: (i) Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Tripura are not in the above list perhaps because universities for them was earlier announced, (ii) Goa is replaced by Maharastra and (iii) Madhya Pradesh is in the list, although it is not clear if this is in addition to the tribal university that is to be head quartered in Madhya Pradesh. Five thousand crores for 16 universities means 312.5 crores for each university.
Hindu has another article in its website with much of the same content except the following additional point.
In the 350 districts, where the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was below the national average, Dr. Singh had asked the Centre to assist the States through the University Grants Commission (UGC) in setting up degree colleges to improve the enrolment ratio.
.jpg){kind=link}
