IIT-K to confer doctorate on PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the IIT-K during the 42nd convocation ceremony of the institute on Saturday. The director of the IIT-K,Sanjay Govind Dhande,said Singh has given his consent to receive the honorary degree. “For the first time a PM is attending a convocation ceremony at the IIT-K,” he said. According to Dhande,of the 1195 students who will be awarded degrees this year,131 students will be awarded Ph D degrees.

The five IIT-K students who will receive special awards from the PM include Nerella Tejaswi Venu Madhav,Paraj Titum,Aditya Verma,Pankaj Akula and Somesh Chandrakant Joshi. Singh will become the fifth person to receive an honorary degree from the IIT-K. The previous recipients of the honorary degree include Purushottam Kashinath Kelkar (founder director of IIT-K),Professor Norgan Dahl (director of Kanpur Indo-American Programme at IIT-K),Moraji Desai (former PM) and APJ Abdul Kalam (former President).