Friday, November 28, 2008

First Catholic University in India to be Inaugurated

Don Bosco University (DBU) Guwahati, Assam, the first Catholic university set up under the new government legislation, will be inaugurated on December 6, 2008. The earlier inaugural programme scheduled for October 31 was postponed due to the serial bomb blast that rocked Guwahati and left 81 people dead and over 200 people injured, October 30.

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and four State ministers (Education, Health, Power and Social Welfare) will attend the function along with a galaxy of eminent civil and church personalities of the region.

“We are focusing on teaching, research and consultancy on three core areas: technology, service and social sectors with the declared objectives of working with cutting-edge technology, ensuring the employability of the graduates and their capacity to transform society,” says Vice-Chancellor-designate Dr. Stephen Mavely in an interview with Radio Vatican in the Vatican, November 26.

While Information Technology and Biotechnology dominate the Technology sector, Nursing, Pharmacology and Para-Medical, Psychology, Counseling, Management, Media, Teacher Education, Social Work and Rural Development are other subjects of the Service sector.

Teaching and research on Religion and Culture, Ethics, Governance and Tribal studies will be the forte at DBU as North East India has a concentration of over 200 distinct tribal groups.

Engineering Courses Started in August:

The first constituent College of Don Bosco University, Don Bosco College of Engineering and Technology (DBCET), Airport Road, Azara, launched its engineering programmes in August 2008. The new campus, located 15 km from state capital Dispur, when completed will nestle in a 230 acre tea garden.

“Currently DBCET offers Engineering Courses in four streams - Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering and Electrical Engineering for 240 students. When fully operational, it will have a full complement of 1,500 students in various streams of engineering,” says DBU Registrar-designate Dr. Basil Koikara.

“We have now 60 boys and girls in the college hostel while DBCET bus, as well as city buses, and car pools bring students from the city and neighbouring towns,” adds Dr. Koikara.

“State-of-the-art, tastefully furnished computer lab with over 70 computers networked under Windows 2003 server and Linux Computing Centre with 30 Internet enabled computers to serve the day-to-day computing needs of students,” says Campus Ministry coordinator Salesian Sister Celine D’Cunha showing the language lab equipped with 30 student consoles, language lab software and digitised audio and video material to develop interactive language skills.

Don Bosco Background Story

“Don Bosco Society came to Northeast India 85 years ago and has 8 colleges and 118 high schools with dozens of formal and non-formal technical schools,” says DBU liaison officer Dr. Peter Paul Hauhnar.

Don Bosco in India is 100 years old and has some 5,000 Fathers, Brothers and Sisters running 27 colleges and over 100 technical schools.

Photo caption: Dr Mavely making a presentation to Angelo Bagnasco. Archbishop of Genoa. President of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) at Don Bosco parish Sampierdarena (Genoa), 23 November.

Photo by C.M. Paul

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