Twenty-five tribal students of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar, interacted live with UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon on International Youth Day on August 5 via video-conferencing. “How can more girls have access to secondary education in the state?” was the concern raised by the students. Simultaneous discussions, facilitated by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), were held with students from five schools across five continents. KISS was representing Asia. The students raised several issues related to the education of girl child before the UN secretary-general and a team UN heads. Three students — Bahelin Minz, Haraprasad Heproka and Nanda Kishore Patra — spoke about life skills-based education on sexuality and education of tribal girls at the higher secondary level. The other schools that participated in the hour-long video-conference connected to the UN headquarters in New York were from Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe. They raised several questions about education, health, governance, livelihood, employment and science. Officials said working with women and youths was one of the five priorities of the UN in 2013. “The UN aims to address the needs of the largest generation of young people the world has ever known, by deepening the youth focus of existing programmes on employment, entrepreneurship, political inclusion, citizenship and protection of rights, and education, including on reproductive health,” an official said. “The UNFPA is partnering KISS to promote life skills-based sexual and reproductive health for adolescents in Odisha,” said its state programme officer Deepa Prasad. Basket it! nSoA University, Bhubaneswar, will host the 50th State Junior Basketball Championship from August 8 featuring 21 men’s and seven women’s teams. The participants include the hosts, KIIT University, and several district teams besides Samanta Chandrasekhar Club, Odisha Students’ Club, Celtics Club, Rovers Club and Supreme Club. Rourkela Steel Plant will also take part in the tournament while SoA University will be fielding a team each in the men’s and women’s categories. The matches will be played on the basketball courts at Institute of Technical Education and Research, SoA’s faculty of engineering, and the varsity’s other campus at Kalinga Nagar. Spiritual concepts nStudents of Central University of Odisha in Koraput were exposed to Swami Vivekananda’s concept of education and other moral lessons during a seminar held to commemorate his 150th birth anniversary. Koraput district collector Sachin Jadhav inaugurated the event and called for translating the Swami’s concepts into modern perspectives for “linking the complexity of economy with the simplicity of spirituality”. Spiritual leaders such as Swami Nitya Yogananda of Ramakrishna Mission, Vishakhapatnam, Amulya Mohapatra of Ramakrishna Mission, Koraput, and Lalit Mohan Patnayak of Divya Surabhi, Nabarangpur, spoke to students about the Swami’s concepts on character building, sense of responsibility and the meaning of true education. Varsity vice-chancellor Surabhi Banerjee said a series of programmes on Swami Vivekananda would be held on campus. Nageswar Rao of the Naval Armament Depot and former MLA Gupta Prasad Das also attended the event. Risk handlers nThe first batch of 30 participants, who successfully completed a programme in disaster management and humanitarian assistance at the National Institute of Social Work and Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar, received their certificates on August 5. D.N. Jena, vice-chancellor of Utkal University of Culture, of which the social sciences institute is a constituent, attended the function. The course is aimed at preparing youths in disaster preparedness, emergency response, planning and humanitarian assistance. The Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and the United Nations University in Tokyo jointly conducted it. Down to business nEnvision-2013, the annual business conclave of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), brought together innovative minds and future managers, who took part in brainstorming sessions between August 2 and August 4. On Day One, a national-level IT summit — Business Intelligence: The Next Ruler of IT — was held. Speakers from well-known companies shared their experiences and industry trends. The speakers stressed on the urgent need for collaboration and connectivity of information to meet challenges faced by both the IT sector and the business domain. The next day saw operations gurus take part in a panel discussion — Ashwamedh ’13: Building Competitive Advantage through Operations. The operations association of XIMB hosted this. The speakers highlighted the significance of robust supply chain management and logistics machineries in ensuring the success of any business. On the closing day, a session on the investment climate in India and subsequent opportunities took centre stage at Finomics, the flagship event of the finance association of XIMB. The event had five eminent speakers from RBI, Sebi, Bhubaneswar Stock Exchange and others. They spoke about inclusive growth, investor confidence, role of the government and regulatory bodies in India, current account deficit, depreciating rupee, liquidity crunch, high volatility in the market, taxation issues, rising subsidies and government’s disinvestment policy. Mosque on anvil nKIIT University officials disclosed plans of setting up a mosque on the campus on the sidelines of an iftar party on August 2. Hundreds of Muslim students studying at KIIT gathered to taste delicacies during their evening meal (iftar) when they broke their daylong fast kept during the month of Ramazan. Warm welcome nSenior students and staff of Dhaneswar Rath Institute of Engineering and Management Studies at Tangi gave a warm welcome to engineering freshers on August 5. They familiarised them with the campus and the syllabus. Volunteers also collected donations for victims of the Uttarakhand floods. Pep talk nAn induction programme was held for the new batch of students at the Institute of Business and Computer Studies, the faculty of management of SoA University, Bhubaneswar, on August 5. Sanjay Pattnaik, vice-president of corporate relations at Vedanta Aluminium, attended the event as chief guest and gave tips to the aspiring managers. He advised them to have courage, conviction and commitment to achieve their dreams. A three-week orientation programme will be conducted to help the students get used to the new environment. Officials said the institute was ranked 87th among B-schools in the country and fifth in eastern India in a survey recently conducted by Business World magazine.