Actor Partha Sarathi Ray at the launch of The Street, a cultural event organised by students of Institute of Technical Education and Research, Bhubaneswar

A group of students from Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Bhubaneswar, have started a cultural movement called ‘The Street’.

The members say the movement aims to provide a common platform to creative persons to share their art. Poets, authors, filmmakers, actors, painters, dancers and photographers can come together to exhibit their talent. Prateek Mohapatra, an alumnus of the college, launched the movement.

Budding author Sidharth Mohapatra then talked on the standards of writing in contemporary populist novels.

Screen promise

Enterprising filmmaker Amartya Bhattacharya, who is carving his niche in his field, released the trailer of his latest production titled Capital I.

The psychodrama, being promoted as the first independent feature film of Odisha, marks the acting debut of director Susant Mishra. Amartya also conducted a workshop on the basics of filmmaking.

Suman Saurabh Mohanty’s short documentary on Bhubaneswar was also screened on the occasion.

Tips from Canada

Stewart Beck, High Commissioner of Canada to India, visited KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, on August 26 and addressed students of engineering, MCA, MBA and law.

Emphasising on educational relationship between India and Canada, he urged for collaboration through student-teacher exchange programme with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.

He said Canada’s priorities in India included infrastructure, energy, food, education, science and technology and that India was an important source country for immigration to Canada. He also mentioned that the Canada-India Environmental Collaboration seeks to increase technology and knowledge exchange on environmental issues.

Supply mantra

Forty-five cadets of the Indian Coast Guard of Paradip visited Milk Mantra’s state-of-the-art processing plant at Gop in Puri district on August 24 to experience various operational know-how regarding supply chain management in a practical scenario.

This exercise was part of the management course for coast guard sailors, which was supervised by course coordinator commandant P.K. Mishra.

Milk Mantra’s officials explained the operational mechanism of the plant to the cadets, which includes procuring milk from farmers, arranging transportation of raw milk to bulk milk coolers, providing input services to the producers, providing management support and regular supervision to the farmers, transportation to the dairy plant for processing the milk and finally reaching it to consumers via company owned cold chain transport.

Srikumar Misra, managing director and CEO of Milk Mantra, said: “It is a matter of pride that our supply chain management has been appreciated by the ministry of defence.”

Far-sighted

Students of SoA University, Bhubaneswar, took out a rally in Bhubaneswar on August 26 to raise awareness about the need for eye donation. It was organised by Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) and Sum Hospital, the faculty of medicine of the varsity, which has set up the Daitari-Satyabhama Eye Bank.

“The rally was part of the eye donation fortnight, being observed by the eye bank, which began on Sunday,” said Dr P.K. Mohanty, medical superintendent of IMS and Sum Hospital.

“However, donors are very few and the cornea inflow into the eye banks accounts for hardly 10 per cent of the requirement,” Mohanty said

Manchester call

Dillip Mishra, an associate professor at Vivekananda Institute of Social Work and Social Sciences (Viswass), Bhubaneswar, visited the University of Manchester, UK, from August 2 to 12 for a paper presentation. The research paper focussed on slum development in Bhubaneswar and for this International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences honoured Mishra.

Agri book release

Governor S.C. Jamir released a book by Samarendra Mahapatra, head of agri-business management at the Orissa University of Agriculture Technology, Bhubaneswar, during the varsity’s 52nd foundation day. The book titled Management of Agricultural Inputs provides an in-depth analysis of the problems associated with agri-input management and marketing and market information on agri-inputs and government policies to support the farming community.

Inter-college event

International Management Institute, Bhubaneswar, organised an inter-college event titled Sparx-2013. Over 200 participants from various institutes took part in the event.

New institute

SoA University launched a separate institute for agricultural sciences, the first such college to be set up in the private sector in Odisha. The institute has an intake capacity of 120 students.

Vice-chancellor of Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology Prof. Manoranjan Kar, who was the chief guest, said while 24,000 graduates in agriculture and other allied sciences were being churned out by various colleges in the country, there would be a need for 40,000 graduates by 2020.

“There are 65 agriculture universities in the country, but the demand for agricultural science is on the rise,” he said.

Business conclave

Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), organised a three-day business conclave with the first HR summit of the year, Kshitij ‘13.

The event saw five eminent speakers from Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Tata Steel and other organisations share their inputs on the evolution of technology and its influence on employee relations.

The intense discussion centred on the intricate link between today’s employee relations and the ever pervasive technology. Various topics such as the rise of Gen-Y, virtual networking, social media and change of recruitment trends were discussed as part of the HR summit. As part of the business conclave, the institute hosted ‘Mercatique 2013 — Traditional Marketing and New Age Marketing: Striking the Right Balance’ in which the panelists highlighted the transition from conventional to new-age marketing, stressing upon the disruptive role of technological advancements.

It was followed by an informative and thought-provoking session on ‘Collaborative Strategies in Complex Business Scenarios’, conducted by Constrat — the consulting and strategy cell of XIMB.