Odisha HRD

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The following is from http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110611/jsp/orissa/story_14097481.jsp.

June 11th, 2011

Odisha mulling a construction skills development center in collaboration with L & T

Following is an excerpt from a report in Daily Pioneer.

… the State Government on Monday decided to set up a Construction Skills Training Institute (CSTI) in Bhubaneswar under the Odisha State Employment Mission scheme.

The L&T group has evinced interest for the mega training institute to be set up in the PPP mode in the infrastructure development sector and the negotiation is in an advanced state, said Chief Secretary Bijay Patnaik, adding that the Government would provide the infrastructure support to the L&T.

He said that besides the main campus to be located in Bhubaneswar, the institute would have three sub-centers in the tribal areas, one each at the district headquarters of Koraput, Kandhamal and Mayurbhanj. The sub-centers would act as feeder units for the main CSTI, Bhubaneswar. The concerned district Collectors have already been directed to identify suitable sites for the sub-centers.

The Bhubaneswar institute will be located at the Industries Department premises in the Sailashri Vihar area. Training will be imparted in construction-related trades like masonry, bar bending and carpentry. Training will be meant for school dropouts and the training period will be three months. The training and lodging will be free of cost and L&T will extend stipend of `2,000 per month. According to sources, since the training programme is placement-linked, L&T will offer placement in its own construction sites both within the State and outside.

The Chief Secretary also said after a high-level meeting on the activities of the State Employment Mission held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik that it was decided to provide skill development training to an estimated 10 lakh unemployed youth during the next three years under the Employment Mission.

He said a number of sectors like retails, housekeeping, food and beverage, customer relations, front office management, telecom sales, driving, computer and photo shops, nursing and debt recovery agents would be taken up for skill development.

Meanwhile, on the request of the State Government, the National Skill Development Corporation has agreed to undertake skill mapping in order to identify the demand-driven sectors with special emphasis on an in-depth study in tribal areas.

1 comment June 8th, 2011

My thoughts on “Taking IITs to Excellence and Greater Relevance”

A committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Anil Kakodkar has circulated a report (see also here and here) with the above name. Following is an input that I hope to send to the committee.

My suggestion is that the IITs combine the idea of free seats and paid seats that is used in many state engineering colleges with (some aspects of) the idea of honors colleges used in many universities in the US.

This means, for any discipline or program, there would be some number of seats (say between 20-40) for a "Research-Honours" program. The students in this program will be required to be involved in research all through their 4 years. Starting from second year they would be part of the research lab of a faculty and each semester they would have to sign up for research credits (and do research) whose grade will be based on research done by the students. Each class from the 4th semester onwards would have research component where students would have to go beyond textbooks and read latest papers on that topic. The students would be required to publish in a good international conference or journal before they graduate. During the summers they will be required to spend time in research labs. In general these students would be motivated and prepared for research careers as is being done in the IISERs and NISER. For these students the fees will be minimal and they may be even given scholarships like the INSPIRE scholarship. To remain in the "honors-research" program the students would have to maintain a required grade point average.

The rest of the students would be in regular programs (as they exist now) and would be required to pay more substantial fees, similar in amount to what the Kakodkar committee recommends. (Based on their academic performance some of these students may be allowed to change over to the "honors-research" program after the end of first year or perhaps even later.)

The above idea may be implemented at NITs too, may be with lesser number of seats in the "honors-research" program.

This will address several issues mentioned in the Kakodkar committee report.

• It will result in more IIT (and NIT) graduate pursuing research.
• It will result in more funds for the institutes.
• The students will have a clear expectations. The ones going to the "research-honors" program will know that research is expected of them and they are supposed to study hard.

The rationale behind the fees difference is fairly obvious. The "research-honors" students have a high chance of pursuing research in their chosen fields and that is the current need of the nation. On the other had the other students, as evident from the current trend, are less likely to pursue careers in their own disciplines (except the ones in electrical/cs/it/electronics areas) and many are likely to go for management and other careers. Since that is not the core goal of the IITs, these students need not be subsidized. Loans and other mechanisms need to be in place so that everyone who can get admitted to a program is able to find the money for the fees. 

The above is a bare-bone idea and needs to be flushed out with more details. One may look at how honors programs are administered in many US universities to flush out some of the details. See for example Barrett Honors College (ASU).

June 7th, 2011

NISER Bhubaneswar campus virtual walkthrough

I really liked several things in it.

(i) The academic part where the various school are connected through a common corridor curving around the auditorium complex and then jut out in some what of a  radial manner. This allows faculty of different schools to run into each other and foster inter school collaboration while still giving unique identity to each school. The path from the hill top to the auditorium to the academic complex is very pretty,

(ii) The green between the hostels and residential places is also a very nice feature.  I assume those hostel would be for doctoral and post-doctoral scholars, some with families. (The hostels closer to the academic complex will probably be for the undergraduates and masters students.) Those greens will create a very collegial campus and off-hour interaction between the faculty-staff families and families of doctoral/post-doctoral scholars.

On the other hand, the colors (yellow and light brick) and the paucity of big trees make part of the campus look very hot. The walk through of the residential area make it look like a typical government colony. While the academic buildings are made 6-7 stories tall, the residential buildings seem to be only 3 stories. Highrises would have saved more land for the future. I hope they use a more pleasing color combination and have more fast growing and colorful plants such as various palm trees and bougainvillea. If funding is a concern, with the help of the Odisha government, they should rope in some corporate houses to make the campus look even prettier.

June 6th, 2011

Plus 2 arts students with Math are eligible for B.Tech(IT) in IIIT Delhi

Following is an excerpt from a blog entry of the current director of IIIT Delhi.

After all this background study, and a lot of discussions, IIIT-Delhi finally decided to take the lead and shift to requiring only Maths as a necessary pre-requisite for applying for admission to BTech(IT). Of course, the Institute still will have an aptitude test for selection.

However, this seems to be only useful for students from Delhi. (Please double-check at the IIIT Delhi website.) I.e., Delhi Plus 2 arts students with Maths will be eligible to the BTech(IT) program of IIIT Delhi.

Although there are 15% seats for out-side Delhi students, these students have to take AIEEE.

June 6th, 2011

New AIIMS-like Institutions and upgrdation of medical colleges to AIIMS level; Bihar to have 3, UP to have 6, Odisha complacent and incompetent at 1.

The page at http://mohfw.nic.in/showlink.php?id=698 documents the progress of the various AIIMS-like institutes across the country and as one can find out the progress is the least with respect to AIIMS-like institute in Bhubaneswar. That is a shame.

A bigger shame is that many other states have managed to get approval for additional AIIMS level institutions while Odisha, despite our many emails to the CMO, has not tried that. Odisha should push hard to get both MKCG and VSS Medical colleges upgraded to the AIIMS level.

Following is a list of what has so far been approved obtained from pages 3,4,6 and 8 of the document at http://mohfw.nic.in/showlink.php?id=698.

8 comments June 2nd, 2011

AIIMS Delhi to mentor AIIMS-like institute in Bhubaneswar and Patna; 1145 posts (faculty and staff) for each institution to be filled up in the first phase of recruitment

Following is an excerpt from a report in pharmabiz.com.

The civil construction works for the six new AIIMS-like institutions at Bhubaneswar, Patna, Jodhpur, Rishikesh, Raipur and Bhopal started in June last year and were progressing on fast track. The construction of medical colleges is expected to be completed by the end of 2011 and Hospitals by October 2012, sources said.

Ministry of Finance has accorded approval in February, 2011 for creation of 1145 posts (faculty and staff) for each institution to be filled up in the first phase of recruitment process. To manage the running of the new institutions, the Health Ministry has now appointed mentor institutes.

As per this, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi will be the mentor institute for the two new institutions at Patna and Bhubaneswar. Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh will take care of the two institutions at Rishikesh and Jodhpur. Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry will run the affairs of the two new institutions at Bhopal and Raipur, sources said.

2 comments June 2nd, 2011

National Centre on Wetlands and Marine Biodiversity in Bhubaneswar and National Centre on Olive Ridley and Marine Biodiversity at Gahirmatha; Jardin de Lorixa

Following is from a PIB dated June 1 2011.

The Chief Minister of Odisha, Shri Naveen Patnaik has inaugurated a Museum Gallery on North East Biodiversity in the Regional Museum of Natural History (RMNH) Bhubaneswar today. The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment & Forests, MoEF Shri Jairam Ramesh, was also present on the occasion.  This Museum Gallery depicts the natural heritage of North-Eastern India which includes two of the 34 Biodiversity hotspots in the World: Himalayas and Indo-Burma. 

On the occasion, Shri Jairam Ramesh, said that his Ministry would establish two institutions, the National Centre on Wetlands and Marine Biodiversity in Bhubaneswar, and National Centre on Olive Ridley and Marine Biodiversity at Gahirmatha in Odisha.

On the sidelines of the programme the Minster also inaugurated the Fragrance Garden at the Regional office of the Ministry of Environment and Forests. He announced that this would be developed into a Biocultural park. He also announced that the Ministry would make efforts to get a digital copy of Jardin de Lorixa, considered to be the earliest scientific documentation of traditional/ indigenous knowledge about plants of Orissa, of which only one manuscript is available in Natural History Museum Paris (France).

During this occasion brochures on North East Biodiversity Gallery was released by Shri Naveen Patnaik, and on the Museum by Shri Jairam Ramesh. .

… This new gallery on North East Biodiversity is having exhibits depicting Different eco-regions of North East, the course of the mighty river Brahmaputra, Kaziranga –The habitat of one horned Indian rhinoceros, the endemic and endangered avifauna, rich diversity of non human primates, Orchids and rhododendron of North East, New species discoveries from Eastern Himalayas, the hills, waterfalls, sacred groves of Meghalaya and the Loktak lake – a unique habitat of Sangai etc.

Following are excerpts on the Jardin de Lorixa.

• From http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12120: "Jardin de Lorixa ("Flora of Orissa") authored by a certain L’Empereur, an outstanding work consisting of 725 double-folio paintings of 722 plant species"
• From http://www.circulatingknowledge.ugent.be/index.php?id=16&type=file: " *Jardin de Lorixa* a lesser known herbal commissioned by a French surgeon in Bengal in the early 18th century."
• From http://www.conservationandsociety.org: "a long forgotten herbal known as Le Jardin de Lorixa ( The garden of Orissa ) and credited to a surgeon named Nicolas L’Empereur in the employ of the French Compagnie des Indes"
•  The book "Relocating Modern Science Circulation and the Construction of Scientific Knowledge in South Asia and Europe : Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries" by Kapil Raj (Maître de conférences at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris) has one of its six sections dedicated to this. This section is titled: "I. SURGEONS, FAKIRS, MERCHANTS, AND CRAFTSMEN : MAKING L’EMPEREUR’S JARDIN IN EARLY MODERN South Asia" and has the following chapters.
  • 1. From a Forgotten Codex in a Paris Archive
  • 2. To Eastern India in the Seventeenth Century
  • 3. The Origins of the Jardin de Lorixa
  • 4. Making the Jardin de Lorixa
  • 5. The Jardin de Lorixa and the Hortus MaLibaricus
  • 6. L’Empereur’s Jardin Comes to Paris
  • 7. And Gets Anonymized in the Jardin du Roi

June 1st, 2011

Odisha looking for companies to partner for the PPP (50-35-15) based IIIT

1 comment June 1st, 2011