 Good afternoon. I am Deepak Phatak, principal investigator of the T-10 KT and some other national mission projects. On behalf of the outreach program, I welcome all the remote centers. The students and teachers have assembled there for this very special event. Ordinarily, as some of you would know, we use this outreach primarily to train teachers and also provide some kind of workshops and courses on specific topics. Today, however, we have come here to listen to some of my colleagues describing the post graduate programs, in particular the PhD program and the research opportunities and more specifically on the very exciting activities that are being carried out by Sitara. I am very happy to welcome on this speech here, Professor Narayan Rangraj of Dean's Academic Programs. Welcome, please. I will request Professor Narayan Rangwaj later to give a brief introduction to the general programs and research at IIT Bombay and subsequently the speakers will be the two heads of Sitara. Well, Sitara actually has only one head, but there has been a recent change of head. So, let me first welcome the current head, Professor Rangan Banerjee. Welcome, Rangan. Professor Rangan Banerjee actually has been instrumental in many activities here. He was our Dean R and D earlier. He also headed and in fact, spearheaded our activities on the energy front establishing a department. And last but not least, let me welcome Professor Mellin Soni. Mellin Soni is currently head of Sitara, sorry, he was, till last week, he was the head of Sitara. He also happens to be my esteemed colleague professor in Department of Computer Science and due to his penchant for making a difference to the society at last, particularly in the rural areas. He spent three years constructing Sitara, actually engaging academics, specific design, specially design programs. So, we get to have this Trimurthy of IIT Bombay today to speak to you. We will, as usual, I suppose, after the presentations by my colleagues and by some of the students, we will have some interactive session where people would be welcome to ask questions. As the remote center coordinators would know, the physical interaction might be limited. So, those two, while you are listening to them, they are most welcome to send the questions through chat and you too, staff will consolidate those questions and maybe some of my colleagues will answer them at the end. Without further ado, I would request Professor Narayan Rangraj to start the session formally by introducing the research activities and the post graduate programs at IIT and this would be followed by the talk by Professor Millan Soni by some students and maybe I will request Professor Rangan Banerjee to coordinate the question and answer session at the end. Thank you so much. Unfortunately, I have to go out for a board meeting. That is why I am dressed so funnily here. So, I am afraid I will not be here, but as you know, we record all the proceedings and I will certainly watch the interaction and the talks later. Thank you so much. Welcome once again. Good afternoon, everybody. I am Narayan Rangraj. I have also recently taken over as Dean of Academic Programs at IIT Bombay. So, I would like to tell you a little bit about the post graduate programs at IIT Bombay. So, the first thing to say is that the institute has a large number of post graduate students and post graduate programs. In fact, I think right now there are more post graduate students at IIT Bombay than undergraduate students. So, we are definitely moving to a research focused institute apart from, you know, research teaching programs. So, the programs where students in particular play a very active role in the research agenda of the institute, that time has come. It is now firmly on that road. So, in particular, the research programs and activities at Sitara, you know, provide a very exciting and sort of innovative way of doing research as far as our institute is concerned and they have done many new things and there is much to look forward to in this area. In particular, research activities oriented towards field work, solutions, technologies and schematic views of technological deployment which are actually carried through to a certain level of completion with society and its constituents in mind rather than only, you know, hypothetical recipients of these solutions. So, anyway, I would like to say that the main, right now the main academic programs, structured activities are MTech and PhD programs for Sitara students. MTech is a two-year fixed duration program with about half its component as directed coursework and about half, actually a little more than half the duration in a series of project activities which lead to MTech dissertation. So, that is one of the bridges between guided research and completely independent research work done by students. So, the PhD program like in many universities all over the world is largely based on a dissertation written by the student based on independent work carried out by the doctoral student and there is a fair amount of independent work expected to be done by the student. So, it is an open-ended program which is a bit scary for many students who are doing this for the first time because it is not a fixed duration. I do as you have told program researcher, but it provides a lot of exciting opportunities to make some contributions on one's own. So, the PhD program at Sitara also the rest of the institute is a growing one with increasing opportunities and, you know exciting possibilities. The faculty base is growing and the type of agencies and organizations associated with Sitara and the institute is increasing and we see a lot of good possibilities from the MTech and PhD programs. So, in summary actually for both MTech and PhD there are a number of avenues for entering the program through. So, MTech is after an engineering degree, a normal engineering degree in the Indian setup, but for those who want scholarship through the teaching assistantship scheme of the government they have to come through the gate exam and qualify through that and then apply. Others can also apply through a number of other channels through projects, through sponsored modes, through self-financing, there are avenues for college teachers and others. For PhD the entry is through a number of different streams also and one can apply for a PhD immediately, I mean with a bachelor's degree also, but with some amount of work experience or else after doing an MTech or an MSC degree. So, there are actually a number of different admission options and entry options to the program. So, the program website as well as the institute website will give all these details and we will try to be responsive regarding queries and clarifications you may want. There are also a number of other programs in the institute both in traditional departments and a number of interdisciplinary areas and programs. Sitara is one of the most exciting ones which has taken off in the last few years and we really look forward to the outcomes from these research programs in Sitara. So, I think we have a faculty base of more than 550 in IIT Bombay and I think I mean a large number of faculty are directly or indirectly involved in Sitara and a number of other interdisciplinary programs in the institute. So, in terms of subject area and area of work there is a lot of flexibility and versatility which is possible. So, people with all department backgrounds and interests are encouraged to look through our programs and apply and you know we look forward to interacting with as many people as possible through this activity through this outreach activity and any other way which you would like. There would be questions, there would be faculty from Sitara and students from Sitara who are waiting to track or I can also answer questions later on by email or whatever means. So, thanks everybody. So, welcome back. So, you must have seen an earlier video by me which is on Sitara website. So, I am Millen Soni, I am from Sitara, I teach at Sitara and welcome, good afternoon and welcome you all for a small introduction to Sitara, its programs, what sort of projects it does and what can you do after this. So, welcome first of all to the big development agenda of India and so we have offered for you two postgraduate programs, the Masters and the PhD program. So, by the way if you have any questions you know you should definitely send me an email or you know raise your hand in the software. So, first of all let me start with Sitara, it started in 1985, it was a platform for faculty members and students of the institute to come together and try and solve development related problems. So, after 20 years of experience on solving problems and doing studies, we started the MTech and PhD program in 2007 and it was the basic objective was to create the you know the development professionals and actually training engineers to participate directly in the development agenda. So, as opposed to having companies as potential employers, we wanted our engineers to be placed directly in society and work with them. So, obviously these needs interdisciplinary skills and it needs and you know a skill set or a sectoral knowledge which is really encompassing many aspects of society and engineering. So, our basic research is in technology and in policy and our alumni work in many think tanks, consultancies, research institutions, NGOs, CSRs and so on. So, by the way all pictures in this most our 99 percent of the pictures in this presentation are by students and faculty members of Sitara. So, basic philosophy is to actually address the needs of the bottom 80 percent. Now, that is a large sector of India and it needs its needs are of course water, energy, agriculture, livelihoods and so on. And so, we want our graduate students or graduates to actually you know understand development situations, analyze them and you know from the grassroots to the policy and give out solutions. So, they will work on national, state and you know local situations and help the development process. So, the other third key I you know philosophy of Sitara is to work with the direct directly work with stakeholders. So, they may be grand panchayas, they may be towns, villages, bachad gurds or who have you. And the research should be as close to implementation as possible. So, and you know so, we try and see bring you know your engineering skills right down to the grass root level and try and create change. So, our course is really try and develop this sectoral understanding as well as policy understanding of development situations. So, I will briefly go on the. So, by the way most of my faculty members are here and so are some students. So, I hope that we get some time to talk with them right. So, the faculty are in various areas right from chemical engineering, IT, CS, mechanical and environmental sciences and so on right. And we also have you know excellent adjunct faculty members from the consultancy field and also from other institutions like the ISS. So, the course work is essentially in four main areas. So, the first of all is the perspective courses you know where you are we teach you to understand development, its key processes and attributes, governance, the role of policy in governance and also social science research methods. Then the next thing is sector courses where we talk about water, energy and agriculture and environment and also some amount of rural planning, electrification and so on. So, these are the courses which are related to the scientific knowledge or the scientific basis of development. Finally, we have project management, statistics and system dynamics. These are skills which will help you to work in the development sector and the key or the most important is a ten week structured or nine week structured rural home stay which is compulsory for all students. So, this right. So, here is a complete list of courses it is also there on our web page. So, you can see that. So, the summer field stay or the nine week or ten week summer field stay is the key or the most attractive part of our program. It begins in May and ends in July. So, you know you see the heat of you know the heat of the summer months then the drinking water problems and the water situation and then the first rains and the first sowing in the beginning of the agriculture season. So, it is a very exciting time for students and they really come back you know having understood the key issues of development. So, the ten week rule stay I mean there are lots of reports on our web pages please do see them. So, there are of course many other exciting opportunities every course has a field trip. So, you will see in your two years you would have seen about 20, 30 towns and villages you know many small plants you know small plants industries factories and so on. So, many pictures and reports are there on or many videos are there on the web page please do see that. Besides that IIT offers many interesting outlets for students. So, Techfest is of course there and of course there is an active technology and development student body. So, which also holds programs. So, facilities at Sitara of course we have a mechanical workshop we are an interdisciplinary center. So, we use we try and use our own facilities and if not we you know look at facilities from outside from outside the center. So, we have a food lab and a mechanical engineering workshop besides of course the computer lab and in IIT Bombay I think there are many facilities which are open to all. So, just to I am mentioning the electronics lab which is a PCB design lab and of course the GIS lab. So, here are some other programs in the institute which work with Sitara. So, ROOTAG is the Rural Technology Action Group started by Government of India. It is an outreach program to help NGOs in their technical objectives. Then TATA center is an upcoming center which will work with which will work on frugal engineering and developing solutions at the bottom of the pyramid. Then there is an ongoing project with the National Center for Photovoltaic Research which is on you know which is trying to outreach you know basically solar lamps for studying for you know for household household use and that is a part of the NCPRE National Center for Photovoltaic Research. So, besides that we have a lot of MOUs with towns and districts for example, Purbadi town which is a district town then Shahapur, Shahapur Panchayatsamithi's district administration collectors and so on and many collaborations with other colleges as well for Kharzath and Islampur in Sangliya are two examples. We are also partnering with some you know for in universities I think with Berkeley we have a close interaction. Then other thing is that we interact with the small and medium enterprise sectors. So, jaggery, poultry, you know chuckies and so on. So, we understand what their problems are, how to design solutions at that at the SME level and then we also work with government programs like KVIC, government of Maharashtra, government of India and so on. So, as just to indicate that there is a big wide canvas where students get to see live development problems and actually try and influence the conduct of development. So, besides that there are also entrepreneurial avenues. So, TDSC is a program which is closely it is a it is a sort of a consultancy cell which is closely aligned with Sitara. Besides that IIT Bombay has the innovation innovation and entrepreneurship cell. So, that will you can also access. So, let me come now to the MTech program. Essentially it has 20 teaching assistantships, five fellowships which are by HAL and then one fellowship from NCPRE and five fellowships from MRD. So, there are different conditions which are attached to all of these fellowships. So, you should look at the webpage for details. So, I will you know by the way so, there are you know I will not go over this, but let us just look at some sample projects correct. So, the first project I have here is the development planning of Grampanchats. We know that you know India is about 8 lakh or 5 you know between 5 and 8 lakh villages and each of them need planning for water sanitation and so on. So, how exactly to go about doing it is one important project. Another project is actually designing rural water supply systems you know over you know you know over dozens of villages at a time you know so, that we can consolidate on good sources of water and try and help the drinking water problem. Then there are of course appropriate technology which is you know when can develop solutions at all you know all all strata. So, for example on in this here we we try and help women carry whatever they have to carry for drinking water. On the right is you know chulas and add-ons to chulas which will improve their efficiency. So, on the left here is you know a new process for herbal oil extraction. So, these are all process and products for development. Another example is you know the analysis or the design of a smart grid you know how to have a wide area rural grid, how to understand its performance, what sort of quality issues are there in rural electricity. So, finally of course we do a lot of policy in governance you know. So, here are a list of projects which we have done in the policy sector. So, for example you know Ganga river basin project the policy part was handed by Sitara then there was Panchayat planning for solar. So, this was another initiative by Sitara. So, a lot of these have actually you know gone on and have been you know passed on to the government agencies. So, by the way finally let us you know there is also the small scale SME the small and medium scale enterprises. So, we work with many as I said chakki, pole trees and so on and just try and improve their technology. As we know that 80% of India's manufacturing is actually coming from the informal sector and informal sector offers a lot of avenues for innovation. So, here are the is my final slide. So, admissions you know the dates are you know issue application forms is already begun right. The last date for receipt is 16th. So, please and most of it is online. So, if please visit the webpage for more details and for the PhD program I think the last date is in a couple of days right April 4th. So, that is just tomorrow or day after tomorrow and all admissions is through a written test and there will be an interview process there is a reading list please visit the webpage and you know and get back to us. So, visit the webpage here is the here is the web link and if you have any questions call the office call us or write to us. So, that is it thank you. So, by the way I have we have here a lot of students and lot of faculty members. So, if you have any questions we will be very happy to answer those. Hello, good afternoon all we are here to represent students community of Satara Emte. I am Indrani I have done my bachelor's of engineering and information technology from Mumbai University. And I am Sandhya I have done my bachelor's in chemical engineering from Anna University Chennai. Yes, we do have students from various backgrounds like chemical, IT, electronics, electrical, computer science, biotechnology, dairy technology to you name it we have all the we have students from all the disciplines of engineering in Satara. So, it is a unity in diversity kind of department we have. And not only engineering we also have students from architecture and planning and from masters of science. And we would like to give you a brief idea about the courses as Sonys are already discussed. In the first semester we have courses in various domains of research that are happening in Satara like we have ecology and environment, watershed management, development theory and planning appropriate technology and soil land use GIS and agriculture. So, in these courses we not only study the technical aspects of the course but also the socio-economic aspects and the policy perspective of the course. So, on the whole we get to learn about the complexities of the development sector in the country. So, by the time we come in second semester the perspective which we have already built upon in first semester we work more on that with subjects like social sciences, search methodologies where we learn to analyze socio-economic and political conditions in rural village with participation of our stakeholders which are mainly villagers in various institutions like Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samiti, Jala Parishad offices etcetera. So, apart from that we also get a chance to implement what we have learned in classroom in actual field. We have we can undertake a semester long mini project. We call it development protocol where we actually implement whatever we have learned in our classroom. So, we have we have those projects in various sectors like drinking water security, municipal solid waste management, energy sector, rural electrification and many other areas and our professors are there to guide us through the project. So, we get to work actually in the field along with the stakeholder and get a chance to interact with them and implement and get to get actual practical work experience. Currently I am working in drinking water security and we are analyzing a drinking water scheme, drinking water pipe water supply scheme in Shahpur block in Maharashtra. And I am really proud to tell that Sitarra is a technical service provider for Shahpur block some of the water supply schemes in Shahpur block. So, we are actually getting a practical knowledge and hands-on skills where we can groom ourselves for development work. And now as she said in the development protocol my colleague and I we are working on municipal solid waste management in the Shahpur block of Maharashtra. So, we are currently studying the waste generation patterns and the current waste disposal practices in Shahpur and we propose to suggest an alternate waste a municipal solid waste management practice for to the grand panchayat of Shahpur which is financially feasible and environmentally sustainable. And in this we are interacting with many government authorities and also we do a lot of field work and in the in all the courses that we study through our semesters we have field visits for each and every course which helps us to gain a practical knowledge of what we study in each course. So, this was a brief introduction about the coursework and now a few of other students would like to share their experiences and their various projects in Sitara. Hi, my name is Aviram. I have a BAC in Botany and then I did an MSc in Geoinformatics. After that I worked as a mapper for a few years in a development planning institute and while we were making development plans for about 15 districts in India for the 13th plan period. We did that by comparing the norms given by the planning commission and then looking at the real life and then looking at the real life condition in the society. And while looking at those problems and coming up with solutions we came to know that problems are multidisciplinary in nature and technology also has some role to play in it and that is how I got attracted to Sitara. As the professors and my student colleagues have just now said we get a lot of diversity in project works. Well, I would like to tell you about the projects that I have done. The first project I worked on was on alternate building materials. There I looked at many of the industrial wastes and also construction waste and how it can be used as an alternate building material. The next work was to come up with a protocol for air and fuel mixtures in a biomass burning power plant in Maharashtra. Then I worked on looking out for additional generation of additional livelihood opportunities in a village which was a part of my field work. It was in the northern Karnataka district. And then in the end I worked on understanding the EIA process for large hydro power dams in India and I looked at Uttarakhand in particular and currently I am working on to come up with a protocol for conservation action for the mangroves in Mumbai. So, we can see that we get to work on a lot of variety of subjects in here and after passing out from Sitara I plan to join the institute back and work as a technology consultant. Thank you. Hello everyone. I am Siddharth. I have done my in B-tech engineering in civil engineering and most of my work doing that during my B-tech is concentrated on construction and its management. On some of the field visit I have done that I have done in my B-tech in rural areas I got to know that the problem is not only of technical or social or economics. They are of combination of all three and I have not learned how to deal all these three in a single hand. So, before coming to this department I actually talked to many seniors and also gone through the course that is offered by this department. This department and the best thing that I look in the course is they are interdisciplinary and actually I can relate the actual conditions with my knowledge. So, the course that I actually wanted to learn is appropriate technology and social science research methodology in which I actually try to correlate the things with with the life situations. So, I want to just two main thing that I also want to talk about is first my 10 week field stay. I went to a village in Chhattisgarh of Kukri village name Kukri in Chhattisgarh state and the main thing that I look in that village is the natural resources of the village is the main you can say employment opportunities for them and most of them is is actually the most of the income of the villages come from the natural resources. And the second thing is I have been working on my for my Amtrak project on conversion of ways to wealth and also to to generate livelihood for the by using local technology. Thank you. Hello, I am Nishant. I have done bachelors of planning from National Institute of Technology Bhopal. Just after completing B planning I joined Sitara and as a planner I always had an interest in community development and how to make cities more livable cities towns as well as villages more livable for the community. I had many thoughts that we can do this we can do that for the for making lives better but I did not know that how to implement them on ground. So, after coming in Sitara I learned that how you can work with the community I mean how can you plan plan for them with the help of community and then implement the plans for with again with the help of community. So, right now I am doing Amtrak project in in village development planning. So, I have analyzed various village development procedures in India and then I am trying to come up with the best village development procedure. Then I have also worked on on building a decision making system for the gram panchayat so that they can make perspective plans for 15 or 20 years for themselves. So, while doing the projects while doing this project I got a chance to work with the local community also got a chance to interact with the decision makers, the policy makers, the CEOs of the Zilaparisha, the district collectors, the secretaries etcetera. So, they gave me an insight that how you can work on the real life situation on the real life projects and what are the difficulties you face while doing a real project. So, thank you. Good afternoon, I am Karishma Bhuya and I have done BTEC in Biotechnology from Chennai. I was inclined towards Sitara due to its interdisciplinary course structure and also the impetus that is given on project based learning. But my main attraction was the ten weeks rural stay wherein we get a chance to live in a village and gain an understanding of various sectors just as agriculture, energy and water. Apart from that we also conduct a research on the topic of our choice which in my case was biogas technology. Now, I would like to give a glimpse to you of my village wherein I had gone. I went to Kattenbhavi which is a small village in the Belgaon district of Karnataka. Now, each of the students either we work with the Gram Panchayat or an NGO. In my case, I worked with a social worker. His name was Sivaji Bhau. He has been working in the area since 1972. He is working in watershed, air forestation, biogas, sanitation, livelihoods, etc. When we are in the village the first few weeks we try to understand the village dynamics. The way we do it is through participatory rural appraisal activities which is taught to us in one of our courses. We do things like we map resource mapping wherein we map the different resources in the village. We have transects walks where we understand the topography of the village and we also conduct focus group discussions. The idea is to work with the villages and understanding their own village. Apart from this we also conduct surveys wherein we ask questions regarding the land holdings, the energy usage, water usage, etc. We visit various government institutions mainly the ground panchayat and understand how various schemes where the government are working in the village itself. Apart from work we also indulge ourselves in various activities in the village such as farming, cooking. We also enjoy the various festivals that are celebrated there. This way we understand their culture and build strong relationships with the villagers. I would say that the field visit is one of the most fruitful experiences where we get an understanding of the village dynamics and the linkages between various sectors. Currently I am working my MTech project is on biofuel production from Lignocellulosic biomass and I am placed in an environmental consultancy where I would be extending the knowledge that I have gained from Sitara. Thank you. We've just had a quick overview of the program at Sitara. We've had some of the perspectives of the current students and we are hoping that several of you would take on this challenge because the challenge of looking at technology and what it can do in the rural areas is both a challenge and opportunity and we are doing this outreach so that we can reach out to more interested people across the country who are interested in participating in this and wanting to make a career in this field because this is a field where there is a significant potential for you to make an impact and to actually deal with the real world. So we'll be happy to answer any questions or comments that you may have. Also we had our dean academic programs making an overall presentation so in case you have any questions regarding the overall MTech and PhD programs also we can try to answer those. 1147. Yes sir I have a small doubt so you have the various department and various activities where they are going for field work and they are doing their research so I have a doubt how come it is related for the comparison students. So there are several aspects for example right from analyzing the Taluk bus depot to simulating various processes like simulating a water supply system or the usage of GIS for representing and planning development situations a lot of it is IT. Optimization is also you know a very key aspect of development. So I think even for computer science I myself a theoretical computer scientist I think there are plenty of opportunities for CS students as well. Yes sir actually it's like a collection of data and we can implement in real time. Actually it's not just that you know when we look at when you look at a real life context it's about analysis it's about technology it's about development of tools it's about the entire gamut. So whether you look at you know in almost every field you look at technology or applications whether it is the the focus predominantly is on urban areas and urban systems but there is a neglected segment which is the rural areas and there are lots of challenges so almost every domain there is an opportunity for technology as well as systems and analysis to make an impact. Okay so thank you. Yeah one three double two, Jharusath University. Sir currently I'm pursuing my master's in computer engineering. I'll go with the PhD in those fields. So what are the opportunity for that? I'm still I'm not getting it properly sir. Will you please elaborate in detail what are the job opportunities on this thing? Job opportunities after PhD is completely dependent on what is the field that you want to work on and what are the kind of things. So in a PhD predominantly you are going to look at either an academic or a research job and so you know depending on the kind of work and the kind of domain that you are working on you would find these opportunities. So similarly in Sitara I mean if you are looking at whether it is analysis or whether it is GIS or whether it is networks and you're looking at applicability you would have the same kind of opportunities in application oriented fields or in the academics. Of course we are a relatively young center so we don't have too much of a we don't have we don't have numbers to tell you that we have had so many PhDs and what they are doing but we have no we actually believe that our PhDs would be reasonably well integrated either in the academic or in the research field. Thank you sir. Yeah double one zero three MPST me Shirpur. I am Dr. Manoj Kumar Deshpande from Shirpur which is off campus of SVKM's NMIMS University in Mumbai and my school is located totally in tribal area so today many final year BTEC students as well as the MTEC students are attending this session and really spend with the idea that how we can take technology to the rural area. Being a institute in a rural area I just want to understand how I mean Sitara can collaborate with our off campus and whether it is possible to collaborate by offering some of the project works and internship for our students and if you want to take it ahead so what are the different ways we can go ahead and strengthen the relationship. So I think we will take this offline but in a simple sentence I would say that we would be willing and we'll work with you to try and see how we can do collaborate so either we can look at your students doing some joint projects or we can so we can take this offline but I think this is an excellent opportunity and we had actually looked at some ways in which we can engage with engineering colleges across the country to look at technology and development and impacts in the rural area so there was we have been looking at TQIP and other schemes by which we can formalize this collaboration but I think we would really like to do this we'd like to also mention that we have across the institute we have the technology TDSL which we call which is basically for undergraduate students to do a course project and this is this happens in summer and it happens during the semester and this is one of the ways in which we found even for students registered for other programs they have been participating in this so this could be again another model so what we could do is we could share whatever we've tried and what has succeeded and then if you suggest the ways in which you would like us to engage we can do that I'd like to request some of our faculty colleagues to maybe add. Yeah good afternoon to you I just want to share an example of a project that we are doing with a local engineering college you know there are these two colleges one is in Varanagar chemical engineering department and another is Sharad Institute of Technology which is in itself currently so you know like we are working on jaggery making and as you know it is made from sugarcane and sugarcane is not made in Mumbai and in about 100 kilometers from here also no sugarcane is made and so we had this difficulty of transporting sugarcane from couple of hundreds of kilometers so we thought why not work in the area where sugarcane is grown and the college teachers as well as the engineering students there were so interested that we have taken our pilot unit which we developed in a place of Varanagar in college and they are both the students they had come here before the pilot was shifted there and now they are working on this project so we can always look for such win-win kind of situations where problem is regional and we have some technical intervention, technological intervention and we can work together. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello. Yes, double one certified from Truba Bhopal. I want to ask one thing. In Sitara can I join the different distance learning or teaching for the contributor contribution in Sitara from the I-Forms ES stream? So far we have not introduced anything through distance learning. Right now it is all in the you know it's all standard classroom, MTech and PhDs. We are planning to do the we are planning to do continuing education programs and but subsequently that may be an idea. Right now there is nothing through distance in Sitara. One three double zero Kurukshetri University. This is Manoj. I did MTech after MSG. I have two questions. Could you please tell me the criteria which you follow in the PhD admissions like you sort of the candidate on the basis of gate net or it is purely on the entrance basis. The PhD admissions happens on the basis of variety of criteria and under various categories. So you can find all the details related to this on our website. So please refer to our website for more details. Essentially you are supposed to give a statement of purpose and we also have a written test and then we have an interview, a round of interviews. In this one of the important things is for a PhD is apart from your background is also your intent and some thought of why you want to do a PhD and what you want to do a PhD on. We have put down if you see on our website each of the topics that we are offering this year for the PhD. Those are indicative we can of course adjust a little bit but basically you have to give some thought into why you want to do a PhD and what you want to do a PhD on and that has to have some kind of a match with the PhD interests of our current faculty. Yes sir. Sir actually I wanted to know like is it necessary to qualify the gate exam to enroll the PhD or there is no need. See that there are at the institute level there are some rules that we have to follow. So if you do not have if you are going to take the teaching assistantship then you need to have gate and if you do not have gate and if you are sponsored by some organization and you have two years experience and your academic record is good then that's another category. So there are different categories of things what I would suggest is if you have a very specific question put that question offline by mail and we can we will definitely address that. I have one more question like is it necessary to have a master degree in a specific subject to enroll in your institute. Have there any constraint like you should did a master degree in a specific subject? Well actually if you say your question was in our institute we have different departments and entities each department and entity has different requirements. So in the case of which is outlined so for MTECH in Sitara for instance we have a whole variety of subjects and it's not we don't restrict it to a specific discipline but then there will be other departments where it is restricted to a particular discipline and so you will just have to check each entity or department and the requirements of that. So I'm not sure whether you think I've answered your question but that's the best I can do. My name is Aadish from Department of Commencement. Currently our BDAC students are doing some social welfare projects for their final year projects. So can we have a link with the Sitara Center and associate our students with your projects so that they can get some more exposure in the social activities? I think you know I have answered this question for another one of the other centers. In general we do we will welcome this. Please send us mail with specifics of what you would like and then we can try and see how we can have the engagement. So we can definitely have your people visit us and participate in some of our existing programs on on other things depending on what you're trying to do. I want to add that you know in Maharashtra for TechPip College in Maharashtra we are trying to you know start this TDSL series for other colleges as well. So for that I think what you need to do is for whatever is development or socially related project work your Senate has to pass it and give it credits. So once that academic credit requirement of your college is met then we have a similar course which has academic you know academic credit which has been passed by our Senate. Then we can start looking at your project and our project and see what is in common and then we can start to develop case studies which will be of mutual help. So currently we are having an ED cell, entrepreneurship development cell in our college and some of these projects are currently being developed in this ED cell. So can our ED cell directly link with your institute? That means on this entrepreneurship development area. Yes we do have you know we have a sign and we also have another incubation facility. So depending on you know if you can outline specifically what you want to get through the linkage we can try to facilitate that. With your ED cell what kind of linkage you would like and so information exchange definitely and then specifically we can we can look we can take this offline and look at it so that this is not necessarily only sitara this is probably across all your engineering isn't it? Entrepreneurship development. Okay. Thank you sir. Good afternoon sir. 1-1-3-8. Hello. Good afternoon sir. Where is it? Yes sir. I'm doing my masters in yes yes sir. Myself Manohar doing my masters in Commissar's Engineering. I would like to do PhD. My question is as a cum-sine student how can I contribute to people through sitara? Actually if you you look at some case studies in the sitara web page yeah you will see a lot of case studies which do with for example just you know public transport public transport management has a lot of optimization database and lots of problems then which are really interesting so I think besides that you know if you look at the CSE web page you'll see rural you know rural networking or getting connectivity the last mile connectivity has also been a research area in IIT Bombay CSE so I think you know in principle if you just go out and understand how computers are used you'll see that there are lots of interesting areas so I think that I just I name to public transport and rural access or communications are two very important areas as a computer scientist where you can work in for development. Actually there are several other you know even even in the computer science department there are projects which are related to getting information and looking at rural connectivity so it's not it's not only about sitara there are many other projects which are running education and so I think there's there's a whole range of opportunities. Currently many students almost all of the students in sitara the second year students have been placed most of them have been placed in NGOs working at grassroot levels solving the various problems which we just now discussed and many of them have also been placed in environmental consultancies who work on environmental issues somehow related to development. Thank you sir. One to one for Srinivasa Institute. First of all I appreciate sitara for doing the M Tech or PhD program which can reach the common people and my question is in addition to the gate score whether a special entrance test from your side for a student who can join for M Tech or PhD and another question is is there is any stipend for a student who joined in sitara for his M Tech or PhD program. Okay so first thing is thank you for your appreciation of the sitara programs. We have a test it's an aptitude test we also have some reading list on which we ask questions the M Tech and PhD scholarships are the same as the M Tech and PhD scholarships across the institute so its M Tech is about 8,000 rupees per month and PhD is what now I think it's 3 by 14 depending on your background it's like 14,000 rupees per month so it's the scholarships are the at the same level we do have this year we have some enhanced scholarship which is the HAL fellowships which are I think at about 12,000 rupees per month yeah so essentially while you do your M Tech and PhD your costs are taken care of at least. Yes sir, I'm Sriram Murthy I have issued my B Tech from VNIT and presently working for coal India limited. My basic thought was this is an interdisciplinary course well versed in all disciplines and my B Tech was confined to a particular discipline electrical and electronics so is there any basic coursework needed prior to joining for M Tech or PhD program or how can I cope up there in the sense when it is covered in all the disciplines. So the answer to your question is in our nature we cater to we have a core where we provide the background that is required you continue with your basic discipline and then the additional courses that you need you can pick up as electives so the straight answer to it is you don't need any additional coursework before you join the course. And one more doubt is that the final thing that matters is the placement and then placement will be related to our core degree which we have pursued from our B Tech or it will be distributed in all the disciplines at the time of placement. It depends on how you look at your program and what you do so over a period of time if you have you know if you've been on electrical and then you work on smart grades and you're working on electrical distribution systems then your placement would be in electrical systems but if you have worked on electrical and then you've got interested in some other domains that's fine so and then you can work in other areas so we have a we have a mix of all mix of all so it all depends on what you take from it and how you orient the course. This is from Raju from electrical department I would like to ask one question sir so your students are explained that some of the ongoing projects so is there any project is going on rural electrification development if it is going on give some details about that. Rural electrification development projects. Hello. Yeah we have several projects in rural electrification related to the distribution systems quality of supply so things like you know monitoring the quality of supply putting in instruments and remote logging for energy audits GIS systems for voltage regulation there's also things like you know how pumping systems affected by under voltage and other issues in rural areas how a rural market's affected how do rural markets play with protection equipment for pump sites so we have a lot of projects in the electrical area. We also are many of our faculty members are part of a national center we have a national center for photovoltaic research and education which does both training and research from from pv right from materials to the systems and in sitara for instance in this current batch we have one fellowship for the mtech for from the ncp re so if you're looking at photovoltaics for rural electrification or you're looking at a phd in this area we have two fellowships from ncp re so that that's another opportunity sir is there any detail the project details ongoing project details on rural electrical development program is available in your website sir i think we do have that but if you if you want additional details please feel free to send a mail and then we will provide that to you offline thank you sir double one double zero ms pillay hello sir yeah hello good afternoon sir my question is uh what will be the return on degree certificate of the graduate student means like if somebody is taking admission in mechanical department at the end of the course that will be mtech in mechanical or phd in mechanical engineering like what will be written if i complete a degree from sitara mtech in technology and development will be written for mtech and for phd from the institute there is no department written so you just have phd from iit bombay thank you thank you sir thank you very much one zero four five sabita engineering college tamil nadu my question is in three four my first question is how will you allocate supervisors for this phd program what basis you are allocating supervisors my second question is as a computer science graduate how can i give a solution to our national security so how can i select problem from national security the third question is we are from so we are often find some problem water sharing problem in summer okay so is it possible to give solution technical solution to this kind of uh problem through uh technical solution so i'll uh you had a three-fold question i'll answer the first part and then pass on the others the first part is about allocation of phd supervisors the allocation will be is done it's a mixing and matching kind of thing so we see we identify what are the interests of the candidate the students and the interests of the faculty and so we try and we will try and do it in the in a way that no one is uh unhappy with the match we do have uh statements now of existing faculty and their and the phd topics that have been floated and based on that we can do that but in general we feel that this can be done without this is not not something which will create a problem your second question on the national security has several i mean various implications and one can look at security in different kinds of dimensions if you'd look at resource security for regional areas whether it is energy water and resources that also there are and those are aspects that are being covered by sitara the third question about water sharing i would request either million or nc to probably answer that i think it's a very appropriate question for our program which is actually the technology and development program the water sharing issue that you told has actually these two aspects there's a technical aspects of how much water is available how many q-sex of water is available which is actually a technical assessment is needed for that but out but you know how do two states share it within a basin has actually more questions than that you know it has a kind of we have to fix the norms or the you know which is the kind of policy that we talk about then we should have legal ways of actually you know implementing these norms and at the third level we need institutions which can actually take care of these things which then comes in the larger policy kind of a domain so to answer your question you should actually definitely come to sitara where we deal with both yeah 1016 KJ Somya College yes good afternoon sir my question is what are the live projects available as far as the PLD is concerned so as explained in the first part that is a PG program so I want to know some sort of details about so that I can think about it and work we have actually put these on our website and I don't know whether we should really go through all of them right now but you can maybe take a look at the website and you are also in Mumbai so we can even you can even come and talk with our faculty we have made a list of the I think we have about 15 to 15 topics which are put on our website so you can look at that you are also free to suggest some topics where you are interested in and we can see whether faculty would be interested in guiding in those one to double nine Dronacharya college Ariana is good afternoon sir myself professor Dr. R.C. Sharma from Dronacharya College of Engineering I appreciate I appreciate the initiative of Sitara for the rural development now what are these the major problem in the rural area what happens earlier that the derwaji policy from the government of India that each small canal each small tunnel was blocked was blocked by small dams so the water collected in that that dam was not useful at the same time the aim was to uplift the water table that was also not fulfilled so is there any project in Sitara to look into the matters look into the matter so that the rain water can be collected at a single place in place of in place of small small points so that that water can be used be utilized so my question is so my question is is there any project in Sitara to look in this matter so that so that the water problem in rural area so that the water problem in rural area can be uplifted so we have a colleague in civil engineering professor Eldo who has been extensively working on rain water harvesting and we have also several of the Sitara projects which have been looking at the water solution both in for water problem both in terms of technology as well as policies explicitly looking at rain water harvesting as a main solution in the rural areas some case studies are there so you can look at some of the case studies that are there on our website 1311 Arunai College Hello Good evening sir can you give me some examples for SINORS where technology based around engineering being implemented in rural areas so as professor Soni showed you a few of those examples you know instead of the improved cook stove you had this twisted tape inserts which can look at your normal chula and can improve the combustion characteristics there are several others which professor Shah will Yeah, let me give you one example where we use simple thermodynamics principle you know you might have heard about this SIDATILA process which is used in extracting herbal oils so the conventional process actually one uses open pan and the temperature at which the extraction is done is at about 95 to 100 degrees Celsius and if one uses vacuum then the same process can be done at much lower temperature that is 50 to 60 degrees Celsius and the product quality is also very superior so based on this laboratory bench scale work tabletop work then we sort of you know built a scaled up model where in 50 to 60 liters of oil can be made and in place of 6 to 7 days of batch time we have reduced that to only a one day 6 hours batch time so by using a simple vacuum principle of vacuum we have done that and we have something like 4 to 5 of such units of herbal oil extraction which have been disseminated in different parts of Maharashtra here one of my colleague here will give you okay so another example is like you know the bull strength is used to make the fire the bricks and which is again a batch process and we have this technology which was initially developed in China called vertical shaft brick kiln VSBK and this was somehow not popularized very popular in this part of the country and one of the project deals with building such a pilot kiln on the user side and testing it and performance evaluation for that so these are some of the examples of live engineering problems how we have sort of you know use them in disseminating the technologies one three one two DMI college Tamil Nadu hello sir good evening we are from DMI college of engineering civil engineering department we like to know that if our final year civil engineering students are permitting to do the project in this area that is doing project only for three months along with Siddharah or along with MTech students who they are doing here that should be possible we have an institutional rule of some project there is some there is some minor fee which is charged in the academic office and but I think that should be possible of course it all depends on the numbers and our ability to tackle those numbers with the number of faculty that we have but yes for a few people we could probably do that sir in that case when we have to go on direct to you sir depending on when you want the project maybe a few months before that okay sir thank you Kurukshetra University Ariana sir my question is do you assist in incubating some social entrepreneurship ideas like if we have some models so do you assist in incubating those projects we have in our at Siddharah that's not been a focus we are we have in the institute we have a technology business incubator and but if you are looking at incubation opportunities for social and you'll want to look at that maybe you should contact professor Anil Gupta that I am Amadabad with the honey bee network and the Shrishti network and that may enable you better one two seven five BH Garthi Rajkot yes sir I am Mayur I am actually studying MECAT in a second sem good afternoon sir as I am being a remote center what kind of advantage we can get from IIT Bombay for research work actually I am interested to start my research work in corrosion in its control please give a guideline sir okay this is probably outside Siddharah's scope but we have you will have to contact the material the department of metallurgical engineering and material science and we have a couple of faculty members who work in corrosion science and engineering so we in this you would have to define what you want from the institute and if possible the relevant faculty may be able to so you may be able to use some of our facilities again something that we can't commit to right now you have to do this offline sir which kind of advantage we can get is a remote sensing center from Siddharah I guess is it remote is it remote sensing or is it remote center actually yeah as a remote center right now we do not have any of our courses through distance but we we tried this as an outreach method having seen the power of this method it is likely that we will run a few courses through this so we may we may do that so right now there's nothing specific that we as a remote center but if you have any specific thing that you would like to have from Siddharah please do write to us and we will try to accommodate the request another question yes sir one of the my colleagues have completed his bachelor in industrial engineering and master in cat cam and what is the scope in Siddharah for PSP actually there is scope if you're looking at rural industries and you're looking at any specific thing related to that and there could be there could be scope even in there could be scope in Siddharah for that background because we are now we are sort of we do not prescribe specific backgrounds for our students but we do we do check whether the person is actually genuinely interested in working on applications for the rural areas one zero four seven SDM college Karnataka I'm pursuing m tech in cat structures a branch of civil engineering I have two questions for you the first one is what is the fee structure and cost duration for PSD program in civil engineering field and the second one is is there any distance education or part time that I can pursue my PSD through Siddharah for the first question I don't often know the fees they are specified in the academic in the in our website so you'll have to just check that for the second question if you are a sponsored candidate or a college teacher category once you do your coursework and then if you then one can actually and you are working somewhere else it is possible to do an external PhD at the institute you can check again you can check the exact rules which are there on the website if you have any doubts please feel free to send mail and we'll be able to answer those thank you sir 1309 silicon institute orissa good afternoon sir I have actually two questions the first one is like I have done my m tech in distance mode from cannot touch state university so first of all am I eligible for applying for the PSD program and my second question is actually I am there in the teaching profession from the last 13 years and currently I am involved in a transport project for government of Podisa from last five years so there basically what you're doing is the rationalization of the boss routes and right now also I have to submit something regarding what enhancement we can do in the rural sector for them so like I will definitely apply for the PSD program if I am eligible and it's still I am not eligible to apply can I meet you personally to get some detailed idea about what best I can do for the rural transport network so the as far as I understand our rules you are eligible because as long as that is an m tech or a masters equivalent program that should be possible and then the second thing of course we can I mean so we can discuss this offline yeah 1192 MGM college Nanded sir my question is currently I am pursuing my master's degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering so I would like to know how much research paper we have to publish in international journals so as to apply for your PhD program actually we don't have any prerequisite of research paper for applying for the PhD program we do have a test and then we have an interview but we don't have any prerequisite for research papers thank you sir that's a one more question as as from one hour we are listening about what you are or your students have practically implemented some of the projects in ruler areas but what benefits the ruler parties or the village level improvement has been on what basis you have been come across and what improvement have you seen in the ruler areas sir hello yeah actually we were in Nanded two days ago and we had visited Nanded and Purbani so for example now you yourself can be involved in the Nanded and Purbani districts you know there are many for example Sujal Nirmal Abhiyan schemes in about you know six villages or small towns in in Purbani and seven or eight small towns in Nanded and they need a lot of GIs support a lot of simulations and their water supply schemes need better design and better maintenance so I think just going through your local towns and helping them out with just getting better water supply schemes is a lot of work which you can do yourself in those two districts we are just back from there you know we were there at you know SGS college on Friday and on Saturday we were in Purbani town because your question was slightly different your question was about what differences have we seen see the one of the things that we feel that there is now an interest with several of the towns and the rural areas actually giving us letters and MOUs and saying that they would like to have sitara being involved so in that in that sense we feel that some of our involvement is something which is being appreciated by the rural areas over a time period we don't have a trajectory of a documentation of what has happened over a time period if that's your question I think it's a little early for us to say that Good evening sir Yes, SSM college Tamil Nadu Is there any internship program provided by you people Intensive in what sense UG students Internship training regarding any project development Internship we don't have a structured internship program but if some people are interested in some of our areas we can we are open to it Okay sir, thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you all and we hope to see many of you here in the next few months