The initiative was born when four researchers found the research ecosystem was not preparing scientists for institutional responsibilities; a 30-member BODH session costs Rs 3,000-5,000 per participant, although the team itself does not charge a fee.

India’s laboratories are expanding, research funding is growing, start-ups are emerging, and Indian researchers are increasingly contributing to scientific knowledge. Amid this expansion, who is preparing scientists to become leaders?

A researcher may spend years mastering experimental techniques, analysing data, publishing papers, and writing research proposals. But when that researcher becomes a principal investigator, a faculty member or a laboratory head, their expertise alone will not suffice. Leading a research group requires the ability to mentor young researchers, communicate effectively, build trust, resolve conflicts, inspire teams, and create an environment where people can do good science.

It is this oft-overlooked dimension of capacity building that four researchers have sought to address through a programme called ‘Building Opportunities & Driving Hope’ (BODH).

Making time

The initiative was born in September 2025 from the shared experiences of Veda Krishnan of the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi; Sriparna Chatterjee of CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar; Chandra Shekhar Sharma of IIT-Hyderabad; and Pooja Devi of CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh, while working with the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences.

The four researchers, from diverse disciplines, had found that the Indian research ecosystem was preparing scientists for scientific work but less so for the institutional responsibilities they would face.

BODH has multiple capacity-building modules, catering to diverse stages and dimensions of researchers’ professional needs. For example, one, called ‘PRABODH’, is designed to help PhD scholars communicate their knowledge to various audiences, develop professional networks and collaborations, and explore alternative career pathways across academia, research organisations, industry, policy, scientific publishing, and communication. The programme also addresses how scholars can navigate stress, burnout, imposter syndrome, setbacks in research, and work-life balance.

According to Dr. Krishnan, the team does not charge for conducting BODH sessions. Instead, the host institution is expected to cover the speakers’ travel and boarding expenses. Altogether, she estimated, a 30-member session usually costs around Rs 3,000-5,000 per participant. Host institutions have usually mobilised these funds through research projects, strategic partners, funding agencies, industry, and CSR initiatives. The flexibility also means individual BODH programmes can be structured according to the needs at each institution and the funding norms there.

India’s laboratories are expanding, research funding is growing, start-ups are emerging, and Indian researchers are increasingly contributing to scientific knowledge. Amid this expansion, who is preparing scientists to become leaders?

A researcher may spend years mastering experimental techniques, analysing data, publishing papers, and writing research proposals. But when that researcher becomes a principal investigator, a faculty member or a laboratory head, their expertise alone will not suffice. Leading a research group requires the ability to mentor young researchers, communicate effectively, build trust, resolve conflicts, inspire teams, and create an environment where people can do good science.

It is this oft-overlooked dimension of capacity building that four researchers have sought to address through a programme called ‘Building Opportunities & Driving Hope’ (BODH).

Making time

The initiative was born in September 2025 from the shared experiences of Veda Krishnan of the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi; Sriparna Chatterjee of CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology, Bhubaneswar; Chandra Shekhar Sharma of IIT-Hyderabad; and Pooja Devi of CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh, while working with the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences.

The four researchers, from diverse disciplines, had found that the Indian research ecosystem was preparing scientists for scientific work but less so for the institutional responsibilities they would face.

BODH has multiple capacity-building modules, catering to diverse stages and dimensions of researchers’ professional needs. For example, one, called ‘PRABODH’, is designed to help PhD scholars communicate their knowledge to various audiences, develop professional networks and collaborations, and explore alternative career pathways across academia, research organisations, industry, policy, scientific publishing, and communication. The programme also addresses how scholars can navigate stress, burnout, imposter syndrome, setbacks in research, and work-life balance.

According to Dr. Krishnan, the team does not charge for conducting BODH sessions. Instead, the host institution is expected to cover the speakers’ travel and boarding expenses. Altogether, she estimated, a 30-member session usually costs around Rs 3,000-5,000 per participant. Host institutions have usually mobilised these funds through research projects, strategic partners, funding agencies, industry, and CSR initiatives. The flexibility also means individual BODH programmes can be structured according to the needs at each institution and the funding norms there.

Professional journeys

The transition from researcher to research leader is not always an easy one. A smart scientist may know how to formulate a hypothesis or design an experiment but managing a laboratory involves a different set of competencies. They need to figure out how best to mentor a doctoral scholar who is struggling, how to handle disagreements in a research group, how a principal investigator should build a collaboration, how to communicate a difficult decision without damaging morale, and so on.

The founders of BODH recognised this gap through their own professional journeys. Their association with the Indian National Young Academy of Science, and for three of them with the Global Young Academy, exposed them to different approaches to leadership and mentoring. The experiences strengthened their conviction that India needed a leadership framework designed by scientists, for scientists, rooted in the realities of Indian academia. The idea then evolved through conversations at conferences, scientific meetings, airports, train journeys, and informal gatherings.

To achieve its goals, BODH uses an experiential, activity-based approach. Participants debate, negotiate, collaborate, communicate, solve problems, and reflect through situations inspired by real encounters in laboratories and universities. The objectives include teaching participants what good leadership looks like and to encourage them to examine their own behaviour and understand how their actions affect others.

They are also taken through ways to tackle uncertainty, failure, rejection, and other challenges that arise in a complex research environment, to improve their and their teams’ resilience, and to better manage collaborations.

Research is often portrayed as an individual intellectual pursuit but contemporary science is increasingly collaborative. Large research projects involve multidisciplinary teams, institutions, industry partners, and international collaborators. The ability to communicate, negotiate, empathise, and work across disciplines is therefore as important as technical expertise for India’s scientific leadership. 

Next generation of leaders

Within its first year, BODH has conducted ten leadership workshops involving more than 300 participants from over 70 institutions across India. Its programmes have reached faculty members, scientists, and research scholars at IIT-Hyderabad; IIT-Kharagpur; Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Thiruvananthapuram; the Indian National Science Academy; ICAR-IARI; ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi; National Institute for Technology Raipur; Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad; and Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore.

The geographical and institutional diversity of these participants is important as India’s scientific ecosystem is expanding, albeit slowly, beyond a handful of premier institutions.

The team makes time for the programme on weekends and holidays, without affecting their official work. According to Dr. Krishnan, over the last year, the team has not taken any special leave or duty leave for BODH activities.

Beyond bringing their workshops to new centres, the team also envisages digital learning resources, facilitator manuals, leadership fellowships, scholarships for young researchers, women-in-STEM leadership programmes, and a nationwide mentorship network involving scientists across disciplines.

BODH is a reminder that scientific progress is ultimately a human enterprise. And as India seeks to establish itself as a leading knowledge economy, investing in infrastructure and technology will remain indispensable. But equal attention must be given to the people who lead research teams and shape institutional cultures.

Biju Dharmapalan is an adjunct faculty member at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc campus, Bengaluru, and dean, Academic Affairs, Garden City University, Bengaluru. bijudharmapalan@gmail.com

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

India’s star men’s doubles pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty produced a spirited comeback to defeat China’s He Ji Ting and Ren Xiang Yu in three games and clinch the China Masters Super 750 title on Sunday.

The world No 5 Indian duo recovered from losing the opening game to register an 11-21, 21-13, 21-17 victory in a thrilling final that lasted one hour and 10 minutes.

The triumph marked Satwik and Chirag’s second title of the season, following their victory at the Singapore Open Super 750. They had also finished runners-up at the Thailand Open Super 500 earlier this year.

The victory was particularly significant for the Indians as they finally went all the way in their third China Masters final. They had finished runners-up in the 2023 and 2025 editions of the tournament.

The Indian pair, who had a 2-0 head-to-head record against the Chinese duo before the final, endured a difficult opening game. He and Ren raced to a 5-0 lead and maintained their advantage through aggressive attacking play.

The Chinese pair continued to dominate the exchanges and led 11-5 at the interval. Despite attempts by Satwik and Chirag to fight back, the hosts maintained their momentum to take the opening game 21-11.

The Indians returned strongly in the second game, improving their defence and forcing longer rallies. Satwik’s flick serves and Chirag’s sharp interceptions helped them gain control of the proceedings.

After a tight start, Satwik and Chirag moved ahead 7-6 and entered the interval with an 11-7 advantage. They continued to apply pressure after the break, forcing the Chinese pair into errors and extending their lead.

The Indians eventually earned seven game points before closing out the game 21-13 to level the match.

The decider saw the Chinese pair make another strong start, moving 7-3 ahead. However, Satwik and Chirag displayed remarkable composure and fought their way back into the contest.

Four consecutive points brought the Indians level at 7-7. Although He and Ren managed to hold a slender lead at the interval, Satwik and Chirag remained firmly in contention.

The final stages turned into a tense battle, with both pairs engaging in rapid flat exchanges. The Chinese duo led 15-13 before the Indians levelled at 16-16.

Satwik and Chirag then seized the initiative, moving 18-17 ahead after an error from He. A fortunate net cord gave the Indians three match points, and Chirag sealed the championship with a powerful smash.

The China Masters crown adds another major achievement to the Indian pair’s impressive season and provides a significant boost ahead of the upcoming Asian Games in Japan, where they will aim to defend their gold medal.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

GSLV-F17 places2,367-kg EOS-05, India’s first imaging satellite, into the intended Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit .

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday (September 4, 2026) successfully launched its advanced Earth observation satellite EOS-05 aboard the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F17).

The GSLV, on its 19th flight, placed the 2,367-kg EOS-05 into the intended Sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO) about 18 minutes after lifting off from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 2.55 a.m.

The EOS-05 is India’s first imaging satellite designed to monitor the Earth from geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km above the Earth.

“I am very happy to announce that the GSLV-F17 vehicle has successfully and precisely injected the advanced Earth observation satellite EOS-05 into the intended and required orbit, “ ISRO Chairman Dr. V. Narayanan said.

He said this was the 107th launch from the spaceport in Sriharikota and the 19th mission of the GSLV.

“The first launch of the GSLV- D1 was done with a payload of 1,536 kg. From that, we have gradually improved the performance of this vehicle by optimising the structural mass, improving the propulsion systems. Today, we have injected the heaviest satellite, a 2,367-kg satellite, using this launch vehicle,” he added.

Dr. Narayanan said that once operationalised, EOS-05 would become India’s first dedicated imaging satellite operating from the geosynchronous orbit, providing important strategic data for our country.

“From the satellite data, we confirm that all the valves are operating perfectly, the solar panel is deployed, and the health of the satellite is perfectly alright. In the coming days, we will raise the orbit and take it to the required orbit and place the satellite in the Geo platform for national activities,” he said.

The EOS-05, dubbed the “Eye in the Sky”, will provide real-time imagery, helping sectors like agriculture, environment and disaster management, among others.

Success after 8-month lull

The successful launch comes as a huge relief for ISRO, which has not carried out a launch since the failure of the PSLV-C62 mission carrying the EOS-N1 earth observation satellite on January 12, 2026.

The space agency, following the back-to-back failures of the PSLV-C62 in January 2026 and the PSLV-C61 on May 18, 2025, had taken a cautious approach and refrained from carrying out further launches.

Though seven missions, including the GSLV-F17/EOS-05 mission, had been scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2026, ISRO did not launch any satellites during the period.

The successful launch of the 2367-kg EOS-05 also puts behind the failure ISRO had encountered in August 2021 with the GSLV-F10/EOS-03 mission.

Back then, the GSLV-F10/EOS-03 performed normally during the first and second stages. However, the cryogenic upper stage ignition did not happen due to a technical anomaly, rendering the mission unsuccessful.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Calcutta is unusual among world cities for having so little war in its past. It is more unusual still for having let the one real brush it did have slip almost entirely out of its own telling or memory.

A group of GIs takes a close look at a snake-wallah’s hooded cobra Photograph by Clyde Waddell © The University of Pennsylvania Libraries

On the morning of September 2, 1945, Japanese representatives signed the instrument of surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, formally ending the Second World War. Over eight decades later, the world’s promise of ‘Never Again’ to war looks thinner with each new conflict. Calcutta’s own reckoning with 1945 is, however, quieter and stranger.

For a city that has lived through empire, famine, Partition and rebellion, Calcutta has an oddly small acquaintance with war itself. Nearly every major city — London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow — has stood in conflict’s direct path. In roughly three centuries of its modern recorded history, Calcutta has felt war on its own soil only twice: in 1756, when Siraj-ud-Daulah took Fort William from the British, and between 1942 and 1944, when Japanese bombers reached the city. The second of these has almost vanished from our recent memory. This is odd because it happened alongside the event Bengal remembers most bitterly of all — the Bengal Famine.

By early 1942, Rangoon had fallen, and the Japanese advance through Burma had put Calcutta, the empire’s largest eastern port, within the bombers’ range, a threat that most other major Indian cities did not share. The first raids came on December 20, 1942, and continued till Christmas Eve, striking Kidderpore docks among other targets. A second, larger, daylight raid on December 5, 1943 hit the docks again, killing several hundred and cutting cargo capacity by two-thirds for weeks. Smaller raids continued all through 1944. An estimated 3,50,000 city residents fled in panic. Blackout drills, trenches dug through public squares, and air-raid sirens became part of the city’s daily life.

The bombing did not happen in isolation. It unfolded alongside the Bengal famine of 1943, and the two were more entangled than they first appear. The same fear of invasion that sent bombers over Kidderpore also drove Winston Churchill’s ‘denial policy’: the deliberate confiscation by the British of over 50,000 boats and surplus rice stocks from coastal Bengal was meant to deny an advancing Japanese army the means to move or feed itself. The British also implemented inflation policies during the war that were aimed at making more resources available for Allied troops. The denial policy, wartime procurement, inflation, disruption of rice supplies, cyclone and crop disease — all these miscalculations, layered on administrative failure and speculation — led to the death of close to 30 lakh people. The same military logic that turned Calcutta into a bombing target turned the Bengal countryside into an acute famine zone: both were the price extracted by the British administrators for defending the eastern frontier with the people living in it as collateral damage.

The images that survive of this moment mostly survive by accident, and mostly through foreign hands. Wartime censorship in colonial India was strict around military installations, ports, railway stations, and troop movements, precisely the subjects that mattered most in Calcutta during the war. Indian newspapers and photographers worked under immense press restrictions that made it risky, often impossible, to photograph the docks, the damage, life in the city and in the suburbia, or the famine’s toll. Thus very few indigenous photographic records of these years survive.

What exists instead comes largely from foreign servicemen-cum-photographers who had military clearance to be near the docks, railway stations, and the barracks and were allowed to photograph the city streets. Consequently, two American photographers — they were not part of the Indian press — ended up producing what may be the fullest surviving visual account of Calcutta during the Second World War.

Glenn S. Hensley (June 3, 1919 — January 23, 2018) was one such American serviceman who served in the 40th Army Photography Reconnaissance and was in British India between 1943 and 1945. Along with the official images he captured for the United States army, Hensley produced a series of personal photographs portraying his immediate surroundings and his experience of life during the Second World War in British India and in Burma. He had photographed Calcutta while the danger of war was very real, between 1943 and 1944. He gave away nearly 600 images to the University of Chicago Library where they now form the ‘Hensley Collection’, digitised through the Digital South Asia Library. Despite the size of his wartime contribution, Hensley remains almost absent in Calcutta’s historical writings and museums and from our memory — an odd fate for his unique photographic record of the city was taken during, not after, its brush with the active years of the Second World War.

Clyde Waddell (June 20, 1915 — February 11, 1997) came to Calcutta slightly later. He was a bit more fortunate than Hensley. A Houston Press photographer inducted into the US army, Waddell was attached in November 1943 to the Public Relations Staff of South East Asia Command: a joint Allied, British-led command under Louis Mountbatten but staffed by Americans and British alike. Waddell served as Mountbatten’s personal photographer before moving to the Phoenix magazine, a picture weekly run jointly by both commands. Waddell took his own Calcutta photographs while on leave in 1945 after the bombing had stopped. They include Chowringhee’s trams, the Burra Bazar, Nimtolla’s crematorium, opium dens in Tiretta Bazaar, GIs mixing with street vendors near the Tipu Masjid at Dharmatala crossing and the famine-stricken mother and child. Friends kept asking for copies until he self-published 60 of his photographs as A Yank’s Memories of Calcutta in 1946. It’s often called a nearly lost book, but that isn’t quite right: documented copies survive at the University of Pennsylvania, Southeastern Louisiana University and the British Library besides others that have surfaced at auction over the years. Rare, yes; vanished, no; just scattered widely enough such that few people, in Calcutta or anywhere else, have seen it whole. However, his photographs have been plagiarised and reconfigured by
social media influencers in recent times.

Between them, the two men left behind something rare: one captured the city’s fear, one its exhaled relief, months apart. Almost nobody alive remembers the sirens first hand now; what’s left is second-hand: a grandparent’s mention of trenches near a school, a scarred building in old Dalhousie Square, a photograph nobody in the family can quite place. That is usually how Calcutta’s war memory ends: not with an event, but with the slow disappearance of anyone who can say ‘I was there’.

Apart from Hensley and Waddell, there were at least three other American servicemen photographers — Frank Bond, Lewis Paltz, and Tony Mayo who had photographed wartime Bengal.

Calcutta is unusual among world cities for having so little war in its past. It is more unusual still for having let the one real brush it did have — bombed docks, a starving population, and a city in churn — slip almost entirely out of its own telling
or memory. Part of the reason is geography: the Hensley Collection sits in Chicago, Waddell’s album is scattered across libraries and auction rooms abroad, and no Indian museum, archive or university, to the best of my knowledge, holds a complete set of either.

Recovering that record now is not nostalgia; it would mean bringing digitised copies home so that every Calcuttan can finally see what almost nobody photographed from the inside, before the last people who could say, ‘I was there’, are gone.

Devasis Chattopadhyay is a narrative history writer and columnist

source/content: telegraphonline.com (headline edited) / rare pix above as exception

A technical institute’s medical degree will only be distinct if its curriculum, admissions, and thesis requirements are deliberately built around that engineering core.

In March 2026, IIT Kharagpur—the oldest Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) that has been training thousands of minds to design bridges, cars, and computer chips for the last 75 years did something unprecedented. It formally applied to the National Medical Commission (NMC) to offer a postgraduate medical degree, the Doctor of Medicine (MD).

It was not an isolated move. In August 2026, an alumnus of IIT-Kanpur pledged a massive ₹400 crore boost —building on a landmark ₹100 crore donation in 2022 — to expand its medical school and 450-bed super-specialty hospital to offer postgraduate programs in super-specialty medicine.

Join THEdge LinkedIn group

Within days, IIT-Madras stepped up to announce an even bolder vision: offering not just an MD, but an MBBS and a Ph.D. in medicine through its School of Medical Sciences, started in 2023.

A century-old assumption — that engineering colleges build engineers and medical colleges make doctors — is falling apart.

The quiet convergence

For over six decades, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have served as India’s temples of engineering excellence. So why are they suddenly stepping into healthcare and running hospitals?

The short answer is: modern healthcare is no longer just about stethoscopes and prescriptions. It is driven by algorithms, microfluidics, robotic surgery, and biocompatible materials. Walk into a high-tech operating theatre today, and you will find as much engineering as medicine: robotic arms, real-time imaging, AI-assisted diagnostics, and 3D-printed implants.

Medicine is not the only sector witnessing this shift. Nursing and allied health are also transitioning. IIT Guwahati’s School of Health Sciences and Technology already trains students jointly with AIIMS Guwahati and the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER). Meanwhile, IIT Kharagpur’s hospital project includes explicit plans for a nursing college and a paramedical training school alongside its medical courses.

India’s premier technology institutes have realised that the major challenges of this century — climate change, cancer, cognition, and clean energy — cannot be solved from inside a single-discipline silo. Engineering schools that just focus on engineering risk becoming mere component suppliers to the institutions that have a massive impact on solving these problems.

Research and pharma co-innovation

While the IITs made headlines with plans for traditional medical degrees, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has pursued a distinctly different, research-first pathway into medical education.

Now established as the Tata IISc Medical School following a partnership with the Tata Group, the campus is executing an ambitious clinical and research infrastructure rollout.

The foundation stone for the 832-bed non-profit multi-specialty hospital — supported by a landmark ₹425 crore donation — was laid by the Prime Minister way back in June 2022 and was originally scheduled to be functional by December 2024. Now it is slated to become fully operational by late 2026 and admit the first batch of students in its flagship integrated dual-degree MD-Ph.D. program in July 2027.

What sets IISc apart from traditional medical colleges — and even peer technical institutes — is its structural integration with the global and domestic pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Instead of treating industry interactions as post hoc research grants, IISc embeds pharmaceutical co-innovation directly into its medical school ecosystem.

Specialised research hubs on campus — such as the Cipla Foundation Centre for Pulmonary Medicine — are integrated into the curriculum to deliver advanced respiratory care, targeted clinical trials, and drug development training alongside specialised units like the Centre for Brain Research (CBR).

The bigger opportunity

Hidden beneath the admissions headlines is an even bigger opportunity. Cross-disciplinary campuses are where medical devices, diagnostics, and therapeutics actually get invented.

This is because the clinicians who understand the patient’s pain points and the engineers who can build the solutions are finally standing in the same hallway.

For a country that imports the vast majority of its high-end medical devices, the economic and social benefits of getting this right are immense: indigenous implants, affordable diagnostics, and AI tools designed for Indian disease burdens and price points. This vision aligns with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which actively pushes higher education institutions to break down rigid disciplinary walls and evolve into Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs).

Top-tier medical institutions like AIIMS, CMC Vellore, and JIPMER built their reputations on a time-tested formula: elite NEET-UG entry, massive patient volumes, and clinical research deeply embedded in bedside patient care.

What the IITs and IISc are betting on is a completely different edge: training doctors and physician-scientists who are fluent in engineering and computational tools—like signal processing, AI/ML, medical robotics, genetics, and device design—from day one, inside the very institute building those tools.

However, a technical institute’s medical degree will only be distinct if its curriculum, admissions, and thesis requirements are deliberately built around that engineering core. Otherwise, it risks simply becoming a smaller, newer, and less clinically proven version of a standard MBBS.

The private university precedent

The IITs and IISc may be among the top public institutions attempting this, but private universities have been testing the waters for decades.

Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) started India’s first self-financing private medical college in 1953, later building the Manipal Institute of Technology and expanding into an Institution of Eminence. Decades of shared governance birthed a robust biomedical engineering department, a bio-incubator spinning out medical-device startups, and an ICMR-MAHE Centre for Advanced Research explicitly bridging clinical and engineering expertise.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham co-located its medical and engineering schools under one university umbrella, running a dedicated M.Tech in Biomedical Engineering with research spanning biosensors, prosthetics, and drug-delivery systems.

The lesson for public tech campuses is double-edged. While shared governance and funding work over the long haul, interdisciplinary outputs tend to be concentrated in dedicated programs rather than completely reshaping what every single graduate becomes.

As institutes weigh how to execute this cross-disciplinary vision, they generally find themselves standing at crossroads between two distinct administrative approaches.

On one side lies the research partnership model, best exemplified by long-standing collaborations like AIIMS Delhi working alongside IIT Delhi. Under this framework, institutions enjoy low capital expenditure and virtually zero regulatory risk, as degree-granting authority remains cleanly divided between the parent specialised units. However, these initiatives rely heavily on inter-faculty MoUs and individual relationships, which can fade as leadership changes.

On the other side lies the integrated campus model, pursued by pioneers such as the IITs at Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras, and IISc Bengaluru. Here, a single institution builds or manages its own hospital and native “Physician-Scientist” track. While this guarantees complete curriculum control and seamless continuity, it comes with a steep price tag: massive upfront infrastructure costs, heavy operational risk, and the administrative burden of running a 24×7 clinical facility.

Challenges ahead

As the IITs step into clinical medicine, they face a reality check: setting up and running a world-class hospital is fundamentally different from commissioning a quantum computing lab.

The journey of IIT Kharagpur’s hospital project reads like a case study in institutional perseverance. It all began in 2007 when late President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam laid the foundation stone for the B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research. By 2012, the Centre sanctioned an initial grant of roughly ₹230 crore, with officials ambitiously promising an MBBS-ready medical college by 2018.

However, constructing and commissioning a high-capacity teaching hospital from scratch proved far more complex than anticipated, leading to repeated deadline slippages between 2018 and 2021. When the pandemic hit between 2020 and 2022, the facility was repurposed to serve as a COVID-19 quarantine center, eventually expanding to about 160 general beds and 90 ICU beds—still well short of its original 400-to-750 bed vision.

By early 2026, despite a fresh ₹300 crore investment and Board of Governors clearance, the undergraduate MBBS remained on hold. Adapting to these realities, the hospital performed its historic first surgery in 2025 and pivoted toward a pragmatic 20-seat postgraduate MD program, submitting its formal application to the NMC by March 2026.

Even the IISc has seen a delay of about two years in commissioning its hospital.

Housing engineering, medicine, and nursing on one campus has challenges in execution:

Faculty recruitment and pay clashes: Engineering professors can join straight out of Ph.D. programs, whereas clinical faculty require years of hospital practice after an MD. Standard academic pay scales are rarely competitive enough to attract top neurosurgeons or cardiologists from private practice. As a result, tech institutes end up hiring practicing doctors on hospital-linked appointments, creating a two-tier faculty dynamic that must be carefully managed.

24×7 operational risk: A failed lab experiment wastes mere time and effort; a hospital failure involves a human life. Hospitals require continuous staffing, blood bank licenses, patient-safety audits, bio-waste management, and medico-legal liability coverage—a rhythm entirely alien to an academic calendar.

Capital intensity: A major super-specialty facility requires hundreds of crores of investment before a single student walks in. Unlike engineering labs funded by grants, hospitals require continuous subsidies in operations, insurance link-ups, and government health-scheme empanelment to attract patients and stay afloat.

Multiple regulators: An integrated technical campus is simultaneously answerable to the Ministry of Education, the National Medical Commission (for medical degrees), the Indian Nursing Council (for nursing), and the Pharmacy Council of India. Each body has its own inspection schedules and minimum norms, and none are obliged to coordinate with the others. Crucially, the draft HECI regulations do not close this inter-regulatory gap.

Collaborative integration

The classic example is the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST), running since 1970. The regulatory and degree-granting authority remains clearly separated—degrees are awarded by the respective parent unit—while teaching and research are integrated across campuses.

Several benchmark partnerships across India prove that deep collaborative integration works without single-institute degree ownership. Since 1971, the joint Biomedical Engineering Centre between AIIMS Delhi and IIT Delhi has accumulated five decades of shared device, implant, and imaging research without either campus altering its core degree authority.

Similarly, the three-way pipeline between CMC Vellore, IIT Madras, and SCTIMST requires students to physically rotate across all three campuses every semester, combining clinical exposure with engineering rigor. Even IIT Kharagpur itself maintains an inter-institutional MoU with AIIMS Kalyani for joint research and clinical training, proving that collaborative pipelines can operate alongside internal hospital ambitions.

The IIT leaders point out that full degree ownership allows an institute to train “physician-scientists” from year one rather than relying on post hoc MoUs, while ensuring institutional continuity without depending on leadership changes.

Restructing courses

The traffic is starting to flow in reverse direction, too. Medical institutions are embedding engineering capabilities right inside their campuses.

However, duplicate infrastructure is expensive. A medical college’s advantage is patient access and clinical data; an engineering college’s edge is computational power and specialized labs. Rather than building engineering departments from scratch, medical colleges benefit far more by establishing joint-degree pipelines with established technical institutes—much like the CMC Vellore-IIT Madras model.

The underlying drive pushing IITs and IISc into medicine applies to India’s broader engineering ecosystem. They can achieve meaningful cross-disciplinary integration with life sciences without building multi-crore hospitals. This can be done by: Integrating curriculum by offering biotechnology and bio-engineering as cross-listed electives or minors. Partnering with local hospitals for joint student capstone projects and co-supervised dissertations. Establishing joint research initiatives with medical colleges via simple MoUs.

For premier institutes and policymakers, a pragmatic roadmap includes: focusing initially on PG, PhD, and M. Tech-PhD programs in partnership with existing medical schools before taking on massive capital investments and the intense regulatory burden of undergraduate MBBS programs. Establishing distinct, clinically competitive contracts for hospital faculty right from the start. Pushing for a formal inter-regulator coordination mechanism across HECI- the NMC, the pharmaceutical council, and the Nursing Council to streamline multidisciplinary campus reviews.

The way forward

Beyond educating full-time medical students, the IITs are uniquely positioned to address an urgent challenge in modern healthcare: upskilling the existing workforce of practicing clinicians who graduated before AI, computer vision, and health informatics became mainstream. They can design targeted, short-term executive programs tailored for senior physicians and surgeons, in areas such as interpreting AI-assisted radiology scans, evaluating diagnostic algorithm accuracy, and understanding predictive analytics for patient outcomes.

The foray of the IITs and IISc into medical education is a necessary natural evolution. In an era where AI diagnoses disease, surgical humanoid robots assist in operating theatres, and bio-printers fabricate body tissue, keeping India’s best doctors and engineers in separate silos is not a prudent strategy.

While regulatory gaps and operational hurdles remain real, starting with postgraduate programs and research in partnership with medical schools and industry offers a pragmatic path forward. With smart policy reforms and flexible operating models, the marriage between the stethoscope and the algorithm could fundamentally redefine the future of Indian healthcare—ensuring quality, access, and inclusivity.

(Professor O.R.S. Rao is the Chancellor of the ICFAI University, Sikkim. Views are personal)

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The Mahatma’s principles of non-violence have forged enduring bonds between the Baltics and India.

August 23, 2026, marked the 37th anniversary of the Baltic Way, the historic 1989 human chain that became a watershed moment in the Gandhian-inspired Singing Revolution in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, culminating in the restoration of Baltic independence in 1990-91. Conversations across the Baltic states revealed powerful personal reflections on the Baltic Way and Gandhian non-violence: “We studied India’s freedom struggle and chose Gandhian non-violent resistance to reclaim our national freedom from Soviet rule.” “We watched the film Gandhi on Lithuanian national television, telecast for 24 hours.” “It was thrilling to join a non-violent protest against the Soviet army at Vilnius Cathedral Square; even as a bullet passed near my ear, I stood firm.” “Baltic Way matters a lot for us today.”

A turning point

The Singing Revolution (1986-91), shaped by songs and non-violence during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, reached a turning point with the Baltic Way, when two million people formed a 675-kilometre human chain from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius, demanding freedom from Soviet rule. It remains a powerful symbol of unity, solidarity, and freedom. The Baltic Way was organised on the 50th anniversary of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to expose its secret protocol, which divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, and paved the way for the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states in 1940. Having gained independence in 1918, the Baltics lost it after 22 years. The Baltic Way exposed Soviet-era repression, leading to the Soviet Union’s acknowledgement of the secret protocol’s existence and the Baltic states’ re-independence in 1991. Its global media coverage drew international attention, while its inscription in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register and Guinness World Records recognition reinforced its international legacy.

An enduring influence

Gandhi’s ideas travelled globally, inspiring movements from the American civil rights struggle to South Africa and beyond. Today, the Baltic Way reflects the enduring relevance of his principles of non-violence, truth, and human dignity, while echoing the non-cooperation and civil disobedience of his 1930 Dandi March.

Gandhi showed that moral authority could outweigh military power through ahimsa, satyagraha, civil resistance, mass mobilisation, and the principle that a nation’s rule depends on people’s consent and cooperation. The Baltic Way and the Singing Revolution stand as a testimony to the success of people’s power and civilian-based defence drawn from the Gandhi-led Indian freedom movement.

The Singing Revolution’s leaders drew on global traditions of non-violent resistance. Latvian scholar Maija Kūle noted that, lacking local theorists, they turned to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.; Latvia’s earlier cultural links with India may also have encouraged this attraction to Gandhian ideas. Lithuania, too, played a key role in developing non-violent civilian-based defence inspired by Gandhi.

In a 2012 conversation with this writer, the late Prof. Gražina Miniotaitė, a leading ideologue of Lithuania’s Singing Revolution, recalled that non-violence was widely understood from the outset as essential. The December 1990 “Republic in Danger” declaration urged adherence to “non-violence and non-cooperation with the occupational authorities”.

Unlike other thinkers of non-violence, Miniotaitė regarded Gandhi as the most successful in both theory and practice, demonstrating that non-violent struggle could effectively resist foreign rule. Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film Gandhi was broadcast on Lithuanian national television to educate citizens about non-violent resistance. Confronting Soviet troops, people repeated: “We won’t fight,” “We follow Gandhi,” and “We are peaceful people.”

Building closer ties

Since 1992, the Baltic states have drawn on Gandhian and cultural ties to deepen relations with India, expanding cooperation in technology, sustainability, the blue economy, and culture. The Government of India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry estimates show that India’s total bilateral trade with Lithuania reached $490.61 million; with Latvia, $475.66 million, and with Estonia, $219.69 million in 2025-26.

Baltic political discourse reflects Gandhian influence through Gandhi’s Lithuanian-born Litvak “soulmate” Hermann Kallenbach; Vydūnas’s engagement with Gandhian thought; Antanas Poška’s meetings with Gandhi; Sonja Schlesin’s secretaryship; and Estonian translations of Gandhi by Linnart Hall. These ties continue through annual commemorations of the 2015 Gandhi-Kallenbach monument in Kallenbach’s birthplace, Rusnė, most recently in July 2026; the Kallenbach Memorial Lectures; and the India-Lithuania Friendship Award (this year, it honoured the people of Goa during the 400th anniversary of missionary Andrius Rudamina). India has also gifted Gandhi memorials to the Baltics, including a bust unveiled in Latvia in 2019 and a statue installed in Estonia in 2025.

The Baltic Way endures as a chain of freedom and ideas, linking courage with conscience. Its contemporary significance is multifaceted: a model of non-violent resistance, a site of contested memory, a narrative in Russia-West tensions, and ultimately, a tribute to Gandhi and India.

K.B. Usha is Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The home minister clarified that the government has been putting its effort to identify the unsettled area of the Indo-Myanmar stretch.

Manipur home minister Govindas Konthoujam informed the Manipur legislative assembly floor on Wednesday that around 55km Indo-Myanmar border fencing out of 398km has been completed.

He was responding to the calling attention motion raised by Congress MLA Konthoujam Ranjit Singh to the growing apprehension and concern amongst the people of Manipur on the reported proposal for a land swap deal between India and Myanmar.

The home minister clarified that the government has been putting its effort to identify the unsettled area of the Indo-Myanmar stretch bordering Manipur and Myanmar. Adding that “border pillar numbers 75 to 79 remain one of the most sensitive stretches in the Moreh sector”.

“The government acknowledged the necessity of border fencing and we are targeting to complete the fencing work by 2028”, said Konthoujam.

“Out of the 398km from border pillar number 32 to 130, 55km has been fenced in the state,” adding, “there has been a delay in progress due to issues related to transportation of materials,” he added.

On reports of a “land swap” with Myanmar, the minister said, “There has been no information from the Ministry of External Affairs to the state government on the matter.”

Konthoujam said the people of Manipur are always against on any matter if it questioned on the territorial boundary which the government acknowledge.

“Also, before any decision is taken, the affected people will be informed by the central government,” he said.

The minister said the government acknowledged the problems caused by arms, drugs and illegal immigration due to the porous border. “Due to porous borders, the state has suffered from arms, drugs and illegal immigration proliferation,” he said.

The Opposition also sought clarification on account of the atrocities committed in the past two years particularly the abduction and subsequent killing of women and children in Jiribam, the bomb attack at Tronglaobi claiming the lives of two children, the killing of three Kuki church leaders at Saheibung and the ambush along the lmphal-Tamei road resulting in the death of four Naga civilians.

Konthoujam responding to the calling attention railed by Congress MLA Keisham Meghachandra Singh on “justice for victims”, said the government took necessary security measures to control law and order in Manipur despite harsh geographical terrain and additional security forces are deployed in the state.

Four have been arrested by the National investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with killing of six Nagas and the case has been progressing, he said.

“We handed over most of the cases to NIA so that the cases could be solve in a transparent manner as due to the ongoing crisis there is trust deficit among the communities of Meitei-Kuki and Kuki-Naga,” said Konthoujam.

Home minister also informed that a total of 9,647 case were registered since May 3, 2023 clash. Out of the total, 3,020 cases are undergoing investigation after formation of separate Special Investigating Team (SIT) and 312 cases have been charge sheeted while 29 cases have been handed over to NIA and 32 at Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The government is trying hard for reconciliation of peace but cooperation is needed among community leaders to remove trust deficit among each other, he added.

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)

AVM Sharma was first commissioned into the IAF’s Education Branch in 1994. Since then, she has served across various postings and training establishments.

In a historic milestone for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and defence forces, Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma scripted history and became the first woman officer (non-medical) to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshal (or equivalent).

As per a press release from the ministry of defence, AVM Sharma will bring immense experience to the post, having served across Training Establishments, Field Stations, Command Headquarters, and Air Headquarters.

Who is Shakti Sharma?

AVM Sharma was first commissioned into the IAF’s Education Branch in 1994. Since then, she has served across various postings and training establishments. She was also the first woman Group Captain in the IAF outside the medical branch.

She has also worked to strengthen academic and institutional cooperation, owing to her key role in establishing IAF Chairs of Excellence at IIT Kanpur and Pune University.

A historic milestone for the Indian Air Force.

On 01 Sep 2026, Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma became the first woman officer (non-medical) in the Indian Defence Services to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshal (or equivalent). She assumed the appointment of Assistant Chief of… pic.twitter.com/9IulN6QjOb

— Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) September 1, 2026

x

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)

The move comes amid growing reliance on digital and technology-based systems—from banking and payments to telecommunications, railways, power grids and computer networks—that depend on accurate and synchronised time stamps.

The Union government has notified the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026, mandating Indian Standard Time (IST) as the single reference for legal, administrative, commercial and other official purposes across the country.

The nodal Consumer Affairs Ministry notified the rules on August 27. Still, they will come into force 180 days after their publication in the Official Gazette, giving government departments, businesses, and institutions time to align their systems.

The move comes amid growing reliance on digital and technology-based systems—from banking and payments to telecommunications, railways, power grids and computer networks—that depend on accurate and synchronised time stamps.

The Union government has notified the Legal Metrology (Indian Standard Time) Rules, 2026, mandating Indian Standard Time (IST) as the single reference for legal, administrative, commercial and other official purposes across the country.

The nodal Consumer Affairs Ministry notified the rules on August 27. Still, they will come into force 180 days after their publication in the Official Gazette, giving government departments, businesses, and institutions time to align their systems.

The move comes amid growing reliance on digital and technology-based systems—from banking and payments to telecommunications, railways, power grids and computer networks—that depend on accurate and synchronised time stamps.

The Ministry said inconsistencies between different time sources currently in use could affect the coordination and recording of such activities, prompting the push for a uniform national time standard.

The common time reference is expected to support accurate time-stamping of banking and digital payment transactions, coordination among railways, airports and other transport systems, reliable functioning of telecommunication and internet networks, precise time-keeping in power systems, upkeep of government and legal records, and coordination of emergency and other time-critical services, the Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry said the 180-day transition period would allow stakeholders to review existing systems, carry out necessary technical upgrades, and prepare for full implementation before the Rules take effect.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)