IIT SNIPPETS

The recent approval of the cabinet committee for granting the status of IIT to IT-BHU under the XI five-year plan may have given the much needed push to the long pending demand of the university authorities and students, but senior IT-officials feel there are a number of steps to be cleared before the long cherished dream gets to see the light of day.
While the decision of the cabinet committee has already cheered the IT-BHU fraternity, top officials also believe that the move has definitely pushed one of the oldest engineering institutes in the country closer to the IIT status.
The recent cabinet committee meeting in New Delhi has sanctioned special grant of Rs 422 crore for IT-BHU, apart from Rs 3132 crore for other institutes under the XI five-year plan.
All eyes are now on the Parliament session where the bill would be tabled for discussion with amendment in the IIT Act, 1961. Once it gets clearance from both Houses of the Parliament, the proposal would really get to see the light of the day, IT-BHU officials sources said, informing about the steps to be cleared for the much deserved IIT status for the institute.
It is also worth mentioning that IT-BHU is one of the oldest engineering institutes in the country with some of its departments, including mining, metallurgy, ceramic and pharmaceutics, being the firsts to be started in the country.



IISc proposes to offer admission to 110 students in its new under-graduate Bachelor of Science (BS) course that is set to begin from August 1, 2011.
Of this, seats will be allotted to general and special categories as per government regulations. IISc officials said existing national-level entrance examinations such as KVPY, IIT-JEE and AIEEE will be considered for admission to the BS course. The institute is also considering ways to ensure that rural and women candidates are well represented.
The under-graduate programme is open to class XII students with physics, chemistry and mathematics as main subjects.
A formal notification for applications will be issued in December and applications will be received between January 1 and March 31, 2011. The first set of admission offers will be made to KVPY candidates in April 2011. The next set will be announced during the first week of June 2011. Counselling of students will be conducted during the third week of June. Classes will commence from August 1, 2010.
The four year under-graduate course has been designed for specialization in six streams - physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, materials and environmental science.
In the first one and a half years, core courses in physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, humanities and

engineering are offered. Specialization will be offered in the following one and a half years when students will be free to choose courses from electives and other areas. The programme culminates in the fourth year with a research project under the supervision of an IISc faculty.

IITs to offer MBBS,
have foreign faculty, students







Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) across the country will soon introduce new courses in medicine and even enroll foreign students as well as recruit foreign faculties at the post graduate level. The government will seek the approval of the Medical Council of India (MCI) for the course. The IIT council meeting decided to carry out appropriate amendment in the Institute of Technologies Act to enable the IITs to offer the medicine programme. The IIT council Will make sure that the clearances from Medical Council of India are taken  to comply with the instructions leading to a degree relating to any branch of medicine. The council has also decided to enable IITs to recruit foreign faculties, which should not be more than 10 per cent of the total faculty strength. A mechanism will be set up with the help of the Home Ministry to ensure that there is no hiccup in the process and there is easy exit and entry of people.