KISS Deemed to be University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (GSDS), Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi, on 7th April 2022. The MoU aims at establishing a mutual understanding partnership between the parties to promote and develop the Gandhi Peace, Nonviolence and Dialogue Study Centre for wide propagation of Gandhian philosophy and values and to adopt the syllabus on Nonviolent Communication designed by the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti and KISS Deemed to be University to provide Short-term Certificate Courses to the students of KISS-DU. The MoU Signing Ceremony was witnessed by the fraternity of both the organizations.
Speaking on the occasion, Professor Deepak Kumar Behera, Vice-Chancellor, KISS-DU shared that KISS-DU will organize the World Anthropology Congress in 2023, and the central theme of the Congress is peace. He suggested organizing sessions on related areas with support from GSDS at this meet. Professor Behera touched upon various probable areas of collaboration, including research on tribal-centric topics. Sharing that KISS-DU and GSDS had organized an e-workshop on ‘Exploring Nonviolent Communication’ in the past, he stated that KISS looks forward to many more joint activities to make this MoU functional.
Mr. Dipanker Shri Gyan, Director, GSDS appreciated the work done by KISS and KISS-DU since its inception in the area of tribal development. He suggested that the research and development wing of KISS should document the work done at the community level. Speaking on the relevance of the objectives of the MoU, he said that non-violent communication alone could help curb anti-social activities. Shri Gyan also congratulated the Founder for his out-of-the-box thinking and visionary work.
In his remarks, Dr. Vedavyas Kundu, Programme Officer, GSDS, presented the focus areas of GSDS and the aims and objectives of its various centres. He also shared the various Centres running at GSDS; namely, Centre for Mediation including Peer and Community Mediation; Centre for Strategy for Conflict Resolution; Centre for Global Citizenship Education; Centre for Forgiveness, and the like.
About KIIT University
KIIT University (earlier Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology) is a co-educational, autonomous university located at Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Orissa. It was one of the youngest institutions to be awarded the deemed university status in India and then the university status in 2004 and is recognised by Limca Book of Records.The University offers under-graduate and post-graduate courses in Engineering, Bio-technology, Medicine, Management, Law, Computer application, Rural management, Fashion, Film Studies, Journalism and Sculpturing. It has been ranked as 16 th in India, 5 th among private universities, and 4 th in the eastern region in the year 2009 by Times of India. It has also been ranked 18 th among private engineering institutes and 7 th in placement in 2008 by Outlook India.KIIT School of Management has been nominated as the mentor institution by AICTE for conducting faculty development programme in eastern India.