Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (Hindi:  is a government-aided institute and deemed university for the study and research of space science, located at Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. It is the first university in Asia to be solely dedicated to the study and research of Outer space.[1] It was inaugurated on 14 September 2007 by G. Madhavan Nair, the then Chairman of ISRO.[3] IIST was set up by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) under the Department of Space, Government of India.[4] A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, was the Chancellor of IIST.[5] IIST offers regular engineering undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate programmes with focus on space science, technology and applications.

The founder of the university Janab Hakeem Abdul Hameed had conceived of starting a medical college in 1953 alongside the Unani system of medicine. In July 2012 the Medical Council of India gave permission to Jamia Hamdard to start a medical college on its campus. Before that the University renamed the erstwhile Majeedia Hospital to Hakeem Abdul Hameed Centenary Hospital (HAH Centenary Hospital) and to attach this to a newly established medical Institute - Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences of Research (HIMSR). HAH Centenary Hospital has 354 teaching beds currently housing all broad clinical disciplines with blood bank and hospital laboratory services. HIMSR was the sixth medical college in National Capital Territory of Delhi, and the first model hospital in public -private sector in the capital city of Delhi. The current leadership of the university is Dr. G N Qazi, the Vice chancellor. The first batch of MBBS students was taken in August 2012. The Institute passed MCI scrutiny for taking the second batch, and has taken second batch through National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) in August 2013.

The story of its growth from a small institution in the pre-independence India to a central university located was New Delhi—offering integrated education from nursery to research in specialised areas—is a saga of dedication, conviction and vision of a people who worked against all odds and saw it growing step by step. They “built up the Jamia Millia stone by stone and sacrifice by sacrifice,” said Sarojini Naidu, the nightingale of India.