You could always take the opportunity to work on nuclear technology. Thorium nuclear power has many advantages over coal technologies... Furthermore, India has the world's largest reserves of thorium and the indian government supports the technology as well as being the most well known and funded.
Then again, it might be too tough a topic for an undergraduate... But you wanted something modern right? Why study so hard to be an engineer if all you want to do is reinvent the wheel or develop new and improved versions of the wheel?
Of course, I could also suggest research into power plants using micro singularities to generate unlimited power created by artificially creating a Higgs field. Heard of the Higgs boson or the God particle? But that is also way too advanced as compared to "advanced" technologies like coal gasification.
So perhaps you might want to start off simple, like biomass or coal processes. 
Edited by thorium90, 23 March 2013 - 11:42 AM.