About
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is a public technical and research university located in Chennai (formerly named as Madras), Tamil Nadu, India. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance.Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the former government of West Germany, it was the third IIT established by the Government of India.IIT Madras is ranked the top engineering institute in India by the Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework since its inception in 2016.
IIT Madras is a residential institute that occupies a 2.5-square-kilometre (0.97 sq mi) campus that was formerly part of the adjoining Guindy National Park. The institute has nearly 600 faculty, 10,000 students and 1,250 administrative and supporting staff.Growing ever since it obtained its charter from the Indian Parliament in 1961, much of the campus is a protected forest, carved out of the Guindy National Park, home to large numbers of chital (spotted deer), black buck, bonnet macaque, and other rare wildlife. A natural lake, deepened in 1988 and 2003, drains most of its rainwater.
Organisation and administration
National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)
BSc Degree Programme in Programming and Data Science.
History
In 1956, the West German Government offered technical assistance for establishing an institute of higher education in engineering in India. The first Indo-German agreement was signed in Bonn, West Germany in 1959 for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras. IIT Madras was started with technical, academic and financial assistance from the Government of West Germany and was at the time the largest educational project sponsored by the West German Government outside their country. The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany has agreed to provide the following assistance in the establishment of a higher technological institute at Madras.
Workshop and ’laboratory equipment and Library: total value not exceeding 1.8 Crores
20 German Professors to serve at the Institute for a period of about 4–5 years.
4 German Foremen for the workshops of the Institute for a period of not less than two years.
Facilities for the training of 20 Indian teachers in German institutions
This has led to several collaborative research efforts with universities and institutions in Germany over the years.Although official support from the German government has ended, several research efforts involving the DAAD programme and Humboldt Fellowships still exist.
The institute was inaugurated in 1959, by the then Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. The first batch had an overall strength of 120 students from across India. In 1961, the IITs were declared to be Institutes of National Importance. The first convocation ceremony was held on 11 July 1964, with Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, then the President of India, delivering the convocation address and awarding the degrees to the inaugural batch of students. The institute got its first women students in the BTech batch of 1966.IIT Madras celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2009, and its Diamond Jubilee in 2019.
Campus
The main entrance of IIT MADRAS is on Sardar Patel Road, flanked by the residential districts of Adyar and Velachery. The campus is close to the Raj Bhavan, the official seat of the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Other entrances are located in Velachery (near Anna Garden MTC bus stop, Velachery Main Road), Gandhi Road (known as Krishna Hostel gate or Toll Gate, Currently closed) and Taramani gate (close to Ascendas Tech Park).
The campus is located 10 km (6.2 mi) from the Chennai Airport, 12 km (7.5 mi) from the Chennai Central Railway station, and is well connected by city buses. Kasturba Nagar is the nearest station on the Chennai MRTS line.
Two parallel roads, Bonn Avenue and Delhi Avenue, cut through the faculty residential area, before they meet at the Gajendra Circle, near the Administrative Block. Buses regularly ply between the Main Gate, Gajendra Circle, the Academic Zone, and the Hostel Zone.
Organisation and administration
Governance
The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is an autonomous organization functioning within the Institutes of Technology Act. The sixteen IITs are administered centrally by the IIT Council, an apex body established by the Government of India. The Minister of Human Resource and Development, Government of India, is the Chairman of the council. Each institute has a Board of Governors responsible for its administration and control.
The Senate comprises all professors of the Institute and decides its academic policy. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations, and results. It appoints committees to examine specific academic matters. The Director of the institute serves as the Chairman of the Senate. The Director from 2001 to 2011 was M. S. Ananth,who stepped down at the end of July 2011. As of September 2011, Bhaskar Ramamurthi has taken over as Director.
Three Senate Sub-Committees – The Board of Academic Research, The Board of Academic Courses and The Board of Students – help in academic administration and in the operations of the institute. The Finance Committee advises on matters of financial policy, while the Building and Works Committee advises on buildings and infrastructure. The Board of Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research addresses industrial consultancy and the Library Advisory Committee oversees library matters.
Academic
IIT Madras offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 16 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. About 360 faculty belonging to science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and consultancy.
The institute has 16 academic departments and advanced research centres across disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories. The academic calendar is organised around the semester. Each semester provides a minimum of seventy days of instruction in English. Students are evaluated on a continuous basis throughout the semester. Evaluation is done by the faculty, a consequence of the autonomous status granted to the institute. Research work is evaluated on the basis of the review thesis by peer examiners both from within the country and abroad. Ordinances that govern the academic programme of study are prepared by the Senate, the highest academic body within the institute.
Admission tests
For the undergraduate curriculum, admission to the BTech and Dual Degree (BSc + MSc or BTech + MTech) programme is done through the Joint Entrance Examination – Advanced (JEE-Advanced). IIT Madras conducted JEE Advanced in 2017. Admission to the five-year integrated Master of Arts (MA) programme is through the entrance test. Name of the test is Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Examination (HSEE), an IIT Madras specific exam. Admissions to the online degree programme for B.Sc. in Programming and Data Science are done through a Qualifier Process. That includes four weeks of instruction in Computational Thinking, Mathematics, Statistics and English.
For the postgraduate curriculum, admission to the MTech and MS programmes are through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). The Joint Admission Test to MSc (JAM) is the entrance exam for the two-year MSc programme, and other post BSc programmes. MBA candidates are accepted through the Common Admission Test (CAT).
Academic research programmes
The institute has departments and advanced research centres across the disciplines of engineering and the pure sciences, and nearly 100 laboratories.
Research programmes concern work undertaken by faculty members or specific research groups within departments that award an MS or PhD degree. Research is carried out by scholars admitted into these programmes, under the guidance of their faculty. Each department makes known its areas of interest to the academic community through handbooks, brochures and bulletins. Topics of interest may be theoretical or experimental. IIT Madras has initiated 16 inter disciplinary research projects against identified focus areas.
Partnership with other universities
The institute maintains academic friendship with institutes around the world through faculty exchange programmes. The institute has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with foreign universities, resulting in cooperative projects and assignments.
Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research
Through industrial consultancy, faculty and staff to take up assignments for industry that may include project design, testing and evaluation, or training in new areas of industrial development.
National organisations sponsor programmes of research by funding projects undertaken by the faculty. Such research is time bound and allows project participants to register for a degree. All sponsored research activities at the institute are coordinated by ICSR.
Park The IIT Madras Research Park, the first of its kind to be established in India. It functions to propel successful innovation in established companies and provide a nurturing ecosystem to startups through efforts and infrastructure. Following its success, 50 research parks were planned as part of Start Up India initiative of the Central Government of India. Corporate clients of IIT Madras Research park include Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, Saint-Gobain and Forbes Marshall.
National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)
To improve the quality of higher education in India. IIT Madras came up with an initiative called NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning)in the year 2003. As per this, all the IITs, along with the IISc Bangalore would come up with a series of video lecture based courses across all the streams of engineering.
BSc Degree Programme in Programming and Data Science.
They started the country’s first online BSc Program in Programming in Data Science. The 116 credit program consists of three levels—Foundation (32 credits), Diploma (48 credits), and Degree (36 credits).The faculty of the program include Madhavan Mukund (Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Chennai Mathematical Institute),Rajesh Kumar (Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras),Andrew Thangaraj (Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, IIT Madras),Sudarshan Iyengar (Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Ropar), and several more faculty, instructors and mentors.
The first batch of 8,154 students who joined the program in 2020 have brought variety to the IIT history.
Prathap Haridoss, professor in charge of the online degree Programme, said nearly 30% of the learners are working professionals from IT, banking, making, finance, law, health care, marketing and other sectors.
The institute has been working with experts from NPTEL to manage the program. Instruction is via recorded videos followed by activity questions. There are at least three sessions per week for each course subject that allow students to interact, discuss and study. The in-person quizzes and exams are conducted at the TCS iON centres across the country.
In April 2021, the BSc program department organized the ‘Cricket Hackathon 2021’ for students, professionals, and Data Science.
“Above mentioned information taken from Wikipedia”.