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| Participants at Inspire, a science camp-cum-internship programme of the science and technology department, government of India. Picture by Badrika Nath Das |
General manager of Odisha Tourism Development Corporation Manoranjan Patnaik inaugurated the Hunar Se Rozgar Tak programme of the School of Hotel Management (SHM) of SoA University, Bhubaneswar, in collaboration with the Union tourism ministry. The programme aims to bridge the skill gap in workers engaged in hospitality with two eight-week full-time courses — one in bakery and patisserie and the other in food production — and a six-week full-time course in housekeeping. University registrar and dean of SHM, Prof B.B. Pradhan said they were collaborating with the government to create employable skills in youth belonging to economically weaker sections. Patnaik said: The tourism and hospitality industry in India has the potential to become the largest employment-generating sector and throw up job opportunities for the young generation. An investment of Rs 10 lakh has the potential to generate 80 to 85 jobs, which is the highest for any sector. The workforce needed today for the tourism and hospitality industry has been pegged at one million.”
Science fillip
Inspire, a five-day science camp-cum-internship programme of the science and technology department, government of India, was held at Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, from January 16 to 21. Over 150 students from different junior colleges participated in the event, which aimed at making students aware of opportunities in the field of natural sciences. The camp featured technical sessions pertaining to physical, chemical, biological, biotechnology, earth and environmental sciences. Programme coordinator Pradipta Mohapatra said scientific, visual displays and other lab activities were organised for the participants. Professor D.N. Tripathy from University of Illinois, USA, delivered a lecture on animal virology and development of vaccines. “The camp offered us scope to learn beyond our prescribed textbooks,” said Snehansu Sekhar Mohanty, a Plus Two student of JKBK College, Cuttack.
Bilateral ties
An UGC-sponsored seminar on “Indo-US Relations in the 21st Century” was organised by political science department, Berhampur University, on January 19 and 20. Former US diplomat William H. Avery talked about common values and common interests between US and India, particularly with reference to democratic values, respect to rule of law, human rights, free market system and anti-terrorism. K.M. Reddy, former president of Indian Political Science Association, highlighted national interest as primary factor in formulating foreign policy and said that India should bargain from a position of strength. He still felt the relevance of Non-Aligned Movement as a medium of maintaining balance of power and said a global vision must be developed in the changing international scenario of formulating India’s foreign policy. Varsity vice-chancellor Prof. J.K. Mohapatra and former V-C Prof. J.K. Baral also addressed the gathering of 70-odd delegates from across the country.
Round of applause
Amir Ansari, an engineering student of KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, brought laurels to his institute with his research paper “Quantum Physics” being accepted for publication in an international journal. The third-year computer science student has also been invited for the 2013 Asia-Pacific International Congress in Bangkok this April. After two years of vigorous research, he derived four new formulas on the Heisenberg’s principle and few other formulas on the characteristics of photon and electron and Einstein’s equation. The International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research, US, which will publish his paper, has given Amir an overall ranking of 4 out of 5.
Legal advice
Moot courts should be held regularly to equip students for the rigors of the legal profession, said Prof Chandra Krishnamurthy, vice-chancellor of National Law University, Cuttack. She was addressing Mardi Gras, the annual celebration of the SoA National Institute of Law, Bhubaneswar. She said the profession had opened up in a big way offering a range of branches for students to choose from. Later, she gave away prizes to winners of various competitions and participants of a cultural programme held earlier.
Maiden shot
Central University of Odisha (CUO), Koraput, organised the first Utkalmani Gopabandhu Dash Memorial Lecture on January 21. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, professor of Asian history at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, delivered the lecture. Titled “Dalits in the long history of partition in eastern India”, his lecture was related to the ideologies of Gopabandhu Dash, who was concerned about education of the poor and downtrodden as well as concern for untouchables. Former vice chancellor of Dravidian University Prof. K.S. Chalam regretted that early Indian historians had not done justice to their research on dalits, which left several unanswered questions today. He urged students and authorities to conduct studies on these lines. Earlier, CUO V-C Surabhi Banerjee unveiled the academic block of the main campus at Sunabeda, Koraput.
Supply chain
The Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar, organised a national seminar on logistics and supply chain on January 19. Dhamra Port chairman Santosh Mohapatra, who was the chief guest, said the concept of supply chain was gaining importance. “But effective supply chain management depends on globalisation, outsourcing and technology through IT revolution. The whole process has to be cost effective, which is possible through these factors. Competitiveness of logistics depends on complete awareness of processes and infrastructure,” he said. Many industry leaders and corporate bigwigs also addressed the seminar. ASBM director Biswajeet Pattanayak said while US, Europe and Japan spent around between 9 and 11 per cent on logistics, India’s expenditure was around 13 per cent of GDP.
Computing talk
International professors and industry gurus threw light on the evolution and future of high performance computing and simulation at a two-day national conference at National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), Berhampur, on January 18. “Size doesn’t matter. Performance does,” said Prof. Y.C. Tay of National University of Singapore, as he spoke about building bridges between academia and industry. Nandini Mukherjee, director of School of Mobile Computing and Communication, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, outlined her focus on application centric cloud computing and a seamless wireless sensor networks. Rajib Mall of computer science and technology department, IIT-Kharagpur, and Sudarshan Padh, director of Institute of Mathematics and Applications, Bhubaneswar, explored other frontiers, talking about the shifting paradigm from desktop computing to embedded systems and role of high performance computing and simulation in aiding research on the newest scientific discipline – bioinformatics.
