NIRF – The KGP Chronicle

NIRF 2020 Results Announced

IIT Kharagpur has been ranked in the widest category of disciplines ranging from Engineering, Architecture, Management, Law in the NIRF Rankings 2020 by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India. While the Institute has been ranked the best in India in the category of Architecture, it has jumped one rank in the management discipline to be among the top five business schools in India.

In Law it retains last year’s rank at the 4th position along with the overall and Engineering ranks at the 5th position.

The Dept. of Architecture has been a clear winner in the areas of Graduation Outcomes, Peer Perception, and Outreach and Inclusivity. The Department has scored the best in the country in the metrics for University Examinations and Number of Ph.D. Students Graduated.

Vinod Gupta School of Management, the business school of IIT Kharagpur has performed exceptionally well in the areas of Research and Professional Practice and Graduation Outcomes, while the law school which is one of its kind focussing typically on intellectual property law scores high on Teaching, Learning & Resources and Research and Professional Practice.

Earlier this year Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur identified institutional ranking as a thrust area. Dwelling on the issue of institutional ranking Director Tewari said,

“Our goal should be to compete with the top ten universities in the world to climb the ladder of global ranking. However, institutional ranking is a sum reflection of holistic performance and impact created by any higher educational institution. The past Directors’ advisory group will engage extensively towards this goal.”

Vinod Gupta who patronized both the management and law schools and initiated the disciplines in the IIT system calls it a remarkable achievement and the overall excellence of the academic, research and graduate outcome culture at IIT Kharagpur. He said,

“In my view the student intake largely with Engineering and Science backgrounds enable them to focus more on analytical skills in research and other projects which gives them the edge over other schools. Additionally, being part of the IIT KGP system the schools have successfully attracted best-in-class teaching faculty. This leads to the overall success of the schools.”

Bringing cheer

A team of three students from the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning of the Institute has clinched the first prize at the ‘National Competition for Students 2019 for the Best Innovative Use of Steel in Architecture’. The competition was organised by Institute for Steel Development & Growth. INSDAG, an organization established by the Ministry of Steel, Government of India, which has been hosting this competition since 1999-2000, intends to promote and create an awareness of the use of steel in building design among students.

Mudita Kumar, Ananya Singh Parmar and Anuranjan Singh, the winners of the INSDAG contest, are final year undergraduate students of the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning. This is the third time that the Department is securing the first position in the competition, having earlier won the top prize in 2014 and 2017. It may be mentioned that the Department was adjudged the best in Architecture by NIRF for the last two years.

Three teams from IIT Kharagpur’s Department of Architecture and Regional Planning made it to the finals held at Kolkata earlier this month. A total of 16 teams were selected for the finals from four zones of the country by the zonal selection committees. The teams were evaluated for the finals by the Jury members consisting of renowned architects and faculties from the academia.

The call was for designing a cricket stadium with a seating capacity of 45,000 apart from a space for a cricket academy. As a concept of the winning design, the team came up with a structure made up of eight arches. “Intersections of these arches help in shading the concourse and permitting ventilation as well. They also help in creating recognizable entry points, helping different types of users in way-finding. The octagonal periphery formed by the arches also supports the extended roof which converges to a circular periphery,” said Mudita Kumar and Ananya Singh Parmar of the team.

“All this makes the design iconic and landmarks the city for its heritage,” added Mudita. In fact, cultural integration and creating a landmark to foster a sense of belonging among all users were among the major concerns of the team which looked at Ghaziabad’s tortuous history down the ages. “Efforts were made to create a unique outlook of stadium in context with the city of Ghaziabad for which the citizens can take pride in. At all stages of design development, our prime focus on user behaviour, safety and convenience helped us come up with this user sensitive design and helped us win,” said Anuranjan Singh. (Read Anuranjan’s interview to KGP Chronicle)

The second team from the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning

Dr. Sumana Gupta, Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning mentored the student teams. She said, “Architects through this exercise exploit use of steel in different forms. Their expression is totally innovative. The motto of the contest was to assess how well steel was being used, not merely to express its ability to take tensile or compressive forces but to demonstrate how innovatively this fluid material can be used to give shape to the architect’s thought. The problem statement was also assigned as a studio task for the students hence there was continuous monitoring and participation was intense and wholehearted.”

The third team to qualify for the finals

A second team of students consisting of Gunjal Jain, Runjhun Goswami, Gauri Pathak and Aman Yaduwanshi missed the third prize by a whisker. They, however, earned a “special mention” from the jury. Talking about their project, Gunjal said, “We wanted our stadium to be a symbolic representation of playful contemporary India. So the form had to be modern, yet relatable to the people.” Her team members thus designed the stadium together with “3 green breathing spaces” around the stadium. “The entire origami structure around the green spaces was extended outward to form shade above this area, creating a beautiful play of light and shadow below it. This is what made us stand out of all other teams,” explained Gunjal.

The third team who qualified the zonals consisted of Preetish Priyadarshi Nayak, Aman Kumar Agarwal, Atul Singh, Keshav Kumar. Although they did not win a prize, their design was much appreciated by Dr. Gupta for being truly innovative.

Feathers in the Cap

Careers 360 India Education Diary

IIT Kharagpur has emerged among the country’s best and as the only IIT to qualify and excel in four disciplines – Architecture (1st), Engineering (4th), Law (4th) and Management (6th), taking on specialized schools in their domains.

Speaking about the feat of excelling in non-engineering categories, Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti emphasised on the uniqueness of each of these specialized disciplines within the IIT system.

“While there are specialized institutions in these subject areas, being part of IIT Kharagpur has catapulted the growth of these disciplines in a matter of a few decades due to the convergence culture of IIT Kharagpur typically focusing on research, multidisciplinary academics and overall career development of students enabling a unique symbiotic approach to excellence.”

IIT Kharagpur is leading in ‘Research and Professional Practice’ and ‘Graduate Outcome’ in the categories of Architecture, Law and Management while holding a competitive rank in Engineering.

“Our research publications and citations are extremely high domestically as evident from Scopus and SCI. However, there is a need for transforming research into industrial and consumer applications. In recent times we have undertaken several initiatives in the forms of Centres of Excellence which are focused towards technology development for industry and giving a thrust to the startup culture,” he said.

The Institute has launched centres of excellence and undertaken projects of national importance in six thrust areas which include Advanced Manufacturing, Intelligent and Smart Transportation, Affordable Healthcare, Digital Convergence, Innovative Infrastructure and Geoscience for Future of Earth with support from the government and industry. The research collaboration and impact thereof can be witnessed across various engineering and other disciplines such as management, law, social sciences, architecture etc.

Also, the multidisciplinary approach has led to specialized thrust areas in academics which is flexible and unique. The course design and curricula of the programs above deliver the country’s crème graduates leading to the best-in-class graduate outcomes.

“Focus on the integrated and growth-oriented strategy adopted by IIT Kharagpur has enabled us to sustain our top position while keeping the societal and industrial needs in mind in launching new courses and also massively using our alumni resources,” says Dean, Planning & Coordination Prof. M K Tiwari.

The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning clearly exhibits this trait with its key area of regional planning addressing the diverse regional planning needs of a country like India which are more in the lines of a subcontinent with intermittent regions within her cities, townships and villages, opines Prof. Joy Sen, Head of the department, who himself is a well-known Regional Planner.

“We focus on regional sciences, regional econometrics and regional programming which enable us to develop inclusive and innovative regional planning models,” remarks Prof. Joy Sen.

Similar is the case with the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at IIT Kharagpur which has carved its excellence in the domain of Intellectual Property law while successfully running LLB with specialization in IP, LLM and Doctoral programs.

“I do see a lot of interest in students to take up courses like AI and Law, Energy Law, IP Management, IP and Competition Law, Law of the Sea, Information Technology Law to name a few,” says Prof. Padmavati Manchikanti, Dean of the School. “In fact, some of the thrust areas of the School, AI and Law, Biodiversity Law, Energy Law, Energy Policy and Governance, are unique in the country,” she adds.

Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management which has been ranked 6th following the top 5 IIMs, emphasized at the interdisciplinary elective courses in engineering, science and mathematics offered by other departments, centres and schools at IIT Kharagpur. This sharpens their interdisciplinary knowledge and capability as efficient managers.

“Our students are mostly from engineering background and their career path follows a direction more oriented towards technology management. Keeping in line with the industry needs, we have introduced many new electives in Business Analytics area and also offer electives in emerging topics like Artificial Intelligence and Business Law, Internet of Things Cyber Security, Intellectual Property Rights ,” says Prof. Prabina.

The teaching, learning and resources parameter has been affected in this year’s NIRF rank as well, acknowledges the Director. However, he indicated this has more to do with the high number of students at IIT Kharagpur which has the largest number of academic disciplines with 19 departments, 12 schools and 17 centres of excellence.

“We are further working on recruiting more faculty which will also accelerate up our research initiatives. In the past three years, more than a hundred faculty members have been inducted in the system,” he added.