IIT MADRAS
IIT MADRAS
Indian InTamistitute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu . As one of the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), it is recognized as an Institute of National Importance and has been consistently rated as one of India's most prestigious universities. Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the former government of West Germany , it was the third IIT established by the Government of india. IIT Madras is ranked the top engineering institute in India by the Ministry of Educations, National Institutional Ranking Framework. since its inception in 2016.
IIT Madras is a residential institute that occupies a 2.5-square-kilometre (0.97 sq mi) campus that was formerly part of the adjoining Guaidy National Park. The institute has nearly 600 faculty, 10,000 students and 1,250 administrative and supporting staff. Growing ever since it obtained its charter from the Indian Parliament in 1961, much of the campus is a protected forest, carved out of the Guindy National Park, home to large numbers of Chital (spotted deer), black buck bunnet and other rare wildlife. A natural lake, deepened in 1988 and 2003, drains most of its rainwater.
History ( edit)
In 1956, the West German Government offered technical assistance for establishing an institute of higher education in engineering in India. The first Indo-German agreement was signed in Bonn, West Germany in 1959 for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras. IIT Madras was started with technical, academic and financial assistance from the Government of West German and was at the time the largest international educational project sponsored by the West German government. The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany has agreed to provide the following assistance in the establishment of a higher technological institute at Madras:
- A workshop, laboratory equipment, and a library whose total value does not exceed ₹1.8 crore (US$230,000).
- Twenty German professors to serve at the Institute for a period of four to five years
- Four German foremen for the workshops of the Institute for 2 years
- Facilities for the training of twenty Indian teachers in German institutions
This has led to several collaborative research efforts with universities and institutions in Germany over the years. Although official support from the German government has ended, several research efforts involving the DAAD programme and Humboldt Followships still exist.
The Higher Technological Institute at Madras known as the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras has started functioning The first batch of 120 students was admitted in July 1959 to the first year of the Engineering Course. The institute was inaugurated in 1959, by the then Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. The first batch had an overall strength of 120 students from across India. In 1961, the IITs were declared to be institute of national Importance . The first convocation ceremony was held on 11 July 1964, with Dr. S .Radhakrishnan then the President of India, delivering the convocation address and awarding the degrees to the inaugural batch of students. The institute got its first women students in the BTech batch of 1966. IIT Madras celebrated its Golden Jublee in 2009, and its Daimond Jublee in 2019.
Campus (edit )
The main entrance of IIT Madras is on Sardar Patel Road, flanked by the residential districts of Adyar and velachery The campus is close to the Raj bhawan , the official seat of the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Other entrances are located in Velachery (near Anna Garden MTC bus stop, Velachery Main Road), Gandhi Road and Taramani gate (close to Ascendas Tech Park).
The campus is located 10 km (6.2 mi) from the Chennai Airpot, 12 km (7.5 mi) from the Chennai Central Railway Station and is connected by city buses. Kasturba nagar is the nearest station on the Chennai MRTS line.
Two parallel roads, Bonn Avenue and Delhi Avenue, cut through the faculty residential area before they meet at the Gajendra Circle, near the Administrative Block. Buses regularly ply between the Main Gate, Gajendra Circle, the Academic Zone, and the Hostel Zone.
Student Hostels ( Edit )
Most students at IIT Madras reside in hostels, where extracurricular activities complement the academic routine. The campus has 20 hostels, of which four, Sharavati, Sarayu, Sabarmati and the recently constructed Tunga are exclusively for women. In earlier times, each hostel had attached dining facilities but all of them have since been closed down. Dining facilities are provided in three centralised halls: Nilgiri, Vindhya and Himalaya. Students are assigned to hostels upon matriculation, where they usually reside for the entire duration of their course of study.
The halls of IITM are:
| Boys' Hostels | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alakananda | Bhadra | Brahmaputra | Cauvery | |
| Ganga | Godavari | Jamuna | Krishna | |
| Mahanadhi | Mandakini | Narmada | Pampa | |
| Saraswathi | Sindhu | Tamraparani | Tapti | |
| Mandakini | Girls' hostels | |||
| Sabarmati | Sarayu | Sharavathi | Tunga | |
Sindhu, Pampa, Mahanadhi and Tamiraparani are seven-storeyed whereas all the other hostels are three or four storeyed. These four hostels can accommodate more than 1,200 students. The older hostels were all three-storeyed till the early 2000s when extra rooms were added. An additional new floor in the three-storeyed hostels which generally house the undergraduate students and a new block in place of the mess halls of these hostels have been constructed to accommodate for the increased intake of the students. These new blocks could be used as entrances for these hostels. As of 2020, Mandakinii has been demolished and a multi-storey block is under construction, with provision to accommodate approximately 1000 students.
Facilities ( edit )
IIT Madras provides residential accommodation for its students, faculty, administrative and supporting staff, and their families. The residential houses employ private caterers. The self-contained campus includes two schools ( Vanavani and Kendriya Vidyalaya), three temples (Jalakanteshwara, Durga peliamman and Ganapathi), three bank branches ( SBI , ICICI Canara bank ), a hospital, shopping centres, food shops, a gym, sleeping room and cricket, football, hockey and badminton stadiums. Internet is available in the academic zone and the faculty and staff residential zone. Earlier Internet was limited in hostel-zone from 2:00 pm till midnight and from 5:00 am to 8:00 am, but increasing demand during academic semester led to round-the-clock Internet service.
IIT Madras also has supercomputing capability, with the IBM Virgo Super Cluster with 97 teraflops worth of computational power.
Organisation and administration ( Edit )
Governance ( edit )
IIT Madras is an autonomous statutory organisation functioning within the Institutes of Technology Act. The twenty three IITs are administered centrally by the IIT Council, an apex body established by the Government of India. The Minister of Human Resources and Development is the chairman of the council. Each institute has a Board of Governors responsible for its administration and control. The Finance Committee advises on matters of financial policy, while the Building and Works Committee advises on buildings and infrastructure.
The Senate comprises all professors of the Institute and decides its academic policy. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. It appoints committees to examine specific academic matters. The Director of the institute serves as the Chairman of the Senate. The current director is Kamakoti Veezhinathan.
Three Senate Sub-Committees – The Board of Academic Research, The Board of Academic Courses and The Board of Students – help in academic administration and in the operations of the institute. The Board of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research addresses industrial consultancy and the Library Advisory Committee oversees library matters.
Departments ( edit )
- Aerospace Engineering
- Applies Mechanics
- Biotechnology (Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences)
- Chemical Engineering
- Chemisrty
- Civil Engineering
- Computer Science Engineering
- Electrical Engineering
- Engineering Design
- Humainities and Social Science
- Mechanical Engineering
- Management Studies
- Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
- Mathematics
- Ocean Engineering
- Physics
Academics (edit )
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2020) |
IIT Madras offers undergraduate , Postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 600 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.
The institute has 16 academic departments and advanced research centres across disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories. The academic calendar is organised around the semester. Each semester provides a minimum of seventy days of instruction in English. Students are evaluated on a continuous basis throughout the semester. Evaluation is done by the faculty, a consequence of the autonomous status granted to the institute. Research work is evaluated on the basis of the review thesis by peer examiners both from within the country and abroad. Ordinances that govern the academic programme of study are prepared by the Senate, the highest academic body within the institute.
Admission tests ( edit)
For the undergraduate curriculum, admission to the B Tech and Dual Degree (BSc + MSc or BTech + MTech) programme is done through the Joint Entrance Examination - Advance (JEE-Advanced). IIT Madras conducted JEE Advance in 2017. Admission to the five-year integrated Master of Arts (MA) programme is through the Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Examination (HSEE), an IIT Madras specific exam Admissions to the online degree programme for BS in Data Science and Applications are done through a Qualifier Process which includes four weeks of instruction in Computational Thinking, Mathematics, Statistics and English.
For the postgraduate curriculum, admission to the M Tech and MS programmes are through the Graduate Aptitude test in Engineering (GATE); after 2022, with the discontinuation of 5 year integrated MA program and the same becoming a 2 year PG program admissions will be through GATE for the MA program also. The Joint Admission to Test (JAM) is the entrance exam for the two-year MSC programme, and other post BSc programmes. MBA candidates are accepted through the common admission Test (CAT).
Student activities ( Edit )
Festivals
Shaastra
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of IIT Madras. It is typically held in the second week of January and is the first ISO 9001:2015 certified student organised festival in the world. it is known for its organisation and activities. Forums include the symposia, Workshops video canferences lectures demonstrations, and technical exhibitions. Competitive activities cover design events, programming, simulations, quizzes applied engineering, speedcubing robotics , and junk-yard wars.
Saarang
Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day-long event held in early January every year and attracts a crowd of 70,000 students and young people from across the country, making it the largest student-run fest in India. Saarang events include speaking, dancing, thespian, quizzing and word games, professional shows (nicknamed proshows) and workshops on music, fashion, art, and dance.
Department festival
Several departments organise department festivals. Samanvay, Biofest, ExeBit, Wavez, Mechanica, CEA Fest, ChemPlus, Amalgam and Forays are some of the festivals organised by the Department of Management Studies, Computer Science and Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and Maths departments respectively. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences hosts Annual Academic Conference.
Extracurricular activities
The Sustainability Network (S-Net) is an alumni-student-faculty initiative launched in May 2009 to sensitise and highlight the need to preserve the unique niche of one of the best educational campus in India. S-Net was envisioned to work towards development and deployment of solutions for making a self-sustaining campus (focusing on energy/electricity, water, and waste management), which could eventually be replicated across the country through tie-ups with other educational institutions.
The Fifth Estate is the official media body of IIT Madras and gives an insight into the happenings inside the campus and important news related to the institute. The Open Air Theatre hosts the weekly movie, a Saturday night tradition, besides other activities. It seats over 7,000.
The National Service Scheme (NSS) in IIT Madras has been noted for taking up socially relevant initiatives, taken up as individual projects to create an impact on the society as well as the students. The wing of NSS at IITM has over 400 students every year, contributing to the cause of the scheme. Since its inception, NSS at IITM has achieved many milestones in its history as a unique, student-run organisation. Linked with several NGOs and social organisations both within and outside Chennai. By working out projects from Braille magazines to technology interventions, from teaching children in urban slums to educational video content, NSS (IITM) seeks to challenge the mediocre thinking, and reach out into the darkness, to pull a hand into the light.
Hobby clubs include the speaking club, the astro club, dramatics, music and robotics.
Student bodies such as Vivekananda Study Circle (VSC), Islamic Study Circle, IIT Christian Fellowship, Genesis and Reflections focus on spiritual discussions.
The campus has evolved a slang, attracting a published Master's thesis at a German University. A mix of English, Hindi, Telugu (Gult), Malayalam (Mallu) and Tamil (Tam), aspects of the campus slang have been adopted by some other Chennai colleges.
Unlike its sister institutions, IIT Madras has no single Indian language used among its students: Tamil, Telugu , Malayalam , Marathi , Kanada Engilish and Hindi are all very commonly used. Consequently, all student participatory activities like debating, dramatics, short-film making, and others are held in English. This is even reflected in the slang that uses more of English and other Indian regional languages than Hindi, unlike in IIT-M's northern counterparts.
IIT Madras Heritage Centre
The Heritage Centre was formally inaugurated by Dr. Arcot Ramachandran former Director IIT Madras on 3 March 2006. The centre is located on the ground floor of the administration building. The actual idea of a Heritage Centre was mooted in the year 2000 and has become a reality due to the efforts of the Professor-in-charge Dr. Ajit Kumar Kolar and his team. The centre will function as a repository of material of heritage value and historical significance of various facets of the institute.
The exhibits include photographs, documents, publications, paintings, portraits, products developed and other articles. Information regarding important events, laboratory development, visits of important dignitaries, Indo-German cooperative activities, and academic achievements of faculty and students also are included. Aspects of IITM campus features and development, campus life and student activities are also included, thus broadening the scope of the centre in the future to non-academic activities also.
Controversies
Several members of the Hindu Minaani were arrested in November 2014 for organising a "spitting protest" outside the IIT-Madras after the institute played host to the ' Kiss OF Love campaign. The members of the group gathered and started spitting at the pictures of students kissing and hugging at the kiss of love campaign the past week. Additionally, they also hurled abuse at the students.
Notable alumni
 | This article's list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy. (December 2017) |
- ARUMUGAM MANTHIRAM, director, Texas Materials Institute, Professor of Mechanical Engineering,University of Texas at Austin
- Anand rajaraman co-founder of Junglee; Currently Heading Kosmix.com with Venky Harinarayan
- Anant Agarwal , professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT
- Anima Anandkumar , Bren Professor of Computing at California Institute of technology . She is a director of Machine Learning research at NVIDIA
- ARUN SUNDRARAJAN , professor at Stern School of Business, New yark University
- ATUL CHOKSI , materials engineer, Shanti Swarup Bhatanagar laureate
- B . N Suresh , director of IISST
- B . Muthuraman managing Director of Tata steel
- Bhaskar Ramamurthi , director, IIT Madras (2011 – 2022)
- Prof. V Kamakoti is the new Director of IIT Madras IN 17th January 2022
- Gururaj Deshpandey founder of Sycamore Networks
- T . V RAMANBABU , professor of chemistry at Ohio State University
- G. K Ananthasuresh , professor at Indian instiutte of Science
- Hari Balakrishnan , Fujitsu Chair Professor in the EECS Department at MIT
- Jai Menon, IBM Fellow, CTO and VP, Technical Strategy – IBM Systems and Technology Group
- B .Jayant Baliga , inventor of the insulated gate bipolar transistor IGBT
- Jayaraman Chandrasekhar , computational chemist, Shnati Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
- Kris Gopalakrishnan , co-chairman and co-founder of Infosys
- Krishna Bhagat , creator of Google News, principal scientist, Google
- L . Mahadevan FRS, de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Physics and Biology, Harvard University MacArtur Fellow 2009
- K . Mani Chandy former chair of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech ]
- Martin G Subrahmanyam , professor of finance, Stern school of business at New Yark University
- Murli Sastraya , nanotechnologist, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar aureate
- Mas Subramaniam Milton Harris Chair Professor of Materials Chemistry at Oregon State University
- Narayan Chandrakumar , chemical physicist, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
- Neelesh B Mehta , communications engineer, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
- Prabhakar Raghvan , vice president of Engineering, Google and Consulting Professor at Stanford University
- R . Prasanna , guitarist / carnatic musician
- Pinaki Majumdar condensed matter physicist, Santi Swarup Bhatnagar laureate
- Prem . Vasta , billionaire; founder, chairman, and chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings , which owns Black berry
- Radha Vembu , co-founder, Zoho Carporation .
- Ramanathan V . Guha , inventor of RSS feed technology, computer scientist at Google; won the Distinguished Alumnus award from IIT Madras in 2013
- Ramesh Govindan , Northrop Grumman Chair in Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California; won the Distinguished Alumnus award from IIT Madras in 2014
- Raghu Ramakrishanan technical fellow and CTO, Information Services Microsoft
- Mr .M .S Srinivasan IAS Officer
- Sridhar Vembu founder and CEO of Zoho Carporation
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