The IIT Week · 5–11 October 2026 · Week 41 · All 23 IITs checked
On Wednesday 7 October, IIT Bombay's Senate met for about two and a half hours and put the exam-malpractice rules it adopted in July on hold. It went back to the institute's 2015 rules (Hindustan Times). Under those, a student caught carrying a phone into an exam loses one grade, instead of a fail grade plus a semester's suspension (Indian Express). Four days later, IIT directors told PTI that work is under way on a permanent cadre of counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists for all 23 IITs (PTI via Business Standard).
That is the thread through the week: how much pressure an IIT should put on a student, and who catches them when it is too much. The JEE Advanced 2026 report showed the funnel narrowing again, with one in three qualifiers getting a seat and 73% of the top 500 taking computer science. IIT Kanpur's director said pressure is inevitable. IIT Hyderabad's counselling numbers have nearly doubled in five years.
The week also had a lot of good news, and it gets a full section. IIT Madras's solar car finished third across South Africa. Two IIT Madras pairs took first and second in a national quiz of more than 1,100 teams. IIT Palakkad won its first-ever swimming medals. Below: the deep dive, the wins, the JEE numbers, the research, Careers Watch, and a line for every one of the 23 IITs. If your campus had a good week, wear it.
The deep dive: IIT Bombay rolled back its cheating rules in one meeting. The IITs now want a mental-health cadre
TL;DR: IIT Bombay's Senate put its July 2026 malpractice rules on hold and restored the 2015 ones until a joint faculty-student committee writes new procedures. A student caught cheating now finishes the paper and a support helpline is alerted. Separately, IIT directors say a permanent mental-health cadre for all 23 IITs is being drafted. It is a plan, not a decision.
The trigger is not in dispute. The mid-semester exams were suspended after a second-year BTech student died by suicide on 18 September, "hours after he was allegedly found using a mobile phone during a mid-semester exam" (Indian Express). Police are still investigating, and nobody has been charged. What changed this week is the rulebook the student was judged under.
What the Senate changed
| Offence in the exam hall | July 2026 rules (now on hold) | 2015 rules (restored) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrying a phone | FR (fail and repeat) grade plus a one-semester suspension | Loss of one grade | Indian Express, 9 Oct |
| Talking to another student | Straight FR | Loss of one grade, unless there is other evidence such as identical answers | Indian Express, 8 Oct |
| What happens in the hall | Not set out in detail | Material taken, incident recorded, student finishes on a fresh answer booklet, quick response team (QRT) helpline alerted | Indian Express, 8 Oct |
| Before any penalty | No formal step | Faculty member must fill a form; the student may file their own account (optional) | Hindustan Times, 7 Oct |
The new in-hall procedure comes from the interim report of an eight-member committee of four faculty members and four students that Director Shireesh Kedare set up. According to the Indian Express, the interim report proposes that the student be allowed "to complete the paper with a fresh answer booklet. The quick response team (QRT) helpline should be alerted so the student has support after the exam". A faculty member who attended the Senate told the Hindustan Times: "The emotion has shifted towards being sensitive to students. We are largely going back to the 2015 rules." A joint committee with equal faculty and student members is now writing permanent procedures, HT reports.
There was no public circular. HT reported that "There was no official communication from the institute to students or the media about this Senate meeting and the changes to the rules." (Hindustan Times). The institute's academic-malpractice web page now simply carries the 2015 rules again (Indian Express). The postponed mid-sems were scheduled for 10 and 11 October under them, with entry closing 30 minutes into each paper and phones, smartwatches and bags barred from the building (Hindustan Times).
The rest of the package
India Today set out the rest of the package on 6 October. The new post is an Associate Dean for Student Wellness, a rung below a full dean, and "Professor Deepak Marla" has already been appointed to it. Hostels will get wellness secretaries and play areas, and the mess contracts are being re-tendered. A relaxed end-semester timetable is "not a finalised change yet". Instead, the Senate approved a 13-day end-sem window, 10 to 21 November, that includes weekends (Hindustan Times). Students are also being surveyed on replacing hostel ceiling fans with wall, pedestal, table or tower fans, or keeping them (Indian Express).
Students are split on the rollback. On r/IITBombay, the post sharing the news drew 172 upvotes, and its top reply asked: "Was it ever taken away? Students are always given a chance to explain their side". Another reply argued the opposite case: "Harsher punishments do not result in lowering of crimes. Systemic changes around other factors like academic support, more humane academic load and recalibrated metrics for evaluation is what helps against cheating." (r/IITBombay)
The protest is still going. The group at the main gate, about 20 days in and not officially representing all students, has drawn up an 11-point charter on mess hygiene, hostel maintenance and appeal rights from open-mic sessions (Hindustan Times). The student's parents were on day eight of a hunger strike at Azad Maidan on 7 October. Their lawyer said: "We expected that after recording the statements they would be arrested, but they were not arrested" (Mumbai Mirror). Crime branch sources told News18 that about 60 statements had been recorded and that the professor named in the family's complaint denies the allegations.
The cadre, and the numbers behind it
The bigger idea came on Sunday 11 October. According to an IIT director who spoke to PTI, "IIT Gandhinagar is working on a structure for all IITs which includes sanctioned posts for counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists". Under minutes of last year's IIT Council meeting, it would follow Rehabilitation Council of India guidelines (Business Standard, India Today). The directors say it predates this year's deaths and has been discussed for two years. No director was named, and neither the ministry nor the IIT Council has announced it. The reason it matters is in the same report: "unless specific posts are created and funding is earmarked, even contractual appointments are not possible."
The case for it showed up in the week's data. An RTI filed by the Times of India found students seeking counselling at IIT Hyderabad rose 74%, "from 290 in 2021 to 505 in 2025", with three counsellors now working there full-time (Times of India). The Supreme Court's National Task Force, quoted in the PTI report, found that of 31 centrally funded institutions, "only four reported formal training for faculty mentorship programmes"; its final report is due on 31 October.
IIT Kanpur director Manindra Agrawal told PTI: "Academic pressure is inevitable at an institution like an IIT, but students must have access to support systems to help them cope". His institute has 10 counsellors and a senior psychiatrist (EdexLive).
A caution on a figure going round this week. India Today's count of 171 IIT student deaths between 2006 and September 2026 comes from an alumnus's compilation of RTI replies and press reports. It includes other unnatural deaths as well as suicides, and the article itself says "It is not a single, centralised official database" (India Today). It is the best public count there is, and it is still not an official one.
What to watch: whether the joint committee publishes its procedures before the end-sems start on 10 November, the task force report on 31 October, and whether any IIT or the ministry puts the cadre plan on paper. Until then, the counsellors students can reach are whatever their own campus has funded.
The wins: IIT Madras raced a solar car across South Africa and took a national quiz, and IIT Palakkad won its first swimming medals
TL;DR: Team AgniRath's car Aagneya finished third in the Sasol Solar Challenge after 1,192.6 km. IIT Madras pairs finished first and second, and an IIT Kanpur pair third, among more than 1,100 teams in NTPC's Electron quiz. An IIT Madras BS student led the winning team at a lunar-habitat hackathon. IIT Ropar awarded its first MTech in Defence Technology.
Team AgniRath, an undergraduate team of more than 45 engineers founded by six students in 2021, drove its second-generation solar car Aagneya "across 1,192.6 km over eight days of challenging terrain and weather" from Johannesburg to Cape Town (PTI via EdexLive). IIT Madras announced the third-place finish on 7 October and says the team "became the first Indian team to participate in the Sasol Solar Challenge and bring home a trophy" (Assam Tribune). No individual team members were named in the coverage. What it means: a student-built car finished an eight-day, 1,192.6 km race on the open road. That is a harder test than a quiz, and a stronger line on a CV.
The quiz went IIT Madras's way too. At the national finale of NTPC's Electron Quiz 2026–27 in Noida on 8 October, "Advik Kabra and Ashish Cherian Thannickal of IIT Madras emerge as the national champions", with IIT Madras's Sreeram Madhavan V. and Ishaan Joshi second and IIT Kanpur's Waqar Moid and Parth Arya Bhat third. The winners took ₹1,00,000 (The Hindu, ANI via The News Mill).
| Who | IIT | What | Where / when | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team AgniRath (car: Aagneya) | Madras | 3rd overall, Sasol Solar Challenge 2026; first Indian team to win a trophy there | Johannesburg to Cape Town; announced 7 Oct | EdexLive |
| Advik Kabra, Ashish Cherian Thannickal | Madras | 1st, NTPC Electron Quiz 2026–27 (₹1 lakh) | Noida, 8 Oct | The Hindu, ANI |
| Sreeram Madhavan V., Ishaan Joshi | Madras | 2nd, NTPC Electron Quiz (₹60,000) | Noida, 8 Oct | The Hindu, ANI |
| Waqar Moid, Parth Arya Bhat | Kanpur | 3rd, NTPC Electron Quiz (₹40,000) | Noida, 8 Oct | The Hindu, ANI |
| Aparna Jha (lead), Abhishek Chopra, Pratham Amritkar, with Neetika Jain | Madras (BS degree) | 1st, SpAr Conclave 2026 lunar-habitat hackathon (ISRO, ANRF, IIT Roorkee, TIDES) | Reported 8 Oct | Times of India |
| Isha Bhavesh Shah, 3rd-year BTech | Palakkad | Gold, 50 m breaststroke; bronze, 100 m breaststroke: the institute's first Inter-IIT aquatics medals | Inter-IIT Aquatics Meet, IIT Kharagpur | IIT Palakkad |
| 59 Armoured Corps officers | Ropar | First MTech (Defence Technology) degrees | ACC&S Ahilyanagar, 9 Oct | Hindustan Times |
Two of those deserve a line more. Aparna Jha's team designed SYNAPSE-1, a lunar habitat that responds to the crew's mood: "We wanted to design a habitat that responds to human emotions and cognitive well-being, not just physical survival", she told the Times of India, which did not give the date of the final. IIT Palakkad's news page says plainly: "This is the first time in the history of our institute that we have won medals at the Inter IIT Aquatics Meet" (IIT Palakkad). Its women's team also finished sixth overall, a first. For a campus that is barely ten years old, that is a real milestone.
At IIT Ropar, director Rajeev Ahuja presented the degrees and said "These officers will help India build its own defence technologies" (Hindustan Times). The Tribune calls it the country's first MTech in Defence Technology (The Tribune).
And a faculty scoreboard. On the 2026 Stanford-Elsevier career-long list of the world's top 2% scientists, IISc leads Indian institutions with 139. IIT Delhi has 114, Kharagpur 97, Madras 81, Bombay 73, Roorkee 62, Kanpur 55, Guwahati 37 and IIT (BHU) 33 (Indian Express). India has 3,898 names on the career-long list and 6,954 on the single-year list (India Today). Some outlets compared the two lists and called it a decline. They measure different things, so it is not one.
JEE Advanced 2026 report: 68 of the top 100 chose IIT Bombay, and only a third of qualifiers got any IIT seat
TL;DR: The Joint Implementation Committee report, released by IIT Roorkee on 3 October and reported this week, shows 56,880 qualifiers for 18,861 seats. IIT Bombay took 68 of the top 100 and 183 of the top 500; 365 of the top 500 took CSE.
The report itself is not posted on the JEE Advanced site, so these numbers come from the press coverage, led by the Hindustan Times. "Among the top 100 who secured IIT seats, 68 went to IIT Bombay, 18 to IIT Delhi, 11 to IIT Madras and one to IIT Kanpur", an identical line in the PTI copy (Free Press Journal). That adds up to 98, so two top-100 rankers did not take an IIT seat.
| Measure | 2025 | 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates who qualified | 54,378 | 56,880 (+4.6%) | HT |
| IIT seat capacity | 18,160 | 18,826 (+3.7%) | HT |
| Seats allotted | 18,188 | 18,861 | HT |
| Qualifiers who got a seat | 33.45% | 33.16% | HT |
| Minimum aggregate to qualify (CRL) | 74 / 360 | 92 / 360 | HT |
| Women qualified (rate) | 21.7% | 10,107 (23.4%) | HT |
| Seats taken by women | n/a | 3,814 (20.2%) | HT |
| Top 500 who took CSE | n/a | 365 (73%), 142 of them at IIT Bombay | HT |
| Top 5,000 seats at IIT Hyderabad | 222 | 257 | HT |
The concentration is the story. The top five IITs took 465 of the top 500. Only two of those 500 chose civil engineering, and none chose aerospace (HT). Former IIT Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao warned in the same piece that "Too much growth, too soon, without commensurate investments puts pressure on both students and faculty". IIT Hyderabad is the second-generation IIT moving up: its share of the top 5,000 rose from 222 to 257.
One headline to read carefully. India Today's "408 of the top 500" figure for Madras, Bombay and Delhi counts the exam zone each topper wrote in, not the IIT they joined (India Today). The admissions numbers are the ones in the table above. If you are planning for 2027, our JoSAA 2026 closing ranks show what those seats took to get.
The research week: quantum light on a busy fibre, pollution that sharpens flood forecasts, and a robot sold for stroke wards
IIT Delhi sent entangled photons down 50 km of fibre that was also carrying ordinary data
TL;DR: A step towards running quantum links on the cables India already has.
Prof Bhaskar Kanseri's group in the physics department transmitted "quantum-entangled photons alongside classical data over a 50-km optical fibre link", funded by IIT Delhi's Institute of Eminence grant and the National Quantum Mission (PTI via ThePrint). The hard part is that ordinary signals are far stronger and drown out the quantum ones. Kanseri: "Our demonstration shows that quantum and classical communications can coexist over the same optical fibre infrastructure under carefully controlled conditions." The paper is in Optics Communications. Why it matters: a quantum network that needs its own dedicated fibre is expensive. One that shares existing cables is far closer to being usable.
IIT Madras: adding air pollution to the model made Chennai flood forecasts better
TL;DR: Counter-intuitive, and tested on the December 2015 floods.
Modelling aerosols explicitly gave "an approximately 22% improvement in simulated rainfall over the Adyar basin", which in turn improved simulated flood inundation by about 50% (IIT Madras). Corresponding author Chandan Sarangi: "By explicitly representing aerosol-cloud interactions, we can better capture the spatial and temporal characteristics of extreme rainfall within urban regions" (ETV Bharat). The paper is in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
IIT Kharagpur: cyclones reach 100 metres underground, and the Himalayas take turns
TL;DR: Two climate papers in one week, one on the Sundarbans and one on Himalayan rainfall.
A team including Prof Abhijit Mukherjee found that "Powerful cyclones can affect the quality of groundwater even 100 metres below the surface in deep coastal aquifers" in the Sundarbans, after studying 11 extreme weather events, including cyclone Amphan (PTI via ThePrint; paper in Scientific Reports). A second study, by Priya Bharati and Prof Pranab Deb with the University of Reading, analysed 6,102 extreme precipitation events from 1979 to 2023 and found a see-saw: when the central and eastern Himalayas get extreme rain or snow, the west tends to stay dry, and the reverse (Times of India).
Things you can hold: a stroke robot on sale, a TB vaccine in animal tests, a GPU that wants a fab
TL;DR: Three projects that have left the paper stage.
PLUTO-H, the hand-rehabilitation robot built by IIT Madras's R2D2 centre with CMC Vellore, can be taken to a stroke patient's bedside. "The product has gotten all the certifications required and is available for sale", said Prof Sujatha Srinivasan; it is sold through the startup Thryv Rehab (India Today). KochVac, a TB vaccine candidate from IIT Bhubaneswar and ILS Bhubaneswar, is in animal studies; its licensee "aims to launch human trials during the latter half of 2027" (Times of India).
And the IIT Delhi micro-GPU team (MTech students Nammi Akash and M Ravi Teja, with Profs Jayadeva and Kaushik Saha), whose FPGA prototype we covered two weeks ago, told India Today they want to open the design to students and startups. In Jayadeva's words: "We would like to be the God of small things" (India Today). The 65 nm chip is still a plan.
Also this week: an IIT (BHU) team led by Dr Samya Banerjee and Dr Sudip Mukherjee made osmium compounds that kill bacteria when lit with green light, with "approximately 85 per cent inhibition of biofilm formation" in lab tests and faster wound healing in rats only (ET HealthWorld; Communications Chemistry). At IIT Guwahati, Prof Ajay Kalamdhad's taro-plant wetland cut coliforms in piggery wastewater "from about 60,000 to 1,200 MPN per 100 mL" (NE India Broadcast, EastMojo).
And at IIT Kharagpur, Plaban Kumar Bhowmick of the National Digital Library warned that AI which solves students' problems is "cognitive offloading or cognitive hijacking. Basically, there is no learning happening in this scenario" (NDTV). He said it while launching a free AI tutor built to withhold answers, so read it as an argument for that tool.
Careers Watch: quantum hardware got the cheque, and an alumni body told graduates abroad to come home
TL;DR: Quanfluence (IIT Madras-incubated) raised $10 million and IndigoTex (IIT Delhi) ₹5 crore, both hardware. MeitY sanctioned ₹99.94 crore for silicon photonics with IIT Madras. After the US barred eight IT majors from a green-card step, PanIIT told graduates: "Build here."
| Who / what | IIT link | The signal | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quanfluence, $10M led by Chiratae Ventures, with Rainmatter and Pi Ventures | Incubated at the IIT Madras Incubation Cell | Photonic quantum computers; early processors targeted for 2027 | Entrackr, YourStory |
| IndigoTex, ₹5 crore led by IAN Angel Fund, with SIDBI, FITT and IIT Delhi Angels | IIT Delhi-originated; R&D at IIT Delhi's Research and Innovation Park | Waterless wool finishing; textile deeptech | Entrackr |
| SPECTRA, ₹99.94 crore (MeitY ₹97.54 crore) over five years | izmo Microsystems with IIT Madras | Phase II of a silicon-photonics programme; 1.6 Tbps optical engine target | izmo release |
| IITM Unicorn Frontier Fund-I, ₹450 crore first close of ₹1,000 crore | IIT Madras and its Research Park | Plans a portfolio of about 25 startups | Analytics India Magazine, DT Next |
| AI Innovation Lab with S&P Global | IIT Hyderabad, opened 7 Oct | Industry projects and mentored research in AI for finance | Indian Express, TOI |
| IIT Madras Executive MBA | IIT Madras | Mid-career applications close 26 Oct | IIT Madras |
The other signal came from Washington. On Thursday 8 October the US suspended "Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, and American firms Microsoft, Adobe and Cognizant" from PERM, the labour-certification step that leads to a green card (ThePrint). Three of the eight are American, whatever the headlines said. PanIIT Alumni India's chairman, Prabhat Kumar, responded: "A visa was never a stable foundation for a career, and this week’s events prove it", ending with "Build here. Scale here. Die here." (ThePrint). In Andhra Pradesh, unnamed officials told the New Indian Express that a Pan-IIT Council to link IITs with state universities will be set up in Amaravati within a month.
The read: money went to hardware this week, quantum and photonics and textiles, which hires fewer people but more specialised ones, and closer to labs than to campus placement drives. A small IIT Bombay graduating-class survey adds a note of caution: of the roughly 144 of 2,400 graduates who answered, 32.4% said better placements would make them switch branches (Times of India). It is too small a sample to generalise from, but it fits the CSE numbers above.
This evening's founder profile is an IIT Roorkee story about building rather than leaving: Harshil Mathur: The IIT Roorkee Hacker Who Built Razorpay.
The calendar: GATE's late window shuts on Monday, JAM a week later, and a 14 February clash to watch
GATE 2027. Late-fee registration closes on Monday 12 October; the application correction window runs 14 to 21 October (GATE 2027, important dates). Our DigiLocker guide covers the verification step.
JAM 2027, and the clash. JAM applications close on 19 October, and the exam is on 14 February (JAM 2027; our JAM guide). GATE also uses 14 February. GATE has not yet published which papers fall on which day, so the clash is possible, not confirmed; Shiksha flags JAM's morning papers (Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics) as the ones to watch.
Design and competitions. UCEED and CEED regular registration closes on 31 October; both exams are on 17 January (UCEED, CEED). Atomic Hack India 2026, run by IIT Bombay with Rosatom, closes registration on 20 October; the online round runs 20 to 28 October and the finale is at IIT Bombay on 4 to 6 December (Indian Express).
NIRF 2026. Still not out. NIRF rankings normally come out between August and September, and the Hindustan Times links the delay to closer scrutiny of submitted data, including retracted papers. As of 11 October nirfindia.org still shows 2025 as the latest edition.
The trend: the IITs are deciding, in public, how much pressure is too much
Put the week's numbers side by side. 56,880 qualifiers for 18,861 seats. 73% of the top 500 in one branch. Counselling demand at one IIT up 74% in five years. A director saying that without pressure "we will lag in academics" (EdexLive). A Senate that, in one meeting, decided its own new penalties had gone too far.
None of this is settled. The 2015 rules are a stopgap and the cadre is a plan from unnamed directors. Still, the argument has changed. Until this autumn the IITs mostly treated pressure as the price of the seat. This week, one rewrote its exam-hall procedure around the student who gets caught, and the IITs as a group admitted that a counsellor on a contract is not a system. The test is whether either survives the end-sems.
Across the 23 IITs this week
Stories that did not earn a full section but round out the 23-IIT picture. Every campus was looked up individually on its own news pages, Google News and regional papers.
Older IITs (Bombay–Kharagpur cohort)
- IIT Bombay: The rules rollback, the JEE numbers and Atomic Hack (above). On the night of 8 October a gas leak from a cylinder pipe caused a flare-up that injured five people, including two children. The city logged it at Hostel No. 6, but an IIT Bombay official said it was "a labour camp housing mostly persons working at construction sites on the campus". All five were reported stable (PTI via ETV Bharat, The Hindu, Indian Express). Separately, a 72-year-old guest-house visitor was booked under the SC/ST Act over an alleged casteist remark on 5 October (Hindustan Times, Mid-Day).
- IIT Delhi: The quantum fibre link, IndigoTex and the micro-GPU interview (above), and 114 names on the top-2% list. Hindustan Times noted the PhD scholar who died on 3 October was "the third such death of an IIT Delhi student this year" (Hindustan Times); we covered the FIR last week. A six-month Smart Manufacturing certificate takes applications until 15 November (Education Times).
- IIT Madras: AgniRath, the Electron quiz, the flood study, PLUTO-H, Quanfluence and SPECTRA (above). It signed an MoU with IIT Dharwad on 8 October (below). On Sunday 11 October Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Sudha Gopalakrishnan Brain Centre on campus and was briefed on its work (ANI via LatestLY).
- IIT Kanpur: Third in the Electron quiz and the director's comments on pressure (above). Udghosh'26, the sports fest, opened on 9 October (TOI). The Central Information Commission asked the institute to check whether the police probe into a PhD scholar's February 2025 death has reached a stage where its internal report can be given to his father (PTI via ThePrint).
- IIT Kharagpur: Two climate papers and the AI-tutor argument (above), and 97 names on the top-2% list. It hosted the Inter-IIT Aquatics Meet where IIT Palakkad won its first medals, and it organises JAM 2027.
Second-generation IITs (Roorkee, Guwahati, BHU, Hyderabad, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Ropar, Jodhpur, Mandi, Patna, Dhanbad)
- IIT Roorkee: Released the JEE Advanced report (above). Signed a defence MoU with India Optel on 5 October (TOI), a joint PhD with the University of Calgary (University of Calgary), and a three-year pact with Tripura's rural livelihood mission covering 500 women weavers (PTI via ThePrint). Razorpay's founders are alumni; see the profile linked above.
- IIT Guwahati: The piggery wastewater wetland (above). A widely shared story this week about an IIT Guwahati informal-transport framework is from July, so we left it out.
- IIT (BHU) Varanasi: The green-light antibacterial work (above). Signed a highway-research MoU with NHIDCL on 8 October, focused on hilly and border roads (TOI), and reported an institute-level MoU with Germany's Bergische Universität Wuppertal, signed on 1 October (ANI via The News Mill).
- IIT Hyderabad: The counselling RTI, the S&P Global lab and its top-5,000 gain (above). Its incubated startup WiSig Networks, led by Prof Kiran Kuchi, showed telecom hardware at India Mobile Congress (IIT Hyderabad).
- IIT Indore: A thin week. With AIIMS Raipur it launched AarogyaAI, a three-month online course on AI in healthcare, on 4 October (News Riveting).
- IIT Bhubaneswar: The KochVac TB vaccine moving to animal studies (above).
- IIT Gandhinagar: Drafting the IIT-wide mental-health cadre structure, per the PTI report (above). An IITGN-led paper in Small found active enzymes raised cells' uptake of transferrin by about 17% (The Blunt Times).
- IIT Ropar: The first MTech in Defence Technology (above). Its ANNAM.AI centre launched AVNI, a free Hindi-English app that teaches children about plants and farming (Indian Express).
- IIT Jodhpur: Near-quiet. Its researchers co-authored the Gandhinagar enzyme study (The Blunt Times); otherwise only admissions and recruitment notices.
- IIT Mandi: Opened applications, with IIT Jammu, for their joint-degree PhD programme (Dinamalar).
- IIT Patna: Hosted IndianOil's India Energy Week outreach on 7 October, where students were urged to work on energy problems (TOI). Not the institute's own research.
- IIT (ISM) Dhanbad: Signed a CSR pact with Martin Engineering: "₹5 lakh will be provided annually to support 10 meritorious female students" (The Jharkhand Story).
Newest IITs (Bhilai, Dharwad, Jammu, Palakkad, Goa, Tirupati)
- IIT Bhilai: Quiet week. Nothing dated this week on its website, in Google News or Bing News; a Bhilai story in the regional press turned out to be about a different university.
- IIT Dharwad: Signed an MoU with IIT Madras on education, research and entrepreneurship on 8 October. Education Minister Pralhad Joshi, whose Lok Sabha seat is Dharwad, said "Though IIT Dharwad is one of our newer IITs, it is steadily strengthening its academic and research capabilities" (EdexLive).
- IIT Jammu: The joint PhD call with IIT Mandi, and CONVOQUER'26, a sports fest marking its tenth anniversary (JK Monitor).
- IIT Palakkad: Its first Inter-IIT aquatics medals (above). Its TECHIN foundation will hold the SAMAGRA 2.0 innovation summit in Thiruvananthapuram on 29 and 30 October (The Hindu).
- IIT Goa: Quiet week. Nothing institute-specific on its website, Google News or Bing News.
- IIT Tirupati: US Consul General Laura Williams visited with a seven-member delegation to discuss research ties; no agreement was reported (New Indian Express).
Coming next
| Date | What |
|---|---|
| Mon 12 Oct | GATE 2027 late-fee registration closes |
| 14–15 Oct | Samsung Solve for Tomorrow finale, New Delhi; winners get mentoring from IIT Delhi's FITT (CXOToday) |
| 14–21 Oct | GATE 2027 application corrections |
| 19 Oct | JAM 2027 applications close |
| 20 Oct | Atomic Hack India 2026 registration closes; online round to 28 Oct |
| 26 Oct | IIT Madras Executive MBA applications close |
| 29–30 Oct | SAMAGRA 2.0, IIT Palakkad's innovation summit, Thiruvananthapuram |
| 31 Oct | UCEED and CEED regular registration closes; National Task Force final report due to the Supreme Court |
| 10–21 Nov | IIT Bombay end-semester exams, the first full exam season under the restored 2015 rules |
| Not announced | NIRF 2026; the IIT mental-health cadre structure |
FAQ
What did IIT Bombay change in its exam cheating rules?
On 7 October 2026 IIT Bombay's Senate put its July 2026 malpractice rules on hold and restored the 2015 rules. Carrying a phone now costs one grade instead of a fail grade plus a one-semester suspension. A student caught cheating finishes the paper on a fresh booklet, a support helpline is alerted, and the faculty member must file a form before any penalty.
Are the IITs hiring a permanent mental-health cadre?
It is a plan, not a decision. IIT directors told PTI on 11 October 2026 that IIT Gandhinagar is drafting a structure for all 23 IITs with sanctioned posts for counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists, following Rehabilitation Council of India guidelines. Neither the Education Ministry nor the IIT Council has announced it.
How many JEE Advanced 2026 top-100 rankers joined IIT Bombay?
Sixty-eight. Of the top 100 who took IIT seats, 68 joined IIT Bombay, 18 IIT Delhi, 11 IIT Madras and one IIT Kanpur, according to the JEE Advanced 2026 Joint Implementation Committee report released by IIT Roorkee. IIT Bombay also took 183 of the top 500.
What percentage of JEE Advanced 2026 qualifiers got an IIT seat?
About 33.16%. 56,880 candidates qualified and 18,861 seats were allotted, against 33.45% in 2025. Seat capacity rose 3.7% while qualifiers rose 4.6%.
What did IIT Madras win at the Sasol Solar Challenge 2026?
Team AgniRath finished third overall with its solar car Aagneya, covering 1,192.6 km over eight days from Johannesburg to Cape Town. IIT Madras says it is the first Indian team to take part in the race and win a trophy.
Do GATE 2027 and JAM 2027 clash?
Possibly. Both use 14 February 2027 as an exam date, but GATE has not yet published which papers fall on which day. JAM applications close on 19 October 2026 and GATE late-fee registration closes on 12 October 2026.
Your IIT had a week? Campus hoodies for every IIT: Bombay, Madras, Palakkad, Ropar, Delhi, Kanpur, 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 11 October 2026 from the linked official pages and documents. Corrections to hello@iitianvibes.com.