Lauding SOA for its focus on\nresearch, he said the Deemed to be University had contributed greatly in the\nfield of higher education. \u201cSOA is not only recognized today at the national\nlevel but also on the international platform,\u201d he said referring to the\nuniversity being ranked globally recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nOdisha\u2019s Governor, Prof. Ganeshi Lal\nwas the chief guest on the occasion while the convocation was also graced by\nunion minister for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Steel, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan and\nOdisha\u2019s minister for Higher Education, Agriculture and Farmers\u2019 Empowerment,\nDr. Arun Kumar Sahoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SOA Chancellor Prof. Khageswar\nPradhan presided over the function while the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Amit\nBanerjee presented the report. Registrar, Prof. B.B.Pradhan was also present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honoris\nCausa (Doctor of Science) was presented on the occasion to Prof. Debiprosad\nDuari, a distinguished scientist in the domain of astronomy and astrophysics,\nwho is presently the Director of the Birla Planetarium at Kolkata.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expressing happiness at SOA having\nestablished 13 research centers and 38 laboratories to strengthen its research\nprogram, Mr. Gadkari said the country needed to place greater focus in this\narea while steps should be initiated to strengthen the knowledge base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The union minister said after a\nMalaysian engineer had informed him about a new technology in which steel fibre\nwas being used in place of steel for construction of bridges and flyovers to\nreduce cost, he had decided to get it checked by engineers. \u201cIt was found to be\ntrue. The use of steel fibres reduced the construction cost by 25 per cent,\u201d he\nsaid adding \u201cthe need was to think out of the box.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Research is also on to use bio-fuel\nfor flying aircrafts and a SpiceJet flight from Dehradun to Delhi had flown\nusing 25 per cent Jatropha oil as aviation fuel, he said adding the focus was\non bio-fuel development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Gadkari\nalso laid stress on development of agriculture as it was an area which held\nimmense potential to generate employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Addressing the gathering, Prof.\nGaneshi Lal, however, said technology and innovation, though required, were not\nenough as one needed to have a peep into theology. \u201cI must realize that I\u2019m an eternal fragment\nof the power who created this world and sent me into this planet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/8R1A2343-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n\u201cGod created man in his own image,\u201d he said\nquoting the Bible while emphasizing that man had no choice but to be happy\nhere. \u201cThe need is to accept and love everyone as pluralism and diversity is in\nour genes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr.\nPradhan described SOA as a prestigious university saying though young it had\nalready made a mark in the field of higher education and research. \u201cThe\nuniversity should come up with new ideas and compel the policy makers to accept\nit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\nis no dearth of resources in Odisha but the ideas should come from the\nuniversities as to how to ignite a spark to take the state along the path of\ndevelopment,\u201d the union minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr.\nSahoo also congratulated SOA for having carved a niche for itself saying it had\nbeen performing consistently and was marching ahead with long strides. The\nuniversity\u2019s decision to set up the Centre for Environment and Climate came in\nfor special mention by the minister who described it as a timely step in the\nface of serious environmental challenges faced by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chancellor Prof. Pradhan said\nIndia\u2019s economic progress and transformation into a developed country was\nintrinsically linked to its education system and skill development. The present\neducation system was plagued by rote learning and most of the students tend to\nforget what they had learned after the examination. \u201cThis is one of the\nfundamental flaws of our education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Amit\nBanerjee said SOA had been ranked among the top 25 universities in the country\nfor two consecutive years of 2018 and 2019 while it had broken into world\nrankings by being placed in the 600 plus category by the Times Higher Education\n(THE) World Ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The university was ranked within the\ntop 50 universities in the country in the QS India Ranking this year, he said\nadding SOA had been granted Graded Autonomy by the UGC while three of its\ntechnical programs had been accredited by the Accreditation Board for\nEngineering and Technology (ABET) of USA.\n\n Prof.\nBanerjee said altogether 167 Ph.D. degrees were being presented to the scholars\nat the convocation in addition to four Chancellor\u2019s Gold Medals and 132\nUniversity Gold Medals to the students who had excelled. Degrees had been\npresented to 4542 under graduate and 1243 post graduates students who passed\nout from the university. \n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Knowledge and innovative research, backed by appropriate use of technology and policy decision, was needed for the country to move forward, Union minister for Road Transport, Highways and MSME, Mr. Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday. \u201cA lot depends on vision, technology and knowledge as it can convert waste into wealth,\u201d Mr. Gadkari said while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utkalaage.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}