At long last, the Odisha Legislative Assembly has passed the IIIT Bhubaneswar Bill. Here is a short FAQ regarding this bill.

Q: Have we become a University
A: Wait. Not yet. The Governor has the give accent to the Bill. The Government have to notify that the Act comes to effect on a particular date. That's when the Institute will become a University.

Q: What will this mean for the Institute
A: The Institute will have Academic Autonomy for floating new courses, design curriculum, adopt pedagogy, evaluation methods etc.

Q: How will the Institute use University status.
A. To start with the Institute will offer Doctoral Programmes, and more Masters programmes. The B.Tech. Programme will be made more rigorous.

It have been a long, winding and arduous journey so far.

The University status will eliminate one stumbling block and a big excuse for not achieving our potential. The Institute has to buck up and race ahead to achieve its mission.

PS: My blog on University status in 2010 was the most watched and commented one.

IIIT on Facebook

The social media is evolving rapidly. The blogging was (it now looks like) ancient form of social media. People with ample time will sit-down, ruminate over some strange topic and write volumes. This is so passé.

Now is time for twitter and Facebook. Amitabh Bachchan tweets every day and updates his status every day.

IIIT has a facebook page now. Events, updates, photos, videos, fun stuff are all posted in these pages. Request students, parents and any one with some interest in the Institute to follow the Facebook page.

Here is the Facebook link

However, if you like to read long posts written infrequently, please visit this blog.