The school of women’s studies at Utkal University organised a national seminar on women and livelihood on March 29. Senior government officials and academicians attended the event which was divided into three technical sessions. In the first session —“Women and Livelihood: Opportunities and Challenges” — issues pertaining to livelihood options and problems accessing resources were discussed. The second session concentrated on the theme “Technology and Sustainable Livelihood for Women” and the concluding session was on “Women, Livelihood and Resources”.

Felicitations galore

Suresh Chandra Dash, nephrologist and director of the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences, was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Delhi Odia Doctors’ Association on March 23 during the inauguration of its annual conference at PGIMER, RML Hospital, New Delhi. The honour was bestowed upon him for his contribution to nephrology as a clinician, teacher and researcher in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Achyuta Samanta, the founder of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, has been conferred upon the 2013 World of Difference Awards by US-based the International Alliance for Women. President of the organisation Lisa Kaiser Hickey presented the award to Samanta at a ceremony in Washington on March 27 for his work in the field of women empowerment.

Solar energy

The National Institute of Science and Technology, Berhampur, has undertaken an initiative to develop a number of innovative products for the industrial sector. In the last two years, six start-up companies have been incubated in the campus under the MSME Incubator program of Government of India. Recently, the budding engineers of the college have developed the solar lawn mower that runs fully on solar panels and a battery and is able to run continuously for a period of four hours without recharging. The lawn mower is cheaper than the currently available diesel/kerosene-run lawn mowers that are expensive to run and highly polluting.

Focus on fisheries

The Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Bhubaneswar, a constituent of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, celebrated its 27th Annual Day on its Kausalyaganga premises on April 1. “Beginning its journey on this day in 1987, the institute has developed several path-breaking technologies in freshwater aquaculture during this period, which have revolutionised the freshwater aquaculture sector in the country” said director of the institute P. Jayasankar. Aswani Kumar, director of the directorate of water management, presented the annual awards to the CIFA staff and scholarships to their meritorious children. A colourful cultural programme was presented by the children of the staff members.

Good governance

On the eve of 60th anniversary of Indian Institute of Public Administration, a student seminar called “Dimensions of Governance” was organised by the faculty of good governance and public policy of Sri Sri University in collaboration with the Bhubaneswar branch of the IIPA. The seminar was held on March 29. Varsity vice-chancellor K.C. Mishra spoke on responsive governance and said that citizen’s participation was the most important aspect of governance.

Former director general of state police Bipin Bihari Mishra and retired bureaucrat Sanjib Chandra Hotaalso spoke on various aspects of governance. The university is launching a two-year master’s programme in good governance and public policy from this academic year.

World affairs

The department of political science of Utkal University organised a seminar on terrorism with special reference to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan on March 29. Speaking on the occasion, the chairperson of Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the School of International Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Arun Mohanty said: “US troops withdrawal in 2014 is likely to aggravate the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan still remains tempted to use the Talibans as a strategic asset against Indian interests in the region. The central Asia expert said that Pakistani effort to sponsor cross-border terrorism had turned out to be a cost-effective option than the conventional war in occupying Kashmir.

Sonorous Sonu

Sonu Nigam and budding singer Jonita Gandhi performed at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, as part of its Celebrity Night on March 30. Sonu sang a few Odia songs as well. On the other hand, Mother’s Business School, Bhubaneswar, organised a talent hunt event on its annual day on March 28. Students took part in various competitions such as badminton, painting, ad-mad and antakshari to prove their mettle.

Self-defence programme

A self-defence training programme for girl students of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose College, Sambalpur, was organised in the institute last week in which 60 girls took part. The programme was inaugurated by the principal of Gangadhar Meher College Pradeep Kumar Panda. The workshop continued for 12 days. On the concluding day, principal of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose College Anjali Dasrai and training co-ordinator Nilendri Panda were present.

GATE crashers

The results of the graduate aptitude test in engineering (GATE), 2014, were announced recently. Students of Gate Forum Institute have performed well. Ankit Goyal got the all-India rank of 1 in electrical engineering, while Shubham Singh stood first in mechanical engineering and Abinash Das secured third rank in electronics and telecommunications engineering. Apart from admission to postgraduate programs in IITs, NITs and other engineering colleges in India, the GATE score is also used by many public-sector undertakings for recruitment of fresh graduate engineers.

Odia Wikipedia

Odia Wikipedia community recently celebrated Odisha Day at Jayadev Bhavan. Inaugurating the event, linguist Debiprasanna Pattanayak said that that most of the Odia publications were not available on the Internet and readers were devoid of easy access to those. He discussed the process of digitisation for preserving valuable books that are out of print.

Odia wikipedia has been trying to popularise use of the language on the Internet since 2002. The aim of the gathering was to enrich the online encyclopaedia and get more books digitised. Eleven volumes of works of Jagannath Mohanty were released on the occasion.

The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences will digitise these books by training their students. Guests released a DVD containing a new Odia Unicode font designed by www.odialanguage.com. Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read out the annual report and the vision of Odia wikipedia.

Art exhibition

Dhauli College of Arts and Crafts organised the annual Dhauli Art Festival on March 30-31. Registrar of Utkal University of Culture Suman Das was the chief guest on the occasion. He appreciated the art works presented at the exhibition. Anirudha Das and Sujit Kumar Seth were awarded for their art installation and sculpture respectively. Satyabrata Barik and Dillip Kumar Behera were given awards for painting, Manas Kumar Maharathi for drawing and Bikas Kumar Kanhar was awarded for his excellence in graphics. Three art teachers were honoured with the Kala Acharya Sanmman.