Chronicles of KGP: Reveling the past

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur was the first IIT founded in 1951, by India’s first prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–64). At his behest, under the auspices of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) stepped forward, heading a consortium of 13 international universities, that also included the University of Manchester in England, to help establish the first IIT in Kharagpur, India.

Classes began in August 1951, in an old building located on a campus of 1800 (now 2100) acres donated by the Government of West Bengal, in Hijli, 5 kilometers south of Kharagpur, which had served as a Military/Air Force Base during WW II. In the first Class, there were just 42 teachers and 224 students, with 10 departments. Pandit Nehru laid the foundation stone in March 1952, for the new handsome building, with its majestic tower, designed by the eminent Swiss architect, Dr. Werner M. Moser that began functioning in 1955. At the inaugural convocation of IIT Kharagpur on April 21, 1956, Prime Minister Nehru presided over the conferring of the first-ever IIT-Engineering degrees upon the graduating class of 1955. In that Class was Jogendra Singh, the future founder of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Alumni Association. On September 15, 1956 the Parliament of India passed the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it an Institute of National Importance.

For the first seven years, there was only one IIT, until IIT Bombay was founded in 1958, with assistance from Russia (then part of the USSR); IIT Madras in 1959 (German assistance); IIT Kanpur in 1960 (American assistance); and IIT Delhi in 1961 (British assistance). They all used the template provided by IIT Kharagpur, under the guidance of the distinguished 22-member N. R. Sarkar Committee, and directly funded by University Grants Commission (UGC), an agency of the Government of India.

The IITs receive comparatively higher grants than other engineering colleges in India. They are still approximately 80% subsidized by the MHRD (Ministry of Human Resources and Development), which has replaced the UGC. The remaining 20% is made up of student fees, research funding from industry and contributions from the alumni. They have a relatively high faculty-to-student ratio of about 1:12, which makes for an exceptionally strong teacher-student bond and greater contact time. This ratio, even when compared to the very best universities in the world, like Harvard, Oxford, MIT, Cambridge and Caltech is exceptionally high and probably accounts for the strength and excellence of IIT graduates, together with the fact that all student selection is only through the JEE (Joint Entrance Exam). Recently, it has been split into two parts: students must first pass the ‘JEE-Main’, to be able to sit for the ‘JEE-Advanced’, from which the final cut is made. In the case of M.Tech. and Ph.D. students, they also have to pass the GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering), before they are admitted to graduate programs.

As per the Thacker Committee Report of 1959–61, all M.Tech. Students and Research Scholars are provided with scholarships. The medium of instruction in all IITs is English. The Electronic Library in each IIT allows students to access on-line journals and periodicals. There are also free on-line videos of actual lectures of different disciplines under the National Program of Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL). This initiative has been undertaken to make quality education accessible to all students.

The IITs soon established themselves as India’s premier educational institutions, providing engineers and other applied scientists to man India’s budding industrial sectors, such as steel, fertilizers and chemicals, aerospace, shipbuilding, electronics, computers, information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, telecommunications, etc.

The IIT’s also quickly attained international recognition for the excellence of their graduates, many of whom sought higher degrees in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, Russia, Japan, and now even in China. For the year 2006, the ‘Times’ of London, U.K., in its Higher Educational Supplement, ranked the then 7 IITs (which by now included IIT-Guwahati and IIT-Roorkee) grouped together as a single entity, as #3 in the world in Technology, just after #1 MIT, and #2 Berkeley, but ahead of # 4 Stanford University. Since then, the Times has been ranking the IITs separately, and unfortunately they no longer rank very high individually. In addition, their main shortcoming is in ‘Research’ which requires a great deal of funding, that as yet the Indian Government/Industry/Alumni cannot supply.

Around 2006, the American TV Network, CBS, in their Documentary ’60 Minutes’ did a segment on the IIT, with the veteran correspondent Leslie Stahl saying: “If you were to put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, you would begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India.” On July 22, 2011 Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail reported in an article entitled Folio, Making the Grade, Pgs. A 8–9: “The IITs are 16 separate engineering colleges spread across India which, taken together, are perhaps the most elite educational institutions in the world. More than 500,000 students wrote the entrance exam this year. Just 8,000 were admitted. This is an acceptance ratio of less than 2%, lower than that of, for example, Harvard University or Oxford. An IIT degree is a passport to wealth and respect …”

IIT Kharagpur being the first IIT, has many firsts to its credit. It is still the largest IIT with nearly 10,000 students and every year confers around 3,000 degrees of which about 2,000 are postgraduate degrees. Recently it has inaugurated the Vinod Gupta School of Management which awards the MBA; the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property, the LLB; the Rajinder Misra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship; and the B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research, which awards the MMST (Master of Medical Science & Technology), in addition to its customary degrees of B.Tech., M.Tech, M.Arch., M.Sc., M.S., Ph.D. and D.Sc.

In India some of the famous IIT alumni are the billionaires Narayan Murthy (IITK, MTech’69) who received the Padma Vibushan in 2008 & Nandan Nilekani (IITB,’76), who co-founded Infosys; the billionaires Shiv Nader (IIT-Kgp, MTech’78) & Arjun Malhotra (IIT-Kgp,’70), who co-founded Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL). Others include Gopal Gopalakrishnan, who lived with me in the Vidyasagar Hall of Residence, IIT Kharagpur. He graduated in 1967, winning the President of India’s Gold Medal for being the best engineering student, then spent 31 years at Hindustan Levers, rising to the position of Vice Chairman. Later, he joined Tata Sons, where he recently retired as a Vice President. Debnarayan Bhattacharyya, my chemical engineering classmate, went on to become, in 2012, the Managing Director of Hindalco which is the largest division of the Birla Group, which is itself the third largest corporation in India after Tatas & Reliance.

In the United States, according to a recent study done by Duke University, 25% of Technology start-ups in Silicon Valley during the past 10 years have had an IIT alumnus as one of its founders. Even the U.S. Congress has recognised the contributions of IIT alumni to U.S. industry in developing new technologies and creating tens of thousands of new jobs. Notable IIT alumni in the U.S. include Victor Menezes (IIT-B ’70), former CEO of Citi Group (1998–2005); Vinod Khosla (IIT-D ’76) a Venture Capitalist; Prof. Subra Suresh (IIT-M ’77), who became Dean of Engineering at MIT in 2010; Prof. Pradip Khosla (IIT-Kgp ’80), who became Chancellor of the Univ. of California at San Diego in 2012; Padmasree Warrior (IIT-D ’82), who became Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems in 2007; Sundar Pichai (IIT-Kgp ’77) who became CEO of Google in August 2015; and Dr. Rakesh Jain, a chemical engineer (IIT-Kgp ’72) who received the National Medal for Science from President Barack Obama in January 2016.

In the U.K., Prof. S. K. Bhattacharyya (IIT-Kgp ’60; FINAE, FREng, FRS, was raised to the peerage as a Lord in 2004, by Queen Elizabeth II, and Arun Sarin (IIT-Kgp’75), who founded AirTouch in the U.S., later became the President of Vodafone in London, England and received an honorary knighthood at Buckingham Palace in March 2010.

In Canada, some of the IIT alumni who have distinguished themselves are: Dr. Joseph Kurian (PhD’57, IIT-Kgp) who is President of Alpha Labs, a large diversified pharmaceutical company; Ranjit Dhar (IIT-Kgp ’58), who served as the President of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada in 2009–10; Dr. R. Mohan Mathur (IIT-Kgp’60), an academic who became a Vice President at OPG; and billionaire Prem Watsa (IIT-M ’71), who is the Chairman of Fairfax Financial Holdings & Chancellor of the University of Waterloo since 2011. Indeed, IIT graduates have excelled wherever they live and continue to contribute vigorously to the global economy in all fields of human endeavour, including the social and political.

Indian Institutes of Technology Alumni Canada (IITAC)

As previously mentioned, Jogendra Singh (IIT-Kgp’55), saw the necessity for an organization to serve the needs of the IIT alumni in Canada, and had the vision to set up the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Alumni Association (IITKAA) in Toronto in 1979. Very soon alumni from the other IITs began attending IITKAA’s events and, in 1996 it blossomed out into the Indian Institutes of Technology Alumni Canada (IITAC).

In the early days of IITKAA, Jogendra Singh always had at least 2 events per year: a dinner in the spring and a picnic in the summer in parks in or around Toronto. Later, this was expanded by IITAC’s Board to having lectures and seminars in the fall which could assist IITians in their professional careers, especially those who had newly arrived in Canada. Another initiative of IITAC has been IFI (IITians For IITians), wherein the older more experienced members, act as mentors to their recently arrived colleagues. There is also a popular cultural program especially for the children of members.

In 2004, a formal constitution for IITAC was adopted after much deliberation, discussion and debate. Shortly thereafter, IITAC was incorporated as a ‘not-for-profit’ corporation in Canada. In June 2006, IITAC hosted the North American Regional Conference in the Pan-IIT system with over 450 attendees, many of whom came from the USA; and in June 2014, it also hosted the Pan-IIT Conference, attended by over 1000 business professionals, technocrats, innovators, entrepreneurs and government officials from Canada, USA, India and other countries.

The theme of the Conference was: ‘Innovate, Integrate and Transform — Let’s Co-Create our Future’. The Chief Guest of Honour was His Excellency the Rt. Hon. David Johnston, Governor General of Canada. Another distinguished guest who addressed the conference was Admiral (Retd.) Nirmal Verma, the High Commissioner of India to Canada. Other prominent speakers were Prem Watsa, CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings and Chancellor of the University of Waterloo; and PEO President, David Adams, who extolled the excellence of IIT graduates and their contributions to society. (Please see ‘Engineering Dimensions’ (Ontario), P. 22–23, Sep-Oct 2014.)

At the Conference, IITAC conferred five IITians with its Distinguished Alumnus Award (DAA) for 2014:

1. R. Mohan Mathur, IIT Kharagpur, EE ‘60,Academician & OPG Executive, London, ON.

2. Anand Agarwal, IIT Delhi, ME ’67, CEO of Manor Park Property Corp, Ottawa, ON.

3. Asim Ghosh, IIT Delhi, EE ’69, CEO of Husky Energy, Calgary, AB.

4. Prem Watsa, IIT Madras, ChE ’70, CEO of Fairfax Holdings, Waterloo, ON.

5. Vasu Chanchlani, IIT Kanpur, M.Tech. in Ind. E ’77, CEO of Sigma Group Ottawa, ON.

ITAC has also awarded several Lifetime Achievement Awards (LAA) as well as Young Achievers Awards. Below, I have listed a few of the LAA awardees:

1. Jogendra Singh, IIT-Kgp, EE 1955 (IITAC President 1979–93); received award in Nov 2012.
2. Bill Thompson, IIT-Kgp, ME 1957 (IITAC President 1996–98); received award in Nov 2013.
3. Utpal Banerjee, IIT-Kgp, ChE 1968 (IITAC V.P. for several years); received award in Nov 2015.

On October 1, 2016, IITAC held a One-Day International Conference at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel in Richmond Hill, Ontario, entitled: ‘Towards a Sustainable and Prosperous Future’ with the focus being on Technology, Health and the Environment. About 250 people attended the Conference, which was followed by a Gala dinner for 400 people. The Chief Guest was Dinesh Bhatia, Consul General of India in Toronto. Other distinguished guests included the Hon. Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s Minister of Science, the Directors of IIT Hyderabad, Prof. Uday Desai and of IIT Mandi, Prof. Timothy Gonsalves, as well as John Stackhouse, the Senior Vice President of the Royal Bank of Canada.

I, myself, served on the IITKAA-IITAC Board of Directors from 1989–97, being the General Secretary for the period 1993–95.

I have been called IITAC’s Historian by its founding president, Jogendra Singh (1979–93).

By: Derek Michael Francis Subash Prabhu D’Costa

SJEHS’63, IIT-Kgp’69, P.Eng.’76, O.E.’80, MRCIS’91, O.S.’01, FEC’09, OVSA’10, WTPEO’16

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S2T9. Telephone: 416.961.7454

Key to Abbreviations/Appellations:

1. SJEHS: St. Joseph’s European High School Bangalore, India (Sr. Cambridge Exam, First Division, Dec. 1963)
2. IIT-Kgp: IIT Kharagpur, First Class B.Tech. (Hons.) Degree in Chemical Engineering, 1969.
3. P.Eng.: Professional Engineer, Licensed by Professional Engineers Ontario, on January 29, 1976, after passing four Confirmatory Exams in April 1974 & April 1975. I have been continuously licensed as a P.Eng. in Canada for the past 40 years.

4. O.E.: Obligated Engineer (The Canadian Engineer’s Iron Ring, which I received at the University of Toronto, on March 12, 1980, from the Warden of Camp 1).

5. MRCIS: Member of the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, since 1991.

6. O.S.: “Outstanding Scientist of the 21st Century”, a distinction given to me by the International Biographical Centre, England, UK, in January 2001.

7. FEC: Fellow of Engineers Canada, an honour bestowed on me by Engineers Canada for my ‘Exceptional Contributions to the Engineering Profession in Canada’ on November 1, 2009.

8. OVSA: Ontario Volunteer Service Award, presented to me by the Hon. Eric Hoskins, M.D., Ontario Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for my 15 years of Volunteer Service with the Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), on June 17, 2010.

9. WTPEO: Executive Member of the West Toronto Chapter of the PEO, and of the GLP (Government Liaison Program) Committee. Also serve as a Mentor to young engineers aspiring to become P.Engs.

~
Derek M. D’Costa; IIT-Kgp’69, P.Eng.’76, FEC’09, OVSA’10