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UNI reports that Prof. Damodar Acharya, currently the Chairman of AICTE will become the director of IIT Kharagpur. Prior to being the AICTE Chairman he was the founding vice Chancellor of BPUT. At that time he had discussed with the Orissa government the importance of getting an IIT to Orissa and had led the development of Orissa government’s proposal for an IIT. Last year, while he was at AICTE, again with his help, the IIT Kharagpur branch campus in Bhubaneswar idea was made to a formal proposal. Now that he will be the director of IIT Kharagpur, lets hope that he takes some additional steps towards the fruition of a IIT Kharagpur branch in Bhubaneswar. Following is a biography from the AICTE pages.
Continue Reading June 16th, 2007
The PIB says the following:
The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for establishment of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University in Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh with Central Government funding. It also approved introduction of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University Bill, 2007 in the Parliament.
This would ensure establishment of a teaching and affiliating University for facilitating and promoting avenues of higher education and research facilities for the tribal population of the country.
The objects of the University include inter-alia, promoting studies and research in tribal art, culture, tradition, language, custom, medicinal systems, forest based economic activities, including special studies in the flora and fauna, and advancements in technologies relating to natural resources of the tribal areas.
Apart from affiliating the colleges, the University has the power to establish such number of its own regional centers in tribal areas as the University may deem fit.
There will be at least one school in every regional Centre, to serve as a model school for the schools of the region, where from the tribal students would be expected to join the local colleges, the off-campuses or the University.
Another news item mentions the financial parameters and objectives of this university. It says:
The initial financial requirement of the proposed varsity is estimated at Rs.600 million and a recurring expenditure of Rs.120 million annually.
‘The objects of the university include inter-alia, promoting studies and research in tribal art, culture, tradition, language, custom, medicinal systems, forest based economic activities, including special studies in the flora and fauna, and advancements in technologies relating to natural resources of the tribal areas,’ Information and Broadcasting Minister P.R. Dashmunsi said after a cabinet meeting.
The Rs 600 million number sounds too low. My guess is that it is a typo and the unit should be crores instead of millions.
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A tribal central university, or central universities in tribal areas is a good idea about which I earlier wrote in Indian Express. However, a similar idea was suggested by Orissa, couple of years back, which the HRD minister had appreciated. Following is an excerpt from the press release issued by Orissa government at that time:
… In addition to this, Shri Patnaik also requested for establishment of a Central University for the KBK Region, which is one of the most backward regions in the country. He pointed out that there was a heavy concentration of the scheduled tribe and scheduled caste population in this region, which has a literacy rate below 50%. Shri Patnaik stated that setting up a Central University in the KBK region would go a long way in encouraging higher education among tribal population. He added that the university could also set up specialized centres for tribal development related studies, as tribal development was one of the biggest challenges facing the country today. Shri. Arjun Singh appreciated the rationale of having a Central University in the KBK region and sought a formal proposal in this regard from the State Government. He assured that this would receive high priority whenever the Central Government considers setting up of new central universities.
Orissa MPs also pursued it and we had sent detail proposal on it to the planning commission and HRD ministry and the PM. I hope the HRD minister did not just steal the idea to his home state. Such opportunistic behavior by the HRD ministry would discourage states with suggesting ideas.
However, a silver line is that the PM has mentioned recently that each state will have a central university. The question is when will that happen.
Moreover, regardless of that happening, central ministers should not steal ideas proposed by states to their own state. They are supposed to look out for the whole country not steal things to their states. To do things for their state they have the MPLAD.
June 15th, 2007
The Orissa JEE result is out. Following are some links that may come in handy.
June 15th, 2007
Foundation For Excellence (FFE) is a publicly supported non-profit organization that supports top students in India, who are from very low income families, with scholarships. Following is a blurb from their website:
FFE’s focus is to provide funds for higher education to students in India who are academically gifted and come from very low income families. Since inception, the foundation has provided over $4.35 million in over 20,900 scholarships to deserving students in the 25 states in India, over 40% of who are girls. The objective driving our programs is “No Scholar Left Behind”. We truly believe that these young people will be a significant part of a socially and economically stronger India in the near future.With the help of our donors and volunteers, we plan to keep on with our efforts until every deserving student in India gets the education that she or he deserves.
For 2006-07 they have given 264 scholarships to students from Orissa. The total worth of these scholarships is $58,000. The readers are requested to spread the word about FFE to students in need as well as to people who can volunteer or donate to FFE’s cause. Please go through FFE’s web page for more details. Few Oriyas who are very active in the three aspects of FFE (finding students, finding volunteers and finding donors) are Purna Mohanty from Northern California and Sandip Dasverma from Portland, Oregon.
One of the chief sponsors of FFE, Mr. Prabhu Goel, has recently taken steps to invest in Orissa.
June 15th, 2007
(Update on June 17 2008: For guidance on what you can get with your Orissa JEE rank in 2008, please see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1185 I do not have more information than that.)
June 11 edition of Outllook has rankings of engineering colleges, medical colleges, and some specialty colleges. Only two Orissa colleges appear in those rankings. In the ranking of govt. engineering colleges NIT Rourkela appears at number 28 with a total score of 1437. In the ranking of private engineering colleges KIIT Bhubaneswar appears at 37 with a total score of 1073. If one were to combine both rankings then NIT Rourkela would be 32 as four private coleges have a higher score than NIT Rourkela. In the 2006 Outlook ranking of top 100 engineering colleges NIT Rourkela was 34 and KIIT was ranked 100. So NIT Rourkela improved by two positions. To figure out if KIIT improved its ranking one has to count how many private colleges were there in the 2006 top 100 ranking. A quick count, which may be slightly inaccurate as it is not easy to identify all private colleges in a list, shows that in 2006 KIIT was 50 among the private colleges; so it seems to have improved its ranking by 13 positions.
June 14th, 2007
Many may not know that there are two state government funded and one central government funded management-n-IT institutes in Orissa. (Here, we are not counting the management programs at the universities or the one proposed at NIT Rourkela.) The central govt funded management institute is Madhusudan institute of co-operative management. It offers MBA and DCA and many certificate courses. Following is a quote from its "About Us" pages.
The Madhusudan Institute of Co-operative Management (MICM) is one of the premier Management Institute of the state established in the year 1955-56. The MICM is functioning under the aegis of National Council for Co-operative Training (NCCT), New Delhi, being financed by the Ministry of Agriculture, (Department of Co-operation) Government of India. The basic objective of the Institute is to develop human resources for efficient management by organising various management training programmes.
The two state government funded management-n-IT institutes are:
- Center for IT Education (CITE), Bhubaneswar, a wing of Orissa State Electronics Development Corp. (govt.)
- Institute of Management & Information Technology, (Formerly College of Accountancy & Management), Cuttack – 753 007 Dist: Cuttack. (govt) (location)
June 11th, 2007
Update: I thought this was new to NIT Rourkela. Based on the reader’s comments it seems it has been there for some time and it is also there at UCE Burla.
NIT Rourkela now allows students to change their branches after first year based on their grades and possibly subject to some rules. The students who were able to change this year are listed here. The top three changed to Computer Science. Branch changes were allowed at IIT Kharagpur based on first year performance and subject to a cap of 10% extra seat in each branch. I assumed a similar cap may be operational at NIT Rourkela. NIT Rourkela has close ties with IIT Kharagpur in that its director, Professor Sunil Sarangi, was a longtime facuty at IIT Kharagpur. Its great that he is bringing in good ideas from IIT Kharagpur and implementing them in NIT Rourkela. One idea, which was somewhat unique to IIT Kharagpur, and which should be brought to NIT Rourkela, if not already done, is the notion of a student budgeted hostel library.
June 11th, 2007
Update on Sept 29 2007: CEB will offer M. Tech in Computer Sc. & Engg.
Update on Aug 10 2007: Krupajal to offer M.Tech in Computer Science (16 seats), Electronics & Telecom (16 seats)
Until recently NIT Rourkela and UCE Burla were the only places in Orissa that offered M.Tech programs in engineering disciplines. Now several other colleges also offer M.Tech programs. BPUT has advertised for these programs and that ad contains the full list, except for IIIT, Utkal, KIIT and NIT RKL. We reproduce that list for convenience. In Bhubaneswar area:
- IIIT Bhubaneswar – Computer Science (60) – added on 2nd August 2007
- Utkal University – Computer Science (30)
- KIIT, Bhubaneswar – Civil with WRM (Water Resource Engineering) (18), Civil with CEM (Construction Engineering & Management) (18), Electrical (18), Mechanical (18), Computer Science (18), Electronics & Telecommunication (18)
- ITER, Bhubaneswar – Computer Science & Eng. (18), Mecanical Eng. (18), Electrical Eng. (18), Electronics and Telecommunication Eng. (18).
- CV Raman, Bhubaneswar – Mechatronics (18 seats), Heat power engineering (18 seats)
- CET, Bhubaneswar – Computer Science & IT (13 seats), Industrial Engineering & Management (18 seats), Structural Engineering (18 seats), M. Arch (20 seats)
- CIPET, Bhubaneswar – Plastic Engineering (18 seats)
- ABIT, Cuttack – M. Arch (20 seats)
Others:
- NIST Berhampur- Electronics and Communication Eng. (18)
- GIET Gunupur – Computer Science & Eng. (18), Industrial eng. (18), Electronics & Communications eng. (18).
- NIT Rourkela – Ceramic Engineering, Chemical Engineering (Including Biochemical Engineering& Bio technology), Civil Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics & Communication Engineering (Including Instrumentation Engineering), Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, Mining Engineering
- UCE Burla – Communication System Engineering (18), Heat Power Engineering (12), Hydraulic & Irrigation Engineering (18), Machine Design & Analysis (12), Power system Engineering (18), Production Engineering (12), Structural Engineering (13), Transportation Engineering (13)
- IGIT Sarang – As commented by Shishir, IGIT’s web site mentions that it offers M.E in Power Systems since 2002. But this is not advertised by BPUT, nor is it in AICTE’s list.
June 9th, 2007
Earlier we had mentioned a running headline regarding KIMS (the medical college of KIIT university) getting MCI approval for starting MBBS. But until now there was no proper news report on it. Today Kalinga Times reports that indeed KIIT has received approval from the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs (on recommendations by the MCI and the Dental Council) for 100 Medical (MBBS) and 100 Dentistry (BDS) seats. KIMS now has a new web page.
June 8th, 2007
Following is a list of institutions with non-traditional programs that I compiled earlier. They are categorized as follows: Arts and Crafts, Design, Teachers training, Diploma in Engineering, ITIs, Film and TV, Homeopathy and Ayurveda, Hotel management, Journalism, Law, Library Science, Performance arts, Physical Education, Sanskrit and Social work.
Continue Reading June 8th, 2007
Following is an ad by the Biju Patnaik Film and TV institute for its diploma programs in cinematography, sound and TV engineering and Film and video editing.
Continue Reading June 8th, 2007
In the comments section of our earlier post a claim has been made that Orissa students are doing very well in medical entrance exams. If it is true then it is great news and with the national coaching institute Akash opening a plus two college, it should get better. This year the homegrown (turned national) coaching agency iBOOKs claims in its ads that 219 students from Orissa were selected in the CBSE-PMT out of which 121 were from the iBOOKS institute. Akash in its ad claims that 52 of its Bhubaneswar students qualified in CBSE-PMT. So iBOOKS did better. Akash claims its only its second year. Following are the ads of iBOOKs and Akash with the pictures of their successful students and their CBSE-PMT ranks.
Continue Reading June 8th, 2007
Tathya.in has a nice article about NROs urging the Orissa politicians to unitedly work towards getting an IIT for Orissa. We urge the readers to write to Orissa leaders (in all parties) along the lines of the article. The chief minister’s email address is cmo@ori.nic.in and the union minister Chandrasekhar Sahu’s office fax number is 011-23061695. Following is the full article from Tathya with its permission.
Continue Reading June 7th, 2007
Besides the NCERT run Regional Institute of Education in Bhubaneswar there are at least five other institutions where one can pursue M. Ed (Master in education) in Orissa. They are:
1. RNIASE (Radhanath Institute of Advanced Studies in Education), Cuttack
2. DPIASE, Berhampur
3. PMIASE, Sambalpur
4. NDW CTE, Bhubaneswar
5. NKC CTE, Angul
Following is a recent ad for admission into the above five institutions.
Continue Reading June 6th, 2007
(Update on June 17 2008: For guidance on what you can get with your Orissa JEE rank in 2008, please see https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1185 I do not have more information than that.)
During the last two years I ranked various engineering colleges in Orissa based on the student preferences during BPUT’s counselling. In the following I will list the top 10 for 2006 and 2005. However, I must stress that proper rankings can only be done by using several parameters: student preference, opinions of companies, faculty quality, facilities etc. So my ranking based on only one criteria is flawed. But thats all the data that I have handy. So don’t take this ranking as gospel. Please use other channels to get more information on various colleges, such as their web pages.
2006 Top 10: (complete ranking with details on methodology) Not Considered: NIT Rourkela and KIIT Bhubaneswar as their 2006 admission is not through BPUT.
- 1. CET, Bhubaneswar (govt.)
- 2. UCE, Burla (govt.)
- 3. ITER, Bhubaneswar
- 4. NIST, Berhampur
- 4. Silicon, Bhubaneswar
- 6. CV Raman, Bhubaneswar
- 7. IGIT, Sarang (govt.)
- 8. Orissa Engineering College, Bhubaneswar
- 9. GIET, Gunupur
- 10. Gandhi Institute, Bhubaneswar
- …19. Orissa School of Mines, Keonjhar (govt.)
- … 37. Institue of Textile Technology, Choudwar (govt.)
Not Considered: NIT Rourkela as its 2005 admission was not through BPUT.
- 1. CET, Bhubaneswar (govt.)
- 2. UCE, Burla (govt.)
- 3. ITER, Bhubaneswar
- 4. NIST, Berhampur
- 5. KIIT, Bhubaneswar (In 2005 only part of its admission was through BPUT)
- 6. Silicon, Bhubaneswar
- 6. CV Raman, Bhubaneswar
- 8. Orissa Engineering College, Bhubaneswar
- 9. GIET, Gunupur
- 9. IGIT, Sarang
- 9. Krupajal, Bhubaneswar
- …18. Orissa School of Mines, Keonjhar (govt.)
- … 32. Institue of Textile Technology, Choudwar (govt.)
June 6th, 2007
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