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Interesting facts about IITs
IITs were set up on the basis of an interim report. The Sarkar committee(a 22-member committee headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar) never submitted a final report. The AICTE decided to accept the interim report and operate on its basis. The IIT Act was passed by Parliament only in 1961. By that time, five IITs had been set up and were fully functional.
- The ‘first IITian’ was J. K. Chandra of DLF Universal. At the first convocation of IIT Kharagpur in 1956, Civil Engineering students were called up before any other department to receive their degrees. Chandra had topped Civil Engineeringg so he received his degree before anyone else. The number printed in his degree certificate is 1.
- IITs did not have an entrance exam when they were first set up. Students were admitted on the basis of their academic record and interview. The first batch of IIT students consisted entirely of boys who had been among the top ten rankers in their universities.
- IIT Kanpur was set up under the Kanpur Indo-American Programme, which was a consortium of nine American univesities, including MIT, Cornell, Columbia, CalTech and Case Western.
- IIT Kanpur also has its own airstrip for the Aeronautical Engineering students.
- The 1975 batch of IIT Bombay started ‘Mood Indigo’ in the year 1971, which is claimed to be Asia’s largest cultural festival. The very first MI took place in 1973. 1981 saw the popular duo of R. D. Burman and Asha Bhosle perform at MI. The 1991 MI was supposed to happen in December but was postponed to January due to the Ayodhya incident. In January, the Bombay riots took place. Finally, it happened in March just one week after the Bombay blasts. Also CloseUp and Colgate were the main sponsors. “It was like Coke and Pepsi sponsoring an event together”.
- Mood Indigo’s ’97 budget was 24 Lakhs, bigger than any Bombay fest.
- In 1991, Vinod Gupta became the first IITian to donate money to his alma mater. He set up a $2 Million trust to create the Vinod Gupta School of Management on the Kharagpur campus.
- It was only in 1981 that the very first woman metallurgist in Indian history graduated from IIT. The same year, IIT Bombay admitted a girl for the first time in Mechanical Engineering. (From the book Monastery, Sanctuary, Laboratory: 50 Years of IIT-Bombay byRohit Manchanda)
- Another instance of Alumni generosity is the contribution of Kanwal Rekhi and Nandan Nilekani( approx. about Rs 30 Crore) of IIT-B which led to the setting up of a new academic unit on non-governmental money, The Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, KRESIT. Nilekani insisted that academic units in IIT-B not be named after him.
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