JTG 2025: A Week of Insight and Collaboration at IIT Bombay
The Electrical Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay hosted the annual Joint Telematics Group (JTG) seminar from July 7th to 11th, 2025, creating a hub of intellectual exchange. The event welcomed 157 graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty from across India, creating a vibrant atmosphere for academic collaboration. Organized by the Indian Institutes of Technology, the annual JTG seminar provides a unique opportunity for participants to interact with leading experts, exchange novel ideas, and gain first-hand insights into the latest advances in communications, signal processing, and networking.
The week was structured around several intensive sessions that delved into the cutting edge of telematics. The program was headlined by Mikhail Belkin (UCSD), who delivered a series of talks on the Theory of Deep Learning. Other key sessions included tutorials on Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Approximation by Siva Theja Maguluri (Georgia Tech), and Quantum Information Theory and Quantum Error Correction by Prabha Mandayam (IIT Madras).
The program was further enriched by plenary sessions and talks from Shubhada Agrawal (IISc Bangalore), Danish Pruthi (IISc Bangalore), Saurav Prakash (IIT Madras), Subrahmanya Swamy Peruru (IIT Kanpur), and Ajit Rajwade (IIT Bombay). These speakers shared their latest research findings and perspectives, spanning topics from modern machine learning to quantum information theory. All sessions took place in a modern and comfortable setting at the Lecture Hall Complex at IIT Bombay.
The seminar began on Monday, July 7th, with Mikhail Belkin's multi-part series on the Theory of Deep Learning, where he covered modern concepts of generalization. Prabha Mandayam also initiated her lectures on Quantum Information Theory, introducing foundational topics like quantum states and measurements. The following day, Prabha Mandayam continued her series by delving into quantum channels, and the program featured insightful talks on sequential hypothesis testing from Shubhada Agrawal and AI-generated plagiarism from Danish Pruthi, alongside another deep learning session by Mikhail Belkin.
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Wednesday's sessions saw Siva Theja Maguluri commence his tutorial on Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Approximation. Concurrently, Mikhail Belkin and Prabha Mandayam continued their respective series on deep learning and quantum error correction. On Thursday, Prabha Mandayam concluded her lectures on quantum information processing. The day's program was further enriched by sessions from Saurav Prakash on ML for edge devices, Subrahmanya Swamy Peruru on cognitive radio networks, and Ajit Rajwade's introduction to graph learning.
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The seminar wrapped up on Friday, July 11th, as Siva Theja Maguluri concluded his in-depth tutorial on Reinforcement Learning, providing a thorough overview of convergence rates and error bounds for stochastic approximation algorithms.
Beyond the formal sessions, the seminar emphasized community and collaboration. Daily breakfast and lunch breaks provided an informal environment where attendees could engage directly with speakers and fellow participants. These networking opportunities were a cornerstone of the JTG experience, sparking new professional connections and collaborative ideas. A special dinner was also held on July 7th for all attending professors, speakers, and committee members, offering another valuable forum for in-depth discussions.
Acknowledgements
The success of JTG 2025 would not have been possible without the dedication of its organizing committee. Special thanks are extended to the General Chairs, Profs. Satish Mulleti and Parthe Pandit of IIT Bombay, for their exceptional leadership.
We also gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Prof. Sibi Raj B. Pillai (IIT Bombay) for managing the finances, and the Local Arrangements team from IIT Bombay: Profs. Kumar Appaiah, Sharayu Moharir, Jayakrishnan Nair, Bikash Kumar Dey, and Srikanth Raj Chetupalli. Invaluable guidance was provided by the Advisory Group, which included Prof. Navin Kashyap (IISc, Bangalore), Prof. Vinod Prabhakaran (TIFR Mumbai), Prof. Rajesh Sundaresan (IISc, Bangalore), Prof. Adrish Banerjee (IIT Kanpur), and Prof. Srikrishna Bhashyam (IIT Madras).
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to the team of student volunteers and the administrative staff of the Electrical Engineering department at IIT Bombay, whose tireless efforts behind the scenes ensured the smooth execution of the event.