Tathya.in has a biographical article on Prof. Gopal Nayak. Following are some excerpts.
Prof. Nayak is the product of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur was born at Berhampur in Ganjam district to a family of teachers.
An electrical engineer with a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from IIM Bangalore did his Ph. D from IIT, Kharagpur.
He has done his Ph. D under the guidance of Prof. Damodar Acharya who was the Vice Chancellor of BPUT, Chairman of AICTE and at present the Director of IIT, Kharagpur.
Prof. Nayak has spent a few years on Industry.
He has worked for Nelco in Mumbai in the product development area and for NTPC in the Procurement automation area.
Prof. Nayak has spent about 20 years in academics.
He is one of the founding Professors of Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar.
As the Professor of Information Systems, he was instrumental in transforming XIMB into the most technology intensive campus in India.
XIMBans give credit to him in creating several firsts management education field: a campus network, providing PC to each student, making Internet accessible 24×7 and giving a technology orientation to the curriculum at XIMB.
He held important positions at XIMB such as the Dean (Academics), IT services and Admissions Co-ordinator.
Prof. Nayak’s most notable contribution is development of Academic Information System (AIS) and PAMIS.
The AIS is being used by many top business schools in the country such as XLRI Jamshedpur, IIM Indore, NITIE Mumbai.
PAMIS has been implemented in 314 blocks and 30 DRDAs in Orissa and is one of the most successful e-governance projects in Orissa.
With this background the Government of Orissa has roped in Prof. Nayak for the IIIT.
With a director of such background IIIT Bhubaneswar should also start offering degrees that relate to business and information systems such as MBA and MIS (Master in Information Systems). One may note that some of the IIITs, such as IIITM Gwalior, do offer such degrees.
July 26th, 2007
Sambada reports the inauguration of an Apparel training center in Bhubaneswar. (There are 20 such centers now in India.) It also mentions land allotment with respect to IIHT Baragarh. Finally it mentions that more apparel training centers may be opened in Nuapatna, Sambalpur, Rourkela and Baragarh. Following is the news item from Sambada.
July 25th, 2007
Infosys has several education and HRD related plans for Bhubaneswar. Following are some relevant excerpts on this from a New Indian Express report.
Taking its ‘Campus connect programme’ a step ahead, Infosys BPO on Monday launched ‘Project Genesis’ here to train lecturers on BPO skills for raising the employability potential of students in the ITES sector.
The project has achieved a resounding success in states like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and helped students not only gain employment in Infosys, but develop confidence in their abilities. Since its launch in October 2005, Infosys BPO has worked with more than 1,000 lecturers in 360 colleges in these states and trained more than 12,000 students.
The project would be extended to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu apart from Orissa this year. …
Project Genesis would train 300 teachers from both government and private colleges from across the State. It would focus mostly on imparting language enhancement techniques and analytical skills, key attributes for BPO industry. On completion of the fortnight-long programme, the teachers would groom the students. Each student would have to pass through three tests. The programme would be be held periodically.
Pai said, Infosys plans to recruit several thousand students from the State in the coming years and engage actively in strengthening academic collaboration with colleges. “We would also tie up with universities for systematic intervention in updating course curriculum.”
He announced that Infosys would be funding a chair in the upcoming IIIT campus here for computer science with a corpus fund of Rs 1 crore.
July 24th, 2007
New Indian Express reports on this. Following are some excerpts.
… IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) has decided to launch a programme on ‘leading and managing’ through HughesNet, across the country including Bhubaneswar.
The programme basically uses a modular approach to step outside your work situation and see how you affect your peer group.
Each module discusses an area of management and helps to use the fundamental principles of human behaviour to encourage employees to serve their own values while serving the goals of their department and the organisation, said a statement by HughesNet It is open for working executives with a minimum of 15 years experience and interested in moving to middle to senior positions within two to three years. IIM-C would be conducting a screening test to enrol candidates.
HughesNet, Bhubaneswar, would offer the programme for 120 students. The last date for forms to reach IIM-C is August 6. Classes would commence from second week of September.
July 24th, 2007
Odisha.com reports on this. Pioneer also reports on this and also on Agami Orissa’s plan for a meeting in Koraput. Following are some excerpts.
A meeting to chalk out the future course of action on demand of a KBK Central University was held at Malkanagiri. Local MLA Nimain Sarkar was the convener at the meeting, … Over 100 persons of the district, including senior citizens, intellectuals, educationists, journalists and representatives of civil society organisations attended the meeting.
A committee, KBK Bikas Parishad, was formed after the meeting with an aim to look into the various developmental aspects of the most neglected undivided KBK districts. RK Patra was nominated as the convener of the committee while Durga Prasad Tripathy was chosen as the president.
Ratnakar Dash was nominated as the general secretary of the committee. Deputy Speaker of the Assembly Prahallad Dora and MLA Nimain Sarkar were chosen as the advisers of the committee.
The committee alleged that the Central Government cheated the people of tribal KBK districts on many occasions. While it was decided to set up a KBK Central University at Koraput, it is now mysteriously shifted to another State by the order of the Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, the members of the committee alleged. Reiterating the demand for KBK Central University, the members warned of an intense mass movement throughout the State. However, the foundation of the movement will be laid on July 29 at Koraput meeting, which is going to be organised by Agami Orissa.
July 23rd, 2007
From an NIT Rourkela faculty:
Our institute has become the first among all NITs to earn the trust of SBI to sanction study loan to our students by the NIT campus branch itself ( in stead of the branches located in their native places) without asking for any sort of security. This facility was earlier available only to reputed institutes like IIT and IIM under Scholar Plus Scheme.
The story behind how this was achieved:
This has become possible due to strong follow up and bargain made by our director insisting on exclusive new ATM counter in the campus, Internet banking facility to all students (now students need not stand in the queue to pay fees in cash/cheque either in institute or halls) and this study loan, otherwise we would have given permission to other banks to open their branches in the campus to break the monopoly of SBI since inception.
Tathya.in also reports on this.
(Thanks to Sandip babu for this information.)
July 18th, 2007
Sikshya O’ Anusandhan, under which comes ITER, has been granted deemed university status. Following is Sambada’s news item on this.
The various institutions under this society are:
- Institute of Technical Education & Research (ITER)
- Institute of Business & Computer Studies (IBCS)
- School of Computer Application, ITER (SCA)
- School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ITER (SPS)
- School of Hotel Management, ITER (SHM)
- Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS)
- SUM Hospital (SH)
- SUM Nursing College (SNC)
- SUM Nursing School (SNS)
Some, or all of them will become part of the deemed university.
July 17th, 2007
BJB Junior College has put its plus two science and arts merit list of students in the web.
July 16th, 2007
Indus College of Engineering has advertised for positions and mentions in its website that it has received letter of intent and waiting for letter of approval. Earlier we mentioned some of the other colleges that are listed in the BPUT 2007 counseling brochure for the first time. Indus does not appear there.
From the "about us" page of this college, I found out that it is being established by a trust led by Dr. Ravi Reddy. Dr. Reddy is a B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur and a Ph.D from University of Houston, USA. He was one of the main person at NIST, Berhampur. Based on this information, I think this will become a good engineering college.
July 16th, 2007
Several NRIs including three US based professors are starting an engineering college near Bhubaneswar. The college is tentatively named as Bhubaneswar Institute of Technology and a brief biography of its US based trustees is here. Business standard reports on this. Following are some excerpts.
Orissa is all set to have an all non-resident Indian (NRI) sponsored degree engineering college.
The new degree engineering college is being set up near Khandagiri on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar by seven US-based NRIs. The Orissa government is actively promoting the endeavour. …
The NRIs are all professors and analysts from different US-based IT institutions and colleges. The Orissa government has allotted 20-acres of land near Khandigiri to the seven-member consortium for setting up the engineering college.
… state IT minister Surya Narayan Patro said, "the seven US-based NRIs have long approached us for setting up the degree college. Finally the government has decided to provide land for the venture".
According to Patro, "the engineering college would shortly be set up and construction work would begin soon."
July 16th, 2007
