Campus stories, placement reality, and everything in between — written by people who've lived it.
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are not brothers, not cousins, not related in any way. They met in the summer of 2005 in an IIT Delhi hardware lab, because both had to redo final-year project work. Two years later they started a bookstore in a Koramangala flat. Eleven years after that, Walmart paid approximately $16 billion for approximately 77 percent of it. This is what the record actually says, including the batch-year contradiction almost every account gets muddled.
NewsIIT Kharagpur marked 75 years since Hijli, IIT Tirupati handed 457 degrees with Shubhanshu Shukla on stage, and IIT Palakkad opened a DGCA-approved drone school that Kerala's press never covered.
Founder StoriesA medical officer at IIT Bombay told him he could not walk the corridors. Fifty-seven years later, 52 students started a degree at a school with his name on it. What Romesh Wadhwani actually funded, what the $9.3 billion really meant, and what the money has not been shown to do.
NewsGATE 2027 registration opens 27 August 2026 and IIT Madras has put a verified DigiLocker account in front of the form for every Indian national. It pulls seven identity fields, and not one of them is your degree. The thing that can actually block you is a name mismatch, and that runs on UIDAI's clock.
NewsIIT Dhanbad signed a rare-earths MoU with Andhra Pradesh, IIT Bhubaneswar landed in Nano Letters and IIT Indore filed a patent, while Bombay, Delhi and Madras managed one press release each.
Founder StoriesThe man who created Google News graduated from IIT Madras in 1991, built the first prototype six weeks after 9/11, founded Google's India R&D lab, then called his own creation "shameful and irresponsible" in 2017. He quietly rejoined Google in 2019 and is still there.
FestsRendezvous 2026 runs 28 September to 1 October at IIT Delhi, per the festival's own account. The pronite line-up and pass prices are not out yet — and anyone publishing them is guessing. What is confirmed, what 2025 looked like, and how outstation students actually get in.
CareersRefreshed 24 August 2026. There are 237 vacancies open across 22 of the 23 IITs, and every one closes on 25 August or later: 156 project and research posts, 56 regular non-teaching posts and 25 faculty drives. Filtered on the closing date, not the advertisement date. IIT Goa is the only institute with nothing open.
NewsIIT Weekly Roundup for 3–9 August 2026. The Prime Minister inaugurated the Param Pragya AI supercomputer at IIT Delhi's Sonipat campus on Saturday. Four days earlier, Maharashtra's FDA ordered two IIT Bombay hostel messes to stop serving. IIT Ropar graduated 761, six IIT Madras professors won ₹25-lakh-a-year grants, and IIT Guwahati built a water-toxicant detector for ₹3,500. All 23 IITs covered.
FestsAntaragni is IIT Kanpur's four-day October cultural fest — one of Asia's largest, 1.6 lakh footfall in the 2025 Diamond Jubilee. The 61st edition dates aren't officially announced yet, but here's what to expect: mid-late October window, four themed pronite nights, Synchronicity + Ritambhara + Kavi Sammelan + India Inspired, and the official IIT Kanpur app is mandatory for entry. Full past-edition data + how to prep.
Founder StoriesThe first IIT graduate to co-found a decacorn (Sun Microsystems, 1982), the first VC firm partner to write OpenAI a cheque ($50M for 5% in Jan 2019), and #1 on the 2026 Midas List for the 19th time. Net worth $13.4B, KV raising a fresh $5.5B. But his India engagement is more speech than cheque.
PlacementsAs of 2 Aug 2026, only one of India's 23 IITs (Bhubaneswar) has published a full-cycle 2025-26 report. Eleven have Phase 1 data. Twelve are silent. The honest scoreboard: Optiver ₹2.5 Cr at Hyderabad, Da Vinci ₹2.44 Cr at KGP, 500+ offers at Bhubaneswar (yesterday), 12 IITs disclosing nothing at all.
NewsIIT Weekly Roundup for July 26 – August 2, 2026. IIT Bombay signed three MoUs in 48 hours (NPCIL nuclear, NPCIL AI, NSDL/BharatGen cybersecurity). IIT Bhubaneswar broke its own placement record with 500+ offers. IIT Madras shipped a cooling breakthrough plus a Tamil Nadu MSME AI partnership plus the first BIMSTEC hackathon. And three IIT campuses grieved.
CareersMITACS Globalink and DAAD WISE both suspended for Indian students in 2026. Charpak, Viterbi, CMU RISS deadlines already passed. Here's the honest 2027 deadline map + what IITians can still apply to right now.
Founder StoriesTwo-act builder — helped Murthy build Infosys through NASDAQ '99, then walked out for Aadhaar and cabinet-rank public service. Now heads Delhi's 2026 exam-reform task force.
NewsIIT Madras Mechanical Engineering announced a novel antiparallel flat-plate pulsating heat pipe on 27 July 2026 that cuts electronics thermal resistance three ways: 16% from an O-ring seal, 20% from switching copper to aluminium, and another 16% from a superhydrophilic surface. DRDO-funded, peer-reviewed, and arriving as AI GPU racks push past 100 kW.
CareersThe All IITs Placement Committee has quietly rewritten the rules for the 2026-27 placement season across all 23 IITs. Two changes matter most, both aimed at problems that broke into public view in the last twelve months.
Founder StoriesAn M.Tech from IIT Delhi walked into a Boise, Idaho DRAM fab in 1990 and quietly out-invented Thomas Edison. This is the story of Gurtej Singh Sandhu, the Micron Fellow who redesigned how the world stores information.
CultureA viral r/iitmadras thread this week showed a ceiling fan lying next to a sleeping student in Mandakini. The gap between the IIT brand and how students actually live is not new. It is documented, week after week, on Reddit.
StartupsSINE, the IIT Bombay incubator that helped launch Gupshup, ideaForge and Atomberg, achieved first close of its ₹250 crore Y-Point Venture Capital Fund on 25 July 2026 and unveiled a new brand identity the same day. It is the first VC fund in India housed inside an academic incubator.
NewsIIT Madras dropped the GATE 2027 schedule on 20 July 2026 with a brand-new Robotics & Automation paper, big CS revisions, and the first syllabus refresh since 2022. Here is what changed, when to register, and why it matters.
NewsPradhan resigns as Education Minister over NEET-UG, Pralhad Joshi takes additional charge, IIT Madras spinout ePlane unveils India's first full-scale eVTOL, GATE 2027 syllabus overhaul lands with a new Robotics paper, and Groww's INV.ENT cohort launches at IIT Bombay. A working file on the week the ministry rotated.
StartupsHow Prof. Satya Chakravarthy turned a Chennai combustion lab into the country's first eVTOL company, and put a two-tonne prototype on the tarmac in the same week Apollo Hospitals signed on to fly patients in it.
NewsUnion Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on 25 July 2026 amid NEET-UG paper-leak protests. Pralhad Joshi — the BJP MP from Dharwad, already carrying three portfolios — took additional charge on 26 July. He has no prior stint in a technical-education portfolio.
Founder StoriesAravind Srinivas — Perplexity CEO, IIT Madras Electrical Engineering (2012-2017 dual degree) — took a $21B AI company from AIR ~980 in JEE Advanced to a $750M Microsoft Azure GPU deal in early 2026. Full profile: Chennai origins, IIT Madras years under Prof. Balaraman Ravindran (9 papers at ICLR/AAAI/NeurIPS as an undergrad), Berkeley PhD under Pieter Abbeel, internships at OpenAI/DeepMind/Google Brain, founding Perplexity in August 2022, going after Google out loud, and the Bezos + NVIDIA + Cristiano Ronaldo cap table.
PlacementsIIT Roorkee opened the 2025-26 placement season on 2 December 2025 with 436 offers on Day 1 (428 domestic + 8 international), naming NVIDIA, Qualcomm, D.E. Shaw, Google, Amazon and Texas Instruments among 14 Day 1 recruiters. The recovery matters because 2023-24's 79.66% placement rate (down from 98.54% in 2021-22) was flagged by a Parliamentary Standing Committee, and 2024-25 total offers dropped 21% while recruiter count dropped 37% year-on-year. Full 2025-26 salary numbers land after Phase 2 (May 2026).
PlacementsIIT Hyderabad broke its 17-year-old ceiling in the 2025-26 placement season: Edward Nathan Varghese (21, final-year CSE) secured a ₹2.5 crore Software Engineer PPO from Optiver's Netherlands office — the highest offer in the institute's history since founding in 2008, a 278% jump from 2024-25's ₹66.13 LPA ceiling. Average package jumped 75% (₹20.8 LPA → ₹36.21 LPA). CSE Phase 1 placement 83.05%. 24 international offers in Phase 1 alone.
PlacementsIIT BHU Varanasi 2025-26 placements opened with what its own foundation called "history-making" — 1,005 offers by 5 December 2025, 17 students at ₹1 crore+ on Day 1 alone, average package ₹29.33 LPA (+28.6% vs 2024-25). The ceiling: ₹1.67 crore from NK Securities Research. The honest twist most sites won't tell: the average surged, but the top offer actually dropped from last year's ₹2.20 crore. Full 2025-26 numbers, top recruiters (ZS 41, ICICI 28, Meesho 24), 2024-25 reference, real Reddit voice on branch disparity.
PlacementsIIT Madras opened 2025-26 placements on 1 December 2025 with the largest Day 1 pool in institute history — 300+ registered companies + 100+ mature startups, ~2,000 candidates. Phase 2 through May 2026. Full 2025-26 CDC report expected July-August. The 2024-25 ceiling to beat: ₹4.3 Cr Jane Street PPO (highest ever), 25 crorepatis, three firms at ₹2 Cr+, B.Tech CSE median ₹46 LPA.
NewsIIT news for the week of 13-19 July 2026 across all 23 IITs: JoSAA Round 5 closed the 2026 IIT cycle, Sudha Murty received IIT Dharwad's first honorary doctorate, IIT Bhubaneswar co-authored a Nature Nanotechnology spintronic breakthrough, IIT Madras became first CFTI with ISO 45001, plus IIT Dhanbad nuclear symposium, IIT Palakkad convocation, IIT Gandhinagar SAMARTH ₹190 Cr semiconductor hub, and full round-block covering every IIT.
CareersJoSAA Rounds 3 & 4 freeze top-6 IIT CSE. Japan × India × BharatGen sign trilateral LLM MoU. IIT Delhi-Abu Dhabi opens UAE bootcamp. Renault picks IIT Kanpur wind tunnel. Vaishnaw floats AI Data Trust at IIT Hyderabad. Plus: new Careers Watch section tracking IIT-founded companies raising this week.
FestsThe 30th edition of Asia's largest science + tech fest lands late-December 2026. What to know: 1.8 lakh footfall, 35,000+ competition entrants from 20+ countries, Nobel-laureate speaker lineage, Robowars and Full Throttle, plus practical accommodation + registration info.
Founder StoriesIIT Bombay 2008 CSE. Left Microsoft 2010. Built Ola. Ola Electric IPO Aug 2024 → briefly worth ₹21,000 crore → ~₹57,000 crore of shareholder value destroyed by July 2026. Krutrim's chip programme scrapped, Kruti AI pulled from stores. Three CEO roles, one founder, one honest read.
FestsAsia's largest college cultural fest, 55th edition. Everything you need: expected dates, how registration + accommodation work post the 2025 crowd cancellation, headliner history from Asha Bhosle 1981 to Sonu Nigam 2025, and the honest read on team-culture issues that surfaced this year.
Founder StoriesIIT Madras EE '89, JEE AIR 27, Princeton PhD, Padma Shri 2021. Vembu turned down the only VC term sheet Zoho ever saw, moved to a village in 2019, and this week is in Japan importing small-town SMBs to rural Tamil Nadu. Sourced profile with FY25 numbers and r/developersIndia critique.
NewsSeven of the 23 IITs made real news this week — Kharagpur's Platinum Jubilee convocation, Bombay's Nuclear Engineering programme, Delhi's Aerostat demo, IITM Pravartak's five-year mark, plus JoSAA Round 2 and four alumni-founder raises. What actually shipped between 29 June and 5 July.
PlacementsIIT Kharagpur's 2025-26 Phase 1 delivered 1,501 offers, 457 PPOs, and a ₹2.44 crore top. Underneath: quant/AI premium widening, international offers stayed thin, IIT Bombay lapped KGP 78 to 25 last year. Sourced breakdown with NIRF median, r/iitkgp voice, and the honest Director quote.
ResearchRound 5 published July 16 2026 — the final IIT allotment. Top-tier CSE closing ranks moved 0–7 ranks vs Round 4: IIT Bombay 67, Delhi 128, Madras 151, Kanpur 283, Kharagpur 509. Fee acceptance deadline July 20. Full Round 1 → Round 5 progression + all-23-IIT 2025 reference + no-IIT-spot-round advisory inside.
Founder StoriesThe honest profile. Goyal took Zomato from a Bain canteen menu PDF to India's first ₹1 lakh crore consumer-tech IPO, then stepped down as Eternal CEO in February 2026. With sourced timeline, the IIT Delhi DAA record, and the r/indianstartups read on his last 6 months.
Founder StoriesThe honest profile. Sundar Pichai broke the IIT founder myth by becoming the highest-leverage operator in tech. Sourced timeline, KGPian voice, and the uncomfortable critique.
ResearchQS says IIT Delhi. NIRF says IIT Madras. They use different methodologies and answer different questions. Cross-source breakdown of the Delhi-Bombay-Madras debate, with the honest "use which ranking when" guide.
ResearchQS World University Rankings 2027 (released 18 June 2026): IIT Delhi reclaims India #1 at world rank 118; 12 IITs in India's top 20; IIT Hyderabad jumps 76 places. Full per-IIT table + year-on-year change.
PlacementsThe 2025-26 season is over and IIT Bombay has published nothing — while IIT Patna and IIT Bhubaneswar both released full-cycle medians. The verifiable baseline: 69.3% placed in 2024-25 (down from 75%), ₹20.21 LPA NIRF median.
PlacementsIIT Delhi 2025–26 interim: 1,275 offers, 1,140+ placed, 300+ PPOs (+33% YoY), 35+ international. Plus NIRF 2026 median ₹20 LPA — and an explanation of why the OCS refuses to disclose top packages.
PlacementsIIT Kanpur 2025–26 Phase 1: 1,202 offers, 1,079 accepted, 15 international from 250+ companies. Day 1 record of 672 offers (+16% YoY). What the SPO actually published vs the unofficial numbers circulating online.
PlacementsThe highest IIT package on record is ₹4.3 crore (IIT Madras, Jane Street) — but that's one student. The honest, per-IIT crore-club for 2024-25, why almost every crore offer is international quant/CS, and the ~20x gap to the typical median.
ResearchThe latest IIT rankings — NIRF 2025 and QS World 2026 — in one sourced table, plus why the 'best IIT' changes by list and what's new in 2025–26 (Abu Dhabi, Zanzibar, NIRF negative marking).
PlacementsThe honest year-by-year roadmap to IIT placements — when the process actually runs, why the 3rd-year internship is the real lever, the CGPA filters that gate you, what companies test, and how much DSA is really enough.
Research73 of India's first 100 unicorns had an IIT-alumnus founder — from Flipkart and Zomato to Razorpay and Sun Microsystems. The full sourced list, which IIT leads, and why the pedigree edge is shrinking.
Campus LifeThe IIT-specific academic reality JEE doesn't prepare you for — how the 10-point CGPA and relative grading really work, branch-change cutoffs (and why several IITs scrapped it), the 75% attendance gate, and how students actually cope.
Campus LifeWhat IIT hostel life actually costs and looks like in 2026 — per-IIT room types and fees, income-based fee waivers, the anti-ragging reality and helpline, and a fresher checklist built from real student advice.
ResearchThe IITs run a real deep-tech engine — a 3D-printed rocket engine, an indigenous space chip, Indic-language AI, Army drones. Who builds what, which IITs anchor India's quantum/AI/semiconductor missions, and where the research still trails.
FestsWhen every major IIT fest happens in 2026 — Mood Indigo, Techfest, Saarang, Shaastra and more — with dates, reported footfall and sources. Plus why January is peak season and how outsiders actually get in.
PlacementsBarely any IIT has published a 2025-26 median. Here is what is actually verified for the current cycle, the 2024-25 baseline, the CSE-versus-core gap, and how to spot a recycled placement number.
Founder StoriesThe real, unpolished story of IITianVibes — how two co-founders stuck on campus after failing a course turned a broken Google-Form merch system into a brand serving IITs across India, and why we run it for the vibes.