Author: External Communications

IITGN Speaks: The Lockdown Experiences of Waste Collection and Management Workers

“If we need to really solve the problem, we need to collaborate, create collectives, and take solutions at scale.” – Ravi Venkatesan, UNICEF Special Representative for Young People and Innovation, business executive, venture capitalist, ex-chairman of Microsoft India, and the boards of Bank of Baroda and Infosys Dineshbhai, Baldevbhai, Dashrathbhai, Lalabhai, and Maheshbhai have been a part of the IIT Gandhinagar family for the last one and a half, three, three, four, and six years respectively. While Dineshbhai lives in Sanand and Baldevbhai and Dashrathbhai in the Sabarmati area (Ahmedabad district), Lalabhai resides in Palaj and Maheshbhai in Borij...

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SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater and Poop!

“There’s a way to do it better – find it.” — Thomas Alva Edison, renowned inventor, and businessman Did you know that poop and wastewater can form the basis of some COVID-19 surveillance techniques to monitor the levels of the novel coronavirus circulating in a city? Yes, you heard it right, people! Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar recently became a part of a critical international collaboration on a breakthrough COVID-19 study, which included some of the world’s leading scientists. The objective was to utilize wastewater to indicate the novel coronavirus disease spread in communities of different countries across the globe. Dr....

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India: The Land of Diverse Languages and Scripts

An analysis of the different languages and scripts of a nation can provide a detailed understanding of its past, present, and future. Did you know that India one of the most linguistically diverse nations (fourth largest) of the world? Our country has four major language families. The biggest one is Indo-European. Next, follow the Dravidian languages, which are spoken mostly in the Southern parts of India. The Austro-Asiatic (Munda) is the third family and the fourth one is the Tibeto-Burman. Moreover, there are several languages that do not fit into any of these families! Unlike many other places in the world, the people of India write these languages in...

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IITGN Speaks: The Lockdown Experience of a Horticulture Supervisor

“This virus has come like a storm in all of our lives and disrupted what we call normal. Times like these make you grasp for the silver linings and that’s what we must cling to.” – Rohit Gurunath Sharma, Indian international cricketer Jayanti Bhai Thakor has been a part of the IIT Gandhinagar family for the last nine years. A native of Palanpur city of Banaskantha district in Gujarat, he is a resident of the Palaj village near the Institute campus currently. He is a horticulture supervisor at IITGN and guides the laborers working under him from 8 AM...

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Education Post COVID-19: e-Session with Prof Sudhir K Jain & Prof Pradeep Khosla

“Online learning can enable learning to happen in a variety of contexts, locations, and times; it allows for a transformation of curriculum and learning.” – Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, Louis Soares, and Louis Caldera (from ‘Disrupting College’, a report by The Center for American Progress) Two eminent IIT alumni and top leaders of academia (Prof Sudhir K Jain and Prof Pradeep Khosla) discussed the drastic impact of the novel coronavirus disease on education – are these changes permanent? Will we now have a new normal in education? and other similar issues. The discussion took place on 25th...

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