by Prof. S.L.N. Murthy, Office of the Dean (Resource Development)

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Dear Friends,

In my last letter in February this year, I had outlined some significant happenings and a few key concerns. The intervening period has been full of excitement.

Towards mid February, Nandan Nilekani (B.Tech EE 1978, now Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd.) threw us a challenge. Nandan gifted IIT B a part of his personal holdings in Infosys, and the challenge was to complete all the paper work and sale transactions within two weeks. We succeeded in meeting the deadlines and also launching the associated endowments by 10^th March – the Institution Foundation Day. While Kanwal’s munificent donation helped the School of Information Technology take off, Nandan’s generosity has launched it into orbit.

Nandan has also, unwittingly (or deliberately??) placed another big challenge before all of us who spent our times in hostels other than H-8. Thanks to Nandan’s package, H-8 may soon attain a ‘5-star’ status, and we will need to work so much harder to keep up with the Hostel-8 Joneses (or Johnnies!!).

Besides Nandan’s landmark contribution, the preceding year was full of Alumni initiatives. The campaigns of H-10 girls, the batch of ‘95 of Mechanical Engg., and Computer Science & Engg. batch of ’95 & ’99 (would be alumni !) are specially heartwarming. The Heritage Fund has approached the task of converting all your warm feelings and concerns for your Alma mater into concerted action. I am particularly happy over the decision of the Heritage Fund to contribute towards an endowment for Library Journals – to help our students, faculty and research staff, and enable the Journal section of IITB library to retain its position of primacy.

With these levels of Alumni goodwill and support for the Institute, "it is hardly surprising that Sukhatme entertains a rose tinted view of the future, even in these troubled times" - to quote from Dilip Thakore (consultant Editor, ‘School’ and founder-editor of Business India and Business World).

Your Institute made impressive strides on several fronts. The Technology Development Mission projects helped the Institute establish a strong presence in hardware design and development (through pilot plants and prototypes), and has strengthened linkages with industries and potential entrepreneurs. Approvals for proposals for establishment of major facilities for Software Verification and Validation, and Large Scale Structural Integrity Testing and Assessment, represent very significant events. We were able to offer contract research and consultancy services to a wider range of national and international agencies. No wonder, the Dean (R&D) sports a very broad smile – with funding from sponsored Research and Consultancy projects reaching an all time high (last financial year), and crossing the Rs. 200 million mark!

The Institute has launched a major initiative to ensure network connectivity in the academic and hostel areas. In this context, the Class of ’75 campaign towards Internet connectivity for the hostels has been a bonus. Soon, we expect to have a 2 mbps band width – a far cry from the 64 kbps facility from which we were operating. With this initiative, we expect to have a radically transformed computational and information network environment in two years’ time.

The Foundation Day, celebrated on 10^th March provided us an opportunity to honour our Alumni and confer on eight of them the "Distinguished Alumnus" title.

The School of Information Technology has just completed admission to the first batch for the full time Masters degree programme. The School of Management building is practically ready for occupation - the final coats of paint, and landscaping are in progress. We are now ready to launch construction activity on the School of Information Technology building, after obtaining formal permission from the Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay to cut forty eight trees and transplanting another seventy four trees, (of course paying a hefty deposit!), after months of effort. Those of you returning to the campus after the seventies and early eighties will observe the phenomenal increase in green cover on campus! The scales of justice, however, are even-handed, and despite a temporary lull in legislative activity, there are enough laws on the statute books for those who care to know and obey!!

This letter has already become too long. Before I close, let me refer to two major developments.

The recent substantial upward revision of faculty salaries and benefits, the work ethos and environment at IITB, along with the unique culture of Mumbai city itself make this Institute the best academic institution to work for. Those of you who have been deferring your decisions on plunging into academics in India can now make up your minds!

The plans we had prepared for increasing substantially the intake in IITs (to address the aspirations of youngsters emerging from schools, and also retain our small share of ‘quality’ graduates) had to be placed ‘on hold’, as the requisite funds cannot be readily found in the face of competitive demands in a developing country. The increases in intake IIT B has already implemented – through new programmes – has placed considerable pressures on laboratories, class rooms, and especially on hostels. Even with the commissioning (in late July 1999) of a hundred (double seated) rooms in Hostel-4, and the addition of another sixty places in H-8 in another eighteen months’ time, we would be short of around eight hundred hostel places.

A lot of planning, preparatory work, follow up efforts (often repetetive) have become a part of our working ethos. The one single dream we all share – that of seeing IIT B among the ‘International Super-Six’ very soon (to use current cricket parlance), not only sustains but also augments motivation.

Prof. Sukhatme and I eagerly look forward to meeting as many of you as possible, in person, during our proposed visit scheduled for late September – early October, 1999.

All the best to all of you in all your pursuits,

Yours sincerely,

(Prof. S.L. Narayana Murthy)

Dean (Resource Development)

Office of the Dean (Resource Development)

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

Powai, Mumbai-400 076, INDIA.

Ph.No. : +91 (22) 576 7090 / 576 7091

Fax : +91 (22) 578 3475

Email : deanrd[!]admin.iitb.ac.in

Slnm[!]cupid.che.iitb.ac.in