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Showing posts from December 8, 2013

55% students get jobs at IIT-Kanpur placement drive

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The ongoing campus placement drive at IIT-Kanpur, so far, has been able to provide jobs to about 55% of the total students registered with the placement cell of the institute. In the first 10 days of the drive, 510 students received job offers from the recruiting companies and by Saturday last, 440 students had received offer letters from companies. According to Prof Vimal Kumar, placement incharge of IIT-Kanpur, the core engineering sector has emerged as the largest employer by hiring the maximum number of students, followed by software firms and analytical companies. Kumar said by December 15 and 16, the Public Sector Units (PSUs) will also come to the campus tro participate in the placement drive. He said normally the software companies are considered as the largest employers but contrary to the concept the core engineering sector hired the maximum students. The core engineering sector companies picked students from mechanical, chemical and civil engineering departments. Last yea

What is IIT Roorkee lipstick competition or scandal ??

We all know about the infamous lipstick scandal at IIT Roorkee and government ordering a probe. Why so much fuss was there against this normal college prank? Or was it really shameful on our part to conduct such an event? The tragedy of people in their 20s is that while the society expects them to be independent, mature, responsible, and everything else you would associate with being an adult, their lives continue to be decided and governed to a significant extent by people in their 40s or older.  They live in a world whose laws are made, at best, by the generation before theirs, and at worst, by people who lived decades ago. While they are drivers of social change, they also have to bear the residual effect of whatever the generation before theirs thought was acceptable. It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. The IIT Roorkee lipstick brouhaha is just another in the series of incidents resulting from the perennial conflict between the old and the new. Usually,

New IITs face a rough placement ride this year

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 Placements at the new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are headed for a bumpy ride. Behind the excitement of the big companies and bigger offers on campus lurk serious concerns: companies staying away, students in certain streams facing a struggle to get placed and the challenge of placing bigger batches at a time when recruiters are hiring in lower numbers.  Most of these IITs are apprehensive about how placements will pan out given that a number of recruiters - particularly among public sector undertakings (PSUs) - are staying away.  IOC, BPCL, HPCL,  ONGC ,  Power Grid Corporation of India  are among those that have hired in good numbers in the past, but have not sent out feelers this time round. New IITs are hoping they will reach out in January, but some placement sources admit it may not happen.  In February 2012, an interim order passed by the  Madras High Court  had restrained PSUs from recruiting in leading colleges including the IITs. The stay was later vacated by t

More students opting for change of branch at IIT Bombay

The number of first year students opting for a change of branch at IIT Bombay has doubled since 2010, indicating that performance in the institute is a better indicator of academic capabilities than their rank at the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). According to data provided by the institute, the numbers were 32 in 2010 and went up to 68 this year. The reason, according to Prof P C Pandey, associate dean of academic programmes at IIT Bombay, may be due to flexibility in the eligibility criterion. As per changes introduced in 2011, a student with a cumulative performance index (CPI) above nine is now permitted to change from branch 'A' to 'B', strictly in CPI order, provided that the strength in branch B, to which the change is being sought, does not exceed its sanctioned strength by more than 10 per cent. "Earlier, a student who scored a CPI of nine may not have been able to change their branch because the rules said the numbers in branch A could not go b

IIT-BHU students have a dedicated site for internship

The race for a place in the corporate world is getting fiercer by the day. Students fresh out of college find it even hard to get a good internship, leave alone a decent job. But to ease the pressure of students, two undergraduates from Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU) have formed an online portal 'www.internlelo.com' which contains all the information about internship options available in various fields. The portal primarily provides all the information about internship opportunities in different fields including details of duration of internship, stipend, eligibility and other necessary information. At the same time it also has information about workshops, conferences, campus ambassador programs, technical and management events organised in college campuses or companies across the globe. The young entrepreneurs who have conceptualized the idea are pre-incubated at Technology Business Incubator (TBI) at IIT-BHU for further supervision

Ex-students chip in to attract best faculty for IIT Bombay

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In the last few years, close to Rs 4 crore has been disbursed to 187 faculty members who have joined IIT Bombay as part of an initiative to attract the best talent. To help the institute sustain this scheme, the 1988 batch has decided to fund the initiative as part of its legacy project. The class of 1988, which is getting together on December 27 for its silver jubilee reunion, has pledged Rs 2.5 crore towards the legacy project. Under the "new faculty sign-on bonuses", started few years ago, a joining bonus of Rs 4 lakh is given to every new member hired at IIT Bombay over four years. According to figures by the IIT Bombay Alumni Association (IITBAA), Rs 3.95 crore has been disbursed so far to 187 newly joined faculty members. "Taking into account the competition from other IITs and the eroding value of money due to inflation, this project has given a distinctive edge to IIT Bombay in its recruitment process and has helped hire top-notch young faculty. Former

100 engg colleges to get virtual lessons from IIT professors

A hundred engineering colleges from across the country will in January switch to a new time-table with half of the lessons delivered virtually by IIT professors. The move comes as part of an ambitious plan to take top notch course content and high quality faculty-student interaction to India's many engineering colleges. Phase I of the Quality Enhancement in Engineering Education (QEEE) programme kick starts on January 2, 2014 as the chosen 100 odd engineering colleges begin a new semester. As many as nine subjects, including Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering and Mathematics among others, will be co-taught by senior IIT professors along with the regular college faculty. Sample the draft new timetable that has been drawn up for this new age classroom. A Monday morning lesson across the 100 colleges will start at 8 am with a lesson on 'Wireless Connection' by IIT Kanpur's Prof A Jagannathan. IIT Bombay's Prof Neela Natraj would teach

JEE Advanced to have “Why MBA?” a compulsory question

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After months of deliberation, research, and analysis, the IIT Council has decided to include “Why MBA?” as a compulsory essay question in the JEE Advanced Exam. Aspiring IITians will have to clear this question, which will have more weightage than the lesser relevant subjects like Physics, Chemistry, or Maths. Justifying this decision, Prof. Arvind Swamy, the head of the examination committee said, “IIT engineers are among the  nerdiest  brainiest creatures around and after their bachelors, most of them aim for MBA education to enter the world of consultancy and finance. However, we have seen quite a few of them not getting into MBA colleges since they can’t answer the  ‘Why MBA?’  question in the Personal Interview round. In fact, their reaction to this question is similar to Suresh Raina’s against a short ball; bamboozled. Hence, we want to ensure that only the students with right focus enter the IITs.” The only thing an engineer could write when asked the question “The a

IIT Kharagpur's lights up in alumnus Arvind Kejriwal’s glory

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At IIT Kharagpur, all eyes were on Ritesh Singh on Monday. The MTech student of computer science and engineering was surrounded by  friends  and swamped with congratulatory messages from those away from the campus due to the winter break.  Ritesh has been an  Aam Aadmi Party  (AAP) insider for the past one year, the only one on the campus. And AAP leader Arvind Kejrwal is an IIT Kharagpur alumnus, being a mechanical engineering BTech of the 1989 batch.  The campus had been celebrating since Sunday afternoon. Students donning Kejriwal-like caps came out in large numbers and engaged in animated conversations throughout the day.  Singh had opted out of placements last year so he could spend time in New Delhi and get to know the central AAP leadership. After his formal association was cemented, he returned to the IIT Kharagpur campus and enrolled for the MTech programme. As a national executive of the party, his job was initially to monitor the online portal of the party and design po

IIT graduates make a beeline for jobs outside their core

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Not all engineering students wish to do engineering throughout their life, not even IITians. Four out of 10 students are taking up jobs which are unrelated to their core subject. Instead of the manufacturing sector, a majority of techies are choosing diverse fields like consultancy, e-commerce, software and others.  The reason: Core engineering jobs offer lesser packages as compared to some other fields. Moreover, postings in core engineering jobs or the manufacturing sector are mainly in smaller cities while consultancy, e-commerce, IT and online ventures offer jobs in metros. As a majority of these firms require less capital, they offer better career growth to the talented candidates.  Out of 1,600 undergraduate and postgraduate students registered for campus placement this year at IIT Bombay, approximately 1,000 want to go for core engineering. In other IITs, this percentage varies from 50%-70%. Not surprising then that a cab firm, Ola, hired 20 IIT graduates, Goldman Sa

Election Results 2013

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विधानसभा चुनाव परिणाम 2013 विस्तृत चुनाव परिणाम » दिल्ली  सीटें: 70 रुझान नतीजे कुल बीजेपी 04 28  32  आप 04 23 27 कांग्रेस 07 02  09  मध्य प्रदेश सीटें: 230 रुझान नतीजे कुल बीजेपी 50 103  153  कांग्रेस 27 34  61  अन्य 03  04  07 राजस्थान सीटें: 200 रुझान नतीजे कुल बीजेपी 25 136  161  कांग्रेस 03 18  21  अन्य 05  13 17 छत्तीसगढ़ सीटें: 90 रुझान नतीजे कुल बीजेपी 26 22  47  कांग्रेस 22 18  43  अन्य 02 00  02  BJP's Super Sunday: 4-0 he BJP has ended up with absolute or two-thirds majority in Rajasthan and looks set to do so in Madhya Pradesh, but is likely to stop shy of a clear majority in Delhi, where the Aam Aadmi Party has ensured, in a stunning debut, that the ruling Congress stands decimated.  Apart from Delhi's likely hung house, the BJP managed to scrape through in Chhattisgarh, where it had been engaged in an intensely close tussle with the Congress. Chief Minister Raman Singh will get a third straight term.  In sharp con

IIT-Kanpur placement: 65 students get jobs on sixth day

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The campus placement drive at IIT-Kanpur has been a success as 415 students of the institute found placement in the first six days of the ongoing drive. On the sixth day alone, 65 students got job offers from the participating companies. Prof Vimal Kumar, placement incharge of IIT-Kanpur expressed hope that the seventh day of the drive will also yield good results and a good number of students will get offer letters from the recruiting firms. He added that from December 10 onwards, the Public Sector Units (PSUs) will also come to IIT-Kanpur for conducting interviews of the students. Prof Kumar expects that by December 22, all the students registered with the placement cell will get jobs. He further informed that late on Friday evening, HSBC gave offer letters to 17 students. These students had to clear different rounds including interview and group discussion for selection. Similarly companies like Axteria and DAR Group gave job offer letter to 10 and six students, respectiv