Last 4 days at IISc we celebrated the completion of 100 years with "The IISc Centenary Conference" from 13-16th December. It was a wonderful event organized in a truly International way. The campus got into festive spirit right from the 12th evening. Alumni from all across the world and from various age groups (from 20s to 80s) came for attending the conference.
First day began with inauguration by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The actual programs began from second day.
Second day onwards there were keynote talks by:
- Mr. S. Ramadorai (CEO, Tata Consultancy Services)
- Dr. Subra Suresh (Dean of Engineering, MIT, Cambridge USA)
- Mr. Nandan Nilekani (Founder and former CEO, Infosys Technologies)
- Dr. Martin Rees (President, Royal Society, London)
- Dr. Sydney Brenner (Nobel Laureate from Cambridge Univ., UK)
- Mr. Sam Pitroda (Chairman, Knowledge Commission, New Delhi)
- Dr. Eric S. Maskin (Nobel Laureate from Princeton Univ., USA)
These people talked on various topics related to their expertise like Mr. Nilekani talked on "Imagining India"; Dr. Rees talked about "Understanding our cosmos"; Dr. Eric talked about "Game theory"; Dr. Suresh talked about "Interdisciplinary Research in engineering"; Dr. Brener talked about "Reading human genome" etc. All the keynotes were overcrowded in an auditorium with capacity of 750.
Apart from these there were number of workshops carried by renowned experts and researchers from across the world.
Apart from keynotes and workshops there were cultural programs like Santoor recital by Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and a music program by IISc music group.
Another interesting thing to be mentioned about conference is "food". All the 4 days we enjoyed sumptuous food. There were innumerable varieties of Indian, Chinese and Italian dishes and sweets.
This Conference gave us an opportunity to listen to some of the great people in world in a short span of time and that too at a single location. Where else would I have got to listen to Ramadorai & Nilekani on same day?
The wonderful event came to an end with a speech by our Director Dr. P. Balaram. He stated a famous quote by Winston Churchill "...... this is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is the end of the beginning."
I got this in a forward.....
Dear Mr. Prime minister,
I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don't even do that.
Today I heard your speech. In which you said 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India.
Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima.
We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.
Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it?
I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politician, all are rolling in money. Present CM is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhi so Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.
Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything.
If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother India by your policy of divide and rule.
Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn't even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.
Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of.
Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?
After a long wait finally India's Chandrayan succeeded with a glory. MIP (Moon Impact Probe) with our tricolor painted on it landed successfully on the south pole of moon. Its truly a proud moment for all of us. Only 3 other nations have achieved this feat before, US, Russia and Japan. I can't wait for the Chandrayan-2 when IRSO will send a rover to moon.
Recently Mr. Guy Kawasaki visited India. He is an expert Entrepreneur and author of many books. He has been there in Silicon Valley since 25 years. He has worked at Apple Computers for many years and had major contribution in the success of Macintosh.
While speaking at a talk on "Entrepreneurship in India" @ Mumbai he mentioned a very interesting thing. "America have 300 million population and India have 1.2 billion, so India should have 4 Steve Jobs. I am sure they are out there. You just need to find them. There must be a bunch of young techies in India who are not satisfied with the work left by some American."
In my opinion he surely have a valid point. If a "handful" of such techies join together, some of them will definitely succeed in creating a miracle........something like Steve Jobs did in his parent's garage.
"A Wednesday" is a fantastic movie..............Truly a must see movie of the year......................
Very soon the Beijing Olympics 2008 will come to an end. The host China have clearly scored maximum number of Gold medals, much more ahead than U.S.A. Many other countries have won the medals overall in proportion with their might. So in that sense China is the world's most powerful nation today.
India have won 3 medals, 1 Gold and 2 Bronze. Here we can see that the equation of Number of medals proportional to might of the nation is not satisfied. We have one sixth of the world population compared to which number of total medals is almost negligible.
Looking at the brighter side. We have won our first individual Olympic Gold medal this year. This year we also won the maximum number of individual medals in a single Olympic games ever. If we look back into past, China had won their first Gold medal at the 1984 Los Angeles games. And in just 24 years, China is at the top slot of the medal tally. So we can hope that India too will follow the similar path and start rocking the games all over the world.
Its not the talent we lack. We just lack the awareness, training and professional approach towards sport. Nonetheless the success of the 3 Indian sportsmen at 2008 games have created a good awareness about sports. Further the way in which medalists were flooded with reawards, I am sure this will motivate many Indians to take sports seriously. When this will happen, next time we will double the number of medals than this year and all the games which will follow.
So, India's success at 2008 Olympics have a potential to roll the chain reaction for creating some great and more importantly successful sports persons, who will take our nation at the top in yet another field at global level.
Bangalore
4 Aug 2008Finally I have joined Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
The IISc campus is all green and huge, spread across 500 acres of land. Fully covered with various trees, flowers and lawns. And the beautiful Bangalore weather adds more harmony to it.
All the buildings on the campus are spread horizontally, not exceeding 2 stories.
The sport facilities are very good. There are state-of-the-art facilities for almost all the games.
I am allotted a Hostel room which is single seated. Only disadvantages of the hostel is no internet connection in the rooms (there are some academic reasons behind it).The department i.e. CEDT (Center for Electrical Design & Technology) have many labs set in collaboration with companies like TI, Intel, Freescale etc.
The course structure is mainly design oriented. Equal credits are given to Compulsory courses, Electives and project. There is lot of freedom in choosing the electives. One can choose any course offered on the campus as elective.
That's all for now.
