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VC conveys Best Wishes on the eve of New Year 2010 – A revisit of 2009.
Prof Ajoy Kumar Ray
Vice Chancellor, BESU
Shibpur, Howrah
At the outset, on the eve of new year 2010, I would like to convey my warm regards and best wishes to all the alumni/ alumnae of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur / Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur. I wish all the success to each one of you and your family members. During the last one year you have contributed immensely for the development of our university in various forms. I am confident that the bondage you have established with your alma mater will lead us to a new era of excellence.
Charles Lamb once said ‘Of all sound of all bells, the most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year’. I am sure that we will march ahead in our journey towards excellence, based on the experience the old year has instilled in us.
The profound impact of your contribution is not confined only within its immediate outcome. Indeed it has generated great mutual love, respect and expectations from each other - the current and past students of this institution.
Our deep bondage will fulfill the dreams of those architects and visionaries who had built and nurtured this great institute during the last 153 years.
Recently I visited Muscat, capital of Oman, at the invitation of our alumni at Muscat. It was a dream city in the midst of desert. From the grand architectural and civil engineering marvel to the development of core engineering, our alumni have played a great role in making this dream happen inside a desert.
Indeed I feel proud to see your great contributions in every part of the globe in diverse areas of human creative activities. It is this pride which stimulates our young minds here at BESU to excel.
Our Institution that started its journey just one hundred and fifty three years back on 24th November, 1856, with only a few students is now going to be turned into a giant center of academic excellence. We are aspiring today to contribute significantly in the global pursuit towards advancement of knowledge in diverse streams of Science and Technology.
During the last one year, the students, faculty and the staff at BESU have joined hands in our combined efforts to make strides in all spheres of activities - curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular, paving the road to a new work-culture and aspiring to be the best among the betters.
The entire campus has undergone cleaning. We have initiated the restoration of the heritage buildings and the historic graveyard. Each hall of residence has initiated creation of garden.
I am happy to inform you that several eminent academicians like Prof Amitabha Ghosh, Prof Asok Mallik, Prof Ajit Chattopadhyay, Dr S K Bhattacharya, Prof Madhujit Mukhopadhyay and many others have joined our university in the capacity of Distinguished Honorary / Chair Professor. Many other Distinguished and Visiting Professors from IITs / IISc / Industries / Universities will join our university shortly. We acknowledge their contributions in enriching our teaching and research at BESU.
I would like to invite some of you to join our university as visiting Professors in the coming year to further strengthen our academic / research base.
I am delighted to revisit some of the activities at BESU in 2009, which would not have been possible without your active support.
(a) The contribution of GAABESU in building the new temple of learning at BESU will be always written in red letters. Amongst many other helps, such as providing scholarships to a very large number of needy students, providing all types of academic / mentorship help, this year GAABESU has donated a large sum of money in creating a film, depicting the grand evolution and heritage of 153 years of Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur / Bengal Engineering and Science University Shibpur. I am extremely happy to announce that celebrated film maker Shri Buddhadeb Dasgupta has almost completed the making of the film, which will be released in early 2010. GAABESU has also planned to donate the money for several Chair Professors at BESU. They are also going to share significant amount of contribution in making the swimming pool of BESU. All these contributions are gratefully acknowledged.
It may be mentioned here that we have started ‘BESUS Foundation’ with Professor Santanu Kumar Karmakar as the Head of “International Relations and Alumni Affairs” [Click here for office order].
(b) The alumni belonging to the batch of 1979 have helped us immensely in fulfilling our dream of starting a students’ ‘Centre for Creative Expressions and Liberal Arts’. They have renovated the dilapidated Slater Hall and equipped the societies with some instruments. To start with we have about five societies today – Dramatics, Music, Photography, Dance and Choreography, Creative writing and debating societies. In addition we have started a society for innovation, where the students will participate in innovative design and development.
I am happy to inform you that a number of celebrated personalities like Pandit Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty, Film Director Shri Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Mrs Amita Datta, Mrs Mamata Sankar. Shri Rudraprasad Sengupta and others have agreed to get associated with this Centre. There will be various inter hostel competitions in all the above societies including sports and gardening competitions in 2010, to be organized by PICSA.
(c) CII joined hands with BESU to hold a two day Industry – Academic meet, which was attended by many Vice Chancellors / Directors / Industry leaders.
Shri Kapil Sibal , Hon’ble Union Minister in Charge of Human Resources and Development inaugurated ‘CII – BESU innovation centre’, in the presence of Shri Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Hon’ble Governor, West Bengal, Shri Sudarsan Raychaudhuri, Hon’ble Higher Education Minister, Government of West Bengal and many distinguished academicians and industry leaders from all over the globe. This program was possible only because of the unstinted support of the alumni belonging to the batch of 1984. This batch of 1984, as part of the silver jubilee celebration, co-organised this program.
(d) Many eminent alumni from India, USA, Canada, UK and other parts of the globe visited our university in 2009 and we could successfully organize workshop, University seminar and short term courses with their help. Prof B K Bose has donated money for organizing annual seminar on any area of Electrical Engineering. We will invite eminent persons from any part of India to deliver lectures at BESU from this endowment fund.
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To conclude, here is a place where the young minds can still dream of sunny, bright and prosperous days ahead.
To the obscured millions in India, this is a place that represents India’s urges, aspirations and hopes of a strong self reliant, prosperous India tomorrow.
Let us all work together to preserve this excellent place, our alma mater, for the future generation.
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Academic events / Reforms at BESU
Here is the outline of some of the reforms and events that took place during the last couple of months here at BESU. This could be achieved thanks to the sincere and unstinted support and hard work of the academia at BESU.
Academic/Pedagogy
(i) New academic calendar has been created and strict adherence to the time table for all examinations, publication of results and admission activities has been ensured.
(ii) Reducing the time to conduct examination and consequently increasing the semester days has enabled us to create longer summer vacation to promote industrial training for the students and enhanced research activities by the faculty and researchers.
(iii) Setting up of two Centers of Excellence:
a) ‘Green Energy and sensor system’ and
b) Healthcare Science and Technology.
(iv) Improved connectivity and enhanced network bandwidth and related work, with the following purpose.
(a) Enabling every corner of the campus wireless.
(b) Extension of fiber optic backbone to all important locations in the campus.
(c) Use of web-site for all possible educational and administrative activities.
(v) Revision of structure of courses and syllabi for the UG and PG programs and reforming the doctoral program to make them more relevant to the requirements of 21st century.
(vi) Introduction of the novel pedagogy of teaching and evaluation.
(vii) Reallocation of the space to different departments: This space could be created as a result of the shifting of the old Library block from the main building to a separate library building with modern amenities and larger reading space. Also another eight storied building construction has been initiated.
Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy /Collaboration -
(i) Restructuring and enhancement of the sponsored research and Consultancy activities
(ii) Creation of the position of Director (Research) (a statutory position where a senior professor is nominated by the Executive council) and Associate Director (Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy).
(iii) Formation of a full fledged office, logistic support and more financial power to the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy Cell.
(iv) Consolidation of all discrete accounts under the research program to a single account for better control, visibility and management.
(v) Initiation of Multi-disciplinary research program.
(v) Formation of expert committee to review the academic activities, programs, goals and the future of various schools.
New collaborations
Several new collaborative programs have been initiated. Some of them are
(a) Metalogic Systems, Kolkata has created a Chair Professor in memory of
Prof S S Boral, former Head and founder of Electronics and Tele communication Engineering Department at B E College. A ‘Software development centre’ has been formed at BESU jointly with Metalogic Systems, Kolkata.
(b) Webel, Ministry of Information Technology, Govt of WB, has agreed to initiate ‘ India Design Centre’ at BESU. The School of VLSI , BESU is going to initiate collaborative research on VLSI Design with the industries.
(c) A collaborative research program on Arsenic Removal between Civil Engg Department , BESU and Queens University, Belfast, UK (QoB)
has made extremely good progress.
BESU students have undergone summer training programme at Queens University, Belfast, UK (QoB). We have also initiated split site Ph D programme with QoB.
Students from Pennsylvania State University underwent summer internship at Civil Engineering Department, BESU.
(d) CEERI Pilani is going to set up ‘ Microelectronics Fabrication Centre’ at
Electronics and Tele-Communication Engineering Department at BESU.
(e) PG program in Automotive Engineering with Windsor University, Canada, A CIDA project is under consideration.
Co-curricular/Extra Curricular Activities
Extra curricular activities:
(i) Opening of ‘Centre for Creative Expression’. The Slater Hall has been completely renovated by the alumni of 1979. They have also agreed to fund the various societies of this centre.
(ii) Campus/Infrastructure
(iii) With the help of UGC grant an equal opportunity cell and a day care centre have been established.
(iv) CES, New Delhi has agreed to help BESU in having a green building for its research on ‘ Green Energy and Green Architecture’.
Administrative reforms
Some of the administrative reforms are mentioned below:
(i) Formation of BESUS foundation fund under the supervision of ‘ Professor In Charge of International Relations and Alumni Affairs’ to facilitate direct monetary contribution of the global alumni to BESU foundation.
(ii) Development and use of Campus-Connect software to automate most of the administrative level jobs, starting from admission to issue of the identity cards, processing bills, issuing notices and managing all documents.
(iii) Inclusion of experts from all over India for selection of faculty and staff.
(iv) Strengthening the interaction with the global institutions and our alumni by inducting a ‘Professor in Charge for International Relations and Alumni affairs’.
(v) Reinforcing academic administration by introducing a cell under Professor in Charge for ‘Continuing Education and Quality Improvement Program”.
(vi) Initiate planning on energy resources by instituting a Professor In Charge of ‘Energy Resources and Planning’.
Tasks Ahead
We seek the assistance of our alumni in the followings:
(i) In our strive to enhance both teaching and research qualities as well as to explore the frontier areas for creation of knowledge, it will be our pleasure to invite you to your alma mater, even for a temporary period ranging from one month to two years.
(ii) In having a green energy efficient research building with green architecture and green material. This multidisciplinary research building will house research activities on the followings (a) Photovoltaic / solar cell / fuel cell devices / biomass (ii) green architecture and civil construction (iii) green energy transfer to the electric grid (iii) green material and (iv) green IT
(iii) In creating more number of research professors / chair professors in BESU
(iv) In enhancing collaborations with industries / research laboratories:
This needs to be strengthened significantly. The university seeks more collaborative research initiatives with other universities, industries and various research laboratories in India and abroad.
(v) Fund for supporting research scholars.
(vi) Creating a green campus, where substantial amount of energy will be generated from Solar and other renewable form of energy sources.
(vii) Support for creating an archive and a light and sound (son et lumiere) show, which will preserve 153 years of long heritage of BESU. The heritage building ‘ Madhusudan Bhaban’ will be used for the purpose.
(viii) Support for starting entrepreneurship program for students and faculty at BESU.
ix) Support for enhancing the number of e- journals in our E- Library.
We are committed to our goal of achieving excellence in academics. With the active suggestions and participation from your end, I am sure that we will regain our past glory in a short time.
Let us join hands to build a paradise of science, poetry and elegance.
- Ajoy Kumar Ray
Please also
A message from Prof Ajoy Kumar Ray, VC to Alumni - Friday, March 20, 2009
| Comments by Sujoy Sinha Roy from India on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 06:08 - IP Logged |
Happy new year. The steps taken or to be taken are great. I would like to suggest to upload online tutorials, study materials , video lectures in the websites of every academic department. At the same time we should concentrate more on research or project specific works . Setting up SRIC is good step in this direction. The placement department will have to take active steps to bring good companies(not only IT service providers) for final year campus placement, as a good brain remains good if utilized properly.
Regards
Sujoy (ETC 2007) |
| Comments by Subrata Saha from United States on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 14:32 - IP Logged |
| I am delighted that Prof. Ray has taken ambitious and bold steps to improve the education and research efforts at BESU. I am also happy that GAABESU under the leadership of Arunda is contributing to this effort. BESU has a bright future. |
| Comments by Basab Majumdar from India on Friday, January 01, 2010 at 06:05 - IP Logged |
Dear Prof Roy,
Your message is a new experience for me in connection with our beloved Alma Mater.All your proposals are well thought out and grounded to reality and therefore achievable.That you are in the right direction is amply reflected by your inclusion of the item Cleaning of Campus as one of the mission areas.I offer whatever support I may give as a GABESU member. I live in Delhi and as such it may not be possible for me to participate in any direct program in Sibpur.Regards.
Basab Majumdar
1966,C.E. |
| Comments by Dipak Bhattacharya/'66 civil/ from India on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 11:07 - IP Logged |
Prof.Roy's approach to interact with the alumni spread all over the world,is an excellent idea.I cannot recall any such effort by anyof his predecessors.
Many thanks for your effort to enliven this great institution.
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| Comments by Ron Chatterji 64EE from United States on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 08:55 - IP Logged |
Prof. Ray,
It is a very nice well composed email. I thank you for all of the updates and the plans you have to cleanse the College. If you are coming this way, please let me know.
Happy New Year!
Ron Chatterji
Chicago, USA
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| Comments by Utpal K Roy 57EE from India on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 08:53 - IP Logged |
I convey my best wishes to Prof Ajoy K. Roy and to all faculty members.
We are set to ring in the New Year on a very happy note. The progress
made during the last one year is commendable and we are able again to
raise our heads with pride.
My sincerest good wishes to all BEC Alumni.
Utpal K.Roy
' 57 EE |
| Comments by BUDDHESWAR ROY from Kuwait on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 08:45 - IP Logged |
EXCELLENT EFFORT AND PROMISING COMMITMENT. LETS DO IT TOGETHER.
IF WE SEE THE NATIONAL RANKING OUR UNIVERSITY COMES AT 18 -20 POSITION. WE HOPE IT WILL COME 10-12 WITHIN A YEAR |
| Comments by Susobhan Ghosh from United States on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 07:27 - IP Logged |
Great Job Ajoy!!
You have met more than our expectations from a VC. I salute you for your vision and dealing with students as a friend. These young minds are to be nurtured, and you are in the right track; keep on moving. You have our support.
Happy new Year to you and your family including faculties, staff and students. |
| Comments by Basab Roy ( ME'81) from Qatar on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 04:12 - IP Logged |
| Let's all alumni join hands together to make VC's vision plan come true . This is first time we have received a vision and mission statement from a VC. Jago BEC ! |
| Comments by Dr. Asok Mukherjee from Germany on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 04:09 - IP Logged |
I was extremely pleased to read your message and shall eagerly look forward to the day when your/our dream comes true, that our B.E.College becomes an epitome of intelligence and talent, a pool for future leaders in all spheres of life, in India and abroad.
But we all have to work hand in hand to achieve the same.
With my very best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year, with less global warming and more peace.
Dr. Asok Mukherjee, B.E.E. 1969 |
| Comments by Pradip Kumar Majee from India on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 00:43 - IP Logged |
Thank you for your great and beautiful message on the eve of new year celebration.
HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2010 to all.
Thanks & Regards,
Pradip Kumar majee
Metallurgy-2009. |
| Comments by S. Bagchi from India on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 23:39 - IP Logged |
Thousand times thank and regard to VC. In order to excell and propagate name of BESU further, the important steps could be:
1. Admit a % of (say 5%) students at PG (M.E./M.Tech/M.Sc.)and PhD levels from abroad (east asia, south-east asia, east europe, latin america, africa, china to start with).
2. Vigorous persuation to form BESU-Foreign University collaborations at large scale for Student-Exchange and Faculty-Exchange.
3. Arranging and hosting International Conferences at BESU involving International Committee Members. |
| Comments by A.G.Roy Mukherjee, 64CE from India on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 23:33 - IP Logged |
Thank you for your nice message and convey my best regards for your endeavour to bring back the glorious history of Bengal Engineering College whose alumni have contributed immensely to the development of the country. However, I feel sad at times looking at the news published in the papers highlighting the student unrest and unnecessary mudslinging to each others purely on political purpose. This should be strongly handled so that the university is not maligned and its image remains intact.
Wish you all the best and all of your colleagues including the students for a nice, homogeneous teachers and students mutual trust, relationship and understanding as was prevailing in the past.
Thanking You,
A.G.Roy Mukherjee,1964CE |
| Comments by Swapan Basu from India on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 at 22:25 - IP Logged |
Happy new year to all of you!
While you were addressing us on 25th December 2009 on the occasion of our 30th year celebration, Ajayda mentioned about the requirement of a bigger lecture hall, and a few smaller lecture halls.
May i request Ajayda to kindly elaborate his plan, with special refence to
LAND ( quantum in Bigha,whether already land is availble if where it will be)
Approximate cost
Administrative paraphernalia
Based on the same we can plan some thing to raise the money.
I am confident that at the current state of activity of our Alumni it may not be an impossible task.
So i would request you to kindly react ajayda instead of looking for Govt fund.
Regards
Swapan (ETC 79)
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