December 2020 – The KGP Chronicle

Agri-Food Techathon @ IIT Kharagpur to promote agri-tech innovations

The Agri Business Incubation Centre (ABIC), IIT Kharagpur, in association with its Agricultural & Food Engineering Department, Centre for Rural Development & Innovative Sustainable Technologies and Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, is organizing Agri-Food Techathon (AFT 2021), a national level online technical fest during January to March 2021. This is an event open to university/college students, entrepreneurs and rural youths to exhibit and depict their creativity, problem-solving, and prototyping-skills in the different domain of Agri-Food sector. The event will provide orientation and exposure to innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities in the Agriculture and Food Technology sector, to the aspiring entrepreneurs, through a series of expert lectures and guest talks by successful Agritech Startups.

The AFT-2021 will include a competitive B-plan submission for the participants. Business and technology experts from key domains of Agriculture and Food Technology will be involved as panelists and mentors. After screening and the first round of B-plan presentation, selected teams will be assigned expert mentors as per their domain area for providing guidance on product and business development. The final presentation will be used to select high potential teams for formal association with ABIC IIT Kharagpur. They will be offered assistance in the form of Technology and Business Development Mentorship, R&D support, Laboratory / Workshop / Pilot Plant access and Funding Opportunities through potential Investors / Accelerators.

Interested participants can register for the event free on or before January 07, 2021. Click Here to Register

About ABIC

The Agricultural and Food Engineering (AgFE) Department of the IIT Kharagpur – the only department of its kind in the country’s IIT system is hosting the NABARD-funded Agri-Business Incubation Centre (ABIC) for promotion of agri-business. Since its inception in 1952, the AgFE Department has been contributing to the profession through high-standard research and development, teaching and outreach. The Department is adequately experienced in the creation and dissemination of appropriate agri-food technologies. Having the ABIC in place, the relevant innovations could potentially be incubated and disseminated to complement the Centre’s overall objective of promoting Agri-preneurship in the region.

The ABIC, being registered as a Section-8 Company within IIT Kharagpur, is mandated to incubate innovative ideas in agriculture and food technology domain for creating Agri-preneures. It develops, demonstrates and transfers low-cost technologies for sustainable development of agricultural and rural communities. The Centre expects to conduct hands-on training, workshops, and seminars for capacity building of farmers and rural youth. It is expected that the region’s agriculture will get a boost through action-oriented research including climate change impact assessment and adaptation, value addition, market-linkage, and risk management.

The ABIC, managed by Professor H N Mishra of the Agricultural & Food Engineering Department as its Professor In-charge & Nodal Officer, has started its work with the objective of developing, demonstrate and transfer low-cost technologies for sustainable development of agricultural and rural communities. Specific efforts will be given to promote climate-resilient agriculture in vulnerable districts, agricultural value chains, promote farmers’ collectives including training and capacity building, supporting expert advisory services, policy advocacy including building up of human capital in rural areas among others. The activities of the ABIC, IIT Kharagpur has started in four specific segments in the form of conducting Hands-on training, Workshops, Agri-Food Techethon, and Webinars for capacity building and to support Agri-preneurship.

The Centre offers training, incubation support and mentorship to the important agricultural domains, namely, farm mechanization, soil technology and testing, food processing and packaging, agricultural biotechnology, irrigation, and water management. The Centre strives to promote technical and management excellence for incubating novel ideas in the field of agriculture and rural development.

IIT Kharagpur to Train Indian Engineers and Scientists in HPC & AI

IIT Kharagpur to impart training on high-performance computing. The Institute has received a project titled ‘NSM Nodal Center for training in HPC and AI’ from Dept. of Science and Technology, C-DAC under the National Super Computing Mission of Govt. of India.

The Center will focus on manpower creation and upskilling of students, faculty, scientists, researchers, scientific users in large scale computing across different science domains with an aim to bridge the gap between application and development aspects in HPC. In the first phase topics to be covered are fundamental areas like basics of parallel computing; MPI, OpenMP and CUDA programming, Scientific computing, HPC-AI convergence and application areas like multi-scale modeling, computational biology, computational fluid dynamics etc.

“Recent developments in computational techniques in various domains and science and engineering have been strongly linked with efficient utilization of high-performance computing resources. Therefore, it is essential to impart HPC training to the researchers working in the application domain. On the other hand, it is also important that engineers and developers working on HPC understand the requirement posed by the domain experts. We have already conducted an online training program on the basics of HPC along with other nodal centers of CDAC which attracted around 800 students from diverse backgrounds,” remarked Prof. Somnath Roy, principal investigator of the project at IIT Kharagpur.

IIT Kharagpur hosts a 1.3 Petaflop supercomputer named Paramshakti delivered and commissioned through NSM. The Institute has set up the Center for Computational and Data Sciences (CCDS) funded by DST to carry out next-generation interdisciplinary research and teaching activities that involve this state-of-the-art HPC platform. Param-vidya, a dedicated computing platform will be made available to IIT Kharagpur under NSM for this training and upskilling purpose. Further, ₹ 55.7 Lakh has been approved for a period of two years as initial funding for the project to run the NSM Nodal center and conduct training programs.

“Our supercomputing facility has enabled a large group of computational scientists for performing large-scale computations within and outside the campus while they are away. We have also organized a training session on GPU computing for users within the Institute in collaboration with Nvidia. More such training programs are also in pipeline,” said Prof. Pabitra Mitra, Head, CCDS and also principal investigator of the project.

More about CCDS: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/CD; http://www.hpc.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Coverage:

India Today	DataQuest	Economic Times Prime
ABP Education	Skill Outlook	Analytics India Magazine

Contact:

Project: Prof. Somnath Roy, somnath.roy@mech.iitkgp.ac.in; Prof. Pabitra Mitra, pabitra@cse.iitkgp.ac.in

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in

Evolving Smart Education System

Evolving Smart Education System – the 2020 Transformation at IIT Kharagpur

The year 2020 has brought a paradigm shift in our lifestyle and livelihoods. The higher education sector is probably among those to have witnessed the most climacteric effect in India with nearly 38 million students pursuing their education in online mode with e-Learning being explored like never before. While in the initial academic semesters, institutions relied mostly on video conferencing software such as Webex for classroom teaching and Moodle for assignments, a host of platforms were adopted as the year progressed, along with evolving new pedagogy for a better student experience.

Adopting Technical Aids

India’s premier institute IIT Kharagpur which caters to about 14000 students, collaborated with Microsoft and ‘prepbuddies’ for interactive online education. MS Teams enabled quick conversation with students, sharing of files and web links, built-in e-notebook for the classroom, management of interactive lessons and assignments.

“MS Teams was of great use as the lectures could be recorded and students could watch them in hindsight while being connected to their professors at all times for doubt clearing thus giving an enhanced learning experience,” said Pranjal Shukla, a third-year student from the Dept. of Civil Engineering.

The AI-based platform ‘prepbuddies’ developed by IIT Kharagpur alumnus Dharmendra Verma, was used for digital dissemination of the classroom resources, practice work, assignments and monitoring student performance analytics.

Prof. Siddhartha Mukhopadhyay, Head, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and School of Energy Science and Engineering opined on the unified experience students had on ‘prepbuddies’ through recorded videos of classes and discussion forums in addition to live classes. The evolving status of the software further makes it more dynamic in terms of new features, he added.

Evolving the Teaching and Learning Process

While technical aids and software have powered the wheels of online education, the process of online delivery of lessons and tracking progress had to be redefined.

“This new mode of online lecture delivery did not restrict the teachers’ innovation, rather paved a way to become more innovative. As a result, new modes of assignments, lecture delivery like showing graphics and relevant video demonstrations are adopted as components of the lecture delivery process. The lectures are no longer restricted to PPT but involve derivations being shown using various applications,” remarked Prof. G P Raja Sekhar, Dean, Faculty of Sciences.

In terms of evaluation and progress tracking, comprehensive-type open-book exams, as well as time-bound pen and paper type tests, were conducted. Post-exam students submitted scanned answer scripts by email within 10-15 minutes after they could complete the technical processing. Annanya Singh, a fourth-year Aerospace Engineering student remarked on how the added monitoring by teaching assistants during online class tests, made the test experience more realistic.

New Semester Plan

For the upcoming Spring 2021 semester, teachers have been recommended to use graphics enabled tablets, engage in regular two-way interactions with students during classes.

Prof. Joy Krishna Dey, Associate Dean, Faculty of Sciences, said, “One option is creating multiple sets of question papers keeping the nature of each question intact. This can be further coupled with random MCQs with shuffled options. We already conducted online quizzes similar to GATE with a mixture of MCQ and NAT type questions in the Autumn semester using Microsoft Teams.”

Shikha Bagaria, a second-year student from the Dept. of Chemical Engineering felt that the rush which was felt in the previous semester due to the transition will be addressed as the Spring semester is expected to start at the usual time and with better management of the online process.

The Challenges of Online Education

A key issue in online education that has remained unresolved till now is the hardware and network facilities. Akshat Jain, a fourth-year student from the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Engineering lauded the overall arrangements despite challenges but shared his concern regarding the continuous evaluation system which turned out to be difficult for a number of students without proper online facilities at home.

Mulling over the matter, Prof. Raja Sekhar said, “This issue needs to be addressed at a more macro level beyond the scope of an individual institute. We did a survey to identify the status of the internet connectivity of the students. The output results are being analyzed to develop diverse modes of tutorial and teaching communication.”

Another area that remains a challenge is the laboratory classes. In addition to the virtual labs platform being promoted by the Ministry of Education, some experiments can be demonstrated through specialized online videos while others conducted through computational models.

“Students are being encouraged to run experiments using sensors, tools, electrical and electronic components that can be bought from online marketplaces thus enabling them to build their own micro-labs wherever possible,” said Prof. Siddhartha Mukhopadhyay.

Most of the laboratory subjects however have been deferred until the students are back on campus due to the implausibility of conducting the experiments.

In a recent PanIIT USA forum experts pointed out that 97% of the IIT students and their families want to go back to their campuses, Director, Prof. Virendra Tewari insisted that for IIT education, a hybrid model is not a practical solution more so in the postgraduate level.

“We will be calling back students in a phase-wise manner who would go through quarantine before returning to their labs,” he said.

Answering the Water Call

IIT Kharagpur and Cardiff University to Jointly Develop Waste Water Treatment Solutions

Researchers from IIT Kharagpur and Cardiff University have jointly bagged the Global Challenges Research Fund – Impact Acceleration Account (GCRF-IAA) Project 2020 towards the development of a photo-electro-catalytic (PEC) reactor for wastewater treatment.

Wastewater is increasingly becoming a global ‘health and livelihood challenge’, especially in developing countries. According to UN-Water globally, 80% of wastewater re-enters the ecosystem without any treatment affecting the health and livelihood of around 1.8 billion people. However, this wastewater can play a significant role in addressing urban water challenges, production of bioenergy, and even serve as a resource in sustainable agriculture and industries. Over the years, researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed innovative solutions for recycling and reusing wastewater and wet-waste.

“A key issue in wastewater treatment is the removal of recalcitrant organic pollutants. Photo-electro-catalysis is an effective and sustainable mechanism that employs photocatalysts to degrade the polluting particles. At IIT Kharagpur we will initiate catalytic development, characterization, design of the PEC plant and optimizing the technology in order to make a proof of concept for end-users/industries,” said Prof. A Rajakumar from the Dept. of Chemistry at IIT Kharagpur.

The scientists at the School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, UK will conduct sophisticated studies on the catalytic materials using technical tools and high-end computational calculations.

“We are planning to do testing of the pilot-plant operation in the field after initial lab-based experiments and demonstrate the outcome for the benefit of industries by offering a reliable solution of water treatment technology,” remarked Prof. M M Ghangrekar. Further explaining the functioning of the PEC reactor, he said, “It will be very effective in removing emerging contaminants, which are not getting removed in the conventional treatment to make the water safe for any reuse after suitable disinfection as per the need.”

The GCRF grant, which part of the £1.5 billion fund coordinated by UK Research and Innovation, will ensure the maximization of collaborative opportunities between the two institutions as part of its mandate to address the challenges faced by developing countries in agreement with the UN sustainable development goals.

Media Coverage

India Today

Economic Times

ABP Education

Contact:

For Research:

Prof. Rajakumar Anantharkrishnan, Dept. of Chemistry,

E: raja@chem.iitkgp.ac.in

Prof. M M Ghanrekar, Dept. of Civil Engineering

E: ghangrekar@civil.iitkgp.ac.in

For Media:

Shreyoshi Ghosh, M: +91.8145.73.048

E: shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Facebook: @IIT.Kgp; Twitter: @IITKgp; Instagram: @iit.kgp

Distinguished Alumnus Award Announced for 2020

IIT Kharagpur has announced the Distinguished Alumnus Award for the year 2020. Twenty-one alumni from across the world have been named this year for this much-coveted annual award. The awardees include alumni with outstanding achievements in the spheres of academia, industry, public service and social welfare.

Lauding the awardees on social media Director Prof. Virendra K Tewari wrote, “The Distinguished Alumnus Award is conferred to appreciate outstanding achievements, leadership, contribution to society, and peer recognition of our alumni who are a source of pride and inspiration to all of us. Congratulations to all the awardees on joining the hallowed DAA club. We all look forward to seeing our distinguished alumni achieve greater heights in the years ahead.”

The award ceremony will be held during the 66th Annual Convocation of the Institute. The schedule will be announced at a later date.

List of Awardees:

Prof Subir Kumar Banerjee, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Founding Director, Institute of Rock Magnetism, University of Minnesota
Prof Tribikram Kundu, Full Professor, Director of Nondestructive Testing Laboratory at the University of Arizona
Prof Kalyan Chakravarti, Managing Director, Kabirama Management Consultancy Private Limited, Pune
Prof Bhabesh Chandra Sarkar, Professor, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad
Prof Damodar Acharya, Chairman Advisory Board, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar and Chairman, Board of Governors, IGIT Sarang Dhenkanal
Prof Shekhar Chaudhuri, The Chair Professor, Strategic Management, Calcutta Business School
Prof Susmita Sur Kolay, Professor, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata
Dr Krishnamurthy Sekhar, Formerly Director General (Missile Systems), D.R.D.O. and Formerly Vice-Chancellor, Vels University, Chennai
Dr Nawal Kishore Choudhary, Freelance consultant in Business Strategy and Performance Improvement of an Organization, Gurgaon
Dr Amitav Rath, President, Policy Research International and Director – Strategy, Innovation and Climate Change, Canada
Dr B N Ramesh, Additional Director General of Police, Police Regulations & Manuals, West Bengal
Mr Raj Kumar Caprihan, Advisor New Projects TVS Credit Services Ltd, Gurgaon
Mr Rajendra Kumar Bagrodia, Chairman Winsome Breweries Ltd, New Delhi
Dr Hirak Kumar Sen, Founder and CEO, H. K. Sen & Associates Consulting Engineers, Architects and Planners, Kolkata
Dr Lalit Rai Bahl, Researcher, Renaissance Technologies LLC, New York
Mr Vinod Kumar Jain, Founder & Chairman, Safechem Industries, Kolkata
Mr Ramnath S Mani, Managing Director, Automation Excellence Private Limited, Chennai
Mr Patti Muddu Gopal Rao, Principal- Patti Rao/Architect Planner, Canada
Dr Rabindra Mukhopadhyay, Director (R&D), JK Tyre & Industries Ltd., Mysore and Director and Chief Executive of Hari Shankar Singhania Elastomer & Tyre Research Institute (HASETRI)
Mr Achintya Kumar Ghosh, Director, KABIL, New Delhi
Dr Saripalle Satyamurty, Member Governing Body, Bhagavatula Charitable Trust (BCT), Haripuram and Member Governing Body, Rejuvenate India Movement (RIM), Bangalore

New Normal Thrust to International Research Outreach

The Ministry of Education has released a grant for the amount of ₹ 80 crores to IIT Kharagpur for the Scheme for Promotion of Academic & Research Collaboration (SPARC) Programme which is aimed to promote international research outreach. The Institute which is the national coordinator of the programme is working along with 450 institutions in India and 470 institutions worldwide since the inception of the programme in 2018.

In 2019-20, more than 300 international experts visited Indian institutions registered under SPARC for various projects and workshops. Close to 400 research proposals have been approved for funding to date. Over 26% of the R&D proposals and international outreach are focused on Emergent Areas of Impact which included areas such as Advanced Electronics and Communication, Advanced Functional and Meta Materials, Structural Genomics and Evolutionary Biology, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, Infectious Disease & Clinical Research. This segment was followed by Action-Oriented Research with a 24% accepted proposals in areas including Future of Earth: Green and Renewable Technologies, River, Ocean, Aviation and Space Management Technology, Technology Enhanced Education and Learning, including Assistive Technologies, Agricultural and Food Sustainability, Technologies for Rural and Women Empowerment, Law and Society. Convergence areas of research is another significant segment with 22% proposals in areas covering Transportation and Smart Infrastructure, Affordable Health Care, Advanced Manufacturing, Science and Heritage, Energy and Water Sustainability.

“The data indicates a clear shift towards transdisciplinary research addressing global challenges and cutting-edge research. The insights will further boost international collaboration opportunities for science and technology institutes in India by aligning their thrust areas with global trends,” remarked Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The participation from USA, Australia and UK witnessed highest visits covering close to 65% of the international faculty visitors in 2019-20. The slump in 2020 though was expected, work was carried out through online conferences. In one such initiative, IIT Kharagpur organized the International Conference on ‘Emerging Trends in Healthcare Technology in Post-COVID-19 Era’ with expert participation from USA, UK, Australia, Sweden, South Africa, The Netherlands, India and Shri Amit Khare, Secretary, Dept. of Higher Education, Govt. of India.

Following the initial success of SPARC despite the disruptions in 2020, the Ministry has released the funding for phase two of the programme. Earlier this month Shiksha Mantri Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had announced the release of the funds on his social media handles.

Talking about the road ahead, Prof. Adrijit Goswami from IIT Kharagpur who is heading the Pan India coordination of the programme said, “Going online is the new normal roadmap at least for programmes like SPARC and GIAN. While online mode has its drawbacks, on the brighter side it may swell the opportunities especially for those who otherwise find such collaborative work arduous due to extended physical visits.”

“With phase two funding of ₹ 80 crores and the structured format of e-workshops, webinars, online classes and even research in virtual mode, the scope for productive academic collaborations at the SPARC-approved collaborating Institutes look promising,” he added.

Contact:

Project: Prof. Adrijit Goswami, Email: goswami@maths.iitkgp.ac.in; Web: https://sparc.iitkgp.ac.in/

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Coverage:

Economic Times	Times Now	Jagran Josh
NDTV	ABP Education	Skill Outlook
Hindustan Times	Indian Express	India Today
Outlook	The Week	Yahoo News
Money Control	The New Indian Express Edex	Millennium Post

New Algorithm to Augment Industrial Profitability

IIT Kharagpur – Tata Metaliks Jointly Develop Industry 4.0 Algorithm to Change Profitability Scenario of India’s Manufacturing Sector

Researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, IIT Kharagpur have developed a predictive maintenance algorithm to improve the profitability of production jobs through substantial savings in Productivity, Downtime, Cost and Manpower. The data-driven predictive maintenance module has been successfully tested by Tata Metaliks for user-level acceptance.

The algorithm has been developed at the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, by a team led by Prof Akhilesh Kumar, Associate Professor, Dept. of Industrial Systems Engineering. Deployed on a gearbox of Annealing Furnace, the algorithm was tested for its ability to cluster various operating modes of the gearbox and outliers, adaptability to recognize new operating modes and predict impending failures, threshold flags for anomaly detection as well as tracking health state of the industrial assets.

Prof. Kumar said, “My goal was to develop generic diagnostic and prognostic algorithms that are rapidly configurable, and adaptive to facilitate effective and efficient large-scale deployment of Predictive Maintenance 4.0 (PdM4.0) technology for a wide variety of equipment/assets”.

Tata Metaliks has projected that the algorithm would have the potential for great savings from a predictive maintenance perspective. Based on various performance measures, an indirect increase in productivity was estimated to be ₹1 crore annually along with a direct decrease in (i) annual downtime by 40-hours, (ii) annual manpower requirement by 400 hours and (iii) cost by ₹8 Lakh. Tata Metaliks has developed a graphic user interface to display and retrieve the algorithmic data computation.

Dr. Purnendu Sinha, Technology leader-IoT & Analytics, Group Technology & Innovation Office, Tata Group, one of the collaborators on this project, strongly believes that such an initiative will enable the widespread acceptance of Industry 4.0 as a data-driven paradigm.

Mr. Mohit Kale, General Manager (Engineering Services), Tata Metaliks said “In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, it is undeniable that the industrial community is looking for better Proof-of-Concept to embrace IoT based applications, and this project builds such confidence”.

Tata Sons along with IIT Kharagpur hold the licensing rights for this algorithm.

“As India is determined to achieve the goal of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, we must bridge the gap from lab to land by means of translational research. Academic research which can be directly tested by industries will not only improve the commercialization prospect but it will transform our centres of excellence as hotbeds of industrial innovations. This is the vision with which the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies was set up by the Dept. of Heavy Industries, Govt. of India and a consortium of six industries and I am glad it is living upto the expectations,” opined Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading the Centre called the development a great success of the industry-academia collaborative platform.

“This is another significant milestone in our goal to deliver Industrial IoT innovations to India’s manufacturing sector thus graduating it to Industry 4.0. The industrial collaborations make it possible to progress through the technology readiness levels and design systems which can be adopted by the industries,” he said.

About Center of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, IIT Kharagpur

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology was set up at IIT Kharagpur under the patronage of the Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Government of India and a consortium of six industry members. The Centre aims to stimulate innovation to manufacture smart machines in the capital goods sector. This centre offers a unique platform for innovative and top-quality research focused on the industries on Specialty materials, Design and automation, Additive manufacturing, and Digital Manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things. The centre will boost innovative interventions and collaborative research in the advanced manufacturing domain by enabling an ecosystem among Institutes of higher repute, heavy industries, and also the MSMEs and start-ups.

Contact:

Project: Prof. Surjya K Pal, skpal@mech.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Media Coverage:

India Today

DataQuest

India Blooms

Counting 1000+ on 8th Day of Placement

Despite Pandemic, IIT Kharagpur secured more than 1000 jobs – the highest number of Placement offers in 2020.

IIT Kharagpur bagged more than 1000 offers in Phase-I placements for the year 2020-21 till the 8th Day of the ongoing hiring session. The students also bagged 30 international job offers so far from countries such as Japan and Taiwan and companies including Accenture, TSMC, Sony, Rakuten, and Valuance, etc.

Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Qualcomm, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, American Express, Sony Japan, EXL Service, Oracle, Honeywell, TSMC, Rakuten, Cohesity, Amazon, Airbus, PwC, L&T, Wipro, Tata Steel, and many more have offered jobs across sectors such as software, hardware, analytics, consulting, core engineering, education, healthcare, banking, finance, etc.

Till now, the institute achieved good placement numbers and put up with the current economic conditions as top companies have shown faith in us. More than 200 companies are participating in the first phase of the recruitment drive, mainly 25%-27% core companies, 65% software, and 10% consulting. The company mix in the first phase is fairly distributed, and the students got their placements as per their domain choice, though software, data, and analytics took the major share of it. The performance is even reflected in the average salary which stands at ₹ 19 LPA despite the odds.

“On the closing of day-1, we had received 400 plus offers which accumulate to 900 on day 5th and crossed 1000 by Day 8th; though pandemic restricted some of the companies to offer more hiring numbers/profiles. Despite that KGP achieved significant performance and reassured its legacy,” remarked Prof. A. Rajakumar, Chairman, Career Development Centre, IIT Kharagpur.

The performance is owing to the high academic quality & technical skills of our students, which were reflected through the fully flexible online internship program 2020 including in-house internship by faculty mentors in addition to industrial internships arranged through CDC.

Prof. Rajakumar and his team expressed gratitude to all hiring partners of IITKGP for their excellent cooperation through “unique online recruitment” at this trying time.

The first phase of the placements at IIT Kharagpur will continue till December 11, with the next phase will resume from the second week of January 2021.

IIT KGP and Leeds MoU

IIT Kharagpur and the University of Leeds have agreed for institutional collaboration in education and research. The primary objective is to promote interaction and collaboration between faculty, staff and students of the two institutions through visits and exchange programmes, carry out joint academic and research programmes, joint supervision of doctoral and masters students, on a reciprocal basis. The relationship also aims at enhancing the technological, social and cultural relations of both countries/states/regions.

Apart from the short course, seminars, workshops or conferences, the scope of the MoU will include exploring joint PhD/Masters programmes, possibly in association with other reputed academic, research or industrial organisations. Both institutes will consider tuition fee waivers to the visiting students.

Prof. Samit Chakrabarty, School of Biomedical Sciences shall be the Coordinator from University of Leeds and Professor Nilanjan Das Chakladar, Mechanical Engineering shall be the Coordinator from IIT Kharagpur.

From the Director’s Desk: Best Practices to Avoid Exam Malpractices

IIT Kharagpur’s point of view regarding best practices to avoid malpractices in online examination

Experience says that generally the rules are required to be framed for a purpose for possibly 5% of people who are not so disciplined and cause disturbance to the whole system. For this 5% of people, 95% of people do suffer as they need to go through a constricted process.
Setting stringent measures for curbing malpractices in an examination is no exception. Possibly a handful of students resort to some kind of unethical practices for which a host of norms are required to be framed for which a large number of students feel suffocated.
Students of the IIT system are admitted through a very competitive process and there is no reason to assume that our students will be adopting malpractices of mass cheating in an examination. Though our experience demonstrates that we had a few cases at least in the past of malpractices, percentage-wise this is absolutely minimal. For such instances, immediate actions such as deregistration, cancellation of paper etc. were imposed. Nevertheless, we have adopted several measures to curb malpractices through several innovative ways:

(i) Use of technology – use of Moodle, a double shuffle examination software
(ii) Through VIVA-VOCE to have one to one interaction
(iii) Setting of tests to have time crunch (set for one hour and allowed half an hour)
(iv) Combination of written and oral tests
(v) Setting innovative questions wherein answers for each student differs
(v) Consider each examination as an open book examination

We wish to inculcate amongst our students the same responsibility and try to imbibe amongst them that the acts such as malpractices in examination bring bad names not only for themselves but for the Department / Centre / Units they come from and for the Institute and their family as well. Such kind of activity is going to cause a ripple at the national level. Hence students should refrain from these.