There have been several calls for IITs to expand their footprint to include social sciences, by using their management schools as a nucleus. I'm not too sure if the other IITs are taking this proposal seriously, but IIT-Kharagpur is making some nifty moves indeed: Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law.
Not only are they planning an interesting venture, they are also thinking big.
According to Kalyan Chakravarti, project leader of the task force for setting up of the law school, the centre will start with 30-50 students for both courses. “There is lot of demand for people trained in IP law. Our five-year plan is to hike the intake to 500 and by eigth years reach 800 students. We will then move the school to Kolkata from Kharagpur,” he added.
This is something I really, really like (and I don't mean the proposed move to Kolkata!). Most government funded institutions have been rather diffident in increasing their intake of students. Wherever such an increase did take place, the institutions were taken to that decision kicking and screaming; even when it happened, the increase has been -- at best -- modest. In this scenario, the thinking of the top people behind the law school is very refreshing.
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Here is the latest(an integrated MA) from IITM's HSS dept. The management dept is separate here. In the longer run, it would certainly be great if the best history depts were to co-exist with the best tech depts!
Aswin: Thanks for that info about IIT-M's plans to start an integrated MA program. I am really glad that they are starting it, and I hope it eventually leads to a flourishing, full fledged program in social sciences.
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