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Showing posts from October 20, 2013

President to award degrees at IIT-Patna

President Pranab Mukherjee will on Saturday honour two students of IIT, Patna with gold medals, three with silver medals while 89 students will get BTech degrees at the second annual convocation to be held at Rabindra Bhawan here. The President, who will arrive here at 4.30pm on Saturday, will return to New Delhi at 6.05pm, according to chairman of the IITP, Ajai Chowdhry. Bihar governor D Y Patil and CM Nitish Kumar will be guests of honour on the occasion. Chowdhry told mediapersons here that three PhD scholars would also be honoured by the President. He hoped the next academic session of the institute would be conducted at Bihta, 30km from here, on a campus spread over 500 acres. The new campus, having three schools - School of engineering and technology, School of basic sciences and School of humanities and social sciences - would have 10 departments and 747 students. According to Chowdhry, by 2022, the IIT Patna would have 5,360 students and 530 teachers. The new campus would b

Two-day art festival to be held at IIT-Madras

The Fine Arts Club at the IIT-Madrasis organizing a two-day art festivalon Saturday and Sunday. The highlight of the festival is a talk by painter Bose Krishnamachari, titled 'Everything could be art, everyone could be an artist.' There will also be an interactive session with Krishnamachari, according to a release from the organisers. The talk and interaction will be at the central library hall at 2pm on Sunday. Visual artist and photographer Vimal Chandran will lead a session on interactive graffiti projects. The session, 'Unleash,' will be held at the student facilities on Saturday morning. On Saturday afternoon, artist and sculptor Jacob Jebaraj will conduct a session on how to make art from junk items. There will be an exhibition of paintings and photographs as part of the event.

Robot festival at IIT-Kharagpur

Come January and the best tech schools in the country will flock to IIT Kharagpur to participate in a robotic challenge. Designed by the institute's faculty to encourage creativity and applicative deductions, the competition will have prizes worth Rs 60 lakh up for grabs. The robotics event is part of IIT Kharagpur's annual technology festival, Kshitij, in its eleventh editionnow. On Sunday, a core team of the Robotics Societyof the institute will hold a free workshop for engineering colleges in the city to make them familiar with the rules of the competition. "There are four categories of the robotics competition and all of them are aimed at finding disaster management solutions with the use of robots to minimize human intervention," explained Arnab Samantaray, an IIT-Kgp student and a member of the Robotics Society. These four events have been named Geo-Aware, Tremors, Canyon Rushand Inspiral On. In Geo-Aware, a warzone will be created through simulation and pa

Workshop on Robotics at IIT Indore

A two-day workshop on robotics will be organized at IIT Indore from October 26. Fluxus 2014, the workshop on 'eyebotics', a branch of robotics, will have lectures on various topics of robotics. IIT-I third year student, Anupreet Gupta told TOI that the workshop will cover introduction to computer vision, digital image processing, image acquisition and processing and image manipulation. Lectures will be held on theory and practice of digital image processing with the help of numerous examples, he added.

IITs to offer jobs to spouse of faculty

There is good news for the family of those who aspire to become part of the faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) across the country. In an attempt to attract more young and bright faculty into the IIT system, IITs have come forward to provide a job to the husband or wife of prospective faculty members and also possibly a school seat for their kids. According to recent statistics by the HRD ministry, as against the sanctioned faculty strength of 6,076 in 15 IITs in the country, 2,608 remain vacant. Former Anna University vice-chancellor and chairman of IIT Kanpur Prof. M. Anandakrishnan said on Thursday that with faculty shortage looming large at IITs, the IIT council, in which all chairman and directors are members, decided to provide concessions to attract good-knowledgeable faculty. “As part of the concessions, we will accommodate spouse of faculty in some position at the institute based on their qualifications. If the faculty is abroad, the institute will also pay

IIT-JEE 2014: British university to do a case study on Anand Kumar's Super 30

Bihar's Super 30, known for providing free coaching and assistance to underprivileged students to help them crack the prestigious entrance examination of IITs, is now the subject of a case study by a British university. The University of East London, in partnership with Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences, selected Super 30 as one of the three case studies from India. "Super 30 is just one of three case studies selected from India and only one from Bihar. Two other case studies have been taken from Mumbai, while three case studies were from Britain," Anand Kumar, founder-director of Super 30, said. The project, supported by the British Council under the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), is aimed at mapping social innovation strategies in overcoming multiple deprivations in select locations in India and Britain, he said. Anand said the specific objectives of the study include identification of varied aspects of "deprivation and un-fre

IITs creating 'tinkering labs' to bake ideas into products

In 2011, when Siddartha Khastgir, a student at IIT Kharagpur, set out to build a formula-modelled racing car to enter a competition in the UK, IIT gave him 9.5 lakh to fund it, but only an old, abandoned shed to build it in. "I wish we had proper labs for such work then," recalls Khastgir, who now works as a project engineer at automotive firm FEV GmbH in Germany. That's precisely the kind of 'tinkering labs' that many IITs at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Kanpur, Chennai etc are now creating or have just created. "A tinkering laboratory is a platform for creative minds to come out of their 'think space' to a more hands-on 'tinker space', to transform their ideas into real-time engineering objects, and eventually to products and patents," says Sameer Khandekar, associate professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. "IIT students are good at theoretical knowledge but need more hands-on experience," adds Khastgir. The l

15 IITs start major curriculum review

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, all the 15 Indian Insti­tutes of Technol­og­y (IITs) in the country have started a major review of their curriculum, departments, rese­arch, faculty and governance. Speaking to DC on Wednesday, Prof. Bha­skar Ramamurthi, director, IIT-Madras, said that the IIT council which comprises chairman and director of all IITs as members and HRD minister as its head, recently decided to do an overall review of all the 15 institutes. “We have 16 departments in IIT-Madras and the review has started with a committee of four experts from various Indian and foreign institutes revie­wing curriculum, rese­ar­ch, vision, faculty, strength and weakness of the departments,” he said. Pointing out that the expert committee had completed review of four departments, Prof. Ramamurthi said that the panel would submit its report by December last week. “Once this committee submit its report by December the larger peer review committee will start its review of the institute a

City fusion band heads to IIT madras 'Saarang' finale

City-based fusion music band e-Swara Project on Sunday secured its place in the finale of ‘Saarang’, the annual cultural festival of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, scheduled in the first week of January. e-Swara Project, a progressive fusion rock group that started playing in February this year, competed against 11 other college bands in the city in the ‘Saarang Band Hunt’ competition held at Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering on Sunday. The band will now compete at a national stage in the light music finals at ‘Saarang’. “It means a lot to us to have qualified for a national event in the first place. It will be a great platform for us to showcase our talent and also learn,” said Dinushan Shanmuganathan, the band’s percussionist. The band recently released a single ‘Vande Mataram’ which garnered over 2 lakh views on YouTube.  e-Swara Project comprises Yogeendra Hariprasad (vocals, keyboards), Anirban Sengupta (lead guitar), Dinushan (percussions), Raynol D’Souza (ba

IIT-K Antaragni to begin from Oct 24

The much awaited annual cultural festival of IIT-Kanpur 'Antaragni' will begin from October 24 and end on October 27. This year, Antaragni will have two new additions, including classical night and European Film Festival. Around 1,500 students (outstation candidates) from 130 colleges would participate in the event this year. Apart from prizes worth Rs 50 lakh, the winners would receive internships as part of the "dream on campaign" at Shaimak Davar dance academy, Munish Khanna photography, Barry John acting studio, Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music and Delhi College of Arts. Festival chairman of Antaragni Prof Satyaki Roy, in a conference held on Sunday, said that Indian Ocean, a pioneer of Fusion Rock in India and Bonney Men, a folk band from Ireland would perform at the opening night of Antaragni on October 24. Festival co-ordinators Jainendra Batra and Saurabh Dixit, who are final year students of IIT-Kanpur, told reporters that musician from Turkey Derin Kiva

IIT gap in school boards - 73 per cent students come from CBSE and Andhra

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Nearly three of every four students shortlisted   for the Indian Institutes of Technology this year come from two of the country’s 29 school boards, an analysis of the results has shown. The results have confirmed a long-standing suspicion: distribution of students who made it to the elite tech schools is not uniform across the two national and 27 state boards. The analysis has shown that of the nearly 21,000 who cracked the IIT-JEE Advanced, the last of the two-tier test candidates have to clear for entering the IITs, 56 per cent were from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and 17 per cent from the Andhra Pradesh Board of Intermediate Education (APBIE). Together, they account for 73 per cent of the students who appeared for the test. Students from the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education made up only a little over 1 per cent of those who qualified . While nearly 1.27 lakh students appeared for the exam, 20,834 qualified for some 10,000 seats in

IIT-Madras starts centre to study, protect monuments

Each year India loses a historical monument or parts of it to natural hazards or time. Archaeologists and heritage lovers have expressed concern over the lack of a system or expert committee to study and monitor the safety and restoration of heritage structures. IIT-Madras has now formed a consortium of archeologists, architects, historians and engineers within and outside the country to plug this lacuna. Convenor of the centre Arun Menon said, "Of the 29 world heritage monuments in India, around 70% lie in seismic zones. There is an urgent need to study and boost the safety of heritage structures in the country using fundamental research and technology." The National Centre for Safety of Heritage Structures was set up in September with a five-year grant of Rs 12 crore from the human resource development ministry. After the five years, funds will be provided through a non-Plan grant. A laboratory has been set up at IIT-Madras to study construction materials from historical

IIT status for Andhra University soon, hopes V-C

Freshers of the engineering college given a warm welcome on Thursday. "Every year, Andhra University produces more than 500 Ph.Ds. It has pioneered vast UG, PG and designer courses catering to the needs of diverse aspirants across the globe. Some of which continue to be unique in their own sense as not many colleges offer such programmes. Hope the university becomes IIT soon, probably by the end of this academic year," AU Vice-Chancellor G.S.N. Raju said. In rapt attention Y.V.S. Murty Auditorium on the premises of Andhra University College of Engineering (AUCE) was packed with freshers who were seen listening intently to the introductory presentation given by Prof. Raju here on Thursday. “We are here to help you and our university is student-friendly. Parents can rest assured that AU will be a ragging-free zone facilitating conducive environment for holistic learning. Freshers can focus on their domains and learn to manage time while involving in sports and extra curric

IITs hone students’ soft skills to make them job-ready

Companies look for job-ready candidates Just being a top ranking engineer from an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is no longer enough to bag a plum job. As recruiters increasingly look for job-ready candidates, premier engineering institutes are focusing on improving the soft skills of their students for ensuring their job-readiness. As part of campus placements, IIT-Madras has hired two external agencies this year and conducted extensive workshops on six customised modules such as communication skills, personal interviews and case studies. IIT-Bombay has also hired three service providers this year to conduct tests and assess students in communication skills, problem solving skills, body language, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, listening skills and assertiveness. Sunil Mehta, Assistant Training and Placement Officer, IIT-Bombay, said, since the last 3-4 years, efforts have been made with the support of external organisations to improve the soft skill assessment and guidance fo

IIT test is a headache for students, literally

Sixty-one percent of high school students suffer from tension headaches due to academic pressures and emotional stress according to the Indian Academy of Neurology. In Hyderabad, neurologists say that they have been seeing a lot of children from Classes 8 to 10 with complaints of headaches that is caused by academic pressure. The increasing number of Class 8 students enrolling for the IIT coaching courses is said to be one of the reasons.Dr Jaydip R. Chaudhuri, neurophysician at Yashoda Hospital, says, “The burden of extra coaching classes is a pressure point for some children. Kids with a leaning towards learning are receptive, but children who are pushed into it by their parents get stressed and develop headaches. These are nothing but tension headaches.” A parent visited a neurologist with their son complaining that he suffers sleepless nights and often stands in the balcony in the dead of the night. When the neurologist questioned him he confessed that he got a headache

Entries invited for IIT-Kharagpur's 'Kshitij'

The stage is set for IIT-Kharagpur's 'Kshitij', the largest techno-management fest in Asia. Anand Burman, a student of IIT-Kharagpur and part of the publicity cell of the fest informed that be it publicity drives, buzz in the social media or the fest's refreshing official website (which has the distinction of being the largest student-run website in India), the latest edition of Kshitij will for sure leave an impact on young minds. The team behind this four-day extravaganza is leaving no stone unturned to raise the bar this year, he said. In the city to create awareness about the mega event, Burman went to institutes like IIT-Kanpur, HBTI, and Kanpur University to publicise the event. The fest will start on January 31 and end on February 3, 2014. Burman said the fest, which traces it's origins back to the year 2004 (when it was known as Ideon), has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. From the humble participation of just 260 students in its year of incept

Salary of IIIT-A faculty to be at par with IIT

For the faculty members appointed at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A) after September 18, 2009, received a Diwali bonanza ahead of the festival. According to a new government order(GO) issued by Union ministry of human resource development (HRD), these faculty members would henceforth receive salary at par with the teachers of IIT. This would also eliminate the disparity in salary between faculty members appointed prior and after September 18, 2009 as former are already receiving salary at par with IIT faculty members, while the latter have been receiving salary as per UGC norms. Institute spokesperson Pankaj Mishra said that the new GO would benefit more than 40 out of 80 faculty members as they would receive arrears running into lakhs from September 18, 2009. He said that in this connection an office order has already been issued by IIIT-A director intimating the faculty members about the new development. The anomaly in pay scales between the faculty

IIT-Kharagpur team roots for 'Lassi' as Google's next Android version's name

With a wish to see 'Lassi' as the next name of Google's Android operating system, a team of students from IIT, Kharagpur, were in Ludhiana on Saturday to garner support for their campaign. The organising team of Kshitij, the IIT's annual fest, visited Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College. “Google is known to name Android versions on desserts. It named its last version Kit Kat,” said Ritesh Saraogi, a team member, hoping that their campaign would make Google name the next Android version behind India's much-loved dairy drink. “At GNDEC, we created awareness about our Lassi campaign and got a good response. We also organised a wokshop at Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar,” said Saraogi, an MSc economics student at Kharagpur IIT. There are 50 students from the technology institute who are touring the length and breadth of the country for the campaign. “It has been announced that the name of the next version of Android will start from the letter L. So, we want

IIT-Madras professors go on road shows to woo students

IIT-Madras faculty are going on road shows across the country to market the institute's research programmes. The initiative is being taken this year to woo the brightest minds in other leading higher educational institutions. Three or four faculty members from each department have been visiting other centrally-funded institutions like the NationalInstitutes of Technology, state-funded institutions and private self-financing colleges and universities as well. "We want to increase the quality and quantity of our PhD intake," said IIT-Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi. The institutions are chosen based on student intake in the past. Around 10 visits were planned, and the interactions will end by October 20, before the PhD application deadline. The institute enrolls research scholars twice a year - once in June and another in November or December. Ramamurthi said that the faculty members may go on a similar round of visits to institutions next April, ahead of the June int

IIT-Bombay, US University join hands for business interface

The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B ) and Washington University in St Louis (WUSTL) will launch the IIT B-WUSTL Corporate Network, which intends to bring together academia and industry to encourage research in disciplines relevant to industry, government and society and to train employees and leaders. The network will be launched on Saturday, when the IIT B-Washington University Corporate Leaders Conclave to be held in St Louis, US, starts. "Networks of innovative scientists and professionals like this corporate alliance are the foundation for this collaborative , global approach," said Mark Wrighton, chancellor , WUSTL. Leaders from IIT-B and WUSTL and other major international corporations will be participating in the conclave , which is aimed at strengthening the US-India connection around innovation and education, particularly in the areas of global concern. "In a globalized economy, it is important for us to understand the emerging requirements of the