NSS first day

Just returning from first interaction with student volunteers of my group. I would say it had been an endearing experience. I feel that it is my privilege to work with a team that has the likes of Sauptik, Shishir, Allen, Gautam Kumar (the 'Attention, Stand-at-ease person), Madhusudan, Sujay, Layak (he spoke at the end but did speak), Nibirh ("we have manpower on our side"), Koushik (Gopali Youth Welfare Soc. person, hardselling the idea of donating money :) ), Naveen, Robin, Dinakar, Pranoy, Deepak, Vikash, Prahlad, Sravan, Akhilesh, Sahil (appeared hungry after the psychological contribution :) ) , Sumeet, Shashank ...

Today we tried to understand through discussion the objectve of NSS and how it is sought to be achieved based on the guidelines given to us in a handout. I must say that the discussion was lively and all inclusive and everybody contributed. I asked everybody to speak even if it is repetition of what one has already stated as the act of speaking itself is some kind of assertion. It helps in subscribing to the thought process of the group, removes complex, if any and develops team spirit. It was great to see everbody coming forward. Good work, boys!

The NSS guidelines and and how the team interpreted it (summarized, in bracket) is presented next.

The objective of NSS is "Development of the Personality of Students through Community Service."
(Developing ourselves. Making a better human being out of us. Transformation within us through the spirit of service. Not enforcing others. If at all, subconscious inspiration by doing our duty the best way possible.)
This objective is sought to be achieved by enabling the students to :
i) understand the community in which they work
(staying close to thm, interacting with them, organizing events, understanding their psychology, taking care not to make them feel humiliated, daan combined with maan i.e. serving respectfully)
ii) understand themselves in relation to their community
(what is expected of a student, meeting and beating that expectation, active participation - not passive goodness, dynamicism of a youth)
iii) identify the needs and problems in the community in the solution of which they can be involved
(survey with specific objective, important to follow it up else negative perception, analogy from designer-tester race in industry, execution of the job with heart and also professionally)
iv) development among themselves a sense of social and civic responsibility
(proper use, upkeepment of public properties, amenities; a good starting point is abiding traffic rules and other rules of a civil society, behaving ourselves as a civilized person)
v) apply their education in finding practical solutions to individual and community problems
(education cannot be neglected, need to become a very good engineer, more capacity building is required as the objective is to serve more people, increase footprint, returning more to the society in absolute terms)
vi) development of competence required for group living and sharing responsibilities
(should do work with lot of interest, each & every member should own responsibility, unity, harmony)
vii) gain skills in mobilizing community participation
(kids activity, drama, organizing various events. drama group - Koushik, Madhusudan, Gautam (not me :) Gautam Kumar), Allen, Sauptik, Vikash)
viii) acquire leadership qualities and democratic attitude
(leading by examples, by love; some management skills needed - to take initiative, ability to coordinate etc. decision through democratic process and once taken no alienation)
ix) develop capacity to meet emergencies and natural disasters
(participate in programs of reputed NGOs lik Ramakrishna Mission. Can there be something more that uses our IIT backgroud to the benefit of the bereaved? e.g. Kosi river devastation, we cannot physically go as semester is in full swing - can we help in communication, networking, developing devices, mechanism that can come of use in calamities like these?)
x) practice national intergration
(imbibing the spirit of the patriots, observance of nationally important days in true spirit, participating in each others' festivals, removal of regional, religious, caste, any kind of bias that divides people)

We decided to meet next week at 9 a.m. in Jnan Ghosh stadium and draw action items.

Past two months at a glance

One word that describes past two months is 'eventful'. Most of them big positives. Two big negatives. But who can undestand the design of Him? Doesn't he often test by fire? He only knows what is the best for us. Ours is to depend on Him like a child and to do our work the best way possible considering each act of us is a offering at His feet. Joy and sorrow both teach us and perhaps sorrow teaches the most, removes false perception of this world, shatters false ego. However, negatives are often overpowering. Well, this is not the place to discuss negative things (it comes and goes, in everybody's life, nothing special, the earlier we learn to live with it or rise over it, the better...in fact, when I decided to stay in India after completion my IITkgp BTech rejecting a generous offer from US East Coast university I remained prepared that I might have to face both and perhaps more of the ugly side...that way I am lucky I got to see more of the beautiful side of my country and doesn't West have its own dark secrets not much publicised here) as my student friends may read this blog. If required, my office emails, diary are carefully stored for the use of any investigating agency. I only pray that I get the opportunity to do my work in a sincere manner, unperturbed and not fall into their traps who want to destabilize me. After all, what is in a life? Remembering an Anup Jalota bhajan - Pitambari kasi ho, Chabi maan main yeh basi ho,Hotho pe kuch hasi ho, jab pran tan se nikle/Jab kanth pran aye, koi rog na sataye,Yam darash na dikhaye, Jab pran tan se nikle/us vakt jaldi ana, nahi Shyam Bhul Jana, Radhe ko saath lana, jab pran tan se nikle/ek bhakt ki hai arji, khud garj ki hai garji, age Tumhari marji jab pran tan se Nikle/Itna to karna Swami, Jab pran tan se Nikle.

I was surprised to find so many different persons - two Prof.s, students, one person from Midnapore trying to inform me that Bishwarup Maharaj is coming to campus. I just returned from a 10 day busy tour in Canada where I attended three workshops and visited univ. of Waterloo, univ. of Toronto, univ. of Montreal, McGill univ and also met people of from univ. of Alberta, univ. of BC at Edmonton. I heard about Biswarup Maharaj before but didn't have the opportunity to interact with him. The talk on 'diaster management' was arranged in Mat. Sc. Dept. Maharaj spoke about flood relief work and emphasized on what Swami Vivekananda said, "Men, men, these are wanted. Everything else will be ready." Are we that kind of man, Swamiji wanted? "Strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone." If we are not, we have to strive to become one. The positive news flow continues. Once I found a beautiful email from Bishwarup Maharaj, first ever in my life from a monk. Earlier I got several SMS from Chiranjeev Maharaj. I am truly honoured to be in mailing list of Maharaj. His team at Ramakrishna Mission Students Home, Belgharia maintains an inspiring website http://www.vivvsc.co.nr/

Getting lots of idea, help, encouragement from friends and well-wishers far and wide. Prof. Kan.. from Boston was, as usual was at his kindest best generous with ideas. Jo... from UK finds one of our collaborative work publishable. Aru.. from US eager to help looking for funding opportunities for joint work. Pa.. of IPC.. also trying in spite of his busy schedule; P.. one day asked me to discuss our work with WMG, UK represenative who wants to collaborate in that area and now I am IITkgp-WMG initiative; based on a reco.. started working on establishment of a new engineering scool on QEDM ...(I am the only Asst. Prof. in the team - may be my industry background, system level development, ability to work in a team, trustworthiness, positive attitude etc. earned my nomination); got lot of praise from people here whose work I presented in bio-nano area in Canada and how I apprised everybody of the opportunities there with a report, email id, ppt etc., someone commenting first of its kind in IITkgp; based on a reco.. stayed in IIT Madras for 8 days to do some very important national level work and there one morning my research student Sam.. rang. He was excited to tell me that our recent publication on heart sound in a new Hindwai journal has caught lot of attention and international media is covering it widely - Eurekalert, Yahoo News, Sciencedaily, Biomedicine news so on and so forth, websites in USA, UK, Russia, China ... And then I received the email from science reporter of German Public Radio. He wants to have my 10 minute telephonic interview for their Saturday program that is aired in Germany and many countries in Europe. The interview was conducted from guest house, next evening and airtime was approx. 6 min. with German voice over, intermittently my voice can be heard. One US medical co. representative expressed desire to visit us at IITkgp for collaboration and sent an NDA. Two more Indian TV channel wanted to interview us and show our work in their channel etc. Finally, I remember the confidence shown by some of my seniors on me specially the one firm voice at about 10 o' clock at night saying "Goutam, No one can stop you."

I shall put few images here and that will conclude this post. The first two is a sneak pick of my good friend Moin.. of CII, next is some of the group members in a leisurely mood with our fond Dy. Leader in forefront, next is the entire Indian team minus Dy. Leader who took the snap together with host at Edmonton, rest are some of the recent media reports.

IIT students and those fateful happenings

From Hindustan Times : June 30, 2008

---- QUOTE ----

It’s not the tough syllabus or academic pressure that is responsible for students committing suicide, according to authorities at IIT Kanpur. Suicides occur because students are not as insulated from their families back home as they used to be earlier, they said in response to questions raised under the Right to Information Act.

Excessive use of mobile phone — which even 10 years ago were hardly seen — to stay in touch with family and friends is the real culprit. Mobile phones connect the students 24x7 with their family and make them a part of every problem arising at home. There are also constant exhortations from parents to do well, which create tremendous pressure.

"Earlier, students had the facility of only landline phone; they had little interaction with the family and were more focused on their studies,” said the reply received by the Bharat Punarnirman Dal, a national association of IIT alumni, which had raised questions under the RTI following the suicide of a student, Toya Chatterjee, on June 2. There have been six suicides in the past three years at IIT Kanpur.

Another culprit was Internet use by students at odd hours, authorities said in the reply. It left them unsettled.

Director of IIT Delhi, Surendra Prasad, however, told HT that mobile phones and internet cannot be linked to suicides. "To reach such a conclusion you need to sociologically study past history and data and do a detailed survey. At IIT Delhi we have not done any such thing," Prasad said, when asked for his reaction.

IIT, Delhi recently limited the amount of data that students could download on their hostel computers during the wee hours (1 am to 5 am). But this was done to ensure that students did not stay up late night. "The faculty was of the opinion that late usage of internet leads to neglect of studies and other consequences," said Prasad.

Professor Prakash Gopalan, Dean, Students' Welfare, IIT-Bombay, said: "Some families do pressurise their kids, but there are also families who don't do that. We can't really say that the Internet and mobile phones drive students to suicide as there are many parents who act as support systems via Internet and cellphones."

Summer Quarter Experience

Yesterday, I had the most satisfying experience of the 2 week long (16 classes) summer quarter classes I am currently engaged in. In the very first class the 25 students who got 'F' in Basic Electronics voiced that the poor result was because they did not attend the classes regularly. Why did they do that? They said (i) the class size was huge 250+ and it was easy to go undetected, (ii) due to that size there was not much interaction and they did not enjoy the class (iii) they wanted to relax after grueling IIT-JEE preparation and (iv) they thought they could make up before the exam. I ensured that they attend all the classes of summer quarter so much so that I made cell phone call to two students who bunked the second class directly from the class room and it worked. Also ensured that the class remains interactive, students come to board and solve problem or debate over a solution.

There was Nir.., a very shaky, not-so-confident student among them. He said that he developed some psy... problem too which made him fail. I was worried if I would be able to reach him. But he tried his best. And yesterday I was surprised when he answered in affirmative to a relatively difficult problem I placed before the class. Not only that, he walked quietly up to the board and solved it very neatly there. It was a great moment! I was so happy! I am proud of you, my boy.

I'll end this post by mentioning another experience from this summer quarter class. A good number of students of this batch have the potential to become topper in their class but how much they negelected themselves to get an 'F' grade! For example, Sand..., Gau...D..., Piyu..., Roh..., Mon... had been quite impressive. It is equally true that in spite of my best effort some students are not matching it up by studying the subject for 1-2 hour at hostel. Summer quarter is a fast paced program and I am afraid that they may not perform well. Let's see ...

Bidding Adieu

"Sir, I am leaving this evening at 8:30 p.m. I wanted to meet you before leaving the campus." Said Tej... yesterday afternoon. It was about 5:30 p.m. I have just returned to Institute after 12 day tour to Nainital, Kousani, Almora with my family (as soon as vacation began).

"Dear sir,I had come to meet you 3 days back but you were not there. I just wanted to inform you that I have completed my studies at IIT Kharagpur and am joining Princeton University next for my doctoral studies. I enjoyed interacting with you during my stay in the department. I hope we meet when I come during the convocation." The mail from Sree... was in my inbox.

Also there were other students to say 'Good Bye' before leaving.

There is no choice but to bid adieu every batch of students when they complete their tenure. It is always difficult to come in terms with the fact those faces, smiles will no longer be seen in campus. I'll miss those debates, fights - mostly ideological as depicted in several posts of this blog. But I have great faith in these young guns. And I firmly believe that the future can only be better.

Friends, keep in touch. Let us all work together to build a strong and vibrant India!

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I had long discussions with outgoing students yesterday so much so that I was worried if Tej... would miss his train. He didn't get an offer for PhD from US universities and that's why he is joining industry. He was not considering IITs as a place where he can do his doctoral work. This was unfortunate. And I took some time to explain him why IITs could also be a choice, mostly in tune with what I described in 3rd topic 'One for the outgoing students' of the post http://gskgp.blogspot.com/2008/04/many-into-one.html He agreed to reconsider his decision. I advised him to spend few years in industry before joining doctoral program and persuing a career in academics. This will help one (i) realize the gap between teaching and practice and (ii) become confident when he deals with industry people in an industrial project in his academic career. Tej... appeared serious to return to IITkgp as a faculty member after his PhD. So said Sour.. I am keeping my finger crossed.

We discussed few other things too. I shared my experience in industry - what to expect and what not; the role of money in slection of career; how much money one needs; the reversal of role between money and happiness as means and end; trade-offs in life; peer pressure is to follow the tide but interestingly all great work were accomplished swimming against the tide etc. etc.

Finally, I couldn't but say that for last few decades IITs are doing more harm to the country in certain sense than the good. It is swallowing the best brains of 100 crore population and turning them into high skilled labour. All superlative efforts by Indians in Science & Technology are in pre-IIT days though statistically, infrastructure, build-up wise we are now better placed. An young Indian now dreams to get into IIT and once he cracks IIT-JEE he considers that his job is done. He does not realize that it is just the beginning. That he is now in the land of opportunities. His job is to make the most of it. The hostel life, seniors (peer pressure) conditions him in such a manner that there are only two options in life - (i) to go abroad for higher studies and serve an US lab or (ii) to get a high salaried job. Do they read the biographies of great scientists, inventors? Do they fee that they can be one like them - one who can bring a sea change in the thought process of the community? Can we believe that we were short of genius for decades? Civilization wise we have evolved more than others. Statistically, we should have a greater ratio of them among us. And in all probability they have come to IITs. But what did we make of them?

I narrated the following story from my book Principles of Communication Systems, 3rd Edition, Taub, Schilling & Saha from McGraw Hill India (Such story is there at the beginning of every chapter of that book so that the young generation starts dreaming and aims big) which I quote now before ending this post.

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“Yesterday was my 21st birthday, at that age Newton and Pascal had already acquired many claims to immortality.” – thus wrote Fourier in one of his letter in 1789. Born of a tailor family as the ninth of twelve kids, he briefly served priesthood, was imprisoned for revolutionary activity but his love of mathematics continued. In 1807, his famous theory on Fourier series was published."

SRK's Message

I really liked this one...SRK's message to his KKR team...when things have not gone in their way in IPL....strings of losses and rumour in media about his difference with captain and coach.

SRK's SMS

"Story time boys... I told you if you keep losing you have to bear with my long, boring msgs.... This is your punishment.... Many times I have made movies which don't do well.... When I'm doing them, of course, I don't know they won't do well.... The story is written by somebody else and I just do my bit as an actor. But I have a way of dealing with flop stories..., I try my best to keep my character in the film at a level that it makes a failed story also special for me....

"I enjoy the work.... I make jokes about the failure.... And, of course, feel awful about it too.... So, right now, all of us have become part of a failed script... A bad IPL script.... Let's try and keep our characters worthy of still looking back at this story and remembering it as a special story becos we all worked very hard at this....

"So, chin up and don't spoil yr character in the next two games.... Let's go out with a bang and not a whimper.... In films, we say u r only as good as yr last film.... So let's make the whole world know how good we r in the last (maybe not) two games...

"Also, do ignore all this bit about Dada, me and John having issues.... It's a normal thing in the world.... People like to hit you when u r down.... So, we will be hit.... No stress.... It will make us stronger.... The only way to avoid this is to win.... That's one of the reasons why everybody likes to be a winner....

"On the other hand, the beauty of failure is that it brings people together.... So, let's stick this out together.... You know me well enuff to know I am not the kind of owner who has issues with the team 'cos of losses... I am too much of a sport myself to get beaten by defeats.... Like you guys are.... Like Dada and John....

"I am still trying to understand the code of conduct expected of me at the matches of the IPL.... ICC... Etc.... After I understand it, I will decide whether to accept it or not.... Till such time, I will be with you guys at the hotel... in the meetings etc., but won't come for the matches.... So, please don't ever feel it is anything to do with us as a team....

"I am as dedicated to my Knights as I am to my kids.... Only, I won't be coming to the class room till the headmaster's rules are understood by me.... I am a bit anti-Establishment kind of a guy, so I apologise for this quirk to u all.... So, head's up.... Have a good match and let's make 200 runs tomorrow.... This 150 seems to not work any more....

"We have nothing to lose now, except our character.... Let's not lose that.... Lov... SRK."

Interesting Reading

It made interesting reading to go through the blog of

an IITkgp-ian 2007 pass out at http://memoirsofmaxi.blogspot.com
a current IITkgp-ian at http://www.koppaka.net/blog
again http://voicesinmymind.blogspot.com
comparisons at http://kgpians.blogspot.com/2007/05/few-interesting-comparisons.html
another comparison http://abhassaroha.blogspot.com
the love story http://whereisthisheading.blogspot.com/2007/01/journey-called-life.html
NCC and other experience http://loadandpeace.blogspot.com
empty inside! http://mhollow.blogspot.com/2008/03/empty-inside.html
war of words http://vinayakpathak.wordpress.com/
Bill Gates' Harvard Graduation speech at http://www.shreymodi.com/wp/index.php/2008/04/05/bill-gates-harvard-graduation-speech