Impact of raga on humans, temple tanks among topics from IITs, CUs selected for research: AICTE

NEW DELHI: The All India Council for Technical Education’s (AICTE) Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) division has selected research project proposals from higher education institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, IIT Bombay, central universities that include topics such as the impact of Indian classical raga on human cognitive function, decoding temple tanks, automated question-answering for Ramayana, analysis of the sound spectrum of mantras, among others.

According to a statement released by AICTE, it has received about 156 research project proposals, out of which 15 were selected from six focus areas. The six focus areas are:

• Indian traditional knowledge

• Ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy

• Science, engineering, technology

• Linguistics, phonetics, epistemology, language technology

• Arts, literature, culture, aesthetics folklore, education

• Management, administration, law, governance

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Three research proposals from IIT Kanpur were selected. The selected research topics by the institute are, impact of Indian classical raga on human cognitive function: A neuropsychological study using EEG, automated question-answering system for Ramayana and analysis of sound spectrum of mantras and their relation with geometric patterns of yantras.

While the selected research proposal from IIT Bombay is based on decoding ancient knowledge of temple tanks on Lord Shiva’s pancha bootha sthala and combustion experiments to understand the by-products of the Agnihotra Pricess.

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Two research proposals from the University of Hyderabad were also selected. The research topics include Sanskrit to Indian language machine translation cum language accessor and Sanskrit word order following the steps of target language.

“Research and development activities in IKS is an essential component of the education system since it creates new knowledge and insight and impart excitement and dynamism in NEP2020, as well as making them need-based in view of the national requirements,” said the statement.

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“The main objective of this research project is to promote research in the field of IKS at various levels by providing opportunities to scholars in research projects on the themes of their choice and among the major areas of investigation identified by the IKS or in the IKS’s own projects and related disciplines. The objective of this is to create and update the general research capabilities of the faculty members in IKS of various institutes in the country. We were overwhelmed with the number of applications and after a meticulous scrutiny process, 15 were selected,” said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of AICTE.