Odisha HRD

Samaja op-ed by Kabi Mishra in support of Vedanta University

Finally someone comes out and openly writes in favour of Vedanta University in the local papers. Its high time someone did that.

Given below is the article by retired Utkal University Professor Nabakishore Mahalik on August 27th that the above writer mentions.

1 comment September 24th, 2009

Orissa department of higher education consolidates all scholarship information and application process

Thanks to tathya.in for the pointer. The Department of Higher Education web page is at http://www.dheorissa.in/DHE/Scholarship_Schemes.aspx. Following links are from that web page.

Scholarship Schemes of State & Central Government for 2009-10

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	Guidelines for State Schemes
	CAFS with Appendixes
	Instruction Manual to fill up CAFAS
	Central Schemes for Award of Scholarship
	Hindi – Guideline & Form (CH) Sanskrit – Guideline & Form (CS) Annexure of A, B, C

The image of the advertisement is given below.

2 comments September 24th, 2009

Union Law Minister Moily plans 4 regional law institutes of excellence

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

… law minister Veerappa Moily has designed a grand plan to set up four regional institutes of excellence to equip lawyers and bring them on par with Indian IT professionals, who are known the world over for their competence.

Moily prefers to call these regional institutes of excellence simply "regional hubs" of legal education. "We have written to the Planning Commission for approval of the plan to set up these four institutes which will match standards of best law institutes anywhere in the world," he said, adding this move was spurred by one of the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission.

September 24th, 2009

Orissa should push for a Central University in the Western part of Orissa to be included in the 12th plan

Pioneer reports on a letter written by Sanjib Karmee about establishing a central university in the Western part of Orissa. Following are some excerpts.

.. One such letter written to the Prime Minister, President and other top political leaders of the country including one to the Chief Minister of Orissa and members of Parliament, by Dr Sanjib Kumar Karmee of Bio-catalysis and Organic Chemistry group of the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, has made a fervent appeal to the powers that be to open a Central University in the Koshal region.

He has appreciated the efforts of Ministry of Human Resources and other Central Government ministries in the establishment of many centrally funded institutions in Orissa keeping the backwardness of the State in mind.

He has cited that the current Government of the State is adopting a capital centric approach, clustering Bhubaneswar with National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and Railway Medical College.

The State Government has chosen only two such centrally funded institutes outside Bhubaneswar-Cuttack-Puri region of having a Central University at Koraput in south Orissa and a proposal to set-up the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Berhampur which is also in south Orissa.

Koshal region he writes is one of the most backward regions in Orissa, and has demanded the establishment of centrally funded institutes in Koshal region. At the same time he writes about the connectivity and amenities of the region which has infrastructural readiness to have a Central University, besides he says the region has two universities – Sambalpur University and VSS University of Technology – a Government Medical College, and a few private engineering colleges. Rourkela city which is close to Burla-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area has a National Institute of Technology at Rourkela. On connectivity he writes there is a proposal by the Government of India to have an airport at Jharsuguda and further that Jharsuguda is well connected by rail to the various States in India. Burla-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area is emerging as a central location for on going industrial activities in the region.

Since MHRD is very serious about increasing the GER, I think the 12th plan would include some more central universities (or at the worst case universities that are funded 50-50 by center and state). Also, as I mentioned earlier, many states have regions which have been left out of the national university (mostly went to the state capital or the 1st or 2nd most populated metro area of the bigger states; but all went to metro areas with a population of greater than 1 million; the obvious reason seems to be the vision behind these universities as stated in the first announcement as well as in the concept papers) and first central university distributions (many went to smaller places of the states), and they would like to have a central university/institution. This includes Nagpur in Maharastra, Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur/Asansol/Siliguri in West Bengal, Bhawanipatna/Jharsuguda/Rourkela in Orissa etc.

In Orissa, after CUO Koraput and national university in Bhubaneswar, the government should strongly consider a location in its Western part (and far from Bhubaneswar) for that. Among the possible locations, a sentimental favorite would be Bhawanipatna, as it has been reported that at one point the CM had assured the representatives from Kalahandi regarding locating the first central university there. Other good locations could be Rourkela (a bit in the corner though; but is a metro and has a sizable population and does not have a regular university; it does have NIT) and Jharsuguda (lots of industrial development happening here, not too far from Rourkela, but close to Sambalpur which has two universities; But Jharsuguda itself has nothing and is going to have an airport soon).

3 comments September 24th, 2009