VTU to start 180 crore Visvesvaraya Institute of Advanced Technologies (VIAT), an exclusive graduate school offering cutting-edge research-incentive programmes

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

In the 17 years of its existence, one of India’s largest technical universities — Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) — hasn’t had a constituent institute to call its own.

Come August, the Belgaum-headquartered university with nearly 180 affiliated engineering colleges, will start Visvesvaraya Institute of Advanced Technologies (VIAT), an exclusive graduate school offering cutting-edge research-incentive programmes.

To be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 180-crore, VIAT will be located on a 200-acre campus at Muddenahalli, birthplace of Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya. In the maiden year, VIAT will offer MTech programmes in at least five areas at four campuses in Bangalore, Mysore, Gulbarga and Belgaum.

"VIAT will be designed on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science. Some of the programmes we have drawn up are exclusive to the institute; no engineering college in the state is currently offering them," says VTU vice-chancellor H Maheshappa.

All four campuses of the proposed institute will have a dedicated centre specializing in a chosen area. IT capital Bangalore will house Centre for C3 Technologies — Control, Communication and Computation. Centre for Materials and Manufacturing Technologies will come up in Mysore and Centre for Engery and Environmental Technologies will be housed at the Gulbarga campus. At Belgaum, the Centre for Resources and Geosystems Technology will be set up.

… "To ensure quality research, we have designed a new model of autonomy for VIAT. While a full time director will look after the overall affairs of the institute, each centre will have a research council headed by an eminent scientist or a technocrat," adds Maheshappa.

WHAT’S ON OFFER

* Bangalore (Muddenahalli) campus: MTech in cyberphysical systems, biomedical engineering and biotechnology

* Mysore campus: MTech in advanced engineering materials and advanced manufacturing technologies

* Gulbarga campus: MTech in energy and environmental engineering, renewable energy engineering and management and energy and sustainable development.

* Belgaum campus: MTech in water resources engineering and management and geosystems engineering

When BPUT, Rourkela was formed there were plans for 5 institutes under BPUT. I am not sure what the status of those proposed institutes are. I think 1-2 of them started in BPUT’s constituent colleges. But I could not find any information in BPUT’s website.  Perhaps BPUT can borrow some ideas from VTU and establish similar centers.

January 27th, 2011

Private State Universities of India as listed in the UGC site as of 18th Jan 2011

Following is from http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/privateuniversity.html.

January 24th, 2011

Update on Centurion University of Technology and Management Parlakhemundi, Odisha

Their website is http://www.cutm.ac.in/. The university name appears in the UGC website of private universities at http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/privateuniversity.html as well as in the Government of Odisha list of universities at http://www.orissa.gov.in/Portal/ViewDetails.asp?vchglinkid=GL014&vchplinkid=PL070. Their 2011 brochure is available at http://www.cutm.ac.in/downloads/public/CUTM-Brochure-2011.pdf. The university was inaugurated by the CM on January 22 2011.

3 comments January 23rd, 2011

10 more IITs? Bangalore University to push for upgradation of UVCE to IIT status.

Update: From a report in DNA.

Sources from the ministry of human resource development said that under the 12th plan, the Centre would announce 10 more IITs.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Deccan Herald.

The Bangalore University will submit a memorandum to the Union Law Minister on January 2 urging him to upgrade University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) to an Indian Institute of Technology.

"The HRD ministry has announced that it would set up ten more IITs soon. UVCE has the necessary infrastructure, expertise, faculty and students. This can be converted into an IIT with a campus at Muddenahalli," Vice-chancellor N Prabhu Dev told reporters on Friday. The memorandum will be submitted at the mega reunion event of UVCE alumni, which will be held from January 1 to 3 on the occasion of Sir Visvesvaraya’s 150th anniversary. "UVCE might remain a constituent college of BU. Even if we have to let go of the administration of UVCE, we will not mind," he added.

VSSUT Burla must be watchful and take appropriate steps at the right time.

3 comments January 1st, 2011

Sri Sri Ravishankar laid foundation stone at Dharmagarh (Kalahandi) for an agriculture university

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

December 17, 2010   11:59:31 AM

BIKASH KHEMKA | BHAWANIPATNA

Spiritualism pervaded the air here with Art of Living Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar’s visit and didactic discourse on Wednesday evening at the college field here thronged by the people of both Kalahandi and adjacent districts.

The backdrop of the dais was catchy with the images of Maa Manikeswari Temple, Chhatar Yatra and the primitive tribal groups depicting the true aura of this tribal district.

In the morning hour, Ravishankar laid a foundation stone at nearby Dharmagarh for an agriculture university and air-dashed here by chopper at around 2.30 pm.

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

The founder of Art of Living , Spiritual Guru HH Sri Sri Ravishankarji  meets Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in the Orissa Secretariat on Thursday and discussed with the Chief Minister regarding progress of proposed Sri Sri University at Narah Bidyadharpur.

In course of Discussion, Ravisankarji has proposed to set up an  Agriculture University at Kalahandi. Ravisankarji also expressed that besides Agriculture, training will be imparted on Medicinal Plants.

This is wonderful news. Earlier it was reported in kalahandia that about 100 acres has been identified for the above mentioned university.

December 17th, 2010

IGIT, CET, VSSUT, NIT RKL selected to proceed further on the TEQIP-II program

(Thanks to Biswa for the pointer.)

Update: It looks like IGIT Sarang was the only one in the 25 government colleges that are eligible (under sub component 1.1) to submit an Institutional Developmental Proposal (IDP). VSSUT and CET are in the list of Ineligible (under sub componnet 1.1) Govt. funded/aided institutions (for which the state is ready to co-sponsor) that can submit again for compliance of eligibility conditions & then submit IDPs. There are no private institutions from Odisha under sub component 1.1.

There are no eleigible institutions from Odisha under sub-component 1.2. NIT Rourkela is in the list of Non-Eligible Institutions (for which State is ready to co-sponsor) shortlisted for compliance of eligibility conditions for participation in the Project under Sub-Component 1.2.

The following table lists the institutions that applied from Oidsha, their over all scores and the problems they had (if any).

As per http://www.npiu.nic.in/faq.htm sub component 1.1 is about  Strengthening institutions to improve learning outcomes and employability of graduates and Sub-component 1.2 is about Scaling-up postgraduate education and demand driven R&D and innovation.

One  of the requirement for the BOG is that it be headed by an eminent industrialist/engineering academician with adequate representation from other stakeholders.

So it is not clear what the Telegraph article below is talking about.

As per the report in http://telegraphindia.com/1101207/jsp/orissa/story_13265662.jsp the five Colleges are:

• DRIEMS, Tangi, Cuttack
• NIST, Berhampur
• CEB, Bhubaneswar
• VSSUT, Burla
• IGIT, Sarang

The details of the program is at http://www.npiu.nic.in/faqi.htm. From a quick reading it seems that the government institutions will get about 10 crores each and the private ones about 4 crores each.

1 comment December 7th, 2010

Perhaps the First ad of Centurion University: from Dharitri

November 27th, 2010

Odisha to elevate Khallikote and GM Colleges to Unitary Universities: Expressbuzz

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

The State Government has decided to elevate Khallikote Autonomous College here and Gangadhar Meher College at Sambalpur to unitary university status, said Higher Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra here today.

A government appointed task force on higher education reforms had suggested upgrading these two premier autonomous colleges to university status, the Minister said while addressing a function of the Students’ Union of Khallikote College.

Mishra however stressed the need to develop necessary infrastructure facilities before the second oldest college of the State was declared a unitary university.

While at least 50 acre was required, Khallikote Autonomous College had only 16.74 acres of land in its possession.

“There is a proposal to get another 2.50 acres from transport departments garage adjoining the college”, he said.

The Minister asked the local MLAs to locate another 50 acres in the town for the college’s expansion. He also assured the students to fill up the vacant posts soon. Around 50 out of 90 posts of teaching staff are vacant in the 132-yearold college, where over 3,600 students are pursuing studies in 19 different departments, 15 of them having post-graduate departments.

4 comments November 20th, 2010

Business India on Centurion School of Management in Parlakhemundi

The article starts as follows:

The Harvard-educated home minister P. Chidambaram could learn some valuable lessons at this campus located in the heart of the Naxalinfested tribal district of Gajapati in Orissa, bordering Andhra Pradesh. Centurion School of Rural Enterprise Management (csrem) is run by two management professors – Mukthi Mishra and D.N. Rao – who quit their jobs at Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (ximb) to set up their own B-school barely seven years ago. They have made a tremendous impact in this poor and restive region. “Over the past few years, we have managed to produce over 10,000 graduates in engineering and management, and vocational certificate holders in a range of trades from the region,” says Mishra, co-founder of csrem.

Following is a scan of the whole article.

4 comments November 13th, 2010

Cabinet has decided to establish IIESTs across the country: Union Minister for State for Science and Technology

Following is an excerpt from a report in Indian Express.

“To boost innovation in basic sciences, the government is keen on funding and establishing world class institutes. We have recently established more IITs, IISERs and institutes in pharmaceutical science. On the same lines, the Cabinet has decided to establish IIESTs across the country,” said Prithviraj Chavan, Union Minister for State for Science and Technology.

He was inaugurating a seminar on Nano Technology: Materials and Composites for Frontier Applications, organised by Bharati Vidyapeeth University. Chavan did not commit that CoEP would feature on the list of five colleges to be converted into IIESTs, but said there was a possibility because the college has been trying to get deemed university status.

Odisha should remind the central government regarding its earlier request to upgrade VSSUT, Burla to an IIEST.

8 comments November 2nd, 2010

Subarnarekha Port Private Limited (SPPL) proposes a medical college and a maritime university

Following is an excerpt from a report in Orissadiary.

As a part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities the Subarnarekha Port Private Limited (SPPL), which has undertaken the project for establishment of a port at Chaumukh, Balaiapal in the district besides renovating the Coast canal is mooting for establishment of a hi-tech 300-bed hospital initially and further a medical college within 30 km of port perimeter and a maritime university to meet the growing activities in the field in the state.

Among others, General Manager Mohan Chandra Mishra, advisor Pramod Kumar Singh, and SC Das and others company officials were present.

12 comments October 26th, 2010

Central University of Orissa Koraput advertises for 48 faculty and 19 staff positions: ads from Samaja

The Central University of Orissa Koraput now has a professional looking web page at http://www.centraluniversityorissa.ac.in/. It is still under development though. Following are the ads from Samaja.

1 comment September 27th, 2010

Odisha government asks VSSUT Burla to submit a proposal to be one of the 20 universities in the country to have an innovation center and be seeded with innovation toolkits

Recall from https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/5524 where we reported the following:

… The NIC will also have innovation centres in universities and innovation clusters to create regional hubs….

“Those clusters will be selected where there is a minimum critical mass of industries of some kind and then we will give them an innovation toolkit. The toolkit will be a set of guidelines on how to innovate. Moreover, we are also selecting 20 universities, besides the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) where we can do seed innovation,” he said.

Prof Sanjay Dhande, IIT Kanpur director, who is a member of the Council, is in the process of identifying the universities which will then be given the innovation toolkit to be able to connect with industry.

We had contacted the Govt. of Odisha as well as the VCs of VSSUT and Sambalpur University about it. (I think some other people and groups may have done something similar too.)

The Government of Odisha has now asked VSSUT Burla to prepare a proposal in response to it. This is a good move. However, I think a joint proposal from VSSUT and Sambalpur University may be stronger and this is important if Prof. Dhande goes strictly by merit (without taking state representation – one from each major state — into account). Following is from Samaja. (The part in red is confusing. The reporter did not understand the difference between "Innovation University" and  "universities where GOI will seed innovation".)

2 comments September 18th, 2010

Besides IITs, 20 universities to be selected to seed innovation; VSSUT and SU should join hands and lobby for one of the 20 slots

Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard.

The newly constituted National Innovation Council (NIC) headed by Sam Pitroda, aims to have a $1-billion (around Rs 4,600 crore) fund to promote new ideas for inclusive development and innovation in the country.

“Our objective is to setup a $1-billion fund for the NIC but how big it will be depends on how the market reacts and how much money we are able to raise. We want to see if we can set up a large fund,” Pitroda, advisor to the PM, told Business Standard.

A week ago, the Council had announced the setting up of a fund with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to encourage innovation. The government will contribute 10-20 per cent to the fund with the rest coming from other sources like private funds, institutions and foundations.

Last month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had approved the establishment of the Council with a mandate to prepare a road map for the Decade of Innovation (2010-2020) by evolving an Indian model of innovation, focusing on inclusive growth and creating an appropriate ecosystem.

Going ahead, innovation councils will be set up at the state and sectoral levels and Pitroda said that five states, including Orissa and Karnataka, have already shown interest in setting up their own innovation councils. The NIC will also have innovation centres in universities and innovation clusters to create regional hubs.

It will delineate appropriate policy initiatives within the government to spur innovation. It will also promote setting up of Sectoral Innovation Councils and State Innovation Councils.

The NIC has also collaborated with industry chambers CII and Ficci to identify 20 industrial clusters in the country like Indore, Bhopal, Gandhinagar and Kanpur, among others, to provide guidelines for innovation.

“Those clusters will be selected where there is a minimum critical mass of industries of some kind and then we will give them an innovation toolkit. The toolkit will be a set of guidelines on how to innovate. Moreover, we are also selecting 20 universities, besides the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) where we can do seed innovation,” he said.

Prof Sanjay Dhande, IIT Kanpur director, who is a member of the Council, is in the process of identifying the universities which will then be given the innovation toolkit to be able to connect with industry.

Odisha should lobby to have at least one industrial cluster (perhaps Rourkela) in the list of 20 clusters and lobby to have at least one university in the list of 20 universities to which innovation toolkit will be given. I think VSSUT and Sambalpur University should join  hands to stake claim for one of the 20 university slots. Considering their proximity, it may work.

The setting up of the innovation council was approved a month month back. Following is an excerpt from another report in Business Standard.

Last month, the prime minister had approved the setting up of the council to prepare a road map for the Decade of Innovation 2010-2020. The council also launched its portal, where a compilation of scientific achievements that could be used to improve the quality of life would be available.

A similar council called National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship was formed by the Commerce Department in the USA in 2009. In July 2010 its membership was announced.

2 comments September 15th, 2010

New university and institute related acts recently passed, introduced or to be introduced in the parliament

The following were obtained from various sources. I don’t vouch for their 100% correctness. Please use them at your own risk.

• Bill to amend the NIT act; it adds IIISERs to them: introduced in the parliament but not passed yet
  • Original NIT act.
• Bil to amend the IT act for IITs; it adds the new IITs and designates IT BHU to be an IIT called IIT (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi: introduced in the parliament but not passed yet.
  • Current IT act (incorporates past amendments)
• Nalanda University act.
• South Asian University act.
  • Intergovernmental agreement that preceded the act.
• Central Universities Act (for the 16 new central universities)
• Draft bill for the Universities of Innovation; newspaper reports mention that some changes will be made before it is introduced in the parliament.

1 comment September 2nd, 2010

Central University of Orissa Koraput submits a DPR for a medical college to MHRD; Other plans and progress there

Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindu.

The Central University of Orissa is setting up a medical college and a hospital that will bring health care at the doorsteps of the people in the region.

… “A hospital in the region would bring relief to the people,” the Vice-Chancellor of the University Surabhi Banerjee told TheHindu.

A detailed interim project report has been submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

… a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) for establishing a School of Health Sciences, for collaboration in teaching and research in Masters in Public Health Management. The school will also run courses in Nursing Sciences and Allied Health Sciences.

A similar MoU will be signed with Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bangalore, for training in medical and allied health sciences. … The Delhi-based Jamia Hamdard University has also extended help in the field of allied sciences.

As the university enters its second year at the end of this month, it intends to tie up with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation for setting up a School of Bio-Diversity and Conservation of Natural Resources, and with the Chennai Institute of Mathematical Studies, that will offer a 5 year Integrated M.Sc in Mathematics

Grooming students

“But only obtaining a degree is not enough in today’s competitive world. Personality development is equally important. I have involved the British Council for improving the communication skills of students. The Council has already commenced classes where 75 students have enrolled,” she explained.

In addition to imparting training in Information Technology, efforts are being made to groom and counsel the students before they are ready to “take off.”

At present, 150 students from across the country have been enrolled in the University in the School of Languages and the School of Social Sciences. The former offers Post Graduation courses in English and Oriya, while the latter provides Post Graduation courses in Anthropology, Sociology and Mass Communication and Journalism. The Academic Council has also approved Ph.D Programmes.

Professor Banerjee is also working on a proposal to start an Institute of Marine Biotechnology.

The headline of the above mentioned Hindu report says: "Orissa Central University to set up medical college, hospital." But the content only says that they have submitted a DPR. It does not say that MHRD has agreed for the medical college. It is possible that MHRD is trying to not publicize it at this stage and thus has just encouraged CUO Koraput for the medical college and thus they have sent the DPR. In other words it is not a done deal until MHRD agrees to the proposal and the budget gets passed. We need to see in March 2012 if it is in next year’s budget.

Nevertheless kudos to VC of CUO Koraput as timely sending a DPR is important. Earlier in February 2010 the news was that she was about to send a DPR. Now she has sent it. So that is a good step. Also, now that the DPR has been sent the state can more forcefully lobby for the DPR to be approved. (Before sendng a DPR a tactics that is often used by various ministries when asked for something is: "Send us a proposal or DPR.")

August 26th, 2010