IIT Kharagpur has donated Rs. one crore to the PM Cares Fund of Govt. of India following a call by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi in support of initiatives to combat COVID-19. Keeping in mind the need for having a dedicated national fund with the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected, a public charitable trust under the name of ‘Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund’ (PM CARES Fund)’ has been set up.
Photo courtesy: Click Kgp
IIT Kharagpur launched a campaign amongst its faculty and staff members to donate their one day’s salary towards this fund. The Institute has raised Rs. one crore from the faculty, staff and other sources of the Institute which has already been transferred to the PM Cares Fund.
“We had proposed to contribute towards this fund and circulated a form through which all employees of IIT Kharagpur can voluntarily donate towards this national fund through an institutional mechanism. I am glad to see people have come forward in large numbers and within a week we have been able to pledge the amount. We have communicated the same to the Ministry of Human Resources Development as well,” remarked Prof. Virendra Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.
The Institute has also been approached by some alumni from the USA to set up a temporary fund in order to sustain and support for a period of 6 months, the needy people in and around the campus who have been severely affected economically due to COVID-19. While various government and non-government bodies are catering to the food supply of these sections of the community, there is a constant and urgent need for supplying them personal protective equipment or PPE gears for essential service providers, cleaning materials for needy people at large.
Talking about initiatives taken by IIT Kharagpur, Director Tewari further said, “We have set up regulations regarding social distancing, staggered hours for accessing public utility and essential services, accommodation for workers engaged in essential services, maintenance, halls of residence, security. Entry and exit to the campus has also been restricted to only one gate with security and health checks. We are ensuring nobody crosses the campus boundaries unless it is for a necessary activity that too not on a daily basis and not without surveillance and sanitization. The safety of our students, our people is our priority and I am glad every person on campus is cooperating with the administration in making this lockdown successful. I am positive people elsewhere in the country too would adhere to government regulations.”
The Institute is currently residence to about 5500 students and even a higher number of other community members comprising employees and their families.
In the photo: Akshat Jain, 3rd year, AGFE
“The administrative body of the Institute has been issuing notifications/circulars at regular intervals to communicate mandatory practices to be followed by the campus residents be they in the hostels or in family quarters as per MOWFA, Govt of India, Home Ministry and Govt of West Bengal guidelines and advisories issued from time to time,” said Registrar Prof. Bhrigu Nath Singh.
The Institute has already preponed the summer recess by more than a month and also issued a revised academic calendar, confirmed Registrar Prof. Singh. It has also procured a large number of licenses of online platforms through teaching and learning can be continued in electronic mode without any interruption.
How is teaching & learning being carried out at IIT Kharagpur’s campus schools?
Schooling has entered a new era with ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown. As contact classrooms have been shut down, schools across India are reinventing the educational system. Blackboards, benches, workbooks have been replaced by computers, smartphones, video lectures, conferencing applications, assignment modules.
There are three schools on the campus upto higher secondary level and one school upto its primary section. The schools have gone digital since March 21, 2020. DAV Model School and Kendriya Vidyalas share the experiences with The Kgp Chronicle.
DAV Model School at IIT Kharagpur started online classes March 27 keeping in view the disrupted academic calendar due to the ongoing pandemic. The school has facilitated online classes through Zoom App, YouTube, ePathshala, Diksha, NDLI resources, Tata classedge, Snap Homework app, forming Whatsapp groups while assignments are being regularly uploaded on the school’s website.
“It is the time when students need the teachers, their ‘second parents’, to protect and take care of their tender minds and unknown apprehensions. Team DAV Model School IIT Kharagpur has taken up the challenge to the extent that not just academic disciplines but even creative classes such as dance, music, art and craft, and yoga are being conducted on online mode,” said Principal Lopa Chatterjee.
The School is also recommending resources from the National Digital Library of India developed by IIT Kharagpur.
“We are sharing text and reference materials from NDLI which students. Both teachers and students have been using this platform extensively,” added Lopa Chatterjee.
Another school on campus, Kendriya Vidyalaya IIT Kharagpur, is also conducting classes on various online modes, sharing video lessons and assignments. The school is using free e-resources such as NROER, DIKSHA, SWAYAM, SWAYAM PRABHA, NPTEL, NCERT and NIOS. WhatsApp groups are used significantly for doubt clearing sessions.
“The link to all these apps/websites have been provided to students and teachers through Vidyalaya website for their optimum use by them. Some materials on Creative and Critical Thinking Skills, Program for International Students Assessment have been uploaded on the Vidyalaya website for exposure and practice of students under supervision of teachers. We are also in the process of exploring other means and methods for conducting online live classes by our teachers,” said Principal Bal.
Both the schools have prepared separate time table for online teaching which is being updated on the websites of the respective schools.
Summer recess has set in at IIT Kharagpur on April 1, preponed by 4 weeks and a revised academic calendar being circulated amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic. Classes at the Institute have gone digital since March 17 in the process of following social distancing.
Online Classes
The first year classes with their larger size were the first to be facilitated on YouTube Live using the National Knowledge Network. The lectures were also video recorded and made available online for future reference. Following the lockdown announcement on March 24, all classes were moved to web-conferencing mode, video lectures of NPTEL, or through email.
Till March 31, 2020, total number of courses offered stood at 388 with registrations from 8025 students to participate in the online classes.
“We procured 200 user licenses of WebEx which allowed us to conduct 100+ lectures at a given point of time. This could practically allow us to conduct all classes as per our academic schedule,” said Prof. Debasis Deb, Dean, Undergraduate Studies.
The Institute has also been conducting online classes using Zoom, G-Suite, Skype, DEEKSHAK (an IITKGP web-conferencing platform). Institute is in the process of procuring 20 user licenses of Zoom for conducting classes uninterruptedly, Teachers are using these online platforms to interact with students for lectures, doubt clearing sessions, tutorials and assignments while emailing and uploading video lectures. The NPTEL platform of the Ministry of Human Resources Development is being widely used for the purpose which has a rich repository of video lectures by various IITs. Students are also being recommended to use the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) platform to access vast digital resources.
Atul Jain, Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering who has been teaching a course ‘Mechanics of Composites’ shared his experience on his online teaching and students response tracking. He has been using Microsoft Office extensively to create lectures and share exclusively with students enrolled for the course as unlisted videos on YouTube. He further uses Google Analytics to derive useful insights about student participation and attention span etc.
“From my statistics reveal that the average number of students viewing the lectures within three days of delivery is almost the same as the average attendance in a contact classroom. There is no specific time preferred by the students with the viewing time spread over almost 24 hours. Students have a definite tendency of watching the videos in a smaller time span of less than 10 minutes with about 2.5 views per user on average. This is quite a contrast to the usual 55-60 minutes lecture usually delivered in regular classrooms. This freedom is a major positive in online learning,” said Prof. Jain.
Assignments
Talking about assignments, Prof. Deb informed that the inhouse Moodle facility of IIT Kharagpur has been made available for access from outside the campus LAN.
“The assignments have been emailed while Moodle is being used primarily for computer programming related assignments. BTech and MTech projects related to design and software applications too are being carried out while those requiring laboratory access have been postponed until the reprise of the academic session on June 1,” he said.
Internships
Student internship which is critical at IITs is being considered for the period from April to July session having a break in June for regular classes and exams. The Institute is advising students to opt for online mode for company internships and also to apply to faculty members at the Institute for inhouse internship opportunities.
“We are in the process of allocating students to work as interns at the Institute on various on-going projects, term papers, product development and others. Departments are actively involved with the students to give them the best internship experience in house ” remarked Prof. Deb.
Placement
In a recent development, the Institute has set up a taskforce to monitor placement situation. In the academic year 2019-20, 1306 placement offers were received. Due to the ongoing 19-nCoV pandemic, there has been speculations regarding offers being cancelled by the recruiters at various institutions. The taskforce will liaise with the recruiters and work towards ensuring that the number of offers at Iit Kharagpur remain consistent with those of the past years.
Students from IIT Kharagpur have finished among the toppers in the CoreNet Global Academic Challenge 5.0 organized by CoreNet Global Summit Singapore. The Asia-Pacific global conference which was held in March 2020 had participation from 24 leading universities across 18 countries. Among the other toppers are University of Sydney and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.
The competition involved the role play of an internal corporate real estate team and develop a proactive strategy towards firstly ‘Recession-proof’, to the extent possible, the corporate real estate portfolio, secondly continue to support the business objectives of the corporation, and thirdly ensure that such a strategy does not negatively impact the company in the unlikely event that a recession does not materialize. The teams proposed innovative solutions to problems faced by real estate professionals linked to top global MNCs.
The team from IIT Kharagpur comprised third-year undergraduate students Vikrant Gupta (Mathematics and Computing), Krishnam Kapoor (Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering), Amrit Goswami (Industrial and Systems Engineering, Financial Engineering), and Eknoor Malhotra (Civil Engineering). Their problem statement involved preparation of a comprehensive action plan for the recession-proof real estate portfolio of an American multinational manufacturer of home applications. The team emphasized on minimizing the negative impacts of such recession proofing in case the anticipated economic downturn does not materialize.
“We prepared and presented a detailed action plan for each of the components in the company’s real estate portfolio including Offices, R&D spaces, Manufacturing Plants and Distribution centers followed by a thorough lease management strategy. Our focus was on leveraging recent technologies including RFID, Blockchain, Advanced Analytics, etc. to enable the company to properly optimize space, inventory, and performance. The goal was to reduce expenditure along with incorporation of flexibility and sustainability in their real estate portfolio to prepare the company for the upcoming recession without hampering its growth potential,” Eknoor.
The competition was open to undergraduate and graduate students all across the world. The first round witnessed a participation from 42 universities across the globe. In the subsequent round, teams had to develop an efficient real estate strategy for a given company in either the financial services, IT, or manufacturing sector. Finally, the top 3 teams presented their solution strategies to an expert panel of senior professionals from organizations including Standard Chartered, HSBC, EY, etc. during the conference.
Prof. Bhaskar Bhowmick from Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, who mentored the four-member team from IIT Kharagpur said, “I congratulate the team for their podium finish. It is a proud moment for IIT Kharagpur. I encourage them to continue their endeavors in this domain and wish them luck for the future. Tackling real-world problems is not a piece of cake. Competitions like Corenet provide a great learning curve and I’m glad to be a part of this team. This performance of the IIT Kharagpur team will encourage many such competitors on the campus.”
CoreNet Global is a non-profit association, headquartered in Atlanta, GA, representing more than 11,000 executives in 50 countries with strategic responsibility for the real estate assets of large corporations. The organization’s mission is to advance the practice of corporate real estate through professional development opportunities, publications, research, conferences, designations and networking in 46 local chapters and networking groups globally. Visit the website to learn more.
Hype or no, Nanotechnology is here to stay, Prof. Chacko Jacob explained at the recently held Science Communication Conclave at IIT Kharagpur
An innocuous looking pouch. But as you open it and place it on top of your knee that has been bothering you no end, a warmth emanates and spreads to your aching joint. This is ‘Heat Pax’, the “Air activated body warmer”, as the label says. [1]
Inside though, a marvellous chemistry is at work. The airtight wrapper of this pack contains fine iron particles combined with vermiculite (a form of clay which holds water) and carbon or charcoal. When the wrapper is torn and the contents are exposed to air, the iron, highly reactive in its ground form, reacts with the air exothermically, producing oxide a la rust, and heat. The charcoal disperses the heat.
“Someone has just commercialized rusting,” guffawed Prof. Chacko Jacob while handing out packets of ‘Heat Pax’ for all to see. Speaking on ‘Nanotechnology: Hype, hope or reality’ at the recently held Science Communication Conclave (Feb 28-29) at IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Jacob was explaining to his audience the science of the small that makes such amazing chemistry possible. With the Materials Science Centre of IIT Kharagpur for close to two decades, Prof. Jacob specializes in making nano structures through the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) technique.
We invariably associate ‘nano’ with everything small – Tata Nano, iPod Nano, or even the Paper Pro Nano desk stapler. But, Prof. Jacob explained, “In the world of science, ‘Nano’ does not necessarily mean small. What I want you to recognize is that in the world of nanotechnology something is happening that makes the same material behave very differently when it is small than when it is at the conventional scale.”
Example? A cluster of 48 molecules of ice melts at 93 Kelvin or minus 180 degree centigrade. [2] Minuscule particles of gold, iron and nickel melt at a far lower temperature than their normal melting points. Their colour changes too when they are tiny, as do their electrical properties. Prof. Jacob said, “In working with nanomaterials, I am working not with something just really small, but something that is very, very different in behaviour from the bigger pieces of the same material that I am familiar with.”
People down the ages have been aware of what can be called the marvel of the tiny, although they could not put a name to it. Take the stained glass windows in the cathedrals all over Europe that go back to the 12th century or even earlier. “They put metallic salts in the glass during processing to get color, although they did not know they were using ‘nanotechnology’. By controlling how these metal containing glasses were heated up, one could decide the colour since the color depended on the shape and size of the metal nanoparticles that were formed,” said Prof. Jacob. [3]
Silver halide photography of the early 20th century also used nanotechnology as silver nanoparticles helped capture the image. [4] Even now, as lenses are coated with anti-reflective material that are nothing but “very, very thin films in the order of tens or hundreds of nanometres”, we are using nanotechnology.
It was the advance of microscopy that made it possible to see at the atomic and molecular level that gave a fillip to nanotechnology. “It is because we can see at this level, and can manipulate objects the way we want, that we can move at a much faster pace,” said Prof. Jacob.
A casual search of the use of nanotechnology in today’s world revealed innumerable applications of nanotechnology in modern life. Take the use of embedded nanoparticles to create stain-repellent khakis, Toyota’s use of nanocomposites in a bumper that make it 60% lighter and twice as resistant to denting and scratching, Wilson’s (a sporting brand) use of a nanocomposite coating on tennis balls that keeps them bouncing twice as long as an old-style ball, the use of nanoparticles in sunscreens that make them extremely effective at absorbing light, especially in the ultra-violet (UV) range, the use of nanoparticles to make synthetic bone, the use of fluorescent nanocrystals as fluorescent markers in biology and drug-conjugated nanocrystals that attach to proteins and enable the filming of protein trafficking.
Tescan Lyra 3 GMU
In his own lab at the Materials Science Centre, Prof. Jacob makes nanostructures of various dimensions with various materials such as carbon, silicon carbide, tungsten oxide, copper oxide, zinc oxide etc. Through the CVD process, nanomaterials are produced, either in the form of films or wires,, or even hollow structures.
Prof. Jacob says, “We have worked on silicon carbide, which can be grown as nanorods and nanowires. When they are coated with an alloy of gold-palladium nanoparticles, they tend to show superhydrophobic behaviour or self-cleaning behaviour.” The team is trying to tune the adhesion state of a liquid droplet on the superhydrophobic surfaces by electrowetting so that the property can be exploited for various applications in microfluidics, lab on chip and biotechnology.
CVD for Carbon nanotube growth
The group has started CVD synthesis of a new class of materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) which include molybdenum disulphide – a two dimensional material, which, Prof. Jacob, says, is regarded as an “after-graphene kind of material.”
At the Micro and Nano Robotics and Fabrication Facility, a facility created by the Institute and involving eight faculty members and their research groups from various departments at present, the group works with the Dual Beam Tescan Lyra 3, which is “basically an electron microscope with an added ion beam of gallium with which we can fabricate, cut nano structures, join them together, make measurements — a little nano tool box really,” explains Prof. Jacob. They also work with a 3D printer, Nanoscribe, which is able to print very small structures with a very high resolution inside a light sensitive polymer with a laser using a process called two photon polymerization. This has applications in micro-nano fluidics, sensors, photonics, scaffolds for cell growth, etc.
CVD for SiC
So where is nanotechnology headed? “Towards the manufacture of more evolved sensors, supercapacitors, micro and nanofluidics, drug delivery, nano robotics, opto-electronics, nano electronics, nano composites, self-cleaning coatings,” answers Prof. Jacob.
Nanotechnology has gone through what he believes is the “hype cycle”. [5] The peak in publicity and public interest in Nanotechnology that followed Richard Feynman’s 1959 talk [6] on miniaturization (“There’s plenty of room at the bottom”) at the annual American Physical Society meeting at Caltech), has petered out and settled into a plateau as more and more of nanotechnology becomes part of everyday life. Prof. Jacob explains, “This is the ‘plateau of Productivity’ when mainstream adoption starts to take off as it becomes evident that the technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.” So hype or no, nanotechnology is here to stay.
Talking about initiatives taken by IIT Kharagpur, Director Tewari further said, “We have set up regulations regarding social distancing, staggered hours for accessing public utility and essential services, accommodation for workers engaged in essential services, maintenance, halls of residence, security. Entry and exit to the campus has also been restricted to only one gate with security and health checks. We are ensuring nobody crosses the campus boundaries unless it is for a necessary activity that too not on a daily basis and not without surveillance and sanitization. The safety of our students, our people is our priority and I am glad every person on campus is cooperating with the administration in making this lockdown successful. I am positive people elsewhere in the country too would adhere to government regulations.”
The first year classes with their larger size were the first to be facilitated on YouTube Live using the National Knowledge Network. The lectures were also video recorded and made available online for future reference. Following the lockdown announcement on March 24, all classes were moved to web-conferencing mode, video lectures of NPTEL, or through email. 
Atul Jain, Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering who has been teaching a course ‘Mechanics of Composites’ shared his experience on his online teaching and students response tracking. He has been using Microsoft Office extensively to create lectures and share exclusively with students enrolled for the course as unlisted videos on YouTube. He further uses Google Analytics to derive useful insights about student participation and attention span etc. 
Inside though, a marvellous chemistry is at work. The airtight wrapper of this pack contains fine iron particles combined with vermiculite (a form of clay which holds water) and carbon or charcoal. When the wrapper is torn and the contents are exposed to air, the iron, highly reactive in its ground form, reacts with the air exothermically, producing oxide a la rust, and heat. The charcoal disperses the heat.
We invariably associate ‘nano’ with everything small – Tata Nano, iPod Nano, or even the Paper Pro Nano desk stapler. But, Prof. Jacob explained, “In the world of science, ‘Nano’ does not necessarily mean small. What I want you to recognize is that in the world of nanotechnology something is happening that makes the same material behave very differently when it is small than when it is at the conventional scale.”
People down the ages have been aware of what can be called the marvel of the tiny, although they could not put a name to it. Take the stained glass windows in the cathedrals all over Europe that go back to the 12th century or even earlier. “They put metallic salts in the glass during processing to get color, although they did not know they were using ‘nanotechnology’. By controlling how these metal containing glasses were heated up, one could decide the colour since the color depended on the shape and size of the metal nanoparticles that were formed,” said Prof. Jacob. [3]
It was the advance of microscopy that made it possible to see at the atomic and molecular level that gave a fillip to nanotechnology. “It is because we can see at this level, and can manipulate objects the way we want, that we can move at a much faster pace,” said Prof. Jacob.
