CHENNAI: IIT Madras, Chennai's premier technical institute, has crossed yet another milestone this year: it awarded 2234 degrees to its graduates at its 52nd convocation on Friday, crossing the 2000 mark for the first time since its inception.
"For the first time in our history, the number of graduates passing out has crossed 2000. The number of Ph.D. degrees awarded, in particular, has increased 18 per cent crossing the 200 mark to 212 this year," beamed IIT-M's director, Bhaskar Ramamurthi.
The milestone comes in the wake of intake increase during 2008-2010, when the number of seats increased from 612 (2008) to 713 (2009) and 838 (2010).
Reading from the director's report for the year, Ramamurthi also listed other achievements of the institute the past year: from more students upgrading to the Ph.D program in the institute hitting 59, 73 high achievers being admitted directly to Bachelor's degrees and 33 industry professionals enrolling for Ph.Ds.
"Overall, our Ph.D intake per year has crossed our plan target of 80 per cent of the faculty strength," said Ramamurthi.
IIT-M has also done well in research, with 1089 papers published in international journals and 105 in national ones. "This figure has grown a sharp 30 per cent over the last year," said Ramamurthi.
Research papers presented in international and domestic conferences had also gone up by 50 per cent, with 533 papers presented internationally and 153 domestically this year.
New project sanctions from industry had also increased by 20 per cent over last year, with `64 crore in industry projects getting sanctioned for the institute.