By Express News Service CHENNAI: To showcase its history and legacy, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) has set up an archive on its campus which will be inaugurated on Thursday. To create awareness about the heritage of the institute among the public, the Heritage centre of the institute has set up an archive, which will display documents related to the formation of the institute, research papers of its first batch of students and many other interesting documents. The Heritage centre for the last one year has been working on the project to collect the documents from different sources, said a faculty of the institute. “The IIT Madras archive will give a complete insight to visitors about the history and heritage of the institute,” said M Kumaran, member of the IITM Heritage centre. Also on display at the archive will be a variety of artefacts including the foundation stone laid at the inauguration of the institute in 1959, the equipment used by the institute’s first batch of students, models prepared by the students of the initial batches will also be showcased at the archive. However, the highlight will be the display of the old photographs that gives an account of the events that led to the formation of IIT Madras, student life in the early years of the institute, the development of technological and other facilities at the institute and visits by distinguished people. The archive will be inaugurated on Thursday by the director of the institute, Bhaskar Ramamurthi. IITM officials said they have also collected artefacts and documents for the archive from the alumni and retired faculty. The IITM came into existence after the Federal Republic of Germany offered assistance to the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to set up a higher technological institute in India. This resulted in the signing of the first Indo-German Agreement in Bonn in 1959, for the establishment of an Indian Institute of Technology at Madras. So the Indo- German agreements will also be displayed in the archive, said IITM officials.

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