IIT Delhi, Madras, Mandi, Indore get new directors

NEW DELHI: Directors for Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Delhi, Madras, Mandi and Indore were appointed on Monday, according to officials.

While IIT-Bombay professor Rangan Banerjee has been appointed as the next director of IIT-Delhi, IIT-Madras professor V Kamakoti has been appointed as director of IIT-Madras, they said. Kamakoti designed India's first indigenously-developed microprocessor 'SHAKTI'.

Laxmidhar Behera, electrical engineering professor at IIT Kanpur, has been appointed the director of IIT Mandi and Suhas Joshi, mechanical engineering professor and the dean of alumni and corporate relations at IIT Bombay, has been appointed the next director of IIT Indore, the officials said.

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IITs directors

Ranjan Banerjee, a Forbes Marshall Chair Professor in IIT Bombay, is a BTech (Mechanical) from the same institute. Later, he obtained a PhD (Mechanical Engineering), also from IIT Bombay. Incumbent IIT Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao congratulated Banerjee. "I am happy to inform you that Prof. Rangan Banerjee from the Department of Energy Sciences and Engineering, IIT Bombay has been appointed as the next Director of IIT Delhi. Hearty congratulations and best wishes to Prof Banerjee," he tweeted.

An Alumnus of IIT Madras, V Kamakoti, is currently the Associate Dean for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR), IIT Madras. He is also a member of the National Security Advisory Board, Government of India. Kamakoti, who is a faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, led the Research team that designed and booted up India’s first Indigenously-developed Microprocessor ‘SHAKTI’ that can be used in mobile computing devices and networking systems.

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"In the last two decades IIT Madras has focussed on inter disciplinary translational research of relevance to our Nation. We have also reached out to large number of students through NPTEL, Swayam and On-line degree programs. With these gathered strengths, our immediate priority would be on augmenting the skill-set for indigenous technology development addressing local and global requirements aligning with the objectives of the National Education Policy," he said.

Newly appointed Director of IIT Mandi, Laxmidhar Behera is currently associated with the Department of Electrical Engineering as a Professor in the Control and Automation Specialization. He heads the Intelligent Systems and Control Laboratory at IIT Kanpur and extensively focuses on developing automation solutions to industrial and domestic problems.

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Suhas Joshi, who has been appointed as IIT Indore Director is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering, and National Academy of Sciences. He works on improving productivity and quality of multi-scale machining processes through physics-based modelling and characterization. Joshi worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Georgia Tech., USA (2002) and served as a Visiting Faculty at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA (2005-06). He was also the Head of Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Bombay during 2014-17.

Meanwhile, Sudhir Kumar Jain, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, assumed charge as the 28th Vice Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on January 7, 2022. Rector VK Shukla, Registrar Neeraj Tripathi and other senior officers of the university were present on the occasion.