IIT Bombay has initiated the replacement of ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans after the recent death of second year B-Tech student Sahil Wakode, sources familiar with the development said.

Sahil, a Department of Energy Science and Engineering student hailing from Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district, was found dead in his hostel room on the Powai campus on Friday (September 18, 2026) evening, hours after he was allegedly caught using a mobile phone to access ChatGPT during a mid-semester examination.

“The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) is set to remove ceiling fans from hostels following recent incidents of student deaths,” the sources said. “Wall-mounted fans will be installed across all hostels on campus and in other utility areas across the campus.”

The image of a batch of wall-mounted fans arriving at the campus as part of ‘renovation work’ has gone viral on social media.

NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande criticised the move, saying fan replacement cannot solve the student suicide crisis. Mr. Gawande questioned whether replacing ceiling fans with wall-mounted fans could address the larger issue of student suicides, and called for greater focus on suicide prevention and mental health support.

“Does IIT Bombay really think that replacing ceiling fans with wall fans will solve the problem affecting IITs across the country?” Gawande said.

The institute had discussed the move to replace the fans after a student died in July, and the issue gained renewed attention after Sahil’s death last week.

Gawande said more than 117 students had died at IITs over the last 20 years.

Amidst ongoing student unrest, the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay on Monday (September 21, 2026) issued an apology for its earlier statements “concerning the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate demise of Sahil.”

The apology, made in a post on X, comes as the Mumbai Police has transferred the probe into the death of a second-year student at IIT-Bombay to the Crime Branch.

The student, Sahil, was found dead in his hostel room on Friday (September 18, 2026) after a professor had reported him for possessing a phone during the examination. The professor, Professor Suryanarayana Doolla, who was invigilating the exam, has been named in the FIR along with other institute officials. 

In an initial statement on Saturday (September 19, 2026), just after reports emerged about the Sahil’s demise, the institute had said that “the student was found using a mobile phone in the exam hall. He had uploaded the examination question paper on ChatGPT to seek answers.”

“No disciplinary action was initiated against the student. The matter was also discussed with the student by the instructor, the faculty advisor and the Head of the Department, who counselled him and assured him that the incident would not adversely affect his academic career,” the institute had further said in the statement.

Sahil’s family, however, has said he was subjected to casteist remarks. His father, Ravindra, said in the FIR that his son had told him that Mr. Doolla had harassed him for three months.

Now, apologising for their earlier statement, IIT-Bombay said it has deemed it inappropriate to “have set out or characterised details relating to the events preceding his [Sahil’s] demise before they had been duly established through the appropriate investigative process.”

“The details and circumstances leading up to the incident remain subject to investigation by the appropriate authorities. In view of the ongoing investigation,” it said today (September 21, 2026).

The institute also took to social media to deny any reports surrounding the Director’s resignation. “Director IIT Bombay has NOT resigned. We categorically state that the related news is false,” it said.

(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416. and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050).

A 22-year-old student of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay ended his life in his hostel room after he was allegedly caught using a mobile phone during an examination, according to a statement by the institution.

Sahil Ravindra Wakode was a second-year B.Tech. Energy Science and Engineering student, and hailed from Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district, police said.

According to a statement from IIT Bombay, Mr. Wakode had allegedly uploaded the examination question paper to ChatGPT to seek answers during the exam. The incident happened on the fifth day of the third semester examination, which was being held between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Going by the statement of a student who was also present in the same building as the examination hall, Mr. Wakode was allegedly caught using his mobile phone. The institute’s examination rules bar usage of cell phones, smartwatches or any such electronic gadgets in the examination hall. An Energy Science professor who caught Mr. Wakode in the hall allegedly threatened debarment for a year and asked Mr. Wakode to attend a meeting the next day regarding the incident, the student said. The student was later found dead in his room at Hostel 4 within the campus.

No note was recovered from the spot, police said. The Powai police have registered an accidental death report (ADR) and sent the body for post-mortem examination.

Further investigation is underway to ascertain the motive behind the death, the official said.

Students protest

Meanwhile, students of the institute took out a march in protest of the incident. As the incident has drawn attention to IIT Bombay , which is among the top technology institutes in India, the student alleged a high stress environment within the college. “This is the second death in the three months since I joined hostel 4, and the third in the last 5-6 months,” the student said in telephone conversation. 

The student who is also part of the protesting students, said that the resignation of the IIT Bombay Director was one of their demands. 

Later in the day, Director of the Institute Shireesh Kedare met the protesting students. 

(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416. and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras) will monetise around half of its total holding worth ₹140 crore from the forthcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Indo MIM Ltd., a company which provide end-to-end solutions for the manufacture of precision engineering components for automotive, aerospace, defence, and consumer product companies using metal injection moulding (MIM) technology.

Indo MIM Ltd. promoter Krishna Chivukula, who studied in IIT Madras has gifted 1% stake of his company to IIT Madras acknowledging its contribution in shaping the company’s current positioning as the largest manufacturer globally of precision engineering components using MIM technology.

IIT Madras is proposing to sell up to 23,07,700 equity shares of face value of ₹1 each out of its total holding of 46,15,385 equity shares, which account for around 1% of the total equity capital of Indo MIM Ltd.

The value of IIT Madras’ holding is estimated at more than ₹140 crore at the expected valuation, as per market and investment banking officials.

If all IIT alumnus turned entrepreneurs offer sweat equity to IITs in India, then they will set a good example of helping their alma mater to monetize holding which could be invested in innovation labs and start-ups, analysts said.

Generally, only existing investors (private equity players, venture capitals and promoters) get money from offer for sales (OFS), but allowing IITs to monetize through IPOs would be in national interest, they said.

In September 2024, Dr. Chivukula made one of the largest donations of ₹228 crore to IIT Madras to be used to give fellowships to top B. Tech students, eminent sportspersons, foreign students, faculty members who do high-risk research, and to bring out a magazine, the institution had said in a press release earlier.

In a related development, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) is set to sell 4,08,000 equity shares amounting to around ₹55 crore in the forthcoming IPO of Sedemac Mechatronics Ltd. which is scheduled to open on 4 March, 2026.

Founded in a lab at the IIT Bombay, in 2007, since its inception, Prof. Shashikanth Suryanarayanan, Amit Arun Dixit, Manish Sharma, and Anaykumar Avinash Joshi have built on their technical expertise to place Sedemac amongst the top players in the Integrated Starter Generator Engine Control Unit (ISG ECU) market for 2W and 3W (combined) and the largest supplier of genset controllers in India.

In 2008, the promoters (alumnus of IIT) gave 7% of their company’s equity to IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), which supports tech startups with incubation, mentorship, funding, and resources to turn innovative ideas into successful ventures.

Drilling microscopic holes in brittle materials like glass and ceramics, essential for smartphones, medical devices, and microfluidic chips, has long posed a challenge for manufacturers. Conventional methods often crack the material or fail when debris clogs narrow, deep holes. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have demonstrated how ultrasonic-assisted electrochemical discharge machining (UA-ECDM) can overcome these hurdles, offering a breakthrough in precision fabrication.

The study, led by Professor Pradeep Dixit and Anurag Shanu from IIT Bombay’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, explains the mechanism behind UA-ECDM’s superior performance. Unlike traditional electrochemical discharge machining (ECDM), which relies on electrical discharges in an electrolyte solution, UA-ECDM introduces ultrasonic vibrations, sound waves beyond human hearing, to enhance debris removal and electrolyte circulation.

Mr. Dixit said, “While earlier studies focused mainly on the experimental results, like machining depth (the depth of the hole or groove), they did not explain the actual mechanism of improvement in machining performance through ultrasonic vibration. By analysing electrolyte flow and debris dynamics, we could explain the fundamental mechanism and the effect of vibration amplitude in improving the debris removal efficiency.”

The team likens the process of unclogging a drain with a plunger. “Imagine a small glass being moved up and down inside a bigger glass filled with water and sugar crystals. As the small glass moves, the water and crystals get displaced and circulated. Similarly, in UA-ECDM, ultrasonic vibration from the tool applies force on the electrolyte at a microscopic scale. This motion removes the debris from the machining gap and circulates fresh electrolyte. The overall sludge removal efficiency was drastically improved after applying the ultrasonic agitation. It has resulted in a 33% higher material removal rate compared to the conventional ECDM approach,” Mr. Dixit explained.

The researchers found holes with an aspect ratio of 2.5 (depth-to-diameter), meaning they were 2.5 times deeper than their width. Compared to conventional ECDM, UA-ECDM produced holes that were 33% deeper and had a 16% higher aspect ratio.

The experimental setup included nine through-holes in a 1.1 mm thick glass substrate using a multi-tip tool. The tool vibrated at 20 kHz (20,000 times per second) with strokes of 5–10 μm, agitating the electrolyte within the microscopic holes. This improved fluid circulation and enhanced debris removal by 50%.

Validation was done using high-speed cameras and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) to observe the process and analyse elemental composition.

Numerical simulations revealed that at higher amplitudes (around 8–10 μm), nearly all debris particles were cleared within a few vibration cycles, even from deep inside microholes. At lower amplitudes, debris lingered and clogged the gap, while excessive agitation at very high amplitudes risked damaging the tool and workpiece. The study identified an optimal vibration amplitude for maximum efficiency.

“UA-ECDM is useful wherever deep and precise microfeatures such as blind/through-holes/channels, etc, are needed in nonconducting materials like sodalime, borosilicate glass, fused silica, polymer-based composites, and alumina. Specific applications include the embedded integrated passive devices such as inductors, through-glass vias (TGVs)-based 3D packaging of MEMS sensors, microfluidic devices, and lab-on-chip applications,” said Mr. Dixit.

However, the smallest tool tip achievable in the study was 150 μm, due to limitations in wire electric discharge machining (wire-EDM), which constrains further miniaturisation.

The team plans to extend the research to alumina ceramics, which combine electrical insulation with good thermal conductivity but are much harder to machine than glass. As material engineering pushes the boundaries of miniaturisation, “The biggest advances come from the smallest of feats, sometimes with the right amount of vibrations,” Mr. Dixit added.

The findings have been published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

A new control scheme developed by Professor Dwaipayan Mukherjee and research scholar Chinmay Garanayak at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay enables unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly in coordinated swarms without relying on GPS, inter-drone communication, or centralised control systems. The method uses bearing-only measurements obtained through onboard cameras to determine relative positions and maintain formation.

The researchers applied the scheme to Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAVs, which can lift off without a runway and hover mid-air. These drones are suitable for operations in confined spaces such as surveillance and monitoring. “Autonomy in a swarm is a critical task,” Mr. Mukherjee said. “This means that vehicles in a swarm should be able to decide their ‘actions’ based on variables they can measure with their on-board sensors, instead of having to rely on some global information being fed to them or some human/centralised computer deciding what their action ought to be. This is where our paradigm differs from usual ones,” he added.

The proposed ‘bearing-only’ control scheme allows each drone to use its onboard camera to observe its immediate neighbours and calculate bearing information. “In bearing-only control, the goal is to achieve formation control using only interagent bearing measurements,” Mr. Garanayak said. The system does not require GPS or communication with other drones or a central computer.

Camera-based measurements are less prone to noise than conventional distance sensors, simplifying the drone’s sensor system and reducing battery requirements and overall weight. The scheme is designed to work in areas where GPS is unavailable, or communication could be jammed, making it suitable for stealth-mode operations such as covert military missions.

VTOL drones are underactuated systems, which means they have six degrees of freedom but fewer directly controllable movements. While they can move vertically and rotate around three axes, lateral and forward-backward movements must be indirectly controlled. “Many of the results in the literature do not address the underactuated dynamics of VTOL vehicles and only focus on the kinematic model. This motivated us to consider the fully underactuated model of the VTOL UAV and explore its applicability to formation control,” Mr. Mukherjee said.

Underactuated systems require dynamic models that include position, orientation, velocities, forces, torques, and inertia. Previous attempts to apply bearing-only control to such models often fail due to instability or breakdowns in certain conditions. Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Garanayak developed a control mechanism that ensures convergence and maintenance of the desired formation, even when drones start from imperfect positions. They have provided rigorous mathematical proof to support the reliability of the system. 

Their work addresses two operational scenarios. In the first, drones maintain formation at constant velocity using bearing and bearing-rate data. In the second, where formation and velocity vary over time, drones incorporate their own velocity measurements in addition to bearing data. The system can handle arbitrary time-varying configurations, allowing drones to navigate narrow passages, reconfigure into single-line formations, and adapt to changing mission requirements. 

The researchers plan to test the control scheme experimentally, using a drone swarm. On the future roadmap, they aim to address collision avoidance with theoretical guarantees. “Most existing algorithms rely on ad hoc collision avoidance schemes that do not come with any theoretical guarantees. Collision avoidance with objects in the environment and among drones is a challenge we are trying to tackle at a theoretical level,” Mr. Mukherjee said. 

The researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune (IITM Pune) have developed a Smart Irrigation Plan to save 10-30% of irrigation water in drought-prone regions, combining weather forecasts, satellite soil moisture data, and a computer simulation for efficient irrigation water management.

Researchers from the Department of Civil Engineering and Centre for Climate Studies at the IIT Bombay and the IITM Pune formulated a method to predict the amount of irrigation water needed up to three weeks, on a district and sub-district scale.

The researchers stated that the farmers in a drought-prone area require a plan for irrigation as rains are unpredictable, and they can’t waste the diminishing groundwater. So, if farmers know beforehand how much water they will receive through rainfall in the coming weeks, they “can plan their irrigation wisely”, helping “crop growth” and “conserving groundwater”.

The pilot study was conducted in Maharashtra’s Nashik district, where researchers found that a few grape farmers used local soil moisture sensors. Thereafter, the study extended its methodology in 12 sub-districts of West Bengal’s Bankura, a drought-prone district.

“During our pilot study in Nashik, we included local weather forecasts in the soil moisture data and showed farmers that groundwater can be conserved up to 30 %. We initially predicted up to one week (short-range) ahead,” shares Professor Subimal Ghosh, from IIT Bombay. 

Professor Ghosh explained that during the execution of methodology in Bankura, they considered crop varieties, varied growth patterns, root zone depth, and water requirements. 

According to researchers, they fed weather forecast and soil moisture data into a computer model that checks the possible amount of rain, the water capacity of the soil, and the water requirements of each crop. On the basis of these details, the system provides information on the crop’s water requirement. If the model predicts no rainfall in the coming days, it will suggest irrigating crops now. In case of rainfall arrival predictions, avoid irrigation of crops. This approach prevents overwatering the crops and saves water.

The researchers highlighted that they used global soil maps and integrated satellite and field data to include soil moisture data such as root zone depth, soil texture, porosity, water-holding capacity, water conductivity, and stomatal closure.

The data on water consumption, monthly rainfall, root depth, and irrigation water requirement data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) resource was sourced from the IMD database and IITM Pune.

“Our computer model depicts the natural process by which plants draw water from the soil, their adaptation during a water stress, and their response during a water balance after irrigation or rainfall,” says Prof Ghosh, claiming the study methodology acts as a real-time advisor for water management. 

The study was funded by the Department of Environment, Government of West Bengal, DST-Swarnajayanti Fellowship Scheme, and others.