IIT AND KOTA

IIT BHUBANESHWAR A seven-member committee has started an inquiry against an IIT-Bhubaneswar professor after two MTech students accused him of mental harassment recently.  On April 27, the two female students lodged a common complaint with the IIT director accusing the professor of harassing them for the past few months.  "The professor threatened to spoil our career and give us poor marks in examination. He wanted us to visit his chamber regularly. He even asked us to visit his house alone at night ," one of the girls said. On April 25, the professor attempted to barge into their flat, she alleged.  "Recently, we went to Hirakud in Sambalpur on a study tour where the professor misbehaved with us. He insisted us to talk to him only. When we denied, he threatened us with dire consequences ," she said.  The IIT authorities said the probe panel consists of faculty members of the institute and a woman lawyer of the Orissa high court.  "Soon after receiving...

A team of scientists at IIT Madras are developing stem cells to grow into cardiac cells, which can eventually lead to treatment of severe heart problems. The cells will now be surgically administered into specifically created rat models at the Central Drug Research Laboratory in Lucknow. The project is being funded by the department of Biotechnology. “We have developed cardiac patches isolated from biological material and proved the functionality of the cells. These patches when put into the ischemic heart can help reverse the dying cells,” says Rama S Verma, professor, department of biotechnology, IIT-M. Stem cell therapy holds a lot of promise in the field of medical science, he said adding: “Besides opening new avenues this may also help in preventing an organ transplant.” After the patches are surgically administered in the rats, he said: “We will check for all the physiological parameters like heart rate and blood flow. This will then help us in analysing the surviva...

On its way to developing an ultra-sensitive low cost explosive detector, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, will soon unveil an "e-nose" that will be several times stronger than a dog's olfactory power. This device, which is also informally called 'E-dog' by the developing team, will find out traces of RDX that existing machines fail to point out. It will be able to detect RDX from 1.5 feet. The e-nose, which uses a sensor coated with nano materials, is currently under development. V Ramgopal Rao, chair professor at the department of electrical engineering, IIT-Bombay and principal investigator at the institute's centre of excellence in nano-electronics, spoke about the device on the sidelines of the 8th Chandigarh Science Congress (CHASCON) at Panjab University on Wednesday. CHASCON is being organized by PU in collaboration with various leading educational and research institutions of the Tricity. The Electronic Nose, or E-dog, is the result of ...

A hundred engineering colleges from across the country will in January switch to a new time-table with half of the lessons delivered virtually by IIT professors. The move comes as part of an ambitious plan to take top notch course content and high quality faculty-student interaction to India's many engineering colleges. Phase I of the Quality Enhancement in Engineering Education (QEEE) programme kick starts on January 2, 2014 as the chosen 100 odd engineering colleges begin a new semester. As many as nine subjects, including Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering and Mathematics among others, will be co-taught by senior IIT professors along with the regular college faculty. Sample the draft new timetable that has been drawn up for this new age classroom. A Monday morning lesson across the 100 colleges will start at 8 am with a lesson on 'Wireless Connection' by IIT Kanpur's Prof A Jagannathan. IIT Bombay's Prof Neela Natraj would teach...

How about living in a house where you don’t need to switch on lights during daytime or you don’t need a plumbing or a wiring job done ever? These are some features of the futuristic houses being designed by some of the finest brains of the country in an endeavour to bring down the cost of construction by 20-40 per cent. Some 20 IIT professors, in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, are working on a pilot project that will not only bring down the cost, but also reduce the time required to build a house. The Government has given the IITs the mandate to develop a model with flat size in the range of 21-27 square metres (approximately 210-270 sq ft). B. K. Chakravarthy, Head, Industrial Design Centre at IIT-Bombay, said the main idea behind the project is to create an integrated solution for energy efficient and eco-friendly houses and high-quality mass production of building materials that can bring down the cost of construction by 10-20 per cent in the urban areas and by 40-...