1,800 students take part in IIT-R annual festival

Dehradun, March 26
A three-day annual festival, Cognizance, concluded at Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

The festival had the representation of almost 1,800 students from all over the country where over 160 events were held in the last three days. At one of the events yesterday, IITR alumnus Saurabh Awasthi, working at HSBC Bank in Bangalore, organised an open forum discussion under the banner of his voluntary group, the Zero Hour, discussed “Education in India, concern and way forward”.

The response of the students was amazing as they put forward their questions to penalists on burning issues such as the RTE and the RTI and their implementation. The penalists included Sanjay Pandey, Assistant Professor, IIT-Kanpur and Magsaysay Award winner who stressed on the need of having common school system along with the concept of introducing neighbourhood school so that the parents didn’t have to think twice to send their children far as there would be schools at every three kilometres. Also present in the discussion were Dr GS Rajwar, Deputy Director, Higher Education, Uttarakhand, I L Bansal, Professor at Aravali Institute of Management, Jodhpur, and Dr S Ray, Professor at IIT Roorkee.

During the concluding ceremony, Director, Airport Authorities of India, V Soma Sundram said innovation was a process which ensured development. Sundram also talked about Gagan - the Indian satellite-based augmentation system and its benefit.

At the end, he gave away mementoes to organisers of the “Cognizance 2012”.