Latest news with #IIMMumbai
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
IIM Mum opens incubator to anyone with a good idea
Mumbai: IIM Mumbai has opened the doors of its incubator not just to students or fresh graduates, but to anyone with an idea and the courage to build it -- from silver-haired retirees with decades of wisdom to homemakers with sharp instincts and side-hustles waiting to bloom. On Tuesday, the AIC-NIFIE incubator was inaugurated by Union minister of state for science and technology Jitendra Singh. The Atal Incubation Centre-NITIE Incubation Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (full form) is an umbrella organisation at IIM Mumbai for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech start-ups. Backed by NITI Aayog, the business incubator provides 'start to scale' support for technology-based entrepreneurship and facilitates the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. Singh called for an end to working in silos, urging a seamless blend of govt, industry, and academia. "The integration of academia, industry, and govt is essential for India to meet its rapid development goals. The age of silos is over. Now we are getting more and more integrated," he said. The minister said all stakeholders, including representatives of industry, should be brought together as the demarcation between the private and public sectors does not exist. You Can Also Check: Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai "It is no longer an option, it is a necessity to achieve the country's development goals," the minister said. Singh noted India's rise from 350 startups in 2014 to over 1.5 lakh in 2025, with space-tech now open to 100% FDI and backed by a Rs 1,000-crore fund. "Startups are built on aptitude, ideas, and innovation -- not just fancy degrees." Director of the institute, Manoj Tiwari, said: "We invited bold entrepreneurs to apply, panels of experts heard their ideas, interviewed them, and we have allotted 6 rooms out of the total 13 to some bold entrepreneurs." To date, 14 startups have been incubated on campus.
Indian Express
14 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Govt-funded incubation centre for startups inaugurated at IIM
The Atal Incubation Centre – NITIE Incubation Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (AIC-NIFIE) was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Mumbai by Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh (independent charge) Science and Technology and Earth Sciences on Tuesday. Established under the Atal Innovation Mission, AIC–NIFIE aims to be a transformative platform to nurture innovation and support early-stage startups. The AIC-NIFIE will provide support for incubation, mentorship, industry partnerships, and access to cutting-edge research and technology for students at IIM Mumbai as well as outsiders with potential start-up ideas. While open to all, the incubation centre will give IIM Mumbai students and alumni priority, without compromising on merit-based selection. Singh highlighted the importance of an integrated approach for such support. 'There are myths about startups as a concept that it has to be by youngsters, especially those from the field of technology. Whereas anybody with a potential idea can work towards creating a startup.' Emphasising the importance of academic institutions like IIM Mumbai in bridging policy, research, and enterprise, he said, 'Innovation is the backbone of a developed India. Centres like AIC–NIFIE will be instrumental in translating India's demographic dividend into tangible economic growth.' Formed under section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013, AIC–NIFIE operates as a not-for-profit initiative, with funding support from NITI Aayog and the Government of India. Professor Manoj K Tiwari, director at IIM Mumbai, said, 'Through the first advertisement inviting applications from potential startups, already ten are under the incubation centre. Applicants come from diverse backgrounds, including non-IIM Mumbai students. Soon a new advertisement will be issued to invite more applications.'
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Business Standard
15 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Integration of govt, industry and academia vital for growth: Jitendra Singh
Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday called for the integration of government, industry and academia to achieve India's development goals, saying the age of working in silos is over. Speaking after inaugurating a state-of-the-art Incubation Centre at IIM Mumbai, Singh stressed that greater synergy between the public and private sectors is not an option, but a necessity. "The integration of academia, industry, and government is essential for India to meet its rapid development goals. The age of silos is over. Now we are getting more and more integrated," the MoS for Science and Technology said. The minister said all stakeholders, including representatives of the industry, should be brought together as the demarcation between the private and public sectors does not exist. "It is no longer an option, it is a necessity to achieve the country's development goals," the minister said. AIC-NITIE Incubation Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an umbrella organisation at IIM Mumbai for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech start-ups. Funded by the NITI Aayog and the government, the organisation administers a business incubator that provides 'start to scale' support for technology-based entrepreneurship and facilitates the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. With India rising to the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, Singh said that the number of startups has grown from 350 in 2014 to over 1.5 lakh in 2025. "Startups in space tech are adding significant value. The government has allowed 100 per cent FDI in the space sector and set up a Rs 1,000 crore venture fund for space-based startups," he said. The minister debunked the myth that startups are limited to IT professionals from elite institutions. "Startups are built on aptitude, ideas, and innovation- not just fancy degrees," he said, adding that entrepreneurial potential exists across every sector, from biotech to agri-tech, to every age group. He further stated that agriculture, contributing only 14 to 15 per cent to GDP, supports the largest section of India's population and it presents huge potential that can be tapped through technology and innovation. "We are no longer looking for the domestic benchmarks. We are trying to match the global benchmarks and we have the aspiration, confidence, and means to set out that goal for ourselves," he added. Over 49 per cent of start-ups are from B-towns because they are more aspirational and driven by competitiveness and success, the minister said. "Therefore, when you are looking for a career for yourself, or looking for prosperity for yourself, you will also realise that you are not only making good for yourself, but you are also contributing to the making of the 'Viksit Bharat'," he added.
Mint
16 hours ago
- Business
- Mint
Age of working in silos is over; integration of industry and govt essential: Jitendra Singh
Mumbai, Jun 24 (PTI) Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Tuesday called for the integration of government, industry and academia to achieve India's development goals, saying the age of working in silos is over. Speaking after inaugurating a state-of-the-art Incubation Centre at IIM Mumbai, Singh stressed that greater synergy between the public and private sectors is not an option, but a necessity. "The integration of academia, industry, and government is essential for India to meet its rapid development goals. The age of silos is over. Now we are getting more and more integrated," the MoS for Science and Technology said. The minister said all stakeholders, including representatives of the industry, should be brought together as the demarcation between the private and public sectors does not exist. "It is no longer an option, it is a necessity to achieve the country's development goals," the minister said. AIC-NITIE Incubation Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is an umbrella organisation at IIM Mumbai for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech start-ups. Funded by the NITI Aayog and the government, the organisation administers a business incubator that provides 'start to scale' support for technology-based entrepreneurship and facilitates the conversion of research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. With India rising to the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, Singh said that the number of startups has grown from 350 in 2014 to over 1.5 lakh in 2025. "Startups in space tech are adding significant value. The government has allowed 100 per cent FDI in the space sector and set up a ₹ 1,000 crore venture fund for space-based startups," he said. The minister debunked the myth that startups are limited to IT professionals from elite institutions. "Startups are built on aptitude, ideas, and innovation- not just fancy degrees," he said, adding that entrepreneurial potential exists across every sector, from biotech to agri-tech, to every age group. He further stated that agriculture, contributing only 14 to 15 per cent to GDP, supports the largest section of India's population and it presents huge potential that can be tapped through technology and innovation. "We are no longer looking for the domestic benchmarks. We are trying to match the global benchmarks and we have the aspiration, confidence, and means to set out that goal for ourselves," he added. Over 49 per cent of start-ups are from B-towns because they are more aspirational and driven by competitiveness and success, the minister said. "Therefore, when you are looking for a career for yourself, or looking for prosperity for yourself, you will also realise that you are not only making good for yourself, but you are also contributing to the making of the 'Viksit Bharat'," he added.
Scroll.in
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
How reliable are the rankings of India's top IITs and IIMs?
Every year, around the time when the new academic year begins, the ministry of education releases its annual rankings of government and private higher education institutions in the country. The rankings, which have been published since 2016, are calculated based on the government's National Institutional Ranking Framework. The rankings are published across different categories, including engineering, management, medicine and law. In each category, the ministry lists the 200 institutions that in its assessment are the best in the country that year. The NIRF rankings are a crucial resource for millions of students who have to decide what institutions and programmes to seek admission in each year. But are the rankings based on a rigorous methodology and consistent data? This question came to fore last September when an employee of the Indian Institute of Management Mumbai alleged that the institute had inflated numbers pertaining to income, expenditure and faculty strength in the data it submitted to the NIRF. Scroll cross-checked these claims by sourcing data that the institute had submitted to the NIRF, as well as the data published in its annual reports, and found that there were indeed significant discrepancies between the two. Neither the institute nor the ministry of education had responded to Scroll 's requests for comment. However, the case highlighted one of the fault lines of the rankings system: it relies on self-reported data. Data that the institutions submit is used to assign ranks to them, raising questions about the reliability of the process. The IIM Mumbai employee's allegations raised concerns over whether similar discrepancies could be found in data from other leading institutions. Scroll examined the data submitted to NIRF by all government engineering and management institutes ranked in the top ten. We picked data from 2022-'23, the same year for which IIM Mumbai's data came into question. That year, seven Indian Institutes of Management were among the top 10 institutes in the management category. The engineering category featured nine Indian Institutes of Technology. We compared the data submitted by the institutes to NIRF with the data published in their annual reports. We specifically considered the data in these documents pertaining to income and expenditure. Our analysis showed significant discrepancies between data submitted for NIRF and data published in the annual reports of institutions. Most institutes did not respond to our questions about these discrepancies. But professors with administrative experience in public institutes, speaking on the condition of anonymity, admitted there was a widespread lack of clarity about how data should be categorised. One IIT professor said he had heard that 'institutions often exaggerate numbers to get higher rankings, even when it comes to their number of published papers'. Confusion over data Experts who have analysed the NIRF system have raised concern in the past over the lack of clarity and transparency when it comes to the data submitted for the rankings. In June 2024, V Ramgopal Rao, a former director of IIT Delhi, and Abhishek Singh from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science published a paper on the rankings and found several flaws and inconsistencies in the system. 'The reliance on self-reported data raises pertinent questions regarding the consistency and accuracy of the information presented,' they wrote. This was not only because it would be in each institution's interest to report favourable data. 'Institutions varying in size, structure and resources may interpret and report data differently, potentially leading to disparities in the ranking outcomes,' they wrote. 'The absence of stringent mechanisms for verifying the accuracy and uniformity of the submitted data introduces an element of uncertainty into the rankings.' This, they noted, has serious implications on the reliability of the rankings system. 'Without standardised reporting practices, the rankings may inadvertently favour institutions adept at presenting data in a favourable light rather than those genuinely excelling in academic parameters,' the paper stated. The paper also criticised the NIRF system for the lack of transparency about its methodology, specifically about the assessment of financial data. 'To mitigate ambiguity and potential misinterpretations, it is imperative to establish unambiguous and explicit definitions of metrics, especially those which capture financial data,' the paper noted. 'Formulating clear and well-defined rules and criteria is essential to ensure a standardised and equitable assessment.' Comparing data for the IIMs In the NIRF documents of the IIMs, expenditure is broken down into two heads: operational expenditure and capital expenditure. In contrast, the annual reports of the IIMs break down expenditure into several heads, including staff payments and benefits, academic expenses, and administrative and general expenses. The IIT professor mentioned above, who has been involved in submitting data for NIRF, and an IIM professor, who has analysed such data closely, told Scroll that the categories of expenditure mentioned in the annual reports correspond to the 'operational expenditure' category of the NIRF documents. Thus, we compared these two sets of figures between the NIRF documents and annual reports. We found that only in one instance, of IIM Lucknow, did the two figures correspond exactly. IIM Bangalore reported an operational expenditure of around Rs 287.87 crore to NIRF, which was Rs 70 crore higher than what it declared in its annual report. In the remaining four IIMs, expenditure figures declared to NIRF were lower than those declared in the annual reports. Thus, the data did not suggest that a majority of these institutes had exaggerated expenditure figures in their NIRF submissions. This was despite the fact that the framework's methodology rewards institutions for high operational expenditure, as part of a calculation termed 'financial resources and their utilisation'. But the data did show widespread discrepancies between these figures and those in the annual reports, indicating a lack of clarity about what data that falls under these heads. When it comes to income, the IIM NIRF document lists income from three categories: sponsored research, consultancy projects and 'executive development programs/management development programs'. However, the annual reports of the IIMs list income under several heads, including from academic receipts, 'grants/subsidies', income from investments, income from sponsored research and consultancy projects, and income from executive/management development programmes, as well a category termed 'other income'. Where the NIRF documents and the income statements of annual reports contained identical categories, we compared figures directly. When the categories did not match, we examined other sections in the annual reports to locate income from sources mentioned in the NIRF documents, such as sponsored projects. Even in instances where money from sponsored research was listed under sections such as 'current liabilities and provisions', we included it in our calculations, despite three IIM professors maintaining that these entries were not technically categorised as income. Thus, we compared the total income from sponsored projects and consultancy listed in the NIRF documents, with the highest income or credit shown under these heads in any section of the institutions' annual reports. Separately, we compared the income from executive and management development projects in the former documents, with the highest income or credit listed under this category in the annual reports. We found that of a total of 12 such comparisons across the six institutes, in 10 cases, the income reported to NIRF was higher than that declared in the annual report. The highest such difference was found in the instance of IIM Kozhikode, whose NIRF documents listed an income from executive development programmes of Rs 137.13 crore, which was Rs 60.16 crore higher than the figure declared in its annual report. 'Higher income and expenditure allows institutions to project a bigger scale of operations,' a professor from a private university told Scroll. Another professor from a public university said, 'If institutions are able to garner higher earnings from their consultancy programmes and research, it secures them a higher ranking.' Indeed, the NIRF methodology rewards institutions for high research funding and consultancy income, and in the case of management institutes, for income from executive and management development programmes. Scroll emailed all the above institutions, seeking clarity on these apparent discrepancies. As of publishing, only IIM Bangalore had responded. The institute did not reply to specific queries about figures in the two sets of documents. It noted that a 'NIRF Methodology document spells out the ranking formula for Financial Resources Utilisation'. A guidelines document 'has further instructions on what kind of expenditure should be included and what are those that are to be specifically excluded', it noted. It added, 'Our reporting is compiled on the basis of the Methodology and Guidelines documents.' For their annual reports, the institute said, 'institutes like the IIMs are governed by the uniform reporting format issued by the Ministry of Education in consultation with the CAG'. It stated, 'The Income and Expenditure and Balance Sheet formats and significant accounting policies are spelt out in that document. Our annual accounts are also compiled on the basis of the mandated reporting format.' Further, it said, 'Given this background, when we report relevant data under Financial Resources utilisation for the NIRF evaluation, data is taken from the annual accounts and specific inclusions and exclusions as per the guidelines are made in order to arrive at the final number that is used in the methodology document to arrive at per student values.' Data for the IITs Similarly, Scroll also analysed the data submitted by all the IITs that figured in the top 10 ranks of the engineering list for the year 2022-'23. Nine out of the ten ranks were occupied by the IITs – but since data was unavailable for the Hyderabad and Rohtak institutes, we analysed data for a total of seven institutes. With regard to the IITs too, Scroll compared the sums of operational expenditure mentioned in the NIRF with the total expenditure mentioned in the institutions' annual reports. Out of the seven, three institutions stated higher expenditure figures in the NIRF documents. IIT Madras had the largest difference between the figure submitted to NIRF and the figure mentioned in its annual report. In its NIRF submissions, the institute stated that its expenditure for the year was around Rs 1,360 crore, but in its annual report, the figure mentioned was around Rs 727 crore, or Rs 633 crore less. The other two institutions that stated higher expenditure figures in the NIRF documents were IIT-Delhi and IIT BHU. When it came to income, the NIRF documents listed income from sponsored research and consultancy projects. As with the IIMs, we looked through the annual reports and compared these figures with figures listed in any section of the annual report under the same category. If more than one section contained an entry under the same head, we used the higher number. This analysis indicated that four IITs had reported higher income from sponsored research and consultancy projects to NIRF than the figures they had declared in their annual reports. The largest such difference was seen in the case of IIT Bombay, which showed a total income from these sources of Rs 569.49 crore. Of this, the consultancy income mentioned in the two sets of documents was identical: Rs 99.63 crore. But the declared income from sponsored research in NIRF documents, Rs 469.86 crore in NIRF documents, was Rs 196.52 crore higher than the figure in the annual report. On the other end of the spectrum was IIT Madras, which in its annual report declared income of Rs 1505.16 crore from consultancy and sponsored projects, which was Rs 656.74 crore higher than that declared in its NIRF documents. Only IIT Kharagpur explicitly mentioned a specific category under the income statement of its annual reports that listed income from 'Sponsored/Research/Consultancy Projects'. While the institute listed income from these sources of Rs 227 crore in its NIRF documents, it listed income of Rs 116 crore from them in its annual reports. 'I've also heard that institutions often exaggerate numbers to get higher rankings, even when it comes to their number of published papers,' the IIT professor said. 'There is no proper verification that happens to ensure all the data institutions are sending in is true.' Another professor from an IIT noted that 'if NIRF made definitions clearer', confusion over data categories could be avoided. 'Some of these discrepancies happen because there is not enough clarity,' the professor said. 'Sometimes when we have doubts, we ask counterparts in other IITs to find out what data to submit.' The professor suggested that NIRF conduct sessions or workshops to clearly explain all the categories and what they entail. After the IIM Mumbai staffer flagged concerns about the institution's data, the administration suspended two of its staff for six months – one, the whistleblower themself, and another staffer who the adminstration believed was involved in the process of drafting the letter. Staff at IIM Mumbai said that the author of the letter faced pressure from the institute and decided to give up on the matter. After their six-month suspension ended, they were absorbed back into the administration. However, the other employee, a professor at the institution, continued to be targeted by the administration, other staffers told Scroll. His six-month suspension was extended to nine months and in January to his surprise, he was handed a termination letter. Both the reasons for his suspension and termination were that he had allegedly 'maligned the name of the institution'.
