Guwahati to have world-class university Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Oct 6 – The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has finally included Guwahati as one of the locations for the proposed 14 world-class universities to be set up across the country.
This was confirmed by a letter issued by the Ministry to Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya, adviser of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU). The students' body, it may be mentioned, had expressed strong resentment after the Bill prepared during a MHRD meeting on September 28 in regard to establishment of 14 new world-class innovation universities did not include Guwahati, as was assured by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. "The Prime Minister had assured that one of the 14 universities would be set up in Guwahati but surprisingly the same did not materialize during the MHRD meeting. We opposed the discriminatory attitude and finally after putting a lot of pressure on the Centre, Guwahati was allotted the university," said Dr Samujjal Bhattacharya while talking to mediapersons here today. The AASU has further urged the State Government to initiate necessary steps to facilitate the process. Dr Bhattacharya further informed that the students' body is pressing hard before the Centre to include the State as one of locations for setting up of 12 new proposed Indian Institute of Science and Educational Research (IISER). "Besides, we are continuously insisting on setting up of an Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in the State," Dr Bhattacharya pointed out. Shekhar Sarma, head of the department, Information Technology department, Gauhati University, however stated that the IIIT should be a fully Government funded one and not in the public: private partnership module as has been proposed for the 20 new IIITs. The AASU also demanded the State Government to provide an aid of Rs 100 crore each to the Gauhati University, Dibrugarh University and the Agricultural University at the earliest. (The Assam Tribune,07.10.2010) _______________________________________________ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
