Month: March 2021

ERP Software Developed by IIT Kharagpur Adopted by other IITs

The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software developed and extensively used by IIT Kharagpur is now to be adopted by IIT Ropar and IIT Jodhpur for institutional use. IIT Kharagpur has signed MoU with both the IITs for customization, installation and deployment of the ERP system.

“This indigenously developed software was deployed across all major functions of the Institute, to improve organizational administration and shifting operations to e-management, through both intranet and internet as well as desktops and mobiles. Close to 2000 of our teaching and non-teaching staff and more than 14000 students are using this software regularly; additionally, a large number of external people also access various modules for applications to our academic programs, guest house services, collaborators etc., achieving another milestone of Atmanirbharta,” remarked Prof. Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The modules covered in the commercial version of the software include Academics (including new Admissions), Career Development, Accounts, Human Resources, Purchase, Hall Management Centre, Continuing Education, Guest House and also Institute Works. The modules are menu-driven with role-based access and delegation facility, rule engine-based approval process and data-oriented based process definition.

The perpetual license cost of the software has been estimated at ₹ 2.5 crore including initial customization and installation support. That is followed by an annual consultancy cost of ₹ 50 – ₹ 75 lakh. The duration of the project is 18 months.

Prof. Chittaranjan Mandal, who is heading the ERP division at IIT Kharagpur said, “Our software is uniquely designed to provide circumspect support institutional function covering admissions, academics, placement, hostel management, recruitment for faculty and non-faculty positions, research and consultancy activities, accounts, institutional works, guest house management. Necessary end-user customization, training of staff to support operation and further customization and the user end is included within the scope of the MoU. We are enthused with the positive reception to our ERP by IIT Ropar and IIT Jodhpur.”

IIT Kharagpur has also been approached by other institutions for similar adoption of its indigenously ERP.

Contact:

Project Info: Prof. Chittaranjan Mandal, Email: chairman.erp@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; Media: media@iitkgp.ac.in; 

Facebook: @IITKgp   Twitter: @IITKgp   Instagram: @iit.kgp   

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Enhancing Global Imprint of IIT Kharagpur through Strategic Partnerships

Exploring scaling-up of international outreach initiatives through dynamic and personalized approach as well as unique offerings at the institutional level.

IIT Kharagpur has been scaling up its international relations activities since 2015. From setting up an International Relations Office to the hiring of staff, setting processes and systems and entering new collaborations. The Institute has also been engaging in various strategic partnerships in harmony with India’s global alliances and outreach goals. Recently the Director Prof. V K Tewari along with Associate Dean International Relations Dr. Anandaroop Bhattacharya and executives from the Office of International Relations, participated in three strategic events to augment international relations activities. 

India has a long-standing relationship with ASEAN which has received considerable impetus in the past few years especially in enhancing cooperation in the field of Science and Technology. Doctoral-fellowship in India for ASEAN (DIA), an initiative sponsored by the Ministry of Education supported by the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India, organized the online summit, IIT-ASEAN Research Cooperation to provide a forum to engage in discussions on Research & Innovation Opportunities in IITs and ASEAN by reputed scientists/academicians. A diverse range of academic disciplines at IIT Kharagpur was showcased in addition to the usual engineering disciplines. Here, graduate and doctoral scholars from ASEAN may pursue their studies in areas such as Architecture (Ranked first in NIRF, Govt. of India), Mining (among world’s top 50 in QS Subject Rank), Naval Architecture, Law (Ranked among top 5 in NIRF, Govt. of India), Agriculture (ranked by QS as India’s best) Space Technology (have active collaborations with ISRO) and the newly launched Indian Knowledge Systems, the first of its kind in the IIT system where scholarly knowledge from Indian traditions will be explored in the light of modern scientific principles. It is imperative that IITs reach out to the ASEAN nations assertively and put forward the niche areas which are of common interest to both countries.

Another strategic partnership IIT Kharagpur pursuing is the BRICS Network University. In the meeting held by BRICS NU National Coordinating Committee, Dept. of Higher Education, MoE, Govt. of India, the Institute emphasized adding national mission projects to the current thrust areas of Computer Science and Cyber Security, which have a huge potential such as Precision Agriculture, Ecology & Environment, Mining, Water Resources and Architecture. 

IIT Kharagpur also participated in a review meeting held under the Study in India (SII) initiative by EDCIL to deliberate on how to make India a more preferred destination in the world for higher education. The pressing point of this meeting was how to increase the inflow of foreign students in India in comparison to outbound Indian students. The discussions included initiatives such as designing a common portal for all foreign applications, focus on building more short term courses, exchange programs, transfer of credits, joint doctoral programs, the introduction of bridge courses; supernumerary quota seats other than AICTE, orientation programs for foreign students as well as the engagement of faculty experts to attract foreign students in India. Deliberations were also made towards setting up international offices at each of the participating institutes to assist the foreign students, creating an alumni network for foreign students, revisiting regulations for foreign interns. Considerable up-gradation is required in the facilitation of foreign students including accommodation with special facilities offering a student-friendly eco-system to help sustain them through the tenure of their programs. Further, it has been felt that offering personalized courses fine-tuned with the needs of foreign students would strengthen the position of India as an international destination for higher education.

Authors: Alivia Nag, Koushiki Mukherjee are executives at the Office of International Relations. The report is based on discussions and deliberations made in March 2021 at three international outreach summits.

Ozone and Ultra-filter based manufacturing tech to extend shelf life of packaged Sugarcane juice

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed new process technology based on ozonization and ultra filtration for manufacturing shelf-stable sugarcane juice

Sugarcane juice is a refreshing drink with an enriched nutritional profile. The juice accommodates health components such as, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and vitamins (like Vitamins C&B) which offer quick relief from heatstroke, dehydration, constipation, jaundice, etc. by supplying instant energy. Owing to the absence of simple sugars and low glycemic index (30-40), its average intake by diabetic persons is also acceptable. However, the colour and flavour unique to the juice get deteriorated immediately after its extraction due to biological processes of browning and microbial fermentation. Its short shelf life limits its long term storage and marketing. Thermal treatments used to enhance the shelf life of sugarcane juice destroy its pleasant taste and aroma. Non-thermal methods hold promise in this regard.

Research scholar Chirasmita Panigrahi from the Dept. of Agricultural & Food Engineering, as part of her PhD research, has been pursuing a novel study on ozone assisted cold sterilization technology towards the shelf stabilization of sugarcane juice without heat or chemical. 

The process technology involves ultra-filtering and ozonization of the freshly extracted microfiltered juice followed by packaging under an aseptic environment. The combined membrane filtration and ozone treatment technology resulted in 7 log reduction in bacteria, 5 log reduction in yeasts & moulds and 85% inactivation of enzyme polyphenol oxidase. 

“This could minimize the juice fermentation and brown to a greater extent during storage. The combined technology treated juice could be successfully stored up to 12 weeks under refrigeration without any appreciable change in its bioactive and essential nutrients. The treated juice well retained its sensory characteristics especially the colour and flavour during storage,” confirmed Chirasmita.  

Her PhD work which is being supervised by Professor H N Mishra of the Agricultural & Food Engineering Department and co-supervised Professor Sirshendu De of the Chemical Engineering Department has been selected for the NRDC National Meritorious Invention Awards 2020 by the National Research Development Corporation, Government of India, New Delhi recently. 

For more information please contact Prof. H N Mishra at hnm@agfe.iitkgp.ac.in 

 

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Making Sanskrit Accessible through AI-based Text Processing

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur are making Sanskrit accessible with their Artificial Intelligence-based system for processing Sanskrit texts

There has been a renewed interest in Sanskrit since the announcement of NEP 2020. Various academic institutions both at school education as well as higher education are adopting various approaches for improving the reach of the language through training programs, research and outreach initiatives. While various digital resources have improved the accessibility and use of world languages and even regional languages, Sanskrit presents unique challenges in automated computational processing. In addition to the sheer volume and diversity, both stylistic and chronological, found in these texts, the linguistic peculiarities expressed by the language, pose several challenges in making these works accessible to the world.  

Research group led by Dr. Pawan Goyal have developed a digital infrastructure for the efficient processing of Sanskrit texts, by effectively combining state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and traditional linguistic knowledge from Sanskrit. The proposed framework is based on Energy-based models and it enables the encoding of relevant linguistic information as constraints.

“Processing of Sanskrit texts poses several challenges owing to the high lexical productivity of the words, free word order in poetry, euphonic assimilation of sounds at the word boundaries and phonemic orthography followed in writing. Keeping these in mind, we proposed a generic graph-based framework that takes advantage of the free word order nature of the language. Further, we make use of linguistic insights from the traditional Sanskrit grammar for learning the feature function and applying the relevant constraints.” explained Dr. Goyal.

 

He further adds,  “Our proposed framework substantially reduces the training data requirements to as low as 10%, as compared to that of the neural state-of-the-art models. In all the Sanskrit-related tasks discussed in the work, we either achieve state-of-the-art results or ours is the only data-driven solution for those tasks.”

This work is accepted for publication in the Computational Linguistics journal published by the MIT Press. This work has been carried by research scholar Dr. Amrith Krishna [Tweet @krishnamrith12], currently, a postdoc at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Dr. Pawan Goyal. The paper currently addresses the tasks of word segmentation (संधि विच्छेद), morphological parsing (पद विश्लेषण), dependency parsing (कारक विश्लेषण) and poetry to prose conversion of Sanskrit text (अन्वय). The team is now actively collaborating with several external research groups to extend the application of the proposed system for automatic speech recognition and question-answering in Sanskrit.

The classical language has a rich literary tradition spanning more than 2 millennia that encapsulates the cultural ethos of this civilizational nation. Works in Sanskrit, numbering more than 30 million extant manuscripts, include extensive epics, subtle and intricate philosophical, mathematical, and scientific treatises, and rich literary, poetic, and dramatic texts. The proposed AI-based system, used in conjunction with interactive tools such as the Sanskrit Heritage reader, can aid the users in the easier analysis of these manuscripts with word-by-word analysis and translation, the relation between words, poetry to prose conversion, search and question answering, etc.

Graphic by Suman Sutradhar

For more information contact Prof. Pawan Goyal at pawang@cse.iitkgp.ac.in or Dr. Amrith Krishna [Face: amrith.krishna, Tweet @krishnamrith12]

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IIT Kharagpur Wins the CoreNet Global Academic Challenge 6.0

A team of four undergraduate students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur emerged as winners at the CoreNet Global Academic Challenge 6.0, sponsored by Cushman and Wakefield, KI and IA: Interior Architects. The team comprised of Siddhant Samarth (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Civil Engineering), Pratim Majumdar (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Chemical Engineering), Rishita Raj (Second Year Undergraduate, Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Utkarsh Agrawal (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Manufacturing Science and Engineering), and were guided by Prof. Jenia Mukherjee (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences). The team from IIT Kharagpur was one of the four teams to progress into the final round out of 1300 teams all over the world and were pitted against the University of Washington, New York University and the University of Denver in the final round hosted online on 18th March 2021. This is the first time that a squad from India has emerged as winners in the CoreNet Global Academic Challenge since the inception of the competition in 2015.

CoreNet Global is a non-profit association, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (US), 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. CoreNet Global’s mission is to advance the practice of corporate real estate through professional development opportunities, publications, research, conferences, and chapters and networking groups. CoreNet Global aims to broaden its network, raise the profile of corporate real estate, serve as the profession’s voice and thought leader and champion the profession’s development and maturity. Every year, Corenet Global invites students from around the world to think creatively about a problem facing real estate professionals for renowned companies like Google, Duke Energy, AstraZeneca, Whirlpool, and many others, institutions from all over the globe will compete to address challenges like creating an employee experience that attracts millennials while retaining all other generations of employees; or reducing the gap between the speed of business and the typical speed of real estate.

The team from IIT Kharagpur worked on a hypothetical case on developing an environmentally resilient Corporate Real Estate Portfolio while gauging the impact of the pandemic, for Blue Banc, a fictitious financial institution based in London, England.

“This was uncharted territory but appeared to be a really insightful field to all of us. Right from the start, we were careful to maintain an innovative approach and establish a wide paradigm of solutions in order to accommodate each and every aspect necessary for constructing a green real estate portfolio. We first developed a benchmarking mechanism, then went on to create an internal Carbon market for ensuring scrupulous investments, and then resorted to Real Options analysis to develop strategic timeframes, and then went on to address the issue of determining an ideal location for establishing a new branch using scoring methodologies, Haversine distancing and qualitative force analysis. Our solution culminated with the idea of introducing various innovative financial products and moulding our ideas according to the impact of the pandemic. Our Faculty Advisor, Prof. Jenia Mukherjee constantly bolstered us through the entire endeavour not only through her extremely encouraging words but also by throwing light on the social implications of each of our ideas, and minutely going through each ingredient of our solution and commenting on the loopholes. Your performance, of course, is automatically maximized if you have the support of such an outstanding professor”, the ecstatic team of Siddhant, Pratim, Rishita and Utkarsh mentioned right after they were announced as the winners of this esteemed competition.

L to R: Pratim Majumdar (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Chemical Engineering), Rishita Raj (Second Year Undergraduate, Department of Mechanical Engineering), Utkarsh Agrawal (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Manufacturing Science and Engineering), Siddhant Samarth (Third Year Undergraduate, Department of Civil Engineering),

Prof. Jenia Mukherjee from the department of Humanities and Social Sciences was elated after the win and said, “Right after the team shared the prospective ideas with me, I was quite confident that this squad had the potential to present something ingenious, and they just needed out to smoothen out the edges and counter the loopholes, since each and every aspect in itself was so innovational and widely applicable. Kudos to Siddhant for creating the Green Scoring model from scratch, to Pratim for setting up the internal Carbon market and creating a tactical timeline using Binomial Real Options, to Rishita for developing and working on the method of Haversine Distancing, Location scoring and force analysis and to Utkarsh for gauging each aspect through the lens of the COVID-19 Crisis and suggesting a plan of action accordingly. I am definitely sure that these pioneering ideas in themselves can be developed into full-fledged implementable models through further research, and it will not be long when one day, these hypothetical solutions are at last witnessed in action in the corporate ambit.”

The team would be awarded $5000, complimentary student membership in CoreNet Global (retail value: $25) and a copy of The Essential Guide to Corporate Real Estate (retail value: $49.99).

Prof. Mukherjee, Pratim, Siddhant, Rishita and Utkarsh have been personally congratulated by the Regional Experience Director, CoreNet Global (Mumbai) India. They have been asked to share the presentation to the members of the India Chapter in a webinar next month.

 

 

 

AI in Manufacturing

Pandemic has hit us hard and has reset the entire manufacturing lookout. Thinking in the positive aspect, the pandemic has given us a chance to grow stronger, more resilient, and resourceful in terms of operation, maintenance, and sustainability. There was a point in time when people were perceiving Industry 4.0 as an opportunity for their businesses. The table has turned, and now, Industry 4.0 is a mandate as the concepts under its umbrella are the ones that will help in making manufacturing more resilient, stronger, and resourceful. AI is one of the core elements of Industry 4.0 and it encompasses machine learning, deep learning, and classical AI techniques. 

The Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, led by Professor Surjya K Pal, has been very proactive in this context from its inception. They have come up with a low-cost AI-based solution for product quality inspection. Professor Pal mentioned that they strived hard to make it low-cost so that it can be leveraged by the MSMEs. This sector is the “Engines of Growth”, and they need low-cost and effective solutions to energize their production scenarios. The solution incorporates a low-cost webcam for capturing images of the product; the quality of which is enhanced in real-time via AI techniques followed by machine vision analyses to inspect the dimensional features and presence of scratches and dents. The Centre has also developed an Industry 4.0 solution for real-time monitoring and control of weld quality, which has been filed as a patent, jointly with TCS. They have also developed an ML-based predictive maintenance software for complete diagnostics of the machine elements. This has been developed jointly with Tata Metaliks and Tata Sons. 

Very recently, Professor Pal delivered a lecture on “AI in Manufacturing” to NIT Sikkim, where he mentioned that manufacturing is having a huge potential for implementing AI techniques. Robots and human working together on a job, sensor-driven real-time control of processes, AR/VR for operation and maintenance, etc. are the new paradigms, which the manufacturing industries are looking forward to.  He also mentioned about customized training programme on “AI in manufacturing”, which they have been working on jointly with the Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence.

IIT Kharagpur Spreading Health Awareness through Live Folk Art Performance

Albert Einstein had once said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

But the challenge of scientists, health workers and the administrative machinery, involved in communicating health awareness and promoting the adoption of new health habits, to large segments of people with varying levels of education and exposure remains an arduous task. In a diverse country like India which has close to 65% of the population living in a rural or semi-urban setup, 30% population devoid of literacy in addition to significant school drop-out rates, rural health communication, particularly in the pandemic situation, demanded novel and localized approaches with scientific ideas explained in the most elementary form.

Recently IIT Kharagpur took up this challenge to improvise an effective method of health communication to a large catchment of the rural population. Under the project “Folk Artists in the Time of Coronavirus” funded IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Anjali Gera Roy, from the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, engaged with folk artists (Patua) from the Naya village in West Midnapore to hold COVID-19 awareness outreach initiative communicated through visual and musical art forms. 

The tradition of creating public awareness programs started among the Naya Patuas two decades back with a group of women led by Rani Chitrakar performing on the HIV AIDS issue. Prof. Anjali Gera Roy, who has been working with this community approached a group of Patuas from Naya to create scroll paintings and songs exclusively to promote hygiene habits among the local people around Kharagpur. While the Institute has been organizing relief camps for the distribution of essential items to the underprivileged community, several of the relief recipients were observed to be nonchalant with regards to hygiene habits such as wearing masks or maintaining social distance despite the Institute repeatedly urging the people to follow the health protocols. 

This is where the group of Gurupada Chitrakar, Bahadur Chitrakar, Swarna Chitrakar, Jaba Chitrakar and Sonali Chitrakar were brought in to tell the tale of COVID-19. Guided by IIT Kharagpur researchers, the Patua group composed their songs in local dialects along with scroll paintings in folk art format to help the audience understand the challenges of COVID-19 and best practices to be adhered to. This mode of communication makes scientific information palatable and cognizable to people in various sections of society, especially in the area of health. The threat perception, precaution and remedies, when communicated in a language hued in cultural connotations, and coming from their social peers, is easier for the local people to connect with and efficacious in their public compliance. 

The first performance was organized at the entry gate of the IIT Kharagpur campus. [Watch Video] As the relief recipients queued outside the IIT gate, a Patua group from Naya engaged them in an interactive session about COVID-19. They followed it with a performance of songs to pats or scrolls created by the Patuas on the theme. The painters drilled home warnings about not following lockdown rules and other instructions through their pictures and songs and exhorted the onlookers to fight together to defeat the virus. 

Talking about the initiative, Prof. Anjali Gera Roy remarked, “This form of communication to the underprivileged community has been a tradition and has proven to be effective for ages. We are mulling over organizing more such performances for various sections of the society, especially to promote the vaccination drive.”

The people who came to collect the relief materials expressed awe not only in the artwork but the information being disseminated through folk music by their fellow community members. Many of the spectators explored the paintings to understand the nature of coronavirus and COVID-19.

Gurupada Chitrakar, a Patua performer said, “We find the medium of songs and pictures more effective than words. When we came to IIT Kharagpur and stood in  a line arranging our pats, people begin to wonder what on earth are they going to do.  But when we started singing, gradually people cocked their ears listen carefully and wanted to see the pictures and listen to the songs.  Those standing in the queue began to pay attention to whether they were standing too close or lowering their masks even though they know about COVID already.”

Recently, IIT Kharagpur had conducted a joint exhibition with Gurudev Tagore Indian Cultural Center (GTICC) Indian Council For Cultural Relations, India In Mexico (Embassy of India, Mexico City) and OraWorld Mandala to present an online workshop and symposium titled “Life on Scroll: Lockdown Creativity” by scroll painters and folk artists in India and Mexico. The highlight of this exhibition was a visual representation of COVID-19 in Patua art, short films on Amate and Huichol art and interactions of the Patuas from Naya with the Amate artists and Huichol/Textile painters from Mexico. 

Read the story on Times of India

IIT Kharagpur and The University of Manchester Launch Dual Doctoral Programme

IIT Kharagpur and The University of Manchester are pleased to announce the launch of a dual award PhD programme which represents the next phase of our strategic partnership. This will serve to consolidate and build on existing research collaborations across a number of thematic areas including environmental geochemistry, biomaterials and Industry 4.0. Students will be jointly recruited and spend time in both Manchester and Kharagpur, benefiting from the expertise, facilities and infrastructure of two globally renowned institutions.

The programme, launching this July, will be open to IIT and IISc graduates from India during its initial phase.  Successful candidates will be required to enrol at both institutions spending the first year at IIT Kharagpur with the remaining time on the programme split between The University of Manchester and IIT Kharagpur according to the project requirements as determined by the supervisors and the Joint Programme Board.

Both institutions will be responsible for making their own award but the two components would form a single research experience managed cooperatively by both institutions. The successful doctoral candidates will receive parchments from both Institutions – each prominently mentioning the joint nature of the work and the partner institute’s name.

While IIT Kharagpur has already established similar programmes with universities in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, this is the first time such a joint programme has been set up with a British university.

Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, Former Dean International Relations at IIT Kharagpur who was instrumental in setting up this programme remarked, “This Dual Award PhD is a unique partnership made possible by the trust and respect we have developed over the years for each other’s research quality and academic standards. Starting from defining the doctoral project, selection and admission of the student, to supervision, thesis work and evaluation, and finally award of the degree, everything is jointly administered. I believe this programme will provide the template for equal partnership between IITs and top British universities in the future.”

As a core component of its international strategy, The University of Manchester is entering into a small number of dual award PhD programmes with prestigious partner institutions around the world.

Professor Stephen Flint, Associate Vice-President International, The University of Manchester, said: “The dual PhD with IIT Kharagpur is testament to the University’s strategic ambitions to build world-class research links with India and to encourage more student mobility between the two regions.” He further added, “The University of Manchester established research partnerships with IIT Kharagpur some years ago and this dual award PhD programme is the next step in deepening our relationship, with academic colleagues in both institutions sharing supervision of the PhD students, who will spend 2 years in Manchester and 2 years in Kharagpur.”

Faculty members from the two institutions will jointly define projects which are approved by a Joint Progamme Board. As per the umbrella MoU signed in 2017, some of the areas for potential joint projects include Biomedical Informatics, Advanced Materials, Smart Textiles, and Earth-Environment-Water Sciences. Several potential collaborations between faculty members of both institutions have already been identified with the encouragement of the development of further collaborations. Under this programme, full and partial funding will be available on a competitive basis for four years for a select number of suitably qualified and progressing students.

For more information visit https://international.iitkgp.ac.in/ or contact ir-office@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

Contact: Office of International Relations, IIT Kharagpur, Email: adeanir@adm.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media: media@iitkgp.ac.in; Facebook: @IITKgp   Twitter: @IITKgp   Instagram: @iit.kgp

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Studying Plastic Pollution in the Ganga with National Geographic

Ganga, the life source of Northern and Eastern India is a prominent area of study by researchers from diverse disciplines, a key among them is the environment. In 2019, the National Geographic Society organized the expedition “Sea to Source: Ganges” to scientifically document plastic waste in the Ganges watershed and support holistic and inclusive solutions. A proud partner in this women scientists-led expedition was IIT Kharagpur along with the Isabela Foundation, University of Dhaka, the Wildlife Institute of India, and Wild Team Bangladesh.

Researchers and students from an environment-focused group at the Dept. of Civil Engineering, IIT Kharagpur participated in this transboundary expedition. The group was involved in estimating the mismanaged plastic quantities from municipal solid waste all along the river in India and come up with potential solutions and improvements in waste management systems to avoid the leakages of plastic waste from land to the river.

Talking about their role in the study-based expedition, Prof. Brajesh Dubey who heads this group at IIT Kharagpur said, “We carried out the waste characterization from the city/town dumpsite waste samples, as well as the samples collected along the river from Rishikesh to Howrah. It helped in estimating the extent of mismanaged plastics in the waste, the type of plastics present in the waste and the estimation of the fraction of mismanaged waste plastics getting into the river Ganga. A model is also being developed using the field data to have a realistic estimation of the plastic pollution transport from land to river and eventually to the ocean.”

The IIT research group also performed a photographic survey of waste management practices and issues for each city/town. Further, they held and discussions with city officials on waste management plans, identification of infrastructure gaps for the city/town and suggestions for improvement in the implementation of the solutions for better plastic waste management.  The solutions proposed include the proper waste collection in segregation mode, capacity building in terms of infrastructure development as well as skill improvement of manpower involved in waste management practices at ULB levels.  The research group is in touch with several ULBs for the improvement of their waste management infrastructure. 

While the expedition was carried out from May to December 2019, the study was carried out till February 2021. The report has been recently made public by the National Geographic Society on their blog. Read More

Photo by Sara Hylton.

Times of India

IIT Kharagpur Alumni and their Families Set up Over ₹ 2 Crore Student Grant

IIT Kharagpur has instituted eight new student grants for the upcoming Autumn semester scheduled to begin in August 2021. The Institute has received generous grants from eight alumni and their families who have come forward to support the students on merit-cum-means scholarships and merit-based awards towards their academics and research. 

The grants are collectively valued at around ₹ 2.25 crore for funding of undergraduate and postgraduate students across the departments of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Healthcare, Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.

A virtual MoU was signed with the donating alumni and their families for instituting the student aids and grants in a recently concluded event. 

The donors envisioned a range of dynamic ideas which motivated them to contribute towards these scholarships and awards and inspiring the spirit of giving back to society for the greater good while instilling some traits which are very own to IIT Kharagpur. 

Thanking the donors for the generous contributions Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur appreciated their proactive zeal towards the Institute and for keeping its welfare in their hearts. He further spoke of the uniqueness of the vast plethora of disciplines taught at IIT Kharagpur and how benchmarking is being done for them to collectively compete against the world’s topmost universities. He welcomed the alumni to contribute towards this initiative through participation in the global outreach programs and thrust area-specific activities of the Institute. Director Tewari further affirmed starting new initiatives under the NEP 2020 and the holistic and fast-moving developments that are underway at IIT Kharagpur.

A unique feature of these grants is the allocation of over ₹ 65 Lakh exclusively for undergraduate female students for a period of 15 years. IIT Kharagpur has been setting up various avenues to reach out to larger sections of girl students, their teachers and parents through counseling, outreach initiatives as well as financial aid to encourage more girls to aim for IIT education as well as facilitating those taking admission at IIT Kharagpur in particular.

Dean, Alumni Affairs, Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay remarked, “now that we are an Institute of Eminence and guided by the New Education Policy, we are committed to bringing up the ratio of our undergraduate girl students much higher. We have the mandate to cross the 20% threshold at the soonest.”

In the last few years, IITs have been consistently increasing the strength of girl undergraduate students through the supernumerary quota for women introduced in 2018. From the initial target of 17% which has been fulfilled, the IITs are set to increase the quota to 20% in accordance with a decision by the IIT Council. At IIT Kharagpur the overall ratio of male and female students is already 1:5 while in some research-based programs and Master’s level programs, even a higher ratio can be observed.

The Institute has a few dedicated grants for women funded by various agencies such as DRDO Scholarship for Girl Through AR&DB, Indian Women’s Association, BONN Scholarship etc. A travel grant was also set up Smt. Sudha Murthy, Chairman, Infosys Foundation to facilitate the participation of women research scholars in international conferences. The alumni have also supported the up-gradation of facilities at the girls’ hostels. Further, the Institute conducts several women-specific research work on women’s health, gender violence and crimes against women, gendering the smart cities and experience of migrant women. The Institute also supports the KIRAN IPR Women Scientists program.

About the Donor & MoU
Mr. Chandrasen Gajria is an alumnus of the 1970 Batch from the Chemistry department of IIT Kharagpur. He has set up an MCM scholarship named Sobhraj And Krishna Gajria Scholarship in the memory of his parents Mr. Sobhraj Gajira and Mrs. Krishna Gajria which will provide annual support to the needy yet meritorious students of the Chemistry Department of the Institute.
Mr.Peeyush Ranjan is an alumnus of the 1995 batch from the Computer Science department He has set up the Dr. R R Verma Prize for Best Masters Thesis in Healthcare Technology in the memory of his late father Dr. R. R. Verma for the best M.Tech thesis on Healthcare technology across all the Departments, Centers and Schools of the Institute with an annual prize.
Mrs. Suprabha Sur has set up the Late Shri Saradindu Sur Scholarship in the fond memories of her husband Late Shri Saradindu Sur who is an alumnus of 1956 batch from the Mechanical Engineering Department and was the resident of Nehru Hall, to support the needy yet meritorious students of the Mechanical Dept. of the Institute with a yearly MCM scholarship.
Dr. R.P.Sahu is an alumnus of the 1970 batch from Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Dept. He has set up the Brundabana Sahu Student Award in memory of his maternal grandfather Shri Brundabana Sahu to help a 1st-year B.Tech student with a yearly MCM-based award to address any special needs of the awardee.
Mrs. Banani Som, the wife of Late Prof. Sankar Kumar Som, who is a proud alumnus as well as the Ex-director of IIT Kharagpur, has set up the Prof. Sankar Kumar Som Memorial Award in the fond memories of her late husband to recognize the best M.Tech thesis in the field of Thermal Science from the Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of the Institute with an annual award.
Mr. Indranil Basu is an alumnus of the 1987 batch from the Electronics and Electrical Communication Engg. Dept. Neil has set up the Pradip Kumar Basu Memorial Student Scholarship in memory of his late father Shri Pradip Kumar Basu, who was an aircraft maintenance engineer, to support a 2nd-year female student of IIT Kharagpur till her graduation with an annual scholarship based on MCM criteria.
Mrs. Napina Vangipuram, the wife of Late Dr. V. V. Dhruvanarayana, who is an alumnus of the 1955 batch from the Civil Engineering Department, has set up the V V Dhruva Narayana Memorial Student Award to recognize a 2nd-year B.Tech student of Civil Engineering Dept with an annual award as per the MCM criteria.
Mr. Debashis Chakraborty is an alumnus of the 1981 batch from the Chemical Engineering Department. He set up the Late Smt. Gopa Chakraborty Scholarship for Female Students in the fond memories of his late wife Smt. Gopa Chakraborty. This Scholarship aims towards supporting female students of IIT Kharagpur across all the departments, Schools, Centres and Academics with a special emphasis on the chemistry and chemical engineering department, by providing them yearly Scholarships based on MCM criteria. However, the Scholarship amount will be increased after every 4 years to cope up with the inflation rate.

Contact: deanaa@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in; media@iitkgp.ac.in

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