Indian Institute of Technology Madras

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is an elite engineering and technology school located in Chennai (formerly Madras) in southern India. It is officially recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India and is regarded as one of the finest engineering institutions in India. Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the Government of the erstwhile West Germany, IIT Madras was third among currently ten Indian Institutes of Technology (including 3 new IITs at Hyderabad, Patna and in Rajasthan) established by the Government of India through an Act of Parliament, to provide world-class education and research facilities in engineering and technology.

The IIT Madras is a residential institute located in 2.5 km² (620 acres) campus that was formerly part of adjoining Guindy National Park. IIT Madras has nearly 360 faculty, 4,000 students and 1,250 administrative & supporting staff. It has been growing ever since it obtained its charter from the Indian Parliament in 1961 and has established itself as a premier centre for teaching, research and industrial consultancy in the country.

The Institute has 15 academic departments and a few advanced research centres in various disciplines of engineering and pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories. The IITs are rated among the finest educational institutions in the world in terms of peer-ranking. Most of the campus is a protected forest, carved from Guindy National Park, and home to chital (spotted deer) and the black buck, amongst other wild life. There is a natural lake inside IITM, to where most of the rainwater inside IIT drains. This lake was deepened in the year 2003.

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 in Bonn, West Germany for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras was signed in 1959. IIT Madras was started with technical, academic and financial assistance from the Government of West Germany; and at the time was the largest educational project sponsored by the West German Government outside West Germany. This has led to several collaborative research efforts with universities and institutions in Germany over the years.[1] Although official support from the German government has ended, several research efforts involving the DAAD program and Humboldt Fellowships exist.

The Institute was formally 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. The IIT circuit spans seven Institutes of Technology located at Kharagpur (estb. 1951), Mumbai (estb. 1958), Chennai (estb. 1959), Kanpur (estb. 1959), Delhi (estb. 1961), Guwahati (estb. 1994) and Roorkee (estb. 1847, upgraded to an IIT in 2001). IIT Madras celebrates its golden jubilee this year.

Campus

The main entrance of IIT Madras is located on Chennai's Sardar Patel Road, and is flanked by the affluent residential districts of Adyar, and Velachery. The campus is close to the Raj Bhavan, the official seat of the Governor of Tamilnadu state. IIT Madras is recognized as a separate postal zone (PIN 600036). Despite IIT being a separate postal zone, the Chennai city corporation also treats the campus as a single plot belonging to the Central Government, and hence has assigned a Plot Number on Sardar Patel Road to the campus. There are secondary entrances for IIT Madras campus in Velachery (near Anna Garden MTC bus stop, Velachery Main Road), Gandhi Road (known as Krishna Hostel gate or Toll Gate) and Tharamani(behind Ascendas tech park).

The campus is located about 10 km from the Chennai Airport and 12 km from the Chennai Central Railway station and is well connected by buses.

Two parallel roads, Bonn Avenue and Delhi avenue, lead through the residential zone for the faculty, under a canopy of green, to the Gajendra Circle (otherwise called GC) and the administrative block. Buses ply between the gate and other locations on campus at regular intervals. Named after mountains, the IITM buses and electric mini buses ply to and from the GC, academic zone and hostels. The administration stopped charging bus fare from March 1, 2008.
Academics
IIT Madras offers undergraduate, postgraduate and research degrees in 15 disciplines in Engineering, Sciences, Humanities and Management. Around 360 faculty belonging to various science and engineering departments and centres of the Institute are engaged in teaching, research and industrial consultancy.

The academic calendar is organized on semester programs. Each semester provides for a minimum of seventy instructional days. The medium of instruction is 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 in respect of the academic program of study are prepared by the senate, the highest academic body within the Institute.

Undergraduate academics

Admission to Undergraduate Curriculum

JEE: The Joint Entrance Examination to the IITs is conducted every year and forms the basis of admission to the undergraduate programs. It is considered an extremely competitive exam.

HSEE: IIT Madras offers a unique and innovative Five Year Integrated Masters Programme, leading to M.A. degrees in 3 disciplines, viz., Development Studies, Economics, and English Studies.

Graduate academics

* Admission to Graduate Curriculum

GATE: The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is the entrance exam used to govern admission to post graduate engineering programs at the IITs.

JAM: The Joint Admission to M.Sc. is the entrance exam used to govern admission to post graduate science programs at the IITs.

Management programme

* Admission to MBA Curriculum

JMET: The Joint Management Entrance Test is the entrance exam used to govern admission to the MBA programme at the IITs. It is followed by a group task & Personal Interview.

Credit system

As with the other IITs, IITM follows a credit system for evaluating academic performance. The GPA is on a scale of 0 to 10. Each course carries a certain number of credits (usually ranging from 1 to 4) and the following letter grades are awarded for each course:

Letter Grade	S	A	B	C	D	E	U	W
Grade Points	10	9	8	7	6	4	0	0

The GPA is computed as the cumulative credit-weighted average of the grade points:

$CGPA \,\! = {\sum_{i=1}^N C_i . {GP}_i \over \sum_{i=1}^N C_i}$

where:

$N$ is the number of courses,
$C i$ is credits for the $i t h$ course,
$G P i$ is grade points for the $i t h$ course, and,
$C G P A$ is the cumulative grade point average.

Presently, for courses in which a student got a failing grade and subsequently a passing grade, the failing grades are not used in computation of $C G P A$ ; these failing grades are also removed from the transcript and replaced by a footnote indicating the number of attemtps made to obtain the passing grade.

Other academic activities

Academic research programs

The Institute has several departments and advanced research centres in various disciplines of engineering and the pure sciences, with nearly 100 laboratories organised on a unique pattern of functioning. A faculty of international repute, a brilliant student community, excellent technical and supporting staff and an effective administration have all contributed to the pre-eminent status of IIT Madras.

These relate to research work undertaken by individual faculty or specific research groups in each departmnent running academic programmes leading to M.S or Ph. D degree. Research is carried out by scholars admitted to the programmes of study by research under the guidance of the faculty in each department.

Areas of interest for each department is made known to the academic community through handbooks, brochures and bulletins. Topics of interest include both the theoretical and experimental aspects. IIT Madras has initiated the following 16 inter-disciplinary research projects under the identified thrust areas.

The rigors of academic study at each level are balanced with a number of other related activities which include co-curricular activities. Special lectures on diverse topics of academic relevance are held under the Extra Mural Lecture series. A number of conferences, symposia and workshops are organized by the faculty which attract participation from scholars all over the world.

Partnership with other universities