ASSAM'S KNOWLEDGE CITY- CAMELLIA PRIVATE UNIVERSITY FROM 2010

Guwahati,Asom 10 February,2009
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KNOWLEDGE CITY AND THE
OLDEST VILLAGE
AT GUWAHATI
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Assam's first ever knowledge city proposed to be set up at a cost of Rs. 300 crores would come to exist in 2010 at Chirang district in Bodoland TC area in order to impart education in Law, Engineering,Biotechnology and Management.The oldest knowledge village at Guwahati city is not so far off and city-village symbiosis has become a hard reality.

A law university and a medical university had been a regional need for a long time.The rationale need not be reiterated time and again.

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A time to introspect the oldest and nearly fading or even shrinking premier university at Guwahati.Even the SBI and Post office become so disturbingly menacing that they have changed the name of GU to Guwahati University despite written protests from us in last couple of years.This is a minimal indication of how GU has been badly treated .


There was a time when GU was towering in the region and by now, other skyscrappers are also coming up.GU is shrinking inspite of expanding.People who have vision lack patience and people with patience also lack vision.That is the fate of GU.Unless GU is revamped, rechristened and revolutionalised very soon in terms of a] major structurtal change that would cast out spiritualists, tomb raiders and day dreamers, b] total restructuring of syllabi and method of teaching by way of accelerated expansion of every discipline,c] central take- over or heaviest commitment of the state government in terms of funding and infrastructure innovation,d] major international collaboration and, e] re-defining the philosophy of GU., the one time tower would have to play second fiddle to Hinglicised ,our northern Indian ruled NEHU or, other so called world class
universities.One has to abandon the hackneyed misnomer that world class universities are born ,not made.They are made, not born- could be Princeton,Oxbridge or,Harvard.They had been made out to be.


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The central and state universities in the NE region are essential,yet they have to be shaped.The misnomer ? First, we shape the building and then, the building shapes us.Why can't we re-shape even the buildings we live in.

Leaders in Mizoram feel that only Mizos have to top the list in university exams.This is a misnomer.VCs are rolling stones at Nagaland University.Another misnomer.

There is a fullfledged university in Manipur; politics and personal equations supersede other super-eminent values.Till I retire from professorship of Law in 2006, I remained silent on legal education in MU.Even after three decades of existence ,no EC nor VC of Manipur university had recognised that every university in this planet could not be set up without setting up faculty of law along with Arts, Science and Commerce faculties.Even today,no one can register for a Ph.D. in law in MU since 1980.This one simple test cae of how universities are made out to be by nefarious elements .

Civilization had been forced to pay a heavy price for the ignorance or motives of some one clever or otherwise- even notorious.Tribes and tiny ethnoses have to find fiar representation in teaching and other wings of the regional universities.



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GU could have become a central university if the pressure of the federal government had not been ignored and a mega institute of languages- Asomese or Boro whatever could have existed alongside in order to protect the natives from external intrusions.That happens to be a missed opportunity.Opportunity knocks the door only once.

Damage control in time could be done at the knowledge village at Jhallukbari if the course of history could be re-shaped and re-defined.Even today teacher leaders and officials deny the 10% arrear par which was due by 1996- 12 years back.

Question is if our human resources or university products could be resourceful or resourceless.We can make them resourceful.The Camellia private university would be one the leading private universities in the region.The footprints Camellia would leave on the sands of time would provoke knowledge workers to summon up new courage and set up new chapters in history. Rome was not built in one night, so is world class university or research institute.We have to prove to the world that our scientists make inventions, discoveries and our academics create new forms of knowledge .It has just begun.

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