Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, is setting up a technology business incubator (TBI) for creating intellectual property (IP) innovations in areas including mechanics, chemical, aerospace and information technology (IT). “We are forming a society that will promote creativity. TBI will act as an incubator and ensure commercial application of the technology,” IIT Bombay director Ashok Misra told eFE. The department of science and technology, ministry of communications and information technology along with IIT Bombay have committed Rs 5 crore for TBI besides donations from foundations. “We are looking at early-stage venture capitalists/ start-up funds to invest in TBI,” Dr Misra said ... more.

About 500 IIT alumni met at the Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, on Monday (Dec. 15) to protest against the murder of the IITian and young idealist Satyendra Kumar Dubey. The crux of the meeting was mainly a plea to IIT alumni to take the cue from Satyendra Dubey and prevent his death from being in vain. One of the suggestions that emerged was the creation of a pan-IIT counselling centre for whistleblowers, where alumni who want to expose corruption can be advised and the matter can be taken up jointly with the support of a huge fraternity rather than one person going for it by himself/herself. The main speakers included Ashok Misra, director, IIT Bombay; S.K. Dube, director, IIT Kharagpur; Shailesh Gandhi, chairman, IIT Bombay Alumni Association; Deepak Satwalekar, IIT Bombay alumnus and head of HDFC Insurance, journalist Sucheta Dalal, writer Dilip D’souza and student representatives of various IITs. Mr Misra began the discussion by saying that Satyendra Dubey was only following the path that IIT stands for—progress without corruption. "One of the basic values we teach and learn at IIT is regard for merit," he said. "And we hope that every alumnus upholds this value. We like to believe that all of us can change a little bit of the system, and that all the little changes can add up to a big change." ... more.

IIT engineer stood up to highway corruption, shot dead in Bihar ... The next time a promising young engineer sees corruption and mismanagement in a Government project he’s working on, chances are he will think twice, thrice, several times, before complaining to the political and bureaucratic establishment. For, 31-year-old Satyendra Kumar Dubey did that, he sent his letter to the Prime Minister’s Office—and now he’s dead, killed by "unidentified assailants" in Gaya, Bihar last week. Dubey, a 1994 civil engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur, was Deputy General Manager in the Centre’s National Highway Authority of India working on the 60-km Aurangabad-Barachatti segment of the Golden Quadrilateral in Bihar with headquarters in Koderma, Jharkhand. On November 11, 2002, the Prime Minister’s Office received his letter addressed to the Prime Minister himself. In the letter, a copy of which is with The Sunday Express, Dubey called the PM’s highway showpiece "a dream project of unparalleled importance to the nation." And then highlighted several instances of what he called "loot of public money" and "poor implementation." Dubey requested his name be kept secret but at the same time, he let his identity known ... Dubey’s letter is riddled with signatures and scribbles of officials indicating it was a classic case of a file going into babudom’s endless orbit ... Dubey’s request for anonymity was apparently ignored by the PMO ... more. India probes whistleblower murder - BBC News Opposition corners Centre over Dubey’s murder IIT alumni in US takes up Dubey cause with vigour IITians want Centre to guide whistleblowers Dubey's murder shocking, criminals won't go scot free: PM - Indian Express Dubey's murder shocking: PM - Rediff.com Dubey murder figures in Parliament- Rediff.com Not just about being an IITian' - Rediff.com 'Had Govt moved on our Bill, Dubey wouldn't have died' - Indian Express Is The Golden Quadrilateral A Golden Goose? - Financial Express IITians in Pune demand justice - Pune Newsline And he wrote: If you die, go so quietly that no one gets to know - Indian Express Letter to a Murdered Mate - Indian Express Demand for Full Inquiry and Justice in Murder of Satyendra Dubey for his Fight Against Corruption - Online Petition drive (http://www.petitiononline.com/sdubey/) IIT community demand prompt action in Dubey murder

With new water supply schemes envisaged by the State government falling far short of demand, India's financial capital will face a severe water shortage in the next 15 years, says an alarming new study by an environmental group. Painting a grim view of a parched Mumbai, the study by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) foresees a huge gap between demand and supply of water ... The CSE in association with the BMC has published a Rainwater Harvesting Manual complete with case studies for implementation by individuals and institutions. The manual was released at a function organised by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Alumni Association at Powai recently ... more.

Just when residents of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus in Powai were getting used to leopards prowling in their backyards, they received a croc shock on Sunday night. At around 8.30 pm, just when a colourful procession of about 200 devotees of Lord Ayyappa was scheduled to pass through the lakeside road, residents of a building housing IIT staffers noticed a 9-foot crocodile in their garden. Apparently, it had crawled out of the adjoining Powai Lake and lazily crossed a 15-feet wide road before settling down, somewhat confused, in the garden. The procession was diverted to an inner route and the authorities informed. ‘‘At the IIT control room, we were alerted about a crocodile in H1-Building. This is the second time I’ve seen a magarmach in recent times,’’ said IIT security guard Ratnakant Kohli ... more.

• Croc numbers are up in Powai Lake - Mumbai Newsline

"No, Mr Minister! After history and school syllabi, Joshi wants complete control over IITs and IIMs. If, for Stephen Rodger Waugh, winning a Test series in India was "the final frontier", for HRD minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, it must be gaining total control of the two world-class educational systems we have in the country, the IITs and the IIMs. History has been conquered, school syllabi have been vanquished, now only the best of Indian higher education remains to be quelled. If he hasn't succeeded fully yet, it certainly hasn't been for lack of trying. For the first time in history, ministry bureaucrats sit on IIT boards. Dr Joshi has been trying to fiddle with the IIT entrance examinations ... Anyone halfway familiar with the IITs and IIMs knows that they are so good precisely because they have been fairly autonomous. The government's own committees and advisors have, in fact, always pushed for more autonomy, not less. In 1986, the IIT Review Committee urged less interference from the government, and specifically said that "it would be unwise to bring IITs under the UGC system and attempt uniformity", precisely what Dr Joshi is aiming to do. In other words, Dr Joshi wants to bring the IITs and IIMs down to the level of other institutes. " ... more.

NCR has launched a cash machine conceived and designed specifically for the Indian market. The NCR EasyPoint 57i (Asan) will enable banks in India to give many more account holders access to ATMs without incurring huge capital or operational costs, says the vendor. Based on technology designed to meet Indian infrastructural challenges, Asan's small size and low running costs are intended to accommodate the largely untapped non-urban areas, as well as to open up opportunities in newer urban locations such as corporate offices and factories, newly emerging multiplexes and malls and branch extensions. Developed with consumer-research-based design inputs from the Industrial Design Center at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai (IIT-B), the machine has been put through its paces in live pilot trials with leading domestic banks ... more.

For a long time now, Andhra Pradesh’s CEO Chandrababu Naidu, has been the poster boy for the Confederation of Indian Industry to showcase progressive state governments ... One person who could have traded places with Mr Naidu ... was Goa’s CM Manohar Parrikar. Mr Parrikar is clearly a man of very definite ideas and many contradictions. In a state with strong Christian traditions and a clear religious divide, which is exacerbated by its notorious political flammability, he is a card-carrying member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. But if the VHP appears communal and regressive, Mr Parrikar is an IIT graduate, at a time when IIT has become a globally recognised brand Mr Parrikar has succeeded in managing these contradictions by putting aside his personal predilections and running an efficient administration. "As a chief minister, I have no religion", says Parrikar explaining Goa’s focus on restoring its rich Catholic-Portuguese heritage of fabulous churches. This expands his support base beyond the Saraswat-Brahmin community and reflects the hardheaded realisation that a world-class tourist destination must preserve its heritage. Mr Parrikar recently explained his vision to a small group of journalists and IIT alumni in Goa. What struck the group was that his entrepreneurial and technical skill, combined with a powerful grasp over numbers and details. From power, tourism, horticulture to pollution problems, or the Right to Information Act - Mr Parrikar had all the data on his fingertips. And the bureaucracy, led by chief secretary Dev Singh Negi, seemed to fully support his effort. Here is a snapshot of Mr Parrikar’s many initiatives ... more.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, whose brands include Sheraton, Westin and W hotels, on Monday named Vasant Prabhu (BTech ME '81) as Chief Financial Officer ...  Mr Prabhu will remain at his current post as CFO of Safeway, one of the largest food retailers in the US, until the end of the year. The California-based company said a search was under way for his replacement. Mr Prabhu was previously CFO for Pepsi-Cola International. He was also president of the information and media group at The McGraw Hill Companies, a $1bn division with more than 4,000 employees. Mr Prabhu holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. Starwood operates more than 740 properties in more than 80 countries and has 105,000 employees at properties that it owns and manages ... more.

• Starwood Names Vasant M. Prabhu Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
• Safeway's CFO resigns to join Starwood Hotels - San Francisco Chronicle

The Rise Of India - Business Week, December 8, 2003. Growth is only just starting, but the country's brainpower is already reshaping Corporate America ... Tech luminary Andrew S. Grove, CEO of Intel Corp., warns that "it's a very valid question" to ask whether America could eventually lose its overwhelming dominance in IT, just as it did in electronics manufacturing ... "From a technical and productivity standpoint, the engineer sitting 6,000 miles away might as well be in the next cubicle and on the local area network." ... But there's also a far more positive view -- that harnessing Indian brainpower will greatly boost American tech and services leadership by filling a big projected shortfall in skilled labor as baby boomers retire. That's especially possible with smarter U.S. policy. Companies from GE Medical Systems to Cummins to Microsoft to enterprise-software firm PeopleSoft that are hiring in India say they aren't laying off any U.S. engineers. Instead, by augmenting their U.S. R&D teams with the 260,000 engineers pumped out by Indian schools each year, they can afford to throw many more brains at a task and speed up product launches, develop more prototypes, and upgrade quality ... Says Rajat Gupta, an IIT-Delhi grad and senior partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Co.: "Offshoring work will spur innovation, job creation, and dramatic increases in productivity that will be passed on to the consumer." Whether you regard the trend as disruptive or benefical, one thing is clear. Corporate America no longer feels it can afford to ignore India ... India also is working to assure that it will be able to meet future demand for knowledge workers at home and abroad. India produces 3.1 million college graduates a year, but that's expected to double by 2010. The number of engineering colleges is slated to grow 50%, to nearly 1,600, in four years. Of course, not all are good enough to produce the world-class grads of elite schools like the IITs, which accepted just 3,500 of 178,000 applicants last year. So there's a growing movement to boost faculty salaries and reach more students nationwide through broadcasts. India's rich diaspora population is chipping in, too ... Meanwhile, the six IIT campuses are tapping alumni for donations and research links with Stanford, Purdue, and other top science universities. "Our mission is to become one of the leading science institutions in the world," says director Ashok Mishra of IIT-Bombay, which has raised $16 million from alumni in the past five years ... more.

Recent news stories featuring the IITs or IITians ...

	"[MIT] is run by an IIT Kanpur mafia" - Business Standard, Nov. 17, 2003
	Indian-born CEO gives dirt its due - Times of India, Nov. 20, 2003
	ISRO to develop reusable launch vehicles - The Hindu, Nov. 22, 2003
	TCS Chief - "An Irresistable Offshore Tide For Jobs" - BusinessWeek
	Clinton charm intact as he starts India visit - NewKerala.com
	India develops underwater robot - Xinhuanet.com

The reigning champions of the BBC's University Challenge programme have suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a team of electrical engineers from India. The team of mature students from Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, had been confident of an easy victory but were crushed 150 points to 85 by a younger team from the Indian Institute of Technology based in Madras. Birkbeck's defeat on the show - broadcast to millions on the BBC World satellite television service - was all the more bruising for national pride because so many of the questions were about British culture and history. The Indian team scored well on subjects including English royalty, Sherlock Holmes, the Booker Prize and T.S. Eliot, and bagged most of the crucial starter questions. Birkbeck's confidence was rocked when the Indian team raced to a 45-0 lead. For a while it looked as if the British team might not score at all ... more.

	IIT Madras team crushes British quiz champions - Newindpress, Nov. 23, 2003
	IIT crushes UK quiz champions - Economic Times, Nov. 23, 2003

Godrej & Boyce collaborates with IIT Bombay to beef up its design process ... Godrej & Boyce is bringing together manufacturing, design and marketing to consolidate its presence in the office furniture market. "Creating appeal" is more than just a phrase from the mission statement tacked on the office walls. For office furniture maker Godrej & Boyce, it’s becoming a way of life. The Rs. 1,400-crore company, which also makes home furniture and consumer durables, has changed a lot over the past decade. Market situations do that to a company. In the last three years, the office furniture market has seen increasing competition from international players, including the $ 2.06 billion American firm, Haworth, Malaysia’s Bristol and Chinese brand UB. ... New product development has also been speeded up. From two new products every year earlier, Godrej is now up to six or seven annually. It is also working closely with the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, to beef up its design process ... more.

The India Business Club at MIT announced the Global Indus Innovators awards for 2003 ... amongst the winners are several IITians, including Chaitan Khosla (BTech ChE '85) of Stanford and Surya Mallapragada (BTech ChE '93) of Iowa State. The 2003 Awards Ceremony will be held in MIT's Wong Auditorium on November 25th with Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway as the Keynote speaker, followed by Desh Deshpande, Chairman of Sycamore Networks who will moderate the Q&A session ... more.

"Do we need more IITs?"- Rediff.com. "The government has let it be known that, by the end of 2004 four more engineering colleges would be designated IIT, bringing the total to 11. It is part of an ongoing restructuring of engineering education that has included renaming the 17 regional engineering colleges as National Institutes of Technology, each with powers to award its own degrees. The conversion of the REC into the 'deemed university' NIT is to streamline management, making it somewhat like an IIT-lite. ... The ministry of education is increasing its control over the institutes. For example, it has decided to manage the alumni donations to the IITs through a central fund, in spite of opposition from potential donors. ... The IITs are currently going through a particularly difficult period regarding faculty retention and infrastructure. Although they do a great job at training undergraduates, they haven't done as well as research universities. Wouldn't creation of more IITs, without adequate investment in the existing ones, dilute their brand name? ... should the increase be in the number of technology schools, such as IITs and NITs, or in some other manner? ... more.

Aman Motwane (BTech ME '73) is on a tour to promote his book titled "The Power of Wisdom" which tries to answer the question - "How do some individuals get everything that life has to offer so easily - love, happiness, prosperity, courage, inner strength - while others struggle?" Known in some circles as "the unguru," Motwane's words have been quoted by Oprah Winfrey and repeated by Tom Peters, and his advice taken to heart by thousands of business owners, managers and career counselors ... more.

"It doesn’t hit you till you leave the campus" says Hemen Godbole. This thirst to hear a chant that drove your IIT-Bombay team to victory – be it at the Inter-IIT sports or at cultural festivals nationwide. You graduate, launch yourself hard at your career, get married, have kids. And then it hits you as you find yourself sipping a chai on a cold winter morning. You can almost hear the echoes of long forgotten chants. And just as you begin to feel warmer, they fade away. You ache for just the past to come alive, just one more time! The IIT Bombay team wowed the PanIIT audience at the Bay Area Diwali Dhamaka 2003 with performances which were "like thunderstorms in a desert". A 35-strong contingent put in six weeks of hard practice to make it all happen. "Bay to Bombay" sung to an uplifting score from Top Gun, narrated the life and times of Veeru, an IBCD (IIT-Baap, Confused Desi). Outsourced by his dad to IITB, a grudging Veeru discovers himself – and his lady love – while on campus ... more.

The animated buzz (at the NASSCOM meeting) turned to a hush as Charles Philip Arthur George, 55, better known as the Prince of Wales, walked into the Crystal Room of Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel Tuesday morning ... (IIT Bombay alumnus) Ashank Desai (MTech ME '74), Chairman, Mastek, a multinational IT applications outsourcing company ... helped develop the software for the London traffic decongestion programme ... there are no tollbooths, gantries or barriers; drivers do not have to stop. "Defaulters are sent penalty notices, and the charges recovered. The data needed for the application is pretty vast, and has to be captured through multiple channels," said Desai ... Professor Krithi Ramamritham of IIT Bombay, and head of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, ... spoke on 'IT for Development.' "Even simple technologies can provide significant benefits to rural communities," he said. Some of the projects at IIT Bombay include Devanagari text inputs for the Internet, multilingual community fora for rural areas, speech interfaces, and cheap but tough instruments to assess water quality ... As for the laughter, that came when the Prince told Ashank Desai: "You've cleaned up London's congestion. What about Mumbai?" ... more.

BBC News, Nov 3, 2003: "Cartoon fame for Indian tech school" - The world famous Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have made their way into Dilbert, the enormously popular comic strip about the corporate world. Mr Adams, who began drawing cartoons in the 1980s while working in a telecommunications company, said he has several friends who graduated from IIT. "I have known several IIT graduates over the years. The character Asok is named after an ex co-worker from my days in the tech world," he told BBC News Online. "I thought it would be a funny contrast to have Asok come from the most competitive school system in the world only to find out that intelligence doesn't always help in the workplace." Asked how IIT graduates differed from engineering graduates from all over the world, Mr Adams said: "They are smarter" ... more.

"Chennai villages ride the IT wave" ... Bringing the information technology and its benefits to rural India is one of the biggest challenges for advocates of wider usage of IT in India. About 70 crore (700 million) people live in India's villages and they have at times no access to education or telephones. But one group, led by Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor at the department of electrical engineering in the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is showing how it can be done ... n-Logue focuses on providing and operating telecom and Internet services only in small towns and rural areas of India. To prevent dilution of focus, its charter bars it from carrying out operations in urban areas. n-Logue believes that there is a large rural market in India for such services, and that it must be tapped differently from that in urban areas. "There is a need to overcome the technology barrier and build a sustainable business model. For that you need an organisation that thinks and acts rural, as opposed to being an organisation with an urban mindset," says Professor Jhunjhunwala ... more.

"The technology institutes are India’s best brand ambassadors. Set up IITs overseas, leverage India’s educational wherewithal," says Prashant Agarwal in the Indian Express on Nov 1, 2003. "IITians have scored as much success abroad (think of Rajat Gupta, Arun Sarin, Vinod Khosla) as they have at home (think of N.R. Narayanamurthy, Yogi Deveshwar, Vindi Banga). In the US, Canada and Europe, IITians are in positions of importance. The question is: if IITians can thrive abroad, might not IIT itself ? ... American and British universities have been expanding abroad to increase their influence and, not insignificantly, bank balance ... Why not the same fate for IIT ? By setting up IITs in, say, the Middle East or southeast Asia, India can quietly export its values. Host countries would have much to gain and would encourage an IIT’s arrival ... more.

India’s top academic institutions, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), may soon set up branches in other cities. According to officials in the human resources development ministry, IIM Ahmedabad, for instance, proposes to offer its post-graduate management courses in Mumbai ... As far as the IITs are concerned, while 190,000 students wrote the joint entrance examination last year, 4,400 made it to one of the seven institutes. The move, an HRD ministry official said, was intended to improve the standards of technical and professional education in the country ... more.

It's a long way from Mahboobnagar in Andhra Pradesh to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It's an equally long distance from being a graduate of IIT, Kanpur to being recognised as the co-founder of the Auto-ID Center - a research consortium headquartered at MIT with 103 company sponsors and six university affiliates. For Sanjay Sarma, 35-year-old associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, it's been an eventful journey; Time magazine, in a story on technologies of the future early this month, featured Auto-ID centre and its work in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). It wrote of Sarma, too _ a desi who relishes Mughlai food, loves the trains and still misses the colours and smells of a country he once knew as home. Sarma, born to a school teacher and an IAS officer, grew up in various parts of the country from New Delhi to Visakhapatnam. After graduating from IIT _ where he claims he was "a rambunctious resident with little time for academics" his next stop was Schlumberger Oilfield Services in the UK and then Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh with his IIT classmates for friends, family and a support system ... more.

Satish Korde, a president with the WPP group, the world’s leading communications service providers which has major brands ... was instrumental in the development of Young & Rubicam's proprietary global consumer study dedicated to how brands are built and managed ... And now even as he sees his alma mater IIT graduating into a global brand, for him it still remains the ultimate frontier. "I was in the middle of the pack at IIT-Mumbai, but that's where I learnt the most difficult lessons in survival. Going through the grind at IIT has given all of us an extra edge to do well in our chosen fields," he says. And while, he has been trying to find time to get involved in Pan-IIT activities in the US, he was in Mumbai to join the 25th anniversary of his own IIT a few years ago ... more.

Milind Dange, a veteran of product engineering with such leading companies as DaimlerChrysler, has joined Sea Ray Boat Group as its new vice president of product development and engineering (PD&E). Dange, 40, has spent the past three years in Silicon Valley, where he has worked on advancing applications of wireless, Internet, and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, primarily for the auto industry ... Dange holds a bachelor of science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay as well as a master of science in structures from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from the University of Michigan ... more.

No political posting in IITs, IIMs: Joshi: Indian Express, October 15 - "Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi today reassured technocrats that institutes like the IIT or the IIM will always be managed by professionals ... Panel to help add five more IITs - Sify, October 15 - The government is setting up a committee to select five colleges across India to be converted into Indian Institutes of Technology, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi said. Addressing the alumni of the National Institute of Technoloy, Warangal, Dr Joshi pointed out that such conversion was a slow process to be carried out in a phased manner.

The Wealth of (Other) Nations - "... maybe, just maybe, companies in Silicon Valley should take a look at new approaches to business that are emerging in places such as India, China and Russia and stop worrying so much about the Next Big Thing. Maybe hot Chinese technology companies like Alibaba, Shanda, 3721 and C Trip are not just shameless, low-cost rip-offs of U.S. companies like eBay, Google or Expedia. Maybe the Russian problem-solving technique known as TRIZ, recently profiled in Wired Magazine, actually makes sense. Maybe the Indian Institute of Technology, described on CBS "60 Minutes" as a mix of Harvard, Princeton and MIT, might be a hotbed of new management theories for all those Indian IT outsourcing giants" ... more.

Village Kiosks Bridge India's Digital Divide - Washington Post, October 12, 2003: Two years ago, after graduating from high school at the top of her class, Sukanya Sakkarai put aside her dreams of college and resigned herself to the fate of most young women in this farming village of trampled earth and mud-brick houses: marriage to a stranger in a match arranged by her parents. Then the Information Age arrived on her doorstep. Life hasn't been the same for Sakkarai, or her village, since ... "If it's entrepreneur-driven, people will pride themselves on making it successful," said Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras who helped develop the wireless system that undergirds the slowly evolving network. "After all, they will lose money if they don't." ... The approach pioneered by Jhunjhunwala and his colleagues here in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu aims to render that debate irrelevant by turning over the job of connecting rural India to the Internet to profit-minded entrepreneurs ... Central to the effort is Wireless Local Loop technology, which provides cheap, relatively fast Internet connections to fiber-optic cables as far as 18 miles away. Although many villages still lack phone service, India's fiber-optic network is sufficiently well developed to provide wireless coverage for up to 85 percent of the country, Jhunjhunwala said. He and his colleagues created an independent company, n-Logue Communications, which identifies promising kiosk owners, trains them and provides equipment -- computer, printer, battery backup and wireless Internet antenna -- for about $1,000; n-Logue helps the owners arrange financing, which is then paid off with revenue from the kiosks. The company makes its money from hourly connection fees. So far, n-Logue has set up more than 500 kiosks in Tamil Nadu and other states, with plans for 10,000 by next June ... more.

As Bill Gates had noted in his speech at IIT50, IIT Bombay continues to be the "lair of the leopard". The latest news is a bout the 13th leopard caught by the forest department  ...  "Female intruder in IIT boys hostel". Most of the other leopards have been caught in Powai, Thane, Borivli, Goregaon and other places where there have been sightings and killings. This does not include the number of traps annually laid by the IIT within its campus, where the spotted cat routinely prowls.

"Giving telecom a Midas touch" : IIT-M alumnus Shirish Purohit heads up Midas, a company which is making voice and data links affordable in rural India by offering Wireless in Local Loop based corDECT technology ... more.

"Asok the Great: IIT-made" - Times of India, October 11, 2003: Forbes and Fortune has celebrated them. CBS’ 60 Minutes has praised them. And US presidential candidate Gen Wesley Clark wants to offer them automatic American citizenship. For the uber-geek, alpha-nerd IITian, already giddy with praise, being featured in Scott Adams’ comic strip Dilbert is the latest accolade. On two successive days last month, Adams referred to India’s famed school, sending IITians into transports of self-congratulatory delight about brand building, even if the strip was a breezy swipe at the desi geniuses. Adams brings in IIT through Asok, a character after an Indian engineer with the same name he knew during his days as a techie with Pacific Bell in the late 1980s ... Adams says until he recently read Michael Lewis' book The New New Thing, which in part rhapsodises about IITians, he did not have an idea how important the Indian geeks are to the US economy. "I never had anyone volunteer that kind of information," Adams said from his home in Danville, California. "I mean, when you meet guys from Harvard, they will tell you within five minutes that they graduated from Harvard. With the IIT guys, you have to ask." The realisation, he says, led to his throwing in IIT into his widely-read comic strip, now syndicated in more than 2,000 publications. Asok, who entered the strip as an intern, is a brilliant guy, but naive about corporate politics, much like the early Indians in Silicon Valley. The Indians introduction was meant also to reflect the increasing workplace diversity in the US. "Probably half my social circle is Indian," says Adams, whose Dilbert brand now generates about $200 million in annual revenues, as good as an IITian led company ... more.

John Dvorak in PC Magazine - "Killing the Company Dept.: Outsourcing is a double-edged sword - twice as easy to cut yourself on! So the move to outsource nearly everything to India and China is questionable, yet for competitive reasons, companies often have little choice. But you have to wonder how much companies will suffer ... Not all outsourcing is bad or embarrassing. Using Russians to do high-level coding, for example, has always seemed like a good idea to me, since so many of them are adept at high-level mathematics. A California-based start-up called Vanguard Software Solutions is using Russian coders to develop a high-efficiency version of H.264, the proposed video standard for high-definition compression. But India gets the attention. Numerous companies and consortiums are putting together so-called design centers in India to exploit graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology, a school that considers itself on a par with or even better than MIT and other U.S. engineering- and science-oriented institutions. The graduates of IIT are all over Silicon Valley, but many want to go back to India eventually ... India is gearing up to be the world leader in IC design. ... I hate to be a skeptic, but I have to ask whether there are that many qualified and talented designers in India. Can every company have thousands on staff and move out of its own country, where apparently nobody can design a circuit? This, to me, looks like an exercise in bean counting. "By spending $300 million we can save $400 million ..." ... more.

"We’re a nation of immigrants. We should be encouraging every person from the Indian Institute of Technology that comes to this country to stay in this country. Become an American citizen. Join with us. Make a great company. Let’s all be wealthy and prosperous and happy together. Immigration has a vital part to play in that process." Democratic Presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark ... more.

Prof. S. P. Sukhatme, Chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, India and Professor Emeritus and Former Director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, will deliver the Keynote Address at the "Colloqium on Energy" at Washington University in St. Louis on October 31.  Prof. Sukhatme will speak the need for alternative energy options for India, including the solar option and the nuclear option ... more.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced on Wednesday that the government has decided to set up five more Indian Institutes of Technology by upgrading existing academic institutions that have the necessary promise and potential. Speaking after inaugurating the new building of the department of biological sciences and bio-engineering at the IIT Kanpur, the prime minister sought private sectors participation and contributions from IIT alumni for this purpose. The next big revolution, Vajpayee said, will unfold in the bio-technology sector and it would touch the lives of ordinary people in ways that cannot be fully imagined today. "We must not lag behind others in this revolution. Indeed, India should aspire to be one of the leaders," the prime minister said. Vajpayee said IITs have achieved the purpose of providing world-class technology education at a low cost to the brightest students of the country and they have become the magnet of the most intelligent and most ambitious students who have made a mark in the industry and management in India and outside. Vajpayee said there was an urgent need to expand the overall size of the IIT system in view of the growing population.

There can be only one boss: Rahul Bajaj - Times of India / Economic Times. Rahul Bajaj may not blow his own trumpet but despite the bureaucracy involved in running IIT Mumbai, he has been able to bring about one change. As the chairman of the institute, he can now permit the director of the institute to go abroad on three trips a year. "It is ironical that the director sanctions the foreign trips of hundreds of professors but he himself is dependent on the HRD ministry for his trips. I asked the government why they had appointed me or any chairman if the chairman cannot approve these trips. So, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi has agreed that thrice a year the director can go abroad with the permission of the chairman. Subsequent to that, he will require the ministry's approval. Of course, the papers haven't reached us yet." ... more.

The October issue of MIT's "Technology Review" highlights the TR100, a list of 100 innovators 35 or younger whose technologies are poised to make a dramatic impact on our world. Amongst those named is IIT Bombay alumnus Balaji Narasimhan (BTech ChE '92). Dr. Narasimhan's research is focused on preventing common world-wide diseases such as tetanus and diphtheria. These illnesses currently require four to five injections to build up a subject’s immunity, a fact that is particularly troublesome in populations with limited access to health care. Narasimhan, an associate professor at Iowa State University, is trying to achieve the same effects with a single dose, by encapsulating vaccines in specially tailored biodegradable polymers ... more.

The TR100—all under 35 as of January 1, 2003—are poised at the cutting edge of computing, biotech and medicine, the Internet, and nanotech (and more). "Yes Mumbai, you can be another Shanghai" - Indian Express, Sep 23, 2003. "It's a question that’s raised often, and according to many, it’s just plain unfair: Can Mumbai be a Shanghai? Yes, it can, and that’s critical to India because Shanghai’s transformation into a first-world city was the dragonhead of China’s rapid growth in the 90s. That’s the emphatic bottom line of a seminal report on Mumbai’s future made public on Tuesday by consulting firm McKinsey and presented to Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. The chief minister immediately announced a task force headed by chief secretary Ajit Nimbalkar ... The sobering fact of course is that the state government boasts a debt of about Rs 83,000 crore and is forever appealing for Central funding. That doesn’t seem to matter. Nor does the fact that only about Rs 1,000 crore comes back to Mumbai from the Rs 40,000 crore that the city contributes in revenue every year. "The money is right here,’’ declared Ranjit Pandit, Managing Director McKinsey. ‘‘We just need to channelise it." But the culture of dependency stuck with Shinde as he glanced at the Prime Minister’s special representative Sudheendra Kulkarni (BTech CivE '84). "We have requested the PM to grant Mumbai Rs 18,000 crore."  ... more.

"Sudheendra Kulkarni: A lateral mover from left to right" - "... Atal Bihari Vajpayee set up his second Prime Minister's Office in 1998 ... it is Sudheendra Kulkarni (IIT Bombay BTech CivE '84) whose rise has been nothing short of meteoric ... Kulkarni's life seems to have had three beginnings. It is unusual enough for a BTech from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1980 to become a journalist. But more unusually, he was associated with two publications owned by Rusi Karanjia -- the Daily and Blitz  -- that were radical chic in their outlook. Kulkarni's colleagues from those days remember him as courteous and soft-spoken who had read Marx and Lenin well enough to internalise their lessons. ... For someone so committed to socialism, it was hard to join a corporate house. But going against the grain, he did, joining the Reliance-owned Observer of Business and Politics as an executive. Suddenly Kulkarni, better known for his signature un-ironed clothes and wild hair, went in for an image change. ... At the time the CPI (M)'s bullock cart was going nowhere. But Advani's rath was going all over the place. This was the life he had craved. He organised all Advani's campaigns in Maharashtra stayed with the rath, sometimes slept in it when he was too tired to go anywhere else. ... Kulkarni internalised the RSS's values and identified himself enough with the Sangh to write resolutions for meetings of the national executive ... Many of his ideas have been co-opted officially by PMO. Linking the idea of India by roads through the Golden Quadrilateral was his idea that was fleshed out by others in PMO. The idea that crops should be insured to ensure a return to farmer even if they fail was sketched out by him. Kulkarni has also been part of the government's task force on IT. He believes there can be resistance to power sector reforms, but there will never be resistance to IT because first-generation entrepreneurs have access to it to better their lives with talent and hard work. ... Lateral entry into the Sangh doesn't usually take you very far. Kulkarni's rise, however, suggests that hard work can take you anywhere ... more.

At the rather desolate looking Institute of Engineers auditorium in Haji Ali, a small group of men and women meet on the last Saturday of every month. After samosas and piping hot chai, there’s a guest lecture and discussion on an eclectic range of subjects. Should the speaker sound pedantic, they shout him down. The lecture has to have a practical edge. It’s the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alumni meet, gaining strength and decibel levels as it powers ahead. Ram Jethmalani and former chief vigilance commissioner N Vittal have pitched in, as has Dr Bishnu Pradhan of MediaLab Asia ... But when an IIT adda convenes, can action be far behind? They’ve done six Sundays of water conservation at the Maharashtra Nature Park and a meeting with Rajendra Singh, Magsaysay award winner of Rajasthan’s great rainwater harvesting story. They also spent a day at the Karnala bird sanctuary  ... more.

"The lair of the leopard: The IIT Campus" - "Do not wander around alone in the campus woods late at night. Carry a heavy stick if you really have to. And most important: Watch out for leopards! It’s been two weeks now that this strange circular is being distributed in classrooms, labs and student hostels of the lush campus of the Indian Institute of Technology at Powai. It’s no surprise for professors and students, considering several leopards from the neighbouring Sanjay Gandhi National Park have been spotted in the campus. Four of the big cats have been trapped alive by IIT security men over the last two months. The latest was trapped on September 14 ... more.

"Why should poor Indians subsidise the IITian, asks Rahul Bajaj" - Economic Times, September 18, 2003. "Is it ethical that bright Indian students who receive subsidised education at the IITs, just go abroad and do not pay for their education? That is the question that Rahul Bajaj, chairman, IIT Bombay, posed at the IIT academic council meeting. Conservative estimates show that every year up to 50 per cent of IIT’s graduating class either go abroad, pursue higher studies in management or appear for the civil service examination ... Mr Bajaj suggests a system whereby those students who are going abroad for higher studies or with jobs, should pay the IITs the actual cost of an IIT education within five years of graduating" ... more.

Should the poor subsidise the IITians? - Economic Times, September 19, 2003. "Here are the statistics. The IITs, which are completely funded by the government, are able to recover only 35-40 per cent of costs from fees. The average IIT undergraduate student pays anywhere between Rs 10,000 and 16,000 per semester: about Rs 40,000 a year. While the cost incurred for an average undergraduate student-degree year is, at the very least, Rs 1 lakh" ... more.

The syndicated cartoon strip "Dilbert" featured the Indian Institute of Technology on Sep 15th and Sep 16th, 2003 ... Asok turns out to be an IITian ! Scott Adams pokes fun at IIT alums by having Asok say that "Luckily, I'm an IIT graduate, mentally superior to most people on earth ..." Click here to purchase coffee mugs, T-shirts, framed prints and other collateral featuring this cartoon strip (© United Feature Syndicate Inc.). Also see - "Dilbert takes a dig at IIT" - India Abroad and Asok the Great: IIT-made - Times of India.

Seeking to tap overseas market for Indian education as well as check brain drain, the government proposes to set up Indian Institute of Technology centres in Singapore, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and West Asian and South East Asian countries. The setting up of IIT campuses abroad have found favour with several expert committees, which felt that only institutions with good brand equity can help promote Indian education abroad. The issue was considered at length at a recent meeting of the Council of IITs in New Delhi where Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi suggested early submission of the report of the review committee looking into this aspect, an official release said on Monday night ... more.

Press release - Press Information Bureau of India, Sep 15, 2003: IIT TO SET SHOP ABROAD 

Newindpress, September 11, 2003 - Warangal Regional Engineering College, recently upgraded as National Institute of Technology (NIT), a deemed university, will be made an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Centre in two years. Addressing mediapersons here on Wednesday after assuming charge as the director of the NIT, Prof Deba Kumar Tripathy said that the Warangal college was included in the list of NITs, which would soon be made into IITs. The Central Government has decided to upgrade five of the 17 selected NITs in the country into IIT centres, he explained adding that it would take two more years for Warangal NIT to get the status of IIT. Speaking on the educational standards, he said IIT pattern had already been introduced in the REC and under-graduate and post-graduate courses had been revamped in the current academic year. The annual examination pattern in B Tech and MBA courses was replaced with semester system, he said. Similarly, grading system was introduced just like in the IITs, he said ... more.

HRD Minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi was the Chief Guest at the 40th Convocation of IIT Madras. In his address, he said that "... the objective of IITs becoming world renowned technological Institutions has been realized. Their highly successful alumni all over the world have brought an added aura and brand equity to the IIT name ... many of you are eagerly looking forward to pursue your higher education in other reputed universities abroad, I hope a strong sense of national feeling, a spirit of patriotic fervour reminiscent of the golden era of freedom struggle will fire your enthusiasm and bring most of you back to help solve many of the unsolved challenges and problems specific to our country ... more.

Times of India, September 10, 2003 - Recently, when six versions of the Sobig worm wreaked havoc on Miscrosoft systems worldwide, the decade-old debate between Microsoft and Linux users in India was reopened. Academicians who swear by free software are finding more students and colleagues ready to join their movement post-Sobig. Students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Powai, for instance, took the revolutionary step of isolating Windows completely into a separate subnet, where they have to come in through a Linux firewall, after the virus attacks last month. "A sizable percentage of users have switched to Linux since last month.While student usage earlier showed a Microsoft versus Linux ratio of 80:20, now Linux usage has shot up to make it 50:50, and it’s still growing,’" said G. Sivakumar, head of Computer Centre, IIT. "Now we plan to guard against virus attacks by isolating Windows users in departments and residences of IIT" ... more.

ExpressIndia, September 3, 2003 - "Green Gods" - "At Powai lake, the ‘Save Powai Lake Team’ of Indian Institute of Technology decided to make Ganpati idols from the clay-like soil of the lake. ‘‘This way, we have followed the eco-principle of what you take from Nature, you return it back without spoiling the environment,’’ said IIT’s Public Relations Officer, Aruna Thosar-Dixit" ... more.

IIT Bombay alumnus S. M. Singla (BTech CivE '65), a member of the Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), has taken over as Member Staff, Railway Board, and ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Railways. He was previously the General Manager, Western Railway, Mumbai, and Chief Engineer, Northern Railway, and General Manager of South Central Railway. He is also a graduate of the Manchester Business School ... more.

IIT Bombay student Gaurav Porwal speaks out on Rediff.com on the occasion of Independence Day... "India has to get rid of this chalta-hai attitude' - India has brainpower, economic stability, but what it lacks is innovation. Today, India cannot be termed a developing nation. It is more than that. But to wear the developed tag it has to get rid of this chalta-hai attitude. I plan to study bio-technology and become a techno-entrepreneur engaged in drug development. While the field has tremendous scope, India's bureaucracy and lack of security deters people from making fresh investments. The other great problem is illiteracy. Education builds confidence. The education system needs to be hauled up. The change must take place at the grassroot level, where emphasis is laid on innovation and not cramming. The government must also channel more money in improving the country's infrastructure. I do not see the mindset changing unless we have more young blood in the administration. The old and corrupt regime should be replaced with young people who are more patriotic. The government has to motivate people to stay back. If you can instill the feeling that India is at par with the US, you will get the same facilities and the same return for money and education, I don't see many people leaving the country. I am proud of Indian culture, especially the bonds we enjoy with our family. We must retain this and not blindly follow the West ... As told to Nandita Mallik.

The 41st Convocation of IIT Bombay was held on August 8 ... 1,247 degrees were awarded to successful candidates and Digvijay Raorane won the President of India Gold Medal. Chief Guest Rajiv Gupta, CEO (BTech ME '67) of Rohm and Haas Company, quoting Mahatma Gandhi, urged the young graduates to "be part of the change you want to see in the world". Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys Technologies NR Narayana Murthy was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) ... more.

THE IIT BEAR-HUG: The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, held its 41st Convocation on Friday, August 8. On the occasion, IIT-Bombay conferred the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) degree on Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies. After conferring the degree, Rahul Bajaj, Chairman and MD, Bajaj Auto Ltd and Chairman, IIT-Bombay, said Narayana Murthy and his Infosys team have changed the paradigm of doing business in India. "Infosys has become the benchmark of excellence in performance and corporate governance that any company in India has to contend with," said Bajaj.

"Minutes after receiving the President of India Gold Medal at the 41st Convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, on Friday, Digvijay Raorane proudly announced that he's headed to the University of California for a Master's degree in nanotechnology. "If research conditions improve here, I might consider heading back," said the 22-year-old mechanical engineer. Raorane's statement seemed an echo of what IITian Rajiv Gupta (BTech ME '67), CEO of Rohm & Haas, said a little earlier. "We left the country because of its lack of infrastructure and efficiency," Gupta, who was the chief guest for the function, said. "But such drawbacks should not deter us from our responsibility of uplifting the community to build a stronger India," he added ... Chairman and chief mentor of Infosys Technologies Narayan Murthy was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by chairman and managing director of Baja Auto Rahul Bajaj ... As many as 1,247 degrees were awarded to successful candidates at various levels at the function. The Institute Gold Medal was awarded to Premal Shah and the Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal for all-round excellence went to Nitin Dewan. Both the bright sparks have secured jobs with consultancy firms in Delhi. Listing the achievements of the institute over the past year, IIT director Ashok Misra said, "We have received Rs 23.7 crores through the sponsored research programmes. This represents a 48 per cent increase over the previous year". To increase industry-academia partnerships the institute is now setting up the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship ... more.

Times of India, August 13, 2003 - IIT Bombay alumnus Raj Gupta (BTech ME '67) said that "Rohm & Haas expects much from India" ... "You can't challenge him on the speed with which he makes decisions. In just four years, he was responsible for 35 acquisitions across the globe. In India, this would definitely have earned him the sobriquet of takeover king.  But this India-born chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of $6 billion US chemical giant Rohm & Haas is no mood to talk about takeovers. "Globally, we are now consolidating our operations. At the moment, we are not looking at any acquisitions ... the Indian company is also planning to undertake collaborative research with premier educational institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Gupta, who is an alumni of IIT, Mumbai, has had preliminary discussions on the matter ... His strategies have paid dividends. After he took over as the chairman and CEO in 1999, his company's market captilisation rose from $5 billion to $8 billion in the Wall-Street. Gupta, who has now been elected as the chairman of the prestigious American Chemistry Council, joined Rohm and Haas as a financial analyst in 1971. In December, 1998, he was elected to the board of directors ... more.

Times of India reports that "The brains are coming back after the drain" ... "It's just a trickle but could be a harbinger of things to come. Some of our best brains are coming back to India after a few years abroad, even as fresh grads are flying westwards. What brings them back? A dream. That's what brought Dr Parag Bhargava, assistant professor, IIT-Kharagpur, back to India. This B Tech from IIT Bombay was clear he would return even as he went to the University of Alabama some 10 years back to do his MS and PhD" ... more.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi ... threw out five senior students from the Aravalli hostel in connection with the ragging (hazing) of a fresher earlier this month. The fresher, Prakash Rajpurohit, left the hostel on August 5 complaining of inhuman ragging and filed a complaint with the police. The decision to expel the students from the hostel was taken after an enquiry committee submitted its interim report, official sources said. The final report will be submitted soon and if the students are found guilty, they may even be expelled from the institute ... taking a serious view of the ragging incident, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi had asked the IIT authorities to take action against the "guilty" and warned that the ministry "may even close down the hostel" ... more.

The IIT Bombay HF Bay Area Chapter has started a mentoring initiative to increase interaction between alumni and to create a platform for effective sharing of life experiences to benefit fellow alumni. There will be three broad tracks initially on entrepreneurship, careers in non-technology fields like finance and technology management ... more.
 

A leopard cub has been trapped at the Indian Institute of Technology campus in Mumbai. This is the second time in the last one week when a leopard has been trapped in the campus. On July 28, a male leopard crossed the fence of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Forest officials finally caught it after laying a trap. Speaking to rediff.com, Major (retd) Rajesh Dhankar, security officer of the IIT campus said, "We used to spot leopards occasionally in 1990s. But since last year, the spotting of leopards by students of IIT has become a common phenomenon. These leopards have multiplied in National park and are not finding prey in those areas. So they cross over to our campus to find prey." IIT is based in the northeast of Mumbai and is surrounded by Powai Lake, Adi Shankaracharya Marg, Kanjurmarg and Sanjay Gandhi National Park National Park. ... Complaining about the lack of facilities, Major (retd) Dhankar said, "We don't have any guns or modern equipments to deal with these leopards. We only have firecrackers to scare them. We burst them whenever they are near our offices." Last year, a 11-year-old boy residing in Kanjurmarg was killed by a leopard ... more.

• Indian Express, Aug. 4: "Spotted visitor nabbed from IIT Powai campus"

• Hindustan Times, Aug. 4: "Leopard caught in Powai"

Economist, July 31 - "Cometh the hour, cometh Arun Sarin" : "... Since 1997, the world's largest mobile-phone company has been run by Chris Gent, a flamboyant British dealmaker, who succeeded where every rival failed, and built a truly global, all-wireless empire spanning 28 countries and serving more than 122m customers. Now knighted, Sir Chris is retiring at the tender age of 55. The new chief executive, Arun Sarin, is a quite different model. That is just as well, since he is likely to have to steer the company in a quite different direction. ... Mr Sarin is rather the archetypal international executive. The son of a well-to-do Indian military officer, he went to a military boarding-school, but his mother encouraged him not to follow his father's career. Instead, he took an engineering degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, the country's equivalent of MIT. From there he went to the University of California at Berkeley on a scholarship, to do a further degree in engineering and an MBA. He has lived in America ever since. The main remnants of his origins are an Indian wife (whom he met at Berkeley), a touch of an accent and a passion for cricket, which he shares with Sir Chris. ... Mr Sarin inherits a company in good shape, by the dented standards of international telecoms. ... Mr Sarin appears to be an operating man rather than a dealmaker, but he is working on deals of his own. He has been talking to France's Vivendi Universal about SFR, the French mobile operator that the two companies have been fighting each other to control. However, his main job is more prosaic. ... Whatever choice he goes for, Mr Sarin will need all his knowledge of the American market, and all his considerable charm, to create a coherent position in the rich world's least coherent wireless market" ... more.

An update on old news ... click here for the text of Bill Gates' speech at the IIT50 celebrations on January 17, 2003. "Well, good evening. It's a great honor for me to speak at this jubilee celebration. After all, I'm not 50-years old yet, pretty close, I never graduated from college, yet, although I'm not sure I'll be changing that because I'm a little busy right now, but I get a chance to talk with you about an incredible institution that has really changed the world and has the potential to do even more in the years ahead than it's already done. Rajat asked me to speak and at first my reaction, "Well, I don't speak at many college events. There's more opportunity than there is time." But when I thought about it and I thought about the great things that people from IIT have done at Microsoft, the role that I think IIT can play inside India in tapping into its potential I decided I'd make a very special exception and come here tonight. (Applause.) I was careful to do research for this speech so I went up to the Web site -- the IIT Web site -- and sort of browsed around, and after I did that I thought, well, I'll go to the MIT Web site and browse around just to see, you know, these things seem very similar. And on the MIT Web site the hot news was that the coffee house was closing down because people weren't spending enough money there. (Laughter.) On the IIT Bombay site, though, things were far more interesting. They said that they had caught a leopard on the campus recently. (Laughter, applause.) And that's something these U.S. universities just can't offer in terms of an experience. (Laughter) ..." ... more.

In mid-January, prominent alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their alma mater. The keynote speaker at the celebration was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who called the IITs "an incredible institution" from whose traditions "the computer industry has benefited greatly." Unusually, the celebration was not held in Kharagpur or even New Delhi, but in Silicon Valley ... Enriching the global economy was not the original intent behind setting up the IITs ... Being world class universities, the IITs need to be managed as such ... For 40 years, India did well with five IITs. Now there are seven, and talk of 10. Plans include significantly increasing the intake of students. Quantity at the cost of quality will sound the death-knell of the IITs ... Nehru wanted the IITs to benefit India. Instead, they ended up benefiting the world. Now that India has taken steps to integrate its economy with the rest of the world, it will reap tangible benefits from this exceptionally talented part of its diaspora. When the first IIT grads left India, they did so because the rest of India was not as competitive as they were, and the opportunities it offered were not as challenging as what they were trained for. In the next 50 years, it is for India to catch up with its IITs. That will be an achievement beyond Nehru's wildest dreams ... more.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Powai, has notched up yet another first with the inauguration of two hi-tech hostels. They come complete with sky bridges and spacious television-viewing rooms. However, students seem unimpressed. Fourth-year chemical engineering student Tarkeshwar Singh, who lives in the present Hostel 8 (Nandan Nilekani 's old hostel) was quoted as saying, "Where’s the flexibility? ... I don't want my hostel to look like an IT park ..."  The new rooms are smaller, with a cement bed and study table fixed to the ground. Students don’t want to part with wooden beds they can move around at will ... "No stationary furniture ... IITians crave flexibility." The new hostel is huge, with wide corridors, a common cafeteria that can accommodate 1,000 students and television-viewing halls that can seat 700 ... more.

Taiwanese chipmaker VIA has partnered with KReSIT to develop low-cost computers for villages and other rural areas. "Very few people in India need a 2GHz, fully-spec'ed machine. They need a computer for email and web browsing at a price they can afford," said Ben Boyden, VIA's marketing manager for India. The VIA Affordable Computing Lab at the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai opens officially Apr. 14. It is the first such facility that VIA is involved in. VIA's PC processors such as the C3 have sold well in developing markets such as India, China and Russia and the firm is understandably keen to increase its profile in these places. The C3 is not as powerful as processors from much larger rivals Intel and AMD, but is cheaper, consumes less power and doesn't require an elaborate cooling system. The new lab will house around 60 computers and various parts from VIA which will be used to develop new hardware and also act as a testbed for entrepreneurs to develop software for farmers and rural students, said Boyden. He declined to say how much VIA has invested in the lab, but said that his company would continue to support facilities there for some time ... more. And click here for a RealVideo clip from the Times of India.

IIT’s mantra: tough times don’t last, entrepreneurs do - Times of India, April 8, 2003. The depressed job market and the economic downturn meant falling campus recruitments and dipping salaries for students at IIT, Powai. But, IIT-ians are finding ways to fight back. The IIT Enterpreneurship Cell (EC) has become a veritable lifeline, with several students now believing that being your own boss is a great advantage in hard times. One of the main thrusts of EC is the Eureka conference, where students’ business plans compete for top honours in eight business categories. Incubation centres, workshops, marketing, suggestions from colleagues and professors play an important role. Five teams are also sent each year to the Global Startups[at]Singapore meet, where they interact with 1,000 venture capitalists from all around the world, and attend the Global Entrepreneurs Conference ... more.

Singapore PM Goh in India to forge closer economic ties - The Straits Times, April 7, 2003. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has arrived in New Delhi for a two-day official visit aimed at enhancing bilateral ties and economic cooperation between Singapore and India. He also said he would be looking for ways to get India's premier technology training body, the Indian Institute of Technology, to set up a campus in Singapore ... more.

Indian IT professionals welcome in Singapore - Daily Express, April 7, 2003. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said in an interview Sunday that Indian IT professionals were welcome in Singapore, adding information technology could help bring Asian giants India and China together. Goh said he said he would be looking for ways to get India’s premier technology training body, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), to set up campuses in Singapore. "If it succeeds, this place plus India becomes a centre or alternative centre to the Silicon Valley for IT services" ... more.

IIT hosts megabucks - Times of India, April 5, 2003 ... yet another offering from the enterprising stables of IIT Kanpur -- a conference on 'incubating global entrepreneurs — a road map for future' which forms part of the Megabucks-2003 is scheduled for Sunday, April 6, 2003. IIT-K, for the past three years, has been hosting Megabucks, the brainchild of the premier batch (1965) of the institute. According to Aseem Gupta, co-ordinator Megabucks, it was a “round-the-year” process involving entrepreneurs, researchers, professors, students, venture capitalists and other investors focussing on providing leverage to IIT Kanpur’s technological expertise. Started as a intra-institute event, Megabucks was scaled up to be an all-India competition to promote entrepreneurship. Over 100 entries, including that of NUS Singapore, IIT, Mumbai, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee, have been received for the first round ... more.

IIT students urged to set up industries - Times of India, April 7, 2003.

Another city postgrad dies mysteriously - Mumbai Mid-Day, April 7, 2003. Vinod Kundnani, a silver medallist from IIT Powai, was found unconscious outside the chemistry lab of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, on April 1. He died a few hours later. This is the second mysterious death in the past six months of an Indian postgraduate student at Cornell. Mulund resident (and IIT Bombay alumnus) Ritesh Shetty went missing in September 2002 and his body was found in February 2003 ... more.

IIT to set up firm to license its patents - Indian Express, April 7, 2003. IIT Madras has decided to form a separate company to license its patented innovations for corporate use. Institute Director M.S. Ananth said yesterday that they have constituted a committee to set up the corporate body. This company, likely to be set up in six months, would market innovations under the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Ananth said, while delivering a lecture on 'University as a Business Enterprise'. The committee members include professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras and Infosys Deputy MD Gopalakrishnan. According to Professor Ananth, about 30 per cent of IIT’s expenses were met through consultancy work. This would go up once some of the patented innovations are licensed for corporate use. But Professor Ananth warned that there could be a conflict of ethics once the corporatised structure came into being, with teaching turning out to be less attractive than the consultancy work ...  more.

The architecture of Brand IIT - Business Standard, April 1, 2003. This article looks at the branding principles that can be applied to India’s premier training institute. IIT has become a globally recognised brand these days. In a specially-designed Quick Brand Survey (QBS), 50 IIT-ans were interviewed from all the institutes, across age groups, but mostly from the corporate world. The alumni have spoken very evocatively about what this brand is all about — India’s biggest, global brand; after IIT, it was a cakewalk at IIMC, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon. Narayana Murthy explained how his son could not secure admission into IIT, so he went to the Ivy League School at Cornell instead! CBS anchor Lesley Stahl described the summation of Harvard, MIT and Princeton as representing an idea of the status of IIT ... more.

Romesh Wadhwani (BTech '69 ) is funding a National Entrepreneurship Network in India. Nearly 250 top educational institutions from the field of business management, engineering, hotel management and fashion and design will vie to be selected as the top five where an entrepreneurship development program will be set up. NEN is targeted to inspire, educate and support new entrepreneurs. Each centre will eventually offer courses, skill-building exercises, networking activities, and mentorship to aspiring entrepreneurs. The foundation plans to develop a network of 100 centres over the next five years. The backbone of NEN will eventually comprise 5-10 National Centres for Entrepreneurship, each part of a leading academic institution ... more.

At IIT, a new phenomenon : Graduates without jobs. Half the class of 2003 hasn’t yet found a job, some of class ’02 never did. The war is only the latest woe at Mumbai’s IIT. They say once you get into an Indian Institute of Technology, half your life is made. After all, who wouldn’t want to employ a student from one of the world’s best engineering institutes ? Much to their dismay, Batch 2003 of IIT Powai, outside Mumbai, has learnt the answer to that one. With campus placement officially closing in two weeks, nearly 50 per cent of the students are still jobless. There’s more: a handful of students from last year remain unemployed. Understandably, the otherwise calm, soothingly sylvan campus of IIT Powai now has a palpable tinge of tension. Anxious students are waiting to know the results of their latest round of interview or GD (group discussion) ... more.

Hiring trends were better for graduates of IIT Bombay's SJ Mehta School of Management ... the class of 2003 had good reason to bring out the bubbly: corporates are flocking back to B-school campuses in droves this year. Campuses across the country have seen an increase in the number of participating corporates as well as an increase in the number of offers. In fact, most campuses had more than one offer per student and many of them had corporates going back empty-handed. ... Technology saw a revival after almost two years of lying low and was a run-away success at some tech-heavy campuses ...  Infotech was a big draw at IIMB, IIT Bombay's School of Management, NITIE and Weligkar. At IIM Ahmedabad, the sector wasn't the biggest recruiter, but did account for about 18% of the offers on campus. ... The School of Management at IIT Bombay (SOM) grabbed the highest reported dollar offer of $1,10,000, made by Triniti Corporation, a US-based IT company ... more.

IITian Fareed Al-Muhandis ... is concerned about his parents in Baghdad. "So far I am in regular touch with them," he said, "but I am not sure how long these phone lines will work. The Americans and British are even bombarding Iraqi communication system. Common Iraqis are not able to call and find out the well-being of their relatives." Muhandis is not an Iraqi citizen. He took up Indian citizenship three years ago after living in India for more than 20 years. He had first come to India in 1978 to study at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay ... click here for the rediff.com story and here for the article in the Times of India.

IITB’s KReSIT is the key to the future of Indian IT ... in a nation and industry that’s focused on IT services you hardly hear of companies that dare to be different from the crowd. IIT Bombay’s Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) is a rare oasis where you’ll find such firms. ... The lush green environs and sleepy surroundings of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) hardly give the impression of frantic activity. One just has to reach the fourth floor of this futuristic building however, to witness the future of technology being rewritten by some of the most ingenious young minds in the world. Welcome to the Business Incubator at IIT Bombay -- the first of its kind in the country ... more.

Siemens Dematic AG, a subsidiary of Siemens AG has named Prashant Ranade president and chief executive officer of Siemens Dematic Material Handling Automation - Americas. Dr. Dietmar Straub, president and chief executive officer of Siemens Dematic said that "Under Prashant's direction, the service business for Siemens Medical Solutions in the U.S. doubled its profitability while growing the business at triple the market growth rate. In his new post, he will draw on this proven track record of teamwork and customer service, as well as his ability to set strategic goals to strengthen Dematic's leadership position in the U.S." Ranade, age 50, started his career with Siemens in 1977. He earned a B.S. in Engineering, from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1975, a M.S. in Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1977, and an M.B.A. from Xavier University in 1982 ... more.

Line56 - March 27, 2003 - "... in the U.S. today, the threat of IT job flight is palpable and reminiscent of the fate of textile workers during the 1980s. The Gartner Group sees offshore outsourcing having a "pervasively negative effect" on IT workers in high-cost regions like the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. ... In this case, the "dumping" of technology services is not an excuse for tariffs or restrictions as it was during the steel industry's recession. While wage arbitrage for cheaper IT services is always a prime consideration, recent trends prodded even the mainstream CBS "60 Minutes" television show to profile the skills preeminence held by of graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology, which noted that the head of McKinsey & Company, the vice chairman of Citigroup, the former CEO of U.S. Airways, and Sun co-founder Vinod Khosla are all IIT alumni ... more.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi, India, has been named the top winner of IBM’s Second Linux Scholar Challenge. The university has been awarded a 16-node IBM eServer™ xSeries™ cluster running Linux. IIT received the highest overall average score among student winners from the 646 universities that enrolled in the challenge. A total of twenty individual winners were selected from the 2,871 students who registered from 646 universities in 68 countries. All the final projects can be viewed at www.ibm.com/university/linuxchallenge ... more.

n its most recent milestone, Lucent has been granted its 30,000th U.S. patent that covers the mechanisms for guaranteeing Quality of Service (QoS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks, which should help make packet-based networks as reliable as today's telephone networks. The Bell Labs inventor of this technique, IIT Bombay alumnus Bharat Doshi, along with his colleagues Yung-Terng Wang, On-Ching Yue and Enrique Hernandez-Valencia have leveraged the capabilities of Internet standards including RSVP, MPLS and DiffServ to evolve this patented technique ... more.

The Wall Street Journal (Mar. 17, 2003) profiled IITians Kalyan Handique and Sundaresh Brahmasandra who have  developed a groundbreaking device - a DNA-testing machine the size of a microchip. The technology had scores of potential applications, from pharmaceutical research to agriculture testing to bioterror defense.  HandyLab's story begins in 1995, when 23-year-old Kalyan Handique entered the University of Michigan's chemical-engineering Ph.D. program from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Mr. Handique joined a lab that was working on microfluidics, a cutting-edge field that uses microscopic machines to analyze almost mindbogglingly small fluid samples. A standard measure in microfluidics is the nanoliter; it would take five million nanoliters to fill a teaspoon ... more.

Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. named Mohammad Zaidi as chief technical officer, the company said Monday. He is responsible for corporate technology programs at projects at Pittsburgh-based Alcoa. Also, he was appointed a member of the executive council, the senior leadership group that provides strategic direction to the company. Mr. Zaidi had been president of Alcoa's automotive fabrication and assembly business and chief operating officer of Alcoa's automotive castings business since 2001. He was born in India and graduated in 1975 with a metallurgical engineering degree from IIT in Kanpur. He graduated from the Imperial College in London with a master's degree in materials technology in 1977 and a doctorate in mechanical metallurgy in 1980 ... more.

"IITians prefer IT" - Indian Express, Mar. 9, 2003. The stereotypical image of a graduate from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is one who is starry-eyed about migrating to the United States of America once the highly State-subsidised education is over. That is no doubt partly true as an estimated one-third of the 125,000 to 130,000-odd IIT graduates since 1956 have indeed gone abroad in search of greener pastures. But the more important point is that two-thirds of them have stayed back and made their fortunes in this country itself. But what sort of jobs are they taking up? Software for the most part. Such information technology (IT) companies have hired over 60 per cent of the fresh engineering graduates, according to a recent study of placement data since the early 1990s to date conducted by the IIT-Mumbai. The point made is that students from all branches of engineering are being lured by the high wages paid by software firms when compared to prospects in the old economy. The focus of the study was confined to only IIT-Mumbai, but applies more generally to other IITians besides those from the regional and other engineering colleges around the country as well ... more.

"Changing streams at IIT" - Economic Times, Mar. 8, 2003.  India’s top tech schools, the IITs, may be riding the wave of global branding. But it is also time for them to move up the value chain from being just undergrad factories to cutting edge R&D institutions. In fact, in a clear message from the government, the last IIT Council meeting signalled a distinct change in the funding pattern for the IITs. "Fifty years on, it’s time that the IITs became more R&D oriented. The government has decided that funds for any future expansion will only be in the direction of research and post-graduate studies. Undergrad courses will continue, but have been capped at the present levels," says a senior official in the ministry of human resources development. The revised funding pattern has been designed to attract more research scholars and fund hi-tech labs with a view to make IITs more