NITK to confer D.Litt degree on Pranab Mukherjee
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is to receive a D.Litt degree (Honoris Causa) by NIT Kurukshetra at their convocation this year in March. President Pratibha Patil will attend the event as chief guest.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE of Technology, Kurukshetra (NITK) will confer the D.Litt degree (Honoris Causa) on the union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the next convocation slated to be held in March. President Pratibha Patil has accepted the invitation extended by the NITK to grace the occasion by her benign presence as the chief guest of the convocation.
This was disclosed by Professor J K Palit, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the NITK in an exclusive interview here today. He had flown in from Patna to be the guest of honour in the inaugural ceremony of the 4-day Literati symposium in which about 1000 engineering students from all over the country are participating in 50 odd events to showcase their budding talent in all engineering streams.
Prof. Palit said Pranab Mukherjee has already agreed to visit the holy city to receive this honour in the NITK personally. He said the HRD minister Kapil Sibbal was also invited for this occasion but he expressed his inability to be present here due to his preoccupations in the recently on-going upheavals in the policies and agenda of the CBSE and the technical education in the country.
Prof. Palit said that the HRD ministry has given the green signal to the setting up of ten new NITs and six new IITs in the country to spread the network of state technical education institutions and to check the unbridled managing maneuverings of the private players in the field. The NITK has been assigned the responsibility to set up one NIT in Uttrakhand state, with latest industry based curriculum.
A retired professor of chemistry and former MLA from Gaya in Bihar, Prof. Palit is holding the post of senior vice president of the Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee. He had set up an engineering college in the private sector but later handed it over to the state government.
He lamented that Bihar and UP governments had failed to set up either engineering or medical colleges in the state to provide their youths better opportunities for technical studies and for better placement.
Asked about the vision of the NITK, Prof. Palit explained that he has plans to convert the NIT into a centre of excellence in near future for which he has got nod from the HRD ministry for funds for laboratories and libraries, recruitment of 106 senior teaching faculty and 25 supporting technical staff to monitor the research work of 200 odd Ph.D. scholars besides development projects of the faculty. One mega hostel is nearing completion to accommodate one thousand male students after a hostel for girls has been constructed. About 3000 students, including 650 girls are on-roll in the NITK campus.
Severely condemning the commercial attitude of the private sector in education right from the primary to Ph.D level and vocational to technical to job-oriented courses, Prof. Palit lamented the pathetic attitude of the state education machinery. He was also critical of the advertisements by the private sector displaying the hefty pay-packages to a few students of their institutions, hiding the facts of others' placements which are usually poor. He exhorted the state institutions to update their courses in consultation with the demands of technical and service sectors.
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