KISS, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences is made and run by the promoters of KIIT University. Hindu has a very nice article about it. Following are some excerpts.
A sister concern of the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), KISS is a working dream that trained the tribal children to be self-reliant, resourceful and empowered to tackle the challenges of life.
For the visiting media team from Bangalore, KISS was an education in looking beyond urban-centric development. From the well-stocked library, hostel and computer centre to a medical facility that insured every child, KISS is also a home away from home. The institute ensures that the children have enough exposure to their tribal culture, heritage and tradition. …
Today, there are children here from most of the 52 tribes of Orissa, including 13 primitive tribes. This year, we added 700 more tribal children to reach the strength of 5,000,” he informed.
…
For 22 of the brightest from KISS students, Dr. Samanta had reserved free engineering seats in KIIT, five per cent of the total intake.
“This year, the BCA and BBM courses were opened for them. The tribal students will leave this organisation with a job.” As the KIIT Deemed University Chancellor assured this, he was working on an expansion plan: a project to add another 5,000 children to India’s biggest residential tribal school in the next three years.
To improve the quality of engineering colleges in Orissa, IIIT Bhubaneswar should offer weekend M.tech for Engineering College faculty. This will be similar to weekend MBAs offered to working executives at many universities in the USA. To encourage the private engineering colleges to send their faculty for M.Tech Orissa government and BPUT should decide the fees amount based on how many faculty with M.tech (or pursuing M.tech) or more a particular college has.
… the institute has received green signal from the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to start M-Tech classes.
… So he along with his colleague Professor A K Das impressed upon the AICTE authorities about the requirement of the state vis-à-vis its ever growing engineering colleges, which are facing dearth of qualitative faculties.
S.N.Tripathy, Secretary IT and Vishal Dev, Director IT also extended their support in this regard.
Overwhelmed by the initiative the AICTE has allowed the IIIT-Bh to go for M.Tech and research initiatives in the first year itself.
“Now it has been decided to enroll 60 students in M. Tech courses in computer science”, said Prof.Nayak.
He said that a committee headed by Professor S.Sadagopan, Director IIIT Bangalore will soon finalize the admission criteria of students, syllabus and fee structure. …
The institution is also in the process of blending both experienced and renowned professors along with young and energetic talents as faculty members, said Prof.Nayak.
At the first place at least 6 professors and associate professors will be roped in and later more will be joining the institution, said he.
Harping on the vision, Prof. Nayak said that IIIT-Bh will be an unique institute imparting education, training, research, and consulting in technology and related fields to develop human resources who will lead the economy and the society in the coming decades.
He said the mission of IIIT-Bh is to be a knowledge seeking Institution of higher learning that will educate students in technology and other disciplines of scholarship.
According to Prof. Das the software major Infosys has agreed to set up a Chair with a rolling fund of Rs.1 crore and TCS is also inclined to support the institute in a big way.
The Institute will work closely with the Industry and other users of the technology including the state government to develop and deliver technological solutions to enhance their competitive position, said the Director.
The IIIT-Bh, which has 23 acres of land in the outskirts of the Capital City is also eying for another big patch of land adjacent to the allotted site as it is planning to go for a deemed university status for operational autonomy. …
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.
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:
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.
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