topics: |  india | education | iit | history | mumbai

traces history of iit bombay starting with the initial construction days with Nehru's visit, the first director - Brig. Bose.

The passing of the IIT act in 1959 made IITs completely autonomous - until then several batches of M.Tech. students who had graduated, as well as a B.Tech batch in its final year, were not sure of the viability of their degree!

refers to the city as "Bombay" when it is pre-1996, and Mumbai thereafter.

Excerpts

Swimming in the Vihar lake

A faculty member, Chatterjee, was a frequent swimmer to the island in the middle; sometimes as late in the night as one or two am. once, after getting onto the island, he found a crocodile. They eyeballed each other for a bit, then the croc left. Faced with a dilemma now, Chatterjee waited a few hours, and then swam back nonetheless.

Others have trekked in the forest, camping out in the wilderness.

links:
* http://issuu.com/iitbaa/docs/funda3/22 : A note by ex-Director (and
	long time professor) SP Sukhatme mentions the origins of this book.
	The main article is about how IITB should start an archives.
	Unfortunately this magazine of the IITB alumni association has a very
	unwieldy format.
* http://www.bio.iitb.ac.in/people/faculty/manchanda-r : homepage of Rohit
	Manchanda.

See also: Eye for Excellence: the semi-official 
	history of IIT Kanpur.  The storytelling is plain, and the history
	has an excessively laudatory tone, but the facts, and extensive
	excerpts from early faculty and others hold interest.