Sankar Kumar Som: New director of IIT Kharagpur
Professor Sankar Kumar Som is the new director of IIT Kharagpur. Som had joined the institute in 1976 as a faculty in the mechanical engineering department and then became the dean of under graduate studies of IIT-KGP. He will now be the officiating director as well as the dean of under graduate studies. Professor Som is succeeding Damodar Acharya. Acharya became the director of IIT-KGP in 2007 and his tenure got over on June 30 2012, which was extended till September 30 2012.
According to Som, IIT Kharagpur has a vision 2020 plan. Our aim is to become one of the top 20 institutions in the world by 2020 and I will work towards achieving that goal. He has not been given a tenure but he would have to shoulder the responsibility of the director till the government finds another director for the institution. In order to become one of the top 20 institutions in the world we would have to strengthen our academic input further. We plan to have interdisciplinary courses and schools. We have already streamlined our under graduate courses and now we would be stressing more on post graduate studies and research.
