(In response to comment by Surya)
I actually started this blog because I had seen a lot of questions by people inquiring about IIST. I am not affiliated with IIST in any way, but I am definitely impressed and supporting of the move by the central government. There are a couple of things to keep in perspective here:
1) The institute is new, but it has strong collaboration with ISRO - which is the world's 4th largest space program. This will definitely give students hands on training on the subject of avionics.
2) Please check out what Avionics actually means. The student should be able to judge whether or not he will like the subject or not.
Now, if the student likes the subject (which is actually difficult task for a student to decide), I would highly suggest he/she takes it, because there will be no other program comparable (other than the IITs) to this because of IIST's collaboration with ISRO.
Whether it is advisable to specialize in Avionics at Bachelors level? That question is up for grabs. If you look carefully at what avionics is about (from the previous link), most of what students will be studying is electrical engineering (more precisely communications engineering) applied to aircrafts. So, even if a student has done this program, he/she can apply for MS/PhD programs elsewhere (US or India) in Electrical Engineering or Aerospace Engineering both. The only concern I have is whether all graduates will be required to work at ISRO for five years or not. PLEASE do check this before making a final decision because once you are in the institute, you will basically have nine year commitment (4 years undergrad + 5 years work).
Regarding admission to good universities in US. One of the main components of graduate school application in US is a student's research experience. Having had training at ISRO, schools in US should look highly upon the applications coming from students of IIST (i.e. if there is no bond of working for five years).
Regarding jobs in US, only US citizens will get to work in NASA and other defense related companies, but given a person does well, a student should be able to find work in the aviation industry with companies like Boeing.
Choosing IIST for BITS/NIT. I am sorry, I can not comment on that. I can only refer you to wikipedia articles on MechE and ChemE. I can understand that NIT/BITs are more established and one would prefer going there, but IIST would also be a good bet because of its tie up with ISRO.
I hope this helps. Any more questions will surely be welcomed.
