ENGINEERING

IIT-Kanpur takes the crown pipping other IITs, while four new entrants into the toppers try to play catch up

PICTURE SPEAK

THE PIONEER: IIT-K first introduced pure science education in engineering

The institute has always been thinking out-of-the-box. It was the first to introduce a pure-science-based education for engineering students at a time when other institutes were concentrating on field trips and applied sciences. It was founding director P.K. Kelkar who envisaged that the innovators of the future need to be creative thinkers with strong fundamentals in the pure sciences. Met with scepticism in the beginning, the programme was later adopted by the other iits. “To be inventive, you need to work outside the conventional framework,” explains Dhande.

TOP 10 COLLEGES

2007 - 2006 1 IIT-Kanpur 2 2 IIT-Delhi 1 3 IIT-Chennai 5 4 IIT-Mumbai 3 5 IIT-Kharagpur 4 6 IIT-Roorkee 6 7 IIT-Guwahati 11 8 IIIT, Allahabad - 9 College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai 12 10 National Institute of Technology, Trichy 13 National rankings are derived from a combination of perceptual and factual scores. Colleges that did not provide factual information were not ranked. New entrants in Top 10 . (-) Not ranked in the 2006 top 20.

PICTURE SPEAK

CAPITAL RECORD: IIT-D produced the largest number of PhDs among all IITs

There has been a revolution in the infrastructure and research activities in the campus. This includes an addition of 11 lecture halls, renovation of hostels, research projects with industry partners such as Boeing and Chevron, and new departments including those for nanoscience and bioengineering. One of the multidisciplinary research projects at the institute is simran—Satellite Imaging for Railway Navigation—which makes it possible to obtain minute-to-minute data on the movement of all the trains on a railway system.

The institute is also thoroughly democratic in its functioning. There is a student representative in every decision-making body at IIT-K. “There is immense freedom to choose what you want,” says V. Bhanu Chandra, a final-year undergraduate student of computer science. The SIDBI Innovation and Incubation Centre at IIT-K provides investment, infrastructure and mentoring for two years to students who come to it with an inventive business plan. IIT-K Deputy Director Kripa Shankar believes “it is the philosophy of giving students central importance that has produced its long and esteemed list of alumni”. One of these happens to be Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, who recently contributed Rs 11 crore to the institute for the development of a new computer science building.

FROM THE DIRECTOR

“One must work outside conventional frameworks even at the cost of being ridiculed.” SANJAY DHANDE, IIT-K

While he might hold IIT-K to be the bastion of adventurous thinking, the other IITs are not lagging behind. Last year’s top ranker IIT-Delhi has slipped down one position, but it produced the largest number of PhDs among all IITs in the previous academic year, and took on board 40 new faculty members from renowned international institutes. Third on the list, IIT-Chennai is planning to flag off its Research Park modelled on the ones at Stanford and MIT. The park is meant to enable companies with a thrust on technology to set up base, hence leveraging the institute’s technical prowess. “The need of the hour is to respond to the demands of the industry through our capacity for innovation,” says S. Santhakumar, dean, academic courses, IIT-C, explaining the vision behind the research park. At IIT-Kharagpur, with 14 dual-degree programmes being launched, students can do a five-year integrated Master’s course. Options range from a BTech followed by an MBA, LLB or even a Master’s in Disaster Management. The idea is to uphold the spirit of constant enrichment and expansion.

-with bureau inputs

Index