Step up to succeed
A weeklong combined annual training camp for senior and junior division NCC cadets concluded in Rourkela on August 6 with special emphasis on military skills and community living. The main objective of the camp was to impart collective training to the cadets.
Around 450 students from 18 schools and eight colleges of Sundergarh participated in the camp. They were engaged in a range of activities such as drill, parade, weapon training, rifle shooting, map reading, first aid, adventure, self defence, military history, physical fitness, field craft, sports and cultural programmes. Colonel Vikas Goswami, group commander of Sambalpur NCC unit, addressed the cadets during the camp and motivated them to join the armed forces.
On the job
The Aryan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, is organising a pooled campus drive programme on August 8 and 9 in which students from various engineering colleges in the capital are taking part. On the first day, around 20 students from mechanical and electrical branches were recruited by Mumbai based company, India Steels, said institute principal Satyananda Swain.
New beginnings
The fresh batch of students at the Asian School of Business Management (ASBM), Bhubaneswar, stepped into their first class on August 7 to a hearty welcome by their seniors and teachers. On the occasion, former Odisha chief minister and Assam governor J.B. Patnaik addressed them, highlighting that the state required skilled manpower in the fields of IT, manufacturing and research and development.
“The huge requirement for efficient managers can be fulfilled by management institutes imparting quality education, which in turn generates skilled and qualified management professionals to cater to the needs of the corporate and industries at large,” Patnaik said. The other guest for the first lecture of the academic year was Srinivas Lanka, vice-chairman of the Hyderabad-based Ramky Group, who said thorough understanding of the concept of management is vital to make oneself a vibrant business leader.
“Management institutes should focus on collaborative education and analysing the contents of the study is very important in becoming an entrepreneur,” he said.
ASBM director Prof Biswajeet Pattanayak and dean Kalyan S. Ray offered tips to the future managers on how to prepare themselves for a rewarding professional career. The latest issue of ASBM Journal of Management was also released on the occasion.
Seat feat
The first phase of admissions at Central University of Odisha, Koraput, to various postgraduate programmes was held on August 6 to 7, after which few seats have remained vacant for each course. The names of waitlisted candidates have been published on the university’s website www.cuo.ac.in. They can take admission between August 9 and 10. The courses on offer at this university are anthropology, economics, English, journalism and mass communication, integrated mathematics, Odia, sociology and biodiversity and conservation of natural resources.
Conserve energy
Efforts at energy conservation through various means could help in shoring up the annual capacity by an extra 19,000MW and reduce carbon dioxide emission by approximately 100 million tonnes in India by 2015, deputy director of the National Productivity Council R.K. Padhy said.
He was speaking at a seminar on energy conservation held recently at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) in association with the productivity council and the Odisha Engineers’ Forum.
Padhy said an audit conducted in 20 buildings in Odisha revealed that they had 18 to 47 per cent energy saving potential, which in terms of cost was of the order of Rs 6 crore per annum. He said the Bureau of Energy Efficiency had identified about 685 designated consumers in the country who were responsible for 60 per cent energy consumption while four sectors — commercial buildings, street power, small and medium enterprises and agriculture, had enormous potential for power conservation. Eighty per cent of the world’s population living in developing countries consumed only 40 per cent of the planet’s total energy.
Member of the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission B.K. Mishra said that though Odisha had emerged from being energy deficit to a power surplus state, complacency by the authorities had again turned it into a power deficit state.
The erratic rainfall pattern also posed a threat to hydel power generation, which was an environmental issue and should be studied further to explain the low amount of precipitation.
R.P. Mohanty, vice-chancellor of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, of which ITER is a constituent college, dean (research) of the university P.K. Nanda and president of the Odisha Engineers’ Forum Pravakar Swain stressed a national movement for energy conservation to reduce the need for fresh investment in the energy sector.
Talent summit
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, will host a human resources (HR) summit on August 12. The main topic of discussion will be “Emerging Trends in Talent Acquisition”.
The summit, to be organised by XIMAHR, the human resources association of XIMB, in collaboration with the B-school’s placement committee, will aim at starting a dialogue among senior HR professionals, industry leaders and stakeholders of dynamic organisations on current HR issues.Students will also get an opportunity to understand innovative strategies from the standpoint of eminent personalities of the corporate world. The main speakers for the event include corporate bigwigs from Reliance Industries, Beroe, Shapoorji Pallonji & Co, JK Group, Reckitt Benckiser and Jindal Steel and Power.
Students from first and second-year postgraduate programmes have been invited to write papers on the central theme. Three short-listed students will present their papers at the summit and the best presentation will earn a cash award of Rs 10,000 and the runners-up, Rs 5,000.
Strictly science
The Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, celebrated the National Year of Mathematics on its campus last week and commemorated two legends of Indian science — astrophysicist and Nobel laureate S. Chandrasekhar and mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan.
A quiz competition on astronomy was organised by Vigyan Prasar, under the Union ministry of science and technology, which has been organising national level lecture series at various educational institutions. Five teams with five members each participated in the competition. Someah, Sayak, Manas, Zodin and Vinayak from Team D won the first prize. Team A (Snehita, Ridhima, Tanima, Khushboo, Pallavi) and Team C (Anwesha, Zoya, Anita, Jyoti, Shrabasti) finished in second and third spots respectively.
At the end of the session, a documentary on the life and works of Chandrasekhar was screened. Director of Jaipur’s BM Planetarium Sandeep Bhattacharya and retired professor M.C. Dash addressed the students. They stressed latest research work on decoding the mysteries behind the creation of the universe.
