The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) IIT Kharagpur and the Science and heritage initiative (SandHI) Phase II Project Outreach & Dissemination are jointly proud to have their presence in the forthcoming 44th International Book fair at Central Park Mela Ground, Salt Lake City, Kolkata from January 29, 2020 till February 09, 2020.
The stalls for NDLI & SandHI IIT Kharagpur are 291 and 253, respectively.

Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Professor, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and currently the Dean (Planning & Coordination) has been appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India as the Director, National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai

Prof. Mahitosh Mandal, Professor, School of Medical Science and Technology has been elected as a Fellow of Royal Society of Biology's Council (FRSB).

Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Professor, Department of Industrial System Engineering and currently the Dean (Planning & Coordination) has been inducted as Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India.

Prof. Somnath Bhattacharyya, Professor and Head, Department of Mathematics has been inducted as Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India.

Dr. Atul Jain, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering judged 1st (Individual Category) for the challenge area "Joints in Composite Structure" in the Dare to Dream DRDO Innovation Contest.

Dr. Sandip Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering has been selected for the INAE Young Engineer Award 2019 by the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Mahitosh Mandal, Professor, School of Medical Science and Technology has been awarded Basanti Devi Amir Chand Prize by Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi for 2018.

Prof. Mahitosh Mandal, Professor, School of Medical Science and Technology has been selected for the J. C. Bose Fellowship of Science & Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.
 

Dr. Puneet Kumar Patra, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering has been awarded the INSA Medal for Young Scientists for 2019 as the highest recognition of promise, creativity and excellence as evidenced by research work carried out in India.

Prof. Chandan Chakraborty, Department of Electrical Engineering has been selected for the IEEE Bimal Bose Award.

Prof. Chandan Chakraborty, Department of Electrical Engineering has been appointed as founding Editor in Chief of IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Industrial Electronics until the end of 2022.
 

RS Arpan R. Paul RS Vidhu Bansal, RS Deepanjan Saha, and RS Amarjeet Kumar of the Department of Architecture & Regional Planning - IIT Kharagpur and RS Md Saddam, RS Sunny Bansal RS Kuldeep Kavta and RS Shivangi Singh Parmar of RCG School of Infrastructure Design & Management, IIT Kharagpur for attending, and presenting the FINAL REVIEW SEMINARS on Smart India: PROJECT VARANASI at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA (April 22 - 23 2019). The event is supported by Georgia INDO-US CHAMBER OF COMMERSE USA. Great contributions by Dr. Arkopal Goswami of Ranbir & Chitra Gupta School of SIDM and Dr. Saikat Paul of ARP, IIT Kharagpur.

The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning (ARP), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has been re-awarded the National institutional ranking Framework (NIRF) # 1 and earmarked as the top Architecture Institute in the country. The department conveys its gratitude to its pool of distinguished Alumnus around the world, and its brigade of great faculty, staff, scholars and students. ARP is once again proud to make IIT Kharagpur prouder.

Prof. Mrityunjoy Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering has been selected as Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) Chair Professor for two years w.e.f 1st April 2019.

Professor Sirshendu De, Department of Chemical Engineering has been selected for NRDC National Societal Innovation Award - 2018, for his invention “Low Cost Arsenic Removal Filter for Drinking Water”.

Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick, Professor of Eminence, Rubber Technology Center has been selected for the 2019 Fred E. Schwab International Education Award of the Society of Plastics Engineers, USA.

Prof. Bhowmick is the first person working in Asia to have been selected for this award

Prof. Sudip Misra, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering has been selected for the conferment of "Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship" by INAE.

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY OF INDIA in association with THE SCIENCE & HERITAGE INITIATIVE, IIT KHARAGPUR presents an OUTREACH & DISSEMINATION STALL
At
43th Kolkata International Book Fair, Central Park, Salt Lake (Bidhannagar) Kolkata
January 31, 2019 to February 11, 2019
 

The National Digital Library of India (NDLI: https://www.ndl.gov.in/) is an
integration platform for schools, colleges, universities, teachers,
students, lecturers, differentially abled pupils and anybody who has a
willingness to learn. We hope to facilitate e-learning for students everywhere with the help of technologically enhanced learning design and the support of Digital India. Over the past two years, NDLI has traversed the length and breadth of the country to educate, enable and empower schools, colleges, public libraries and various other institutions in every state with the necessary infrastructure to digitize as well as access and browse the library whilst parallely generating a whooping 2crore content base in 60+ formats from premier institutions as well as collections across the world.

The library today contains e-books, videos, audio-books, tutorials,
question-papers and most other formats that learners of all ages can access
anytime, and from anywhere. This online library is building up to become a
treasure-trove of India's literature, research, culture and well as
knowledge repositories in almost all subjects and across the entire
proficiency spectrum. To this end, NDLI is actively seeking to digitize India's knowledge heritage
across multiple sectors to make it available to the world.

The Kolkata Book Fair being an amalgamation of readers, learners, publishers and knowledge
enthusiasts was hence a perfect fit with the NDLI mission. We hope to reach
out to publishers with our digitization efforts and readers of all ages with
our treasury of content to come together and create a beautiful, symbiotic,
immersive environment where everyone involved can learn, share and grow. The association with The Science & Heritage initiative of IIT Kharagpur is an effort to jointly present the outreach and dissemination activity and the effort shall definitely go a long way create sustained, meaningful and deep impacts on the society as a whole.

Setting up of THE ACADEMY OF CLASSICAL & FOLK ARTS    -  at IIT Kharagpur
 
An International Symposium on “Creativity and Freedom”, will be held on February 06, 2019 at The India International Center (IIC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi. The symposium will earmark a Curtain raiser program for the launching of THE ACADEMY OF CLASSICAL & FOLK ARTS ARTS at IIT Kharagpur.
The Academy has been planned as an extended part of The Science and Heritage initiative (SandHI), IIT Kharagpur and initiated by the major Alumni funding, IIT Kharagpur. The Academy, in addition to the key/ ambit collaboration with SHRUTINANDAN, shall have other important collaborations with a) The National Museum Institute, Delhi; b) Indira Gandhi National Center of Arts (IGNCA), Delhi; c) National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi; d) Sangeet Natak Academy, under the Ministry of Culture, GoI; d) Government school of Arts, Indian Museum, Kolkata; e) Kala Bhawan, BHU through IIT (BHU) and other international Institutes like MITHAS (MIT-Cambridge’s Heritage of the Art of South Asia); City Art Council, Japan under Kyoto University, Japan; International Association of Art History (CIHA) in China and Japan; Germanisches National Museum, Numberg; Department of Cultural History and Museum Studies, Danube University, Krems, Austria; and CIHA, Universite Paris Nanterre.
The event is sponsored by Center of International Modern Art (CIMA); The Ashoka University, Delhi; Aga Khan Foundation and others.

Prof. Baidurya Bhattacharya, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering elected as Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
 

Prof. Indranil Manna, Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering has been selected for the National Metallurgist Award 2018 of the Ministry of Steel, Government of India.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering and the Director of the Institute is being honored with D. Sc. (Honoris Causa) by University of Kalyani, West Bengal in their 29th Annual Convocation.

Prof. Srabani Taraphder, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been awarded INSA Teachers Award, 2018 by Indian National Science Academy.
 

Prof. Mahitosh Mandal, School of Medical Science and Technology has been inducted as Fellow, Indian National Science Academy.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director of the Institute and Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering is being awarded with Technology Excellence Award by Intel India.

Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering honoured with J. C. Bose Fellowship

Prof. Subhasish Dey, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering honoured with the J. C. Bose Fellowship.

IIT Kharagpur has set up India’s pioneering Bioelectronics Innovation Laboratory to develop futuristic battery-free implantable medical devices for treatment of brain, nerve, muscle or spinal cord disorders that are untreatable by using standard medical practices.
 
Bioelectronics is a new and an exciting field in engineering that  is yet to make its mark in India. It utilizes the intersecting knowledge of both electronics and biology. Bioelectronic devices generally target to restore missing neural functions, while utilizing energy efficient and miniaturized engineering systems.
 
“We aim to implant coin sized electronic chips with wireless energy supply for rehabilitation and prostheses applications. These chips will solve neural connectivity problems that are otherwise unaddressed by latest medical sciences. Our solutions will incorporate a combination of electrical stimulation, bio-potential recording and neuro-chemical sensing. Unlike the standard pace-makers that require a surgery every 5 to 10 years due to limited battery-life, our solutions depend on wireless power transfer and intelligent communication schemes. This will enhance the life-time of implants and reduce the number of surgical interventions. The programmable chips will help in adopting with varying physiological conditions in patients. The present line of research targets subjects with blindness, limb paralysis, sensory-motor dysfunction, cognition-loss, Parkinsons tremor, epileptic seizures, and even memory-loss. The novel bioelectronic devices will be able to sense bio-signals, process information to make intelligent decisions, and control diseased organs by electrical methods” explained Prof. Sudip Nag from the Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering who is heading this initiative at IIT Kharagpur.
 
The proposed medical devices will help in realizing highly affordable and reliable medical solutions that are accessible to common population in India and the world. The laboratory will facilitate energy efficient electronic system development, biocompatible packaging, bio-reliability assessment and animal testing rooms as a unified platform for an end-to-end intelligent medical system development. Grants have been received from IIT Kharagpur, under MHRD Imprint program, SFTIG Indo-Canadian Fellowship grant etc. It is in the process of setting up collaborations with several hospitals and institutes in India and abroad.
 
In addition to innovating new medical devices, the laboratory will open new career avenues in incubating companies for production and marketing and also create an international supply base for medical devices giants like Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Advanced Bionic, Second Sight and Saint Jude’s Medical, opined Prof. Nag. “We are looking forward to technology licensing and commercialization of bioelectronic devices that are being developed in this laboratory” he said.
 

Dr. Dewasish Upadhyay, Associate Professor, Department of Geology and Geophysics has been awarded Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for experienced researchers.

Prof. Sirshendu De, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and his colleagues at University of Oxford University have been awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Innovation Award for Team Work on modeling of upscaled arsenic filter.
The team comprises of Prof. Ian Griffiths, Dr. Sourav Mondal and Dr. Raka Mandal, University of Oxford and Mrs. K V Krishnasri from our Institute. Dr. Sourav Mandal is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Prof. N. D. Pradeep Singh, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been selected for the Distinguished Investigator Award by Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Prof. MK Tiwari, Department of Industrial Systems and Engineering offered Visiting Professorship of Computational Intelligence in Manufacturing in the Wolfson School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, UK.
 

Prof. G. P. Rajasekhar, Professor, Department of Mathematics has been selected for the award of "Mathematician of the Year - 2018" instituted at NIT Warangal.
 

 
Prof. N. D. Pradeep Singh, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been selected as
Member of the National Academy of Sciences, India.
 

Prof. Pratim Kumar Chattaraj, Professor, Department of Chemistry offered Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay.
 

Prof. M. K. Tiwari, Professor, Deptt. of Industrial & Systems Engineering elected Fellow, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, USA.
 

Prof. Sudipta Mukhopadhyay, Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering has been awarded Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship by the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Koel Chaudhury of the SMST has been selected for the for the prestigious Labhsetwar award for her contributions in the field of women's health.   
 

Prof. Sudip K. Ghosh, Professor, Department of Biotechnology has been elected as a Fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology for the Year 2017. 

Professor K. N. Tiwari, Department of Agricultural & Food Engineering has been selected by the Indian Water Resources Society for "Eminent Water Resources Scientist Award" for the year 2016.
 

Prof. Swagata Dasgupta, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been elected for the Fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Mahitosh Mandal, Associate Professor, School of Medical Science & Technology has been elected for the Fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Associate Dean (SRIC) and Head, School of Medical Science and Technology has been conferred with the Fellowship of The Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom.

Dr. Saptarshi Ghosh, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering has been selected for the "IEI Young Engineers Award 2017-2018" in Computer Engineering by the Institution of Engineers (India).

Prof. Sirshendu De, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering has been conferred with Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation National Fellowship by the Indian National Academy of Engineering for three years starting January 2018.

Dr. Abhijit Das, Assistant Professor, School of Bioscience is selected for the Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship 2016-17 by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have invented a smart polymeric material which can be healed or self-repaired by heating if there are micro-cracks or scratches. The research team at the Institute’s Centre for Rubber Technology under the leadership of Prof. Nikhil Singha has developed acrylic polymers having specific functional groups. The product is created through a single step reaction with the post-polymerization process taking less than a minute. Organic compounds required for the product are also readily available at economical prices.                         

This material can be used as a coating on glass or metal adds an ultrafast self-healing capacity without the use of any external reagent. This could be of significant use in industrial products and consumer products which are painted as finished products and are damage prone such as vehicles, glass exteriors etc.

This process of self-healing or intrinsic healing is achieved only through the application of temperature at about 130-degree Celsius. The repairing process is completed in less than an hour. The properties of the material will not be changed even after self-repairing.

So the removal of a scratch on your new car may not need a fresh paint anymore but only heating, if coated with this material while production. This will also bring down repairing cost as external reagents are not required.

This material will have applications in self-repairing coatings and paintings in the respective industries, as commented by Prof. Singha who has recently been awarded Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK. The research has recently been featured in the ChemComm published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, London.

“This is relatively a new area research with the first research paper being published in Nature Chemistry only in 2014. However, the novelty of the research by the IIT Kharagpur team is the self-healing quality and non-requirement of external reagent unlike previous research which makes repairs faster and capable of sustaining multiple repairs” said researcher Prantik Mondal.

“We are also working to make this anti-fouling, anti-bacterial etc,” added Prof. Singha.

In fact, Prof. Singha’s research group is working in the development of self-healing polymeric material based on controlled polymerization and Diels-Alder ‘click’ reaction during last several years. One of their works was featured in Editor’s spotlight article in Materials Views published by Wiley in 2013. However, this present self-healing system is much faster than earlier one.

Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering has been selected as the first recipient of the Prof. P. C. Mahalanobis Distinguished Educator Award for Management in the year 2017 by the Operational Research Society of India.

Prof. Anupam Basu, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering and currently the Head, Center for Education Technology has been appointed as Director, National Institute of Technology Durgapur.

Prof. Subhasish Dey, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering is elected as Fellow, Indian National Science Academy.

Prof. S. K. Ghosh, Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering has been selected for National Geospatial Chair Professorship, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Professor Swagata Dasgupta, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been selected as the editorial board member of The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics (Elsevier) for 3 years.

Prof. Nilmoni Sarkar, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been nominated as Member, Editorial Advisory Board of Journal of Physical Chemistry (American Chemical Society publication) for January 2018 - December 2020.

Prof. Pratim Chattaraj, Professor, Department of Chemistry has been nominated as Member, Editorial Advisory Board of Journal of Physical Chemistry (American Chemical Society publication) for January 2018 - December 2020.

Prof. Suman Chakraborty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Head, School of Medical Science & Technology and Associate Dean, Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy has been elected as Fellow of
the American Physical Society.

Prof. Indranil Manna, Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and currently Director, IIT Kanpur has been honored with "IIM – Honorary Membership" by the Indian Institute of Metals.

Prof. Siddhartha Das, Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering has been selected for the "IIM - Distinguished Educator Award" by the Indian Institute of Metals.

Professor Samit K. Ray, Professor, Department of Physics and currently the Director, S. N. Bose National Center for Basic Sciences, Kolkata has been elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India for the year 2017.

Dr. Sudip Misra, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering has been elected as Fellow of The National Academy of Sciences India, 2017.

Researchers from the Dept. of Electronics and Electrical Communications at IIT Kharagpur, have developed a visual technology for removal of effects of rain from videos in real-time and display it on the windscreen of vehicles to increase the clarity of the view. 
 

Professor Amiya R. Mohanty, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering has been elected as Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Aritra Hazra, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering has been selected for the INAE Young Engineer Award 2017 and consequently has been admitted as Young Associate of Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Researchers from the Dept. of Electronics and Electrical Communications at IIT Kharagpur, have developed a visual technology for removal of effects of rain from videos in real-time and display it on the windscreen of vehicles to increase the clarity of the view.

Dr. Basab Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship receives the Excellent Young Teacher Award instituted by IIT Kharagpur Alumni Foundation (India).
 

Prof. Nikhil K Singha, Professor, Rubber Technology Center and currently the Head of the Center has been admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK.

Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and currently the Deputy Director of our Institute has been chosen for the ICI - Life Time Achievement Award for the year 2017 by the Indian Concrete Institute in appreciation of his contributions to the concrete industry.

IIT Kharagpur has come up with a one-of-a-kind lifesaver technology that can be fitted in an ambulance to ensure remote monitoring of patient condition by the doctors even before they reach the hospital!
 
This technology named “AmbuSens” has been developed in the SWAN lab of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at IIT Kharagpur. AmbuSens is capable of wireless monitoring of various physiological parameters like ECG, heart-rate, temperature and blood-pressure. The system utilizes a unique hashing-based mechanism (patent filed) to preserve patient’s data confidentiality while simultaneously using the analytic and computing power of cloud computing. The web interface of the AmbuSens system provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for doctors and paramedics alike with data visualization tools such as real-time ECG graph rendering and can be accessed from internet-enabled laptops, tablets and smartphones.
 
“There is no such technology at present that can help doctors at remote at the hospital to continuously monitor the condition of the patient when the latter is on the move. This technology will be a boon for the referral patients who are transported from a hospital in remote area to a city hospital. Currently in such situations apart from family members, a medical technician companies a critical patient on an ambulance. But this technician has limited knowledge. Now with the doctors being able to monitor the patients on transit they can suggest medical interventions to the technician. This can be lifesaving,” said the principal investigator for developing this system Prof. Sudip Misra, Department of CSE, IIT Kharagpur.
 
The embedded system of AmbuSens includes both hardware and software. The system currently leverages wireless on-body sensors, cellular (3G/4G) and wireless technologies (Wi-Fi) and cloud computing to achieve seamless real-time monitoring and management of patient data. In future the system will work even with irregular Internet connection.
 
Here is how AmbuSens works – the referred hospital and the referee hospital as well as the ambulance will have laptops or tablets with internet connection. The patient will be fitted with wireless body sensors, which will help doctors of both referred and referee hospitals to continuously monitor the health condition of the ambulatory patients in real-time. Apart from monitoring critical patients referred from one hospital to the other an ambulance fitted with AmbuSens can be life saving for accident victims or cardiac patients who need to be transported to the hospital immediately.
 
This technology is several steps ahead of telemedicine where the doctor can see the patients but do not have wireless real time monitoring of their health condition. “We conducted successful field trials of the developed system at All India institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar and BC Roy technological hospital (BCRTH), IIT Kharagpur. The trials were conducted on various patients (both male and female) admitted in intensive care unit (ICU), cardiac unit and patients coming for normal health check-up (OPD). Patients within age group of 10-70 years were considered for the trials. The duration of trial for each patient was around 20-30 minutes,” said Prof. Misra.
 
The researchers are currently working on further upgrading AmbuSens so that in future the technology can ensure advance prediction of a likely to have emergency (like cardiac arrest) of the patient in the immediate future. This will enable patients to get care before onset of emergency, potentially saving lives. Several sensors are also being developed to help monitor many more health parameters of the patients on the move.
 
A state government from Northern part of India has already shown interest in this technology to help monitoring patient conditions in difficult terrains where the number of hospitals are limited.



The principal investigator for the development of this system was Prof. Sudip Misra, Department of CSE, IIT Kharagpur. The co-investigators were Dr. I. Banerjee (BCRT Hospital, IIT Kharagpur) and Dr. Saurav Sarkar (AIIMS Bhubaneswar). The project staffs who worked on it are Niloy Saha, Subhadeep Sarkar, and Pradyumna Kumar Bishoyi. 
 
The salient features of the AmbuSens system are as follows:
 
1.      Telemedicine and Remote Healthcare: Utilizes wireless on-body sensors for improved mobility and user-convenience. Enables easy trend tracking and remote monitoring by specialized medical personnel without having to be physically present.
2.      Improved Emergency Response Time: Instant remote monitoring and feedback by the skilled medical professionals to paramedics for improved emergency diagnosis and treatment.
3.      Real Time Patient Status Monitoring: Continuous real-time monitoring of the patient from anywhere with internet connectivity provides up-to-date feedback about the status of the patient, and enables improved collaboration among hospitals.
4.      Cloud-based Digitized Medical History: Consistent cloud-based digital record-keeping system, which is fully privacy-aware and is accessible by all authenticated users across various healthcare facilities.
 
Future directions for the AmbuSens system
 
1. Warning before heart attack occurs will be possible in the future, based on gathered data.
2. The system will work even with irregular Internet connection.
3. Various others sensors including but not limited to Pulse Oximeter (SpO2) will be added.
4. There will be options to add scans of existing medical records (e.g. X-rays) to the system to those doctors can access patients' data from one single place.
 

Background:
 
The Department of Geography and Regional Planning, Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, IIT Kharagpur have come together to collaborate for the Summer Study Abroad Programme in India, 2017. Based on the interests and varied disciplinary background of our students and faculty members, we plan to conduct research on socio-economic and geographic issues of tea-plantations and how they are impacted by climate change. Darjeeling has been selected as test bed for this year.
 
Aim of the Course:

(i) To promote research and learning in areas like Regional Planning, Urbanization, Environmental Justification, and Sustainable Urban Communities and Cities through a rigorous, integrated and interdisciplinary approach.

(ii) To combine the strength of IIT and IUP and expose students to a cross-cultural and cross dimensional scenario for understanding the urban dynamism and challenges faced by planners from a regional perspective.

(iii)To develop inquisitiveness and passion for research and an attitude toward creative problem solving in urban planning through the practical training or the field study component  

Research Question:
 
(i) What are the special factors responsible to give Darjeeling tea its unique "Muscatel flavour" and "Exquisite Banquet”?

(ii) From environmental perspectives, what changes or climate change impacts have been affecting the tea industries?

(iii) How are the tea-gardens evolving or changing their production process as a response to that?

(iv) What are changes in the market conditions of tea-industries in the era of 21st century globalization which might pose threat in sustaining global competiveness?

(v)Considering the harsh reality of decreasing area of wetlands and increasing presence of non bio – degradable chemicals in the water, what should be the role of  urban planners in a metropolitan city like Kolkata?

(vi)How can the wetlands be effectively used as resources for urban life? 

Coordinating Faculty members
 
Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) - Dr. Sudeshna Ghosh (Principal Coordinator), Dr. Brian Okey (Co- Coordinator)

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - Dr. HaimantiBanerji (Principal Coordinato),Dr.  SubrataChattopadhyay (Head , ARP), Co-cordinator

Structure of the Summer Study Abroad Programme (3rd – 18th June)
 
3rd – 7th June - IIT-IUP team stays in Kolkata and Kharagpur , attends lecture, talks to domain experts and fine tunes research agenda. A half-day workshop will be held on 5th of June in American centre.Extensive field study will be conducted in selected spots in Kolkata wetlands which would include sample collection, reconnaissance, photo-documentation. 
 
8th – 12th June - Team travels to Darjeeling, visits tea gardens, collects primary data, conducts survey, interviews, conducts photo-documentation in the tea – gardens.
 
13th – 17th June - Lab work will be conducted at IIT Kharagpur which will involve processing of data, drawing inferences, debating on the research issues and proposals.The closure will be through preparation of study report and group-wise presentation, panel discussions with invited guests and dialogues on the learning from the programme for future extension of the work.

Benefit of this Bi-lateral event
 
The study shall culminate in a joint report production at the end of the three weeks programme. The report would include possible policy interventions for maintaining global competitiveness of Darjeeling tea combating the challenges of climate change and other cropping issues.
 
Creating a repository of knowledge in a shared platform accessed by the students and faculty from both the institute over the years will be a significant contribution of this course.
 

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have achieved a breakthrough that will change the way biofuel is manufactured all over the globe by making the process cheaper, quicker and above all pollution free.

The ‘soil-to-soil’ manufacturing technology developed at the P. K. Sinha Centre for bioenergy at IIT Kharagpur is in the process of being patented. Explaining how the technology would work Dr. Rintu Banerjee, Professor of Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering, Ex-Chair professor, MNRE, P. K. Sinha Center for bioenergy said, “2g bioethanol can be produced from various naturally available lignocellulosic components. But to do so it needs to be treated chemically and in some cases physic-chemically . Because of chemical treatment the process contributes to polluting the environment. We have replaced this chemical treatment with enzymes which degrade the lignin specifically there by making the manufacturing process pollution free.”

“Also unlike the chemical treatment here the waste product is pollution free and hence  utilizing the residual biomass to organic fertilizeris possible. The   solid waste recovered after bioethanol production is subjected to produce methane gas thereafter  the fermented biomass was enriched with cyanobacteria to convert the residue into fertilizer. It is soil-to-soil technology, an integrated process where we are using natural resources to extract gaseous and liquid biofuel and then converting the wastes into bio fertilizer. It is an unique integrated approach which we have developed in our lab,” she added.

The ‘National Policy on bio-fuel’  targeted20% blending of biofuel with petrol  by 2017. But the target so far remains unachieved. With the government expecting bio fuel business in India to touch ₹50,000 crore by 2022 this new green technology with lesser manufacturing cost and time can become a game changer. “The technique that we are suggesting will ensure relatively quicker production of bio fuel and ensuing that the process is completely green. There by not creating any secondary pollution. This, we feel can change the future of bio fuel manufacturing in India and make it more cost effective,” said Prof. Banerjee.

Presently this project is funded by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Here they are taking care of another government mandate – not to use consumable food crops for the purpose while manufacturing bio fuel. Hence IIT-KGP is producing bioethanol, biobutanol, biodiesel, biohydrogen and bio-methane in its pilot plant using various non-edible lignocellulosics which would have otherwise been wasted. 

The green leafy part of corn and sugarcane plants, the waste part of paddy straw, bushy bamboo, sorghum, banana plant, pineapple and cotton plants, kans grass (kassh phool), castor plant and even non edible weeds that grow in dry and waste land and a mix of all has been used by IIT-KGP to produce bio fuel. Recently the center has also succeeded in extracting bio diesel from used cooking oil, which was otherwise thrown away by the restaurants. To make the process zero wastes, glycerol has been used for growing oleaginous microbes and thus the lipid recovered can be used as biodiesel. This is also a green technology.

“Through these technologies we have successfully produced zero pollution bio fuel from 550 kg of biomass in our pilot plant. Unlike other bio fuel manufacturing process it requires very less water as well as the production process is quicker, which means the manufactures will not require huge reactors. The by-product when converted into organic fertilizer will ensure more income for the manufacture. The technology is ready for industry use,” said Prof. Banerjee
 

The research group under the leadership of Prof. Sudipta Mukhopadhyay at the Dept. of Electronics and Electrical Communication has received the FICCI Research & Development Award 2017 for their innovation "Real Time Fog Removal from Videos & Real Time Rain Removal from Videos".  

The innovation ideas were submitted by Mr. R. Hariharan and Mr. Manish Kumar Sharma. This work is the accumulation of contributions of research and development by Dr. Abhishek Kumar Tripathi, Mr. Nishant Gaurav, Ms. Bhamidipati Sridevi, Ms. Ashwini R. Patil and Mr. Leuva Hardik P. in addition to R.Hariharan & Manish K Sharma. 

The team developed algorithms for removing fog and rain from videos in real time. The fog algorithm estimates the distance of the objects from the camera in the form of the depth map. The depth map is further refined using anisotropic diffusion to identify clear boundaries of the object. Based on the refined depth the image is restored back to give cleaned images. This operation is performed on every frame of the video to generate a defogged video stream. 

Probabilistic model based temporal and spatio-temporal rain removal algorithms are developed which are both effective in removing rain from rain affected videos and are real-time in nature. It is based on the difference in the time evolution properties of that rain and non-rain pixels.

Prof. Manish A. Mamtani, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics has been appointed as Vice-Chair of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Commission on Tectonics & Structural Geology (TecTask).

Dr. Uday Shankar, Rajiv Gandhi School of IP Law receives Magdalene Schoch Fellowship as Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Hamburg.

Prof. Anil K. Bhwomick, Professor, Rubber Technology Center has been selected for INAE Chair Professorship for two years by the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Director of our Institute has been honoured with TechnoVisionary – Life Time Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions in the fields of algorithms, AI and CAD for VLSI design.

In March 6-9, 2017, six students of Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design and Management (RCGSIDM), namely Research Scholars Prashant Prasad, Sunny Bansal, Mouli Majumdar, Shivangi Singh Parmar, and Dipanjan Nag; and M.Tech student Navneet Singh have been selected to join students of Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University (GSAPP), New York City to conduct a Phase II Interim Joint Review Workshop to be held in New Your City.
The Phase II Workshop is a sequel to Phase I International Symposium on Water Urbanism n Kolkata (January 6-7, 2017);
a subsequent Field workshop in Kolkata (January 7 - 14, 2017); and a FUTURE CITIES Workshop (January 12, 2017)
in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, UK; Tokyo Metropolitan university, Japan and Ministry of Urban Development, Government of West Bengal. Prof. Joy Sen, Head, RCGSIDM has been invited by GSAPP to accompany the participant team.

Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray, Professor, Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering and former Head, School of Medical Science and Technology has been awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Prof. Ray is currently the Director, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur.
 

In January 2017, Careers360 has ranked the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Second in the ranking of Law Universities/Schools/Colleges in India. It is also ranked First in research.
The ranking is based on Input (in terms of Students’ Quality, Faculty Quality & Engagement); Process (Teaching Quality and Learning), and Research Output (publications & citations received, and alumni goodwill).
This is the third consecutive year in which RGSOIPL is finding its place in the All India Ranking List.
 

Prof. Anirban Dhar, Department of Civil Engineering has been included as a member of the new Leadership Team of Groundwater Hydraulics and Management Committee of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research for the period 2017-2019.

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is geared up to bolster Professional Partnerships, expand Study Abroad Programs and initiate Research Collaborations with selected universities in the United States of America. With this vision, the School of Architecture and Planning, MIT and Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, IIT Kharagpur have come together to collaborate for the India Practicum programme. The broad objective of the programme is to critically study urbanisation in the current developing world, where the concept is no longer limited to the precincts of what are administratively defined as "cities".

Stage – I  27th and 28th October
Introduction of the practicum structure and context to MIT students

Stage – II  18th January – 28th January 2017 – Visit of MIT students and Faculty to India for the field trip
Field trip structure 2-days Lecture at Kharagpur (by IIT faculty and domain experts)
4-days study tour at Santiniketan
1-day workshop with State Government for input
2-day data compilation at Kolkata
No. of StudentsMIT – 15 (8 from DUSP and 7 from ARP – comprising UG, PG and RS)
IIT - 12 (UG, PG and RS)

Stage – III January – May, 2017 - Students work in their respective institute
Studio work by MIT students in spring semester with regular interaction with IIT Team through video – conferencing

Stage – IV May, 2017
Closure with a two-day colloquium at MIT where IIT students and faculty are invited
Future possibilitiesCredit course at IIT at UG and PG level
MoU between the Institutes

Dr. Sajal Dhara, Assistant Professor, Department of  Physics has been selected for the award of "Ramanujan Fellowship" of Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay, Department of Computer Science & Engineering has been awarded  the SwarnaJayanti Fellowship in Engineering Science by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

Dr. Rabibrata Mukherjee, Associate Professor, Department of  Chemical Engineering invited to join as Editor of Editorial Board, India for "Advanced Powder Technology". 

Prof. M. P. Biswal, Department of Mathematics has been selected as an Associate Editor of the Journal OPSEARCH for a period of three years by the Central Council of the Operational Research Society of India.

Dr. Rabibrata Mukherjee, Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering has been invited to join the Editorial Board of Bulletin of Materials Science as Associate Editor for the period January 2017 to December 2019.

Prof. S. K. Ray, Professor, Department of Physics and currently the Director, S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata; has been invited to join as a member of the Editorial Board of "Nanotechnology" a Journal of Institute of Physics, UK.

Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay, Professor, Department of Architecture and Regional Planning has been selected as "Avinash Gupta Chair Professor" of the Institute.

Prof. Sankar Kumar Nath, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics has been elected as Fellow of West Bengal Academy of Science & Technology (WAST) for the year 2016.

Dr. Bharath H Aithal, Assistant Professor, Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design and Management has been awarded as "Young Scientist of the Year 2016" by the National Environmental Science Academy Award Committee 2016.

Prof. V. Chandrasekar, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, USA is the Samudragupta MoES Chair Professor of the Institute as per the MOU signed by the Institute with the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India.

Dr. Rajib Maity, Department of Civil Engineering selected as James Rennell MOES Young Fellow for One Year as per the MOU signed by the Institute with Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India.

Prof. Khanindra Pathak, Professor & Head, Department of Mining Engineering has been selected as Member, Experts Committee for Standardization of Environmental Clearance for Coal Mining & Coal Washery by the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Government of India.

For Press Coverage please see:
 
http://indianexpress.com/article/education/iit-kharagpur-researchers-enable-web-access-for-disabled/
 
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/IIT-Kharagpur-tech-push-to-help-visually-impaired-kids-read-Bangla-classics/articleshow/55147012.cms
 
http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/tech/2016/oct/26/iit-kharagpur-creates-software-to-help-disabled-persons-1532086--2.html
 
 
 
Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed a whole new range of technological tools to empower children with special needs and meet their educational requirements. These tools which have been tested successfully in Indian conditions and specifically made for Indian children with such needs were displayed on October 22, 2016 at the Kolkata Extension Center of IIT Kharagpur by IIT researchers and Society for Natural Language Technology Research (SNLTR) Kolkata, to whom some of the technologies have been transferred for wider deployment. IIT Kharagpur has started a Teaching-Learning Center in the project mode, with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development. “One of the objectives of this program is to develop new pedagogical tools and systems for the learning process of the differently-abled children. A review of the existing tools and practices are also a part of the task. The tools and systems will be made available to all through on-line access repository. The second objective of the program is to spread out the use of these tools among the teachers, through workshops and awareness programs. The execution of this activity is planned with direct participation of the teachers, special educators and parents of the children” said Prof. Anupam Basu, lead researcher and Head & Chairman, Centre for Education Technology, IIT Kharagpur.
 
A voice-enabled key-board named Baisakhi developed by the researchers will enable the user to hear the sound of the words typed using the key board on the computer screen thus helping a visually impaired person to write. Besides the keyboard, a software which translates any Indian language to Braille has been developed and thus text material can be printed in Braille. This initiative is named Sparsha.
 
The researchers from IIT Kharagpur have also developed a multimedia hardware-software communication system for the education of students with Cerebral Palsy. “We have been working on various projects to help ease educational requirements of children with special needs. Some of the tools developed by us are also been used by various organizations. We take feedback from these organizations and other professionals in this field and further enhance the capabilities of the tools to meet the requirements of the users” added Prof. Basu.
 
Akash-Bani is an android application wherein image icons are available which when touched will be converted to voice command. This application will be especially beneficial for people with speech as well motor disabilities. The tool Sanyog is a communication system for the speech impaired and children with Cerebral Palsy. While Sanyog is a learning software communication can be done for the speech impaired and children with cerebral palsy through various image icons. Through the software the user can select icons for various action verbs and thereafter nouns as required and then select whether it was meant in affirmative or negative sense.
 
The Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP) has already adopted these tools. Swati Chakraborty, Head, Information Technology, IICP said, “Akash-Bani is a breakthrough innovation. This tool can be used by not just children affected with Cerebral Palsy but even others with speech impairment. Sanyog is critical for learning. Such tools were earlier procured from abroad which were not only highly expensive but did not have the option of Indian mother tongues. IIT Kharagpur has set up a newtrend with these innovations.”
 
The event had participation from Experts, Organizations, NGOs and Schools from all over India working in special education. The event had a brainstorming session on the requirements to develop tools for the different disabilitiesIt focused on creating an ecosystem of technologist and evangelists to spread awareness of the technology availability and capacity building with shared responsibilities and action plans for Awareness Building, Hi-Tech and Low-tech tool development and their dissemination.
 

Prof. Mahitosh Mandal, Associate Professor, School of Medical Science and Technology has been elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India in the year 2016.

Dr. Santanu Kapat, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering has been awarded the prestigious INSA Medal for Young Scientist 2016. The award is considered to be the highest recognition of promise, creativity and excellence in a young scientist below 35 years, and is made annually by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) to those distinguished for these attributes as evidenced by their research work carried out in India.

Dr. Kapat has been recognized for his valuable contributions to High Performance, Energy- Efficient, EMI-Aware Mixed-Signal Dynamic Power Management Architectures. Through his research, he has proposed various simple, yet powerful mixed-signal power management architectures to simultaneously improve efficiency, transient performance, power density, and power spectrum.

Dr. Kapat has developed closed-form analysis and design tools which would be very useful for digital power supply designers. He has proposed ultra-fast energy-efficient dynamic DC-DC converter architectures for dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), some of which have the promise to differentiate between power supply architectures for DVS-enabled multi-core processors and LED driving applications.

The INSA award comprises a bronze medal, a certificate and a cash prize of Rs 25000. The award shall be presented to the recipient by the INSA President at its Anniversary General Meeting in December.