Archive for May 10th, 2007
During the last two days there have been many developments on the IIT in Orissa front. Following is a quick summary of them.
May 10th, 2007
In 2005 after newsreports came in that the proposed National Institute of Sciences was shifted to West Bengal, Mr. Prasanta Das from Cuttack, on behalf of his organization, filed a PIL on this at the Cuttack high court. At one point the Cuttack highcourt put a stay order on any progress on IISERs (the renamed version of NIS). The central govt. went to the Supreme Court and got the stay order lifted. All these led to a lot of news coverage of this issue.
Several Oriyas helped in the supreme court part of the case and even roped in Arun Jaitely to argue the case on behalf of the PIL. The supreme court sent back the case to the high court and finally two days back the high court gave a judgment.
However during this time the PM had already announced the establishment of NISER in Bhubaneswar. This was conveyed to the high court through an affidavit, and that affidavit said that the NISER would open by August 2007. So the high court in its judgment basically said that NISER must be opened by August 2007. This news is reported in Sambada and New Indian Express. Some of the documents related to the Supreme Court case in regards to NIS/IISER shifting (1550-of-2006) are as follows:
Old news items on the case at high court and supreme court are in this blog.
May 10th, 2007
Dharitri reports that the minister answering the no call motion had said that upon the advice of the scientific advisory committee an IIT is to be established in “Orissa”, but then she corrected herself and said “Bihar”. More interstingly, she also said that Minister Fatmi never said that an IIT will be established in Orissa. However, Minister Mr. Fatmi was in the Lok Sabha at that time and he was silent even when the Orissa MPs were looking at him for an answer.
May 10th, 2007
Following is an excerpt from the Indian Express article.
Replying to the calling attention, Minister of State for Human Resources D Purandareswari said … As she proceeded to read out a list of educational institutions in the state that were receiving Central assistance—it was in answer to criticism that the state was being discriminated against—the NDA members began protesting, claiming the assistance was paltry. At this BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra rose to say, “There has been injustice against Orissa,†and led the NDA camp in a walkout.
Two comments:
1. Its laughable that the minister was reading out educational institutions in Orissa that receive central assistance. Every state has such institutions. What we are talking about is institutions like IIT that are international brands; institutions that are fully funded by MHRD; institutions like IIT, IIM, SPA, IIIT, IISc, IISER and Central Universities.
2. It is significant that the NDA leader of the Lok Sabha led the walk out and said what he said. I hope if and when the NDA comes to power he and other NDA leaders will come to Orissa’s aid and make things more equitable.
May 10th, 2007
