In A First, 5 IIT-lndore Students Bag ₹1 Crore Annual Package

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): For the first time ever, five students from IIT-Indore have landed job offers with annual packages exceeding ₹1 crore each. The average salary for the batch also rose to ₹27 lakh per annum—a 13% jump over last year.

Revealing the details at the institute’s 13th convocation on Saturday, IIT-I Director Prof Suhas S Joshi said, “This year’s placement results have been phenomenal—the highest package offered has doubled and crossed the ₹1 crore mark for the first time.”

He further said, “This reflects growing industry confidence in the calibre and competence of our graduates.” A total of 813 students graduated this year, with a 60% rise in PhDs, taking the number to 131.

India needs to build, not just serve: HCL co-founder

Delivering the convocation address, HCL co-founder Ajai Chowdhary said India must shift from being a service-led economy to a product-driven one.

“While we’ve excelled in software services, we’re still behind in creating world-class hardware and tech products,” he said, urging India to invest in core tech, R&D, and manufacturing.

He cited China’s example of strategic focus on innovation and product development. “India needs a similar push, backed by design capabilities, infrastructure, and supportive policies,” he added.

Underlining the importance of startups and industry-academia collaboration, Ajai Chowdhary urged India to cut import dependence and boost entrepreneurship in deep tech and hardware. “We must move from being technology consumers to creators if we truly want to be Atmanirbhar (self-reliant),” the HCL co-founder said.

India eyes space station by 2035: Sivan

Former ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan offered students a glimpse into India’s upcoming space missions, including:

* Gaganyaan, the country's first human spaceflight

* Chandrayaan-4, to bring back lunar samples

* Shukrayaan, a Venus mission

* Bharatiya Space Station, to be built by 2035 and open to global astronauts

* A low-Earth orbit satellite, developed with NASA and ESA, capable of detecting 1 cm surface changes from 700 km altitude—India’s fastest-built satellite yet.

“These missions mark India’s growing role in global space science and climate monitoring,” Dr Sivan said.

Gold for Mukund

Kadam Madhav Mukund from the Computer Science and Engineering department received the President of India Gold Medal for best academic performance among undergraduates.