New Delhi:

The presence of IIT Madras director on the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) governing body as an ex-officio member does not amount to conflict of interest, the exam body has told the Supreme Court. This comes against the backdrop of the Centre citing a report by IIT Madras director, Professor V Kamakoti, to stress that there was no malpractice in the conduct of the all-India exam for admission to MBBS courses.

Narendra Hooda, the counsel for the petitioner in the NEET UG case, had said the data analytics report was not reliable and alleged a conflict of interest because the IIT Madras director was a member of the NTA governing body.

Refuting this, NTA has said in a supplementary chargesheet that the director of an IIT that conducts the JEE (Advanced) exam for engineering aspirants is an ex-officio member of the NTA governing body and this year, IIT Madras conducted the exam. However, the core work of NTA is handled by its managing committee. The governing body, it said, only looks at policy matters.

The IIT Madras director, the NTA said, had nominated another professor to attend the governing body’s meetings. And this professor, too, had not attended any meeting since December last year. The IIT Madras director, it said, had not attended any meeting of NTA governing body since December 2022.

During a hearing into the case of alleged irregularities in NEET, which has sparked nationwide protests, the Centre told the Supreme Court that data analytics of results shows that the marks distribution follows the bell-shaped curve that is witnessed in any large-scale examination and there is no indication of an abnormality.

The Centre then said that according to the findings in the IIT Madras report, there is an overall increase in the marks students have got.

“This increase is seen across the cities and centres. This is attributed to 25 per cent reduction in syllabus. In addition, candidates obtaining such high marks are spread across multiple cities and multiple centres, indicating very less likelihood of malpractice,” it said.

New Delhi:

Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra has praised the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras startup that is developing an electric flying taxi, saying that the institution has become one of the world’s most “exciting and active incubators”.

“A company is being incubated at IIT Madras to build a flying electric taxi by sometime next year,” Mahindra posted on X.

Thanking the institution, he further said that with the rapidly growing number of ambitious incubators throughout India, “we’re no longer seen as a country that lacks genuine innovators”.

“Audacious aspirations matter. Accept no limits,” Mr Mahindra wrote.

The eplane company.

A company being incubated at IIT Madras to build a flying electric taxi by sometime next year…

IIT Madras has become one of the WORLD’s most exciting and active incubators.

Thanks to them and the rapidly growing number of ambitious incubators throughout… pic.twitter.com/Ijb9Rd2MAH

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 10, 2024

Since being shared, his post has been viewed by more than 190K times. Several users also shared their thoughts in the comments.

“Exciting times, this is audacious thinking taking root. With our immense talent pool and a supportive environment, Indian innovators are truly taking flight,” a user wrote.

“India’s incubators are hatching the future, and IIT Madras is leading the charge with their electric flying taxi project. This is the kind of innovation that puts a country on the map and inspires the next generation of dreamers and doers,” another user said.

Earlier this week, IIT Madras said that it raised an all-time high amount of Rs 513 crore in funding from its alumni, industry and individual donors during the financial year 2023-24.

The institute also attracted total new pledges of Rs 717 crore from alumni and corporate partners during FY24.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Indian Institute of Technology- Madras in Chennai. File
| Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B

 The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has established a Centre for Tech Excellence to cater to the micro, small and medium enterprises with support from Walmart.

The centre aims to train MSME units in the use of artificial intelligence and internet of things technology quickly and effectively to develop their business. An agreement to this effect was signed on Wednesday. 

Institute Director V. Kamakoti said the MSMEs, which determine 30% of the Indian industry sector, required guidance to deploy technology. In the coming years, Indian companies would have to adhere strictly to Sustainable Development Goals for which the MSMEs must be equipped, he said.

The centre would use technology to help MSMEs with overall product evaluation, which in turn would improve economic growth, he said. “This is a kind of a venture that can be scaled to a 1.5 billion population whose needs are varied. There are varieties of MSME in fields such as agriculture and medicine (as well). We are introducing a common portal,” he said.

The Institute had started focusing on MSMEs since last year. It launched a centre with the financial company Kotak and many MSMEs had benefited. The institute’s study would be released as a report in a couple of months, Mr. Kamakoti added. “Similarly, we plan to empower and encourage MSMEs, through the tech centre,” he explained.

The centre would also offer solutions to many research problems as faculty from various disciplines and departments would be involved. 

Walmart’s chief technical officer and chief development officer Suresh Kumar, who is also an alumnus of the institute, said the company had been engaging with the institute since 2022. “First, we focused on students and research. This is the second collaboration between Walmart and IIT Madras,” he said.

In the next three years the Institute will take up 15-20 MSMEs who will be helped to leverage AI and IoT technology and form a case study for the institute.

Image for representational purposes only.

Researchers have developed an India-specific artificial intelligence model to precisely determine the gestational age of a foetus in the second and third trimester of pregnancy. 

The model has been designed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad.  

It is part of an interdisciplinary group for advanced research on birth outcomes — the DBT India initiative (GARBH-Ini) programme. The Garbhini-GA2 is the first late-trimester GA estimation model to be developed and validated using Indian population data. Currently, models used for the Western population are in use which could prove erroneous when applied in the later part of pregnancy due to variations in the growth of the foetus in the Indian population, the researchers say.  

The Garbhini-GA2 accurately estimates the foetus’ age, reducing error by almost three times.  

Appropriate care

The Indian data would help to provide appropriate care for pregnant women and determine the precise date of birth, thus reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.  

Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Rajesh Gokhale said GARB-Ini, the department’s flagship programme, was being validated across the country.  

Several investigators, including Himanshu Sinha, associate professor, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, Shinjini Bhatnagar, principal investigator of the programme and a distinguished professor at THSTI, were involved in the project. 

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia. 

Mr. Sinha said advanced data science and AI/ML techniques were used to build tools to predict unfavourable birth outcomes and the first step is to develop accurate GA models that perform significantly better than currently used models designed using western populations.  

End-to-end partnership

Ms. Bhatnagar said the application of sophisticated data science tools was not sufficient. Ensuring that technological advancements yield tangible benefits in the clinical realm lies in the end-to-end partnership between clinicians and data scientists. “Such collaboration ensures that the development of solutions is not only technically sound but also clinically relevant and seamlessly integrated into healthcare workflows,” she said. 

The study was conducted in partnership with Gurugram Civil Hospital, Gurugram, Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, Christian Medical College, Vellore and Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry.  

Additional funding for the project came from the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and the Centre for Integrative Biology and Systems Medicine at IIT Madras.