Student seminar inspires future metallurgists at NIT Jamshedpur

Jamshedpur, June 26: The 14th edition of “Behind The Teacher’s Desk (BTTD-2025)”, a national level Student Seminar on Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, is being organised during June 25-27, 2025 by the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM) Jamshedpur Chapter in association with National Institute of Technology (NIT) Jamshedpur; CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML), and Tata Steel Limited.

The Chief Guest, Dr. Sandip Ghosh Chowdhury, Director, CSIR-NML, Jamshedpur, Guest of honours Dr. Gautam Sutradhar, Director, NIT Jamshedpur, and Chaitanya Bhanu, Vice President, TATA Steel Ltd, Dr. Atanu Ranjan Pal, Chairman, IIM Jamshedpur Chapter, Brigadier(Retd.) Arun Ganguli, Secretary General, IIM, and Dr. Chiradeep Ghosh, Chairperson, BTTD-2025, formally inaugurated the seminar with the release of the seminar souvenir.

The aim of the Students’ seminar is to provide a common platform for promising and aspiring metallurgists to interact with the pool of experts from industries, R&D labs, and academic institutes. The student participants in this event will have the opportunity to update their current knowledge base and share their academic achievements, innovative thoughts, and new ideas in the field of metallurgy and materials technology.

Since its inception in 2011, the seminar Behind the Teacher’s Desk (BTTD) has blossomed into one of the most sought-after events among the student fraternity of India.

Dr. Atanu Ranjan Pal, Chairman, IIM Jamshedpur, welcomed the Chief Guest, delegates, and speakers and briefed them about the various activities of the IIM Jamshedpur Chapter with a special focus on the intention of popularizing Metallurgy among Indian professionals. He urged students to use this platform effectively to express their thoughts in the form of technical talks, interaction, and industrial visits.

Brigadier (Retd.) Arun Ganguli, Secretary General, IIM, outlines the significant role of the Indian Institute of Metals and its various outreach programmes. He explains the remarkable growth of IIM from a modest 42 members to 11000 plus members today. He highlighted recent initiatives like student fee waivers for IIM membership and urged all students to exploit this opportunity.

Guest of Honour Prof. Gautam Sutradhar, Director, NIT Jamshedpur, expressed pride in hosting the 14th edition of BTTD at NIT Jamshedpur. He urges students for extensive networking, knowledge gathering, and communication of ideas. He highlighted poor synchronization of industry and academia curriculum, and advises students to exploit such a rare opportunity like the BTTD platform, integrating research-industry-academia.

Another Guest of Honour, Shri Chaitanya Bhanu, VP TATA Steel, appreciated the efforts in organizing this dynamic and student-centric seminar. He emphasized Tata Steel’s commitment to supporting such platforms that bridge classroom learning with real-world industrial challenges. He sensitized an issue of brain drain, wherein more students from core engineering fields are opting for careers in other areas, leaving a severe talent crunch. He appeals to the student to take up multiple challenges and opportunities in the metallurgical field.

Chief Guest Dr. Sandip Ghosh Chowdhury, Director, CSIR–NML, lauded the organizing team for sustaining this academic tradition. He shared the history of this event and explained the unique name for this student seminar. He spoke on the material-driven future of society, stressing the need for high-performance and sustainable materials across all technological sectors. He highlighted how platforms like BTTD can inspire students to consider careers in metallurgy, aligning with national priorities such as Aatmanirbhar Bharat, circular economy, and the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.

To enrich the experience of all delegates and provide exposure to an Industry leader talk, Dr. Chowdhury gave consent for BTTD participants attending the prestigious CSIR–NML Platinum Jubilee lecture by T. V. Narendran, MD & Global CEO, Tata Steel at NML auditorium on the same day.

Dr. Chiradeep Ghosh, Chairperson BTTD-2025 programme, proposed the vote of thanks and expressed his sincere gratitude to the chief guest for sparing time and gracing the occasion. He thanked all the students for showing tremendous enthusiasm and participation in the seminar. He expressed his appreciation to all the members of the organising committee for their untiring effort in making the seminar a success.  He briefed this year around 150 students, and speakers from 34 engineering colleges/institutes from different parts of the country are participating, and around 78 technical papers are to be presented in 15 parallel sessions under 8 themes. In addition, there are metallurgical quiz sessions and an industry visit. The institutions covering the length and breadth of the country are as follows: IIT Kharagpur; IIT BHU; IIT Indore; IIT (ISM) Dhanbad; IIT Madras; IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIT Patna, NIT Jamshedpur, NIT Andhra Pradesh, NIT Raipur, VNIT Nagpur; NIT Durgapur; BIT Mesra, BIT Sindri, IIEST Shibpur; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Birsa Institute of Technology, Sindri; JNTU-GV CEV, Vizianagaram; Indus University; CSIR-NML, Jamshedpur; AcSIR, and so on.

Four Keynote Lectures were organised, and the Keynote Speakers are Dr. Vilas Thathavadkar, Chief Technology Officer, Hindalco Industries Ltd; Prof (Dr.) Shiv Brat Singh, Head of the Department, MME, IIT Kharagpur; Dr. Monojit Dutta, Chief Product Development Research Group, TATA Steel Ltd;  Deeba Ahmad,  Chief HRBP Corporate Functions, Tata Steel.