Thursday, October 27, 2005
A call for action -- by Sudarsan Das of Agami Orissa
Dear All,
It was almost decided to open one NIS in Orissa in a high level committee of UGC in which the then Vice Chancellor of Utkal University, Prof Pandav Nayak was present. Orissa Govt, in due course of time communicated to the MoHRD and UGC regarding their commitments for fulfilling necessary requirements, including provision of 25 acres of land for the proposed Institute, which was identified near Ghatikia, Bhubaneswar. It was almost certain that Orissa would be getting one central Institute after a long waiting-cartainly a kind of 'feel good' feeling for every Oriya. But to the dismay of all this has been shifted to West Bengal as IIS, as cameout in a recent notification of MoHRD, GoI.
Just think......
Had it been a case with West Bengal, what would have happened? Don't you think by now the MPs of WB cutting across party line would have planned how to rock the parliament session----intelectuals ignoring their affiliations would have come up to do a SOT analysis to jusitfy the case as to why 'it should not be shifted'----students and their union leaders would have closed down their colleges/universities in protest---common men would have jumped to the street with "MICHHILs" and slogans "kendrer eei annyay chalbenaa". But what is happening here in Orissa on this issue. Yes! after the notification of the shift we saw news items condenming 'such move of the centre'.....there are some protest statements from few corners.....e-mail-signature campaign by some people(Mainly by NROs)-----andyes! I forgot, protest lodged by our Hon'ble CM before Hon'ble Minister MoHRD.
That's all. With due respect and appriciation to what ever has been done so far, we would like to ask "Is it enough- enough to make our voice of protest heard at Delhi to reverse the decision of the centre or to get back the NIS in Orissa? Do you think something else is to de done in this regard?". To discuss on the above questions, Agami Odisha has organised a seminar on 6th of November at PG Council Conference Hall of Utkal University at 3 PM. People from cross sections are being invited to the seminar. May we expect our members, concerned/distrubed over the issue would come forward to make the seminar successful and suggest us the future course of action, which could be initiated in near future. Members who are staying out side may also help in asking their friends to participate in the seminar, besides whatever campaign they are doing in e-mails in different forums.
Regards
Sudarsan Das
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Chitta's comment: For future course of action please focus on non-violent and enconomically non-harmful methods of protest. I.e., no rasta roko, rail roko, bandh etc. Rather protest in some creative way, such as painting the various colleges. That will attract lot more national press and will benefit the cause more.
It was almost decided to open one NIS in Orissa in a high level committee of UGC in which the then Vice Chancellor of Utkal University, Prof Pandav Nayak was present. Orissa Govt, in due course of time communicated to the MoHRD and UGC regarding their commitments for fulfilling necessary requirements, including provision of 25 acres of land for the proposed Institute, which was identified near Ghatikia, Bhubaneswar. It was almost certain that Orissa would be getting one central Institute after a long waiting-cartainly a kind of 'feel good' feeling for every Oriya. But to the dismay of all this has been shifted to West Bengal as IIS, as cameout in a recent notification of MoHRD, GoI.
Just think......
Had it been a case with West Bengal, what would have happened? Don't you think by now the MPs of WB cutting across party line would have planned how to rock the parliament session----intelectuals ignoring their affiliations would have come up to do a SOT analysis to jusitfy the case as to why 'it should not be shifted'----students and their union leaders would have closed down their colleges/universities in protest---common men would have jumped to the street with "MICHHILs" and slogans "kendrer eei annyay chalbenaa". But what is happening here in Orissa on this issue. Yes! after the notification of the shift we saw news items condenming 'such move of the centre'.....there are some protest statements from few corners.....e-mail-signature campaign by some people(Mainly by NROs)-----andyes! I forgot, protest lodged by our Hon'ble CM before Hon'ble Minister MoHRD.
That's all. With due respect and appriciation to what ever has been done so far, we would like to ask "Is it enough- enough to make our voice of protest heard at Delhi to reverse the decision of the centre or to get back the NIS in Orissa? Do you think something else is to de done in this regard?". To discuss on the above questions, Agami Odisha has organised a seminar on 6th of November at PG Council Conference Hall of Utkal University at 3 PM. People from cross sections are being invited to the seminar. May we expect our members, concerned/distrubed over the issue would come forward to make the seminar successful and suggest us the future course of action, which could be initiated in near future. Members who are staying out side may also help in asking their friends to participate in the seminar, besides whatever campaign they are doing in e-mails in different forums.
Regards
Sudarsan Das
---------------------------
Chitta's comment: For future course of action please focus on non-violent and enconomically non-harmful methods of protest. I.e., no rasta roko, rail roko, bandh etc. Rather protest in some creative way, such as painting the various colleges. That will attract lot more national press and will benefit the cause more.
# posted by chitta @ 9:49 PM 
