It is time that we invest in quality education and make it available to those who do not possess the amenities: Dhankad

kharagpur,  Governor of West Bengal, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar dedicates to the nation, a Petascale Supercomputer PARAM Shakti under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) – a joint initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) on March 27, 2022 at IIT Kharagpur. Dr. Sivaji Chadaram, Director, DST; Col A K Nath (Retd), Director General and Executive Director, Centre of Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC); Prof Amit Patra, Deputy Director, IIT Kharagpur; Shri Arvind Kumar, Group Coordinator, NSM- HPC Division, MeitY; Shri S A Kumar, Advisor NSM, MeitY, along with other senior faculties and officials of IIT Kharagpur, MeitY, DST and C-DAC were present in the occasion. Dr. Rashmi Kamal, IAS, District Magistrate, Paschim Medinipur and Shri Dinesh Kumar, IPS, Superintendent of Police, Paschim Medinipur also graced the occasion with their presence.

PARAM Shakti supercomputing facility is accelerating the research and development activities in multidisciplinary domains of computational and data sciences as it provides large-scale computing power to the user community of IIT Kharagpur and neighbouring academic and R&D institutes. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between IIT Kharagpur and Centre for Development in Advanced Computing (CDAC) in March 2019 to establish this state-of the art Supercomputing Facility with 17680 CPU cores along with 44 GPUs. This facility has pioneered in using RDHX based efficient cooling system to obtain a high power usage effectiveness. This system has been tested extensively by both IIT Kharagpur and CDAC for commercial, open-source and in-house software pertaining to diversified applications.

Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal also visited Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System at IIT Kharagpur which establishes the relevance of Traditional Knowledge Systems & ancient wisdom in contemporary times in synergy with Modern Scientific Knowledge. The Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System, IIT Kharagpur is dedicated to forward the relevance of traditional knowledge systems & ancient wisdom in contemporary times and their role in the making of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. In the Institute Award Ceremony, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar also felicitated notable Alumni of IIT Kharagpur Mr. Vinod Gupta with Honoris Causa (Doctor of Science) 2020, Mr. Ashoke Deysarkar with Life Fellow Award 2021 and Prof Kalyan Chakravarti with Distinguished Alumnus Award 2020. He also felicitated Institute Professors Prof Mrityunjoy Chakraborty (E & ECE) with Prithviraj & Swati Banerjee Chair Professorship; Prof Prabir Kumar Biswas (E & ECE) with VSNL Chair Professorship; Prof Goutam Saha, (E & ECE) with VSNL Chair Professorship; Prof Saibal Gupta (G & G) with Prof P K Bhattacharya Chair Professor; Prof Amar Nath Samanta (CE) with Prof N K Roy Chair Professor.

His Excellency Shri Jagdeeep Dhankhar addressed the crowd saying, “Innovation and Research are alone determinants whether a nation will continue to be on incremental trajectory or not. It is time that we invest in quality education and make it available to those who do not possess the amenities. The strength, contribution of alumni determines the entire status of the Institute. The quantum of giving back to the society does not matter, what matter is the intent of giving. The young boys and girls will transform this country into Vishwaguru. Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav is an opportunity to be availed by all of us to know our real heroes. It is time for our youngsters in particular to be fully aware of our historic perspective.”

Prof Virendra K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur remarked that, “In the 71st year of Institute’s foundation, IIT KGP  plans  to celebrate its platinum jubilee by being among the top 10 universities of the world in niche areas like Affordable Healthcare, Advance Manufacturing, Advance Infrastructure, Precision Agriculture and Food Nutrition, Safety, Quality & Reliability, AI, Cyber Physical System s & Advance Transportation.” He also added that he is much grateful towards the Alumnin of IIT Kharagpur for being upfront with the Institutional Development Programme, especially Notable Alumni Shri Vinod Gupta ji who has committed to donate all his earnings to charity.