Archive for June 6th, 2008

An Essay on IIT Bhubaneswar : Why pick it over IIT Patna, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Rajasthan, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Punjab

Following is from the pages of IIT Bhubaneswar information web site (set up by us well-wishers of IIT Bhubaneswar).

A brand new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is currently being established in Bhubaneswar, the vibrant, modern, capital city of Orissa. It is among the six new IITs that are scheduled to start classes this year. (The others are: IIT Hyderabad, IIT Patna, IIT Rajasthan, IIT Punjab and IIT Gandhinagar.) Bhubaneswar IIT is uniquely placed to become one of India’s top IITs within a decade.

This fledging institution will be the heart of Bhubaneswar, a burgeoning, modern city in eastern India with a population of 16.36 lakhs. It has all the amenities of a world-class metropolis: wide roads, luxury hotels, malls, restaurants, clubs, bookshops, museums, gardens, water parks and fountains. A picturesque city with boulevards, gardens and fountains, Bhubaneswar seems to have it all, minus the traffic, water problems, power cuts and the mega slums that dot most cities of India. It is well connected to the rest of the country by air, rail, and road.

Orissa’s famed temples dot the landscape, and world famous attractions such as UNESCO world heritage site Konark, Puri beach, and Chilika lake and bird sanctuary are only an hour away. Bhubaneswar is one of India’s major tourist hubs with history and geography right by its side. The Rock edicts of Ashoka are at one end of the city in Dhauli, right by the Daya river, while the picturesque Chandaka-Dampara sanctuary, as big as Bhubaneswar itself, lies adjacent on the west bordering the mighty Mahanadi. To the north is the garden of the Gods, Nandankanan, and the Kathjodi river, separating Bhubaneswar from its twin, the millennium city of Cuttack.

With all major Indian software firms such as Infosys, Satyam, TCS, Wipro, Mindtree and Hexaware setting shop here, Bhubaneswar is also the eastern India’s IT hub. It is the East Coast Railway (ECOR) HQ and has headquarters of various private and public sector companies such as Navaratna NALCO, POSCO-India and Dhamara Port Company Ltd. Four major industrial clusters are about 100 kms from Bhubaneswar in each of the four directions: Kalinganagar to the North, Paradeep to the east, Chhatrapur to the South and Angul-Talcher to the west. With Orissa leading the country in investment, bagging 30 percent of the total investment in India in the last quarter (fourth quarter of 2007-08), mainly in the industrial and infrastructure sector, Bhubaneswar is abuzz with optimism.

Yet what sets Bhubaneswar apart is its rise to prominence as India’s foremost knowledge hub. The metropolitan area is already home to Utkal University, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Ravenshaw University, Utkal University of Culture, KIIT Deemed University, Siksha `O’ Anusandhan deemed University, Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), and an International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT). Existing research institutions in the Bhubaneswar metropolitan area include the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Life Sciences, the Institute of Mathematics and Applications, the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, the Central Rice Research Institute, the Central Institute of Fresh Water Aquaculture, and the Regional Medical Research Center.

Several national level institutes have recently been established or are being established in Bhubaneswar. Besides IIT Bhubaneswar, they include the National Institute of Science, Education and Research (NISER), which is equivalent to the IISERs but funded by the DAE, and which is currently admitting its second batch of students, an AIIMS-like institute, and a centrally funded World Class Central University (WCCU). At present Bhubaneswar is the only city in India that is scheduled to have an IIT, a science institute (NISER) and a WCCU; a IIIT and an AIIMS-like institute are additional pluses. In addition, the Anil Agarwal foundation is establishing Vedanta University in Puri, which is about 40 kms from the outer edges of Bhubaneswar. It has a budget of $3 Billion (Rs. 12,000 crores) and includes a personal pledged donation of $1 Billion (Rs 4,000 crores) by Mr. Anil Agarwal. Vedanta University is envisioned to be India’s answer to Stanford and Harvard. Other universities that are coming up in the Bhubaneswar area include ICFAI University, Sri Sri University, National Law University and Orissa Open University. At the college level, the Bhubaneswar area has 30+ engineering colleges with another 20+ in the pipeline and four existing medical colleges (SCB, KIIT, SUM, Hi-Tech) with several more in the pipeline.

IIT Bhubaneswar will admit students in three disciplines in 2008: civil engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. In case one may wonder, why civil engineering, instead of computer science that four of the other new IITs are having, one just needs to think of China and Beijing and imagine how far India has to go in terms of infrastructure development and the role of civil engineers in that development. This interview with Anil Agarwal is illuminating in that respect. (He also talks about his vision of Vedanta University.)

IIT Bhubaneswar students will be housed in IIT Kharagpur for the first year, which will act as the mentoring institution of IIT Bhubaneswar for a period of three years. During their stay these students will gain exposure to the established academic and cultural environment of the largest and oldest IIT, which they will carry home to IIT Bhubaneswar.

The Orissa government is extremely supportive of IIT Bhubaneswar and has committed to provide 1000 acres of land so as to accommodate future growth of this IIT. The 1000 acres is double the 500 acres required by the central government, and double the size of the other new IITs. Thus IIT Bhubaneswar will be the second largest IIT, after IIT Kharagpur. With the inherent advantages in terms of its location in the midst of rivers, forests and sanctuaries; as the heart of a rapidly growing and industrializing city and state; surrounded and to be driven to excellence by the competition from NISER, WCCU and Vedanta University; and a supportive state government that has put Bhubaneswar in the path of making it the knowledge-hub of the country; IIT Bhubaneswar holds the promise of being the best among the new IITs and becoming one of India’s top five IITs within a few years!

10 comments June 6th, 2008

IIT Bombay mentoring IIT Indore?

Update: As per Economic Times, IIT Bombay has expressed its inability to mentor the IIT in Indore this year as it is already mentoring IIT Gandhinagar.

Business standard reported the following.

……the human resource development ministry is planning to do away with the "society" system for the new IITs to hasten the process.

To award degrees, a body must be a university that is created under the central or state legislature. IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) were created by a special Act of Parliament permitting them to award diplomas. They existed as "societies" and were later converted into an institute of national importance by calling them IITs and IIMs.

By doing away with the "society" requirement, the ministry can directly incorporate the new institutions into the IIT Act and declare them institutes of national importance, equivalent to universities capable of awarding degrees.

…….IIT Bombay will be mentoring two new IITs to come up in Gujarat and Indore, while IIT-Kharagpur will be mentoring IIT-Orissa for three years.

12 comments June 6th, 2008

DAV Chandrasekharpur students do well

Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

… students of Chandrasekharpur DAV Public School have shown remarkable excellence and brought glory to the school and also to the State. The State’s topper of Standard XII CBSE examination, Soumyashant Nayak, snatched the All India topper position in the examination conducted by Indian Statistical Institute. He has the credit of being the first student from the State to get such honour. This year, 23 students from the country and three from the State have qualified for the same. Ten students of the school, who have qualified in the IIT examination, are Aditya Acharya, Sovam Nayak, KV Suddodhan, Soumyashant Nayak, Sanjay Nanda, Ranjan Bhuyan, Sumeet Dandapat, Pankaj More, Padmaja Thatoi and Sonali Patnaik. Keeping pace with the tough competitions, 11 students of the school have placed themselves in the top 100 students of the State in the AIEEE-2008.

June 6th, 2008


Calendar

June 2008
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  

Posts by Month

Links

Posts by Category