IIT-M faculty may play truant, officially

CHENNAI: Faculty members at IIT-Madras
focusing on research projects may soon be
able to forego classroom duties .
Teachers at the institution, proposing
various solutions to promote research and
deal with increasing workload on faculty
members , suggested that researchers be
spared from spending long hours in
classrooms if they are working on intensive
projects.
They also said the number of courses that
faculty members take should be divided
among two or more teachers.
They made the suggestions to an expert
panel following the recruitment of 22
teachers last month. Some departments have
already adopted individual models to focus
more on research . IIT-M estimates that a
faculty member spends a minimum of six
hours in classrooms a week and teaches
three courses each semester. Every faculty
member has five research scholars to guide.
But faculty members usually spend much
more time than in just guidance of research
scholars as they have related work like
evaluation as well as administrative duties.
Similar suggestions in the past could not be
implemented because of staff shortage. IIT-
M has 530 faculty members and 7,800
students. It has a sanctioned strength of 800
faculty members. The institution decided to
enroll more students in 2010, resulting in a
54% increase in admissions, but faculty
strength remained at 450, roughly the same
as previously.
"If a department has more than one faculty
member for a specialisation, one can be
spared from classroom duties in the first
semester and another can be given the same
opportunity the next semester," a professor
said.
IIT-M director Bhaskar Ramamurthi
indicated that the proposals may only be
implemented as a stop-gap arrangement and
said the institution did not plan to
introduce them at the policy level.
"Departments come up with internal
arrangements so teaching and research are
not compromised," he said. "Teaching and
research should go hand in hand. We had
600 doctoral scholars in 2007 and the
number had now gone up to 1,800. Our PhD
and MS students make up 30% of the
student strength. Increasing enrolment has
also resulted in IIT-M acquiring more
faculty members and PhD students."
Not all faculty members support the
proposal to reduce classroom hours. A
senior professor said IIT-M's academic
freedom allowed teachers to start new
programmes in specialised fields.
"The rationale is to give students the
opportunity to work on projects with their
teachers while also attending classes," the
professor said. "If an ambitious professor
doesn't want to teach students, it will be a
loss to the student community. Unlike
institutions like Defence Research
Development Organisation , IITs are part of
the public education system."

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IIT Bhubaneswar yet to take a 'concrete' shape

BHUBANESWAR: Inordinate delay in construction of its permanent campus, vacant seats and shortage of faculty members has reduced IITBhubaneswar ( IITBBS) to just another engineering college. Institute director MadhusudanChakraborty, however, asserted that the city IIT is on the right track to meet the mandate for which it was created. Though IITBBS was the first among the eight new IITs to start functioning and got 518 acre (of the total over 900 acre) in February 2009, the construction work is still in its initial stages. A visit to the campus site at Arugul village , on the outskirts of the city, reveals only some internal roads and an 800-seat hostel building are under construction. Only 50% of the work on the boundary wall, which started in March 2009, is complete. National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), whose construction was started alongside that of IITBBS in 2008, is nearing completion at Jatni. Sources said the Union ministry of human resources development (MHRD) had approved construction of a building spread over 2,21,000 square metres, but the institute has obtained approval of Bhubaneswar Development Authority for 1,27,000 square metres. The 256th report of the Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development of Rajya Sabha, earlier this year, described the progress in construction of IITBBS , along with IIT-Mandi, as "very discouraging". Twelve out of 160 BTech seats were lying vacant after the first-round of counselling, though institute sources said the same were later filled up. According to data presented by the Union government in the Rajya Sabha on March 22, some seats remained vacant in the institute most of the years. While there were no takers for seven seats in 2012, eight remained vacant in 2011. Similarly, 11 seats remained unoccupied in 2009. All seats were exhausted in 2010. The total number of seats was 120 all these years, which was increased to 160 this year. IITBBS sources said there are around 75 teachers against the sanctioned faculty strength of 90. The maximum vacancies are at the middle level (associate professors). The institute director defended the 'perceived' shortcomings and said IITBBS will strengthen the brand IIT with its very good faculty and interdisciplinary approach of education. "Some seats going vacant don't in any way indicate that demand for IIT has gone down. Some of the very bright students qualify most of pre-admission entrance examinations. A student qualifying for IIT may choose a course in medicine or study abroad or a stream of choice in an NIT. Seat allotted to him is bound to go vacant in the first round of counselling. Only 10,000 students were picked for IIT admission from among 12 lakh who took the JEE (main)," Chakraborty said. On faculty shortage, Chakraborty said it is a global problem. "Because of comparatively low salary earlier, not too many bright students opted for teaching as a career leading to the current phase of vacuum. The trend is, however, changing," he said. On slow pace of campus work, he said since the project size is huge, the planning process was bound to take time. "Tender would soon be floated for construction of the administrative building and various schools," he said. IIT construction should not be compared with NISER as the department of atomic energy, governing NISER, has its own construction wing to oversee the building work and its size is much smaller.

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C-DAC hits back at IIT Delhi

After its portal to coordinate admissions to IIT
and NITs could not be utilised this year, the
Centre for Development of Advanced
Computing (C-DAC) has accused the IIT Delhi
of sabotaging its plan to alleviate the problem
of vacant seats in these institutions.
The C-DAC was developing a common portal to
host data of all rounds of seat allocation of
IITs and NITs that would help prevent
engineering aspirants from holding seats in
both the institutions, simultaneously, at the
time of admission.
The director of C-DAC has written to the
chairman of the board of governors of IIT
Delhi and the union HRD ministry protesting
the statement made by IIT Delhi’s HC Gupta
who held C-DAC partially responsible for the
plan falling through.
dna has reported earlier this month that the
IITs had decided to drop the proposed exercise
because of the C-DAC’s delay in developing a
fool-proof software. Professor Gupta, who is
the organising chairman of JEE-Advance this
year, had said that the software was not
prepared with enough time to test it, which is
one of the reasons why the proposal was
dropped.
In a strongly worded letter sent to the
chairman of the board of governors of IIT
Delhi, C-DAC director Rajat Moona has held
Gupta’s non-cooperation responsible for the
failure of the plan. In the letter, a copy of
which is with dna , Moona said the organising
chairman of JEE Advance was not forthcoming
on giving any inputs to the common portal,
both on its design and other feedback.
According to Moona, the common portal,
being developed by C-DAC, was ready by July 2
which was almost a week before the deadline,
but the software could not be tested because
of Gupta’s refusal to provide seat allotment
data.
In his defence, Gupta said he was just followin
what had been decided by the Joint Admission
Board of the IITs. “The JAB had said that the
first round of the counselling for the NITs
would only begin after the IIT’s first round is
over. How could I share any material before
July 8 (when the first round was scheduled to
get over)?” he said.

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CBSE to provide copy of JEE answer sheets

NAGPUR: The Central Board of Secondary
Education ( CBSE) has finally decided to
provide students who appeared for the JEE
(Main) with a photocopy of the OMR sheet,
answer key and calculation sheet. There
was earlier reluctance on part of the board
to do so even though there was an increased
demand for the same.
TOI had reported last week about complaints
from students that many candidates scored
much lower than they had expected. Many
of these students can't appear for JEE
(Advanced) as they have failed to meet the
cut-off mark of 113.
Abhishek Bansal, who heads a coaching
institute in Nagpur, said, "Providing these
documents will increase transparency in
JEE. Once CBSE releases the answer keys
then students can verify it and be sure that
they have been marked correctly. While the
computer won't commit mistakes in
marking but this will help in ensuring that
CBSE had chosen the right answers."
Students have to apply for the photocopies
by paying a fee of Rs500 via a demand draft
(payable to Secretary, CBSE) at New Delhi.
The application has to be received by CBSE
before June 15 and the board will dispatch
the documents only by Speed Post. Even
those students who had applied for these
documents under the Right To Information
(RTI) Act will now have to reapply under
the new guidelines.
TOI had reported earlier that 15 candidates
who took the JEE (Main) and were unhappy
with their results had moved the Delhi high
court against the CBSE, which conducted
the exam. JEE (Main) scores are used for
admission to engineering colleges as well as
to shortlist students who can take advance
exam for admission to the Indian Institutes
of Technology . Their petition mentions that
"The respondents provided no mechanism to
redress the grievances of petitioners who
have secured a much higher score according
to the solutions of prominent coaching
institutions, but will be deprived of sitting
in the JEE (Advanced) Exam 2013 being
conducted by the CBSE as well as getting
admission in any reputed engineering
college, only because of institutional
arrogance of respondents who have chosen
to either not respond to the pleas of mercy
or replied in an arbitrary and mechanical
manner with patent absence of application
of mind".

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Canadian schoolgirl creates Hollow Flashlight powered by body heat-

Canadian high school student Ann Makosinski
demonstrating her body-heat powered Hollow
Flashlight
At the tender age of 15, Canadian high school
student Ann Makosinski has designed and built
a flashlight powered by body heat. Her Hollow
Flashlight secured her a finalist slot in the
15-16 age group of the Google Science Fair
ahead of thousands of entries from more than
100 countries. My science project in tenth
grade was a volcano that only worked about
half the time, so I think she has me beat.
The LED flashlight relies on the thermoelectric
effect, with tiles that generate electricity from
the differences in temperature to generate
electricity. The tiles are fixed to the outside of
a hollow tube so that when held, one side of
the tile is heated by the warmth of the hand,
while air flowing through the hollow tube helps
keep the other side cool. The electricity
generated by the temperature differential
between either side of the tile powers the LED
light.
Makosinski built two different flashlights. The
first was made using a tube of aluminum,
which is a good heat sink material thanks to its
high thermal conductivity, while the second
was built using a PVC tube.
Both models work better when the difference
between the ambient temperature and body
temperature is greater, which is to say, when
it's colder. So while the flashlights worked with
an air temperature of 10° C (50° F), they
emitted more light with the air temperature at
5° C (41° F). Still, she claims that both were
able to maintain a steady beam of light for 20
minutes, even in the warmer temperature.
The final cost of each flashlight came to only
just over CA$26 (US$25), but if mass-
produced, the cost would obviously be
substantially lower.
Makosinski and the 14 other Google Science
Fair finalists will travel to Google's Mountain
View, California campus in September where
winners will be announced in each of the three
age groups. One grand prize winner will also
receive a $50,000 scholarship from Google
and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

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IITs to have common placement structure

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are
mulling a “semi-formal structure” comprising
placement heads across all IITs to help
coordinate and collate all placement-related
activities.
IIT placement heads across all IITs met at IIT-
Bombay (IIT-B) on Friday to discuss
placement-related experiences for this season.
So far, the institutes coordinated on an
informal level, though each follows its own
placement policy.
The proposed body would meet twice a year.
“We want to proactively ensure that students
and recruiters have a similar experience
regardless of which IIT they choose to go to,”
said Ravi Sinha, who is in-charge of placements
at IIT-B.
The semi-formal body would collect feedback
and placement data from all the IITs to
identify trends on changing student
preferences, emerging corporate trends and
opportunities in the economy.
The body would not impose a single, binding
policy across IITs but would coordinate
between them.
Placements at IIT-B began on December 1,
2011. Recruiters will be visiting the campus till
May this year.
Seven new IITs are going through their first
placement season this year or the next
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/
Mumbai/IITs-to-have-common-placement-
structure/Article1-813172.aspx

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IIT Bombay students go green

Contrary to the popular perception that IITians
do not give enough back to society, students at
IIT Bombay have come up with their own
unique way of spreading environmental
awareness.
With the backing of an institute that boasts of
momentous research in the development of
eco-friendly technology, these students are
willing to step beyond mere academic pursuits.
The IIT Bombay Green Campus Initiative was
launched a year ago with the objective of
transforming the institution of world-class
repute into a futuristic model of ecological
sustainability and energy efficiency.
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_iit-
bombay-students-go-green_1652009

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