Students of Padmanava College of Engineering, Rourkela, attend a seminar conducted by the National Anti-hacking Group on secured internet use and Prime Minister of Bhutan Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley celebrates his 60th birthday at KIIT University. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal and Telegraph picture

The fourth Mahindra Auto Quotient, touted as the country’s largest automotive quiz for students, took place at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), Bhubaneswar on Wednesday. Over 600 students from various colleges of the state took part in the event and six teams (five from ITER alone) made it to the last round. Puneet Mishra and Pushkar Saha of KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, emerged champions. They will compete at the Geneva Motor Show, held every year in Switzerland. The first runners-up have earned a visit to Moto GP, the world’s premier motorcycling championship, while the team finishing third will be sent on an expedition to an exotic location in the country by Mahindra Adventures, said ITER additional dean R.K. Hota. The quiz, popular among the engineering and management fraternity, encourages students across various cities to showcase their passion for automobiles. About 40,000 students participated in the city finals that took place in 24 institutes across the country, Hota said. The regional finals and national finals were aired on an English news channel in 2010 and had received a national viewership of 20 lakh. This earned it the prestigious Indian television award for best quiz for that year.

Tech that

Internet users, beware! Cyberspace is becoming a jungle of malware. But by following a few simple tips, one can steer clear of most booby traps and black hats (hackers). This is what two members of the National Anti-hacking Group (NAG) advised students of Padmanava College of Engineering, Rourkela, during an hour-long seminar on Wednesday. With the help of a PowerPoint presentation, the NAG duo — Ankit Pratik and Avinash Kumar Singh — taught the students the basic steps on how to keep their personal and professional information secure. They shared tips such as installing the latest anti-virus software, firewall and anti-spyware, using online anti-virus scanners to locate virus and unsecured websites and not to open any email from unknown senders. Students were also asked to categorise data on their pen drive into public and password-protected private compartments when carrying confidential information. Other steps included trusting websites with URLs starting with “https” (instead of http) while performing any online transaction and to avoid opening heavy text files, especially from strangers, as they might contain secret programmes that could harm the computer. The seminar was organised by the computer science and information technology society of the college.

Classic act

Young dancers of KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, treated visiting Bhutan Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley to a collage of Indian classical dances last Saturday. The performance marked the start of the KISS Humanitarian Award-2012, which was conferred on Thinley in acknowledgement of his “vision for a beautiful world and concern for the humanity at large”.The 10-minute dance recital performed by six girls was appreciated by all at the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) programme. The dancers performed Odissi, Kathak, Manipuri, Kuchipudi, Kathakal and Bharatnatyam. After this, Anne F. Stenhammer, regional programme director (UN-Women), South Asia Regional Office, presented the award to Thinley. The award was started in 2008 by Achyuta Samanta, founder of KISS, a residential institute for tribal students that now has 12,000 children, to honour and recognise individuals with exceptional contribution to society. The following day, the Bhutan PM received the degree of honoris causa in literature at KIIT’s eighth annual convocation, which coincided with his 60th birthday. Thinley cut a big cake as the university’s Bhutanese students, donning their country’s traditional attire, sang “Happy Birthday” for him.

Top management

Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneswar, is set to launch management development programmes (MDPs) from September 27 to upgrade the managerial skills of working executives across diverse sectors. The proposed programmes aim at making the professionals proficient in best management systems and practices. The programmes, which will take place over two or three days, will cover varied topics such as managerial effectiveness for organisational success, logistics and supply chain management, human resource management for corporate excellence, financial risk management and project management. The MDPs will continue till next May on the school’s campus and other locations. Eminent management professors of the state as well as programme directors of the institute will conduct the classes. “MDP will definitely prove to be an excellent proposition for management professionals working across a host of sectors and in the process, make them fit for the industry,” the school’s founder director Biswajeet Pattanayak said. The course details, dates, fees and venues will be made available in the MDP calendar, said the director.

Corporate flavour

Mahendra Institute of Management and Technical Studies at Pitapalli on the outskirts of the capital organised an orientation programme for students of master in personnel management and industrial relations and master in finance and control on September 6. The orientation was a weeklong program and included various facets of management and its applications. The institute also invited resource persons from the corporate sector to give the students a flavour of the corporate world. Institute director A.K. Roy spoke about the value system in promoting quality education for professional courses. Jyoti Bhusan Das, chairman of Institute of Company Secretaries of India-Bhubaneswar Chapter and general manager of Odisha Mining Corporation was the chief guest on the occasion. Sudhansu Sahu, deputy general manager of Central Electricity Supply India and chairman of Institute of Cost Accountants of India-Odisha Chapter was the other guest.