Union Government has appointed new directors to four IITs in the Country- IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Mandi and IIT Indore. New Director IIT Mandi has come as a new hope for the farmers as he would focus among other things on “climate- controlled agriculture”.
Prof Lakshmidhar Behera, will take over as New director IIT Mandi. He heads the department of electrical engineering and majors in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). He also holds the prestigious Poonam and Prabhu chair in IIT Kanpur.
He had told media that he would focus on “climate-controlled agriculture, bi-energy, robotics, AI, cognitive science among other things”. He said he will work on improving IIT Mandi’s ranking.
Prof Behera’s another “humane dimension’ of his personality came to highlight when he ran a community kitchen in the campus and served food to over 800 street children during the covid time.
Dr V Kamakoti heads the department of computer science and engineering, IIT Madras. Prof V Kamakoti, who is the associate dean for industrial consultancy and sponsored research IIT Madras has been elevated as the director of the same institute.
He has helped design India’s first indigenously developed microprocessor, SHAKTI.
Prof Rangan Banerjee of IIT Bombay has been appointed as the next director of IIT Delhi. Prof Suhas Joshi will take over director IIT Indore.
Post of the directors at IIT Mandi and Indore was hold by the acting directors- Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi and Prof N Kumar Jain- respectively.
IIT Madras topped the National Institute Ranking Framework (NRIF) 2021 and IIT Delhi came second, IIT Indore was at 10th rank and IIT Mandi stood at 31st place.