Following is an excerpt from a report in expressbuzz.com.
State Coastal Zone Management Authority has cleared the application of Vedanta University project in its meeting held under the chairmanship of UN Behera, Secretary of State Forest and Environment Department.
… It was resolved to accord CRZ clearance while the authority imposed a number of terms and conditions before recommending it to the Centre for granting permission to take up the construction work.
The conditions include not to encroach and obstruct the natural course of the river Nuanai which is flowing through the project area. The authorities have also asked Anil Agarwal Foundation, the promoter of the project, not to undertake any construction activities in the prohibited CRZ area, discharge waste water to the nearby water bodies and it should abide by the proper solid waste management and disposal norms.
The Foundation had applied to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for necessary permission to start the work. Since the project site includes CRZ areas the Union Ministry had sent the application to the State Coastal Zone Management Authority for examination of the application.
March 6th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in the Telegraph.
The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in West Bengal is set to become the first such institute in the country to offer an integrated masters degree in earth science.
There are five IISERs in the country, set up on the lines of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
The earth science course will be introduced in the next session and will cover subjects such as palaeontology, geo-chemistry, seismology, climatology and space science.
“Geo-chemistry will be a topical subject in Bengal. It will cover arsenic contamination, which is a major problem in the state. Space science, too, is neglected in Bengal,” said Dibyendu Nandi, an assistant professor at the IISER in Nadia.
… The institute will also offer an integrated PhD programme from August 2009 that will be open to graduates. The course duration will be five-seven years.
“The first two years will be for a masters course. A doctorate usually takes three to four years but may take longer in the field of science. Students will have up to five years to complete their PhD,” said Nandi.
In 2009, the PhD aspirants will be selected on the basis of their applications and interviews but from the next year there will be an all-India entrance test.
Both courses will be offered on the IISER’s new campus in Mohanpur in Nadia. “The 200-acre campus should be ready by the end of 2010,” said Nandi.
In keeping with its objective of making education and careers in basic sciences more attractive, the institute is also reaching out to students in schools and colleges.
… The institute is also planning to visit colleges across Bengal to spread awareness about science and research.
March 6th, 2009
(Update 15th March 2009: Rediff reproduces the main Forbes article here and there are a lot of comments to that article.)
The article is at http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/0316/044_campus_politics.html. There is also a sidebar article at http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/0316/044_higher_education.html . The same issue also lists Anil Agarwal among the top 48 philanthropists and says the following:
Anil Agarwal
Country: India
Age: 55
Chairman of mining outfit Vedanta Resources.
Pledged $1 billion to build a new university in the eastern state of Orissa. Apart from arts and sciences, medicine and engineering, it plans research centers for bio- and nanotechnology, crop genetics and alternative energy. The timetable calls for the first students to arrive on campus in 2011.
Following are excerpts from the main article:
Indian mining magnate Anil Agarwal is having a tough time giving away a billion dollars. He’s pledged $1 billion to start a university along the shores of the Bay of Bengal in eastern India’s Orissa state. The grand plan for a 6,000-acre campus looks to Stanford University in California for inspiration. Leading academics would be poached from every corner of the globe. Research centers in bio- and nanotechnology, crop genetics and alternative energy would produce important work. His ultimate dream: When every building is completed and every classroom filled, 100,000 students will be enrolled, making it one of the largest universities in the world on a single campus. A more realistic goal is 10,000 students in the first eight years and double that in the next four. Ground-breaking is expected this month.
No one doubts that India needs more universities. And this would be the country’s most comprehensive, with medical, engineering and business schools all on one campus. But Agarwal’s plan is under attack on all sides. Critics say there is too much secrecy surrounding the land purchases, and they don’t understand why he needs so much land. They point to 18 villages that are in the way–7 will be displaced completely–and water supplies that will be depleted. In November a mob armed with sticks broke up a prayer service to start construction on a highway to the campus, attacked the attendees and damaged some of the construction equipment. The protests have set back the project by two and a half years. What’s more, government approvals have either already expired or been held up.
At the same time Agarwal’s company, Vedanta Resources, is under fire for its mining operation 250 miles away on the other side of Orissa. Its attempt to mine bauxite will destroy the ecology there and force out a tribal community, environmentalists claim. In January tribal members formed a 10-mile human chain in protest. Given all this, even the four academics planning the university are wary of becoming too deeply involved in the project until a clear line is drawn between the university and the company. Agarwal is in complete agreement, but the legislation to formalize that is being held up.
Agarwal, 55, built his fortune through London-listed Vedanta, which operates in India, Australia and Zambia, and mines copper, aluminum, zinc and iron ore. He owns 55% of the company and with the crash in commodity prices, he has seen his net worth plunge from $7.4 billion in November 2007 to $2.4 billion last November. He hasn’t wavered in his philanthropic commitment, though. He still says he will donate 75% of his wealth to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, and the money for the university will come from this. He’s already transferred $250 million to the foundation for the project, but won’t say how much he’s spent on the land and the other costs so far.
Agarwal’s pet cause has always been education, though he didn’t make it to college himself. He credits his father, Dwarka Prasad Agarwal, with the idea of building a university. "My father [who didn’t go to college either] reads a lot," he says. "He told me that great higher education was fundamental to where the U.S. is today. It had the vision, and it created a mass [higher] education system. Because of that it’s produced the best politicians, huge liberal arts programs, best medical research. I always felt that India should have that."
… For the brainstorming session on an engineering school, for instance, he pulled in participants from the National Science Foundation, ucla, Stanford, Princeton, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and other places. For the session on a business school, participants came from Oxford, Wharton, the Indian Institute of Management, Insead and Nanyang in Singapore. Most of them were of Indian origin.
Agarwal hired Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore, Maryland specialist in campus architecture, to design the university, and he wants to move ahead at full speed. But the Indian bureaucracy and the mass protests, sometimes violent, that appear whenever a big project is proposed–such as recent plans to build a Tata car plant in West Bengal and a Posco steel plant in Orissa–have slowed him down. He wanted 10,000 acres, but he had to scale that down to 6,000 and has been able to purchase only 3,900 so far. The acquisition of so much land is a lightning rod for criticism in the region. Some 18 villages will be affected and at least 450 people must be relocated, says the foundation. Agarwal, on the other hand, cites Stanford, which is spread over 8,180 acres.
… Mehta and his academic colleagues are well aware of the controversies surrounding their benefactor. "It’s crucial for the success of the university that there’s a clear separation from the company," he says. "It’s a project in its own right and not a commercial project, and it shouldn’t be used to compensate for other activities of Vedanta. That’s what makes this genuinely philanthropic: if he just hands over this grant and is not expecting any return on this."
Shah agrees. "You’ve got someone who’s genuinely putting down his own resources," he says. "To not support that because I have ideological issues that are unrelated, to me seems to be hypocritical. The history of universities is such. Duke [in the U.S.] was built with tobacco money; this university is as genuine a philanthropic project."
March 5th, 2009
This status report is as off 12/31/2008 and is from here. The earlier status report is at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1197.
1. Krupajal Engineering College, Pubasasan, Kausalya Ganga, Bhubaneshwar – 2, Orissa.
De-novo
F. 9-17/2007-U.3 (A) dated 15th March, 2007 withdrawn. Fresh proposal received under De-Novo No. F.9-27/2008 dt. 15.4.08
View/NOC of the State government is awaited. UGC No. F. 35-1/2007 (CPP-I).
2. College of Engineering Bhubaneswar, Under Nabadigant Educational Trust, Plot No. 1, Sector – 3, Chandaka Nucleus Industrial
Complex, Patia, Bhubaneswar – 751 024, Orissa.
De-novo
F.9-30/2007-U.3 (A) dated 15th May, 2007
The Institute has been asked to comply with the deficiencies vide UGC Letter No. F. 35-3/2007 (CPP-I) dated 27th August, 2007
3 Asian School of Business Management Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
De-novo
F.9-45/2007-U.3 (A) dated 18th September, 2007
Views/NOC from State Government is awaited. UGC letter No. F. 35-5/2007 (CPP-I)
4. Vidya Bharti University, Gunupur Distt. Rayagarh, Orissa
F.9-60/2007- U.3(A) dated 28.11.2007
Views/NOC from State Government is awaited. F.35-6/2007 (CPP-I).
5. Koustav Institute of Self Domain Patia, Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
De-novo
F. 9-68/2007- U.3(A) dated 9th January, 2008
Information has been called in checklist proforma vide UGC Letter F. 35-1/2008 (CPP-I) dt. 4.2.2008.
6. HI-TECH University Plot No. A-170, Saheed Nagar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
F. 9-4/2008-U.3(A) dated 15th January, 2008
Information has been called in checklist proforma vide UGC Letter F. 35-2/2008 (CPP-I) dt. 6.2.2008.
7. C.V. Raman University Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
F. 9-67/2007-U.3(A) dated 9th January, 2008
The Institute has been asked to comply with the deficiencies vide F. 35-4/2008 (CPP-I) dt. 8.8.2008.
8. Orissa Institute of Technology P.O.-Burla, Distt-Sambalpur – 758018 Orissa
F. 9-41/2008-U.3(A) dated 9th July, 2008
Institute has been requested to submit the information in the prescribed proforma & checklist vide letter No.F.35-5/2008 (CPP-I) dated 29.7.2008
March 5th, 2009
(Thanks to Jagmohan Swain for suggesting to write about this.)
See the data at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1303.
Aggregate Total for every 500th rank in Common Merit List
|
Rank in Common Merit List
|
Aggregate Marks
|
|
1
|
433
|
|
501
|
287
|
|
1001
|
263
|
|
1501
|
248
|
|
2001
|
236
|
|
2501
|
227
|
|
3001
|
219
|
|
3501
|
212
|
|
4001
|
206
|
|
4501
|
200
|
|
5001
|
195
|
|
5501
|
191
|
|
6001
|
186
|
|
6501
|
182
|
|
7001
|
179
|
|
7501
|
175
|
|
7903
|
172
|
… first paper of IIT JEE 2008 consisted of 69 objective question with 246 marks. Second paper was also of same marks. So the full marks of IIT-JEE 2008 examination was 492. All questions were of objective type with negative marking. The duration of each paper was three hour.
… For OBC quota cutoff will be around 170 marks for rank 4000.
Based on the above and the open-close numbers given at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/1303 one can see that one can get into an IIT by scoring 45% in the IIT JEE.
March 1st, 2009
Following is from a report in indiaeducationdiary.
Union HRD Ministry on Saturday named Surabhi Banerjee as Vice Chancellor of the proposed Orissa Central University. The Centre appointed Banerjee, who was the VC of Netaji Subhas Open University, Kolkata, along with 14 other VCs of the 15 new Central Universities in the country.
Noted academician Abdul Wahid has been appointed as the first Vice Chancellor of Central University of Jammu and Kashmir while DT Khathing has been appointed in that post at the Central University in Jharkhand.
A PTI report names the VC of all the new central universities. Following is an excerpt.
Noted academician Abdul Wahid has been appointed the first Vice Chancellor of Central University of Jammu and Kashmir while D T Khathing has been appointed in that post at the Central University in Jharkhand.
The other Vice Chancellors appointed are Jancy George- University of Kerala, A M Pathan – University of Karnataka, M M Salunkhe – University of Rajasthan, Jairup Singh – University of Punjab, Surabhi Banerjee – University of Orissa, B P Sanjay – University of Tamil Nadu, R C Sobti – University of Himachal Pradesh, Mool Chand Sharma – University of Haryana, R K Kale – University of Gujarat and Janak Pandey – University of Bihar.
While N S Gajbhiye has been appointed Vice Chancellor of Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya in Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), S K Singh will occupy that post in Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna University in Uttarakhand and Lakshman Chaturvedi in Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya in Chhattisgarh.
March 1st, 2009
Following is an excerpt taken today from IIT Bhubaneswar’s home page. It gives some idea on what IIT Bhubaneswar is aiming for.
IIT Bhubaneswar with its 935 acres of land will be designed to have a self contained campus for 10,000 students and 1100 faculty. A Science Park will be part of this institution. The Park will house a large number of industry supported R&D units. It will promote industry relevant collaborative R&D activities with the institute and facilitate practice relevant education.
The Institute will offer education and research programmes in disciplines of national and global interest. The specific local needs will also be taken care of. To promote inter-disciplinary education and research, the Institute will not have many narrow specialization oriented departments. It will have few Schools and each School can offer several programmes.
The Foundation Stone for this IIT was laid on February 12, 2009. An estimated amount of Rs.780 crores will be spent in next few years to develope this Institute. A Master Plan for this Institute is being developed. Global tender for choice of Architect has been floated. Within next 2 years, the Institute will be operational from the new campus.
February 26th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in the Times of India.
A typographical error, it seems, has become a boon for the state. The Centre on Wednesday assured the state of an IIM, which was announced earlier, but termed as a “typographical mistake” made by the union HRD ministry.
“The HRD ministry has rectified the mistake. As announced, we will now take action to set up an IIM in Rajasthan also,” acting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. In the recent budget speech, Mukherjee had said that the new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) were to come up in Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu.
However, Mukherjee later said he was informed that there was a typographical mistake made by the HRD ministry and these institutions were to come up in Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu.
This, however, led to strong protests in Rajasthan and MPs from the state raised the issue in the ongoing session of Parliament.
Mukherjee’s latest announcement has now put to rest the controversy over the IIM as the main opposition BJP was in a mood to make it a poll issue in the state. In fact, after the recent victory in assembly polls, the Congress high command has been heavily banking on Rajasthan and the party didn’t want to antagonise the voters of the state on the eve of Lok Sabha polls.
February 26th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in Indian Express. (My guess is that this is just a warning.)
The indiscipline and frequent unrest on the campus have cost the Bengal Engineering and the Science University (BESU) the central status of Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST).
The ministry of Human Resource and Development has sent a regret letter, saying the university cannot be upgraded.
The letter, sent to the university chancellor, Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, conveyed that the status is being denied on two grounds: The university administration is in shambles, it said, and unless things improve, the Centre will not consider upgradation.
The second reason is that the expenditure finance report of the university was not satisfactory.
The university was asked to submit the report on how it would spend the money allocated in the 11th plan period.
For the past two years, the institute has been rocked by violence and frequent protests by teachers and non-teaching staff. The students were asked twice to vacate the campus, which was closed for an indefinite period.
… The Anadakrishnan Committee had recommended six institutes along with BESU for the IIEST status. According to university sources, it was in the top slot.
On December 31, 2007, a letter was sent to the state’s chief secretary from the Centre, which said BESU will be upgraded.
Teachers are taken aback by the developments.
…The decision also begs why the ministry did not inform the state government before taking the decision. Students are in shock as well.
“Instances of campus unrest are not good for the image of a campus. But that it would cost us the much-awaited central status is a shock,” said a student.
The institute will miss
* Rs 519 crore in the plan period and recurring Central grants
* Status at par with the IITs
* Developments in campus infrastructure
* BTech and MTech programmes
February 22nd, 2009
This takes the number of autonomous colleges in Orissa to 28. Those are:
- VN College, Jajpur Rd (private)
- Titlagarh College (private)
- UN College, Adaspur (private)
- Khallikote College, Berhampur
- FM College, Balasore
- GM College, Sambalpur
- BJB College, Bhubaneswar
- RD Womens College, Bhubaneswar
- MPC College, Baripada
- SCS College, Puri
- NC College, Jajpur
- Bhadrakh College
- Rajendra College, Balangir
- Dhenkanal College
- SKCG College, Parlakhemundi
- Government College, Rourkela
- Government College, Bhawanipatna
- DD College, Keonjhar
- Government College, Phulbani
- Vikram Dev College, Jeypore
- Government College, Angul
- SBR Womens College, Berhampur
- PN College, Khurda (private)
- Kendrapada College (private)
- Banki College (private)
- SVM College, Jagatsinghpur (private)
- Nayagarh College (private)
- Rayagada College (private)
February 21st, 2009
Following is from a report in the Statesman.
Twelve students of the state including five from DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar have been selected for the Kishore Vaigyanik Protshana Yojana (KVPY) scholarship. A total of 198 students from across the country have qualified this year.
The students who qualified for the scholarship from DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, are ~ Mr Pinaki Prasun Kumar, Mr Biplab Rana, Mr P Dinesh, Mr Rohit Gupta and Mr Smarak Mohanty.
Students of BJB College of Bhubaneswar who qualified for the scholarship are Mr Animesh Swain, Mr Aish Mohapatra and mr Saswat Panigrahi.
Mr Himalaya Senapati of Bhadrak College, Ms Pallabi Mishra from Cuttack Siddharth Senapati and Mr Ajaya Kumar Jena of Balasore have successfully qualified for the scholarship.
The scholarship programme, which is initiated by the Department of Science and Technology, government of India, aims to identify and select students who demonstrate talent and aptitude and encourage and assist them in pursuing research careers. It does so by the means of a two-tire examination.
The successful students will be provided with generous fellowship up to pre-PhD level. In addition, summer programmes in prestigious research and educational institutions in the country will also be organised for them.
February 20th, 2009
Following is from the press release at http://www.infosys.com/newsroom/press-releases/2009/infosys-india-prize.asp. (Thanks to Abi for this exact pointer.)
Infosys Institutes “Infosys India Prize” in Five Categories
Constitutes Awards for Promoting Research in Sciences for India’s Development
Bangalore, India – February 17, 2009: Infosys Technologies Ltd. (Infosys) today announced that it has set up "Infosys Science Foundation", a not-for-profit trust to promote research in sciences in India. Under the aegis of the foundation, Infosys will honor outstanding contributions and achievements by Indians across various sciences. The annual award for each category is Rs. 50 lakh.
The Infosys Science Foundation will be funded by a corpus of Rs. 21.5 crore contributed by Infosys executive board members and an annual grant from Infosys Technologies Ltd.
The “Infosys India Prize” categories include:
- Physical Sciences – Physics and Chemistry
- Mathematical Sciences – Mathematics and Statistics
- Engineering Sciences – All branches of Engineering
- Life Sciences – Biology and Medicine
- Social Sciences and Economics – Economics, History, Sociology, Political Sciences and other Social Sciences
The jury panel for each area will consist of eminent international personalities in each area selected by the trustees of the foundation.
Announcing the award, Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor and Chairman of the Board, Infosys Technologies Ltd. said, “India needs bright minds across all areas of academics, government, business and society to strive for global excellence. We need to encourage research in India to address our developmental problems. This award will honor outstanding researchers who will make a difference to India’s future.”
February 18th, 2009
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