Orissa's first Marine bio-technology park to come up in Ganjam

The Orissa government has decided to set up its first marine biotechnology park near Rambha in south Orissa's Ganjam district. The park would be developed in the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. The Ganjam district administration has already identified 23.5 acres of government land for this purpose at Gokharakuda, about 40 km from here. The state owned-Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) has initiated the process to hand over the land for the establishment of the park. A high-level meeting was held recently at Chhatrapur, the district headquarter town to review the progress of land acquisition for different projects including the marine biotechnology park. Priyabrata Pattnaik, chairman and managing director of Idoc said, “The marine biotechnology park would be one of the tourist destinations as it would have the data on the sea animals.” The government has decided to set up the marine biotechnology park but the modalities are yet to be worked out, said a government official. Gokharakuda, the site chosen for the marine biotechnology park, located near the Rushikulya river mouth is famous as the mass nesting site of the Olive Ridley turtles.
PS: Gokharakuda is around 30 kms from Berhampur and it is already a tourist destination for Olive Ridley sea turtles

(Read the full story from Business Standard on the proposed Marine bio-technology park in Ganjam)

Centurion Tech varsity in offing in Gajapati

Chairman of the Centurion Group of Educational Institutions Mukti Kanta Mishra is happy because the leading educational initiative of the State is all set to receive the State University status. The proposal to establish a Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM) by the Department of Higher Education (DHE) has received green signal of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Minister of Higher Education Debi Prasad Mishra has been harping on setting up of more and more universities in the State. With Mishra proposing for another university in the tribal zone, which is also the Red Corridor of Maoists, the CM cleared the proposal.

Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Higher Education Madhu Sudan Padhi was all along supporting the case as Gajapati district has one of the lowest Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER).

The State Government has initiated action for establishment of private universities such as Vedanta University at Puri, Sri Sri University in Cuttack and ICFAI University in Khurda. And the latest is Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM) in Gajapati.

Source: The Pioneer 

World famous Prince Dance Group to perform at CWG opening ceremony

Berhampur (Orissa) based world famous Prince Dance Group, which came to prominence after winning a national reality TV show, 'India's Got Talent' on  Colors TV channel last year, will perform at the opening ceremony of the upcoming Commonwealth Games (CWG) on October 3rd 2010 in the national capital New Delhi.

Disclosing it to the media persons in Mumbai on June 01, the programming head of Colors channel Ashwini Yardi said, "We are very happy to announce that the Prince Dance Group that won the season one of 'India's Got Talent show' has been selected to perform at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi".
Hailing from Berhampur city in Orissa, the group comprises of 26 artistes and Krishna Mohan Reddy is the group leader. The group members are mainly from disadvantaged sections of different parts of Ganjam district. Two of them, Padmanabha Sahu and Telu Tarini are physically challenged and majority are daily wage earners.

Maoists target panchayat bodies in south Orissa

By Sib Kumar Das

• Security personnel and panchayat bodies are facing severe Maoist threat

Maoists have started to use terror tactics to hamper the functioning of panchayat bodies in remote areas of south Orissa. Through this they want to stall the pro-poor developmental projects and subsidised Public Distribution System (PDS) in underdeveloped remote areas. For it they have started terrorising the elected members of panchayat bodies. Maoists are damaging the panchayat offices and panchayat warehouses meant for storing PDS supplies.

In Rayagada district, the vice chairman of Chandrapur block panchayat samity S.Iswar Rao, panchyat samity member of Budubali panchayat Narasi Gangaranga, female nayab sarpanch of the same panchayat K.Mutika have rendered their resignation at the Chandrapur block office. It was alleged that recently these elected representatives had received threats from leader of the Basadara Divisional Committee of the banned CPI (Maoist) organisation to resign or face dire consequences.

The elected representatives are mum about the reason behind their sudden resignation. In Feb. 2009 a sarpanch and seven ward members of Rasakola panchayat of Bisamkatak block in Rayagada district had resigned following naxal threats. Along with it there were reports of resignations of some Special Police Officers (SPO) in same Chandrapur block. It may be noted that SPOs and village guards play a major role in maintenance of security in remote rural areas.

The Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had directed the Rayagada district Collector Nitin Bhanudas Jawale to investigate and report about these resignations. Speaking to The Hindu the Rayagada district collector confirmed the resignation of three elected members of local bodies. “But in their resignation letters they have either cited their personal or health problems or their agony against functioning of the local Block Development Officer”, he said. Regarding the resignation of SPOs he said no resignation of any SPO had reached any police station or district police headquarter. But at the grass root level security personnel and panchayat bodies are facing severe Maoist threat. Maoists blew up buildings of a panchayat offices and warehouses attached to them at Kangurkonda, Telarai and Bodigata villages in Malkangiri district in May.

In May 6 night Maoists had damaged the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) office at remote Kudumuluguma under Orkel police station in Malkangiri district. In February eleven elected members of panchayats of cut off areas of Balimela reservoir in Malkangiri district had resigned. According to intelligence sources, the threat of Maoists was a major cause behind their resignation. The Maoists claim they are damaging panchayat buildings so that they may not be used as camps by security forces during anti-Maoist operations. But as per police and administrative officials by keeping the elected panchayat bodies under the shroud of their terror and damaging the PDS storage units they want to keep people living in remote areas away from the pro-poor developmental programmes like MGNREGS. It is alleged to be part of their strategy to strengthen their base and ant-government propaganda in remote areas. Added to it they have also started to create terror in the minds of grass root level policemen. They shot dead a police constable at a crowded village market at Padia under Kalimela police station in Malkangiri on May 16. On May 11 night Maoists murdered two village guards at Katama village in Gajapati district.

Source: The Hindu

Yoga training camp concludes in Berhampur

• Sixty youngsters from KBK districts of South Orissa attended

A two-and-a-half-month long yoga summer camp for young students concluded in the city on May 31. Sixty youngsters, mostly from KBK districts of south Orissa, participated in this camp organised on the campus of Herambalaya residential college in the city. The participants also included 25 girls. Nine participants were from Nabarangpur district and four were from remote naxal affected Malkangiri district. It hinted the increasing interest among youngsters towards use of yoga in developing physical fitness and mental skills. The average age of participants was around 15 years, who had just appeared their secondary school board examination. After completion of their examinations they had joined the yoga camp on March 8.

A young yoga expert of the city, Santosh Kumar Biswal was the main trainer of this camp. Participants could extract much from the camp due to small age difference between the trainer and them. During this summer camp the participants were taught techniques of asana, pranayam, mudra and bandha. Mr Biswal said this training would help these teenagers cope with the stress and strain of competitive life which they would start to face after their school days. The participants also experimented in using yoga in the fields of athletics and dancing. Some of them also tried to perform asanas hanging from a rope. During the concluding session the participants demonstrated their acquired skills of yoga. Their guru Mr Biswal also displayed suppleness of his body and breath control by getting himself packed in a cardboard cube of 20 inch dimension for more than half an hour. He plans to remained packed in a similar box for five hours for travel from Berhampur to Bhubaneswar.

Source: The Hindu