Students of MGM Higher Secondary School dressed in traditional attire at the Annual Day in Dimapur on November 11. Picture by Eastern Projections

Counselling

A national seminar on Counselling Psychology in the 21st Century: Trends and Techniques, was held at Gauhati University on November 10. The importance of counselling psychology in educational institutions was highlighted.

Inaugurating the seminar, director of IIT, Guwahati, Gautam Barua, said priority has to be given on application of counselling psychology in educational institutions and practical fields of life. He said counselling psychology could be used to solve psychological problems and help students of engineering and technology overcome stress and strain.

Barua offered the suggestion of introducing a short course on counselling psychology in the department of psychology at Gauhati University.

The seminar was organised by the department of psychology of Gauhati University and the Psychologists’ Association of Northeast India. Principal of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, M.M. Deka, was the special guest at the inaugural function. He spoke on the concept of counselling psychology by illustrating facts from the Mahabharat, in which Krishna counselled Arjun who was unwilling to fight the Kauravs on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

Deka said behaviour modification techniques and methodology can be applied for the benefit of students, people in general and particularly patients suffering from AIDS, cancer and other serious ailments.

A.C. Kataki, director of B. Borooah Cancer Institute, said counselling in health, illness, accidents, psychosomatic diseases and carcinoma could be helpful to patients to overcome trauma. Counsellors should be good listeners as well as good speakers.

Prof. Man Singh, retired head and professor of psychology in Gauhati University, delivered the presidential address. He focussed on the problems of drug addiction and other psycho-social problems.

Orientation

A two-day orientation programme for new recruits was organised by ICFAI National College at its Guwahati campus on November 8 and 9. The programme was conducted by experts from Hyderabad and Calcutta.

Bhaskar Rao (Hyderabad), Sunil Shah (Calcutta), Lt Col. (retd.) Sukumaran and J. Kavle (both from Hyderabad) were the resource persons present on the occasion. In the Northeast, there are centres in Guwahati, Aizawl, Agartala and Gangtok. A centre has been planned in Shillong by 2007.

The ICFAI National College, Guwahati, will offer a new short-term diploma course on Banking Finance and Insurance (BFI) besides offering a two-year full-time post-graduate management programme.

In the recently-concluded Premo-Prajna Choudhury Memorial Award Seminar, organised by the Guwahati Commerce College Women’s Forum on November 4, the paper on Need and Importance of Mergers and Acquisition in the Global Context, presented by Rima Das and Sandeep Goyal of ICFAI National College, Guwahati, bagged the first prize.

The theme of the seminar was Recent Trends in Mergers and Acquisition in India.

Annual Day

Prof. Gautam Barua, director of IIT, Guwahati, speaks at the national seminar on Counselling Psychology in the 21st Century: Trends and Techniques organised by the department of psychology in Gauhati University on November 10. Picture by Eastern Projections

The annual day of Oasis Academy, a school for tiny tots, was celebrated recently at Khanapara. Artist Neelpawan Baruah was the chief guest. He said children were endowed with talent and it is the duty of the teachers and parents to identify and channelise them in the right direction. He appealed to parents to inculcate proper values among children.

Students of the school put up a colourful performance.

Blood donation

A blood donation camp was organised at Dispur College by its NSS unit recently in collaboration with the Model Blood Bank of Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH). Thirty volunteers and five teachers donated one unit of blood each.

Dwijendra Narayan Goswami, ex-teacher of Cotton College and NCC officer, spoke on the urgency to volunteer to donate blood.

N.N. Bhuyan, in-charge of the technical team of the GMCH blood bank, encouraged the NCC cadets, students and NSS volunteers to donate blood. He spoke about the crisis in the blood bank of GMCH.

Coaching classes

Dhing College has introduced remedial coaching classes for students weak in studies from the current academic session. Principal Sarat Kumar Dutta said the aim of the coaching classes supported by the UGC was to introduce improvised teaching and learning techniques and improve the standard of the overall academic atmosphere of the college.

Inaugurating the course, former principal of the college, Pradip Saikia, said the UGC’s decision would certainly help in the development of the college.

The inaugural ceremony was followed by a lecture delivered Pradip Saikia on Romanticism and Classicism and its Impact on Assamese Literature.

Programme

A technology-based entrepreneurship development programme on video photography and video editing was inaugurated at the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) at Cotton College recently. Satyendra Kumar Choudhury, chief project coordinator, EDC, Cotton College, stressed the need for educational institutions to groom new entrepreneurs. He shared his experience in running such programmes, which help create new entrepreneurs in different fields. He announced a training programme on computer hardware repairing and maintenance that will be conducted at EDC from January.

Cinematographer Sibanan Baruah spoke about the modern technology available in the field of video editing and video photography and urged the participants to work hard to master these techniques.

Scholarship

Ratna Nandi, a Class X student of Lakhmi Union High School, was awarded the first Suruchi Bipin Chandra Memorial Meritorious Scholarship at a function organised by Jorhat Bengali Samaj Kalyan Samiti in association with Lakhmi Union Bengali Club recently. The function was held at the club.

The scholarship comprises Rs 2,000 in cash and a bouquet of flowers. It has been introduced by Biswajit Chakravarty, a retired headmaster in-charge of the school, in memory of his mother Suruchi Chakravarty and father Bipin Chandra Chakravarty.

Chakravarty announced that from next year he would award another scholarship in memory of his parents-in-law Sudhir Chandra and Renuka Pal.

A boy and a girl of a provincialised school in Jorhat, who secure the highest marks in Assamese in the HSLC examination, will be awarded the scholarship. Principal of Jorhat Engineering College, Tushar Chakravarty, conducted the function.

Principal of Nandanath Saikia College, Titabar, Jagananda Bora, was the chief guest.

A staff reporter