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Showing posts from September 1, 2013

HRD minister for centres for skill training on IIT lines

Union HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju today supported a proposal from industry for setting up of centres of excellence for skills on the lines of IITs and the Indian School of Law under the government's skilling initiatives. He said he would "certainly carry them forward", after a suggestion in this regard was made by CEO and MD of Larsen and Toubro, K Venkataraman. Participating at the sixth global skills summit, the L&T MD suggested that each of these centres could be devoted to skilling for different sectors such as construction, telecom, including soft skills. The summit is being jointly organised by FICCI and the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Venkataraman's suggestion came against the backdrop of the government's setting up of a National Skill Development Agency to align and coordinate the work of various ministries and departments on skilling initiatives. The aim is to achieve the national goal of skilling 500 million Indians by the end of 2

2 critical, several injured after IIT Madras Mess registration

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 We bring you latest news from Indian Institute of technology where a large number of casualties are being reported after Mess registration that occurred on Monday 2nd September 2013. No fatalities have been reported yet but it is said that two students are still critical and up to 10 people have got minor injuries. The whole scenario may seem astonishing for moment but the Director of IIT has decided to set up a panel to look into the issue. Our close sources have told us that if the issue persists then there might be a need of even CBI enquiry. IIT Madras mess, as shown on IIT’s website. It is said that on Sunday night of 1st September 2013, a mail spammed up the email boxes of all the students of IIT Madras. We came to know that the contents of email were dreadful but all the students were forced to read the mail. We issue a statutory warning to all our readers, as next few lines are not for weak soul. The mail read that, “Dear Students, We are sorry for the past failures

IIT-Delhi alumnus Raghuram Rajan says he has no magic wand

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Internationally renowned economist Raghuram Rajan who took over on Wednesday as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor and plunge straight into a fire-fight situation as the country battles a rapid fall in rupee, high inflation, low growth and burgeoning current account deficit (CAD). 50-year-old Rajan, a former chief economist with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who was economic advisor to the finance ministry, has taken over a difficult assignment from Duvvuri Subbarao on his completing five years in Mint Road. An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Ahmedabad and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a gold-medallist all through, Rajan was the youngest economic-counsellor and chief economist at the IMF from October 2003 to December 2006. Rajan has already said that he has no magic wand to face the challenge before the country but would deal with them one at a time. The Government, which was

Changes introduced in IIT JAM 2014

The 2014 version of "Joint Admission to M.Sc (JAM)", the common entrance exam for admission to M.Sc and Ph.D programs offered by the  Indian Institutes of Technology  (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc),  Bangalore , will be seeing a few changes. JAM 2014 would  be organised and conducted by IIT Kanpur on 9 Feb, 2014 and has discontinued two   test papers   - Computer Applications (CA) and Geophysics (GP). Three programmes,  Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) , M.Tech in Geological Technology and M.Tech in Geophysical Technology have also been discontinued from the 2014-15 academic session. The  JAM 2014 exam notification  has been released last week.  Online applications  will begin from 16 September, 2013 onward.

IIT, Taiwan varsity sign Mandarin deal

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Taiwan will come out with various plans to attract more Indian students to study in higher education institutions in their country. Inaugurating the Tai­wan education programme to teach Man­darin for students of IIT-Madras on Wednesday, Tien Chung-Kwang, ambassador, Taipei Eco­nomic and Cultural Cen­tre, said that a mere 500 students from India pursue various courses in Taiwan and the country has thrown open lot of opportunities for Indian students. “We had a meeting in Delhi this week to study the feasibility for economic cooperation with India. IIT-Madras is the fourth institute in India where we have started the Taiwan program­me,” he said. IIT-Madras and Nati­onal TsingHua Unive­rsity (NTHU) in Taiwan signed an MoU on Wedn­e­sday to promote Mand­arin among Indian students, and to facilitate better understanding between higher education institutions of both the countries. Taiwan education programme is co-funded by NTHU. “This initiative will contribute to strengthening IIT

ISM students hold protest over IIT tag demand

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Demanding conversion of  Indian School of Mines  (ISM)  Dhanbad  into an IIT, hundreds of students from the institute today staged a dharna here to press for their cause.  "We want an early conversion and end the confusion among the students and faculties," said one of the students.  The issue is to be taken up by the  IIT council  when it meets soon, the students said.  The students have been agitating for an IIT tag for their institute for the last couple of years.  Some of the MPs, including Inder Singh Namdhari, attended the dharna, the students said.  Sources, said the Council is in favour of forming a committee to examine afresh the proposal of ISM Dhanbad for conversion into IIT.

A scary beast called CAT

It is something of a parlour game among CAT faculty to see who makes the most damningly impenetrable test. In a vicious turn, it is considered a mark of one's skill to design tests that will make students weep. There are exams and there are exams. In India, there is no dearth of them. The toughness of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) entrance test, in two parts and spanning an entire year, is much ballyhooed. Hundreds of eager men and women take out a significant chunk of their lives to prepare. There are entire enclaves devoted to this. Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar and Mumbai's Borivali are hubs of IAS coaching institutes. Then there is the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance, an essential rite of passage for any self-respecting parent. What the child might want is another matter. Preparations start as early as IX standard. Kota's economy has boomed on the back of this business. Questions in JEE Advanced, the second stage of engineering entrance necessar

An alumni's vision to boost Research and Development

His words are measured and look like they have been thought about a zillion times. The 54-year-old Bhaskar Ramamurthy, director, IIT Madras (IIT-M), Chennai, graduated in BTech Electronics from IIT-M in 1975-80. He went on to complete an integrated MS-PhD in electrical engineering from University of California-Santa Barbara, USA, in 1984. After his doctorate, he worked with AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA, on problems in indoor wireless communications. In 1986, he joined his alma mater as a faculty and in September, 2011, was appointed as the institute’s 10th director. His areas of specialisation include communications and signal processing. His research domains are wireless networks, modulation, wireless data, and audio and video compression. He is a founding member of the TeNeT group of IIT Madras, which is into developing telecom and networking technologies and incubating companies to develop and market products based on these. Currently, he is honorary director of the Centre of

IIT-Patna campus work at standstill

The construction of IIT Patna's permanent campus at Bihta stands suspended due to the protest of a group of local farmers and landowners. Subhash Pandey, registrar IIT Patna said the administration could not do much to break the logjam. "We have communicated with the state government to solve the issue. Right now the construction work has stopped," said Pandey adding, "The Patna DM has assured that the matter would be resolved and that the construction would start again soon. According to reports, the local farmers have demanded a uniform compensation package for the people who have given their pieces of land for construction of the institute in the area. The IIT Patna campus will be built on a sprawling 500 acre land at Bihta. Therefore adjoining areas have also been acquired by the state government. Meanwhile Bihar pradesh congress committee spokesman Vinod Sharma and programme in charge Brajesh Pandey urged CM   Nitish Kumar   to accept the farmers'

Union feud stalls IIT hostel project

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Construction of a girls’ hostel at IIT Kharagpur is stuck for the past fortnight as two Trinamul unions have been demanding that construction workers owing allegiance to each be employed. Work on a beautification project on the campus that includes conversion of a water body into a lake started today after being stalled for eight days over similar problems. Dutta Group and Company (DGC), which is turning a school building into the hostel for IIT students, said it had employed two workers from the unrecognised INTTUC union led by Kharagpur municipality councillor Jawaharlal Pal. But the official INTTUC faction led by Pal’s civic colleague Apurba Ghosh demanded workers owing allegiance to his unit be employed too. DGC owner Priyabrata Dutta said the hostel, to come up at a cost of Rs 1.8 crore, would accommodate 110 to 125 students. “I had employed eight workers — two each from unions affiliated to Intuc, INTTUC, Citu and Aituc. I had also engaged two of my own skilled workers

IITs restart preparation courses to fill up quota seats

Hamstrung by the lack of qualified candidates to fill up the mandatory quota seats, the Indian Institutes of Technology have not only lowered the cut-offs for the reserved category students but also restarted the year-long preparatory courses. But not all campuses will run these courses. This year, the IITs have decided to take turns to run the bridge programme. For the first time, some of the IITs have outsourced the preparatory course to their counterparts in other tech schools. For instance, IIT-Roorkee is holding these classes for not just their students but also those of IIT-Delhi and IIT-Mandi. IIT-Madras is conducting 'prep classes' as they are known, for its candidates and those of IIT-Bombay, IIT-Hyderabad and IIT-Gandhinagar. Apart from running the course for its candidates, IIT-Kharagpur is also training students of IIT-Patna and IIT-Bhubaneshwar. Preparatory courses are special coaching classes for reserved category students who fail to make the grade despi

IIT-Kharagpur whizkids in robo-cup

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You had heard of human soccer players participating in various leagues. Robot soccer players are not far behind. Students of IIT Kharagpur have been developing robot soccer players that are participating in FIRA - the world's most prestigious robo-soccer championship - in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The championship that started on August 21 will be on till August 29. A team of 40 students from the institute - KGP Cubs - has gone to Kuala Lumpur to take part in the championship. Of the 36 robber soccer teams from tech schools across the world, the only two teams from India that have been selected to participate in the FIRA championship are IIT-Kgp and IIT Madras. It took the IIT Kharagpur boys four years to make these robots. And no ordinary robots these - each a soccer dynamite! Now armed with these robots, the KGP Cubs, as the team has been christened, has gone to participate in the world's most prestigious robo-soccer championship - FIRA - that is at the moment on in M

A first at IIT-B: Cancer-hit student gets BTech degree posthumously

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As he walked into the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) earlier this month, Central Railway employee Siddarth Dhoke was overwhelmed by bittersweet memories of the day he saw his son, Akshay, enter its gates five years ago. The locomotive driver had arrived from Nagpur to receive a BTech degree conferred posthumously upon Akshay – a first at the premier technical institute. Akshay had enrolled for the five-year electrical engineering dual degree course with specialisation in microelectronics in 2008. However, Akshay, who had blood cancer , passed away last September, months after appearing for the seventh semester  exam.  Towards the end of 2011, he had begun complaining of fever and pain in the joints and he was admitted to the campus hospital several times. “He had taken the seventh semester exam despite being ill. He missed a few papers, though. He was diagnosed with blood cancer in December 2011,” said his father.  Akshay, however, refused to give up without a fight.

An eye lost, cancer survivor makes it to IIT

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His resolve is written large on his face. Pankaj Yadav, 18, has made it to the  Indian Institute of Technology  (BHU)-Varanasi, overcoming his handicap of losing an eye to cancer 13 years ago. In doing so, this cancer survivor has set an example for hundreds of others like him who have fought off the dreaded disease. The National Society for Childhood Cancer and Cankids - Kidscan have committed to supporting his family to meet his higher education costs of Rs 400,000 over four years and are seeking donors to help him. "When I lost an eye at the age of five, no one imagined that I would go far in academics," said Yadav, a resident of Haryana whose father is a constable in the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force. Pankaj was among the 23 cancer patients and survivors who were recently honoured by Cankids in New Delhi with scholarships "Even when I started my preparations for the  IIT  entrance exam, not many of my peers believed that I would cra

Country made a big mistake: IIT Director

Keeping research institutions separate from educational ones was a big mistake on the part of India over the years, said R K Shevgaonkar, Director, IIT Delhi, here on Friday. He was delivering the inaugural keynote address at the 14th National Conference on Technological Trends (NCTT-2013) being held at College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET). Talking on the lack of a research-based economy in India, Shevgaonkar said: “By segregating research from academics and setting up separate institutions for research, we have given an indirect message that research is only meant for a few.” By not incorporating research into academics, we have taken away a big chunk from the resource pool, he added. “There is also this notion in academic institutions among teachers as well that ‘research is not my cup of tea,’” he said. “No one really has a clear idea what research is and a large number of people shy away thinking they’re incapable of it.” Perhaps it is because of this reason that there a

IIT-M’s first satellite to help predict earthquakes

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The electrical model of IITMSAT, the first satellite of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, is almost ready. The 15-kg satellite that will attempt to study radiation belts on Earth and help in predicting earthquakes is the largest among all the satellites developed by the IITs till now. Work on the IIT-Madras Student Satellite Project or IITMSAT started as early as in 2009, recalled the team of 20 undergraduates and a few postgraduates who work after class hours and during weekends on the project. “The focus was on studying the energy of charged particles in the upper part of the ionosphere, and their behaviour due to lightning storms and earthquakes,” said Akshay Gulati, one of the team’s founding members, who has continued to work with the team as a project officer after graduating from the institute. “The data collected by the satellite over its mission life of one year will be given to scientists who will be able to verify any correlation with data gathered from seismic

IIT professor's brutal murder leaves Roorkee shocked

It's a murder that has left this quaint and quiet Uttarakhand town, flanked by the spectacular Himalayas, edgy and baffled. The bizarre and brutal killing of IIT Roorkee professor Arun Kumar (60) has rattled cops into launching one of the biggest manhunts hereabouts, left the academic community banging their heads as to what exactly happened, and the townsfolk talking about the strange misfortune of the professor's family: two of his previous wives committed suicide. Prof Kumar, who taught electrical computer science ever since IIT-Roorkee came into being 12 years ago, was found murdered with his throat slit and right ribs cut, on Wednesday. His wrists were slashed as well. His colleagues informed the police after they came to know about it through a maid servant, who was the first to discover the body. The killing has shaken not only the academic community and young technocrats in the IIT campus but also a cross-section of people in the small town. "Prof Kumar was a respe

IIT-Guwahati professor suspended for sending vulgar text messages to student

 A professor of IIT-Guwahati (IIT-G) has been suspended by the institute's authorities for harassing a girl student by sending 'vulgar' text messages to her cellphone. On Thursday, IIT-G authorities issued a suspension order against Lingaraj Sahoo, a professor in the biotechnology department, after continuous protests on the campus by students of the institute since Wednesday. Labanu Konwar, a spokesman of IIT-G, on Friday said the authorities issued the suspension order of Sahoo after the Working Women Committee (WWC) of IIT sought disciplinary action against him. "In July end, the victim girl, along with her father, lodged a complaint against Sahoo at the office of IIT-G director Gautam Barua. Soon after receiving the complaint, the matter was referred to the WWC of IIT, which sought disciplinary action against Sahoo this month," said Konwar. Based on the FIR lodged against Sahoo by students at Amingaon police outpost on August 2, the professor was arrested by p