Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Encyclopedia
The Indian Institute of Technology Madras is an engineering and technology school in Chennai
(formerly Madras) in southern India
. It is recognized as an Institute of National Importance
by the Government of India
. Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the government of the former West Germany
, it is third among the Indian Institutes of Technology
established by the Government of India
through an Act of Parliament, to provide education and research facilities in engineering and technology.
IIT Madras is a residential institute that occupies a 2.5 km² (620 acre
s) campus that was formerly part of the adjoining Guindy
National Park. The institute has nearly 360 faculty, 6,000 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 chital
(spotted deer), black buck
, and other wildlife. A natural lake, deepened in 1988 and 2003, drains most of its rainwater.
and was at the time the largest educational project sponsored by the West German Government outside their country. 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
program and Humboldt Fellowships
exist.
The institute was inaugurated in 1959 by Prof. Humayun Kabir
, the then Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. In 1961, the IITs were declared to be Institutions of National Importance that include the seven Institutes of Technology located at Kharagpur (established 1951), Mumbai (established 1958), Chennai (established 1959), Kanpur (established 1959), Delhi (established 1961), Guwahati (established 1994) and Roorkee (established 1847, upgraded to an IIT in 2001). IIT Madras celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2009.
's 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 Tamilnadu. 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) and Taramani gate(close to Ascendas Tech Park).
The campus is located 10 km from the Chennai Airport, 12 km from the Chennai Central Railway station
, and is well connected by buses.
Two parallel roads, Bonn Avenue and Delhi Avenue, cut through the faculty residential area shrouded under a canopy of green, before they meet at the Gajendra Circle, near the Administrative Block. Buses and electric mini buses ply between the gate, Gajendra Circle, the academic zone, and the hostels.
, 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.
Five other departments offer studies in:
The institute has 15 academic departments and advanced research centres across disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories. The academic calendar is organized 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 program of study are prepared by the Senate, the highest academic body within the institute.
(IIT-JEE). Admission to the five year integrated Master of Arts
(MA) programme is through the Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Examination (HSEE), an IIT Madras specific exam.
For the postgraduate curriculum, admission to the M.Tech programme is through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering
(GATE). The Joint Admission Test to M.Sc.
(JAM) is the entrance exam for the two year M.Sc. programme, and other post B.Sc. programmes. MBA
candidates are accepted through the Joint Management Entrance Test
(JMET).
. In India, among engineering colleges, it ranked 4 by India Today
, 5 by Outlook India, and 4 by Dataquest
. In the Mint
Government Colleges survey of 2009 it ranked 5.
Research programs 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 departmental 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.
The rigors of academic study at each level are balanced with co-curricular activities. Lectures on topics of academic relevance are held under the Extramural Lecture Series. Conferences, symposiums and workshops are organized by the faculty, attracting scholarly participation from around the world.
(MOUs) with foreign universities, resulting in cooperative projects and assignments.
National organisations sponsor programs of research by funding projects undertaken by the faculty. Such research is time bound and allows project participants to register for a degree. Project proposals are usually prepared by the IIT faculty and forwarded to interested organisations, based on the nature of their research and their interest to fund such projects.
Sponsored projects are often vehicles for new resources within departments, and often permit their project staff to register for academic degrees in the institute. All sponsored research activities at the institute are coordinated by ICSR.
The research park is adjacent to IIT Madras (within cycling distance) on an 11 acre campus. The facilities include 1600000 sq ft (148,644.9 m²) of office space with attendant services in three towers of 400000 sq ft (37,161.2 m²) each. Each floor plate of the 12 storey towers is about 36000 sq ft (3,344.5 m²) with the smallest office space module being around 3000 sq ft (278.7 m²). Other facilities include incubation modules, shops, cyber cafes, restaurants, food courts, guest rooms, conference facilities, exhibition space, terrace gardens and landscaped front and back yards.
is the annual technical festival of IIT Madras. It is typically held in the first week of October and is the first ISO 9001:2000 certified student festival in the world. It is known for its organization and activities. Forums include the symposia, workshops, video conferences, lectures, demonstrations, and technical exhibitions. Competitive activities cover design events, programming, simulations, quizzes, applied engineering, robotics, junkyard wars and contraptions.
is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and attracts a crowd of 100,000 students and young people from across the country, making it one of the largest such fests in India. Saarang events include speaking, dancing, thespian, quizzing and word games, professional shows (nicknamed proshows) and workshops on music, fashion, art, and dance. Saarang has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 certificate recently.
Saarang
, is the new name of the festival that was once called "Mardi Gras". It was changed in the early 1990s in effort to reflect the cultural and environmental roots of this festival.
The departments of Aerospace Engineering and Electrical Engineering organises events at the time of Shaastra
itself.
The hostels are named after the principal rivers of India and the campus buses used to be named after mountains, resulting in an epigram about IIT Madras that it is the only place where the mountains move and the rivers remain still.
The hostels of IITM are:
Sindhu, Pampa, Mahanadhi and Tamiraparani are seven-storeyed whereas all the other (older classic) hostels are three or four storeyed. The older hostels were all three-storeyed till the early 2000s when extra rooms in the form of an extra floor and rooms above the common room were added. These four hostels can accommodate more than 1,500 students. Construction activities have been undertaken in the three or four storeyed hostels to build new floor (in case of three storeyed hostels) and new block at the place of old mess halls. These new blocks will serve as entrances to the hostels once completed.
, the annual cultural festival, is held in winter. The technical festival of the institute is known as Shaastra
. The Open Air Theatre hosts the weekly movie, a Saturday night tradition, besides other activities. It seats over 7,000. The annual inter-hostel sports event is known as the Schroeter. Ganga Hostel has won Schroeter five times in a row, from 2006 to 2011.
Hobby clubs include the speaking club, the astro club, dramatics, music and robotics.
Two student bodies, the Vivekananda Study Circle (VSC) and Reflections
focus on spiritual discussions.
The campus has evolved a slang, attracting a published Master's thesis at a German University. A mix of English, Hindi, Telugu(Gult), Malayalam(Mallu) and Tamil(Tam), aspects of the campus slang have been adopted by some other Chennai colleges.
Unlike its sister institutions, IIT Madras lacks a single uniting Indian language among its students: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, English and Hindi all flourish. Consequently, all student participatory activities like debating, dramatics, short-film making, and others are held in English. This is even reflected in the slang that use more of English than Hindi, unlike in IITM's northern counterparts.
, ICICI
, Canara Bank
), a hospital, shopping centers, food shops, a gym, a swimming pool, cricket, football, hockey and badminton stadiums. Internet is available in the academic zone and the faculty and staff residential zone. Internet is available in the hostel zone from 2pm till midnight.
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
(formerly Madras) in southern India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. It is recognized as an Institute of National Importance
Institute of National Importance
An Institute of National Importance, in India is defined as one which serves as a pivotal player in developing highly skilled personnel within the specified region of the country/state. Institutes on the list are usually supported by the Government of India...
by the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
. Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the government of the former West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, it is third among the Indian Institutes of Technology
Indian Institutes of Technology
The Indian Institutes of Technology are a group of autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education. The IITs are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 which has declared them as “institutions of national importance”, and lays down their powers, duties,...
established by the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
through an Act of Parliament, to provide education and research facilities in engineering and technology.
IIT Madras is a residential institute that occupies a 2.5 km² (620 acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s) campus that was formerly part of the adjoining Guindy
Guindy
Guindy is one of the important neighbourhoods of Chennai , Tamil Nadu, India. It is located in the South-Western part of the city. It is the entry point or the gateway to Chennai city from the Southern parts of Tamil Nadu and the South Western suburbs of Chennai...
National Park. The institute has nearly 360 faculty, 6,000 students and 1,250 administrative and supporting staff. Growing ever since it obtained its charter from the Indian Parliament
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body in India. Founded in 1919, the Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all political bodies in India. The Parliament of India comprises the President and the two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha...
in 1961, Much of the campus is a protected forest, carved out of the Guindy National Park
Guindy National Park
Guindy National Park is a Protected area of Tamil Nadu, located in Chennai, South India, is the 8th smallest National Park of India and one of the very few national parks situated inside a city. The park is an extension of the grounds surrounding Raj Bhavan, formerly known as the 'Guindy Lodge',...
, home to chital
Chital
The chital or cheetal , also known as chital deer, spotted deer or axis deer is a deer which commonly inhabits wooded regions of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and in small numbers in Pakistan...
(spotted deer), black buck
Black Buck
For the mammal, see Blackbuck. For the RAF operation, see Operation Black Buck.In post-Reconstruction United States, Black Buck was a racial slur used to describe a certain type of African American men...
, and other wildlife. A natural lake, deepened in 1988 and 2003, drains most of its rainwater.
History
In 1956, the 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 GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and was at the time the largest educational project sponsored by the West German Government outside their country. 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
German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....
program and Humboldt Fellowships
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is a foundation set-up by the government of the Federal Republic and funded by the German Foreign Office, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and others for the promotion of international co-operation...
exist.
The institute was inaugurated in 1959 by Prof. Humayun Kabir
Humayun Kabir
Humayun Zahiruddin Amir-i Kabir or Humayun Kabir was an Indian educationist, politician, writer and philosopher.-Ancestry and early life:...
, the then Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. In 1961, the IITs were declared to be Institutions of National Importance that include the seven Institutes of Technology located at Kharagpur (established 1951), Mumbai (established 1958), Chennai (established 1959), Kanpur (established 1959), Delhi (established 1961), Guwahati (established 1994) and Roorkee (established 1847, upgraded to an IIT in 2001). IIT Madras celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 2009.
Campus
The main entrance of IIT Madras is on ChennaiChennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
's Sardar Patel Road, flanked by the residential districts of Adyar and Velachery
Velachery
-Geography:Velachery has mostly areas of hard rock, and a big marshland in the southern region of the area. It is said that this marshland was once a natural bird sanctuary. But nowadays, due to encroachment and rapid real estate development, the sanctuary has disappeared. Even today there is a big...
. The campus is close to the Raj Bhavan
Raj Bhavan (Tamil Nadu)
Raj Bhavans " is the official residence of the Governor of Tamil Nadu. It is located in the capital city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.-History:The earliest official residence of the Governors of Madras were in Fort St. George, the first one built in the 1640s on what is now the Parade Square...
, the official seat of the Governor of Tamilnadu. Other entrances are located in Velachery
Velachery
-Geography:Velachery has mostly areas of hard rock, and a big marshland in the southern region of the area. It is said that this marshland was once a natural bird sanctuary. But nowadays, due to encroachment and rapid real estate development, the sanctuary has disappeared. Even today there is a big...
(near Anna Garden MTC bus stop, Velachery Main Road), Gandhi Road (known as Krishna Hostel gate or Toll Gate) and Taramani gate(close to Ascendas Tech Park).
The campus is located 10 km from the Chennai Airport, 12 km from the Chennai Central Railway station
Chennai Central
Chennai Central , erstwhile Madras Central, is the main railway terminus in the city of Chennai . It is the home of the Southern Railway and the most important rail hub in South India. The other major railway hub stations in the city are Chennai Egmore and Tambaram...
, and is well connected by buses.
Two parallel roads, Bonn Avenue and Delhi Avenue, cut through the faculty residential area shrouded under a canopy of green, before they meet at the Gajendra Circle, near the Administrative Block. Buses and electric mini buses ply between the gate, Gajendra Circle, the academic zone, and the hostels.
Location in Context
Administration
The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is an autonomous statutory organization functioning within the Institute of Technology Act. The seven 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 IndiaGovernment of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic 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
M. S. Ananth
Madaboosi Santanam Ananth is an Indian academician who was appointed as Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in December 2001.-Biography:...
, 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.
Departments
IIT Madras has 11 engineering departments:- Aerospace EngineeringAerospace engineeringAerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
- Applied MechanicsApplied mechanicsApplied mechanics is a branch of the physical sciences and the practical application of mechanics. Applied mechanics examines the response of bodies or systems of bodies to external forces...
- BiotechnologyBiotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
- Chemical EngineeringChemical engineeringChemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...
- Civil EngineeringCivil engineeringCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
- Computer Science and Engineering
- Electrical EngineeringElectrical engineeringElectrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
- Engineering Design
- Mechanical EngineeringMechanical engineeringMechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
- Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
- Ocean EngineeringOcean engineeringOcean engineering is an ambiguously defined term that may refer to:*Oceanographic engineering, also called marine electronics engineering, concerned with the design of electronic devices for use in the marine environment, such as the remote sensing systems used by oceanographers*Offshore...
Five other departments offer studies in:
- ChemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
- MathematicsMathematicsMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
- PhysicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
- HumanitiesHumanitiesThe humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
and Social SciencesSocial sciencesSocial science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences... - Management Studies
Academics
IIT Madras offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees across 15 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 industrial consultancy.The institute has 15 academic departments and advanced research centres across disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories. The academic calendar is organized 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 program of study are prepared by the Senate, the highest academic body within the institute.
Admission tests
For the undergraduate curriculum, admission to the B.Tech programme is done through the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance ExaminationIndian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination
The Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Examination is an annual college entrance examination in India. It is used as a sole criterion for the Indian Institutes of Technology as well as other institutes.The exam is conducted by the various IITs by a policy of rotation...
(IIT-JEE). Admission to the five year integrated Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
(MA) programme is through the Humanities and Social Sciences Entrance Examination (HSEE), an IIT Madras specific exam.
For the postgraduate curriculum, admission to the M.Tech programme is through the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is an examination administered and conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of Technologies on behalf of the National Coordination Board – GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development ,...
(GATE). The Joint Admission Test to M.Sc.
Joint Admission Test to M.Sc.
The Joint Admission test for M.Sc. is an admission test to M.Sc. and other post-B.Sc. programs at the Indian Institutes of Technology . From the Academic Session 2004 - 2005, IITs have started conducting a Joint Admission test for M.Sc. The main objective of JAM is to provide admissions to various...
(JAM) is the entrance exam for the two year M.Sc. programme, and other post B.Sc. programmes. MBA
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
candidates are accepted through the Joint Management Entrance Test
Joint Management Entrance Test
Joint Management Entrance Test was an admission exam used by some institutes in India as the first step in the admission to postgraduate programs in management. Institutes which used the exams included Indian Institute of Science and the IIT Schools of Management. The results of JMET were used to...
(JMET).
Rankings
Internationally, IIT Madras was ranked 281 in the QS World University RankingsQS World University Rankings
The QS World University Rankings is a ranking of the world’s top 500 universities by Quacquarelli Symonds using a method that has published annually since 2004....
. In India, among engineering colleges, it ranked 4 by India Today
India Today
India Today is an Indian weekly news magazine published by Living Media India Limited, in publication since 1975 based in Mumbai. India Today is also the name of its sister-publication in Hindi...
, 5 by Outlook India, and 4 by Dataquest
Dataquest
Dataquest is India's oldest IT publication. A fortnightly, Dataquest is published by Cyber Media India Ltd, South Asia's largest specialty media group. The magazine targets senior IT managers in user organizations as well as the IT industry professionals in India.Dataquest has grown with the Indian...
. In the Mint
Mint (newspaper)
Mint is a business newspaper from HT Media Ltd, launched in collaboration with The Wall Street Journal on 1 February 2007. It is a premium business news publication aimed at decision makers and policy makers of the country and it is the first newspaper in India to be published in the Berliner...
Government Colleges survey of 2009 it ranked 5.
Academic research programs
The institute has departments and advanced research centres across the disciplines of engineering and the pure sciences, and nearly 100 laboratories.Research programs 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 departmental 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.
The rigors of academic study at each level are balanced with co-curricular activities. Lectures on topics of academic relevance are held under the Extramural Lecture Series. Conferences, symposiums and workshops are organized by the faculty, attracting scholarly participation from around the world.
Partnership with other universities
The institute maintains academic friendship with educational institutes around the world through faculty exchange programs. The institute has signed Memoranda Of UnderstandingMemorandum of understanding
A memorandum of understanding is a document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in...
(MOUs) with foreign universities, resulting in cooperative projects and assignments.
Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research
Through industrial consultancy, faculty and staff undertake assignments for industry that may include project design, testing and evaluation, or training in new areas of industrial development. Industries and organisations request the IIT faculty to undertake assignments channeled through the Center For Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR).National organisations sponsor programs of research by funding projects undertaken by the faculty. Such research is time bound and allows project participants to register for a degree. Project proposals are usually prepared by the IIT faculty and forwarded to interested organisations, based on the nature of their research and their interest to fund such projects.
Sponsored projects are often vehicles for new resources within departments, and often permit their project staff to register for academic degrees in the institute. All sponsored research activities at the institute are coordinated by ICSR.
IITM Research Park
The IIT Madras Research Park is modeled along the lines of research parks at Stanford and MIT. It focuses not just on incubation efforts but also on propelling innovation in established R&D focused companies. IIT Madras Research Park facilitates a collaborative relationship between tenants/clients and IIT Madras.The research park is adjacent to IIT Madras (within cycling distance) on an 11 acre campus. The facilities include 1600000 sq ft (148,644.9 m²) of office space with attendant services in three towers of 400000 sq ft (37,161.2 m²) each. Each floor plate of the 12 storey towers is about 36000 sq ft (3,344.5 m²) with the smallest office space module being around 3000 sq ft (278.7 m²). Other facilities include incubation modules, shops, cyber cafes, restaurants, food courts, guest rooms, conference facilities, exhibition space, terrace gardens and landscaped front and back yards.
Shaastra
ShaastraShaastra
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of Indian Institute of Technology Madras , Chennai, India. The Sanskrit word ‘Shaastra’ means science and the festival accordingly consists of various science and technology based competitions, symposia, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions,...
is the annual technical festival of IIT Madras. It is typically held in the first week of October and is the first ISO 9001:2000 certified student festival in the world. It is known for its organization and activities. Forums include the symposia, workshops, video conferences, lectures, demonstrations, and technical exhibitions. Competitive activities cover design events, programming, simulations, quizzes, applied engineering, robotics, junkyard wars and contraptions.
Saarang
SaarangSaarang
Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and is attended by around 50,000 students. Called Mardi Gras when it was started more than thirty years ago, the fest has gone on to become an integral part of...
is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and attracts a crowd of 100,000 students and young people from across the country, making it one of the largest such fests in India. Saarang events include speaking, dancing, thespian, quizzing and word games, professional shows (nicknamed proshows) and workshops on music, fashion, art, and dance. Saarang has been awarded ISO 9001:2008 certificate recently.
Saarang
Saarang
Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and is attended by around 50,000 students. Called Mardi Gras when it was started more than thirty years ago, the fest has gone on to become an integral part of...
, is the new name of the festival that was once called "Mardi Gras". It was changed in the early 1990s in effort to reflect the cultural and environmental roots of this festival.
Department festivals
Several departments organize department festivals. ExeBit, Wavez, Mechanica, CEA, Chemclave, Amalgam and Forays are some of the festivals organized by the Computer Science and Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and Maths departments respectively.| Fest name | Department |
|---|---|
| Exebit | Computer Science and Engineering |
| Amalgam | Metallurgical and Materials Engineering |
| CEA | Civil Engineering |
| Chemclave | Chemical Engineering |
| Forays | Mathematics |
| Mechanica | Mechanical Engineering |
| Wavez | Ocean Engineering |
| Samanvay | Management Studies |
The departments of Aerospace Engineering and Electrical Engineering organises events at the time of Shaastra
Shaastra
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of Indian Institute of Technology Madras , Chennai, India. The Sanskrit word ‘Shaastra’ means science and the festival accordingly consists of various science and technology based competitions, symposia, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions,...
itself.
Hostels
Most students at IIT Madras reside in the hostels, where extracurricular activities complement the academic routine. The campus has 18 hostels, of which three, Sharavati, Sarayu and the recently constructed Sarayu Extension (at the beginning of the Academic year 2011-'12 to accommodate more more girls students of various PG programmes) are exclusively for women. In earlier times each hostel had attached dining facilities but they have since closed down. Sharavati, Sarayu Extension and four seven-storeyed men's hostels do not have mess halls. Dining facilities are provided in two centralized halls dubbed 'Vindhya' and 'Himalaya'. The hostels may accommodate undergraduate and graduate students, though they tend to keep the two apart. Students are assigned to hostels at the time of admission, where they usually spend their entire stay at the Institute.The hostels are named after the principal rivers of India and the campus buses used to be named after mountains, resulting in an epigram about IIT Madras that it is the only place where the mountains move and the rivers remain still.
The hostels of IITM are:
- Brahmaputra (Brahms)
- Cauvery
- Krishna
- Ganga
- Tapti
- Godavari (Godav)
- Alaknanda (Alak)
- Jamuna (Jam)
- Saraswathi (Saras)
- Narmada (Narmad)
- Mandakini (Mandak)
- Sharavati (Sharav)
- Sarayu
- Sarayu Extension
- Sindhu
- Pampa
- Tamiraparani (Tambi)
- Mahanadhi
Sindhu, Pampa, Mahanadhi and Tamiraparani are seven-storeyed whereas all the other (older classic) hostels are three or four storeyed. The older hostels were all three-storeyed till the early 2000s when extra rooms in the form of an extra floor and rooms above the common room were added. These four hostels can accommodate more than 1,500 students. Construction activities have been undertaken in the three or four storeyed hostels to build new floor (in case of three storeyed hostels) and new block at the place of old mess halls. These new blocks will serve as entrances to the hostels once completed.
Extracurricular activities
SaarangSaarang
Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and is attended by around 50,000 students. Called Mardi Gras when it was started more than thirty years ago, the fest has gone on to become an integral part of...
, the annual cultural festival, is held in winter. The technical festival of the institute is known as Shaastra
Shaastra
Shaastra is the annual technical festival of Indian Institute of Technology Madras , Chennai, India. The Sanskrit word ‘Shaastra’ means science and the festival accordingly consists of various science and technology based competitions, symposia, lectures, video conferences, exhibitions,...
. The Open Air Theatre hosts the weekly movie, a Saturday night tradition, besides other activities. It seats over 7,000. The annual inter-hostel sports event is known as the Schroeter. Ganga Hostel has won Schroeter five times in a row, from 2006 to 2011.
Hobby clubs include the speaking club, the astro club, dramatics, music and robotics.
Two student bodies, the Vivekananda Study Circle (VSC) and Reflections
Reflections
Reflections may refer to:*Reflections, Lubbock Christian University's alumni publication*Reflections , a British drama film*Reflections , a Yugoslavian film*Reflections , a British documentary film...
focus on spiritual discussions.
The campus has evolved a slang, attracting a published Master's thesis at a German University. A mix of English, Hindi, Telugu(Gult), Malayalam(Mallu) and Tamil(Tam), aspects of the campus slang have been adopted by some other Chennai colleges.
Unlike its sister institutions, IIT Madras lacks a single uniting Indian language among its students: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, English and Hindi all flourish. Consequently, all student participatory activities like debating, dramatics, short-film making, and others are held in English. This is even reflected in the slang that use more of English than Hindi, unlike in IITM's northern counterparts.
Facilities
IIT Madras provides residential accommodation for its students, faculty, administrative and supporting staff, and their families. The residential houses employ private caterers. The self-contained campus includes two schools (Vanavani and Kendriya Vidyalaya), three temples (Jalakanteshwara, Durga Peliamman and Ganapathi temple), three bank branches,(SBISBI
The initialism SBI could mean:*Sound Business, Inc. a non-profit organization. College and Career Preparation for A. Philip Randolph Campus High School* SBI Group, a financial services company of Japan...
, ICICI
Ičići
Icici is a small place located in the north-east part of Istria, Croatia . It is located under a mountain Učka, on the north part of the Adriatic Sea....
, Canara Bank
Canara Bank
Canara Bank is a state-owned financial services company in India. It was established in 1906, making it one of the oldest banks in the country. As on 2009 November, the bank had a network of 3057 branches, spread across India...
), a hospital, shopping centers, food shops, a gym, a swimming pool, cricket, football, hockey and badminton stadiums. Internet is available in the academic zone and the faculty and staff residential zone. Internet is available in the hostel zone from 2pm till midnight.