Students of National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, after winning the eastern region finals of Mahindra Auto Quotient. (Below) Students of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, attend Envision-2011, a national-level IT seminar. Telegraph pictures

Talking points

The Asian School of Business Management (ASBM), Bhubaneswar, announced plans to launch its social work school, called “ASBM Institute of Social Science”. The institute will be modelled after the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Under this institute, two new programmes — Masters in Social Work (MSW) and Bachelors in Social Work (BSW) — will be started. Each programme will have 60 seats. The annual course fee for the two-year MSW course has been fixed at Rs 30,000. For the three-year BSW programme, the fee is Rs 50,000. The admission process is expected to start from September 5 and classes are scheduled to commence from the first week of October, said Biswajeet Pattanayak, director of ASBM. The institute will be affiliated to Utkal University of Culture in Bhubaneswar. The faculty members will consist of academicians and practitioners in the development sector. Earlier, professor of accounting information and management and professor emeritus of Kellogg School of Management, Bala Balachandran, was conferred the ASBM lifetime achievement award-2011. In another event, parliamentarian, Pyarimohan Mohapatra addressed the inauguration of the sixth batch PGDM at ASBM and released the ASBM Journal of Management and the latest issue of the newsletter, Phoenix.

Sociology seminar

A workshop on the “Joy and Challenges of Being with Sociology: New horizons of theory and practice and the labour and love of learning” was held at Ravenshaw University in Cuttack on August 27. The workshop was the culmination of the week-long lecture series sponsored by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the visiting fellowship programme. “Based on the lecture series on different topics, a monograph working paper was released. “The main objective of the workshop was to provide a platform for the students as well as faculty members to sharpen their creativity skills,” said D.R. Sahu, head of sociology department. According to Sahu, Ananta Kumar Giri, professor from the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, who is currently a visiting faculty member at Ravenshaw University, stressed on using Oriya language for teaching sociology to the students at the university. “By this, not only will the Oriya language be enriched, but it will also be helpful for the students to understand various sociological thinking in their own mother tongue,” Giri said.

Speakers at the sociology workshop held at Ravenshaw University in Cuttack. (Below) Students of Government Women’s College, Sambalpur, attend a youth camp on HIV-AIDS. Telegraph pictures

Quiz champs

Guru Balakrishna and Susrut Chakravorty, students of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, won the eastern region finals of the Mahindra Auto Quotient held at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Bhubaneswar, on August 25. With this win, they have stormed into the finals, which will be held in Mumbai. The two techies’ knowledge about the auto sector helped them outplay other contestants from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, and capital-based institutions — ITER, KIIT University and College of Engineering and Technology (CET) — and win the regional finals. All the participants were made to go through written tests conducted across 38 cities targeting four lakh students from more than 2,500 engineering colleges and business schools. The winners of the quiz will win a trip to the Geneva Motor Show, while the runners-up will qualify to attend the Dubai Dune Bash. R. Bhima Rao, senior scientist at the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT), Bhubaneswar, presented the trophy to the regional winners.

Envision-2011

The Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), hosted Envision-2011, a national-level IT seminar, on August 27. Organised by XSys, the systems association of XIMB, the theme of the discussion was ‘Future Drivers of IT: Building Capabilities and Devising Sustainable Competitive Strategies for Tomorrow’. The interactive summit presented an overview of the milestones in the IT industry and focused on future growth revolving around cloud and grid computing. The event also witnessed the launch of X-ITe, the corporate journal of XSys, and the prize distribution ceremony for competitions conducted by XSys.

Medical lecture

Eminent gastroenterologist, Subrat Kumar Acharya, advised medical students to adopt a curiosity driven approach towards medicine and consistently learn from their experience to excel in the profession. He was delivering a lecture on “Physician Scientists: Concept for Excellence” at the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) and Sum Hospital, Bhubaneswar, on August 29. “Always try to identify a problem and find ways to crack the same. This will make you excel,” said Acharya, head of the department of gastroenterology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He added: “Local solutions are needed for local problems.”

Bulls and bears

A one-day seminar on the stock market was organised at Raghunath Jew School of Management Studies (RJSMS), Balasore, on August 24 to create awareness among the youth about “bulls and bears”. “The students were told about market volatility, stock selection, portfolio building and profit booking and other aspects of the stock market. They showed great enthusiasm when the speakers gave them market-related information and shared their personal experiences,” said Santanu Pani, director of RJSMS, adding another seminar on the same subject would be organised soon in a big way Dillip Khuntia, executive of investors’ protection fund of Bombay Stock Exchange and S.N. Dasmohapatra, chief financial advisor of UTI Mutual Fund, explained the basics of the share market and spoke about the approach to be adopted by investors during the slump scenario of the current global market. Several investors, brokers, managers of nationalised as well as private banks and insurance companies attended the day-long programme.

Youth camp

A one-day youth Red Cross camp was organised at Government Women’s College, Sambalpur, on August 18. Students from several colleges of the city participated in the camp. A debate competition on the ‘Role of youths in preventing HIV-AIDS’ was also held, said principal Purusottam Naik. Sponsored by the Orissa State Aids Control Society, the camp aimed at making youngsters aware of HIV-AIDS and their role in fighting the virus. Diptibala Pattnaik, retired chief district medical officer, addressed the students. “The youth can prevent the disease from spreading through awareness programmes. Because of ignorance and innocence, people get infected with the fatal virus,” said Pattanaik. “It is the responsibility of the youth to bring awareness among the people about the threat associated with the virus. A healthy nation can be a wealthy nation,” said Leeza Panda, a student of Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Science and a participant at the camp.

Shilpi Sampad, Vikash Sharma, Sibdas Kundu and Subrat Mohanty