240 IITans awarded degrees during IIT Ropar convocation
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Ropar
India’s premier institute Indian Institute of Technology Ropar held its VIII Convocation Ceremony today at its campus in Ropar, Punjab. The Chief Guest for the 8th Convocation of IIT Ropar was A. S. Kiran Kumar, Former Chairman, ISRO, who delivered the 8th Convocation address. He has made immense contributions to the design and development of Electro-Optical Imaging Sensors for Airborne, Low Earth Orbit and Geostationary Orbit satellites starting from Bhaskara TV payload to the Mars Orbiter Mission payloads while being Chairman of ISRO. Over 1500 guests comprising of students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff members attended the convocation. Prof. Sarit K Das, Director, IIT Ropar shared the achievements of the Institute, students and the awards won under various categories. This year 240 students were awarded their degrees. The break-up is as follows:
Total students awarded degrees: 240
- B.Tech Programme: 113
- M.Sc Programme: 56
- M.Tech Programme: 37
- MS Research Programme: 6
- PhD Programme: 28
Suveer Kumar, Department of Mechanical Engineering received President of India Gold Medal amongst the graduating students of B. Tech this year. The Director Gold Medal was awarded to Aditya Gupta, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Institute Silver medals were given to Gaurav Kamila, B.Tech. Department of Electrical Engineering and Aditya Gupta of Department of Electrical Engineering. Debasmita Mukherjee, M.Tech. in CBME, Prateek Munjal, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arshdeep Singh Sandhu, Department of Electrical Engineering, Pulak Gupta, Thermal Engineering.
Institute Silver medals were given to Rajat Kumar, M.Sc. in Chemistry Programme, Sandeep Kumar Mishra, M.Sc. in Mathematics Programme and Himanshu Gaur, M.Sc. in Physics Programme.
IIT Ropar has progressed in Research and Development front during the last one year. IIT Ropar’s research quality and impact can be ascertained from the average citation per paper, which stands at 13.78. This is highest among all the second generation IITs as per recent Scopus data. During the current year, the faculty members and scholars of the institute published 305 papers in high impact international journals with an H-Index of 60.
During 2018-19, IIT Ropar faculty has published 334 manuscripts and produced 24 research scholars. 268 research scholars have attended various conferences in India and abroad during this period.
The number of PhD students on campus is increasing every year. This year too has seen a considerable rise in numbers, growing from 389 students last year to 515. The current faculty to PhD students ratio is 1:3.17
This year, the institute made a reputable debut in the international rankings. IIT Ropar has shared the top place in India along with IISc Bangalore with its position in the301-350 rank in Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020. In fact IIT Ropar has been ranked as number one in the world in research citations. In NIRF, IIT Ropar stood at 29th in all India Engineering institutional ranking 2018-19. In QS India Rankings 2020 with an overall rank of 25th in India, IIT Ropar is ahead of all IITs in research quality, scoring highest in Citations per Paper.
Prof. Sarit K Das, Director IIT Ropar addressed the graduands and said, “In the days to come, please do not forget the value of honesty, integrity and truthfulness at every step of your career. There will be temptations for quick temporary gains at the cost of integrity, please have the courage to refuse them. In this 150th year of celebrating Mahatma, do not forget the core value of that great soul, which is “the search for truth”. At the same time, please do not forget your commitments to your family, to IIT Ropar and to this Nation.”
Addressing the graduating students Kiran Kumar said, “Nature is full of viable ideas for how to do things. All we need is to simply see and listen to the nature, its language, laws and ways to understand it.”
“To become an effective lifelong learner you need to adopt a positive and progressive mindset,” he added
IIT Ropar student population has grown to 2005 students, including 1053 UG, 437 PG, and 515 PhD students. During the last five years from 2015-16 to 2019-20, the students intake has increased from 124 to 346 of B.Tech. programme, 43 to 230 for M.Sc. and M.Tech. programmes and 53 to 140 for PhD programmes. Hence the strength of the students raised from 546 in 2015-16 to 2005 in 2019-20, thereby increasing the strength of the students by almost 4 times.
This year a new BTech program in Mathematics & Computing has been started. In a new initiative IIT Ropar introduced a new option for the student of B.Tech. programme to opt for converting their B.Tech. programme to B.Tech.-M.Tech. (dual degree) programme. There is an increase in the number of girl students admitted to B.Tech. Programme from 6 in 2015-16 to 57 in 2019-20 which is nearby 10 times increase in intake of girl students.
Similarly, four new M.Tech. programmes have started, namely, M.Tech. in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Micro-electronics & VLSI, M.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering with specialization in Artificial Intelligence, M.Tech. in Civil Engineering with specialization in Water Resources and Environment Engineering and M.Tech in Chemical Engineering.
According to the new curriculum of IIT Ropar, the students can now opt for minor, concentration and additional internship programme along with basic B.Tech. degree.
In continuation to IITs Ropar’s excellent journey in research, the efforts of our doctoral students have been recognized as attested by their selection for the 2020 Global Young Scientists’ Summit in Singapore. The students who have been honored through this selection are Malkeet Singh (Mechanical Engineering), Tripti Midha (Mathematics), Apoorva Sikka (Computer Science and Engineering), Subhajyoti Samanta (Chemistry Department) and Viney Ghai (Mechanical Engineering).
