IIT Ropar ranks 12th among 2,500 engineering institutes in India in IIRF 2025 rankings
CHANDIGARH: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar has been ranked 12th among 2,500 engineering institutes across the country in the Top Engineering Colleges in India 2025 ranking released by the Indian Institutional Ranking Framework (IIRF).
Prof Rajeev Ahuja, Director of IIT Ropar, said, "This prestigious ranking, which evaluates over 2,500 institutions across India, underscores IIT Ropar's growing stature as a powerhouse of academic excellence, cutting-edge research, and innovation. We should lead in research and innovation- we have all the ingredients to become the most innovative institute in the country. We are committed to pushing boundaries, advancing research, and fostering indigenous manufacturing to reduce reliance on imports.'
The institute's ascent to rank 12 reflects its strong performance across seven key parameters - placement performance, teaching-learning resources and pedagogy, research (volume, income, and reputation), industry income and integration, placement strategies and support, future orientation, and external perception and international outlook.
The Indian Institutional Ranking Framework (IIRF) evaluates over 2,500 institutions across India, assessing them on parameters such as faculty quality, research output, industry collaboration, infrastructure, and student satisfaction. According to the latest rankings, IIT Ropar is placed among IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, and IIT Kanpur, surpassing several established engineering colleges in India.
IIT Ropar is emerging as a research and technological innovation leader, particularly in defence and security, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, semiconductor technology, quantum, agriculture and water management, artificial intelligence and data science, and cyber-physical systems (CPS).
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The Hindu
19 hours ago
- The Hindu
Picking an engineering course in Tamil Nadu
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Saravanan, principal, New Prince Shri Bhavani College of Engineering and Technology, Chennai. ECE has gained popularity owing to the government's push in the semiconductor sector, while Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) and Mechanical Engineering are regaining traction. However, Civil Engineering continues to evoke low interest, with only 30% of seats filled at his college, he added. Under the TNEA 2024 single-window counselling system for colleges affiliated to Anna University, only 4,451 candidates opted for Civil Engineering-related courses as against 10,772 available seats. 'Civil Engineering is still not preferred. We offer only 30 seats, and just 35% of them are filled under the management quota,' noted K. Palanikumar, principal, Sairam Engineering College in Chennai. 'Interestingly, students opting for Civil Engineering often have parents working in the construction sector. What we have noticed is that there is a disconnect between job opportunities in government departments and public perception.' He added that the fear of lay-offs in information technology companies has slightly slowed the admission to CSE, while the government push for manufacturing has sparked interest in Mechanical Engineering and EEE. Staging a comeback In Coimbatore, the Dhaanish Ahmed Institute of Technology has recorded a surge in interest. 'Cybersecurity is the buzzword in information technology companies such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys, and CTS. After computing, semiconductors are next in demand,' said its principal K.G. Parthiban. He added that Mechanical Engineering and allied branches — such as Robotics, Automation, and Mechatronics — are on the radar again, thanks to the growing demand in the auto and industrial automation sectors. 'There's even an increase in girl students choosing Mechanical Engineering.' At Vivekanandha Educational Institutions, Tiruchengode, girl students mostly opt for Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, CSE, ECE, and IT — in that order, said executive director S. Kuppuswamy. Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology rank fourth, while core engineering courses trail. Despite his personal efforts to advocate for core courses like Civil Engineering, students remain unconvinced. 'We have 30 Civil Engineering seats and fill them through government counselling. We've chosen not to surrender the branch, hoping that the interest in it will revive over time,' he said. A few years ago, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) allowed colleges to surrender seats in less popular disciplines so as to start new courses. Many colleges relinquished nearly 50% of their Civil and Mechanical Engineering seats and then expanded Artificial Intelligence and data-centric courses. While some institutions are attempting to revive core branches, IT-related programmes continue to shape the engineering education in Tamil Nadu, fuelled by immediate job prospects. This is not limited to Tier-2 and Tier-3 engineering colleges. Even the country's premier institution — the Indian Institute of Technology — is no exception. A recent event organised by the Pan-IIT Alumni Leadership Series (PALS) in Chennai discussed ways to improve candidates' choices. Directors of several IITs took part at the event. A recurrent theme was the need to encourage students to choose core engineering programmes. PALS has adopted 50 Tier-2 and Tier-3 engineering colleges to help them improve performance. A model for other students IIT-Madras Director V. Kamakoti acknowledged that in the past decade, 99.9% of the toppers in the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) — the qualifying examination for admission to the IITs — opted for CSE. Students did not choose Electrical Engineering. 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Indian Express
21 hours ago
- Indian Express
This startup wants to become the Duolingo to learn coding
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Instead, the platform's philosophy is to have developers take on challenging projects and master a programming language, with the goal of deepening their knowledge and gaining hands-on experience early in their careers. 'We want to create the Duolingo equivalent for software engineering—an app that offers a unified experience, keeps you motivated, and connects you with a community of learners so you can see how you stack up against others.' So the idea is to make learning more efficient by applying the same principles Duolingo uses: the best way to learn is by doing. 'Unlike platforms like Coursera, where you might watch a two-hour video and then do a short project, our approach starts with building projects right from the beginning,' Kuruvilla tells over a video call from Cupertino, California. 'As soon as you start, you are working within the context of a project. All your learning, supplemental resources, and progress happen through completing meaningful tasks. We choose fairly large, real-world projects to anchor the experience.' Kuruvilla, who is from Kerala and an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology in Ropar, spent a few years in India and worked as an Engineering Manager at Sequoia-backed Shuttl in Gurugram. Meanwhile, Banskota, who is from Assam, previously served as Head of Growth & Marketing at Vercel, a $3.25 billion devtools startup. The duo first met at an IIT prep school in Chennai, and years later went on to co-found Codecrafters. Both are self-taught coders, with Kuruvilla transitioning from mechanical engineering to computer science. A computer scientist is someone who studies how computers can be used to solve a wide range of problems, often drawing on applied mathematics. But learning to program is hard, and it's difficult to know where to start. Even more challenging to figure out what to do after you have learned the basics. As programming languages continue to evolve, what someone learned in school may already be outdated — especially for those aspiring to build a career in tech. This has led many developers, particularly those without computer science degrees, to take the path of self-teaching and learn coding on their own. In fact, the trend of self-taught programmers has been on the rise in recent years. As more of this talent enters the job market, companies have adapted their recruiting strategies. This shift has also contributed to the rise of online platforms that help developers — even those still early in their careers, such as engineering students — learn coding effectively. That's where Codecrafters comes into the picture. 'I would say the [platform] is more aligned with software engineering. 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But if you are somewhere in the middle — someone who knows how to program, has built some projects on your own, but still has that nagging feeling that you would get lost if things got more complex — then the only way to improve is through practice, practice, and more practice. That's where we help,' Kuruvilla explains. Learning to code has been a dream for millions of people — and it still is, especially in India. However, when layoffs hit and, for the first time, the world's top tech companies laid off thousands of people a few years back, mostly software engineers, it came as a shock to many that even highly paid developers aren't always secure. But today, the landscape looks very different. 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'We build things that are inherently difficult—often the kinds of things AI doesn't handle well yet, like databases, operating systems, and similar complex systems. We break these projects down into bite-sized chunks, so each stage is approachable. If you spend maybe half an hour to an hour on a task, that time adds up, and over time, you are building theoretically complex software. I would say it's all about learning by doing—and that's our core focus,' he said. While more tech companies such as Meta and Microsoft are encouraging developers to use AI to write code, Kuruvilla believes highly valued programmers are still at the forefront of the technology's potential. He said it's an exaggeration to claim that tech companies won't need software developers in the future — they still need developers to build AI agents, for example. Despite dire warnings that AI could soon automate millions of jobs — with software developers often singled out as prime targets — millions of young Indians still aspire to become software engineers. 'I think the allure of being a software engineer remains much the same as it was five years ago — AI or not. Computer science is still in demand because it's one of the highest-paying jobs. I also think it's a more flexible kind of job — it's something you can just do on your laptop.' 'It's one of the few fields where the barrier to practice is almost zero. It's not like being a doctor, where you have to study books and then gain hands-on experience. In software engineering, there's no real cost to failure while practicing. So I think it's one of the fields where we can take the actual work you will be doing on the job and simulate it through a platform.' Codecrafters, Kuruvilla says, is a good fit for those who are early in their career — maybe a year or two into a job — but it's definitely not aimed at those who are just starting college and have no idea what coding is. It's also not suitable for people who have been in the field for a decade. Of the 300,000 user base, Kuruvilla says India is the largest country in terms of sign-ups though a majority of paying users continue to come from the US and Europe. The platform offers its courses through memberships, which can be purchased for three months, 12 months, or a lifetime. In terms of expansion, Kuruvilla is considering targeting students who are closer to their final year, especially in India. 'The reason we haven't done this yet is because ours is a paid product, and based on our pricing, it's not a great fit for students at the moment. But I think what we will do is launch a free program specifically for students,' he said. Programming is still a worthwhile skill to learn, even though it may not be as important as before. Python, JavaScript, and Java remain widely used. Some might have declared coding obsolete due to the rise of low-code platforms, AI, or no-code solutions that let anyone build software without writing a single line of code. But the statement that coding is dead may not be true. 'When we hire, we don't require people to know specific languages. We say if you know the language we use, that's a plus. But we care more about how versatile you are as an engineer. We believe that engineering skills are transferable across frameworks and domains. So if you have created iOS apps and have done a breadth of engineering work — building different kinds of software — I don't think it's too hard for you to pick up the Google stack. It shouldn't be too difficult,' Kuruvilla says when asked about how important upskilling is for software engineers. There is still no real replacement for a human coder. Even if automation is the future, as many claim, someone still has to write the underlying code that powers these platforms. AI and no-code can be great for simple applications, but when companies need custom logic, integrations, scalability, and performance tuning, they will need real coders. 'One thing we always tell people who come to our platform is that you should optimise for both breadth and depth. You need to build different kinds of software. For example, you might try making a game, a task management app, a database, or a phone app — that covers breadth. Once you pick one thing, take it as far as you can. For instance, if you are building a spreadsheet app, don't stop at just having a basic grid and entering values. Add formulas, automations, and try to make it more and more complex. That's where most people struggle — they don't have the skills to go deep, and that's where we help.' 'If you have got both breadth and depth covered, I think you are pretty future-proof. Anything new that comes along will likely be similar to something you've already seen, so it's not too hard to pick up. On the other hand, if you don't do either — if you only learn one thing without exposing yourself to others, and you don't try to build complex software but stick to simple projects — then, yes, you will struggle when you are forced to adapt,' he said. The Y Combinator-backed startup raised a $1.8 million seed round last year from prominent tech figures, including Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, former Vercel COO Kevin Van Gundy, Supabase CEO Paul Copplestone, solo VC Alana Goyal of Basecase Capital, and PlanetScale co-founder Jitendra Vaidya. Kuruvilla and his team work in a fully remote setup, with Kuruvilla based in Cupertino, California, and Banskota living in San Francisco. The entire team at Codecrafters is spread across the world, with members in Estonia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, and India. Anuj Bhatia is a personal technology writer at who has been covering smartphones, personal computers, gaming, apps, and lifestyle tech actively since 2011. He specialises in writing longer-form feature articles and explainers on trending tech topics. His unique interests encompass delving into vintage tech, retro gaming and composing in-depth narratives on the intersection of history, technology, and popular culture. He covers major international tech conferences and product launches from the world's biggest and most valuable tech brands including Apple, Google and others. At the same time, he also extensively covers indie, home-grown tech startups. Prior to joining The Indian Express in late 2016, he served as a senior tech writer at My Mobile magazine and previously held roles as a reviewer and tech writer at Gizbot. Anuj holds a postgraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University. You can find Anuj on Linkedin. Email: ... Read More
Indian Express
21 hours ago
- Indian Express
‘IIT Mandi has given me growth, self-discovery, and friendships that will last a lifetime'
— Divyanshu I am a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Bioengineering branch of the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi. I come from Lucknow, but my roots in this journey began in Kanpur, where I studied till Class 10 at KDMA International. I then completed my Class 12 from Lucknow Public School. From an early age, biology always fascinated me – probably because of my father, who is a veterinary doctor. Watching him work sparked a curiosity in life sciences, while my exposure to Artificial Intelligence and Data Science during my JEE preparation deepened my interest in blending biology with computation. These interests came together in the form of Bioengineering, a field I am lucky to now be pursuing at IIT Mandi. I first appeared for JEE Main and JEE Advanced right after my Class 12 in 2021, but the results didn't meet my expectations. So, I took a drop year and reappeared for JEE in 2022. During that drop year, I prepared on my own using online resources, standard books, and mock tests. It wasn't easy – many of us isolate ourselves from social life, miss birthdays, celebrations, and even our hobbies. But I now tell aspirants that they should not cut themselves off completely. These moments won't come back. Balance is key. As the saying goes, 'Success is important, but so is the journey. Don't lose yourself while chasing your dreams.' Coming to IIT Mandi in November 2022 was my first time living away from home. Initially, I missed the homemade food, my old friends, and my younger sister, whom I am really close to. But everything changed once I found my tribe here, friends including Ayush, Aryan, Vishal, Dhruv, Harsh, Vivek, Vibhu, and Shreyansh. My first semester became one of the most memorable times of my life – late-night project building, hackathons, competitions, and shared laughter. Campus life here is different from other colleges, and not just because it is nestled in the Himalayas, it is the people that make it special. The peer group you find in an IIT inspires you in countless ways. When someone in your circle goes for an internship, course, or competition, it pushes you to think, 'Hey, maybe I can do that too.' Outside academics, I got involved in several clubs – drama, design, Sysadmin, and the Kamand Bioengineering Club. These clubs allowed me to explore areas I'd never tried before and contributed to my personal development. It wasn't easy balancing academics and club work, but the environment here teaches you to manage your time and push your boundaries. The professors here are incredibly supportive. One moment I'll always remember is when our Japanese teacher joined us in a student-organised 'Glow in the Dark' paint-art event. That role reversal, where we were the teachers and she was the student, was unforgettable. Another moment that stuck with me was when I missed the campus bus and a professor offered me a lift to the academic block – it was a small gesture, but it truly showed how approachable and kind the teachers are. Life at IIT has transformed me mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. I have learned leadership, time management, teamwork, and resilience. But perhaps the most important lesson I have learned here is that everyone is confused. It might seem like some people have it all figured out, but most of us are just trying to find our path. So, once in a while, ask yourself if you enjoy what you're doing. If the answer is 'somewhat yes', keep going. Try out different things – because you don't want to leave college with regrets. In my second year, I participated in the Inter IIT Cultural Meet as part of the Dramatics Club in 'Nukkad Natak', and we secured the second-highest score. Later, I led our contingent, coordinating teams, managing logistics, and learning leadership in a high-pressure but fun environment. My typical day involves morning classes, lab work, and assignments. Evenings are for friends, club events, or walks. I don't play any sport, but I do enjoy watching anime and movies, and going on treks around the beautiful hills that surround us. We hang out at the Village Square, the hostel rooms, play foosball or table tennis, and snack at campus canteens. My favourite food to binge on here is siddu, a local Himachali dish. I support my expenses partly through teaching assistant roles and partly through pocket money from my parents. And while I love the serenity of our hilltop campus, I sometimes miss the buzz of city life – malls, cinemas, and amusement parks. Looking ahead, I see myself going for higher studies, possibly in Computational Biology, Genomics, or Neuroscience. The culture, the food, and the rich history of Lucknow are close to my heart – and yes, I do miss them. But what I miss most is my sister and those late-night food outings. Still, if I had to sum it all up, I'd say that this journey at IIT Mandi has been one of growth, self-discovery, and friendships that will last a lifetime. Mridusmita Deka covers education and has worked with the Careers360 previously. She is an alumnus of Gauhati University and Dibrugarh University. ... Read More
