In an earlier post we mentioned that NITs will now become institutions of national importance. We have come across a draft of the NIT Bill and also the IIT Bill of 1961. It looks like the NIT Bill (draft) is a good one and has even some improvements over the IIT Bill. Once the NIT Bill is passed in the parliament it will become the NIT act.
1 comment May 21st, 2007
New Indian Express reports that:
A release issued by Sahu‘s office stated that Sahu had also proposed to the Textile Minister for a National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) centre at Bhubaneswar.
The proposal was accepted by Vaghela who promised to open the centre.
The news item also states that the center has decided to establish IIHT (Indian Institute of Handloom Technology) in Baragarh and minister Chandrasekhar Sahu’s office issued a release to that effect. The IIHT part is somewhat old news. The NIFT news, if true, is most welcome. However, if these small budgeted institutes are in lieu of an IIT then minister Sahu is selling Orissa cheap. He should not think that Orissans are so gullible that they would be happy to lose a 1000-4000 crore IIT and instead get 5-10 crore type institutes.
2 comments May 18th, 2007
A PIB press release says among other things:
Shri Singh also informed that Parliament has also approved the Bill seeking to cover all National Institutes of Technology (NITs). They would be accorded status of institutes of national importance.
This is good news, as this may somewhat prevent the proposed IIESTs to have a higher status than the NITs, as IIESTs were to be accorded the status of “institutes of national importance.” Among the proposed IIESTs, IT-BHU is currently better than most or perhaps all the NITs; but many of the NITs are currently better than the other proposed IIESTs.
1 comment May 18th, 2007
1 comment May 13th, 2007
May 13th, 2007
In 2005 after newsreports came in that the proposed National Institute of Sciences was shifted to West Bengal, Mr. Prasanta Das from Cuttack, on behalf of his organization, filed a PIL on this at the Cuttack high court. At one point the Cuttack highcourt put a stay order on any progress on IISERs (the renamed version of NIS). The central govt. went to the Supreme Court and got the stay order lifted. All these led to a lot of news coverage of this issue.
Several Oriyas helped in the supreme court part of the case and even roped in Arun Jaitely to argue the case on behalf of the PIL. The supreme court sent back the case to the high court and finally two days back the high court gave a judgment.
However during this time the PM had already announced the establishment of NISER in Bhubaneswar. This was conveyed to the high court through an affidavit, and that affidavit said that the NISER would open by August 2007. So the high court in its judgment basically said that NISER must be opened by August 2007. This news is reported in Sambada and New Indian Express. Some of the documents related to the Supreme Court case in regards to NIS/IISER shifting (1550-of-2006) are as follows:
Old news items on the case at high court and supreme court are in this blog.
May 10th, 2007
PIB reports on a Q & A on six AIIMS like institutions to be established in India and upgradation of 13 exsiiting colleges to AIIMS level. While the new AIIMS like institutions will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 322 crores each, the upgradations will be made at a cost of Rs 120 crores each.
However, eventhough the government have time and again talked about the AIIMS like institutions, there has been very little physical progress in the ground. In Bhubaneswar, a boundary wall exists, but not much beyond that. There have been some progress with respect to design and call for interests which we have mentioned in earlier writings on this topic.
May 7th, 2007
The Ministry of tourism of the Government of India has established an Indian Institute of Tourism Travel and Management with the headquarter in Gwalior, and campuses in Bhubaneswar and New Delhi. They offer the following programs in 2007.
Continue Reading 12 comments May 5th, 2007
Today, there is an opinion piece in Times of India that suggests that some of the best NITs and IT-BHU should be upgraded to IITs. I wrote along the same lines in an Indian Express op-ed article last year. This is discussed in more detail in the blog specifically on this topic. Here is a quick overview of the issue.
Continue Reading 2 comments May 4th, 2007
CIPET (Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology) is an autonomous institute under the ministry of chemical and fertilizers, Govt. of India. It has several locations. Recently it advertised for students (Samaja,webpage) with the list of programs and a prospectus. Digging deep into the locations and what they offer it seems that until now only the Lucknow, Chennai and Bhubaneswar locations offered the M.Tech program in plastic technology and engineering and from this year the Hajipur (Patna) campus will offer that program. They all offer a slew of post graduate diplomas, post diplomas, diplomas and integrated diplomas/post-diplomas.
28 comments May 4th, 2007
Fiver year integrated M.Sc programs are being started at UM-DAE, a new autonomous center for excellence in Basic Sciences jointly set up by University of Mumbai in collaboration with Dept. of Atomic Energy. It will be taught by faculty from nearby institutes such as IIT Bombay, BARC, Univ. of Mumbai and TIFR. The entrance exam for this program is the same one as for NISER, Bhubaneswar. So in a sense, NISER now has head-to-head competition in terms of students. Unless NISER moves quickly and uses its funding advantage to build a nice campus and hire top-notch faculty it may lose out.
5 comments May 4th, 2007
The running headline of Tathya.in says that the Medical Council of India has approved 100 seats for KIMS (Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences), a component of KIIT deemed university. It does not yet show up in the MCI list of MBBS colleges. More details are awaited.
Assuming this is true, the medical college situation in Bhuabaneswar-CTC-Puri area will be as follows:
Continue Reading 5 comments May 1st, 2007
The Government of India has decided to establish 20 IIITs (Indian Institute of Information Technology) which will be mostly centrally funded. One of them is proposed to be in Orissa. Initial reports [Telegraph,EFYTimes,Kalinga Times, Samaja1, 2, Sambada] mention that the central government will contribute 120 crores to this while the state government will contribute 10 crores and 100 acres to this. The location of this IIIT has not been decided yet.
April 28th, 2007
Today’s Sambada and Pragativadi have more detailed news on progress with respect to NISER. It reports that a firing range that currently exists in the area where NISER is to be located will be moved. Land will be soon handed over to NISER. etc.
April 28th, 2007
NISER now has a new and more professional looking web page. Its ad for admission appears in Samaja. Its website also has the application form and information brochure.
3 comments April 26th, 2007
Yesterday’s Dahritri has a column by senior columnist Barendra Kumar Dhal [1,2,3,4,5,6] where he lists the various initiatives and projects taken up during Biju Patnaik’s government of 1961-67. I am amazed by the list which includes many HRD institutions. Here are some of the highlights.
Other References: Ganjam District site,wikipedia,Orissa govt. e-magazine, another.
3 comments April 24th, 2007
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