FAEA, the Foundation for academic excellence and access offers scholarships for socially and economically disadvantaged students. It has an impressive governing council. Its objective as described in its web pages are:
to secure social justice for students belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged sections of the society. It emphasizes equality of opportunity to help students become what they would like to be so that they have a choice and are not dictated by economic and social necessity. It enables economically and socially disadvantaged students to study in the institutions, which provide academic excellence, access to structures of power and economic opportunity.
Its web page and students manual give more details on its scholarship program.
May 12th, 2007
Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore USA firm, is in charge of Vedanta University’s campus master plan. The client list of Ayers Saint Gross is extremely impressive and as per their web site today includes Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Duke University, Emory University, Franklin and Marshall College, Guangzhou China University City, George Washington University, University of Georgia, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland College Park, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers University, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin, Madison and Vedanta University.
Based on their list of current projects they are involved in the Building design and architecture of academic buildings of Vedanta University as well as its campus planning. Following is a blurb from their site.
Vedanta University
Campus Master Plan
Orissa, India
Completion: 2012 (phase !)
Size: 8,000 acres
Cost: N/A
Ayers/Saint/Gross has been selected as the Lead Campus Master Planner and Architect for Vedanta University, envisioned to be a world-class, multi-discipline university in India. This project will entail the design and development of a state-of-the art education and research institute that will rank among the highest caliber schools internationally – at the level of Harvard, Stanford and Oxford.
This new University will be built around several colleges and ‘Centers of Excellence’ for cross-disciplinary research. The colleges will include Graduate, Post-Graduate, and Doctoral programs in various disciplines. It is aimed to have a globally diversified, high-quality student body, comprising an equal mix of Indian and international students – serving over 100,000 students in the long-term. The campus will house state-of-the-art facilities including a global resource library, research and development parks, student and faculty residences, and an Olympic caliber sports complex. The vision also includes the development of a University township that will evolve with the University and drive local development in the region as an education and research satellite city.
We now present several daigrams from the Vedanta University web pages as well as from their architect’s pages.
Masterplan:
Phase 1 plan:
Campus planning view (as given in their website):
Another view:
View of one of their buildings:
May 12th, 2007
Various news outlets report that the CM has written to the PM again on the IIT issue. [Statesman, India eNews, New Kerala,New Indian Express, Kalinga Times, India Edu news.net,Dharitri, Samaja, Sambada, Pragativadi]
Following are some quotes of what the CM is supposed to have written.
- “The recent reply of Union minister of state for human resource development on the floor of the Parliament regarding establishment of IITs in the country has come as a shock to us.â€
- “When I met the honourable minister of HRD in this connection, he had indicated to me that the case of Orissa can be considered for a full-fledged green field IIT. The recent decision of government of India to locate the IITs in states which already have the benefit of many Central institutes indicates that objective criteria have not been followed in deciding the locations of the 3 IITs.”
- “It is indeed painful that the decision has now been reversed.â€
May 12th, 2007
Time Magazine in its recent issue lists Anil Agarwal at number in its list of 12 Powergivers. The others in the list are Angelina Jolie, Rania al-Abdullah, Yu Panglin, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud, Sir John Templeton, Li Ka-shing, Pierre & Pam Omidyar, David Rockefeller, Gordon Moore, George Soros, and Bill & Melinda Gates.
Following is an excerpt of what Time says about Mr. Agarwal and Vedanta University.
Cause: University education in India. The London-based mining magnate has pledged $1 billion to establish a world-class, need-blind university in Orissa, eastern India. To be called Vedanta (the name of his mining group), the school will focus on liberal arts, in contrast to India’s many technically oriented schools.
Impact: Vedanta will help address the region’s dearth of university spots, which keeps qualified students from going to high-quality colleges.
It says Vedant University will focus on liberal arts and not like the technical schools in India. What it means probably is that it will not be unidimensional like the IITs were (they are changing), the IIMs are, etc. It does not mean that it will not have disciplines like science, engineering, management etc. In fact Vedanta University’s website lists all these disciplines and my guess is that in their first phase they will have disciplines like Engineering, Management and Medicine (as they recently promised) which are in demand and which will attract paying students.
(Thanks to Jibanendra babu for tipping of about the Time magazine article.)
May 12th, 2007