The IIT Week · 12–18 October 2026 · Week 42 · All 23 IITs checked
The IIT Council has started discussing whether to change the two-attempt limit on JEE Advanced, IIT Kanpur director Manindra Agrawal said this week. Nothing changes for JEE Advanced 2027, and if a third attempt comes at all, he said it would be "maybe in some special cases" (ETEducation, Indian Express). A student petition asking for three attempts had 12,139 signatures by 14 October.
That sets the thread through the week: the IITs talking, out loud, about what a rank should be worth. Agrawal called the entrance exam "very coaching dependent". IIT Bombay told its students to stop asking each other for their JEE ranks. IIT Kharagpur put a free GATE and JAM preparation platform online. And IIT Kanpur, the institute at the centre of the attempts debate, launched the largest fundraising campaign any IIT has tried: $1 billion by March 2029, with ₹4,155 crore already pledged.
Students had a good week too. IIT Hyderabad won the Accenture Innovation Challenge, with IIT Roorkee and IIT Delhi as runners-up, from more than 5,000 registrations. Below: the deep dive, IIT Kanpur's campaign, the wins, IIT Bombay one month on, the research, Careers Watch, the calendar, and a line for every one of the 23 IITs. If your campus had a good week, wear it.
The deep dive: JEE Advanced attempts are on the IIT Council's table. A third try is not coming in 2027
TL;DR: IIT Kanpur's director says the IIT Council has begun discussing the JEE Advanced attempt limit, while a petition for a third attempt sits at 12,139 signatures. The rule for JEE Advanced 2027 stays at two attempts in two consecutive years. A third attempt is "under discussion", but only possibly for special cases, and he also wants the exam itself revamped "in the next few years".
The news came in two interviews. On 14 October Agrawal told ETEducation that the attempt rules could be reconsidered, with discussions under way in the IIT Council, the body of all 23 IIT directors chaired by the Education Minister. "We have started a discussion. We hope to carry this forward and arrive at a considered opinion as to whether it should be done and if yes, how it should be done." ETEducation added that the talks "do not amount to a decision to change the rules", and that he gave no timeline.
Two days later he went further with the Indian Express. Asked whether JEE Advanced would change, he said: "Not in the immediate future. But yes, in the next few years down the line." On a third attempt: "It is under discussion. Not a generic third attempt but maybe in some special cases. But exactly how that is possible, we don't know yet." He also said the exam has become "very coaching dependent" and "needs to be revamped".
What the petition asks, and the case against it
The petition itself is not new. It passed 12,000 signatures in early September, when it was sent to the Education Ministry, the IIT Council and the Joint Admission Board, as we reported then. Six weeks later it stood at 12,139, so it has barely grown. What changed this week is that a serving IIT director said on the record that the council has started talking about it.
The campaign on Change.org makes two proposals, according to ETEducation: "to allow three attempts in three consecutive years, or to retain the two-attempt limit but allow candidates to use those attempts within a three-year window." The second option matters to students who skip a year for illness, money or family reasons and lose an attempt they never used.
Agrawal's case against a general third attempt rests on old data. "The data shows that in the past third attempts were allowed. The data shows that the number of students who qualified for the third attempt is minuscule. The downside of allowing third attempt is that a large number of students will attempt it. Very few will actually succeed." The cost, he said, is "another year, plus a lot of money also, in coaching and others" (ETEducation).
The rule has already flipped once, in 13 days
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Rule today | Candidates may sit JEE Advanced at most twice, in two consecutive years, counted from the year they first sit Class 12 boards. JEE Main allows three consecutive years. | Education Times, 16 Oct 2026 |
| 5 Nov 2024 | The Joint Admission Board raised the limit to three: students who sat Class 12 in 2023, 2024 or 2025 could take JEE Advanced 2025. | The Hindu |
| 18 Nov 2024 | A second press release cut it back to two academic years, 2024 and 2025. | The Hindu |
| 10 Jan 2025 | The Supreme Court let students who had dropped out of courses between 5 and 18 November 2024 register anyway. | The Hindu |
| 21 Apr 2025 | The Supreme Court dismissed a plea by 18 students who passed Class 12 in 2023 and called the reversal "abrupt and arbitrary". | The Hindu |
| 14 to 16 Oct 2026 | IIT Kanpur's director says the IIT Council has begun discussing attempts; no change for 2027. | ETEducation, Indian Express |
The 2024 episode explains why the IITs are moving slowly now. In court, the Solicitor General argued that cutting the limit back was "taken in the larger interest of the students as they could not concentrate on their studies and spent their time in preparing for JEE-Advanced" (The Hindu). The judges asked the obvious question in return: why three attempts for JEE Main and two for JEE Advanced.
Agrawal does give the petitioners one point. "It is a fact that students from rural backgrounds may not have access to coaching during their school years and may only be able to prepare through coaching after completing class XII. In that sense, they have a point when they argue that they are at a disadvantage," he told Education Times, adding that he is not arguing for or against a change at this stage.
What it means if you are writing JEE in 2027
Plan on two attempts. The JEE Advanced website still carries the 2026 cycle, run by IIT Roorkee; no 2027 brochure or organising IIT has been posted yet (jeeadv.ac.in). JEE Main 2027 Session 1 is scheduled for 22 to 30 January, and registration is expected to open in late October (Business Standard). Any change to attempts or to the exam's design would come through the Joint Admission Board and the IIT Council, and so far neither has published anything.
What to watch: whether the next IIT Council meeting puts attempts on its agenda, and how the IITs define "special cases" if they go that way. A narrow exemption, for example for a candidate who could not sit the exam in a year for documented medical reasons, would help a small group. A blanket third attempt would mean another year of coaching for far more students. Agrawal says he is not taking a side yet, but every reason he has given so far points to the narrow version.
IIT Kanpur wants $1 billion by 2029, and says it already has ₹4,155 crore
TL;DR: IIT Kanpur launched "Greater Than Us" in New Delhi on 14 October: a $1 billion target by March 2029, which it calls the largest fundraising campaign by any IIT. Nearly half is already committed. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said approval of a National Military Drone Technology Hub at the institute is nearly complete.
The institute says the target makes it "the largest fundraising campaign undertaken by any IIT", and that "Rs 4,155 crore, nearly half of the target, had already been committed by alumni, donors, corporate partners and the government" (ANI via BusinessLine). The money is meant for seven areas: "artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, drones, medical technology, sustainable technologies, quantum technologies and semiconductors."
| Bucket | Planned amount | What it pays for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | ₹5,000 crore | Research facilities, computing, student residences | Indian Express, 14 Oct |
| Talent | ₹3,000 crore | Scholarships, doctoral fellowships, faculty recruitment | Indian Express, 14 Oct |
| Strategic technology | ₹1,000 crore | Strategic technology initiatives | Indian Express, 14 Oct |
| Already committed | ₹4,155 crore | From alumni, donors, companies and government | BusinessLine, 15 Oct |
| One named gift | ₹180 crore | Alumnus Rahul Gautam, for G-SINE, a school of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Noida campus; its MBA starts July 2027 | Indian Express, 14 Oct |
Rajnath Singh, who launched the campaign, said the drone hub proposal "has made significant progress and its approval process is nearing completion" (PIB, Ministry of Defence). Agrawal explained the point of it: "While we make drones, a lot of critical components that go towards making the drones are not made in India. They are imported." (BusinessLine). The same week IIT Kanpur tied up with NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore's incubator, to support its SCALE Catapult accelerator, "with its first cohort focused on defence, aerospace and allied dual-use technologies" (Times of India).
Why it matters to students: ₹3,000 crore for scholarships, PhD fellowships and faculty is the line to watch, because it is the part that changes who can afford to study and research there. The campaign will also fund a Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, and IIT Kanpur already has ten full-time counsellors, Agrawal told the Indian Express. A pledge is not money in the bank, and the institute has not said how much of the ₹4,155 crore is government funding. It is still a number no IIT has put on the table before.
The wins: IIT Hyderabad took the Accenture Innovation Challenge, with Roorkee and Delhi behind it
TL;DR: IIT Hyderabad's CtrlAltReinvent won the 2026 Accenture Innovation Challenge from more than 5,000 registrations across 20 IITs and NITs; IIT Roorkee and IIT Delhi teams were first and second runners-up. IIT Kanpur won the athletics at its own sports fest, IIT Jodhpur won the chess, IIT Mandi's Osheen Mahajan took three swimming medals, and IIT Delhi tops the Hurun U35 list by alumni.
The Accenture challenge, now in its eleventh edition and themed "Reinvent with AI", "drew more than 5,000 registrations from students across 20 IITs and National Institutes of Technology (NITs)", with more than 1,100 submissions judged over three rounds and ten teams in the final (Express Computer). IIT Hyderabad's Abhiram Ramachandran, Polisetti Likhit Sai and Madiha Ahmed won about ₹3 lakh for "a generative AI-powered business intelligence tool that analyzes business data to pinpoint the root causes of declining performance" (Times of India, The Hindu). All three podium teams came from IITs, and all three built tools for a real workplace: a factory, a business dashboard, a hospital emergency ward.
| Who | IIT | What | Where / when | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CtrlAltReinvent: Abhiram Ramachandran, Polisetti Likhit Sai, Madiha Ahmed | Hyderabad | Winner, Accenture Innovation Challenge 2026 (about ₹3 lakh); AI tool that finds why business performance is falling | Announced 14 Oct | Express Computer, TOI |
| Clock_it: Astha Jaiswal, Siddha Mishra, Aayushi Bhardwaj | Roorkee | 1st runner-up (about ₹2.25 lakh); real-time digital twin for manufacturing | Announced 14 Oct | Express Computer |
| LISA AI: Tejas Goyal, Shiwang Gupta, Prakhar Agarwal | Delhi | 2nd runner-up (about ₹1.5 lakh); triage tool that ranks emergency patients by the risk of waiting | Announced 14 Oct | Express Computer |
| Athletics and kho-kho teams | Kanpur | Won men's and women's athletics and men's kho-kho at Udghosh'26, its own sports fest | Kanpur, reported 12 Oct | Hindustan (Hindi) |
| Chess team | Jodhpur | Won the chess event at Udghosh'26 | IIT Kanpur, reported 12 Oct | Hindustan (Hindi) |
| Osheen Mahajan, 3rd-year BTech | Mandi | Gold (50 m freestyle), silver (100 m freestyle), bronze (50 m butterfly), 40th Inter-IIT Aquatic Meet | IIT Kharagpur; IIT Mandi release 15 Oct | PIB |
| Ambar Khare, BTech CSE (CGPA 9.81) | Dhanbad | Named for the President's Gold Medal and six awards; 50 gold and 49 silver medallists announced | To be presented at the 46th convocation; list out 15 Oct | Hindustan (Hindi), Prabhat Khabar |
The Udghosh results are home wins at a fest IIT Kanpur hosts, against a field that was mostly not IITs, so they read as a good weekend rather than a national title (Hindustan). IIT Jodhpur's chess win is the line that travels. At IIT Mandi, director Laxmidhar Behera said Osheen Mahajan's three medals were "a source of immense pride for the whole community of IIT Mandi" (PIB). The meet finished the week before; her result was announced on 15 October.
Two more. IIT Delhi has the most entrants of any undergraduate institution on the Hurun India U35 list of young entrepreneurs: "11 entrants linked to the institution. IIT Kharagpur follows with 10, while IIT Madras and the University of Delhi are tied for third place with seven entrants each" (Mint). And IIT (ISM) Dhanbad released its medal list early so graduates can plan; the convocation date is not fixed yet (Prabhat Khabar).
IIT Bombay, one month on: 30 counsellor posts, a rule against asking ranks, and a protest site cleared
TL;DR: A month after a second-year student died on 18 September, IIT Bombay advertised 30 counsellor posts on 89-day contracts and told students not to ask one another about caste, admission category, JEE ranks or GATE scores. Police have recorded about 70 statements and made no arrest. On 18 October police detained the student's parents and protesting students and dismantled the protest site.
The institute moved on two fronts. Its Student Wellness Centre is "recruiting 26 student counsellors and four senior counsellors", on initial appointments of 89 days that could be extended, at ₹70,000 to ₹1 lakh a month for counsellors (India Today, Indian Express). That is for nearly 14,000 students. On 13 October an email from the Dean of Student Affairs said it is "inappropriate for anyone (students, staff, or faculty) to ask students about their JEE (Advanced) ranks, GATE scores, or any other information that may reveal caste or related aspects" (The Hindu). The email added that such a question "may be driven purely by curiosity" and still hurt the other student (Hindustan Times).
The investigation is still open. Police said the student had given the institute a written apology seeking a second chance; the professor named an accused in the case denies the harassment allegations (The Hindu). The crime branch has recorded around 70 statements (Hindustan Times). The case is registered under the abetment-of-suicide section and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and no one has been arrested; the parents are still demanding the professor's arrest (Hindustan Times).
The protests got harder. On 14 October police detained about 30 people at a "Chalo IIT" march outside the campus; a delegation later met the director, who asked them to wait for a Board of Governors report (The Hindu, Mumbai Mirror). On Sunday 18 October, the one-month mark, police detained the student's parents and then students at the main-gate site, and "cleared and demolished the protest site" (The Hindu, Indian Express). Outlets give different counts of how many students were held. Student groups allege excessive force; police and the institute had not responded to that when PTI reported it (PTI via India Today). A former chair of the Board of Governors, Sharad Saraf, asked political parties to stay away from the campus during exams (Mid-Day).
The debate also spread to other campuses. On r/IITMadras, a post calling out casteist "jokes" drew 203 upvotes, and one student wrote: "I had a girl literally tell me that a certain classmate only got in because he has reservation, she wasn't happy when I pointed out that she was also there because of a quota in the first place." (r/IITMadras). That is the behaviour IIT Bombay's email is trying to stop.
What to watch: the Board of Governors report the director cited, whether the counsellor posts become permanent, and whether other IITs copy the rank-and-caste rule. IIT Bombay's end-semester exams start on 10 November ({a(HT_SENATE, "Hindustan Times")}).
The research week: a chip that sees like a brain, floods and droughts that now hit the same districts, and 100 brains mapped
IIT Guwahati and IIT Kharagpur built a light sensor that remembers what it saw
Prof PK Giri's group at IIT Guwahati, with Prof Chandra Sekhar Tiwary's at IIT Kharagpur, made a device from MXene nanosheets and an organic semiconductor, P3HT, that can "detect, store, and process visual information with very little energy consumption" (EdexLive). In lab tests it used 500 times less energy than earlier MXene devices and scored "90% accuracy in facial recognition and 85% accuracy in traffic segmentation". The paper is in Carbon. In plain words: a camera pixel that also does part of the thinking, which is the kind of part a low-power drone or phone camera wants. It is a lab result, and the team says more work is needed before real-world use (NE Now).
IIT Roorkee: more Indian districts now face both floods and droughts
Prof Mohit Prakash Mohanty's team studied 591 districts and found "the share of highly flood-vulnerable districts rose from 16.5 per cent in 2001 to 21.4 per cent in 2011. The corresponding share for drought increased from 10.6 per cent to 18.1 per cent" (ETV Bharat). Districts high on both rose from 3.2% to 5.4% (Times of India); Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal sit at the top for both (Business Standard). The data runs to the 2011 census, so it is a trend line, not today's map. The paper appeared in npj Natural Hazards in August; IIT Roorkee publicised it this week.
IIT Madras will map more than 100 human brains, cell by cell
On 11 October the Prime Minister launched the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre's mission of "mapping 100+ human brains into 3D atlases at cell-resolution across human life span from foetus to old age" and released C-STROKE, which IIT Madras calls the world's first human ischemic stroke atlas, with more than 1,000 annotated brain sections (IIT Madras). Officials gave the plan's details on Monday 12 October (PTI via ThePrint).
Things you can hold, or soon could
- A free AI tutor that gives hints, not answers (IIT Kharagpur). NDLI-FERMI is built into the National Digital Library of India and has a "Scan & Ask" feature for physics, chemistry, maths and biology. A free GATE and JAM prep platform launched with it (PIB, Indian Express). Director Suman Chakraborty: "Artificial Intelligence should not replace the process of thinking".
- A sodium-sulfur battery that holds its charge (IIT Madras). A five-metal oxide layer kept 93.2% of capacity over 200 cycles in coin cells (Research Matters, Journal of Power Sources). Sodium is cheaper and more plentiful than lithium.
- Why the Titan submersible broke (IIT (ISM) Dhanbad). Prof Rashmi Ranjan Das's mechanical engineering team built a finite-element model of the hull to trace the 2023 implosion (ETV Bharat, Engineering Failure Analysis).
- Nanobubbles that make paracetamol crystals form (IIT Ropar). Aakriti Sharma and Neelkanth Nirmalkar raised yields "by up to 65%", including where the standard method made none (Research Matters, Chemical Engineering Science).
- Green light against bacteria (IIT (BHU)). Osmium compounds led by Dr Samya Banerjee and Dr Sudip Mukherjee stopped about 85% of biofilm formation in lab tests (Digital Health News; paper published in September in Communications Chemistry).
- A grain-processing machine, licensed (IIT Kharagpur). Prof Brajesh Kumar Panda's team handed its technology to SKF Boilers and Dryers for commercial use (BusinessLine).
- A sensor patch for athletes (IIT Gandhinagar). It tracks micro-movements in the gym; a patent is being filed and the work is not yet published (Times of India, Careers360).
Careers Watch: an IIT Madras pair took their company public, and recruiters want AI before 1 December
| Who | IIT link | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zetwerk | Founded by IIT Madras classmates Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan | IPO of about ₹5,012 crore, open 15 to 19 Oct; 23% subscribed on day one; listing expected 23 Oct | BusinessLine, Moneycontrol, Inc42 |
| Clueso | Founded by IIT Madras alumni Akash Anand, Prajwal Prakash, Neel Balar | $10M Series A led by Dharana Capital; total raised $12M | YourStory, ET |
| Sachin Katti | BTech, electrical engineering, IIT Bombay | Leaving his role as OpenAI's head of compute; last day 15 Nov, "to build something new" | India Today |
| TuTr Hyperloop | IIT Madras-incubated | MoU with L&T to explore next-generation mobility; a framework, not an order | L&T |
| Waterfly Technologies | IIT Madras-incubated | Plans first ocean trial of its electric "e-flying boat", Chennai to Puducherry, by year-end | Moneycontrol |
The hiring signal is in one Business Standard line: "The final placement season at the seven older IITs, Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati and Roorkee, is scheduled to begin on December 1." Recruiters are asking for AI, data science and analytics. The same report warns this "does not necessarily signal a broad-based recovery in fresher hiring", and IIT Guwahati's placement head says internships are where companies decide on pre-placement offers (Business Standard). Read together: this year's strongest offers will go to students who already did an AI-heavy internship. The 22 companies barred earlier this month for withdrawing offers stay barred for the next two seasons (Times of India).
The money story is IIT Madras's. Zetwerk's IPO drew a muted first day, 23% subscribed (Inc42), and the issue closed on 19 October; the final figure was not out when this was written. Clueso's round came mostly from investors who already backed it: more than 80% of the fresh capital (Economic Times). Sachin Katti's line on leaving OpenAI: "I'm a builder at heart, and I'm looking forward to building something new." (India Today).
Sunday's founder profile is the IIT Kanpur story behind this week's campaign: Arvind Krishna: The IIT Kanpur Engineer Who Runs IBM.
The calendar: JAM closes tonight, GATE fixes by 31 October, and JEE Main registration is next
| Date | What | Who it is for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 19 Oct, 11:59 pm | JAM 2027 applications close (already extended from 12 Oct) | Final-year BSc students and graduates applying for IIT MSc | jam.iitkgp.ac.in, EdexLive |
| Late October (expected) | JEE Main 2027 Session 1 registration; exam 22 to 30 Jan | Class 12 students | Business Standard |
| 29 Oct to 1 Nov | Antaragni 2026, IIT Kanpur | Everyone | antaragni.in |
| Sat 31 Oct | Last day to fix defects in GATE 2027 applications (moved from 21 Oct) | GATE applicants | GATE 2027, IIT Madras |
| Sat 31 Oct | UCEED and CEED 2027 regular-fee registration closes; CEED late fee to 6 Nov | Design aspirants, any Class 12 stream for UCEED | UCEED, CEED |
| 10 to 21 Nov | IIT Bombay end-semester exams | IIT Bombay students | Hindustan Times, 7 Oct |
| 1 Dec | Final placements open at the seven older IITs | Final-year students | Business Standard |
GATE registration is now shut for good. IIT Madras reopened the late-fee window for one day, from 10:30 am on 15 October, and posted on 16 October that the portal is closed (GATE 2027 notifications). NIRF 2026 is still not out; reports say research data, including retracted papers, is under review, and no date has been given (News18, EdexLive). Mood Indigo has confirmed 21 to 24 December (Jagran Josh).
The trend: the IITs are arguing about what a rank is worth
Put the week's stories side by side. IIT Kanpur's director says the entrance exam has become coaching-dependent and needs a redesign, and he resists a third attempt because it would mean "another year, plus a lot of money" for most of the people who take it (ETEducation). IIT Bombay has told students that asking for someone's JEE rank can be a way of asking about their caste (The Hindu). IIT Kharagpur is giving GATE and JAM preparation away for free, aimed at rural and poorer students (Indian Express).
None of these is a policy change yet. But they point the same way: the IITs are starting to treat the rank as a number that follows students around after it has done its job, and that can do harm. For aspirants, the practical read is unchanged for 2027: two attempts, the same exam. For students already inside, the rank you came in with is now officially nobody else's business at IIT Bombay.
Across the 23 IITs this week
Every IIT, with what it did this week or a plain note that it was quiet. Checked against each institute's news page and the week's national and regional coverage.
Older IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur)
- IIT Bombay: One month on from a student's death: 30 counsellor posts, a rule against asking ranks or caste, and a protest site cleared (above). Mood Indigo confirmed for 21 to 24 December.
- IIT Delhi: LISA AI was second runner-up at the Accenture Innovation Challenge, and IIT Delhi tops the Hurun U35 list by undergraduate alumni (above).
- IIT Madras: The 100-brain atlas mission and the C-STROKE atlas; alumni companies Zetwerk (IPO) and Clueso ($10M); a sodium-sulfur battery result (above).
- IIT Kanpur: The $1 billion campaign, the attempts debate, an NSRCEL tie-up for defence startups, and the Udghosh athletics titles (above). Antaragni runs 29 October to 1 November.
- IIT Kharagpur: A free AI tutor and a free GATE and JAM prep platform, a grain-processing technology licensed, and co-authors on IIT Guwahati's synapse device (above).
Second-generation IITs (Roorkee, Guwahati, BHU, Hyderabad, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Ropar, Jodhpur, Mandi, Patna, Dhanbad)
- IIT Roorkee: The 591-district flood and drought study and the Accenture first runner-up (above). The same group also built HyEco, a model that predicts where flood-borne disease risk will be highest in a city (Careers360).
- IIT Guwahati: Prof PK Giri's low-energy light-sensing synapse device (above); its placement head says applied-AI roles are new this cycle (Careers Watch).
- IIT (BHU) Varanasi: Set up a nine-member committee to run urine-based drug tests on newly admitted students, following an Education Ministry directive (India Today). Also the osmium antibacterial study (above).
- IIT Hyderabad: Won the Accenture Innovation Challenge (above). Launched a one-credit elective called "Goodness: Character, Responsibility and Human Flourishing", with more than 140 students enrolled (IIT Hyderabad), and the first 25 rural women graduated from its FlySakhi agri-drone course (Telangana Today).
- IIT Indore: A study traced how Delhi's protest sites have moved over the years, published as Jantar Mantar was denotified as a protest site (PTI via India Today).
- IIT Bhubaneswar: Hosted Manasvita, a two-day workshop on student mental health and resilient campuses for 90 participants from 25 institutions, which ended on 12 October (Orissa Diary). A thin week otherwise.
- IIT Gandhinagar: The athlete sensor patch (above). The institute's own news site had nothing else dated this week.
- IIT Ropar: The nanobubble crystallisation study (above), and an MoU between its ANNAM AI centre, NIC Punjab and the Punjab farmers' commission to send AI farm advice to Punjab farmers (The Tribune).
- IIT Jodhpur: Won the chess at Udghosh (above). A feature on its Medical AI Systems Lab, which is working on robot-assisted ultrasound (ETV Bharat).
- IIT Mandi: Osheen Mahajan's three swimming medals (above). Its School of Management ran AIHack 2026 with Japan's AIFUL from 16 to 18 October, about 200 participants (The Tribune). Winners were not published by Monday.
- IIT Patna: Due to receive the Fit India FERN Award (Silver) for clean mobility in New Delhi on 18 October (IIT Patna). A thin week.
- IIT (ISM) Dhanbad: The Titan submersible failure study and Ambar Khare's President's Gold Medal (above).
Newest IITs (Bhilai, Dharwad, Jammu, Palakkad, Goa, Tirupati)
- IIT Bhilai: Signed an MoU with Raipur's GK Electric for electric-vehicle research, through its innovation foundation. This comes from the company's own press release (ANI press release via ThePrint).
- IIT Dharwad: Signed an MoU with the Bureau of Indian Standards on World Standards Day, 14 October (IIT Dharwad). Entra Innovations, a startup from its incubator, won the Dr M. J. Zarabi Indigenisation Award for what the institute calls India's first indigenous tyre-pressure monitoring chip (IIT Dharwad).
- IIT Jammu: The Prime Minister said proposals for IIT Jammu satellite campuses in Ladakh are being advanced. That is a proposal, not an approval (The Hindu). It also signed a mobile-security MoU with SMVDU, Katra (Daily Excelsior).
- IIT Palakkad: Will lead a 48-member delegation from Kerala to BHU under Yuva Sangam, with the flag-off on 21 October (The Hindu). It has also invited bids for a 1.25 MW rooftop solar system (MVA Pulse).
- IIT Goa: Police booked two men after CISF personnel found Bluetooth earpieces on them in connection with IIT Goa's non-teaching staff recruitment exam (News18). The arrests were on 10 and 11 October and reported on 12 October.
- IIT Tirupati: Canada's Dalhousie University signed MoUs with IIT Tirupati and IISER Tirupati for joint PhD programmes during the Canadian trade mission (The Hans India). PhD applications under the Visvesvaraya scheme close on 23 October (NDTV).
Coming next
- 19 Oct: JAM 2027 applications close; Zetwerk's IPO closes (JAM, BusinessLine).
- 23 Oct: Zetwerk expected to list (BusinessLine).
- Late Oct: JEE Main 2027 registration expected (Business Standard).
- 29 Oct to 1 Nov: Antaragni at IIT Kanpur (Antaragni).
- 31 Oct: GATE application fixes and UCEED/CEED regular-fee registration close (GATE, UCEED).
- 15 Nov: Sachin Katti's last day at OpenAI (India Today).
FAQ
How many attempts are allowed in JEE Advanced 2027?
Two, in two consecutive years, as in 2026. IIT Kanpur director Manindra Agrawal said in October 2026 that JEE Advanced will not change "in the immediate future". The IIT Council has started discussing the attempt limit, but no decision has been taken.
Will JEE Advanced allow a third attempt?
Not for 2027. Agrawal told the Indian Express on 16 October 2026 that a third attempt is "under discussion" but "not a generic third attempt but maybe in some special cases", and that the details are not known yet. A Change.org petition asking for three attempts had 12,139 signatures by 14 October.
What is IIT Kanpur's $1 billion campaign?
IIT Kanpur launched "Greater Than Us" on 14 October 2026, aiming to raise $1 billion by March 2029. It says ₹4,155 crore is already committed. The plan puts ₹5,000 crore into infrastructure, ₹3,000 crore into scholarships, fellowships and faculty, and ₹1,000 crore into strategic technology.
Who won the Accenture Innovation Challenge 2026?
Team CtrlAltReinvent from IIT Hyderabad (Abhiram Ramachandran, Polisetti Likhit Sai and Madiha Ahmed) won about ₹3 lakh. IIT Roorkee's Clock_it was first runner-up and IIT Delhi's LISA AI second runner-up. The challenge drew more than 5,000 registrations from 20 IITs and NITs.
Why did IIT Bombay tell students not to ask about JEE ranks?
In an email on 13 October 2026, IIT Bombay's Dean of Student Affairs said asking students about their JEE Advanced rank, GATE score or admission category can reveal caste and is inappropriate, even if asked out of curiosity. Violations can lead to punishment.
When do IIT placements start in 2026?
Final placements at the seven older IITs (Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati and Roorkee) start on 1 December 2026, according to Business Standard. Recruiters are asking for AI, data science and analytics skills.
Your IIT had a week? Campus hoodies for every IIT: Kanpur, Hyderabad, Roorkee, Delhi, Madras, Bombay, and the rest of the 23.
Support: Tele MANAS, the national mental health helpline, is free and available 24/7 on 14416.
By Arun Raghav S · Co-founder, IITian Vibes · Facts retrieved 19 October 2026 from the linked official pages and documents. Corrections to hello@iitianvibes.com.