News Analysis India

Tag: Indian Institutes of Technology

  • IITs gear up to fill reserved seats in faculties

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI:  Pulled up by the Centre for not ensuring enough representation of reserved categories in the faculties, many of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have begun the process of hiring under the quota through a special recruitment drive.

    Figures show that less than 3% faculties in India’s top engineering institutions are from SC/ST categories. As per information available, of the 6,043 faculty members at the 23 IITs, 149 are from the SC and 21 from ST, which means around 2.8% of the faculty members come from reserved categories. Some of the institutions, shockingly, had no representation of ST category candidates. 

    The Centre mandates a reservation of 27% in faculty positions for candidates from OBC categories, 15% from SC and 7.5% from ST communities. The IITs, apart from some other set of autonomous institutions such as IIMs, have traditionally been resisting, arguing that such appointments mar the quality of teaching. 

    However, now urged by the Union education ministry, at least four IITs — Bombay, Kharagpur, Ropar and BHU — have published advertisements inviting applications from the reserved category candidates under a special recruitment drive. Applications have been invited for posts in assistant, associate and professor levels in various departments. The  IITs are looking for candidates with PhD with first-class in the preceding degree in the appropriate branch along with a sound academic record. 

    For assistant professors, a minimum of three years of experience in teaching, research or industry is preferred. Until 2019, reservations were only applicable for recruitment of assistant professors, which is the entry level. But norms were changed that year, officials in the ministry’s higher education department said.

    “However, as IITs do not have promotions and each position is filled as a fresh recruitment, this means assistant professors at an institute have to apply for recruitment as an associate professor and compete with other candidates,” pointed out a source. “This also results in disadvantage to reserved category candidates.”

    Last year, a Parliamentary panel had criticised the poor representation of reserved quota candidates in Centrally Funded Technical Institutes. In August, a letter to these institutes said all vacancies in reserved categories should be filled by September next year. 

  • IITs making efforts to help out Afghan students currently stuck in Afghanistan 

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are making efforts to help out their students from Afghanistan who are currently stuck there following the capture of power by Taliban.

    India on Tuesday announced that it will issue an emergency e-visa to Afghan nationals who want to come to the country in view of the prevailing situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban captured power there.

    “In this hour of crisis, IIT Delhi stands in solidarity with our students and alumni from Afghanistan. We are doing everything possible to get the students to return to the campus. Let’s give them hope,” said IIT Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao.

    The institute has also announced helpline numbers for its Afghan students and alumni.

    Currently, 17 Afghan students are enrolled in various programmes at IIT Delhi and only one of them is in Delhi as the classes were being conducted online in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “We are in touch with them and trying to provide all support. Unfortunately, till the visas are sorted we cannot get them here but we are providing them with all the documentation needed so as soon as the situation improves a bit and the embassy is functional, their visas can be expedited,” Naveen Garg, Dean of International Affairs at IIT Delhi, told PTI.

    “We are also opening admission process for prospective candidates from Afghanistan who can come to India provided they meet our criteria,” he added.

    Three Afghan students enrolled at IIT Madras are also stuck there.

    “Three of our students are currently stuck in Afghanistan and the Office of Global Engagement at IIT Madras has issued letters to help them apply for a visa. The students had informed us that the situation is difficult with long queues at the consulate. Once they obtain their visas there is a further hurdle of getting passage to India by air. Reports from the airport there and news on commercial air travel have not been encouraging,” an IIT Madras spokesperson told PTI.

    “In the event that students are unable to come to the campus, we will offer them opportunities to continue their programs online with added support as needed from faculty to ensure that they are able to keep up with the pace despite disruptions.

    However, it is our hope that the situation will stabilise and the students will be able to further their education at the best institutes in India in person,” he added.

    The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay has also allowed Afghan students to return to its campus.

    Several students enrolled at IIT Bombay were requesting the institute to approve their return.

    “We offered admission to quite a few students from Afghanistan in the master’s program this year under scholarships from ICCR. Because of online instructions, they were participating in the class from home. However, due to rapidly deteriorating condition in their homeland, they wanted to come out of their country and join the hostels on campus,” said IIT Bombay Director Subhasis Chaudhuri.

    Officials at IIT Guwahati said there are no Afghan students currently enrolled at the institute but they look forward to welcoming them in next batch.

    “While IIT Guwahati currently does not have any Afghan students, we are happy to welcome Afghan students who may qualify for courses in our institute in the upcoming batches,” an institute spokesperson said.

    India on Tuesday brought back home the Indian ambassador and its staff at the embassy in Kabul in a heavy-lift military transport aircraft in view of the deteriorating security situation in the Afghan capital, two days after its take over by the Taliban.

    The US military had taken control of the security at the airport on Monday after thousands of desperate people converged there in the hope of getting on an evacuation flight and leave the country.

    Hours after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan on Sunday, the Taliban took control of Kabul, capturing power nearly 20 years after a US-led military invasion ousted it in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

  • Modi government plans 35 model public multi-disciplinary research universities across India

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: The Union education ministry has prepared an ambitious plan to set up about 35 government universities for multiplanetary research at par with Indian Institutes of technology and the Indian Institutes of Management in most states.

    Senior government officials said the draft of the project estimates a cost of Rs 100 crore for each university in the first phase and the proposal will be moved to the Union cabinet soon for approval. 

    The proposal is part of a major policy reform, as envisaged in the National Education Policy adopted by the Centre last year.

    “Model public universities for holistic and multidisciplinary education, at par with IITs, IIMs, etc., called MERUs (Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities) will be set up and will aim to attain the highest global standards in quality education,” says the NEP. 

    “Moving to a multi-disciplinary regime of higher education is a key theme in the NEP and ball will be set rolling with the approvals of the MERUs,” said an official in the higher education department.

    Plans are also afoot to establish and strengthen departments in languages, literature, music, philosophy, Indology, art, dance, theatre, education, mathematics, statistics, pure and applied sciences, sociology, economics, sports, translation and interpretation, and other such subjects at all institutes of higher education. 

    Even engineering institutions, such as IITs, will move towards more holistic and multidisciplinary education with more arts and humanities, the NEP says.

    Officials pointed out that the idea is to “phase out single-stream higher education institutes over time while all institutes will be pushed to move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters, in order to enable and encourage high-quality multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary teaching and research across fields.”

  • Modi warns against dangers of climate change, says disaster- resilient infrastrcture need of the hour

    By PTI
    KHARAGPUR: Warning against the dangers of climate change and natural disasters like the one in Uttarakhand recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday asked the IITs to develop disaster resilient infrastructure that can withstand their effects.

    Addressing the 66th convocation of IIT (Kharagpur), the oldest of Indian Institutes of Technology, he gave the students the mantra of “Self-3” – “self-awareness, self- confidence and selflessness” – in order to become startups for bringing about a change in the lives of people.

    He also spoke of the need for making available safe, affordable and environment-friendly energy to people through initiatives like the International Solar Alliance.

    “Climate change is a major challenge as natural disasters destroy infrastructure. India drew the attention of the world to the issue of disaster management.”

    “You can see what happened recently in Uttarakhand. We should focus on developing disaster resilient infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters,” he said.

    The prime minister referred to the global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), which he announced at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019.

    The CDRI envisages partnership of national governments, UN agencies and programmes, multilateral development banks, financing mechanisms, private sector, and knowledge institutions to promote the resilience of new and existing infrastructure systems to climate and disaster risks to ensure sustainable development.

    Modi said, “Disaster management is a subject which the world has looked up to India. During major disasters, along with life, infrastructure is the most affected. Realizing this two years ago, India took the initiative of establishing Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure in the United Nations.”

    He hailed the role played by the IITs in developing technology to battle COVID-19 and said the hallowed institutes should now work fast on finding futuristic solutions to other health care problems.

    “You represent the aspirations of 130 crore people of India,” he said while addressing the convocation virtually.

    Noting that the needs and aspirations of 21st century India have changed, Modi said IITs need to be taken to the next level from Indian Institutes of Technology to Institutes of Indigenous Technologies to meet the changing demands and aspirations of New India.

    “You have to become startups to bring about a change in the lives of people. You have to work on Self 3– self- awareness, self-confidence and selflessness. You should recognise your potential and move forward, move ahead with full confidence, move ahead with selflessness,” he told the students.

    “There is no place for hastiness in the field of science and technology. You may not get complete success in the innovation you are working on. But that failure of yours will also be considered a success because you will learn something from that as well,” he said.

    Underscoring the need for clean and affordable energy, the prime minister said India presented to the world the concept of the International Solar Alliance.

    He said the cost per unit of solar power was very little in India.

    However, it was still a great challenge to take it to people’s homes.

    He added India needs technology that minimises damage to the environment, is durable and user-friendly.

    “Can you do something about reaching solar cookers to homes using ‘chulha’ (earthen ovens),” he asked.

    He said before the coronavirus struck people used to keep only medicines at their homes.

    “Things have changed. They now keep machines that measure blood pressure, machines that measure blood oxygen. A huge market has emerged for personal health care equipment. Technology has to be developed to provide for Personal Healthcare Equipments in India which are affordable and accurate,” he said while speaking about research and innovation in the field.

    Lauding the efforts of IIT Kharagpur in transforming academic research related to Artificial Intelligence at the industrial level, Internet of things and modern construction technology, the prime minister emphasised the need for significant innovation for Industry 4.0.

    He said IIT students can make use of PM Research Fellow Scheme and the Startup India Mission for idea incubation.

    The prime minister spoke about the government liberalising regulations on geospatial data to allow private companies to conduct survey and mapping without prior government approvals and sharing the data for various everyday applications, from logistics and transport to road safety and e-commerce.

    He said the decision will provide a huge impetus to Digital India and was a step forward in the direction of realising the vision ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.

    After Corona, India has emerged as a major global player in the field of Science, Technology, Research and Innovation, he said.