To celebrate or not to celebrate
Assam Engineering College was established in September 1955 with only civil engineering branch and was initially named Assam Civil Engineering College. The college got its present name two years later when other branches like mechanical and electrical departments were introduced. Usually, golden jubilee is celebrated on the completion of 50 years and centenary after 100 years of existence. In some colleges and institutes, the centenary year is celebrated from the date when the college or the institute completes its 100 years, although there are instances of starting it on entering the 100th year.
The Assam Engineering College entered the 50th year in September 2004 and will complete 50 years in September 2005. As such, the decision to celebrate the golden jubilee year from January 25, 2005 to January 25, 2006, has become controversial.
The foundation stone of the main building of the college was laid on January 25, 1956. When I was a teacher at the college, the day was declared a holiday and a teacher-student friendly cricket match was organised. But it is not the actual foundation day of the college and was not formally observed as such.
I feel that there should not be any scope for controversy or discontent regarding celebration of a joyful event like golden jubilee, and it would be appropriate for the Assam Engineering College to celebrate its golden jubilee in September 2005.
N.K. Chaudhury,
former vice-chancellor, Guahati University
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Assam amid great fanfare and declared his love and affection for the people of the land.
It was really nice on his part to associate himself with the people of Assam.
The whole of Assam, including Tarun Gogoi, was expecting that Singh would announce economic packages for the state. Instead, when asked whether his government was planning to provide any economic package, he said he had not gone to Manipur and Assam to buy the loyalty of the people by offering special packages.
Singh also favoured the continuity of the IM(DT) Act in Assam and wanted the act to be extended to other parts of the region.
He also promised to ensure that all the points in Assam Accord of 1985 were implemented in ?letter and spirit?. He encouraged writer Mamoni Raisom Goswami?s initiatives regarding bringing the Ulfa to the talks table, but turned down the demand for discussions on the subject of sovereignty.
Besides adding fuel to the simmering fire of IM(DT) Act and Ulfa?s talks, and leaving behind a starved and absolutely dissatisfied population of Assam, including of the Congress, the Prime Minister did nothing for the state of Assam to rejoice about.
Sanjeev Kumar Saikia,
Golaghat
Apropos the interview with G. Srinivas, deputy secretary, Northeast regional office of the University Grants Commission (UGC), (?Where knowledge is free?, The Telegraph northeast, November 26), it was interesting reading about the various UGC schemes. It was, however, disheartening to know that under the scheme of colleges with potential for excellence, the UGC has selected 47 colleges in the first phase, but the list does not include a single college from the Northeast.
It?s true that the standard of education in the region is responsible to a large extent for the unemployment problem in the Northeast. Though we have many entrepreneurship development programmes these days, they have not yielded any substantial benefit.
I strongly feel that we need a thorough restructuring of the existing academic system in order to provide more job-oriented courses. It?s time to do away with the fossilised culture of imparting theoretical knowledge, which make the students pass out and join the bandwagon of educated unemployed youths. The teachers and students need to be on a par with other developed regions.
The school and college curriculum needs urgent revamping according to the changes in the social and academic scenario. Moreover, I don?t think the National Eligibility Test (NET) and State Level Eligibility Test (SLET) examinations, which are mandatory to apply for lectureship, are in any way a judge of a good teaching capability.
We should have learnt from our experience over the years that only erudite degrees do not churn out good teachers.
We need to make these changes soon or else we will lead our students to another Palaeolithic age of darkness.
Ramesh Pathak,
Dibrugarh
I was intrigued by the success story of AMTRON (Assam Electronics Development Corporation Limited), a state public sector undertaking, which has been able to meet the demands of the growing information technology (IT), (?For a techy tomorrow?, The Telegraph northeast, November 25).
It is commendable that in spite of infrastructural bottlenecks, the enterprise has ambitious plans to sell geographical information systems and web-enabled services in the global market.
It also has a specialised medical equipment servicing centre. Now, the unit has drawn out plans for developing an Infocity in Guwahati, which will have all the facilities for housing software export companies according to the international standards of IT business.
If these plans emerge successful, it will hopefully generate more employment opportunities for our youths.
Rekha Kalita,
Doom Dooma
AMTRON?s success story has opened up a new vista in Information Technology in the region. With its limited resources, the company is slowly and steadily increasing its consumer base. The youths especially, will be encouraged to set up enterprises in the Information Technology sector. We also need to harness our local resources in order to make strides in the industrial sector.
In fact, we need more AMTRONs in our state.
Rajneesh Agarwal,
Tinsukia
