Now mandatory lessons on India’s scientific, spiritual heritage for IIIT-A students

From the new academic session, students of Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A) will also get lessons in scientific and spiritual heritage of India, art of meditation and yoga besides getting to know the techniques of energising the mind and building self-confidence.

These lessons will be imparted as part of an additional but mandatory four-credit course Orientation Camp approved by the institute’s senate, the top decision-making body for all academic affairs, say institute officials.

“The orientation course has been approved by the institute’s senate and the specially formed committee for designing the course curriculum has also completed its work. Now it would be introduced as an additional mandatory course for the students from the 2020-21 session,” said IIIT-A director Prof P Nagabhushan.

He said with this, the institute becomes the first technical institution in the country to start such a course aimed at educating its graduate and post graduate students regarding country’s rich scientific legacy.

The panel that finalised the course curriculum included IIIT-A’s prof Tapobrata Lahiri as its head and Neetesh Purohit as its coordinator. Former vice-chancellor of Karnataka University prof Chidananda Gowda and prof Nina Kohli of Allahabad University’s department of psychology were also part of the committee.

Purohit, also an associate professor, said the new course had been made compulsory for students of BTech, MTech, MBA and PhD from the new semester.

Along with the assessment of this course, students will also have to undertake an exam based on which they would be graded as good, satisfactory or dropped. A dropped student will have to repeat the course to clear it. The grading will also reflect in their marksheets.

“Different experts of the country are being approached to conduct different modules of this course. On November 24, the names of experts will be finalised before beginning the classes. The same selected experts will also prepare the question papers,” he added.

Highlight:

Course content includes four units:

• Unit 1 will among other topics include “Know ancient scientific heritage of India” that will comprise of Ancient India’s contribution to Astronomy, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, metallurgy, Ship building and naval Engineering, Medical science, Architecture, Music, dance and sports.

• Unit 2 among other topics will include anger management, personality development, energising the mind, confidence building measures etc.

• Unit 3 among other topics will include universal human values, self-awareness and empathy, inter personal and communication skills, creative thinking, decision-making and coping with emotions and stress.

• Unit 4 among other topics will include Indian spiritual heritage, Yoga and practice of meditation.