India, July 17 -- On a humid summer weekend at the IIT Madras campus, something remarkable is taking place. The regular undergrad students of the campus are on holidays. Replacing them are 5,000 students of all age groups, from across the world, who have enrolled in an online degree program offered by IIT Madras, called the Bachelor of Science. These students are here for a special five-day campus festival. A young mother has travelled from Dubai to meet her "classmates" while a gentleman attends with his son -- both students of the online degree. For 60-year-old Nagarajan, a student on campus, studying at IIT Madras was always an aspiration. "I could not pursue it because of the intensely competitive admissions process and life circumstanc...