Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
Principal of Food Craft Institute (FCI) Chandrakant Mahapatra said: “If things work out as planned, Balangir will soon have the second government-funded institute of hotel management in the state after Bhubaneswar. The union government is keen to upgrade the Food Craft Institute in Balangir into an institute of hotel management.”
Mahapatra said to facilitate the process, the Centre had demanded transfer of FCI land to the tourism department. It also demanded that FCI be re-registered as an hotel management institute under the Society Registration Act. “We are working on the two criteria. The land transfer process has been expedited. I am going to Cuttack today for registration related work,” he told The Telegraph.
He further said that the institute would be known as State Institute of Hotel Management (SIHM) and the Centre has assured to spend Rs 12 crore on infrastructure.
“The Centre will provide the infrastructure and the state government will have expenses for running the institute. The institute will offer BSc degree course in hospitality and hotel administration (HHA) and students will have to take an all-India entrance test to get admission,” Mahapatra said.
September 15th, 2010
Following are excerpts from a report in Telegraph about this institute and a new course it will offer.
A new course on craft design has been introduced at the State Institute for Development of Arts and Crafts (Sidac). The nine-month certificate course was launched in collaboration with National Institute for Design (NID), Ahmedabad. The objective of the course is to design contemporary products with an ethnic touch.
Dilip Panda, training in-charge of Sidac … Panda added that the new course was introduced after designing institutes like NID and National Institute of Fashion and Technology (Nift) conducted a series of design development programmes.
“Using traditional skills and modern design inputs, the institutes came up with more market and export-oriented products. This is also a good oppurtunity for budding talents to upgrade their skills and prosper as artisans and craftsmen,” said Panda.
The first batch comprising 20 students started classes last week.
Sunil Kumar Sahoo, who has completed a two-year training in Patachitra, has enrolled for the course. He said: “Traditional art and craft have to evolve to suit the needs and tastes of customers. In this course, we will be trained in creating new designs and product mixing. For example, Patachitra on terracotta or stone will give a brand new touch to traditional products.”
Panda said he was hopeful that the students would be able to develop a designer bent of mind with the help of skilled trainers. “We have five in-house faculty members from renowned designing institutes for teaching the core subjects. The visiting faculties would take care of specialised subjects like product photography and use of computers in design,” added Panda.
For the first year, the course is being run on an experimental basis for which the students are exempt from paying any fees. …
September 15th, 2010
Following is page 3 of the article at http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/10sep2010/577.pdf by K. P. Raghuraman, Romesh Chander and Giridhar Madras of Indian Institute of Science. (Thanks to Abi for the pointer.)
I confirmed from one of the authors that the highlighted institute is indeed the one from Bhubaneswar. I was also told that many their publications are the result of mega-collaborations.
The above is a great achievement for Institute of Physics. Especially since they have a small faculty of 19 and have a comparatively smaller overall budget. Kudos to them for their achievements.
September 15th, 2010
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.
September 15th, 2010