Sebuah Universitas Pedesaan: GRI

Gandhigram Rural Institue is situated around 10KMS from Dindigul, around 65 from Madurai and 100Km from Kodaikanal. Its surrounded by the Sirumalai hills of the (i think) kodai hill section)

The story goes like this ’During the late forties, when GandhiJi was going around the country mobilising people to fight agaist the british, he got down at a spot near the sirumalai hills, and rested for a while, and Gandhigram was born’

GRI was the child of T S soundram and G Ramachandran. Its a Deemed University and boasts of courses in all sort of subjects.

The admission is thru a nation wide enterance exam, and the reservation is 50% (Unline in Tamil Nadu where its almost 80%). So if you have the merit, you get in.

Gandhigram offers courses (Bachelors and Masters) in:
1.Rural Development & Administration
2.Communicative English
3.Animal Husbandary
4.Chemistry, Physics & Mathematics
5.Computer Sciences (Surprised??)

The locality is fit for anyone, in fact, the ambience of the place starts moulding you for life the moment you set ur foot at Gandhigram.

The only noice you can hear inside the campus would be the chirping of birds and occasional sound of a train passing by.

The accomodation is decent for men and woman and the food is vegetarian. You can suppliment your hostel food with other stuff like pickles, jams etc which are produced inside the university itself (by poor unemployed women, who have nothing else to do)

Students from all parts of India study here, from kerala to Manipur. Its quite popular with students from African countries who are looking for great but cheap education.

For a coveted master’s degree in computers, around 1000 people write the test for (30) seat I would tell you reason why:

1.Good infrastructure - Around 60 machines, with all kinds of s/w and a dedicated staff. Its open 24 hrs.

2.Sylabus - The sylabus is ahead of times, 4 years back I head they had Java in their curriculum

3.Management - Directly managed by DOE and is funded by them

4.Status - Recently got a Five Star(*****) unversity status.(By NACC)

5.Inexpensive - Cheap is a understatement. The entire fees for the Master course in Computers would set u back by around Seven Thousand (yes its only 7000 Rs) a year!!!! that’s including food. (Please check the latest fee structure)

Moreover, the entire university is a close knit community, we used to meet each other for Pongal celebrations, Onam celebrations and Xmas.

Lots of clubs are operations, Literary, Quiz, and Trekking(And Sirumalai is a haven for Trekkers) which becomes quite interesting when people from various states,countries and background come together.

The Computer science dept organizes a yearly compu fest called interFace which is attended by around 30-40 colleges around the region.

Gandhian Way of Life
The I want to touch upon this subject seperately. Gandhigram will change your life. I was changed profoundly by the Institute and the people with whom I interacted. Wearing Khadi is encouraged even though its not a mandate. Cleaning the premises, also neighbouring villages is undertaken. Post-Graduate students takes free classes during free time, the idea is to care about every human being. I cant express how I feel...