IIT News

PanIIT Newsletter

Volume 3, Edition 1, September 2008

D Subbarao & Shailesh Gandhi

We congratulate D Subbarao (IITKgp 69) on being appointed RBI Governor.

The government appointed finance secretary Duvvuri Subbarao as the new governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He succeeds Dr Y V Reddy, whose term ended on September 5. Mr Subbarao would be appointed for a three-year period. He may, however, be considered for reappointment for another two years, as the RBI Act provides for appointment of a governor for a period of up to five years.

Prior to his appointment as finance secretary in April 2007, Mr Subbarao served as secretary to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council headed by Dr C Rangarajan. A brief stint as secretary, department of economic affairs, filled the gap between these two posts. He topped the civil services batch of 1972, as he did in most exams during his academic career, and worked in Andhra Pradesh, including a stint as finance secretary there.

Also congratulate Shailesh Gandhi (IITB 69) for being chosen as one of the New Information Commissioners under RTI.

Mumbai’s Right to Information (RTI) Act warrior Shailesh Gandhi has been rewarded for his tireless crusade for transparency and accountability in governance. He has been appointed as a member of the Central Information Commissioner (CIC). Up to now, these posts have gone to former bureaucrats, something that Gandhi has openly criticised.
“I was informed on phone about the new assignment on Friday morning by an officer from the Central government. A notification has also been issued,” an excited Gandhi told Mumbai Mirror. The formal letter of appointment by the President of India will be dispatched in due course.
Gandhi says he will take up his assignment before October 1.

Shailesh Gandhi replaces former IPS officer R B Shreekumar who had blown the whistle on the Modi government in the context of the Gujarat riots. (TOI)

PanIIT initiatives in Education span the spectrum

The following show the full range of PanIIT involvement in improvements in education.

• IUCEE – for engineering graduate and above level
• IITians for ITI – for after high school children
• Reach 4 India – basic skill training for rural youth in welding, house-keeping, driving, etc.

Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE)

The Summer Learning Institute, was completed in June with about 585 teachers participating and about 20 visiting faculty. The response was overwhelming and energetic feedback was collected. Follow up sessions are being planned in regional centres and a programme is being chalked out during Krishna Vedula’s visit later in September-October. Various incentive schemes are being worked out for participants to join in the collaborative effort. Krishna will also meet GoI officials, as they too have evinced support for the programme.

 

 

 

IITians for it is

In collaboration with CII (Southern region), PanIIT is developing a handbook and its companion collaboration website for use by Institute Management Committees of ITIs. The code name for this project is "Blue Book". The blue book is structured as three volumes that will be developed in a sequence.  The first book of the series will be targeted at the strategic issues faced by IMC members from the industry. The second and third book will address the operational and medium-term planning issues. CII will launch the Blue Book during CII Global conference of Skills Development in Delhi on September 17th, 2008. An arc welding simulator was demonstrated. This will help cut initial training time from 30 days to 3 days while reducing costs by about 40%. Technologies such as these would enable better quality training with reduced inputs.

 

Reach4India

This initiative is now kicked-off in two places. Sankalp Gupta, one more ‘sevak’ to join, is putting final finishing touches to the project to start early next month near Alwar. It will train rural youth in driving skills, besides yoga, spoken English, etiquette, and other soft skills expected in quality service car providers.

Kalyan is getting the act ready to launch a finishing school for welders and housekeeping personnel in outsourced service industry. They will be trained to seamlessly slip into their jobs in large manufacturing industries around Chennai.

Interactions with Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR)

There was a workshop in Yavatmal on 28th June, 2008, where various stakeholders participated. In the workshop, PanIIT has agreed to set up five such units under MoPR’s RBH scheme in one year and the first one or two to be set up by 2nd October, 2008.

MoPR has empanelled PanIIT as the Gateway agency for Yavatmal District under its Rural Business Scheme (RBH) scheme. After a meeting with the Minister (MoPR) on September 2nd, Zindal also met Kesavan on Thursday, September 4th.  Kesavan has asked for a detailed plan (under preparation) against which they will release Rs. 10 lakh for PanIIT.

IIT Impact Study

PanIIT in partnership with the Indian Brand Equity Fund (IBEF), has commissioned a first-of-its-kind study on the impact of IIT alumni. The study aims to take stock of contributions made by IITians over the last 50+ years across professions and geographies and create a fact-base for mobilizing the IIT community  to dialogue on how they can do even more, individually and collectively.  Zinnov Management Consulting, which employs a significant number of IITians, will assist PanIIT and IBEF with designing and conducting this ambitious study.

The study seeks to shine a spotlight on 'footprints and fingeprints' - highlighting major contributions from the professional involvement of a broad cross-section of IITians, and also showcase the professional lives of a few eminent alumni to provide a “touch and feel” of their accomplishments.  An important part of this study is a global web-based survey that is expected to be launched in mid-September targeting over 25,000 alumni members. In addition, in-depth interviews will be conducted with several eminent alumni. A combination of these two data gathering efforts will form the core of the report which will convey the impact story through case studies, examples and insights.

This study will make an unprecedented attempt to map the impact of IITians on the global economy across categories and impact areas like entrepreneurship, scientific & technological achievement, as well as social, research, academic and leadership contributions. Zinnov Management Consulting is working closely with IIT alumni to design and validate the data gathering instruments, and will partner extensively with the Alumni Associations to encourage a very high level of participation in this unique effort. Results from the study are expected to be made public at the PanIIT 2008 Conference to be held in Chennai from Dec 19-21.

Global Conference Chennai 2008

The Global Conference in Chennai 19th to 21st December 2008 is progressing and on-line registrations are in progress. This time participation is sought to be more interactive from well before the event.  Please register immediately, if not already done, and get involved with the speakers on the website blogs at the earliest. For more details and latest updates visit http://www.paniit2008.org/

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