Gross injustice to Orissa:Announced National Inst. of Sc. in Bhubaneswar renamed & shifted

NIS Movement--Protest wide spread on 22nd February

As Reported By Sudaarshan Das
Dear Friends The response to "All Orissa Protest Call" on 22nd February given by Agami Odisha on NIS has been very good looking at number of places it was observed and type of persons got involved. Perhaps for the first time the movement on NIS has been so wide spread, which was never so before. In earlier occasions the movement was confined to only Bhubaneswar (of course at Delhi). But this time we could give it a state wide character. On a same day the protest against Centre's negligence and step motherly attitude pertaining to NIS establishment in Orissa was registered in major places of the state. Bhubaneswar- In Bhubanesar the students of Utkal University, BJB College, Rajdhani College, Ekamra College joined in the protest. While the students of UU organised a Dharana near the entrance gate of Vani Vihar, the students of BJB college went out to the street and blocked the Bhubaneswar-Puri Road symbolically. The students of Rajdhani also staged their protest in front of the main gate. Baripada-- The students of North Orissa University, MPC College, MPC Junior College, Srima College, Simanta College, Baiganbadia college joined in the protest and submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister through the local govt office. Kenjhar-- The students of DD college Keonjhar, Keonjhar Women's College along with some public and activists joined the protest and submitted the memorandum to the PM through the Collector. Balasore- The intellectuals/ activists along with some students of FM College went on a procession to the Collector and submitted the memorandum. Rourkela-Around 200 people of Rourkela, including the students of Rourkela Govt College, Muncipal College, Padmanav Engineering college staged a dharana infront of the local ADM. Jagatsingpur-- In Jagatsingpur the students of SVM College statged protest dharana in front of the college and submitted the memorandum. The president of the student union led the protest. In places like Bhadrak, Koraput, Berhampur etc similar programmes were undertaken by the people/ student themselves. Sudarsan Das

http://www.baral.us/orissa/pdf/2006-feb17-sambada-nis.pdf

also see

http://www.baral.us/orissa/pdf/2006-feb17-sambada-nis2.pdf

for MP Braja Tripathy's reaction on President's speech.

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=14_02_2006_009_009&typ=1&pub=47

IF HIGHER education is languishing in Bihar, here is one reason why. The Human Resource Development ministry spends just Re 1.87 per person for higher education in the state. That is just 1 per cent of the Rs 177.22 that the ministry spends per person in Delhi.

The report by a group of Oriyas based in Japan and the United States, analyzing the ministry's funding to various states in the last budget, concludes that the ministry has not been spending enough on higher education in poorer states like Bihar, Rajasthan and Orissa.

While Rajasthan gets Rs 2.59 per person, Orissa is given just Rs 4.07, Gujarat takes Rs 4.87 and Chhattis garh Rs 7.39.

Other states with higher allocation is Uttranchal Rs 105.42, Arunachal Pradesh Rs 105 and Assam with Rs 77.7.

And the reason for the wide differences, according to officials, is that the money is not allocated on the basis of population but on what institutes the ministry supports in individual states.

The study was triggered by the ministry's decision to award the Indian Institute of Sciences to West Bengal and not Orissa. HRD minister Arjun Singh had overruled the Univer sity Grants Commission's decision to grant the institute to Bhubaneswar saying it was not under its jurisdiction. Instead, it was given to neighbouring West Bengal.

Digambar Patra, who coordinated the study in Japan and US and is a fellow in Waseda University of Tokyo, says such imbalances could be detrimental to countries given the significance of human resource development.
But the study would not bring down changes in the disparities dramatically in the coming budget. The Planning Commission has already informed the ministry that it is not increasing the allocation for higher education. "The increase can be examined only for the 11th five year plan starting in 2006-07,"a Planning Commission official said.

Where are they headed? 1.87 rupee is what HRD ministry spends per person for higher education in Bihar

BJP raps UPA govt for rise in extremism

Statesman News Service

KORAPUT, Feb. 12. — The state unit of the BJP played the tribal card to the hilt today. Sensing that the Naxalite menace was a major problem in tribal areas of the state, it blamed the Congress for the growth of extremism in the country. Mr Vinay Katiyar, the general secretary of the party, who had come to Jeypor to attend the state executive committee meeting, alleged that involvement of Indian minorities in terrorist activities, had risen since the UPA came to power. He blamed the UPA government for creating artificial scarcity of wheat in the country to suit its own interest by importing 5 lakh tons of wheat from Australia. He demanded immediate withdrawal of the orders as it would effect the wheat farmers of the country to a great extent. By the time the wheat reaches India the wheat production in the country will be at its peak and the farmers will be in deep trouble, he added. Mr Katiyar criticised the UPA government for supporting the USA and compromising the interest of the country. The central party leader however, avoided questions on internal problems of the party including those on Uma Bharati. Mr Juel Oram, the state BJP president, said that the reasons behind organising the state executive body meeting at Jeypore was that the party had been represented by a good number of tribal leaders compared to any other party. Hence, to give justice to the tribal representatives, the executive body meeting was organised in the tribal dominated district of Koraput. In its resolution, the state unit of the BJP did a virtual turnaround on the Kalinga Nagar problem. Earlier, it was bitterly critical of the manner in which the entire incident was handled by the state government but today it expressed concern over the displaced people and yet praised the government for accepting the proposals of the party on the issue. The BJP executive urged the state government to introduce a flawless policy on displacement and felt that the constitution of a ministerial committee in this connection was most appropriate. The party also demanded to include all the proposed projects of Orissa in the railway budget and allocate adequate funds. It demanded Central funds for establishment of a regional centre of the AIIMS and NIS in Orissa apart from inclusion of all the districts under the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme.

Delhi on top, Bihar at bottom - By Sanjay Basak

New Delhi, Feb. 12: It’s in Delhi where the Congress-led UPA government is spending the maximum amount per person on human Resources development, while the lowest expenditure is in Bihar. Repeated attempts by a group of educationists to draw the attention of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to this "glaring regional imbalance" have had no effect so far. The Prime Minister had recently gone on record saying: "I trust our government as well as the state governments evolve policies to remedy regional imbalances."

A preliminary report prepared by Prof. Chitta Boral of Arizona University "State-wise distribution of HRD national highways funding in India" goes on to show that while the government spends Rs 177.12 per person in Delhi, the amount per head in Bihar is just Re 1.87. The phrase "national highways" in this case is actually a reference to higher educational institutions. It explains: "Although these institutions theoretically allow equal access to students from all states, like national highways being used by people, students in a state where a particular institution is located have more awareness and more access to it as it is more convenient to them. In fact, the national highways are more evenly distributed in the country than the educational institutions." Highlighting the "glaring disparity", a statewise breakup of the funding of higher (Turn to Page 2)
educational institutions through the HRD goes on to show that the Centre was spending Rs 177.12 per person in Delhi, while it was Rs 105.42 in Uttaranchal, Rs 105 in Arunachal Pradesh, Rs 77.70 in Assam, Rs 33.78 in Himachal Pradesh, Rs 28.10 in West Bengal, Rs 25.12 in Karnataka, Rs 17.79 in Tamil Nadu, Rs 17.09 in Maharashtra, Rs 17.08 in Uttar Pradesh, Rs 16.20 in Jharkhand, Rs 16.05 in Andorra Pradesh, Rs 14.50 in Jam and Cashmere, Rs 13.38 in Punjab, Rs 8.52 in Harman, Rs 7.90 in Karen, Rs 7.39 in Chhattisgarh, Rs 7.20 in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 4.87 in Gujarat, Rs 4.07 in Orissa, Rs 2.59 in Rajasthan and Rs 1.87 in Bihar.

Delhi, the report notes, has a large number of higher educational institutions: besides Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, there is the Indian Institute of Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, AIIMS, the School of Planning and Architecture and IGNOU.

Over the past few months, a group of educationists in India and abroad have been writing to the Prime Minister and Mrs Sonia Gandhi over the "regional imbalances" in education in the country. Dr Digambar Patra, of the department of physics of Waseda University, Tokyo, stated that the educationists had also organised an email protest campaign over the issue. Of them, Prof. Chitta Boral receives an acknowledgement of his letter from Mrs Gandhi. The letter was, incidentally, addressed to the Prime Minister, with a copy marked to Mrs Gandhi.

Besides referring to the disparity between states in higher educational institutions, the letters also referred to the "stepmotherly" attitude towards Orissa. There have been a lot of protests over the UPA government’s move to ignore former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s plan to set up a National Institute of Science in Orissa. The Centre has reportedly decided to shift the project to "friendly" states like West Bengal and Maharashtra, ruled by the Marxists and the Congress respectively.

Ranchi, Feb 12:

BJP's Jharkhand unit has expelled eleven activists from the party for their "anti-party" activities. The executive committee of the party yesterday approved the disciplinary committee's recommendation to expel eleven out of 26 suspended activists for six years, BJP state president Yadunath Pandey said. The disciplinary committee, Pandey added, however let-off fifteen others with a reprimand and revoked their suspension. All of them had been suspended and served show cause during the February polls. Soon after the approval by the executive committee, the report had been sent to the BJP central leadership, Pandey said. The decision, however, has not gone down well among many senior leaders of the party with some leaders openly expressing their unhappiness. The party also condemned those who were "trying to gain political mileage" from the incident.Pointing out that displacement of people to make way for developmental projects had become a "huge problem", the resolution welcomed the setting up of the ministerial committee to go into the rehabilitation issue describing it as a "timely step". "The decision of the Congress not to cooperate in this regard has exposed its double speak," the resolution said. The party also expressed "grave concern" over the spreading Naxalite menace in the state while demanding that four other districts should be included in the list of Maoist-infested districts. The districts are Sambalpur, Deogarh, Jharsuguda and Jajpur which should be provided Central funds towards security related expenditure, it said.

The party demanded that adequate funds should be provided for the state in the railway budget to take care of ongoing projects. Funds should also be provided in the ensuing Central budget for the proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and National Institute of Science (NIS) at Bhubaneswar.

Bureau Report

An open letter to the honorable Chief Minister, MPs and other political leaders of various parties in Orissa:

Why is Orissa among the bottom in per capita HRD-NH spending by the central govt?

Why are we not doing anything about it?

What should we do about it?

Chitta Baral, Professor, Arizona State University

Dear honorable Chief Minister, MPs and other political leaders of Orissa

First I must commend all of you for the job all of you have done and are doing in watching like a hawk the railway budgets, Orissa's share of the national highways and the road budget. It was not long ago when Orissa had only about 1200 kms of national highways. In 2000 Orissa had 2863 kms of national highways and in 2004 it had 3704 kms. Since then Orissa has made its case for a 2000 km NH fromVijaywada to Ranchi, about 1200 kms of which will be passing through tribal dominated districts of Orissa. With respect to railways, allof you played a big role in establishing the ECOR head quarter inBhubaneswar. In recent years, in every railway budget session in the parliament, MPs from Orissa, regardless of their parties have been vocal about Orissa's needs and wants. As a result, things are a lot better now. For example, there are now direct trains fromBhubaneswar to many corners of India such as Jaipur, Haridwar, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Bangalore, etc. besides multiple trains to the metros. There is still a long way to go in both roads and railways but you all are pursuing that relentlessly.

However, all of you and us citizens too have paid much less attention to the development of the most important resource of a state, the human resource. As in roads, we have national highways, state highways, gram sadaks etc., similarly in HRD there are many kinds of institutions. The HRD national highways consists of the educational and technical institutions fully funded by the HRDministry and the institutions of national importance.

As in roads the national highways have a big significance; similarly in case of HRD, the HRD-NHs are very important. In this, Orissa is among the bottom, as it does not have any central university, anyIIT, IIM, IIIT, etc.
A detailed calculation that I have done, which is at http://www.equitableindia.org/, shows that while the central government spends Rs 4.07 on HRD-NH (per person) in Orissa, it spends Rs 177.12 in Delhi, Rs 105.42 in Uttaranchal, Rs 105 in Arunachal Pradesh, Rs 77.7 in Assam, Rs 33.78 in Himachal Pradesh, Rs 28.10 in West Bengal, Rs 25.12 in Karnataka, Rs 17.79 in TamilNadu, Rs 17.09 in Maharastra, Rs 17.08 in UP, Rs 16.2 in Jharkhand, Rs 16.05 in Andhra, Rs 14.5 in J & K, Rs 13.38 in Punjab, Rs 8.52 in Haryana, Rs 7.9 in Kerala, Rs 7.39 in Chhattisgarh, Rs 7.2 in MP,Rs 4.87 in Gujurat, Rs 2.59 in Rajasthan, and Rs 1.87 in Bihar.

Comparing in another way, the Government of India’s spending per person with respect to HRD-NHs, in comparison to Orissa, is 6.9times in West Bengal, 6.17 times in Karnataka, 4.37 times in Tamil Nadu, 4.2 times in UP, 4.2 times in Maharashtra, 3.98 times inJharkhand, 3.94 times in AP, 3.56 times in J&K, 3.29 times inPunjab, 2.09 times in Haryana, 1.94 times in Kerala, 1.82 times in Chhattisgarh, 1.77 times in MP, and 1.2 times in Gujarat.

This becomes much worse if one takes into account the recent announcements of IISERs (Indian Institute of Science education andresearch) in Pune, Kolkata, and Punjab (near Chandigarh).
Although recently all of us have come together and have made demands about the earlier announced National Institute of Sciences in Bhubaneswar, the central government has so far not only ignored our request but have added insult to our injury by making false claims that no such institute was decided in Orissa and by announcing a new IISER in yet another state ruled or allied with the central government. (One wonders if the president of India's, the HRDminister's, and the UGC chairman's announcement regarding an NIS is not a decision to establish an NIS then what is?)

The above numbers illustrates that the issue of HRD-NHs runs much deeper than NIS and Orissa is in the bottom because of repeated injustices like the NIS issue. If the central govt spends 43.52 times in Delhi, 19.1 times in Assam, 6.9 times in West Bengal, 6.17 times in Karnataka, 4.37 times in Tamil Nadu, 4.2 times in UP, and 4.2 times in Maharashtra, no wonder our very best go to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai or Guwahati to study in the HRD-NHs, from where they rarely return back. Due to lack of theHRD-NHS our best educators, scientists, professors, etc. move to other states and enrich them. We also lose out on non-polluting industries and companies with lot of high paying jobs, that prefer and thrive in the presence of HRD-NHs; and with that we lose a big chunk of our bright people who move to join those industries in Bangalore or Delhi. In other words the central government's gross neglect of Orissa with respect to HRD-NHs has contributed significantly to Orissa's backwardness.

(a) Why are we we not vocal about this?

(b) Will we tolerate if we our told that, oh, you Oriyas, if you need to drive on a national highway, you need to go to Kolkata or Mumbai. If you want to to stay in Orissa then you have to drive in broken gram sadaks. Of course we will not. But that is what the central government is indirectly telling us by spending 6.9 times in West Bengal, 6.17 times in Karnataka, etc. and not listening to our requests. Why and how are we tolerating this?

(c) Why our chief minister, our MPs, our congress leadership are not going to the prime minister, HRD minister and the planningcommission and making a national issue out of this?

(d) Why are not they bringing up this issue in various national forums?

(e) Why are not they writing about this in various national newspapers and magazines?

(f) Why are not they appealing to all of India about this gross injustice that has been (for last 50 years) and is being done to Orissa?

(g) Why are we not point out to the esteemed prime minister that there is a big discrepancy between his words (about making anequitable India) and his actions (the IISER announcements that makethe HRD-NH disparity much worse)?

I request the chief minister, the MPs and the congress leadership to unite for the above cause (like they do when making requests aboutrailways) and use the detailed document at http://www.equitableindia.org/ that computes the above numbers and the booklet that compiles the proofs regarding the announcement ofan NIS in Bhuabneswar (and the subsequent attempts to cheat Orissaout of it) at http://www.baral.us/nis3.pdf in doing the following.

(i) Doing whatever is necessary (including steps that address a-g above) for immediately establishing an IISER (the renamed NIS) inBhubaneswar.

(ii) Contacting the new IIT committee and others (the PM, HRDminister etc.) about upgrading NIT Rourkela to an IIT or deemed IITstatus, as NIT Rourkela is ranked better than 6 of the 7 shortlisted institutes that are being considered for deemed IIT or IIT status; and subsequently making UCE Burla an NIT. (This raises thequestion regarding how 6 institutes that are ranked worse than NITRourkela are short listed ahead of NIT Rourkela for an IIT status.Why are we not questioning such stupid decisions?)

(iii) Pursue establishment of a KBK Central university with campuses in various towns of KBK such as Koraput, Raygada, Bhawanipatna, and Balangir, so that KBK has more educators, doctors, etc. and so that skilled and educated people are attracted to KBK rather than the current situation where people posted to KBK try all kinds of things to not go to KBK. (Such steps has worked wonders in the north east. Many highly qualified people have flocked to join the central universities in the North east.)

(iv) Pursue upgradation of the IIT Kharagpur extension center in Bhubaneswar to an independent campus offering undergraduate and graduate degrees.

(v) Contact the IIMs to open a branch in South Orissa (sayBerhempur), North Orissa (say Balasore or Baripada), or Dhenkanal(near IIMC). If IIM Bangalore can plan to have a center in Singapore, why can not one of the IIMs establish a center in Orissa.

A nonpartisan committee should be immediately made to keep track ofthe progress with respect to (i)-(v) and the planned AIIMs-like institute, National Law School, and health university. Only after we succeed in all of the above, and continue having more locally initiated educational institutes, Orissa will become a destinationfor not only tourists, but for young Oriyas and Indians with dreams. In addition, the above steps will distribute the HRD-NHs across Orissa thus making Orissa more balanced.
Finally, while we sort out the Kalinganagar issue and develop a consensus with our tribal brothers and sisters with respect to Orissa's industrial future, we should not forget our fight against the NIS/IISER injustice. We got to continue that fight until we getour IISER and then follow it up with a long range plane to achieve parity with other states with respect to the above mentioned HRD-NH related goals.

sincerely,

Chitta Baral

The Central Government has moved the Supreme Court on 27.1.2006 and obtained a stay against the Orissa High Court Order which originally had granted a stay of laying the foundation stone in Kolkata. The said order is attached herewith for your ready reference and necessary instructions. You can also see the order in www.courtnic.nic.in by going to Supreme Court and typing the case no: SLP(C) 1550 OF 2006.
The Govt has moved the petition in the absence of any one of us and by making a senior advocate called Mr. Gopal Subramanium appear in the matter.
However in effect the case in orissa which is scheduled to be heard on 22.2.2006 will have no force as the main issue has been shifted to the Supreme Court and the High Court may be helpless in doing much to the matter. ___________________________________________________________________

ITEM NO.40 COURT NO.10 SECTION XIA S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No(s).1550/2006 (From the judgement and order dated 08/11/2005 in WMP No. 10872/2005 in WP No. 10836/2005 of The HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK) UNION OF INDIA Petitioner(s) VERSUS STATE P.I. PROTECTION COUNCIL & ORS. Respondent(s) (With appln.(s) for exemption from filing O.T.and permission to bring addl.facts and with prayer for interim relief) Date: 27/01/2006 This Petition was called on for hearing today. CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARUN KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE G.P. MATHUR For Petitioner(s) Mr.Gopal Subramanium, ASG Mr.Rajshekhar Rao, Adv. Ms. Sushma Suri,Adv. For Respondent(s) UPON hearing counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Issue notice on the Special Leave Petition as also on the prayer for interim relief. The operation of the impugned judgment is stayed in the meanwhile. ( Satish K. Yadav ) ( Phoolan Wati Arora ) Court Master Court Master