Rourkela is the second largest metropolitan area of Orissa with an official metropolitan population of 550,668 but perhaps much more (at least 700 K) if one takes into account nearby places like Biramitrapur and Rajgangpur. It is probably the most cosmopolitan area of Orissa. Because of its steel plant it has world-wide name recognition. It has a lot of young talents; I am told that Rourkela youngsters have done much better in entrance exams like IIT JEE than from other parts of Orissa. Rourkela and the Sundergarh district have produced many national hockey players (both male and female), some of whom have gone on to captain the Indian national side.
Being an important station in the Mumbai-Howrah line, Rourkela is very well connected to both. The National Institute of Technology at Rourkela is often ranked among the top 5 NITs of the country; in recent years it has done much better and is in the process of starting a business program. Rourkela also has two private engineering colleges and at least one more is in the works. Rourkela has at least two good magament schools: Rourkela Institute of Management Studies (sometimes ranked nationally) and Indian Institute of Production Management, Kansbahal.
Overall, Rourkela has the potential to be a Tier II city of India at the level of Vizag, Chandigarh, etc. But unfortunately, that has not happened so far and active organized efforts need to be made to achieve that.
So here I will list some of the things that should be pursued so that Rourkela becomes a Tier II city of India.
Knowledge and HRD aspects:
Metropolitan University: Rourkela is perhaps the largest metropolitan area of the country, or may be the whole world which does not have a general university. This needs to be rectified at the earliest. IMHO, the best model to follow would be of Delhi University. So a Rourkela Metropolitan University should be established with graduate programs as well as with a few constituent colleges spread (offering Bachelors as well as Masters degrees) across the metropolitan area, but with no affiliated colleges. The exisiting government colleges in Rourkela (Govt. College, Rourkela; SG Women’s, Rourkela and Rourkela College) would be made constituents of this university.
Medical College: Although a WODC sponsored PPP-based medical college is in the works, we must continue pursuing an ESIC medical college here. SAIL, which is making a medical college in Bokaro, should also be pushed to establish a medical college here.
BPUT: BPUT must become fully operational from Rourkela.It needs to have real departments and centers and offer its own courses. It should be expanded to have programs in Science and Humanities.
Research Centers: The state should pursue one of the central government departments such as CSIR, DAE, Sc & Tech, etc. to open a research center in Rourkela.
Centrally funded University: At some point a centrally funded university should be pursued for Rourkela.
More private institutions: Rourkela has the population base and the amenities that metropolitan areas offer to have more private institutions such as engineering colleges, management institutions etc. A multi-pronged apporoach should be taken.
Local big industries should be cajoled to participate in this. For example, SAIL is also planning an engineering college in Bokaro. They should be pushed to have one in Rourkela.
Local people should also open private institutions on their own.
Educational foundations inside and outside state that have developed good private institutions should be approached and invited to open institutions in Rourkela. Inside Orissa, institutions like Silicon and NIST should be approached.
STP: The STP at Rourkela should be expanded.
IT/BPO: Because of the cosmopolitan nature of Rourkela, it would be a good place for BPO and call center operations. This should be pursued.
Sports Institute/University: Sundergrah district is considered by many to be the Hockey cradle of India, both in men’s and women’s hockey. It has produced both Men’s and Women’s hockey team captains in Dilip Tirkey and Jyoti Sunita Kullu. Orissa government should pursue to establish a National Sports Institute (of the kind in Patiala) in Rourkela. It should include programs in physical training, coach training, official training etc. This would specially contribute in the enhancing the employment opportunities for Adivasis who constitute 50.74% of Sundergarh’s population.
Connectivity Aspects:
Rail Connectivity -Trains: While the connectivity to Mumbai and Kolkata is marvelous, connectivity to other places needs improvement. Dilip has a good list of new trains needed for Rourkela at http://rourkelarail.wetpaint.com/page/DEMANDS. This list is:
Rourkela-Bhubaneswar Intercity Express( Day Time)
Rourkela-Berhampur Gajapati Express
Rourkela-Secundarabad/Hyderabad Express
Trains to New Delhi from Bhubaneswar via Rourkela OR Rourkela-Nizamuddin/New Delhi Express (Any extension of Ranchi-Hatia or Tatanagar trains will also work)
Trains to Patna and Eastern U.P.
Rail Connectivity-Others: The Talcher-Bimlagarh line must be fast-tracked.
Roads: The 4-laning of the state highway 10 connecting Sambalpur and Rourkela must be expedited.
Air Connectivity: Rourkela airport must be made functional with commercial flights at the earliest.
Metro area:
A larger metropolitan area for Rourkela that includes Kansbahal and Rajgangpur in the west and Biramitrapur in the North must be formally established.
The state government should pursue Rourkela to be included in JNNURM.
(The above is from Google Maps.)
(The above is from "sarini: Occasional papers, No. 4, Adivasis of Rourkela")
Jayalakshmi Venugopal / DNA, Thursday, September 10, 2009 9:03 IST
The Planning Commission approved "in principle" plans of the Union ministry of human resources development to establish 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) under the 11th Five Year Plan across various locations in India.
The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the trade body of the IT and BPO sector, was entrusted with the task of preparing a detailed project report (DPR) which would incorporate a model of private-public partnership in the setting up of these new institutes.
This plan, prepared by NASSCOM, was submitted in May 2008, and has now been granted the Planning Commission’s go-ahead.
However, it is still awaiting the green signal from the finance committee of the Union government and the central cabinet.
After joining our alma-mater as its First Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Deb Kumar Tripathy has addressed the HODs, Deans, Faculty and Staff members of the University in the auditorium and shared his vision for the future. VSSUT Burla finally got a open minded and real visionary dynamic leader to excel in the field of technical education in the country. Here is a brief excerpts from his vision for VSSUT as delivered in his inaugural address.
***************************************************************************
(1) Make VSSUT Burla the No. 1 University in the state and a top ranked university in the country in future.
(2) Develop a new colourful big campus for the University with the support of Govt.
(3) Establish various centres of excellence to promote quality teaching and research in the university.
(4) Strengthen Industry-academia interaction and set up research laboratories at our university in collaboration with industries.
(5) Improve the residential life of students and develop more hostels with modern facilities.
(6) Recruit well qualified and potential talents as faculty of the university.
(7) Bring a dynamic change in the system so that every stackholder contributes and delivers their best for the betterment of the University.
******************************************************************************
Prof. Tripathy has a high aspiration from our 15,000 strong alumni to materialize his vision. He is soliciting high cooperation from our alumni association. He has requested the alumni to come forward with innovative ideas and constructive suggestions and join hands with him for the development of our alma-mater.
I request all the alumni members to congratulate our Vice-chancellor and put forward your valuable suggestions to help him build the VSSUT of our dream. His current e-mail id is as follows -
dkt@rtc.iitkgp.ernet.in
With best wishes and complements
Rakesh Mohanty
Secretary, VSSUT Alumni Association
Update: He has now joined as the VC. He will be felicitated by the alumni association in Bhubaneswar on 19th Sept 2009 at 6:30 PM in the Institue of Engineers building.
Governor and Chancellor of Universities Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare today appointed Prof Deba Kumar Tripathy as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla.
Prof Tripathy is currently Professor of Rubber Technology Department in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. The post was lying vacant as previously appointed Vice-Chancellor Ganapati Panda did not join.
He is considered an expert in metal and rubber forming, die mould, tool design for metal and elastomer, rubber product manufacturing, rubber processing, rubber blends and composites, vibration isolation, cellular rubber and plastic and environment engineering.
As per http://www.paradipport.gov.in/about.php Paradeep Port is "functioning under Ministry of Shipping Road transport and highways is administered by a Board of Trustees set up by the Government of India headed by the Chairman, PPT." Thus this college will almost be like a central govt. college. That is good as after this year’s situation in OJEE counseling where more than 50% of engineering seats may go unclaimed, there is little chance that any new private engineering college will be viable for some time.
Our sister site in Twitter is http://twitter.com/orissalinks. (Often when we are busy or do not feel like writing a full posting here, we post a micro-blog in our Twitter sister site. The Twitter sister site also automatically adds the headline from this site and the orissagrowth site. Once in a while we will collect those headlines here. But readers wanting a broader and more immediate coverage should consider following our Twitter site at http://twitter.com/orissalinks.) Following are some selected items from that site since July 12th.
Orissa govt. adopts AICTE-introduced Tuition Waiver Scheme for women, poor & PH students in professional institutions. http://bit.ly/BVJPs.
Update, Aug 28 2009: Reader Sabyasachi Kar notices that two more engineering colleges are in the latest counseling list. They are:
Nigam Institute of engineering and Technology, Barang,Cuttack
Adarsa College of Engineering, Angul
So now, the total number of engineering colleges goes to 94.
Thanks to keen eye of reader Parashar Das, the latest JEE seat availability list shows three new colleges as well as Purushottam Institute of Technology, Rourkela which was earlier prevented from further counselling.
Vijyanjali Institute of Technology ,Gadavanga, Balasore (VTB) Pvt
Oxford College of Engineering and Management ,Ramachandrapur, Bhubaneswar (OCM) Pvt.
That takes the total number of colleges in Orissa JEE counselling to 88+4=92 and total number of new colleges in JEE Counseling to 25+3 = 28. (Other colleges/institutions that do not take students via Orissa JEE are: IIT Bhubaneswar, NIT Rourkela, ITER, KIIT, Department of Agricultural Engineering at OUAT and ICFAI Tech, Bhubaneswar.)
Update: Let me define what I mean precisely. What I have in mind is:
A college/institution has a link with a politician if
(a) The politician is or has been an MLA or MP
(b) The politician himself/herself or his/her wife/husband/son/daughter/brother/sister is the president or secretary of the trust that runs the college/institution.
Unlike the other states where many engineering colleges have family links with politicians and ministers this is not the case in Orissa. I could only identify two colleges which have direct links with seating politicians. They are both new colleges. They are:
Regular JEE counseling started yesterday with Women’s categories. In addition to the colleges that were listed for the AIEEE round of Orissa JEE counseling, the list of colleges also includes IIIT, Silicon Sambalpur, Parala Maharaj and Govt. College Bhawanipatna. This does not yet appear in the Orissa JEE web site, but I was told by a friend that this is the case. So the complete list of new colleges is:
Aryan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Mouza: Barakuda, Post Panchagoan, Bhubaneswar-752 050
Bhubaneswar Institute of Technology, Plot No 4, Village Harapur, Khurda, Pin- 752 054
Einstien Academy of Tech. & Management (EATAM) Bania Tangi Bhubaneswar
Eklavya College of Tech., and Sci., At Kusumati PO Jatni Bhubaneswar Khurda
Gandhi Academy of Tech. & Engineering At/PO Golonthara Konisi, Berhampur, Dist Ganjam Orissa
Gandhi Institute for Education & Technology, At Banlatangi, P.O. Bajpur, Dist : Khurda-752060
Government Engineering College, Kalahandi
Gurukula College of Engineering for Women (GCEM) At- Jamuhari Chhatabar, Bhubaneshwar Dist- Khurda Odisha
Hi-Tech College of Engineering, Rasulghar, Pandara Bhubaneswar
Indotech College of Engineering, Plot No. 144, AT/PO Mallipada, Via Pallahat(Khurda-2) Dist-khurda,Orissa-752056
International Institute of Information Technology, Plot No – 570(P), Gothapatna, Khandagiri, Bhubaneswar – 751030
KMBB College of Engineering and Technology AT-Daleiput, PO-Talahat Dist. Khurda,Orissa
Parala Maharaj Engineering College, Berhampur
Rahul Institute of Engineering & Technology, Govindapur JN Tata Dapalli, Village Konisi, Berhampur, Ganjam (DT) Orissa-761 008.
Shibani Institute of Technical Education , At-PO-Chhatabar,Via, Hanla, Bhubaneswar – 752054, Khurda, Orissa
Silicon Institute of Technology, Sason, Sambalpur -763 200, Orissa.
Srinix College of Engineering College At-Ranipatna, Dist Balasore-750001 .
Suddhananda Engg. & Research Centre, Phulnakhara Cuttack At Anchhipur P.O. Bhatapatna Orissa
Synergy Institute of Technology, At : Bhimpur,P.O. Jagannathpur, P.S. Balianta, Dist:Khurda, Orissa
Vedang Institute of Technology, Durga Prasad, P.O. Ramachandi, Dist. Khurda, Orissa
Vikash College of Engineering for Women (VCEW) plot No. 2766, P.S. Dist- Baragarh, Odisha
Vivekananda Inst. Of Tech., at Chhatabar Dandi, Chaatabar, Orissa
Xavier Institute of Tech., Princess Avencue Ghangapatna Bhubaneswar Dist Khurda Orissa
Among the above Silicon Sambalpur, IIIT, and Bhubaneswar Institute of Technology (BIT) are colleges which I would recommend the most. As I wrote earlier, I would even say that students with good enough ranks to get CET or UCE may also consider BIT and IIIT seriously. (Disclaimer: As far as I can recall, I am in the advisory board of BIT, Centurion, JITM and was in the advisory board of Silicon some years back.)
Update2: The possible reason that IIIT, Silicon etc. are not in the BPUT published list despite having received AICTE approval is that BPUT has not completed their inspection of these institutions. It is expected that the inspection will be completed in the next couple of days in time for regular JEE counseling.
Srinix College of Engineering College At-Ranipatna, Dist Balasore-750001 .
Suddhananda Engg. & Research Centre, Phulnakhara Cuttack At Anchhipur P.O. Bhatapatna Orissa
Synergy Institute of Technology, At : Bhimpur,P.O. Jagannathpur, P.S. Balianta, Dist:Khurda, Orissa
Vedang Institute of Technology, Durga Prasad, P.O. Ramachandi, Dist. Khurda, Orissa
Vikash College of Engineering for Women (VCEW) plot No. 2766, P.S. Dist- Baragarh, Odisha
Vivekananda Inst. Of Tech., at Chhatabar Dandi, Chaatabar, Orissa
Xavier Institute of Tech., Princess Avencue Ghangapatna Bhubaneswar Dist Khurda Orissa
Among the above list, 17 colleges are in the Bhubaneswar area, 2 in Berhampur area, 1 in Sambalpur, 1 in Baragarh, and 1 in Balasore. This will take the number of engineering colleges in Bhubaneswar to close to 60.
Some of the other colleges that were in pipeline, but whose name does not appear in the above lists, are:
Rourkela Institute of Technology, At P.O. Kuarmunda, District : Sundergarh Pin 770039 Orissa
Vijayanjali Institute of Technology At Gadabhanga No. 4 P.O. Khantapara, District : Balasore 756043 Orissa
Adarsha College of Engineering At Saradhapur, P.O. Kumurisingha Dist : Angul, Pin 759122 Orissa
SRM College of Engineering At Giringaput, P.O. Mendhasala, Orissa
PJ College of Management & Technology At Kesora, P.O. Bankual, Bhubaneswar 751 002 Orissa
Pan Institute of Technology, Knowledge City Unit – 7, Bhubaneswar 751 003 Orissa
Pioneer Institute of Technology Village : Ambilijhari Mouza : Machhapangi, PS Choudwar, District : Cuttack Orissa
MITS College of Engineering Mouza: Alkar At P.O. Janla, Bhubaneswar 751016 Orissa
Note that last year there were 18 new colleges; 12 in the Bhubaneswar area, 3 in the berhampur area, 1 in Jharsuguda, 1 in Balasore and 1 in Rayagada. Taking into account the count of engineering colleges in various areas from last year and this year, the lower bound is:
Bhubaneswar area: Last year 43 (including IIT, KIIT, ITER, NIT and IIIT) + 16 (not counting IIIT which is already accounted for) = 59
Berhampur area: 6 (excluding IIIT Berhampur and Parla Maharaj, which are in the pipeline) +2 = 8+2 in pipeline
The following list is compiled by reader Parashar Das from the various advertisements in Orissa newspapers. The final list should come out before the counseling for engineering starts on 24th July 2009.
Gandhi Academy of Technolgy & Engineering, Berhampur
It is not clear how many of the above have received AICTE approval so far.
In addition the Orissa government had announced two new government engineering colleges in Berhampur and Bhawanipatna. It is not known if they will be starting this year and take students this year. My guess is probably not. But I could be wrong.
The International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Bhubaneswar, is all set to launch B Tech courses in several disciplines from the ensuing academic session.
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has granted its approval to the premier institute for intake of 240 students in the disciplines of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Computer Science Engineering and IT. Each discipline would have a seat strength of 60.
The students for the B Tech programme would be taken from the State JEE this year. Plans are to restrict intake from State JEE to between 50 and 60 percent and the rest from AIEE and IIT JEE in the subsequent years. Along with the B Tech courses, the institute will also include Ph.D programmes in its curriculum from this year.
… A proposal would be put up with the UGC for accordance of University status to it once it gets going in full strength. The institute, which is presently conducting M Tech courses in Computer Science and IT with 25 students each from the OCAC building, is expected to shift to its own campus at Gothapatna on the outskirts of the Capital in August this year. The campus would come up as a state-of-the-art facility to provide top standard atmosphere and education to the students. Spanning over 23 acres, the IIIT would then have around 2000 students, Prof Nayak said.
… work has started on establishing a second IIIT at Berhampur. The Government has allotted 100 acres for the proposed institute at Rangeilunda.
Registration of AIPMT (AIPMEE/AIPDEE) candidates to participate in the counseling- cum –admission against 15% all India Quota seats in private medical colleges.
As per provision of “The Orissa Professional Educational ( Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act ,2007” 15% of the seats in MBBS and BDS programmes in all private medical colleges to be filled up by valid AIPMT rank holders. To participate the counselling, these candidates are required to register on line in our websitewww.jeeorissa.comfrom 10.07.2009 to 12.07.2009.Candidates are advised to take the print out after the registration. The candidates are allowed to enter the counselling hall with production of this printout. Only registered candidates will be allowed to participate in counseling. The schedule and venue for counseling for these candidates are at 8.15 AMon 14.07.2009 at Conference Hall , Hotel Kharavela, Khandagiri Chhak,Bhubaneswar-30. No separate letter will be given to candidates for attending Counselling.
Registration of AIEEE candidates to participate in the counselling- cum –admission against 15% all India Quota seats in private Engineering colleges.
As per provision of “The Orissa Professional Educational ( Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Act ,2007” 15% of the seats in all private Engineering colleges are to be filled up by AIEEE rank holders. To participate the counselling, these candidates are required to register on line in our websitewww.jeeorissa.comfrom 11.07.2009 to 15.07.2009, 2P.M as per their all India rank. Candidates are advised to take the print out after the registration. The candidates are allowed to enter the counselling hall with production of this printout.Only registered candidates will be allowed to participate in counselling. The schedule and venue for counselling for these candidates will be published on 16.07.2009 in our web site. Candidates are advised to check their Date, Time and Venue from our web site after 16.07.2009 along with documents required for the counsellng. No separate letter will be given to candidates for attending counselling. The counselling will be held from 19.07.2009.
NOTE: Please note that I am in the board of advisors of BIT. I agreed to join the board because I believe in the people who are making it. Nevertheless I am obviously biased.
This year IIIT Bhubaneswar is starting B.Tech courses. See http://www.iiit-bh.in/ It could be a good alternative to CET and UCE.
Similarly, BIT, although private, could be a good alternative to CET and UCE as BIT is being made by several top professors in the USA. See http://www.bit.edu.in/. Just to elaborate on the later, following is the promoting body of BIT, as obtained from their web site http://www.bit.edu.in/promoting.htm. I know several of the professors in the BIT promoting body and they are very well respected internationally. I strongly believe that they will make BIT a top engineering college in Orissa.
Dr. Rabi Mahapatra is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University. He was a faculty at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur prior to his joining at Texas A&M University in 1995. He has also held visiting faculty position at IBM T.J Watson Research Center during 2001. Dr. Mahapatra received his PhD in Computer Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in 1992. He directs the Embedded System Research Group at Texas A&M University since 2002. He was editor of the special Issue on Codesign of Embedded Systems for International Journal on Microelectronics in 2003. He is a cofounder of Orissa Information Technology Society (OITS) and International Conference on Information Technology in 1998. Dr. Mahapatra was the Steering Committee Chair of ICIT during 2004 – 2005, and the Program Chair of IEEE Workshop on Embedded System Codesign. He served in the technical program committee of ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC) during 2005-2007; IEEE Intl Workshop on Large-scale Real-time Embedded Systems (2005, 2006), International Conference on Parallel & Distributed Systems (ICPADS) in 2004; International Conference on Parallel Processing (2004), Intl Workshop on System on Chip, and many other International events. He served as the Chairman of IEEE Kharagpur Section during 1994-95. Currently, he is serving as a Faculty Senator from College of Engineering at Texas A&M University for two years and also Associate Editor of ACM transaction of embedded computing.
Dr. Mahapatra’s principal areas of research are Embedded Systems, System on Chip, Network Router Architectures, Low-power Designs, and Cyber Physical Systems. He has published more than 100 research articles in the refereed international journals and conference proceedings. His research has been supported by several federal agencies such as National Science Foundation, NASA, Department of Federal Aviation Agency (DoT), and industries like IBM, Boeing, BAE, Lockheed Martin and Xilinx Corp. Dr. Rabi Mahapatra is Ford Fellow, BOYS-CAST Fellow, Senior-Member IEEE Computer Society, and a Distinguished Visitor of IEEE Computer Society. Dr. Mahapatra is currently serving as ABET coordinator for Computer Science, Faculty Senator of Texas A&M University, and Graduate Admission Committee Member in Computer Science.
Mrs. Sumita Panda with a Masters degree in Arts from the Sambalpur University in 1984 has been directly and indirectly engaged in a number of social projects relating to poverty alleviation, adult education and awareness creation on environmental issues. She takes active interest in woman empowerment by inspiring and helping formation of Self Help Groups among rural and semi urban women from lower economic strata. She is a yoga exponent and an active member of the movement for vegetarianism. Mrs. Panda hails from a reputed Oriya family of freedom fighters and social workers." She is married with two children.
Prof. Laxmi N. Bhuyan, Trustee Professor and Chairman, Department of Computer Science, University of California, Riverside, USA
Dr. Laxmi Narayan Bhuyan is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, Riverside since January 2001. Prior to that, he was a professor of Computer Science at Texas A&M University (1989-2000) and Program Director of the Computer System Architecture Program at the National Science Foundation (1998-2000). He has also worked as a consultant to Intel and HP labs.
Dr. Bhuyan received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University in 1982. His current research interests are in the areas of network computing, multiprocessor architectures, router and web server architectures, parallel and distributed processing, and performance evaluation. He has published more than 150 papers in these areas in IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), and many refereed conference proceedings. Dr. Bhuyan currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS). He is a past Editor of the IEEE TC, JPDC, and Parallel Computing Journal. He was the founding Program Committee Chairman of the HPCA in 1995, Program Chair of the IPDPS in 1996, General Chair of ADCOM-2001, and General Chair of HPCA-9 (2003). He was elected Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture (1995-1998).
Dr. Bhuyan is a Fellow of the IEEE, the ACM, the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and the WIF (World Innovation Foundation). He has also been named as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science. He has received other awards such as Halliburton Professorship at Texas A&M University, and Senior Fellow of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. He was also awarded the IEEE CS Outstanding Contribution Award in 1997.
Mr. Binoy Dash is currently a Software Engineer in Cisco Systems at San Jose, USA. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Texas A&M University in 2006. Before joining Cisco Systems, he worked as an Engineering Intern in wireless technology giant Qualcomm Inc. for several months, where he worked in WCDMA Physical layer Software, specifically the Cell Searcher algorithm implementation on the wireless chipset. In academics, he was the scholarship recipient from Foundation for Excellence Inc., USA and Industrial Affiliates Program (IAP) in Texas A&M University.
In his role as a Software Engineer in Cisco Systems, he is involved in the Design and Development of different applications and protocols that provides routing and switching infrastructure in IOS-XR Microkernel operating system, which drives the high end routers.
Maj Gen P.P. Das was commissioned into the Indian Army in June 1969 having been trained at The National Defense Academy (NDA). In the early stages of his career he took part in the 1971 INDO-PAK operations, in the state of Sikkim. He later went on to complete the Post Graduate program in Maintenance and Industrial Tribology at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
After a decade of service in the Army he was selected by the then Scientific Advisor to the Raksha Mantri to be part of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). During his tenure in the DRDO he worked in the specialized areas of satellites, electronic warfare, missiles and corporate governance. He spearheaded some projects to successful completion in the capacity of Project Director. He served as the interface of DRDO to promote Services’ interaction with a view to develop and design precision equipment to augment the actual requirements of Armed Forces under the Ministry of Defense and Corporate India as an Industry partner.
Mr. Rabindra Gaan graduated from IIT-BHU with B.Tech degree in Electronics & Communication during 1985 and obtained his Master Degree from PII, Eindhoven, The Netherlands in 1990. During 1985-89, Mr. Gaan worked with Bharat Electronics, at Bangalore on design, development and testing of VHF wireless .equipment for Indian Defense Forces. He was also responsible for development of encryption equipments for Indian Army on wireless communications. Subsequently, he joined with Punwire Wireless Communications and worked on Digital Multi Access Radio Telephone (DMART) for Indian Defense Forces (Army) as Principal Engineer during 1990 to 1992. Mr. Gaan was working with Shyam Telecom during 1992-1998 where he was a General Manager (R&D). He was instrumental in success of projects like MART (Multi Access Rural Telephony wireless), Optical Multiplexer, ATE (Automatic Test Equipment) and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) technologies.
Since 1999, Mr. Gaan has been working with Bell Labs at Murray Hill, New Jersey as a consultant with expertise on Satellite Radio Broadcast Systems. He has more than 21 years of experience in field of Communication Engineering and Technology that includes several innovations to his credits.
Neelamadhaba Mahapatro is a General Manager and Partner at Microsoft Corporation. Since 1988, he has played key roles at Microsoft in different product groups in the company such as tools, system and office. He has envisioned several new products providing vision, strategy, and architecture roadmap and foreseeing the successful development of several key new products. To his credit, he has built up strong teams from scratch, working closely with senior executives at Microsoft. He is also a key investor in several technology start ups engaged in development of enterprise software, application servers, and user software development. Neel holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics and electrical engineering from IIT Kharagpur and owns several patents to his credit.
Dr. Gopal Mohapatra is a business/planning advisor at Hess Corporation, an integrated oil and gas company in the U.S. Prior to joining Hess, he worked in Exxon Mobil, the largest public oil and gas company, for 10 years. His expertise is in oil and gas exploration and development. Dr. Mohapatra holds a Ph.D. in Geophysics from University of Arizona, Tucson, an MBA from University of Houston and a BS/MS degree in Geophysics from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Dr. Prasant Mohapatra is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. In the past, he was on the faculty at Iowa State University and Michigan State University. He has also held Visiting Scientist positions at Intel Corporation, Panasonic Technologies, Institute of Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapore, and National ICT Australia (NICTA). Dr. Mohapatra received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1993. He was/is on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on computers, ACM WINET, and Ad Hoc Networks. He has been on the program/organizational committees of several international conferences. He was the Program Vice-Chair of INFOCOM 2004, and the Program Co-Chair of the First IEEE International Conference on Sensor and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON 2004), Program Chair of QSHINE International Conference (2006), and a Guest Editor for IEEE Network, IEEE Communications, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and the IEEE Computer.
Dr. Mohapatra’s research interests are in the areas of wireless networks, sensor networks, Internet protocols and QoS. Dr. Mohapatra’s research has been funded through grants from the National Science Foundation, Intel Corporation, Siemens, Panasonic Technologies, Hewlett Packard, and EMC Corporation. On the administrative side, Dr. Mohapatra served as the CTO of Polyphasic Corporation from 2001-2003, and has been serving the Chair of Graduate Group in Computer Science at UC Davis since 2003.
This year 5,552 had applied for MCA courses in the JEE and 4,946 are on the merit list. Last year 6,422 candidates were on the chart.
Last year, there were about 2,900 seats in both the government and private institutes that offered MCA programmes. This time around, the number is set to remain same.
MBA: Last time there were 10,957 candidates on the merit list and this time it has dropped marginally to 10,652. The number of seats is likely to rise though – from about 3,200 in 2008 to 3,500.
Pharmacy: In 2005, about 700 had taken admission but last year just 180 turned up. This time, 9,788 students are on the merit list but colleges are unsure.
Engineering: There are at least 57,352 candidates put on the rank list of JEE even as the seat strength of colleges is on the rise. From about 20,650 seats in 63 colleges in 2008, it is expected to rise by another 6,500.“We expect 15 more institutes getting affiliation by the time counselling starts which will add about 3,600 seats. Besides, some existing institutes have sought a raise in seat strength too,’’
Counselling by JEE Committee is likely to start from July 12.
The panel set up by the CM of Rajsthan has picked the following places to recommend to the central government for the various national institutes and universities coming up in Rajasthan. (From a Times of India report and another Times of India report)
IIT : Jodhpur
IIM: Udaipur
National University aiming for world-class: Ajmer
Central university: Bikaner.
The committee also recommended:
a "futuristic" heritage conservation and museology centre in Jaipur
an institute of Food Technology in Hadoti region of Kota
Currently the following national institutions exisit or are being made in the following places in Rajasthan:
NIT: Jaipur
LNMIT (private but top-notch): Jaipur
National law School: Jodhpur
AIIMS-like institution (being made): Jodhpur
The institutions are nicely distributed between various cities of Rajsthan, although people of Jaipur and Kota are not happy. The population of these locations are:
Jodhpur (World Gazetteer 2009): 988K – (332 kms from Jaipur; has air connectivity)
Udaipur (World Gazetteer 2009): 457K – (400 kms from Jaipur; has air connectivity)
Ajmer (World Gazetteer 2009): 604.7K – (131 kms from Jaipur)
Bikaner (World Gazetteer 2009): 624.6K – (321 kms from Jaipur)
Kota (World Gazetteer 2009): 823 K (242 kms from Jaipur)
In contrast in Orissa the distribution of national institutions are more Bhubaneswar centric. Following is the status:
IIT: Bhubaneswar
NISER: Bhubaneswar
AIIMS-like (being made) : Bhubaneswar
National Law University: Cuttack (part of Bhubaneswar metroplex)
IIIT (state-funded) : Bhubaneswar
National University aiming to be world class: Bhubaneswar
Vedanta University (private): Puri
NIT: Rourkela
Central University: Koraput
IIIT (centrally funded): state wants it in Berhampur; center has identified as Bhubaneswar
Unfortunately, one of the reason given behind the above selection is the lack of connectivity and the size of places. Following is some information on that.
Bhubaneswar (World Gazetteer 2009): 1.67 million (has airport but no inetrnational connectivity)
Rourkela (World Gazetteer 2009): 551 K (no air connections) – 334 kms from Bhubaneswar
Berhampur (World Gazetteer 2009): 403 K (no air connections) – 160 kms from Bhubaneswar
Koraput-Jeypore-Sunabeda: 200K+ (no air connections) – 499 kms from bhubaneswar
Puri (World Gazetteer 2009): 185K – 60 kms from Bhubaneswar
Sambalpur (World Gazetteer 2009): 258 K (no air connections) – 321 kms from Bhubaneswar
Jharsuguda-Belpahar-Brajarajnagar: 200 K (no air connections) – 374 kms from Bhubaneswar; 50 kms from Sambalpur
For the future, following are some of the steps that Orissa government needs to urgently take regarding developing more larger urban areas and having the national institutions more evenly distributed:
Make sure the centrally funded IIIT is established in Berhampur
Establish functioing airports in Jharsuguda, Rourkela and Koraput at the earliest
Push for international flights to Bhubaneswar
Push for upgradation of UCE Burla (Sambalpur area) to an IIEST (Indian Institute of Engineering Science & Technology)
Push for the establishment of a branch of IGNTU (Indira Gandhi National Tribal University) in Phulbani
Push for the establishment of IIM outside of the Bhubaneswar area
Push for the establishment of a centrally funded KBK Inst of Engineering and Technology (along the lines of SLIET and ABAGKIET) in Kalahandi or Balangir.
Push for upgrading another medical college (Berhampur or Sambalpur) to AIIMS level.
Push for establishing NID in a location outside of Bhubaneswar
Push for establishing NIPER in a location outside of Bhubaneswar
Push for a BITS Pilani campus in a location outside of Bhubaneswar
