Festivals
Spring Fest
Kshitij
Spring Fest, known as SF (motto: True Spirit of Youth), is the annual social and cultural festival of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur held during January in the spring semester. The first edition was held in 1960. The 60th edition of Spring Fest was held from January 24 to 27, 2019.
During the fest, students from IIT Kharagpur and from different colleges all over the country participate in a multitude of social and cultural activities. The ambit of the events encompasses various genres like Dance, Music, Dramatics, Photography, Literature, Quizzing, Food Fest and Fine Arts.
The evenings are notable for the "Pro-Nights", more commonly known as Star-Nites — the biggest events in Spring Fest which usually involve live concerts by some of the most famous musicians and bands of national and international acclaim. All the Star Nites are free to attend for any student of the institute and all registered participants. The genres of music are wide and varied and involve pop, rock and fusion bands. The venue for these events is the Tagore Open Air Theater (TOAT) and Jnan Ghosh Stadium which usually get packed to their full capacity during the Star-Nites, with crowds of up to 23,000 people. Famous Indian artists like Armaan Malik, Sachin-Jigar, Shalmali Kholgade, Farhan Akhtar, Amit Trivedi, Salim–Sulaiman, Pritam, Kailash Kher, KK, Papon, S. P. Balasubramaniam, Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Vishal-Shekhar, Shweta Pandit, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivamani, Sukhwinder Singh and classical performers such as Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, L. Sriram, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and Pandit Divyang Vakil have performed here. Bands like The Local Train, Coshish, Order of Chaos, Pentagram, Swarathma, Underground Authority, Kryptos, Parikrama, Euphoria, Indian Ocean, Strings, and Spunk have also performed.
Kshitij is the annual techno-management fest of IIT Kharagpur, one of India’s premier technical institutions. Started in the year 2004, the idea of Kshitij was conceived with the aim to provide the youth a national-level platform, where their talent and expertise would be recognized and rewarded.Having grown exceptionally since its beginning years, Kshitij receives huge participation from the student community all over the globe. The festival constitutes competitions, workshops, exhibitions, and guest lecturers focusing on technological and managerial fronts.
Its fest is one of the most awesome fests that happen in our country. There are many reasons why one should not miss out on this fest. The happenings of last year’s fest will let you know why you shouldn’t miss this one.
With its inception in 2004, Kshitij has gone on to become Asia’s largest techno-management fest in less than 6 years. The 2014 edition witnessed the participation of over 60,000 students from across the world.Prizes worth over INR 60, 00,000 for various online and on-the-spot events in Kshitij ’14. There are many technical and non-technical events in which you can bag prizes. Kshitij has been granted the patronage of UNESCO, the highest form of its support, for the third consecutive year. It’s something which makes this fest stand out from all the other ones.Guest Lectures by Shekhar Kapur (Director of Oscar-winning movies), Jimmy Wales (Founder of Wikipedia), Sir Anthony Leggett (Nobel Prize in Physics 2003), Mr. PrahladKakkar (Renowned Ad guru), Dr. SubirGokarn (Former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India), Wg. Cmdr. Mr. Rakesh Sharma (First Indian cosmonaut), Bedabrata Pain (Director, Inventor of CMOS Image Sensor), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Acclaimed Indian film actor), and Jonathan Forman (Head of OPCW) among others.
Illumination also popular as Illu is a tradition followed by every hall of residence during the Diwali festival every year. Large grid structures (called chatai) made of bamboo stripes are put and placeholder wires to mount diyas are placed to create the framework based on a theme decided by the student hall. On the day of Diwali, a couple of minutes before the arrival of chief guest and other officials, mounted diyas are lit up to showcase the intricate pictorial description. Also, based on the the theme of Illu, rest of the student hall is decorated as well. Preparations for Illu starts several weeks before the actual date of Diwali and involve active collaboration from the students.
Back in 1981, some innovative students from Azad hall of residence decided to celebrate diwali by lighting scores of diyas on giant chatais. In characteristic fashion, Nehru hall decided to make a GC event out of it- calling it the Bigyan sinha memorial cup. Up to the year 2013, top 3 halls were chosen for the best showcases by the Gymkhana and were awarded a pot of Rasgulla.