We live in an era which seems to be dominated by the rationalisms of science-technology and economics-commerce. These appear daily as enormously powerful forces, driving us alternately to doom or salvation. They make their domineering presence felt ever more heavily in places of learning and research, and often at the expense of the 'humanitiesomic' rationalisms. This has posed a huge challenge in the path of humanities and social science education in Technical institutes of world repute e.g. IITs in India.(Indian Institute of Technology).The IIT 's in India was a brainchild of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the first Indian Prime Minister after Independence who envisioned this institutes to cater to the growing requirements of human resource base in science and technology.Modelled in lines of MIT' in US ,the IIT's today are the largest exporter of technically trained work force to different developed nations. While the relevance of teaching humanities and social sciences are inherent in such institutes but a lot many of us teaching social sciences in these institutes face the growing challenge of establishing applicability and credibility of humanities and social sciences in an environment increasingly dominated by technology leading to 'dehumanizing technology'.

This paper is a report that expresses practical solutions and an effective methodology by which a course on Sustainable Development was taught to undergraduate Btech Engineering students in IIT Guwahati. The report lays down how an effective, interactive, action oriented , research course was designed in order to acquaint students with ethical paradigms of technology and development through the global discourse of Sustainability. Based on local level experience and subject matter expertise derived through two projects students were not only introduced to the concept of subjectivity in social science research but also to the fact that a lot of mainstream technology in vogue has its primary foundation in indigenous knowledge and technology through community participation at the grass root level. The Course 'Concepts and Ideologies in Social life' monitored two projects 1st The Role of Traditional Knowledge in creating Sustainable Industrial Growth 2nd, Sustainable Development of North Guwahati: Issues and Strategies for Engineering students with the aim of exposing them to techniques in development planning, policy analysis, strategy formulation through innovation and sensitivity in ideas of development with an aim that augments education with finer issues of morality,ethics,justice and equity.