random thoughts

Alumni Meet

2012-01-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

IIT remained dream institution for generations and will continue to remain so. The conviction is there - for being a part of UG fraternity, research students and member of the faculty. Of course, all the stake holders need to work hard showing unity of thought, words and action. Alumni is a great strength for IIT Kharagpur. Besides their financial help, the experience they share with younger IITians are valuable.

Giving Back

Had it not clashed with NSS time slot, I would have attended the morning function of the alumni meet on 7th Jan. (SAT). I had the responsibility of visiting three villages where three new program officers are taking charge of respective NSS units. I set off at 9:30 AM from home and could return only at 1:15 PM. In one of these villages, the poorest under Gopali Gram Panchayat, we had an interesting experience. We met a proud father who was not exactly complaining about her daughter. The daughter, Asha works as a house-maid in IIT Kharagpur campus. She spends whatever she can save over a period of time for the poorest of the poor in the village. Soon we met Asha who came back from campus to take lunch at village home. She shyly showed us one roofing she sponsored recently for one family which costs her Rs. 4000 (the mud wall was okay, the house is in the first picture with Asha, Program Officer and NSS students in front, beside the children jostling without going to schools - right to education??). She showed one more house in dilapidated condition which she is taking up now (the left one in second picture). These straw roofs lasts for a year or so. The asbestos roofing is more permanent but costs Rs. 15000 and is beyond her capacity or the time frame required is beyond the urgency of the situation.

Meeting Point

Later in the day, as a part of Alumni Meet, I was revisiting what Asha is doing for her village. Somewhere, we can compare that with our alumni giving back to alma mater. One is higher in relative term and the other is higher in absolute term. Can there be a meeting point somewhere? Few weeks back, I was discussing something similar with the lead student volunteer of this alumni meet. He was an NSS volunteer and we often shared our dreams, visions. A small contribution from our alumni or CSR money of corporate sector can contribute in a big way in relative terms. Having educated by Asha, I myself wonder why I am not contributing Rs. 15,000 a year to have roof for one family in our neighbourhood. Asha says that the whole house including mud walls, bamboo etc. costs Rs. 30,000. NSS, IIT Kharagpur works in 15 villages within 5-6 KM radius of our campus. There are about 15 primary school or sarva shiksha kendra (SSK). Fifteen water filter, each costing Rs. 2000 (approx.) amounts to Rs. 30,000 and can be a big differentiator. The other project could be painting / whitewashing these schools or developing infrastructures so that children feel like coming to school and reduce the drop out rate. We now have a very good rapport with local administration - from SDO, Panchayet Pradhan to village youth and the ground for taking up such activity is prepared!

Panel Discussion

I try to attend panel discussions held in the campus where there are guest speakers. This is to get idea and learn what others who care, are thinking. There were two panel discussions scheduled on 7th Jan. (SAT) afternoon as a part of alumni meet. I missed the first discussion on the 'Future of IIT' as I had to attend a parallel meeting that started at 3:30 PM and was on a dream project of IIT Kharagpur. The second topic of the panel discussion was little specific, on 'Safety in work place' - perhaps triggered by recent loss of lives due to fire at AMRI hospital. I was amazed to listen to the entire range of issues that are associated with safety and we, generally speaking, are so much ignorant of it. One speaker referred to one calculation which shows cost of life in India is only Rs. 12,000. No wonder, we can afford not to take note of it and consider expenditures related to safety is not value accretive! There is a need to educate ourselves and all of us need to work together to create awareness on this count.

Farewell 2011

2012-01-01T02:24:00.000-08:00

Good-bye 2011 ... Welcome 2012!

Wish the new year ushers in happiness, peace and prosperity to one and all! My apology if I am not able to reach out individually to all with whom I enjoy a relationship laced with love, care and share.

Earth's revolution

Crossing 40, one perhaps goes into down count mode. With 10-20 years remaining in which health might cooperate, we perhaps try to make every year count. We try to align ourselves more with things that are near and dear to us. We try to get a sense of satisfaction that the life has been a meaningful, worthy pursuit - the goal reached or not. Here comes the question. What has been the goal? Was there any goal for myself? Or was it always living a life on others' terms? Something like Brownian Motion, colliding with one thought now and next with another, leaving a zero net displacement at the end! As Earth completes one revolution around the Sun, it is time to take a look at what our thoughts and deeds revolved around in the year gone by. As it revolved in the orbit, spiraling up, our work may have yielded few milestones. Time to feel proud of it and look for more in the coming year. If something is missed due to slackness, time to take a resolve to remove them in the new year. The more important of course is to take note of what is there at the centre of our revolution, what is the fulcrum. Is it a desire to emerge as a better human being?

Feeling Nostalgic

Looking back at 2011, find a lot of room to improve in the coming year as far as slackness is concerned. I think that I can work even harder. Yes, there are too many responsibilities to give time to. Still, a better time and work management can bring out more. However, I am satisfied on one count. I have learnt to respect people more during the year, specially my young students. Be it my research students, or students in my UG classes, or N.S.S. students; I was simply humbled to see their character strength - the last semester specially was very enlightening. Thanks to all, my students. The strict, rigid personality you encountered day to day and tolerated :-) wants to thank all of you from the bottom of the heart for gifting a wonderful 2011, to which I feel like attached to. Attached is an image from our 25th Dec. Vizag tour. Gadadhar, not yet Sri Ramakrishna, the world renowned teacher who could not spell 'education' properly leaving native village for Dakshineshwar. (This exhibition is on Ramakrishna Beach of Vizag at the other side of the Beach Road. This is the best of such exhibitions I have seen so far.)

One has to move on. Hope, the 2012 batch of students will be similarly generous, if not more.

Garbeta College Visit

The will and wish of many prevailed. The 5 day year end Vizag family tour followed high fever of daughter. There was an invitation to address N.S.S. volunteers of Garbeta College on 30th Dec. afternoon. My 9 year old daughter who usually prefers mother's company to enjoy her freedom to the fullest, wants me always to be with her when ill. The organizer's thankfully swapped two afternoon programs and mine was rescheduled on 31st Dec., the farewell day of 2011. By that time, the fever came down. We four (myself, Rajat - faculty of IIT Kharagpur and NSS program officer, Sahidullah - senior PhD student and Mr. Prabodh Kumar Sasmal - President, Kharagpur Vivekananda Yuva Mahamandal) set off at 11:15 A.M. We reached Garbeta college, 65 KM from our campus at about 1:15 PM. We stayed there till 4 PM.

N.S.S. Special Camp at Garbeta College

Dr. Sushil Ghosh, PhD from IIT Kharagpur and now a faculty member at Garbeta College, looking after NSS activities there organized the special 7 day long training camp. About 120 students participated. The pre-lunch session used to be physical work. The post lunch session was on various trainings (e.g. first aid, fire) and talks from invited speakers. On the 2nd day of the camp, Swami Sunishthananda, Principal, Midnapore Ramakrishna Mission School had an inspiring discourse. I heard Swamiji before addressing young audience. One has to listen spell bound when he talks. In my one hour address, I stressed on (i) challenges of modern society (ii) what is social service - self awareness before making others aware (iii) internal and external discipline (iv) self-confidence and believe in the power of the good (v) need to reach career milestones, not for flaunting ego but to be able to serve more (vi) importance of balanced development of Heart (to feel), Head (to think a solution) and Hand (to implement, not outsourcing all the time) (vii) the power of organization (viii) establishing network among NSS units - shared email address with all and requested to follow up. Rajat shared his unit's experience at NSS, IIT Kharagpur with campers. This followed an half-an-hour Q & A session. Finally, it was time to end the session. We are not too much used to college students touching feet at IIT environment. But this is a common practice in a small town college of 3700 students but with broadband connection, catering to many, many villages in the neighbourhood. As is said, our nation lives in the villages. I was embarrassed a lot when students started asking for autographs.

We paid a short 10 minute visit to a place called Gangani in our return trip. This was one KM from Garbeta college and had a beautiful landscape.

V.S.R.C. Hall Day

This too was scheduled on 31st Dec. evening. VSRC houses project students with separate blocks for boys, girls and married couples. The project students of our lab. invited our family in this evening celebration. We discussed at home. Though the daughter is on recovery mode, it appeared that it would be ambitious to attend it. Hence we decided to give it a miss.

Having returned from Garbeta College at 6:30 PM, I was preparing a project proposal to mail to sponsor and the phone of one project student from VSRC came. "Sir, the program has started. We are waiting for you." There was a need to procure something from the market and I made a detour to VSRC to spend half-an-hour with the students. The cultural program was on. Since I had limited time, visited rooms of our lab. students on their invitation, had sweets and photographs there. They are kind enough not to force me for the dinner. The new block of VSRC meant for girls looked contemporary and beautiful. The old ones for boys looked depressing, perhaps needs a fresh coat of whitewash. The girls of course argued that they take more care of their apartments so that they look good. Among the boys, Isr... beat everybody by several notch in maintaining the room. Among the girls, the ones of Resh... and Debapr... were very nicely arranged. Neer.. disappointed me in the sense that his room had pic.s of only Lord Shiva and Swami Vivekananda :-) He is a regular in Wednesday Bhagavad-Gita class here and I was expecting more such pics there. In comparison, Resh.. had a greater much greater company of gods and goddesses in her room!!! Wished everyone Happy New Year in advance and left VSRC at 8:30 PM.

Gods and Goddesses

I leave it entirely to personal choice whether one believes in gods and goddesses. To me what Vivekananda said, "Be good and do good. That is the whole of religion." or "Religion is the manifestation of divinity already in a person." are sufficient. If worship of one form or the other or no form at all, helps one to have meditative mind, do self-analysis and strike a balance in life and not becoming superstitious or fanatic, it can be considered as a great device. If there is a better device, let one go for that.

Few weeks back was traveling by car with Akash on steering wheel. Akash, a young boy, works in a car rental agency and we got his service on several occasions before. That day my mother was there in the car. She noticed that there were pictures of Goddess Kali of Dakshineshwar, Sri Ramakrishna, Ma Sarada in the car. Also, Akash stopped the car at one small road side temple, bowed and threw a coin. To this Akash said, "I never looked at images of Gods and Goddesses or cared about them at younger age. My father used to say that a day might come when I would bow to even road side stones. Now into the profession of car driving, those words have come true." Our faith in gods and goddesses, unless originated from family values or deeper discourses, is proportional to uncertainty faced in life. A regular salaried employee with a guaranteed monthly income, in general, starts the daily chore much differently from a shop-keeper as far as their engagements with gods and goddesses are concerned. Even an otherwise non-believer turns believer when in duress. Does it help? The prayer may help in generating more energy, strength, wisdom which is already in us, not coming from outside. It may help to focus, concentrate. Our mind has great power. Our senses which are oriented outwards, defocusses it and we do not usually feel the power within.

No Smoking

Suraj was the driver in last Kolkata visit. This was the 2nd time I traveled with him. He had to abandon study at Class VIII due to sudden demise of father and started career as a helper of a truck. He takes all care for his sister who is on the verge of completing college education. Suraj wants to study further. Reading is no problem for him but he finds it difficult to write. We discussed if he can use waiting hours at parking to practise writing. That day, he had to park the vehicle at Sector-V, IT hub for some time. I had a discussion for an upcoming research lab. at IIT Khaargpur to be sponsored by the one of the largest Indian MNC in IT sector. In return journey, we stopped at Sher-i-Punjab at Kolaghat for tea. I asked Suraj how he liked Sector-V as it was his first visit. That place is giving employment to lakhs of people and looks so vibrant! Suraj gave an unapproving look at me and said, "What you say is fine but girls working there smoke." I said that there might have been stress in the office work and may be smoking gives some relief. As such everyone now is trying to quit smoking due health concern. Suraj did not look convinced. He said, "The girls were coming in large groups to that shop, close to where I parked the vehicle. Not one or two, all of them were smoking and they did not look stressed. Can so many of them be stressed simultaneously?"

It perhaps was not just a social taboo or gender / class discrimination or cultural shock he was referring to. Perhaps the brother in Suraj was worried about the future of his college going sister aspiring for a job.

New Year Resolution

Let us try sincerely in this new year to come out of the habits that weaken us as an individual or as a nation and embrace the habits that make us strong.

Vizag Tour

My daughter (Brishti) had only 6 day long Christmas leave. We left Kharagpur on 22nd Dec. evening. The 5 day tour was all fun. The scenic beauty is unparallel - the hills merging themselves into the sea, the likes of 'Dolphin Nose'. Brishti spent everyday no less than half-an hour in the sea. Even on 27th evening, before we were set to depart. And it was no surprise that fever came few hours before we were set to board train. That apart every single thing was enjoyable. The hill top film studio, Kailash Giri amusement park, the zoo, submarine, museum - besides the various beaches. I scored a numero uno in some funky sense. Never ever got into sea anytime during the tour, not even the toes got wet! Much did my daughter and her excellency (6th pic from bottom, right side of the frame at Titanic Point of Kaliash Giri)) tried, always found a way out! Two of my pics at film studio is also there - one in OC's chair of the filmy police station (not related to texts where they appear)!!!

Professional Life

This is life as usual like any IIT faculty member. Interacting with students, technical staffs, colleagues, sponsors, collaborators. Trying to reduce no. of sponsored projects to remain focussed. Have had enough to develop a very, very decent lab. infrastructure. Just trying to get funds for existing students and being choosy about new projects. Not renewing projects with two sponsors who supported us for long. Our sincere thanks to them. Shall remain available to them whenever there is any specific need from their side. Shall work with a new sponsor (one Govt. research lab. delivering technology to field) who finds a very good match with our technology portfolio. Shall continue with a physcian sponsored project due to its special nature even if the project value is not high and there is manpower constraint. Seldom we find such a commitment from an individual, a medical expert. Two more interdisciplinary (inter- Dept. projects), One-Two new industry funded collaborative projects - and my hands are full. Cannot take any more. Moreover, would like to finish the book project asap. This is a commitment for long. Admin. responsibility is increasing and cannot help there too. This is what is lined up in 2012, as far as I can see.

I must say one thing here. The industries with whom we interacted and FICCI have been quite appreciative of our work. This inspires us a lot. On 21st Dec., there was a video shoot in our lab. by media people for an upcoming documentary. There was a dfference this time. In several places, I had to walk from a distance towards the camera. It was difficult for me to give a serious look at my face and there had to be few retakes.

India vs. Bharat

2011-12-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

Observations to come later ... occupied with grade preparation ... DND notice pasted all over ...

Times of India reports on 07.12.2011

TIME TO THINK

Income inequality doubles in India in 20 yrs

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP

New Delhi: Inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the last two decades, making it the worst performer on this count of all emerging economies. The top 10% of wage earners now make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, up from a ratio of six in the 1990s.
    Moreover, wages are not smoothly spread out even through the middle of the distribution. The top 10% of earners make almost five times more than the median 10%, but this median 10% makes just 0.4 times more than the bottom 10%.
    “The main driver has been an increase in wage inequality between regular wage earners ie contractual employees hired over a period of time,” says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a new report on inequality in the developed world and emerging economies. “By contrast, inequality in the casual wage sector — workers employed on a day-today basis — has remained more stable,” the report says.
    South Africa is the only emerging economy with worse earnings inequality, but it has halved this number since the last decade. “The combination of marked spatial divides, persistently high shares of informal sector jobs and disparities in access to education accounts for much of the widespread variation in earnings from work in the EEs,” the report says.
    Wage inequality has driven more general income inequality in the country.
India has got more unequal over the last two decades — India’s Gini coefficient, the official measure of income inequality, has gone from 0.32 to 0.38, with 0 being the ideal score. In the early 1990s, income inequality in India was close to that of developed countries; however its performance on inequality has diverged greatly since then, bringing it closer to China on inequality than the developed world.
    There is evidence of growing concentration of wealth among the elite. The consumption of the top 20% of households grew at almost 3% per year in the 2000s as compared to 2% in the 1990s, while the growth in consumption of the bottom 20% of households remained unchanged at 1% per year.
    In comparison, the income of the bottom 20% of households in China grew at double the rate in the 2000s as compared to the 1990s, while the increase for the top 20% of households was much slower. In Brazil, household incomes have been growing faster among the poorest households than among the richest for the last two decades.
    Of all the emerging economies, India has by far the highest proportion of informal employment, by any national or international measure. “In India… informal employment includes a disproportionate number of women, homebased workers, street sellers and workers subcontracted by firms in the formal sector,” the OECD report says.
    India spends less than 5% of its GDP on social protection schemes as compared to Brazil’s more than 15%. Its tax revenue as a proportion of GDP is under 20% — the lowest of all emerging economies, and just half that of developed countries.

Yours sincerely

2011-11-23T19:35:00.000-08:00

Dear student,

Welcome to our research group. Hope, this association will be mutually beneficial. You will learn from the group. We shall also learn from you.

The beginning of a research career starts with placing right questions that comes from a probing mind. In the initial phase, you will mostly contribute to the group by asking questions, looking beyond obvious - mostly 'why's and 'why not's. There is no question that can be called 'silly'. An inquisitive mind filled with innocence looks at the world with bewilderment, like a child - amused, excited, - a child having untiring zeal, indomitable spirit to ask endless questions. In the pursuit of knowledge which is infinite, we all are like a child and should possess such a quality. You will learn from the group, skill set we have already acquired. But you have to make it your own by not taking them as blackbox and asking relevant questions.

I was waiting for this day for your induction to the team. There could have been a better start had you performed better in the test. It is not easy for somebody to come back to academics after so many years and getting only few weeks to prepare with a completely different type of project responsibility to attend to in parallel. You had been brave to appear for the test with such a short preparation. Have faith in yourself. Your P.I. (who talked to me earlier) is very much satisfied with your contribution to the project. Feel proud of what you achieved in such a short stay at IIT Kharagpur. You will definitely earn what you deserve.

As far as reaching life's milestones, my little experience is that life gives opportunity. Our job is to remain prepared and make the most of opportunities when it come. The preparation is in our hand. It is not always possible to create opportunities ourselves. We are entitled to feel bad if we do not exert ourselves enough in the preparatory phase and let go an opportunity. You have worked hard since you joined and your responsibility ends there. There is no reason to feel bad. Take the feedback from the test - written and interview in right spirit and work on it. It is important to maintain a positive attitude and prepare oneself for the next opportunity. It will come.

Be strong. Vivekananda says, "Strength is life, weakness is death." "Life is short. The vanities of the world are transient. They only live who live for others. The rest are more dead than alive." The milestones achieved in life are not for self or are vanity stuffs to flaunt about. It is owning up of more responsibility, telling people that I am to deliver more (not from a point of ego, true education never does that), they should expect more responsibility to be shouldered by me, they should make me aware if I am failing in my duty vis-a-vis capacity I possess. Reaching milestones are important as that gives us more capacity to serve. Let us hope and pray that each of us can raise ourselves to achieve more not just for self but for the society at large which in a nation like us constitutes of millions of underprivileged.

Let us find sometime tomorrow and discuss how you may chart next part of the journey. Allow me to end this longish welcome message with one of my favourite Lord Buddha quote, "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."

We all know that "Lives of great men all remind us that we can make our lives sublime." I may suggest at least 5-10 minutes of study of lives of great men and women in everyday's routine. My own experience is that I have found Vivekananda quotes from "Call to the Nation" (Link) or his letters to young disciples like Alasinga (One Link), Nivedita (One link) very inspiring.

Welcome again and cheers!

Yours sincerely,

GS

P.S. The older one grows, the more one starts giving sermons!!! And I am not getting younger day by day. Pls. get used to that as you join this group :-)

Happy Diwali

2011-10-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Happy Diwali to all! Wish I could send individual mails or cards to all I know, that includes who remembered and sent greetings cards but left no email id / phone no./full address. Perhaps, a post on this blog is the only way to reach out to all and say, "Thanks".

Diwali in IIT Kharagpur is unmatched with its Illumination and Rangoli. I find that this post (Link) from a student captures it beautifully.

It was wonderful to meet faculty colleagues and students yesterday evening while moving from one pandal to another with family and exchange greetings on the way. I must say that the IIT campuses are unparalleled and IIT Kharagpur campus is perhaps the best on human quotient.

Silenced

Three months back, there was a conversation with a mother (stationed abroad on an assignment) on google, me not knowing the tragedy that occurred recently. She was referring to the Arthur Ashe quote in the section 'A friend in need' of a previous post (Link) in the chat. Suddenly I realized that the 10 year old son was no more. The physicians tried their best but it was one of those rare diseases. Tears knew no bound when the mother said that she wished but could not be my student and wanted to bring the son to me someday. Wish I can rise to the expectation of parents / guardians / students and be worthy enough to be called a teacher. Let me share the talk (Link) that comes to my mind whenever such a discourse arises. The link may not open in some browsers.

Steve Jobs Quote

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."

Digging Deep

What we see in the surface is not what one is but what one wants to show. "If hard work is what pays then the donkey would have been the king of a forest and not lion." I placed the quote before a class of 100 students. The class said that they do not agree with it. I told, "I am not asking if you agree or not. What do you think of the person who writes this in his public portrayal?" May appear that he is in control of himself, very strong and knows what he is doing. An expert in psychology may say. With 284 facebook friend, his other public note was, "hell is d new hanging adda, when nobody is wid me." Wonder any of his friend could see it and make out what he has in his mind. An IIT final year with no backlog, no apparent reason to develop such a distaste of life at this age! And IIT Kharagpur was again news for a student who bade adieu to life. Requested all to share with us (teachers, elders) issues they face. May be the experience of the struggle each of us go through help one another. My experience can be found in a previous post (Link). What does great teachers like Vivekananda say? He asks the youth to be strong and exhorts (Link1, Link2, Link3 ) in his call to the nation "Go from village to village, do good to humanity and to the world at large. . …… ‘When death is certain, it is better to die for a good cause.’"

Student Welfare Group

Jumped on a Student Welfare Group, IIT Kharagpur under Dean, SA website (Link) which is recently launched. Had a conversation with one of the content developer who worked in NSS last year. He was one of the lead volunteer and thus we got acquainted. A very good effort from IIT Kharagpur students. I also liked the shoutbox of scholars avenue blog (Link). Let all stake holders of IIT system come and work together to see that every flower blooms.

And there was light

It was wonderful to read in the newspaper that students of one High School did not buy new dress materials in this Durga Puja and urged their parents to donate the money for costly treatment of a needy classmate. The other day television news showed friends coming together to make a pandal which looks like 'Academy of Fine Arts' of Kolkata. There the paintings of one club member who is a rickshaw puller by profession and painter by passion are displayed. The rickshaw puller painter does not have money to exhibit his work in Academy of Fine Arts at Kolkata. The friends decided to create one for him in the locality.

Real vs. virtual friend I often worry about the abundance of virtual friends in recent times. These days we prefer to converse on chat with my next door neighbour than taking a walk together. May be the virtual platform helps the shy to unshackle themselves in the beginning. But a real friend is the one which never goes off-line. I remember the Chanakya Shloka we memorized in our Sanskrit class of Class VIII. "Utsabe byasane chaiba durbhikkhe rashtrabiplabe / Rajadware, Shashmane Cha Jasthishthati Sa Bandhaba." A weak translation would be : He is a friend who is with you in fun, in famine, in revolution, in front of the king, in crematorium. It is not just fun which gets shared but more challenging situations such as those. The English adage says : A friend in need is a friend indeed. Let us hope to get one, let us be one.

Directors Speak

2011-10-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

The Diamond Jubilee convocation function had a very interesting panel discussions on 22nd August, 2011 morning at Netaji Auditorium. We had former IIT Kharagpur Directors Padmashree Prof. K. L. Chopra and Prof. Amitabha Ghosh; current Directors of IIT Bhubaneshwar, IIT Ropar, IIT Indore and Prof. P. Chakraborty from IIT Kanpur. Prof. M. S. Swaminathan of TIME magazine fame, member of Planning Commission and National Advisory Council also graced the panel. What followed is a feast of thoughts, an introspection on 60 years of IIT system and the way ahead. I could not locate any report on this and hence presenting here what I could take as running notes.

Prof. Chopra initiates the discussion by saying that we are supposed to be think-tanks. We may have been so for UG studies. But emphasis is too much on UG studies. Integrated M.Tech., PhD should be preferred. To shift from teaching based to learning based i.e. outcome based, learning how to learn. He emphasized on breaking barriers among Departments, reducing no. of credits to be cleared by students. He gave example of MIT where 130 credits are enough (compared to IIT's 175) and 30% of this is constituted by core subjects and students enjoy a lot of flexibility in selecting subjects. He expects new IITs to show new way and does not like the idea of being mentored by older IITs (as it hinders new thinking). He wishes to see DST change how it functions.

Prof. Amitabha Ghosh was the next speaker. He stressed on importance of planning and preparing the country to be at centre stage of 3rd industrial revolution. He talked about revamping curriculum at least in a few IITs and opening the door of IITs to world students (at least MTech and PhD) on its way to become world institutes.

Prof. M. K. Surappa, Director, IIT Ropar spoke next. He explained the challenges in setting up of a new institute. He emphasized on quality focus. All IITs together have 6000 publications a year with citation index 5-6. MIT publishes 4000 a year but citation index is 20. He worried about languishing university system and if IITs can help them, NITs to get good students for research. He talked about creation of new knowledge that will be put in application over next 20 years; in areas like waste management, water, energy, healthcare etc.

Prof. M. Chakraborty, Director, IIT Bhubaneshwar talked about issues faced by a head of a new IIT. He mentioned how his IIT is unique in offering interdisciplinary exposure to students, to strike balance between domain knowledge and broad area. Every final year project must have supervisors from two different departments.

Director, Indore explained the present infrastructure situation at his IIT and challenges faced. He told that it is easier for newer IITs to adopt a change. In his IIT, a student has to undergo six month's industry / shopfloor experience.

Prof. Partha Chakraborty of IIT Kanpur said that IIT education should make one socially aware, become a good citizen, contribute to nation building - becoming broad based. Research environment should be there in the country. Many smaller universities feed Stanford. This should hold for IITs too.

Prof. Swaminathan spoke last in the first round. He said that the 60 years of IIT was not only the time to celebrate but also to introspect where we had gone wrong. He talked about reducing food spoilage, environmental impact of new technology, helping nationwide poverty alleviation programs like MGNAREGA with technology. He said that it is better to look for individuals and build institutions around that individual.

Then it was a kind of open house.

Prof. Chopra observed how MIT focused on infrastructure in first 75 years, industry in second 75 years and planning (health, global) in third 75 years but there are no such things for IITs. More than the money, the power of mind holds key. How could C. V. Raman, S. N. Bose, Meghnad Saha perform with junk equipments!

Prof. Ghosh narrated one anecdote where a young faculty wanted to leave IIT for a foreign university not for money or comfort, but for poor quality of research students he was getting. He said that even a mediocre US university get bright students from India, China. He wondered how US universities would perform if foreign students are not there. Prof. Chopra observed that the IIT students go out for money as well as lack of inspiration from IIT teacher. Prof. Ghosh said that the prestige in our country increases i one goes outside the country or publishes work in foreign journals.

Prof. M. Chakraborty brought the topic of collaboration among faculty members. He said that the competitors can be collaborators and it is worthwhile to work in a group. There were a lot of questions from the audience. The discussion came to an abrupt end when the hard time cut-off was reached. But it was great experience to listen to these experienced people and get educated.

Rejoinder:

Prof. K. L. Chopra's interview as published in IIT Kharagpur's student mouth piece 'Scholars Avenue' (Link) leaves more food for thought. Excerpts from the interview as appeared in the link is pasted below.

There are presently 3,500 private technical colleges and 350 private universities to do the job of producing over 93% of the engineering graduates in India. It is wiser then to concentrate on quality rather than increase the number and intake of IITs which will not significantly change the overall percentage of graduating engineering manpower for the country. The magnified numbers today have become a burden on the existing IITs. Just imagine herding 4 students in one room in the hostel.

As for educating a class full of two hundred students, even Feynman, the great physicist, the great actor, declared his efforts at Caltech a failure. “It is the inspiration from the teacher that makes you a scientist or an engineer,” and this, KL Chopra says, cannot happen unless there is an eye-to-eye contact and direct interaction between the teacher and the student. The IITs were supposed to be the think-tanks of the country, but he believes the kind of reforms being incorporated is converting them to regular universities.

“The vision of education in IITs was to create knowledge, which is more important than dissemination. Also, the focus needs to be on translational research,” says KL Chopra. It isn’t that people in the IIT system aren’t competent, but there is nobody accounting for the deliverance of knowledge in a country whose economy is heavily dependent on science and technology. He believes this is a form of intellectual corruption: a condition where no questions are asked. “Fortunately the government did not know what was going on with the IT industry and thus it flourished very well.”

We learned that India is a signatory to the Washington Accord, a document with benchmarks for education quality. The IITs come under its purview and will have to be judged sometime, an evaluation KL Chopra says they will not necessarily pass. While IITans have hitherto enjoyed global mobility, foreign organizations now realize that given the bulk of students, a spectrum is bound to exist. While he believes a transition to a system involving thorough evaluation is going to be difficult for students as well as teachers, that is what the world today demands. It is not what is taught that is important, but whether and what students have learned, and whether they have learned to learn.

Listening To

2011-10-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

This was 18th August, 2011 Foundation Day lecture at Netaji Auditorium by Mr. Sandipan Chakravortty, our alumnus and M.D. of a TATA enterprise. I tried with our alumni office who in turn made a contact with Mr. Chakravortty. But as it appeared this was an extempore and he did not carry any written material that can be mailed. Therefore, I present here what I could scribble in the invitation card that I carried to the auditorium.

Mr. Chakravortty told the students, "As IITians, first brand yourself as human being. Being IITians, you are different from others. You are inspirational leader with a backbone of integrity." He talked about wide spread corruption and felt proud when he said that there are "no IITians in this space and IITians hold head high."

He continued on what Industry wants from an young engineer, a being who is physically and mentally healthy; has good domain knowledge; good communication ability, believes in team work, integrity, by nature ambitious, dynamic, innovative. He observed that we grow up as individuals in school. However, the IIT life teaches team work.

Next, he said, "You must have spiritual feelings." By this he meant listening to the call of conscience. He differentiated 'good' and 'great' by this yard stick. Good people are efficient. Great people are efficient and listen to the call of conscience.

He warned if 'lust of knowledge' is replaced by 'lust of money' among IIT students. He feels hurt when media highlights highest salary received by an IIT student from campus placement as a scoring point of one IIT over another. Finally, he said that TATA enterprises are highest tax payers and do not do accounting tricks to reduce tax burden. The guiding philosophy of J. R. D. Tata "is not to look at profits but how much tax that has been paid. Paying tax is a matter of pride."

Life is precious!

2011-07-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer : This post is in response to an unfortunate incident that occured last week or reported to happen at IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras in recent times . This is to share some of my life’s experience which may be found useful by some. The aim here is not to find fault with an individual, institution or a practice but to complement the efforts being made by the stake holders of the society.

Section I

Last week I got a ‘Like’ from a student on an inspiring quote of Goutam Buddha that I pasted on Google Buzz. Following back I found that the student’s own posts in the buzz are inspiration abound. There I found this youtube video. What I liked most in this is the ability to face the life by not feeling bitter about it in such a situation. The glow in face indicates a sense of fulfillment which most of us, blessed not being challenged like that, lack. Salute to the spirit of life!

Happening on the Ground!

Few days back, one student entered my office in the evening, thoroughly shaken. Hours back one final year student of a different Dept. but from same hostel, has taken the extreme step. Apparently, he was struggling to put up a good academic performance and he largely confined himself to his room. The remedial part needs timely assistance from fellow students, family members, faculty members, admin. etc. The institute has a counseling cell and every hostel has a student group to assist it. Since the results are computerized, an algorithm could be put in place to generate an alarm and forewarn all concerned if some sort of pattern is found in the progress report. The guardians can remote log in through their ward’s log-in, password into institute’s ERP system and track the performance. They may visit the institute at least once a semester to talk to faculty members and discuss the progress.

Being Multidimensional

However, it is wiser to be less dependent on environment or remedial measures. It is better to acquire important life skills oneself from early stages of life. The guardians should appreciate this and not engage their wards in career oriented study only. The playgrounds are empty these days as the students are running from one tution teacher to other, trying to make every single minute of the day count. For youngsters, there is no time to study biographies or teachings of great people and drawing inspiration from them as they are ‘out of syllabus’. Reading novels or classics are replaced by watching television which does not allow imagination to grow. It is not only sublime thoughts, as a whole we are thinking a lot less these days or have less time for ourselves to think what, how and why?

More Practices

Few days back I was insisting one of my relative to take at least one week break every year so that the family can spend quality time together in some travel destination. They cannot do that not to miss the private tution of their ward. I wonder if I can suggest participating in cultural functions in the school or locality – it could be a play or group dance, song or recitation. I would even suggest taking some time out on a weekly basis to do something for the underprivileged. It could be teaching Math. / English for one hour to the kid of the housemaid or spending some time in the nearby old age home or orphanage. The value of spending some time on a weekly basis (if not daily) in a good company or a study-circle is so much underrated! If I talk about few minutes of prayer and mental concentration on a daily basis, I am talking more about calming down of one’s nerves that can focus the energy better, than making one spiritually inclined.

What we Miss

The sportsman-spirit – the ability to accept victory or defeat gracefully, the ability to communicate with others or work in a team, the sense of responsibility to oneself or the family or the community are found wanting in the ‘me as centre’ way of life. We the elders are more responsible to allow such an attitude towards life as we never worried about what is healthy and what is unhealthy in trying to push a youngster towards some sort of competitive advantage in a career-only life.

Are we these?

We try to tell that if somebody does not get into IIT, he is a failure; if somebody does not have a 5 figure monthly income, he is unsuccessful; if somebody manages to skip Independence Day celebration at school and attends special class of the coaching centre at that time, he is clever; if somebody manages to hide tips received for study / exam. from fellow students, he is intelligent. We do not value patriotism, love, unselfishness, truthfulness, trustworthiness, honesty, …. in fact, we treat them as deterrent to make our ward ‘smart’ or ‘street ready’ …. the idea is to counter the ‘selfish world’ with greater amount of selfishness … in the process we run into a vicious cycle …. all the while we believe that I have equipped my ward enough to scrape through or outlive others. Alas! We are making hell out of this world what could have been a heaven.

It is all about striving!

Nothing is automatic in life. We have to earn what we deserve. Else we have to leave our life to chances. Will a young individual prefer that or lead a life of one’s choice? Then please do not neglect development of different faculties of life. Develop yourself as a complete human being. Life is to be enjoyed. The less self-centred we are, the more we are able to enjoy ourselves. You don’t need to believe these words. Practise and experience yourself. The sign of life is ‘strength and happiness’. Mind the word ‘and’. It is not ‘or’. Both are required. Find a way that gives you both. May you all become inquisitive about life. It is precious!

Section II

Since 1986 (the year when I got decent ranks in 10+2 Board Exam., Medical Entrance Exam., Engineering Entrance (IIT-JEE and WB-JEE) Exam.), several students and their guardians approached me for discussions on how to excel in career oriented study and not life as such. I appreciate if they thought I am too inexperienced to comment on excellence in life. But that I do not see them as two different things and one is a part of the whole did not cut much ice. My father (Link) allowed me to attend only three felicitation functions. I got an opportunity to speak on two occasions – one at my school and the other at a district level function. The state level function was the one hosted by Chief Minister and was formal in nature. In both places, I talked a lot about what helped me in my preparation - sports and games, drawing inspiration from Vivekananda quotes, the positive impact of discussions conducted in weekly study circle etc. Perhaps I talked too much on this to make the organizers feel rattled in both the places.

Speaking from experience!

I am sure that everybody understands the importance of hard and systematic work. I request you to have sufficient time for self-study to assimilate what gets into head. Running from one tution to another which does not give space for oneself, perhaps is not the best idea. At 10+2 level, I took two tutions. Each teacher taught twice a week for about 2.5 hours and thus only four slots per week were blocked. This (i) reduced the financial burden of my father (ii) allowed more time or self-study and (iii) allowed me to hit playground every afternoon. Please refer to the segment titled 'Lady with a lamp' in this post to appreciate the longing for study.

And now!

Yesterday (Saturday is Extra Academic Acitivity day here as per institute curriculum) a group of NSS (National Service Scheme) volunteers asked me to attend a meet for a brief period. These are the famous Super-30 pass outs. They are motivated by their mentor there to do something for the needy. NSS gives them a platform. They have gathered some 15 students from two state Govt. run schools. They have an intensive training plan to work with Class XI-XII students on Saturday and Sundays. When I reached there, I found that the school students cannot come on Saturdays and there is only common slot available on Sunday. Each has already three or more private tutors. I asked the school students, with another training program like this, when will you have time to study yourself?

Beyond MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)

The intensive and exhaustive beat-the-MCQ-based-exam-pattern training of some coaching centres may allow some of you to crack the entrance exam. A good memory is a big plus point. But the life beyond is no more MCQ based. The solutions will not come from what you have memorized alone or the tricks that you have learnt that exploits the weaknesses of MCQ type evaluation. Life beyond will always test your fundamentals. You have to decide if you should enjoy the success of cracking a tough entrance exam., make merry for months or a year OR assess what you missed in your preparation and make up for that. The choice is yours!

You have a right!

Life is beautiful and exciting. Please feel curious about it. Never ever think about pushing yourself to an extreme. Read the biographies of great people. Develop interest in sports and games, community welfare initiatives. Give more time to next door and physical (not virtual) friends. Be in touch with family members. Talk or write blogs. Express yourself. Whenever you feel any need, ask for assistance. It is your right. The world belongs to you. You too belong to this world. Always give each other another chance.

Silent Hours

2011-07-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

(I wanted to talk on a more serious issue related to a recent happening. A new post follows.)

Extended Week

We hear about extended weekend. Last 14-15 days were like an extended week where I had to work without a break. I don’t remember having been exhausted so much in recent times. On two occasions, I had simultaneously three meetings to attend. The dignitaries from outside the institute, the chairman, the rest of the committee members were kind enough to accommodate my hopping around once I finished placing my observations in the meeting. Whether it is a discussion on Diamond Jubilee Celebration or setting up of a national test and research facility or registration of new students all considered my appearance and disappearance very sympathetically. Grateful to all!

Welcome to new students!

This week also saw infusion of two fresh bloods in our research team. After 3.5 years we got any institute scholar and this time two joined simultaneously. One is to work in speech and the other one biomedical signals, the twin pillar of our group. In between, students joined various sponsored projects and kept contributing to research. One QIP scholar, and three MS students also enrolled formally this semester though they were with us for a few months now. Anyways, it always is a pleasure to welcome new members in a family. My best wishes to all the new members.

Environment and We

The extended week brought a completely new experience. Our team of three faculty members and three technicians moved around Kolkata for two days and collected some field data. This was on the request of Dr. Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, Minister-in-Charge, Environment, Govt. of West Bengal. It was very inspiring to see the minister joining us in one field data collection. Then he took us to his office. He has far reaching research theme in his mind to correlate environment and civilization by a statistical model and thereby predict disaster. I was thinking if it would help in tweaking some of the primary variables and prevent a disaster or if the worst happens, remaining prepared for it. My IIT colleagues told MIC that it would excite me as I work on modelling. I listened while taking a print out of a recent WHO (World Health Organization) report.

Missed Students

I worked in industry before. There I worked on shop-floors for more than two years. But this field data collection from Kolkata para -s was an experience of different kind. Interacted with a lot of common people. We were surprised to see the awareness level. In one small Govt. school, we never realized till we were on the verge of leaving the school, that we had been interacting with an Academy Award winning writer. So humble he is and so concerned about the well-being of his students! Be it a young girl studying law or panicky elders, all had a great respect of IIT and I always wished if we could include some of our IIT students too in our team.

The Grand Meeting

The breakfast meeting at Oberoi Grand, Kolkata was scheduled for one hour duration. The Senior Pro from US has just arrived. Their Indian Officials were also there. I have worked with the Indian team on several projects since 2003. I worked with the US team briefly for about 2 years. Except this 2011 summer vacation, I was always engaged with them. We had a lot of things to talk and we did not realize how THREE hours passed. They invited us to take a new US project which is free from encumbrance, addressed as ‘partner’ and I happily agreed. It is a very big challenge though, a good two year long project but I am confident and as always I seek good wishes of all and blessings of elders.

Lady with the Lamp

I was totally drained yesterday (Saturday) evening after finishing all the tasks in hand. I decided to retire for some time and randomly picked up a novel of Shekhar Mukhopadhyaya from a 2010 festival collection. I must say that it could not have been a better choice at that time and went to sleep only after finishing the same. The story started with corporate war and corporate ethics (or lack of it). Enters a very strong, compassionate character as company secretary and there on the story drifts with her. She does her part to inspire others and brings an human element in the approach of those who matter. Finally, she decides to abandon the corporate job and proceed for research and a Ph.D. at the pinnacle of her corporate career. But why? What is wrong there? The near and dear ones ask. Comes the calm but resolute voice, “I miss my silent hours with books.”

Prof. G. S. Sanyal Passes Away

2011-07-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

If you try to find biography of a person in any search engine and come across hundreds of other biographies that bears his name, you are looking for a person who has grown beyond himself. Such a person can never pass away and that proves how inaccurate the title of this post is. The DNA is carried by thousands of people and it is only the mortal frame that bade adieu.

It was 7th July, 2011 afternoon. The NSS Advisory Committee Meeting was just concluded. I was leaving Board Room after some last minute discussion with Program Adviser of NSS Regional HQ. "Prof. Sanyal is no more", said the Director. We rushed to Prof. Sanyal's quarter. It was at about 5 P.M. Gradually, faculty members, staffs - the IIT community started pouring in. We started informing outstation faculty members. They started calling back to know when the last rites would be performed and how they can be at Kharagpur at that time.

The last time I heard Prof. Sanyal speaking and speaking emphatically was 14th June, 2011. It was Research Scholars' Day at GS Sanyal School of Telecommunication. I have added pic of that here (Top two). He discussed fundamentals of communication for about 10 minutes at a stretch. You can see the rapt attention and reverence in the audience that includes Deputy Director, Dean of Post Graduate Studies, Chairman of the School, Faculty Members. It wasn't only for young research scholars, it was an educative experience of all present. I wish, I had recorded it.

He was Director when I joined as a B.Tech. student here in 1986. I had few interactions with him in recent times where he talked about his one dream project. He wanted to capture electromagnetic radiation coming out of human body and use it for diagnostic purpose. I said that it would be great to participate and take care of the signal processing and pattern recognition part of the proposed diagnostic tool. I understand that he regularly sat across the table with faculty members from electromagnetic / microwave background to gather a signal of decent signal-to-noise ratio. He interacted with one of them on this the previous Friday i.e. the 1st July, 2011.

I have added one pic (the 3rd one) of Prof. GS Sanyal from ICCCD-2010 (he is the 2nd person in front row). This was taken on 10th Dec., 2010 while Ex-President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was addressing the audience. The last pic was taken yesterday when his mortal frame visited the Dept. for the last time.

Request readers to visit these links (Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4) to know more about the man and the legacy he has left behind. (Pls. click at various links at bottom of the webpage of Link2)

Rainbow Week

2011-07-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Rainbow Week referred here lost its most vibrant colour that reverberates across the length and breadth of the IIT Kharagpur community. There is a follow-up and a new post on that. That is an Experience with big 'E' and is not mixed with several experiences of small 'e's as mentioned next.

Big Relief

I felt like appearing in end-sem. exam. once again. Last year we started afresh. Advisory Committee Meeting was held in August, 2010 after a long, long time. We had a job at hand. To awaken us from a deep slumber. Only a few of us had some experience to work at field level. We stuck to the task. Tried our best. Not that 100 percent of the people came forward or gave 100 percent of them. But definitely some gave more than 100 percent. About 900 Students, 14 faculty members worked hard through out the year.

This was NSS, IIT Kharagpur Advisory Committee Meeting held on 7^th July, 2011. Besides Director, Dean there was S.D.O., Kharagpur, Program Adviser from Regional Head Quarter, Kolkata, representatives of Nehru Yuva Kendra (NYC) and several NGOs. I was tensed. Had I worked enough to present properly the wide spectrum of activities undertaken and not to fail the team as a whole? The other responsibility was to raise the issues faced by the volunteers when they go to villages, to discuss solution to problems that requires help from Administration.

That the work of NSS, IIT Khragpur was highly appreciated is an under statement. Program Adviser told that other NSS units looks at what we are doing and try to emulate. Ministry Officials in Delhi refer our work. He wanted the slides I presented on our year long work to show to others.

And it was a big relief! I knew that the preparation had been good, hard work pays but an exam. is an exam. That evening I slept from 8:30 PM. In between, woke up to have dinner and post the message to all NSS volunteers and Program Officers.

We got valuable suggestion from all members including student representatives who are part of the Advisory Committee. Observation of one student representative can be found here. The Dean we report to for NSS lovingly said this morning in vegetable market, “Give some time to family too. Else you will be in trouble.” The support of my family had always been and will be my strength.

Work of our Lab. getting noticed

I visited a Bangalore based big research lab. the previous week on invitation. Stayed in their Guest House. The hospitality was great. We were discussing collaboration on one research problem. Their scientists had paid a visit at our IIT Kharagpur lab. on that earlier. After I completed my presentation, the group requested us to collaborate on three research problems with much larger budget towards a much longer term relationship. I am happy to say I could finish writing 3 proposals this week and send it to them on 6^th July. Let’s see how it unfolds.

Received two interesting proposals from two working professionals having M.Tech. degree. They want to work for Ph.D. in our lab. even without any funding. They have saved something from their salary and keen to pursue this. For one, noted academician and previous V.C. of BPUT recommended our lab. She came all the way from Bhubaneshwar and I told her how to prepare for the Ph.D. admission test scheduled in Dec. I discussed alternatives like doing it while in job from Bhubaneshwar itself where our ex PhD students are working as faculty member. The other candidate is from Kharagpur itself. I requested him to meet me when he visits KGP next time.

This morning the Head of law school told me happily that funding for the big project has arrived. It is a law school initiative on IP generation and protection. I accompanied him to Delhi and successfully defended the project there. The IP generated in our lab., the various interactions we have with industry, FICCI will come as case study. Erstwhile a practicing lawyer, the Head is very friendly and we have to work out the implementation schedule that includes recruitment of staff next working day.

Curiosity Kills a Cat

Earlier I wrote on cell phone health hazard in this blog (link). Recently World Health Organization (WHO) officially accepted and warned. The CNN report (can be found here) quotes, "What microwave radiation does in most simplistic terms is similar to what happens to food in microwaves, essentially cooking the brain. So in addition to leading to a development of cancer and tumors, there could be a whole host of other effects like cognitive memory function, since the memory temporal lobes are where we hold our cell phones.” It is a bg ‘No-No’ for children whose skull is thin. Though I do not work in the area of microwave or microwave radiation, I was approached by the team Govt. of West Bengal constituted on this. I recommended and an expert from our Dept. will be doing the study.

I did not find much of a logic for me to be there but they insisted. I have a curiosity to know how Govt. works for public good. What are the different blocks in that block diagram and what kind of latency, throughput exist. Can we find an innovative way to accelerate the process? This is one area where public is exposed to hazard for abundant use of technology. To me, it should be a mix of regulation and public awareness (NSS can conduct a campaign!). I must say that I am no expert in any of this. I was told that I am there because our one interest is in Biomedical area and we carry an air of positivity with us!!! Anyways, I am approaching it as a student. One more responsibility but I would always welcome the ones that can bring relief to silent millions.

When Bulge is Beautiful

A lot of well-wishers often show their concern for my health and that includes my Ph.D. supervisor who is now fully settled in US. Senior teachers who have seen me here in my B.Tech. and Ph.D days are more complaining about the weight I have gained. I try to reason myself this way. A dancer, if leaves dancing, gains weight. No surprise that a footballer who never missed hitting football ground, whether there is sun or rain, would gain weight. However, I am well aware that I am not doing enough. Let me see how to address this.

But every coin has two sides. The bulge can be useful too. I am not talking about what Vivekananda termed as ‘famine insurance fund’. I fell from the horse in a rough terrain at Pahalgam in our recent Kashmir visit. Nothing happened. Today, I met a small accident with my 2-wheeler while negotiating a low lying branch of a tree in front of the Dept. A lot of my colleagues were there. That nothing happened has got something to do with the cushion my bones are enjoying. Both the occasions had enough in it to remain bed-ridden for weeks at the least!

Not to Overlook

One of my colleagues asked me to be careful because it is happening too frequently. In fact, last Friday while bringing my mother from Railway station it was the seat-strap of the mother that saved her. The advanced age and rheumatic pain do not allow mother to take a long walk. We have a foldable wheel-chair for that purpose. She was returning from my sister’s place and I picked her up in the KGP railway station. At one place, the front wheel got stuck in small hole on the road and the momentum of the wheel-chair almost made it over-turn. Thankfully, mother was strapped to the chair and regained her balance well.

I noticed something interesting while waiting in the railway platform. The railway porters were playing Ludo when there was no train. Earlier I saw them playing cards or simply gossip. In the attached picture the Ludo board can be seen on the tree as the train had just arrived.

This morning I assured all my colleagues that everything is fine with me after that small accident. There was a small assembly for which all met. When everybody dispersed I moved towards my 2-wheeler to head towards home. I found that one of my colleagues waited and waited, apparently busy with cell phone messaging, but moved only when I successfully started and maneuvered the vehicle. I guess that he did not want to show-of but wanted to make himself available had I needed any assistance. Touched and feel proud to have such colleagues.

if – then - else

[I was thinking if this is to be put in the post. If I do not, people here who know about it and follow my blog may wonder how such an important development got missed. Perhaps the Prof. has something to hide. Further, there are important messages for all in the episode. Respecting privacy of an individual I am avoiding names and even any prefix or suffix. Those who can identify are the persons who have received all the copies of the mail or have already heard about it and there is no news value for them. Others cannot identify and for them only the experience I want to share is important. Also this may put rest to speculation, if any, in student circle and encourage better communication between faculty and student.]

There was a mail from a project student last Sunday who I met even 2 days before (Friday) in the lab. He spent little over 1 year 10 months here. In the mail, he spelt out some very important dates with hard cut-off like departure from the country for an integrated Ph.D program abroad, a major family function involving him in between and all of them with hardly 8-10 working days from the date of his mail and his departure. Had he discussed these dates with me well ahead (at least the departure date) something, as close as possible as he wanted further in the mail, could have been tried. At least his registration seminar could have been arranged without any difficulty. I was only waiting for one of his senior who too is in the queue to get ready and to have them in a single day. As such the faculty members were gathered thrice during vacation in recent times for three presentations from our lab. students. I told him the same. Even then he did not share the date or disclose that there is such an urgency.

In his T-th dated mail, I was awe-struck to see him spelling out all the dates by himself what I and PG Committee should do on T+n th dates, without considering my availability, availability of Dept. PG committee during vacation and conformity to institute rules. He asks me to arrange Reg. Seminar on T+2th date (mind that T is Sunday), Synopsis Seminar on T+10th date and says that his thesis writing would be over by that time (he never discussed any work beyond the one that would go in Reg. Seminar and I wonder how his thesis got ready!), departure from country on T+14th date and a very important family event on T+6th date. There was never any mention of how he would hand over the charge of his part of the project to other staffs. He says that he needs only one working day to finish his part of the job and it is not easy for others to do what he has developed in last 1.5 years of the project. He will do all those things related to charge handover only if I act as per his instruction.

Each time I tried to explain what should be his priority for a lawful separation and how his fellow project student will feel the extra burden to complete the project, he returned it with more personal insults to me. Then I requested people from the lab. close to him to talk to him and make him understand. It did not work. I had no other option but to inform institute authority. They wanted me to act immediately (Monday evening) and not wait till next day. Still, I tried to reach out to him through his friends. It failed again. Now, the entire matter is with the institute and I have acted, am acting as asked by the institute authority. His latest reply expanded the scope, bringing allegation against faculty members of other Dept.s, Deans and he has copied that to funding agency.

[If any of his well-wisher (preferably elderly people who he respects) is reading this part of the post may consider suggesting him to hand over the charge and send a simple apology mail to institute authority before he leaves the country (pls. try only if such a suggestion does not make him feel worse). I understand that he is angry primarily with me. Let him take as much time as required to manage that anger and hope someday, this ‘angry-young-man’ of mid-twenty, can see what he cannot see now.]

Why this happened?

I was wondering how it could happen. Our lab. is known for its discipline, sincerity, dedication. Some do better than others based on their background and approach to a solution but devotion to research or lab. are never doubted (except for one single case that happened 3 years back but that got sorted out when the student reworked the formulation). Our students are respected even by faculty members who speak highly of their work. The sponsoring Head of a funding agency wants to telephone our students directly seeking their involvement in a new project or take them to meet very high officials in Delhi who would explain them how important the project is for the nation etc.

I got a clue from one senior student of the lab. who is now faculty member of an engineering college. He says, “Just by spending time in labs or by doing daily passengering we can't understand the spirit of IIT; we need to spend the holidays there and explore all the facilities it provides.” Then I got to know that this young man lied to me all the way from 3 months of his joining. It was not only weekends but he always stayed outside campus (about 60 KM distance). He used to express his displeasure and avoid the issue if I inquired at any point of time. There may be something more than this but that is outside the scope of this blog. The aim here is to tell the youth the life's different challenges, the rainbow experience we go through. It might leave some clue how to equip oneself to face the life fair and square. Besides academic qualification one needs to learn life-skills that does not necessarily come from any career oriented book. One needs to find time to expose oneself and get educated.

Trust Deficit

One senior Prof. used to tell me time and again, “Be careful in recruitment. It takes only one person to spoil a lab.” Now as soon as the project fund arrives, the clock starts ticking. You have deliverables defined for every quarter. Often, the project staff leaves in between if another opportunity is available. Therefore, we often recruit whoever is knocking. We usually give reco. to our students joining different place. Probably, we should now ask reco. and talk to referees before recruiting anyone.

We are now conducting a restructuring in the lab. keeping in mind the senior pro’s advice. We have got another space in a different building. Making use of that. Asking people to get on with life and deliver the best. No point brooding over the past. As Vivekananda says, “Spit out your action, good or bad and be azad (free).” One should not be disturbed by criticism. If the criticism is correct, one should accept it and take corrective action. If the criticism is wrong, why bother and give it undue importance?

The other thing that I remember (to put the past behind us) is from the life of Swami Brahmananda (Raja Maharaj) of Ramakrishna order. Once there was a turmoil in a centre. Everybody was fighting with every other person. Raja Maharaj came to solve the problem. As soon as he arrived, all gathered and started complaining against one another. To this, Raja Maharaj said that he would listen to all of them but after 7 days. He spent these 7 days in that centre. Everybody woke up early and joined him in the meditation in the prayer hall, underwent discourses, so on and so forth – followed a daily routine which ideally should be followed in a Ramakrishna Mission centre. After 7 days, he called all of them and asked to specify problems. And behold! None had any problem, any complain.

Let us follow in our daily routine the ideal life of a researcher, dedicated to the creation of knowledge. The rest will be automatically taken care of.

A Friend in Need

It was the right mail and at right time. I met Pin… only in the web space. She is sister of my ex-student and infrequent ‘philosophical’ discussion is the common chord amongst us. Pin… forwarded this anecdote yesterday.

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied: "The world over -- 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD 'Why me?'. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD 'Why me?' "

Shubho Rathayatra and other Shubh News

The Rathayatra festival started last Sunday. That evening attended ‘Puja’ at a friend’s residence. This evening we had an opportunity to visit the fair ground and had Sri Jagannath Darshan. Enjoyed the fair very much. Snaps taken by my 9 year old daughter is attached for the readers! It may give some relief to them in this otherwise heavy post. There are some 'Shubh' news too. One of my ex-PhD student is getting married at last :-) We often went after him and he kept assuring. He was very happy and excited to inform and rang home in the evening to talk to family members. He insists that we make ourselves available for all the three days, from marriage to reception. Let's see how it is possible. Our best wishes to him. With this happy note let me say, goodbye and good night!

Education @ IIT Kharagpur

2011-06-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

"I know what IIT Kharagpur is. ..."

Last week I had unexpected visitors in my office. The mother and son came all the way from Pune, Maharashtra. The son got a very good rank in IIT-JEE and should not find it difficult to get Electronics & Communication Engineering at IIT Kharagpur. The boy won many a laurels before this and his look, appearance make one remember "Shradhhaban labhate Gnanam" (wisdom dawns the person who is respectful).

The mother said, "I have heard about you from many and would like to have some time from you regarding my son's admission into IIT." I could not conceal my bewilderment that they have crossed the entire breadth of the country and asked, "Why IIT Kharagpur? Don't you read so much of negative press reports about IIT Kharagpur?" To this, the mother said, "I know what IIT Kharagpur is. I used to be a teacher in an engineering college. Besides that several friends of my son study here." I tried to answer all that they asked with standard disclaimer "as perceived by me." In addition stressed on the point that stepping into an IIT is not the end of it. It is a big step no doubt for a young student but neverthless only a step. One has to look higher and much beyond and make the best use of the facilities the country can afford.

"Please give me some valuable guidance for admission in IIT ..."

This was another student emailing from Solan, Himachal Pradesh who cleared IIT JEE this year. I suggested him to follow a webpage and added few lines from my side.

"If you are among toppers at 1st year, then you get an option to move to a branch of ur choice in 2nd year at IIT Kharagpur. If you are topper in your branch (whatever it is) you can expect a very good job irrespective of branch.

"If you have a passion for a specific branch, go for it. Else you may think of an IIT of ur choice. Give ur best there. If u feel like, go for dept. change at 2nd year or stick to one u got.

"Our experience is that the students who crack IIT-JEE do not know what to do next and tend to relax. If u keep working the way u have done so far, you don't need to worry at all."

Experience of a different kind!

Spending a night at railway platform like Tatanagar, Delhi or airport like Bangkok, Tokyo, Frankfurt was not that difficult, specially when you know that it is only a night. For last 8 days, I am experiencing what can be correlated to living on footpath (correlation > 0.8 :-))- cramped, dust, pebbles all around. But I have a fan and a mosquito net and a working TV to give company. It is quite an educative experience and to understand what is our minimum requirement. Our quarter is going through a massive renovation. My only worry if the work will be completed in time i.e. before the arrival of family members next Sunday (school reopens next Monday after vacation). Else, there is no problem.

The other day I was talking to the supervisor about the health hazard of such civil works, the amount of dust a worker inhales. Can we adopt a technology which is dust free and less hazardous? May be placing of factory made pre-fabricated blocks, one after another can help. I saw one individual building a house on his own through such blocks with the help of a fork-lift and a small crane. This was Trento, Italy and several years back. May be we want labour intensive technology here to get more people employed. But can it not be less hazardous?

Melancholy

2011-05-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's cyclic!

There is a sadness in air. There is nothing wrong with any of the conventional parameters. All are doing fine and moving in the right directions. But I am having a job at hand. This is to make calls on various works / issues. The judgemental role never suits me. I try my best to avoid it. It is the toughest job to please all and meet or beat expectation of each, many of which are irrational to the core or highly emotional in nature. The role played, I remain prepared for the 'I-am-not-happy' faces. Probably people find me too puritans / conservative / idealistic / perfectionist (I have often heard these terms and the speaker was not actually praising :-)) in dealing with issues. I respect the right of everybody to feel the way one likes. I do not feel too much surprised to see little bit of selfishness in the demands made. In fact, most of us belong to that category and thus it does not disturb. It saddens if that selfishness becomes out of proportion and denies existence or right of others.

Shared sorrow, half the sorrow!

It is said, shared joy is double the joy and shared sorrow is half the sorrow. I infrequently, may be once a month, talk to an elderly relative over phone. This family is going through some difficult times over last two years. It came all on a sudden and apparently from nowhere. It is very difficult for one to establish a cause-effect relationship. They are a kind of losing faith in themselves and the virtuousness of the world, that it is all about being good and doing good. If honesty, truthfulness, service, dutifulness count, which they have adhered to all the time, then why such a fate is met out to them? While I talk to them, I try to say a few things which I read or heard from wise people; not sure at all how much I have digested that myself. All that I try to say, it is important to hang on and have faith.

Healer, heal thyself!

Last night as a bed time reading I was going through the selected works of Swami Vivekananda. Interestingly, one page in the section called "Inspired Talks" opened. This was a note taken by a disciple on 25th June, 1995. And behold! isn't it 'the issue' I am facing right now? I reproduce at bottom a selection from that notes. The whole of it can be found here(Link).

Debbani

I may say that now I am better placed to talk to myself and the elderly relative. For that I looked for the Bengali translation of this note, to read out directly from Vivekananda to the relative. Checked the central library database. It is there. In the evening, I got an opportunity to visit the library and found one very old edition published in 1965. This article was there in Vol. IV of Bengali Complete Works under the title "Debbani". The most interesting part of course comes next. The book in the rack already had a page marker. It pointed to exactly the same place where this specific write-up was there. It appears that the previous reader also found the article very useful. The person in the issuing counter said that he occasionally visits Belur Math and brings Vivekananda literature from there for his family.

Vivekananda Speaks:

After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains — one iron, one gold; behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states and states must ever change; but the nature of the Soul is bliss, peace, unchanging. We have not to get it, we have it; only wash away the dross and see it.

Stand upon the Self, then only can we truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand; knowing out universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play, and we know that, so cannot be disturbed by it. If the mind is pleased with praise, it will be displeased with blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion.

There is no possibility of ever having pleasure without pain, good without evil; for living itself is just the lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom, not life, nor pleasure, nor good. Creation is infinite, without beginning and without end — the ever-moving ripple in an infinite lake. There are yet unreached depths and others where the equilibrium has been regained; but the ripple is always progressing, the struggle to regain the balance is eternal. Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both are Maya, the inexplicable state of striving at one time to live, and a moment later to die. Beyond this is the true nature, the Atman. While we recognize a God, it is really only the Self which we have separated ourselves from and worship as outside of us; but it is our true Self all the time — the one and only God.

The world for me, not I for the world. Good and evil are our slaves, not we theirs. It is the nature of the brute to remain where he is (not to progress); it is the nature of man to seek good and avoid evil; it is the nature of God to seek neither, but just to be eternally blissful. Let us be God! Make the heart like an ocean, go beyond all the trifles of the world, be mad with joy even at evil; see the world as a picture and then enjoy its beauty, knowing that nothing affects you. Children finding glass beads in a mud puddle, that is the good of the world. Look at it with calm complacency; see good and evil as the same — both are merely "God's play"; enjoy all.

CEO : Aaram Se

2011-05-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is a quick follow up of the previous post (Link) after reading Mukesh Ambani (MA) interview in Economic Times(ET) (Link). I cannot but resist myself from quoting three answers of this interview that dwells on the human resources, being responsible in investment considering shareholder's interest and philanthropic activity at personal level. I have emphasized certain parts of the answers that struck me a lot and want readers to take special note of.

After completing previous post I was thinking, were it all philosophical / theoretical? We may accept that there is truth for the sake of argument but feel skeptic if they can be practised! After reading this interview I feel more convinced about its applicability to corporate houses. This reminds and reinforces what we hear from Viveknanda, "That society is the greatest where the highest truths become practical."

I have included 'Aaram Se' from 2nd ans. of MA interview in the post title as I find it very interesting. Bhagabad Gita says that the mark of a wise man / Yogi is intense activity in intense rest or calmness and intense rest or calmness in intense activity. Let me quote this part from here (Link)

"He who sees in the midst of intense activity, intense calm, and in the midst of intensest peace is intensely active [is wise indeed]. (GITA IV, 18.) ... This is the question: With every sense and every organ active, have you that tremendous peace [so that] nothing can disturb you? Standing on Market Street, waiting for the car with all the rush ... going on around you, are you in meditation — calm and peaceful? In the cave, are you intensely active there with all quiet about you? If you are, you are a Yogi, otherwise not.

---- I think that enough ground has been prepared to hear what MA said. Let's read it Aaram Se :-) ----

ET : Are you looking at grooming talent in-house ? Or getting new fresh talent?

MA : We are doing a combination of everything. Fundamentally, we think it requires re-engineering or regenerating the whole human resources architecture. It's very difficult to do. When you think about performance, it's not only people architecture or talent but people performing in a growth-nurturing ecology. You really have to regenerate the environment. It's like colleges. I have been on the advisory board of Stanford and a few other colleges where we change the environment every 10 years. At this stage, we are going through a project where we will have a process whereby we will take everything we have learnt and really mentor and train our 30-34-year-old guys to be better than us. It's a regeneration of the 4-5 pillars we stand on...and not only our existing talent but also welcoming fresh talent. We want our people to be internally happy, because happiness and success should go together. I want everybody at RIL to achieve their true potential . We want to create a new culture in which you will be reasonably transparent to yourself, your peers and your team. That, in my mind, will lead to true innovation . This is the most important and exciting project of my life: How do you really transform and reengineer 40,000-50 ,000 people, most of them professionals, most of them ambitious, most of them very successful, and then tell them to mentor and train 30-34-year-olds and make them better than us. This, according to me, is the sign of a truly New Age business organisation.

ET : Many speculate you will make a big-ticket acquisition and in your last AGM, you had said that you will plant the tricolour in many parts of the world. Any progress on that front?

MA : We look at these things on an ongoing basis. There will be a lot of volatility and uncertainty in this world. But, I'm a wildlife fan. I love the leopard. The leopard sits on top of a tree. It doesn't take any great risks. Whenever it sees that it can make a kill, it's in no hurry whatsoever to make a kill. It makes the kill so rapidly, you don't even know. And I've actually sat with leopards for hours in lots of forests. It just happens in a flash. And, again, the leopard goes back and sits there aaram se. So, as I tell all our guys, let's not get too much carried away. It's important to keep the balance sheet capability to do this stuff but we shouldn't be in a hurry. We should be watching , we shouldn't be ignoring anything. But unless we feel absolutely safe that we are not going to hurt ourselves, and we are going to go down there, kill 100% and bring it back, we won't do anything funny. We are in no hurry. And we'll never do it for ego's sake. Our watchword is: does it generate value for our shareholders on a sustainable and long-term basis?

What do you think of the giving pledge?

There are different points of view. My own view is that it's important that one should create sustainability and compassion. My view is that giving must be anonymous. Even if I did whatever I did, I wouldn't brag about it. I would do it for my own satisfaction . It is important you do it straight off your heart you don't talk about it.

CEO

2011-05-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

"Life is short. The vanities of the world are transient. They only live who live for others. The rest are more dead than alive." - Swami Vivekananda

Infosys

This morning I was reading the post-departure scenario of Mohandas Pai after his resignation from Infosys. I vividly remember the way he defended Infosys numbers year after year in front of live camera. He departed because he was not elevated to the post of CEO which he thought he deserved more than others. He complained about discrimination and lack of transparency and retracted that later. To this Narayana Murthy, Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor said, “We must be very kind to him (Pai) because at times we all lose our rational thinking and make an emotional statement. After all, we have to be very kind and forgiving,” He added, “If there are two people who are as capable as each other, how will you choose one of them? Both are equal in all respects. So, you have to choose the experienced one, and that’s what we have done,” (Link)

Wipro, Reliance, ICICI Bank

While Pai's CEO ambition was not fulfilled, we found summary exit of joint CEO of Wipro three months ago. And we heard this from Girish Paranjape, one of the joint CEO. "For the last 24 years every day, I have been busy thinking about what to do for Wipro tomorrow. Now I will have to start thinking about what to do for myself.” (Link) The bitter succession struggle of Dhirubhai Ambani empire is well known. Even the mother failed to make mends between warring brothers. Finally, there appears to be a work level understanding but the scar is still visible. The ICICI Bank succession was less bloody. The deft handling of K V Kamath, the outgoing CEO had a containing effect. It is great to see Chhanda Kochhar emerging as a great leader at ICICI Bank in her unassuming, 'yours-in-service' style while the contender Shikha Sharma leading Axis Bank to new heights.

Lessons from a prince

Everybody needs a space. Everybody wants to excel. Everybody wants to reach the top. In the famous Satyajt Ray movie (today is the birthday of this legendary film maker) 'Nayak (the Hero)', the lead character says, "I want to go to the top, to the top, to the top."

While the above is true, there are few more fundamental truth that eludes us. Rather we want to pretend as if they do not exist. I am talking about what occurred to the young prince when he saw three different scenes in three different trips. On the first trip, he met an old man, on the second a sick man, and on the third he met a group of people carrying a corpse to the cremation ground. He realized that age will catch up with us (capacity will decrease and we have to make room for others), diseases are inevitable (the best hospital, treatment not withstanding - the instruments are to fail someway or the other) and finally, we have to leave everything behind, all that we loved, cared and built. The anecdotes including a fourth scene are nicely described here (Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4).

Motive

Is there a reconciliation anywhere? Does one renounce everything and become a monk then? Is that prescribed for all? Will not one try to go to 'top'? Of course, one will. But what is the motive behind? Is it self-gratification or to flaunt vanity? The truth is that they are transient. Or is it because I get a greater opportunity to serve others? If one looks at the constitution, one will find that the job of a CEO is to protect shareholder's value and serve shareholder's interest. The 'trusteeship' is embedded, implied in all top positions. Is it all philosophical?

TATA Group : TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel

TATA group shows a more matured response in CEO succession plan. Be it change of guard at TCS with Ramadorai making way for younger generation or Muthuraman from Tata Steel, Ravi Kant from Tata Motors - commoners like us did not feel any tremor. Perhaps the group could instill a value system that does not believe in going at top and remaining there 'at any cost' or Ratan Tata factor is there. It is to be seen how Ratan Tata is succeeded at Tata Sons. However, they are making enough noise to sensitize people, two steps forward - one step backward etc. to get a new leader accepted by the community.

Test of time

The test of time is the real test. The founding members of any organization (Corporate, NGOs) who create usually have a lot of fire, zeal, passion in them. It is not necessary to get people who share the vision and one needs to groom them. These days 'DNA' (Link) is the buzzword for corporate houses which is directed towards this and also the perpetuity. Not so easy though when it comes to taking big decisions. There is fight within oneself while one passes the baton and relinquishes the power and with it all the limelight. Often one tries to float with the thought - newcomers does not have as much experience, will make 'mistake' and I must hang on. What happens if no space is given? Vivekananda says that if you do not allow one to become a lion he may land up being a fox.

3 'H' and HCL Technologies

If we consider 3 'H' - Heart (emotion, feelings), Head (rational thinking), Hand (Hard work) as parameters, are they in same proportion in founding members who 'create' and the next generation who take it forward? Left to itself, Heart component may be more in the former and Head in the later while both can be very Hard working. What is required is a balanced development of all the 3 'H's amongst all and leaders are expected to lead by examples. Besides this, whatever DNA we talk about are phrases which are useful at a particular point of time and not DNA as such. DNA is something to be inherited and replicated.

These phrases however, can be very useful and may help an organization to tide over a situation. About 4 years back I was going through Annual Report of HCL Technologies. It had just started turning round its businesses which had been going through a bad patch. They used 'Focus, Lead, Dominate' a three worded phrase to remind themselves of the task ahead. I am happy to say that I could easily connect to it myself because of the ground situation prevailing then :-)

Disclaimer

When you talk about corporate houses, equity, shareholding etc. there is a standard disclaimer. I do not think that this post has anything to do with financial investment or investment decision of any individual. Rather it is more of a philosophical note directed towards youth to make them aware of facets of life, help them take informed decision and develop character qualities which in turn may help them, their organization, nation going forward.

Still to be on the safer side let me declare the following. The corporate houses mentioned above as a part of case study are jewels of India. Information used is taken from media - television, web and print. In early nineties I worked in Tata Steel for about 4.5 years in a junior position and have no relation since then. I do have small equity investment in most of the companies named above and would like all of them to be successful, stand the test of time and enhance the worth of my little share holding :-)

Warren Buffet

Let us get back to the context. Some students in Google Buzz shared some interesting aspects of Warren Buffet's life few days back. Buffet is the Chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most consistent among the wealthiest in the world and has donated more than USD 30 bn to charity. He still lives in a 3 bed room house he bought 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. It does not have any wall or fence. He drives his own car and does not have any driver or security. He never travels by private jet though he owns world's largest private jet company.

Buffet asks top executives of 63 companies under his command to follow two rules.
Rule 1 : Do not lose any of your share holder's money.
Rule 2 : Do not forget Rule 1.

Message

What does Buffet advise to young people? The five points I like to reproduce are as follows.

1. Money does not create man but it is the man who created money.
2. Live your life as simple as you are.
3. Do not do what others say, just listen them, do what you feel good.
4. Don't go on brand names, just wear those in which you feel comfortable.
5. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things, just spend on them who really in need rather.

Graceful degradation

Everything that has a beginning, has an end. This is one axiom of life that has stood the test of time. One may need to have a graceful exit plan. The exit plan is nicely written down by saints of this land. This starts as soon as a baby is born and not left pre-retirement ages. It goes like this, "Jab Tum Paida Hue To Jag Hansa Tum Roye / Aisi Karni Kar Chalo, Tum Hanse Jag Roye." (You cried when you were born and the world smiled. Lead a life such that when you leave, the world cries and you smile.) For institutions, a graceful degradation means giving enough warning signals in advance to help the boarders take another ship and not get drowned mid-sea. Requires a lot of courage but it comes when one finds himself in many. I have seen tears in the eyes of colleagues for individuals leaving an institution. Love, selflessness are very much practical and one has to practise it to get a taste of it, it is much tastier than everything else in life (Link) !!!

"Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practise it." - Vivekananda

Counselling

2011-04-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Dream

"Dream is not what you see in sleep. Dream is the thing which does not let you sleep."

This evening I got a call from the adjacent computer room which was then under command and control of Her Highness! I was at my relaxed best watching television - after an 8 hours stay at office on an Institute holiday! If one sneers that 'watching television' in the evening is too low level an activity to be engaged in, I have some techno-social explanation to offer. This can be weakly related to 'Nyquist Frequency'. I was covertly experimenting what could be the ideal sampling frequency of watching channels in a multiplexed condition. Multiplexing here refers to the techno part and is not related to 'multiplexes' society in general relates to and television brings the society in its all hues colours in our drawing room! Yes, I was watching IPL 4, two Bengali news channels covering state election, one Hindi channel depicting life of Sai Baba, two English news channel giving miscellaneous news and one movie channel simultaneously in a time sampled manner!!!!

In the middle of doing such a serious job which had the potential of developing 'Goutam's Frequency' of channel surfing, came the call - too powerful to ignore! Her Highness appeared to be quite excited. She was there to look for some missed episodes of her favourite TV serial from the net. What happened? Is there an n-th reincarnation of a character who died (n-1)th time p episodes back? As I entered, I saw a photograph of Dr. Kalam on the computer screen which carried above quote. She was writing down in a piece of paper the neo-definition of dream, very excited.Wish all of us take a mental note of it and live for a dream.

Postponed

Flashback to yesterday evening. The review meeting was just over. The reviewer seems to be quite pleased. They talked about how to take the work forward. They were referring to protecting IP (Intellectual Property i.e. patenting), commericialization of this piece of technology on biometric authentication. Lots of suggestions received for developments of sub-IPs. There was quite a good amount of feel-good factor amongst all. This area too was also considered to be at an inflection point and expect to catch up, in terms of recognition, with what our lab. got in biomedical area.

Next, this project team gathered in my office. We discussed the next steps, the division of labour etc.. We were to attend dinner arranged as a part of this review. Towards the end of this meeting, I turned my attention to one project student who remained absent without information, appears to take things not that seriously. I told, "Hope you remember that your scolding is due and got postponed due to this project review! Today there is a dinner after this. Let us schedule it on Monday." The student said, "I admit that I made a mistake. I deserve scolding. But can it be postponed to 29^th (next Friday)? I have one exam. On 28^th April." We agreed on that schedule. The other project student who faulted once, told "Please remember that my quota of scolding is done. You scolded me for two days."

Concentration, Passion

There was a new project student in this meeting who was surprised at how we conversed. I took an example which Sri Ramakrishna used to explain. Our mind is like mustard seeds in a bag that got pierced and became scattered all over, on a floor. It is so difficult to gather all of them and put them back in the bag. One has to practise concentration, meditation may be too much to expect for a beginner. There is a nice, short (only 2 pages) article on how to improve concentration here (Link). It is important to have control over mind and focus on research. The parallel sun rays if focused through a magnifying glass become so powerful that it can cause fire. Asked them to spend one month’s undivided attention to research and see how wonder works. Vivekananda said, "The difference between an ordinary person and a great person is in the power of concentration."

This morning I was listening to Mr. Ram Narayan of Dept. of Telecommunication, Govt. of India. He was referring to how we Indian lack in our temperament in approaching research problem. We treat it as a job. If the clock strikes 9 PM, we feel tired and think that we have done is enough. (Yes, he said 9 PM ... and one may not be surprised to see people who are mentally off at 6:00 PM or even earlier.) He continued to share his wisdom. The people who ‘çreate’ and with whom we compete internationally, not only remain awake for one night but many nights. Madam Curie sold her house to fund research. Such passion is somehow missing. He further said, ‘Failure’ is not when you fail but when you do not get up.

Originality

Few days back one UG student asked for an appointment. The student finds the mode of instruction, evaluation unexciting and wants to go to the bottom of a topic that is liked. The fellow students do not like that approach and thus cannot strike a cord. Communication became a problem amongst them. I discussed how the world is hungry for originality. The originality is to be preserved for the good. Being original is a virtue and this is an important ingredient that helps to create.

Then we discussed how doing well in exam. is important even if that means being monotonous at times. The better one does in exam., the more time and confidence one has to pursue one's original thinking. A not so capable person looks for advantageous proposition only. A capable person can convert any proposition to his/her advantage. It is not at all difficult to do well in academics in IIT system because of continuous evaluation if someone is serious. It was admitted that the regularity had been missing in study and that would be corrected. Nice to see that the student comes occasionally in google chat and is trying to remain engaged. My best wishes.

Tough Task

Got a kind of distress call from an elder sometime back for their ward, a college student. It is very common these days to get into a relationship in college days. Initially, I declined thinking it is not correct to come into personal space of a 20 years old. But the parents continued to ask me to counsel. They neither agree nor disagree to that relationship but wants the commitment part to be postponed by few more years; till the college education is over, till the youngsters get adequate time to be acquainted with the world, become some more matured.

I must say that it was one of the toughest task of recent times. My first such engagement. Tried to convey the parents argument to the ward and vice-versa. In the process, when all were present, my own view was sought. I don't think there is any prize to guess what I said. I don't claim to be an expert. And there seems to be too many experts around. Also often while trying to do 'mentoring', we try to 'control' others and impose ourselves, without respecting the journey of an individual.

Experts Speak

Therefore, it is best left to those who are not street smart. I would like to refer to this very very beautiful discourse of a Ramakrishna Mission Monk that can be found here (Link). Another wonderful discourse from from a teacher who now gives lecture to Ramakrishna Mission monks can be found here (Link) that talks about life's goal, the benefit one can derive by following higher thoughts and ideals.The 2nd lecture was addressed to students of Sister Nibedita School of Kolkata. He talked about how there is improvement in confidence, concentration.

Almost a month back I was watching one episode of 'Awakening with Brahma Kumaris' where Sister Shivani dealt this nicely. I have not been able to locate that in youtube. But in this one (Link) Sister gives almost a 360 degree view on 'Personality Development' and puts the responsibility on oneself. She was addressing an audience where there were many young members.

Finally, this Kids Marshmallow Experiment on 'Self Control' which is referred even by Scientific Americana is not simply hilarious. It shows how our reward system works and how we learn to deal with temptation and develop our own mechanism to handle it. If a child can do that, why not we elders? We know very well the kind of reward waiting for us when we achieve our research goal. Let us exercise our will power and remain a life long learner.

Holidaying

2011-04-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

Relieved

Just now Benida rang and told that Kounish's father has returned from Chaitanyapur Eye Hospital and the eye is saved. We were all worried. We saw 'Kaku' working in a coal shop in our younger days, struggling hard to cope up with life. Both the sons, Koushik and Kounish were some years junior to me but we played together in BNR ground. Koushik joined Ramakrishna Mission. Kounish now works under a distributor of consumer goods. Several occasions we met in Tech. market. Few days back Kounish rang, was at a loss what to do. The doctor has referred to Disha Eye Hospital and they have asked to arrange a large sum. Benida knew about Chaitanyapur Eye Hospital near Haldia run by Vivekananda Mission Ashram and they do such a wonderful job. And they did it again. Heartfelt thanks!

Oh! It's a holiday.

This had been one of the most hectic day of recent times. In the morning, one ex-student, now with TCS came in chat. I answered that today is a sudden holiday under NI act. And we get to work more on holidays when the distractions are less. Completed setting up of two exam. papers. One in the morning and the other in the evening. Scheduled a 3 PM meeting with research students which ended at 7:45 PM. This accomplished a much needed review of our various strategic initiatives and take a stock of tens of leads we are pursuing.

Staff vs. Student

Work in a research lab. is not an office job. Pushing the reporting time from 9 AM to 9:30 AM, then 10 AM and so on, leaving campus in the weekend (without permission) compulsively, extending the weekend, not following reporting structure etc. do not help one to stay focused on research problem or derive the most from IIT infrastructure and research environment. We try our best to remind our those students who think themselves more as staffs than students of these pitfalls and how important it is to maintain focus.

Man is a social animal

People in this part of the country perhaps are more social than others, which of course is good when society is getting fragmented, families are becoming nuclear. But it comes with its own problem for those who are supposed to be in 'student mode'. There comes a social pressure to attend every single birthday, marriage function, first-rice-ceremony, this and that of all the people I know or and share a cord. The emotional self gets better of us. We find it difficult to say, "No", not to hurt feelings of others. I myself have experienced this and still experience it because of my very large social network. But somehow I have been able to communicate well and make my community feel that they have a stake, a share in whatever work I do at IIT and how important these are. I talk to them about our research, work in a language they can appreciate. It is their kindness, magnanimity that not only the bond is strong and healthy but also they inquire time to time how the work is going on here.

Abhyas (striving) and Vairagya (detachment)

Urge research students to make your community a stake holders in whatever you do and they will try to create a congenial atmosphere for you and ask you not to get defocused. Please act before it is too late. It is your career. These 2-4 years are very crucial. This is the most productive phase of the young and intelligent. Yesterday, we had a snacks break in between our research meeting. One new faculty joined us in Tikka. He was discussing the difference between a research student of China and that of US. And one can see the difference how these two nations have come up in recent times. The research students in India need not follow a 7 days a week culture but definitely do more than what they are doing now. The story says that God was not happy creating all forms of life till man was created, as the formers did not have the ability to realize the creator. When one realizes God becomes God himself. The power is there but latent. One has to strive. The scripture talks about twin principles, 'Abhyas' (striving) and 'Bairagya' (Detachment). If we remain too much attached with surroundings, we shall not be able to concentrate. Unless we strive and focus our energy, the nature will not reveal its secret.

Choose your ideal

We try our best to recruit the right kind of people for the lab. ... the ones who have passion for research, ones who are trainable, ones who are hard working, ones who want to dive deep and immerse fully. None of us are super talented. It is the combination of whatever talent we have and hard work that make us deliver. New comers to the lab. should take note of this. Please draw inspiration from performers in the lab. Please see their track record, their effort, their devotion, their sincerity.

Welcoming fresh blood

Yes, we are gearing up to welcome three new students (not staffs, please!) in our lab. We are filling up all the three positions that we advertized recently. We are keeping one in waiting list, in case somebody does not join. One thing was noticeable in this round of recruitment. It appeared that a good number of these candidates have genuine desire for a research career. This is a welcome change. Some of these candidates are from industries and little bit out of touch. Some are willing to sacrifice their faculty job and be a part of our team. One candidate appreciates that the performance should have been better and wants to prepare for the next selection and seeks guidance.

Humbled

I must say that I am overwhelmed and humbled by this keenness. Wish all of you who are really interested get an opportunity to fulfill your research dream. Usually, we are asked to submit projects but we do not do as there is a scarcity of committed manpower to service when projects are granted. I think, we can explore new projects now.

Resources

To those who are looking for guidance may refer to NPTEL (Link) resources. Please brush up the fundamentals of core subjects. If you are to be called an engineer in a particular field, the basics of core subjects should be known. One may forget minute details if one remains out f touch for long. But if the fundamentals are clear (what this chapter says and why is it useful - basic equations / graph / table and their significances) then one knows where to start if a problem is given. Be it a drawing of CMOS inverter, transistor characteristics curve, getting a non-inverting amplifier from OP-AMP, definition of Discrete Fourier Transform, Truth Table / Excitation Table of Flip-Flops, Design steps of filters, Difference between Synchronous / Asynchronous counter, Difference between C and C++, writing simple codes for basic mathematical manipulation or reading / writing files ......... we often find candidates appear clueless. Also one should be comfortable with detailing of projects done or proficiencies claimed in biodata.

We often tell people interested to work with us to brush up Digital Signal Processing (Link1 and Link2), gather some idea on Pattern Recognition (Link1 and Link2 : Low cost Indian Edition is available for the book "Pattern Classification" by Duda and Hart : May not have been exposed as this subject is a PG core or UG elective ... basic understanding will do, details can be learnt in course of time.) and have familiarity with MATLAB (If one has MATLAB loaded in own machine then can play with codes of this Link or other stuffs available on web). MATLAB is gently and systematically introduced in this Analog and Digital Communication Text (Link) and the companion website's student centre (Link) provides downloadable MATLAB mini-projects and codes. Similar feature is offered for Verilog HDL language in this text (Link) and the downloadable stuffs in student centre (Link).

NSS

Talked to Jugal Babu, a devoted High School teacher this evening on a new free coaching centre our NSS volunteers have planned. It is on course. Just now the student volunteer pinged. Their team had been very very responsible and are showing a matured approach. If IITians come forward like these and help the community it will truly be leading from the front. Proud of these young volunteers.

Shubho Poila Baisakh (Happy Bengali New Year)

Time to say good night. It is 1:30 AM. Have an 8:30 AM class. Shubho Poila Baisakh (Happy Bengali New Year) to all. While typing this post was going through some of the PPTs 2nd Year UG students are sending by mail for their mini-projects. Some of the ideas (not implemented) like Moving PPT slides by voice command during presentation, Lie Detection, Communication with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence appear interesting. Let's see how they present.

You have earned one more tomorrow

Sure that earned one more tomorrow for what I have done today :-) ..... pasting one poem that is my favourite for long.

Is anybody happier because you passed this way?
Does anyone remember that you spoke to them today?

The day is almost over, and its toiling time is through.
Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?

Can you say tonight in parting with the day that's slipping fast,
That you helped a single person of the many that you passed?

Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said?
Does the one whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead?

Did you waste the day or use it? Was it well or sorely spent?
Did you leave a trail of kindness, or a scar of discontent?

As you close your eyes in slumber, do you think that God will say:
"You have earned one more tomorrow by what you did today?"

Hiring Again : 3 positions vacant

2011-04-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

“A mistake often made by freshers is that they run after high-paying jobs. In the initial stages, don’t mix career and money. Your priority should be the job profile based on your capabilities, which will help you hone your skills and grow. Once you’re established, the money will come,” ~ Nidhi Gaur, Head, HR, Wiley India

Whoever said that match is made in heaven was more than philosophical. The practicalities on earth show that it is not easy to get students who are serious and not looking at project positions as stop-gap opportunities. Equally difficult is to find students who love academic environment, research and have good fundamentals. This points to quality or more correctly, the lack of it. Often wonder, with thousands of engineering colleges around, why are we facing such a scenario? Is it like - water, water everywhere; not a drop to drink? Do not want to sound pessimistic at all. Rather urge engineering students to work on the fundamentals, develop passion for research and an attitude to scale higher altitudes, have faith in self. There are plenty of opportunities in IIT research lab.s, waiting to be grabbed.

Trying once again with this round of walk-in-interview. The selected candidates, if qualifies Dept. test, can register for higher degree from IIT. In the past, all eligible did qualify the test. Besides this, it offers an opportunity to work in a challenging research environment, a great team, good infrastructure and IIT brand.

Trying to sell hard :-)

Worth every rupee as getting a right candidate is not just the first step but the most important one. Well, from a candidate's point of view, getting a right research problem, research environment and research advisor mean a lot. Today's Economic Times in a career advice (Link) tells that such a career should be selected in initial years that allows one to hone skill in one's area of interest and asks not to go after money. If one attains skill, the money will come later, thick and fast. The compensation we offer in project positions is not bad but more than that, IIT lab. environment offers no limit to attain skills.

Let's see how well the match is made this time. Calling all eligible candidates. Urge well-wishers to forward the message to probable candidates. Now the advt. is for 3 positions. No short-listing. All eligible candidates as per the Advt. are to send biodata by email and directly appear in the walk-in-interview on April 13, 2011, 10 AM at Dept. of Electronics and ECE, IIT Kharagpur.
------

Project Title	Automatic Speaker Recognition on VoIP (VDA - IV)
Reference Number	IIT/SRIC/R/VDA-IV/2011/65 DATED 31st March, 2011
Temporary Position(s)	Walk-in-interview on 13/4/2011 at 10-00 AM at Dept. of E & ECE for Junior Project Assistant / Junior Project Officer
Number of vacancies	1
Consolidated Compensation	Rs.16,000/- p.m.to Rs.24,000/- p.m - (depending upon qualification & experience)
Coordinator / PI	Dr. Goutam Saha, Deptt of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering
Qualifications & Experience	M. Tech (Preferable) in Electronics / Electrical Engineering OR B. Tech / B.E in Electronics / Electrical engineering preferably with valid GATE/NET Score. Candidates should have good academic record (minimum first Class in all exam.) Competence in Digital Signal Processing, Speech Processing, MATLAB with research experience in signal processing & pattern recognition, preferably related to speech processing is desirable.
Relevant Experience	Candidate should send prior intimation with their CV to the email ID gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in by12.4.2011 with a subject heading “Walk in interview for JPA/JPO - VEICET ”
Last Date	13 Apr 2011
Application Fee	Rs. 50(not for female candidates only)/-

------

Project Title	Digital Electronic Circuit Lab (VLS-7)
Reference Number	IIT/SRIC/R/VLS-7/2011/64 DATED 31st March, 2011
Temporary Position(s)	Walk-in-interview on 13/4/2011 at 10-00 AM at Dept. of E & ECE for Junior Project Assistant / Junior Project Officer
Number of vacancies	2
Consolidated Compensation	Rs.12,000/- p.m.to Rs.18,000/- p.m - (depending upon qualification & experience)
Coordinator / PI	Dr. Goutam Saha, Deptt of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering
Qualifications & Experience	M. Tech (preferable) in Electronics / Electrical Engineering OR B. Tech / B.E in Electronics / Electrical / Computer Science & Engineering preferably with valid GATE/NET Score. Candidates should have good academic record (minimum first Class in all exam.). Competence in Digital Circuits,MATLAB. Programming knowledge of .PHP, Actionscript is desirable.
Relevant Experience	Candidate should send prior intimation with their CV to the email ID gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in by12.4.2011 with a subject heading “Walk in interview for JPA/JPO - MHRD ”
Last Date	13 Apr 2011
Application Fee	Rs. 50(not for female candidates only)/-

Indian Innovations

2011-03-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Today the special edition of Economic Times ran a cover story on Indian Innovations. The web edition can be found here (Link). The author Kamya Jaiswal writes in the introduction "There is no rumbling of change. The transition has not shown up in any statistic. But it has happened. India is innovating. It is genuine, it is grass roots, it has commercial value-and it is distinct from the jugaad we are best known for." Later the difference between 'jugaad' and 'innovation' has been graphically illustrated.

Economic Times has taken up 6 works in detail and another 3 to illustrate their points on innovation culture in India. Our work on heart sound analyzer and lung sound analyzer (patent filing process at IIT Kharagpur is just completed) gets a major referrence (page 15). I have attached a few screen shots here. Click on them to enlarge. ET has come up with another article titled, "Nine innovations that are likely to change our lives". This is available here (Link1, direct Link2 and Link3)

Yesterday, while delivering the 43rd convocation address of Utkal University, Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Innovation Council said, ''Only innovation and technology can save higher education in India." Later he said. "We don't need lots of teachers. The teachers don't need to create or impart content to students anymore. The role of teachers has changed to that of mentors."

As mentioned in earlier posts (Link1, segment 9 of Link2 ), the students here are being motivated to come up with prototypes through system level developments. For younger ones, where lot of theoretical understanding is still to be captured, a reduced feature versions are encouraged. For seniors, we would like to encourage team work. Some work on the data acquisition subsystem, some work on decision making subsystem, some work on the display and platform which will house the technology etc.

I thankfully acknowledge the contribution of my research team which include present and past students as well as technical staffs, in whatever little we could achieve. I am just the face. It is these individuals who deserve all the kudos. Proud to be a part of this great team and this great institute. Thankful to colleagues, family members, collaborators, well-wishers for their constant encouragement. Seek good wishes from everyone so that we can live up to the expectation.

At a Glance

2011-03-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Festival

Happy Holi to all!

Kesaria Balam Padharo Mahre Desh.

The tune had been visiting for quite some time; since the time we were returning from a trip with Republic Day skit team of NSS. There was an antakshari competition arranged by the students in the return journey on a MUV.

Yesterday was the super moon evening. Seven families gathered at the residence of one of our colleagues and celebrated Basanta Purnima with song and recitation. The musical extravaganza started at 8 p.m. and continued till midnight. The mood was to continue even further but for the kids, who however did not show any sign of fatigue. While most of the songs were Rabindrasangeet, one Rajasthani folk song took us far at the other side of the country in the land of desert.

Sponsored Research

Had been quite busy in between. There were reviews of five sponsored projects one after another. One more to go. Another big project has come where I have a good amount of responsibility in platform development and operationalizing the work. There were several visits of an MNC, interested in technology transfer of two our innovations in healthcare area. All these required a lot of team meetings and interaction with visitors. Also a certain amount of travel which I try to minimize to the extent possible. Being in station allows multitasking, to take care of many responsibilities simultaneously.

Receiving a lot of requests from various universities which requires visit to their places. I have been advised to be selective so that the work at KGP does not suffer. We have almost all the right ingredients in place and enough funding. We are looking forward to taking up some audacious challenges. At the formulation / setting up of problem stage, I need to give more time to students. Gou.., my first M.S. student (had two Ph.D.s earlier!!) last month defended his thesis very well. He did some pioneering work in his 2.5 years of association with our lab. in the area of frame selection which reduces computational burden in automatic speaker recognition not just by a factor of 1.5 or 2 but 4 or in some cases 8. The work was immediately accepted by a reputed journal without any single correction. The MS thesis was accepted as it was by both the examiners. One examiner commented that it was almost a Ph.D. level work. Gou.. is now taking a break in his own chosen way and preparing to go abroad for Ph.D. work. Proud to have students like him and wish him the very best.

Received research proposal from someone from abroad who wishes to join our group for a Ph.D. in speech processing area. He has excellent background, a BTech degree from top Indian Institute and Ph.D. from abroad with volumes of work experience. Dean (PGS&R) and Dept. Head welcomed it and the rule (citizenship and others) and procedure for getting fellowship etc. are being explained to him. On behalf of the research team, I appreciate and thankfully acknowledge every single event that encourages us, motivates us to deliver our very best.

Compensation

There was an unexpected ending to US edition project when the manuscript was fully ready after 2 years of hard work and the chapters received very good review. The publisher was hugely apologetic saying that the dollars offered to me is a token of appreciation and cannot compensate the passionate work put behind. Yes, I felt sad but only for a day or two. The US audience miss what is already there in new Indian edition and US edition was turning out to be even superior when I completed action on US reviews.

Life moves on. One Editorial Head from the publisher’s Indian arm visited IIT Kharagpur thereafter and we discussed for hours to restart a 2 year old project which took backseat for the US edition. I shall start that work in summer vacation which is 1.5 months away.

NSS Work

National Service Scheme (NSS) occupied a large part of me in this period. National Youth Week celebration included a morning rally (Rally link) and an evening function involving village school teachers, panel discussion, exhibition of inter village school drawing competition, prize distribution, cultural program etc. (Link1, Link2) This is the first time NSS was asked to put up a show in the Republic Day (Link) flag hoisting ceremony at stadium. The volunteers put up a nice skit on patriotic theme, urging people to participate in the national regeneration, shaking off ‘Sab chalta hai’ attitude. Aurko compeered it very well. Director, IIT Kharagpur was very pleased at the performance and made congratulatory remarks on NSS activities at IIT Kharagpur. We heard the same from one NSS Advisory Committee member who is not from IIT when he attended Youth week function. I shared these with the NSS team and all feel enthused, motivated.

In fortnightly program officers’ meeting got to know how young IITians as NSS volunteers are reaching out to the underprivileged. In one secondary school in a backward slum area (first generation learners), all the classes from V to X (there are different sections in one class) on Saturday from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm are taken by IIT students. They teach mostly Vedic Math., English etc. complementary to what school teachers teach Mon-Fri. The Headmaster said that the feedback from the guardian had been very good. There are many such inspiring developments. It gives me so much of joy to see young IITians who generally represents the India part of the digital divide, getting acquainted with Bharat part. I think it will have far reaching effect in the mind of the IIT students as well as the community it is serving.

Dean (Planning & Coordination) took special interest in seeing that NSS figures in our new communication directory. It was not there earlier. Further, on his advice, we have submitted our infrastructure requirement which will be a shared resource. He found the design well thought out. Two consecutive such design - one for NSS and the other for a new lab. of the Dept. - I am gaining some experience in this too!

Thanks Giving

Had an opportunity to take Republic Day skit to a trip to make them feel special after their special performances on two consecutive days that made the entire NSS family proud. A few could not make. Finally, there were ten of us and we hired a Tata Sumo. This was the birth anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna. The students did not know that. I was surprised when they gifted a Sri Ramakrishna idol to me to say ‘Thanks’. This was also a day where I had so many pics of me clicked on a single day. This collection can be found here (link).

Few weeks back one program officer rang me one afternoon and I accompanied him along with two NSS student volunteers to a village about 5KM south of IIT Kharagpur. The villagers arranged a evening meet to say ‘Thanks’ to NSS, IIT Kharagpur. The volunteers worked hard to make water available in that village without which 300 families were to travel 2KM to nearest source of water, the well, ponds in the village gone dry. The meet was arranged in the evening as the villagers work as a daily labourer during day time.

We sat in the ground (though they arranged chairs for us) with them. They managed a low power incandescent bulb from somewhere. All belong to backward castes, mostly scheduled tribes. They were sitting quietly, did not know how to say thanks but their eyes says it all. Finally, one young person (with whom NSS volunteers established connection first) said that they still cannot believe what is happening is for real. They never believed that there are people who think about their well-being and work for them. The previous Sunday NSS volunteers were there till 7 pm and left only when they saw that mother earth is delivering the water to her those children who need it the most.

Slowly we got into conversation. They talked about issues they are facing on getting ST certificates etc. We told how we can assist them. They accepted our position when we said that as National Service Scheme volunteers, ours is to serve and not criticize any or finding fault with any. As the conversation was in the local language, I was translating it into English for the NSS volunteers in between. To my surprise, many a villagers told that they were able to understand what I was telling in English. At the end of 1 hour meet one school-going teen of the village came forward and said if it is possible for NSS to open a weekly ‘Spoken English’ program for 7-8 teens like him. To come it from a first generation school-goers of a backward village was surprising and the student volunteers immediately agreed on a Saturday afternoon slot.

Uttamda's Blog

I got this message from Uttamda once he returned. "My dear Goutam,Good morning. Yesterday I have created the blog as per your instruction. Thank you. Please visit www.ukchatterjee@blogspot.com With best wishes, Uttamda". And in one month what did he deliver! Gems - one after another. I simply kept this link in my google status space. Students here told me that they benefited a lot from these writings. Uttamda once worried about quality of English, language skill etc. I requested him to ignore that and it is the substance for which the world is hungry. One day, I got a ping in my google chat. This was Ch.., an IIT Kharagpur alumnus studying in a top US university, top most in some estimate.

7:57 AM Ch...: This blog is excellent. Thanks so much for sharing. :)

7:58 AM me: Thanks Chintan. He is a very simple person. ....

8:02 AM Ch...: I think a person is as strong as his or her thoughts. Then it doesn't matter what his or her background is.

8:03 AM He has written about very simple things, but with powerful take-aways.

We are One

Some of the senior IIT students (who are providing scholarship to 28 village school students) asked me to interact with a group of juniors who have a common origin (one coaching institute in Andhra Pradesh) and one common desire to serve the community. Their motivation comes from one teacher of the coaching institute, Mr. SVK who has started a movement called VR1, ‘We are One’. There are about 100-150 such students in campus. Met the students one evening in Math Dept. seminar room. They inquired about service opportunities existing in the neighbourhood of the campus.

I shared my experience with them and also some of the issues a new comers face in the IIT environment. Getting into IIT usually is the single minded pursuit before coming here. Hardly one thinks what next once one is in IIT. The IIT-JEE pressure has been released, parental control not in sight, freedom coupled with high speed internet, volumes of materials available in LAN and of different kind, peer pressure etc. there is good enough a recipe to get lost in the web. If one is concerned about community, one has to feel more responsible to acquire knowledge and power so that there is a larger capacity to serve. So the first step is not to get spoilt and to have an all round development of self, evolving as a better human being.

Then one has to understand what is service. One definition says, it is kindness put into action. Both the words – ‘kindness’ and ‘action’ are important. Often there is a lot of action but without feelings for the community, without any sympathy – empathy is a harder call. Wherefrom sympathy comes? What is the philosophy behind? Next, often a lot of kind people are seen with a desire to help the underprivileged. But they find it difficult to reach out, stand by their side under treacherous sun or in a muddy road, issues like availability of time or potential ‘side-effect’ creeps into mind. The action part remains missing or at most turns out to be donation to others who are in action (NGOs) – a kind of outsourcing the responsibility. Each of them in isolation serves some purpose but together they have the desired effect.

VR1 organized one workshop and I was honoured to have a one-to-one meeting with the founder Mr. SVK. He is both inspiration and perspiration put into one. Wish his movement the very best. I placed some of my observations on VR1 before him. Next day was a Sunday when he conducted a workshop here on leadership and other issues.

YES+ will be conducting ‘Arts of Living’ workshop in next two weekends. Two students came to my office a few days back and they want a workshop by sisters of Brahmakumaris here. I have listened to discourses of Sister Shivani in television and it is very inspiring, practical and logical. This is also expected very soon. Besides these we are having weekly lecture on spiritual heritage by senior monks of Ramakrishna Mission (every Wednesday at Gargi auditorium). Therefore, there is ample opportunity now. More importantly, that such things are there shows an increasing level of awareness or takers amongst us.

Interview

One mail came to me via a final year student who maintained our NSS group’s website 3 year’s back when I was a program officer looking after a small group. This was from Youth Leader Magazine, India a United Nations project with four UNESCO status. The magazine wants to publish interviews of a few NSS volunteers. The aim is to motivate and inspire the young generation for a positive and healthier life and to train them to develop into more social and environmental conscious adults. I nominated two of the NSS volunteers who received ‘Best Volunteer’ award in Youth Week function. The interview is done and waiting for its publication date. This will motivate young IIT students engaged in community service quite a lot. I was told that the correspondent replied like these after the interview, “It is great to see NSS and it's students doing so much for the betterment of the community and self. Your experience will be a motivating story for our readers.”

I myself too was interviewed a few days back by a leading Indian newspaper on one of our research work. The photoshoot is scheduled next TUE. Shall inform readers about the article when it comes up in the daily. Earlier I had opportunity to interact with a few journalists. Interacted closely last December with the author when this article (Link) on Dr. Kalam’s visit to IIT Khargpur took place and I was the organizing secretary. I am told by our Head of the Dept. that I won’t be spared :-) in upcoming Diamond Jubilee program.

Demo 2

The students in the Signals & Systems course performed 2nd mini-project demo a week back. This was on speech recognition. It worked for two words for most of them and more than two for a few. About ten of them participated. None from girls this time. There were a few new developers who was not there for the first. The highest correlation in code was self-certified as 0.2. The final one is awaited on 9th April. This challenge is on developing automatic speaker recognition system again with minimum user base.

The twin pillars of our research group are 'learning to learn' and 'team work'. We use technology profusely - googlegroup, chat, circulating PPT among the team before any presentation etc. (still there is room to improve). The aim is to make everybody independent as well as a team person, confident as well as humble. Trying to the extent possible, to give these 4th sem. students a feel of it. Shall see if it worked.

Sacrifice

Something very interesting happened on publication which shows how strong our team is and the quality of bonding amongst us. One ex-scholar of IITkgp (in one of our area of interest but not from our lab.) was coming up with an edited volume from a foreign publisher and on his request one of my ex-scholar and myself put up one chapter. Took 9-10 months to prepare that. Few weeks back we received the agreement form when deadline of publication came very very close. IIT Kharagpur had some objection there in the liability clause. I made suggestion on how it can be rewritten that takes care of the interest of editors, publishers as well as authors. The editors said that the agreement cannot be reworked and there is time pressure. My ex-student was comfortable with the liability clause and signed as principal author and sent the agreement. I came as co-author and the liability was not assigned to me.

Now came an issue if such exclusion would be acceptable to the publisher. We (me and the editors) then agreed that my student will come as single author and my name will be excluded to save the chapter. We wanted the work to be there which editors found very well written and informative. In fact, the Ph.D. thesis of this student of mine earned huge appreciation from both the examiners and the foreign examiner, a senior faculty in a foreign university remarked as ‘best thesis read’. And 9-10 months hard work was at stake. We conveyed the same to my student. I kind of convinced him in the evening. Next morning I get a mail which says “I thought very sanely yesterday night about this matter and found that it will not be good if YOU are not there with me as an author …”. The same was communicated to editors and we are waiting for their decision.

Don’t know if we are acting like idiots on this count. Enjoying the holiday and watching ‘3 Idiots’ in Sony channel televised as Holy special. To us, the eternal optimists, "Ell" is always well. Ours is to work.

Walk-in-Interview

2011-02-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

All eligible candidates (as per Advt.) are requested to make themselves available at given date, time and place (as mentioned in Advt.). No email acknowledgment is necessary. There is no shortlisting in advance. All those who appear and fulfill eligibility criteria, will be interviewed.

Deadline for sending CV by advance email : Today i.e. 16.2.2011
Interview : Tomorrow i.e. 17.2.2011, 10 a.m. at Dept. of Electronics & ECE, IIT Kharagpur

Advt. is available in IIT Kharagpur website in 'Temporary Assignment' link and also here.

Wonderful People

2011-02-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

Met some wonderful people yesterday, a Sunday. In the morning, Uttamda was at our residence. Uttamda, one of my inspiration from childhood is more than a Vivekananda scholar. A great organizer, master of time management, he ran a series of article titled "What we can do" in our magazine named "Unmochan". They were truly gem and I wish they are made available to every young person. Great to see Uttamda after a long time who is now teaching Higher Secondary students at Chittaranjan Railway School. Uttamda asked when I am going to upload the ABVYM Annual Camp 2010 pics. It is not yet there in ABVYM website. A team from IITkgp that had three NSS officers, spent one afternoon there. Few pics are available here.

Next, rushed to CEC community hall at about 12:30 p.m. There was a one day program arranged by Vivekananda Study Circle which runs a weekly study circle at F-127, Institute Main Building every Tuesday from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and has taken up developmental work in a nearby tribal village, named Soladahar. Chiranjeev Maharaj from Deoghar centre of Ramakrishna Mission came along with Dipak Maharaj and others. Chiranjeev Maharaj came several times before and inspires this group a lot. There was reading from Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, song, Q & A, presentation of work carried out by study circle. It was great to see young study circle members doing work so sincerely where work is treated as worship.

As soon as this meet ended, arrived at Kalidas Auditorium at quarter to five. There was a TEDx event on "Ideas worth spreading". Announced in NSS bulletin board .. if we get some idea here for NSS, IIT Kharagpur to pursue. The event started at 3 p.m. and I missed nearly the entire first half. The speakers were talking in turn and taking Q&A from audience. Five lucky persons asking questions would get an opportunity to dine with the eminent speakers. This I highlight for some special reason. Our favourite in Signals & Systems class, Gopich.. was one of the lucky five. We congratulated him when his name was announced. He was quite surprised but I as an instructor of the class was not, having faced volley of questions from him, class after class :-) since January beginning. Gopi, are you listening?

Coming back to the TED event, it was great to hear Dr. P. Anandan of Microsoft, Srinivas Mohan, Visual Effects Director, our own student Manoj Mandelia who is turning innovation to start-up, Ashutosh & Swapnil duo of Tata Jagriti. While all spoke very well about the work they are doing, somehow I failed to connect with the theme of the conference "Ideas worth spreading". However, Srinivas Mohan briefly touched his life's journey, the struggle towards excellence for a college drop out. It was truly inspiring. I was looking for his biography in the net. All I get his work but not him. The presentation by Swapnil & Ashutosh brought out what they wanted to tell about Jagriti Yatra in a very, very professional manner. It talked about outlay and not much about outcome. Probably, time was short and it needs some more time to see the outcome. All in all, it was nice to be with these set of wonderful people through out the day. I was honoured to be called by the organizers to hand over mementos to these distinguished speakers at the end of the function together with another professor. Pics of this Sunday and another wonderful Sunday in January, 2011 at my old place of work can be found here.

Here, I got the second referral of 2011, 'Senior Professor' during my introduction to the stage. This follows 'Active Blogger' of IEEE Techsym. While the first connect me to the older generation, the second one with the younger ones. Remember the dilemma in one Amul Advertizement : I am too old for something, too young for something else, but right for Amul Milk Chocolate. Till then let me cherish life, the delicious!

We are Hiring!

2011-02-04T03:29:00.000-08:00

Four positions! Three here

Project Title	Digital Electronic Circuit Lab (VLS-7)
Reference Number	IIT/SRIC/R/VLS-7/2011/23 DATED 1st January, 2011
Temporary Position(s)	Walk-in-interview on 17/2/2011 at 10-00 AM at Dept. of E&ECE for Junior Project Assistant / Junior Project Officer
Number of vacancies	3
Consolidated Compensation	Rs.12,000/- p.m.to Rs.18,000/- p.m - (depending upon qualification & experience)
Coordinator / PI	Dr. Goutam Saha, Deptt of E&ECE
Qualifications & Experience	M. Tech (Preferable) in Electronics / Electrical Engineering OR B. Tech / B.E in Electronics / Electrical / Computer Science & Engineering preferably with valid GATE/NET Score. Competence in Digital Circuits,MATLAB. Programming knowledge of .PHP, Javascript, Flash is desirable.
Relevant Experience	Candidate should send prior intimation with their CV to the email ID gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in by 16.02.2011 with a subject heading “Walk in interview for JPA/JPO - MHRD”
Last Date	17 Feb 2011
Application Fee	Rs. 50(not for female candidates only) /-

And one here

Project Title	Automatic Speaker Recognition on VoIP (VDA - IV)
Reference Number	IIT/SRIC/R/VDA-IV/2011/24 DATED 1st February, 2011
Temporary Position(s)	Walk-in-interview on 17/2/2011 at 10-00 AM at Dept. of E&ECE for Junior Project Assistant / Junior Project Officer
Number of vacancies	1
Consolidated Compensation	Rs.12,000/- p.m.to Rs.18,000/- p.m - (depending upon qualification & experience)
Coordinator / PI	Dr. Goutam Saha, Deptt of E&ECE
Qualifications & Experience	M. Tech (Preferable) in Electronics / Electrical Engineering OR B. Tech / B.E in Electronics / Electrical engineering preferably with valid GATE/NET Score. Competence in signal processing, Speech Processing, MATLAB is desirable.
Relevant Experience	Candidate should send prior intimation with their CV to the email ID gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in by 16.02.2011 with a subject heading “Walk in interview for JPA/JPO - VEICET� ”
Last Date	17 Feb 2011
Application Fee	Rs. 50(not for female candidates only) /-

May we get the best candidates :-)

Cell Phone Hazard

2011-02-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

Last month one of our relative sought an opinion from me. He has been approached for setting up of a cell phone tower at roof top. The monthly rent to be paid to him is significant. I wish I could tell him what he wanted to hear - a "Yes". But I could not. Besides the structural integrity of the old building in which the tower will be raised there is the concern of associated health risk.

The health risk associated with cell phone use and cell phone towers, the points and counter points made, are often equated with the ones made on cigarette smoking few years back. And we know where we stand now. The industries who make money out of it kept saying, "There is no conclusive evidence to link the two." The report titled "Electromagnetic fields and public health : mobile phones" published by World Health Organization in May, 2010 says, "To date, no adverse health effects have been established for mobile phone use." Such statements can be read in both ways. It always leaves a hint of doubt : There may be or there are 'adverse health effects' but not established as yet.

In a 2002 report published by Karen J Rogers titled "Health effects from cell phone tower radiation" cautions people. The author cites several references like [1]Microwave and Radio Frequency Radiation Exposure, San Francisco Medicine , Vol. 74, No 3, March 2001 [2]Mobiles Risk to children, Daily Mail (U.K.), May 11, 2000 etc. and and to quote a few paragraphs from page 1 of his report

Studies have shown that even at low levels of this radiation, there is evidence of damage to cell tissue and DNA, and it has been linked to brain tumors, cancer, suppressed immune function, depression, miscarriage, Alzheimer's disease, and numerous other serious illnesses. [1]

Children are at the greatest risk, due to their thinner skulls, and rapid rate of growth. Also at greater risk are the elderly, the frail, and pregnant women. Doctors from the United Kingdom have issued warnings urging children under 16 not to use cell phones, to reduce their exposure to radio frequency (RF) radiation. [2]

Over 100 physicians and scientists at Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public Health have called cellular towers a radiation hazard. And, 33 delegate physicians from 7 countries have declared cell phone towers a “public health emergency.”

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is in charge of setting the standards of exposure for the public, and claims that, based on scientific studies, the current levels are safe. But it is not a public health agency, and has been criticized as being “an arm of the industry”. Many who work for the FCC are either past, present or future employees of the very industries they are supposed to regulate. With an explosively emergent $40 billion dollar a year industry at stake, critics have stated “you can bet that their studies are going to show whatever they want them to show”.

Back home, Prof. Girish Kumar of IIT Bombay has been working with arduous tenacity to make people aware. He prepared a comprehensive "Report on Cell Tower Radiation" which is full of case studies and circulated widely. We received it in our mailbox some time back and this as well as the Rogers' report mentioned above are available in full at scribd. Prof. Kumar has explained it nicely with radiation beam pattern etc. and to quote from his report

Through the help of the above typical radiation pattern, let’s analyze the news reported in Mid-day, Mumbai dated Jan. 3, 2010, which stated -“Mumbai's swanky Usha Kiran building says the four cancer cases there could be linked to mobile towers installed on the facing Vijay Apartments”. The picture taken from the Usha Kiran building of the several antennas installed onthe seventh floor of Vijay Apartments is shown in Fig. 2. People living in the 6th, 7th and 8th floor in the opposite building will get maximum radiation as they are in the main beam direction. People living on the other floors will receive lesser radiation as beam maxima is reduced considerably as can be observed from vertical radiation pattern. In the horizontal direction again, people living in the front side of the antenna will receive much higher radiation compared to people living in the back side of antenna.

NDTV published Prof. Kumar's view on June 26, 2010 which stated like this.

"Each antenna is transmitting with a gain of approximately 50, so we are looking at 4-5 kilowatts of power being transmitted by these antennas. Microwaves use only 500 watts of power and that too you cook food for just a few minutes. These towers are transmitting 24 hours so you are absorbing radiation 24 hours. The solution is that cell phone towers should transmit one tenth of the power they are currently transmitting,"

DNA publishes this on Jan. 30, 2010.

Dr RS Sharma of the Indian Council of Medical Research said that the government of India was among the countries that had adopted the worst standards of radiation levels.

Today we find some action at Govt. end. Times of India today carried the following as a front page news.

Radiation from mobile phones and towers poses serious health risks, including memory loss, lack of concentration, disturbance in the digestive system and sleep disturbances, according to an inter-ministerial committee formed by the ministry of communications and information technology to study the hazards posed by mobile phones.
The committee has also attributed disappearance of butterflies, bees, insects and sparrows from big cities to mobile phone-related radiation.

Member scientist, ICMR, R S Sharma said compared to Europeans, Indian cellphone users are more at risk for adverse affect of radiation due to the country’s hot tropical climate, low body mass index, and low fat content.

"In the case of a person using a cellphone, most of the heating occurs on the surface of the head, causing its temperature to increase by a fraction of a degree. The brain blood flow is capable of disposing this excess by increasing the local blood flow and increasing body temperature," states the report. It says that the non-thermal effects of cellphone use — attributed to the induced electromagnetic effects inside the body's biological cells — are more harmful.

"There is a 400% increase in the risk of brain cancer among teenagers using cell phones for long periods. The younger the child, the deeper is the penetration of electromagnetic radiation as children`s skulls are thinner.

Another government-funded study on radiation from mobile phones and towers at the Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU) found that the exposure to radiation from mobile towers and mobile phones could have an adverse impact on male fertility and pose health hazards by depleting the defence mechanism of cells.

Whether we consider cell phone as necessary evil or not, we may try to limit its use to the extent possible and develop a collective opinion so that common man who do not read all these reports, can avoid health hazard.
It is a collective responsibility for all of us who appreciate the underlying issues.

Links:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs193/en/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3773284/Health-Effects-from-Cell-Phone-Tower-Radiation
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44736879/Cell-Tower-Radiation-Report-sent-to-DOT-Department-of-Telecommunications
http://www.ndtv.com/article/sci-tech/is-cell-phone-radiation-a-health-hazard-33943
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_citizens-ensure-warnings-on-cell-radiation-are-taken-seriously-in-mumbai_1500686
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Mobiles-pose-health-risk-says-govt-panel/articleshow/7415288.cms

Biometric

2011-02-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

There is a reason to get interested in this article from rediff. It brings that 'I said so' smile in your face, not exactly sadistic though. It is more like getting an agreement from the community which is important for us to make development in a complementary technology space. It is useful for funding research, answering reviewers, keeping faith etc.

We work on certain area of biometric signature generation which is anything but fingerprint. We leave retina scan out of this because it is cumbersome and costly. The critic finds faults with us citing 'finger-print' based systems are a kind of full proof as finger print is 'unique'. While they accept that ours is easy to use and has much, much wider applicability, the percentage accuracy were always doubted or looked down upon vis-a-vis finger print based system. Almost all the points made in this article used to be cited by us but such reports by a lead media house help in developing a general agreement.

It is some time to have our developments available commercially but there are a lot of groups world wide pursuing that space and hope to have something in near future. Now excerpts from the Rediff article available with a video demo at http://www.rediff.com/news/report/fool-proof-uid-system-for-indians-blah/20110201.htm :

However, we wish the finger print based system developer very best so that they come up with a more robust system. Competition helps all and the solution may lie in multi modal system i.e. considering more than one mode : finger print is one and what we do, could be the other.
------

In a demonstration, an electronic systems expert specialising in biometrics exposed the gaping hole in the assumption that a fingerprint is a secure way to identify individuals. It would cost less than a dollar -- Rs 30 to be exact -- to fool the system, according to J T D'souza, managing director of Sparc Systems Limited. "...all one needs is wax, a small dish and a small tube of fevicol. ...making a finger print impression without the knowledge of the person is relatively expensive. It costs Rs 250."

He used a thin layer of skin-like substance which has the impression of his wife's fingerprint on his hand and moistens it with his breath. This fooled the system.

He explained that finger prints from the individuals are stored as images, from which the coordinates of several points on the ridges and valleys of the finger are recorded. "Each attempt to record the fingerprint on the scanner may yield different images owing to the amount of pressure applied and the moisture. Moreover, ridges and valleys on the fingerprint may be altered by years of hard labour.

Authorities in South Korea, which has the most extensive use of the biometric system, noted that in Seoul, the fingerprint of each person underwent progressive deterioration over a period of 1.5 years for over 50 percent of the individuals sampled, said D'souza.

"Even forensic science experts can't confirm 100 per cent that two fingerprints are from the same person.

A study on the fingerprint database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that a single query may throw up possible matches ranging between 5 and 50000.

"Contrary to popular belief, fingerprints are neither unique and nor does it remain the same for an individual over a period of time," said D'souza.

A Converstaion plus Flat Rate Follow Up

2011-01-30T21:03:00.000-08:00

There was a long chat on google with a student on THU evening 9:30-10:30 p.m. who was asking for N.S.S. support to some proposed activity in the campus. Besides the short notice period, the activity did not fit into N.S.S. mandate. The next evening, the student came to my office at about 7:00 p.m. and we had an interesting discussion with a ground rule that could not be anything better. We are entitled to have our own opinions while we respect each others'. We share what we learnt from our reading of life but no bulldozing of thoughts, giving time and space to each other to learn from one's own experience. Some of the points I raised were:

1. No blame game. A blames B, B blames C, .... the cycle goes on. Let us do what we can do and lead by examples. The more we do, the more is the increase in our capacity.

2. No policy, no welfare scheme, no manifesto is bad. All speak of upliftment of people. What is needed is proper execution. The execution is again done by people.

3. "Make men first. Everything else will be ready ..... we need man-making character building education", said Vivekananda. The more we empower people (through higher education etc.), the more is our responsibility to see that they come up as a better human being with love for fellow being (this power is to be used for the good of all).

4. The inverse of 2nd part of point 3 is also true. The more we feel ourselves responsible for the community, the more we should give effort to elevate ourselves to a position which helps us to deliver greater good. If I am a student, I should not be satisfied with a lower percentage of marks or a poor career.

5. If we address the symptoms and not the disease, then the problem will resurface in another form in another place. It is more like taking the dust from my door to my neighbour's door.

6. Means and end both should be noble. A noble end cannot be achieved by tricks or by means which is uncorrelated from the end. All prophets talked about imbibing spirit of service, sacrifice, following the path of truth and love.

7. All of us have the potential of becoming Buddha, Christ. Vivekananda says, "If you cannot become Buddha, Christ then they never existed."

8. We were and are never short of ideals in any era. There are always example before us - good people doing good deeds. We need to read those lives and draw inspiration, develop a positive attitude.

9. Again Vivekananda who says, "Purity, patience, perseverance are three essentials to success, and above all, love."

Today Economic Times (ET) ran a front page story on micro finance companies who started as NGO (not for profit), then converted to NBFC (for profit) where underprivileged were included through MBT (Mutual Benefit Trust) and finally elbowed out from the company which is now completely owned by promoters. This article is aptly titled 'Uplifting promoters in the name of downtrodden'.

It says, "An ET investigation shows 45,000 women who were shareholders in the country’s top three microfinance companies have missed out on the benefits of wealth creation—some due to transactions engineered by promoters, some due to the structure used to house shares owned by the poor. "

ET followed it up with a detailed report inside on three companies which is titled "The Poor as Puppets".

Excerpts from it goes like this. "IN THE 2004-05 ANNUAL REPORT of Share Microfin, promoter and managing director M Udaia Kumar proudly declared: “Most of the shares are held by poor women who are part of the microfinance programme implemented by the company for poverty reduction and livelihood promotion, except the initial promoters and their relatives holding 0.97%. The company is striving to remain a community-based, mutual-benefit financial company.”
Within two years of that proud declaration, there was little “community-based” or “mutual benefit” about Share Microfin. As on March 31, 2007, promoters, associates and employees, led by Kumar, owned 98%, having bought all the shares held by the poor women, which were housed in mutual benefit trusts, or MBTs (The story on Page 1 explains their working.)
About the time the promoters finished taking control of the company also marked a breakout point for the business. Between 2006-07 and 2009-10, revenues of Share Microfin increased from Rs 62.9 crore to Rs 475.3 crore—a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 96%. Net profit increased from Rs 1 crore to 108.7 crore—a CAGR of 372%. In other words, the poor women bore the risk during the building phase of the business. But it was the promoters who reaped the rewards from the business taking off. "

An IIM-Ahmedabad faculty member helped in the research.

We had a discussion on this before at http://gskgp.blogspot.com/2010/10/flat-rate.html

One can find a correlation between first conversation and the flat rate story. It is time that we address the root cause and not play around the bushes.

Demo

2011-01-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

We asked all the presenters to be available at 8:15 a.m., 15 min. before the actual class starts. This was the 4th Week of the Signals & Systems Course. The task was to develop a real-time voice based gender recognition system as a part of mini student projects. We had 12 systems ready for demo, 2 from girl students and 10 from boys - a ratio in favour of the girls compared to their presence in the class. Since it was a gender recognition system, I am trying to give a gender based performance stat. too. Hope to generate some competitive spirit!

We decided to put the same set of boys and girls for trial of each prototype. Since these were laptop based systems, its screen was made visible in a large screen format for the entire class of 90 students. What followed was a great experience! Six of the twelve systems got it 100 percent correct. Each time the developer got huge applause from fellow students. Whenever there was a failure, out came an 'Ohh!' from the class as if one Indian batsman got out in a crucial moment of a cricket match. The developers and the rest of the class as audience, all deserve appreciation. (pics of this great class of Signals & Systems ECE 2011 is attached : addition of a new pic at top - why should great ECE batch of 1990 be missed! I am somewhere there. This completes all characters of yesterday's class, me included and as a student like others...but who among that group of 29?)

There were moments of fun, too. Gopich... was getting frustrated when few consecutive trials in not-fully-perfect systems detected him as 'female'. Then he started submitting phrases like "I am male" or "Cheeka-Cheeeka". The prosody of Debolee...'s speech on some occasions (Hi [Developer], I am ..) was such that the developer would have not written another piece of code, if the system erred (I am joking!). Quite a few systems failed to recognize Pava... as human being, something developers decided to put as an output if input is anything but speech!!!

As a whole, it was a nice experience. For the statisticians, both the demo from girl students were 100 percent correct while 4 of the 10 demo from boys came unscathed. Does the same persist in other fields too? There is something positive for boys here, more number of them dared to come forward and subjected their systems (themselves ?) to trial which always had a probability of failure.

Never mind failures. It is important to make attempts and also to learn how to handle failures, if it is there. Fear of failure is something which needs to be overcome.

Level 2 description of the system level development task has been published. (i)To make this system robust against noise. For applications like gender based suggestion of content, one may not experience any attack. However, applications like automated voice based toilet (male / female) door lock system one has to consider impostor attacks (male trying to speak like female). (ii)Speech recognition based real-time application (limited vocabulary). Deadline is extended to 10th Feb. as asked by the students.

Took the opportunity to make a quick 5 min. presentation on IP generation, patent search, patent filing, patent defence. Gave one demo of a patent defence from our research group. This we had presented before experts the previous day and the PPT was at my desktop along with lecture slides. Wished that the students who have completed only 1.5 year here and 2.5 year (4-year program) / 3.5 year (5-year program) to go, can have some innovations in their portfolio when they leave IIT kharagpur.

Waiting for another round of fun-filled demo session and expect wider participation that time with larger number of students coming to the front as developers. Meanwhile theory, application, tutorial, MATLAB .... will continue.

Exit

2011-01-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

"For the last 24 years every day, I have been busy thinking about what to do for Wipro tomorrow. Now I will have to start thinking about what to do for myself.” Thus says Girish Paranjpe, ousted joint-CEO of Wipro, a USD 6 billion company in DNA. None can miss in his statement, the hollowness created, due to sudden withdrawal of the responsibility. It also perhaps brings out emptiness of certain aspect of life which we consider even larger than life itself.

People were sceptical in the first place itself when Wipro floated two CEO theory 3 year back and experienced Girish was picked up as one of them. While TCS was ahead of the race, Infosys had already replaced Wipro in no. 2 position and was increasing the gap. The resignation (was not shown the door) of Vivek Paul made Premji, 80% share holder, double his role as Chairman and CEO for 3 years. Following this, he picked up two CEOs. Yesterday he announced that he is replacing 2 CEOs with a new single CEO. The reason cited : growth rate is much lower than peers. Analysts say, it is the threat of Cognizant replacing them as no. 3 in IT sector in near future. According to a theory, if one is not in top 3, then one is out.

My interest here in developments within Wipro is not from the point of an insignificantly small share holding I have in the company or as someone who had some initial discussion with them on one of our innovation and see scope of collaboration with its healthcare wing (you never know!); but as a reader of life who reads parting statement of an erstwhile CEO, making an unceremonious exit.

Like him, many of us are busy in pursuit of or caring certain things of life for days, weeks, months and years and not life itself. Incidents like these remind us the message Sri Ramakrishna left in some of his parables.

He asks us to lead life like a maid in a rich employer's house who raises up kids there; sings songs for them, even go up to tell "My XYZ (the employer's son) has done this today." But she knows very well that she has to go back at the end of the day to her own home and care her own children. That is her real state and this stay at employer's big house and in all luxury is all but temporary.

The image uploaded here can be zoomed for reading comfort. This is an inspiring speech by Wipro Chairman Azim Premji on his lessons in life. This is full of short anecdotes and leaves an enriching experience.

Together it strikes a balance. Passion and detachment. Intense activity in intense rest and intense rest in intense activity. The essence of Karmayoga .....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is taken from page 83 of "Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna" that can be found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/29396382/Tales-Parables-of-Sri-Rama-Krishna-Complete

A certain traveller came to a large plain in the course of his travels. As he had been walking in the sun for many hours, he was thoroughly exhausted and heavily perspiring; so he sat down in the shade of a tree to rest a little. Presently he began to think what a comfort it would be if he could but get a soft bed there to sleep on. He was not aware that he was sitting under the celestial tree. As soon as the above thought rose in his mind, he found a nice bed by his side. He felt much astonished, but all the same stretched himself on it. Now he thought to himself, how pleasant it would be, were a young damsel to come there and gently stroke his legs. No sooner did the thought arise in his mind than he found a young damsel sitting at his feet and stroking his legs. The traveller felt supremely happy. Presently he felt hungry and thought: "I have got whatever I have wished for; could I not then get some food?" Instantly he found various kinds of delicious food spread before him. He at once fell to eating, and having helped himself to his heart's content, stretched himself again on his bed. He now began to revolve in his mind the events of the day. While thus occupied, he thought: "If a tiger should attack me all of a sudden!" In an instant a large tiger jumped on him and broke his neck and began to drink his blood. In this way the traveller lost his life.

Such is the fate of men in general. If during your meditation you pray for men or money or worldly honours, your desires will no doubt be satisfied to some extent; but, mind you, there is the dread of the tiger behind the gifts you get. Those tigers—disease, bereavements, loss of honour and wealth etc.,—are a thousand times more terrible than the live tiger.

Resume

2011-01-15T07:43:00.000-08:00

These days my eight years old daughter keep surprising me with startling expression and analysis. I often listen to her with a sense of dis-belief! Only a few days back I had to explain her almost everything, hundreds of those questions. How quickly a child grows and imperceptibly, while being in front of your eyes all the time!

Yesterday afternoon I saw another child surprising me standing up to many, many year seniors. It was the start of the afternoon session on Machine Intelligence & Pattern Recognition of IEEE TechSym 2011, a student symposium at IIT Kharagpur. As a session chair I also had the responsibility of introducing keynote speaker Dr. Ravi Kothari of IBM Research. I was having a talk with him in the sideline when Technical Program Committee Chair started introducing me to the participants. The standard stuffs - I did this and that in professional field and there I heard newest bullet in my resume 'active blogger'.

Frankly speaking, I was ready up to 'NSS Coordinator' as a lot of my colleagues, senior people in admin., students, guardians, alumni interact with me on that identity. A total of 14 officers, 900 student volunteers, many different activities round the year, not that unusual to be known by that.
(The recent updates from NSS IIT Kharagpur are here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gsaha.iitkgp/YouthDay12thJan2011#
http://picasaweb.google.com/gsaha.iitkgp/YouthWeekRally15thJan2011#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g8ILbQAUkc
On 19th Jan. we are having concluding function of National Youth Week at Kalidas Auditorium where inter village school (13 of them) competition drawings will be displayed, prizes will be handed over to invited school teachers. Also there will be panel discussion, Address by dignitaries and cultural program by NSS volunteers.)

But the identity as an 'active blogger' and in a situation like that was a pack full of bewilderment. True that occasionally I get mail, comments on posts but that is too infrequent. It appears that there are silent readers, at least I did not expect TPC Chair of TechSym to have taken note of this space.

Thank you readers. Comments or no comments - it is great to feel that we strike a common chord somewhere.

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Visited NIT Rourkella for the first time on 8-9th Jan., 2011 at Samit's call. Samit, my 2nd Ph.D. student is a faculty member there. Beautifully organized conference, in all aspect. Loved it. On 6th Jan., visited another conference at IEM, Kolkata and met many old pals. It was walking down the memory lane. A lot of people have moved. There was no dearth of love and affection from those who was still there. Prepared PhD Admission Test Q. Paper for some place the previous week but politely declined to visit that place as it was becoming too hectic. Expecting a Delhi visit for one project or the other soon. Vodafone project's quarterly review report was submitted yesterday. Finalizing the manuscript of a book chapter (edited volume on speech processing) with Sandipan, my first Ph.D. student who is the main author. Yesterday evening, organizer of a Tech Fest requested display of one of our prized (literally) innovation "Heart Sound Analyzer". In India Telecom Exhibition at Pragati Maidan, Delhi we displayed it in Dec., 2008. This time (Dec., 2010) there our speech group displayed "Automatic Speaker Recognition" working prototype. Patent filing of "Lung Sound Analyzer" is to be completed within 2 weeks. Got a letter from the publisher that they are contemplating on converting the published titles to ebook. In 2010, two books returned almost similar volume of 2009, about 40,000. Waiting for a call from the US parent on US edition. The bulk of the work is already done. Reviews of this new edition from US university Prof.s are very good. The remaining work is simple but tedious and time consuming. Need to devote a large percentage of time when that call comes. That is the update as of now. Yes, the new batch of 2nd year students in theory class appear to be serious. Enjoying the interaction. Need more time to develop an opinion about Lab. & Seminar classes.

Liability

2010-12-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

It pains. It pains to face the reality. The fun element of a metro reader vanishes when the reality of a suburban fringe comes to the fore. A supreme court women judge listing two daughters among 'liabilities' may raise eyebrows. The reason cited : "two daughters to be married". One may question whether a Delhi based SC judge who belong to an enlightened strata of the society should feel that way. But we are never wise enough to know the ground realities. This reality makes a bright class XI girl from a poor farmer family give private tutions to support her study and stand on her own feet. Yes, local residents adored this teen for her determination to 'stay in school in spite of the odds'.

Yesterday, on her way home after giving tution she was abducted, raped and then murdered.

Let not simply a pal of gloom, or feelings of helplessness sink in us. Let us ask ourselves :Are we, who can, doing enough to change such realities? Do we have a desire to do something? Or do we consider it is a liability on our 'over-burdened' lives to take note of such realities that may take our attention away and we may miss a few career milestones?
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BARASAT HORROR

Schoolgirl raped, killed

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 29.12.2010

Barasat: A 17-year-old schoolgirl was raped and murdered at Dadpur, some 45km from Kolkata, on Monday night. The victim, who used to give tuitions to manage her school fees, was abducted on her way home, raped in a field and strangled.
The body was found at 6.30am on Tuesday. When police arrived at the spot, they were gheraoed by a mob. Local residents, who were very fond of the girl for her determination to stay in school in spite of the odds, accused police of not acting tough on criminals and allowing goons a free run.
The victim was a Class XI student of Dadpur Girl’s High School and regularly gave tuitions to support the family. She left home around 6pm on Monday. When she did not return by 10pm, her parents got
worried. Her cellphone was switched off. The family lodged a missing person’s complaint.
“Preliminary investigation says she was raped and strangled. We will track down the culprits,” a police officer said.
Her father, a farmer, is shattered. “She was the light of our lives. She was a very good student and we had struggled very hard to keep he in school,” he said.

SC woman judge lists daughters as ‘liabilities’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 29.12.2010

New Delhi: It is a line that even Bollywood has banished for a while now. But while declaring her assets and liabilities, sitting Supreme Court judge Gyan Sudha Mishra has listed the marriage of her two daughters in the “liabilities” column, apparently without considering anything to be much amiss.
The Supreme Court’s official website in its assets of sitting judges column gives Justice Mishra’s declaration in which she lists “two daughters to be married” in the liabilities column. This might be a sentiment still shared by a section of the middle class, but could be regarded as politically incorrect, especially on the part of India’s senior-most woman judge.
Other entries in the liabilities column are “guarantor for education loan of my daughter” and residential house to be built post-retirement. The view that daughters are a “liability” (often because of the high cost of their marriage), or a burden of some sort, is a notion the government is fighting to eradicate through campaigns. The declaration is likely to attract comment as it is does not seem in sync with the Supreme Court’s otherwise progressive image on social issues in general and women’s rights in particular.
It could be seen to be betraying a thinking on which the Supreme Court is often called to deliberate while handling sensitive gender parity cases.
The assets of Justice Mishra, who formerly headed the Chhattisgarh high court, has declared are not out of the ordinary. “Stridhan” of one gold set and “few gold rings and a pair of bangles” are listed under jewellery. There are no shares or mutual funds and fixed deposits total just 5 lakh.

CSR : Percentage Debate

2010-12-22T18:32:00.000-08:00

Neither voluntary, nor mandatory, somewhere in between! We are in a battle of brains. The debate is turning interesting. While Govt. clearly wants Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) be in place in letter and spirit, it is giving space to corporate houses to align itself to new realities. Minister of Corporate Affairs is categorical in his statement, “There can be business without charity. There can be charity without business. But there can be no business without orporate social responsibility.” He removes the fuzziness about CSR in saying, "To say that you will protect your labour force with proper equipment and proper clothing is not CSR, but giving people of the area similar equipment because they are living in an inherently dangerous area may be corporate social responsibility."

Now comes the percentage debate. The reaction from corporate bodies are interesting. Reproducing it from today's ET.

Govt won’t set CSR floor for India Inc

Firms Won’t Need To Spend 2% Of Profit

Souvik Sanyal & Deepshikha Sikarwar
NEW DELHI

THE government has watered down its proposal on corporate social responsibility (CSR) by not including a provision in the Companies Bill that would have mandated firms to spend 2% of their profit on social causes.
The final proposal only requires a company to have a policy that targets to spend 2% of its profit on CSR. The bill, however, seeks to make it compulsory for a company to give details of the money it has spent on CSR in its annual report.
“Companies will have to have a policy as to how they will spend 2% of their profit on CSR and there must be a disclosure if the money has been spent,” Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told ET. “You can say it is not entirely voluntary, might say it is not mandatory. It is in between somewhere.”
The proposal is a dilution of the government’s stance before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance that it was considering making the CSR spend mandatory.
The government had suggested that it could ask companies having a minimum net worth of 500 crore, or an annual turnover of 1,000 crore, or a net profit of 5 crore in a year to spend at least 2% of their average net profit during the three preceding fiscals on CSR.
While the general view is that companies would welcome a dilution in the government’s stance, some in the corporate world say there is actually no dilution.“This is mandating a 2% CSR spend without actually mandating it,” the representative of an industry body said. CII for voluntary CSR spend
“How can a company declare in its annual report it has not spent on corporate social responsibility?”
In a presentation to the government, the Confederation of Indian Industry had demanded that the new law should not specify an amount to be spent on CSR, and that a decision on the actual spend be left to company boards. The industry body had suggested that CSR should be voluntary and backed by a system of state recognition and honour. Khurshid said the government could give incentives to companies at some stage.
“There are no built-in incentives... But let’s see, in future we may look at some incentives,” he said adding that his ministry was still working on the idea of CSR credits and their trading.
The actual spend of most companies on CSR is well below the 2% threshold, and much of it would not be considered if a strict definition is applied.
But central public sector enterprises have a policy that requires them to spend 0.5-5% of their net profit on CSR activities.
The minister said he was not in favour of linking CSR to a company’s area of operation. “To say that you will protect your labour force with proper equipment and proper clothing is not CSR,” he said. “But giving people of the area similar equipment because they are living in an inherently dangerous area may be orporate social responsibility.”
“You have to draw a line between charity, philanthropy and CSR,” Khurshid said. “There can be business without charity. There can be charity without business. But there can be no business without orporate social responsibility.”

Majorana Returns

2010-12-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

This was the title of a Nature article in describing renewed interest in the work of Ettore Majorana, a prodigy who made a sudden disappearance when he was only 32 years old. In Fermi's team he pocketed all the prize money whenever a bet was fixed on solution to a scientific problem. However, paper writing, publishing appeared unexciting to him and at least two of his ideas won Nobel prizes later and he was not credited with. B. R. Holstein in his review writes,

"Majorana was a reluctant author. Once he discovered something he considered his own work to be banal. Once a problem was solved Majorana was very reluctant to write anything up on it. An example was the discovery of the neutron. Work by Joliot and Curie in France discovered a neutral particle that can enter matter and expel a proton. their conclusion was that it must be a photon, because at the time it was the only know particle with no charge. Majorana saw immediately that it must be a particle with a mass near that of the proton, in order to move something as heavy as the proton. When he heard this, Fermi urged him to write it up immediately, but nothing happened and soon thereafter Chadwick was given the credit for discovery of the neutron for his work in berylium."

The much talked about neutrino paper would not have seen the day, at least Majorana as author had not he needed a publication list for a position to support his application. This is the famous paper on Neutrino work by Majorana, but was written by Fermi. There are only 9 publications against his name.

In the words of Fermi, "There are many categories of scientists, people of second and third rank, who do their best, but do not go very far. There are also people of first class, who make great discoveries, which are of capital importance for the development of science. But then there are the geniuses, like Galileo and Newton. Well, Ettore was one of these. Majorana had greater gifts than anyone else in the world; unfortunately he lacked one quality which other men generally have: plain common sense."

His disappearance is linked to many theories : spiritual quest, reluctance to be a part of nuclear weapon making group, suicide etc. On March 25, 1938 this is what he wrote to Director of his institute where he leaves a hint of this exit plan.

Dear Carrelli,
I made a decision that has become unavoidable. There isn't a bit of selfishness in it, but I realize what trouble my sudden disappearance will cause you and the students. For this as well, I beg your forgiveness, but especially for betraying the trust, the sincere friendship and the sympathy you gave me over the past months. I ask you to remind me to all those I learned to know and appreciate in your Institute, especially Sciuti: I will keep a fond memory of them all at least until 11 pm tonight, possibly later too.
E. Majorana

Some of the links related to Mjorana are:

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29664
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/box/nphys1380_BX1.html
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v5/n9/full/nphys1380.html
http://www.physics.sc.edu/CISNP/workshop/Holstein-majorana.pdf

I read an article on Majorana yesterday where the author quotes following lines of William Blake paying tribute to this genius.

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

Useful USB

2010-12-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

Not everyone reads Economic Times or 3-4 newspaper every morning. They may not be reading these posts either :-) However, newspaper articles have a short life cycle. Feel like sharing this from today's ET. Tech. geeks may be already aware of them but not commoners like me.

10 Best Uses Of A USB Drive

Have any old USB drives lying around? You can use them for more than just data transfer. Hitesh Raj Bhagat outlines ten ways how you can put that drive to good use

THE humble pen drive has been around for a long time. Prices have never been cheaper, and larger capacities are easily available too. If you're a computer user, you probably have several of them. Apart from using them to just transport your data, there are a myriad other uses for one, as long as you have a one with a decent capacity and speed. For most of these uses, a 2GB drive (prices start at 250) is more than sufficient, though as is always the case with digital storage, more the merrier!
Run PortableApps
PortableApps is a Windows launcher that can run entirely from your USB drive. What this means is that you can carry a suite of all your favorite applications like Firefox, Chrome, VLC Media Player, Foxit Reader, 7-Zip and more, all on the drive. Plug it into any remote computer and you’ll have all your favorite applications with you. All you have to do is head to the website and download the PortableApps program. There are even preselected app bundles available for download.
Get it from www .portableapps .com
Computer maintenance & troubleshooting
A USB drive can play host to various applications that can help fix, maintain or troubleshoot a computer in need. First, you can start with Trend Micro’s HouseCall or Kaspersky’s virus removal tool. Glary Utilities can be run to do a complete maintenance check (registry clean, removal of temporary files, manage startup programs). Finally, Ultimate Defrag can be used organise the files for better speed and reliability.
Get all the apps from
www .pendriveapps .com
Run an alternate operating system
Linux and various versions of it are available for free. But some special versions of Linux like Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux and Xubuntu are small and light enough to be run completely from a USB drive. This means that you can run and check out Linux for yourself on any existing Windows computer, without making any changes to it! The added advantages of these ‘Live’ builds of Linux is that they have very minimal hardware requirements, which makes them blazing fast, even on older machines.
Get them from www .puppylinux .org, www .damnsmalllinux .org, www .xubuntu .org
Automated backup of selected folders
You may have a 500GB hard drive in your computer, but the most important data to you on that drive will be lesser. It could be a folder of your photographs, videos, songs or important documents. Rather than take a complete backup of the drive which is a time-consuming process, you can use Microsoft's SyncToy to selectively backup and synchronise certain folders between the hard drive and an external USB flash drive. Once configured, all you have to do is plug the drive in to backup the folder.
Get it from: http ://goo .gl /Zz 77 V
Run a complete media player
XBMC (Xbox Media Center) started out as media center for the Microsoft Xbox, but is now versatile software for PCs to playback multiple formats of multimedia files in a slick interface. XBMC Live is a special version, designed to run from USB drives and it can be used to run a pre-configured version of XBMC on any machine for demo purposes. Pretty much anyone who sees the Live version gets the full version instantly.
Get it from: http ://xbmc .org /download
Encrypted Data with self-destruct feature
If you're paranoid about someone stealing data from your USB drive, you can secure the data with USB SafeGuard. It encrypts data on the drive with advanced AES 256-bit encryption. You can assign a password to selected folders or to the entire drive. And there’s a setting that can erase the entire contents of the drive if someone enters a wrong password too many times.
Get it from
http ://usbsafeguard .altervista .org
Work securely on a remote computer
Democrakey offers a suite of handy applications that you can store and run from your USB drive. When you are away from your own PC and want to use the Internet on an unknown PC, Democrakey can keep your data and information safe. It includes the Tor Browser (for anonymous web browsing), Clamwin (to check the PC for viruses), AbiWord (to read Word documents) Thunderbird Portable (with pre-installed add-ons to send anonymous email) and TrueCrypt (for file encryption).
Get it from www .democrakey .com
Increase performance with Ready Boost
With Windows Vista and Windows 7, if you have a fast enough USB flash drive, you can use it for Ready Boost. Ready Boost is a feature that uses the space on your USB drive as extra RAM, instantly boosting the overall speed of your Windows system and programs. Not all USB drives are fast enough to be used for Ready Boost. To check, right click on the drive's icon in My Computer, click Tools and then the Ready Boost tab.
For more information: http ://goo .gl /JztRI
Use it as a ‘key’ to access several PCs
You might have seen this before in the movies; a USB drive is inserted into a computer and it immediately springs to life. A free application called Predator can be used for exactly the same thing. Download and install Predator, and pair a USB drive with it. With the USB drive plugged in, you can continue to work, but as soon as it is removed, the screen darkens, the computer locks, and keyboard/mouse input is disabled. Plug it back in, and normal usage is restored.
Get it from: www .montpellierinformatique.com/predator
Make a “life-backup”
This can literally be a life saver. Many of us may have not stopped to think about what would happen if we lost all our belongings in a fire, flood or natural calamity. The size and portability of a USB flash drive is actually ideal to store digital copies of all your important documents like bank information, credit card details, birth certificates, legal papers, insurance papers and anything else that ties into yours or your family’s life. Be sure to keep one away at in a locker or at a friend's place in another city for extra peace of mind.

Also Happens

2010-12-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

Don't know how to interpret it or the underlying dynamics. It need not be a comic aberration. There may be much much more than what the article tells.

Beggar’s election as gram pradhan sparks debate

Arvind Singh Bisht | TNN Dec. 19, 2010

Lucknow: Can a beggar hold a public office? The question hangs thick after Narayan Nat, a 50-year-old beggar, has been elected as gram pradhan of Sahawar Shah of Badaun district in the just concluded panchayat polls in UP.
The issue has come under scrutiny as law prohibits begging. It is a declared offence and deemed a social evil, both under the Central and the UP Acts meant to discourage begging. This is thus argued that begging is contrary to the morality, which is the essence of democracy.
A debate over the issue holds views both in favour and against Nat’s election. While the development is hailed by radicals as a warning against corrupt politicians, traditionalist and jurists disagree with this. They feel the issue needs to be given a serious thought, as legitimising the malice of begging will only give way to similar other immoral activities like immoral trafficking and gambling in the public domain.
When asked to comment on the issue, DM, Banda, Amit Gupta said: “Nat stands to be disqualified, if he does not give up begging after assuming his post.” Section 92 of the UP Panchayat Act empowers DM to disqualify gram pradhan for any post-electoral misconduct.
However, another side of the issue is that the election of Nat is seen as a rare feat and a warning to the corrupt politicians. As put by UP Congress legislature party leader, Pramod Tiwari: “Technically, Nat’s victory may be incorrect because begging is punishable under the law, but otherwise, his rise reflects the public mind and anger against corruption, practised today by almost all the politicians.”
Reacting sharply to this, C B Pandey, a retired judge and former advisor to the UP governor, said that in spite of everything, begging couldn’t be legitimised. He said that Nat should be disqualified. All the more reason for this, he said, was that Nat in his public position had proudly announced to continue begging.

Step Mother?

2010-12-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

The NGO Shakti Vahini helped with crucial leads. “Two of our girls even posed as decoys and intercepted Tahira,” said Rishikant, a social activist heading the operations of the NGO. Valiant effort! And the role of a Step Mother ...

First, today's The Telegraph : The perseverance of an unlettered stepmother, the helping hand of a lawyer’s clerk and the caring instincts of a judge and the insistence of the court jolted Bengal police to launch a hunt that took them to the girl who was sold for Rs 5,000 by a trafficker.

A CID team from Calcutta, with the help of Delhi police, rescued a “traumatised” Yasmin Khatun (name changed), now 16, from a hideout in west Delhi’s Begumpur today.

“The girl was rescued from a house in a raid carried out jointly by our team and Bengal police early today. She had been kidnapped and kept in a house in Begumpur,” Ashok Chand, deputy commissioner (crime branch) of Delhi police, said.

Nishan Pervez, special superintendent of police, CID, said his team had confirmed that the girl was the same person reported missing from Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas.

P. Nirajnayan, IG, Bengal CID, said the girl was “traumatised” and had been sent for medical examination.

Plucked away by a gang of traffickers, Yasmin’s story is testimony to the free run gangs of traffickers enjoy in Bengal’s poverty-ridden villages.

Yasmin would have remained another piece of the cold statistics that say 2,500 teenaged girls disappear from Bengal every year but for the combined efforts of an unlikely group of people brought together by the persistence of her stepmother Johora Bibi.

‘I knew our daughter would come back’

Sumati Yengkhom | TNN Dec. 17, 2010

Kolkata: On April 15, 2009, Tahira Khatun had gone to a village fair — barely 200 metres from her home at Balikhal in Kakdwip, South 24-Parganas — never to return. Her sisterin-law, Jasmira Biwi, returned home late in the evening and told the family that she could not locate Tahira in the crowd.
The family launched a manhunt in the village that very night. A few locals, such as Mohiuddin Biwi, told the family that they had seen Tahira getting into a Maruti Omni around 10.30pm. They also spotted one Kaus Mir and Anwar Bhangi (all from the locality) bundling her into the vehicle, along with one Kashmira Biwi who is allegedly involved in the flesh trade racket.
Suspecting that Tahira would be pushed into flesh trade, the girl’s father, Khater Visti, filed a diary the next day with the Dholahat police and lodged a complaint against six local residents, accusing them of kidnapping the girl.
When police failed to fetch any information on Tahira for about two months, the family moved the Kakdwip ACJM court with a writ petition in June. As no one in the family is literate, they were being assisted by Rafique Ahmed Darjee, a lawyer’s clerk. At the same time, the family knocked on the doors of senior police officers, including the Kakdiwp SDPO and the district SP. They even went to the state women’s commission.
The agony at not finding her daughter hit her mother Samira Biwi very hard. Samira was already suffering from mental illness. Her condition deteriorated after Tahira went missing. Samira had stopped communicating with anyone. She occasionally asked when her daughter would come back home. Moved by her plight, Tahira’s step-mother Johra Biwi (Khater’s second wife) stepped in and moved Calcutta high court in July 2009.
“I could not bear to see Tahira’s mother suffering silently. Moreover, I brought up Tahira myself due to her mother’s mental condition. She was just a few months old when I got married. She was very attached to me,” Johra said.
Though some of the accused were arrested, police failed to trace the girl, adding to the family’s agony.
The matter was finally transferred to the court of the chief justice in April this year and was subsequently treated as a PIL In September. In a landmark judgment, the high court directed the director general of police (DGP) to trace and produce the girl by November 12.
Tahira was finally traced in Delhi on Thursday. State ADG (law and order) Surajit Kar Purakayastha said a team from the state CID and the Delhi Police had been able to trace the girl.

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A Follow-up : First, from today's (18th Dec.) The Telegraph and then ToI

Girl recoils at fear of ostracism in Bengal
- ‘Tortured, humiliated and brainwashed’

IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI

New Delhi, Dec. 17: Kidnapped and sold last year and rescued from Delhi yesterday, 16-year-old Bengal girl Yasmin Khatun says she doesn’t want to return home for fear of ostracism.

Consumed with shame and misplaced guilt at the “different” life she has led for the past year and a half, Yasmin (name changed) has told police and social workers she has “grave doubts” about ever being accepted by the people of her South 24-Parganas village, Balikhali.

“She is both traumatised and humiliated,” said Bengal CID inspector Sarbari Bhattacharya, the leader of the police team that came to Delhi to rescue the Kakdwip girl who was abducted in April last year.

“She told me she doesn’t want to go back to Bengal because she is unsure how she would be received. She wants to remain in Delhi. The traffickers who brought her to Delhi have brainwashed her into thinking that she would be humiliated and taunted by her own people if she ever returns home.”

Tomorrow, the Delhi government’s child welfare committee (CWC) will counsel Yasmin and try to dispel her fears. At some point of time, Yasmin may have to travel at least to Calcutta, whose high court has asked the police to produce her.

CWC chairperson Neera Mallick, however, said: “The girl needs counselling at least for the next six months before she is exposed to the world.”

Inspector Bhattacharya said the traffickers would torture Yasmin every time she said she wanted to return home, and had brainwashed her into thinking that after her life in Delhi, she would be an “untouchable” back in Bengal.

“She is confused,” Bhattacharya said. “Sometimes she smiles and sometimes she suddenly starts crying.”

Over a period of time, the officer said, Yasmin began believing she would never be able to leave and began accepting her life in Delhi. Her tormentors then started tutoring her in etiquette and the social graces, and bought her expensive dresses, to transform the rustic girl into a “lady of society”.

“I was surprised last night when, while having dinner, she suddenly asked for a napkin,” Bhattacharya said. “I never expected that from a village girl. But I quickly realised that the traffickers had been grooming her. The room we rescued her from had an air-conditioner.”

Rashi Aditi Ghosh, of the NGO Shakti Vahini, who had accompanied the police on the raid to rescue the girl, too said that Yasmin had told her she didn’t want to “go back to her baba and maa”.

“She said she was disgusted with her father’s foul behaviour. She seemed confused and may not be telling the whole truth.”

It’s not clear what Yasmin has against her 61-year-old father Khater Bhisti, a fish seller, but she owes her freedom to her unlettered stepmother Johora Bibi who, faced with initial police apathy, fought a lone crusade to take the battle to the high court.

Ghosh said her NGO had helped rescue many trafficked girls and that she did not find Yasmin’s behaviour unusual. Having accepted their new life, especially the “material comforts” that come with it, many of the girls are reluctant to return home.

“Yasmin is ashamed of the life she has been forced to lead but, at the same time, she has grown used to the comforts. In this confused state she may be trying to find excuses not to return home,” Ghosh said.

“Many girls we have rescued have behaved in this way, but she needs counselling and someone she can open her heart to.”

For now, Yasmin is staying at Nirmal Chhaya, a home for girls run by the Delhi government’s social welfare department.

Rescued girl doesn’t want to go home

Alleges Sexual Abuse By Kin; NGO Says Story Could’ve Been Fabricated To Avoid Poverty

Sumati Yengkhom & Dwaipayan Ghosh | TNN

Kolkata/New Delhi: For more than a year, Johura Biwi fought relentlessly to get her step-daughter home. In fact, it was the grit and determination of this illiterate-but-feisty village woman that led to Tahira Khatun (16) being finally traced. Otherwise, the minor girl from this nondescript village called Balikhal in Kakdwip subdivision of South 24-Parganas, would have remained untraced like scores of girls who go missing from the state every year. Tahira, who was trafficked and sold in Delhi, was rescued on Thursday during a joint raid by Delhi Police and a CID team from the state.
When Tahira went missing on Aprli 15 last year, her father Khater Vishti had filed a missing complaint with Dholahat police station. But in a few weeks, the fisherman, in his 60s, got busy with work as he has to feed the family. And since Tahira’s mother Samira Biwi suffers from mental disorder, it was left to Johura, in her late 30s, to take up the fight.
“From kitchen to court, it has been a long journey. I had hardly ventured out of the village till I dragged myself out as I knew I had to find our daughter back. Going to the police station was frightening initially. Then I got going with the support of the family,” said Johura who is Khater Vishti’s second wife.
The news that Tahira has been traced has brought a lot of relief to the family. They are now waiting for Tahira to come back home. Her mother Samira Biwi specially is getting impatience.
But Tahira has reportedly expressed that she does not want to go back home. In a startling revelation, the girl is believed to have told her counsellor Rashi Aditi Ghosh in Delhi that a close relative had tried to exploit her sexually earlier. Though she admitted that she was sold off by the accused in Delhi, she is apparently not comfortable with the idea of going back home.
However, there is a high probability of Tahira cooking up stories of this sexual exploitation to avoid going back to poverty. According to Delhi-based NGO Shaktivahini that had provided the counsellors for Tahira, the girl who reportedly is stunningly beautiful, apparently has been making good money. Though she did not operate from red light areas, Kadir, who bought her, possibly had been supplying her to high-profile clients.
“Easy and good money seems to have gone into her head. And it is quite natural for a girl of her age, who is yet to be mature enough to understand what’s good for her and what is not. There is a high chance of the girl fabricating the story of some relatives trying to sexually exploit her so that she is not sent back home. The girl needs counselling,” said Rishi Kant of Shativahini.
The girl, who could not even get a square meal back home, now reportedly wears branded clothes and accessories. In two years, the gullible village girl has reportedly transformed into a big city girl who lives life on the fast lane.
According to what Tahira has told Ghosh, she had willingly accompanied her sister-in-law Jasmina on April 15, 2009, when the latter promised her to take her to the fair. “At the fair, she met Kalam — a resident of Park Street in Kolkata — and followed him as he promised her security from her abusive relative. On the way to Kolkata, Kalam allegedly offered her a soft drink laced with sedatives. The next thing she remembers is that she was on a train to Delhi. She was sold off to Azhar for Rs 6,000,” said Ghosh.
Delhi crime branch officers said later, Kadir and Azhar fell out over the share of money. “Kadir was demanding more money for the girl and Azhar sold her for the second time to avoid a confrontation with Kadir,” said the investigating officer.
Cops said the “lead” in their search for Tahira had come after they managed to arrest Kalam from Park Street. They nabbed Azhar after forcing Kalam to call him up and tell him that he had brought “two beautiful girls” from Bengal and wanted to sell them. “Two woman members of the NGO acted as decoys and we arrested him as soon as he tried to escape,” said a senior officer.
Cops said Azhar was a “rich” man who holds several bank accounts on fake identities. Police are now probing whether Azhar’s two wives – one in Hyderabad and the other in Meerut — too were involved in the all-India trafficking racket. “We are also looking into possible links of Azhar in bringing 53 girls from Jharkhand, Bengal and Bihar to the Capital for prostitution just before the Commonwealth Games,” added a crime branch officer.
Azar left Delhi for Kolkata by Rajdhanai Express on a two-day transit remand on Friday evening. However, it might take a couple of days for Tahira to be brought to Kolkata. The Child Welfare board in Delhi is expected to finalise the date on Saturday.

The Telegraph keeps following up.

New Delhi, Dec. 18: Yasmin, the Bengal girl rescued here on Thursday, today said she preferred her “new life” to the poverty and hunger that awaited her back home, shining a light on causes that underpin trafficking and the challenges ahead of rehabilitation agencies.

Yasmin (name changed), 16, also confirmed that her relative Kashmira Bibi had handed her over to traffickers.

“Ghar jaane se achchha hai yahan pe mar jana (better to die here than return home),” the girl, kidnapped from Kakdwip in April last year, told The Telegraph in fluent Hindi.

Yasmin said she had grown used to the comforts of her life in Delhi’s “party circuit”, learnt Hindi and forgotten to speak Bengali in these 20 months, and now called the couple who had bought her “Papa” and “Mummy”.

In her village of Balikhali in South 24-Parganas, “hunger stares one in the face”, she said. “I will die of starvation there. I’ve got used to a life of comfort after sacrificing a lot; there’s no point going back.”

She is also afraid of stigma: “People will laugh at me and make up stories about me…. Now I hate my village and its people.”

Yasmin will, however, have to board the Rajdhani Express tomorrow with Bengal CID officers and will be reaching Calcutta on Monday morning to be presented before the high court. She spoke to this newspaper at Banga Bhavan shortly after counselling by the Delhi government’s child welfare committee (CWC), which cleared her journey to Bengal.

CWC chairperson Neera Mallick said a traumatised Yasmin needed counselling and “a lot of care and affection” for six months before she could be rehabilitated.

“It now depends on the Bengal government how they provide counselling and other facilities to help her return to normal life. If they fail to do so, the girl could return to the world her tormentors had thrown her into.”

Yasmin said her sister-in-law’s sibling Kashmira had handed her over to a man called Kalam, who brought her to Delhi, sexually abused her in a hotel and sold her to Azhar.

She was finally sold to a couple whom she addressed as “Papa” and “Mummy”. The husband, Pappu, groomed her in manners and etiquette, showered her with gifts and gave her a new name: Julie.

“There were five other girls. A woman gave us Hindi lessons. We were given expensive clothes and good food. I loved my air-conditioned room; I drank only mineral water. I would go to a lot of parties and have been to big hotels too. After a few months, I accepted the new life like the other girls,” she said.

“They (Pappu and his wife) have given me a lot and I want to go back to them.”

Pappu went into hiding after Thursday’s police raid netted Azhar and rescued Yasmin.

Yasmin said she had recently met a man from Moradabad, who had promised to marry her after two years. “He owns a mutton shop. I want a happy life, not a life like the girls at my village have.”

She said her father Khater Bhisti, a 61-year-old fish seller, was a harsh man and had pulled her out of school after Class III, fearing she might run away with somebody. “I wanted to continue studying....”

Did she miss her village? “I have a very close friend, Mohitan, there... but she would have been married off by now.”

One day last year, after her father had behaved particularly badly with her, Kashmira had promised to find her a job outside Bengal.

“She told me my father and stepmother hated me,” said Yasmin, who has been rescued thanks to her illiterate stepmother’s unyielding crusade against police apathy.

On April 15, 2009, Yasmin was returning home after watching a circus when Kashmira introduced her to Kalam, who was waiting on a motorcycle, and asked her to go with him, Yasmin said. “I didn’t know he would sell me off.”

Kalam, a 32-year-old Calcuttan, rode straight to Howrah station and boarded a train with her, saying he would find her a job. In Delhi, he took her to a hotel, spiked her soft drinks and assaulted her, Yasmin said. “I wept a lot that day.”

The next day, she was sold off to Azhar. “They (Azhar and his associates) tortured me. When I wanted to go back to my village, they threatened to kill me.”

Kalam, arrested in November on trafficking charges, had helped the police arrest Azhar here on Thursday. Both reached Calcutta today with a CID team. Azhar will be produced in Kakdwip court tomorrow.

Azhar, who wore Versace woollens and Nike sneakers, has allegedly told the police he had contacts across Bengal who would traffic girls to him.

Vigil

2010-11-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

This is one example of how it can be made to work, the ones that are supposed to work. The study revealed that the following were behind the success.

1. Teachers took the teacher-training seriously
2. School admin. visited the school more than 20 times in a year i.e. once every 2-3 weeks
3. Community monitoring in the mother - teacher committee was active

And this primary school is situated in one of the backward district of West Bengal (Barjora block of district Bankura). The village has more than 90 percent population belonging to backward caste and minority community. This makes the feat even more praiseworthy.

What do we learn from this?

While on one hand there is a need to rush help to backward places but a more permanent, self-reliant system can emerge if we try to make the existing machinery work effectively, maintaining vigil, recognizing superlative effort - thereby playing a catalytic role, not running something in parallel unless there is emergency or taken up as a short term measure. Greater effort should be made to make schools already in place function better.

May be we need to understand their pain points and address them.
May be we need to arrange school level, block level and then district level competition and reward students, mentoring teachers, school admin. and recognize their effort and boost their confidence.
May be we need to take up academic oriented project like publication of magazine where every school is given 4 pages each to provide content (article, drawing etc.)
May be we need to organize workshops for teachers which would be more like a get-together, picnic, edutainment gifts for their students - no preaching but success stories will be shared (no negatives, there are and will be challenges - important is how to overcome)
....

I shall add more points if they occur to me, also readers are most welcome to suggest. The idea is to make them feel good, increase confidence and stand by them instead of finding faults. May be voluntary youth groups, NSS units as those in IITs join hands and treat the people working at the grass root level as partner for a stronger and better India.

The above shows that they have the potential to excel. They are spread far and wide while youth organizations are serving only pockets and often not in a sustained manner or treated as outsider. The idea is to tap the potential of whatever is already there and channelize the energy, enthusiasm of youth groups in a more effective manner.

The little experience we have gained so far, the Govt. always encourages this and there is a sense of admiration when IIT students try to reach out to villages. Come on, folks! Let's do it.

Here is the link where this study has been published today
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Bengals-primary-education-myth-busted/articleshow/6979155.cms

Backbencher

2010-11-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

“At Shibpur Dinabandhu Institution, I was a backbencher. Those of us who sat at the back were treated shabbily."

What makes people take note of a backbencher? Today's edition of The Telegraph comes up with this ennobling article.

A 73-year-old retired teacher, who has almost lost an eye to glaucoma and suffers from throat cancer, has been taking classes gratis at his old school for 12 years in a state where the government had to ban private tuition so that teachers do not neglect classes.

He is Prasanta Kumar Banerjee who retired in February 1998 but his passion for teaching soon drove him back to the classroom. The Shibpur resident had cut down on classes only a year back, on the advice of doctors who had diagnosed his throat cancer.

“I love teaching, especially those who are considered backbenchers. From my experience, I know each student can do well if he is taught properly and confidence is instilled in him. Poverty and family problems keep many children from performing to their potential.”

In Banerjee’s case, poverty forced him to concentrate on studies so that he could contribute to the family income. His father Jatindranath, an employee of the Survey of India at Shillong, Meghalaya, had died when he was only a year old, leaving the family of eight desperately in need of money.

They returned to their ancestral home in Shibpur. Prasanta and two of his elder brothers were admitted to the primary section of Shibpur Dinabandhu Institution. In Class IX, he failed twice and had to switch to Praganananda Saraswati Vidhalaya.

Banerjee returned to Praganananda Vidhalaya as a teacher in 1960 after completing his BA from ND College, Howrah.

“Soon after joining, I discovered that there were many students who needed extra care. I asked them to come to my home for extra classes, for which I did not take money. But since I believe that students should give their teachers gurudakshina, I used to take a haritaki (chebulic myrobalans), a poitey (sacred thread) and 25 paise from each.”

Milan Chakraborty, a Howrah doctor who is one of the many students whose future Banerjee shaped, recounted: “All students, whether they were meritorious or not, liked to attend sir’s history and Bengali classes. He taught so well that the classes seemed fun.”

Now comes the turning point. What made this backbencher beat all where it really counts?

"At Praganananda Vidhalaya, the then headmaster, late Makhanlal Chattopadhyay, was a wonderful teacher. He encouraged and motivated me. I soon became better at studies. That was when I realised that teaching with care and affection could turn a bad boy into a good one.”

"Each soul is potentially divine," says Vivekananda, "The goal is to manifest that divinity."

(The content appeared in today's edition of The Telegrapph.)

Expertize

2010-10-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

Narayan Murthy, Infosys founder are available for comments on various topics. He does not shy away for making his views known. His take on two topics are reproduced below. One is close to his field of interest, where his expertize lies. The other is little far. And the difference is palpable. First excerpts from his interview appearing in today's Economic Times.

On another note, one of the US Senators referred to the Indian IT companies as ‘chop shops’. Did the remark dismay you?
If somebody who knew what we were doing or had an industry view or were a respected analyst, we would be worried. But somebody who has no idea what this industry is all about and the kind of infrastructure we have built here and in 70 other countries, makes such a statement, we should be charitable to such a person. All of us, when we get older, tend to do things that are not the best. Once in a while our logic lapses, our memory lapses, we tend to say things we don’t mean. So I’d say let us look at it in that spirit.

Next is his observation on Science & Technology in India that appeared on The Hindu, dated 28th October.

Industry finances about 75 per cent of the R&D in Korea and Japan, 70 per cent in China and 65 per cent in the U.S. In India, by contrast, the government finances more than 80 per cent of our R&D expenditure. In a recent report, the Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister noted: “Except in sectors like pharmaceuticals and drugs, our industry does not appear to be making major investments in and demands on Indian science.” Shouldn't Indian industry, especially the high-technology sectors, be doing more to create and drive domestic R&D?

I think it works both ways. While the Indian industry has to show more interest in collaborating with the Indian academic community, it is necessary for the Indian academic community to show more interest in working with industry. Let me give you a very simple example. Every year, I receive a number of visitors from several International universities like Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan, etc, etc. The professors from these universities are so keen on solving our problems. I would be very happy to also receive professors from our own institutions like the Indian Institute of Science, the IITs, and others. Our academicians must be interested in solving our problems.

Many multi-nationals have established R&D facilities in India. Do you think India's Information Technology industry is doing enough by way of creating R&D capabilities for itself?

We at Infosys have our software engineering and technology laboratories where there are 600 people working on issues that are relevant to our needs. So those are huge research laboratories. I think there are other companies too, which have such things. So therefore the answer is yes.

The best students will always go to where they get the best jobs and pay, and that is to be found in industry these days. A research career on the other hand, means protracted training and less remuneration. So how does one make such a career attractive to young people?

I have suggested several times to various institutions that for every paper that is produced in a world-class refereed journal, they could give Rs. four lakh. So that if you produce four papers in a year, then you have got Rs. 16 lakh. Add to that a salary of Rs. six or eight lakh a year, then you have got a decent sum.

Does anybody see a connection between these two interviews? There are few comments by academicians on the later in a blog maintained by an IISc Professor http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/2010/10/nr-narayana-murthy-on-how-to-attract.html#comments . Excerpts from that.

1. "Where do the institutions get the money to give 4 lakhs per paper?..What happens when industry hikes the salary to put the 4 lakhs/paper money to shame?...Scientific research is not a money-making enterprise. It is high time people realize that. If they dont, I doubt whether they would really have the patience to spend years on researching something that might or might not throw up cool results. The type of folks who cant see beyond the $$ cant bet a scientist - they are more suited to be a manager and deserve to be in the industry....IMHO, the other benefits of an academic life are equally, if not more important than the $$$ - freedom to choose research topics, get adequate research funding, access to quality research facilities, all the while earning an amount that lets us life comfortably (and given the campus housing, one doesnt even need to think beyond the 6-8 lakhs of basic salary). Long time back, I recall a professor telling me "The difference between the industry and the academic payscale is the amount of money you are willing to pay for your freedom". This is something anyone wanting to come to academics will do well to keep in mind. There is a price to be paid for everything."

2. "Mr Narayana Murthy seems to be the typical Indian businessman: he thinks throwing money is enough to solve any problem. I am disappointed....But the first question really is -- do we need more scientists at our existing research institutions? I think not. What we need is more and better universities. And, of course, scientists to fund those universities -- but we need to make our universities attractive places for a career in science (and humanities and other fields). Perhaps Mr Narayana Murthy has thought about throwing money at that problem?"

3. "The views of Narayan Murthy are hardly surprising. He has always been fairly trivial, particularly with regard to education, science and research. For them everything boils down to money. Just because you started a successful outsourcing company does not mean you have the wisdom to know how to encourage research...BTW by his prescription (and to make it slightly ridiculous) Einstein's paper, say on special relativity, and say any one of my papers, say in Physical Review D would get Rs 4 lakhs each. How nice...didn't know my papers had equal value. And poor Mr Einstein would finally end up with fewer lakhs than many of our local scientists who are paper producing factories."

Strong words. From what he said in today's paper, we may find Murthy worrying about these comments and soon we shall have something from him in another interview. Till then ...

Flat Rate

2010-10-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Eradicating poverty with flat rate of interest? SKS Microfinace, the largest in India with 73 lakhs of customers is in limelight for two reasons - hugely successful IPO and sacking of its CEO immediately after that. This got attention of people and we get educated about this flat rate of interest the profiteering microfinance companies charge. Today's edition of TOI reports, "While offering a loan, they often quote a “10% flat” rate of interest, which, on the face of it, appears like a good deal. However, there is a catch. This ‘flat’ rate of interest means that it will not be calculated on reducing balance. It implies that even after the borrower has paid a few installments, the interest would still be calculated on the initial sum borrowed, and not on the balance loan amount. The result is a (hidden) final rate of interest of 24-30%, or even higher for the poor who can barely afford a square meal a day. “Microfinance, as practised by MFIs is unethical to the extent that it evades the truth in lending,” said R Balakrishnan, a financial market veteran turned independent adviser." And SKS uses 12.5% of flat rate of interest!!!

Now one cannot be faulted to think them as "no better than moneylenders but have so far been able to operate under the pious garb of poverty eradicators."

Add to this the strong arm tactics used. TOI further says,"The high rate of interest is also leading to defaults and fraud. Recently, there has been a spurt in suicides in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, allegedly due to harassment by MFI agents who started resorting to strong-arm tactics to recover loans as chances of default rise. M Subba Rao, of NGO Masses, who trained under Grameen Bank founder and Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh, describes the cases of alleged harassment by MFIs as the result of ‘irresponsible lending’. “There is high pressure on the staff (of private MFIs) to lend. They have targets to meet and they dump money (on people) in many cases,” said Rao. Consider this: The loan outstanding, according to the latest estimate by Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN), the organization of 40 MFIs, is about 30,000 crore with about 3 crore poor banking on MFIs for their financial needs. While the four southern states of AP, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala account for a chunk of this borrowing, West Bengal and Orissa too have rural poor relying on MFIs. Besides, the sector is also on an uptick in UP and Haryana."

This was lesson for even seasoned bankers like State Bank of India chief. The concludig part of TOI report says, "Of course, eradicating poverty through the MFI route, for some, is a lucrative business. The IPO document by SKS disclosed that Gurumani was drawing an annual salary of Rs 1.5 crore, an equal amount or more as performance bonus, and also a onetime bonus of Rs 1 crore. Akula is entitled to up to 1% of SKS’s net profit, in addition to ESOPs.
Not surprisingly the ‘success’ of some of the MFIs and the mega-listing of SKS recently have stunned even seasoned bankers. When asked about the success of the MFI business in India, during a recent interview with TOI, O P Bhatt, chairman of State Bank of India, said even he was surprised by their numbers. He wanted to go deeper into their finances and business model to understand how MFIs, who borrow from banks, including SBI, can make profit which these very banks can’t make. The same is the case with some other finance veterans. After all, like mobile tariff plans, no financial product is protected by patents and IPRs and the uniqueness of any new and lucrative one cannot last for more than 24 hours.
The problem seems to be with the business model, and not the approach. In India, largely there are three kinds of MFIs: The self-help groups (SHGs) which are government-supported MFIs, nonprofit NGOs and the private for-profit firms. "

Hiring

2010-10-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

We are yet to see the advt. in IITkgp online notice board. Since closing date is 27th Oct. and in between we have Durga Puja holidays, we are trying various means to reach out to prospective candidates. Feel like putting this up in blog too. A right candidate getting a right opportunity is as precious as a right opportunity getting a right candidate. Expected date of interview is 2nd Nov., 2010 for them who satisfy the criteria mentioned in the advt.

Two Advt. to recruit 2+2 = 4 candiadtes

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

KHARAGPUR – 721 302, INDIA

Administrative Officer (Projects)

ADVERTISEMENT NO. : IIT/SRIC/R/VLS/2010/203(a), DATED 5^th October, 2010

Applications are invited on plain paper for the following assignment in a purely time bound research project undertaken in the Department of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering of this institute.

1.		Name of the temporary assignment		:	Junior / Senior Research Fellow - 2 posts
2.		Name of the temporary research project		:	Virtual Labs [Degital Electronic Circuit Lab (DEC)] (VLS)
3.		Name of the sponsoring Agency		:	MHRD, New Delhi
4.		Consolidated Fellowship/ Compensation		:	Rs.12,000/- - Rs. 18,000/-p.m. (depending upon qualification & experience)
5.	Essential Qualifications & Experience		:			B. Tech / B.E from Electronics / Electrical preferably with valid GATE / NET Score OR M. Tech in Electronics / Electrical Engineering (preferable).
6.	Relevant Experience		:			Competence in Signal Processing, Digital Circuits MATLAB. Programming Knowledge of PHP, Javascript, Flash.

Interested eligible persons may apply on plain paper, giving full bio-data along with attested copies of testimonials to the undersigned on or before 27^th October, 2010.

(S.K. Biswas)

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

KHARAGPUR – 721 302, INDIA

Administrative Officer (Projects)

ADVERTISEMENT NO. : IIT/SRIC/R/VLS/2010/203, DATED 5^th October, 2010

1.		Name of the temporary assignment		:	Junior / Senior Research Fellow - 2 posts
2.		Name of the temporary research project		:	Virtual Labs [Degital Signal Processing Lab (DSP)] (VLS)
3.		Name of the sponsoring Agency		:	MHRD, New Delhi
4.		Consolidated Fellowship/ Compensation		:	Rs.12,000/- - Rs. 18,000/-p.m. (depending upon qualification & experience)
5.	Essential Qualifications & Experience		:			B. Tech / B.E from Electronics / Electrical preferably with valid GATE / NET Score OR M. Tech in Electronics / Electrical Engineering (preferable).
6.	Relevant Experience		:			Competence in Signal Processing, Digital Circuits MATLAB. Programming Knowledge of PHP, Javascript, Flash.

Interested eligible persons may apply on plain paper, giving full bio-data along with attested copies of testimonials to the undersigned on or before 27^th October, 2010.

(S.K. Biswas)

Gold

2010-10-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

The phone call came as a sweet surprise. Deputy Magistrate cum Deputy Collector of Kharagpur was at the other end. "I saw the work that NSS, IIT Kharagpur is doing. I thought that I should ring you and tell that we very much appreciate these initiatives. I wish I could be there on NSS Day celebration (24th Sept.) but for the admin. work. However, I have gone through the links. You are doing great work." We conversed in Bengali and this is a poor translation and I must say I was overwhelmed by that Sunday morning call. All that I could say was to thank him and the district admin. for lending all support and that it is all teamwork.

Now to some more golden moments of last 24 hours.

This advertizement cam up in today's TOI, Kolkata Edition. I do not have any insider information of this organization. Apparently, they are doing well for the masses in healthcare. More important is the message that they want to send across which clear, distinct and loud. Appears that not only they have a heart of gold but they are the ones who do not believe in passive goodness.

Newspapers are bustling these days with the news of a golden girl, Deepika Kumari of Ranchi. Not cowed down by the hardship of an extended family mangaed by father, an auto-rickshaw

driver and mother, a nurse this tribal girl started practising archery only 3 years ago when she was spotted to accurately aim mango fruits in orchards. Besides the most recent Commonwealth Games Gold she won youth world archery championship last year.

Deepika's mother says that Deepika does not have a mobile phone which makes one distract. She is quite appreciative of the seniors in the Indian Archery team and she reaches her through these seniors. Good to see that more famous seniors like Dola Banerjee who received a bronze medal does not envy the younger team member and have taken up the

responsibility of nurturing the talent.

The other gold spot is the Tata Archery Academy who is training most of India's archery talents. It will be wonder if other corporate houses too look at other sports and nurture talent in a nation obsessed with cricket. Now few quotes from Deepika's parents, school teahers from various newspapers: (The Hindu, The Telegrap, Hindustan Times)

Ms. Mahato (Mother), was not too pleased with Deepika taking up archery. “She was the first in the extended family to play any sport. I never supported her decision at the beginning. But now things have changed I feel proud of her,” she said.

“As a Class XI student, she has plenty of school work and Deepika never neglected that part of her life. She is an average student and does well in exams,” said Mr. Mahato.

“She has the ability to concentrate for long and this has helped her,” her parents said.

Her parents don’t have to pay anything for her sport as she gets a monthly stipend of Rs. 6,000 from the Tata Archery Academy, which is enough for her they think.

---

In the crowd in front of the archer’s house was Nand Kishore Jha, the principal of the state-run APEG Residential School, Ratu, where Deepika had studied till Class VIII.

“Deepika scored average marks. She would go unnoticed at school except for the times when she used to target mangoes on the campus. Her target was mostly on the mark. However, in case of misses, she would continue to target that elusive mango till she succeeded. I was impressed by her marksmanship,” Jha recalled.

Another teacher, Chotan Vishwakarma, recalled that Deepika was weak in math. “She passed matriculation in 2009 though she was away most of the time. That year, she clinched a gold medal at World Archery Youth Championship in Ogden and we were proud of her. We had to give her special coaching for two months before her exam,” he said.

CSR

2010-10-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Got interested to know about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Read this article at http://www.ibef.org/artdispview.aspx?in=84&art_id=26104&cat_id=926&page=1 More to come.

There are interesting articles at

http://timesascent.in/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=64&contentid=200905312009053112045370131a710bd

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india-inc-faces-2-csr-levy/407350/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100823101110.htm

---------------

Corporate Social Responsibility / Human Resource

Last Updated: June 2010



Indian companies are now expected to discharge their stakeholder responsibilities and societal obligations, along with their shareholder-wealth maximisation goal. Nearly all leading corporates in India are involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes in areas like education, health, livelihood creation, skill development, and empowerment of weaker sections of the society. Notable efforts have come from the Tata Group, Infosys, Bharti Enterprises, ITC Welcome group, Indian Oil Corporation among others. The 2010 list of Forbes Asia’s ‘48 Heroes of Philanthropy’ contains four Indians. The 2009 list also featured four Indians. India has been named among the top ten Asian countries paying increasing importance towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure norms. India was ranked fourth in the list, according to social enterprise CSR Asia's Asian Sustainability Ranking (ASR), released in October 2009. According to a study undertaken by an industry body in June 2009, which studied the CSR activities of 300 corporate houses, corporate India has spread its CSR activities across 20 states and Union territories, with Maharashtra gaining the most from them. About 36 per cent of the CSR activities are concentrated in the state, followed by about 12 per cent in Gujarat, 10 per cent in Delhi and 9 per cent in Tamil Nadu. The companies have on an aggregate, identified 26 different themes for their CSR initiatives. Of these 26 schemes, community welfare tops the list, followed by education, the environment, health, as well as rural development. Further, according to a study by financial paper, The Economic Times, donations by listed companies grew 8 per cent during the fiscal ended March 2009. The study of disclosures made by companies showed that 760 companies donated US$ 170 million in FY09, up from US$ 156 million in the year-ago period. As many as 108 companies donated over US$ 216,199, up 20 per cent over the previous year. Although corporate India is involved in CSR activities, the central government is working on a framework for quantifying the CSR initiatives of companies to promote them further. According to Minister for Corporate Affairs, Mr Salman Khurshid, one of the ways to attract companies towards CSR work is to develop a system of CSR credits, similar to the system of carbon credits which are given to companies for green initiatives. Moreover, in 2009, the government made it mandatory for all public sector oil companies to spend 2 per cent of their net profits on corporate social responsibility. Besides the private sector, the government is also ensuring that the public sector companies participate actively in CSR initiatives. The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has prepared guidelines for central public sector enterprises to take up important corporate social responsibility projects to be funded by 2-5 per cent of the company's net profits. As per the guidelines, companies with net profit of less than US$ 22.5 million will earmark 3-5 per cent of profit for CSR, companies with net profit of between US$ 22.5 million - US$ 112.5 million, will utilise 2-3 per cent for CSR activities and companies with net profit of over US$ 112.5 million will spend 0.5-2 per cent of net profits for CSR. ----------------------------------- The following points are notable from the document http://www.civilsocietyonline.com/Polic.htm DRAFT NATIONAL POLICY ON THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR - 2006 4.4 There has been much public debate on the voluntary sector, particularly its governance, accountability, and transparency. It is widely believed that the voluntary sector must address these issues through suitable self-regulation, as is the practice in various other fields. The government will encourage the evolution of, and subsequently accord recognition to, an independent, national level, self-regulatory agency for the voluntary sector. 4.5 At the same time, there is need to bolster public confidence in the voluntary sector by opening it up to greater public scrutiny. The Government will encourage Central and State level agencies to introduce norms for filing basic documents in respect of VOs which have been receiving funding by Government agencies and placing them in the public domain (with easy access through the internet) in order to inculcate a spirit of public oversight. 4.6 Public donation is an important source of funds for the voluntary sector, and one that can and must increase substantially. Tax incentives play a positive role in this process. Stocks and shares have become a significant form of wealth in the country today. In order to encourage transfer of shares and stock-options to VOs, the government will consider suitable tax rebates for this form of donation. The government will also simplify and streamline the system for granting income tax exemption status to charitable projects under the Income Tax Act. At the same time, the government will consider tightening administrative and penal procedures to ensure that these incentives are not misused by paper charities for private financial gain. ---------------------------------- The issue raised by Ramesh K. CTO & Human Search Engine at http://www.linkedin.com/answers/non-profit/social-entrepreneurship/NNP_SOC/719461-14264156 is also important. Big problem is identifying the deserving candidates. Misuse of funds by agencies and/or identification of deserving candidates are critical factors. Some donate 'extra' money to tell others that they donate . Corporate Social Responsibility has become a style statement. Many people claim to be into charity. Ask them how much they personally contributed. And then see the salaries of the people working in NGOs/Charity organizations. I also heard that the NGOs can retain some 15% of the contributions for 'operational expenses'. Many people who claim to champion charity may have collected donations from other and they themselves would notnhave contributed a single penny. But, this is a bit better as they are atleast getting some help from others who can. I strongly believe that Corporates can do a lot. Even individuals can do a lot.

Frontpage

2010-09-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

National Service Scheme now is on IIT Kharagpur front page in 'Happenings' section. Nice to see that. Special thanks to Dr. SP and NSS web team of volunteers working under him.

We shall refresh the NSS site regularly with our updates. The NSS Day pictures and videos are currently avaialble at

http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/
http://picasaweb.google.com/gsaha.iitkgp/NSSDAY24THSEP2010#
http://picasaweb.google.com/gsaha.iitkgp/NSSIITKGPGiftToSchools#

http://picasaweb.google.com/gsaha.iitkgp/NSSIITKGPHealthCampExperience#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCE-8N1Dtx0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0RrWjf-xas
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12216947/NSS%20Day/NSS%20Day%2040%20min.wmv

We gratefully acknowledge the help and encouragement we receive from everyone in IITkgp, Govt. officials and local people.

Received a mail this evening from a senior IITkgp faculty member who is Vice Chancellor of an university, encouraging NSS, IIT Kharagpur activities. Another IITkgp faculty member who too is a Vice Chancellor in another university asked us to visit his place and discuss NSS activities (not existing now) there with the students. A few IITkgp alumni too have indirectly approached through some senior students to contribute to NSS cause.

NSS with 20 lakhs nation-wide volunteers is a force with immense potential. IITkgp led from the front in the area of higher education in independent India. It will be great to see it in the forefront of NSS activities too where youth directly participate in rebuilding India, reaching out to the poor and underprivileged.

A Visit

2010-09-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

It was put on the 'NSS Employment Opportunities' mailgroup - a visit to a nearby High School to interact with higher class students on career opportunities. This group of 16 NSS IIT Kharagpur student volunteers are preparing a digest of opportunities at various levels - if someone clears Class VIII, then Class X, Class XII etc., scholarships, jobs, self-employment opportunities. The ones available in mass market are targeted towards those who are more educated and have buying power. Here the target is to reach out all the sections.

This was the fiirst dedicated field trip of the group and we looked for people. A few had a sudden opportunity to visit B.D.O. office and interact with S.D.O., B.D.O., Deputy Magistrates few weeks back. A reader-friendly :-) report from a volunteer as she found it is available here http://ashitaanand.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/what-comes/

We asked for options. The vehicle can accomodate up to 4 students. The no. of students interested were more than 4. The requirement was to have working knowledge of Bengali, the volunteer can speak in simple English or Hindi. Finally, 4 of us set off at 1:30 p.m. on Sat, the 25th Sept. The Arya Vidyapith school is another 2 KM or so on the Big Bazaar Road further away. When we reached there Swami Sunishthananda, Principal, Ramakrishna Mission School, Midnapur was addressing students. I have listened to him before. The audience listened to him with apt attention. The NSS IITkgp student volunteers were spell-bound, they never had an opportunity to participate in such discussion. Being naturally gifted they as IITians usually do not face problem with concentration, control over mind. Here Swamiji was addressing to so called 'ordinary' students who can rise above 'mediocrity' by using mind as a tool. Later it was found that it is equally applicable to IITians too and lots of 'psychological' issues heard in IIT campus may benefit from such discussions. Received the following in mail of one student volunteer .... "I called up my Mom and told her about this. She was glad and wished if she could be there too! " Another volunteer recorded it in his cell phone. I shall share the link later.

If the reader at this point is curious to know what excited the our students so much, a summary is pasted at the end of this post. But that definitely is a poor copy of what actually was experienced. Still it may be useful to many.

Our turn came next. First we had a semi-formal Q & A session. Aftert that we informally met in groups. Even at 4:30 p.m. (SAT is half-day and we were supposed to end at 3 pm) the students did not leave the school and they were hungry for more. The teachers persuaded them to leave as guardians might be anxious. They left only after extracting assurance from us that we would come back. We interacted with the teachers in staff-room, had snacks and when we came out and were about to leave, found some students were still waiting.

Yesterday evening we had a short group meeting. Yes, we'll return to this school and visit other places too. But this first interaction exposed us to some of our short-comings in the preparation. Accordingly, responsibilities were fixed and each student volunteer now will prepare two posters on specific themes related to various opportunities. We'll have approx. 30 such posters in different class rooms and shall interact with the students.

Before I end this section I would like to point to an inspiring article I read in today's The Telegraph, how a school teacher in a non-descript village is making a difference. The link is available here http://telegraphindia.com/1100928/jsp/bengal/story_12991004.jsp
-------
Now the student reports on this visit - minus the names.
On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 8:31 PM, xxxx wrote:
Hi Sir,
These are the few points I recalled till now. A lot of things are storming in mind, might click at a later time. But if you remember some other point apart from these, do mail me. I would love to compile them in a notebook.
- When a man wanted to understand the difference between hell and heaven, he was taken to Hell first. He saw a large table with plenty of delicious and tasty food and a large no. of people on the either side of it. But interestingly, nobody could eat even a bit, as their hands were stretched out, freezed! He was moved by their pathetic condition and wished to go to heaven then. Amazingly, he saw the same situation there too, but the only difference being, the oppositely seated people fed each other! A perfect example of selflessness. This brings out the difference clearly.
- Happiness is like pouring oil from a container to the other - Clear, pure and uninterrupted.
- Theorists say that there's no Absolute Truth. But if you take a bite of a green chilly, you'll certainly end up itching your tongue - Sri Ramakrishna (My Hero!)
- Things which we do out of necessity once, slowly become our habits. Thus go for proper necessities only.
- When you climb a mango tree and place the ladder in the wrong place, the effort you put in to climb up, goes wasted totally. You need to climb down again, find a proper place and again repeat the process. This tells us that when efforts are put in the right place, the same effort leads us to the sweet fruit positively. But on the other hand that effort when put wrongly, goes wasted and yields nothing.
- Our mind can be considered as a "Band Party". Sometimes we need to be spectators. Especially while meditating. We must watch our mind rush past. All thoughts will storm our brains. Then finally, like the procession is out of sight, our mind is totally empty. This is the time we start innovating ideas.

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Goutam Saha wrote:
Thanks xxxx.
The other points? Meditate, u will get :-)
A few that comes to my mind -

- non-local consciousness, conclusion from ... birds - fish movement in a flock ... research on that for traffic control
- Man-Hnush ... Shreya and Preya ... Happiness as a culmination of Saadhan
- Aneroxia example ... obsession ... initially for good, diet control, I was controlling mind ... then phobia ... mind takes over me
- Two wood-cutters ... one always works ... one works, then takes rest, when resting sharpens the axe ... the latter gets more wood ... time needed for oneself to sharpen mind, intellect, the tools which helps us to assimilate, analyze ... meditation, the exercise
- Happiness coming from satisfaction of desire are not real ... all of us are a kind of child and fooled by mother nature ... as mother stops a crying baby by giving a toy ... satifaction of one desire is like getting a toy and feeling happy, only to see another desire cropping up for another toy ... and the real happiness always eludes
- Why sannyasins are called Maharaj, King of Kings when they have no material wealth with them? ... because, even a king begs for more wealth and thus is a begger, no fundamental difference with a roadside beggar
- We don't study Ramayan, Mahabharat, treasure house of wisdom as it has element of fiction ... Hanuman crossing ocean by a jump ... but everyday we consume fiction in TV, Cinema ... spiderman, batman, hollywood movie of aliens ... that has always been the case ... man had always a desire to outgrow himself ... used imagination ... desire to grow big takes us to sea-side or mountain side on vacation and we feel overhelmed ... we taste the infinite through that
- All animals except man are guided by emotion ... Man control emotion as he has control over mind ... exercise that control, have command over mind ... meditation is the key
- If u do not get good result after practising meditation for some time, let me know, I'll conclude whatever Swami Vivekanada has taught is all wrong. Let me see if u can prove that.
- Practise is the key ... it may be difficult initially as mind tricks us and wants to follow the same known path ... Vigyan Maharaj told, "As Guru I asked u to practise, u do that" ... once new track of mind is laid by practise u will start liking it ... now we all take Pnaskura bypass on way to Kolkata and don't go through the crowded town road.

There may be few more.

How was the experience of interaction with students? What preparation is needed on our part when we meet them again on their Annual Day? Can we not complete the compilation? We have to look at opportunities for player, singer ... there are sports quota in Govt. job ... probably one has to represent state.

On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Goutam Saha wrote:

Another point

- lack of patience ... we get whatever we want in a nuclear family when young .. didn't learn to accept 'no', defeat, humiliation ... when we grow up, face challenges ... we give up easily or feel highly agitated, becomes agressive

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 9:35 AM, xxxx wrote:

Thanks a lot Sir! I got a few points (there in your mail) when I was just recalling the whole thing before sleeping, last night. If I get a few more, I'll make sure to mail them too. I called up my Mom and told her about this. She was glad and wished if she could be there too!
I was glad to interact with students, who seemed to have a lot of desire to learn. About the queries of the students, they are much into knowing what must they do clear JEE. Also, they wanted to know whether CBSE is better than WB Board. The girls laid most of their questions on confidence building and concentration development. And some of them wanted an alternative to Engg and Medical (like field of sports, music and other cultural activities).
If you could tell me when their Annual Day is, we could have a more precise deadline for our compilation. And as far as I am concerned, I made a promise to them that I would be visiting their school very soon! :-)
I would convey to the group that we must start the compilation ASAP.
Thanks again Sir.
--------------------------------------------------------
From: xxxx
September 26, 2010 8:01:11 PMSubject: NSS Report

Respected Sir,
I am sorry to be late in submitting my report. I have attached the recordings which I did on that day, which can be played using Quick Time. I have attached my report as well. I have mentioned some of the points, and will will send any new if I am able to write a better one. ........ Please send your suggestions and pardon the misakes which I might have committed. Thanking You,

MY FIRST NSS VISIT
My first NSS visit was really a very encouraging and memorable one. Sir took me, xxxx and xxxx to Aryya Vidyapeeth, where we had been invited for a function and were supposed to interact with the stdudents. We reached there at about 2.00 p.m. When we reached there, Maharaj Ji from Ramkrishna Mission was speaking to the (students). This was the first event of its kind organized there. We also joined them. Teachers and students of the school were already sitting there. Maharaj Ji spoke on various topics like meditation, increasing concentration and how to develop into a complete human being who can be really useful not only to himself, but to the society and country as a whole. He is a really good orator and all of us were just mesmerized listening to him. Everything he explained so clearly and with such logical examples that all of us, even the smallest ones, could easily understand him. He spoke in Bengali, and here I have tried to translate a few of the points on which he spoke, and present the meaning in my own words :

“Today, we talk of freedom and consider ourselves to be free, but the reality is totally else wise. We are enslaved by desires. The modern man is not hesitating in doing something wrong in order to gain some profit. ..... Like a honey bee which gets stuck in the same honey which it comes to enjoy, we are similarly imprisoned by our worldly desires and pleasures. We have forgotten that real joy comes from inside, it is not a commodity to be found outside. No one is satisfied. We want more and more.”

“Meditation is the way to have a proper control on our own mind. It is to be in command of our own senses. Like a road is etched in the mud by vehicles moving constantly over it, similarly we can be in charge of our mind through constantly practicing meditation.”

“Human being can’t consider himself small. He thinks of the infinite. All the movies, like spider-man, batman, etc where you see people doing things which are extraordinary are all a reflection of this desire of man. Use this spirit to your benefit. Make someone great your idol, love him more than your love and you will yourself see how you raise in love ( instead of falling in love as is usually the case ).”

“Heaven is here, hell is here! It just depends on your mentality. Let me explain it by a story. Once a man, after his death, was asked by Yamraaj to express his last wish. The man wanted to see heaven and hell. So he was first taken to hell, where he saw that a large feast had been organized, with all kinds of delicious food items. People were sitting at tables beside the food, but were unable to eat it as both their hands were plastered in full. The man was sad to see this pitiable condition. Next, he was taken to heaven, were also the same thing was there. There was a feast, and the hands were plastered. But here, a person took the food and fed his neighbor, and his neighbor did the same, so everyone was able to enjoy the food. What is the moral? Wherever people forget themselves and think about others, they create a heaven. And whenever we are selfish and worry only for our own benefit, we create a hell. “NOT ME, BUT YOU” and we create a paradise!”

Well, Maharaj Ji spoke a lot more, and I can’t express the complete feeling in words.

After that, we had a question-answer session, where students put up various questions, and this was the place which showed me both the usefulness of the work which we as a group are doing, as well as the amount of work which still remains for us to do in order to come up to the full expectations of the people. This section provided me an insight into the variety of topics like career in music, sports, etc which we need to cover.

Later, we interacted directly with the students and talked with them and clarified some of their doubts. One boy of class X came up to me and asked about the future in Hotel Management. I accept I was not at all prepared for this, and I had to tell him that a basic qualification of class XII pass is required, which I happen to know since one of my relative was in this profession. After that, I need to find out what the possibilities are.

In general, most of the students there wanted to be just well off with a peaceful life. They were not too eager to be an engineer or a doctor in particular. But most of them lacked self confidence. They were pressurized by the upcoming board exams, and it is definitely a thing which I had also encountered. So, many were just asking tips about how to fare well in the exams.

I also saw the brand value of IIT which I had heard. We were literally pampered by the students and the faculty (of the school) alike.

We returned at around 5.00 p.m. I will definitely cherish the memories of this visit for a long time to come. It really inspired me to work harder in NSS and I hope to toil in with some more efforts. I hope we as a group will bring this work to a great finish, as per the expectation of not only sir, but of our own conscience and the society.

random thoughts

Alumni Meet

Farewell 2011

India vs. Bharat

TIME TO THINK

Income inequality doubles in India in 20 yrs

TIMES INSIGHT GROUP

Yours sincerely

Happy Diwali

Directors Speak

Listening To

Life is precious!

Silent Hours

Prof. G. S. Sanyal Passes Away

Rainbow Week

Education @ IIT Kharagpur

Melancholy

CEO : Aaram Se

CEO

Counselling

Holidaying

Hiring Again : 3 positions vacant

Indian Innovations

At a Glance

Walk-in-Interview

Wonderful People

We are Hiring!

Cell Phone Hazard

Biometric

A Converstaion plus Flat Rate Follow Up

Demo

Exit

Resume

Liability

Schoolgirl raped, killed

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 29.12.2010

SC woman judge lists daughters as ‘liabilities’

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 29.12.2010

CSR : Percentage Debate

Govt won’t set CSR floor for India Inc

Firms Won’t Need To Spend 2% Of Profit

Souvik Sanyal & Deepshikha SikarwarNEW DELHI

Majorana Returns

Useful USB

10 Best Uses Of A USB Drive

Have any old USB drives lying around? You can use them for more than just data transfer. Hitesh Raj Bhagat outlines ten ways how you can put that drive to good use

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‘I knew our daughter would come back’

Sumati Yengkhom | TNN Dec. 17, 2010

Rescued girl doesn’t want to go home

Alleges Sexual Abuse By Kin; NGO Says Story Could’ve Been Fabricated To Avoid Poverty

Sumati Yengkhom & Dwaipayan Ghosh | TNN

Vigil

Backbencher

Expertize

Flat Rate

Hiring

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

KHARAGPUR – 721 302, INDIA

Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy

Administrative Officer (Projects)

ADVERTISEMENT NO. : IIT/SRIC/R/VLS/2010/203(a), DATED 5th October, 2010

1.

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2.

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3.

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MHRD, New Delhi

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Souvik Sanyal & Deepshikha Sikarwar
NEW DELHI

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