ITER sets up students’ forum for holistic development

By Our Correspondent/www.indusvalleytimes.com

Bhubaneswar: In a bid to provide an impetus to activities like protection of environment and an outlet for students to express their literary or artistic inclinations, a Students’ Forum has been set up at the Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), the faculty of engineering of the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed University.

“The idea is to provide the students a platform to express themselves while adopting a holistic approach towards their overall development,” the vice-chancellor Prof. R.P.Mohanty said while inaugurating the new forum on February 6.

The Students’ Forum, which will have five different components like Eco Club, Rhetorica, Wall Magazine, Bizcom and Yuva, has been set up by ITER’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.

While the Eco Club aimed to bring about social responsibility among the students towards plantation and protection of the environment, Rhetorica will strive to provide opportunities to the students to explore their literary capabilities. It will encourage them to write and display their creations on a wall magazine.

Yuva will be a platform for group discussions, elocution, dramatics and script writing to ensure that the students developed intellectually. Bizcom will a forum to provide an edge to the business communication skills of the students. All the four platforms will be led by students.

The Forum will be guided by Dr Swayamprabha Satpathy, head of the humanities and social sciences department.

The inaugural function was attended, among others, by the Dean, Students’ Welfare, Prof. A.C.Ray, Faculty Advisor, Prof. S.N.Mohanty and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences, Prof, M.K.Parida.

The Eco Club will be led by Sumit Kumar Karan and Sweta Kumari while Rhetorica will be headed by Ankur Anand and Lopamudra Panigrahi. The Wall Magazine will be captained by M. Siddharth and Lohitakshya Mishra, Yuva will be led by Kedarnath Mishra and Devarun Sengupta and Bizcom steered by Pranab Bharadwaj and Shaswat Mishra.

Janaki Nagar IAY houses turn a save haven for miscreants

By Prashant Rath/ www.indusvalleytimes.com

Nowrangpur: The Indira Awas Colony located at Janaki Naga, nearly one km away from the office of the district collector here, has turned out to a den of anti-socials.

Built in 1997-98 by Congress stalwart and former minister Janab Habibula Khan for tribals, the colony surprisingly has no beneficiary living in it because of poor quality of houses.

According to Union government sources, the government had sanctioned for construction of 400 houses. A grant of Rs 22,000 was given for construction of each house. But the then Congress government in the state changed the plan and decided to construct a colony and that too in the urban area within a short distance of the district collector’s office.

All norms were allegedly violated in the process. The then chief minister J.B Patnaik inaugurated the colony where Rs 88 lakh was spent. As the houses were not constructed by the entitled poor beneficiaries themselves, the work executors did not ensure quality. Most of the houses are in dilapidated condition today.

Nowrangpur MLA Mr Monohar Randhari, and Municipality chairman Mr Prahald Tripathy, have demanded a high level probe into the irregularities in the implementation of the IAY scheme.

AMONG THE VICTORS

Dharmasala MLA among his the elected BJD panchayat representatives in his constituency. (Photo-Akshaya Rout)

Worried BJD fails to bury dissidence

By Prasanna Mohanty

Bhubaneswar: The dissidence and dissension in the ruling BJD is growing wild fire. So much as that it threatens to engulf the whole party now.

And the future, the major challenge the BJD is likely to face for its existence, as observers point out, would come from its own men rather than the BJP and Congress, its main rivals.

The overwhelming participation of BJD dissidents in the ongoing panchayat polls –in almost all parts of the state, - points to the fact that the alarming trend has plagued the party equally everywhere.

The BJD, till Tuesday, has suspended as many as 24 dissidents. The number will go up in the coming days but the problem will aggravate only since the chastised leaders would be more aggressive in their campaign.

It is but natural that dissidence is more a common factor in the ruling establishment than the opposition parties. However, the BJD leadership has not yet found ways to contain them.

The dissidence is not confined to BJD candidates along. Top leaders in different districts, including Bolangir, are locking horns to assert their supremacy in their respective regions.

As regards the campaigning in the elections, the party has solely banked on efforts of chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Rajya Sabha member Pyari Mohan Mohapatra. Other top leaders of the party, who were in the BJD’s formative years campaigning all across the state and flourishing in the party, have been confined to their own constituencies, thus getting squeezed and shrunk.

Prediction and guessing game is inappropriate and unsolicited in journalism. But political analysis is made, both by the analysts and poll managers of parties, to arrive at inferences so as to prepare for next moves.

In the present context, as things are unfolding, the BJD is up for enormous trouble.