page_title: Indian Institute of Technology Madras
section_title: Extracurricular activities
hierarchical_section_title: Indian Institute of Technology Madras / Student activities / Extracurricular activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Deer at IIT Madras in Chennai, in the open ground between SAC and the stadium, photographed with a handheld Panasonic FZ8. The photograph is untouched, and the included EXIF data are accurate.
context_page_description: Indian Institute of Technology Madras is a public technical and research university located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. As one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, it is recognised as an Institute of National Importance. Founded in 1959 with technical and financial assistance from the former government of West Germany, it was the third IIT that was established by the Government of India. IIT Madras has been ranked as the top engineering institute in India for four years in a row by the National Institutional Ranking Framework of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
  IIT Madras is a residential institute that occupies a 2.5-square-kilometre campus that was formerly part of the adjoining Guindy National Park. The institute has nearly 600 faculty, 10,000 students and 1,250 administrative and supporting staff. Growing ever since it obtained its charter from the Indian Parliament in 1961, much of the campus is a protected forest, carved out of the Guindy National Park, home to large numbers of chital, black buck, bonnet macaque, and other rare wildlife. A natural lake, deepened in 1988 and 2003, drains most of its rainwater.
context_section_description: The Sustainability Network (S-Net) is an alumni-student-faculty initiative launched in May 2009 to sensitise and highlight the need to preserve the unique niche of one of the best educational campus in India. S-Net was envisioned to work towards development and deployment of solutions for making a self-sustaining campus (focusing on energy/electricity, water, and waste management), which could eventually be replicated across the country through tie-ups with other educational institutions. 
  The Fifth Estate is the official media body of IIT Madras and gives an insight into the happenings inside the campus and important news related to the institute.
  The Open Air Theatre hosts the weekly movie, a Saturday night tradition, besides other activities. It seats over 7,000.
  The National Service Scheme (NSS) in IIT Madras has been noted for taking up socially relevant initiatives, taken up as individual projects to create an impact on the society as well as the students. The wing of NSS at IITM has over 400 students every year, contributing to the cause of the scheme. Since its inception, NSS at IITM has achieved many milestones in its history as a unique, student-run organisation. Linked with several NGOs and social organisations both within and outside Chennai. By working out projects from Braille magazines to technology interventions, from teaching children in urban slums to educational video content, NSS (IITM) seeks to challenge the mediocre thinking, and reach out into the darkness, to pull a hand into the light.
  Hobby clubs include the speaking club, the astro club, dramatics, music and robotics.
  Student bodies such as Vivekananda Study Circle (VSC), Islamic Study Circle, IIT Christian Fellowship, Genesis and Reflections focus on spiritual discussions.
  The campus has evolved a slang, attracting a published Master's thesis at a German University. A mix of English, Hindi, Telugu (Gult), Malayalam (Mallu) and Tamil (Tam), aspects of the campus slang have been adopted by some other Chennai colleges.
  Unlike its sister institutions, IIT Madras has no single Indian language used among its students: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada, English and Hindi are all very commonly used. Consequently, all student participatory activities like debating, dramatics, short-film making, and others are held in English.  This is even reflected in the slang that uses more of English and other Indian regional languages than Hindi, unlike in IIT-M's northern counterparts.
caption: Deer at IIT Madras, in the open ground between SAC and the stadium
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