Thursday, 28 April , 2005, 13:58
The Indian Institutes of Technology came in for praise from the US Congress, first time the Congress has honoured a foreign university in this manner, for its significant contributions to society.
The US Congress passed House Resolution 227, introduced by Congressman Tom Davis and co-sponsored by Congressman Bobby Jindal, praising the stellar work done by IIT-ians in all walks of life.
Davis said the United States must take leaf out of India's book and devise a strategy to focus on and improve studies in math and sciences. This rare recognition, experts say, will help IITs solicit US government grants and promote industry collaboration with the IITs for sponsored research and faculty/student exchange programmes.
Rep. Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York and the chief deputy whip, submitted a statement to the congressional record in support of House Resolution 227. In a statement, Crowley said: "As the former co-chair of the Caucus on India and Indian-Americans and the representative of one of the largest concentrations of Indian-Americans in the United States, I have seen first hand the contributions my friends from India have made."
He noted that since 1950, the number of IITs had grown from one to seven and that many top US citizens are IIT were, such as Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, and Rajat Gupta, the first non-North America-born head of venerable consulting company McKinsey &Co.
He pointed to the work of the IITs that have a long history of "grooming fine minds that have gone on to achieve incredible success in India and around the world".
This resolution was passed in the context of the Global PanIIT Alumni Conference, an event which is to be held on May 20-22, 2005 in the metro Washington DC area.
http://sify.com/news/othernews/fullstory.php?id=13729300
http://www.iit2005.org/docs/VA%20Proclamation.pdf
http://www.iit2005.org/