IIT Madras hosts 'inter-IIT cultural meet 5.0'

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) is hosting the fifth edition inter-IIT cultural meet that will bring students from all 23 IITs together to celebrate cultural arts. Over 3,200 students will be participating in the cultural meet from January 9 to 11, 2023.

The meet, hosted by a different IIT every year, was not conducted for the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the event is to give students a platform to display their skills by participating in a variety of events organised by different clubs at IITM.

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The event has nine categories- literary arts, speaking and comedic arts, theatre arts, dance arts, musical arts, film-making arts, fine arts, digital arts and lifestyle arts, each category has a separate trophy. E-sports and culinary events have also be added to the roster this year. In addition to this, the overall winner of the fifth inter-IIT cultural meet will get a trophy and be declared as the champion.

The chief guest for the inauguration ceremony held today was Padma Bhushan awardee, violinist, composer and conductor, L Subramaniam. The guests of honor for the ceremony were IIT Madras, director, V Kamakoti; IIT Madras, dean of students, Nilesh J Vasa and IIT Madras, cultural advisor, Arshinder Kaur. The closing ceremony will be held on January 11, 2023 where IITM director will present the prizes to the winners.

Addressing the students Chief Guest L Subramaniam said: “What is music? It gives you a balanced outlook to life. It helps to calm a person and stimulates creativity. It will help you (students) in whatever field you are. It will help you to solve problems which you will have to spontaneously create solutions. The National Education Policy has mentioned that music must be introduced in the curriculum. By making music as part of the education, it will enhance the creativity of everybody. Great scientists such as Albert Einstein use to play the violin and so did even our Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.”

Encouraging students to actively participate in the cultural meet, IIT Madras director, V Kamakoti, said: “The Institute is very happy to host this year’s Cultural Meet. India has a huge diversity in terms of cultural events. When we look at engineering, and in the last 21 years I have been teaching at IIT Madras, any engineer who has a deep introduction to an art, performs very well, especially in projects, research and reports. There is an element of grace, creativity and novelty that comes in there and that is what these co-curricular activities bring out in students.”