NDIAN Institute of Technology (IIT) rules the mind of this years toppers. While some students, who have appeared for IIT-JEE ( entrance test for the IITs), are lured by IITs magnetic repute, for others the big fat salaries matter. However, State topper Vidita Khatri from Valsad has different plans. She wants to be a doctor like her parents.

Meanwhile dreaming of IIT, Chirag Thaker, who ranked sixth in state, says,I have already appeared for the entrance exams for IITs and hope to get atleast 70 percent. The IITs are the best when it comes to Engineering.

Eighth in state, student of Udgam School Soumya Misra, puts it, The competition to get into IITs makes you perform much better in your studies. The faculty and placement that the student gets at the IITs is also good.

More : cities.expressindia.com

Ten months after the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, laid the foundation stone for the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata, the institute yesterday received more than 200 acres from the state government for setting up its permanent campus at Haringhata here.

In a formal ceremony, the Nadia district magistrate, Mr Onkar Singh Meena, on behalf of the state government handed over 201.65 acres in Haringhata mouza to the institutes director, Professor Sushanta Dattagupta, in exchange of Re 1 as token money.

Prof Dattagupta said at the ceremony that the permanent campus had been proposed at Haringhata after detailed survey and discussion with officials of the higher education, animal resource development and land and land reforms departments of West Bengal. I hope the campus can be started from next year, he said.

More : .thestatesman.net/p

The Indian Institute of Technology- Madras will create a centre of excellence to train off-highway design engineers, with financial assistance from a US company.

The centre will be called Caterpillar Centre of Excellence for off-highway engineering and would come under the Department of Engineering Design, IIT.

Caterpillar Inc’s President (Asia Pacific Operations) Rich Lavin handed over a cheque for $2.5 lakh to IIT-M Director M S Ananth.

More : http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200705120340.htm

Delhi University has decided to scrap entrance tests in colleges for admission to English (Honours) course for the 2007-08 academic session.

Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental today said: There are too many tests for students. There are already the Board examinations, and I think colleges conducting entrance test for English is taking it too far. The argument that tests assess the aptitude of a student may be valid but if such tests continue, they may trigger separate entrance tests for admission in other courses.

Stressing that the tests can be written off for good, he said, I dont think I am going to change my mind on this.

More : cities.expressindia.com

BJD and BJP MPs of Orissa staged a protest at the main gate of Parliament House today demanding establishment of an IIT in the state and denouncing the apathetic attitude of the HRD ministry.

Orissa does not have any institute of national repute ~ that is ~ IIT, IIM IIIT or ISI (Indian Statistical Institute), they said.

Yesterday, the demand of these MPs had been rejected by the minister in Parliament and they had staged a walkout after raising the issue through call attention notices.
Orissa is on the path of rapid industrialisation and an IIT would go a long way to help in its economic development by producing highly qualified technical and managerial personnel and also provide the much-needed research and development support, said the protesting MPs.

More : thestatesman.net

Standing up for Orissas demand for an Indian Institute of Technology, the BJP-led NDA members staged a walkout on the issue in the Lok Sabha as the Government said there were no plans for setting up the technical institute in the state.

The walkout took place after the matter was raised in a calling attention motion in the afternoon session on Tuesday, where BJD and BJP members among them B K Tripathy, B Mahtab, K Swain, Prasanna Acharya and Dharmendra Pradhan pointed out that despite a demand for the institute in Orissa, an IIT had not been set up.

The agitated Opposition members even warned that with its coal and iron ore deposits, Orissa could disrupt power supply to other states, but people in the state believed in cooperation.

More : indianexpress.com

The wait for more IIT -level engineering colleges is set to get longer. For the time being at least, the ministry of human resource developments plan of upgrading five engineering colleges may have been stymied by the state governments.

These institutes, to be known as Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), are existing engineering colleges which the Centre will fund and upgrade to the same level as the IITs. West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have objected to the Centres proposal to take over the institutes.

The institutions being considered for upgradation are University College of Engineering combined with University College of Technology, Osmania University, Bengal Engineering College, Andhra University College of Engineering and Cochin University of Science and Technology as Indian Institutes of Engineering Sciences and Technology Jadavpur Universitys engineering and technology departments.

More : economictimes.indiatimes.com/