IIT Kharagpur to Establish Medical School

IIT Kharagpur to Establish Medical School
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) has signed a preliminary agreement with the University of California, San Diego Health Sciences to collaborate in the development of an International Medical Center (IMC) at the IIT.

The goal of the agreement is to jointly establish a state-of-the-art medical center at IIT Kharagpur, which will be the first-of-its kind between a U.S. University and an Indian Institution.

Under the agreement, a 300-bed, state-of-the-art hospital would be built on land provided by IIT Kharagpur.

The International Academic Medical Center (IMC) will include a research and development center, as well as an infrastructure for the training of health care providers.

UC San Diego will partner in developing the IMC, providing leadership and training in such areas as nursing, hospital administration, health information systems, pharmaceutical practices, telemedicine, quality assessment and safety, among others.

IITs to Introduce New Courses

Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) will soon introduce new courses in medicine, humanities and design among others.

IIT Kharagpur (IIT- Kgp) has invited private partners for setting up a super speciality hospital in its premises this year.

The institute is planning to initiate a MBBS programme once the hospital starts functioning.

The institute has been venturing into different disciplines like opening a law school dealing with property rights as well.

IIT, Guwahati (IIT-G) has stepped into humanities by introducing masters' programme in development studies from this academic year.

It will comprise of six subjects - Economics, English & Linguistics, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology & History and Archeology.

Although, all IITs offer humanities department and offer electives to engineering students, but there are very few full-fledged undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

IIT, Kanpur (IIT-K) and IIT-Kgp offer an integrated M.Sc in Economics and research programmes in humanities.

The Yash Pal committee setup by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had recommended in its report that IITs should become full-fledged universities and also offer broad-based university curriculum on the lines of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

IIT, Delhi (IIT-D) is planning to introduce two-year MA programme in development and cultural studies.

IIT, Bombay (IIT- B) offers PhD programmes in humanities.

IIT, Madras started a five-year integrated MA program in English, Economics and development studies in 2006.