Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Hindu: Intellectuals plead for premier institutions
Staff Reporter
To build up a movement by mobilising support
# Preparatory meeting held with students, teachers
# Mass demonstration in front of Parliament planned
BHUBANESWAR: A group of intellectuals, students and university teachers decided to build up a movement, seeking establishment of greenfield Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Management and a central university in Orissa.
A preparatory meeting convened on the campus of Utkal University here on Sunday chalked out strategy to raise the issue in different fora.
`Gross injustice'
"The Union Government announced to set up three IITs with an investment of Rs. 4,000 crores in three States. But the name of Orissa is missing in the list. This is gross injustice to a poorer State like Orissa," general secretary of Agaami Orissa Santosh Tripathy said.
The forum would mobilise support from legislators, Parliamentarians, students of every college and professionals working in different fields to give it a shape of a movement in the coming two months.
The group plans to organise mass demonstration in front of Parliament by seeking participation from students studying in New Delhi, professionals and Parliamentarians in the month of April.
In the run-up to the mega dharna, a procession of intellectuals would be taken out in Bhubaneswar and it would submit a memorandum to Governor Rameshwar Thakur to apprise him about "negligence of the Centre."
They also planned to impress upon Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Leader of Opposition J.B. Patnaik and all legislators to pass a unanimous resolution in support of setting up of an IIT in the State.
Presenting a comparative figure on per capital expenditure by Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry in the country, Mr. Tripathy said: "Orissa is getting very low budgetary allocation for HRD. When the Centre spent Rs. 183.08 per head in Delhi on HRD, it was Rs. 4.07 in case of Orissa last fiscal. Other States are way ahead than us."
Call to students
Similarly, the HRD Ministry also ignored according status of Indian Institute of Science and Technology (IIST) to University College of Engineering, Burla, he said.
Speakers also called upon students to take up the issue and start movement until the central institutes were sanctioned for the State.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Kalinga Times: ABVP demands IIT for Orissa
ABVP demands IIT for Orissa
| KalingaTimes Correspondent Bhubaneswar: Orissa unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad staged a demonstration outside Raj Bhawan here on Wednesday to register their protest against the United Progressive Alliance Government's move to shift the proposed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) from the State. Angry activists of the organisation broke the police cordon and staged a sit-in outside the main gate of Raj Bhavan demanding that the Centre should set up an IIT in the State. Raising slogans against the Centre, the youths blamed the Centre for neglecting the State. In a memorandum submitted to the Centre, the ABVP demanded that the Union Human Resource Development Ministry should reconsider its decision to set an IIT in Orissa as was decided by it earlier. The organisation announced that it would intensify its agitation to highlight the demand for setting up of an IIT in Orissa if the Centre did not take any decision in favour of the State soon. A full-fledged IIT was needed for the State as it was attracting huge investments in the recent years and many companies had started process to set up industries in various sectors. Institutions such as IIT were necessary to ensure economic development in the State in the years to come, the ABVP leaders said. |