NIS / IISER: NAVEEN USES IIT AS A NEW PLOY AGAINST ORISSA

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

MoU trickster Navin Patnaik has come out with a new flimflam against the gullible people of Orissa, this time using IIT, Karagpur and XLRI, Jamshedpur as collaborators with secret help from Prime Minster Man Mohan Singh.

As we have repeatedly highlighted* in these pages, Orissa was to be the first State to have a National Institute of Science (NIS), to be established at four places of India, Bhubaneswar being the number one choice. But the Bengali leftist lobby, keeping the coming Assembly election in West Bengal in mind, in consonance with the envy that most of the Bengalis nurture against Orissa, hijacked the project through Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh, who, entrapped by lust for power, has no guts to say no to them. Once the Prime Minister was ready to give clearance, central administration, including the planning Commission, was nose led to develop stratagem for shifting of the NIS from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata. They simply obliterated the decision of 2003 in respect to NIS and made a fresh proposal for creation of Indian Institutes of Science for Education and Research (IISER) to be established in all the earlier decided locations excepting Bhubaneswar. In place of Bhubaneswar, Kolkata was taken up.

They dared this ploy against Orissa because of two reasons:

One, since 09 Dec.2003, the day when the then HRD minister Man Mohan Joshi informed of the decision to the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry, Orissa Government under Navin Patnaik, had not taken any step to expedite its establishment at Bhubaneswar. And,

Two, Navin Patnaik is mired so much in the mines-mud that he can never dare to disapprove howsoever the central government decision mars Orissa interests.

And, NIS became IISER and shifted to Kolkata.

Had the netizens of Orissa been as indifferent as the politicians, there was nothing to be worried on part of Navin Patnaik or Man Mohan Singh. But to their utmost discomfort, there are conscious and patriotic people this soil has produced. They raised relentless objections electronically and took up an unprecedented campaign against the mischief.

Members of the Odia Samaja, Orissa society of the Americas and other netizens of Orissa spread over the entire world started flooding the PMO with protest mails, individually and collectively condemning the Prime Minister’s double standard, neatly apprising him of how the conception reflected in his public speech on 28 Sept.2005 during release of the first report on the Country’s performance in the area of Science was reversed on the same day while clearing the IISER for Kolkata in total obliteration of Bhubaneswar’s NIS. For the first time Orissa’s cause got a Blog campaign** whereto the cream of our intelligentsia, almost entirely, has been contributing its might. The impact of this electronic campaign is so far-fetching that no government, if committed to democracy, can dare to ignore.

Even as Internet Media has thus generated a new hope for our people to fight against factors that frustrate Orissa, the Print media, though initially swung between own financial interest (official ads being controlled by administration) and peoples’ collective
interest, has come up with speaking support for NIS/IISER at Bhubaneswar. Senior citizens of Bhubaneswar having occupied top ranks for acknowledged excellence in their respective fields have collectively addressed a memorandum to the Prime Minister denigrating his unfair play against Orissa and demanding execution of the earlier decision fro NIS in Bhubaneswar. A Public Interest Litigation admitted in Orissa High Court has paved a path for judicial scrutiny of how Orissa lost her case.

There is no doubt that the anti-people role of both Navin Patnaik and Man Mohan Singh is going to be bared in public in the context of NIS/IISER.

More than Man Mohan Singh, Navin Patnaik is vulnerable to public wrath. He has bluffed the people of Orissa in declaring that his government had taken all steps including allotment of land for establishment of the NIS at Bhubaneswar, when in reality, taking advantage of the colossal negligence shown by his government in this matter, Man Mohan Singh has been hooked by the Bangalis.

Bengalis are of course in a position to blackmail Singh. They, the leftists as well as Pranab Mukherjee, know how he had to resign from the post of Finance Minister when the Joint Parliamentary Committee probing the stock scam had got glimpses of his dubious role. They know under whose pressure the then Prime Minister P.V.Narasigh Rao had to refuse to accept his resignation. So it is difficult for Singh to say no to their demand.

Navin, Singh and the Bengali leftists have collectively played the mischief against people of Orissa and thereby have harmed national harmony. If the agitation on the NIS issue further aggravates in Orissa, their masks shall fall down to their disadvantage.

How to avoid it? How to hoodwink the people of Orissa again? A new trick was cooked up. Accordingly Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and XLRI, Jamshedpur have been pressed to sign Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) under the touted colour that this would help in developing teaching and research in engineering, management and allied disciplines.

The Kharagpur IIT is touted to help BPUT in bettering undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in engineering and allied subjects even as XLRI is to guide it in management education during the next five years, according to the MoU signed separately on 05 Nov.05 by Director of Kharagpur IIT, Prof. S.K. Dube and XLRI director N. Casmir Raj with BPUT Vice-Chancellor Prof O.N. Mohanty in the presence of Chief Minister Navin Patnaik and Industries Minister B.B. Harichandan at the State secretariat.

Navin has wanted us to believe that this arrangement would do everything that a NIS/IISER could have done for Orissa.

What a ploy!
* https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/10/07/under-whose-spell-the-prime-minister-has-done-it/

https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/10/13/why-an-nisiiseriit-should-be-established/

https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/10/13/orissa-cm-must-rise-to-the-occasion-and-join-the-campaign/

https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/10/26/orissa-high-court-intervenes-in-nis-iiser-matter/

https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/10/30/memorandum-to-pm-for-nisiiser/

https://orissamatters.com/news/index.php/2005/11/01/nis/

** http://iiser.blogspot.com