CASE OF NIS: US BASED PROF BARAL WRITES TO PLANNING

The injustice done to Orissa by diverting the National
Institute of Science from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata has
been sharply resented to by thousands of netizens of
Oriya origin as well as people of other States who are
worried over the way investment by the Union
Government in academic sphere has been subjected to
regional parochialism. The PMO is flooded with these
e-protests. Senior citizens of Bhubaneswar have also
protested against this illogical action of the Prime
Minister and have appealed for execution of the
earlier decision o establish the NIS at Bhubaneswar.
Orissamatters.com has been discussing this issue with
speaking comments.

Even as the PMO has yet to invent ways to support its
evidently wrong step, Dr. Chitta Baral, Professor,
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Arizona
State University, USA, has made an appeal to the
Planning Commission to recall their recommendations
for shifting of NIS from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata under
a contrived change of nomenclature. With links to
facts studded documents, Prof. Barals letter deserves
serious consideration. Therefore, we are reproducing
his mail with the hope that the Union Government would
see where it erred and extricate itself from the trap
laid by the crafty crabs.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

PROF. BARALS LETTER

To: Esteemed Planning Comission Members of India:

Subject: http://iiser.blogspot.com

cc: PM, Smt. Gandhi, Members of the SAC-PM, UGC
Chairman, Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, CM of Orissa,
Chairman AICTE, various journalists and news
media (in Orissa, India, and international), and
various
Oriyas.

Dear members:

I would like to bring to your notice the following
article
from Telegraph
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051029/asp/calcutta/story_5412063.asp
which says that “In July 2005, the Planning
Commission, after examining the ministry for human
resource development proposal, recommended that
instead of five cities, only
Calcutta and Pune should house the centre.” It refers
to the National Institute of Sciences which
was originally planned for Bhubaneswar, Pune, Chennai
and Allahabad and was
later renamed to IISER.

Dear Sirs: I wonder if you considered at the
distribution of central universities, and institute of
national
importances (IITs, IIMs, ISIs etc.) across India? Many
states have multiples of them while
states like Orissa, Rajasthan, Chhatisgrah etc. have
none. They happen to be backward in
many indices. Please see
http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/10/unequal-distribution-of-higher.html
for the distribution.

Do you think this is fair? Do you think some states
should have many of them while
others have none, even though they (such as Orissa)
have shown that they can nurture good institutions?
Do you think the way to improve backward states is to
take away planned 500 cr higher education institutions
from them?

Dear Sirs: It is gross injustice that you took the
dream (of NIS/IISER) away from the
people of Orissa, which does not have a single central
university, IIT, IIM, IISc, etc. and yet
has on its own initiated the development of quality
institutions such as
Inst of Physics, Inst of Life Sciences and Xaviers
Institute of Management.

Dear Sirs: You are supposed to watch out and plan for
all of India; especially, since in India
(unlike the US where each state has 2 sentaors) larger
states have more MPs thus
more power and smaller states have less power. With
due respect, by approving the removal
of Bhuabneswar from the list of IISERs, you have not
done your job appropriately and have
done grave injustice to Orissa, and perhaps to the
fabric of India.

We sincerely hope you will make appropriate amends at
the earliest, and if the political leadership
(which so far has not considered it appropriate to
reply to hundereds if not thosands of letters
and emails sent to them over the last month)
does not allow you to correct the injustice then you
should consult your conscience about what to do.
Please see http://iiser.blogspot.com/ about the
details of your injustice and thoughts
on how to amend it.

sincerely,

Chitta Baral
B.Tech, IIT Kharagpur, Ph.D University of Maryland
(author of a 550+ page book published by the Cambridge
University Press, area editor of an ACM journal etc.)

Professor
Department of Computer Science & Engg
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287
http://www.public.asu.edu/~cbaral