Search Results for ‘iit’
1. From a Times of India Report.
Targeting a production of about 500 tons of silk by 2020, Orissa government decided to set up a State Sericulture Research and Development Institute (SSRDI) for speedy growth of the sector.
2. From a Business Standard report:
Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) — an initiative by the Pan IIT Alumni Association — has taken up a US co-guide PhD initiative wherein faculty members of Indian engineering institutes would be able to obtain PhDs in a four-year period, with the mentoring of distinguished US faculty.
… Under the arrangement, interested PhD candidates in India, who are currently teaching in engineering colleges, will identify and register with a PhD guide at an Indian PhD granting institution. The PhD candidate will identify his area of research interest.
If there appears to be matching of interests between an Indian PhD candidate and a US faculty, IUCEE will facilitate the process forward.
Also, the PhD candidate will make a trip to the US institution of the co-guide to ensure exposure to high quality research culture. The co-guide will also visit the Indian institution, to ensure adequate mentoring of the candidate.
… IUCEE is also exploring various avenues for requesting government of India to provide schemes for this purpose.
3. From a Times of India report:
Three of Maharashtra’s premier universities—Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur—will be split to create new universities.
…Spelling out some details, Tope said the University of Mumbai would be split into two campuses, with a pro vice-chancellor becoming the head of the new campus. The name, though, would not be altered, given Mumbai university’s iconic status, he added. He was replying to a discussion on the supplementary demands of his department.
… Maharashtra has also revived the plan to bring private universities into the state. Tope said that plans were afoot to help the corporate sector play a key role in the field of education. The Private University Act is being finalised in this connection, he pointed out.
April 16th, 2010
Update: Following are excerpts from a follow-up Telegraph report which mentions about the committee’s recommendation to have wide-spread consultations before making the changes.
But it has advised caution in implementing the reforms. The panel has suggested detailed consultations and workshops with the state governments, other top engineering institutions like the National Institutes of Technology, and private universities.
The recommendations of the panel can be fine-tuned based on the outcome of the consultations, the team led by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya has suggested. The panel is likely to meet soon and may draw up a schedule for the consultations at that meeting.
… At a meeting of the panel in Chennai on March 16 with representatives of state and central school boards, some participants suggested that rural students be given more opportunities than urban students. The participants proposed two attempts for urban students and three for rural students.
The panel and the HRD ministry will also need to convince state governments that the move to end state-specific engineering tests is not against their interests.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
… The panel, appointed by human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).
The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, ..
Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.
Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on physics, chemistry and math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.
If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will for the first time admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.
…The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.
… The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.
The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.
The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.
The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards.
There is a big danger that the above approach will make the XIIth exams a high stakes affair and bring it under the microscope with every aspect of it being scrutinized and judged by everyone. Most coaching classes may reinvent themselves and start coaching how to score more marks in the XIIth exam and the proposed SAT type exam. This approach may bring in bias favoring students from families with educated parents. English being a compulsory subject in XIIth, this may put students in rural areas and other areas where English is less used at a disadvantage.
So one has to wait and see how this will pan out.
My guess is if the above idea is adopted, it will go through some changes such as specific types of colleges may be allowed to give different weight to Class XII marks in different subjects. Some may introduce interviews or other tests.
One change that should be made is that when possible specialty branches should not be assigned to most students (say 70-80% in any college/institute) immediately after they join a college/institute after the XIIth. That should be determined after a year in that college/institute based on the performance in that year. This will make the class XII exam less cutthroat and ensure that students after they get into a college/institute continue to give importance to academics.
One alternative idea may to test the proposed idea (of using class XIIth marks) on 50% of the seats for a few years before deciding whether to completely abandon the current approach or not.
April 14th, 2010
SUIIT (Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology), a constituent autonomous institute of Sambalpur University is established in the same line as IIITs to offer courses in IT related areas and to have world-class research institute in IT at Sambalpur. SUIIT will offer BTech(CSE), BTech(ECE), MSc(CS), MTech(CS) and MSc(Electronics) from this academic year (2010-11). The institute will also be taking up several research projects in the area of societal applications of IT. SUIIT is looking for faculty in area of Computer Science, Electronics, Mathematics, Physics. Persons having PhD degree from reputed institutions, good publications and interested in research career in IT are requested to apply for the position. The qualification, salary, selection process and facilities are similar to that of similar nationally reputed institutions of IT such as IIITs.
Interested persons are requested to send their cvs to SUIIT c/o VC’s Secretariat, Sambalpur University, Jyoti Vihar, Sambalpur, 768019. www.suniv.ac.in phone 0663-2430158
April 10th, 2010
In https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/4059 we mentioned about some of the national tutorials that have now set shop in Bhubaneswar. A close friend and elder of mine (Sandip Dasverma) whom I respect a lot was surprised (and even dismayed) that I gave space to them here, and was wondering how come I am promoting institutes that to him are so harmful to our society.
I have mixed thoughts and feelings about the whole thing, so I decided I will write my thoughts and feelings, which at this point may not be fully coherent.
1. In Orissalinks we are writing about *all* kinds of educational and HRD infrastructure and opportunities in Odisha. When we write about ITI or Diploma or vocational schools we are not necessarily promoting them; nor it is our intention that every body should do ITI or a diploma. (On the other hand we do not think there is anything wrong in going to an ITI or doing a Diploma.) We cover them so that these pages serve as a dynamic directory of opportunities and infrastructure of various kinds. In that sense IIT tutorials are educational and HRD infrastructure elements and we cover them. Our coverage does not necessarily mean we promote them. In case of ITI and Diploma institutions, having them listed here helps industries who may be considering to move to Odisha.
2. To us IIT tutorials are HRD infrastructure elements that for whatever reason are an important component of a city/town/metro/population-hub. Students are looking for them, the parents are looking for them, the top ones at other locations have been successful in sending large numbers to the IITs, and parents in Odisha due to the lack of such institutes have sent their kids out of state. Moreover, Odisha has been sending comparatively very few students to IITs, thus not taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the well-funded and reputed IITs. So in that sense having top national coaching classes in Odisha is good. The kids who want to go there need not now go to or be sent to (by their parents) locations out of state and hopefully there will be more number of people getting to IITs from Odisha because of the presence of these nationally reputed tutorials in Odisha.
Hopefully we have clarified why we covered IIT tutorials here; We covered them because as the situation in India is now, they are an important educational infrastructure of a place/town/city/metro.
Thats that, but what do we think about these tutorials and their alleged harmful impact on the education system and society. To us the issue is not so simple nor black and white. To initiate a debate we will put some pointers and arguments.
- Coaching classes in various countries and their purpose is given here. In India, coaching classes are a reality and they thrive because (i) admission to top schools is extremely competitive and (ii) the admission process is fairly well defined. In this regard one may read the article at http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wilj/issues/24/1/steiner.pdf which explains why cram schools for getting law license is common in many other countries but not in the USA.
- Coaching classes are not so common for college admission in the USA because of two main reasons: Decent students can fairly easily get into decent universities in most states; and admission is not based on a single exam and the process is not very clear and on purpose not well explained to the public.
- At this point the fuzzy processes adopted for admissions in US institutions will not work in India as there will be a lot of chance for corruption. One of the aura behind the IIT entrance exams and its admission process is the lack of corruption in the process of IIT admission. Many a professors and IIT directors’ kids have not been able to get into IITs. That is not the case in most US universities (even the most elite and most competitive ones) where kids of alumni, faculty and big donors may have an inside track to admission.
- Recently a committee chaired by Prof Damodar Acharya has been formed to revamp the IIT admission process. Among other things they are considering to take into account the marks obtained in the 12th grade. I am not sure if that will eliminate the coaching classes. The coaching classes will just adopt and start teaching how to also ace the 12th exam.
- However it is the case that mastering (how to answer) the kind of questions asked in the IIT entrance exam requires coaching beyond what is taught in the regular school curriculum. If the question pattern was changed to closely follow the regular school curriculum then coaching classes will possibly be less effective and thus their attraction could possibly decrease. But the questions may then be too simple making it difficult to pick 10,000 out of 5 lakhs. Also, there is a reason behind the kind of hard questions that are asked in the IIT entrance exams. Students with aptitude to answer such questions are good at problem solving and thus the kind of students the IITs are looking for. But IITs have not been able to figure out how to separate these students from students who have trained (and been coached) to be successful in the IIT entrance exams.
- It is common in India to believe in the notion of "inherent ability" which is behind the elusive goal of finding students who have the inherent ability versus students who apparently do not have that ability but train hard (in the coaching classes) and get through the entrance exams.
- But this view is being challenged. See the book review at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/review/Paul-t.html?ref=books. Following is a quote: "David Shenk with “The Genius in All of Us,” which argues that we have before us not a “talent scarcity” but a “latent talent abundance.” Our problem “isn’t our inadequate genetic assets,” but “our inability, so far, to tap into what we already have.” The truth is “that few of us know our true limits, that the vast majority of us have not even come close to tapping what scientists call our ‘unactualized potential.’ ” At first it would seem that Shenk, the author of thoughtful books on information overload, memory loss and chess, has veered into guru territory. But he has assembled a large body of research to back up his claims. … Shenk doesn’t neglect the take-home point we’re all waiting for, even titling a chapter “How to Be a Genius (or Merely Great).” The answer has less in common with the bromides of motivational speakers than with the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. Whatever you wish to do well, Shenk writes, you must do over and over again, in a manner involving, as Ericsson put it, “repeated attempts to reach beyond one’s current level,” which results in “frequent failures.” This is known as “deliberate practice,” and over time it can actually produce changes in the brain, making new heights of achievement possible.
- In light of the above, is it really right to look down on students who worked hard for whatever number of years in a coaching class and trained themselves so as to succeed in the IIT entrance exam? Can we really fault the coaching classes who provide the students the opportunity to train, train and train? Who are we to tell that train, train, train following a goal or someone’s life’s ambition is bad? Do we do that with respect to an athlete or an aspiring musician? No, we are impressed by their dedication.
- Few years back IITs changed their requirement for admission and now one can enter an IIT only the year he/she passes the 12th or the next year. This was aimed at stopping people from spending multiple years in coaching schools in preparation for IIT. I guess it addresses that problem but raises other questions such as: Why is it wrong to work hard and long and prepare? Why can not some one decide to pursue an engineering degree at whatever age they become interested in? The later is a problem in most programs in India and is understandable because of the resource crunch. Coming back to the former: Why is it wrong to work hard and long and prepare? Does the society penalise an athlete or a music student who decides to fully focus on their goal of being a world class athlete or a musician? In case of the IITs, the problem is that most students who work hard and long to get in, do not often work hard once they get into the IITs. But then the IITs should design their course work accordingly? Also, they should assign majors for most students (say 80%) after the first year. That way students after they get in will have to work hard to get the major of their choice.
- Who are bad? The students going to coaching classes? Their parents? The owner of the coaching class? The faculty at the coaching classes? The System? If it is the system then as we mentioned we can not fault the nature of the admission process as a non-transperent one (used in the US universities) will not work in today’s India where corruption is endemic and because of that even national tests are conducted for clerical jobs in the Railways and Banks. So the only approach is to have enough good institutions/colleges/universities so that the situation is not as competitive as it is now. But even then there will be coveted institutions and admissions to them will be extremely competitive and their will be coaching classes for them. Just look at France, where 5% of its high school graduates spend 2-3 years in cram schools so that they can get into the Grandes Ecoles.
- The increase in the number of IITs, NITs, central universities, the creation of new IIITs, IISERs/NISER and the plan for 14 innovation universities will increase the number of good institutions in India and that would be helpful. They will also help in the more serious issue that plagued India where most good students out of high school went for engineering and medicine.
- However, India needs to figure out how to improve the standards at its state universities and colleges which have degraded badly over the years. Just creating new creamy layers on the top and letting the bottom rot will worsen the situation.
I hope the above thoughts explain why I don’t agree with the crowd and follow the fashion these days among many who put all the blame in the world at the door of coaching classes. I can see some adverse results (such as the story about an IIT JEE number 1 who was coached three years before he got JEE 1 but flunked in many of his classes in the first year) but it is not easy for me to just point blank think coaching classes as evils. In fact there may be evidence to the contrary. The coaching classes seems to have helped students from far flung areas without access to good schools to get trained and get into the IITs. The success of the super 30 in Bihar has now prompted the Punjab government to start similar coaching for rural students in Punjab. Similar plans are also afoot in Tamil Nadu and Chhatisgarh. The Orissa government had also announced similar plans in collaboration with the Institute of Mathematics & Applications. I am not sure if that has been implemented.
Now some other related thoughts.
- In my school days, middle class parents would find a tuition master or send their kids for tution if the kids were not doing well in school. So being "tutored" had a negative connotation similar to the connotation of "remedial classes" in US schools. Of course in US now parents and kids are being sensitized to not look down on students with reading and learning disabilities. But things started changing in India and students doing well also started getting tutored to do even better, and at times this was encouraged by the teachers themselves, some with motivation to augment their income (their pay was always pathetic). Some of these teachers neglected in their teaching in their regular classes giving bad names to the "tutors". These two underlined aspects have contributed to the negative connotation behind coaching in the mind of many.
- Personally, I have never had a tuition master in my life. I did take postal coaching (Agrawal Classes) in my 12th class (ISc 2nd year) to prepare for IIT and got in that year. The postal coaching worked as follows: I would get booklets with some theory and solved examples and some questions. I would solve the questions myself and send it for evaluation. Some one (a faculty) at the coaching center would evaluate my solutions and give me a grade. Thats all. This was better than the alternative of reading the IIT entrance guide books and doing the exercises there as in case of the later, one was not sure if the solution was correct or not. Also, in case of the postal coaching, the solutions had to be sent in within certain time, thus creating a discipline on the preparation. I have not met a single person in my life who got through the IIT entrance exam without preparing specifically for IIT outside of the class syllabus and that meant at least going through the IIT entrance guide books.
- So I have no direct idea about how the current classroom coaching classes operate. I only know from second and third hand descriptions.
Having said all this, what would be my advice to students in their 11th and 12th grade?
- First, one need not focus on IITs, engineering or medicine. India now provides successful careers in many many fields. One can go for science and math in the top institutes such as IIISERs, NISER, ISI, etc. One can go for law in one of the National Law Schools. One can go for Economics and other social science subjects in various good colleges. One can go for accountancy and other commerce subjects. One can be successful in any of those. Also, down the road the IISERs, NISER, National Law schools and the Innovation Universities will have similar name recognition as the IITs.
- However, if one aims to get into the IITs, until further changes happen one still need to prepare beyond their Class 12 syllabus. Here I would recommend the aspiring students to get into the best coaching class (in terms of their past performance) that is available. In that regard it is good that Bhubaneswar now has some of the nationally known top ones in FITJEE, Vidya Mandir and Resonance. However, in case the teachers in those coaching classes do not emphasize the following, I would have one advice to the students: There is no substitute to the ability and understanding one develops when one is pondering on a question (on his/her own) for hours or sometimes days and is eventually able to figure out how to solve it. Memorizing a trick told by the teacher to solve that question is an extremely poor substitute and does not develop the critical thinking ability that the IITs expect their students to have. On the positive side, the periodic exams conducted by the coaching classes have some advantages. Doing well in them and getting encouragement from the teachers who are able to compare a current coaching class student with successful students from yesteryears gives the students the much needed confidence. (In general I have noticed that less students from Odisha get into IITs because of the confidence problem during their 11-12th. But where ever the good ones go, they do well and become very successful in their careers.) Also, the coaching classes provide a routine and a discipline in the preparation. This is hard for a 16-17yr old to do on his/her own.
- In this regard one may note that bad coaching classes or not using the coaching classes in the right way could be very harmful. As an anecdotal example, a nephew of mine was telling me that he was not confident about his IIT exam as he did not have a tuition master in subject X, though he had tuition in Y and Z. After the IIT entrance exam he said he did well in X but not in Y, Z. I explained him and he agreed that in X, he studied himself and developed the understanding while in Y and Z, he was told various problem solving tricks; but that did not develop a deeper understanding in his mind and he could not apply them to the questions he encountered in the IIT entrance exam.
April 3rd, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bhubaneswar has proposed establishment of Innovative Centre for Climate Change (ICCC) here.
Director of IIT-Bhubaneswar Madhusudan Chakraborty who met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here at the Secretariat today along with a team of experts gave this proposal to him.
Chakraborty said school of earth, ocean and environment is being established in Bhubaneswar IIT.
The school will impart teaching on land, water, air and environment and proposed research in the subject.
The IIT is keen on establishment of research institute of this school on climate change, he said.
Prof Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the American University of Massachusetts, said the institute will conduct research on climate change, adding, information on climate will be availed from different sources for research.
Rise in sea level, extreme weather, changing eco-system, air quality and pollution, affect of the changes in the human health, shortage of drinking and energy needs will be dealt with in this advanced research centre, he said.
The institute will also conduct research on the impact of climate change on the ecosystem of Chilika lake. He requested the Chief Minister to provide land with necessary infrastructure for the institute.
A similar center proposed in 2007, called "Center for Climate Change Research" (CCCR), was established at the Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune last year. This center has 20 scientists positions.
March 31st, 2010
The deadline for the coming year is past. But one can get the details for future years from http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/downloads/mtech_new1.pdf. Following is information from that page.
The following two M. Tech programmes will be offered for faculty members of AICTE-recognized programmes of Engineering Colleges:
1. M. Tech in Electrical Engineering
2. M. Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering
The programmes will be offered from January 2010.
Programme Features
The features of these programmes and the mode of delivery are elucidated below.
• Each programme will be of three-year duration.
• These programmes will be offered in the holidays and beyond office hours on weekdays to facilitate the teachers employed in the engineering colleges to attend the classes.
• The programme may be offered during summer vacation.
• Since the potential student base for these programmes exist in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, these programmes will be offered in the Extension Centers of the Institute at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.
• A mixed mode of teaching through video-conferencing and face-to-face interaction will be adopted in these programmes.
• A faculty will deliver a lecture at any of the locations (primarily Kharagpur) and the students at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar will be able to attend the lecture and interact with the faculty through video-conferencing.
• The tutorials, seminars, and comprehensive viva-voce examinations will be conducted also in the above-stated mode, as and when required.
• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will be recorded in the two Extension Centres and will be stored at the library of each extension center. They will be available to the students for study during specified hours.
• Students cannot copy these recorded lectures.
• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will not be used in subsequent semesters as a substitute for live presentations.
• Laboratory classes will be conducted in one weekend of every month at IIT Kharagpur campus at Kharagpur.
• Laboratory classes may also be conducted at the respective extension centers in virtual mode, depending on the availability of the required facilities.
• Projects and supervisors will be assigned to the students by the Programme Coordinator after the completion of first two semesters.
• Students will carry out their project work at their institutions and have to be in constant touch with their supervisors. The sponsoring organizations are required to provide laboratory facilities to the students to carry out their M.Tech project works.
• There will be two class tests in every subject. The class tests will be conducted at Kharagpur when the students come to the Institute during the last weekend of a month for the laboratory class.
• Mid-Semester and End-semester examinations will be conducted at the respective Extension Centers with faculty members as invigilators.
• Comprehensive Viva-Voce will be conducted through video-conferencing.
Number of Students to be Admitted
• Twenty-five in each programme at each Extension Center.
Programme Fee
• Fee for each programme is Rs.2 lakh for each student to be paid in two instalments – the first instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid at the time of admission and the second instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid one year after the admission. The programme fee includes the tuition fee and the examination fee.
Eligibility for Admission :
• Faculty members associated with the AICTE-recognized programmes of engineering colleges are eligible for admission into the programmes.
• An applicant must have passed B. Tech in appropriate branch with a minimum of 60% marks in the final qualifying examinations (for SC/ST candidates it is 55%).
Application Fee
• The Application Fee of Rs. 2,000.00 for general candidates and Rs. 1,000.00 for SC/ST candidates should be payable by Demand Draft drawn in favour of ‘IIT Kharagpur’ on any nationalized bank payable at Kharagpur.
Undertaking from the Sponsoring Institution
The sponsoring engineering college must give an undertaking that the college will upgrade its own facility (such as laboratories, computer facilities, and library) to enable the sponsored student to carry out his/her M. Tech thesis work in that college.
Selection of Candidates
The candidates will be asked to appear at a written test and an interview to be held at each Extension Center.
Some time back we had suggested something similar. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/501. Even with the IIT Kharagpur’s program there is need for more such programs. Perhaps IIIT Bhubaneswar and BPUT can make efforts in this direction.
March 29th, 2010
The web site of this event is http://www.almafiesta.com/. Their blog is at http://almafiesta.com/blog/. Following are some planned highlights of this festival.
We start with the most important one:
Alma Fiesta, IIT Bhubaneswar and Smt. Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust Presents
Perspective: The Social Case Study Competition
Problem Statement:
Politics in India continues to be a murky and tabooed business which is being rarely taken up by the youth of present generation. Youth owns the key to dynamic thinking and action and thus are the indispensable part of a country’s politics. Present your views highlighting the current scenario of the youth participation in politics, the plan to increase this participation and also the plan to bring out the transparencies in the work of a politician.
Method of Submission: The participants are required to submit online their aforesaid visionary plan in form of a presentation in .pdf format by 25 March 2010 before 11.55 PM. The selected participants will present their plan before judge and audience on 27 March 2010. The presentations can be mailed to submissions@almafiesta.com before the deadline. No registration fees are required for submitting your presentations. So pen down your ideas and get the title of ‘SNSMT-IIT BBS Social Change maker of 2010’ along with various exciting prizes. For any queries contact: Mudit Sharma mudit@almafiesta.com +91 93385 75352.
Following are the rest of the events.
- Topsy Turvy : Inter College Group Dance Competition
Topsy Turvy, Put your best foot forward, because Topsy Turvy inter-college dance competition is sure to excite everyone to put on their dancing shoes. Be a part of our fiesta and drink in from the excitement.
- Face Off
Imagination is reality; dreams, thoughts and delusions are no less real than the "outside" world. Reality is a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real. FACE OFF, an intercollegiate stage play event, is one of those platforms to experience the "reality”. So come, witness the reality on the stage and the director’s mind at work behind the scenes.
- N-Circled
Give the audience a hint of a scene, no more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the Street Play meaning: when it becomes a social cause. So be there to be a part of a social causes @ N-CIRCLED – an intercollegiate street play competition.
- EUPHONY
In the Iron Maiden edition of the Dream Theatre pluck the MetallicaStrings to elevate from the System of a Down and let the world Parikrama around you to attain Nirvana. If music is your passion and life then euphony, an inter college band competition for both eastern and western genres, is the right chance to test your ardor. The vim and vigour of music bands will be at its peak and the spirit of music is going to fill the entire ambience with a tone of mesmerisation.
- TRACK THE TRACK
Music is the harmony between melody, rhythm and expressions and thus for a song to touch the soul one needs to properly ‘Track the Track’. This sing-along karaoke event is a unique opportunity for the music enthusiasts to show up their talent. So hit the music loud and prove your mettle.
- ANTAKSHARI
A contest for the movie track fanatics who are experts in the lyrics. A common, Classic game yet can be mind-boggling at times. To triumph in the event means to be quick and sharp enough to get the right song. It is time to fine tune your musical knowledge and portray it to the world.
- Decoding Shakespeare
- Gone in 60 seconds
- Lit-Spree
- IIT Bhubaneswar Youth Quiz
A Quiz on Pan Youth Topics. Be it movies, music, gadgets, ads or IT-this quiz comes as a whole some package of fun entertainment.
- Heads or Tails: Citius, Altius, Fortius!
Bored of traditional quizzes of Tech, Biz, India…? Want a change? We could sense that. So here is an offbeat quiz purely dedicated to the Sports Turf. For all Sports Frenzied Junta Heads or Tails? Call it right!
- Youth Marathon
- Your Honour: The mock board room event.
Motion:
Ostracism, humiliation and mistreatment at the hands of family members, community and the medical fraternity are increasing in Orissa. Not only people living with HIV and AIDS but also their family members are equally suffering and facing the challenges in different setting. The question is whether we need to practice a differential treatment/approach to address the issue of people living with HIV-AIDS or not?
- PALETTE
With the brush in your hand swipe the fog out of the sky and give life to your imaginations. Let the world acknowledge your endless dreams. Colours being your mouthpiece tell the unspoken and leave the beholder standstill. Mismatch the colours on this palette and paint life.
- LEAF COLLAGE
Attention!!
Dare not miss this opportunity to expose your ingenious dexterity. Let the foliage mirror your imagination and creativity in your grey cells. Leaves are waiting to reflect your artistic thoughts. Share your ideas, feelings, no matter what you want to express, through leave collage. Give a shape to your imagination and let the clutters of leaves take the pride to represent the artist in you.
- Mahfile-E-Hansi: Dr. Kumar Vishwas
- Classical Reloaded: Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt; Akram Khan
- Leela: Orissa Dance Academy led by Aruna Mohanty
- Headbang: Kryptos
- Celebration of World Theater Day on 27th March in collaboration with Natya Chetana
- Commemoration of Earth hour on 27th March
One important aspect of this festival is that it is mainly organized by the students with some (minimal) guidance from the faculty and a very small percentage of funding from the IIT. The students find sponsors who cover most of the budget. They organize the events.
March 26th, 2010
Update: IIT Study Circle in partnership with Vidya Mandir has just advertised that it will offer a 2 year class room course in Bhubaneswar.
Fiitjee is among the top, if not the top, coaching center in terms of its student success in the IIT JEE. In the 2009 IIT JEE it had 35 in the top 100 ranks, 2307 in the main merit list and 5876 in the extended merit list. The next best was Bansal classes which had 22 in the top 100 ranks and 2175 total selections. At present Bansal is only in Rajasthan (Kota, Jaipur and Ajmer). Some of the other national coaching classes with presence in Bhubaneswar are Careerpoint and Narayana. We wrote about the coaching situation in Bhubaneswar in 2007 here. See also here. With FIITJEE and others coming to Bhubaneswar things have changed since then. Read on!
Another top coaching center, Resonance, is also starting a study center in Bhubaneswar. Its performance in IIT JEE is here.
Another top coaching center, Vidyamandir, now has a classroom course center in Bhubaneswar in partnership with IIT study circle; also some city schools such as Sai International School have teamed up with IIT Study circle which "would offer coaching to the IIT-JEE aspirants in the state in association with Vidyamandir Classes, its learning partner and 100 Percentile, its technology partner." The quoted part is from a Business Standard report.
Careerpoint now has operations in both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
March 22nd, 2010
Following are excerpts from a report in expressbuzz.
IIT Bhubaneswar will have four more schools with inter-disciplinary approach by 2011-end.
While the first one would be on mines, minerals and material technology, the other three would include school of chemicals, school of design and creative arts and earth and ocean sciences.
While the campus construction will start by the year-end, within 10- 15 days the contract would be ready for awarding the architectural and design side of the new campus, said IIT-B Director Prof. Madhusudan Chakraborty.
… Prof. Chakraborty said, however, the institute plans to have a marine campus on the coastline for research on rise in sea-level, effects of climate change, extreme weather conditions, changing ecosystems, air quality and pollution and human health.
… The marine campus will be called Centre for Climate Change and would be established on the lines of marine centres of University of Massachusetts and University of California, he said adding even the varsities have expressed their desire to have future collaborations in research and exchange of faculties and students.
As the marine campus will be very close to the sea, the State Government would be requested at an appropriate time to provide adequate land, he said adding it would have specialists in geology, geophysics, atmospheric and ocean sciences, he added.
Following are some excerpts from a report in Telegraph.
IIT, Bhubaneswar, is planning a marine campus as part of its upcoming School of Earth, Ocean and Environment Science.
The campus, probably be the first marine campus in the country, will study climate, sea level rise, extreme weather events, changing ecosystem, fishery development and wildlife, air quality and pollution, water shortage, human health and hydrological cycles.
Such a campus exists for schools in the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and University of California, Santa Cruz, said IIT, Bhubaneswar, director M. Chakraborty.
Expected to come up by 2011, the school will be “interdisciplinary”, conducting research focusing on geology, geophysics, marine sciences, ocean science, atmospheric science, atmospheric change, disaster mitigation and management, he said.
… The IIT also plans to open three other schools — school of mineral, metallurgy and material engineering, school of chemical sciences and school of design and creative art,” he said.
… “IIT, Bhubaneswar, believes in a border-less academic environment. We do not have departments like other IITs. We are trying to break the barrier so that people from various disciplines come together and work in tandem,” Chakraborty said.
The above plan of IIT Bhubaneswar opens up opportunities for the South Odisha people who wanted the IIT to be located there. If they co-ordinate intelligently (and even offer their own land) they could now have a piece of the IIT. Other parts of coastal Odisha may also go after this.
I think similar opportunities will open up with respect to NISER and AIIMS. In particular, a branch of either in Gandhamardan hill foothills of Balangir/Baragarh in Western Odisha focusing on medicinal plants could be a possibility. (Dr. Sanjib Karmee was championing for an institute like that in that area.)
Water and rain forests are big attractors.
Other locations (such as next to Hirakud or Mandira Dam) could vie for a pie of these national institutes by coming up with an idea about an appropriate research center and approaching the leadership of these institutes.
March 20th, 2010
March 1st, 2010
Update: Following is from Samaja.
Following is from a report in Pioneer.
The State Government has decided to set up a technical university in Sambalpur. This university would be christened as Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology. The State Government has provided Rs 10 crore for this institute.
The Pioneer news above is a bit inaccurate. As far as I know it will be a part of Sambalpur University. The idea was mooted by Sambalpur University VC (who was earlier a Computer Science professor at University of Hyderabad) Prof. Arun Pujari. I have seen part of the proposal. Prof. Pujari had a very good proposal. His proposal and persistent efforts to get it approved finally got enthusiastic support from the IT Secretary Mr. Pradipta Mahaptra, the RDC and the Additional Chief Secretary Mr. S. P. Nanda and higher education officials (HE Secretary Mr. M. Padhi and others) and ministry. Kudos to all of them.
With the establishment of this Odisha will soon have three IIIT type institutes in Bhubaneswar, Berhampur and Sambalpur.
Special thanks to Prof. Arun Pujari. He has several other innovative plans for Sambalpur University. He has also made some very good hires in the Science disciplines at Sambalpur University. If he continues at the current rate he will be remembered as one of the best VCs of Sambalpur University. Lets support his innovative initiatives with all our heart.
February 11th, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in Business Standard.
IIT-Kharagpur plans to start by setting up a centre of excellence on Energy Science and Engineering to train students in research and development on various energy verticals like bio-energy, solar energy, nuclear, as well as hydel and thermal energy. …
The institute is also introducing new engineering programme on design and manufacturing where it aims to create globally competent engineering products. It will start School of Entrepreneurship soon where it will offer dual degree in BTech and entrepreneurship programmes. Students will be selected through joint entrance examination (JEE).
“The Innovation Centre will be funded by one of our alumnus, S K Bhattacharya. Each student of School of Entrepreneurship will be attached to an innovation centre. Each student will get a faculty and a successful alumnus entrepreneur to assist him or her. Our aim is to have around 30 per cent of our total student to be PhDs and researchers by 2015, compared to 15 per cent right now,” says Acharya.
An innovation centre is a new concept through which IIT-Kharagpur intends to encourage research and innovation. “We will have support from international institutions and industries to draw on their expertise and develop products of global use. So, for instance, we are collaborating with Warwick Manufacturing Group, Georgia Institute of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, among others,” adds Acharya.
Among international collaborations, IIT-Kharagpur is looking at specific areas of collaboration with National University of Singapore for water policies and issues. Also, the institute has signed an agreement with University of California, San Diego, for a 350-700 bed medical college. The collaboration is both for part-financing the project as well as an academic collaboration.
January 11th, 2010
Following is from a PTI report.
… the Lok Sabha was told today.
The vacancy has arisen due to retirement and resignations in these top institutes, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said in a written reply.
Giving details of the vacancies, he said the faculty position in the IITs stands at 2,983 against the sanctioned strength of 4,267. Similarly, there are 388 faculty members against the sanctioned strength of 468 in the IIMs.
The situation is no different in National Institutes of Technology (NITs) where the faculty position stands at 2603 against the sanctioned strength of 3747.
The scenario is critical in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore where there are only 210 faculty members while the sanctioned strength is 478.
December 3rd, 2009
Following is gleaned from http://www.iiit-bh.ac.in/downloads/mandotaryDisclosure-2009.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1. Below I just give the name and the degrees. For other important qualifications such as experience, please see the above mentioned document.
- Dr. Gopal Nayak, Director. B.Tech and Ph.D IIT Kharagpur.PGDM IIM Bangalore.
- Ajit Das, Dean and Professor. B. Tech IIT Khragpur. M. Tech Utkal. Pursuing PhD at Utkal.
- Ramesh Chandra Balbantray, Assistant Professor, M.Sc and M.Phil in Maths from Utkal, M.Tech in CS from Utkal, Ph.D thesis submitted in 2007 at Utkal.
- Ashok Das, Assistant Professor, M.Sc Mathematics IIT Kharagpur, M.Tech Computer Science and Data Processing, IIT Khragpur., Ph.D in Computer Science & Engineering submitted in June 2008 at IIT Kharagpur.
- Anjali Mohapatra, Senior Lecturer, M.Sc and M. Phil in Physics, Utkal, M.Tech in Computer Science, Utkal, Continuing Ph.D at Utkal on Computational Molecular Biology.
- Dr. Monalisa Ray, Senior Lecturer, M.Sc Physics Ravenshaw/Utkal, Ph.D in Physics, Utkal.
- Dr. Tanutrushna Panigrahi, Senior Lecturer, MA and Ph.D in English from Berhampur University.
- Dr. Rupaj Nayak, Senior Lecturer, MA and Ph.D in Mathematics from Utkal.
- Dr. Biswajit Pradhan, Lecturer, MSc Berhampur and PhD in Physics IIT Bombay.
- Dr. Satyanarayan Pal, Senior Lecturer, M.Sc in Chemistry Vidyasagar University, Ph.D in Chemistry, Univ. of Hyderabad.
- Muktikanta Sahu, Lecturer, B.E , BIET Bhadrak, M.Tech CET in CS & IT.
- Lipika Das, Lecturer, MA in English Utkal, Continuing Ph.D at Utkal.
- Usharani Rout, Lecturer, B.E Electrical IGIT Sarang, M.Tech BIT Mesra in Control System.
- Puspanjali Mohapatra, Lecturer, B.E Electrical IGIT Sarang, M.Tech Computer Science, Utkal, Continuing Ph.D at Utkal.
- Dr. Hiranmayee Satpathy, Lecturer, M.Sc Chemistry Utkal, Ph.D in Polymer Chemistry, IIT Kharagpur.
- Bamadev Sahoo, Senior Lecturer, BE Mechanical IGIT Sarang, M.Tech Aerospace Eng from IIT Kharagpur, Continuing Ph.D in Mechanical at Jadavpur University.
November 30th, 2009
Following is an excerpt from a report in DNA.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IIT-GN) will begin an ‘earn while you learn’ offer for its undergraduate students. …
"Selected students from the second-year batch will be allowed to work for a maximum of eight hours a week during the semester, and 40 hours per week during the vacations.
They will be paid a remuneration of Rs50 to Rs80 per hour. Initially, 25 to 30 students will be selected for the programme," said Jaison Manjaly, assistant professor and faculty coordinator for the programme.
… "The students will be engaged in the library, computer centre, laboratories, general administration, placement services, public relations etc," he said.
… Sudhir Jain, director of IIT-GN, said that … students with a CPI of seven and above will be eligible for participation in the programme.
November 23rd, 2009
IISc Bangalore faculty Prof. Abi has a nice article on this in the IIT Kharagpur student magazine Scholar’s avenue. Following are some excerpts arranged as bullet points.
- Salary: Going by the present, post-SPC salaries, you’ll start as an assistant professor at Rs. 6 lakhs, at the end of your career, you’ll be at over 12 lakhs.
- ‘benefits’: allowances (house rent, transport, telephone and internet), social security contributions (pension or provident funds, career-end bonus, etc) and perks (medical insurance, leave travel concession, for example). The value of these benefits could easily exceed 50 percent of the salary.
- consulting: It can give you the satisfaction of solving some real world problems. It can be a great source of ideas for long term research. Most importantly, it also has the highly desirable property of giving you some extra cash!
- IIX salary is not only fully protected, it’ll also (a) keep up with inflation, (b) keep rising (through annual increments) and (c) see substantial jumps every decade or so. To sweeten things even more, IITs are planning to introduce incentives to reward extraordinary performance (and I’m sure other IIXs will follow suit).
- As an IIX faculty member, you’ll enjoy a couple of features that are not available to engineers and managers in industry (in both public and public sectors): two (or even three) months off every summer and a one-year sabbatical leave every seven years.
- As an IIX faculty member — and this may come as a surprise to you — you’ll also enjoy certain advantages over faculty in US universities.
- First, you don’t have to pay your graduate students, the government pays them.
- More importantly, the same research idea has a far higher probability of getting funded in India than in the US. This means that you’ll spend more of your time on actually doing research, than on writing grant applications seeking that ever-elusive funding.
- Finally, the autonomy, the choice and the flexibility: As an IIX faculty member, you’ll probably spend 30 to 40 percent of your time in teaching and related activities. The remaining time is yours, and yours alone — nobody tells you how to spend it. You could use it for research (for getting peer recognition), teaching (for your students’ adulation), and consulting (for money, and collaboration with industrial partners). There are other academic pursuits as well: writing books and popular science articles, teaching kids in local schools and colleges, learning about new and emerging fields, etc.
November 2nd, 2009
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