It has been widely reported [Times of India, Statesman, Telegraph, Pioneer, New Indian Express, Samaja, Pragativadi, Kalinga Times] that the CM met HRD minister Mr. Arjun Singh on the IIT issue and Mr. Singh promised to consider Orissa for an IIT when the 11th is finalized.
However, Mr. Singh’s promise does not mean much. He has made such promises before during the time when the CM met him for NIS. In fact with respect to IIT Kharagpur’s campus in Bhubaneswar Mr. Singh’s meeting with the CM had been reported on September 29 2006 as follows:
The Chief Minister, Orissa, Shri Naveen Patnaik met the Union Minister for Human Resources development, Shri Arjun Singh today to discuss about the establishment of a campus of IIT, Kharagpur in Orissa. Shri Patnaik stated that the Government of Orissa have offered 300 acres of land next to Bhubaneswar city for setting up the campus and the State Government is fully committed to provide all necessary assistance for the institution. Since Orissa is fast emerging as a hub for industrial activities, an institution of the stature of IIT will provide the much needed boost to the efforts of the Government in providing support to these industries. The Union Minister, Shri Arjun Singh stated that the Central Government is positively inclined for setting up such an institution soon.
Similarly, with respect to KBK Central University Mr. Singh’s meeting with the CM had been reported on October 24 2005 as follows:
Statesman News Service BHUBANESWAR, Oct. 24. — Chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik today urged the Centre to accord approval for a central university in the undivided Koraput-Bolangir-Kalahandi (KBK) districts, besides expediting setting up the proposed Regional Centre of Studies in Integrated Sciences at Bhubaneswar. These requests were made by the Chief minister during his meeting with the Union Human Resources Development minister Mr Arjun Singh at New Delhi today. Mr Singh sought a formal proposal from the state government for the establishment of a central university in KBK region while appreciating the rationale behind the idea, said an official release.
So we should not get lulled by Mr. Singh saying that he will consider. We need to put pressure on him from all sides to actually grant an IIT for Orissa.
May 16th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Orissa Minister of Tourism and IT Surya Patra talks to journalists about central apathy and specifically lays out what happened with respect to the IIT shifting as well as cancellation of the plans to establish a branch campus of IIT Kharagpur in Orissa. This is reported in major papers in Orissa: Dharitri, Samaja [1,2], Sambada, Pragtivadi, Statesman etc. In Samaja it is a front-page headline.
Samaja also has an article with a picture on the protest organized by BJD in regards to the IIT issue.
May 15th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Samaja reports on couple of IIT related protest meetings in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar; one is in Cuttack by CPI-M and the other in Bhubaneswar by the association of engineers.
Similarly Telegraph reports that the youth wing of BJD announced to launch a state-wide stir against UPA apathy, especially in regards to the IIT issue.
But it is somewhat funny that the AICC general secretary has been reported in Statesman to say that his party (i.e., Congress) had been pressing for establishment of an IIT in Orissa. It begs the question what he means by “his party.” Why then the Congress MPs did not join the protest by Orissa MPs in the parliament?
May 15th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
The Ministry of Textiles has established four Indian Institutes of Handloom Technology at Varanasi, Salem, Jodhpur and Guwahati under the central sector. At present the four Institutes conduct 3 years Diploma Course in Handloom Technology. The Institutes at Varanasi and Salem are also conducting 1-1/2 (one & half) year duration (Three Semester) Post Diploma Course in Textile Chemistry. Recently it has been announced that a new one will be set up in Bargarh, Orissa.
May 14th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
May 13th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
May 13th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Earlier we wrote about how Bokaro Steel Plant has agreed to set up an engineering college and a medical college in Jharkhand and urged our CM to pursue with RSP and other public and private sector metals and mines companies.
Today in Business Standard there is news that Central Coalfields has also agreed to set up an engineering college in Jharkhand. (Thanks to Deba Nayak for writing about it in the ornet.)
Orissa government must go after all the mining and metal related comapnies, be they public sector or private sector and urge them to do the same. The central public sectors in Orissa include NALCO, SAIL RSP, MCL, CIL and NTPC. We will write about the private sector in another positing.
May 13th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
FAEA, the Foundation for academic excellence and access offers scholarships for socially and economically disadvantaged students. It has an impressive governing council. Its objective as described in its web pages are:
to secure social justice for students belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged sections of the society. It emphasizes equality of opportunity to help students become what they would like to be so that they have a choice and are not dictated by economic and social necessity. It enables economically and socially disadvantaged students to study in the institutions, which provide academic excellence, access to structures of power and economic opportunity.
Its web page and students manual give more details on its scholarship program.
May 12th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Ayers Saint Gross, a Baltimore USA firm, is in charge of Vedanta University’s campus master plan. The client list of Ayers Saint Gross is extremely impressive and as per their web site today includes Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Duke University, Emory University, Franklin and Marshall College, Guangzhou China University City, George Washington University, University of Georgia, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland College Park, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers University, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin, Madison and Vedanta University.
Based on their list of current projects they are involved in the Building design and architecture of academic buildings of Vedanta University as well as its campus planning. Following is a blurb from their site.
Vedanta University
Campus Master Plan
Orissa, India
Completion: 2012 (phase !)
Size: 8,000 acres
Cost: N/A
Ayers/Saint/Gross has been selected as the Lead Campus Master Planner and Architect for Vedanta University, envisioned to be a world-class, multi-discipline university in India. This project will entail the design and development of a state-of-the art education and research institute that will rank among the highest caliber schools internationally – at the level of Harvard, Stanford and Oxford.
This new University will be built around several colleges and ‘Centers of Excellence’ for cross-disciplinary research. The colleges will include Graduate, Post-Graduate, and Doctoral programs in various disciplines. It is aimed to have a globally diversified, high-quality student body, comprising an equal mix of Indian and international students – serving over 100,000 students in the long-term. The campus will house state-of-the-art facilities including a global resource library, research and development parks, student and faculty residences, and an Olympic caliber sports complex. The vision also includes the development of a University township that will evolve with the University and drive local development in the region as an education and research satellite city.
We now present several daigrams from the Vedanta University web pages as well as from their architect’s pages.
Masterplan:
Phase 1 plan:
Campus planning view (as given in their website):
Another view:
View of one of their buildings:
May 12th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Various news outlets report that the CM has written to the PM again on the IIT issue. [Statesman, India eNews, New Kerala,New Indian Express, Kalinga Times, India Edu news.net,Dharitri, Samaja, Sambada, Pragativadi]
Following are some quotes of what the CM is supposed to have written.
- “The recent reply of Union minister of state for human resource development on the floor of the Parliament regarding establishment of IITs in the country has come as a shock to us.â€
- “When I met the honourable minister of HRD in this connection, he had indicated to me that the case of Orissa can be considered for a full-fledged green field IIT. The recent decision of government of India to locate the IITs in states which already have the benefit of many Central institutes indicates that objective criteria have not been followed in deciding the locations of the 3 IITs.”
- “It is indeed painful that the decision has now been reversed.â€
May 12th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
Time Magazine in its recent issue lists Anil Agarwal at number in its list of 12 Powergivers. The others in the list are Angelina Jolie, Rania al-Abdullah, Yu Panglin, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud, Sir John Templeton, Li Ka-shing, Pierre & Pam Omidyar, David Rockefeller, Gordon Moore, George Soros, and Bill & Melinda Gates.
Following is an excerpt of what Time says about Mr. Agarwal and Vedanta University.
Cause: University education in India. The London-based mining magnate has pledged $1 billion to establish a world-class, need-blind university in Orissa, eastern India. To be called Vedanta (the name of his mining group), the school will focus on liberal arts, in contrast to India’s many technically oriented schools.
Impact: Vedanta will help address the region’s dearth of university spots, which keeps qualified students from going to high-quality colleges.
It says Vedant University will focus on liberal arts and not like the technical schools in India. What it means probably is that it will not be unidimensional like the IITs were (they are changing), the IIMs are, etc. It does not mean that it will not have disciplines like science, engineering, management etc. In fact Vedanta University’s website lists all these disciplines and my guess is that in their first phase they will have disciplines like Engineering, Management and Medicine (as they recently promised) which are in demand and which will attract paying students.
(Thanks to Jibanendra babu for tipping of about the Time magazine article.)
May 12th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
IIT and irrigation projects are not either-or propositions
Dear Tathagata babu:
In regards to your yesterday’s editorial, having higher education institutions like IITs and having irrigation projects are not either-or propositions. Andhra is pursuing both and as a result they have one new IIT, two more of its institutes are being upgraded to IIT clones, a new Birla institute of Technology and at the same time they are also pursuing irrigation projects. They are also building a world class airport (see pictures at http://www.newhyderabadairport.com/information/photos.html http://www.newhyderabadairport.com/information/live_footage.html )
However, your point to not forget others is an important one.
I do believe that the current Naveen Patnaik government has not forgotten that and the Biju KBK jojana and Gopabandhu Jojana are examples of that. But there is always need for more to be done. So please pursue irrigation projects and other projects with all vigor.
best regards
Chitta
May 11th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
It seems Ravenshaw University with the help of XIMB is experimenting with on-line application. One can apply on-line at an XIMB site that is linked from the Ravenshaw University home page. But one still needs to physically mail a demand draft of the appropriate amount and a print out of the application form. One can print out the admit card from that site though.
May 11th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
During the last two days there have been many developments on the IIT in Orissa front. Following is a quick summary of them.
May 10th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
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
Author : Chitta Baral
Dharitri reports that the minister answering the no call motion had said that upon the advice of the scientific advisory committee an IIT is to be established in “Orissa”, but then she corrected herself and said “Bihar”. More interstingly, she also said that Minister Fatmi never said that an IIT will be established in Orissa. However, Minister Mr. Fatmi was in the Lok Sabha at that time and he was silent even when the Orissa MPs were looking at him for an answer.
May 10th, 2007
Author : Chitta Baral
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