IIT Director removes email from official site
By Neha Singhvi

The best and brightest among Indian students study at IIT, and many of its graduates can be credited for laying the foundation of our booming IT-ITES outsourcing sectors.  The first Indian Institute of Technology was launched in May, 1950 in Kharagpur. There are some rumblings of discontent at this prestigious institute.

Despite the world recovering from the global recession and Indian IT-ITES sectors ramping up recruitment, the hiring of IIT Kharagpur graduates has been slow.  Business Standard reports that around 135 companies have turned up so far and have recruited 730 students out of a total of 1,300 students who need to be placed this year.

A tipster tells Techgoss that there is more heart burn in the IIT system. They might be the best tech schools in India, but the Indian Institutes of Technology don’t seem too keen on technology themselves.

Sample this. Prof Damodar Acharya has been appointed the head of the committee that will look into reforms for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted by the IITs. Almost two months after he was appointed, the committee has not met once. Neither has it decided the terms of reference.

Beginning March 1, students and teachers concerned about the reform process began sending their feedback to Acharya (and to the members of his personal staff) through emails, which were available on IIT Kharagpur’s website.

One would assume that the director would welcome the feedback and consider them while formulating a reform policy.

But to everybody’s shock, three days later, IIT Kharagpur removed the email-ids of the Director and his personal staff so that no one could submit any feedback.

After letters were sent to the Central Information Commission, the directors of all the IITs and the board members, with a copy to the human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, the email ids were finally restored on March 13.

“The IITs are functioning in such as secret manner. There is no transparency in the working of the committee. The public has a right to know and participate in the reform process,” said an IIT Kharagpur professor on conditions of anonymity.

The professor, who has filed numerous Right To Information appeals, said the IITs must make the JEE transparent before the forth coming IIT-JEE 2010 in April.

Techgoss Note:  The IIT website gives the following background of Professor Acharya.

Professor Damodar Acharya received his Ph.D. (in 1975) and M.Tech. in IE & OR (in 1972) degrees from IIT, Kharagpur, and B.Sc. (Engineering) degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honours (in 1970) from NIT, Rourkela. Professor Acharya has about thirty three years of diversified experience - twenty eight years of teaching and research experience at IIT, Kharagpur, and five years of experience in academic administration as Vice-Chancellor, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, Rourkela, and Chairman, All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi. At IIT Kharagpur, he held several important positions, such as Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Chairman of JEE, Dean of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy, and Chairman of Vinod Gupta School of Management.

As an academician, Professor Acharya has the distinction of supervising more than thirty Ph.D. students, and publishing more than 85 papers in journals of repute. He is a consultant to many world-class companies, such as Tata Steel, General Motors, Hindustan Lever, and Tata Chemicals.

His areas of interest and research include Operations Research, Production Planning and Control, Supply Chain, and Maintenance Management. He is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering.