Of ideas and innovations

The Sunabeda campus of the Central University of Odisha hosted a discussion on ophthalmology, titled “Eye Diseases: Bench to Bedside Journey”, on April 25. Geeta K. Vemuganti, dean of the school of medical sciences at the University of Hyderabad, gave a speech on the topic. 

 She underlined the role of stem cells research in modern medicines, starting from cardiac diseases, bone marrow transplants to eye diseases such as cataracts, macular degeneration and a host of others. She discussed with the students on how stem cells and tissue engineering was slowly but surely becoming a modern tool to cure life-threatening diseases. 
Many students and faculty members of the varsity were present in the seminar. Varsity students Sushree Kranti and Titikshya Samal anchored the event.

Seminars galore

Two seminars on contemporary topics were conducted at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, on April 25 and 27. The first seminar was held at the conference hall of the chemical engineering department and was convened by faculty member Arvind Kumar. 

The topic for the seminar was “Availability and Affordability for Sustainable Gas Use - Issues and Challenges.” Students spoke about various aspects of how natural gases could be preserved and its unnecessary use could be checked. 

The second seminar was hosted by the ceramic engineering department and was convened by faculty member S.K. Pal. The topic for the seminar was “Study of Densification and the Grain Growth Behaviour of Hydroxyapatite Ceramics”. 

Students presented papers on how it has been used clinically as bone substitutes. Both the seminars witnessed students, faculty members and external experts taking part with great enthusiasm. 

Intellectual rights 

The students of SOA University marked World Intellectual Property Rights Day on April 26 with a seminar on various issues relating to the topic. Bijay Kumar Sahu, a senior official with the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), New Delhi, spoke about the objective of the Intellectual Property Rights Day and the need to create awareness about intellectual property rights in the universities. The vice-chancellor of SOA University, Amit Banerjee, said a workshop would be organised by the university to extensively cover all aspects of intellectual property, patenting laws, copyrights, trademarks, royalty and other issues soon. The university would have its own Intellectual Property Rights Cell that would be a common facilitator and database for all researchers and other members of the varsity. 

Bask in glory

The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, celebrated the success of its alumni as well as the current batch of students. Ravi Prakash and Priyanshu Raparia of business management department became the national winners of the Tata Steel InGenius Contest for presenting their case study titled “The Endgame of Iron Ore Prices”. 

Ravi Kumar, XIMB alumnus from the 1996 batch, was appointed as the president of Infosys.  Sameer Satpathy, an alumnus of the 1995 batch became the chief executive of the personal care business section at ITC. Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, an alumnus of 2002-2004 batch, published a novel titled Patang. 

He is presently the founder of ArtSquare, touted as India’s largest online art platform. The annual alumni meet of XIMB will begin from May 7 and will be hosted in six cities.  

Mime act

The students of Gandhi Institute for Technological Advancement, Bhubaneswar, staged a mime act during their annual event event titled Vidhyut. 

The students of electronics and telecommunications engineering department of the institute presented an act that celebrated womanhood. The students brought to fore various facets of a woman — mother, daughter and wife and why society needs to appreciate their contribution. 

The annual sports meet of the institute, titled Ahwaan, was also held last week. The meet comprised football, cricket, volleyball, badminton, archery, judo, kho-kho, kabadi and athletics competitions.

Climate workshop

A sensitisation workshop on climate change and its consequences on aquaculture was organised by the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA) at Kausalyaganga on April 26. P. Jayasankar, the director of the institute, called for concerted efforts of stakeholders such as the department of fisheries, NGOs and farmers’ associations to make the aquaculture sector climate resilient. Under a centrally-funded project,  “National Innovation in Climate Resilient Agriculture,” the institute is presently addressing the concerns of climate change in freshwater aquaculture. S. Adhikari, the principal scientist, who is leading the project, briefed about the planned programmes and intended outcomes. A number of experts from the state department of fisheries, self-help groups, farmers and scientists attended the workshop.

ANWESHA AMBALY