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vrongmeal-
| Author | SHA1 | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| a028bf9882 |
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303
Gemfile.lock
303
Gemfile.lock
@ -1,242 +1,119 @@
|
||||
GEM
|
||||
remote: https://rubygems.org/
|
||||
specs:
|
||||
activesupport (6.0.3.2)
|
||||
concurrent-ruby (~> 1.0, >= 1.0.2)
|
||||
i18n (>= 0.7, < 2)
|
||||
activesupport (4.2.6)
|
||||
i18n (~> 0.7)
|
||||
json (~> 1.7, >= 1.7.7)
|
||||
minitest (~> 5.1)
|
||||
thread_safe (~> 0.3, >= 0.3.4)
|
||||
tzinfo (~> 1.1)
|
||||
zeitwerk (~> 2.2, >= 2.2.2)
|
||||
addressable (2.7.0)
|
||||
public_suffix (>= 2.0.2, < 5.0)
|
||||
addressable (2.4.0)
|
||||
coffee-script (2.4.1)
|
||||
coffee-script-source
|
||||
execjs
|
||||
coffee-script-source (1.11.1)
|
||||
colorator (1.1.0)
|
||||
commonmarker (0.17.13)
|
||||
ruby-enum (~> 0.5)
|
||||
concurrent-ruby (1.1.6)
|
||||
dnsruby (1.61.3)
|
||||
addressable (~> 2.5)
|
||||
em-websocket (0.5.1)
|
||||
eventmachine (>= 0.12.9)
|
||||
http_parser.rb (~> 0.6.0)
|
||||
ethon (0.12.0)
|
||||
coffee-script-source (1.10.0)
|
||||
colorator (0.1)
|
||||
ethon (0.9.0)
|
||||
ffi (>= 1.3.0)
|
||||
eventmachine (1.2.7)
|
||||
execjs (2.7.0)
|
||||
faraday (1.0.1)
|
||||
faraday (0.9.2)
|
||||
multipart-post (>= 1.2, < 3)
|
||||
ffi (1.13.1)
|
||||
forwardable-extended (2.6.0)
|
||||
gemoji (3.0.1)
|
||||
github-pages (206)
|
||||
github-pages-health-check (= 1.16.1)
|
||||
jekyll (= 3.8.7)
|
||||
jekyll-avatar (= 0.7.0)
|
||||
jekyll-coffeescript (= 1.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-commonmark-ghpages (= 0.1.6)
|
||||
jekyll-default-layout (= 0.1.4)
|
||||
jekyll-feed (= 0.13.0)
|
||||
jekyll-gist (= 1.5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-github-metadata (= 2.13.0)
|
||||
jekyll-mentions (= 1.5.1)
|
||||
jekyll-optional-front-matter (= 0.3.2)
|
||||
ffi (1.9.10)
|
||||
gemoji (2.1.0)
|
||||
github-pages (80)
|
||||
github-pages-health-check (= 1.1.0)
|
||||
jekyll (= 3.1.6)
|
||||
jekyll-coffeescript (= 1.0.1)
|
||||
jekyll-feed (= 0.5.1)
|
||||
jekyll-gist (= 1.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-github-metadata (= 1.11.1)
|
||||
jekyll-mentions (= 1.1.2)
|
||||
jekyll-paginate (= 1.1.0)
|
||||
jekyll-readme-index (= 0.3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-redirect-from (= 0.15.0)
|
||||
jekyll-relative-links (= 0.6.1)
|
||||
jekyll-remote-theme (= 0.4.1)
|
||||
jekyll-sass-converter (= 1.5.2)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (= 2.6.1)
|
||||
jekyll-sitemap (= 1.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-swiss (= 1.0.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-architect (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-cayman (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-dinky (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-hacker (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-leap-day (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-merlot (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-midnight (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-minimal (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-modernist (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-primer (= 0.5.4)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-slate (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-tactile (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-time-machine (= 0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-titles-from-headings (= 0.5.3)
|
||||
jemoji (= 0.11.1)
|
||||
kramdown (= 1.17.0)
|
||||
liquid (= 4.0.3)
|
||||
jekyll-redirect-from (= 0.10.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sass-converter (= 1.3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (= 1.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sitemap (= 0.10.0)
|
||||
jemoji (= 0.6.2)
|
||||
kramdown (= 1.10.0)
|
||||
liquid (= 3.0.6)
|
||||
listen (= 3.0.6)
|
||||
mercenary (~> 0.3)
|
||||
minima (= 2.5.1)
|
||||
nokogiri (>= 1.10.4, < 2.0)
|
||||
rouge (= 3.19.0)
|
||||
rouge (= 1.10.1)
|
||||
terminal-table (~> 1.4)
|
||||
github-pages-health-check (1.16.1)
|
||||
github-pages-health-check (1.1.0)
|
||||
addressable (~> 2.3)
|
||||
dnsruby (~> 1.60)
|
||||
net-dns (~> 0.8)
|
||||
octokit (~> 4.0)
|
||||
public_suffix (~> 3.0)
|
||||
typhoeus (~> 1.3)
|
||||
html-pipeline (2.13.0)
|
||||
activesupport (>= 2)
|
||||
public_suffix (~> 1.4)
|
||||
typhoeus (~> 0.7)
|
||||
html-pipeline (2.4.1)
|
||||
activesupport (>= 2, < 5)
|
||||
nokogiri (>= 1.4)
|
||||
http_parser.rb (0.6.0)
|
||||
i18n (0.9.5)
|
||||
concurrent-ruby (~> 1.0)
|
||||
jekyll (3.8.7)
|
||||
addressable (~> 2.4)
|
||||
colorator (~> 1.0)
|
||||
em-websocket (~> 0.5)
|
||||
i18n (~> 0.7)
|
||||
i18n (0.7.0)
|
||||
jekyll (3.1.6)
|
||||
colorator (~> 0.1)
|
||||
jekyll-sass-converter (~> 1.0)
|
||||
jekyll-watch (~> 2.0)
|
||||
kramdown (~> 1.14)
|
||||
liquid (~> 4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-watch (~> 1.1)
|
||||
kramdown (~> 1.3)
|
||||
liquid (~> 3.0)
|
||||
mercenary (~> 0.3.3)
|
||||
pathutil (~> 0.9)
|
||||
rouge (>= 1.7, < 4)
|
||||
rouge (~> 1.7)
|
||||
safe_yaml (~> 1.0)
|
||||
jekyll-avatar (0.7.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.0, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-coffeescript (1.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll-coffeescript (1.0.1)
|
||||
coffee-script (~> 2.2)
|
||||
coffee-script-source (~> 1.11.1)
|
||||
jekyll-commonmark (1.3.1)
|
||||
commonmarker (~> 0.14)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-commonmark-ghpages (0.1.6)
|
||||
commonmarker (~> 0.17.6)
|
||||
jekyll-commonmark (~> 1.2)
|
||||
rouge (>= 2.0, < 4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-default-layout (0.1.4)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-feed (0.13.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-gist (1.5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-feed (0.5.1)
|
||||
jekyll-gist (1.4.0)
|
||||
octokit (~> 4.2)
|
||||
jekyll-github-metadata (2.13.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.4, < 5.0)
|
||||
octokit (~> 4.0, != 4.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-mentions (1.5.1)
|
||||
jekyll-github-metadata (1.11.1)
|
||||
octokit (~> 4.0)
|
||||
jekyll-mentions (1.1.2)
|
||||
html-pipeline (~> 2.3)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-optional-front-matter (0.3.2)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.0, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-paginate (1.1.0)
|
||||
jekyll-readme-index (0.3.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.0, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-redirect-from (0.15.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.3, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-relative-links (0.6.1)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.3, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-remote-theme (0.4.1)
|
||||
addressable (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.5, < 5.0)
|
||||
rubyzip (>= 1.3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sass-converter (1.5.2)
|
||||
sass (~> 3.4)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (2.6.1)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.3, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sitemap (1.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.7, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-swiss (1.0.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-architect (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-cayman (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-dinky (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-hacker (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-leap-day (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-merlot (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-midnight (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-minimal (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-modernist (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-primer (0.5.4)
|
||||
jekyll (> 3.5, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-github-metadata (~> 2.9)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-slate (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-tactile (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-theme-time-machine (0.1.1)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.5)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-titles-from-headings (0.5.3)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.3, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-watch (2.2.1)
|
||||
listen (~> 3.0)
|
||||
jemoji (0.11.1)
|
||||
gemoji (~> 3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-redirect-from (0.10.0)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 2.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sass-converter (1.3.0)
|
||||
sass (~> 3.2)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (1.4.0)
|
||||
jekyll (~> 3.0)
|
||||
jekyll-sitemap (0.10.0)
|
||||
jekyll-watch (1.4.0)
|
||||
listen (~> 3.0, < 3.1)
|
||||
jemoji (0.6.2)
|
||||
gemoji (~> 2.0)
|
||||
html-pipeline (~> 2.2)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.0, < 5.0)
|
||||
kramdown (1.17.0)
|
||||
liquid (4.0.3)
|
||||
listen (3.2.1)
|
||||
rb-fsevent (~> 0.10, >= 0.10.3)
|
||||
rb-inotify (~> 0.9, >= 0.9.10)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.0)
|
||||
json (1.8.3)
|
||||
kramdown (1.10.0)
|
||||
liquid (3.0.6)
|
||||
listen (3.0.6)
|
||||
rb-fsevent (>= 0.9.3)
|
||||
rb-inotify (>= 0.9.7)
|
||||
mercenary (0.3.6)
|
||||
mini_portile2 (2.4.0)
|
||||
minima (2.5.1)
|
||||
jekyll (>= 3.5, < 5.0)
|
||||
jekyll-feed (~> 0.9)
|
||||
jekyll-seo-tag (~> 2.1)
|
||||
minitest (5.14.1)
|
||||
multipart-post (2.1.1)
|
||||
nokogiri (1.10.9)
|
||||
mini_portile2 (~> 2.4.0)
|
||||
octokit (4.18.0)
|
||||
faraday (>= 0.9)
|
||||
sawyer (~> 0.8.0, >= 0.5.3)
|
||||
pathutil (0.16.2)
|
||||
forwardable-extended (~> 2.6)
|
||||
public_suffix (3.1.1)
|
||||
rb-fsevent (0.10.4)
|
||||
rb-inotify (0.10.1)
|
||||
ffi (~> 1.0)
|
||||
rouge (3.19.0)
|
||||
ruby-enum (0.8.0)
|
||||
i18n
|
||||
rubyzip (2.3.0)
|
||||
safe_yaml (1.0.5)
|
||||
sass (3.7.4)
|
||||
sass-listen (~> 4.0.0)
|
||||
sass-listen (4.0.0)
|
||||
rb-fsevent (~> 0.9, >= 0.9.4)
|
||||
rb-inotify (~> 0.9, >= 0.9.7)
|
||||
sawyer (0.8.2)
|
||||
addressable (>= 2.3.5)
|
||||
faraday (> 0.8, < 2.0)
|
||||
terminal-table (1.8.0)
|
||||
unicode-display_width (~> 1.1, >= 1.1.1)
|
||||
thread_safe (0.3.6)
|
||||
typhoeus (1.4.0)
|
||||
ethon (>= 0.9.0)
|
||||
tzinfo (1.2.7)
|
||||
mini_portile2 (2.0.0)
|
||||
minitest (5.9.0)
|
||||
multipart-post (2.0.0)
|
||||
net-dns (0.8.0)
|
||||
nokogiri (1.6.7.2)
|
||||
mini_portile2 (~> 2.0.0.rc2)
|
||||
octokit (4.3.0)
|
||||
sawyer (~> 0.7.0, >= 0.5.3)
|
||||
public_suffix (1.5.3)
|
||||
rb-fsevent (0.9.7)
|
||||
rb-inotify (0.9.7)
|
||||
ffi (>= 0.5.0)
|
||||
rouge (1.10.1)
|
||||
safe_yaml (1.0.4)
|
||||
sass (3.4.22)
|
||||
sawyer (0.7.0)
|
||||
addressable (>= 2.3.5, < 2.5)
|
||||
faraday (~> 0.8, < 0.10)
|
||||
terminal-table (1.5.2)
|
||||
thread_safe (0.3.5)
|
||||
typhoeus (0.8.0)
|
||||
ethon (>= 0.8.0)
|
||||
tzinfo (1.2.2)
|
||||
thread_safe (~> 0.1)
|
||||
unicode-display_width (1.7.0)
|
||||
zeitwerk (2.3.1)
|
||||
|
||||
PLATFORMS
|
||||
ruby
|
||||
@ -245,4 +122,4 @@ DEPENDENCIES
|
||||
github-pages
|
||||
|
||||
BUNDLED WITH
|
||||
2.1.4
|
||||
1.13.0.rc.1
|
||||
|
||||
@ -24,10 +24,8 @@
|
||||
title: Guest Comentary
|
||||
- name: editorial
|
||||
title: Editorial
|
||||
- name: tech
|
||||
title: Tech
|
||||
- name: filtercoffee
|
||||
title: Filter Coffee
|
||||
- name: tech
|
||||
title: Tech
|
||||
subcategories:
|
||||
- name: career
|
||||
title: Career
|
||||
@ -55,5 +53,3 @@
|
||||
title: Summer 2018
|
||||
- name: summer2019
|
||||
title: Summer 2019
|
||||
- name: summer2020
|
||||
title: Summer 2020
|
||||
|
||||
@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ almostfamous: Almost Famous
|
||||
phekingnews: Pheking News
|
||||
guestcomentary: Guest Comentary
|
||||
tech: Tech
|
||||
filtercoffee: Filter Coffee
|
||||
career: Career
|
||||
sac: SAC
|
||||
editorial: Editorial
|
||||
@ -20,5 +19,4 @@ summer2016: Summer 2016
|
||||
summer2017: Summer 2017
|
||||
summer2018: Summer 2018
|
||||
summer2019: Summer 2019
|
||||
summer2020: Summer 2020
|
||||
memoirs: Memoirs
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,4 +10,3 @@ new_articles:
|
||||
- sac
|
||||
- career
|
||||
- cultural
|
||||
- filtercoffee
|
||||
|
||||
@ -118,6 +118,7 @@ If pure, unadulterated architecture is what you are interested in, IITR is perha
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
In case you have any doubts regarding the course that you wish to get clarified, feel free to call any of the people listed below:
|
||||
|
||||
**Komal Maheshwari (2nd year)**: +91 9330949212<br>
|
||||
**Divyang Purrkayastha (3rd year)**: +91 9560588732<br>
|
||||
**Ramachandra Reddy (4th year)**: +91 9557902784<br>
|
||||
**Lanka Adarsh (4th year)**: +91 9410577752<br>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Diaries: Cure.fit"
|
||||
image: "komal-curefit-2.jpg"
|
||||
image: "komal-curefit-2.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Komal Maheshwari"
|
||||
category: summer2019
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,16 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Branch Change - Clearing the Mist"
|
||||
title: "Branch Change"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
category: academics
|
||||
image: branch-change-1.jpg
|
||||
excerpt: "To be or not to be a BC"
|
||||
author: "Jayati Shrivastava, Divyam Goel, Arnab Mukherjee"
|
||||
|
||||
excerpt: "The IITs are considered to be the most coveted institutions for undergraduate studies across the country. The fact that only around 1% of the candidates appearing in the entrance exam manage to secure a seat in these institutions is a testament to the quality of students that manage to get through."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
> To be or not to be a BC
|
||||
|
||||
The IITs are considered to be the most coveted institutions for undergraduate studies across the country. The fact that only around 1% of the candidates appearing in the entrance exam manage to secure a seat in these institutions is a testament to the quality of students that manage to get through.
|
||||
|
||||
But added to this is the disadvantage that your fate is left in the hands of that little amount of magic that you produce during the 6 hrs of one of the most difficult and strenuous examinations across the globe. The incredible load of expectations of all those who surround the examinee sometimes leads to blunders that can cost the candidate his/her dreams. However, the system itself provides the candidates with another chance to deem themselves worthy of their dreams, with the opportunity to change their branch in their freshman year.
|
||||
@ -31,6 +27,7 @@ Key Takeaways:
|
||||
|
||||
1. B.Arch students aren’t eligible
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
|
||||
|
||||
> “In India, we don’t choose our major but our major chooses us.”
|
||||
|
||||
@ -130,4 +127,4 @@ The truth is that changing your branch is by no means easy, but consistency and
|
||||
|
||||
> “Staying attentive to all the lectures throughout the semester is not possible, but try not to let the workload pile up for the end moment. Also, be serious about the CWS marks as they make quite a difference to your final score.”
|
||||
|
||||
\- **Radha Jayaraman** (2nd year, Branch Changer from PSE to CHEM)
|
||||
\- **Radha Jayraman** (2nd year, Branch Changer from PSE to CHEM)
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,85 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Diaries: Razorpay"
|
||||
image: "razor1.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Divyanshu Tiwari"
|
||||
category: summer2019
|
||||
excerpt: 'This year, I spent my summers interning at Razorpay as a full-stack designer where I spent the majority of my time designing and developing digital experiences.'
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
This year, I spent my summers interning at Razorpay as a full-stack designer where I spent the majority of my time designing and developing digital experiences.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# Getting in
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Deciding to apply
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Towards the beginning of my 2nd year spring semester, I was completely clueless and didn't have any plans for my summers. I had the option of doing a Design internship as I'd been working with IMG as a designer, but the idea didn't feel that exciting at that point.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I got my hands dirty with design and development early on in my college life since I loved building stuff, especially because it involved my creativity and intellect. "Building" sounds like a really generic word. You can't really associate it with a particular job title. There are different job titles like those of a designer and a developer that work together to make something new, and that interested me as a whole, but the roles did not interest me individually.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
As the semester progressed I grew more restless with regard to my summers. My seniors at IMG advised me to go for a design internship in case I didn't have anything else to do. This way I'd not only get industry exposure but would also get to know whether I would like to pursue design further or not. And by the middle of the semester I had decided to go with this plan.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Preparing to apply
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I began by documenting all of the projects that I had done so far. I wrote case-studies on Medium about the applications that I had designed and uploaded the source code of my dev-related projects on GitHub. Next, I updated my LinkedIn profile and resume. Since I was aiming for a design internship, I specifically kept it design-focused. I was now ready to apply but I didn't have any company emails to begin with. Seniors couldn't help me much either, so I made my own list. You can do this too by:
|
||||
|
||||
* Going through the career pages of various startup websites
|
||||
|
||||
* Sending several LinkedIn connection requests to the people whose team you want to join. You can see their email once they accept your request. (Please don't spam people. Be polite, respectful and dignified in your approach)
|
||||
|
||||
* Contacting them on Twitter or similar social media platforms.
|
||||
|
||||
The first company I emailed was Razorpay and their design lead replied back a week later and scheduled my telephonic interview for a week later.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Interview
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
During the interview, I was asked to explain two of my major projects in detail. I was questioned on a number of design decisions that I had taken in those projects. It's really important for designers to back all of their decisions with logic (more on this later). You should always be able to answer the **whys**. Though I had applied for a Product Design internship, I was also questioned on my development skills, mainly HTML/CSS and JavaScript (since my resume mentioned that i had worked on development related projects too). Lastly, I was asked if I was interested in doing a full-stack design internship to which I replied positively. To assess my skills, I was given a small assignment to complete which I did and emailed. My internship was confirmed within two weeks. I kept sending emails to different startups and revised my cover-letter several times within this waiting period.
|
||||
|
||||
## Work
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Razorpay has a number of products to offer, and each product serves a different financial use-case. This variety makes it difficult for industries to understand which products are meant for their needs and which aren't. Hence, to tackle this problem we thought of an interactive section for the website's homepage that can help industries understand their needs and recommend appropriate product solutions.
|
||||
The main intent of this project was to increase our reach to different industries through our website by making it easier for them to understand what the organization had to offer.
|
||||
The project was executed in three stages: user research, design, and development. I used to have frequent discussions with my mentor each week on this project. I also pursued a few side projects with the front-end team while I was working on my main project just to keep myself from not getting bored with a single task.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
## Culture
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
People at Razorpay put an immense amount of trust in you and let you have complete freedom in terms of the way you want to work. You'll not only be made aware about your role in a project but also how you'll be impacting the entire organisation. This way, you know that your work is important and that you need to be responsible for it.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Razorpay maintains complete transparency. Any employee can know about anything going on within the organisation irrespective of their position or vertical. You are free to question anyone on anything related to the organisation. There have been a number of instances where I went up to random people within the organisation to learn more about their work and experiences. Razorpay follows an open office culture and there are no offices or cubicles. This helps in establishing a sense of visual transparency and equality. Even the CEOs had the same desk as us and not a cubicle.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
As an intern you are free to do anything. Not happy with Design? Switch to Front-end or maybe explore marketing. You can even work on a project of your choice in case you are not happy with your current project, or maybe start one on your own.
|
||||
The thing I love the most about it was the free food at all times of the day. Every day I used to have a bowl of Chocos, buttered toast and a glass of fruit juice for breakfast. Now I hate Chocos.
|
||||
|
||||
## Learnings
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Before I came to Razorpay, I used to practice what I call an intuition-led design process i.e. my design decisions were led by my intuition instead of explicit logic. Though my intuition was more or less good and my solutions okay-ish, this practice limited me in a number of ways:
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* I was only able to think of design solutions that were already in existence. Hence wherever I saw similar situations popping up I would simply apply solutions that I was already familiar with.
|
||||
|
||||
* I wasn't exactly able to back up my decisions with verbal logic. My intuition always gave me good enough solutions but none of it came out from a series of logical statements and conclusions that could be used to defend my solutions.
|
||||
|
||||
* This affected the uniqueness and originality of my solutions because to be able to come up with an original solution, you always need to go back to the fundamentals of a problem and work your way up from there.
|
||||
|
||||
I learned to ask "why" to every decision that I took. This prevented me from getting biased by my intuition and approach a problem from a logical perspective. I learned to constantly ask "why" to land upon a fundamental truth and work my way up from there in a series of logical steps to arrive at a solution that's optimized for a particular need. You can apply this model to any decision-making process.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Conclusion
|
||||
My time at Razorpay has made me more sure of my love towards "Building". I've realized that I would like to play multiple roles at my workplace and hence on my next internship I might want to work with an early-stage startup.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,50 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Diaries: University of Maryland, College Park"
|
||||
image: "mohit1.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Mohit Jain"
|
||||
category: summer2019
|
||||
excerpt: 'I am currently doing a research intern at the University of Maryland, College Park. So far it has been 9 weeks since I have started. In this article I’ll try sharing with you my experience so far and how I got here.'
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I am currently doing a research intern at the University of Maryland, College Park. So far it has been 9 weeks since I have started. In this article I’ll try sharing with you my experience so far and how I got here.
|
||||
|
||||
## Before Applying
|
||||
|
||||
I started going through courses on deep learning during the first semester of my second year. The reason being that I had wanted to go for graduate studies and deep learning and A.I. seemed like an interesting direction to explore. Just reading is never enough, so I practically tried out some of the things I had learned and did some small pet projects. Along with this, I maintain a blog where I penned down what I was learning along the way: https://mohitjain.me/ (shameless self endorsement).
|
||||
What motivated me to apply for a research internship and masochistically suffer the pain of the ordeal, other than being interested in trying research, was that I wanted to land an internship without taking any help from the college (although the IIT tag does still end up helping you I believe) and the stringent resume verification process as done by the placement office where you cannot list any personal projects made me shy away from the whole internship process in the campus. Not condemning them or anything, I understand there is a trust issue with personal projects.
|
||||
|
||||
## Landing the Internship
|
||||
|
||||
My not so amazing grades made sure that I would not qualify for any research programs. So, all I was left with was emailing professors directly. I started emailing professors for working with them sometime in September 2018. I got a positive response sometime in April 2019 around end-term exams and it took another couple of months of being on the edge waiting for the VISA process to get done. I was finally able to start on the last week of June 2019!
|
||||
Not trying to be a kill-joy but the days of sending emails was gloomy. The shadows of the days gone by still haunt me. If you sit in the campus internship and have put in some effort preparing you’ll get an internship at least before the semester ends. So naturally, most of my friends had already landed one. After that everyone around was having fun: endless gaming nights, binge-watching movies and anything else enjoyable under the blessed sun. While I was cooped up in my room dreading the future. Not a fun situation to be in.
|
||||
Enough of the brooding, some advice that I can give from my experience:
|
||||
|
||||
Email each professor by writing an email specifically for them. No point writing a generic email and spamming every professor on the planet. You’ll end up not only hurting your own credibility but that of your institution as well. Doing this would result in you only sending one email a week or even longer but it's still better. Don’t listen to the banal advice which is thrown around that you have to email at least 100+ professors. Of course, quantity increases your odds of getting an acceptance but the quality is way more important. Out of all the generic emails I sent, I have gotten zero response. The emails where I actually framed the email specifically for the professor at least got me a rejection most of the time. Any response is better than nothing!
|
||||
Don’t use mail tracking services. It is just not worth it other than giving you false hope each time someone happens to read your email. And, if by chance the person you are sending email to notices that you are using a mail tracker would be very detrimental to your application.
|
||||
Don’t write an essay in your email. Keep your emails short but still, provide as much information as you can.
|
||||
Preservation is the key to trudging on this path. Just keep going and don’t lose hope. Although this doesn’t mean to blindly proceed. Judge your profile and see if you relevant projects or experiences to show. If not, take a break and work on something cool and then continue. This is what I did and the difference was vivid.
|
||||
Rant to your friends how unfair everyone is and people should at least reply to your email. Getting all this out of your chest every now and done can really help lighten the mood. I did it countless times.
|
||||
|
||||
## Work
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
The University of Maryland, College Park has a huge 1,335-acres campus. So getting around can be quite time-consuming. However, the university runs free bus services through the campus and the city. College Park isn’t exactly an exciting city. There isn’t much to do. Since. Washington DC is nearby you can always easily go there to alleviate the boredom. My workplace is the recently opened Brenden Iribe Centre for Computer Science and Engineering. The building is gorgeous and made of glass funded by the co-founder of Oculus Brenden Iribe. My work is on video domain transfer using deep learning methods. Since the project has just started I don’t have many details on it. However, everything has been enjoyable and interesting. So far my work has involved going through many research papers to come up with new ideas to experiment on and running these experiments. Going through existing code on GitHub can sometimes become very boring and exhausting but is necessary to come up with new and better ideas. The lab has a large number of resources. A huge number of GPUs of different memories and compute capabilities along with a massive amount of RAM and storage. I don’t think I could ever exhaust them by myself!
|
||||
|
||||
## Living in the City
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
This is the first time I have lived so independently. Along with the internship so, many other tasks require your attention such as household chores and cooking that it sometimes gets tough to find any actual free time. Compared to living in India everything is very expensive. Unless you happen to own an oil well back home you don’t want to be eating out every day, leaving you with the only option to cook for yourself. The first time I have cooked is after coming here and it’s pretty fun but how I miss the mess food! On top of this having to budget the monthly expenses and saving up to pay for rent was challenging and I still find it quite difficult. Hopefully, things will get better.
|
||||
|
||||
## Summing Up
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Getting a research internship is difficult but has many benefits. It’s sort of like a Diabolical Nectar. There are risks but the returns are massive. You get to meet new people, experience new cultures and gain global exposure. Of course, if you are planning to go for graduate studies a research internship will play a huge role in your applications. If you are hoping for a research internship, I would advise you to dive right into the deep end and not vacillate between an on-campus internship and a research internship.
|
||||
Hope this article helped!
|
||||
|
||||
Adios!
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,63 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Diaries: Harvard Medical School"
|
||||
image: "hms5.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Sourik Dey"
|
||||
category: summer2019
|
||||
excerpt: 'Be an exception, not an example that has always been my motivation in life. To begin on that note, I have spent my summer in the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School affiliated to Harvard University.'
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Be an exception, not an example that has always been my motivation in life. To begin on that note, I have spent my summer in the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School affiliated to Harvard University. These 10 weeks were an enriching experience for me where I not only learnt many new techniques and developed my skill set but also learnt to love science for its uniqueness all over once again. This internship journey taught me many things, gave me some good friends, taught me humbleness and how to live a life full of happiness in this competitive world by loving what you do. It taught me to derive pleasure from the smallest success and how to overcome the biggest of failures with a positive mindset. So without further ado, I will elaborate on my journey in this article.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Before Applying:-
|
||||
|
||||
Internships are as important for the Master’s students as it is for the undergrads. There may be lots of difference between the visions of these two sections of our institute, but the journey of securing an internship brings all of them together. It is like a bridge between these two factions that bring them closer to each other. Just like the undergrads, I too was focussed on getting an internship in the summer during the first year of my course. As we have only two years in this institute, the time within which we have to complete our tasks here is comparatively less. So I was determined to give my best for this search. Although I had done three national internships during my Bachelor’s, at first I was a little confused about how to get a foreign internship. I did not know many people here with whom I could discuss about all these topics. However, fortunately I met a senior from the M.Sc Geology Department, Surjyendu Bhattacharjee, who was a talented individual and had gone to Caltech for his internship through S.N.Bose Scholars Program. He was a very helpful person and his vision really inspired me. From that day onwards, I decided to work hard not only for my academics but also for building up my internship experience in the upcoming summer.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Making it There:-
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
I had searched thoroughly the Internet, websites like Internshaala, Biotechnika,etc and found many internships but many of them had different restrictions, like you have be a undergrad, have an excellent CGPA, be in the second year of your study and likewise. Some of them had explicitly mentioned that Master’s students were not allowed to apply for the program. Still, I did not get demotivated and filtered my search and found 13 internships for which I could apply (including some where it was written that preference for the position would be given to the undergrad students). I prepared my statement of purpose, curriculum vitae, recommendation letters and no objection certificate from the concerned authorities. I had talked to different professors and they were willing to support my application. I would like to mention Prof Partha Roy and Prof Krishnan Mohan Poluri who had supported my endeavours throughout the year. On the other hand, I also started mailing professors who were working on the research field in which I was interested. I read some of their papers and the brief synopsis of their work and modified my Statement of purpose by giving it a professional look as much as possible. I had mailed around 35 professors around the globe who were working on different aspects of Synthetic Biology, ranging from developing genetic circuits, biofuels, targeted drug delivery, cancer treatment, reengineering microbes and studying neurodevelopmental processes using the complex network of circuits artificially developed. Before being accepted by my Professor at Harvard Medical School, I had three Skype meetings with the lab members, including him, and only after that they unanimously decided in favor of my application was I sent the offer letter. The day on which I received the offer letter will be one of the memorable days of my life. The postdoc mentor I was assigned was really impressed and told me in detail about the project that I would be working on during my internship. The project that I was given made me decide that this was the type of work that I was looking forward to do for my summer. Also to give a heads-up, I had an advantage in answering the questions asked to me because I had prior exposure to such kind of work during my previous internships.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## The Department:-
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
Systems biology is the study of systems of biological components, which may be molecules, cells, organisms or entire species. Living systems are dynamic and complex, and their behavior may be hard to predict from the properties of individual parts. To study them, the researchers in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School use quantitative measurements of the behavior of groups of interacting components, systematic measurement technologies such as genomics, bioinformatics and proteomics, and mathematical and computational models to describe and predict dynamical behavior. Systems problems are emerging as central to all areas of biology and medicine. The research interests there include developmental biology, synthetic biology, and spatio-temporal distribution of cellular components, pharmacology and cellular decision making. So, decided it was a best fit for me.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Project:-
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
During my internship I was working on the growth patterns of Vibrio natriegens, which is becoming a model organism for fast growing bacteria with a reported doubling time of less than 10 minutes. I had to use a quantitative approach to characterize V.natrigens growth and physiology for the first part of my project. Then we had to optimize media and growth conditions with single-cell resolution using microfluidic chips, following which their growth was analyzed both at constant or changing conditions. For the latter part of the project, the work became more focussed and challenging for me. I was assigned the task of developing synthetic genetic circuits and establishing them in Vibrio natriegens which was a work for which no relevant literature was available. For that I had to thoroughly survey the literature available and develop my own idea, protocol and experimentation techniques. I had to optimize many protocols only after which I could work on the toggle switch and the dual feedback oscillator (famous synthetic genetic circuits). I had to establish them both in E.coli and Vibrio and study the oscillation frequency, switching speed, tunability, signal to noise ratio and develop parameters to smoothen the oscillations. After successfully establishing the circuits in Vibrio, we then decided to analyse them in microfluidic apparatus and perform single cell quantitative imaging to see the oscillations and toggling of the circuits and their corresponding expression at single cell level, quantitated by the level of fluorescent protein, i.e, GFP and mCherry production and degradation . Fortunately the circuits worked in Vibrio and produced significant results. Then we analyzed the change in the behavior of the circuits in different media to see in which type of conditions they showed optimal performance. On another part of the project, I worked closely with another co-intern in the lab and developed a promoter library of varying strengths and used dye barcoding techniques to segregate and identify them in microfluidic chips. Such type of promoter library creation and their quantitative classification based on their strengths will allow us to perfectly identify the set of promoters that we want to use for creating our varied genetic circuits. Optical trap and laser technology will be used to then selectively isolate the promoter we want to use for our purpose from the plethora of promoters being expressed in cells being run on the microfluidic chips. The lab has developed such techniques which has made it possible and will bring a revolution in the field of synthetic biology in the near future.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Work and Environment:-
|
||||
|
||||
The work environment was extremely good at Harvard. Everyone is equally dedicated towards their work. Even at the lunch time, they discuss about new ideas and exciting research that is going on in the world. These discussions allow a person to gain knowledge about varied things in a small amount of time that took over a cup of coffee. No one demotivates you if you fail in your experiment. There were instances where things did not work out according to my plan and the experiment for the day did not produce desired results, but my postdoc mentor still motivated me and told me to not to worry about all these things. He repeatedly told me that failure is a part of science and without failure one can never expect to achieve success in life. I had amazing lab mates who were experts in theoretical, experimental and computational work and learnt something from each of them. Everybody was willing to help us in any way possible. I had an amazing co-intern and roommate beside me all the time, Piyush Nanda, a final year undergrad from IIT KGP, who cleared lots of my doubts and played a very important part in reshaping my scientific mindset for which I indebted to him. Both of us had a fun time learning, working in the lab, exploring new places, restaurants and going for short trips. The department arranged theory lunches, seminars, happy hours, discussion meetings and other recreational activities to allow the people to interact with each other. There were some brilliant undergrads visiting the department from throughout the world with whom I spent a wonderful time. The department also took us for a retreat to Maine along with the other people of the department where we had a wonderful time listening to lectures, going for hiking, boating, dinner table meetings and also most importantly dancing at the discotheque with all the faculties and students of the department. It was an excellent experience to see your faculties dance beside you in the party which showed me how well they can maintain a work life balance. All of these incidents have left an everlasting impression on me.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
## Funding and Related Information:-
|
||||
|
||||
I had received replies from some of the faculties I had contacted and most of them appreciated my idea and expressed their interest towards hosting me in their lab. However, there were some problems regarding financial support, space crunch, and duration of the internship which prevented me from joining their labs. One of the best moments of my life when noble laureate, Jack Szostak replied back to my email and appreciated my idea but there being a space crunch in his lab I could not join his lab. However, these moments of happiness pushed me to keep on moving forward. I had then received acceptance letters from Max Planck Society of Plant Physiology, Genome Institute of Singapore, University of Saskatchewan (through Mitacs Globalink Fellowship Program), appreciation from EPFL@Life Sciences Internship Program Committee and Yale University. All of these internships were fully or partially funded by programs or the universities. My professor at Harvard offered me a hefty amount of stipend per month and apart from that I had also applied for the Travel Research Internship Scheme of IIT Roorkee for which I was selected and awarded an amount of Rupees One lakh. I am grateful to the institute to have provided me with the sum and I hope that I have been able to utilize the sum efficiently. The amount which I received was sufficient for the entire period of my internship and all the expenses were borne from those monetary support that I had received.
|
||||
|
||||
## Summing Up:-
|
||||
|
||||
I would suggest every student to try their best to find a suitable position for themshelves during the summer and to use the opportunities they receive wisely. Failures will come throughout the process but I strongly recommend to not stop trying because only if you try hard will you achieve success, no matter whether it is securing an internship or something bigger in life.
|
||||
|
||||
Best of Luck!!!!!!!
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,79 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Diaries: Australian National University"
|
||||
image: "nancy1.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Nancy Gupta"
|
||||
category: summer2019
|
||||
excerpt: "I spent these summers with OzGrav group working on experimental aspects of Gravitational waves (of which I will talk in detail later) at Australian National University, Canberra, for which I was supported by Future Research Talent Award."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
## Preface
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I spent these summers with OzGrav group working on experimental aspects of Gravitational waves (of which I will talk in detail later) at Australian National University, Canberra, for which I was supported by Future Research Talent Award.
|
||||
Before moving ahead, I intend to raze a few myths apropos to the country especially when it comes to research and social structure. I was warned multiple times by friends and family that ‘ Aussies are racist, be careful’, but if you give credence to my experience, Australia is one of the most welcoming and multicultural countries. Furthermore, research culture and network is no different and as good as it is in Europe despite its odd geographic location.
|
||||
|
||||
## Making it there
|
||||
|
||||
In my case, I was pretty sure that I wanted to go for an academic research internship, therefore I didn’t even give a thought to sit for on-campus internship sessions. Since my research is not at all inclined to my core branch that is Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, instead, it is more into the fundamental physics, therefore I was a bit skeptical initially but something that might have underpinned my application is my second year research internship at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics ( I believe I should have written how I made it to MPI before writing about my journey to ANU but I will leave it for later :p)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I started mailing the groups working on experimental gravitational physics (which are not a lot in number) from mid September. Most of the groups that I emailed were in US where funding is always an issue, so the typical replies I got were addressing the funding issue, suggesting to apply later in December or to involve a third party funding agency like SN Bose scholarship etc. I finally decided to apply late in December for programs like Caltech SURF (which was one of my dream groups to work with as it is one of the prominent groups involved in LIGO). Meanwhile, a day scrolling through SAC FB page, a post caught my eyes calling for the applications for Future Talent Research Award which is a scholarship to work on a short term project at ANU, Canberra. (Those who haven’t followed SAC page, please do it as it keeps you updated from academic reforms to other important stuff in the campus). For me, it was a good opportunity because ANU has a group working on Gravitation waves and is centre for LIGO Australia (OzGrav). The scholarship is worth 6000 Aus Dollars. Since it is a collaborative program between IITR and ANU, I needed to be first nominated by the institute on the basis of my resume, write-up and recommendation. Once I got nominated, my name was sent to the research group of my preference, which made the final decision. Sometimes, in order to make a decision, the professor may want to talk to you over skype but it is not necessary, many other scholars directly got selected without getting through an interview or so, it kinda depends on your professor.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
PS: Before applying for FRT you must keep in mind that the confirmation about selection comes by mid December, before the applications open for programs like Caltech SURF, Charpak etc which is good but also have huge drawback because IITR gets a bond signed by you with the application stating that denial of scholarship is prohibited once you are selected and as a penalty institute will never ever support your endeavours in future!
|
||||
|
||||
## Work
|
||||
|
||||
**<u>Institute and the Research group</u>**
|
||||
|
||||
Australian National University is one of the best universities with QS world ranking of 24. Despite this fact, it is a bit underrated and not as popular as the Western Universities. There are many underlying reasons for this and one of the most lucid one is Australia’s odd location ( The Real South :p) leading to the assumption that it might be disconnected from the rest of the world and scientific collaborations aren’t clustered about it but believe me this a whopper! Corroborating evidence to this is— Australia played a crucial role in Apollo 11 landing ( just bringing up to venerate 50 years of moon landing). Anyway, coming back to my research and work, I worked with a research group that is a part of bigger collaboration LSC (LIGO Scientific Collaboration). LSC is a combined effort to observe and probe the universe with a whole new spectrum of gravitational waves. Long term goal is to develop gravitational wave astronomy such that it proves to be a new tool to study cosmic events like Black Hole Merger, Binary neutron star merger etc.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
*4 km arm interferometer (LIGO) at the Hanford site*
|
||||
|
||||
**<u>The Domain of work</u>**
|
||||
|
||||
In a bigger picture, I was working on bettering the sensitivity of current gravitational wave detector by overcoming the standard quantum limit. My task was to work on table top experiments (involving lots of optics and electronics) and to essentially observe opto-mechanical coupling (or more specifically optical spring effect) in a seismically isolated optical cavity. To break it down further in simpler language I was trying to measure the effect of photon radiation pressure. If you figured it out, yes I am an experimentalist...not as smart as theorists !! :P
|
||||
Though I worked for LSC during my second year intern at MPI Germany, yet the domain of work at ANU was totally different and new to me therefore I spent a few weeks reading some books and papers and once I had enough background, I was dragged to a sophisticated clean laser lab to work on my cool experiment.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
*Up on the screen, that’s the fundamental mode of light !!*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Despite the fact that the work I was doing requires a considerable amount of experience, I was able to do it only because of the constant support and input of my postdoctoral mentor who was always ready to troubleshoot any problem in my experiment. Apart from this, the lab environment was pretty accommodating, I was allowed to come to the lab at any time 24*7 (I did go on weekends to collect measurement in the hope of less noisy data :P). Our Muti-cultured group of Indians, Aussies, German, Dutch, Kiwis etc used to go out for dinner and drinks on Fridays which I believe helped me to bond a lot better with my colleagues and mentors.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
Friday evening drinks with the group :)
|
||||
|
||||
## Beauty in the peace of the city!
|
||||
|
||||
Canberra is the capital city and unlike most of Australian cities, it is not situated on the coastal line. Also, Australia is different in terms of seasons from the rest of the world, Aussies celebrate Christmas in summers . Since it is in the southern hemisphere, it experiences winters (min -4 celsius) from May - July and summers in December- February. Taking you back to the history of the city which is no older than one and half century, when the different Australian colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia, the new country needed a capital and both Sydney and Melbourne wanted the honor. However it was later decided to build a new capital at Canberra and a competition to design the new city was held which was won by Walter Burley Griffin. So, yes, it is a planned city and yet it is naturally vibrant, you can encounter possums and kangaroos even on the ANU campus.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
To justify the heading, let me address the beauty in the peace and silence of the city. Canberra has very less population density and also it is surrounded by hills with a big beautiful lake at the heart of the city which upholds my former statement about serenity. On a bright, sunny day, nothing is as satisfying as enjoying barbecue and drinks by the lakeside.
|
||||
You can go hiking to nearby hills and mountains (Mt. Taylor, Mt. Ainslie, Black Mountain) which is always fun to do solo or with a group, also you can easily encounter vibrant Australian wildlife during such hikes ( Don’t worry you won’t encounter poisonous snakes and spiders !!)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
If you are done with Canberra and start missing the crowd, you can head to Sydney which is not very far. Sydney offers you a bunch of interesting deals, some of my favourites are walking along Bondi beach, and a ferry to Manly. I visited Sydney during lights festival when the whole area near Opera House and Darling Harbour was covered by a sheet of light.
|
||||
“ My arrival to the city was marked by skepticism, but departure with the hope of the arrival”
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
*Kangaroos in their natural habitat*
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
*Lake Burley Griffin on a sunny day*
|
||||
|
||||
## Takeaways
|
||||
|
||||
For me the major upshot, apart from academic and technical knowledge, is the impression that research always involves iteration, one can succeed in it if she/he is enjoying it and having pleasure in finding things out. I did have many setbacks during my project but the only thing that kept me going was the amusement at how beautiful and predictive things in physics are. I feel, after this internship I developed a more profound and firm belief in science and rational thinking.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
At last, I want to add, please don’t adapt to the herd mentality, I know there is always pressure on us ( especially at the end of sophomore year) to get a good internship and so on, but never forget you won’t be able to perform up to your limit until you are enjoying your job. No matter how rarely travelled the desired path is, follow it, I am not sure if you’d be successful at it but you will definitely be satisfied. I too had the choice to opt for more conventional paths like data science or my core but I knew that the only thing that excites me is physics and today I am happy and satisfied with my pick.
|
||||
Since I am Richard Feynman’s fangirl, I would love to end this with his quote taken from ‘Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!’—
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
_**“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”**_
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,23 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: Third Inter-IIT SPAN Meet
|
||||
category: sac
|
||||
image: 3rd-span-meet.jpg
|
||||
author: "Harshit Dubey"
|
||||
excerpt: "The IIT SPAN, or Indian Institutes of Technology Students’ Presence Across Nation, is a self-governed body composed of elected student representatives of the respective IITs, with the intent to serve as an advisory body and as a platform to hear and address the grievances of its members."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The IIT SPAN, or Indian Institutes of Technology Students’ Presence Across Nation, is a self-governed body composed of elected student representatives of the respective IITs, with the intent to serve as an advisory body and as a platform to hear and address the grievances of its members. The IIT SPAN constitution was adopted in April 2016, citing its various responsibilities, sub-committees, and bylaws.
|
||||
|
||||
The IIT-SPAN meet of the academic session 2019-2020 was held at IIT Roorkee Greater Noida Extension Campus, (IIT-GNEC) on 24th August 2019. It was attended by IITs BHU, Bhuvaneshwar, Bombay, Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jammu, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Mandi, Pallakad, Ropar, Roorkee, and Tirupati. Watch Out! covered the event.
|
||||
|
||||
The agenda for the meeting was decided beforehand, and most points on the agenda were centered around the upcoming Inter-IIT Tech Meet to be held in IIT Roorkee in December 2019. The meeting opened with a discussion regarding several amendments to be made to the constitution of the Inter-IIT Tech Meet, followed by a discussion on the organizational structure. A decision was made to adopt the organisational model followed by the Inter-IIT sports meet. A discussion also ensued upon the inclusion of events related to designing, entrepreneurship and civil engineering. It was decided that several ‘productathon’ problem statements will be included in order to make the Tech Meet more inclusive.
|
||||
|
||||
The Board meet focused heavily upon getting the Inter IIT Tech Meet officially recognized by the Board of Directors, by lobbying the directors of different IITs individually. The structure and organisation of the Tech Meet were discussed, and it was emphasised that organizing IITs should focus heavily upon long term brand creation and continuity of the tech meet rather than focusing solely on the present edition of the event. It was also decided to outsource real-time projects from the industry. The dates for the Inter IIT Tech meet 2019 were finalized (20-22 December 2019). The board also agreed to find better avenues for collaboration, communication, and networking between the industry and academia. An important highlight of the event was that all IITs unanimously agreed upon not disclosing the name of the IIT while presenting a solution to the judging panel of any event in the Inter IIT Tech Meet.
|
||||
|
||||
Ultimately, the meeting agreed upon the organizing of a Student Academic Conference open for all UG/PG/Ph.D. students under the umbrella of the Tech Meet. Additionally, the inclusion of E-Conclave (a networking event for the E-Cell of different IITs) under the umbrella of Inter IIT Tech Meet was finalized.
|
||||
|
||||
The SPAN serves as a great platform for not only increased interaction and collaboration between the students of different IITs, but also as a portal that helps in addressing the grievances of students in a democratic manner. We believe that IIT SPAN will be instrumental in the future for the cooperation between different IITs, thus offering an avenue for Inter-IIT student communication and networking.
|
||||
|
||||
*The detailed minutes of the meeting, as compiled by Watch Out!, can be found on this [link](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WQmgAOIinIJ7cMV_32nHi7LzAlME2zv-ouEQs628Eu4/edit?usp=sharing){: style="text-decoration:underline"}. You can also find the constitution of IIT SPAN [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TCU_ncbKKBQE83cY03aMtB3dvETWfgcO/view){: style="text-decoration:underline"}.*
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,62 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture : In Conversation with Professor B.C Joshi"
|
||||
image: "prof.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Professor B.C Joshi is an alumnus of the erstwhile University of Roorkee (our very own IITR), and is currently an Associate Professor at the National Center for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR). He has been associated with the use of some of the largest telescopes across the world."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*Professor B.C Joshi is an alumnus of the erstwhile University of Roorkee (our very own IITR), and is currently an Associate Professor at the National Center for Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR). He has been associated with the use of some of the largest telescopes across the world. His research areas include the study of pulsars and polarimetry. As part of our larger goal to increase the coverage of Institute Lectures, Watch Out! decided to interview Professor Joshi to talk to him about his research, his talk, and his life at University of Roorkee.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** You are an alumnus of this institute. What memories does being here bring back?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** Oh, plenty of good memories. You spend a major part of your life in college with your friends. Whenever I come back to the campus, I get transported back to the old times. I have good memories of the yacht club. I swam in the ganga canal many times. The three places I liked the most were the tennis court opposite to govind bhawan, the swimming pool and squash courts. We had very good sport facilities here and I made good use of them. I was a secretary of the stargazing club (Physics and Astronomy club now). One of my best memories is when I,along with a batchmate, built a telescope from scratch for which we visited the Nainital Observatory to get it polished. We spent countless hours building it. We used to have star parties frequently as well, those were happy times. Some of my best times were spent in the erstwhile University Canteen and talking about various things. We used to go to a place called Bhatia's next to the Hangar Gate(convocation hall). Next to the gate, there was a small shack where we used to eat bun omelettes. Late night when we were preparing for our test series or something else, that was the only place you could go to eat when hungry. The initial Thomsos or Cult Fests were organized by us, and we got Pankaj Udhas as one of the artists. Also the Roorkee team winning the Cult Fest in IIT kanpur is a pleasant memory. I was also a Debating Secretary and a member of the Dramatics Club.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** When and how did you realise that research was your calling and how did you narrow it down to the particular area of research you are involved in? Could you tell us a bit about what your research deals with?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** It started from this very Physics Department. We had a faculty member Yogeshwar Singh, and it was very tough to get a good grade in his course. The HOD was Shri Krishna Joshi who organized a lot of things. I was interested in astronomy and physics, so I developed many things like instruments and so on. The Mathematics department had a Professor Chandrika Prasad, a renowned mathematician. He got an Astronomical Society of India meeting organized for which we had an astronomy exhibition set up. Professor Jayant Narilkar came there so we asked him what we could do in astronomy. He suggested many things which I followed subsequently.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I work in pulsar astronomy. Pulsars are very small stars which rotate very rapidly, and they are very good clocks. Because of this they are very important for several experiments like testing the General Theory of Relativity. You need huge radio telescopes for this and in India we have one of the largest telescopes in the world. I have been associated with that right from the days it was being built. I was one of the conceiving members of pulsar astronomy in India. So we started from scratch as there was nothing before that. The first pulsar observed from that was also done by me. That is what most of my research deals with and I remain deeply interested in.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What topics will you be touching upon in your talk?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** will be talking about pulsars and clocks. I am going to illustrate that these clocks can be used for fundamental physics and how studying these clocks requires application of cutting edge engineering techniques. I will also talk about the use of these clocks in interstellar navigation. This has been recently demonstrated to work in the international space station one year back.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What are your views about the efforts being made to popularize research with newly established institutes like IISERs? In general do you think that there are enough research opportunities/ the right direction for research in the country?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** I think this initiative is fairly good and it has been developing fairly fast. In general in the last 20-25 years we have made huge progress in doing cutting edge research. Internet has also helped in this as data can be transmitted very quickly now. In terms of funding, I think we are still way behind.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** A lot of undergraduates tend to sway away from research since it's a path which requires a lot of struggle which often amounts to nothing. People also give up on careers in research for monetary reasons. What advice do you have for undergraduates wanting to pursue research?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** If we talk about engineering undergraduates, it's not true that there are no monetary rewards in research. All the startups right now are based on some or the other form of research done by an engineering graduate. The environment in the country right now is not bad for an innovator who wants to do research. Fundamental Sciences is different because you don't have a direct application in the human sphere because of which you can't monetize your discovery. So if I discover a new pulsar no one is going to pay me for it. It is more to satisfy the human curiosity and there its a problem. But if you are very passionate about doing research, I don't think there is a monetary disincentive, because you would eventually end up making good discoveries or doing fantastic science. There is a career for all such students, and you have to struggle. The science graduates will have to struggle more than their engineering counterparts as it is not a very straightforward or easy path.
|
||||
|
||||
The important thing is to have passion. When things get tough and there is not enough monetary incentive, it is the passion that sustains you.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Do you think going into research/ becoming a scientist requires a high level of intelligence or is it a blend of both hardwork and IQ?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** In astronomy there are a number of examples where if you are hardworking, you will be able to uncover many things that the most intelligent person will not be able to. Some of the earliest stellar structures depended on correlations which were discovered by women who were very hardworking, and worked for 10-15 years. Even Newton's Laws or later Kepler's formulations are all based on painstaking experiments. Basic intelligence is obviously required to correlate things. You can't discover things without having an analytical bent of mind. Many times discoveries are a matter of luck.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How much has technology impacted scientific research? Can it be said that without the basic knowledge of programming languages/ other tools it's difficult to conduct research work now?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** Oh it's huuge, especially in my area of research. If we didn't have gaming technologies it would be very difficult to do the research we are currently doing because we use GP GPUs everywhere. There are specialised GP GPUs for research and they have revolutionized computing to a large extent. Technologies create a discovery space, because discoveries happen when you explore a parameter space that has never been touched before. That enabling of parameter space happens only when there is a technological advancement.
|
||||
|
||||
With the help of computers and programming languages you can sort of reduce your menial tasks, and concentrate more on the fun and exciting parts. It's not that if you don't like programming, you can't do anything but then you will have to depend on someone who knows it. So that is how you collaborate with people with different specialisations.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Do you have any general words of advice for us?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Joshi :** You should have fun in life. No matter what you do, if you are having fun you will make your mark. If you ever feel you are not having fun and that the work you're doing is drudgery, you should shift from that path. Success and money will eventually come if you are having fun.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,130 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Hult Prize"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Agastya Varhala and Adarsh Gupta"
|
||||
category: career
|
||||
image: hult1.jpg
|
||||
excerpt: 'The Hult Prize is an annual, year-long competition that crowd-sources ideas from MBA and college students after challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around topics such as food security, water access, energy, and education. The Prize is a partnership between Hult International Business School and the United Nations Foundation.'
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Hult Prize is an annual, year-long competition that crowd-sources ideas from MBA and college students after challenging them to solve a pressing social issue around topics such as food security, water access, energy, and education. The Prize is a partnership between Hult International Business School and the United Nations Foundation.
|
||||
|
||||
Previous topics that have been dished out as part of the competition include:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Harnessing the Power of Energy
|
||||
|
||||
2. Refugees – Re-awakening Human Potential
|
||||
|
||||
3. Crowded Urban Spaces
|
||||
|
||||
4. Early Childhood Education
|
||||
|
||||
5. The Global Food Crisis
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
This initiative is open to students of all colleges and universities from across the world, making it one of the biggest student-centered events of its kind. It is one of the world’s biggest engines for the launch of for-good, for-profit startups emerging from universities around the world. Each year thousands of college and university students from 150+ countries participate, and since its inception, participants have represented 1,000+ institutions of higher education. In 2018, 115,000 students from over 100 countries competed for the coveted Hult Prize.
|
||||
|
||||
How The Wheels Are Set In Motion:
|
||||
|
||||
Each year the announcement of the topic sets heralds the arrival of the competition. Every year a new area is chosen to be explored (for the challenge), with the primary criteria for topics being “transformative and sustainable business”.
|
||||
|
||||
**<u>The Hult Prize takes place in 4 stages :</u>**
|
||||
|
||||
## Stage 1: On Campus
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The On-Campus Program brings the prize directly to universities around the world. The local championship gives the university’s winning team the chance to bypass the general round, and guarantees a direct entry into one of the regional finals.
|
||||
A student who participated in the Hult Prize Challenge 2019 told us, “ The On Campus round mainly consists of pitching your idea to a panel, along with a presentation which summarizes your work plan. The round also gives you an opportunity to get a general idea about how the other participants have tackled the issue and what various strategies are being implemented in solving the challenge at hand.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Stage 2: Regionals
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The Hult Prize Regionals is a National Level Competition held in March. Regionals takes place in 17 countries including India, Japan, China, Belgium, UK, etc. From the 100,000 students who compete initially, only 5,000 snag a seat at these 2-day regional summits. The Top 50 Hult Prize startups qualify to the next round.
|
||||
|
||||
## Stage 3: Accelerator
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The very best startups represented at each regional summit secure a spot in the world’s largest accelerators for impact in Boston, Massachusetts and Hult’s castle in the UK.
|
||||
The startups spend six weeks in the accelerator. There the participants are mentored and undergo a tailor made 5-week program, that focuses on team building, sales, marketing and resource mapping.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Stage 4: Global Finals
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The Global Finals are hosted by the United Nations in New York. Selected teams from the Hult Accelerator program get a chance to present their ideas to the jury which generally consists of UN representatives, previous winners of the Hult Prize, politicians, and CEOs of Non-Governmental organizations working in fields related to that year’s topic, during the Global Finals in September.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## The Loot You Get to Keep:
|
||||
|
||||
The Hult family — founders of EF Education First — donates USD 1 million in seed capital, to help the winning team launch a social enterprise.
|
||||
Who Can Compete:
|
||||
Students from any college or university in the world are invited to form teams of 3-4. Individuals who cannot form a team, but are interested in competing, can join the Facebook community to find other individuals who are looking to form teams.
|
||||
The Application Process:
|
||||
Teams can apply online for entry into the Regional Finals through hultprize.org or compete in a locally organized Hult Prize On-Campus event, where the winner will bypass the application round and be guaranteed a place into one of 25+ Regional Finals.
|
||||
The interested students of IIT Roorkee can go through the On-Campus Hult Prize program where they would have to present their ideas to a panel of judges.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
## The On-Campus At Hand:
|
||||
|
||||
This year’s topic is “Build Startups That Have a Net Impact on Environment”, where the idea is to look for transformative new models that make a positive impact on the environment with every sale completed, every dollar earned and every decision made.
|
||||
|
||||
To know more about this year's On-Campus event, please visit the following link : [http://hultprizeat.com/iitroorkee](http://hultprizeat.com/iitroorkee){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
Or visit the Facebook page: [https://www.facebook.com/hpiitr/](https://www.facebook.com/hpiitr/){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
To know more about this year’s topic visit: [https://www.facebook.com/109182803817789/posts/126962288706507/](https://www.facebook.com/109182803817789/posts/126962288706507/){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Too Long;Didn’t Read:
|
||||
|
||||
Hult Prize is an annual competition aimed at crowd sourcing innovative ideas and rewarding them with seed capital.
|
||||
It seeks to promote sustainable business solutions that tackle social and environmental issues.
|
||||
In 2018, 115,000 students from over 100 countries participated in the Hult Prize, competing for a total of $5m in prize money.
|
||||
The Hult Prize takes place in 4 stages :
|
||||
|
||||
Stage 1: On Campus
|
||||
|
||||
Stage 2: Regionals
|
||||
|
||||
Stage 3: Accelerator
|
||||
|
||||
Stage 4: Grand Finals
|
||||
|
||||
Students from any college or university in the world are invited to form teams of 3-4. Individuals who cannot form a team, but are interested in competing, can join the Facebook community to find other individuals who are looking to form teams.
|
||||
The interested students of IIT Roorkee can go through the On-Campus Hult Prize program where they would have to present their ideas to a panel of judges.
|
||||
Register at hultprize.org .
|
||||
|
||||
To know more visit the following link : [http://hultprizeat.com/iitroorkee](http://hultprizeat.com/iitroorkee){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
[https://www.facebook.com/hpiitr/https://www.facebook.com/109182803817789/posts/126962288706507/](https://www.facebook.com/hpiitr/https://www.facebook.com/109182803817789/posts/126962288706507/){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,59 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "NSS Blood Donation Camp’19"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
image: bdc1.png
|
||||
author: "Yavnika Garg, Pritika Mishra"
|
||||
excerpt: "A single pint can save three lives. A single gesture can create a million smiles."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
“A single pint can save three lives. A single gesture can create a million smiles.”
|
||||
Keeping this in mind, the National Service Scheme of IIT Roorkee successfully organized a Blood Donation Drive on 13th October 2019. The turnout was a whopping 1013 against the recorded turnout of 857 for the previous drive. There was an improvement in the participation of girls, as among the total donors 17.7% were girls as opposed to 11.3% in 2018. In addition to it, there was an increase in the participation of faculty, locals and the staff.
|
||||
|
||||
The organizing team of NSS IITR invested in a lot of effort and time, ensuring mass promotion of the event not just across the campus, but also in Civil lines and Solanipuram. Rahul Kumar Singh Sunil, General Secretary of NSS IITR, reported “This year we have extended the message of BDC, apart from the students and faculty, to the support staff, security guards and even the mess workers. I have witnessed 7 BDCs throughout my association with NSS, and I can proudly say that this year we have a lot of enthusiastic participants because of better .
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
When asked about the maintenance of hygiene and sanitation, Yash Agrawal, Joint Secretary of NSS IITR, commented, “Due to the outbreak of dengue, the wards are filled in the hospital and to avoid its further spread, we have set up the camp outside the hospital quarters. We have two different blood banks this year- **Mother Teresa Blood Bank** based in Roorkee and **IMA Blood Bank**, based in Dehradun. The equipment used by them is sterile and is designed for one-time usage. The disposal of syringes, cotton, and other medical waste was ensured by the use of special dustbins designed to contain bio-waste.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
One of the volunteers from the first year, Drishti Bhasin said, “It feels good to contribute to a noble cause. I am doing the registrations and another friend of mine is giving away the certificates to the donors. We are being supervised by our seniors from the second and third years. We have been working for this day for quite some time as we had regular meetings and promotions before-hand.”
|
||||
The Public Relations Head from IMA Blood Bank said, “I am connected to IIT Roorkee through my organization since 2012. The students here have always been enthusiastic about donating blood and the participation only increases each year. This year we’ve got a good amount of rare blood types likes AB+ and O-.”
|
||||
|
||||
The Manager of Mother Teresa Blood Bank said: “ We’ve conducted BDC camps previously at Patanjali Yogpeeth, Panasonic, Hero Honda group, CSF, District court but it is our first time here and the response we’re getting is quite impressive.”
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
One of the first time donors, Mihir, a freshman, told us, “ My parents encouraged me to come and donate blood, there was no peer pressure. The refreshments are good too so that’s an added incentive.”
|
||||
outreach in the promotional activities.”
|
||||
|
||||
One of the donors, Shadab Siddiqui, who donated the blood later in the evening said,” I had to wait for at least an hour to donate blood, but then the feeling was worth it and I am happy to do so.”
|
||||
Another regular blood donor, “I didn’t smoke for 2 days so I could donate blood, that’s how excited I was for today’s BDC.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
When asked about the problems, the major problem reported was that one of the blood banks left early and the entire work-load shifted to a single blood bank. As a consequence, donors had to wait a long time for their turn. The crowd dissuaded many people who had initially come with the intention of donating blood. This was one of the major reasons as to why things slowed down towards the end.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
When asked about this situation, Vishwas Rawat, Joint Secretary (Admin) NSS IIT Roorkee, said, “The blood donation camp witnessed a huge turn out after the lunch hours, and this was the result of the promotion done by our dedicated NSS Volunteers in front of the messes, today. As a result of this, IMA (Dehradun) Blood bank, soon reached their capacity and had to leave early. So, the entire donor crowd got transferred to the Mother-Teresa Blood bank. As a consequence, donors had to wait for their turn. Since before donating blood, the blood bank team runs a basic medical check on all the donors, some of the blood donors had to wait more than an hour. Seeing the crowd, some of the donors left, but most of the IITR junta was so excited that they waited for their turn and played their part in this generous cause”.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
The blood donation camp plays a crucial part in saving the lives of many, particularly the IITR junta. NSS IITR has partnered with four blood banks - IMA ( Dehradun), Himalayan (Dehradun), Roorkee Civil Hospital and Mother-Teresa Blood Bank (Roorkee). Any request made through NSS IITR is prioritized by these blood banks and the blood unit is made available at a very nominal cost to the patient. As of now, the request can be made by dropping a message on any of the NSS, IITR social media handles, or placing a phone call on the mentioned phone number. The NSS Team is currently working on a portal, which will soon be available on their website. This portal can be used to raise blood requests.
|
||||
In conclusion, the donation drive was a resounding success, with the blood banks exceeding their targets for blood collection. The widespread involvement of the community as a whole for this noble endeavor was an extremely positive development, and we hope to see similar initiatives gain traction in the future.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Pictures-<br>
|
||||
[https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=11YAY4aQZUKBUZb78aMlzUzavZbYLDuWs](https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=11YAY4aQZUKBUZb78aMlzUzavZbYLDuWs){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,56 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Research Diary 1: Human Computer Interaction"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Vinayak Pushkar"
|
||||
category: career
|
||||
image: vinayak1.png
|
||||
excerpt: 'Hi, I am Vinayak Pushkar, a final year student pursuing my bachelor’s in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineering. I am interested in investigating and designing the interaction between humans and machines or computers. '
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Hi, I am Vinayak Pushkar, a final year student pursuing my bachelor’s in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineering. I am interested in investigating and designing the interaction between humans and machines or computers.
|
||||
|
||||
## Why I Chose Research:
|
||||
|
||||
Research was not the first career track that I pursued at the beginning of my undergraduate life. In the first three semesters of my bachelor's, I went on exploring and working with a lot of campus groups(mostly technical) and later I met a lot of professors for research projects. Most of us are hesitant to talk to professors and ask for projects in the beginning which should not be the case. I have always been interested in building products at the intersection of design and technology and I found that focusing on research gave me more time to pursue my interests. The more we explore and introspect in our initial years, the closer we get to what is precious to us or at least we come to know of things that do not align with our interests. I have experienced research on a small scale, but I can say it is a lot about patience. Even if you do not happen to be at some highly ranked foreign university for your research internship, you can still find ways to get involved in projects that interest you and work sincerely on them. If you want to explore research, you must dedicate a fair amount of time to it. In the institute, I have attempted projects in the Material Sciences, Physics and Architecture Departments and was also involved in some mechatronics projects. At first, I went through the research work which was being done by the professor. If I found it to be similar to what I wanted to do or if it seemed interesting, I approached them with my prior work in that field or just expressed my interest to work on similar projects after going through some literature from that field.
|
||||
|
||||
It is also very important to have proper planning on how to proceed with the projects.
|
||||
I had to drop a project in the Physics department because I was simultaneously involved in three projects in three different departments which I do not recommend beginners in research to do. Focusing on a single project and working wholeheartedly on that is a better option. While approaching professors, you need to show them how you can add value to their ongoing research. You may do it by describing your work, interest, and its alignment with research being done at their lab. I was given the position of Research Assistant which is generally a funded position in most universities. Some professors were interested in inviting me to work with them but they had a lack of funds. So, I kept trying until I landed a funded offer. It is actually a very good experience where you make a lot of connections with some people involved in quality research and labs across the globe. I approached professors directly through e-mail and inquired about funding if they seemed interested in my application. DORA IITR can also be helpful in case you need to get your travel aid for your internship or a conference. In the case of undergraduate research, funding becomes a big issue at all the different levels of research. Outside, one has to worry less about these things so they can work on anything they want to.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## My Research Work at The University of Michigan :
|
||||
|
||||
My research at the University of Michigan was based on the personalization of medication information using computational modeling of user’s behavior and how it could play a role in improving Health Literacy across the globe.
|
||||
|
||||
The output of my research was as follows:
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**a.** Impact of the research: People will face less difficulty in interacting with healthcare information.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**b.** Takeaways: It would be great if we could learn to use and manipulate our technological advancements for the welfare of people who have been deprived of healthcare services.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**c.** Rewards: A publication if you consider this as a reward, but most rewarding is the experience you get during your research work. Being a part of a good research lab teaches a lot of things about what it is to be a researcher and the ethics involved in good research work.
|
||||
|
||||
## My Experience In Other Internships:
|
||||
My research work at CPDM IISC Banglore was based on 3D visualization of data in Virtual Reality for a smart manufacturing setup and adding hand gestures to it so that the user can interact with and manipulate the visualized data in VR. Some other projects in the lab where I was involved included “Locking targets for shooting a guided missile by fighter jets using eye-gaze behavior of the Pilot”. These projects were done in collaboration with the Indian Air Force(IAF) and I had opportunities to interact with a few Wing Commanders of the IAF just a month before the Airstrike was carried out. It was really inspiring to see the lab working out technologies that could empower the IAF.
|
||||
|
||||
At present, I am working as a visiting scholar at the University of Potsdam, Germany. My work here is based on developing scalable fabrication techniques based on laser cutting. Our goal is to investigate how to convert models for fabrication (focused on laser-cutting) to work on any machine, material and material thickness. This makes it possible to use models made by others without having to consider their machine/material. Fabrication using 3D printing has some limitations, like printing large structures can take a lot of time, and disassembly of 3D printed models can be cumbersome. Our prototyping system aims to overcome these limitations. This is a great experience for me as I see some exciting new technologies being developed in the field of fabrication.This project is also very insightful for me as now, I have seen how an imagined concept is converted into a real product and the time, effort and enthusiasm it takes.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Signing Off:
|
||||
|
||||
The overall takeaway would be that I could investigate my interest in academic research through these internships. Going for an internship for a few months is very different than pursuing research in graduate studies but surely one gets a glimpse of what to expect if one plans for graduate studies. Writing a paper is an art and I was not good at it. The guidance I received from my professor was extremely helpful, particularly while articulating my work. Having research publications helps in proving your capabilities in front of any research lab and communicating your interests in an efficient manner. The experience of interacting with and getting interviewed by various researchers inside and outside the country was very helpful. We get a sense of what it means to be involved in research.
|
||||
|
||||
Write well-articulated emails and make connections. GPA matters but I could get in with an average GPA. So, if you try hard enough, you will surely grab an opportunity somewhere. Research takes time, we need to be patient and always curious. Feel free to get in touch in case you need any help :)
|
||||
|
||||
Good Luck!
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "The Inauguration Of Shiru Cafe"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
image: shiru1.jpeg
|
||||
author: "Arush Sharma, Aryan Bidani, Spandan Gera, Agastya Varhala,Shachi Singh"
|
||||
excerpt: "Shiru cafe inaugurated its 6th store in India (and 25th worldwide) on the 15th of October for the IITR junta."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Shiru cafe inaugurated its 6th store in India (and 25th worldwide) on the 15th of October for the IITR junta. The inauguration started at 11 a.m. with the ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by an introduction to what Shiru cafe is, and how the whole concept works by our Director Dr. Ajit K Chaturvedi and Mr. Kazuki Hakamori, the manager of Shiru Cafe, India.
|
||||
|
||||
Shiru Cafe is a Japanese cafe chain, the brainchild of Enrission Inc., based in Kyoto, Japan that provides free drinks to university students in exchange for personal data such as name, university, ID number, and year. Shiru’s form also asks for students’ IT skills and previous internships. It is run completely on funds by sponsor companies, meaning that students don’t have to shell out a dime to enjoy their cuppa. The underlying philosophy of Shiru cafe is to help students make their transition from academic life to the workplace easier and provide them exposure to global corporate culture. The business model is such that it relies on targeted advertising of sponsors to students based on their profiles and interests that they fill at the time of registration.
|
||||
|
||||
Open to all students and faculty members of IITR, Shiru cafe serves up to three drinks a day per person. In order to order anything at the cafe, one has to sign up with the cafe’s website. The place does not have a cash counter, so if you want a fourth drink, come tomorrow! Open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:45 p.m, the cafe has 6 drinks to choose from Coffee, Tea, Lemon Tea, Lassi, Litchi and Mango juice.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
The Director, Dr. Ajit Chaturvedi is pretty excited about the concept of the cafe, how it opens new avenues for interactions between Indian and Japanese students, providing international exposure. He is especially pleased with the location of the cafe, which is between the two lecture hall complexes, which is well suited to make the cafe a hub for academic discussions between students, tutors, and faculty. He wishes that whatever is unresolved after the classes and tutorials, can be discussed over a cup of coffee.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
The Manager, Kazuki Hakamori expressed his gratitude for the joyful reception of the cafe by the campus. He mentioned that the cafe would serve as a bridge between students and Japanese companies, where students can gather to work, while also receiving information about future opportunities. “Students also have a great chance to get acquainted with the Japanese culture and incorporate these in their lifestyle,'' he added.
|
||||
|
||||
When asked about the staff working in the cafe he told us that the staff consisted of University students enrolled here in an exchange program, who have their classes along with a quarterly shift in which they work at the cafe.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
We also interacted with Mr. Adityaojas Sharma, a student here at IITR, who played a key role in bringing the Shiru Cafe to Roorkee. When asked about how did he get to know about the cafe and how did he manage to interact with the people of the enterprise, he told us,
|
||||
“ I heard about the Shiru cafe in IIT Bombay and thought that something like this could be opened in IITR as well. Soon I came to know about an email mentioning the proposal of opening Shiru cafe in IITR, some two years ago to the Institute Central Administration, which somehow didn’t pass at that time. So, I contacted the Dean Of Resources and Alumni Affairs and proposed the pros of having Shiru cafe here who agreed to this and thus, ended being the point of contact between the two parties.”
|
||||
|
||||
According to him, the whole vision of Shiru Cafe is to enhance the cultural exchange between the Japanese students and Indian students. It exposes the students to the very extensive technological corporate life of Japan. He also visions that this initiative could help further improve the placement and internship scenario of the campus by providing a tremendous platform to over 150 Japanese companies that are sponsoring Shiru Cafe. We asked him about his experience working on this, to which he mentioned, “It’s been great knowing these people and their culture. We have so much to learn from them. For me, it was a very special experience and I just wish that this initiative turns out to be a major success.”
|
||||
|
||||
To get drinks from the Shiru Cafe, one needs to register on the Shiru Cafe app, which is available on both android and IOS platforms. After registering you are all set to order for whichever drink you wish.
|
||||
|
||||
Talking about the first day of the cafe on IITR, there were huge crowds and delicious drinks all over. So, after an overwhelming response on day 1, Shiru Cafe has truly set its feet in IITR. By providing a platform like no other to the IITR junta, it is now time for the students to make the most out of this opportunity. We hope that each one of us benefits from this initiative.
|
||||
|
||||
Arigatou gozaimasu!
|
||||
|
||||
Image Credits: Shreya Agarwal, Shruti Gour
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,56 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Research Diary 2: Machine Learning"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Ashish Sinha"
|
||||
category: career
|
||||
image: ashish1.jpeg
|
||||
excerpt: "Let's start with a brief introduction of mine. I am Ashish Sinha, a senior undergraduate majoring in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. My research interests focus on making machines that can see, talk and act with the power of machine learning. "
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Introduction
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Let's start with a brief introduction of mine. I am Ashish Sinha, a senior undergraduate majoring in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. My research interests focus on making machines that can see, talk and act with the power of machine learning. Now, you may be wondering how did I end up researching ML or the broader question of “How did I end up pursuing research as a career?” So, let’s answer that first.
|
||||
|
||||
## Why I Decided To Pursue Research
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I had never thought that I would pursue research when I joined IITR. I was one of those students who had the mindset of studying for a decent GPA and getting a good job, that’s it. I was on this path until the end of my 2nd year. My life took a major turn during my second-year internship. I was working at a startup in the data science team. The work culture of a lame 9 to 5 job didn’t appease me much, and I met a couple of people during that time with interests similar to mine, who advised me to move from the field of data analytics and try to read and implement research papers in ML to increase my knowledge. Machine learning is something that anyone can learn by taking a couple of online courses. But these courses are not sufficient if you want to stay updated with the fast progressing field of ML, you would have to read research papers. And researching in this field seemed a viable option for me to stay updated with the trends and to stay aloof from a boring routine job.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Projects and Internships
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
I believe that projects and internships are the best modes of exploring an unknown area of interest. <br>
|
||||
I had tried to do a project related to my major in my second semester but it didn’t fascinate me enough. By the end of my first year, I realized that I was not interested at all in my major and didn’t want to do a project just for the sake of filling up my resume. Hence I didn’t complete any project in my department. So after having some experience with ML, during my second year, I tried to approach the Professors in the CSE department, sometimes they were unwilling to give a project, or sometimes the ideas just seemed not interesting enough to work out as a project. I wanted to explore material informatics, thus I took up a project in my department that involved the application of computer vision in metallurgy since it aligned with interest in ML. But since the professors in my department are also beginning to work with ML, I faced difficulties in taking the project to it's completion. So, after my second-year internship, I started emailing Professors around the globe for a research internship with the hope that someone would be willing to give me a chance to work, even though I didn’t have any prior research experience. Being a student with a not so high GPA and not being in a circuital branch, made it quite difficult for me to convince a Professor to extend an offer.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
After a couple of cold rejections due to lack of funding or vacancy, I finally landed an offer at Max Planck Institute for Iron Research. The project was related to the application of Deep Learning methods in material science, but I wanted to try something related to computer vision/ biomedical research. In 2 years, having already realized that I was not interested in my major and if I ever wanted to go for higher studies, an internship in core ML topic would help a lot rather than a computational aspect of it (this thought was so naive at that time). Finally, I got an offer from Preferred Networks to work on biomedical research. Even though it’s a company and I had made up my mind of not working in a company, this was different. Now, academia and industrial research have their own pros and cons. Academia focuses more on novelty but the resources are scarce while industries focus more on the application, we can try out multiple ideas at the same time as they don’t have a scarcity of resources and the pay is also quite good. Thus I ended up accepting the offer at PFN.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Results/ Takeaways From My Experiences
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
In the meantime, a Prof replied to email regarding taking my interview, but by that time I already had an internship, so I convinced him to supervise me remotely, and he was happy to do so. This is where my actual career in research begins. Working remotely with someone from the other side of the world has a demerit of the time difference but if you are able to communicate properly it’s not much of a problem, plus you get to work from the comfort of your room. I see this as an absolute win. Working for a couple of months resulted in the publication of my first research paper. During my internship I worked on Biomedical imaging for the construction of CT scans from X-Rays using GANs to reduce radiation exposure on patients when they go for various medical examinations and also to create a tool that can help the doctors to carry out preliminary examination before carrying out operations on patients. This work has been accepted to NeurIPS this year, a tier 1 Machine Learning conference. The sweet results of my perseverance motivated me further to go for higher studies.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## The Philosophy of Research
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Many people think that to carry out research, they have to take up a project with some professors. Though it is true for some areas like biotechnology or chemistry which requires access to lab equipment and proper guidance for carrying out research work, projects in an open field like ML can be carried out alone too. I took around 3 projects in my college but ended up completing only one, the major reason for the dropping of those projects was my lack of interest and the attitude of few professors who think that undergrads are not capable for carrying out good successful work. It may be true, but with proper mentorship, undergraduates can also produce good results. This led me to carry out various self-motivated projects by taking up various challenges on Kaggle. Kaggle is a competitive platform like CodeChef but for data science, and has loads of competitions in various domains like vision, language and data analysis. Some take part in competitions for the hefty prize money, some take part to try out their research ideas, and some take part just for the sake of learning. It has the most healthy community that are always willing to help whenever you get stuck on something. The discussion threads are a goldmine if you have the zeal to learn.
|
||||
|
||||
Doing research may be daunting and to be frank, it is challenging. Reading a research paper and understanding it completely is an art in itself. You look for a problem to solve, once you alienate the problem, you look for any previous works which have been done for inspiration. After you read some previous works, you begin to develop a mental image of what were the shortcomings of the previous works and how those can be solved. These are YOUR IDEAS. Then you try to implement those ideas, only to realize that some don’t even work, while some improve the results. Then you carry out some more experiments to make sure that your ideas were not just a fluke which worked only once but it generalizes well. That’s it, you’ve done it. You came with some novel ideas to solve a problem in a better way. Now it’s time to pen down your work and share it with the world i.e. write a research paper.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## In Conclusion
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Carrying out research, requires self-motivation and a positive attitude towards your work, so that when your ideas don’t produce any results, you don’t lose hope, but just carry on working towards the goal you set for yourself. Just don’t forget to maintain a decent GPA of around 8, though it is not a requirement for carrying out research, and having a decent GPA would provide you with more opportunities like selection in foreign research internship programs namely DAAD, MITACS or when you want to go for higher studies. Having a good GPA is like icing on the cake(your projects). On a concluding note, remember that research is trying and failing only to learn something new!
|
||||
|
||||
Cheers to your future endeavors,<br>
|
||||
Ashish.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,49 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture : In Conversation with Mr. U Raja Babu"
|
||||
image: "lecture.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Mr. U Rajababu is an accomplished scientist and engineer who currently leads India’s Ballistic Defense Program. In recent news, he led a group of over 150 scientists and engineers to design and conduct India’s first Anti-Satellite Test (ASAT), more popularly known around the country as MISSION SHAKTI."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Mr. U Rajababu is an accomplished scientist and engineer who currently leads India’s Ballistic Defense Program. In recent news, he led a group of over 150 scientists and engineers to design and conduct India’s first Anti-Satellite Test (ASAT), more popularly known around the country as MISSION SHAKTI. He delivered an Institute Lecture on 23rd October 2019 on the technological challenges faced by his team, and how they eventually succeeded with MISSION SHAKTI. As part of our larger goal to cover the Institute Lectures, Watch Out! decided to interview Mr. Rajababu to talk to him about his career in Defense Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), MISSION SHAKTI, and more.*
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Could you tell us more about your undergraduate and postgraduate field of study?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** I graduated from Andhra University with an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. Soon after, I joined the Air Force where all the engineer-selects mandatorily study the field of Aeronautical Engineering from the Air Force Technical College. Subsequently I joined the Field Formations, where I started working on helicopters. I initially participated in the Siachen glacier operations after which I got posted to Hyderabad where I was in charge of the maintenance of about 30 helicopters. I then worked with DRDL on the Prithvi project (specific to the Air Force). I then started working on Missile Integration, and after about 20 years (since I initially joined the Air Force), I shifted from the Air Force cadre of DRDL to the Scientist cadre.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How was undergraduate life for you?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** It was pretty good. I never really expected to work on such diversified fields. I guess you can say that my career took its own direction as per the requirement of the Service.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** At what point did you realise you wanted to utilise your knowledge for the protection and betterment of the nation, as opposed to, say, personal gains?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** I was basically intrigued by the field of aeronautics and since I was a child I was fascinated by the Air Force. I also got selected for the Air Force during my pre-final year of undergraduate studies, so it made sense for me to go that way. Once I joined the Air Force, the requirements of the service eventually made me specialise in certain fields. As an Aeronautical Engineer with a specialization in Mechanical Systems, I eventually had to learn a lot more about aerodynamics, propulsion, weaponry, ballistics etc and eventually, over time, I worked on Missile Integration.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** You’re the head of India’s Ballistic Defense Program which functions under DRDO. Could you tell us more about the history of this program, its current objectives etc?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** Geographically speaking, we have two main adversaries, one in the West and one in the North-East. Both these adversaries possess long range ballistic missiles. In fact, across the world, over 30-40 countries possess ballistic missiles with ranges that exceed thousands of kilometers. With the ever looming threat of a surge in global tensions, it became imperative in the late 1990s to setup a Ballistic Defense program so that India could protect its vital assets. When this program started, it came with its set of challenges because it was a relatively new field and till date, very few countries can boast of expertise in this field. Also, since this program in any country is a matter of national security, it was not like no other technological setup because we had to start everything from scratch. It is obvious why no country would share the details of its ballistic defense program with us. To top it all, the threat is always evolving, and the ballistic capabilities of our adversaries only seem to grow. However, at this point, I can safely say that we’re in a good place to defend ourselves against both our adversaries. The current objectives of the program are pretty clear; we must continue to grow with evolving threats in order to always be capable of defending our vital areas.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Mission Shakti was a grand success, and the degree of accuracy achieved is pretty stunning. Could you give us a brief overview of the testing that took place on March 27?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** Basically, Mission Shakti was an extension of my program. Since we were already working on anti-missile technology, we could easily adapt to the challenge of anti-satellite technology. Of course, here one of the main technical problems is the problem of extremely high velocities. There were more challenges though, like safety, security, collateral damage and secrecy. We couldn’t afford to have any failures, since it would lead to national embarrassment. In a single statement, one could say the Mission Shakti was a successful statement of deterrence.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** You mentioned in a few interviews that only a handful of scientists were aware of the actual goal of the project. Could you elaborate more on the importance of ‘deception’ in science when it comes to national security?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** Oh, it’s pretty important. When it comes to designing and running these tests that better our defenses and act as deterrents, it becomes imperative to work on a strictly need-to-know basis. The problem is, if the news of such a test leaked out before we could run it, the international pressure on India to not run such a test would be massive. We would have had to shut down the entire project if that happened. Hence we had to deal in deception. And especially with scientists, it is never easy. These are people who are inquisitive and curious, and when the simulations we were running pointed towards the true goal of our mission, we had to come up with a series of tactful alibis so that news wouldn’t leak. It was a tough job, but we were successful in the end.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How important is it to keep space debris in mind?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** We wanted to keep the damage caused by the debris created to an absolute minimum to avoid any global hue and cry. Satellites usually occupy orbits in the range of 400 and 800 kms and if we chose to implode a satellite of ours within this range, then the debris created would have caused damage to satellites of other countries. In the past, China faced similar problems of international pressure with their anti-satellites tests. We wanted to avoid that, so we purposely chose a lower orbit, well outside the range of any satellite. With increased velocity, this debris would have quickly decayed and fallen on earth. The satellite we used was launched by us on January 24 of this year under the pretext of an experimental DRDO satellite.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** As someone who has been working in the intersection of science and national security, do you have any advice for undergraduates of IITR who dream of achieving the same?
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr. U Rajababu :** It’s a very interesting area to work in. It’s one of the best applications of advanced technologies, and of course, you get to work on matters of national security. Over the last few years the government has also been encouraging students to pursue science and research to groom them for similar reasons. It is an ever-evolving field with still a lot for us left to do, and I’m sure there are plenty of opportunities for anyone interested in working along these lines.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,51 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture : In Conversation With Professor Justin David"
|
||||
image: "lecture2.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Prof. Justin David is an accomplished theoretical string theorist, who is currently the chairman of the prestigious Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science (CHEP-IISc)"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Prof. Justin David is an accomplished theoretical string theorist, who is currently the chairman of the prestigious Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science (CHEP-IISc). On the 4th of November 2019, he delivered an Institute Lecture in Roorkee, on entanglement entropy and holography. As part of our larger goal to increase the coverage of the Institute Lectures, Watch Out! decided to interview Prof. Justin David, to find out more about his undergraduate life, his research and more.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How was your undergraduate life? When did you start seeing research as a viable career option?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** From my high school onwards, I was very clear that I wanted to study maths and physics. Even though I had a better JEE rank than was required, I opted for Integrated M.Sc. Physics at IIT Kanpur, since I wanted to pursue Physics at that time. Luckily, IIT Kanpur had a good culture of Physics, which I believe is still being continued. It was only later that I got interested in string theory.
|
||||
|
||||
I believe a strong sense of community is necessary in order to establish a good research culture, and I also believe that it is very easy to destroy that kind of culture simply by just putting the power into the wrong hands. One wrong person in the position of power and the entire research culture can be put in jeopardy.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** After doing your post-doctoral research work at the University of California what encouraged you to come back to India? Do you think there are ample opportunities for research in our country?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** I cannot speak for other research areas, but since my topic of research is string theory and it is a theoretical topic, there have been ample opportunities for this topic in India. Maybe India lags in opportunities in the field of experimental research, but for a wide variety of research areas, especially theoretical physics, India has ample opportunities and a good research culture.
|
||||
|
||||
What I believe is that in order to establish a good culture of research, you need to have a sort of community. Thus, starting research in the field of something that is already being pursued in the country is easier than starting something new.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** You received the prestigious DST Ramanujan fellowship. How important do you think these programs are in motivating researchers?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** These fellowships are awarded at the post-doctoral level and are not only encouraging, but provide the researchers with a fund to travel around, delivering lectures as well as attending them, and these actually encourage researchers at that level to achieve more.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Can you give us an idea of what exactly your talk is going to be about?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** I am going to give a talk on entropy geometry. You usually visualize entropy as randomness, but I am going to talk about the geometry present in it.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** With people still believing in the earth being flat, do you think it's necessary to initiate programs which educate people about science and research?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** I think that most of the impact can be made by actually initiating a program at the school level. The real science-awareness can be spread amongst only students studying at the school level, because the adults are too set in their ways to accept new ways of thinking.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How do you think undergrads can make the best of their college life?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. Justin David :** Undergraduates need to figure out what they are interested in. I mean, you people have so much energy, you can pursue anything you want, but you should try to find what interests you the most. Also, you need to find the right mentor for yourself. Now, I was only able to find my mentor at the post-doctoral level, but you guys need to start looking around.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Minor Details"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
category: academics
|
||||
image: minors.jpeg
|
||||
excerpt: "Today’s world is scary. The industrial and scientific landscape evolves by the minute - all you can do is try and keep up. While sticking to structures and labels can provide us with a sense of identity and purpose, reluctance to evolve can only prove to be detrimental in the long haul."
|
||||
author: "Vedant Kumar, Atharva Shukla, Jayati Shrivastava"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Today’s world is scary. The industrial and scientific landscape evolves by the minute - all you can do is try and keep up. While sticking to structures and labels can provide us with a sense of identity and purpose, reluctance to evolve can only prove to be detrimental in the long haul. Our courses are usually designed to cater to specific needs that our field of study demands, making it difficult for an academician or a student to push the boundaries for ideas that don't come under a certain heading. The existence of Minor and Elective courses provides us with a good theoretical setup to embrace interdisciplinary research and job opportunities. Students across IITs decide the branch they study subject to the constraint of the rank they achieve in JEE, which makes having opportunities to explore different avenues even more important. This theoretical framework, however, is not without its own set of challenges and issues, and through this article, we aim to highlight the same.
|
||||
|
||||
## Challenges Students Face :
|
||||
|
||||
*Minor Specialisation Courses* are provided in the pre-final year of the undergraduate programmes in which a student is required to complete 18 credits (4-5 courses) to receive a degree. Here we enlist the major problems faced by the students who wish to take up these courses.
|
||||
|
||||
* **Inexistence of an all encompassing, foolproof and uniform procedure :** A lack of uniform procedure to apply for a minor makes applying for it a cumbersome task. In addition to this, if a student wishes to minor in a department which is not frequented by students, they find themselves clueless about the procedure and formalities that need to be followed.
|
||||
|
||||
* **Ambiguous C.G.P.A criterion :** A student having a CGPA above 7.5 after the IVth semester can take up a minor, but cannot continue if her CGPA falls below 7.5 at the end of her Vth semester. Now, a student with the exact opposite scenario (CGPA < 7.5 after the IVth Semester and > 7.5 after the Vth semester) doesn’t have a clear pathway to get enrolled in a minor course. (Please note: Taking up of a minor in this case is possible).
|
||||
|
||||
* **Rough Transitions :** The courses available as part of a department’s Minor courses usually require a certain amount of prerequisite knowledge which a person from another department cannot be expected to have. There are no introductory courses available which work towards smoothing this transition. This renders most of the courses unilluminating in their own singular capacity.
|
||||
|
||||
* **Logistical nightmares :** Opting for a Minor adds a total of 5 courses to a student’s existing workload. This inevitably leads to a string of clashes throughout the semester for students who opt for Minors - clashes between classes belonging to different departments, and clashes between exam dates (that are usually finished in a week’s time). Both classes and exams turn out to be very arduous to reschedule due to factors like a communication hiatus within different departments, comically low population densities etc. This compels people to drop the courses for the time being, but this is clearly not a permanent solution since for some people this might still mean making do without a Minor degree.
|
||||
|
||||
* **Unfilled vacancies :** A sizeable chunk of Minor-opted students tend to drift away from their choice - due to the aforementioned issues - which creates new vacancies. There is, as of yet, no system in place to help willing students fill up these vacancies, thus effectively rendering these seats (and the resources that are put into creating them) futile, or in vain.
|
||||
|
||||
* **Other Issues :** The Architecture Department - which comes under the UG Curriculum as per regulations - has never been allowed to take up Minors. Currently, Minors in the Department of Management Studies (DoMS) are not available for the students who are interested in these fields.
|
||||
|
||||
## Updates from recent IAPC Meetings :
|
||||
|
||||
* A proposal to allow students to take up minors from the 5th semester has been rejected by the IAPC in the 74th Meeting.
|
||||
|
||||
* In the 76th IAPC meeting, it was allowed for the UG (B.Tech./IMT/IMSc.) students to take up Minor Specialization Courses (MSC) in Economics offered by the HSS Department. This has also been approved by both the DAPC and DFC of the HSS Department. The students of the current 3rd year can also take this up.
|
||||
|
||||
* In the same meeting, the students of the Earth Sciences department were permitted to take up Minor Specialization Courses of other departments from their sixth semester (1 course per semester in the last 5 semesters). This structure has been also approved by the DAPC & DFC of the department and the Chairman, Senate. The students of the current 3rd year can also take this up.
|
||||
|
||||
## Watch Out’s Two Cents :
|
||||
|
||||
The problem of clashes can be resolved by trying to set up a system where Minors can be taken up by a student at an earlier stage, without exceeding the credit limit. This will also help students to explore more of the department they minor in. Exams could be conducted over a longer time span which will lower the probability of clashes. Another way would be to declare the timetables before the forms for the minors are filled, enabling students to pick the courses they will be able to manage.
|
||||
|
||||
Providing transparency to the whole process should be the first step before moving forward. A clear set of rules for everything related to Minors and the frequently faced problems by the students will surely prove to be of great assistance. Another interesting proposition would be to try and replicate the model of double majors being followed in IIT Kanpur ([https://www.iitk.ac.in/doaa/data/Double-Major.pdf](https://www.iitk.ac.in/doaa/data/Double-Major.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}). This would provide the students with greater flexibility in choosing their courses and studying them at length.
|
||||
|
||||
There have been cases when students have dropped their minor, considering it to be of no use when the placement season comes around. In sister IITs, companies which open to Software Clubs/Groups, also open up for the students with a minor in the field ([https://gymkhana.iitb.ac.in/~ugacademics/Docs/CourseInfo_Booklet.pdf](https://gymkhana.iitb.ac.in/~ugacademics/Docs/CourseInfo_Booklet.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}).
|
||||
The Placement and Internship Centre could implement similar eligibility criteria in IIT Roorkee as well, though the dropping of the minor before the beginning of the placement season seems to be the biggest barrier for this.
|
||||
|
||||
In addition, shedding some light on the procedure to be followed for adding & enrolling in a new course can be a baby step to fully making the Minor courses serve the purpose they are meant to fulfil.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,53 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Distinguished Lecture : In Conversation With Shri Nalin Surie"
|
||||
image: "lect.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Shri Nalin Surie is a distinguished Indian Civil Servant, and a seasoned diplomat. He served as the Indian Ambassador to China, and previously held the post of Director General, Indian Council of World Affairs."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Shri Nalin Surie is a distinguished Indian Civil Servant, and a seasoned diplomat. He served as the Indian Ambassador to China, and previously held the post of Director General, Indian Council of World Affairs. He has served as a diplomat in a multitude of places, including Hong Kong, New York and Brussels. He recently gave a couple of seminars as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series at IITR, and Watch Out! decided to interview him, to pick at his treasure-trove of knowledge, and to learn more about his undergraduate studies, his opinions, his worldview and his career.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You studied economics in your undergraduate and postgraduate studies. What led you to join the IFS and Indian Civil Service?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** You know as I mentioned in my talk a little earlier this morning, when we were growing up, there were not too many employment options and the most prestigious employment option was to take the UPSC exam and join the civil services, particularly the Foreign Service and the IAS. It was a difficult decision to take as I was actually keen to continue my training as an economist. I would have liked, personally, to do a PhD. There were certain circumstances which required me to stay back, and then I took the civil service exam. I worked hard for it but I was also very lucky that I made it in the first shot, and I was lucky that I was able to get the Indian Foreign Service. I have never regretted that decision. It has been a fabulous career. I think in one’s own way one has contributed to the making of Indian foreign policy, and it’s evolution. It’s a very satisfying job, it has been a very satisfying career. And I have never regretted the fact that I did not join the private sector or did not join any other profession. I do regret that I did not pursue higher studies in economics. But my training as an economist in the Delhi School of Economics actually has been one of the biggest strengths of my career because the bulk of our work is economic. And I had opportunities to use my training as an economist and I still take a lot of interest in international economic issues and the domestic economy. It has become a lifelong passion. It’s something which I find very relevant in my work. And in today’s international world, you cannot think of a geopolitical or geostrategic order without the economic element being critical. You cannot have military muscle on an empty stomach.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You said that you love economics. Could you tell us your views on the current situation of the Indian economy and the world economy, and the way it is slowing down?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** Look I’m not going to talk so much about the world economy, but as far as the Indian economy is concerned we are going through a difficult phase. But please remember that we are still growing at between 5 & 6%. I don’t place too much stress on the big numbers but it’s important psychologically to have the right big numbers. The government is taking a lot of steps to bring in the required reforms. Bringing in the required economic reform in India is not easy - in a democracy, in a federal system - as you know. It takes a bit of time but it’s happening. And we should be back to 6%+ if all goes well next year. For the steps being taken, it takes a lag before the impact kicks in. So the parameters are good. The basic strength of the economy is strong. As I said to you earlier this morning, we have slipped, to my mind, particularly on the savings rate. We need to revive that, take it above 30%. It should be closer to 32% if we want to sustain an 8 % growth rate. And we need to do much more not only in manufacturing but also in reorienting the agriculture sector. We need to use agriculture, agro processing, food processing, fruit processing, the white sector, the dairy sector and upgrade it. You will have enormous growth coming out of that and technology will play a very large role in the upgradation of the agriculture sector.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Do you see us becoming a 5-trillion economy by 2024?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** I’m not sure about 2024 - that is purely mathematical calculation. Frankly, if you want to do it you can just allow inflation to rise and it will happen. But that’s not what we want and that’s not what the government’s target is. The idea is to ensure a 5-trillion economy with a low inflation and a high growth rate. If it doesn’t happen by 2024 then it will happen by 2025. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s a question of how fast we can revive the big growth rate figure from between 5&6% to between 7&8%. But it’ll happen. I would rather it does not happen in mechanical terms because of high inflation rates, because this is an issue of the size of the economy at market prices. We want it to be in real terms. So inflation must remain low. Otherwise high inflation will cause other problems, serious problems. I mentioned earlier this morning that I’m basically optimistic about the Indian economy. I have always been optimistic. Reform is not easy in our system. But the more we are upset about our growth rate coming down, the more the pressure on the government is to bring in reform measures, and that’s a good thing in a democracy.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Given the recent protests in Hong Kong, and China claiming Hong Kong to be a part of itself - what parallels can we draw between Hong Kong and Kashmir?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** No parallel at all. Hong Kong is a part of China and Kashmir is a part of India, period.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Are those protests relevant to us as a country?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** No. I have lived in Hong Kong. I studied my language in Hong Kong, I had a posting in Hong Kong. Look, Hong Kong is a very strange...animal. You see, it is neither fish nor fowl. It is a special administrative region. It was a British colony, handed back to China in 1997 under an agreement. There are obviously grievances in Hong Kong. Serious grievances. Youth unemployment, income inequality, extremely high cost of housing etc. And these have not been addressed. They should have been addressed, but they have not been addressed. And there were demonstrations which started some years ago. The famous ‘umbrella’ revolution. But this time it got pretty violent and I don’t know why. There are various reasons attributed to this violence. I think the central government in Beijing has shown a lot of maturity by allowing the Hong Kong authorities to not only manage the situation, but they have also allowed the election process to go ahead unimpeded. And the elections have shown a remarkable result. So I think it reflects on the maturity of the authorities in Beijing. Let us see how they act now to the election results. It depends on them, but so far I think they have ensured that they keep a hands off approach. They have made a few statements which any government would make regarding its own territory but there is no parallel with Jammu and Kashmir. In civil society, demonstrations happen all the time. That’s your right to have a demonstration in any society, particularly in a democracy. You have this ‘Yellow Vest Movement’ in France where people go around destroying property, burning places. Why don’t you talk about that? You see the anomaly? You talk about Hong Kong but you don’t talk about the Yellow Vest Movement in France. Why not? Again I want to go back to what I said yesterday. Please have your independent narratives. Think things through. You belong to a very strong democracy. You cannot imagine how lucky you are. You aspire to be like the Chinese growth rates. You want to have the growth rates based on their system? It can be done. We tried the emergency and what happened? The people rejected it outright. Your generation may not remember it. So please read Indian history. This country is not ready for that kind of thing. This country is a federal system, it is a democratic federal system. That is your strength. We must never lose that strength. But please have your own independent narrative. Your generation particularly. Don’t get taken in by what others say.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** At the end of October, talks of new Naga Peace deal resurfaced on the news, but we haven’t heard anything since. Could you elaborate more on the issue and the importance of Nagaland in the region’s politics?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** This is a very complicated issue, and discussions have been going on for years. Yes we were all expecting an agreement. It didn’t happen, and negotiations will continue. And I’m sure they will end successfully. Because the gentleman who is handling this issue - the governor of Nagaland, Mr R N Ravi - is a very experienced negotiator. He knows the problem. He will handle it well. The important thing is to ensure that everything happens peacefully. See I don’t know the issue beyond a point so let me not pretend. Obviously there are claims the Nagas make on Naga populations in areas in adjoining states. Obviously those states have to agree to those conditionalities that the Nagas are putting before any agreement can be arrived at. There must be difficulties in that. It will happen. The important thing is that it is now all peaceful, and we need to make sure that it remains peaceful. We need to ensure that Nagaland is fully integrated into the Indian state as it should be.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How was this whole experience of being posted in different countries and working with the UN?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie:** Very challenging, very educative. Very humbling, frankly. It helps you realize how much the world is advancing, how much other countries have advanced over you, even smaller countries. You understand to learn other people’s points of view and try to see how you can marry their points of view with your point of view so that we can move forward together. As I said to you, it has been a fabulous experience. I would not exchange my career for anything else. Obviously I have regrets about what I could have done, would have done, should have done. But that pales before what actually happened in my career. I am very happy about it. Most importantly, you learn to listen to people. Because without that there is no diplomacy. Without that there is no moving forward - unless you learn to listen to people.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Do you have any general advice of us students?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shri Nalin Surie :** Look, I can only give you one piece of advice. Work hard, keep an open mind and you will have opportunities open up before you. If you don’t work hard or if you work hard and still have a closed mind, you will not make the same progress. So working hard and keeping an open mind is my answer to you. But remember one thing, the future of this country is not what we have made it. We changed the future we inherited. You can change the future you are inheriting. And you have many more means at your disposal. You are now part of a country which is a much bigger, more powerful, much richer country than when we were young. You cannot even imagine the India when we were growing up. You take everything for granted. Your phones, your computers, your food, everything. We used to stand in ration lines to buy our wheat and rice and sugar. Literally. We have grown up with shortages, we have grown up in difficult circumstances. But that’s what made us strong. Now that you have these facilities, particularly in an institution like this, you should use this to make yourself and this country stronger. The fact that you have fewer challenges in terms of your day to day livelihood or your educational requirements, or your technological requirements will actually encourage you to reach out much higher than we could. That’s the only advice I have. So work hard, keep an open mind and remember, you belong to a very old civilization but a very young and very powerful democracy. And never forget how free you are. And never take your freedom for granted. There is an old english saying. I think P G Wodehouse made it famous. It is the old man saying to the young man twirling his umbrella. He says young man, your freedom ends where my nose begins. So remember that. Good luck.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,73 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "The Tradeoff of Truth"
|
||||
image: "ignorance-vs-truth-1.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
author: "Surya Raman, Sudhang Varshney"
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
excerpt: "What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life—that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
> “...What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life—that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
|
||||
>
|
||||
> \- Morepheus to Neo, The Matrix
|
||||
|
||||
*You fumble with the front door key before stepping into the mellow yellow of your living room. Your kids aged 6 and 8 rush to greet you, and your spouse smiles, waiting patiently, so you can relish the spaghetti and red-wine together. It wasn’t a particularly rough day at work - it never really is. You stare absent-mindedly at your fat pay cheque before turning in for the night. None of this feels right. Life’s great, but, none of this feels right. You quickly reproach yourself for being an overthinking twerp, bordering on lunacy, and get on with your life. But nothing feels right. There is an itch you desperately want to scratch, but you can’t seem to figure out where to look for it. At times you blame your cushy, blissful life for your uneasiness. Everything is optimised to generate the maximal amount of contentment for you, yet things feel hollow and lifeless. You spend restless nights pondering if there is more to life than the facade you appraise it to be.*
|
||||
|
||||
Such is the life we wish to critique through this editorial.
|
||||
|
||||
For those of you unfamiliar with the cultural meme ‘Blue pill vs Red pill’, made popular by the Keanu Reaves blockbuster *The Matrix*, the dilemma is quite straightforward. As it happens, you (living life as described above) stumble into a chance encounter with a shady looking mobster of sorts (we shall name him Morpheus). This prowler-of-the-night confirms your lifelong suspicion of things *not being right*. His strange mannerisms, cadence and their deviance from your robotic existence make you want to trust him. A deafening silence ensues as you’re made aware of the fact that you’ve been living in a make-believe simulation since birth. Your friends, your family, your job - all part of a grand deception. The real world is a laughably distant cry from the one you’ve known, and all you know about this difference, is that life ‘out there’, stinks. Things have worked out your way remarkably easily so far, but the same is not true for what awaits beyond the red pill.
|
||||
|
||||
And then, the choice. A life of blissful ignorance, easy ecstasy and no recollection whatsoever of this chance encounter, or a life of truth, knowledge and hardships. The blue pill, or the red pill. To return to the simulation would mean giving up on your only chance at knowing the truth, and waking up again with the same nagging suspicion everyday. It would also mean a life sans hardships. To ‘wake up’ from the blissful simulation would mean the eradication of the gnawing suspicion you’ve always lived with. And a chance at a full realisation of what is true.
|
||||
|
||||
To recalibrate this fictional dilemma to a more digestible scenario, imagine yourself to be in your 30s, blissful in a healthy and happy relationship with the love of your life, your college sweetheart. Or if that's too much of a good thing, take a nice reel life Bollywood couple who have had it made. Both of you love each other to death, and feel secure about what you have; you know no matter what, your significant other will be the rock you can always fall back on. Morpheus - this time dressed in a pink sparkling gown and donning delicate wings - hovers to you and opens his left hand ( gloved in glorious white mittens ), offering you a “red pill” (the truth) - your sweetheart loves another, and has been lying to you everyday for the last 15 years. This news devastates you to the core of your fragile heart, and let’s say you know - with certainty - the fact that you will never be able to trust anyone ever again if you have to live with this knowledge. Morpheus then opens his right hand, and reveals a “blue pill”, which you can take to obliviate any memory of hallucinations involving a sunglasses-wearing-fairy, and life goes on merrily till eternity. You marry and die snuggled in your spouse’s arms, in a warm, comfortable bed. You never find out about your partner’s betrayal.
|
||||
|
||||
The choice Neo ( Keanu Reeves ) makes (and the choice most of us knowledge-seeking, truth-starved philosophers, artists and scientists here at Roorkee are likely to make) is perhaps, the red pill. One need not be an artist or a scientist for this; humans across the world seem to have embedded in them an innate thirst for truth. Plato, Dostoevsky, Einstein and innumerable other intellectuals over the ages have shown a frenzied fervour, an almost unparalleled zeal for knowledge and the truth. When posed with the aforementioned nightmarish choice, one tends to follow these paths set for humanity - these paths that lead to the truth. What is perhaps most intriguing about this decision is the baffling ignorance of the hardships that are guaranteed to follow. Does one simply not care about those? Are we truly a species that lusts only after knowledge, and has overcome the shackles of pain that should seemingly deter us?
|
||||
|
||||
The value of knowledge and truth has been a central topic in philosophy - particularly epistemology (which deals with the theory of knowledge). At the outset, we make it clear that this editorial does not aim to question what must be considered true. Instead, this article aims to deal only with **the value of that which is considered true**.
|
||||
|
||||
An evident reason as to why remarkably talented intellectuals showcase(d) a maniacal lust for the quintessential apple of knowledge, can be attributed to the fact that *‘Truth helps humans see the world as it is, sans prejudice or bias, and hence helps one act rationally.’* This statement is termed as a fact for pragmatic reasons. To illustrate, consider an individual X, hailing from a middle-class Indian family, who wishes to apply for music school abroad. In the event where he assumes his family to be opulent and wealthy ( maybe because of an Oedipal mother who kept him in the dark ), his dreams are bound to be shattered, for he shall find out the true nature of things too late. However, if he’s privy to his family’s financial status before applying, X is more likely to work harder, and in a way that bags him a scholarship to the same school. It is easy to see how knowing the truth, however bitter, helped X act rationally, and eventually succeed in attaining his initial goal. This example also illustrates why one would want to act rationally.
|
||||
|
||||
There is however, more to valuing truth than just the associated pragmatic value. Often one comes across abstract research in fields like physics and mathematics - research with seemingly no practical applications. To put it another way, research in the basic sciences often seems to be curiosity driven, as opposed to application driven. As a society, we applaud, honour, and reward individuals who are passionately curious. In some sense, we regard our hunger for truth as a moral virtue. However, once one acknowledges the fact that humanity collectively values truth for truth’s sake, and not simply for viable solutions and pragmatic applications, one comes across a slippery slope trying to explain the existence of the same.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto"}
|
||||
|
||||
As is the case with most human characteristics, an explanation of this gusto and ardour inevitably involves evolution. Back in the day (way back in the day), curiosity was a necessity for survival. Humans had to know which fruit was poisonous and which wasn’t, had to know how to avoid manhunters, and a plethora of other diverse truths to survive in a hostile world. Nutrition and sexual reproduction became foundational necessities for the species to survive and proliferate, and as the species evolved, the brain evolved to activate pleasure centres whenever these necessities were satiated. One could draw a parallel here with our need to be curious, to explain the uneasiness one feels when faced with the unknown, and the subsequent calm and bliss that serves to electrify, once the unknown is fully understood. In his book *‘Why? What Makes Us Curious’*, Israeli astrophysicist Mario Livio talks of the same. He explains the uneasiness associated with being unable to grasp a concept or not knowing a truth, as a ‘fear’ of sorts. Wading through the subject and making oneself aware of the truth turns out to be the only way to activate those pleasure centres, and subsequently lose that fear.
|
||||
|
||||
The last few paragraphs have perhaps been a little abstract; however, dealing with Neo’s choice requires us to be armed with this discussion. The truth presented in the dilemma that this editorial posed initially, was a truth about the fundamental nature of reality. Clearly, waking up from the simulation serves to offer no practical benefits. Any and all of Neo’s (or your) needs, wants, ambitions and goals are satiated and satisfied thoroughly. No additional pragmatic benefits are offered by the red pill. The reason why one would want to choose the pill of truth then, would be for truth’s sake. Evolutionary reasons demand that you be curious, and can similarly be used to account for the picture of an uneasy life in the simulation. The only unaccounted problem here being that of hardship, of pain.
|
||||
|
||||
The dilemma merely states the existence of a harsh reality, a cruel world; details are cleverly omitted from the choice. Consider a case where a starry-eyed, curious undergraduate Sam is offered a similar choice. He is told that if he chooses to ingest a certain pill, by the age of 35, he would have significantly helped with the development of the Standard Model of Physics that physicists across the world drool over. Moreover, Sam would then have a much better understanding of the fundamental nature of reality than most human beings. However, he is also told that if he chooses to ingest this pill, his future spouse is bound to cheat on him, and his son is bound to take his own life with infallible certainty. In this scenario, the harshness of reality is described in gory detail. One would expect lesser people to reach out for the red pill now. However, assuming a sizable number of people do reach out for the red pill (maybe you, as you read this, feel the same way), the question why becomes of paramount importance. Why on earth would anyone lust after the truth even in the face of inevitable death, destruction and grief?
|
||||
|
||||
It is here that we encounter the concept of **known and unknown pain**. In this more descriptive dilemma, the pain is emotional suffering, grief, and a plethora of mental disorders that are bound to plague Sam. However, Sam being the starry-eyed brazen intellectual that he is, chooses the red pill anyway. *‘Sure all that stuff is bound to be pretty messed up, but I’ll get over it I’m sure. This is a one time opportunity at knowing the truth! Surely I can go through a few bouts of grief for that’*.
|
||||
|
||||
Sam, in his own way, makes sense. But what is vital to note here, is his certainty and willingness when it comes to dealing with previously inexperienced pain. Even if the parameters were tweaked, and Sam was told that he’d certainly suffer for the rest of his life, starry-eyed Sam would still make the same choice. Sam, in his 20 odd years of existence, has perhaps never encountered death or any other major form of grief or suffering. It would hence be logical to say that Sam chooses the red pill without being completely informed of the experiential impact of that choice. If instead of a cheating spouse and a dead son, Sam is told that he’s bound to be whipped with a bullwhip in a public square everyday for a decade, Sam is perhaps more likely to gladly ingest the blue pill. Our undergraduate Sam is certain to relate with physical pain.
|
||||
|
||||
\* *At this point, the authors would like to make it clear that it is not the intention of this editorial to undermine any individual’s suffering of any form. The intention was to make clear, the notion of experiential pain.*
|
||||
|
||||
Of course, given that we live in the real world (which is a terrible rabbit hole to go down; the authors advise you to not give that assumption too much thought), we are well aware of the vague hardships the initial dilemma referred to. Armed with this knowledge, it is easy to make the claim that one can wade through reality and eventually find peace, however hard and arduous the path may be. Riding on that claim, it is then not surprising to see why most humans posed with this dilemma would inevitably ingest the red pill. Sure the blue pill will ensure that you forget about the existence of any form of truth, but in that moment, humans being humans are bound to forget about ‘known and unknown pain’, forget about the implications of the blue pill, and simply be overwhelmed by the notion of a truth. Neo (or us, living in a simulation \*coughs\*) hence forgets about the peace of the blue pill and doesn’t consider the worst possible scenario that the red pill could land him in. In that moment, all he cares about is the truth - and one wonders if humans are somehow destined to suffer that way. Is knowing the truth truly worth a life of hardship and pain, with only the possibility of respite? Is it not better to simply smoke away your days while peacefully playing a game of poker with your friends, waiting for the bacon to be served? And what are we to do with this truth, when all of us are doomed in this infinite, meaningless void of a universe, which doesn’t care about us anyway?
|
||||
|
||||
Perhaps the pursuit of truth may never really prove to be worthy of suffering; however, it is what helped our species survive, proliferate, and eventually dominate as the most powerful to be found on earth. But why does every species want to increase in number? What drives this pursuit of expansion that we attribute to life as a biological need?
|
||||
|
||||
A convincing answer to such questions is still hidden ( if it does ,in fact, exist ) from us, but our profoundly human desire to explore is bound to keep mankind in pursuit of a satisfying resolution.
|
||||
|
||||
## References
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://quillette.com/2019/01/16/on-the-value-of-truth/](https://quillette.com/2019/01/16/on-the-value-of-truth/)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3506136?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3506136?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-08-27/why-are-humans-so-curious](https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-08-27/why-are-humans-so-curious)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-humans-are-hardwired-\_b\_11984748](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-humans-are-hardwired-_b_11984748)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/books/mario-livio-why-what-makes-us-curious.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/books/mario-livio-why-what-makes-us-curious.html)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32620361-why](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/32620361-why#:~:targetText=Astrophysicist%20and%20author%20Mario%20Livio,innate%20desire%20to%20know%20why.&targetText=He%20examined%20the%20lives%20of,da%20Vinci%20and%20Richard%20Feynman)
|
||||
|
||||
## Illustration Credits
|
||||
|
||||
1. [http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2017/12/why-the-red-pill-doesnt-wake-people-to-our-worlds-true-reality](http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2017/12/why-the-red-pill-doesnt-wake-people-to-our-worlds-true-reality)
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://in.pinterest.com/pin/3870349650308528/?lp=true](https://in.pinterest.com/pin/3870349650308528/?lp=true)
|
||||
@ -1,54 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture : In Conversation With Dr. Dharma Agrawal"
|
||||
image: "lect.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Dr. Dharma P. Agrawal completed his BE from NIT-Raipur, ME from IIT-Roorkee and PhD from EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland. He has been the OBR Distinguished Professor at the University of Cincinnati, since August 1998."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*Dr. Dharma P. Agrawal completed his BE from NIT-Raipur, ME from IIT-Roorkee and PhD from EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland. He has been the OBR Distinguished Professor at the University of Cincinnati, since August 1998. He is coauthor of textbooks **‘Introduction to Wireless and Mobile System (4th edition)’** , and **‘Ad hoc and Sensor Networks (2nd edition)’**. He also co-edited **‘Encyclopedia on Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, and Embedded Sensor Systems’**. He is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM, AAAS, NAI, IACSIT, and WIF. He is a Golden Core member of the IEEE-CS and recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He has published over 684 articles, 42 keynote speeches, 67 intensive courses, 8 patents and 25 invention disclosures, supervised 76 Ph.D. dissertations and led UCBT Bluetooth packages. His research interests include applications of sensor networks in monitoring Parkinson’s disease patients and neurosis, applications of sensor networks in monitoring fitness of athletes personnel wellness, applications of sensor networks in monitoring firefighters physical condition in action etc. He has a G-Index: 346, and an H-Index: 68.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*Professor Agarwal delivered an Institute Lecture on Friday, 13th December on the ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’. Watch Out! decided to interview him to find out more about his career, his research, his passion for the field, and the various ground-breaking aspects of IoT.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You completed your Masters in Engineering from IIT-Roorkee over 50 years ago. In all these years have you ever revisited the campus or is this the first instance?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** I visit the campus from time to time having been appointed a Faculty Member here under the Eminent Alumni scheme of things. In fact I was here last year too, although the topic of that talk was vastly different from what we have this time around (Internet of Things).
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did you actually become interested in the field of research? What motivated you to move away from the thought of personal gain that comes with getting a mainstream job. or getting into business?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal-** I myself have never understood why people choose to believe that mainstream jobs offer personal gain. I prefer freedom of work, that is, being able to work for as long as I want, whenever I want to with my own deadlines and targets. More than that I had always been drawn to the idea of research, so pursuing anything apart from that didn’t seem logical. From very early on I enjoyed interacting with students and working with them. It’s brought me such joy that although I could have retired 10 years ago, I continue to work. Another positive is that I have been able to attract a lot of PhD students in my time as a professor, having just supervised my 76th PhD dissertation. It is things like this that motivate me to continue working.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You are back here in Roorkee for a talk on IoT. Based on your long term perspective of the development of the internet. what are some of the potentials of the field of IoT?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** The applications of IoT are countless! Most people don’t think about it, but the medical applications are ground breaking. The best examples are some of the non-intrusive pills we have developed over the years. *At this point in the interview, Dr. Agrawal showed us the pill he then talks about*. These pills have a small camera on the top, which is obviously encased. You swallow this pill, and it transmits the images to a transmitter placed close to your body - maybe even your mobile phone! This pill can help detect any tumors or other anomalies with a completely non-intrusive procedure, and can do so within 6-8 hours. All of this is made possible with IoT.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You have been working on improving the treatment for Parkinson’s disease as an application of IoT. Could you shed some light on it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** This is why I like working with students, they want to know everything! *At this point in the interview Dr. Agrawal dug into his bag and showed us the boots he then talks about*. We have been working on these boots for the purpose of helping people with Parkinsons. Each boot has several pressure pads, each capable of withstanding 250kgs of weight. The data from these pressure pads is transferred to a computer or mobile phone by means of an Arduino. This way we can determine when the patient is beginning to get tired, and this provides a better way of treating Parkinson patients, since this circumvents the necessity for the individual to ask for help. This boot also has several other applications in the field of sports (cricket, football etc.). As I said, the medical potential of IoT is ground breaking.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You won the Harry H. Goode award in 2008. What was your work that made that possible?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** It was a cumulation of whatever I have done in my career, a part of which I’ve just talked to you about. It is all about hard work, and I can tell you that there are no shortcuts in getting to this point. As a student, everyone should be looking to work hard and get in contact with the right professor. All of this could make a very big difference in the scheme of things.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** One of the major questions that has followed the field of IoT has been the huge surge in power requirements. For the common man whose first hand experience with IoT comprises mainly of Google Homes and Alexas, the question that arises is that are researchers looking into the problem, or is the primary focus building smarter devices first, with the power side of things being left for later?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** Obviously researchers do look into making their device more power efficient, but the main problem with practical applications of IoT right now isn’t that the device that takes up a lot of power - it’s the transmission of data which is to blame. So as the datasets get larger, it is going to lead to an increase in power requirements, but a nice work around to all of these issues is to have portable wireless chargers. There are some small devices which have been developed for specific applications, and I believe their existence is extremely important for the field of IoT.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You have spent a lot of time both in and outside India. According to you what are the major differences in the students here and abroad?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** I have always loved working with Indian students and also with those from China. They are very diligent and hard working, unlike the students from maybe the USA. A major chunk of my students are in fact Indians. It’s always a joy to work with students of that exquisite calibre, who are willing to work as hard as they do. They are a lot more focused on their goals.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** I hope you are enjoying your stay at our campus sir.
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Agrawal -** I am quite enjoying my stay here. They make their best efforts in making the stay comfortable for us. My lecture is scheduled for Friday, and is being broadcasted live to the best of my knowledge and I will talk about my journey from mobile phones to IoT. I hope that talk and this interview are able to provide you and your peers with enough motivation and perspective to gain a deeper understanding of the field of IoT.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,233 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With The Inter IIT Sports Contingent"
|
||||
image: "football.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: ""
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
## Football (Shubham Kumar - Team Captain)
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How is the preparation this time different from the past years?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** Well we have had a lot of our senior players graduated this year. That has led to around 8-9 fresh players in the squad. Accordingly, we have played a lot of internal practice matches and to back it up, we had planned to participate in a few practice tournaments. We went to 2 tournaments but unfortunately both were washed out.
|
||||
So the overall exposure is less but the new members are highly motivated to give their best.
|
||||
Since, the setup for the whole squad has changed we have had to adapt out training and strategies accordingly.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So how long did the team actually prepare for? Did preparations begin after the end-sems or before that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** Preparation begins from the first day of the semester. You try and identify the positions that are vacant and then you have members from the bench and times new players who step up a their game and begin to take over. Steadily, we build our strategies with our minds first set on Udghosh which could have been a great opportunity to gain exposure had it not been washed out. But yes, for the 15 days after the end sems we have left the setup of the team unchanged with only minor changes here and there and we hope it pays off.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Who according to you are the toughest competitions in the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** Well personally I fell that IIT-Bombay provide the toughest competition on the field. They make you run and press really hard forcing you to commit mistakes. Fortunately we beat the last year and we hope to do that this year as well.
|
||||
IIt-BHU too has a wonderful team and also IIT-Delhi who beat us in the finals last year. I really hope we get to play them again this time.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Given the new additions to the squad, how would you rate your chances at this Inter IIT?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** Well I feel that although the players are new, they are also really skilled. Like not just the playing 11 but also the bench is really strong and these guys fit very well with the playing 11. We have a really strong team such that each player can play in any position. So yeah, I think we have a really good shot at bagging a Gold.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Badminton (Abhinav Gupta)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Any major changes in the badminton contingent this time around?
|
||||
|
||||
**Abhinav:** We don’t have any first years joining us this time but we have 4 players who have been playing at the Inter IITs for the last 3 years. So we have a lot of experience on our side. There aren’t any major changes from what it was last year just the amount of time we spent preparing for it.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Could you describe what your training schedule was like?
|
||||
|
||||
**Abhinav:** We have really stretched out our training sessions with the morning session lasting for 2.5 hours and the evening session being extended to 2 and sometimes even 3 hours. Our preparation this time is really at the peak.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Did your training times match with the times that the matches are supposed to be scheduled?
|
||||
|
||||
**Abhinav:** No, the times for the matches will be completely random, but that really doesn’t matter. Our fitness and preparation is at the peak and we are ready to face anything that is thrown our way.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So what are your expectations headed into the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Abhinav:** Our expectations and beliefs for the badminton team are obviously quite high this year. We have put in a lot of effort in both on and off the court training, the whole contingent has. So our fingers are crossed and we all hope for the best.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Cricket Team (Pranjal Bajpai - Captain)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How are your preparations this year different from the last few years?
|
||||
|
||||
**Pranjal:** Our team is very different this year than what it has been in the past. We have 8 people who’ll be playing at the Inter IIT for the first time. So, you can say that we have a fairly inexperienced team but our practice has sure been better than last year. We have had plenty of practice matches and we have performed much better than what anyone expected.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How many practice tournaments have you been to leading up to this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Pranjal:** We played at Sangram and travelled to Udghosh (it was washed out). But our performance at Sangram was amazing with us bagging a Gold.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Are there any freshers that have made it to the squad?
|
||||
|
||||
**Pranjal:** Yes, we have one kid from the first year joining us in the squad.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Which team do you think is the team to look out for?
|
||||
|
||||
**Pranjal:** Well, our arch-rivals are definitely IIT-Delhi and we are really looking forward to beating them.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your expectations heading into the tournament, both from yourself and from the team?
|
||||
|
||||
**Pranjal:** We definitely hope to bad Gold this time. We have managed to come very close in the past year, especially in 2017 where we bagged a Silver. But given the effort that the squad has put in this year, we have our sight set on Gold.
|
||||
|
||||
### Chess (Vivek)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** This is the first time that chess has been included in the Inter IITs. How have you prepared for the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vivek:** This time we have some additional pressure since we have to try and get the GC for the college. So we have had to prepare harder. Since its inclusion at the Inter IIT we have also had a coach come in to help the team. With the help of the coach we have put in a lot of effort and hope that we can bag a medal in our first tournament.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Have you been to any practice tournaments to get some exposure?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vivek:** No, we haven’t been to any practice tournaments but we did organise a practice tournament within the campus where we called known players from Dehradun. So that helped the team get some exposure.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How do you rate the performance of the team headed into the Inter IITs?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vivek:** The team performed well in the practice tournaments and I think it is safe to say that after the coaching sessions the performance of all the members has improved significantly. We hope that this improvement will show in our performance at the tournament.
|
||||
|
||||
## Hockey (Shubham Tripathi)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How are the preparations this year different from that in the past?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** All the team members have been very regular in disciplined in preparing for the tournament. I and all the other fourth years have found time for the team despite everyone being busy with their placements. All of this has helped us to really start playing as a team.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So do you have any new players in the squad?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** This year I guess around 7-8 players are new in the squad with an M.Tech student(who is a former player of IIT-Delhi) joining us this time.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Who according to you are our top rivals in Hockey?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** According to me our top rivals are IIT-Delhi, IIT-BHU and IIT-Madras and we look forward to playing them all.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So what are your expectations heading into the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Shubham:** We have a very good team and all the players are very motivated to do well. So we expect nothing less than bagging a gold as we did last year and defending the championship.
|
||||
|
||||
## Basketball (Medhavi Jain )
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How have the preparations this year been different from that in the past?
|
||||
|
||||
**Medhavi:** Since the team has changed a lot(we have many new players) we have had to train a little differently. The fourth yearites were very busy because of their placements but still were very regular and supportive to us. So although the way we train hasn’t changed a lot, the inclusion of the new players has led to a lot of tactical changes.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Does the team have any non-UG students?
|
||||
|
||||
**Medhavi:** We had a senior from M.Tech in the girls team last year who has since left the team because of a semester exchange. We also have a senior doing his PhD who is part of the boys team.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How has the performance of the team been leading up to the Inter IIT?
|
||||
|
||||
**Medhavi:** We went to Udghosh but our performance there wasn’t that good but we had won the event the year before that. Since the team is new, we have tried to go to different tournaments to gain more exposure to perform better at the Inter IIT.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your expectations from the Basketball team heading into this tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Medhavi:** We have our fingers crossed and hope to give our best, that’s all.
|
||||
|
||||
## Athletics (Ajay )
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You have a very large contingent for athletics. How do you manage your preparations?
|
||||
|
||||
**Ajay:** Well it’s not actually that big if you compare it to the bast years, maybe compared to other sports but 28 members for all the different events that fall under athletics is not that big. We had 24 members in the contingent last year too!
|
||||
The athletics team prepares as a unit with specific training requirements also matching for a few events. We have excellent coaches who make sure that the students are well prepared and also that we stay disciplined.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What have you guys done differently this year?
|
||||
|
||||
**Ajay:** Well we have had a lot of training sessions and we felt that the last time we only focused on our strength and not technique. This time the major focus of the training sessions has been on the technique. The coach has made us understand the importance of finding the right balance of strength and technique and I think that has made us improve a lot.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How has the performance been leading up to the Inter IITs?
|
||||
|
||||
**Ajay:** Everyone has performed really well in the practices and now we just have to do the same in the Inter IIT.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** YOur expectations headed into the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Ajay:** The expectations are really high. We hope to perform our best in every event and win as many events as possible. Hopefully we will bring the GC to IITR this year!
|
||||
|
||||
## Squash (Sparsh Jain - Captain)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How has the preparation this year different from the past years?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sparsh:** As students of the game, we have tried our best to prepare ourselves with all members of Squash-IITR pitching in with their inputs on our game.
|
||||
The lack of a Coach continues to hurt us though. We had a coach last year who used to visit us on a fortnightly basis but even that was not provided this year. One can only learn so much by watching videos and especially in the case of complex technical games as Squash, it is absolutely necessary to have a good coach behind you and we have had to make do without one.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Squash is played in a very constricted environment. Are there any chances of injury and what are your plans to deal with them?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sparsh:** The sport is prone to injury with all players leaving their hearts out on the court. It requires a great technical know how in order to avoid major injuries and the lack of a coach really hurts us there.
|
||||
We have tried to study up on various post-match cool down techniques along with a few everyday treatments for knee injuries and hamstring injuries, but yes these are a part of the sport and we’ll try our best to fight through them.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So who are your top rivals at the Inter IITs?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sparsh:** Well personally speaking I think IIT-Delhi are the toughest rivals and they did beat us last year. We do look forward to playing them this time.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your expectations from the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sparsh:** Well preparing on our own without a coach has been a bit of a set back but we still feel very confident in ourselves and hope to perform at the highest possible level.
|
||||
|
||||
## Lawn Tennis
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How are the preparations this time different from the last time?
|
||||
|
||||
**Tennis:** I think this time the preparations are a lot better than the previous years. We even had some players from Allahabad come in to train with us, some top ranked players. So this has obviously provided us with a lot of exposure.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Any changes in the squad?
|
||||
|
||||
**Tennis:** There are two of us who have played at the Inter IITs before. The newcomers are really strong players too, so I think we have improved a lot as a squad.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So what are your expectations headed into the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Tennis:** Well we will go for gold. Hopefully IITR will be able to lift the GC this time too.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Volleyball
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How has the preparation this time been different from the past years?
|
||||
|
||||
**Volly:** As the squad changes so does the preparation. The coach obviously knows what is best for the team and is able to make changes keeping the strengths and weaknesses of each player in mind. There are a lot of such variables like strength, stamina and overall fitness. So yes the preparation has adapted to the squad.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Given that volleyball is an outdoor sport, do the weather conditions play a big role in the gameplay?
|
||||
|
||||
**Volly:** Ofcourse. In fact we were just checking the weather forecasts for the tournament. More or less the conditions are similar to Roorkee and we have our fingers crossed for playable wind conditions.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Have you been to any practice tournaments?
|
||||
|
||||
**Volly:** We did go to Udghosh but as everyone knows it was washed out.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your expectations from the tournament?
|
||||
|
||||
**Volly:** We hope to give our best and will definitely aim for gold.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Weightlifting (Jogesh Kumar)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You have been part of the squad for a long time now. How has your preparation this time been different?
|
||||
|
||||
**Jogesh:** Well me and a few other medal winners from the last year have entered our final year and were unable to give full time to the practices. We aimed to maintain our general fitness levels throughout the year with real weight practice beginning only last month. Apart from that the whole squad is new and they have prepared extremely hard for the entire duration of the semester.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How many hours do you put in the gym?
|
||||
|
||||
**Jogesh:** Well we train 6 days a week for 3 hours a day and on the week-ends we also have morning sessions. 80-90% of our focus is on gaining strength. In order to do so we lift 80-90% of the competition weight in each practice session.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Any changes to the contingent?
|
||||
|
||||
**Jogesh:** Well we have 2 freshers joining us this time. There is a student doing his PhD who is part of the squad for the first time.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your expectations from the Inter IIT?
|
||||
|
||||
**Jogesh:** We are the defending champions and that is what we are aiming for. The team is new but they are highly motivated and we look forward to repeating our performance last year.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,61 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "5th IIT Students’ Council Meet"
|
||||
image: "iit-students-council-meet.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Interview with Sai Varun Mula (General Secretary Entrepreneurship / Professional Affairs)"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
## Interview with Sai Varun Mula
|
||||
|
||||
*(General Secretary Entrepreneurship / Professional Affairs)*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What is the PAN IIT Students’ Council? Who are its members?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** The elected representatives of all IITs, who fall under their respective Student Councils form the PAN IIT Students’ Council.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** The General Secretaries of each IIT are recognised by the administration of the respective IIT. Is the PAN IIT Council similarly recognised?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** We are not yet recognised by MHRD, like the Inter IIT Tech and Cultural Meets. It is recognised by the administration in a certain way, as the Director/DOSW of the host IIT sends invitations to all other IITs, in a similar way as invitations for Inter IIT Tech/Cultural Meet are sent.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** When and where did the last meeting take place?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** The meeting was held on the 17th and 18th December at IIT Kharagpur.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Who represented IIT Roorkee?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** General Secretary Academic Affairs(UG) and General Secretary Professional/Entrepreneurship Affairs.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Are the meetings frequent? Was this meeting convened just for the purpose of releasing the solidarity statement?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** We have 2 more meets planned in the next semester. One at IIT Gandhinagar and one at IIT Hyderabad(tentatively). No, the agenda of the meeting was completely different. Due to recent happenings, this particular thing just came up and everyone felt the need to discuss it, and so we put it up for debate. We discussed many agendas related to Academics, Research, Entrepreneurship and Placements, among others.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Whom does this document represent?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** The decision is taken by Student Representatives of the Council. Even in the statement, it is explicitly mentioned that the student representatives stand in solidarity with the attacked students. This clearly does not represent the stand of an entire IIT.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Can you tell us the process of reaching the decision that led to the publishing of this document?
|
||||
|
||||
**Varun:** Everyone took a vote. Each IIT had one vote. Every General Secretary's stance on the issue was taken into consideration.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### Minutes of the Meeting that took place on 17th December
|
||||
|
||||
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HVxrradFOa2g6edqDnhxG1LyuX6583l9pT4UK0Dlv00/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HVxrradFOa2g6edqDnhxG1LyuX6583l9pT4UK0Dlv00/edit){:style="text-decoration:underline"}
|
||||
@ -1,52 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Distinguished Lecture : In Conversation With Professor Lorenzo Pavesi"
|
||||
image: "lorenzo.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Lorenzo Pavesi is Professor of Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics of the University of Trento (Italy)"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*Lorenzo Pavesi is Professor of Experimental Physics at the Department of Physics of the University of Trento (Italy). He received his PhD in Physics in 1990 at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne (Switzerland). He leads the Nanoscience Laboratory (25 people), and teaches several classes at the Department of Physics of the University of Trento. He founded the research activity in semiconductor optoelectronics at the University of Trento and started several laboratories of photonics, growth and advanced treatment of materials. He was the first president and founder of the IEEE Italian chapter on Nanotechnology. He has directed 37 PhD students and more than 30 Master thesis students. In silicon photonics, he is one of the worldwide recognized experts. He has organized several international conferences, workshops and schools and is a frequently invited speaker. He is an author or co-author of more than 500 papers, author of several reviews, editor of more than 15 books, author of 2 books and holds 7 patents. In 2001 he was awarded the title of Cavaliere by the Italian President for scientific merit. In 2010 and 2011 he was elected distinguished speaker of the IEEE- Photonics society. He is fellow of the IEEE, of SPIE and of the SIF. He holds an h-index of 58 according to Scopus and of 69 according to Google Scholar. He delivered an Institute Lecture at IITR on the 16th of December, and Watch Out! decided to interview him, to find out more about his undergraduate life, his research interets, and his scientific perspective.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How was your undergraduate life? When did you start seeing research as a viable career option?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr.Pavesi:** This is actually very interesting. Since the very start I was really very puzzled about what is actually happening in nature. So this was my interest, my main interest and then I decided to move because I had the motivation to try to contribute to the development of knowledge. So this was my motivation.
|
||||
But it was only at the start of my undergraduate studies that I decided to pursue physics. Initially, I was not willing to do so and was more interested in being an engineer because I am really interested ( from a personal point of view), in the applications of what you have studied. But I talked to a professor back home and he suggested that I take physics, and the reason why he did is that with engineers you do not exactly understand what the content of the formula is, why this formula has been formulated in this way or not. So you learn the formula, you learn how to apply the formula, and not the story behind the formulas. What he suggested was that I do two years in physics and then switch to engineering, but then I started with physics and I stayed in physics.
|
||||
When I was in the last year of my studies I was talking to another professor who was speaking to someone for a project to do a diploma, we have a Masters diploma at the end of our studies, which at that time was of a long period. It was for one year and he suggested that I do this one year period in Switzerland and so I moved to Switzerland and did my studies there. Once you go abroad, you go out of your comfort zone and then you start to be really challenged by what is happening around and so you stay. The reason why I stayed in research is because you never settle in your knowledge. All the days you have new challenges and so you're always provoked by what is happening around you.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So, because of your research you got the title of the Cavaliere for scientific merit. Could you shed some light on what led you to getting this award?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Pavesi:** So I didn’t ask for it and it came as a surprise even for me. This was the President of the Italian Republic who was to award a few people for their merit. So you can get the award for work, research or because you serve the country in a specific way. Oh and he decided to give me that for scientific reasons because he was impressed by the scientific results we were achieving. So probably what happens is that there are some advisors of the President, scientific advisors that spotted me and they said,"Okay, so you have to give this scientific title to him."
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** That's great, sir! You have also been the head of the physics department now for six years at the University of Trento and you've headed the nanotechnology lab for around two decades. So could you tell the students of IIT-R what are some of the research opportunities that are available at the University of Trento in the field of nanotechnology?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Pavesi:** Okay. So once you finish your undergraduate studies, you have to opt for a PhD. Then Trento as an old Italian University has a year long course for PhD positions and so if you want to come to do a PhD in Trento you have to apply to this course. At my department, we have something like twenty positions per year on the PhD physics course, and essentially those positions are given on the basis of the curriculum and the colloquium of the students; so based on the merit. Among those twenty positions all are covered with a fellowship, which I think is in the order of twelve hundred Euros per month. So you know, twelve hundred Euros per month is not a huge amount in Italy. It means that you live, you live fine, but it's not. They have an average salary in Italy I think of the order of six hundred Euros per month so you're almost average salary. Anyway, out of those twenty positions, there are three that are free, meaning that the student can do whatever he wants and the others are linked to a specific subject. And so when one is applying, one has to has to look at the specific subject. If he/she is interested in that specific subject he can apply, and then if he is selected, he can start doing the PhD. So it's really merit based.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** So do you also have a summer program for undergraduate studies?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Pavesi:** No we do not have such summer programs.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Sir in recent times the quantum computers that are being developed have a classical chip and a quantum chip so two separate environments that are connected together on the motherboard and then they are trying to make a quantum computer. Is silicon integration of classical and quantum components possible to such an extent where it can be brought down to a single chip where we can commercialize a quantum computer?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Pavesi:** The approach would be hybrid integration and not monolithic integration. What I’m saying is that I’m very skeptical about the fact that everything could be done on a single chip. Their requirements are very different. And so most probably what is going to happen is that we are going to have two different chips or even two different systems that are going to communicate or will be integrated together instead of a single monolithic chip. What we are trying to use is the black box approach where you as a user will ask the black box to do any calculation. And then inside the computer, you have an architecture that is a software that decides which part goes to the quantum computer side or the classical computer side. So for the user, everything will be an absolute trust part so you do not care whether you use a quantum or a classical computer. And developing this kind of architecture is not easy you need to have software engineers, quantum engineers, electronic engineers, physicists, and mathematicians and they have to sit together and decide the architecture.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** As a final question, what is your advice for the undergraduate students of our campus who want to pursue research as a career option, in order to achieve the success that you have had in your particular field?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Pavesi :** Work hard. So, firstly, be really competent in the field. If you really want to attain success, you need to have a strong background, a strong knowledge of your field. So this is your first important point.
|
||||
|
||||
Secondly, you should look at what others are doing and take on big challenges. In a way, if you want to make a big career, you need to face big challenges. That means, you shouldn't be focussing on a very small project or very small things. Like nowadays, there's not much sense in making a processor that is slightly better than the processors we already have. But there is a big sense to have a quantum computer that is not yet there or to make an artificial intelligence model that is not there. Like biotechnology, physics ungergraduates could use physics in order to tackle diseases. There is a discipline - the physics of cancer - where people are using physical methods in order to analyse what is behind cancer and try to face this disease and so on and so forth. The idea is really to have big ideas, so try to face big challenges, because that’s the only way to go on.
|
||||
In my career, when I started to do my independent research, people told me that silicon is only good for micro-electronics. I started to say no. Why is that? I started to work, trying to push silicon into photonics. Now Silicon Photonics is an actuality. A reality. What I’m doing now, i.e., my big challenge is to try to make a hybrid circuit between a silicon circuit and a live neuron circuit. So, a hybrid computer between a neural tissue and a photonic tissue. This is what I’m trying to do.
|
||||
.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,28 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Urban Legends - The Chronicle of Old KB"
|
||||
image: "kb1.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
author: "Shachi SIngh, Murtaza Bookwala, Kushagra Agarwal, Shreya Agarwal"
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
excerpt: "Located across the street from the Ravindra Bhawan Mess, Old KB paints the perfect picture of a haunted house."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Located across the street from the Ravindra Bhawan Mess, Old KB paints the perfect picture of a haunted house—big, rambling, dusty, cobwebbed rooms with the wall’s plastering breaking apart like dead skin; broken furniture, doors battered down, windows boarded up; the air musty with the damp; the very atmosphere, suppressed with tense mystery; creaking, whistling windows—cold swishing winds howling a requiem -- a sort of setting that you would pick up straight from a Daphne De Maurer novel. A place you would visit to seek out a glimpse of thrill in your otherwise dreary, hamster-on-a- wheel of a life. It silently escapes attention in the grand tour of campus discovery that most of us take as brow-beaten freshers to convince ourselves that our campus is at least half as interesting as we thought it was, being overshadowed by subsidized coffee and random loitering around Main Building by midnight, as soon as the hostel restrictions are lifted.
|
||||
|
||||
According to common folklore, the place witnessed a gory triple suicide, a tragic event causing the hostel to be closed down, never to be renovated. Others say that a large-scale inferno burnt the place down, leaving it in its present state of desolation. Both of these theories have been passed down by generations and generations of students at R land verbally as if it’s a legacy to be cherished and passed on till Judgement Day. These musings set the stage for horror aficionados, enabling them to speak of ghosts and spectres that apparently still float around the rooms of the building, waiting ravenously for naive freshmen. Efforts to dispel these stories as fiction are not helped by the apparent urgency with which Roorkee’s guards chase out those who attempt to enter the building.
|
||||
|
||||
The blanket of green foliage that stretches over the decaying building seems rife with the rustle of life - or maybe it is the deathly silence that amplifies the sound that every movement leaves in its wake. The rational say that’s just naughty little snakes darting around the emerald metropolis. Others feel a cold chill crawl up their spine in a reaction that they believe cannot be of corporeal origins. Our reporters carried on in pursuit of the truth, unperturbed by the spookiness that had surrounded them from all sides.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
However, on digging around a little they unearthed a “shocking” discovery. The structure in question actually housed the mess workers of the Ravindra Mess and their families, some 15 years back. After the campus was rechristened an IIT, most of the staff was transferred outside the campus, including these workers. Thus, the place was abandoned. Currently, the structure is being used as a storehouse for various waste materials of the institute, like mattresses, planks, tables, chairs and almirahs. In short, it's that last drawer of your cabinet where you put the things you can’t find a place for, the drawer that is evocative of warped wood.
|
||||
|
||||
While it is true that the current Kasturba is relatively new, and a Kasturba existed prior to its inauguration, erstwhile KB was never this structure. It was the building which is now known as the Old Teachers Hostel. Once this Bhawan became insufficient to accommodate all girls across the campus, it was allotted to teachers and PhDs, and a new Kasturba was constructed.
|
||||
|
||||
Thus, the place behind Georgia never had any connection with any Kasturba Bhawan, or with any otherworldly phenomena. This piece of information, though not documented well, has been confirmed by various fruit sellers and security guards of the campus, along with mess workers who used to live there, and also by the supervisor of Ravindra Bhawan. However, even after establishing the fact that this place was never Kasturba, questions persist. Why are there no urinals, when it housed staff workers? Why has the structure never been demolished, restructured or renovated even after abandonment for such a long time? Why is its entrance a purposeless hole in the wall? And most importantly, why is it called, and that too rather ominously, The Old KB? These questions remain unanswered, lost in the bottomless pit of IITR history, living on to spin a confusing tale of a bygone era, and continue to attract those brave of heart, and seeking a quick dose of adrenaline. The crumbling stone walls, the abandoned quarters and the wilderness, all combine to present a heady concoction of mystery and drama - that's Old KB for you.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
@ -1,88 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Horror In Anime"
|
||||
image: "horror-in-anime-1.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
author: "Mohit Sharma"
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
excerpt: "Being a melting pot of all things bizarre, from 60 feet tall robot-alien hybrids to scantily clad people with sinful bodily proportions duking it out in interplanetary cat-fights, horror is admittedly not the first genre that comes to mind when one thinks of anime. Which is unfortunate to say the least, as in some ways, the medium is perfect for it."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Being a melting pot of all things bizarre, from 60 feet tall robot-alien hybrids to scantily clad people with sinful bodily proportions duking it out in interplanetary cat-fights, horror is admittedly not the first genre that comes to mind when one thinks of anime. Which is unfortunate to say the least, as in some ways, the medium is perfect for it.
|
||||
|
||||
Though well executed horror flicks are rare in anime and manga, there is the occasional gem that’s capable of instilling in one, a brand of fear exclusive to Japanese animation. Anime is quite different from live-action productions, if it wasn’t obvious. And so it tends to achieve the same effects in really different ways. For example, scenes involving dynamic motion often feature exaggerated deformations and variable frame rates to make up for the absence of motion blur and natural-looking camera shakes in animation. Nowhere are these differences as prevalent as they are in the horror genre, and are highlighted quite beautifully in the elegantly crafted works of the great Junji Ito.
|
||||
|
||||
Junji Ito has a very unique take on psychological horror, which at times feels like a twisted version of the lovecraftian brand of terror, albeit a tad bit closer to believability. The idea of “grounded” cosmic horror doesn’t make much sense... until it does. And the hint of reality makes it all the more unsettling.
|
||||
|
||||
Horror in Japanese art and animation is very different from western media.
|
||||
|
||||
## Not All Scares Are Created Equal
|
||||
|
||||
**“Jump-scares are cheap”**, say the intellectuals on reddit. The thing is, jump-scares don’t get nearly enough credit for what they can, and do achieve, if done right. A full-length feature film can never be scary or terrifying for the entire duration. The plot, setting and progression are supposed to build tension, pull the viewer in, and brace them for the scare, but in the end, it’s the *moments* that reel it in.
|
||||
|
||||
This seemingly simple mechanic however, does not translate well into animation, much less into *manga*, as there is no “surprise moment” when you’re flipping through the pages of a book.
|
||||
|
||||
**Or is there?**
|
||||
|
||||
Junji Ito (a recurring theme throughout this article) overcomes this hurdle by making using of something the majority of us are inherently ignorant of.
|
||||
|
||||
### The Page Turn
|
||||
|
||||
Junji Ito’s work is above all else, unsettling. He too, relies on the gradual rise of tension. It’s not **meant** to be terrifying, it’s meant to put the reader off with slow psychological buildup, eating away at their fortitude, until you turn the page, and are met with **One. Singular. Frame.**
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
This frame hits hard for two reasons apart from the content of the frame itself : its carefully planned value to the plot, and the buildup leading up to it. By making use of something as insignificant as the flip of a page, something that all of us nonchalantly overlook, Ito-san is able to introduce the element of surprise to a medium that essentially lacks the groundwork for it.
|
||||
|
||||
And while it isn’t quite as nerve-wracking as a Xenomorph highlight reel from Alien, what it lacks in sheer shock value, it makes up for in meaning. Ito’s “jump-scares” often serve as grim revelations, central to the plot, quickly following up the release of fear with more mystique, to continue holding the reader in his/her agitated state.
|
||||
|
||||
## Gore Galore
|
||||
|
||||
The majority of anime with the horror keyword in their taglists, tend to resort to gruesome imagery in an attempt to jar the viewer. The problem being… it doesn’t work.
|
||||
|
||||
Roots of this practice can be traced back to Japanese culture - body horror and grotesque depictions having been prevalent in traditional Japanese art and literature for centuries now. But that is, in a word, irrelevant. It just doesn’t translate well into anime, because anime is… well, **animated.**
|
||||
|
||||
Animation, by its very nature, necessitates stylization and reduction in complexity, which is what drives body horror in the first place. It’s a major reason why the anime adaptations for Junji Ito’s works, weren’t received nearly as well as the original manga. The immaculately crafted illustrations lose much of their weight when animated, as a large portion of the depth and detail is lost in the transition, taking away the organic believability that made it work.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:100%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
Body horror and monster design derive from features that humans have evolved to avoid. The twisted features, sharp teeth, unnatural movements are all intended to exploit a very primal sense of fear in the viewer. The stylistic representations of these elements don’t appeal to that primordial sense of fear the same way as their organic counterparts.
|
||||
|
||||
*Hence, anime has to rely on more subtle ways to get across that “something’s wrong” feeling, the most prominent way being:*
|
||||
|
||||
## The Valley Of The Damned
|
||||
|
||||
The concept of the uncanny valley has long been used by the film industry to build tension. It’s the eerie feeling you experience when something’s right… but it’s not. It’s just a little bit off, just enough to creep you out, but not enough for you to identify the reason.
|
||||
|
||||
Imagine a snake with human teeth, and you’re getting there.
|
||||
|
||||
Ito-san is renowned for his unique art style and use of unsettling imagery to jar the user. Not causing them to defecate, but keeping them damn near the edge the entire time.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:100%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
Then there’s **Perfect Blue**, a 1998 thriller written by Sadayuki Murai and brought to life by Satoshi Kon.
|
||||
|
||||
The characters, the settings, the ambience… they all feel normal but they don’t, like they’re all hiding something you’ll never get to know. It’s exactly that. Just a little bit off. It all makes for a very off-putting atmosphere that plays perfectly into the intense moments. At times, the transitions between different moods feel a little abrupt, but that arguably makes it even better.
|
||||
|
||||
*Another important element of Junji’s style is his intentionally vague plots:*
|
||||
|
||||
## Better The Devil You Know Than The Devil You Don’t
|
||||
|
||||
**For there is no fear greater than that of the unknown.** The fear of uncertainty, the **unknown,** is perhaps the most nerve-racking. From a filmmaker’s perspective, it can also be quite hard to pull off. Give out too little information and the reader won’t relate to the story. Too much and it falls flat, as your “monster” loses its enigma. Many of Ito’s works don’t feature a physical monster; rather, it’s an unexplained phenomena that the concerned individuals, and for that matter even the readers, know absolutely nothing about, and have no way of understanding - prominent examples being “Uzumaki” and “The Enigma of the Amigara Fault”. By giving you a “monster” you don’t know, Ito-san pushes part of the fear-building on to your imagination, and your brain is forced to fill in the holes, speculating a version of the unexplained entity tailored to your deepest, darkest fears. No longer are you afraid of the monster you know it is, but of the devil you fear it could be. You’re given just enough to keep you on your toes, and your own anticipation eats away at you.
|
||||
|
||||
All in all, horror continues to be one of the most slept-on sub-categories of anime, thanks to the popular gore-fests that seemed to have undermined the entire genre, despite there being numerous gems to prove that horror is more than just pre-teens running around in a sea of guts and body parts flailing around like confetti. It’s one of the most skillful and refined art forms, that has led to some of the most intricate implementations of the simple buildup-fallout structure, as well as some of the most mind-bending psychological pieces to ever come out of the medium.
|
||||
|
||||
*We recommend having a look at the following works if you feel like getting familiarized with this beautiful and surprisingly niche genre:*
|
||||
|
||||
**Slug Girl:** One of the few examples of good body horror in anime/manga
|
||||
|
||||
**Shiki:** Great use of tone and atmosphere
|
||||
|
||||
**The Hanging Balloons:** Great example of Ito’s take at cosmic-ish horror along with Uzumaki
|
||||
|
||||
**Perfect Blue:** Another example of gorgeously unsettling atmosphere mixed in with bits of psychological goodness
|
||||
|
||||
**Hell Girl:** Noone completely gets it, but it’s beautiful
|
||||
|
||||
**Aku no Hana:** Not really horror per se, it’s only here because we want to get it out there. If there ever was an anime that deserved the psychological tag, it’s this one. Also has one of the most haunting ending tracks of all time
|
||||
@ -1,52 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture: In Conversation With Professor KPJ Reddy"
|
||||
image: "prof-kpj-reddy.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Prof. KPJ Reddy is Professor Emeritus in the department of aerospace engineering at IISc Bangalore, where he has served as a faculty for 28 years."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Prof. KPJ Reddy is Professor Emeritus in the department of aerospace engineering at IISc Bangalore, where he has served as a faculty for 28 years. Prof. Reddy did BSc and MSc (physics) from Mysore University and PhD from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi. His research interests are in the areas of aerodynamics, hypersonics, shock waves, high temperature chemical kinetics and materials, gasdynamic lasers, and quantum electronics. He is a founding member and former president of the International Shock Wave Institute (Japan) and Society for Shock Wave Research (India). Prof. Reddy has developed and patented numerous technologies using shock waves and based on these innovations he has established a group of companies under the faculty entrepreneurship program at IISc. He is a recipient of several honours such as IISc Alumni Award, Prof. Satish Dhawan Chair Professorship, and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Chair Professor. He is editor in chief of the International Journal of Hypersonics and editorial board member of Shock Waves, Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermophysics. Prof. KPJ Reddy delivered an institute lecture on hypersonics and shockwaves on 15th January, Watch Out! Decided to interview him to know more about his passion for research and undying love for life.*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How was your school life? Did you enjoy your childhood?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** Oh yes! We spent our time were jumping around, jumping into rivers and playing. I really enjoyed my childhood and I try to have the same approach towards research as well. I have never worked for more than 2 hours a day. This character of mine is very helpful. I give the remaining time to do other things I like.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What do you do in your past time ?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** I interact with people and mentor children. I’ve been doing this for about 10 years. I mentor about 30,000 children per year, I go to schools in villages. A lot of those children have become big scientists. I talk to people in villages, farmers, and apply science into what they’re doing, into their lives. I adopted the town where I did my high school from and I’m building a huge science center. The state government has provided about 206 acres, in which, I have built around 16 acres, children can come and indulge in Mathematics and Astronomy. My dream is that in about 20-30 years, a farmer’s child should be able to become a nobel laureate. My research is equally intense, the lab that I work in is the biggest in the world in the field of hypersonics. Hypersonics is the one that takes you to the moon.I have closely worked with Kalam. I enjoy the place of guru, they jokingly call me the Gandhian of hypersonics. It shouldn't be like "O, Lage Raho Munna Bhai" type.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Tell us more about the science city you are building.
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** The Science Center that we are building, in the name of H Narasimhaiah, the ex-Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University. IISc has 350 acres of land and in 2009 we had the centenary celebrations and we decided not to build any more inside the campus, so we needed a 2nd campus. I was asked to help, this is when I realized that India lacks a science city. Japan, has Tsukuba Science City. It is a really big science city and everything science is done there and I've wanted to one such thing for a long time, so I bought 11000 acres of land from the government and invited organizations related to Atomic Energy, I gave them 3000 acres, I gave 2500 acres to IISc, then 4500 acres to DRDO and 500 acres to ISRO, that is where they had the Chandrayan trials. Fortunately I was the advisor to the previous government, HD Kumaraswamy and I talked to him about declaring that a science city of the country. I dream big, I don't believe in small things, at the same time I sit and work with people and sell my dreams to them. I also build my industries, and I have about 30 patents.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did this transition from academia to industry take place? Tell us about the work done by some of the industries you started.
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** It was always in me, in fact around 2003, when Kasturi Rangan was the chairman of ISRO, he had made an announcement that he wants to privatize satellite making. So, I went to different industries and we collected around 750 crore rupees, and we bid for it. So. I built a company for making satellites. Two years later, ISRO withdrew from the program. They didn't want to privatize so soon. So, I always had this dream that we should make something in India and sell it to the world. That's why I invented the hand driven shock tube and I named it "Reddy Tube". It's prideful. It's an Indian name, there are an infinite number of Reddy's. It isn't my ego that I'm satisfying. It is an Indian invention. And now it is appreciated everywhere. In Karnataka, You can't become an engineer without studying about the Reddy Tube. In Tamil Nadu, Andra Pradesh, they're adding it to the first year syllabus everywhere. So this is what drives me. Now I have 4 companies below me, one of them works with ONGC, Modi himself came to our office and signed an agreement with us. So, with that we made tools for fracking. Right now, we use hydro-fracking, and it’s harmful to the environment and groundwater. So, we came up with a new technology where we use air to frack, it was a 7.4 crore project and now it is worth a billion dollars. Similarly, I invented a device for veterinarians, India is the 2nd largest producer of milk in the world. If we are able to increase the production by 10%, then all the problems that farmer’s face would disappear. I was looking at the root cause of this and we found out that it lay in the artificial insemination gun, which is only 30% efficient. If we can increase it by 10%, we can make our farmers financially dependent. So, I worked on the gun and attached the Reddy Tube to it and now it is known as “Super Bull”, so now it’s being used and we have used it on 15,000 cows and the results are mind-boggling, it has increased efficiency by 20%. Once this gun is used across the country, per day, the income of the farmers across the country will go up by 500 crore rupees. Per year, farmers would get an extra 1 Lakh 80 Thousand crore rupees as income with no additional cost. They need not go to the government asking for subsidies and loan waivers. Then they can have their pride.
|
||||
|
||||
In drip irrigation, acid is used to clean the drip irrigation pipes, which is killing our lands, because the acid goes into our lands. The farmers’ lungs are affected by the acidic fumes too. I implemented the Reddy Tube and now we just need to connect the Reddy Tube to these pipes, send a shockwave into the drip irrigation tube and all the clogged holes would open up, and no acid would be used. I am also the first one to use drones for afforestation. We have barren hills which stretches for about 35-50 kilometers on either side of the road close to my town, and my town is bone dry. No rains. So, we made these drones that can lift about 10 kilograms of seeds and I discovered a method to make these seeds germinate. So we built these 2 drones, so during the rainy season, the drones will take off and spray these seeds on the hills.. This is the knowledge that you guys have and are familiar with, you just have to apply it. That’s what I would say. I’m into that. So, likewise, I work with silk farmers, mulberry silk. That’s our major commercial product. Now we’re working on aeroponics. Aeroponics is basically agriculture without soil. So we would suspend the plant in the air. It needs nutrients and moisture. So, now we have built these mist making machines. We just need to add a little water into it and it creates a cloud of nanoparticles. We add the nutrients into this water and spray the plant with the water that it needs. Now this plant will grow in the air. My intention here is for farmers to do their agriculture with just buckets of water. We need not depend on rains.
|
||||
It will take a while because no one invests money into this. I have to mobilize my resources, whatever I get from my industries, I put it here. We were just talking about how we are building an artificial liver. That’s another thing. Doctors work with us, we just finished the proof of concept.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did you manage to diversify your projects to this extent?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** It is your mind which creates these boundaries. In 1999, I realized that India had to go to space, but there were no hypersonics in the country, and today, India is one of the richest in terms of manpower in hypersonics. I personally produced 30 PhD’s. We have the best manpower in the world today. So, we can support the moon mission, we can support making hypersonics missiles. Now the government has to invest money, but the world-class manpower is right here in India. Everything is possible if you believe in it. Everything that I have learnt, I learnt without teachers, in school there were no teachers, in college I had to learn without teachers, even for my Ph.D, I didn’t have a guide. So, the point I’m making here is that I’m not a genius. It’s a mindset. I am not even one-tenth of what you guys are capable of. You have come through the system. You are extraordinary, but you have to realize this. Don’t go on an ego trip that “I’m extraordinary”. Remove the borders. Can you imagine that I have spent hours and hours, days and days watching people on the fields catching rats. Nomads would come after the harvest and they would catch these rats.How these rats make their tunnels, how they build their chambers where they store food for years together. That was the technology that Vietnam used to beat the Americans. So, we have to learn from nature. When you go back to your hometown, don’t waste your time sitting and watching TV. Go to the primary school near your house and spend time with those children. And then your personality opens up and you’ll be in such a position, that you’ll glow with confidence. This was the privilege that I had. I sit back and think “Why was I like this?”. Now I see that this is the reason. Honestly speaking you put the boundaries, and these boundaries make you what you are. You tell yourself that you will do Physics, Math and so on. But who stopped you from taking Economics as well? And your brain has infinite strength. You can be a dramatist, you can do whatever you want to. One day I thought I should learn music, because everyone was doing it. Now I can play fluently, you don’t need talent, all you need is that mindset that you can do it. And, honestly, you guys are blessed with it.
|
||||
|
||||
We are very miniscule compared to what we see around us, especially farmers. One day I went to Israel, where I was a visiting professor. A friend of mine was gardening and a Palestian passed by while my friend was watering his plants. The Palestinian asked him why he was being idiotic. My friend asked him what he meant by that. The Palestinian then told him, “Don’t you know that it’s going to rain tomorrow?”. And it promptly rained the next day. That’s why I say, “Learn, Look Around, Look Around and then you can be a leader”. You are insignificant, but at the same time you are infinite. Don’t ever tell yourself that you are great, but you are so great that you can change the universe.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What was your calling that made you want to take research, with research being such a risky option, where most undergraduate students don’t take up research because of its uncertainty. What do you have to say about this and what advice would you give to students on this topic?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof K.P.J. Reddy:** You see, I had no intelligence like this to make decisions on my own. I never had this dilemma. I’m just from a village and thought that if you passed 1st Standard, then you should go to 2nd standard and then 3rd. So, I never thought there were options anywhere. We never had a dilemma as to what to study and what not to. I asked myself “What is the best thing that I can become?”. The first time this had occurred to me was when I went to a hotel for the first time in my life. Over there, I bought a plate of Upma and Kesari Bath (South Indian dishes). I enjoyed it so much that I decided to become a waiter at the hotel, so that I could eat food like this everyday. That was my first goal. And then after 10th Standard, I had found out that a classmate had become a bus conductor. He lived a more luxurious life compared to us, so I told myself that I should become a conductor. To us ignorance was bliss. During my 11th and 12th grade, I worked very hard to fail because I wanted to get into politics. I wanted to solve the problems in my village, in order to do that, I thought that I should become a minister and help solve the problems of the village. During my 11th and 12th, my brother forced me to attend my exam. When the results came, I was tilling my land, when my father came to me and told me that i had passed. I was so annoyed with myself, I said “Damn It, I think destiny is trying to push me somewhere”. If I had gotten one mark less, I would have been somewhere else. My education was accidental. And then when I was studying during my B.Sc programme, I switched gears and I was the topper. One day when I was collecting my report card from the office, my Physics teacher saw me asked me about my marks, I had gotten a 100 in Physics. He then asked me if I applied for an M.Sc degree. I told him that I didn’t know what that was. So, he gave me a letter and I went to Mysore and that’s where I did my M.Sc. While I was doing my M.Sc, a colleague of mine told me that doing research is the best thing. I then got a fellowship at BIT Ranchi, where a professor from IISc had come and told us that the topper could come and join. It was destiny and a positive attitude. But the underlying difference between my friends and I is that whatever comes to me, I take it as a positive thing. Don’t ever cry. Don’t ever pity yourself. It is then that nobody can stop you from becoming successful. I sit back, I’m about 67, so I should start doing what old people do. And old people tell stories.
|
||||
@ -1,99 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation with Team KNOx"
|
||||
image: "team-knox-2020-1.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "On the 10th of January, Team KNOx unveiled its latest automotive vehicle N-IITR-O to the campus junta. The team is all set to participate in the upcoming BAJA SAE competition."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
On the 10th of January, Team KNOx unveiled its latest automotive vehicle N-IITR-O to the campus junta. The team is all set to participate in the upcoming BAJA SAE competition.
|
||||
|
||||
WatchOut! decided to interview them to know more about their preparations and their journey so far.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What exactly is the BAJA SAE competition, and what is the history of your team in this competition?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** BAJA SAE is an intercollegiate design competition. It started in America. They particularly started by building trucks that could run on any terrain. What we build is a mini BAJA, the small vehicle, weighing around 200 kgs. Teams from various colleges in India, as well as the world, participate in this competition. In India, the event is held at two sites, at Indore around the Republic day and at Ropar in March. This year the competition is from the 23rd to the 26th of January.
|
||||
|
||||
Our team participated in this event for the first time in 2010. We ranked among the top ten teams consecutively in 2010,2011 and 2012. Somehow we could not participate after that and could only send the vehicle again in 2016, which failed the endurance test. A similar thing happened in 2018 as well. In 2019, we ran through the endurance for about 2 hours, but again had a breakdown and couldn't finish the race. We are hoping that we don't experience a similar kind of failure this year and finish well in the race.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Can you give us a few more details about the event?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** On day one at the event, a technical inspection is done. A check is conducted to see if the vehicle complies with the rulebook. After our vehicle passes this phase, another test is done for safety purposes - a brake test. We are given an (approximately) hundred feet trek. We are expected to run the vehicle at a speed of forty kilometres per hour. Then brakes are applied. We have to stop at a distance within ten feet, and all the four tyres should lock. Else, the vehicle will not pass, and we will not be allowed to attend any upcoming events. After that, the acceleration of the vehicle is tested. These are the first three events. Coming to the dynamic events, we are expected to drive our vehicle from one end to the other of a road littered with boulders. There are events for maneuverability, traction (of the tires), steering ability, and the driving skills of the driver.
|
||||
|
||||
Then there is an event where our vehicle has to face challenges. . Then there is a sales presentation, where we are asked about how we will sell the ATV, and how we will attract investors. Additionally, there is a design presentation, where we are judged based on our design, and the changes that have been made in its implementation. The final event is endurance. It comprises of four hundred marks (out of a thousand). It is the main focus of the competition and lasts for four hours.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What exactly is the endurance round which you are talking about?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** Endurance round comprises of four hours of rigorous testing of the vehicle. The lap consists of different types of rough terrains like rock crawl and mud bog. There are approximately 150 teams who participate in the endurance test, but after around 2 hours, only 10-15 remain. This is to tell you how brutal the track is.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Participating in a competition of such stature must have required a lot of dedication, hard work and planning. What has been your preparation process for the event?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** After coming back from the competition last year in January, all the sub-departments of our team sat together to look upon the mistakes we had made and to think about the changes that had to be done. After deciding the changes, we made a budget for every sub-department under the supervision of our team captain, and then by the end of February, we started working on the design. We were done by the end of March. We have the first round, the Virtuals, for the competition in June. In this round, we are judged on the basis of the presentation of the design of the ATV and also the full vehicle assembly. The judges decide whether the model we submit is feasible or not. We cleared the virtuals and were given the opportunity to represent ourselves in the main event, which is going to happen now.
|
||||
|
||||
After getting selected, we began with the manufacturing phase. First of all, we made a timeline for every sub-department. We had a plan to finish the manufacturing by November, and after that, we were ready for testing our ATV. We tried to make similar tracks as we are going to face in the competition. After testing, we went for the documentation of the vehicle, and now we are all set for the event.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How supportive is the administration, with regards to financial and infrastructural assistance?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** Our workshops are comfortable. However, if anything needs to be repaired, a long procedure is required. If the process (for funds) was online, it would be better. Right now, we have to fill out a form in advance, then submit it. It involves a lot of paperwork and is bureaucratic. If it was online, it would be beneficial. Our workshops and departments are pretty old, and sometimes the machinery gets filled with water. If we want them cleaned or removed, we have to wait for a month and a half. Manufacturing starts in August and ends in January. We can design in our rooms, but manufacturing has to be done in our labs, and the monsoon comes in the middle.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the significant changes in the vehicle and your strategy this year?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** In 2017, we could not participate in the event because we could not clear the virtuals. Then in 2018, we faced issues related to the budget, and also the senior members of the team didn't have the requisite experience with manufacturing. Yet,, we made it to the competition in 2018, after a gap of a year but could not perform that well. We improved a lot in 2019, and our vehicle could finish 16-17 laps in 2 hours in the endurance round. But we had a breakdown after that. This time, we have worked a lot on the wheel assembly, which had caused the failure last year
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%"}
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the difficulties that you faced as a team?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** The first difficulty that one faces is the kind of output the seniors give or how they pass on the knowledge and information to the juniors. That was the problem we met in 2017 when we could not enter the event, after which we had only one senior left in our team because of whom we could make it to the competition in 2018. This hasn't been the problem after that. The difficulty we face now is related to the manufacturing process. Though we have a vast amount of information and we can design everything correctly, there are only a few parts which we can actually manufacture ourselves, the rest of them have to be procured from Delhi, Pune or Chennai. This year we had to go to a vendor in Pune for CNC machining of specific components. He had promised to deliver the assemblies by the end of October but the delivery as made by the end of November. The whole manufacturing process, thus, got delayed by around a month, because of which we could not test the vehicle for the duration we had planned for. This is the biggest hurdle that we've faced. There are also certain issues like the tiresome process of documentation and running for funds here and there. Sometimes the team has to contribute funds to get things done. These are the two main problems that we face.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What kind of competition do you anticipate this year? Which institutions are expected to give your team stiff competition?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** The competition is very tough. Before 2019, 120 teams qualified for the main event; the count has now increased to 150, making the competition tougher. Institutions like College of Engineering, Pune, MIT Pune, and NIT Kurukshetra have an o utstanding track record, and we are aiming to beat them this year.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What kind of training do you give to the driver of the ATV and how do you decide who should be the one to drive the ATV?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** We have a team of about thirty people, and we choose the driver from these thirty people itself. First of all, the driver should have a driving license, that is compulsory. Along with this, the person needs to be fit; all the physical criteria for the same must be satisfied. The car is designed according to the 95th percentile rule which states that 95 per cent of the population should be able to sit in the car properly so it's evident that we cannot make a very tall or a hefty guy the driver. The driver should be as light as possible because that will improve the performance of the vehicle by enhancing fuel efficiency. 5-6 people qualify these parameters. Then we check how the driver handles the car on the track. For this, we give them the vehicle for testing, and then 2 or 3 of them are finally selected out of whom the fittest is chosen as the driver and the rest as co-drivers. This year Piyush is the driver.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Do accidents occur on the day of the competition? How do you ensure the safety of the driver in such a case?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** The rulebook which is allotted to us for the manufacturing process is concerned with the safety of the drivers. From the manufacturing phase itself, safety is a consideration. On the day of the event, we have a five-point harness, fireproof suit, and a helmet set that is sfi rated, for the driver. To deal with instances of a fire breaking out, the front cockpit and the rear cockpit are completely separated by an aluminium sheet. The rear cockpit has the engine and the fuel tank. The fuel tank is checked at the event site for any fuel leakage. In case of any emergency, there is a fire extinguisher attached to the vehicle. For further safety of the driver, there is a kill switch on the steering, and another at the back of the vehicle. A volunteer can then stop the engine immediately.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** In a race like this, how important is the pit crew? What skillset are they expected to have?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** The pit crew is the most crucial part of the team. If any failure occurs, or the car suffers a breakdown in the endurance test (or any event), the car is rushed to the pit. The job of the pit crew is to quickly identify the problem - which parts are broken or require servicing and promptly change it. If spares are unavailable, they should be able to work out how to make do without that particular part. This requires problem-solving abilities and quick thinking. They need to be level headed because time is of the essence (the race lasts for only four hours). If they panic, they will be unable to solve the problem and may even worsen the situation. Throughout the year, while the vehicle is still in the manufacturing and testing phases, we identify people for this task. We select twenty-five members who come through in all the situations and take them for the competition.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What additional supplies and resources do you carry, and how likely are they to impact your chance of winning the competition?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** We carry spares of every critical component and components which have a low factor of safety. We keep the factor of safety low for some components to reduce weight. If we increase the factor of safety, then the weight will be significantly increased. This can make the difference between losing and winning because if a component fails and there are no spares available, and the part is such that without it the car cannot run, we will be out of the race. This year, we have worked a lot on the design and have made most of the parts failure-proof. If the worst happens, we have spares of these parts.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Was there any exciting incident that occurred while you were preparing for this competition?
|
||||
|
||||
**Team KNOx:** A funny incident occurred when we had our first run. Our team captain was driving, and his leg got stuck on the accelerator pedal. He accidentally hit the car on a pipe that was on our set, and it got a dent on it. Many such incidents occur during the testing phase too. Once, we were testing the drop of our vehicle from a five feet high cliff. Our driver kept the vehicle too slow. The moment the car left the cliff, a rollover occurred. Our driver was upside down and lying by the car. Another comic incident that happened was that our machine has a part made up of tubes. When we start the car, there is something known as idling, which means that when the vehicle is started, it shouldn't run immediately, or begin to accelerate on its own. Our car is checked for idling. Two years ago, a component wasn't welded properly, and our captain was holding it and standing (to make sure the car didn't run). The engine was started, and behold! The tube remains in hand, while the car has run away.
|
||||
@ -1,38 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation with Roorkee Motorsports"
|
||||
image: "rms.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: ""
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How long has RSME'19 been in the works?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** After formula green 2017, we decided to do much more than we had done in that competition. We decided to have more powerful motors and organise our systems. We introduced rollbar and suspension, a power drain system and eccentric mounts. We changed the motor and many other parts. We worked on new type of steering systems. We organised all our thoughts and began designing around July 2017. The designing process took about an year. By the end of Spring 2018, our design was ready and we were awarded the required budget for the project. The first part of the budget, given in June was the basis of chassis manufacturing, suspension manufacturing, steering manufacturing, basically the mechanical part of the car, along with motors and batteries. The second part of the budget was used in the production of electrical parts of the car.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Are all the members of the team part of the project initially still working on it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** No, the project has been going on for about three years, so two batches have passed out since then.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the difficulties you've faced as a team while working on this project?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** The major challenge is the management of two teams, the Electrical and Mechanical team. We have to ensure proper communication between both. The departments like marketing and design also have to be managed. To recruit skilled members into the teamz as a group of students is a very challenging task. We also have to follow the guidelines, keeping the work on track and meeting all deadlines.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How is the budget divided between that provided by the sponsors and by the institute?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** The budget provided by the institute is based on the design that we give them. It amounts for the components required for manufacturing thr car. However during production, we face many other expenses, like damage of a part or parts that cannot be manufactured, or manufacturing expenses. The total cost of this car is around 42 lakhs.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Calling onboard a famous personality like Garima Avtar for the unveiling event must've been quite a task. How did you decide to call her and what went into making this happen?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** We wanted to make the unveiling event an innovative one. Our basic idea was that none of us know what a racing car is. We thought that it would be good if we could call someone who had racing as their area of expertise drive our car, and tell us about it. Later on, this combined with our plan of unveiling. We contacted Garima Avtar ma'am on Facebook, and through that we set up the event today. Ma'am was very cooperative with our plan and helped us make the event successful.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your future plans with the car?
|
||||
|
||||
**Captain:** Our first objective is to participate in Formula Green 2020. We plan to retain the same electrical systems in the subsequent cars. We also plan to participate in as many competitions in one year, as a particular chassis is valid for one year only. If at all possible, we would like to participate in another international competition. At present, we lack expertise in our vehicle. If we gain expertise in a national competition, we can put our skills to test in an international event.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,65 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation with Mrs. Garima Avtar"
|
||||
image: "garima.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Garima Avtar is a professional rally car racer. She has been a professional driver for Mercedes Benz Luxe Drive Live. She is an Automotive journalist, a car enthusiast and also organizes motorsport car rallies and self drive expeditions."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Garima Avtar is a professional rally car racer. She has been a professional driver for Mercedes Benz Luxe Drive Live. She is an Automotive journalist, a car enthusiast and also organizes motorsport car rallies and self drive expeditions.
|
||||
|
||||
She has participated and won laurels in almost all of India’s major Rally competitions, including the Indian National Rally Championship, the Raid De Himalayas, Desert Storm, the Mughal Rally , the Monsoon Challenge to name a few and many auto crosses and speed sprints. She has been felicitated as Superwoman of Delhi NCR as well as SuperMom by Radio One 94.3 FM. She has received numerous awards including the Asian Achievement Award for outstanding work in rally racing and setting an example for young minds and upcoming millennials.
|
||||
|
||||
Garima is Ex- Corporate Vice President of Delton Cables Limited. She is a Ted speaker, a model, an avid golfer and a Sufi singer too.
|
||||
She visited our campus on the 30th of January for the unveiling of RSME’19, a formula electric car designed and manufactured by IIT Roorkee Motorsports.
|
||||
Watchout! got the chance to interview her and know more about her journey.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did you enter the world of automotive vehicles? What is your story?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** Entering in the world of motorsports was something I never planned on. I started very late in life with this, and had a lot of doubts and apprehensions initially because there is no one from my family or friends who has done something like this before. When i started rallying there were hardly any mentors whom I could have taken guidance from. There were apprehensions, but my convictions were very strong, i knew this was what I wanted to do, this was the life I always wanted to have. The seed was sown when I was young. My dad taught me to drive a car at the age of 13. I remember, he used to be very proud watching me drive, also he was very particular that i do not exceed a certain speed while driving.He never treated me differently. That is what matters the most, the way you are brought up by your family.I was lucky that my dad was very progressive in his thinking. He is undoubtedly the wind beneath my wings.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What makes rally cars different from the normal cars and the other racing cars?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** There are two kinds of rallies, one is the ‘Time-Speed-Distance’ rally also called the Regularity rally. In this kind of rally you are given a proper speed chart, the average speed being about 40km/hr. The navigation is more important in this format.
|
||||
The other kind of rally is the ‘Extreme’ rally. I am into extreme rallying, the high speed one.
|
||||
|
||||
I started with TSD and was very lucky to become a part of team Mahindra. I took training and then graduated to extreme rallying. When we do TSD rallying, cars need not be modified, but the safety needs to be ensured,though its not compulsory to wear your racing suit, because the speed is very less and you drive in normal traffic. The TSD rallies are very cool, fun, also competitive.They definitely give you a rule book and its more about finding your way to the checkpoints. You can’t reach before or after the time specified. You get a penalty in seconds.If you reach before time you get double the penalty.
|
||||
In extreme rallies, the cars are all modified. The track can be a gravel track or somewhere through the sand dunes.These tracks are not the circuit racing tracks, where you keep taking laps, these tracks have bumps, dips, and trees all around. The cars used in this rally are extremely high on safety parameters. They have a roll cage, the seats have to be FI approved, you are supposed to wear the rally suit which also has to be FI approved, the helmet has to be FI approved. They have different gear boxes, the suspension is also different. The safety parameters are very paramount, if you don’t pass the scrutiny you don’t get to the rally.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What goes into making a good racing driver?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** First is passion, the love for the sport, then is discipline and training, because I think it's very important to constantly own your skills and practice and train ,as there is no substitute for practice. It is very important to know how to drive fast, how to change gears at the right time, also knowing all the techniques like left foot braking is very necessary. That is why it is very important to train, so that you know all the technicalities. The third is the car. Having a good car is also very important. In rally racing there are different categories on the basis of the car, namely 2000cc category, 1600cc category, etc. There is also an open category racing where all the cars of different powers compete together. So, if you have a knife and someone else has a piston, it obviously is not equal competition. So a good car matters a lot.Its an expensive sport at the end of the day, the better and costlier the suspensions you use, the less time you take, and it's all a matter of few seconds.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You started racing in 2011. There must have been a lot of mansplaining which is attached to this sport. How did you rise above all that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** It is all about competency, about the training. When you do a superficial job by just going there and rallying, that is not enough.If you train, and you know how the car is built,you get inside the engineering of the car, you get inside the nitty-gritty of the car, then the guys respect you, the peer respects you,because you know your stuff, you know your craft.
|
||||
Fortunately, I have not faced much of this. I was very lucky that i was picked up by team Mahindra, so i was with the top drivers. I was picked up in my initial days, that’s how i got a good standing in the motorsport community at that time. It is definitely a male dominated sport, but I think with time it becomes like a family. Also, as i mentioned competency is very important.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You just had the opportunity to test out the product which the IIT Roorkee Motorsports team has come up with. How would you rate the car they have put out?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** I am very proud of the whole team of IIT Roorkee who have put up the car.
|
||||
The vehicle that these guys have made is environment friendly and we know that the government is putting in a lot of effort to make India the global electric vehicle manufacturing hub and thus, manufacturing something like this is just wonderful.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Which form of racing would you qualify to be the toughest?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** For circuit racing, it's definitely FORMULA1. For rally racing ,WRC(World Rally Championship) is the toughest.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Did you ever get a chance to participate in the WRC?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** I would need a crores of money for that. It’s an expensive sport as I already mentioned.
|
||||
I’ll be very happy if I get to drive in the APRC, I have driven one round of APRC that happened in India, but I would love to drive in the APRC anytime soon. The DAKAR rally is also a great championship.
|
||||
For WRC, as I said, you need a different level of expertise, you need a whole lot of money even to train. Last year, I went to Dubai to take training in Drifting and this year also, in February, I will be going to London to train for an advanced level of drifting.I am super excited about cars and driving. And as I said, training must never stop, it is always how much you can afford and what you can do about it.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** We read an article about you leading an all women's expedition to Spiti valley in 2017. What were your experiences and also how did you get the idea of this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** I did it for an expedition company. They reached out to me to do an all women's expedition and I agreed to it. I got a bunch of very enthusiastic and brave women, because Spiti valley has got the world’s most treacherous roads and it was compulsory for them to drive, even the co-drivers were women. Though the team was also accompanied by men, all the participants were women. Many of them were regular drivers who had never driven on the highway, so we had to train them first.
|
||||
The experience was fabulous. I have got the best of friends from the 7 day journey. For the participants, the experience was great. The whole journey was a lifetime of an experience for all of us.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Do you have plans of visiting the 2020 Auto Expo and what are you looking forward to?
|
||||
|
||||
**Garima Avtar:** I definitely have plans of visiting the 2020 Auto Expo. I am very excited about hybrid and electric vehicles. I am a very big car enthusiast but i am also very fond of super cars and sports cars. So, I am going to be mainly focussing on the sections of premium category and will also be looking out for hybrid and electric cars.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,87 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture: In Conversation With Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain"
|
||||
image: "lieutenant-general-syed-ata-hasnain.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Through most of his 41-year illustrious career, Lt. Gen. Hasnain has served in a turbulent environment and hot spots. From Sri Lanka to the Siachen Glacier, from the North East to J&K and in UN operations from Mozambique to Rwanda, he has seen it all in crucial appointments."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
_Through most of his 41-year illustrious career, Lt. Gen. Hasnain has served in a turbulent environment and hot spots. From Sri Lanka to the Siachen Glacier, from the North East to J&K and in UN operations from Mozambique to Rwanda, he has seen it all in crucial appointments. He served seven tours in J&K, in every rank, decorated in almost all of them and knows the J&K conflict comprehensively. He is one of the foremost writers and analysts on J&K, Pakistan and transnational extremist violence. He is a much sought after speaker and writes for major Indian newspapers. With a strong academic background from Sherwood College, Nainital, St Stephen’s College, Delhi, the Royal College of Defence Studies and Kings College London, as also the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, Hawaii, he has been at the forefront of encouraging the adoption of the Scholar Warrior concept in the Indian Army. Besides having spoken at the Bangladesh Institute of Strategic Studies (BISS), National Defence College (NDC) and Institute for Policy, Advocacy and Governance (IPAG), all at Dhaka, he also lectures at the Rajaratnam School for International Studies (RSIS), Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), and Lee Kwan Yu School for Public Policy all at Singapore and is associated with the Vivekananda International Foundation as Distinguished Fellow and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies at New Delhi. On 13 Jul 2018 The President of India has appointed Lt Gen Hasnain as Chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir. As one of India’s most decorated military officers Gen Hasnain has six decorations awarded by the President for India and two by the Army Chief._
|
||||
|
||||
_Lt. General Hasnain gave an institute lecture on the 22nd of january. Watch Out! Decided to interview him to know more about his way of life and his acumen of dealing with sensitive situations as and when they present themselves._
|
||||
|
||||
**NOTE: This interview contains certain parts that are gory in their detail, and may be inadvisable for certain readers. Those parts will be preceded by a “trigger warning”, and readers are expected to read that part of their own volition.**
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Being in the military is a profession where your life is always at risk. When and why did you decide that you wanted to join the army? And what was your motivation behind that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** Frankly, in the army, we have a system called passing It on which means that a military family, will always want that at least one person in the family joins the army to carry on the tradition. My father was in the military. He belonged to the Garhwal Rifles, he didn't ask me to join the army. I was good academically. My brother was very good academically. He joined the Foreign Services, I could have also probably worked for civil services, but I had an inner calling. I loved the outdoors, I went everywhere with my father anyways. I loved the life of the army, and that is why I didn't even give a second thought to this idea. It's a profession in which your life can be endangered. I think you ask any of the army officers. I don't think this aspect has probably ever come to our minds. We take an oath. At the cost of our life, we will perform our duties at the expense of our lives.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Sir, you have been in the service since 1974 and hence have a lot of experience. So how does it feel like to serve in the military? What were some of the things that being in the army taught you?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** Number one was the whole concept of team spirit. You can't be an individual in life. Everything has to be done in a team. For us in the army, everything is about the team.
|
||||
|
||||
Number two is a sense of honor. I don't want to do anything which will bring a bad name to my family and, more importantly, to my regiment. We have a very strange system. I may be an Indian Muslim from Allahabad or Lucknow, but my troops are all Garhwali. We have a very simple thing in the army; the faith and belief of the ideology of your troops become the faith, ideology and value of the officer. So, I'm equally comfortable going to a temple. The army has taught me to go to the temple, to go to the mosque, to go to the gurdwara. God is omnipresent. I wish, rest of India could follow this. I want this lesson to be learned by the rest of India.
|
||||
|
||||
I think this is some of the very big lessons the army had taught me, the whole aspect of tolerance, the entire aspect of plurality that please don't look at people by their faith and by their caste or by their color and by their creed. Nothing of that sort. Another is the overall value system that the army gave us and the excellent team spirit that it imbibed in us. I think these are three takeaways for me from the military.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** I was going through your Wikipedia page, and I read something about the Scholar Warrior Concept. Can you tell us more about it? And why are you an advocate of that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** You see, first of all, it's not my thing alone. I will never claim something which is not mine. I brought this system from America, and many people have gone to America for courses from the Indian army. Many people came across this concept. No one brought it back to India. I thought it was such an exciting thing. I thought, let me bring it back, and if I am in a position to implement it, let me implement it.
|
||||
|
||||
So I was in a particular part of the Army War College, and I implemented it. I started by saying that no officer will be called a student officer, every officer would be called a scholar warrior. The common belief is that a normal army man does everything through his physique and muscle power. This is what people believe. They don't realize that this profession that we are involved in has much more to do with the brain than anything else. Now, if you don't combine the brain and the brawn, you will never be successful. The scholar warrior concept is nothing but combining the brain and the brawn. Know your profession from the physical side, but at the same time read about different things.
|
||||
|
||||
Imbibe intellectualism, investigate many other things otherwise you'll be stuck in one line only. For me, history is essential, economics is essential, social science is essential, computer science is essential, bollywood is important, cricket is important. The other day someone asked me on twitter, Sir, which newspaper do you read, I said the first paper I read is DAWN, Pakistan. They were surprised. They said, why do you read DAWN? I said DAWN tells me about my enemy; that's why I read it first. Then he asked which Indian newspaper i read, I said Indian Express. Then they asked where do you turn to in the Indian Express? I said I turn to the page where there are two cartoons. One is Marvin and the other one is Calvin and Hobbes. I read them first to start my day with some cheer. Then I read my horoscope also. To see if the day would go well or not. I read that too. So you know, you must have varied interests. If you are to become a scientist tomorrow, I mean as an IIT graduate, you are a science-oriented person and you may have no other interest in life. If you don't know when did Virat Kohli hit his last century, then you're not fit enough. I tell people on twitter that Virat is going to score a century. They'll be like Sir, why do you have an interest in cricket? I say I have an interest in everything under the sun. So your personality has to be rounded up completely. At the end of the day, any question that you ask me, I am ready to answer. That's because of the scholar warrior concept.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**\*\*TRIGGER WARNING\*\***
|
||||
|
||||
**Question (audience):** Sir, would you like to share some good experiences in your 40 years of service and if you don't mind can you share some bad experiences from which we can learn as students?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** My worst experience, let me tell you, one of my most awful experiences was when I came back from the United Nations, I was in the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda. My unit had already gone to Siachen. I came quickly through Delhi. I went to the Siachen base camp and met the commander there and everything. He told me I should acclimatize adequately. I said I have to get to my battalion headquarters. He said, you are a CO(commanding officer), take your own decisions. So the next morning instead of waking up there, which is a normal thing, I took the helicopter and headed there, got down and as I was taking the initial briefing, I got a call from the front post from an officer. I can't remember his name, a lieutenant, a young lieutenant, ASE officer attached to my battalion. He rang me up, I inquired who is on the phone, he said I am lieutenant Hardeep Singh, I am the youngest officer in the battalion. I've just joined. He said he was in a war post called Ashok. I think about nine or ten weeks he had been there.
|
||||
|
||||
I said, I hope everything is well and safe. He says, I hope you'll be coming here to visit me. And I've been looking forward to meeting you for some time. I said okay, great. I asked him what do your parents do? Then he told me he was from Chandigarh; his father was from a bank, And he said I've got one sister, no brothers. So then after a while, I cut the call. Not even a minute had passed when I received another call. I picked it up. Another Jawan calling, he said sir, sir, sir, I said yes? He said is this CO sir on the line? I said yes, he said sir, Hardeep sir has been hit by a bullet. I asked him how is this possible? Just a minute ago, I was talking to him over the phone. He said yes sir, as soon as he ended the call with you and lifted his head, he received a bullet under his eye and fell on the other side of the wall. He died.
|
||||
|
||||
Then Pakistan started heavy firing, the jawans told me that sir, there is so much firing over there, we can't recover the body. Then I told them to leave the body there. Leave it. Later in the night, at around 9 pm, when it was pitch black, I knew my jawans since I was from the same battalion. I asked for a particular jawan and asked someone to tell him to go down; he was from the Ghatak platoon. I told him to go down, tie the legs of the body with a rope and pull the body up. Then he went there and brought it up.
|
||||
|
||||
You have to bring it through a tunnel. The tunnel is made up of drums and the body, by then, had developed rigor mortis. To bring the body down, you had to break the body. So the body had to be broken to bring it back. I mean, one day he is your officer, talking to you and the next day you are talking about his body only. This happens a lot in our lives.
|
||||
|
||||
I have seen this in Sri Lanka a lot of times. One of the second-worst, I would say one of the even worse experiences was when a jawan in front of me stepped on a mine, a mine which was planted by LTTE. All his blood, the muscle, everything from his leg, came on my face. Unfortunately, he also died later. He lost his leg initially, so then he went off. He had an amputated leg, but he died. Such instances like this happen a lot in our lives.
|
||||
|
||||
Now good experiences, there have been many good experiences in my life. I mean, something which is out of the world and makes you feel so good. I can't think of anything that way, personally immediately with me. But otherwise happiness in the Army, it's a lot there. The biggest delight is when you get the command of your battalion.Oh! Excellent, I also commanded my battalion. The battalion that you had been admitted in, and for me the cherry on the cake was that my father was also from that battalion; he was the one who brought it together. And then I received the order that I am going to take over the command of the battalion, So I was the second generation CO of a battalion which was also raised by my father. I think that was a great feeling. Amazing feeling! I mean, very nice. One small little anecdote, let me tell you when I came back after I got commissioned in my battalion as a second lieutenant. I arrived and the sahayak told me, the CHM of the company also said to me that, sir, tomorrow you are going to have the CO interview, sir, please get a haircut before that, I am sending the barber to you. So now the barber came in the mess, made me sit, and started cutting my hair. After a while, he says,”sir, aapke baal kam ho hye”. I was barely 21 so I asked, “baal kam ho gye? Aapne kab mere baal dekhe jo aap keh sakte ho ki mere baal kam ho gye?” He remained silent. Then when I asked him again after a minute, he said, “Sir zindagi ka pehla haircut maine hi diya tha”.
|
||||
|
||||
He was my father's rifleman , but my father was a part of the first Garhwal Rifles. The barber was also in it. At that time, that barber had just joined as a young constable and I was only a year old then. So he came home, my father made me stand on the chair and he gave me a haircut. And 20 years later, he was giving me a haircut again.
|
||||
|
||||
**\*\*END OF TRIGGER WARNING\*\***
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Sir, recently you have been appointed as the chancellor of the central university of Kashmir so what are your plans for it in the future?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** It's a near-impossible job. Operating these things in Kashmir, from the past 2-3 years or in the future, also is a very very difficult task. The university after the 5th of August was closed for almost two months. When it opened, then satyagraha started. The students didn't come, teachers didn't come. I've been a military commander in Kashmir. I can't go back and start motivating university professors and students to start coming and studying. I said this is not my cup of tea. I am not going to do it. But I had a Skype talk several times with students, with people like that. And I did motivate them, one of the things which we started to do was to try and bring in new departments, international studies department we have been trying to start, but it has not been fully functional till now.
|
||||
|
||||
We want to look for strategic studies as a subject. These things will help the Kashmiris a lot; academically, they are very sound. But because of the prevailing environment, although there is a lot of passion for academics but at the end of the day, somehow, it fails to flourish. It doesn't emerge that way. Kashmiris have a lot of love for sports. It's a sporting state. If you see the unconventional games which involve body contact, different-different martial arts, and other games like that, you will find that Kashmiris win them all over India. Especially the female child. The girls around the 13-14 years age group win, and many a time even at the all India level. I wish we could do much more to encourage them and train them for better potential things internationally and things like that. So I have tried a lot to improve this sporting culture in the central university of Kashmir. But I'm not happy with what I have achieved. I hope the situation is much better next year and we can pursue better academics and better sports activities.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Question (audience):** Since the army does a lot for the people in Jammu and Kashmir. We see it in the news, like managing students who want to give JEE exams and others. So the army still helps in bringing those people in the mainstream and then you see people pelting stones against you, accusing you. So sometimes do you feel unacknowledged and directionless and that all your efforts are going in vain. Like do you sometimes feel that no matter how much you do, some people have a set ideology and don't want to appreciate what the army does in their capacity?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** Good question, excellent question. And let me tell you, it all depends on what rank you are on in the army, what service you had in the military and how much experience you have in these turbulent areas.
|
||||
|
||||
Someone who has spent two years there, six months or eight months there, would feel disappointed. But someone who has spent 22-23 years over there will never be disappointed because they know that these things are for the long term. There are no quick-fix solutions to this. Generational change has to happen. It will take three generations to change Kashmir. I am aware, so I don't feel disappointed by this as I was telling you that the first stone was thrown on my car. Even after that stone, I used to go so often in Baramulla like that. A curfew was present; it lasted for over two months. So I told my staff, for me, in my Gypsy and the escort car behind me, there should be only biscuits and baby food. So I got them filled with biscuits and baby food. Then I told them I want medicines and a doctor to go with me. And we went into the old town of Baramulla. The turbulent area filled with terrorists. I said I don't want any ammunition near me. I want to go out. I said wherever we will go we distribute biscuits, give baby food and whosoever is sick will see the doctor. And through that, I broke their will. I cut their intention with that. If in these places you use force, power and try to intimidate them, they will rise again to fight you. That is the approach we need to follow and keep reinforcing it. Keep reinforcing it.
|
||||
|
||||
Don't keep it as a transactional thing; make it a transformational thing, how to ultimately bring everyone on board with you. That's why I said, the program Sadbhavna that we do, by which we try to win people's hearts and minds, has to be taken ownership of by the government of India, not by the army alone. Then only it will succeed.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Sir, do you have a word of advice for our young generation?
|
||||
|
||||
**Lt. General Syed Ata Hasnain:** I would say, don't be disappointed by temporary setbacks that your nation goes through. You will get through this in your personal life, your parents will get through this. With every setback like this, there will be compensation that will come your way. And that compensation will always make up for it. So if you're going through a particularly tricky phase at a particular time, believe in yourself. Believe in God. And at the end of it, everything will be delivered to you. Thank you.
|
||||
@ -1,91 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With David Tong"
|
||||
image: "david.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "David Tong is a professor of theoretical physics at DAMTP in Cambridge, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and joint recipient of the 2008 Adams Prize. He was a postdoc at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*David Tong is a professor of theoretical physics at DAMTP in Cambridge, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and joint recipient of the 2008 Adams Prize. He was a postdoc at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. He was an Adjunct Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). He is currently also a Simons Investigator. His main research interest is in Quantum Field Theory, while also studying aspects of Quantum Field Theory related to String Theory, Supersymmetry, Solitons, Geometry, Cosmology, and Condensed matter physics. His most-cited paper, "DBI in the sky", provides a possible observational test of one mechanism for inflation in the very early universe. He is also well known amongst the students for his very enthusiastic lecturing and comprehensive lecture notes for courses he has taught at the University of Cambridge (most notably the ones on quantum field theory). On 26th February 2020, Prof. David was invited by the Physics and Astronomy Club to deliver a webinar lecture. The topic of the lecture was the Renormalisation Group. Watch Out! had the chance to inquire into his thoughts about theoretical physics and our attempts to make sense of the structured chaos of our universe.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did you get interested in physics when you were young? And after so many years of being involved in theoretical physics, what still excites you?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** I got a copy of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" for my 17th birthday, and it opened my eyes. I didn't know anything about quantum mechanics or black holes or particle physics before reading that book. It really lit a spark in me. I also didn't know that there was a career called "theoretical physicist" where you get to sit and think about these things for a living.
|
||||
|
||||
I'm very easy to excite when it comes to physics. It's an infinitely rich playground and it's very hard to be bored. At the moment I'm thinking about topological insulators and what they may have to say about particle physics.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How can an undergraduate student start with research in an area like theoretical physics?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** It can be hard to do undergraduate research in some areas of theoretical physics, especially quantum field theory. If you do get the chance to do some research as an undergraduate, the exact area doesn't matter so much. Just enjoy the chance to solve some problems.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How do you feel about the research environment in India and how it differs from the international domain? What can be done to improve it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** India has some of the best theoretical physics groups on the planet. The country has a wonderfully strong education system, and many talented physicists who could have taken positions in prestigious universities abroad but have decided to return home. That retention of your best scientists is really the key to generating the research environment.
|
||||
|
||||
One way that it differs from most countries is the large number of research institutions, where there is limited contact with undergraduates. I don't know if that's good or bad, but personally I find that I learn a great deal from teaching undergraduates, and I'd certainly miss that in a research institute.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** We've heard some people say that theoretical physics is in a state of slowdown. What do you think about this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** I suspect that these people either aren't paying attention, or have a very limited view of what theoretical physics entails. If you have a small attention span and want a revolution like quantum mechanics every few years, then research in theoretical physics isn't for you. You should probably just write a blog or something.
|
||||
|
||||
But if you're interested in the universe around us, then there's so many exciting things going on, from breakthroughs in experiment like gravitational waves and the Higgs boson, to breakthroughs in theory like quantum computing and topological insulators, to mysteries that we don't understand like dark energy and dark matter. It's very hard to see how anyone can view this as a slow time.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** With the rise of the internet and video lectures on YouTube, a lot of educational resources are now more accessible to the general public than ever. How do you feel about that? Do you think that this has sabotaged the learning experience for students and the importance of a teacher for a student?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** The more of this stuff, the better. Physics is hard. Really hard. Anything that can help students learn has got to be good.
|
||||
|
||||
And there's still a major role to be played by universities and the traditional lecturing style. Despite all the videos and materials available online, the quickest way for me to learn something new is still to sit in front of someone smart and have them explain it clearly.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the differences between how one does theoretical physics and experimental physics in terms of the mindset required to work in it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** Since I barely know one end of a screwdriver from another, I'm not the right person to ask about experimental physics. Does it even involve screwdrivers?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How would you explain QFT to a curious 5-year-old?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** I wouldn't start with the path integral. That would be way too hard for a 5 year old. So I guess I'd start with the Lagrangian, then move to the Hamiltonian and just go over the usual canonical commutation relations with them.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are your views on people who believe that the earth is flat and that birds are just drones spread around by the government to spy on us?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** I'll let you guess what my views are. Here's a hint: your first guess is probably the right one.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Have you ever read a book and were captivated by a particular quote or a quirky footnote that has just stuck with you?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** Here's a story. A few months ago I was reading a book on general relativity that included the following quote from Einstein:
|
||||
|
||||
"You know, when you start calculating you just shit yourself".
|
||||
|
||||
For obvious reasons, that kind of stuck with me. But I didn't understand it, so I tried to track it down. The book I read cited another biography of Einstein which, in turn, said it was from in a letter Einstein wrote to the physicist Otto Stern. That book was translated from German. I don't speak German but thought it might be interesting to get the original. When I eventually found it, it said:
|
||||
|
||||
"Wissen Sie, wenn man zu rechnun anfängt, b'scheisst man unwillkürlich."
|
||||
|
||||
"Scheisst" is shit yourself. But "b'scheisst" is cheat yourself. So this is my great contribution to the history of science: Einstein didn't shit himself. But he did cheat himself.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** A lot of undergraduates tend to sway away from research since it's a path which requires a lot of struggle which often amounts to nothing. People also give up on careers in research for monetary reasons. What advice do you have for undergraduates in this regard?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. David Tong:** There's so many rewarding careers out there and many reasons to look at them. If you want money, you should do something other than research. If you want a career without a lot of struggle then you should definitely do something other than research.
|
||||
|
||||
But if you think physics is beautiful, are desperate to understand more, and get a real thrill when you understand something, even something small, then research might be the right path.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,100 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "A Word With The HPVC Team"
|
||||
image: "hpvc1.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "IIT Roorkee’s Human Powered Vehicle Challenge team (HPVC) has been participating in E-fest, a national competition hosted by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for the last three years."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*IIT Roorkee’s Human Powered Vehicle Challenge team (HPVC) has been participating in E-fest, a national competition hosted by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for the last three years. Each year, the event sees teams across the nation attempt to engineer a vehicle from scratch that is practical and eco-friendly. In the HPVC, students work in teams to design and build immaculately engineered and highly efficient vehicles for everyday use—whether it be commuting to work or to carrying goods to market.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**All set out, Prancer 2.0 was unveiled by the honourable Director Dr Ajit K Chaturvedi.**
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What exactly is E fest and where is it being held this year?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** Basically ASME is the governing body of ours.It stands for American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which allows us to form local student chapters. So E-fest is their annual competition held in different parts of the world, we participate in the asia-pacific region event and it would be held between 28th Feb and 2nd March at Marwadi University, Rajkot.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What is the history of IIT roorkee in this competition?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** It is the 11th year since ASME IIT Roorkee Chapter's was formed..We are participating in the ASME E-FEST Asia Pacific for the third time.We were ranked 18th overall out of the 40 teams last time and are expecting a better result this time.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Tell us about the various competitions that will be held here
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** HPVC is the biggest event in the E-fest. Their other events include the Student Design challenge , which we are also participating in. There’s also IM 3D, where you compete with 3D printed models. Apart from this there are several paper presentation and poster presentation competitions and some fun events.
|
||||
|
||||
In the HPVC, first we have to submit a qualification report, out of which they shortlist around 50 teams for the final event which we are going to Rajkot for.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What are the various levels of testing to pass to succeed?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** It is actually a 3 day event. The first day is mainly design checks and specifications, which includes a design presentation and both static and dynamic inspection of the vehicle such as speed events, turning radius events and other safety checks. On day 2 we have the drag event which is focused on testing the maximum speed with head to head races between the vehicles in several knockout stages and on the last day there is the endurance event that continuously runs for two and a half hours where the built quality of the hpv is tested with several obstacles and tasks that are to be completed and the one with the maximum number of laps at the end is declared the winner.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How different is an HPV(Human powered vehicle) from a normal cycle?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** You might have observed that in a normal upright cycle the rider is essentially in upright position. Riding cycle continuously for long time like 4-5 hours in this position can cause some serious problems like back pain, saddle sore, etc. In our HPV, the rider sits in the recumbent position that is in laid back position. Apart from alleviating problems like back pain, saddle sore, etc, this position is optimum for riding a bicycle as there is maximum utilization of muscle strength (thigh muscles) making it more comfortable to ride. This position also gives different options for the drivetrain mechanism. The recumbent position also provide us an aerodynamic advantage over upright position. We can achieve streamline shape in recumbent position and after incorporating an aerodynamic fairing in our vehicle we can significantly reduce the drag force, which ultimately helps in achieving speed much higher than normal cycle.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How long have you been preparing for the event?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** HPVC 2020 was a eight month long rigorous journey. We also had insights from our previous submission.The designing and prototyping phase was almost four months long, and the next three months was all rigorous, hard core manufacturing follwed by the testing phase.We started from scratch and then we came up with the final vehicle.
|
||||
|
||||
Currently we are completely funded by the institute although we have been trying to get sponsorship for the coming year.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What are the effective changes in this year's model when compared to last year's? What is the strategy?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** There are a lot of innovations brought forth this year. The main focus was to increase the ergonomic ability of the vehicle and thus features such as adjustable steering angle and movable seat were incorporated to accommodate riders of different heights. Rear suspension was added for the first time in our design to improve the off road riding experience of the vehicle and making it more usable in real life riding conditions. GRP(Glass Reinforced Plastic) was used to manufacture the fairing for the vehicle to increase its aerodynamic design without adding much to the total weight. All the above changes narrowed down to achieve the goal of making a rider friendly vehicle so that each rider could give his maximum effort in the racing events and thus increasing the chances of winning.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How fast is your HPV?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** In the controlled conditions,in our campus we have reached 39km/hr, and the theoretical speed limit that we had come up with was around 42 km/hr.
|
||||
So we have reached almost the maximum.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** Do any accidents occur on the day of the competition?Anything that you know about?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** Yes, accidents do occur during the event involving failure in the vehicle or improper judgement from the rider. Previous year there was a head on collision between two vehicles not during the race but during the practise hours in the evening time but thankfully neither the vehicle nor the rider from both sides were harmed.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** How safe is it?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** The first priority in the judging criterion of the vehicle is safety.. The roll cage that we manufacture is actually designed so that no part of the rider's body actually touches the ground in case the vehicle misbalances or falls. Additional safety features are also required to justify the safety of the rider and the other people on the road. We are required to submit a safety video where we have to depict all the safety features which are then verified in the static inspection held during the event.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What are the major difficulties you actually face while working as a team?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** It's a eight month long program, which needs patience and dedication. Proper planning and coordination amongst the team members is important for the smooth functioning of the project. You don't get all the custom made parts here at Roorkee so logistics is a great difficulty here. Also in the designing aspect ,as it is a completely new design, there is a lot less documentation available on the internet. So prototyping every other thing in the HPV is required. We made about six to seven prototypes to get the final dimensions and designs.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** You have been participating for the last three years, which institutes are gonna be tough competitors?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** Teams learn from there experiences and each year we have new top rankers. Teams from VIT, Chandigarh University and NMIMS have been consistent over the past few years and will be there to pose a tough competition.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO :** What are your future plans?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**HPVC Team :** We are planning to take part next year, with few more innovations to come. We will be working on a self funded and self sufficient HPV.
|
||||
|
||||
It has been a great experience, you learn a lot of things and we take our vehicle as a product and at this stage, it’s quite easy to convert this into a market viable product.
|
||||
@ -1,35 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Institute Lecture : In Conversation With Dr. Anil Joshi"
|
||||
image: "anil.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi secured a master's degree in botany and a doctoral degree in ecology. He started his career as a member of faculty at the Kotdwar Government PG College but resigned from the position in 1979 and founded Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO), a nongovernmental organization."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi secured a master's degree in botany and a doctoral degree in ecology. He started his career as a member of faculty at the Kotdwar Government PG College but resigned from the position in 1979 and founded Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO), a nongovernmental organization. Under the aegis of HESCO, Joshi promoted research and development of new environment-friendly technologies for the agricultural sector, tapping the local resources. His emphasis has been on inclusive growth of community by economy and ecology both. The Uttarakhand State Government has adopted his concept of Gross Environmental Product (GEP). He is also a recipient of the coveted Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan awards as well.
|
||||
Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi gave an institute lecture on 12th February, Watchout! interviewed him to find out more about his diverse social initiatives and the motivation behind them. *
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You once had a job as a researcher, which is considered stable by many. You left that job, and established HESCO. What drove you to take such a big step?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Anil Joshi:** I never really had any inspiration per se. The main driving force was when I saw that the deprived in villages never had what everyone in cities had. I felt that being a teacher, I couldn’t be of much help to the society. A better way to help would be to set an example for the poor and deprived. It was my compassion for the underprivileged and my will to help that drove me, not inspiration. The people in villages are rich in resources but still poor. Those who do not have anything to do with the production of these resources grow rich. The managers are more fulfilled than the producers. We aim to help these producers, by boosting a local resource based economy. When I was still teaching, my PhD and MSc students were my major resources, who helped me with this. As time went on, there came a point when I was forced to pick. I could either teach or help the rural areas. I decided on the latter.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You are the founder of HESCO. Can you tell us more about the organisation and its workings?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Anil Joshi:** My students, in the early 80s, couldn't find a platform to justify their works in the rural areas, such that people could identify them with it. That was when the foundation of HESCO was put up. In those times, there was no culture for NGOs, rather we were just some organised people, who identified ourselves as this group, Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization, among the people.
|
||||
The group never had a mandatory thought in the beginning. The mandate was decided as the community priority. This is why we make all sorts of things to help them, be it technology, garments, construction, food processing or fighting against the government. Anything the community requires, we provide them with it.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Talking about the institute, during your talk, you asked us to invite Open Scholars. Can you elaborate on that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Anil Joshi:** In our country, education has become synonymous with learning the alphabet and cracking JEE, which is not a good mindset to have. There are people who are educated by the environment itself. They develop their own education. They are very important, especially now when we're losing the ecosystem at a very fast rate. I believe It is the people who've been close to the environment, suffered along with it, who can provide us with the best solutions. Thus we propose an Open Scholars program, where institutions such as IITs can invite such people to learn and share their ideas in a suitable environment. Such a program where the poorest of the poor, who never had the opportunity to grow, also have a chance to learn and share their experiences. This may not be like the regular education at IIT, but somewhat like a partnership between them and the institute.
|
||||
The students have to be the ones talking to the authorities. I will be the one to connect you with the people actually interested. Get them to meet your professors, get them to learn. We will be able to give a chance to the deprived and underprivileged, to put up their thoughts. What I aim is to promote the innovations that they think of, but are not given an outlet for promotion or scientific validation.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** You talked about urbanization curbing the nation's identity, how ecological development and urbanization cannot go hand in hand. However, removing research that doesn't focus on the rural people won't allow the benefits of that research to be enjoyed by the urban people either. How would you go about that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr. Anil Joshi:** See, the word urbanization itself is something people don't know the meaning of. Urbanization itself is where has an opportunity to fulfill most of their needs, along with a chance to contribute to the system. Today, this has become the biggest consumer of air, soil and water. However, it has given the environment nothing in return. The urban people are only contributing hazardous waste to the system. Urbanization, in our country, has just become erecting buildings and stuff. This model can never bring sustainability. Sustainability can only be obtained when we regularly produce and consume. Urban parts only do secondary processing. Thus they are unaware of the production processes. This leads to a situation where the urban people where they consume continuously, unaware of the harm they might be putting on the environment they live in. This has led to a large ecological disparity complementing the economic disparity already existing between the cities and the villages. The floods affect the villages more than the cities, even though the main cause is the environmental destruction, caused by urbanization. There's no balance. We have to go for a balance between the urban and rural areas.
|
||||
The villages, however, cannot function without the cities either, many practices, already undertaken by the villagers, are upgraded by what cities have to offer. Toilets, pressure cookers, tractor, many innovations provided by the cities have helped the villages grow with faster and more efficient techniques. Only if both villages and cities go hand in hand, can we be effective in the sustainable growth of the whole nation.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With Major General Sudhakar Jee"
|
||||
image: "major.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Major General Sudhakar Jee, Vishisht Seva Medal is an alumnus of Sainik School, Bhubaneshwar and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Major General Sudhakar Jee, Vishisht Seva Medal is an alumnus of Sainik School, Bhubaneshwar and National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla. He was commissioned into The Mahar Regiment of the Indian Army in June 1983 and has vast experience in operations across a wide spectrum of conflict and terrain profiles within India and abroad. The General Officer is presently holding the appointment of Deputy Commandant, Army War College, Mhow where the present and future leaders of the Indian Armed Forces and Friendly Foreign Countries are trained in Strategy and the Art of Warfare. He was elected as Colonel of the Mahar Regiment and has been holding the appointment since 01 Sep 2017.*
|
||||
|
||||
*Major General Sudhakar Jee gave an institute lecture on the 25th of February. Watch Out! decided to interview him to know more about his way of life and gain a better view of his opinions about the nation’s security and the role we’re supposed to play within it.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: When did you decide to join the army, how did you deal with the potential risks involving a career in the armed forces? What was your motivation behind this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** I was an alumni of Sainik school Bhuvaneshwar, which I joined in 1979. In those days, whoever entered this school did so with the primary objective of providing HR for training in the National Defense Academy. Having joined the school, I had no option. Joining the army was something that happened very naturally. I undertook a journey of many memorable experiences, of self discipline, of character building. Be it arriving on time, wearing the right dress, walking straight, marching straight, mannerisms, etiquettes, everything I learnt over there. What matters ultimately, is that success is in terms of growth, not progress. Success isn't going ahead alone, it is taking everyone together with morals and ethics. That is what success actually is. This is why I joined the army. It happened naturally as I said, though in the heart of my hearts, I really wanted to become a doctor, which didn't happen. I got through NDA in the first chance, and I joined and now have become a General in 36 years.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: Serving the Army for 36 years, you must’ve had many tough experiences. Can you tell us about some of them? How do you treat those situations?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** Being a soldier, you have a singular aim. You’re given a task, and that task has to be completed. If it is not completed the way it is supposed to be, there are mechanisms of feedback. Once the task is assigned to someone, one has to complete it. If you’re asking me questions about my good times or bad times, well I do not see time as good or bad, I see time as a rare opportunity, one that everyone doesn't get. Soldiering, as I see, is an experience of self sacrifice, dedication and selfless commitment to dedicate yourself to a higher purpose in life, the national security. I took it as a rare challenge. The family, friends, parents, kids everyone takes a backseat everytime. I have been faced with many challenges where I couldn't be there for my family. When my father died, I wasn't there for his last rites. I couldn't care for my mother when she suffered from cancer. I missed out, you see. A soldier is neither here, nor there. He fights the battles for the goals and objectives of the nation.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: Tell us more about the ' power of Indian moustache'
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** *laughs* That was on the lighter side. You see, with China, we have gone for many agreements, involving many protocols. In the northern borders, at such high altitude, not a single shot has been fired since 1962, with such an established adversary, discounting Nathula as it was just a local skirmish. There’s no war taking place here. Having said that, the protocols and agreements that we’ve gone in for are basically to ensure peace and tranquility along the northern border, which is holding out very effectively. There’s a mutual trust prevailing among them and us, something not seen between many nations. So, to abide by protocols, and to keep the troops motivated, I was charged with the duty, as I had been previously posted in Eastern Ladakh and other northern borders. I brought in the Indian moustache as a tool to elevate your personality and self esteem, rather than firing rounds with guns. You will show yourself one foot taller than the adversary. The moustache does all of that effectively. Thus we adopted this moustache policy, which paid off. We never had anything untoward during my time.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: What was your toughest experience in your military service?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** During Operation Vijay, I was posted in Siachen Glacier. On one occasion, the enemy had started shelling, and we had gone into an ice cave. We were still sweating. When we did a regular drill of headcounts, breathless, we were supposed to be 38, but the headcount came out to be 37. It took us some time to fathom out who that 38th person was. As the company commander, I asked a soldier to go and look out for that person. He couldn't go out as the shelling was so intensive, it took place right at the mouth of the ice cave, even on the ice cave itself. In that critical phase, I decided to tackle the situation myself, instead of ordering someone around. I had promised my CO that I’m taking 64 people, and I’ll bring back 64 people. Nobody will die.
|
||||
So at a height of about 20000 feet, I went with a signal operator, himself a low medical category. Both of us corralled as we went to the Signal Hut. The shelling was intense, the enemy fired at us with all kinds of weapons. We crawled and ducked to reach the FGH, a fiberglass hut, a hut perched on an icicle. We checked it, on coming back however, we found that the washroom lock had been bolted from outside. A shell had bounced off the fiberglass hut, and landed on this small hut. There’s a rope hanging, which allows you to go from high ground to lower ground. I decided to go check for this person here. The problem is that only one person can go down at once. The rope hanging can support only one, the tethering mechanism can only handle one person. If there’s only a person inside, a second person going can create a high risk situation, thus it was a very difficult decision for me. I asked the signal operator to stay there, and took the risk, with the noble intention of saving a person. On going there, I found that my colleague was there, he couldn't come out. The drill was that whenever shelling starts, which was ongoing at that time, wherever one was, we were supposed to leave everything and assemble. I unbolted the contraption, and prayed we wouldn't fall. Had we gone down, we’d have gone into the enemy's side. But, luck favoured us. We climbed out safely. Had I lost that officer, perhaps I wouldn't have been able to pardon myself.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: In recent times, there has been much dispute with China over Doklam. Can you put more light on this issue?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** Doklam, even now, is being discussed and deliberated with a high degree of confidentiality. This issue isn't something which should be addressed in the open media. However, just to address the curiosity of the student population, it is sufficient to say that we have checkmated them, at a place beyond which it would have been detrimental to the national interest. This was identified as a redline much prior to the incident actually taking place. Had they not been held back at a point, they would’ve gone ahead into Bhutan territory, thus they had been stopped there itself.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: You talk about the media multiple times, how it does not play a proper part in our nation. How do you feel the media should work in our nation?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** The fact that you have invited me to give a talk here, is a testament to the fact that public awareness is growing. You are a student media body in a technologically oriented institute. My son himself is a techie, a software developer at Apple. Still, in the Indian mindset, to become an engineer, you study. You don't go for journalism or other things. Learning about this gave fire in my belly to be invited to an IIT, that too Roorkee, one of the oldest institutions in the country, requesting me to give a talk on the Regional Security perspective of India. Thus the media is becoming curious day by day. Issues one has never heard of earlier are being talked about. However, the culture of the media must undergo change. It has to be more civilised, responsible and accountable. Security is not just the citizen’s or the soldier’s responsibility. It is also the media’s responsibility. Coming to the question, let’s take the previous example of Doklam. Doklam is supposed to be highly classified. But the way the media has covered it, they had covered issues that even we were supposed not to talk about. We all are now well versed, well connected, there are many such issues which the media can take up. Take for example, the situation of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The media can inform people about what is happening at these places. This will also result in an opinion being mobilised, and will ensure that the people make their electoral representatives equally aware about such issues. There’s a need to involve ourselves with greater interest in the grave issue of national security.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: What challenges did you face when serving at harsh terrains like Ladakh?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** In Ladakh, we have a reporting system, in the morning and evening. I was a commanding officer there, and was sitting at my office when a report came that a celestial object was spotted, which was coming down to a lower altitude, clicking a photo, and then going up. I realised that this was an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or a drone as it is popularly called. Our adversaries in the north have manufactured more than 170 varieties of drones. The conflict is taking place in many contours. It is manifesting not always as guns, but as psychological, or through cyber medium or the media. These are known as non kinetic warfare. There is also a recent terminology called gray-zone battles, where you don’t know about the enemy, and are vulnerable to their attacks. The information management and communication are posing a very potent and realistic threat even now. Last year, the website of an aircraft company was hacked. People were stranded there for 9 hours. The ticketing process, once automated, manual ticketing didn't work. The northern grid became disabled for 26 hours.
|
||||
This celestial object we found, we took measures but couldn't get it down. We could see that there were multitude of these objects at work surveying us. Then, with the measures we had taken with the northern countries, we couldn't open fire on them, in our territory, however, we were allowed to knock it down. It wasn’t easy, we were unable to deal with it. Many such cases happened at different places in Ladakh. I am sharing this with you guys as you are the technologically oriented people of the country. If anything can be done to disable such UAVs and bring them down, then steps must be taken in that direction. The drones which are being made, none of them are supposed to operate in the harsh conditions of Ladakh, but such drones work. Why can’t we do it? Why don’t take it as a challenge? Many of you are working on such devices which are effective at high altitudes, but they are not working. They are sustained only to a limit, beyond which they don’t operate effectively.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: How do you feel we as citizens of the country contribute to its general safety?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maj. Gen. Sudhakar Jee:** For a good length of time, the constitution of India, had the rights of the people. In the 70’s an article outlining the duties of the citizens. I’m happy that they came up. Abraham Lincoln used to say that one shouldn’t ask what the nation can do for them, rather, they should ask what they can do for the nation. Similarly, I feel, there is a need for all of us to have a collective accountability and responsibility towards anything that happens in the nation, which is growing steadily among people. The unfortunate thing is that this is manifesting in a different way. In a democracy like ours, the major issues pertain to the system of governance. We have a multi-party system. Such a system makes the decision making process time consuming. If decisions are taken, implementations are much longer. It is different in other democracies even. Still, we have fared much better even than the developed countries in the past 72 years. Having said that, I will say that yes, there is a requirement to improve awareness, in the form of education. The central point of ensuring onground impact is education. In our syllabi, as much as the rights of the citizens, the duties of a citizen must be outlined.
|
||||
@ -1,84 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "An Inward Bound Dinghy"
|
||||
image: "an-inward-bound-dinghy-0.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
author: "Atharva Shukla, Surya"
|
||||
excerpt: "Among the innumerable problems that a person faces in his/her life, a select few individuals decide to concentrate on the quandary of finding their true self."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
> “The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.”
|
||||
>
|
||||
> \- Carl Jung
|
||||
|
||||
Among the innumerable problems that a person faces in his/her life, a select few individuals decide to concentrate on the quandary of finding their true self. This number is on a gradual increase in our society, ripe with dysphoria. Deranged individuals collectively drown in their cesspool of anxiety, while worrying about the meaning of life. Knowing one’s goals and personal image may appear to be straightforward, but if this were so, literary discourse would not have grappled with this search of self for several centuries. This article is another attempt to do the same.
|
||||
|
||||
We are by nature storytelling animals, and in our mind lies a journal in which we constantly update our life stories and the concept of our own self. But this internal narration of the kind of person we are, might become the very reason for our actions. These actions might further reinforce our belief of who we are. So what part of us is true to us and what part of it is induced?
|
||||
|
||||
## The Muddled Within
|
||||
|
||||
For now, whatever is written would be under the assumption of the existence of an inherent true self in each one of us. ***True self, or the ‘inherent’ self,*** is an abstract idea characterised by our tendency to ***conform to a certain type of behaviour in the absence of an external/societal bias.*** The notion of the non-existence of this true self is discomforting since it strips us off of any individuality we are believed to possess. This essentially leads us to the conclusion that apart from our physical features, all of us were the same at one point of time. Hence theoretically we could create a replica of any human being, by providing a bunch of carbon atoms with the same external stimuli that shaped the persona of the original person.
|
||||
|
||||
This line of thought laughs in the face of our existence, and turns us into mere marionettes, puppeteered by a relentless universe that seems to have orchestrated our darkest desires and guilty pleasures. One would assume that humans across the world don’t want to lead lives like that - as characters in a scarily sophisticated video game. We make the comfortable choice here, and accept the existence of an inherent true self.
|
||||
|
||||
This assumption seems to be intuitive; twins despite being exposed to similar external factors develop very differently. It appears to be that even though an individual works in an inherited societal formula, the perceptions of it differ. An individual ultimately acts as an idiosyncratic interpreter of this formula, and derives unique value from it.
|
||||
|
||||
## The Facade Without
|
||||
|
||||
*Humans think about themselves* - this statement is hardly surprising, but the trait is unique to us. This self reflection morphs into an internalized narrative of one's competencies, traits and values. We don’t need to seriously weigh the pros and cons while making a number of decisions - we make them automatically and subconsciously. This is because our identity provides a pivot for us to do so. We feel we know who we are because of the length of time we spend with ourselves, and the amount of autobiographical memories we possess. We can always look back at them and realise the kind of person we should be, the decisions we should take. Therefore the self has for long been regarded as a shaper of behaviour while simultaneously being the product of situations.
|
||||
|
||||
Humans are social animals, and hence the reception of approval has a positive feedback on this belief system that we subconsciously develop. We try to model ourselves in ways that please those around us and whatever seems to be good for us, to be a functional part of a society. As we continue to waltz through our lives, this picture begins to form a mind of its own and somewhere along the line gives birth to a whole belief system that now defines us. This might create a terrifying cycle, which becomes excruciatingly difficult to escape from. This is dubbed as our ***self concept.***
|
||||
|
||||
## The Dilapidated Viaduct
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
|
||||
How stable is this belief that we hold about ourselves? Are we capable of living under a garb of false identity without realising it?
|
||||
|
||||
The eldest boy in a family of five, after a long hard day at school, is expected to be patient while the mother tends to the needs of the younger, innocuous looking sibling. He’s also expected to make sacrifices by giving up on the larger piece of chocolate or his favourite TV show, on the pretext of being older and hence somehow wiser? He never gets to portray his true emotions, because the parents might expect the child to be well behaved and exude ideality. Over time, these expectations only intensify, and the child’s response seeps into his personality; he starts acting as people expect him to, in a way he thinks he should.
|
||||
|
||||
A significant part of our ‘self’ is built during our early childhood, when we aren't mentally developed enough to make sense of the things happening around us. Questioning it becomes increasingly difficult, because of the sheer amount of time we have already spent believing in it by the time we reach adolescence. This is hugely problematic, because a person can't detect their own problems from the outset (because of the self-narrative ingrained in their minds); thus they go through a tumultuous period in their lives as they choose to either accept things as they are, or try to change them to the best of their abilities . This is characterised by frustration - when they realise that they have not been what they want to be or who they really are. It is evident that the problem arises when our self concept does not align with reality, that is, it is incongruent with our true self. It turns out that the self-concept is susceptible to manipulation, and a person can indeed suppress their true self.
|
||||
|
||||
Neitzsche too believed that the incompetence of a person to be their own selves in a society will slowly lead to a feeling of alienation and a disintegration of social identity. This develops into a condition in which the love a person has for their life is passionless and numb as they desperately try to grapple with two versions of themselves at once.
|
||||
|
||||
## Tear Down The Walls
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
|
||||
How do we change the life story we have been developing for ourselves and try to replace it with a more accurate one? How do we change our minds about who we have believed we are, and question the cornerstone of our own identity?
|
||||
|
||||
The rationality of the beliefs we hold about ourselves, the very rationality that most of us build and base our entire lives on, is suddenly seen in a different light - threatened and vulnerable. Presumably, you start with a view about what your “true” self is and then go on to repudiate that view. That advice though would be akin to advising a terminally ill patient to “not die”. We’ve lived our entire lives one way, and now we are asked to define something else as our true self - the real life equivalent of “change your avatar”.
|
||||
|
||||
*“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”*
|
||||
|
||||
The classic leisure theory introduced by Aristotle serves as a basis for all modern theories related to self actualisation. This finds its roots 2300 years ago, when Aristotle hypothesised that happiness - defined by him as the ultimate goal of life - depended on leisure. He advocated that leisure was the right way to live - as opposed to taking intermittent breaks from work to do so. This idea was characterised by doing what you wanted to do, not what you had to. A similar theory was put forward by Csikszentmihalyi. Using the building blocks of intrinsic motivation and peak experiences, Csikszentmihalyi argued that to truly enjoy yourself is to satisfy intrinsic goals. He argued that with time, one realises that getting rich, owning a bigger house etc. does not contribute to one’s happiness. These are goals that have been imposed on us by society. To truly be happy, one must look for activities during which nothing else seems to matter, the sense of time itself gets distorted. He classified this feeling as ‘experiencing flow’. Experiencing flow is to be accompanied by a loss of self consciousness - forgetting ourselves while performing an activity we undertake is what contributes to us finding peace, and eventually the growth of our self.
|
||||
|
||||
For those readers who are skeptical about the narrative of a singular true self that this article has explored so far, humans have also hypothesized the existence of a dynamic true self, rather than a singular one which is waiting to be realised. The possibility of having a dynamic self seems more plausible. Such an ever-evolving nature of the self makes it seem like an elusive and unattainable prize. This is summarized in what Pieper said, “we are essentially on the way, beings who are not yet”. This introduction of a dynamic self does not refute the idea of an innate self, it only introduces the idea of multiple selves changing through the course of time. It is more about being ‘yourself’ in the moment and doing what you get the maximum joy out of, at that particular point in time.
|
||||
|
||||
An important feature of authenticity and self discovery is to steer yourself towards your intrinsic desires while carefully navigating away from societal influences. It is difficult to realise what you truly are, but by rejecting what you are not, you realise what you must be. An internal state of ‘being’, described by intrinsic motivation and experiencing ‘self’ is how change takes place. There can never be a definite answer to this dilemma of realising what your true self is; these experiences as put forward by Csikszentmihalyi can never be described in words. Each of us will have a different interpretation and experience of these incorporeal realisations.
|
||||
|
||||
> “Your entire life you feel like you’re drowning with the exception of these moments, these very rare, brief instances, in which you suddenly remember you can swim. But, then again, mostly not. Mostly you’re drowning.”
|
||||
>
|
||||
> \- Bojack Horseman
|
||||
|
||||
In this life, there almost certainly will be times when you feel you are being suffocated, and the metaphorical walls seem to be closing in, as you vie for another breath of air. These rare instances (flow experiences) make you feel that you can remain afloat even as the tide hightens. One needs to strive towards things/people that make one feel different; emotions that one has never experienced before. These are the moments we live for. These are the moments we can try to live for. That is how we ought to get closer to our true selves. Or at least that’s what we can hope for.
|
||||
|
||||
> “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”
|
||||
>
|
||||
> \- Henry David Thoreau
|
||||
|
||||
### References
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://www.academia.edu/297046/Know_thyself_Assimilating_the_classical_leisure_ideal_self-actualisation_flow_experience_and_existential_authenticity](https://www.academia.edu/297046/Know_thyself_Assimilating_the_classical_leisure_ideal_self-actualisation_flow_experience_and_existential_authenticity)
|
||||
1. [https://www.academia.edu/30236534/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi_Flow](https://www.academia.edu/30236534/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi_Flow)
|
||||
1. [https://www.academia.edu/14052661/Self_Self-Concept_and_Identity](https://www.academia.edu/14052661/Self_Self-Concept_and_Identity)
|
||||
1. [https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html](https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html)
|
||||
1. [https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/06/are-you-really-the-real-you-and-how-can-we-best-become-our-true-selves](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/06/are-you-really-the-real-you-and-how-can-we-best-become-our-true-selves)
|
||||
|
||||
### Illustration Credits
|
||||
|
||||
1. [https://pin.it/2kcQLTj](https://pin.it/2kcQLTj)
|
||||
1. [https://pin.it/4Nbskjx](https://pin.it/4Nbskjx)
|
||||
1. [https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/06/are-you-really-the-real-you-and-how-can-we-best-become-our-true-selves](https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/06/are-you-really-the-real-you-and-how-can-we-best-become-our-true-selves)
|
||||
@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Archives Gallery: A Gateway To The Past"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
image: archives-gallery.jpg
|
||||
author: "Nishita T, Sarthak Sharma, Yashish Khurana, Manish Prasad"
|
||||
excerpt: "Ever wondered why something archival is priced so high? Why do people believe that one product has more vintage/artisan aspects than others?"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Ever wondered why something archival is priced so high? Why do people believe that one product has more vintage/artisan aspects than others? There is no specific answer to these questions, but if one were to guess, it would be the aura of authenticity, an essence of the past, that remains attached to those articles forever. Consider the copy of a best selling book, produced by the mechanical drudgery of a machine, in the confines of a dingy factory reeking of sweat, as opposed to the original draft having the author’s signature. There is a significant difference in price because of the essence, the emotional value attached to the original draft. It has a part of the author itself, so to speak. It is a piece of history. Such is the glory of the past.
|
||||
|
||||
Recently, an ‘Archives Gallery’ was inaugurated in our campus. This treasure trove is situated right across from where one issues one’s books during the holy days of TBLS, to satiate one’s curiosity for the increasingly more intriguing and engrossing curriculum. Here one can find the original books relating to architecture - written during the construction of the Ganga canal - as well as one of the only few remaining copies of William Shakespeare's original works. If any of these items are sitting in your attic, that's your ticket to becoming a millionaire.
|
||||
|
||||
The story of this gallery dates back many decades, when the erstwhile librarians found some rare documents in the (possibly) mahogany, dust laden, shelves of our current and our old library. Yes, there were two library buildings, but that’s a story for another time. They found some really old documents, which they believed were important enough to be kept aside for posterity.
|
||||
|
||||
In 2018, our director Professor AK Chaturvedi was extremely thrilled when the librarians showed him these hidden, seemingly plain, and decayed pieces of paper. It was then decided that there was a need to preserve these documents, these texts that held in their musty ink the mellifluous sound of a time now long gone. A committee was created that consisted of our librarian Dr. C. Jayakumar, deputy librarian Dr. Sanjeev K Sunny, and Prof DC Srivastava (who has also spearheaded the construction of the museum in the earth science department.)
|
||||
|
||||
The pages within these documents were old and fragile and what remained of the book’s original stitching was barely holding them together; they needed proper preservation. A list of the books to be preserved was made by the team and under the guidance of The National Archives of India, the Archives team hired the services of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH),Lucknow for preservation. With funding from the institute, project IITR Archives began manifesting the drive to showcase these gems. To begin with, twenty two books were sent to INTACH Conservation Institute, Lucknow for conservation, to create the best possible practical procedures for their future handling and display. It does seem to be an exciting year as MGCL reimagines itself with a cherished gallery designed by Prof. Chani and Prof. Ram Sateesh.
|
||||
|
||||
Here we list out a few articles that we found to be immensely fascinating, housed in the glass shelves of the gallery.
|
||||
|
||||
- Literary materials include William Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and tragedies (1623), whose inviting ethos at times feels more biblical than museological. Of the 750 first folios printed only 233 exist today. A copy of the book was sold for $5153000 US dollars in London. Radiocarbon dating implies that trees used for making the papers of the book kept in the gallery are 394-807 years old.
|
||||
|
||||
- Another prized possession of the gallery is “The Constitution of India” (1949) by Dr. B R Ambedkar. It is one of the 16 copies published then (since the copy is of 1956, it's the original one without any amendments). One can’t help but notice the signatures of the 250 members of the constituent assembly and images of washed-up photo books, serving as a metaphor for multiple, diverse and nuanced narratives of statehood.
|
||||
|
||||
- In the middle of the gallery is the majestic table and chair used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru during the first convocation of the University of Roorkee, held on the 25th of November, 1949.
|
||||
|
||||
- Emily Eden, Portraits of the Princes & People of India, 1844- This is a short biography of Emily Eden. It is a touring collection of memories of Oudh and the hill regions, in an extensive collection of letters and sketches. It contains a collection of hand-colored lithographic works of the famous Sikh rulers of Punjab, with portraits of Ranjit Singh, Maharaja Sher Singh, and Hira Singh.
|
||||
|
||||
- The Monuments of Nineveh (1849)- an exceptionally rare book is splayed open on display, always attracting a healthy audience. Only 37 US libraries are known to own a copy, one of which is known to have retailed for 16,000 US dollars.
|
||||
|
||||
- Pristinely displayed in vitrines is a telescopic compass with a tripod stand, manufactured by Lawrence and Mayo, London, in the 19th century. The compass contains a transparent compass card with a reverse-printed scale on the face, coated with luminous paint for use in the dark. Its back is attached to the case and a hole is made through the rim for noting the readings.
|
||||
|
||||
Though the origin of the books can't be traced back definitively, a lot of these books must have been included when the collection of Addiscombe College, London was merged with ours.
|
||||
|
||||
The books currently in the institute’s possession will be digitized, barring the ones we don’t own a copyright over. This initiative will help share these documents with the world.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
## Future Prospects
|
||||
|
||||
In addition to the 22 books sent earlier, ten more had been sent to INTACH, Lucknow for preservation. The books in the library are under scrutiny to identify the books which need to be preserved. In fact, there are thousands of documents that are yet to be properly checked, and their current status is to be determined. A few of the books and documents preserved till now belonged to the 17th century; next, the works of the 18th century shall be analyzed for the need for preservation. We urge our readers to try to be more cognizant of the life’s work of an 18th century artist - who lives on now only in the ink engrained in fragile pieces of paper - before eventually traipsing to the cozy corners of the library with their “friend”.
|
||||
|
||||
A few documents worth displaying, which will definitely be preserved soon, include all the available copies of the Thomason College Calendars (the four oldest have already been preserved) and the convocation addresses including that of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and Smti. Indira Gandhi.
|
||||
|
||||
The archiving of these documents not only increases their lifetime, but also ensures better management of them. Another initiative is to manage the overall intellectual output of our institution. This will be achieved through the creation of an institutional repository, which is a digital archive for collecting, preserving and disseminating the research work produced by the brilliant minds who are currently studying or once studied in our college. This will lead to permanent preservation, more effective cataloging, as well as easier access to the research work for members of the academic community.
|
||||
|
||||
To reanimate the past century in a way that is relevant to the current one, and a need to perpetuate history - these can be said to be the main motives behind the opening of this Archives Gallery. We highly recommend you to visit this gallery and witness it’s grandeur firsthand.
|
||||
@ -1,105 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation with Mohit Saxena, Co-founder of InMobi"
|
||||
image: "mohit-saxena.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "InMobi is an Indian global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers.The platform enables consumers to discover new products and services by providing contextual, relevant, and curated recommendations on mobile apps and devices."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*InMobi is an Indian global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers.The platform enables consumers to discover new products and services by providing contextual, relevant, and curated recommendations on mobile apps and devices. Their mobile-first platform allows brands, developers and publishers to engage consumers through mobile advertising.*
|
||||
|
||||
*The company was founded in 2007 under the name mKhoj by Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal, and has since then received multiple laurels and awards. It found a place amongst the ‘50 Disruptive Companies 2013’ list by MIT Technology Review, and was the recipient of NDTV’s “Indian of the Year Award” in 2016.*
|
||||
|
||||
*Watch Out! And E-Cell had a chance to interact with Mohit Saxena, an alumnus of our institute and the co-founder of InMobi.*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What campus groups did you associate yourself with?**
|
||||
|
||||
Actually, it’s a very funny story. When you were in your first year, you must’ve figured out what groups you want to join and then applied for it. For us it was very different. In those days, hostels were rife with ragging and it so happened that one day I was just going somewhere, when someone grabbed me and before I knew, I ended up in a hall and was asked to climb a ladder and install some light bulbs. Later I learnt that it was a part of my induction and recruitment to Lights Section. So, this was the group that I used to hang out with during my time here. Incidentally, I was also selected as Secretary in my 3rd year. I also contributed my time to Watch Out!, thanks to my room-mate who was responsible for it.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What kind of work experience do you think a budding entrepreneur needs inside the campus?**
|
||||
|
||||
In my opinion, you guys have a lot of opportunities which allow you to contribute to many things, and besides that, I think entrepreneurship is not all about experience, and it might be really overrated. Guys like Ritesh Agrawal of OYO didn’t even attend proper colleges and still they are where they are. I am not asking you guys to leave college, but what I am trying to tell is that other things matter as well. Yes, college does provide you with perspective and knowledge which helps you a lot, but entrepreneurship is all about ownership and accountability. Anything that you do, you should really feel passionate about it. You should give 100% to what you are doing. Because if you believe in a cause then your mindset reaches a state where you don’t worry about failure and success. To me that state of mind is entrepreneurship. So, you can pick up anything that is out there that you are passionate about because right now there are a lot of opportunities in college.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What are the elemental skills one should have to start one’s own venture?**
|
||||
|
||||
I don’t think it’s about one particular set of skills, because skills you can build over time. Entrepreneurship generally is a very long-term commitment and you know these “necessary skills” keep changing and someone who can adapt to those changes and continue to move forward eventually gets success. What is more important for entrepreneurship is temperament. It can easily be correlated with our endeavours in college. We try to find our comfort zone and give up at the slightest sign of trouble. This is why perseverance and temperament are necessary. Along with it you should be willing to compromise and make sacrifices. For example, I don’t get enough time to spend with my family, which will always be a regret. Bottom line is it isn’t about skill so much as it is about values such as these.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Other co-founders of InMobi are alumni of IIT Kanpur. So how did you meet them and feel confident to collaborate with them? What are the qualities one should look for in their business partners?**
|
||||
|
||||
I met Naveen in the US. He had just completed his MBA from Harvard and he was quite passionate about the Mobiquel system of India but he was not clear about what he wanted to do. He and his other three classmates wanted to start this venture and he asked me to take the position of the CEO. At that time, I was in a comfort zone and was doing a very mundane job, so I decided to go for it. Within 10 days, we packed our bags and before I knew it, I was in India and it all started. So it doesn’t matter where you have studied and what your background is, what matters for entrepreneurship is a common interest among the co-founders. You should be able to understand each other very well because things will get tough, and the only thing which will keep you going is the ability to solve those problems collectively.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What is the message you would like to give the enthusiasts who are searching for a co-founder of an enterprise?**
|
||||
|
||||
Partnership in business requires a very close relationship and a huge amount of trust. I know it from experience when I say that chances are that you already know your associate. It might be one of your best friends. You might observe that a lot of companies are run by people who grew up together. I think that partners have some level of connection already because building trust is a long process. If there is someone new, it is hard to put up. So out of the companies that are successful a majority of them have co-founders that have a history together
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**How did you come up with the idea of InMobi, and when did you start implementing that idea?**
|
||||
|
||||
We had no idea. We had a very vague thing in mind that we wanted to build a technology company based in India. And we were very clear that this is going to be a Product & Tech company which will be known for its Tech-related jobs. At the end of the day, the main objective was building a universally known start-up, and it is quite amazing how far we have come. You know, tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft know us and some of these companies are our partners. We are a global company. Today we have an engineering team of people from China, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What was the real motivation of starting Rizort after dedicating so many years of your life to InMobi, and how does it feel like starting from all over scratch again? What was the journey like?**
|
||||
|
||||
As an entrepreneur, whenever you see any problem, you try to solve it. At the moment, I’m a part of two companies, InMobi and Rizort. With InMobi, we have made it big and now I don’t have many responsibilities. So, before the time we started Rizort, we were moving to the US. At that time, I found a huge problem in this industry and that’s how the idea of Rizort came up. So, you can say InMobi is professionally very close to me and Rizort is something that I always wanted to do, something that I liked doing.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What is the journey like starting all over again?**
|
||||
|
||||
It’s very difficult. On one side you have such a large team and you are operating on such a big level and immediately you need to switch and operate in such a small team. But both of these scenarios have their pros and cons. In a small team, you get to work on every detail and in a large team, you get to work on something very big. Plus, in Rizort I was purely on the sales side, I was not doing anything on the tech side, unlike here InMobi. That was a blind spot for me earlier, but this change helped me to learn and all this worked out quite well.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What differences do you see in the start-up culture between when you started and today?**
|
||||
|
||||
A lot has changed, especially the awareness. From hiring to setting up, everything was difficult in my time. Initially, none of our own VCs were Indian. This has definitely changed now. People are willing to take greater risks. Currently, there is a very strong growth of Indian ecosystem over there, being such a large country with many problems, and hence many companies are building India-specific solutions. So, if you have the right idea, now is the time to make it happen.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Has people’s risk-taking capability increased?**
|
||||
|
||||
Over the years, people in general have had more of a safety net, and lesser pressure to take up a job as soon as possible, and hence people do have some extra cushion which allows them to take the risks demanded by a start-up.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What has been your source of motivation for your start-up journey?**
|
||||
|
||||
Well, according to me, if one has a certain passion to solve a problem, then beyond that I feel no extra motivation is required to keep one going, unless the problem gets solved.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What major operational challenges do you face daily?**
|
||||
|
||||
InMobi is a large company with a very diverse demographic, so keeping all these people working together in one direction is a challenge. In a small company like Rizort, there is a constant hustle, and things get affected by several external factors too, like how travel in the South East Asian hub has been affected by the Coronavirus.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**How difficult is it to maintain work culture in a big, and small company?**
|
||||
|
||||
According to me, maintaining a work culture should be the same, irrespective of the scale and scope of your company. I believe that it’s people who are important, and given the right space and environment, they can do great work, irrespective of whether it is a big or a small company.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**What message do you have for the budding entrepreneurs on campus?**
|
||||
|
||||
I think now is the best time for you to enjoy life and make lasting friendships. But try not to waste 4 years of your life and get an idea of what you want to do in your life, and hopefully get a head start in the competition of real life.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Can you describe an entrepreneurial journey in your own words?**
|
||||
|
||||
Entrepreneurship is a mindset, where you own something, you feel accountable for it, give what you have, try to grow that component to the best of your ability, and continue to progress in a direction where it would eventually be a success.
|
||||
@ -1,115 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "A Rick Shaped Void"
|
||||
image: "rick-shaped-void-1.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
author: Kushagra Agarwal,Aryan Bidani,Kriti
|
||||
category: phekingnews
|
||||
excerpt: "The moment a student sets foot on the campus, he or she stares down a long race-course like stretch of land leading to his/her bhawan, and a longer one from there to the LHC. Traversing this distance on foot early in the morning goes from easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to I-can’t-feel-the-bottom-half-of-my-body-someone-help after the first few weeks (read:days), as R-land starts to take its toll on one's sleep schedule. Defeated by the long avenues and expansive promenades in the campus, students finally resort to support from the electric heroes of the campus, popularly known as E-Rickshaws.
|
||||
"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*The moment a student sets foot on the campus, he or she stares down a long race-course like stretch of land leading to his/her bhawan, and a longer one from there to the LHC. Traversing this distance on foot early in the morning goes from easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to I-can’t-feel-the-bottom-half-of-my-body-someone-help after the first few weeks (read:days), as R-land starts to take its toll on one's sleep schedule. Defeated by the long avenues and expansive promenades in the campus, students finally resort to support from the electric heroes of the campus, popularly known as E-Rickshaws.*
|
||||
|
||||
*During the harrowing months of November-February, however, the campus saw a tragic decline in the number of these aides in transit. Students were robbed of their right to a 5 minute quickie to the LHC and were now forced to walk, or worse, cycle for 10 minutes through harsh weather and unforgiving terrain to attend lectures. Observing a general sense of angst and disbelief amongst campus dwellers, Watch Out!, in early January, set out to discover what the citizenry of R-land thought about this development. After sorting through hundreds of tragic, and sometimes weird responses, we present to you a few chosen transcripts :*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How do you feel about the lack of E-Ricks?
|
||||
|
||||
**Random Person Standing Outside Rajiv Bhawan** : My whole college life, which I built piece by piece for three years, is now perfectly ruined. My survival depended on E-Ricks for basic transportation. With no rickshaws available in the morning, I am forced to trudge to classes during the wee hours of the morning. Often late, and too broken to even try, my attendance dipped way below what the professors demanded of me, and I was held back in five of my courses. Even during placements, my body could never adjust to the change which led to me missing 10 of my interviews. Now I'm a 4th year guy with a ruined CG and no hopes of a good placement opportunity, which guarantees me a hamster-wheel of a life, where munching on rusted iron nails seems easier than getting out of bed for my soul-sucking excuse of a job. Even the Academic Affairs people have given up on me, and I'll probably be forced to repeat this year. My lifeline to a better future is now decidedly dead, and everything is worse now.
|
||||
|
||||
*The random guy was in the midst of a nervous breakdown when we saw a flash of light pass by, fast enough to unsettle the dust which formed a fragile crust on the surroundings. We followed this unusual phenomenon to its terminus, leading us to the LHC.*
|
||||
|
||||
*We somehow managed to stop this person. After several refusals and a promise for chaapos by a certain third year member of Watch Out, he agreed to give an interview.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How has your life changed in the absence of E-Ricks?
|
||||
|
||||
**The Random Person With Lightning In His Eyes:** The absence of E-Ricks has extended my life on the track onto the IITR roads. The exercise that the ABN track provided me with, I now obtain from jogging all the way to the LHC and back every morning and evening. I have seen many people improving their health just by these early morning endeavours. It’s also fun that you get to socialise with the people you know, something that 2 minute rides on E-Ricks didn’t allow. My friends have been giving juniors random chaapos just because they have saved a lot by not spending 40 bucks a day on travel. All in all, though uncomfortable at first, I have really enjoyed the campus sans E-rickshaws.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*As we left the stranger behind, he stood in a daze, having missed out on a day of attendance despite running towards the LHC at a superhuman speed. Interestingly, as we made our way out of the building, we saw a tinfoil hat donning entity, making its way out of the library, with chants of random Japanese verses. We stopped him in his tracks, and waited for him to complete his verses, which were oddly reminiscent of satanic sermons.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What do you feel about the sudden disappearance of the E-Rickshaws?
|
||||
|
||||
**Tinfoil Man:** It’s all in the waves man. The earth, you know, the earth is pure, it never lies. Lemme tell y’all. The rickshaws and everything, it's just one big conspiracy. It wasn’t the rickshaw people, it was the goddamned mech profs. They have invented some sort of a roborick, which wouldn’t get funded until human driven rickshaws existed. Thus they destroyed all the E-Ricks and set them on fire before dancing over their bleeding electric ruins.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
|
||||
*The look he gave while sensing the change in waves*
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Or they might have just stopped them from entering the campus...?
|
||||
|
||||
**Tinfoil Man:** Wait! The waves! They’re changing. It wasn’t them profs, it was rather a bicycle renting company looking to open up their booths in R. They bribed the rickshaw drivers to lessen their numbers, just so that their venture would gain some traction in the campus. They orchestrated a fight between the authorities and the rickshaw drivers to benefit from the resulting rift. This is what the earth tells me, and I refuse to believe otherwise.
|
||||
|
||||
*Overwhelmed by the fact that our world might be a simulation, we took to our heels and happened to come across a gloomy lad loitering around Lovers’ Lane*.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How do you feel about the lack of E-Ricks out here?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sad Guy With 2 Hoodies And A Birthday Card In His Hand:** What do I feel? Is that what you want to know? Because of the lack of E-Ricks, my 2 years 3 months and 15 days long relationship came crashing down. It was easy to travel from Govind to Kasturba in that electrically powered beast. But when they stopped, meeting her got tough. She kept complaining, but she too couldn’t make the massive effort of putting one foot in front of the other for 500 long meters. Today when I saw her after what seemed like an eternity, it made my heart soar with joy; her voice seemed like the sweet euphony of birds chirping in the morning. It felt like a soft, cool drizzle of rain on a hot afternoon. But I was in for a rude shock when she returned my hoodies. She also refused to take this handmade card which I had painstakingly put together for her birthday. My world has come crashing down. I am among the 99% of people on campus now. I am single. I...I don’t
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*We had to end the interview here because this guy burst into a deluge of tears*
|
||||
|
||||
*On reaching the library we found an unfamiliar sight of two girls standing alone in despair*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How do you feel about the lack of E-Ricks on campus?
|
||||
|
||||
**Two Girls Blankly Staring Into Nothingness Outside The Library** : There was this guy. Jesus he was beautiful. A work of art. In this cesspool of sweaty, burly men, he grew like a lotus, sculpted to perfection. He used to wear his headphones, chew on the caboose of a Natraj pencil and work everyday from 8-11 PM at the library. We lost a tonne of weight skipping dinner everyday just to have our own mini Baywatch. And now, now *bursts into sobs* he probably studies in his room like the rest of those sweaty ba-
|
||||
|
||||
*We covered our ears, muttered the name of the lord, and ran away just in time. Tired from our journalistic endeavours we decided to stop by Dominos to grab a quick bite.*
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
*An unrelated naive, delusional boy we lied to.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How did the reduction of E-Rickshaws inside IITR affect your life?
|
||||
|
||||
**The Owner of Dominos:** I remember weeks ago when most of the students from IIT Roorkee would be lingering around here. We earned so much every day. Life was so good. We made so many pizzas. The aroma of exotic spices delicately placed on freshly grated cheese filled up this place. Ah! The continuous ringing of the phones, the chaotic ruckus that ensued, all of it was a piece of art, analogous to the intricate pirouette of a ballerina. All I am left with now are the beautiful memories. Since the news about E-Ricks came out, we have been inconsolably sad and depressed. Kids do not order pizza after 9 p.m. because they can not reach the gate to collect it.
|
||||
|
||||
*We ordered 5 pizzas and the order number was 2.*
|
||||
.
|
||||
.
|
||||
.
|
||||
*It was 7 p.m.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** We wanted to ask you about the E-Rickshaw situation in the campus, but you kind of look down. Is everything alright?
|
||||
|
||||
**An Unnamed Official From The Hospital :** Ah, no, nothing at all. You won't believe it, but we have had 112 calls for the ambulance since this morning. Alarmed by the frequent signals, we feared that we might have had a corona-virus outbreak in the campus and contacted some of the renowned doctors around the area. But then we noticed a strange coincidence - all the patients were carrying their bags along with them, and suddenly felt fine as the ambulance neared the LHC. After encountering many such cases, we figured out that as there are no E-Ricks on campus, these students have smartly started using our ambulance service as per their convenience. Sadly, in our profession, we are compelled to accept every call, and thus we are now the substitutes of E-Ricks for the smarter lot of the campus. Ah, the system needs a change.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*As we were wrapping up for the day we saw a guy staring into blank walls, seemingly trying to take in it's aroma*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** With only a few months left for your graduation, what makes you sad about the E-Rickshaw void?
|
||||
|
||||
**Random 4th Yearite:** Roorkee, located in the heart of Uttaranchal, is much more than just a town for me. With the mighty Himalayas in the background and the Ganga and Yamuna hemming it in, Roorkee has immense glorious natural beauty. Being the green panther that I am, I am mad for every bit of Roorkee - from the exquisite James Thomason Building to the dazzling Ganga Canal. Roorkee is like my drug. Up above this materialistic World, my sole aim in life was not to leave this pleasant place. After ruling out hundreds of job possibilities one could have taken up in Roorkee, I came up with a unique idea : to become an E Rickshaw-driver post my graduation in this lovely town. With only a few months left for my graduation, I was super-duper excited to take up this job. But then, one gloomy morning, I heard that there would not be any E-Rickshaws in Roorkee from now on. All my aspirations came to a crashing end. Now, with the placement season over, there is nothing I can do in life. I am a disappointment.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:60%"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Illustration credits:** Yavnika
|
||||
@ -1,221 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Beyond the Bookshelves"
|
||||
image: "mgcl-1.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
author: "Keerat Kaur Guliani, Harshit Dubey, Divyam Goel"
|
||||
|
||||
excerpt: "The Mahatma Gandhi Central Library is one of the most frequented buildings of our campus.
|
||||
Watch Out! undertook a small survey in order to identify the core problems surrounding the MGCL, wherein a Google form was floated across the campus to allow the populace a fair chance at voicing their concerns regarding the same.
|
||||
"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*The Mahatma Gandhi Central Library is one of the most frequented buildings of our campus. This fact necessitates the existence of a strong and efficient management system to diligently provide for the hordes of students who flock here on a daily basis. At the same time, we do acknowledge that managing a building - nay, an ecosystem - as large as our library is no small feat, and is bound to entail different kinds of problems.*
|
||||
|
||||
*Watch Out! undertook a small survey in order to identify the core problems surrounding the MGCL, wherein a Google form was floated across the campus to allow the populace a fair chance at voicing their concerns regarding the same. This was followed by interviews of the Management and the Chief Librarian. This article is a culmination of the information we collected as a result.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
## A BRIEF OUTLINE :
|
||||
|
||||
**How old is the Mahatma Gandhi Central Library?**
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
From the very start of the institution (i.e.1847), a small College Library was established with a collection of a few hundred books to meet the needs of about 34 students and 6 teachers. In order to meet the growing needs of the institution, the strength of which had increased to 231 in 1873, a separate library block was constructed in the same year consisting of two big halls, one serving as a stack room and the other as a reading room and two small closet rooms for the maintenance staff.
|
||||
|
||||
After multiple transitional periods, when the erstwhile University of Roorkee became an Indian Institute of Technology on September 21, 2001, it was felt that in the existing building, necessary expansion and information-technology related provisions could not be made and therefore, a new state of the art building was planned. The foundation stone of the present building was laid on 19th June 2004 and it was completed in June 2007. The new building started serving as the Central Library from 12th July, 2007. On the first International Day of Non-Violence i.e. 2nd October 2009, the Central Library was renamed as Mahatma Gandhi Central Library (MGCL).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**What is the administrative structure in place to manage the MGCL?**
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
The administration of the library basically falls under the Dean of Academic Affairs. The Library Advisory Committee (LAC) consists of the following members:<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
1. A Senior Professor to be nominated by the Director as Chairman;
|
||||
2. One faculty representative/ Scientist from each Academic Department/ Centre;
|
||||
3. Three representatives each from the Undergraduate (UG), Postgraduate (PG) programmes, and research scholars to be nominated by the Students Affairs Council (SAC);
|
||||
4. Dean Academics;
|
||||
5. The Librarian – Member Secretary (ex officio).
|
||||
|
||||
(The current UG representative is the General Secretary Academic Affairs (UG).)
|
||||
|
||||
The LAC has the term of two years commencing from the first day of July of the year it has been constituted. The student members serve from the date they have been nominated for a term of one year.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**How big is the MGCL?**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
The MGCL is housed in an 80,000 sq. ft., centrally air conditioned building equipped with all the latest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities, spread over four floors. Equipped with a surveillance system, it has been aesthetically designed for efficient use of the system by patrons of all kinds, and for comfortable and easy access of the facilities available.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**How vast a collection does the MGCL house?**
|
||||
|
||||
The Library contains around 4 lakh documents in print, including-
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
* 2,00,000+ Books
|
||||
* 60,000+ Textbooks
|
||||
* 50,000 bound volumes of Journals
|
||||
* 50,000 books in Departmental Libraries
|
||||
* 10,000+ books in the Reference section
|
||||
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Its e-resource collection is also very robust, comprising of-
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
* 15,000+ current e-journals
|
||||
* 2,00,000 back volumes of e-journals
|
||||
* 20,00,000 standards and patents
|
||||
* 2,00,00,000 theses and dissertations (including the ProQuest database)
|
||||
* 35,000+ e-books
|
||||
* Access to the World eBook Library (WeL)
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
MGCL provides access to eBooks from Elsevier Science, Springer, CRC Press, CUP, OUP, John Wiley, Tata McGraw-Hill, & Pearson Education. Access for Print and Online journals are available from all major Societies’ publishers viz. ASCE, ASME, ACS, AIP, APS, AMS, AICHE, IEEE, ASM, RSC, RS, AAAS etc. and all major STM publishers like Elsevier Science/T&F/CUP/ OUP/Springer/John Wiley.
|
||||
|
||||
## THE HASSLES PLAGUING THE LIBRARY :
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
__1) Change in Library timings & Capacity of the Library:__
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**The Problems:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
* There have always been concerns surrounding the existing timings of the library and the results from the Google Forms indicated that they are still as prevalent as ever. While the students continue to push for the library to be opened 24x7, this action would entail severe issues both financially and in terms of management.
|
||||
An interview with the Chief Librarian revealed that doing so with the current workforce would mean opening the gates to huge occupational hazards associated with overworking the library staff.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* Another concern raised by the students was the inadequate seating capacity of the library and that of the reading room, especially during the time of examinations. The authorities are well aware of the paucity of space in the library, but the construction of the new LHC leaves no hope for future expansions of the library, which is now surrounded with structures on all sides. With the increased intake of students through the JEE, this poses an even bigger problem for the students looking for a well-managed study environment.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Proposed Solutions:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
* The issue of the loss of seating capacity due to the library’s fixed timings can be addressed by making the LHCs available as study spaces after the end of the day’s classes. This eliminates the need of increasing the workforce as well as any management issues attached with it, while also addressing the ever-growing needs of the campus.
|
||||
|
||||
* A novel solution would be the construction of multi-storied study centres (open 24x7) near the student hostels. Such study centres will also address the issues of accessibility attached with the central library. These centres can take inspiration from commercial spaces and house conference rooms, as per the availability of resources.
|
||||
|
||||
* Across the campus, security guards work in shifts - this caters to the requirement of 24x7 security. A similar mechanism could be constituted in the library, but would of course require the hiring of more workforce. This would enable the library to function 24*7 efficiently. The workforce to be hired can be kept to a minimum by not allowing for all functions of the library to be available 24*7 (for example, a policy disallowing the issuance of books post 11 PM or 12AM while the library remains open for reference and seating purposes, would play out beneficially for all involved parties.)
|
||||
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
__2) Change in TBLS (Textbook Loan Scheme) timings:__
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**The Problem:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
* The timings of TBLS (after the branch-wise issuance of 2 books each) are 10 am-1 pm and 3 pm-5 pm (only on weekdays), which directly clash with lecture/laboratory times. This makes it difficult for the students to take full advantage of this facility offered by the MGCL.
|
||||
|
||||
**Proposed Solution:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
* As per popular demand, the timings for TBLS should be extended up to 8 pm, and/or the service should be offered during the weekend as well.
|
||||
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
__3) The number of books made available under the TBLS facility:__
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**The Problem:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
* The survey found that more than 65.6% of students are dissatisfied with the issuance of only 3 books through TBLS. This hardly comes as a surprise as the first 6 semesters have 4-6 subjects across almost all programs.
|
||||
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
**Proposed Solution:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
* One solution could be the issuance of e-books via the library account. The solution does need the backing of the administration to ensure that the copy-righted versions of the recommended books are made available online. This step could also potentially serve as a springboard to a future that is largely digital, paving the path towards a paperless tomorrow
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The above is just a suggestion and better solutions can and should be explored, but something we can all agree upon is that the provision of 3 books is clearly insufficient.
|
||||
|
||||
__4) Navigation system:__
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**The Problem:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
* While the MGCL houses thousands of textbooks and journals of invaluable importance, a pertinent issue faced by a majority of the student populace is the inability to find the text that they seek.
|
||||
|
||||
**The Ideal Solution:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
For those readers unfamiliar with the searching system, we’ve broken down the process into 5 super-small steps :
|
||||
|
||||
* **Step 1:** Go to the Computers erected on either side of the stairway, on the ground/first floor. If you find them to be out of use (which you must report to one of the staff), you may also open the Online Search Catalogue (OPAC) given on the MGCL Website
|
||||
<span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://opac.iitr.ac.in:8280/opac/search/search.html)</span>.
|
||||
|
||||

|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* **Step 2:** Enter the name of the book you want, either by title or by author/publication.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* **Step 3:** Press the search button/Enter on your keyboard. Click on the title you want.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* **Step 4:** Note the Call Number displayed on your screen. Locate this number on the racks under the respective subject section.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
* **Step 5:** Bingo! You’ve found the text you were looking for.
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
**The Persisting Problem and Proposed Solutions :**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
But what this doesn’t tackle is the annoying absence of books from these alloted racks, either because all copies of a particular title have been issued already (which is reflected in the item status in the catalogue), or because they’re lying around somewhere apart from their designated place (the more usual case). Despite having the requisite staff to ensure that the books are returned to their usual spots each morning, it’s imperative that the students return the titles they use to the shelves at the end of each day, and not leave them elsewhere. This innocuous and easy-to-do task, when completed on a large scale, is likely to curb this issue to a large extent.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
For certain books - such as those of Mathematics required by most students in the first year across all branches - more titles could be added as per the demand, which can be gauged via a potential survey carried out by the Library Committee.
|
||||
|
||||
__5) Hygiene Issues:__
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**The Problem:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
Though most students find the overall hygiene of the library to be satisfactory, one of the most common reasons for wrinkled noses is the cleanliness of the washrooms. This is even more relevant in the context of the reading room, which seems to be a neglected extension of the main library, but is especially important to the night owls of our campus.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Evidence to support the same comes from one student’s observation : ‘Mouses come out of their bills at night time and make noises.’ Another valid concern is to ‘ensure the regular cleaning of sofas’, given their usual role as intellectual parlours (we kid of course).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Proposed Solution:**
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
The reading room should undergo regular maintenance checks. The authorities should also look into introducing other 24x7 study spaces to curb over use of the facilities made available in the reading room.
|
||||
|
||||
## OUR TWO CENTS :
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
|
||||
Clearly, the Library is a vital resource for a large part of the population, especially the PG and the PhD students - this also correlates to the quality and scientific research output of the institute. It also serves as a quiet retreat for all those who wish to reflect, introspect, and spend time with their thoughts, away from the chaotic bustle and hubbub of the rest of the campus.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
We understand that most problems mentioned above can be resolved only with the combined efforts of both the students and the management. However, there is a need for easier and clearer communication between both parties involved to be able to do the same. As active consumers of this space, we could start with reporting our concerns to the student representatives in the Library Committee. A review of the utilisation of resources and manpower can help solve most of the problems raised.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Any further details about the MGCL can be found <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://mgcl.iitr.ac.in/)</span>.<br> or by referring to the Student Guide- <span style="color:#0645AD">[here](http://mgcl.iitr.ac.in/Docs/sg.pdf)</span>.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,56 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Masaan: A Bubble of Infinite Radius"
|
||||
image: "masaan-movie-0.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
author: "Aditya Ramkumar"
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
excerpt: "This editorial aims to critique and appreciate the brilliant symbolism found in the movie ‘Masaan’. The article looks closely at defining moments of the movie, and readers are advised to watch the movie first, in order to thoroughly soak in this emotionally evocative ride."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
***SPOILER WARNING***
|
||||
|
||||
*This editorial aims to critique and appreciate the brilliant symbolism found in the movie ‘Masaan’. The article looks closely at defining moments of the movie, and readers are advised to watch the movie first, in order to thoroughly soak in this emotionally evocative ride.*
|
||||
|
||||
If one were to stand at a point on the bank of a river, and stare at a spot on the flowing water, involuntarily, one would follow the crests and troughs as they moved forward. We take notice of this disobedience, this rhythmic ebb and flow, and drag our eyes back. Again they wander, dragged along by the gurgling fluid. We blink twice, steady our minds and stare hard till our vision blurs and our heads ache - and yet our eyes rebel. At this point we start to realize that each iteration shows us the same sight. Each set of images, each consecutive wave pulse is identical to the previous. For all intents and purposes the river never changes, remains static and indistinguishable to our eyes. And yet the journey these drops of water make! Infinite identical water molecules trace this path all the way from the glacier high up in the mountains to the wide mouth by the sea. Each particle rushing, trickling, splashing, falling, experiencing! While our lives may be but a blip on the cosmic time diagram, they are a celebration of the wealth of experience this universe has to offer. Just as every water molecule, irrespective of its origin, irrespective of the path it takes, sooner or later merges with the giant, interconnected waters of the oceans, so must all life, as surely as it has erupted, ultimately end in identical fashion.
|
||||
|
||||
For a movie about the shackles of birth, grief and the interconnectedness of the universe, Neeraj Ghaywan and Varun Grover could have chosen no better metaphor than the Ganga. In many ways, the river is responsible for the events that occur. It enables the creation of the film’s world, acts as a narrator, and at times directly enters the plot as an inanimate cast member. The Ganga is important to each and every character in Banaras, mirroring and influencing their lives.
|
||||
|
||||
The city of Banaras was built around the Ganga, and even today the hustle bustle of this temple town revolves around the river. The Ganga, then, in one way or another, is linked with the multitude of professions and castes that flourish today in Banaras . Vidhyadhar Pathak, who gives up his teaching position at the University to care for his daughter after her mother passes away, is presented with an alternate source of income as a pandit. The holy Ganga attracts tourists and pilgrims, who in turn create the demand for rituals, offerings and merchandise. The river also offers young Jhonta a means of earning fast money through gambling and risking his life. The boatmen and fishermen of Banaras depend on it for their daily income.
|
||||
|
||||
The Doms, the traditional corpse burners of Varanasi, are an ‘untouchable’ caste that exist solely because death in Varanasi and being cremated at the Ghats, is considered to be a direct ticket to moksha. These are the shackles that Deepak is born into - the threat to all his dreams and hopes. For him, the City of Lights is not the city of lamps and aartis - it is the painful city of funeral pyres, burning bodies and choolas heated by wood from the ghats. The Ganga marks a physical divide with the ‘Kashi Naresh’ on one bank and the ‘Dom Raja’ on the other. For Deepak, education is the only way out of the life his forebears could never leave. It is the ticket to be rid of the tag of ‘Corpse Burner’ that he has been branded with at birth, the ticket to a more comfortable life, the ticket to love.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The river is a hang out spot for the locals, be it for daily chores like bathing or cleaning, for religious and spiritual duties or just for fun. Pandit Pathak chats with his friends outside his shop, Deepak and his friends chill on the banks or hitch a boat ride in the dark. The river bank is the site of Deepak and Shaalu’s romance and their first kiss. It is also where the Doms drink, smoke and make merry as they age. The river is their eternal companion, silently observing and offering its solidarity.
|
||||
|
||||
It is heart wrenchingly cruel that love - the only thing Deepak at the time identifies as being worth living for, worth toiling for, worth fighting for - is snatched away by the very same Ganga river. The same river that ensured that Deepak would go to the Polytechnic college, meet Shaalu and eventually fall in love with her at its banks, drowns her miles away on a pilgrimage to other sites built along the same Ganga. The same river then brings her body all the way over to Varanasi, to Deepak, so he may at least cremate her and see her one last time. The same river brings to him her ring, something to remember her by and to hold on to her memory.
|
||||
|
||||
Perhaps the biggest theme of Masaan is that life keeps moving forward. Just as the river does not stop flowing and keeps hurtling towards the ocean, so must a human. A person who stops moving, stops trying to live is effectively dead. Sure, setbacks may occur and one may need time to recuperate. But as the water collects and rises until it can clear the barrier, so do the characters in Masaan. Devi refuses to let her freedom be curtailed. Deepak gets right back to his studies for he knows that he cannot afford the luxury of sitting around and moping.
|
||||
|
||||
The river is a metaphor for letting go and flowing through life. This is the central emotional conflict of the film as the main characters (that are still alive) learn to feel yet to not cling to that emotion.
|
||||
|
||||
It is interesting that when Deepak throws away the ring but dives in out of regret, he is unable to find the ring and is at last able to let go, sleeping calmly on the shore. Yet when Devi tries to immerse the gift she received from Piyush, it is pushed back to her as though asking for confirmation that she is indeed prepared to let go without ever knowing what is inside the box. The Ganga seems to know what the characters need when they come to it for aid and helps them out as it deems fit. At the end of the original screenplay, Deepak describes this as “Thode din pahle hum bhi aise hi they… Ganga ji mein kood gaye...! Sab dhul gaya.” (A few days ago, I was the same...I jumped in the Ganga and everything was washed off.) This is also demonstrated when Jhonta, desperate for a family, finds the ring while almost drowning in the process and gives it to debt ridden Pathak who profusely expresses his love for Jhonta as his own blood.
|
||||
|
||||
In a similar vein, the river also describes the theme of breaking away from the shackles and being free. The only way for our characters to leave the lives they hate is by working to leave home. If one finds oneself in deep, dark, troubling waters, the only way out is to breathe and follow the bubbles.. If one gives in to the situation and offers no resistance, one will either drown or be carried away by the mighty swells till one is shredded by debris or has one’s brains dashed out against a rock. Either way one suffers and dies. This is what has happened to Sikander who has lost his chance to study and leave Harishchandra Ghat. He is a warning to Deepak who cannot afford to slip up, who, like Devi, is held to a different standard by society.
|
||||
|
||||
It is said that one must visit the Sangam twice. Once alone and once with someone else. When Deepak visits for the first time with Shaalu, this is simply a metaphor for love. As the two mighty rivers that have travelled a long distance, and must travel further ahead, meet at a single place, so do these two people with different histories and personalities meet. I may be reading into it too deeply, but it is striking that only one stream leaves the Sangam, foreshadowing the events to come. When Deepak visits the second time, alone, his romance comes full circle.
|
||||
|
||||
At a spiritual level, this film is about the similarities and interconnectedness of life. While the characters may face different problems, their situations are similar. The source of their problems is similar, the feelings of love, hatred, helplessness, grief, hope and serenity they feel as they live alongside the Ganga are identical. This is alluded to in the song ‘Mann Kasturi Re’ which compares our minds to a musk deer that searches for the source of the sweet scent, not realizing that the smell comes from itself. The differences that humanity has created in society are artificial and are a matter of perception. ‘Ulta karke dekh sake to, Ambar bhi hai geheri khai’. (Even the sky is an abyss if inverted)
|
||||
|
||||
Water from the two rivers combines at the Sangam till it is no longer distinguishable where it came from. What river could convey this theme better than the Ganga? Corpses from all ages, all castes, all genders burn side by side in the crackling fires of the Ghats before being dispersed in the water. In this blip we identify as ours, we live, we die.
|
||||
|
||||
> ज़िन्दगी क्या है, अनासिर में ज़हूर-ए-तरतीब,
|
||||
> मौत क्या है, इनीं अज़ा का परेशाँ होना।"
|
||||
>
|
||||
> \- बृज नारायण ‘चकबस्त’
|
||||
|
||||
“What is life? A delicate arrangement of the five elements.
|
||||
What is death? A slight disturbance of this arrangement.”
|
||||
|
||||
### References
|
||||
|
||||
* [https://www.filmcompanion.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Masaan-Movie-Script-Film-Companion.pdf](https://www.filmcompanion.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Masaan-Movie-Script-Film-Companion.pdf){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
|
||||
|
||||
* [https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/sing-along-here-are-the-lyrics-to-masaans-mann-kasturi-and-tu-kisi-rail-si-2362770.html](https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/sing-along-here-are-the-lyrics-to-masaans-mann-kasturi-and-tu-kisi-rail-si-2362770.html){: style="text-decoration:underline"}
|
||||
@ -1,59 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Guest Editorial : I'm Not Okay, Are You?"
|
||||
image: "iamnotokay1.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
author: "Anonymous"
|
||||
|
||||
excerpt: "Today had been a bad day. But then every day felt like a bad day. The professor admonished him again for being listless, preoccupied, inattentive. His girlfriend accused him of not \"getting her\" while she ranted about her day. The disappointments didn’t end there. His parents continued to worry; he hadn't spoken to them in the last two weeks. His friends felt neglected and shut off - they were pissed at him because he kept bailing on every plan they made.
|
||||
"
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Today had been a bad day. But then every day felt like a bad day. The professor admonished him again for being listless, preoccupied, inattentive. His girlfriend accused him of not "getting her" while she ranted about her day. The disappointments didn’t end there. His parents continued to worry; he hadn't spoken to them in the last two weeks. His friends felt neglected and shut off - they were pissed at him because he kept bailing on every plan they made.*
|
||||
|
||||
*But our protagonist is used to this. He's used to the pretense. He's probably sitting in his room right now, again, smoke in hand,blaming himself for something that probably isn't even his own fault. But he knows that he needs to keep up the pretense. The pretense that everything is okay. That he's not fighting his demons every day.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
"I murmured a vow of silence and now
|
||||
I don't even hear when I think aloud
|
||||
Extinguished by light, I turn on the night
|
||||
Wear its darkness with an empty smile."
|
||||
|
||||
-Wearing the Inside Out, Pink Floyd<br>
|
||||
|
||||
While we tend to flippantly quote Tyrion Lannister and claim to “know things”, there are an incredible amount of things around us that we know shamefully little about. Mental illness is one of those things. It is unfathomable for most of us to digest the fact that a person, seemingly normal on the outside, could be dealing with an apocalyptic melee of thoughts on the inside - all the while cracking “that’s what she said jokes” reflexively and nonchalantly.
|
||||
|
||||
(Before we proceed any further, I would like to state that mental illnesses are very complex, and I am not professionally qualified to give any sort of advice. What follows is based completely on personal experiences.)
|
||||
|
||||
For a lot of us, clearing the JEE and coming to Roorkee was a chance to finally experience the good life that awaited us on the other side, after what seemed like a lifetime of slogging to clear one of the most gruelling exams in the country. For me, coming to Roorkee was a chance to start over.
|
||||
|
||||
It clearly didn’t turn out the way I hoped.
|
||||
|
||||
On most days, I was lost. I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions. Okay, who am I kidding? I still don’t know how to deal with my emotions. I was in love with what I was studying here and that has ever so slowly diminished and faded away, almost to the point where now I just do what I have to, to get my godforsaken degree uneventfully, and just leave. I tried to distance myself from people in general, which also meant shirking whatever responsibilities I had towards the groups I am involved with. I found solace in going to Divine or heading off to JD after the classes ended.
|
||||
|
||||
Despite all of this I had a group of really nice people around who put up with most of my bullshit when all I wanted to do was push them away. In retrospect, I’m glad they stayed right where they were.
|
||||
|
||||
Roorkee can be a sloppy mess, a dark cesspool and an incredibly depressing place. In this small world of ours, it is often surprising and terrifying to learn about the number of people who are dealing with a large number of problems. You'd say everyone is dealing with issues of their own, and that's true everywhere, and of course you're absolutely right. So what makes Roorkee special? What sets Roorkee apart is the people. The same aforementioned people who are dealing with a truckload of issues, but will drop everything if you need them.
|
||||
|
||||
A lot of people will come to you and tell you that it will all be okay and that you will be completely ‘normal’. A lot of them preach the power of self-love and how it can heal you. Look, if you can love yourself, I envy you. Self-love isn’t just a switch that you can just flip on and feel great about yourself. It isn’t about looking for the good in yourself, it's about acknowledging the screwed up bits about you and getting to know yourself - what makes you tick and what pisses you off. Just like you need time to fall in love with another person, you need time to fall in love with yourself and you can’t force that, no matter how hard you try.
|
||||
|
||||
We tend to underestimate the helplessness that comes with mental illnesses. One cannot claim to completely understand the plethora of emotions that someone else might be going through at any given moment, so one can never ever fully empathize with anyone. Axiomatically, it's unfair to expect someone to empathize with you. While people around you will be there to support you, it’s not wise to depend on them for that. From whatever limited experience I have, we are all jigsaws waiting to fall into place, but we can’t look for the pieces that fix us, complete us, in other people.
|
||||
(Yes, that should be a tshirt quote, I know; also the Radiohead reference is on purpose)
|
||||
|
||||
I found a friend, a constant companion in the form and shape of our campus. Whenever life gets a little too much to deal with, I take a walk around IITR. Nothing can match the beauty of Roorkee late at night. When you need it, even the tacky, strangely familiar lights of the ECE tower can give you solace. I often find myself strolling off to different spots around the campus, just to spend time with my thoughts. You do need that sometimes - ample amounts of time and an appropriate place to be with your thoughts and nothing else. You need clarity, to put things in perspective. In that sense, I feel that Roorkee has always been what I wanted it to be. I don’t think I can put that feeling in words, but think of the Room of Requirement from Harry Potter, except here it’s the entire campus.
|
||||
|
||||
It’s taken me almost a year of therapy to realize a simple fact : it helps to do things that give you temporary happiness - even if it’s for a fleeting moment in the entire day. And you can hope that time makes you a better person than you are at the moment.
|
||||
|
||||
If you've stuck around for so long, I would like to leave you with this:
|
||||
Life is unfair. We have to play the hand that we have been dealt. I can’t tell you that it gets better. I can only tell you that it gets easier, ever so slightly.
|
||||
|
||||
“In this terrifying world, all we have are the connections that we make.”<br>
|
||||
|
||||
-Some Random Dude on Some Random Show<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*:)*
|
||||
{: style="text-align: center"}
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,111 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With Gaurav Solanki: Co-Writer of Article 15 (Movie)"
|
||||
image: "gaurav-solanki.jpeg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Gaurav Solanki (born 1986) is an Indian fiction writer, poet, screenwriter and lyricist. He is an IIT Roorkee alumni and recently won a filmfare for the ‘Best Original Story’ for the much acclaimed film Article 15."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Gaurav Solanki (born 1986) is an Indian fiction writer, poet, screenwriter and lyricist. He is an IIT Roorkee alumni and recently won a filmfare for the ‘Best Original Story’ for the much acclaimed film Article 15. In addition to this he has written songs for Ugly, Daas Dev and Veere Di Wedding. Interestingly, in 2012, he was awarded Jnanpeeth's Navlekhan Puraskar which he refused to accept - read on to find out why. His first short-story collection 'Gyrahvin-A ke Ladke' was released in Jaipur Literature Festival, 2018. It was among top 3 Hindi Books in the Dainik Jagran Nielsen Bookscan Bestseller list in its first quarter. Watch Out! scheduled a skype interview with him, the transcript of which is given below.*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** At what point in your life did you understand that you wanted to get into writing and wanted to become a poet/lyricist? How did this transition happen, were you interested in writing before college as well?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** I wrote my first poem in the 11th standard but at that time, writing never seemed like a career option. I wanted to do something related to films, but I didn’t know how to go to Bombay and reach out to people. We all are very young when we take up these professional courses. I was good at studies, so I got into an IIT. At that point, it seemed like a way to get out of my small town. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor, but this thought went away when I grew older, so it was all very vague. However, something was fascinating about cinema that intrigued me in various ways. In my first year, during the recruitments, I wanted to join the Dramatics section but was eliminated in the last round. There was this tall guy who got selected in the section when one of us had to be chosen. In my teenage angst, I felt like he got selected and I didn’t solely because of his height. (laughs) Otherwise, I thought I was pretty decent. Later, I joined Kshitij and started writing poems and short stories. During the second or third year, I wrote a novel. It was possible because you don’t need any extra accessories or resources for writing. I used to publish poems on my blog and tried to reach out to the publishers in Delhi during my summer vacations, but no one took me seriously. I went to Rupa, Raj Kamal and the like, but no one paid attention. However, I kept on writing. During my final year, I felt I should go to FTII Pune. I took the exam for FTII Pune, but unlike JEE, for which there are tons of books and coaching institutes available, this exam didn’t have many resources, and I didn’t know what would be asked in the exam. I got to know through some seniors on Orkut about the exam. Also, I got placed in a networking company in Gurgaon. I joined the company while I waited for the results of the exam. I cleared the exam and the interview for a course in film direction, but at that point, I felt like I didn’t want to study for another 3-5 years. So, I didn’t join FTII Pune, and also left my job after six or seven months.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Who were your inspirations, the movies/authors that influenced you when you started writing and discovered your interest in filmmaking?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** While I was in college, I read Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. That was quite complex but it has this magical realism in it, and I was fascinated by how he dealt with real history and then fictionalized it. It made me think that writing can be approached in different ways. I read a lot of Premchand and Sharatchandra in my childhood. They had their influences on me. I also read Arundhati Roy in college. I also read the works of Nirmal Verma, Vinod Kumar Shukl and Uday Prakash. These writers showed me new possible ways. When it comes to filmmaking, Hindi films were changing. Movies like Maqbool, Omkara, Rang de Basanti, Socha na tha and Jab We Met, which were quite different from the typical Bollywood movies showed me the possibility of a different kind of mainstream cinema. I think these films carved out a path for a lot of people of my generation. People like Anurag Kashyap were making unique films. There used to be a community blog called “Passion for Cinema''. On this blog, Indie filmmakers, enthusiasts and critics used to write. Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and many other directors were active there. Neeraj Ghaywan who later directed Masaan, used to write there. I started watching World Cinema after passing out from college. I used to rent movies from a website called “seventymm”. Around that time, I watched the works of Kurosawa, Wong Kar Wai, Almodovar, Truffaut, Bergman and many other filmmakers. A little bit later, I explored some wonderful Iranian directors. All of them gave me a lot.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** What were the difficulties that you faced when you decided not to do an engineering job? Did your parents pressurize you, did you also feel that engineering was the easy way out, how did you overcome it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** It seemed inevitable that I had to leave my job. It was only a matter of time before I moved on. I felt that the more delay there was, the more I’d get used to the job, the salary and everything else in between. I started to feel imprisoned because I wasn’t able to write. My parents used to urge me to write after returning from my job. They didn’t want me to give up on my job. However, I realized that then it would just be a hobby. If you wish to do something professionally, it has to be full-time, whether it’s writing, photography or something else. So, I decided to leave my job. People labeled this decision as ‘brave’, ‘bold’, ‘risky’, ‘stupid’, depending on how they thought. I believed that this is the only way I can live. My parents, however, were shocked. They thought that I don’t understand the real, practical world. I look back and can understand their point of view scarred with their struggles in life.
|
||||
Eventually, I remained tenacious and started writing for magazines and newspapers. I used to write film reviews for Tehelka. Thankfully, it was always clear in my head that I wanted to do this with my life.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Did you ever feel that there were certain benefits attached with the IIT tag even in the film industry?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** Not exactly, but sometimes people take you more seriously and believe that you are sincere because you passed such a tough exam and that you must be hardworking. Some benefits are always there. During the initial days, people show their interest in you and take you more seriously, but since the field is very different, there are no other benefits.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Writing ‘Article 15’ must’ve been a monumental incident in your life. How did you get that project and what was the inspiration when you started writing it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** I was working on a script with Sudhir Mishra when he introduced me to Anubhav Sinha, who was looking for a writer for a film, which was a different film. We connected and soon I realized that he was trying to change the kind of films he was making. That was the transitional period in his filmmaking career. Both of us shared the anger about a lot of things around us and we wanted to express it through our work. We decided to make it a thriller so that more people can watch this movie because not many people will watch a serious film with a social message and neither did we want to make a cliche ‘issue-based’ film. We did all this for about 4-5 months. We tried to add all those things which we had experienced, heard and seen throughout our lives related to caste, including current situations on various campuses, politics and fight against this discrimination and and how casteism is spreading in cities and villages in new forms. We tried to capture as much as we could.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** ‘Article 15’ is based on a very sensitive topic. While you were writing, did you face any problems regarding what you could and couldn’t portray?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** No, not really. Anubhav and I used to discuss this. We took names of various castes as well, including the scheduled castes. Some team members even said that the Censor Board will not approve of it. They said the same thing when we decided to mention the symbols of the various political parties. About these possible objections by the Censor Board, we decided to wait for this to happen in reality instead of censoring ourselves. Interestingly, CBFC didn’t have any problem with these scenes.
|
||||
|
||||
We tried to be as objective in our approach as we could and did not think twice about mentioning something. However, about reservation, there was a scene in the movie which originally contained a few lines about reservation. It was the scene in which Ayushmann and others come to meet Nishad. After a couple of rewrites, we realised that if we bring up reservation, it would have to be a lengthy conversation and we can’t be done with it in a single scene. We had to let go of those lines because we realised that we won’t be able to do justice with it within the limited duration of one film.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** About the characters and incidents in the movie, did you draw inspirations from things that have happened to you or around you?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** These things never happened to me, but I have seen even in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, it matters to people, it matters to many house owners while renting out their flats and most of the people prefer to marry within their castes. It is more visible in smaller cities and villages. A lot of savarns offer water or tea to a Dalit in different utensils. This takes a brutal form when a Dalit goes to a temple or when they want to ride a horse in a marriage and get beaten or even killed sometimes. They get killed for the smallest of things a human being would want to do. I remember reading many incidents of brutal mob lynching or burning dalit houses in my growing years . They had a deep impact on me. These incidents happen every year. Sewage workers work in very bad circumstances without any safety gear and many people die because of this. Most of them are dalits. So, we come across these incidents everyday, but we develop a habit to ignore them, like ignoring a beggar on the street. Many people even say that the Mafia is behind these beggars and they’re the ones who will gain money from all this. No one has either the time or the determination to do something about this, so we prefer to ignore it. Even the citizens who are conscious about this think that they can’t change the entire society or how the system works. So, there was this anger that we’ll have to do something about this.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You mentioned that you had a personal anger against the discriminatory practices you saw. Following up on that, how important do you feel is the connection between a writer and the characters they’re writing?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** True, such a connection is really important. However, the things you write about don't need to be your personal experiences. Your life is too short to experience everything. I try to let all the characters live in my mind. Films, videos, books and sometimes talking to or listening to people similar to your characters help a lot.
|
||||
I regularly think about how they might be living their lives. I think it's important to ‘act inside’, to live all those lives inside you, in order to bring intensity and authenticity to your story. These crucial parts of the story can only be achieved when you feel for the characters. I feel that a writer’s craft is to translate those feelings he has for his story, his characters onto a piece of paper. One has to feel for the character, and have the ability to communicate those feelings, both of them are equally important for a story.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** What was your favourite scene in the movie and Why?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** That’s a difficult question, to be honest. It’s a cliche thing to say but it’s impossible to choose one favorite among your own work. There were many scenes, though, which were more challenging than others and to be able to do them was quite satisfying. For example, the scene where Ayan asks everyone’s caste, it turned out to be somewhat funny and was included in the trailer as well. A lot of people talk about that. Another such scene was the one when Nishad returns to meet Ayan, Gaura, Jatav and Mayank. The conversations Ayan has with the CBI officer Panicker nearing the climax, that too.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Your film has gained widespread popularity and love and has been awarded a Filmfare and other national accolades. Do you think the message you wanted to convey got through?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** Many people have seen the film in Cinema halls, on Netflix, so the message has been received by a lot of people. What matters is the number of people who remember the message, and how many stay affected by it. Many times we watch movies purely for entertainment and do not change anything in real life. Take the example of love stories. In our country, love stories have always been popular among the masses, yet love is seen as taboo, much more in smaller cities. I’ve always felt that we’re living dual lives. In cinema, we enjoy it but in our homes, in the same scenario, it is seen in a different light. I have a similar fear for such films and it’s always up to individuals how they choose to let films impact their lives. Cinema can’t bring complete change, it can only inspire, can only be the catalyst to change. If the film does that, I will be satisfied.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** As a follow up to that question, even in elite institutions like IITs, visible or invisible forms of discrimination do exist. How do you feel we can combat that?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** I feel that the only solution to this is to talk among yourselves. In social constructs, there are some who face discrimination, then those who do the discrimination. There are people in between, those who prefer to stay quiet. If they start to speak up, engage in discussions and protest, I feel change can be brought about sooner. A discussion between communities, among people of different backgrounds is necessary.
|
||||
|
||||
Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it. Many of us, mostly from so-called upper castes, say that the caste discrimination is a thing of the past, that it does not happen anymore, while the truth is they are saying this just because they haven’t faced it.
|
||||
|
||||
You’ll realise that those from the upper castes have most friends from the upper castes itself, this makes a sort of an echo-chamber, with your friends, neighbours, parents and those related to the parents, all of them belong to the upper castes, so either these ‘neutral’ people don’t know the actual plight of the lower castes or they choose to ignore it because of their privilege, security and indifference. Many in the younger generations never get to know the discrimination prevalent, as they do not talk to those discriminated against. Talking to those different from you, making friends with them, is important, I feel. Even in IIT, I felt that the students who entered by reservation have different groups, general category students have different groups. Due to the decreased interaction, there’s a feeling of discrimination and alienation inherently developed in such students. I feel faculty and all the students must make efforts to mitigate such barriers. There have been many suicides in campuses in recent past because of this inhuman discrimination. So first we have to acknowledge that the problem is far from gone.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** We all know that the Oscar this year went to a South Korean film, Parasite, which relayed the message of social inequality. Why do you think Indian cinema has not been able to make a mark on the global stage so far?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** I don't feel the films we usually send for oscars are our best ones. We tend to send our popular films, which were commercial hits. However, for the awards, those films which have more novelty, more originality, they’re more likely to win an award. Another factor is that we’ve become too obsessed with our box office numbers – 100 Cr, 300 Cr. This is becoming a cultural problem that we keep talking about these numbers in shows, interviews, etc. Kids in schools are talking about the Friday collections. The films that should be made, they would give you some profit, but not necessarily 10 or 20 times the investment.
|
||||
|
||||
Still, we keep on making some brilliant films across languages. Some of them are commercially successful too. Many films in the past have made a huge mark on the global stage. Satyajit Ray has been celebrated around the world.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** In 2012, you rejected the prestigious Jnanpith Navlekhan Award. What were your reasons for this rejection?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** The people from Jnanpith were giving me an award for my first poetry collection and were also going to publish my short story collection. Maybe it was their politics or moral hypocrisy, they told me after a year that one of my stories had obscenity in it, and asked me to modify or remove this story despite the book being reviewed and selected by multiple senior critics and writers beforehand. To protest this I refused the award, as it felt weird getting an award from someone who sees obscenity in your works. Thus I decided not to take the award. I was disillusioned and disappeared for a while from the literary world. Finally when I published the collection of stories after a few years, I named it after the title of the story 'Gyrahvin-A ke Ladke' which they found to be obscene.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Can you tell us about the future projects you’re working on?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** I have written a series for Amazon Prime, a political thriller which will come out sometime this year. It stars Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Sunil Grover, Mohd. Zeeshan, and many others. I’m also working on another film, Freedom, directed by Dibakar Banarjee, which I have co-written with him.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Any final message to the quarantined junta?
|
||||
|
||||
**Gaurav -** Take care everyone, follow physical distancing seriously, listen to the government and WHO. Help others who are not as privileged. When we come out of this situation, we must look at problems like climate change as well. The problems that we might face in the future because of climate change would be much larger than the current crisis, so let’s live sustainably and take care of our planet. Read, watch movies, spend time with your family. Let’s stay strong and united.
|
||||
@ -1,216 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Sports At R: A Level Playing Field?"
|
||||
image: "sports-at-r.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
author: "Vedant Kumar, Atharva Shukla, Pritika Mishra, Mayank Verma, Jigyasa Kumari"
|
||||
excerpt: "With IIT Roorkee having won the bid to host the 55th Inter IIT Sports competition, our institute has been presented with a unique chance to upgrade its sports facilities. This also presents our teams with the coveted home advantage on which they will surely try and capitalize."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
With IIT Roorkee having won the bid to host the 55th Inter IIT Sports competition, our institute has been presented with a unique chance to upgrade its sports facilities. This also presents our teams with the coveted home advantage on which they will surely try and capitalize. Organising an event like the Inter IIT Sports Meet is a mammoth task, and hence Watch Out! decided to try and gauge the level of preparedness of our institute, as well as our participating teams, for next year's tournament.
|
||||
|
||||
World class sports facilities - while being obvious catalysts that improve our performances in the intercollegiate tournaments - are expected to exist in an institute like ours, because they promote the all round development of the students on campus. After sacrificing their favourite sports for a good part of two years while burning the midnight while preparing for the JEE, students are often keen to rekindle their love for sports and expect an avenue to do the same.
|
||||
|
||||
This article is the first in a two article series - here we concern ourselves with the pressing issues faced by our teams, as well as the student populace as a whole. We aim to dispel the common doubts and problems students deal with, as well as inform the campus junta about the work being done behind the scenes to provide a seamless experience to all the students.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
## Past Performance
|
||||
|
||||
We start by taking a look at the past performances of IIT Roorkee in the Inter IIT Sports tournaments (we have taken the 52nd, 53rd and 54th meetup in our analysis).
|
||||
|
||||
<div class="infogram-embed" data-id="f4a941f1-783a-43a8-831b-f7773a4f76e8" data-type="interactive" data-title="Line Chart"></div><script>!function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async");</script><div style="padding:8px 0;font-family:Arial!important;font-size:13px!important;line-height:15px!important;text-align:center;border-top:1px solid #dadada;margin:0 30px"><a href="https://infogram.com/f4a941f1-783a-43a8-831b-f7773a4f76e8" style="color:#989898!important;text-decoration:none!important;" target="_blank">Line Chart</a><br><a href="https://infogram.com" style="color:#989898!important;text-decoration:none!important;" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Infogram</a></div>
|
||||
|
||||
The teams of a number of sports like Basketball, Football, Hockey, Cricket, Volleyball, Weightlifting have been consistently performing well over the years (with only a few ups and downs). The March Past performed by the IIT Roorkee contingent also managed to receive the nod of approval by finishing on the podium in the previous three editions. The performance of the Swimming team has improved as well, with the men’s team brilliantly securing the 2nd position overall in the 54th tournament, and the water polo team breaking into the semis.
|
||||
|
||||
This year, the squash team was able to overcome the stand-still they were facing in the last two tournaments, by securing the overall 3rd position in the 2019 edition. Even though there has been a significant improvement in the results in the individual events for the Athletics Men’s Contingent, the team as a whole hasn’t been able to move past the forsaken 5th position in the last three editions of the tournament. Similarly the racquet teams - despite delivering a few exceptional performances, have not fared well overall in these tournaments either (refer to the above graph).
|
||||
|
||||
We have tried to find reasons for this seeming asymmetry and imbalance in the performances of these various teams.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
The overall performance of our institute in this year’s meet was far from a victory after the triumphant success we achieved in 2018. As apparent from the graph, there have been massive improvements in different categories in recent years, but the team performance still leaves a lot to be desired.
|
||||
|
||||
***Please Note: Mentioned in the above graph is the overall standing of the team. In a few sports such as Swimming & Athletics, many students have secured medals in their individual events, which is not reflected in this graph.***
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
## Grievances & Redressals
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*The quality of various relevant parameters for different sports has been shown above. This list has been compiled by us and is bound to be subjective. However, we expect it to be fairly accurate since it was curated after interacting extensively with the sport secretaries and the sports council.*
|
||||
|
||||
After conferring with the Secretaries/Joint Secretaries of the various teams, some common problems for all the sports were found; these are listed down below along with the work done by the administration to ease the situation for the teams -
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 1. Coaches :-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Grievance:**
|
||||
|
||||
The lack of permanent coaches, or in some cases any coach at all, has been a pertinent issue for a long time. Coaches are essential since they help improve performances and alleviate other issues that the players might be facing. The teams are mentored in a way such that the players avoid injuries. They also provide much needed motivation - which helps the students practice regularly - and are bound to add a tinge of seriousness to the team’s activities.
|
||||
|
||||
Our Squash team grapples with this problem, as the institute has found it difficult to hire a coach for the sport since Roorkee is not a big metropolitan city. For the swimming team, there’s no full time coach, that is, during the off days (when the swimming pool isn’t open) the students have to practice on their own or follow the regime followed by the athletics team, so they are left without any specialised supervision. The Athletics team has an experienced coach, but athletics itself comprises various specialised activities (Long Jump, High Jump, Hammer throw, Shot put, Javelin throw, track & field etc. etc.), so at times, in many of these activities, the students do not receive specialised coaching.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Redressal:**
|
||||
|
||||
Even though the situation was dismal in the past, a lot of ground has been covered in the past three years to cover this gap.
|
||||
|
||||
**Ground Staff-**
|
||||
|
||||
Coaches have to be hired from the gymkhana fees, and the ground staff are paid using the same fund. A lot of money from the gymkhana budget is spent on the salaries of the ground staff (they are responsible for the proper maintenance of the vast sports arenas and are hence required in large numbers). This is primarily because the hiring needs to be done according to institute norms which dictate that the ground staff and the coaches are to be hired through an external agency, which makes the procedure expensive. The agency assumes insurance responsibilities for the employees they bring in. Despite the added incurred cost, this path is better suited for an educational institution such as IIT Roorkee, since in case of any mishap, the external agency is questioned, and the institute is not held liable.
|
||||
|
||||
**Coaches-**
|
||||
|
||||
Due to this there is often a dearth of money to spend on other related activities, including the hiring of coaches. Efforts are being made to bring these expenses under the aegis of the Central Administration. Specialized coaches are being hired, who already have training in the necessary basic skills. As of now, we have temporary coaches for almost all the sports including Rowing, Yoga, Taekwondo and Weightlifting.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 2. Exposure :-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Grievance:**
|
||||
|
||||
A major issue faced by nearly all the teams is the lack of tournaments they participate in, which leads to them not being sufficiently prepared and ready during the days of the Inter IIT. For example, the Hockey team usually plays practice games with the army team, but these matches are infrequent, since the paperwork involved in setting them up is cumbersome.
|
||||
|
||||
The AITA ( All India Tennis Association) is situated in Dehradun. The permission to participate in their tournaments can provide the students with adequate match practice, but as of now this is not being granted on a regular basis as well.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Redressal:**
|
||||
|
||||
Funding is the primary hurdle when the exposure of students is considered. For instance, sending students to IIT Bombay for competitions is expensive. Instead, students are sent to competitions like Udghosh (IIT Kanpur’s Sports Fest) which are conducted near the campus. Other college teams are also invited to play in IITR’s Sports Fest - Sangram.
|
||||
|
||||
The administration also pointed out the fact that the teams are not sent to other tournaments in the nearby NCR-region. This is because they don't wish to send them to institutes which are not IITs, since they believe this might lead to tussles between the participating colleges. The relevant paperwork has to be dealt with when it comes to organizing matches with teams outside the campus, since there are safety concerns involved. The Sports Council has taken steps to reduce the bureaucracy surrounding this process.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 3. Equipments & Arena:-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Grievance:**
|
||||
|
||||
Students associated with a few sports have expressed their concerns surrounding the equipment that they are provided with. Quality equipment is an inescapable component of improvement, and the lack thereof prevents the students from realising their true potentials. There are only three badminton courts in our institute as of now due to which there isn't enough space for everyone to practice. Similar problems are faced by the Table-Tennis and Athletics teams. A lot of requests have been made by various sports teams regarding the need for different equipment, but either their requests have not been fulfilled so far, or the desired equipment has been partially made available (Many of these requests were made 3 to 4 years ago).
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Redressal:**
|
||||
|
||||
A major roadblock in getting new equipment turns out to be the fact that the MHRD has stopped funding the development of infrastructure across all IITs. These costs now have to be taken up by the institute. The Sport Council has tried to provide the necessary equipment for the various sports : 10-15 lakhs have been spent on equipment, petty expenses and office expenses.
|
||||
|
||||
The renovation of the gym has been done during the past 2-3 years - a whopping total of Rs. 1 crore was spent on this. These funds have been granted by the Director, and are not taken out of the Sports fund as they cannot be sustained otherwise. A spiker machine has been purchased for the volleyball team. A safety landing pit for long/ high jump has been provided along with jumping pit, poles and bars for pole vault, which in total cost Rs. 10 lakh. The LBS is being renovated, the ground is being levelled and the Director has also approved the necessary funding for installing floodlights. A sprinkler system has been installed in the football and hockey grounds - this cost Rs. 38 lakh.
|
||||
|
||||
Any expenditure amounting to upwards of Rs. 50,000 requires a quotation and the resulting bureaucracy can take upto two months, resulting in delays.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 4. NSO Credits:-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Grievance:**
|
||||
|
||||
It is a general consensus that the recent removal of NSO credits has resulted in lackadaisical participation by the student community. This lack of participation follows when the students come to their second years as well.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Redressal:**
|
||||
|
||||
To counter this the sports council is looking to adopt a system similar to what is being followed in IIT Kanpur. There is a physical education course which is compulsory for all first yearities in which the students spend two hours every week. The sports council has passed it and right now the proposal is under the supervision of officers in the main building.
|
||||
|
||||
## Arguments Put Forward By the Emerging Sports And Their Counters By The Administration
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 1. Chess:-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Argument:**
|
||||
|
||||
The sport Chess has recently been inducted into the Inter IIT tournament, and the members of the chess team have been protesting the need for them to go through rigorous physical training (running, push ups etc) along with the other members of NSO, since they are more likely to be benefited by Yoga and meditation which might help them in boosting their concentration.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Response:**
|
||||
|
||||
The maintenance of bare minimum physical fitness is what necessitates the involvement of students of NSO Chess in the physical drills, though the contact hours should be revised for them.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 2. Boxing:-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Argument:**
|
||||
|
||||
There has been a steady increase in the number of enthusiasts for boxing in the institute. This has naturally been followed by calls for equipment and recognition by the administration.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Response:**
|
||||
|
||||
The failure to recognise Boxing by the administration can be put down to it being a ‘violent’ sport. The Sports Council is wary of the possible damage that can be caused to a student taking part in this sport. Kabaddi was removed due to this very same reason in the past.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
### 3. Taekwondo:-
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Argument:**
|
||||
|
||||
Taekwondo seems to fight similar problems since it is not recognised as a sport by the Institute Sports Council (ISC) and is not a part of the Inter IIT Sports Meet. Due to this the members of the Taekwondo team have to participate individually in the competitions they want to go to - they can not represent IIT Roorkee. The performance of the team in the State Taekwondo competition 2019 was a success, their group of 12 people won 17 medals. But these accolades could not be attributed to IIT Roorkee as the students had to participate in their individual capacity.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
#### **Response:**
|
||||
|
||||
The Institute Sports council has taken several steps to ensure increased student participation by introducing Taekwondo as a sport in NSO, Inter Bhawan Championships and Colors Trophy. In addition to this the arena and equipment provided are of world class standards and helps in preventing serious injuries. However, students still can’t represent IIT Roorkee in externally held competitions.
|
||||
|
||||
*A note from WO: We urge the sports council to come up with definitive rules which characterize the inclusion of a new sport, its recognition by the sport council. This will help reduce the persisting confusion in the student community.*
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
## IITR Speaks On Sports
|
||||
|
||||
To better understand the problems faced by the students, we conducted a survey to gauge the perception of the IITR junta regarding the sports facilities. This was done with the help of a Google Form available in the public domain. In the next section, we discuss its inferences.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
1. **A majority of the IITR junta seems to be into sports,** with over 90% of them having played a sport on the campus before. This result is obviously skewed due to the fact that a person actively involved in a sport would have been more inclined to answer this survey.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
2. **The public view seems to be split on the quality of equipment provided in the institute.** It does not come as a surprise that more professional sports persons would want better equipment while the rest might be content with the available facilities.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
3. **A lot of people feel that there is insufficient space for everyone to train together.** This lack of space is particularly highlighted in sports like Badminton, where there are only 3 courts as of now which makes it difficult to accommodate everyone involved. A non-NSO player has to come in the morning or during class timings, thus making it difficult to come and practice. As would be expected, these problems are not faced in sports like football, cricket and hockey.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
## Induction Of Students Into Sports Through Improved ‘Bhawan Sports Culture’
|
||||
|
||||
It is fair to say that the improvement in IITR’s performances in the inter-collegiate tournaments, and/or the increase in the number of students participating in sports, is highly dependent on a strong bhawan culture for sports. This is also essential for the physical fitness of the bhawan inmates.
|
||||
|
||||
Learning a new sport is not always as challenging and implausible as people might imagine it to be. Theoretically the only things required for certain sports are regularity and patience. Anyone who wants to start playing a sport that is not heavily dependent on specialised gear and equipment, can play at non-professional levels with friends and colleagues in the students’ club or even in the bhawan compounds. As an individual gets the hang of the sport, he/she can shift to play it under the supervision of the professionals and the coaches in our courts and fields. Participating in institute tournaments like the Inter- and Intra-Bhawans, or in Sangram and other events would also help them in realizing their Inter IIT dreams.
|
||||
|
||||
But a lot of this is easier said than done. When it comes to a number of sports (like badminton), the timings of the regular courts, and the number of courts found in the bhawans are inflexible and insufficient. A lot of students are thus not able to practice on a regular basis and hone their skills. The lack of tournaments for sports like squash and water polo can be attributed to the sparse interest in them; the promotion of these sports at bhawan level by the sports secretaries can help improve matters. The sports facilities inside the hostel premises also require regular maintenance work which will further help the students to take part in their favourite sports.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
According to our survey (which is likely to have been filled by sport enthusiasts on campus), **an overwhelmingly large percentage of students believe tournaments similar to the inter and the intra bhawan would be of help.** The firsts steps to improve the Bhawan Culture have already been taken by the Sports Council. The Inter Bhawan Sports tournament was revamped and the duration over which it was held was increased. This year the tournament followed the ‘General Championship’ format - this is similar to the one followed during Inter IIT tournaments. We request the sports council to continue with similar efforts this year and look into the viability of expanding the same.
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*With the help of this piece we hope to bridge the communication gap between the Sport Council and the students. We hope the administration takes note of the problems discussed and appropriately deals with them. Stay tuned for the next part of this article where we analyse the budget for the Sports Activities in the campus, as well as the preparations for hosting the Inter IIT Sports meet 2020.*
|
||||
@ -1,103 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Heart to Heart with the Culinary Club"
|
||||
image: "cc10.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Culinary Club IITR was founded a couple years ago by an adventurous alumnus of ours - Siddharth Sarvanakumar (Batch of 2019, Integrated M.Sc Physics)."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Culinary Club IITR was founded a couple years ago by an adventurous alumnus of ours - Siddharth Sarvanakumar (Batch of 2019, Integrated M.Sc Physics). The members had a lot of hurdles to cross ever since the idea of such a club was incepted in the mind of the founder by a colleague of his from Yale. The club participated in the Inter-IIT (Cult Meet) Culinary Event in 2018 (held in Roorkee), and bulldozed all opposition to secure the top spot. Over the last two years the club has also regularly served dishes at a reasonable rate to the campus junta every weekend. February of this year saw the club organise a remarkable event - ‘Cook Without Fire’, a competition that pits budding campus cooks against each other in a bid to come up with the most delicious dish sans the use of fire.*
|
||||
|
||||
*Watch Out! decided to interview the founder Siddharth Sarvanakumar, and the current quirky secretary Saumya Gupta, to find out more about the kind of challenges they faced, their vision for the club etcetera. Read on to find out more.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**1. Siddharth, you founded this club a couple years ago. Could you tell us the inspiration behind setting this up?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** I liked cooking right since I was a child but I never thought of it as a viable career option until I actually got into it. Out of all the things that I have tried, I have lost my curiosity for a lot of things but this is one thing which has remained with me ever since it caught my eye, and has in fact led to making me even more curious as I kept on exploring it. So I knew that I wanted to cook but unfortunately the campus had nothing to do with cooking then. This concept was completely blank not only in our college but also in the whole of India in general. During the third year of college I met this student from Yale who said that they had these student-run cafes in their college called “Butteries” - there are like 4 or 5 of them throughout the campus. The interiors are designed by the aspiring architects of the college, the operations are taken care of by the students of the business school, and the staff comprises students who want to cook and earn some pocket money.
|
||||
|
||||
Eventually I pitched my own version of this idea to the administration, made a core team, and finally started operations in 2019.The main inspiration was to imbibe Food-Culture in our society(and specifically IITR Junta) - a culture where we can follow our passion for cooking & serve society with our delicacies. It always feels nice to be a part of it. And, if ever again a lost kid like me, who has no aim in life and only a love for cooking ever enters our campus - he/she will have a place to express him/herself :)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**2. How does it feel being India’s first student-run cafe and how does it feel to inspire other IITs to start their own culinary clubs there?**
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** Well, when you ask us that question, it feels like there’s a lot of weight in those words. When I talk to people about this, they usually respond with, “Why didn’t my college think of this?”. It’s a very simple concept, but it’s a reflection of how we perceive food. When I came to campus back in 2014, I didn’t fit in anywhere on campus, because I had no interest in coding, physics, and all of the other mainstream things that people do. But during my last 2 years on campus, I felt like I fit into the campus so much, and it was all thanks to this club, and it’s been more of a personal journey for me. And now it’s become this place where people come and experiment with food. We just want India to become more knowledgeable about food.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**3. Considering the Culinary Club was incorporated 2 years ago, and is very young, what are the challenges that you have faced trying to run the club?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** One of the major challenges we face is inventory management - we have to decide and purchase a specific quantity of ingredients that we need everytime we serve food on Sunday, and this can be problematic since we don’t know how many people are going to show up when we open the cafe. And we have to decide which ingredients to use depending on the complexity of the dish. Unfortunately most of the ingredients aren’t available in Roorkee, so we need to order things from Amazon. And very few people know about our group, so, most of the time we end up calling our friends to come and eat, otherwise we wouldn’t be selling anything.
|
||||
With respect to utensils, we get it from the campus. We give them a list of equipment that we need and they provide us with the things. For the operation of the cafe, we put in money from our pockets, sell food, and then we get our money back.
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** Initially we faced challenges getting clearance from the administration. Since no other IIT or college in India had such a cafe at the time, we found it tough to make them understand why it’s required (they’d say “there’s a reason why it’s not there in other campuses - it’s not a good idea”). We were shooed away a few times and were told that a club for Food wasn’t required, and that there were enough campus activities. Getting the faculty on-board with this idea was the first hurdle. The second hurdle was getting the space after we were made a legitimate campus group. We had to wait a few months or so for the SAC building opposite KB to become functional to claim a space.Fortunately we had a few professors who had supported the whole endeavor. One major thing that helped boost our chances of establishing the club was Inter-IIT because culinary events were included at that time and we thought it would help if we fought for those 100 points.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**4. How are your recruitments held, and what do you look for in your recruits? Once the selection process is done, how do you teach and train your young cooks?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** Students have to apply online via a form that we circulate. They are then called for an interview. We ask the applicants questions about the culinary arts, their hobbies, the time that they can devote to the club, etcetera and then we evaluate them.
|
||||
|
||||
**5. Have you been working on/do you plan on releasing a cook-book?**
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** Yes. The plan was to encourage kids to learn their family recipes and I believe that every family has this one recipe that’s unique to them and is passed down, and honestly, I think with our generation a lot of those recipes are going to die out because most of us aren’t that interested in cooking. We are probably going to live off of Zomato, Swiggy and Instant Noodles, and by the time we want to learn from our grandmothers, they’re most probably gone. I learnt to cook from my grandmother, and grandmothers are amazing cooks. I wanted to find those recipes and make a cookbook out of it. It would’ve just been like another magazine where we had the recipe with the name of the student who submitted the recipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to complete it because we started gaining momentum during my last few months of college. But I think Saumya would continue with it.
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** We have released a series of blogs on Medium, and this year alone we have posted about 15 recipes, and we are planning to get more of these.We initially had a plan of giving out printed copies like any other campus magazine but as of now we're regularly pushing recipes on our medium page.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**6. Could you tell us more about the weekend dish you serve? How do you decide the pricing of the food you serve every Sunday?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** We have at least 2 meetings a month where we decide on 2 dishes. We then divide the work amongst the people by assigning roles to everyone. We buy the ingredients from the market,sometimes if a dish needs a special ingredient, we’ll need to order it online, and then we just add a profit margin of Rs. 2-5 for one serving.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**7. You recently held a ‘Cook Without Fire’ event in February. How are such endeavours undertaken and what sort of planning goes into the same?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** A lot of planning actually goes into these events. First we have to decide the event’s schedule, location and rules. Then we have to get approval from the administration. After that we decide on the ingredients for the event, then we purchase those ingredients, advertise the event, and contact the judges. We do provide a tentative list of ingredients that would be available to the participants, but they are free to bring their own ingredients as per the dish that they plan on making. We then divide the work amongst our members, where some would deal with the judges, while the others would deal with logistics. We have to make sure that the ingredients don’t get wasted and also be prepared to run to the market if we need anything else.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**8. Have you ever had a Gordon Ramsay moment in the club?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** As in shout at each other? Just leave Vishal Goddu (another culinary enthusiast from Roorkee) and Saumya in the cafe with some raw ingredients, and you're in for a lot of Ramsay moments.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
**9. Has there ever been a moment in the club where you paid attention to the science behind cooking and came up with a crazy idea that people would not think of, to fix a mistake or come up with an entirely new dish or a really cool moment like that (like the scene from House M.D or Food Wars)?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Siddharth:** Well, even when you bake a cake there’s science involved. A lot of things that we take for granted in cooking does involve science. We always used to experiment with food.. Even if we want to make an ice cream, we can use the concept of how milk solids react at low temperatures to form a kind of fluffy bond. An interested kid would do it. Usually the plan gets messed up and we aren’t able to experiment with dishes when we’re serving, but when we’re by ourselves, then we experiment with various techniques. We had these workshops on campus. In one of these workshops we were explaining this four course meal, where we spoke about why whisking a fat and an acid, a vinaigrette, in a salad works, like lemon juice or basic vinegar with egg-yolks and oil whisked with some spices to make a vinaigrette and then spoke about the main course which was a white sauce pasta, where we spoke about what happens when a flour and a fat combine. When you combine butter and flour, it’s called a roux, and then we add milk to form the white sauce. Which is called a Béchamel sauce and then you add that to your pasta. And then we went to desserts, and then I remember that I was talking about how to make soups, but sadly I had chopped my finger at that time. It depends on the students if they want to experiment. But it works, even if one person wants to cook, it works.
|
||||
|
||||
We did use science to innovate with our dish with my scottish egg that won the InterIIT back in 2018.
|
||||
|
||||
We were working on dishes with eggs as the main ingredient. Scottish eggs are a popular dish where soft boiled eggs are fried with a covering of patty - the eater expects liquid yolk to ooze out when he breaks the patty-egg white coating. I wanted to elevate the experience, so I used a syringe to remove the liquid yolk from the outer egg white, and immediately filled it in with liquid cheese infused with thyme and pepper. Accompanying this entree was an egg yolk ravioli, to compensate for the yolk running out moment that would have otherwise been in a normal scottish egg. (Are you getting it? Yolk oozing out is a culinary delight, but a scottish egg that has cheese oozing out still leaves the judge wanting for the yolk ooze! Hence the egg yolk ravioli that was basted with a little butter)
|
||||
|
||||
**10. What are your future goals with respect to the Culinary Club and where do you see the Club in the future?**
|
||||
|
||||
**Saumya:** The main aim we had when the club was founded was to foster this culinary culture in our country and with regard to this, a lot of colleges have contacted us : IIT-KGP, IIT-K, IIT-BHU, etcetera have spoken to us and they have inquired about how we established the club, and the various problems that they might face if they chose to do the same. We were really happy when we heard that other IITss had opened their own culinary clubs, and well, this was our goal from the start.
|
||||
|
||||
Back when this lockdown started, we started this initiative where we asked students of IITR to send us pictures of the food that they made at home and it turned out great - we received around 200+ entries and we even gave feedback to a lot of students by just looking at their dishes : some tips and tricks for their dish so that they can make it better.
|
||||
|
||||
We are trying to increase our presence in the campus. We are planning on organizing a lot of events on campus in the coming year: A three-course meal event where each course would be a different Indian regional dish, a sweet-foods fest , Bhawan-level events like salad-fiesta. We had a talk with the International Relation cell and we are planning an international cuisine competition next semester.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,67 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Shaping International Ties"
|
||||
image: "maram.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "WatchOut presents to you an Interview of Maram, a young independent girl from Syria, currently in her first year of PhD at IITR."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*IITR is considered to be one of the best IITs with regards to outreach and inclusivity. The international students constitute a growing population at the institute and yet, there seems to be little interaction with the local student populace. The different communities choose to stay within themselves, often finding it hard to overcome the barriers of communication. Bridging the cultural gaps between schools and international students is seen as a stepping stone to building a strong community of learners.
|
||||
Greeting the International Students in R-land, WatchOut presents to you an Interview of Maram, a young independent girl from Syria, currently in her first year of PhD at IITR.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Is coming here for your higher studies a part of a government programme or is it a personal venture?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** I initially came here for my M.Tech. in the Computer Science department as a student under a cultural programme by the Indian Government. My country, Syria, was a part of this program which is called the ICCR. This program offers meritorious students good opportunities to continue their education in India with the fee waived with a monthly stipend. Now, I continue as a PhD student with funding from my country.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the fundamental differences in the education system of both the countries?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** Education in Syria is really good, but the basic layout of education here is a bit different. When I came to India, I realised that education here, at least in my branch, demands strong mathematical foundation and focuses on theoretical aspects as well which is a stark contrast against the focus on practical education in Syria. Also here the professors are well qualified and helpful. I haven't found the study here very difficult because of these factors, I even finished my M.tech with a CGPA of 8.8.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** The sex ratio in our college, being a technical institute is pretty low. How is the status in Syria?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** Yes, I have noticed that the sex ratio is quite low here, in my M.tech class there were only 10 girls opposed to 35 boys. I feel that though the girls are less here, all of them seem to be very ambitious and intelligent girls, placed in top companies, like Microsoft and Intel. I hope to see more girls, and as I have heard about the reservation programme in IITs, I think it will encourage more parents to send their daughters for higher education at such top-class institutes. In Syria, the girls share the same ambition with the Indian girls. Education is free for all citizens until the graduation of highschool so girls get a fair chance in every domain especially in education and job opportunities. We are a country of small population afterall.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What is the best and the worst thing about living here?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** IITR has a special place in my heart, which is why I even applied for PhD here after completing my M.Tech. Roorkee is less polluted as compared to Delhi and the weather too is better as compared to Bombay. I would like to say that the International Relations Cell is doing a great job here in trying to make international students feel like home, trying to make them more involved in the student community. One of the best things about here is the hospitality offered by the people around.
|
||||
One thing I dislike is the spices in food. In my first year I fell sick as I faced a major problem with the food. Soon, I adjusted to it. Earlier, when there were less international students, I was unaware about the various restaurant options outside the campus. They have even opened a new food court in MAC, it's extremely cool.
|
||||
Nowadays, I mostly like to go to Desi Tadka and Olive. Utopia, inside the campus is also a good option. When there is a special occasion, we go to Rustic House. My favourite dishes are Dosa and Chicken Malai Tikka. They are very delicious and I'm planning to take the recipe back home with me.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are the barriers faced by international students in interacting with different communities and Indians?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** I believe that the language barrier is the most difficult one. I consider myself to have a good fluency in English as compared to many other students. I have seen many of my friends struggling in this aspect. English is not our language and we need to put in extra efforts to learn it to comprehend things here and communicate. I have noticed that mostly Indian students prefer their mother tongue which is an understandable thing and the most widely spoken language between them is Hindi. They do talk to us in English but that's still not easy for us as not all of us are very proficient in English. Also, some of the International students prefer to stay within groups among themselves because of this language and cultural differences. However, the situation is being looked upon by the International Relations office as they are working to improve this aspect, by maybe organising some activities to increase the interaction and bring us all together.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Are you aware about the various campus groups?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** Yes, I am aware about the different campus culture and technical clubs. I am myself a part of the Wellness Centre in the category of Bhawan Wellness. I sometimes go to the students' club to play snooker.
|
||||
As far as the technical groups are concerned, I find it hard to make it there as they are primarily focused on B.Tech students. I do attend the different activities that happen there and enjoy looking at the robots made by them or the intelligent musical instruments. There are quite a few fascinating projects being taken up there and I even saw the drone built by them once. This December, I even attended the Inter-IIT Tech Fest held here. IITR presented drones were made by the students here during the event, but unfortunately there were some technical difficulties since to be fair it is a complicated problem. It was very clear that they put a lot of effort into it. I heartily congratulate them for all the good work they do on the technical side!
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How are the living facilities here?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** I live on campus, in the Himgiri Apartments. It is a part of the campus but outside the campus. It is 1BHK, has decent living facilities, and is very comfortable. I find it much better than my first year, when I had to live in Kasturba. I didn't like the room there much and I had to live alone. However when I was living in the hostel, I had more chances to interact with other students, get involved with them and have our meals together.
|
||||
However, I faced a medical issue in my first year with regards to the food and spices here. Our food is very different from the Indian cuisine, so much so that there is nothing in common. When I moved to Himgiri, I had to cook my own food, my national food and I was able to restore my health. Other than that, interacting with the girls in the hostel was a pretty cool experience.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Have you been to Syria after you came here?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** Unfortunately the current condition in my country is not that good, besides the study pressure here, which makes it hard for me to go there often. However, after 2 years from my arrival here, I went there for a month during the summer vacation. It wasn't very easy for me to go and come back from there.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Would you like to suggest something focusing on the international students here which can be taken up by one of the college groups to integrate the international students?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** Yes, it would be great if there are some social events and contests between International students and Indian students. Not particularly something technical, but anything as simple as a sports matches or cooking contest. The aim will be to have fun, enjoy and have healthy interactions. It will be a good platform for both parties to get to know each other. Something like this can be an ice breaking session of sorts.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Which places have you visited around Roorkee?
|
||||
|
||||
**Maram:** I have been to Rishikesh, Ganga Canal, Mussorrie and even Dehradun. Rajasthan and Taj Mahal were magical places that I will never forget. I also went to the Nag Tibba trek last year and it was really fun.
|
||||
@ -1,100 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In conversation with Rahul Sharma, Co-Founder of Zetwerk"
|
||||
image: "zetwerk.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Zetwerk is an online marketplace that connects buyers and suppliers for manufacturing jobs."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*The story of Rahul Sharma is full of interesting anecdotes, and his success at building his massive startup Zetwerk embarks his vision and passion. Zetwerk is an online marketplace that connects buyers and suppliers for manufacturing jobs. It is a fast-moving rocket which he co-pilots with IIT Madras alumni Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan. In this exclusive interview with WONA and E-cell, Rahul Sharma discusses his background, his motivations, tips for young entrepreneurs, his experiences, and legacy.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Hi Rahul. Thank you for joining us. Let's get started.**
|
||||
|
||||
Hi,I am Rahul Sharma, and I hail from Bhopal. I was a student of IITR’s batch of 2008 and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
|
||||
|
||||
Like every first yearite, I needed a branch change. You could see me studying all day long, but soon I realized engineering wasn't my cup of tea, just maintaining decent grades was all I needed now. Thomso was a great ally as it helped me realize my passion for managing events. Though I started as a volunteer, I was soon promoted to a coordinator. Joining Cogni’s managing team was also a fantastic experience.
|
||||
|
||||
College groups are an essential part of university life. Not only do you learn something, but you also develop bonds that last forever. You interact, discuss different things, and do things together. No one tells you what to do. You figure it out yourselves, which gives you an ability to work in ambiguity, and you learn to work in a team to achieve a common target. You develop soft skills that normal engineering courses do not teach us. Managing events in Thomso and Cognizance was the most exciting part of my college life.
|
||||
|
||||
In my fourth year, I got into Schlumberger. It’s like a dream job until you realize that you have to work in the sea. Placements are a vital part of the fourth year. You notice that as the placement season begins, everyone around you is confused. That's when I started my first startup Prepnut. During my fourth year, startups had just started coming up : Flipkart had raised its fundings and they had just bought a startup called letsbuy.com. Then there was Snapdeal, and Facebook that had also just boomed up. We were only college students and had little idea of what an Indian company could do.
|
||||
|
||||
My friend Rahul Nandwani and I never had a business model; we just wanted to solve a problem. He was the developer, and I used to do all the handy work. I had interviewed almost 300 people from IIT Roorkee who got placed and created a site for all these interviews. It was good; we still have one lakh likes on the Facebook page, though it's not functional now. Your first job is a gateway between college life and the real world. Schlum taught me how to run operations and how to deal with people. It still serves as a base for what I have been doing for so long.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**What difference do you notice between the entrepreneurship culture then and now?**
|
||||
|
||||
In 2012, entrepreneurship culture in IIT Roorkee wasn’t well developed, but now it's different. Numerous seniors have built great startups, and you can always reach out to them. The modules have improved now. Now, so many companies come to campus that the awareness about them has increased. Flipkart back then in my year came on the sixth day, and nobody even wanted to go there. But it was an amazing time to join the company as it was in that curve of deflection. Awareness has increased in terms of seeing your peers do it. There is HackerEarth, Classplus, Razorpay, and many more. If we look at my seniors ten years before, you will still see them at the same company: the craze for startups was not much.
|
||||
|
||||
But now it's quite common to change jobs every two years. Earlier it was something to be scared of. I am happy that you belong to a culture where you know that failing is okay, joining a startup is okay and not knowing sometimes is completely okay. That's what has made the entrepreneurship culture more welcoming.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**What was the motivation behind Prepnut?**
|
||||
|
||||
You get placed in the seventh semester, and there's the eighth semester where you decide not to do anything. It was a placement book for IIT Roorkee. It was not a startup, just an adventure. It was a hobby we pursued, though we didn't take it to a logical conclusion.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Was Prepnut instrumental in your learning experience?**
|
||||
|
||||
It was just a project we undertook. My second job at Blackbuck helped me learn a lot. After three years in the Arabian sea for Schlum, I was dreaming of wearing regular clothes, walking on land, and something as simple as taking an auto-rickshaw. Having such thoughts meant it was time to quit.
|
||||
|
||||
Things were different. No other big company would employ a manager of an oil company. Thus, joining a developing startup was my only option. I joined Blackbuck, a logistics employee, when it had only 100 employees. By the time I left after two years, 1000 employees formed the engine of the company. There I learned what it meant to scale, what it meant to manage people and to work under the auspices of ambiguity. They give you a structure and ask you to manage that structure again and again with efficiency. You learn to manage and grow. Even today, the team I work with are ex-employees of Blackbuck.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Zetwerk falls under the manufacturing sector. You said that your career background was related to Electrical Engineering, and later you worked as an oil engineer. So how did this transition take place, moving from one environment to another?**
|
||||
|
||||
When running a startup, previous career background and some pre-acquired knowledge definitely helps you. Still, when there is a problem to be solved by the company, then a background is not very necessary. You need to manage many people working for you. You might not be a developer or a finance guy, but you have to hire a developer or a finance professional at some point in time. Running a startup is not about knowing the industry, but knowing the people who know about the industry. Becoming an entrepreneur is about knowing how to work in ambiguity, accepting failures, creating structures, managing people, and also learning how to inspire people. The challenge is whether you can make people at the same level as yours or even those who are more experienced than you, work for you.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**It’s been 2-3 years of Zetwerk running successfully. Heartfelt congratulations to you. What has been the biggest challenge that you have faced until now?**
|
||||
|
||||
We have scaled really fast. We were the fastest growing startup company till March this year. Within two years, we have had a valuation of more than 102 million dollars. One of the biggest challenges of running a big setup is hiring the right kind of people, retaining them and keeping them motivated. It’s important to have the right team that will stand by you and whom you can trust to make decisions on your behalf. The biggest challenge of becoming an entrepreneur right after coming out of college is to figure out whether a business model will exist or not and whether people would actually pay for it. You need to figure out how many people would require the service, and even before that, you need to figure out the market size, understanding the market demand and supply.
|
||||
|
||||
You need to analyze the problem by getting your hands dirty, and not by merely sitting in your room. It is best to go out, talk to people, understand the scenario, and then do a test pilot run to figure out whether it makes sense or not. It takes time and iterations.
|
||||
|
||||
The present model we run at Zetwerk is the third iteration. In our first iteration, we went to the market with a model of solving procurement on a software basis. People were more than happy, but we realized that nobody would pay for our services - hence, our first model failed. You might not reach the end goal immediately, and at every step, the ways could differ, but your ultimate goal should remain constant.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Do you think, being a person who has had work experience has leveraged you more than just being a fresher in the industry?**
|
||||
|
||||
Of course, it has, but in a different way actually. To be an entrepreneur, it is not compulsory to have prior experience. Still, it is vital to learn how to manage the team, and for this purpose, experience does help. Work experience helps you to scale faster, although it does not matter a lot. If you are passionate about your work, and you enjoy the journey and not the pace of the journey, then it’s okay. These things you can learn from your seniors involved in similar fields - they will tell you about how they were able to tackle similar problems when they faced them.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**We wanted to ask about the co-founder of Zetwerk. How did you meet him, and when did you decide that he should be the co-founder and also, how important that decision has been for you?**
|
||||
|
||||
There are four of us who founded Zetwerk. My co-founder, Srinath used to be my manager at BlackBuck, where I used to work before. On 1st January 2018, he called me up and asked me whether I was interested in beginning a startup. I was not very sure about it at that time. I enjoyed working with him at BlackBuck. Once he shared his idea, I decided to put my faith in him and decided to contribute towards the startup idea. The two other co-founders were Srinath’s colleagues at ITC, both of them 2010 passouts, one from IIT Madras, and the other from IIT Kharagpur. We all knew that we had the capabilities , the will and the energy to make our vision come true.
|
||||
|
||||
We were striving for the same goal: to shake up an industry.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**There are a couple of TV series, like Silicon Valley and TVF Pitchers, where the startup journey has been showcased as being glamorous and quite exciting. Is the journey indeed so fancy?**
|
||||
|
||||
I haven’t watched these series, but I have watched many of the scenes of these shows. The startup journey is, to be honest, a bit stereotyped in its portrayal. There indeed have been such incidents, but they comprise only 5-10% of the entire journey. Apart from that, it is not as fancy and involves a lot of struggle. But definitely, the whole journey is fun! You end up creating some really good memories for your lifetime, whether you succeed or fail.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**A lot of students nowadays decide on moving towards startups directly as they pass out. What is the message that you would like to give them?**
|
||||
|
||||
Something essential for a startup is to have a belief in yourself and your idea. Not being hesitant to know the need for this idea is crucial. Being afraid of ambiguity and not knowing an answer is fine as long as you are willing to fight for the answer. Leveraging your contacts and communicating with people will help find solutions to various problems, which otherwise may have taken a long time to figure out.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Having worked on startups in both Delhi and Bangalore, what do you think are the major differences between these places?**
|
||||
|
||||
The main reason why we had the startup in Delhi was that my co-founder was from Delhi, and he had a job there. Even though the hiring of a large group of technical staff would be easier in Bangalore, once the company develops to a certain degree, this issue can be taken care of. Hence, anywhere would have been equally conducive for the establishment of a startup.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**With the obvious restrictions due to COVID - 19, many industries are suffering. How is Zetwerk managing?**
|
||||
|
||||
Businesses have deteriorated on a large scale. The demand, supply, and physical markets have taken massive blows indeed. But working on areas that were previously avoided, communicating with the team, bonding well with them, and staying connected is crucial during this time.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Is there something you miss about college?**
|
||||
|
||||
The time that I spent at Nescafe with friends is something that I cherish a lot. Not worrying about anything and having fun creating memories is the best part of college.
|
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|
||||
That is, without any doubt, the best time of your life.
|
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|
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|
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@ -1,99 +0,0 @@
|
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---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With Vaibhav Sethia"
|
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tags: [wona, column]
|
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category: verbatim
|
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image: vaibhav.jpg
|
||||
excerpt: "Vaibhav Sethia, an alum of IIT Roorkee(B.Arch batch of 2011), is a stand-up comedian and a content creator. He has a stand-up special, “Don’t” on Amazon Prime Video along with a number of videos that he has uploaded on his Youtube channel."
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---
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*Vaibhav Sethia, an alum of IIT Roorkee(B.Arch batch of 2011), is a stand-up comedian and a content creator. He has a stand-up special, “Don’t” on Amazon Prime Video along with a number of videos that he has uploaded on his Youtube channel. In a (virtual) chat with WatchOut!, he talks about trying out 5 different fields before discovering stand-up, reminisces about his campus life and gives out advice to budding stand-up comics.*
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**Watch Out!-** You’re a Silver Medalist from the Architecture department, got a prize for the best project in your time, and even have your name on your department's plaque. You were brilliant in your acads, and quite successful. Did you have an inkling in college that you would not end up pursuing Architecture as a career? When and how did the thought of doing Stand-up strike you?
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|
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**Vaibhav-** I was not interested in architecture. It was always in my mind to try something new out-but I was never averse to the idea of architecture because I liked the subject. So after my first job after getting some money into my account- I decided to try out things and find out what I’d like enough to stick around for long. I experimented with a bunch of jobs. I think I worked in almost five different fields. Initially, I was in Schlum for a couple of months. Then I was doing a startup magazine with a friend of mine in IIT Bombay where I was a graphic designer and content creator for them. After this, I practiced architecture for a bit, wrote horror stories for a production house, and tried out the role of an Assistant Director. After this, I finally started doing stand up.
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**Watch Out!-** Did you ever perform on stage, here in IIT Roorkee during your college days? Also, did you ever experience stage fright, give us some tips on how to deal with it.
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**Vaibhav-** I think first of all stage fright is something akin to flesh and bone. Every human being has it. There's no one who does not have stage fright. There can be degrees of it. But I know for a fact, this is not debatable- that anyone going up on stage will face some fear. I've gone on stage more than a couple thousand times now, I think, but I still get it. I have my heartbeat racing up, you know, just feeling like- I hope I do it right. I hope I do it right over there. And if something goes wrong you feel a little panicky. It's very human to be that way. What does help is, if you go on stage enough times the whole anxiety reduces when and if you eventually screw up. Because that's inevitable, everyone will screw up at some point. And it's just that if you get up on stage plenty of times you don't completely panic at that moment and then somehow learn to handle it much better.
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As for your first question-No, I never did go on stage to perform stand-up in college.
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I remember going to the audition for the drama club but I think I was rejected. And then, later on, I found my theatre group in Calcutta which got dissolved but that's about it. Besides, we weren't allowed to go into any of the groups. We were boycotted in the first year-Architecture batch of 2006 was banned from any clubs. But I was fortunate- I’m actually one of a couple of people who got selected in a few groups, later on, I got especially fortunate because I was accepted by Watch out!. Along with Basketball they stood up and said they were not gonna go with this nonsense.
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**Watch Out!-** What was the reason behind this boycott?
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**Vaibhav-** Yeah, there was some issue regarding ragging, someone in our class had complained. It wasn't known who had complained. A lot of seniors lost a lot of discipline marks, because of this, and action was taken against them, which could have caused a lot of damage to their careers later on. Obviously, those marks were later returned and all the drama was solved but that happened maybe five months later, so for the entire first semester, we were boycotted from the entire campus. And most of us did not end up in any group because of that. So yeah, I didn't get a chance to perform at any of the places.
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**Watch Out!-** Did you ever think about starting a stand-up club or something similar when in college?
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**Vaibhav-** Honestly, I didn't even know stand-up was an art form throughout campus life. I remember watching Russell Peters - the Uncensored Red, White and Brown specials, those really old ones from back in 2006- when he went viral. And I remember thinking that these are just one act plays where he's just being funny. I still did not know that stand up as an art form existed. It did not even register at that time, but I guess I got my first hint during my third-year internship in Toronto. There was this ‘Just for Laughs’ festival happening. Russell Peters was performing over there in front of 10,000 people, all of whom could gather for free- it was just like Time Square in New York. And that was my first live show but it still did not register. I think it was only after college- when I saw some Indian comics perform in a bar. I went there and when I saw it, I was just so smitten by it. I was like, I have to try this, this is just insane. I still remember the four people performing- I think it was Khamba, Varun Thakur, Aditi Mittal-doing her famous Mrs. Lutchuke act, and Rajneesh Kapoor. I remember a very significant thing from that night. Tanmay Bhatt was not performing, he was just at the bar in the back of the room. And at some point, some right point- he yelled out ‘That's what she said’, and I was blown away by that because I did not know it's a template joke. I was just like, oh my god, what has he done!?
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But yeah, it was hilarious. That's how far I was from comedy. So, I never thought about starting a club because obviously, I did not know. But once I understood that people do this for a living my first thought was that I have to do this no matter what. And then later that year after graduation when I came back to Calcutta to have an open mic session, that's when I did it.
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**Watch Out!-** What advice would you like to give to the newly formed stand up club here?
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**Vaibhav-** There's not much advice in stand up as such, there's no crack or tricks. I feel it is pretty much straight forward, you keep getting on stage. And the only feedback you get -you see it right then and there. There's no advice as such, people just have to keep on going, it's a very selfish artform. You're the director, writer, everything is yours. Only you know the downfalls, the uphills, everything. So, it's a very personal journey. The only golden advice is -just keep getting on stage. If you don't give up after a point you will figure out what is going wrong and how to fix it.
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One more advice specifically to people who’re not in Delhi, Bombay, Pune or Bangalore. Apart from these four or five major cities in India including Calcutta, Hyderabad, and Chennai if there's anyone anywhere, I think whenever you can just go and watch stand-up in other cities, preferably Mumbai because Mumbai has the maximum number of full-time comics. And the variety is just too diverse, there are so many types of stand up comedians. I think two years back someone pointed out that Mumbai was having 25 shows every day of the weekend and this is two years back. After Mumbai, Bangalore probably comes close to that huge number.
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There is this common fear: people who are doing stand-up in a particular city wonder if their material would work in another city. That nervousness goes away once you do it like two or three times with different sets of audiences. If you want to become a comedian, like seriously, then you should travel. And spend maybe like, two, three days in different cities as much as you can. I used to do that every two months, I used to come down to Mumbai from Calcutta. So I'd advise the same.
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**Watch Out!-** What are your favorite memories associated with the campus? What were your favorite hangout spots?
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**Vaibhav-** Every evening of mine was spent at the basketball court with some of my best friends. Apart from that, Architecture has this culture of families, they're a very well-knit community. So obviously the architecture canteen is a favorite along with Nescafe- that was my favorite place to go eat. I am a vegetarian and really loved the food at Prakash, especially their Chinese french fries. I must tell you I've been looking for it all over after graduating from Roorkee. I haven't found it yet, so if anyone likes that you should have as much as you can! When I came back to Roorkee in February, I went to Prakash and just had that dish- they’re really very tasty.
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**Watch Out!-** We have heard you don't listen to music, what are the reasons behind this? Also, tell us about your hobbies and interests.
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**Vaibhav-** Okay, so two parts I guess - like the first is the music thing. It's a little odd but it's just that I never got the hang of it, I never started listening to music in the first place. Back in school also I used to just spend all my time playing some sport or the other after school so I never really got down to listening to music as such. All the TV I ever watched was cartoons, never music, and then maybe when I could've found sometime later- I ended up spending 2 years in Kota. So that was that. And afterward when I came back to college I just did not have time, like I said all my time apart from the class was with basketball or with people. And I guess, I never really was inclined towards it. I'm not averse to music. Recently another comedian who was intrigued by this told me something interesting. He told me that there's this thing that 3% of the people of the world just cannot tolerate music. It's not like I can't tolerate music. It's just that I don't have the patience or the skill to search for good music. I don't think I've discovered a song which I really liked, ever, in my life. I've only heard songs which people have played and If I liked it, maybe I replayed it once in a while when there's someone else and I wanted to fill in the silence. I've never played it for leisure. I have no idea why- it's a puzzle.
|
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About my hobbies-most of my time actually goes into chess. It's been about three and a half years, I've just been playing chess a lot. Lots of chess and basketball. Also, I watch a lot of stuff even today after having left college. I have at least five to six hours of screen time every day. I watch a lot of web series, not as many movies, but a lot of web series and also a lot of chess, basketball. Regarding hobbies, well I really don’t get time for that but I enjoy what I do! This is one of the better things about being a comedian or a content creator is that no matter what you like you can make some content out of it. Like right now chess streams are going on. I'm there almost regularly on all the shows. It's pretty fun just watching and interacting with those people and learning a little bit about the game. Great fun.
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|
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**Watch Out!-** Sir, you told us you were a part of Watch Out? Which cell did you work in, and how was your experience?
|
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** Yeah, I was in the design cell. There were like only three-four people back then in the design cell and just two of us from my batch. I and Pratap Singh- he used to play basketball too. So we were great buddies.
|
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But I remember like he was so proactive with everyone from WONA, whereas I, well I was left behind in Cautley while the others were all grouped in nearby bhawans.
|
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Also, there’s this one really memorable incident that had happened- primarily because our bhawan was so far off from the Archi department. I remember on the day we had to give a thesis presentation one of the guys had to carry his model, but it started raining so we called the ambulance from the IITR hospital. Literally told them there’s this fellow on the verge of dying, when the ambulance arrived we pleaded to him to help us take the model.
|
||||
In Watch Out! 90% 95% of people used to be in either Ravindra, Govind, Jawahar, or Azad. Cautley was sadly far away so I did not hang out as much with the people, and wasn't very active. I was good friends with all of them, used to keep bumping into them and go to all the meetings, basically, I did hang out and chill with them quite a lot. But man, I genuinely liked and enjoyed WONA, all the people there were really fun. So I was really glad to be a part of Watch Out!.
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|
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**Watch Out!-** You worked as a writer in Kolkata and even assisted a director, how did this happen? Why did you not continue with the same?
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** It was completely out of nepotism. My uncle knew this guy who owned a production house in Calcutta and he was making Bengali movies. I was doing Architecture in Calcutta for a couple of months and, as I said, I haven’t worked in any place for more than 2 months. I had to leave this job because of medical issues, I had an issue with my lower back. So, after that, I figured that I don’t want a job where I have to sit all the time. I thought I’d give this a shot and then decide whether to go back to Architecture or not. So I went to the production house and my uncle introduced me to him and I told him that “I don’t want money, I don’t want anything. I just want to see if I like doing this. Give me as much work as you can, whatever it may be”, and that’s why he gave me the task of writing horror stories for a show that he was made for TV. After that, he told me that he was making a movie and asked me if I’d like to be an Assistant Director of the movie. Although it requires a lot of responsibility, I was given the title of an AD but I never actually contributed like an AD. It wasn’t anything related to direction. It was mostly clearing people away, teaching the side characters a little, etcetera, whatever was needed at that moment. I wanted to be an actor, so I was also acting in the same movie. I played the brother of the lead actress and we shot a sequence that took an entire day in which we had to hit the hero. I had like only 5-7 minutes of screen time in the entire movie but it was super fun. The experience was really nice. It was super fun to do it. I got it only because the producer was good friends with my uncle, it was 2 - 3 months long, one month in Calcutta and one month in Pathankot, I gave it everything I had and I had this brief break during the shoot and I found stand-up at that time, and I realized that I found something really amazing. So I just gave that up and that’s how this happened.
|
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|
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**Watch Out!-** Can you tell us a little about Comedified and its inception?
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** In hindsight what we were doing was really silly because we didn’t know what we were doing, but, when we tried stand up for the first time in Calcutta there was this one guy who was hosting shows and he used to get big acts every 2 months and he’d give 2-3 people a chance, people who were really looking forward to doing stand up, we used to be the opening act. So the first show was with Andy Zaltzman, a UK comic, and then Papa CJ, Cyrus Brocha, Vir Das. I think my third show was the opening act for Virr Das, which I don’t think anyone would get easily. So, we were doing these shows and it was incredible, but there was no exposure for us. After you’d do a show, you would have nothing to do for 2 months, no open mics, nothing. And it was difficult to deal with the guy who was hosting these shows. So the rest of us were really inclined to do more shows regularly because I kept going to Mumbai and I used to spend a lot on airfare, travel, housing, etcetera and I was running out of money. So I figured that we have to start a culture in Calcutta if we want to survive and do this seriously. We saw people uploading videos and it became a thing, that unless you put out your work you aren’t going to get exposure. So, we uploaded the first show that I did, it was 15 minutes long, it’s private now and I’m not going to reveal that in this lifetime. It’s the worst piece of stand up that I have ever seen. Very cringey. So, we started comedified because we needed some online presence so that people would start coming to our shows. We did not have the money to bring the A-listers of the comedy scene then. But we wanted to keep doing shows and wanted people to attend, so we started comedified so that we could do open mics and we were doing like 5 open mics a week. These were small venues, basically 5-7 people in a cafe. We started making an ecosystem where people could develop the art form and that’s the reason why we started comedified. We gave it a name only and only after we made a video that we wanted to release it. And we were like, “No one knows Anirban Das Gupta, Vaibhav Sethia or Sourav Gosh”, so we should just name ourselves and came up with ‘comedified’.
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|
||||
**Watch Out!-** You were a good student and you would have had a successful career. You had spent so much time,five years of your degree, and two years before that preparing for it so how difficult is it to go into something which is so starkly different from what you were doing? And how did your parents react to this?
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** Surprise surprise! about 70% of the people who graduate from campus don’t actually practice what they study. So, it’s not that different. I wouldn’t say I was a very good student, I was a decent one. I had 3 backs in the 2 - 1, because of my attendance. 3 backs in one semester were pretty big. I wasn’t that good, I was a decent student, I never used to be the absolute last. I was fortunate because although my parents didn’t understand stand-up, they weren’t hellbent on telling me that I wasn’t allowed to do something. They were never controlling. And I am the kind of guy who does what he wants to do, no matter what. The first difficulty that I faced when making them understand was the fact that I didn’t know anything about stand-up and it’s not just me, no one did. There was no mentor as such in India at that time. Back then, like 2009, 2010, 2011, no one knew anything about stand-up. No one knew where their careers were headed and in fact, even today, after live shows, people don’t know what else they can do with stand-up. In the West, stand-up comedians have branched out into writers and they do a lot, but that’s yet to happen in India. So it was very difficult to make them understand as to where I was headed with my career because honestly, I didn’t know and I told them that I don’t know, but I like doing this so I’m going to continue doing it. Fortunately, even though they were a little pushy they never forced me to do something else. And I’m just glad that the patience paid off. The first 3 years were a little difficult because I had run out of all my savings, that’s when I started loaning money from my parents. I started paying rent to my parents because of my pride, the fact that I haven’t done anything for 3 years. I told them that this isn’t rent or anything, I’m just going to give you this although they didn’t ask me for it. I just wanted to feel more responsible and independent. Once I moved to Bombay and became financially stable they still didn’t understand stand-up but they were okay with it. Honestly, at that time I had quit about 6 jobs, so they figured they would just wait for this one out.
|
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|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Being an IITian, do the people associated with your work view you differently? Do you feel the experiences in college helped you?
|
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** The IIT tag matters only till you want a job in the field you've applied for, I didn't experience a lot of perks because of it but I'm pretty sure it does affect people. If you're from an IIT and apply for a job, the people hiring you have already made some preconceived notions about you. And why not? You've worked hard to achieve your goals and if you can crack IIT, you can do wonders at something else as well.
|
||||
I remember applying for a couple of architecture jobs and maybe being an IITian did help there. I was rarely ever rejected, I almost got every job I ever applied for and I have a feeling the IIT tag had something to do with it. Apart from architecture, it didn't help me anywhere else, especially not in standup. A lot of people don't even know I'm from IIT Roorkee. So overall, I don't think it makes much of a difference.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** When you started doing stand-up, where did you learn the intricacies of the field? Who were your early influences?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vaibhav-** There are a few comics who, like me, don't watch a lot of standup. During my initial years, poverty and debt were my main inspirations *laughs*. I just wanted to earn some money. All I knew was I had to work hard. There was no way to learn the art of standup comedy apart from getting on stage and performing. This I had figured out early on in my career because I could see that the more I go on stage the better I feel. I was fortunate enough to have a friend Anirban who was equally passionate, had he not been there it would have made matters much worse. The first open mic we did was in a 600 seater auditorium with a 1 lakh rupees cash prize and still only three people came to participate and one of them was Anirban. The third person won. Anirban and I supported each other, we were sharing almost everything we had. During my initial years, I didn't have any fixed role models, I used to see Indian comics perform and was always awestruck by them. They used to look so invincible up there and the whole atmosphere of the show was magical for me. So it was the setting, the atmosphere I was in love with, I didn't know a lot of comics back then, I still don't.
|
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|
||||
**Watch Out!-** How do you write a set, do you base them on the experiences you have had?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vaibhav-** Initially I used to write the entire script and learn every word, I didn't even miss the "the"s or "a"s anywhere. I used to rehearse everything. Now, after 7 years in comedy, I can repeat sentences without any mistakes. For the past 3-4 years, I haven't written anything or made any scripts, it's all memory-based. I do have the video recordings for safety. Everyone has their tricks and methods to produce materials for their set, for me, it's like when I'm in the middle of a conversation and I say something generic, sometimes I flip the thought and present it in different angles. I talk about that thought or idea nonstop, I tell my wife, friends and I test it out a few times. It took around 4 months for me to write a joke I was proud of and that was the smallest time I took to write a joke. I was working on a joke once and it wasn't working and three years later it revives into a huge bit. It's usually just reacting to everyday stuff, some new, interesting response to something mundane.
|
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|
||||
**Watch Out!-** A majority of your audience is obviously from India, and in India, there are a number of religions and different types of people. So it is highly likely that any joke that you crack, someone will be there who will take offense? How do you manage this? Are there some topics that you know that you will never touch?
|
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|
||||
**Vaibhav-** I don't do jokes on Bollywood or politics, the biggest reason being I don't know enough about them. Religion is another thing that I don't touch, no matter how much I learn about religion if it's not my own I'll just end up sounding ignorant and what I say may be annoying to people, they'll feel like I'm belittling something important to them and that is not the purpose of standup in my opinion. If someone finds a way to do it right then great. I used to do a joke on religion then I stopped after I got in some trouble. I knew I was belittling the religion but this particular joke used to get a lot of response, people loved it, but then I figured it's not worth it. It didn't feel nice to say those things and it had repercussions, so there was no point in doing that joke anymore. Offending people is not the purpose of standup comedy, so if something is majorly offensive, it shouldn't be said. The fear of falling into trouble is not the reason why I don't make jokes about religion, rather it is because I feel that offending someone is not the purpose of doing comedy. Figuring out what offends people is a confusing task but there are some basic areas which you should stay away from. I do believe in absolute freedom of speech and stand for the thought that anyone who wishes to express a particular feeling should do so. Based on the current situation people believe that anyone who speaks on a mic speaks the absolute truth. Having this responsibility of influencing others, one has to be careful.
|
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|
||||
**Watch Out!-** What have you been up to during this quarantine and how will your shows be affected after the lockdown period as people have to maintain social distancing?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vaibhav-** I spend most of my time cleaning and cooking along with my wife. I also do play a lot of quiz games with my friends. Talking about how my shows will be affected, after having a discussion with the people in the same industry, I have understood that standup may not resume properly until around November. The main reason for this being that the government may not allow mass gatherings for the purpose of entertainment. It has definitely been a blow for comedians like me who thrive on live shows rather than posting content on the internet. Not being able to perform live on shows may even result in some nervousness to kick in the next time I go on stage and may even take a month for things to go back normal for everyone.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Tell us about your future projects and tell us what you intend to do when the quarantine ends.
|
||||
|
||||
**Vaibhav-** I am planning on releasing a video, a standup, some editing has to be done before its release. A new podcast will be released within a week, it's around an hour and a half. I am planning on writing a story for a web series or a movie soon. Even though I worked on the first season of ‘Laakhon mein ek’ with Biswa, I lack the experience needed in this field. I will be performing a 1-hour special as soon as the lockdown ends which will be named ‘Apple is red’.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** A few words of advice for people reading this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Vaibhav-** I am not a very nostalgic person and I am not in touch with most of my old peers but I did love my time on campus. All the students at IIT R are very fortunate to be there. Something that I regret not doing much during my stay at Roorkee is to not visit the hill stations nearby. This is something that I would suggest the students on campus do.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,64 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With Aayush Rai, Co-founder Of Inito"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
image: inito.jpeg
|
||||
excerpt: "Here are the excerpts from a talk with Aayush Rai, an alumnus of IIT Roorkee (2012), and the co-founder of Inito, the world's first at home diagnostic device."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Here are the excerpts from a talk with Aayush Rai, an alumnus of IIT Roorkee (2012), and the co-founder of Inito, the world's first at home diagnostic device. Inito has been revolutionizing the Health Tech sector by introducing diagnostic tests on fertility, diabetes, high cholesterol and more on a single device connected to a smartphone. We joined him over Google Hangouts during this quarantine to get insightful knowledge from the world of tech, startups and YCombinator(Inito was selected for the YC as well!).*
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** What are the specific memories that strike you on reminiscing Roorkee? If you had to classify yourself according to Roorkee lingo, where would you place yourself?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** I was a people's person back in college. In my first year, I was In Watch Out! I was very much into tech, and I was one of the founding members of Robocon. I also served as the secretary of the Electronics section in the Hobbies Club.
|
||||
All my memories of Roorkee are related to people. I rarely went to classes and to be honest I hardly have any memories related to classrooms! Looking back at those days, I had a close group of friends and an extended gang, as I believe is the case with most of us. And I had a very diverse set of friends as well, all of them now pursuing careers in different fields like administration, management, technology and politics.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Have you been to Roorkee recently? What was the biggest change that you observed?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** Yes, I went to Roorkee for placements last year. I wasn't there for a long time, just over a day. I observed a lot of changes, but the most striking change I saw was the frantic activity student cells are involved in. 'Pehle Roorkee mein sarkari tareeke se kaam hota tha', but now I found the aggression among students' cells to get things done,it is very encouraging. I found the students of the placement cell very active, wanting to get things done.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Were there any specific activities you did in college keeping in mind you wanted to start your own venture?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** I can't say that I did things in college keeping in mind that I wished to do a startup. One thing that I was sure of was that I will be doing something in tech. So I took a job that allowed me to innovate in tech.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** What persuaded you to leave your job at Siemens technology and start your journey with Inito?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** It wasn't like I woke up one day and said aaj se start up karna hai.
|
||||
At that point I just realised that Inito was something that I wanted to work on. Office became a burden for me at that point of time. I just knew that I had to work on this idea full time and I had no time to go to the office.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Inito has been a part of the YC winter school. How was the journey, the experience?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** We didn't go to YC for funding. We were already well funded by the time we applied for YC. What the winter school did teach us was how to scale our startup. They had us think in a more aggressive way on how to build our business from a global perspective.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** Why did you start a startup particularly in the medical field? What part of the healthcare sector acts as the greatest potential untapped market yet? Were there any trepidations in migrating from engineering to a new domain?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** To answer your question, let me tell you about the products that we build at Inito. We combine software and hardware yoake medical devices on which you can take your medical tests yourself. Also, the different thing about our products is that we allow multiple tests from the same device. Currently you have different devices for measuring your BP, or your blood sugar but we combine that in one single device.
|
||||
|
||||
The Healthcare system is currently geared towards one time testing. Now, we're building products that'll allow you to test yourself regularly, thereby making every home a diagnostic lab. Thus 85 percent of doctor visits can be simply handled by our machines. And thus doctors can apply their acumen to 15 percentage of the critical cases that actually require their attention. This is a win win situation, since the world is so short on doctors as the current pandemic has shown us.
|
||||
|
||||
Now I believe that Healthcare will be one sector that will receive more attention, considering the current pandemic. People building medical devices will be incentivised to make devices for testing.
|
||||
|
||||
Apart from that, the entire infrastructure of India will be digitised. For example, we today have shifted the banking system online. Similar revolutions will come in the field of other essential sectors, like health care, education.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** What are some of the biggest challenges you faced as a startup co-founder?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** As a startup founder I knew that my strengths lay in technology and management. At the beginning we did not know much about funding and other stuff related to startups. so understanding the entire startup ecosystem was one big challenge.
|
||||
The greatest challenge that I think we faced was team building. We were starting a long-term business, and team building was the most crucial part of it. Even then it was easy to convince other people to join our startup since most of our team is from Roorkee itself.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** How do you think the startup ecosystem has changed since when you first started?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** When I started my own venture startups were a relatively new thing in India. I did not know much about startups. But today India has seen a full cycle of startups.
|
||||
By that I mean that many startups started , got funded, some failed and some became successful.
|
||||
|
||||
Now bolder ideas can be seen persisting and thriving in the Indian market.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!-** What is your message to the young entrepreneurs out there?
|
||||
|
||||
**Aayush-** When I interviewed students for campus placements this year, I found that there were two kinds of students. One category were the students who were very bookish. They had sound theoretical knowledge but lacked project experiences. The other faction was the group of students who had a lot of hands on experience, but they lacked depth in understanding.
|
||||
|
||||
My advice to entrepreneurs or students out there is to have both. Have some hands on experience as well as sound technical knowledge of concepts.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,66 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Filter coffee: Rhea Parekh"
|
||||
image: rhea.jpg
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
excerpt: "From IMG, GSoC, Quantum Computing, Microsoft Redmond - there's only so much we can keep count of, because Rhea Parekh, a name that doesn't need much introduction, has been there; done and dusted all of these."
|
||||
category: filtercoffee
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*From IMG, GSoC, Quantum Computing, Microsoft Redmond - there's only so much we can keep count of, because Rhea Parekh, a name that doesn't need much introduction, has been there; done and dusted all of these. However, there's more to her apart from securing the highest package offered in the campus this year. For us, she’s still the goofy person, sitting with us enthusiastically in WONA meetings, laughing like a maniac at a silly Pheking news idea. Here’s an excerpt from our chat with our very own self-proclaimed connoisseur of bad jokes.*
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You were a part of 6 Campus Groups in your first year ranging from GG to WO, IMG-PAG to Drams. How did you manage it then? Also were you able to manage your grades along with these commitments?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** After the arduous JEE years, I was driven to participate in as many extra-curricular activities as I could in my freshman year, which is the reason why I was so motivated to be a part of these groups. The thrill of being presented these many opportunities overshadowed how time consuming it would be and I had found a strange comfort in being busy. I was always on my toes, running from one meeting to the other, with multiple tasks on hand everyday. In fact, I ended up losing sleep on a lot of days and dozed off during my lectures, but I’ll attribute that to the normalcy of student life in our campus. I also owe it to the fact that a lot of these groups weren’t aren’t as demanding in the first year as they are later, that I was able manage my time well between these engagements. But by the end of my first year, I did realise how difficult it would be to sustain this, but I’ll always be indebted to every group I was a part of, for shaping my life in its own way.
|
||||
My first semester C.G. was 9.4 and I very narrowly missed out on a branch change in my first semester. In a funny contrast, I narrowly missed out on the academic probation in my second semester.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** This big list of achievements that you have, to get here and to have done all this, you must have had to cut down on other fun things. Do you think you missed out on things and if yes do you regret it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** I did have to cut down on a lot of things, especially in my second and third year. I was constantly working throughout these years, creating a huge imbalance between my work and social life. However, I don’t regret the decisions I took in this period as I was quite satisfied with my work and started to cherish the free time I had. With that, I hold the belief that these sacrifices were crucial in order for me to reach where I am right now and that it’s an important part of any university student’s life. Plus, I did make up for all the things I missed out on, in my final year, and hence looking back I am content with my choices.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You were one of the first people to take Quantum Computing seriously. You even had a research paper done on it in your third year. What made you interested in it?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** I was introduced to Quantum Computing in my second year, when I stumbled upon a blog on Shor’s Algorithm - an algorithm to find the prime factors of an integer. The idea was really perplexing to me, which motivated me to further start reading the theory behind it. I was completely intrigued with this field and it’s potential to change the face of technology in the next few years. IBM was offering it’s quantum computer on the cloud for free which sparked my interest, and I used to play around with it initially, trying to implement different algorithms. Quantum Mechanics has been my favourite subject over the years and I found quantum computing to be the perfect blend of this subject with different fields in computer science.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You have interned with Microsoft apart from cracking GSoC in your sophomore year and ICPC Regionals too. Despite all this, you went ahead to study Quantum Computing and a remote BTP abroad. Why?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** I started off with attempting competitive programming and learning software engineering, the way a lot of students do when they first join campus. Even though I had developed a strong liking to software development, I was keen to explore and experiment with other fields. A younger and naive pre-JEE version of myself always thought that I’ll pursue research in Physics and I felt like I owed it to her to try my hand in different physics oriented fields. When I came across quantum computing, it realised that it was the perfect fit for me and I really enjoyed working on different problems in this field. With that, since the beginning of my first year, I had romanticized the idea of going on a semester exchange or an intern abroad and just experiencing the culture and life there. I was lucky enough that Roorkee finally started permitting a remote BTP, when I was in my third year, and hence I jumped on this opportunity.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Describe your stay in Europe for 6 months, like in 4-1 there’s pressure for placements et al, but you were away in Europe and secured the highest package in the campus at Microsoft Redmond. How did you manage it, or rather how did you prepare for placement tests?
|
||||
|
||||
Rhea - My stay in Europe was as dreamy as it could have been. I thoroughly enjoyed my work with the team there and it exposed me to a lot of new opportunities, which acted as a launchpad for my research career. With that, it was thrilling to immerse myself in a different culture altogether, meeting people from all across Europe, travelling to and exploring different cities, attending concerts of my favourite artists. This experience made me grow and changed my perspective in a way I would have never imagined.
|
||||
I didn’t face any pressure for placements as I already had a PPO from Microsoft India as a back-up and my main goal then was to apply to different universities for graduate studies. The turn of events was extremely surprising, as being away from the campus, I wasn’t expecting to get an opportunity to interview for this position at Redmond in the first place, until I found out that a call was scheduled online. I only had about one-two week’s time to prepare for this interview which I used to brush up on different topics, however, I mostly relied on my past experiences for this the call.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Apart from this Machau Rhea, you were very well known for being the demi-God of bad jokes in IMG and your commercial trips-half selfies are well known too. Tell us something about this side of Rhea.
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** I wittingly tried to build this reputation. To benchmark the intensity of my bad jokes, my go-to would be this anti-joke: I’ll say “Ask me if I am a car?”. When they would ask me, I’d reply with a simple “no”. This is probably as cringeworthy now as it was before, but I enjoyed being the cause of it. With that, I always enjoyed partaking in occasional roasts of my friends. I also have this tendency to cause uncomfortable and awkward scenarios just for the thrill of it, and yes, Michael Scott is my ultimate role model.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You've been in so many groups,you must know all the hard work that goes in the functioning of one . So, If you could, given you had the time and the resources, what group would you have wanted to start?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** We did plan on starting a discussion group for Quantum computing with ACM IIT Roorkee. We took a lecture at the beginning of the semester and were supposed to continue these lectures as well as conduct workshops after the mid-semester break. We intended to lay down a foundation for this group, which was then going to be carried forward by our juniors. Sadly, all of these plans were thwarted by the Covid situation. However, seeing an increasing number of people showing interest in this field from our campus, I do hope the campus will see this group in the next few years.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** How has being a part of WatchOut been so far?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** WatchOut has always been my escape on the campus, a break from my hectic schedule. Every week I’d look forward to those two hours where we’d discuss our thoughts ranging from serious issues to rambles about some conspiracy theory that dogs are forming a secret cult in the campus. To put it in words, the time I spent with this group felt like a blissful scroll on reddit. WatchOut has aided me in overcoming my lifelong fear of speaking my mind in front of a huge group. Finally, I met some of the best people I know (hint: you guys) through this group, and for that I’ll always be thankful.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** What is it about Roorkee(campus) that you like the most?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** It’s most definitely the people I met here, which makes Roorkee complete. A senior once told me “Once you graduate, when you come back to the campus after a few years, you don’t feel it's the same because you barely recognise the faces as you walk by”. It’s the people who were always involved in some shenanigans with you, who you hung out with till sunrise, who taught you more things than any professor in the campus, who lent you a shoulder to cry on or who beat you up on your birthday which make this taxing student life on the campus seem joyous and almost exhilarating.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** How do you like the concept of Chaapos?
|
||||
|
||||
**Rhea -** Suffice it to say I did not have to spend any money on food in my first year. Being a part of multiple groups had its own perks in a way. To be frank, I have received way more chapos than I have given. This concept is utterly brilliant until you reach your final year and realise you have no one left to coax into giving a chapo. Jokes apart, this is one of the best traditions of Roorkee that’ll stay life long with a person - it a platform for people to avail their bragging rights and share/get some gyaan, a reason to dance your stress away, celebrate achievements or maybe just a deceptive method of flirting with someone.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
>| Wona or IMG? | IMG |
|
||||
>| Your chapo toll? | Can’t keep count :P |
|
||||
>| Lowest grade point you've ever got? | 6 |
|
||||
>| Fav eatery in Roorkee? | Rustic, Hands down |
|
||||
>| SB Or KB? | KB |
|
||||
@ -1,73 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Heart To Heart with iGEM Chapter- IIT Roorkee"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
image: igem1.png
|
||||
excerpt: "iGEM is the largest worldwide synthetic-biology based competition, conducted every year at Boston, USA."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
*iGEM is the largest worldwide synthetic-biology based competition, conducted every year at Boston, USA. iGEM developed out of student projects conducted during MIT's Independent Activities Period, and has continued to grow with 310 teams (and 5400 members) entering the competition in 2017.
|
||||
With a large number of teams participating in this competition from over 40 countries across the world, and with numerous teams from India like IISER Bhopal and IIT Kanpur participating as well, IIT Roorkee decided to unfold its own iGem chapter this year. Despite the odds faced as a consequence of the unfortunate COVID-19 crisis, the iGEM Roorkee team, with a versatile bunch of highly energetic and enthusiastic minds, aim to achieve some really big laurels this year, and have been pushing hard for the same.
|
||||
Watch Out! decided to interview the members of this team along with the brains behind IITR's iGEM chapter - Sanjeevani Marcha, to get to know more about the kind of challenges they faced, their vision for their journey and to find out more about the competition itself.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: Could you elaborate on what iGEM is all about? How is it unique from other competitions around the world?
|
||||
|
||||
iGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machine and it is the largest undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition in the world. In the competition the teams engineer biological machineries like Bacteria, Yeast or Algae and use them to solve a local or global problem. In one full iGEM cycle (8-9 months) we start by identifying the problem, think of Synthetic Biology based solutions, conduct research and experiments and finally conceptualise the product to reach the main stakeholders and the market. iGEM is very popular in most of the Bioengineering schools across the world.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: You mentioned the term ‘synthetic biology’, for the sake of the readers, could you expand on what ‘synthetic biology’ means?
|
||||
|
||||
Synthetic biology is simply playing with the DNA and the genetic codes, eventually manipulating it to work according to our needs or deliver required products. For example; instead of using the roses for the production of rose scent, one can actually use a micro-organism, let’s say a yeast, and transfer the gene for the rose scent and make the yeast produce that scent. This will save the overuse of roses and roses won’t have to be cut for obtaining rose scent. Here, designer genetic circuits are made from various biobricks, each having some functionality, which are run in a cellular system that are usually bacteria. Every property that the natural world exhibits like, the scent of the rose, the color of the leaves, or the glowing of a jellyfish, it has a genetic code present in the fragments of its DNA. Through iGEM and other synthetic biology research these fragments are now standardised like the lego blocks. We arrange different Lego boxes to make a synthetic construct which is run inside a bacteria. To put simply, it is the amalgamation of engineering into biology, and hence, it is also known as Engineering Biology 2.0.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: How and where is the competition held? How are various teams pitted against each other?
|
||||
|
||||
There is no such ranking system to judge different teams. There are 3 grand prizes for the best overall projects. Medals (with no limits), special awards and track prizes. After the registration process, the teams start working independently on their idea, build their product and then present their work in a 4 Day event called the Giant Jamboree, held somewhere near October-November at Boston, USA. Earlier it was hosted in MIT (that is where it began), now in the Hynes Convention Centre and after 12 years iGEM is shifting to Paris next year! The teams have presentation sessions and poster sessions there. This international competition witnesses a participation of over 350 teams, from around 40-50 countries. There is a special category for high school students as well. We can’t do an iGEM project just with the people who know biotechnology. We need people who are good with computers, machine learning, effective communication, public relations, social science research, business mindset, designers, videographers, marketing and sponsorship. We conduct engagement workshops and seminars as a part of the project and talk to multiple stakeholders, create animations or maybe even make a comic! Then there are special awards where teams are acknowledged for a specific skill they fared well in. So if we have an amazing design & development team we can win a prize in that category. Or maybe if we couldn’t have sufficient experiments but work rigorously on the social front, we win a prize!
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: IITR will be participating for the first time in this year’s iGEM tournament. Where do you place your chances of winning? What kind of expectations do you have from the competition?
|
||||
|
||||
Yes, it’s our first time and full of fresh challenges. iGEM has 12 standard project tracks which are designed according to the problem a team is working on namely, therapeutics, diagnostics, environment, manufacturing, information technology, nutrition etc. The tracks clearly highlight that you can leverage any discipline of science or engineering and pair it with Biological systems. Our project is currently in the therapeutic and environment track and we have our eye on the Gold Medal. We are strategizing our team’s strength and will plan our way accordingly to maximize our chances of success.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: Are the members of iGem Roorkee Chapter, all Biotechnology students? How does one get to become a member of the team? Also, do you plan to expand the team?
|
||||
|
||||
First of all, all members are not Biotechnology students. iGEM is centred around the field of synthetic biology but it is not restricted to it. In fact, anyone can join the team. It simply depends on how you want to apply your knowledge in your respective field and incorporate your skills into the competition.
|
||||
Secondly, yes, we are planning to expand the team. Majority of the people we have in our team are involved in research. We need people who can manage our public engagement. We also need volunteers who can handle social media or are really good with content writing. Whenever we design a model, it needs to be mathematically validated with an exhaustive mathematical proof. We do not have the aid of someone with a strong mathematical expertise at our department, so we are looking for people who can help us in this regard. This year the competition has a major focus on dry labs (computational models, software design, product development). We will need impressive team videos and presentations for one of the medal criteria. So yeah, we are on a lookout for amazing videographers who can conceptualise and make it with us. Also, even if you can contribute to a small component of the project, all our work is documented and attributed to people who help us execute it. I believe that it is IIT Roorkee’s team - and if you have the time and capacity to enhance any part of the project, Roorkee’s chance to shine on the platform increases.
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: How does one go about selecting projects? Did you have a fixed list of projects to choose from?
|
||||
|
||||
No. We need to identify a problem in the community and solve it using biotechnology. For instance, seeing the rising antimicrobial diseases, we are trying to create a therapy alternative to antibiotics. Starting with an idea is the biggest challenge. There can be two ways to approach it- focus on the research areas of our institute or professors and align along those lines or observe the immediate problems around us and look for its biological solutions. We start with multiple ideas and eliminate them. We had done considerable work on an idea related to Ganga which was pursued vigorously by 2nd year students - Nitish, Pradum and Kushagra. It was an amazing idea with a high social impact, but further research revealed that it was complex and more expertise intensive, hence we had to drop it. Yeah, it’s heartbreaking.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: Sanjeevani Marcha, you are the brains behind the setting up of the iGEM Roorkee Chapter. Could you tell us what inspired you to go down this road?
|
||||
|
||||
My personal interest and passion for biotechnology encouraged me to embark on this journey of establishing the iGEM community at IIT Roorkee. At Roorkee, in a batch of just 28 students with hardly 2% having any interest in the subject, it is difficult to sustain your interest in research. Also the conventional research projects aren’t as exciting and rather exhausting. At iGEM, I saw 4000+ undergraduates, my age and even high school students, working passionately and creatively with biotechnology. All of them coming together in a grand celebration to change the traditional ways of science and biology impressed me deeply. When I first saw this website, I was utterly surprised to see this amazing community of biologists and engineers! The website is super intuitive and you are bound to be attracted if you have slightest of passion for Biotechnology. As I read more about the competition, I realized that this is a very serious platform, a huge global community, and there are Indian teams participating as well. When I researched further, I found IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IISERs, IISc etc, participating in it and a simple question came to mind- Why not IIT Roorkee yet? Our institute has all the resources and the Biotechnology department is already blooming with innovations. I became firm on bracing all the challenges with only one goal - iGEM IIT Roorkee and a teethy group picture with the traditional iGEM logo at the Hynes Convention Centre - Boston.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: What kind of challenges did you face while setting up this chapter?
|
||||
|
||||
Each and every kind possible! Starting anything new, and that too at IITR, is challenging and you face a ton of resistance. It is difficult to convince people to move out of the ‘set’ patterns, and take an initiative to pursue something different. First, I needed a team of like-minded people who could resonate with the grandeur of iGEM. Trust me, I didn’t get them till the very end. Many people liked the idea, but seeing the amount of uncertainty, difficulties and lack of direction lessened their trust and confidence. But on and off I always had people who were working with me on this. Not all were with me from the beginning, and not all stayed till the end. But I am grateful for everyone’s contribution because they helped in shaping it and most importantly kept me going on this path. Next it was difficult to convince the professors and draw their attention to our work - something that we really wanted to do, because we cannot do it without them. Good quality research and scientific aptitude is not very well developed in undergraduates. Hence Professors, PhDs and Lab managers are very significant components of iGEM Teams. It has been extremely difficult to convince a professor with the idea of iGEM and win their trust by a good idea that we can work on. Another big challenge was the financial aspect of the competition. It has a fancy registration fee plus the experiment costs and the logistics. The bottleneck was to get the money for registration, and going to the Jamboree. So all our efforts were directed in identifying the problem that we wanted to address and develop a solution that can convince our professors and the administration to invest in our team. I am really proud of Siddharth, a first year student who developed the idea from scratch, stood strong with me in this dream and sat together long hours writing the proposals and attending meetings with Professors. We literally went to more than 20 professors, TIDES, our HoD, the Dean, talking about iGEM & explaining our idea. Juggled team management, designing, content, research, networking, development and even online presence, finally making it through the funnel!
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: You have recently been officially recognised by our institute. What do you think is the next milestone in your journey?
|
||||
|
||||
Currently we are an independent body, but our ultimate aim is to be a part of the STC as a Biotech based technical group. Our idea is to first participate in the competition, prove our caliber and then we can try to streamline the process of integration into STC. This will improve our visibility and allow easy access to a lot of resources.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: We heard that IITR’s team was groomed by former participants from IISER Bhopal this year. How has this collaborative experience been? How does IITR’s BioTechnology education/research differ from other IITs/IISERs?
|
||||
|
||||
Teams are continuously encouraged to collaborate and have conjoined aspects in their projects, some shared work, and even have discussions on improving each other’s project. And the iGEM network is very helpful and so humble! When I reached out to the Indian circuit of iGEM Teams and asked for mentorship to start my own team, what factors to focus on, how to make a timeline and enhance communication, all of them were super helpful. We had discussions with ex-iGEMers and Team Leads and got amazing tips! We spoke to IISER Bhopal and simply asked the student team to mentor us and help us make it through our debut year. They were delighted to support us! The team is super energetic and always available to take our doubts and calls. We are planning to have some collaborative events with them as well.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: 2020 has been a unique year. Has it impacted iGem in any way?
|
||||
|
||||
Due to covid a major change is shifting to a Virtual Giant Jamboree (crying inside, no boston trip, MIT ke bahar photo, after parties and firangis, ohno). Also the committee has provided the teams with a lot of resources and tools to build our projects. We are given access to Benchling, snap gene, Twist Biosciences products along with numerous webinars, panel discussions, training sessions, virtual coffee hours, global slack channel and fun events to keep all the students connected and at the same time investing in cultivating new ways of working in biology without enzymes and pipettes. We are learning so much and thoroughly enjoying these gloomy uncertain days in isolation.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**WO**: How do you see the future of iGEM IIT Roorkee Chapter?
|
||||
|
||||
Personally, I wanted to establish this community on the campus that will speak of Biotechnology as “technology” and change the ways biotech undergraduates see their branch. Even if someone doesn’t want to pursue research, he/she can always participate in one iGEM season during their 4 years and it will be one of the most exhilarating journeys. This is one of the main reasons I strongly believe that iGEM can be a great success at IITR. It is truly multidisciplinary and something made for undergraduates who want to have a blast in science and research. Every year, people who come together for a project can decide which skills to focus on and leverage the project on that. We have an amazing set of people at Roorkee and expertise in every possible domain. Indian institutes generally face major challenges in pursuing iGEM because our researchers and professors aren’t very supportive of open-source or collaborative science. Also, they aren’t used to the glamour and energy that comes together on such platforms. If we start utilising our resources effectively, and we are able to showcase our caliber at this stage, I am sure our professors will trust us and fully support the teams.
|
||||
@ -1,41 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Memoir of a Selenophile "
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
image: priyanshi.JPG
|
||||
category: memoirs
|
||||
author: "Priyanshi Mishra"
|
||||
excerpt: "I’m sad today as this journey is ending. Although, you are the stepping stone of my life and I don’t want to leave you now but, there was a part of me that never wanted to come to you in the first place. I feel warm in your arms now."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Dear Roorkee,
|
||||
|
||||
I’m sad today as this journey is ending. Although, you are the stepping stone of my life and I don’t want to leave you now but, there was a part of me that never wanted to come to you in the first place. I feel warm in your arms now. I never really thought that you could make me feel this way because the start of our friendship was not an endearing one. You welcomed me with high humidity, scorching heat and AN khosla.
|
||||
|
||||
But it all began to change as your monsoon beauty washed away all my worries and apprehensions. Our friendship started getting better as I fell in love with the wholesome breakfast, late night strolling, unforgettable excursions by Himalayan Explorers’ Club, IITR lingo, killing boredom at student’s club, the calmness of Ganga, late night fun at cautley, enormous MGCL and much more that I cannot fathom. You gave me all that I needed vis-a-vis cool professors, well-equipped labs, never ending workshops, cerebral seminars, culinary club, fine arts section and most importantly a conducive environment for all my aspirations.
|
||||
|
||||
Since we met, you have completely changed for me. Obviously, in a good way. And I would very much like to thank you for:
|
||||
|
||||
Giving me a hard time adjusting to hostel life but at the same time, letting me take responsibilities for myself and handling the account all by myself.
|
||||
|
||||
Giving a garden facing room at Sarojini bhawan which helped me wake up early in the morning and kept me energized throughout the day to attend all the classes.
|
||||
|
||||
Making me realize that nothing can beat home cooked food by serving me a monotonous lunch and dinner all the time.
|
||||
|
||||
Helping me evolve through those never-ending challenges that kept coming my way and allowed me to embrace both the calmness of the night as well as the chaos of the morning.
|
||||
|
||||
The pocket friendly and really delicious snacks and music concerts at MAC, movies at convocation hall, festival celebrations at Saraswati temple that became one of the best ways to break the monotony and have fun.
|
||||
|
||||
Serving free beverages at Shiru café where I got a chance to relax after classes and enjoy great conversations with strangers, colleagues and friends.
|
||||
|
||||
All the bhawan days that gave me immense pleasure in wall painting, decorations, and getting a little bit too judgemental over other people’s contribution.
|
||||
|
||||
Introducing me to a grand Cult fest like “Thomso” where I got the chance to volunteer and participate in so many events.
|
||||
|
||||
Being my best friend, by giving me places to hide when I was sad and places to celebrate when I was happy.
|
||||
|
||||
However, I was sad that being a part of the batch of 2020, I’m not going to get a regular farewell or a chance to enjoy the prom night and convocation like other batches. We all are suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic but I’m glad that I got a little bit more time to enjoy with you. It’s not a normal ending though. But, what’s the fun in being normal? I’m going away from you and surely going to miss you a lot.
|
||||
|
||||
With love,
|
||||
Priyanshi
|
||||
@ -1,31 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Roorkee Chronicles"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
image: aritra.png
|
||||
category: memoirs
|
||||
author: "Aritra Dutta"
|
||||
excerpt: "It was March of 2018. We had butterflies in our stomach and adrenaline continuously rushing through our blood."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
It was March of 2018. We had butterflies in our stomach and adrenaline continuously rushing through our blood. It was the day of our JAM counseling result. After bearing all sorts of pain for three years at the undergrad level, finally it was the day of receiving something in return.
|
||||
The screen displayed “IIT-Roorkee”.
|
||||
|
||||
The next few moments were beyond description. I was utterly joyed. The preparations began from this day onwards. Next few months went by in no time and I arrived at one of the oldest engineering colleges of Asia, thousands of kilometers away from my home. But honestly speaking, on the day of our admission, when we were allotted our hostel rooms, I was actually disappointed. I was like “Seriously!!! Is this a hostel room or a bigger version of a cellular jail?? Are they going to treat us like criminals”…
|
||||
There were innumerable thoughts going on in my mind. But I was soon assured. It took almost no time to get used to the college’s hostel environment.
|
||||
We were supposed to have our first class nine days after our admission. So the very next day of our admission, when I got out of my bed the next morning, I had nothing to do except watch a few guys playing in the hostel ground. I couldn’t control myself and went to join them. Little did I know that this would become one of the permanent fixtures of my life.
|
||||
Although it was a cambise ball, I got my ring finger injured so badly that later on, the doctor informed me that I have a broken tendon. So technically, the string of my embarrassing moments had already begun; right from the second day of my hostel life. And it was to continue for the next two years.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Next major embarrassment was when I went cycling on the campus roads. I was riding down the slope in front of the library. That day, it was raining heavily. The above circumstances were enough to make me fall flat on my face.. I fell hard. Within the first two months, I had a damaged finger and a broken jaw. Sounds ideal hostel life…Right?!!
|
||||
Well, there were many more such “embarrassments” to come.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
But yeah, there were some good moments as well. I went to the very first trek of my life, all thanks to IIT Roorkee’s HEC. It was a 4 days trek to Chandrashila and Deoriatal. After a grueling semester, this was a major stress buster!
|
||||
|
||||
How can one forget the chilling cold winter mornings of Roorkee. And by the virtue of our dearest faculties. They gave us so much attention that we had to attend their classes as early as 7 AM in the month of January.
|
||||
Kudos to their dedication. And to our tolerance. :)
|
||||
|
||||
With one blink of our eyes, our first year was gone and we were standing on the verge of setting out foot on the accelerator of our career vehicle. Bhawan day, departmental fest, late night hangouts, football on rainy days, even hostel change; all these events added a myriad of colors to my two years of IIT life.
|
||||
The next six months passed well. I was in my last semester, where everyone had mixed feelings, before this pandemic set in.
|
||||
All the endless sleepless nights, parties, divine refreshments, will be missed. Life at IIT Roorkee has been a priceless memory I’ll cherish for the rest of my days.
|
||||
@ -1,105 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire: The Poet's Choice"
|
||||
image: fire.jpeg
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
author: "Pritika Mishra, Aditya Ramkumar"
|
||||
category: editorial
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*SPOILER WARNING*
|
||||
|
||||
*The following article contains extensive spoilers for the film ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. Readers are encouraged to watch the movie before they proceed.*
|
||||
|
||||
Most people love fried bhindi. To some (including Author P), it is the greatest thing on earth, a true delicacy and the most OP vegetable known to humankind. Yet despite repeated testaments to vendakya being the key to infinite intelligence and reassurance that ‘this is just a phase’, Author A dislikes (to say the least) this wretched organism from the depths of their existence. Imagine having your brain sheared off, cutting your fingers off, frying them and then eating them. You don’t need to imagine it, you already have. The only silver lining is that whichever genius decided to name this autotrophic piece of sinew ‘Lady’s finger’ has an imagination equally morbid and has learnt to hide it with subtlety.
|
||||
|
||||
The only relevant difference between Author A and Author P is their separate, individual reality. The finger remains the same, yet it receives such varied reactions. Rarely, if ever, do we investigate the working and interactions of our experiences, our senses and our desires. Céline Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire deals with these very concepts.
|
||||
|
||||
Portrait is a profoundly tender story about self discovery, becoming and the anticipation of coming to terms with being noticed by someone. It spends its time with the characters as they fall in love. Set in the 18th century, this forbidden queer period drama does a lot. We are introduced to Marianne right away, an artist teaching a painting class who notices one of her old (quite possibly secret) works ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. We are then taken back in time through Marianne’s memory.
|
||||
|
||||
Amidst the sounds of waves crashing, Marianne arrives on a remote island off the coast of Brittany after the Comtesse commissions her to paint a portrait of her daughter, Héloïse. Héloïse is to marry a Milanese nobleman. Before Marianne’s arrival, Héloïse had already spoiled her mother’s plans to have her portrait painted and sent to Milan for the prospective husband’s appraisal because she refused to sit for a male artist. Now, Marianne has the task of painting Héloïse in secret, while spending time with her in the guise of a walking companion.
|
||||
|
||||
Sciamma makes very specific use of camera angles and blocking. For most of the film, the viewer is placed in one of three perspectives - following Marianne from right behind her, watching Héloïse from Marianne’s perspective and wider shots of the characters interacting. While entire essays could be written on how the film deals with the concept of ‘The Gaze” from artistic and feminist perspectives, this technique also provides a third perspective, showing us from both the inside and the outside how a relationship develops.
|
||||
|
||||
For the first half of the film, Héloïse just wants to be ‘looked at’, to actually be seen as the person she is, and not just as an imaginary object in a painting. We know nothing about the Milanese nobleman, nor does anyone make any effort to describe him beyond those two words.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
To see someone is not as simple as it is made out to be. One could be very mechanical about it and describe only what is externally apparent - a person’s appearance, their clothes, their actions, their words. This is extremely reductive and impersonal. Any human being could describe any other human being in this way if they were in the same room as them, if they had a photo of them or if they walked past them on a busy street. This is what Marianne does initially. We keep looking at Héloïse’s hands, her hair, her eyes. Marianne’s focus is to draw Héloïse as accurately as possible, which means she needs a smile. She only cares about that expression and not the feelings that trigger it.
|
||||
|
||||
On a deeper level, as we are drawn to something, we attempt to learn how it works. Musicians learn music theory and appreciate the intricacies and brilliance of the composition and arrangement when they listen to a new song, beyond merely how it sounds to a lay-person. When it comes to people, we study their desires. To know someone is to know how they think and why they behave a certain way, to know what they want and to predict what they will need. Marianne realises that she is attracted to Héloïse and cannot bear to pretend anymore, even to herself. She realises that she has repeated the previous artist’s behavior and destroys her first portrait out of guilt.
|
||||
|
||||
Most people, especially in popular descriptions stop here. But there is a trap - human beings aren’t automatons. We can only guess at the motives of others based on what we see and what they themselves tell us. More importantly, we ourselves do not really know how our minds work. We analyse ourselves based on our own self-image, which is tainted by our biases, experiences and the knowledge that this is our own selves that we are trying to understand. A degree of uncertainty exists. Try taking an online personality test. The result will likely be what you predicted (and is probably not accurate) - the test told you what you think your personality is.
|
||||
|
||||
We don’t actually love other people because we don’t really know other people. We love the idea of them, our own mental automaton that thinks and acts like them. The closer the approximation, the healthier the relationship. We are stuck in our bubbles of momentary infatuation and myopic affection.
|
||||
|
||||
The film shows us this mind-numbing, suffocatingly exhilarating, early-stage love in the way we stop looking at specific parts of Héloïse and just stare in her general direction. We watch them play the harpsichord together, catching fleeting glimpses of each other from the corners of their eyes. When Héloïse finally agrees to pose for Marianne, we watch from a neutral perspective how the two fawn over each other, barely able to look each other in the eye, yet extremely concerned about the other. Marianne says ‘look at me’, so she herself can get a good look at Héloïse. The camera cuts to Marianne’s perspective exactly as she looks up. We gasp every time.
|
||||
|
||||
Marianne and Héloïse’s romance has to end. We know this from the very start. Halfway through the movie, the film makes its engagement with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, right when it’s starting to get evident that Marianne and Héloïse have feelings for each other. The dialogue, editing and composition in this scene makes it almost impossible to miss how iconic and relevant the myth is going to be to their story.
|
||||
|
||||
Héloïse wonders if maybe it was Eurydice who asked Orpheus to look back - perhaps she played a role in her own end. Marianne thinks differently - “He doesn’t make the lover’s choice, but the poet’s. He chooses the memory of her.” Later, when Marianne and Héloïse are forced to part themselves, neither is without agency - like her imagined version of Eurydice, Héloïse encourages Marianne to look back at her; and like her Orpheus, Marianne chooses not to regret, but to remember.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
These authors believe that both versions are true. The time Eurydice spent in the underworld and Orpheus spent alone in the human world has resulted in drastic changes in both of them. They are not who they were before and Eurydice realises this. She knows that their relationship is doomed and hell is a pretty comfortable place anyway.
|
||||
|
||||
In both stories, the artist in the relationship tries saving their love from “death”, figurative in the case of Héloïse and literal in the case of Eurydice. The artist then “looks back”, losing their lover, keeping with them only the memory of theirs.
|
||||
|
||||
The film plays with this idea from the beginning. The first time Marianne meets Héloïse, they go out on a walk with their faces covered. Héloïse makes a run for the cliff with Marianne (and us) fearing that she will jump off and kill herself like her sister, that the film will end before it has even started. But Héloïse stops and uncovers her face. The waves surge and she turns around.
|
||||
|
||||
The film's score is the score of real life. The surging of the waves, the crackle of the fire, the footsteps. Each moment is filled with intention. So when the film actually uses music, the scene's importance is emphasized automatically.
|
||||
|
||||
One of the most powerful scenes in the film features a group of local women chanting in front of a bonfire, producing a scene of community that nurtures the crescendo of desire between Marianne and Héloïse. Its status as a central turning-point is powerfully emphasized by its being one of only three scenes with music: in this case, a haunting acapella chorus that seems to emerge organically from the society of women around the fire. With its harmonies stacking ever higher, and with dynamics rising to match, the song in some way mirrors the flames, literal in the way Héloïse was in flames (which then goes on to inspire the titular painting that we see at the beginning of the movie) and figuratively, the flames igniting between the two characters. Héloïse and Marianne stare at each other, even as one catches fire, even as things change.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Class divisions also break down as the two form a friendship with the family maid, Sophie, accompanying her to get an abortion from a village medicine woman. Sophie lies on the same bed where the local woman’s infant plays. We see a close up of Sophie’s face, as the infants play with her. We watch as Sophie goes through pain and begins to cry, but the giggling baby next to her makes her smile, comforting her and clinging to her fingers. There is a conscious choice, in this scene, to depict Sophie as neither a demon nor a victim. Later that evening, at Héloïse’s suggestion, the three women re-create and paint Sophie’s abortion, an act that comes across as normal. By choosing to portray it, they deem it important, a story worth telling.
|
||||
|
||||
The film shows us all these different women come together, laugh, cry and support each other based on simple commonalities, proximity and good nature. The film also sends out a clear pro-choice message as it points out to us that we should not let out subjective notions cloud objective truths. Héloïse and Marianne care and support Sophie and do all the things that someone who ‘loved’ Sophie would do as well.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
The final scene of the film takes place long after the affair, Héloïse married and with a child. Marianne sees Héloïse, who is unaware of her presence, sitting alone in an opera house, and watches her former lover closely as the orchestra opens with the ‘Summer’ concerto of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons – the same piece of music that Marianne had played for Héloïse years ago on a harpsichord. Marianne remains fixed unflinchingly on Héloïse as she listens raptly, a wrenching sequence of expressions registering on her face, emotions heightened. Both women still remember those experiences and have feelings for the person they knew.
|
||||
|
||||
What makes this final shot of Héloïse so masterful is that it is from Marianne’s perspective. This is a movie which explores the power of observation, of appreciation for the subtleties of expression which make you appreciate the object of your desire that much more, telling us what desire and love and friendship could mean for women, when free from society’s patriarchy, even for a short period of time. Portrait is a memory of a love story; sad yet hopeful.
|
||||
|
||||
Even though this idea of perception, the idea of it being not one sided is nothing short of terrifying, at the end of the day, all we think we still want is someone to whom we can say
|
||||
‘Look at me.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Attached for your listening, here's a list of songs that we associate with the film.
|
||||
|
||||
- La Jeune Fille en Feu - **Para One, Arthur Simonini**
|
||||
- The Four Seasons (Summer) - **Antonio Vivaldi**
|
||||
- Your Wave Caresses me - **The Last Sighs of the Wind**
|
||||
- Saibo - **Sachin - Jigar**
|
||||
- In Exile - **The Pineapple Thief**
|
||||
- Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) - **Arcade Fire**
|
||||
- Gone - **The Head and the Heart**
|
||||
- Forget Not - **Ne Obliviscaris**
|
||||
- What About Me - **Snarky Puppy**
|
||||
- Like Real People Do - **Hozier**
|
||||
- Fade Into You - **Mazzy Star**
|
||||
- falkor - **Covet**
|
||||
- Visions of Gideon - **Sufjan Stevens**
|
||||
- I Want you to Want Me - **Letters to Cleo**
|
||||
- All I Need - **Radiohead**
|
||||
- It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus) - **Arcade Fire**
|
||||
|
||||
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04n1zPULrTqPPWFQL6Rswn?si=TA7o53oqS-auQu2HDk-p0Q](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04n1zPULrTqPPWFQL6Rswn?si=TA7o53oqS-auQu2HDk-p0Q){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
Miscellaneous
|
||||
|
||||
[Céline Sciamma breaks down adapting lyrics from Nietzsche, evoking witches and power of sorority, and the creation of the incredible scene.](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-song-bonfire-lyrics-chanting-1202211855/){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[What Portrait of a Lady on Fire Tells Us About "the Gaze"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMUC584ppNQ&t=179s){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[Portrait of a Lady on Fire review – mesmerised by the female gaze](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/01/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-review-celine-sciamma){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "An Ordinary Life"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
image: memoir_an_ordinary_life.jpg
|
||||
category: memoirs
|
||||
author: "Nipun Vashistha"
|
||||
excerpt: "This is an account of how I felt during college years, rather than what exactly I did in college."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
When I took up this job of writing a memoir, I honestly did not have any clue what I was going to write, and I am still struggling in my head to recollect as I write this. It is not that I do not have any memories of the last five years at Roorkee, or that it was not an eventful place to be. Infact, probably, there are just too many of them that I am not able to pick a few out of them to share with you. If you ask anyone how their college stint was, they might say it was too good, amazing, brilliant, extraordinary or maybe those with contrasting views saying it was competitive, overrated, and/or depressing. If you ask me how it was, it was ordinary. It was a series of ordinary days in the campus with your mates, waking up to find you have already missed the mess lunch timings and a few classes, having a love-hate relationship with mess and canteen food, looking at the same beautiful sunset everyday, getting excited about idea of getting an ice-cream sandwich, having a debate on ideas that would seem nonsensical to some, obsessing over a new Netflix series every month, cracking the same inside joke over and over again, walking in the campus for eternities observing the weird placement of trees in the campus, and ending your day just looking at the flickering stars in the night. It is interesting that as I write, I realise how there are so many things which makes up an ordinary day.
|
||||
|
||||
It is not that there were not days which were really eventful, when you go out and meet a lot of people, learn a bunch of new things, feel so full of life. In fact, I used to take part in a good deal of college activities and events, made a lot of friends that way, and it used to be a very exciting and great learning experience as well. You feel like you can do anything, you feel like cycling down the library slope, you feel like going on that trek you always wanted to, you feel like staying up all night for that dream job, you feel like working hard for that next start-up idea, you feel like jamming all night till you lose your breath, you feel like staying up all night with your friends and partying, you feel like finding the love of your life, you feel infinite and euphoric. And there were also days when everything seemed doomed, days when you feel like giving up on everything, days when you tell yourself that tomorrow will be a good day but it does not turn out to be, days when you ghost on all your friends. There are just so many ideas and ideologies moving around in college, that the journey of searching for a meaning might leave you in a place where you just end up feeling lost. In the second half of college, after the post JEE hangover was completely gone and I finally started to look at things as they were, I was so overwhelmed with different schools of thoughts that, first, I was impressed by the very existence of these different ideologies, I was impressed that I get to be around people who aspire to bring a change in the nation, or people who want to be literary geniuses, or people who feel for art as it is their life, or people who want to join the line of changing the world by a technological revolution. But in the end, after I peeked into all of those different paths and possibilities, I only found myself more lost than ever. Then one fine day, a guy who was referred to as ‘danger’ in my first year (trust me, he is one of the sweetest human beings I had the pleasure to know in college shoutout!), we were talking and I found a little life lesson between our conversation that ‘You gotta try, you will only know if you want to do it or not once you give yourself in and give it a try’. I guess that has encouraged me a little over the years to do things and not panic. I guess nobody has any answers for you except yourself. College seems like a pretty difficult place if you find yourself stuck in the loop of doomed days. **But what better time than college to be lost?**
|
||||
|
||||
Now the thing is, these exciting moments and the days in search for something, they were only the peak moments and I feel it is unfair to just remember or describe your college days based on the peak moments and leaving out the ordinary ones, because that would be like painting a beautiful incomplete picture, or making a really catchy song with only beats in it. And perhaps, wouldn’t it be just unfair to not speak about all of those days which were just okay?
|
||||
|
||||
As nostalgic and good college days and these memoirs sound like, in reality, it was a fair share of happy, really sad and ordinary days. But I still find myself cherishing that evening sunset outside my room the most. And when I look back, I realise that in some magical way, every single day that I have lived is now a part of me. My choices and dreams are not just impressions of the grand moments of my life but also of my everyday musings.
|
||||
|
||||
वक़्त को आते न जाते न गुज़रते देखा, जमा होते हुए देखा मगर उसको मैंने - गुलज़ार
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,22 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "A Memoir of Sorts"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
image: sorts.jpeg
|
||||
category: memoirs
|
||||
author: "Rajsuryan Singh"
|
||||
excerpt: "Four years ago, around this time, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in life. I wish I could still say the same thing."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Four years ago, around this time, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in life. I wish I could still say the same thing. College is supposed to be this transformative phase that you enter as a naïve kid and come out as a fully functioning adult having your life all figured out. The normalisation of this notion makes it much more difficult to accept when the puzzle pieces don’t fall together. Three years into college, as I looked at the puzzle with its pieces farther apart than they’ve ever been, I couldn’t help but wonder what drove me from clarity to chaos.
|
||||
|
||||
When I started college, I planned to pursue science, physics to be specific. I found a sense of comfort in objective descriptions of the world, a resolution from an otherwise uncertain reality riddled with grey areas. To put it in less pretentious words, a career in science just seemed really cool (I blame Richard Feynman). Also, the only other discernible skill I had was music - which I never saw as a potential career choice. My plan made total sense. What’s funny about it - or tragic depending on your sense of humour - is that I didn’t act on it at all during the first couple of years at college and spent all my time on music instead. While the details of how it happened have blurred out, I vividly remember the consequences.
|
||||
|
||||
Music has been an amusement for as long as I can remember. However, my relationship with it was fairly underdeveloped before college. Growing up in a small suburban town, the only other musicians I knew were old harmonium and percussion players who’d play at religious gatherings - not something a 13-year-old John Mayer fan could vibe with. All of my exposure to good music came from the internet, and I am utterly grateful for its existence, but it misses out on a very important factor of effective learning—a like-minded peer group. College gave me access to competent musicians who asked similar questions, had a similar understanding and shared a similar relationship with music. I could always find people willing to listen and talk about anything interesting I came across and the other way around. Showing someone an idea I was working on, as they casually dropped by my room, would turn into full-blown songwriting sessions (true story, happened several times!). And the best part is that people bring in influences from diverse sources, musically and otherwise. Conversations that started with music would often branch off to math, philosophy, art, literature or even accounts of tragic - or funny depending on your sense of humour - life experiences. I credit a large part of my development as a musician to such instances - instances that also happen to form most of the reminiscent highlight reel that plays in my head while writing this. However, the more I progressed as a musician, the farther I strayed from my original “plan”.
|
||||
|
||||
I didn’t realise it as it happened, but I gradually lost touch with science. I wasn’t doing too bad academically, but I was sort of faking my way through it. Most of my coursework was not particularly demanding, and a day or two of studying was enough to get a decent grade. A lot of it was learning factual information, the rest was barely an extension of high school chemistry. To be fair, that’s probably a gross oversimplification and perhaps a misrepresentation of the courses, the two-day marathon study sessions are not built for nuance after all, but that’s what I remember. Science was not as exciting as it used to be. It started feeling like a hopeless relationship I had grown out of but was too afraid to walk away from. I started entertaining the idea of dropping it altogether and doing music full-time. But it wasn’t a time to be able to afford rash decisions, so I decided to give myself a semester to figure things out. What followed was several weeks of introspection and existential dread. And binge-watching Bojack Horseman, which might have been a trigger. I started working on the internship applications, scoured through research fields even remotely related to my major, and by the end of the semester, found several areas that piqued my interest and provided me with the much-needed intellectual stimulation. More importantly, I had a couple of realisations about the things I found fulfilling and the reasons thereof (content warning - loads of armchair philosophy ahead!).
|
||||
|
||||
I realised that every fulfilling activity for me has the same anatomy - there are long periods of mildly unpleasant monotony followed by little moments of genuine excitement. The excitement almost always comes from an acknowledgement of beauty - whether it’s in an elegant mathematical proof or a soul-stirring guitar solo. It doesn’t have to be as profound, even seemingly insignificant things like a clever calculation trick or a subtle unexpected drum fill have a similar effect. And I believe that your ability to appreciate beauty and hence find joy in something is proportional to your proficiency in it. The more deeply you understand something, the more enjoyable it becomes. This brings me to the puzzle I mentioned earlier. If I were to believe whatever I have written in this paragraph, as invalid as it may be beyond the confines of my mind, it becomes obvious to do whatever you’re the most competent at as your career. At the same time, it becomes impossible to decide between things that you enjoy equally and are equally mediocre at. Whichever way you think about it, there seems to be no satisfactory way to choose what becomes a career and what is relegated to a means to fill spare time.
|
||||
|
||||
Coming back to the real world that doesn’t conform to idealistic personal philosophy, you have to factor in things like financial stability, relevant education, and available opportunities while making career choices. A career in science makes practical sense given the formal education, relevant experience and all, and it’s significantly easier to do music as a hobby than the other way around. So that’s what I’m doing, for the time being. My plan, while being turned upside down several times throughout college, is still kind of the same. But there's a catch - it still comes with the same caveats. A few years down the line if I significantly improve as a musician, I'm pretty sure that I’m going to have another one of these crises, and the trend will probably continue for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, having gone through it once, I’ll be better equipped to deal with it. Now, to end this as abruptly as college did for me, I'll just say that whatever college entails for you is highly unpredictable, plans fall apart, new ones are formed, and in the process, you go through unforeseen self-discovery (the proof is trivial and is left as an exercise for the reader).
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,117 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation with The Wellness Center"
|
||||
image: "wellness-center.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "Watch Out! spoke to Dr Shikha Jain and Mr Ashfaq Ahmad of the Wellness Center about mental health and the facilities available to the IIT Roorkee populace."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Could you tell us what it means to be mentally healthy?
|
||||
|
||||
**Dr Shikha Jain (SJ):** Being mentally healthy is a dynamic state of internal equilibrium - a harmonious relationship between the mind and the body. According to the World Health Organisation, mental healthiness is a state of well being, in which an individual can realize their capabilities or abilities, and can cope up with normal stressful situations. She/He can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his/her community or society, so in short, we can say that it is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being.
|
||||
|
||||
**If someone thinks that they have a mental health issue, what should be their first approach? How should they deal with it?**
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** You should visit professionals - only they can decide if you truly have a mental issue, and the severity of it. Then the best kind of treatment for your issue is decided by them.
|
||||
|
||||
**Mr Ashfaq Ahmad (AA):** So we need to look into three parameters - our emotions, behaviour and thought processes. For example, one indication is when any lifestyle change disturbs your mental equilibrium or your functionality because of your emotions, thought process and your behaviour. Then, of course, you need to meet a mental health professional or counsellor. A counsellor is a trained person who can identify and assess the level of the problem, and can give the intervention needed.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** A lot of myths surround the description of various common mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. What do these illnesses actually look like? What does the treatment look like?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Actually, one needs to understand that mental illness is very different from physical illness. We can see and diagnose physical illnesses - for example if a person has fever, we can measure the temperature with a thermometer; if a person has a cut, one can see the wounds. But when it comes to mental health- one can’t simply gauge the severity of anxiety or depression by just externally viewing the situation.
|
||||
|
||||
So, the first thing to do is, approach the professionals so that they can then decide what kind of treatment is required for that particular situation, after taking into consideration various factors. In the case of depression - an aged person would display different symptoms as compared to a child. A depressed adult may feel sad, may be slow to react, or he may even say he doesn't feel like doing anything. But in the case of a depressed child, it is different. A child may be a bit aggressive while depressed and may also show tangible effects like poor performance in school. So, the symptoms and severity vary from person to person and depend on age as well.
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** One very important thing to address is our society’s wrong perceptions about mental illness. There is a norm of labelling a person “crazy” if they display ‘deviant’ behaviour. So, our main responsibility is to identify the problem in the initial stage itself. Usually, we are not able to do that. Especially in the case of anxiety and depression. If it is identified and solved in the initial stage- it won't render the person too dysfunctional. A mild level of depression or mild level of anxiety is easily treatable with psychotherapy or some kind of medication. But, if because of the social stigma surrounding these issues, one hesitates to meet the mental health professionals, the mild anxiety issue may become extreme. This is when the person becomes dysfunctional, starts having suicidal thoughts or loses the energy to do anything. And so, there is a great need to reduce these myths from the community. Answering the final part of your question regarding the treatment - basically, there are two models we usually follow. One is psychotherapy, where the counsellors interact with and help the person cope with the anxiety or try to alleviate the depressive state. Second is medication, wherein we basically prescribe medicines to try and reduce or cure the symptoms.
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Collaborations in which psychologists, counsellors and psychiatry all work together give really good results. Currently, in IIT Roorkee, we are doing the same thing with the counsellors and consulting psychiatrists.
|
||||
|
||||
**So in IIT Roorkee, do we now have both psychologists and psychiatrists in the Wellness Center?**
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Yes, the physiatrists are available in the IITR hospital and we counsellors are available in the Wellness Center. Sometimes the counsellors may accompany the student to the psychiatrist at the IITR hospital to make them comfortable.
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** The point was to emphasise on the collaboration we do, that we collaboratively work along with psychiatrists. We are not working independently- and so when we consider doing an intervention, the psychologists discuss the case with the psychiatrists and vice versa. So we are on the same page, and have a proper module for our intervention.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** How frequently do the students and members of IIT R visit you? How open and frank are they during these visits (in terms of wanting to discuss their issues)?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** *At present we have around 8 to 10 students visiting the Wellness Center daily. They come to not only discuss their mental health issues but also if they have any kind of academic, financial or scholarship related problems, wherein they do not know whom to approach.* We are now planning to establish some more activities in the Wellness Center so that students feel free to come and discuss any problems. These activities that will be organised will be done in hopes of removing the social stigma and spreading awareness.
|
||||
|
||||
Now regarding the second part of your question. The level of frankness and familiarity depends on the rapport achieved between us and the student. First of all, we try to establish some rapport with the student and that might take more than one session. Once that is done, the students are more at ease and are more open in discussing their concerns and their feelings. Usually, with psychological problems, childhood history (i.e the growth period during their school days) is also very important. So, gradually they open up about themselves, and how they feel about their family, friends etc. A lot of ‘trust’ barriers need to be passed before the student is able to communicate freely with the counsellor.
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** So earlier, the concept of counselling focussed on just treating mental illnesses. People came to the counselling center with just their mental health concerns. However, now we are also looking at something called ‘positive psychology factors’, where we help the students answer questions like- “How can I be more attractive in my personality?”, “How can I be more self-confident while working?” or “How can I bolster my warm relationship with everyone?”.
|
||||
|
||||
Basically, apart from mental illnesses, we are also taking care of other areas like personality development. The first step was that we changed our counselling center name - now as you know, it's a wellness center. The message being that we take care of the entire well being of the student.
|
||||
|
||||
<br />
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Based on your experiences so far, how would you describe the mental health literacy of IITR when students come to visit you? Are they educated in terms of what they are feeling? Do they know that these illnesses are legitimate?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Well, usually students do a lot of research using the internet before coming to us. So, they are not entirely unaware of their symptoms.
|
||||
|
||||
The entire Wellness Center team is working hard to remove the stigma surrounding these issues, and spread literacy about mental health issues. The aim is that students should be able to recognise symptoms of anxiety, stress or depression early on, and should feel free enough to approach us immediately. Then we will be able to take care of their mental health smoothly during the early stages of the illness. And secondly, in my opinion, every student body in IITR should come forward and help us in our mission to stop this spread of social stigma regarding mental health. The members of the wellness team can't achieve this on their own. When all the bodies come together and collaborate, work is done more effectively. For example, Wellness Center has their own web page, Facebook page and we regularly upload mental health-related articles. I feel the team should consist of more students, to work better and effectively.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** I think we really need to appreciate the activities and work done by Team Wellness because it's a students’ volunteer body. They're working hard to spread mental literacy. *In the last two years alone, Team Wellness has conducted almost 30 programs in IIT Roorkee. It's almost like one program per month, and each was related to mental health. So I can say with some confidence that IIT Roorkee is quite literate about mental illness.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** I want to give one example - in 2018, the Dramatics section put up a street-play “Jimmedar Kaun” (Who’s responsible?). In that, they addressed suicide and related concerns.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** I would like to add that this time, Wellness Center conducted and organized the Orientation Program. This was really helpful, since we were able to introduce ourselves to the student community from the very first day, and were able to convey the message that we are there to help them, to facilitate their well being. I think you all must have also received emails regarding the lectures, bhawan visits and various competitions we organize from time to time. Therefore we're now taking an active stance to promote literacy about mental health.
|
||||
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** What are some policies that the institute has adopted regarding mental health issues? For example, what is the institute’s policy when it comes to prescribing medication for mental illnesses?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Mental Health Act 2017* has given us the proper guidelines, and normally we and the psychiatrists follow those. Sometimes we need to take help from the administration - e.g. suppose a person is having self-harm or suicidal tendencies, we may need to inform the parents. Before doing that, we - i.e. the counsellors and psychologists - together assess the situation. After informing the parents, the administration also accommodates the family on campus so that they can stay with their wards to provide emotional, psychological support and also take care of the treatment. I have seen sometimes that students stop taking their medicines or forget to take them. That is not good, this might worsen the student’s situation. We involve the administration when there is a threat to somebody’s life - only in severe cases like severe depression, drug abuse. In those particular cases, we need to inform the parents. That is because we prefer the parents to come to stay with their wards to take care of their emotional and mental health as well as supervise their treatment. So as far as confidentiality is concerned, we maintain confidentiality throughout the whole session, it is only breached in certain rare cases.
|
||||
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** To break the stigma surrounding the treatment of illnesses, could you tell us what life for students after being diagnosed with illnesses like anxiety and depression looks like in terms of how they carry on with their daily life, how often they need help etc.?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Following good lifestyle practices like having a proper balanced diet, doing regular physical exercises and most importantly sleeping for a good 6-8 hours is essential for improving and maintaining mental health. In IITR I have seen that students often don’t follow a proper diet and sometimes believe that just three or four hours of sleep is enough. But now more and more research is being conducted which says that six to eight hours of sleep is necessary for every adult, in order to work efficiently. Another important advice for those who are prescribed medications to combat anxiety or depression - they should not stop or change their medicines without any supervision or guidance.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** We use either psychotherapy and pharmacological management (i.e. medication) to treat the student. In psychotherapy, we have different modules like cognitive behavioural therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, behavioural therapy. These are very, very effective, in reducing or removing altogether the depression, anxiety and mood disorder symptoms. How some psychotherapy modules work is that they help people cope with their daily stress which lightens their mood and brings in positive emotions. So when they get this hope, this positive emotion actually reduces the chances of going back to the same illness. For example, suppose someone failed an exam. This might lead them to have a mixture of constant negative emotions like irritability, disappointment, sadness. But they need to understand that it's okay, they just need to strengthen their strategy to get a better score next time. If one thinks in a positive manner, of course, they will have the energy or positive emotion to make more such steps and eventually get more marks. The first step in the positive direction matters.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Yeah, one more thing I need to add is that in anxiety and depression, one should change his own thought processes and perception. For example, if you have a friend who called you, but you don’t pick up right away as you’re busy. If your friend has anxiety, he/she might think that you didn’t pick up the phone on purpose, because you’re trying to avoid the person. This is quickly followed by a negative and harmful rationalisation in the person’s head. So the ones suffering from depression/anxiety ultimately need to change their perception, need to turn their thought processes from being negative to being positive. *A lot of daily situations can be viewed under a negative light or a positive light. It therefore depends upon the person, and therapy and medication strive to inculcate these positive thought processes in the person.*
|
||||
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Movies like Requiem For A Dream, and TV shows like Bojack Horseman have been successful in portraying mental illnesses/substance abuse problems and bringing mental health to the forefront of social discussions. What is your stance on such movies and shows?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** These types of movies and shows are very good. They break the stigma surrounding such taboo topics and spread awareness regarding mental health. For example, movies like Padman have made it easier for people to talk about menstrual health issues. In fact, I feel showing such movies to the student community would do a great deal in breaking the stigma and spreading more awareness too. I firmly believe that if the whole student community comes up and takes even the smallest step to spread awareness it will have a massive positive effect. The concerned student groups can recommend such movies and get them screened. “A Beautiful Mind” is an example.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** These movies and series can be highly impactful. I would recommend “The Aviator” which depicts OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). These movies are highly influential because of the way they depict a person afflicted with an illness, and the struggle they go through before eventually getting better. Movies like “Requiem For a Dream” and “Udta Punjab” show the transition between stages of the lives of the subjects that occur due to substance abuse. Series like “Breaking Bad” and “Bojack Horseman” also depict some very harmful drugs. But movies can be double-edged swords.
|
||||
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** Meme culture and meme pages are ubiquitous and rampant. All of us have been exposed to the same at various points in our life. In light of recent events (like the expose of a private, misogynistic and offensive social media group ‘Boys Locker Room’), how do you think the psyche of students across the country have been affected (men and women)?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** In the case of “Boys locker room”, we need to create more awareness among the parents and students at the school level. Also, accountability on digital platforms must be increased.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**AA:** This problem is typical in the millennials. Adolescents are in the midst of an identity crisis. They are unable to conceive their place in society. So, they prefer being on social media in order to conceal themselves, and are content with projecting a different identity. It is similar to how children experiment with smoking in order to appear similar to adults. The ability to put out content anonymously is proving to be quite dangerous.
|
||||
|
||||
<br/>
|
||||
|
||||
**WO:** The Mental Health Wellness Centres at universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have a rigorous and well maintained online presence in terms of the documentation of these illnesses, their treatments, the university policies, session booking mechanisms etc. Are there any plans for doing something similar in IITR?
|
||||
|
||||
**SJ:** Currently, an online Google Form can be used to book a session and we are providing online counselling also. During this pandemic, we are providing the online sessions in the form of video, audio or chat; with confidentiality maintained throughout the session.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
We maintain records as well, but only to be used during sessions as a reference, in case of a change of counsellors. We are available 24X7 (YourDost for normal cases and counsellors for emergencies)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
We do have a web page and we are currently working on this domain. Our web designers are collaborating with us and completing all the relevant details there. Soon, the information regarding psychiatrists, counsellors and speech therapists will be uploaded there.
|
||||
|
||||
[Link](https://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Mental%20Health/Mental%20Healthcare%20Act,%202017.pdf)
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,82 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: Google STEP"
|
||||
image: "ishita-kaul-1.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Ishita Kaul"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Like most of the second year students, I was clueless about what I wanted to do in the summers after my second year of college. I talked to a couple of seniors and close friends. They all advised to either go for a research or a corporate intern. Both seemed rather good options. But for a research intern you need to know which specific field you are interested in. But all I knew was that I like computer science. I had explored a number of fields like Computer Vision, Software Development, OS, Competitive programming, etc (I have been doing a lot of exploration since my first year!). And I found all fields rather interesting. So, I finally realised that a company intern would be the most appropriate choice for me.
|
||||
|
||||
Then I again talked to a few seniors (I keep bothering them!) and finally got to know about the Google STEP programme. For me Google was one of the dream companies I wanted to be a part of. So, I sincerely started preparing for it. And after 3 rounds of interviews and a few weeks of waiting I finally got a call saying I have received the offer. I was extremely delighted. I could see months of efforts finally paying off.
|
||||
It was amazing being a part of Google family via STEP Internship programme. This experience has been very enriching and will go a long way in shaping my future.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# What is the STEP Programme?
|
||||
|
||||
Google Student Training in Engineering Program, or commonly known as STEP Internship is a programme for 1st and 2nd year undergraduate women who are passionate about technology and computer science.
|
||||
|
||||
# Selection Procedure
|
||||
|
||||
The process of application started in the first week of December. In the first round the students were shortlisted based on their resume and transcript.
|
||||
I was amongst the few selected candidates. We were told about the programme details in an informative session after being shortlisted. We were also given tips on how to prepare for the upcoming interviews in the session.
|
||||
|
||||
Second round was the technical Interview round. I had 3 interviews (number of interviews vary from person to person) each of 45 minutes. Interviews were conducted on Google hangouts and we had to write our code for the problems on Google docs. There are usually 1-2 programming questions per interview (This may vary based on the interviewer). I was asked 1 programming question in each interview. If you are asked less questions compared to your peers it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't stand a chance!
|
||||
|
||||
After these interviews your candidature is sent to the hiring committee for review and then within a few weeks you get a call / mail regarding your candidature.
|
||||
|
||||
# Preparation Tips
|
||||
|
||||
So, this is the most important part & most probably why you are reading it!
|
||||
So, let me walk through my journey of preparation.
|
||||
I love to solve riddles and math problems. So, when I started my first semester, I was introduced to competitive programming by my peers. This field absolutely took me by surprise. It was everything I was looking for. Challenging problems and coding contests! So, I became an active participant on a number of coding platforms like codechef, codeforces, atcoder, etc.
|
||||
Apart from that I also kept exploring other areas like computer vision, OS, basics of software development and so much more. Computer Science never stops to amaze me with it's diversity and practical applications being put to use. I did a couple of self-projects, and a few projects under professors at IIT Roorkee.
|
||||
Also, at IIT Roorkee we have this amazing culture of campus groups. In my opinion, working under various campus groups can also be a great way to enhance your skills in different fields. But on the other hand, not being part of groups cannot stop you from achieving what you want. Just be curious and explore! (that is what is college meant for right?)
|
||||
Coming on to the interviews, I gave a couple of mock interviews with my friends to get better at it. Listening to the problem carefully and being vocal about your thoughts and ideas even when they aren't the most optimised solution to the problem is extremely important.
|
||||
For increasing your problem-solving skills, doing competitive programming on a regular basis can be very helpful.
|
||||
But the most important of all is ENJOY THE JOURNEY.
|
||||
|
||||
# Challenges due to COVID-19
|
||||
|
||||
My first and foremost worry was if the internship would get cancelled or not. I was really worried about it. But soon we came to know that Google had shifted the internship to the virtual mode. This was a big relief for me. Though I was a bit disappointed that I would not be able to visit the Google office, being a part of Google even during these trying times was an awesome feeling.
|
||||
|
||||
To my surprise I received a laptop and a big screen monitor a day after my internship started. I could never have imagined that I would be getting all this amidst the pandemic. Now, I actually started feeling like I am working in an office at home!(I created a small work-desk for myself at home).
|
||||
|
||||
Another change was that most of the projects were open-source and not google's internal project. But the projects were quite varied and exposed us to a variety of new concepts.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
We even got goodies delivered to us at our home like t-shirts, caps and a lot more.
|
||||
One of the things that worried me was if I'll be able to interact with other interns and Googlers because of the virtual mode of the internship. But that was also very well-planned by the company. We had regular meet-ups with other interns and had many fun talks and activities that kept us engaged throughout the internship.
|
||||
Many online tech-sessions, with Google leaders, were also organised about various fields in computer science and its impact in the near future.
|
||||
We even played a lot of online games! It was amazing and far beyond what I had expected from a virtual internship.
|
||||
|
||||
# My project
|
||||
|
||||
I was part of the GPay team at Google. I worked with 2 other amazing STEP Interns.
|
||||
|
||||
My project was aimed at developing an application which would reduce the waiting time spent in physical queues outside a shop. The project was targeted for a pandemic-like situations.
|
||||
|
||||
Every project group was allotted a mentor and a co-mentor. These are the people who guide you throughout your internship. They monitor your progress and also give you frequent feedback about what needs to be improved. They are the people you would most often interact with during your internship.
|
||||
|
||||
Both my mentors were super-awesome and all of us had a lot of fun together!
|
||||
|
||||
# Work Culture
|
||||
|
||||
Work culture is very amazing at Google. I never felt like an Intern. I always felt like I was an employee. My opinions were heard and valued. There were very constructive discussions regarding what is best for the project. Each person in our team brought different insights to the table. This really increased the depth of my thinking.
|
||||
The work hours were very flexible and we got weekends off too.
|
||||
Respecting each other's opinion and valuing great ideas are the core values of Google's culture.
|
||||
|
||||
# My Key Takeaways
|
||||
|
||||
In the beginning the entire project seemed daunting. But you learn along the way and get better at it. Just having the confidence that "you will figure it out" goes a long way.
|
||||
|
||||
I realised that I should never shy away from asking doubts and questions. Everybody was more than willing to help when I was stuck.
|
||||
|
||||
Working in a team gives exponentially greater results than working alone. This is something I learnt while working there. People with so many varied ideas and views lead to an amazing product that can be used by millions of users.
|
||||
|
||||
Making mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of. It's part of learning and growing. I made many mistakes, but I always made sure never to repeat them.
|
||||
|
||||
The entire internship experience was very astounding and satisfying. I was already overwhelmed by the experience when, a few weeks later, I received a call informing me that I have received a PIO (Pre-Internship offer) from Google. This was an icing on the cake. :))
|
||||
@ -1,59 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Filter coffee: Sidharth Thomas"
|
||||
image: sidharth.png
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
excerpt: "Sidharth is a recent graduate from the department of ECE (Batch of ‘20) and has worked extensively in electronics research. After two foreign internships and a smashing BTP, he will now begin a PhD at UCLA, working with THz circuits."
|
||||
category: filtercoffee
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Sidharth is a recent graduate from the department of ECE (Batch of ‘20) and has worked extensively in electronics research. After two foreign internships and a smashing BTP, he will now begin a PhD at UCLA, working with THz circuits. Here is an excerpt from our conversation with Sidharth.*
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - What is the craziest thing you have done on campus?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I have several crazy but fond memories from IITR. During one particular birthday celebration, we painted an old Thomso banner with some questionable graphics and made a friend wear it.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - What do you do in your free time?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I usually don’t get much free time, but when I do, I spend my time reading or watching some random sitcom. I have also started practising the piano recently.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - You changed your branch from Chemical to ECE in your first year. What were your reasons behind this and was it on your mind since the outset of the 1st semester?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - Like any other first-year student, a branch change was on my mind the moment I started at IITR. I did not have any interest in chemical engineering, and strangely, my original plan was to shift to Mechanical. However, towards the end of the first semester, I followed the questionable CSE>ECE>EE trend, with no particular expectations. Eventually, I landed in ECE, and I believe things have worked out pretty well since then.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - For a multitude of reasons, research is not popular among the UG junta, so much so that most people would not even know about their own classmates doing exceptionally well in research. What do you feel are the problems that result from this? What would you suggest as a means to improve this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - Yes, I feel IITR has a poor research culture among undergrads compared to other top IITs. There are multiple reasons behind this, but mainly, I think this is because of our hugely popular coding culture, and students wrongly associating a high GPA as a prerequisite for research.
|
||||
This creates a herd mentality where students rarely explore their departments. Professors also develop trust issues with undergrads and become reluctant to provide them with good projects. Moreover, IITR has very few collaborations with reputed universities. Some institute policies make things difficult for students doing foreign internships or semester exchanges.
|
||||
I feel first-year students should be provided more opportunities to be involved in research, such as a paid on-campus summer internship. Course projects and assignments need to be more open-ended and design-centric. There should be a greater amount of academic flexibility and more international collaborations and tie-ups. At the ECE department, we discussed making the BTP optional so that students interested in research get more attention and resources. That being said, things have been steadily improving in the last two years.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - You did two research interns abroad, in Israel and Canada. How was your experience? What do you think are the differences between research abroad and in India in electronics?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I had an amazing experience at both places. These internships helped me understand how it is to pursue research as a career and was instrumental in me deciding to join grad school. I met some great researchers and had intriguing discussions with them. Besides this, I feel living independently in a foreign country has helped me gain a broader perspective.
|
||||
I feel there are equally talented people in India and abroad. But there is a vast difference in funding. Funding is critical in cutting edge research. I also noticed a high level of collaboration and interdisciplinary research. For instance, the group that I worked with in Canada had partnerships with a hospital. Most of the research groups had close associations with the industry. This ensures that the projects they work on are relevant. Besides this, people were very professional and treated me as their peer and not as a student.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - How did you decide that you wanted to do a PhD? Having worked with different types of circuits, how did you narrow down your area of interest?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I think the two internships helped me get a good taste of research. It is, at times, frustrating, requiring long hours of reading and a ton of patience. But the result is worth it. A job in the industry would mean that you work on a part of a random project, but in a PhD, you usually get to decide and design your own project. It is ‘your’ brainchild, and you become the absolute ‘expert’ in your domain. This holds a certain beauty. I am also open to pursuing a career in academia. So, I feel a PhD is the right logical choice for me.
|
||||
As an undergrad, it’s quite tough to find an area that interests you. The only way is to keep an open mind and explore. I tried my hand at ML, computer architecture, and device physics, before switching to circuits. And then, I studied circuits, working on different applications. I was always interested in 5G/6G communication technology and how circuits behave at such high frequencies. This eventually led me to the domain in which I am pursuing my PhD.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out**! - You are among the few on campus to work on RFIC and THz circuits. What advice would you give to others who would like to do research in areas where local guidance is scarce?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - This is a good question and is especially important, considering the current pandemic situation. In the absence of local guidance, you probably will not be able to work on a project directly in your area of interest, but you can work on similar or complementary areas. There are several directions to approach a problem. If one particular direction requires guidance, which is scarce, you can try a different one. All this adds to the experience. You can also try pitching your idea to a professor. He/she might be interested in exploring this area with you, and in fact, this is how I started my research at IITR. Also, look for internships. I would recommend reading as much as you can. Try reading papers, PhD theses, and books, anything you can get your hands on. Participate in online discussion forums. Look for pioneers in the area, what they are doing now, their peers, etc.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - Considering that you moved to Roorkee from Kerala, what were the main challenges, if any, while adapting to the culture on campus, including language and communication barriers. Do you think that some groups struggle more in adapting to college life, even though there’s a pan India populace on campus?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I struggled a bit during my first year due to some communication barriers. I left two campus groups during my first year since I could not follow their conversations. There were also labs where I got fewer grades since I could not communicate answers in Hindi. I did adapt eventually, but to answer your question, yes, there are groups that struggle in adapting to IITR due to language-related issues.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - If you had the time and resources, what campus group would you start and why?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - This is not something that I would be interested in. However, I wish people at IITR would stop joining groups merely out of peer pressure or for a POR, and instead, follow their interest.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - As a member of the IEEE Student Branch SIG, what is the best thing about the group? What do you think is the future of the group?
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - The purpose of the IEEE Special Interest Group is to bring together a group of students who are interested in electronics. We have tried to create a culture where there is no ‘secretary’, ‘associate member’, or even a ‘sir’. Anybody can drop-in, interrupt, or leave a discussion. I like this informal nature of the group. Last year, we helped organize a project demo for the first year ‘Intro to ECE course’. It was a fun experience, and our juniors had some amazing projects on display.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!** - Customary question: What do you think of Watch Out!
|
||||
|
||||
**Sidharth** - I think you guys are doing a solid job. I remember reading Watch Out ‘Summer Diaries’ back in 2016.
|
||||
That being said, this interview has been fun and unexpected. Thank you!
|
||||
@ -1,49 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: NTU Singapore"
|
||||
image: "ajitesh-shukla-1.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Ajitesh Shukla"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
I recently did my 9-week summer internship remotely at NTU Singapore. In this article, I will be summarising how I got there and my experience during the internship.
|
||||
|
||||
# Before applying
|
||||
|
||||
My interest in the research field developed during my 2nd-year internship at SPARK, IITR. I worked in the domain of Computational Mechanics for the analysis of inflatable membranes used in space structures. I had a good experience and wanted to explore more in the research field. I had in mind from the start of the internship season that I wanted to do a research internship, and I had a decent research experience to back that up. I also applied for some core R&D profile companies, but had no luck there.
|
||||
|
||||
# Making It There
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
I applied for the specific internship programs DAAD, Mitacs, and NTU-India Connect. I also mailed professors working in the domain of my interest in some of the top universities in Europe. I got selected for the NTU-India Connect program and also for Summer Fellowship at EPFL, Switzerland. I’ll give a brief about how I got selected in both the universities.
|
||||
|
||||
I started mailing from the start of October and sent personalised emails to about 30-40 professors. I glanced at their recent work and mentioned how it relates to my interests in the mails. I got a few replies pertaining to lack of funding, no openings, etc., but it was good that they were giving time to read my application, and I kept going. A professor from EPFL showed interest and scheduled an interview with me in January. It went great, and he was willing to take me for a summer internship. He couldn’t provide me with funding, so he asked me to apply to one of their internship programs, the EPFL Excellence in Engineering (E3) fellowship, for funding. In the application, I had to submit a Statement of Purpose (SOP), (which I had already prepared before I started mailing), my resume, transcripts, and the choice of Labs where I wished to work. I got through the preliminary screening, after which the professor selected me. I came to know afterwards that many good universities had similar internship programs for international students. Knowing them beforehand could be of great help to the students, so I would advise you to do your research and always look for new opportunities.
|
||||
|
||||
In NTU-Connect, we had a similar procedure. Here, we had to first get recommendations from the institute before applying. The application requires three project choices (out of about 25 in Mechanical Engineering), a list of our achievements/projects, two Letters of Recommendation, transcripts, and any additional documents we wish to add. Here, I attached my 2nd-year internship project report, and I suggest other applicants to prepare a project report of your previous work to increase your chances. I was directly selected for the program, though one might expect an interview screening as some of my friends were asked for the same.
|
||||
|
||||
The key for selection that I found in NTU as well as in other programs such as Mitacs, apart from the usual suspects such as academics and research experience, was project selection. You have to select a project that most fits your interests and previous works. If you don’t have any prior experience, you have to present yourself to be extremely enthusiastic about the field of work you chose in your SOP.
|
||||
|
||||
# Challenges due to COVID
|
||||
|
||||
Among the two programs, I was willing to do the Swiss internship mostly due to the chance to visit Europe, as the projects were almost on the same line. But COVID happened, and the Swiss internship got cancelled while the NTU Programme got postponed indefinitely. I couldn’t do anything about the Swiss internship, but as we were supported by the institute in the NTU-India Connect program, I asked the International Relations Office to help me get it done remotely, and they did so. I am incredibly grateful for them as well as my project supervisor’s support for making it happen in these tough times.
|
||||
|
||||
Though my project was both experimental and analytical, we had to drop the experimental portion, and I worked only on the Simulation part.
|
||||
|
||||
# Work
|
||||
|
||||
My project was in the broad domain of Computational Mechanics and Finite Element Method in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, NTU Singapore. The aim was to prepare a robust model for the static and dynamic compression analysis of materials with random geometrical imperfections. In the previous studies, the simulation results were highly inconsistent with the actual experiments due to various defects present in the setup and specimen. My work aimed at modelling those imperfections that could happen in real experiments and bridging the gap between numerical models and actual tests.
|
||||
|
||||
Initially, my supervisor didn’t have many expectations from me as we were not in direct contact, and he thought much productive work couldn’t be done in the current situation. But the project progressed well with continuous support and guidance from him. Since I was working from home, the time of work was relaxed. We had regular meetings, and he was very friendly and supportive. I completed the project under the time constraints, and I am still in contact with my supervisor as we are currently working towards a publication of that work.
|
||||
|
||||
# Summing Up
|
||||
|
||||
Overall, I had a good experience. Though there were setbacks due to COVID and I couldn’t get the chance to travel abroad, the work was unaffected due to it. I was able to work productively as per my comfort and learned a lot that will help me in my career.
|
||||
|
||||
For students who wish to apply for research internships, here are some tips:
|
||||
- Apart from applying to the specific programs, also mail professors in your domain of interest for summer internship. The selection in programs is dependent on a lot of factors, not in our control, but contacting professors will sooner or later work.
|
||||
- Many universities have internship programs for international students that most people are unaware of. Look out for these opportunities and apply to them as well, as they have a better selection rate than DAAD, Mitacs, NTU-Connect, or Charpak.
|
||||
- Prepare your Statement of Purpose, Resume, and Cover Letter before starting to apply and give dedicated time to this task. They play a significant role in any application, whether you are applying for an internship or higher studies.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,36 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: Reliance Industries"
|
||||
image: "hardik-taneja.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Hardik Taneja"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Hi! I am Hardik Taneja, a final year student at the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Roorkee. This summer I had an opportunity to intern at Reliance Industries as a GET (Graduate Engineering Trainee). This summer has turned out to be really productive in terms of learning and experience as I had the opportunity to connect with industry leaders.
|
||||
|
||||
# The Application Phase
|
||||
|
||||
Reliance industries comes to hire interns in the second phase of On-campus internships.
|
||||
For the current session, the company came for internships on campus on 17th January, 2020. There was no CG cutoff for applying which is indeed a good news for many applicants.
|
||||
|
||||
The first round of the selection process consisted of an aptitude test which also included sections of core mechanical engineering. The later rounds were interview rounds, the first being technical and the next being HR.
|
||||
|
||||
Coming onto the preparation part, one needs to practice questions based on quantitative and verbal aptitude for the written test. There is no particular syllabus for the mechanical section and one could just brush up on the basics of thermodynamics and engineering drawing. For the interview round, what helped me were projects that I undertook at my department and a core internship that I did in my second year. Also, be very clear of your areas of interest and be well prepared. Stay confident and be patient while answering the questions. The basic skill-set that Reliance demands is your ability to work in a team and time management. My interview lasted for about 20 minutes. I was asked questions on my areas of interest, why I wanted to join Reliance and regarding my future goals.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# The Work
|
||||
|
||||
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Reliance owns businesses across India engaged in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail, and telecommunications.
|
||||
|
||||
My domain of work was related to core metallurgy. The project assigned to me was "Study of different metallurgy and its applicability in the refinery". I was expected to study corrosion and various other damage mechanisms involved in the Crude Distillation Unit in the Jamnagar refinery. Due to the COVID crisis, it was a virtual internship. Generally the duration for the project is two months but it was reduced to a month for us i.e from 1st July to 31st July.
|
||||
|
||||
The working culture at Reliance was very good and we had full support and assistance from our mentors at all times. The work was demanding as we were expected to work 7-8 hours per day. We had to study reports and research papers, make presentations and discuss our advancements with industry leaders.
|
||||
|
||||
My journey at Reliance was full of learning experiences which will be handy in the future. It was a great experience to understand the working of a refinery and the challenges that come with it. For people who are gunning for this internship, my suggestion would be to do at least one project in core metallurgy so as to have something to speak about in the interview.
|
||||
|
||||
# Word of Advice
|
||||
|
||||
Prepare well beforehand for the test and remember, practice is key. The rest would be to be confident during the interview and prepare a nice introduction for the interview. Don't hesitate to ask if you are unsure of something or some specific term during the interview. Revise your resume thoroughly and give a firm handshake while entering the room.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,68 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: PwC"
|
||||
image: "chinmaya-chawla-1.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Chinmaya Chawla"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# Brief Introduction
|
||||
|
||||
While everyone was coding and developing their way towards the upcoming internship season, I, on the other hand, was intrigued by the field of management consultancy. Being a part of ShARE IIT R, I had a good idea of how the industry looks, which drove me to try for real-life corporate work experience at the end of my second year. Time and again, I had second thoughts about whether I should just code and secure an internship on campus or really try something that interests me. I didn’t find many seniors who insisted on the latter, so I thought of trying a consulting internship in my second year, and if I don’t feel like doing it anymore, I’ll code and sit for on-campus placements and internships.
|
||||
|
||||
Building upon this, I started applying through connections (personal and Linkedin) and tried every other means to get in touch with consultants at the firms I wanted to work with. My target firms were not limited to any category, but Tier 1/ Tier 2 consulting firms don’t usually hire UG sophomores, let alone students from non-target schools, So I started applying for them as well as other boutique firms and Big 4 consult firms. Through a connection, I bagged an interview at PwC India for the management consultancy profile and cracked it. Just to give a background, PwC is one of the four largest professional services firms across the world, collectively known as “The BIG 4“. The experience was a real learning experience majorly in terms of corporate work culture.
|
||||
|
||||
# Selection Process
|
||||
|
||||
PwC, like almost every other consulting firm, doesn’t have a structured procedure for hiring for internships as well as jobs. The selection process is generally getting an interview, and based on how that pans out; they have their further rounds with no limit to scope and number of interview rounds.
|
||||
|
||||
In my case, it all started with receiving a mail asking for a time slot to schedule my interview for the internship. I had applied to PwC (Gurgaon Office) through a personal connection two weeks before that, who had forwarded my resume to the HR department. So I had my first round of interviews over a video call. Most parts of the interview were based on my resume and why I wanted to pursue management consultancy. Having mentioned the secondary research analysis I did as part of ShARE, the interviewer asked me to make a 5-page slide on the topic “How would Consulting look like in 2030“ for the next round of interviews. So I had two days to prepare the deck that I submitted and waited for a couple of weeks. After that, I received an email stating I was selected for the next round. The next round kicked off with a couple of guesstimates, which I did well at. After that, the interviewer questioned me on one of my previous projects, and we had an in-depth discussion on it, which felt like we were solving a real-life case problem. I received an offer letter one week later. :)
|
||||
|
||||
# Preparation Tips
|
||||
|
||||
I think for applying to consultancy firms, you don’t require many tangible skills. Every consulting firm believes its real value is in its people. Since almost no tangible skills are required, obviously, your **resume** becomes an important factor in getting an interview. So keeping in mind no consultancy firm comes to Roorkee, resume screening is very crucial for off campus applications. So how they analyze your resume is through an **ACTL framework**.
|
||||
|
||||
A - Analytics (experiences showing your analytical/problem-solving skills)
|
||||
C - Communication (how good can you communicate in written through resume and verbally later in interviews)
|
||||
T - Teamwork (experience in showing your ability to work and coordinate in a team)
|
||||
L- Leadership (experience where you led a team or were at a PoR. E.g. Led the consulting club at campus)
|
||||
|
||||
I think I should not go deep in the resume analysis. However, anybody who wants to know more can get in touch with me.
|
||||
|
||||
Now for the interview part, they test you on how smart you are, how well you can structure problems, and recommend solutions. Besides the resume-based questions, there are majorly two ways consulting firms do this with slight variations on where you are applying.
|
||||
|
||||
1. **Guesstimates:** Guesstimates are problems where you make smart guesses to estimate numbers related to real-life scenarios. For example, “Calculate the capacity of a second airport at New Delhi” is a guesstimate. What guesstimation requires is building a structure and plugging in assumed (obviously, sane) values. Generally, interviewers are not interested in the final answer, but the approach and assumptions you took.
|
||||
2. **Cases:** Cases are simulations of real-life business problems where you solve a real-life problem using smart thinking. A case problem statement example is “Company XYZ is facing a decline in profits, find the possible reasons and make recommendations.“ Again, what matters is how well your approach to the problem is and how well you use the consulting concept of MECE (Mutually Exclusive Completely Exhaustive).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
As resources, there are very good books like Case Interviews Cracked, Youtube videos from Victor Cheng. Apart from these, you can start applying structure to your thoughts in real life. For instance, try calculating (without measuring :P) what is the length of a road in the IIT Roorkee campus next time you are roaming around campus.
|
||||
|
||||
Overall, you need to sell yourself to the company. Not only do you need to be good at cases, guesstimates, etc. but you also need to be smart and sound smart during the entire course of the interview.
|
||||
|
||||
# My Project and Challenges due to CoVID
|
||||
|
||||
Since PwC doesn’t have a structured internship program for lateral hires, it was quite likely that my offer would be revoked. But with laptop delivery not possible due to the RedZone restrictions, they introduced a global software allowing the new hires to work from their personal laptop till delivery was possible. It was amazing to see how invested the firm was in its employees.
|
||||
|
||||
Post the virtual induction of 2 days; I was assigned a people’s manager and a buddy mentor. The buddy was my go-to person in every problem I faced. People’s manager was at a more senior position; however, he too was always all ears to whatever obstacles I was facing.
|
||||
|
||||
I was assigned to a project which was a part of a number of projects with the client, a multilateral development bank, and we were advising them on improving the maritime trade between 7 Southeast-Asian countries under the SASEC (South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation) umbrella. My project focused on improving port logistics across 20 ports in these seven countries. Overall, my internship had **3 phases of work**.
|
||||
|
||||
In the first phase of work, I worked with the team to conduct secondary research, profiled ports, identified pain points, and compared them with international benchmarks.
|
||||
|
||||
The second phase was relatively short, consisting of forming the hypothesis theory. This was the most interesting part where the teams brainstormed about what could be the possible reasons for the identified bottlenecks and recommended possible solutions.
|
||||
|
||||
The third part consisted of validating the secondary research and our hypothesis through primary interviews with different stakeholders. This part was the most challenging as getting insights from very short calls is quite difficult.
|
||||
|
||||
# Work Culture
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
As for the work culture, the people at PwC were very helpful at every step right from onboarding till the LWD. Although the life of a consultant is very hectic, the team still took out time to get on video calls having chats over coffee. I was treated like any other employee in the team. Sometimes, my insights and work went right into the client-ready deck, which felt very nice. Moreover, my team recommended to my people manager for an extension of my internship by one month.
|
||||
|
||||
# Way Ahead and Key Learnings
|
||||
|
||||
As I mentioned earlier, this internship consolidated my interest in management consulting. This experience not only helped me see corporate life but also insights into how the life of a consultant looks like. In a nutshell, the experience was very enriching for me.
|
||||
I am pleased to share with you all that I have a Pre-Internship Offer (PIO) from PwC India. Thanks for reading. Feel free to contact me in case of any questions or comments.
|
||||
@ -1,63 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: Bombay Shirt Company"
|
||||
image: "deep-behal.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Deep Behal"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
This summer, I worked at Bombay Shirt Company as an intern in their product team. Launched in 2012, Bombay Shirt Company is the first online custom shirt brand in India. Since their inception, they have operated primarily offline with 12 stores in India, one in New York, and one in Dubai. But recently they decided to ramp up their online presence, automate their supply chain, and use technology to transform the offline experience in their stores completely.
|
||||
|
||||
# Getting there
|
||||
|
||||
I want to preface this by talking a little about Product Management as a career option straight out of college. One has to understand that Product Management is currently a niche in the Indian startup ecosystem. There are three primary reasons for this (nonexhaustive obviously)
|
||||
|
||||
1. Only recently this title has been adopted industry-wide until a few years back there didn’t exist a designated Product team in many firms. Traditionally the work of a PM was handled by different teams and wasn’t very organized. Due to this the individuals who became the early Indian product managers were ones who had worked in domains like tech, business, design, marketing, etc
|
||||
|
||||
2. Given that having a Product team requires the evolution of a firm’s structure and working and firms don’t necessarily evolve in the same way or with the same pace, the role of a Product Manager highly varies from firm to firm
|
||||
|
||||
3. In countries like the US, firms recognized the advantage of hiring fresh graduates in Associate Product Manager programs some years back, and as a result, firms like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla have very coveted APM programs. Only very recently have Indian startups started to adopt such programs
|
||||
|
||||
Thus it’s essential to recognize that opportunities for Product Management are very limited straight out of college and as a result, however “cool” Product Management sounds, students considering this as a career option should be extremely careful and mentally prepared for having many panic attacks at the thought of having a very bleak future (or maybe that’s just me lol)
|
||||
|
||||
It’s my firm belief that the primary purpose of an internship is to find out what you ‘don’t’ want to do in life. So, after having a great experience at my second-year internship with the product team of Zee5, I was fairly sure that Product management was something I wanted to do in the near future
|
||||
|
||||
(note: you have to keep in mind that the things you’ll want in life are always going to be malleable and will change based on your immediate circumstances, so it’s always better to plan for the ‘near future’ so that you can deal with unexpected changes in life)
|
||||
|
||||
# Getting there (really this time)
|
||||
|
||||
Landing internships in product management is not a straightforward job and there is no sure shot way to get an internship. But the way that seems to be efficient for most people is using LinkedIn. I started preparing a list of firms in mid-January while keeping many parameters in mind. Some of these were:
|
||||
1. **The sector of the firm.** I was particularly fascinated by B2C (Business to Customer) firms that were primarily driven to provide services to average customers. This includes E-commerce firms like Amazon, Fintech firms like Paytm, Concierge service firms like Urban Company, etc
|
||||
|
||||
2. **The products** they have,especially important as being excited about a product is essential in being able to give your best and learn the most
|
||||
|
||||
3. **The Product team.** Making meaningful connections is extremely important not just for future networking but for being able to seek mentorship. Hence, it’s important to try to gauge at who can act as great mentors in Product teams of firms that you are applying in
|
||||
|
||||
4. History of hiring interns or freshers for full-time jobs, to be able to calibrate your expectations
|
||||
|
||||
After having finalized my list, I started connecting with people at the highest product positions in both the HR and Product teams of these firms. After this, it was all about striking conversations and perseverance. By the first week of March, I had interviews set up with many excellent start-ups, and things were looking really nice for a change.
|
||||
|
||||
But that’s when the Covid-19 situation in India was starting to become a crisis. Suddenly I was back home and all my interviews were canceled. I’m going to be completely honest, I didn’t try to do anything else in hopes for things getting better for at least a month (was just living in denial)
|
||||
|
||||
But once things got fairly certain that remote internships are the best things we can hope for I started seeking out firms to see if they were hiring. Unsurprisingly most had frozen hiring for at least a quarter. Luckily when I spoke to my manager during my Zee5 internship, he told me all about how he had quit Zee5 and was now the Chief Product Officer at BSC. After a lengthy discussion, he offered a remote internship at BSC with their product team (Remember when I spoke about the importance of making meaningful connections?)
|
||||
|
||||
# Work at BSC
|
||||
|
||||
The business side of BSC was pretty dead. Due to the lockdown restrictions in Maharashtra, their entire supply chain was forced to come at a halt. Seeing these conditions, the folks at BSC decided to ramp up the entirety of their development. This involved redoing their entire website, finetuning their measurement algorithms, digitizing manual aspects of their payment’s infrastructure and expanding their online infrastructure to account for migrating from just selling shirts to different custom apparel and accessories.
|
||||
|
||||
I worked on two projects in my three months of working with them.
|
||||
|
||||
1. I drove the entire revamp of the ‘Store Stylist Journey’ on the ERP system. For some context, each BSC store has a few stylists who would assist individuals who would come to their stores to customize shirts to suit their needs. Stylists used iPads to show customers various customization options. But this journey was extremely disjointed and very different from the website journey. My responsibility was to do a complete overhaul of this journey to make it more seamless by replacing physical measurement by their proprietary measurement algorithm, integrating payments, and changing the UI/UX of this process to closely resemble that of the website to increase customer confidence, allowing for better online migration. I was solely responsible for conceptualizing the user flow and wireframes after conducting stakeholder interviews, and I led a team of UI/UX designers and developers to build solutions
|
||||
|
||||
2. I also led the integration of a new mPOS payment provider for the 12 offline stores across India and the integration of a new Payment Gateway. They gave better opportunities for seamless integration, better reporting, and automating the refund process, saving 30+ manhours per refund
|
||||
Remote work was quite challenging and not as enriching as I’d hoped, as the most critical aspect of product management is being able to communicate with various stakeholders not only within but also outside the firm. But what did make the experience better was the fact that the team at BSC was accommodating and approachable
|
||||
|
||||
# Key pieces of gyaan
|
||||
|
||||
1. Networking and making connections is a skill that comes super in handy
|
||||
|
||||
2. Nothing is more valuable than the ability to grind and persevere
|
||||
|
||||
3. As cliched as it sounds your career should be at an intersection between what makes you happy and what makes you money. So use your internships wisely. Try to find that intersection, I guess? But know that it’s fine if you aren’t able to find it very soon. All this social media crap about “summer sorted” and “machau” may give you the perception that others have successfully found their intersection but trust me everyone is just winging it. Take your time
|
||||
@ -1,59 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: Texas Instruments"
|
||||
image: "mayank-mehta-3.jpg"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Mayank Mehta"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
I am pursuing my bachelors in Electronics and Communication Engineering. I developed a keen interest in the courses being taught in the department. Also, there was a laboratory course where we were introduced to the tool (Cadence Virtuoso) that gives practical insight into the working of semiconductor devices and circuits. During that time, I already knew that Texas Instruments is one of the best companies working with semiconductor devices. So, I started aiming to intern there.
|
||||
|
||||
I was already in touch with the seniors who secured their internships at Texas Instruments last year. I enquired about the main topics that I should focus on and started preparing for that.
|
||||
Most of the topics are usually covered in the departmental courses, so I knew my first plan of action.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# SELECTION PROCESS
|
||||
|
||||
Texas Instruments visits our campus every year in the beginning, so I applied via TPO. The application process was as follows:
|
||||
|
||||
1. TPO shares the job profile, stipend, and other details to the students on the Placement Portal.
|
||||
2. Students can apply with their resume on the Portal itself.
|
||||
3. The company then conducts a test. The test was of one and a half hours and comprised of 3 sections - Analog, Digital, and Aptitude. The duration for each section was limited, and there was negative marking for wrong questions also. Attempting maximum questions with highest accuracy would be the key to perform well.
|
||||
4. Then the shortlist was announced by the TPO and soon, the interview was scheduled.
|
||||
5. There were three rounds in the interview process, one for the Digital domain, the second for the Analog domain, and the third was an HR round. The important thing is that you should be confident and interactive with the Interviewer. They are not here to judge your skills and knowledge only, they would also focus on your attitude and your approach to the problems.
|
||||
6. After the interview was over, the interviewer talked with the selected candidates and asked them about their preference in case they were selected for both Analog and Digital domains. The result was soon uploaded by the TPO as well.
|
||||
|
||||
The eligibility criteria were that the student is pursuing either Electronics or Electrical Engineering as their majors and should have a CGPA higher than 7.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# GETTING THERE
|
||||
|
||||
For preparation, I would suggest that you have a good knowledge of the ECE department’s courses. Digital Logic Circuits, CMOS Circuits, Op-Amps, Sequential Circuits, MOS Device Characteristics, RC Circuits, and Analog MOS Circuits are the main topics to focus on.
|
||||
The books you can refer to for these topics are Digital Design - by M. Morris Mano and Fundamentals of Microelectronics - by Behzad Razavi.
|
||||
|
||||
Apart from this, if you have any hands-on experience of the tools or have done any project related to the field, it is considered a plus point.
|
||||
|
||||
Texas Instruments in one of the leading companies in the world working with semiconductors and electronics. The headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas and its office in India is situated in Bangalore.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
A picture of the Campus which I wanted to visit but couldn’t because of the Pandemic.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
# WORK
|
||||
|
||||
My project was to design a failsafe GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) working at 1.8V and verify it across the PVT (Process Voltage Temperature) variations. It started with a literature study of the concepts and working of different blocks and familiarisation with the tools, specifications, and requirements for the design.
|
||||
|
||||
In a CMOS circuit design, the main parameters are performance, area, and power. My goal was to achieve a significant decrease in any of these parameters.
|
||||
|
||||
The work culture at Texas Instruments is very supportive. Everyone is easily approachable and helpful to the interns. Due to COVID, the internship was remote and therefore, many great experiences were missed by us. But the HR team worked very hard to make sure that we get the best that is possible. They organized virtual meeting sessions with leaders across the globe. They even organized sessions with some NCGs (New College Graduates) who joined TI this year only, and they shared their Internship experience with us and how they converted it into a successful PPO.
|
||||
|
||||
The work hours were flexible due to the Work From Home scenario. But the emphasis was laid on the deadlines. The nature of work is relaxed, but it demands that you take maximum interest in what you are doing and give your best.
|
||||
|
||||
Before starting the internship, the company allots a mentor to each of the interns who not only supervises your work but also helps you get acquainted with the work culture and guides you along the path. But at the same time, he/she expects you to be proactive with your thoughts and take the lead.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
A picture was taken with the team on the Webex Platform as it was Virtual this whole time.
|
||||
|
||||
I learned a lot of technical stuff and the details that we should focus on when working on a real industrial project that will serve millions of customers. One should expect to learn a lot of theoretical and practical knowledge on how to design a circuit from scratch and the technicalities that we have to take care of while developing and testing it.
|
||||
@ -1,117 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Summer Sorted (?) 2020-21"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
category: Careers
|
||||
image: intern.jpg
|
||||
excerpt: "Roorkee is a nice place to be."
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Roorkee is a nice place to be.
|
||||
|
||||
It has its ups and downs, much like any other place on this planet, but is overall a warm (figuratively speaking), amicable place to spend your college years. After 2-4 years of the rigorous monotony that is JEE, Roorkee comes with an opportunity to embrace your idiosyncrasies and explore your own individuality. There is no longer a uniform curriculum, no precise metric for progress, and no clear goals other than the ones you define for yourself.
|
||||
|
||||
Amidst this new found freedom and the plethora of possibilities that come with it, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters to oneself, and what path one wants their journey to take once the dreamy undergrad life comes to an end. Internships are important not only for the compulsory credits but also because they provide students with irreplaceable real world experience, essential networking and above all a chance to better understand their interests & inclinations and reconsider their successive career steps accordingly.
|
||||
|
||||
In 2020, the Covid tremors have affected a number of firms and policy changes around the world. In the following analysis, Watch Out! aims to highlight how this shift has affected internship opportunities for the batch of 2022, with some educated guesses about how some of these changes may or may not carry over into the upcoming placement season or subsequent internship drives.
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Talking Numbers</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
The on-campus internship season starts around mid-august and is reserved exclusively for pre-final year students. This analysis considers data upto 8th October 2020. Companies continue to visit campus until around mid-february, but drawing from previous years’ data, a major chunk of the total hirings would have been wrapped up until this point. Thus this data can be extrapolated for fairly accurate insights into the overall internship scenario for the current academic session. Regardless, any projections made hereafter are little more than educated speculations made by Watch Out! based on data from previous years and should not be considered as concrete claims
|
||||
|
||||
**Number of recruiters: 91**
|
||||
Compared to a total of 134 from 2019-20. But with 4 months remaining for more recruiters to show up, this number may very well catch up.
|
||||
|
||||
**Hirings: 278**
|
||||
Based on channelI notices from 2019-20 (which cover most, though not all companies coming to campus), the period from August 1st to 22nd October accounted for approximately **70%** of the total seats offered. Assuming similar trends, the total hirings for this session are projected to reach anywhere from 350-400 by the end of the session, as compared to 421 from 2019-20
|
||||
|
||||
**Pre Internship Offers: 7**, compared to 5 in 2019-20
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Crunching Numbers</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
Contrary to initial speculations on what effects a global pandemic might have on employment opportunities around the world[1], as well as survey statistics indicating a diminishing scope for prospective interns [[2]], the on-campus internships in IITR seem to be more or less unperturbed.
|
||||
|
||||
A closer look however, reveals a peculiar shift in hiring trends.
|
||||
|
||||
Out of the **68** (The remaining 23 have yet to come out with results) firms that have hired at Roorkee so far, only **49** (If different positions from the same company are to be considered separate) are recurring visitors from last year. But these **49** entities account for **222 of the 278** offers so far. Comparing only these to their previous visits, the number of hires has gone down from a total of 235 to 222. A lot of them have cut back on the number of interns hired, with some hiring upto 50% less interns than last time. Adobe also made a notable decrease in the number of direct offers to students excelling in academics, moving down from 16 to only 2 this year.
|
||||
|
||||
<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://app.everviz.com/embed/DGFHZVinL/" title="Chart: Recurring recruiters" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 500px"></iframe>
|
||||
Note: Profiles for some companies have been clubbed together for the sake of visualization
|
||||
|
||||
So why does the big picture look undisturbed?
|
||||
|
||||
The reason for the relatively insignificant decrease (13) in the total number of offers amongst the recurring firms can actually be attributed to a handful of tech giants upping their intake by upto 100%
|
||||
|
||||
Revisiting companies opening up with more positions/profiles than before, leading to more diversity in profile distribution among the interns.
|
||||
|
||||
A number of new small-mid level firms decided to come to Roorkee (Zomato, Disney Hotstar, Codenation, Citrix to name a few).
|
||||
|
||||
While not much can be concluded from point 1, the latter two may very well contribute to positive trends in placements as well. Whether by God’s grace or due efforts by the Administration and TPO, IIT Roorkee seems to be doing just fine in this regard.
|
||||
|
||||
Similar trends have been observed in sister IITs as well[[3]][[4]]
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Logistics</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
To the chagrin of all R-esidents, the ‘on-campus’ internship season wasn’t really conducted on campus, as all of us are confined to our homes with no weekend outings or late night snack breaks to ease the deathless pain. As such, all tests and interviews were conducted virtually which called for robust infrastructure for evaluations, instantaneous updates and super secure proctoring solutions ;). For the most part, IIT Roorkee delivered well
|
||||
|
||||
However, this being a first for both IITR and the companies conducting their tests, some issues were bound to arise.
|
||||
|
||||
For one, the privilege gap within the student populace widens as those without access to a stable internet connection were placed at a significant disadvantage, both during the internship season and in the context of the semester as a whole.
|
||||
|
||||
Secondly, a number of students reported technical issues during tests, such as the websites freezing, or compilers failing altogether. The public slack workspace did help, but these hiccups still led to a lot of unnecessary delays.
|
||||
|
||||
The usual problems with the lack of diversity in profiles, continue to persist. With the establishment of Design Studio, Finance Club, DSG and VLG, it’s clear that the student community is striving to expand into a number of different fields, but this enthusiasm is yet to be reflected in the profile distribution amongst recruiters.
|
||||
|
||||
<iframe class="highcharts-iframe" src="https://app.everviz.com/embed/LlmjXBy0l/" title="Chart: Profiles" style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 500px"></iframe>
|
||||
|
||||
Some change was however observed this year. While software and IT continue to dominate, a decent number of finance positions were seen. We also saw design offers on day 1 with a monthly stipend of 200k (Sprinklr Product design and Visual design)
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Free World</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
Most branches in IITR have a compulsory 2-3 credit course in their final year, which requires students to have completed an internship in their pre-final year. Yet, the on-campus hires for previous years constitute less than half of the total batch strength.
|
||||
|
||||
“But what of the remaining pilgrims”, you ask?
|
||||
The answer is, there’s a free world beyond the boundaries of our beloved campus. A free world full of opportunities for off-campus applicants, research internships and more. These off-the-book hires are what might get overlooked when people talk about the internship season, as these opportunities have been hit much worse than the stats on channelI would have you believe.
|
||||
|
||||
Although the number of companies hiring remote interns has gone up by about 24% during the pandemic[[5]] (with some like Facebook going completely virtual with their summer internship program), a number of firms still choose to go with either in-office interns or a mix of the two. This spells trouble for anyone with aspirations for a machax summer abroad.
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Not so free anymore</h2>
|
||||
With increased travel restrictions around the world, which may not be fully lifted even as infection rates begin to subside, a number of companies have either outright refused to hire international interns, or stated that citizens will be given preference. This means a severe disadvantage for anyone applying to foreign positions.
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Perils of Research</h2>
|
||||
Fortunately, major research programs for undergrads, such as DAAD, WISE, MITACS GRI, continue to function normally. But the situation is highly volatile for those in contact with advisors through individual mailing. This is based on anecdotal data and shall therefore be taken with a pinch of salt but a number of professors who don’t wish to hire remote interns have started to ignore or reject applications from international students under the current situation. A significant number of students from the batch of 2021 also had their offers revoked for similar reasons.
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>MAGA</h2>
|
||||
In the case of the U.S specifically, the problems run a lot deeper than a bunch of corporates deciding to hire traditional interns. A series of proposed changes to H1B visa regulations have recently been approved, making work visas much more restrictive[[6]]. H1B visa can only be used for staff in specialty occupations. Until now, foreigners with a bachelor’s degree were eligible for specialty occupations. However, now, they must specialize in their exact field. For instance, an electrical engineering major cannot fill a software engineering position. The open-for-all tech culture of IIT Roorkee is likely to take a major hit from this decision, as a significant chunk of opportunities is now permanently closed for students with non-core interests. The new regulations may be even more troublesome when it comes to niche engineering fields like Artificial intelligence or Cybersecurity[[7]] as not many universities offer dedicated courses in these disciplines and the positions are usually filled by professionals from loosely related fields.
|
||||
|
||||
The combined effects of these three factors, highlight an underlying issue with the idea of relying solely on the campus internship statistics to decide if the season was a success. Even if the numbers somehow manage to catch up with last year, it won’t be enough to make up for the drop in off-campus opportunities. With so many great options being lost to Covid, compromises are inevitable.
|
||||
|
||||
All that being said, Roorkee is undoubtedly doing well against all odds. We hope that internship season 2020-21 will serve as essential experience to be leveraged for a smoother placement experience for everyone. Things aren’t perfect and the ideal internship/placement season is still a ways to go but we believe we’re on the right path. Until then, best of luck to everyone that’s chasing the high of having your peers post on your timeline, the ultimate expression of approval there is.
|
||||
**#SummerSorted**
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>References</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
[1]: https://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/covid-19-internships-get-cancelled-or-go-virtual-because-of-pandemic/story-ZFGb78WvQl8Pfj5LBYMm4I.html
|
||||
**1.** [https://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/covid-19-internships-get-cancelled-or-go-virtual-because-of-pandemic/story-ZFGb78WvQl8Pfj5LBYMm4I.html](https://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/covid-19-internships-get-cancelled-or-go-virtual-because-of-pandemic/story-ZFGb78WvQl8Pfj5LBYMm4I.html){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[2]: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/internship-hiring-coronavirus/
|
||||
**2.** [https://www.glassdoor.com/research/internship-hiring-coronavirus/](https://www.glassdoor.com/research/internship-hiring-coronavirus/){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[3]: https://www.business-standard.com/article/jobs/iit-delhi-ends-phase-1-of-virtual-internship-hiring-with-over-300-offers-120092901442_1.html
|
||||
**3.** [https://www.business-standard.com/article/jobs/iit-delhi-ends-phase-1-of-virtual-internship-hiring-with-over-300-offers-120092901442_1.html](https://www.business-standard.com/article/jobs/iit-delhi-ends-phase-1-of-virtual-internship-hiring-with-over-300-offers-120092901442_1.html){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[4]: https://www.business-standard.com/article/education/152-students-from-iit-madras-get-internship-offers-from-20-companies-120090700553_1.html
|
||||
**4.** [https://www.business-standard.com/article/education/152-students-from-iit-madras-get-internship-offers-from-20-companies-120090700553_1.html](https://www.business-standard.com/article/education/152-students-from-iit-madras-get-internship-offers-from-20-companies-120090700553_1.html){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[5]: https://blog.internshala.com/2020/06/intern-hiring-trends-covid-19-2/
|
||||
**5.** [https://blog.internshala.com/2020/06/intern-hiring-trends-covid-19-2/](https://blog.internshala.com/2020/06/intern-hiring-trends-covid-19-2/){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[6]: https://qz.com/india/1914128/how-donald-trumps-new-h-1b-visa-tweaks-will-hurt-immigrants/
|
||||
**6.** [https://qz.com/india/1914128/how-donald-trumps-new-h-1b-visa-tweaks-will-hurt-immigrants/](https://qz.com/india/1914128/how-donald-trumps-new-h-1b-visa-tweaks-will-hurt-immigrants/){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
[7]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-overhaul-of-h-1b-visa-program-11602017434
|
||||
**7.** [https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-overhaul-of-h-1b-visa-program-11602017434](https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-announces-overhaul-of-h-1b-visa-program-11602017434){: style="text-decoration:underline; color:blue"}
|
||||
|
||||
*Picture Credits: Kritagya Nayyar*
|
||||
@ -1,62 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Filter coffee: Nipun Gupta"
|
||||
image: nipun.jpg
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
excerpt: "Nipun gupta (batch of 2020), a.k.a fsociety can safely be considered to be amongst the best student hackers in India. He first discovered his love for understanding and breaking down systems shortly after coming to Roorkee.."
|
||||
category: filtercoffee
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*Nipun gupta (batch of 2020), a.k.a fsociety can safely be considered to be amongst the best student hackers in India. He first discovered his love for understanding and breaking down systems shortly after coming to Roorkee. Fast forward countless national and international CTF (cybersecurity competitions) wins as part of team InfoSecIITR and a smashing research intern, he’s now working as a cybersecurity researcher at Payatu. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation with the elusive haxxor.*
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** In an environment where programming, and by extension tech, is almost synonymous to competitive programming and software development, cybersecurity seems to be the road less taken. What was it that nudged you towards a career in this surprisingly niche field?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** When I first started playing CTFs ( specifically https://backdoor.sdslabs.co), I never thought of cybersecurity as a career, but rather as a hobby which later turned into a profession. During my initial 1-1.5 years, I was playing CTFs just because they were fun and I was learning a lot about hacking and how computers work in general. Around this time ( my 2nd - 3rd year in college ), we were playing lots of CTFs, both online and on-site, that's when I realized that there are a lot of opportunities, and I got involved with a few of these.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Setting aside the leet haxor ‘fsociety’ for a minute, what is it that Nipun Gupta gets up to in his free time? Any crazy exploits (pun intended) you would like to share from your college life?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** In my free time, I usually read blogs or waste my time on twitter, youtube or netflix. When I am not on the internet, I usually play snooker or travel with my friends.
|
||||
One crazy “exploit” that I would like to share is how I “pwned” the swimming pool with my friends. This happened when we were in our first year and one of my friends came up with the idea of jumping over the fence of the swimming pool at night for a quick swimming session. At around 8 pm we went to count the number of guards around that area and to find out the possible entry point. After figuring that out, we came back at 12:30 and jumped over the fence. At that moment, one of us went ahead to look if there were any more guards nearby, but it took him a few minutes and we thought that he ran away. As we were already scared, we started running from there too. One of my friend was already swimming by that time, and as soon as he found out, he jumped over the fence with just one hand (his other hand was fractured at that time) and ran to grab his cycle which was in front of the main building stairs. He was so scared that he forgot to wear his clothes, and was half-naked in front of the main building stairs. This is probably the funniest and craziest thing we have ever done in college. I dare you too try that something (without the naked running of course)
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You came to Roorkee in 2016, the same year that InfosecIITR was founded and have been an integral part of it ever since. How did it help you in your endeavours and what is your most memorable experience with the group?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** Just a correction here, I joined InfoSecIITR in 2017. Without any doubt, InfoSecIITR played a huge role in helping me get an internship and a job in cybersecurity. As I told earlier, we used to play a lot of CTFs during that time and most of the skills I have are because of those weekend CTF sessions when we used to play them overnight. I certainly learned a huge amount of things from my other teammates ( mostly when I used to act as a rubber ducky to help them solve the challenge they were stuck at).
|
||||
It is hard selecting just one memorable experience with the group because we traveled a lot for on-site CTFs and every trip was somehow memorable. But one that tops the list was CSAW-2018. It was my first on-site CTF and we (Paras, Faizal, Aditya, and me ) went there with very little hope that we would be in the top 3 ranks, but to our surprise, we stood 1st in the Indian region. There was also a moment during that CTF when we were 1st in the world on the leaderboard when Paras and Faizal solved two challenges. We were so excited that we ran to the CTF arena to click some pictures of InfoSecIITR being top on the leaderboard in the world. The whole CTF was a really good experience.
|
||||
In addition to this experience, we had some really fun time in Gujarat , Bangalore, Goa , InterIIT and many other places.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** You interned in cybersecurity at SEFCOM Labs at Arizona State University. How was your experience?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** I had a really amazing experience working at SEFCOM. To be honest, before that internship, my experience in security mostly revolved around CTFs and exploitation, but during that period of 2-2.5 months I learned a ton about real world security and vulnerability research, which further helped me gain a larger understanding of the current state of security research. The professors and my team there was amazing, and I thoroughly enjoyed my work. Apart from the professional experience, my personal experience was amazing too as I engaged myself in travelling to a few amazing cities, going on hikes, experiencing their culture and food etc.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** What are the differences in opportunities present for a student to pursue cybersecurity as a career in India and abroad? Being from a non circuital branch with a less than mind-blowing CGPA, did it affect your options in any way?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** Currently the opportunities in security are increasing at a very fast pace. The job opportunities are increasing with not many people to fill that gap, that's why we can see a sudden increase in CTFs in India organized by DSCI or a few companies to hire people in security. When I applied for the job and the internship, my branch and CGPA were not considered during the interview round, so I think it didn't affect my options in any way. But if I would have considered for masters or Phd, then these things would have mattered.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** According to you, how is the environment at IIT Roorkee for a student interested in cybersecurity with respect to the opportunities available? Are there any specific changes, administrational or otherwise, that you would like to see take place in the future?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** I can confidently say that IIT Roorkee has the best security culture among all the IITs and NITs. I sincerely thank the seniors who started the group. But in terms of opportunities I think we can do a bit better. There are a lot of opportunities for security but when it comes to looking for a job or internship students here are mostly on their own. Last year we organized a CTF during InterIIT Tech meet, which was a really good initiative. After that Tech-meet a few other IITs started their own security group. I would really appreciate it if the placement team could reach out to the few places that are hiring people in cyber security, that would really give some students a sigh of relief.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** As opposed to typical coding contests, a CTF can last anywhere from 12-48 hours at a stretch and requires consistent effort from the entire team; throughout the duration to come out on top. What keeps you going through the sleepless nights and painful glaring contests with your computer screen?
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** I can surely say that it is not easy OR healthy to stare at your computer screen for 12-48 hours. But when we used to play as a team, I had some equally dedicated hackers along my side ready to stay up for the whole night just to reverse-engineer a shitty Virtual Machine written in assembly or to read a file from a computer system just using compiler flags ( shaddy :P ) just to get some Internet Points, that's what kept me going through those nights. Those points were a dopamine hit for us.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Now that you have graduated, what is the one thing that you’re going to miss the most about Roorkee? Having lost almost a complete semester to a certain global pandemic, is there anything you wish you could’ve done before graduation but didn’t get a chance to?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** There are a lot of things that I am going to miss about this place but the one thing that I will miss the most is the campus life. Apart from that I will miss the friends that I made here, the internet, my room, college fests, easy trips to rishikesh, InfoSecIITR meetings, etc.
|
||||
As a part of our group we always discussed that the group InfoSecIITR had a curse which disallowed us from travelling abroad for any CTF finals, even after we qualified in the first round. In our third year it was mostly because the CTF organizers were not able to sponsor our travel and stay. But in our final year we finally qualified to 3 events abroad ( Singapore, Vietnam and Russia ) and the organizers were sponsoring travel and stay, but due to this pandemic everything was cancelled. We all were really looking forward to these trips, but were unlucky. I hope InfoSecIITR makes some international presence sometime soon.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Can you share some details about your present work, future goals and so on?
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** I am currently working at Payatu, as a Security Researcher. My area of interest is exploitation, so my current research is inclined towards browser exploits and VM escapes. We are currently trying to find bugs in related open source applications by fuzzing various components of these applications. I don't have any solid future plans for myself right now, but I want to increase my knowledge and experience in fuzzing and exploitation. For those of you having trouble understanding, I am trying to hack some apps.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out! -** Customary question: What do you think of Watch Out!
|
||||
|
||||
**Nipun -** I have been following a few categories - tech, summer diaries and memoirs. I personally love reading memoirs, but other articles are equally amazing as well. I think you guys are doing an amazing job and I hope to see the same in the future.
|
||||
@ -1,44 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "The Innaugration of the New LHC, HVAC and STP"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
image: newlhc.png
|
||||
author: "Shruti Gour, Jigyasa Kumari, Spandan Gera"
|
||||
excerpt: "The New Lecture Hall Complex (LHC), a sewage treatment plant (STP) and a chiller plant (HVAC) were inaugurated on the 13th of October, 2020 in an online event."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The New Lecture Hall Complex (LHC), a sewage treatment plant (STP) and a chiller plant (HVAC) were inaugurated on the 13th of October, 2020 in an online event. The event witnessed the presence of the Union Minister for Education, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and Mr Sanjoy Dhotre, Minister of State for Education, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology as the guests of honor.
|
||||
|
||||
The Dean of Infrastructure, Prof Umesh Sharma, described upgrades in the infrastructure that would bring them on par with global standards.
|
||||
|
||||
# New Lecture Hall Complex (LHC)
|
||||
|
||||
The new LHC has been benchmarked in terms of design and utilities it shall be providing. The main attraction of the complex is its sustainable design with the use of daylight and natural ventilation with the building orientation planned to complement it.
|
||||
|
||||
The construction of the LHC started in 2016 and cost about INR 80.25 cores. With a built-up area of 13,254 sq. m, the building has the capacity to accommodate up to 4480 individuals. The capacities of individual room classes are given below.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:40%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
All classrooms are centrally air-conditioned and are equipped with state of the art amenities like audio and video conferencing, digital podium, laser projector, motorised projector screen and digital writing board.
|
||||
|
||||
# Centralised Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning plant (HVAC)
|
||||
|
||||
This plant has been built to cater to the air conditioning requirements of three buildings - Lecture Hall Complexes-l and ll, and the Convocation Hall. It uses Chilled Water Cooling technology and the project cost is estimated at around INR 14.35 crores. (Source: The Pioneer)
|
||||
|
||||
The main highlight of this project is the ‘control through remote’ mode via the Building Management System. The system has been designed considering capacity optimization and energy efficiency.
|
||||
|
||||
# Sewage Treatment Plant (STP)
|
||||
|
||||
With a capacity of 3 million litres a day the STP is located in Solani Kunj near the C-class Club in the IIT Roorkee campus. The plant has a built-up area of 1,800 sq. m, and its estimated construction cost is INR 27.73 crores. The STP is based on a Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) for the treatment of wastewater. It is equipped with a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA ). It uses a fill-and-draw cyclical protocol including aeration and non-aeration sequencing. The system provides high-quality effluent for safe discharge or non portables reuse witty minimum space and power requirements. The unique feature of IIT Roorkee STP is the additional odour control and advanced tertiary treatment facility due to its settling in the residential area.
|
||||
|
||||
The Minister for Education expressed his immense pride in IIT Roorkee's progress as an institute. He appealed to the Institute to produce viable methods to reduce human-animal conflicts that have become common in surrounding areas and the Himalayas and to contribute to scientific-social responsibility.
|
||||
|
||||
The Director, Prof Chaturvedi pointed towards ongoing infrastructure projects at IIT Roorkee - the HSS and Math buildings, a faculty housing project (expected to be completed within 9 months) and a new hostel for students. Additionally, a renovated Chemistry department, the Western Academic Block and another student hostel are currently in the design stage. The office of the Associate Dean of Infrastructure Projects has been created to speed up the progress of infrastructure development.
|
||||
|
||||
The Institute is continuing its trend of upgradation and development of campus infrastructure. We hope to make the best of these developments, once we return to the campus.
|
||||
|
||||
Image Credits: Sanjeevani Marcha
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,53 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "In Conversation With Professor John Schwarz"
|
||||
image: profjohn.jpeg
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
category: verbatim
|
||||
excerpt: "John H. Schwarz is the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*John H. Schwarz is the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. Dr. Schwarz majored in mathematics at Harvard (BA, 1962) and then went to UC Berkeley for graduate work in theoretical physics. He is regarded as one of the founders of string theory. His work with Prof. Michael Green led to the so-called “first superstring revolution”. He has received various awards throughout his career. He received the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in 1989. He shared the Fundamental Physics Prize with Michael Green "for opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces." in 2013.
|
||||
On 17th October 2020, Prof. Schwarz was invited by the Institute Lecture Series Committee,IITR to deliver a webinar lecture as part of the “The Mysteries of Universe” lecture series . The topic of the lecture was “The birth and Development of Superstring Theory”. Watch Out! had the chance to inquire into his thoughts about theoretical physics and find out more about his journey through his years of research.*
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: What inspired you to pursue theoretical physics? At what age did you know that this was what you wanted to do?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: As an undergraduate I majored in math. However, during my junior year I decided to apply for graduate school in physics. I felt that describing the real world was a more exciting challenge that would utilize my math skills.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: Being one of the pioneers of string theory, what were your feelings every time you had a breakthrough, for example, superstring theory?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: Two examples particularly stand out in my memory. When Scherk and I realized in 1974 that string theories are quantum gravity theories that could also describe the other forces, I was very excited. At that point I was convinced (correctly, as it turned out) that I knew what I would be working on for the rest of my career. My collaboration with Michael Green culminated in a breakthrough in 1984 (the anomaly cancellation result) that was also very exciting.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: Both your parents are PhDs in different fields. Do you feel having parents from a scientific background gave you an edge as a researcher?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: My parents were very supportive, though they did not try to push me in any particular direction. Being raised in a family in which science was appreciated was certainly a big factor in making me the person I became. I feel very fortunate.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: In one of your interviews, you said, “discovery of supersymmetry would be more profound than life on Mars” why did you say this?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: Perhaps that was a silly thing to say. However, I do believe that the discovery of supersymmetry would have a revolutionary impact on particle physics – both theory and experiment.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: Is the string theory our only hope at present to lead to a unified theory?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: I am unaware of any promising alternatives, though there are people trying.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: What drives the scientific pursuit on a personal level for scientists? Is it curiosity and intellectual challenge, or does it include the urge to be remembered?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: I think it is almost always the former and that is the way it should be.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: If you weren’t a theoretical physicist, what do you think you would be doing?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: Probably mathematics.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: Science will surely outlast humankind, but what do you think would be the next ‘holy grail’ of science once we reach the ‘theory of everything’? And do you see it happening anytime soon?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: Even if superstring theory is the correct fundamental theory, we are very far from a complete understanding of our physical Universe. Some features are a matter of chance and others have deep explanations. It is not always clear which is which. In addition to accounting for particle physics, we also want to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe. This will require the guidance of our experimental and observational friends. I have no idea whether a complete understanding will ever be achieved. I don’t know what would come after that. Exobiology?
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: You mentioned in your talk that after the development of QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics), a community of several hundred practitioners was reduced to a handful, which of course, included you. What made you stick with it in those times?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: Scherk and I felt that such a beautiful mathematical structure must be good for something. Once we thought in those terms, it was not hard to realize that it is a quantum theory of gravity. This happened within a year of the widespread acceptance of QCD. It took a decade to convince a significant part of the community that this was a promising direction to explore. The support of Gell-Mann helped to bolster my self-confidence during that period.
|
||||
|
||||
**Watch Out!**: In one of your talks in 2007, you stated that you did not consider gravity to be significant enough to incorporate in string theory till the mid-1970s. What made you propose the usage of string theory as the quantum theory of gravity?
|
||||
|
||||
**Prof. John Schwarz**: As I discussed, string theory was originally developed to describe the strong nuclear force. In those days gravity was not studied by particle physicists, so it was not really on our minds. We knew that it is incredibly weak, and completely negligible, at nuclear and atomic scales. So the shift in viewpoint did not come easily. The discovery of QCD actually helped to motivate the search for another use of string theory.
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,31 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: "Green Living in the campus community: Eco Group IIT Roorkee"
|
||||
tags: [wona, column]
|
||||
category: bigstory
|
||||
image: ecogroup.jpg
|
||||
author: "Soma Gorai, Deepal Tiwari"
|
||||
excerpt: "Eco Group, IIT Roorkee is a group of enthusiastic trendsetters working together to integrate sustainability in IIT R and inculcate Green Living in the campus community. The group functions under the aegis of the Institute Green Committee"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
**Eco Group, IIT Roorkee** is a group of enthusiastic trendsetters working together to integrate sustainability in IIT R and inculcate Green Living in the campus community. The group functions under the aegis of the Institute Green Committee. Their vision is to bring sustainability to the campus by *brainstorming new ideas which reduce the carbon footprint of the campus by reducing the unnecessary usage and reusing and recycling resources wherever feasible.*
|
||||
|
||||
Watch Out! spoke to the members of the ECO Group:
|
||||
|
||||
*“The idea for the group came up during the lecture class of environmental engineering when the professor was informing us about how nature is being devastated by our reckless actions. We together observed that the very place where we live required some changes. The first rudimentary problem we observed was lack of Integrated Solid Waste management on our campus. Segregation of waste at source was lacking on the campus. We developed a model to segregate, transport and treat the waste generated and proposed to install separate bins for inorganic and organic waste inside hostels. The proposal was accepted by the Institute Green Committee whose chairman is the institute Director. Currently, the bins have been installed at Rajendra Bhawan, and have been planned to be installed in other locations in the campus as well. The Organic waste collected will be used to make compost with the help of Rotary dump composter in the institute, while the inorganic waste will be sent for recycling. The second basic problem which we discovered was no management for Electronic waste. At present, separate bins have been installed all around the campus especially for Electronic waste by an electronic waste recycling company.”*
|
||||
|
||||
The ECO Group also conducted an enlightening series on Sustainability for the IITR junta, which was received with great appreciation. The series saw three prominent figures in the field of sustainability and waste management share their experiences and knowledge.
|
||||
|
||||
The first talk was delivered by **Ms Saloni Goel**, an alumna of IIT Delhi and the London School of Economics. She led the sanitation work during Kumbh 2019, delivering an open defecation free, garbage-free, and odour-free mela. She won a Guinness World Record for undertaking massive sanitation. She is currently engaged as a Climate Change Specialist with the NITI Aayog. The event was also graced by Professor Barzley of London School of Economics, who helped Ms Goel document her work for the Kumbh.
|
||||
About sustainable solutions, she said *“Developing a technical solution is the first step in solving a problem. You’ve to go ahead and connect to the ecosystem so the solution is accepted and implemented.”*
|
||||
Ms Goel emphasised on the importance of **source segregation of waste.** In a poll conducted during the talk, most people agreed with the concept. However, *the majority of those who were polled weren't aware of the different bins for different wastes.*
|
||||
|
||||
*“Waste management is still an unorganised sector - the ragpickers, kabadiwalas should be taught about safe and healthy waste management practices. Their health should be a priority. Proper waste management systems also generate jobs, in addition to being eco friendly. Though gradually, the government is working towards integrating proper waste management in the smart city models.”*
|
||||
|
||||
The second speaker was **Mr Prabodha Acharya**, Chief Sustainability Officer of Jindal Steel Works, and an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. He gave us a glimpse of the definition of sustainability for the corporate sector. He emphasised their vision of Economic, Social and Corporate governance, their ideology of meeting everyone’s needs and not compromising on the future requirements. *“Corporate sectors should focus on reducing their consumption of harmful plastics and improving their product’s sustainability,”* he said.
|
||||
|
||||
When asked about the idea of zero waste, he mentioned how it is technically not feasible to always recycle or possible to avoid by-products and treating them as feeders for other products is the most sustainable way to go.
|
||||
|
||||
On how sustainability affects business, he said *“Sustainability boosts business growth - sustainability optimises the resources. Industries can produce more with less resources through a sustainable thought process.”*
|
||||
|
||||
For the third event, **Mr Ashish Sachdeva** of Green Dream Foundation gave a presentation on Waste Management in India. He has given talks in Global Conference of Waste Management & Recycling (Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi), Global CSR Summit 2019 (Sarawak, Malaysia), and had also visited IIT Roorkee for iFest(2012) previously. He provided us with a lot of insights on the prevailing waste management issues in the country and the statistics of India as compared to other countries. Mr Sachdeva also discussed innovations using plastic in building roads, and the new EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) policy which will strengthen waste management policies making companies responsible for the recycling of plastic they produce. He also warned against feeding mixed waste into waste-to-energy plants, as they lead to the formation of toxic by-products which cause pollution.
|
||||
@ -1,64 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
layout: post
|
||||
title: " Summer Diaries: Harvard University and IIIT Delhi"
|
||||
image: "keerat.png"
|
||||
tags: [wona]
|
||||
author: "Keerat"
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
excerpt: ''
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
This Summer(and a little beyond that), I participated (remotely) in the capacity of a research intern in two research groups, at Harvard University and IIIT-Delhi. At Harvard, I was working at the Lichtman Lab, with Dr Jeff Lichtman while at IIITD, my work was in collaboration with Dr Tavpritesh Sethi and Prof Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, in their joint initiative for COVID-focussed research, CoronaActionIndia.
|
||||
|
||||
# Why these?
|
||||
|
||||
Being from a PCMB background in senior school, I was keen to identify a stream wherein I could work on Biological Systems using Mathematical and Computational tools. Having Civil Engineering as my major, I wasn’t too confident about the switch initially, but with a little push from some wonderful seniors on campus, I started exploring and working on projects by the end of the first year. There is a lot you can work on in Computational Biology, and the myriad of options was slightly confusing, to begin with.
|
||||
During my search, I came across a workshop on ‘Machine Intelligence and Brain Research’ held at IIT Madras earlier this year(they have a centre called CCBR specifically dedicated to Computational Brain Research), where I got to interact with professors working in labs around the world. Being the youngest and amongst the only few undergraduate attendees of the workshop, there was a lot I came back with after spending 10 days at IITM. I then decided to proceed with Computational Neuroscience as my first stop. The choice to do a second internship was impromptu, and was mainly because I wished to take part in research using AI in public healthcare- what better chance than to work against an ongoing pandemic?
|
||||
|
||||
# Getting there (well, not IRL)
|
||||
|
||||
Application for both these internships was done through mailing.
|
||||
I started shortlisting professors working in Computational Neuroscience in January and began mailing (I had been mailing professors since the end of October previous year but with much less clarity on my field of interest). Knowing a few seniors who had already interned in related projects, I got in touch with them to enquire about the labs they had visited. By the beginning of February, I had been offered an internship at the Lichtman Lab. I was a little short on time wrt planning for funding, getting my visa, accommodation in the US, etc and then Coronavirus decided to make it all simpler by leaving me with a remote intern instead :3
|
||||
I mailed TavLab@IIITD in June, and the response time was much lesser-I started working(remotely) within 2-3 days of my application.
|
||||
|
||||
# Work at Harvard
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
My project was to predict synaptic connections in the mouse cerebellum using a Deep Learning pipeline, with appreciable accuracy. This falls under Developmental Connectomics research, where the motive is to reconstruct how the brain is wired and use the connectivity map (called a Connectome) so obtained to study how the organism develops over time. The entire project involves the 3D segmentation of all different parts of the brain. My focus, however, was only on the synapses- the points where two neurons meet, crucial to establishing neural connectivity.
|
||||
The beginning was a little slow, with various challenges to a remote intern presenting themselves one after the other. Once I had access to the remote server and got used to the Lab’s workflow, however, the project gained pace.
|
||||
We had regular lab meetings, where one particular group in the lab presented their progress each week. There were weekly meetings within our group, headed by the post-doc researcher whom I was working with, where we presented our weekly progress and planned the work for the upcoming week. We also had the chance to attend talks by other neuroscientists. Despite the difference in time zone, communication was smooth and prompt.
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
(Seminar by Prof Jeff at the Centre for Brain Science, Harvard University)
|
||||
|
||||
# Work at IIITD
|
||||
|
||||
{: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
|
||||
|
||||
I worked on two projects during the course of my internship at IIITD. In the beginning, I joined an ongoing project on Agent-Based Modelling and its usage to simulate the spread of the Coronavirus. The idea was to see how the virus would spread in the Indian states, after modelling their socio-economic conditions and then project the number of expected cases for the upcoming months, which could further be used by the governmental bodies for making action plans. Post conclusion of this work, I co-led the development of a reinforcement learning framework that optimises the distribution of vaccines (a scarce resource) amongst different parts of the population based on their characteristics. This was an attempt to deal with questions like ‘Who should get access to the COVID vaccines first?’ anticipating the need for a fair and efficient distribution mechanism upon their arrival in the market soon. The papers for both these projects are currently under review.
|
||||
Work here was much more fast-paced than at Harvard, owing to the field under study more than anything else. We had very frequent meetings, sometimes multiple in a day and the excitement to see if their work was making any difference kept everyone motivated and on their toes.
|
||||
|
||||
# Key Takeaways
|
||||
|
||||
The sharp contrast between the nature of work done during both my internships gave me a lot of insight into what I want to focus on next. Work at Lichtman Lab was at a microscale, often true for research in Computational Biology where you try to make sense of processes in your body by going at the cellular level. Seeing members of the lab present their work every week, I realised the nature of this research requires a lot of patience and diligent effort spanning over a considerable amount of time before patterns are observed and conclusions are drawn. If you enjoy being a part of something much bigger and derive pleasure out of the process of building your way towards knowledge, then this is for you.
|
||||
On the other hand, research at TavLab was more holistic- I was a part of the entire pipeline, which was less dependent on physical experiments, and more on ideation. Quick visibility of results, and the feeling that what we’re working on might potentially be used for public welfare, often instilled a rush of excitement and kept me going.
|
||||
These comments are obviously based on my perception and limited exposure during the course of the internships, but I feel they’re the most important takeaway, possibly over any other piece of knowledge I gained throughout.
|
||||
|
||||
# A Few Pointers
|
||||
|
||||
I think it’s a much better idea to walk into an internship with some expectations of what you want to walk away with once it’s done- it could be a skill or simply more clarity on your field of interest. That being said, there are a few things I feel one could pay attention to during their search for a suitable internship:
|
||||
|
||||
1. Do not indulge in cold mailing for the sake of getting a response; targeted and personalised emails are much likelier to payback - It’s also a good idea to reach out to any alumni (from any IIT, in fact) who may be working in the concerned lab, ask them about the research and lab environment, and cc them in your mail to the professor. That serves as an excellent backup system in case the professor does not read your mail or forgets about it.
|
||||
|
||||
2. Talk to people- your seniors, professionals you may know who’re working in your field of interest or anyone who you feel can give you an informed opinion. Do solid research before you apply anywhere, and get your initial emails proofread by your seniors. Your email is one of the first things you’re going to be judged by as a candidate, so it’s important to ensure you do a good job.
|
||||
|
||||
3. Twitter is a great place to follow relevant research and get updates about openings, and one that many don’t use.
|
||||
|
||||
4. One advantage of everything going remote is the increase in access to many international events. There are a lot of open-to-all workshops and meetups being organised regularly which serve as good opportunities for learning as well as networking.
|
||||
|
||||
Being confined to our homes and no longer having the privilege of knocking upon our seniors’ doors for some much needed free gyaan, lack of guidance can often make things a little scary. I hope this account helps, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions :)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -7,50 +7,14 @@ layout: layout
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
|
||||
<div class="category-posts container about">
|
||||
<div>Watch Out! is the official student media body of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee run entirely by students under the aegis of the Dean of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Roorkee. 26 years after its conception, Watch Out! has grown to offer news, commentary, opinions and editorials from around the campus on its website and social media platforms in conjunction with a semesterly print issue.</div>
|
||||
<div>Watch Out! is the official campus media body of the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee run by students under the aegis of the Dean of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Roorkee. 24 years after its conception, Watch Out! has grown to offer news and commentary from around the campus on its website in conjunction with a semesterly print issue.</div>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>History</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<div>The brainchild of two enterprising third-years Anurag Gupta & Harjeet Khanduja, Watch Out! was born from the desire to provide IIT R (then the University of Roorkee) its own student publication with news, interviews and entertainment. The name is courtesy of the (then) Chief Warden of Govind Bhawan and our first patron, Prof C. P. Agarwal.
|
||||
With the pioneering efforts of the first editorial board and their colleagues at the Institute Computer Center, the first issue hit the shelves of the Govind Bhawan mess in 1994. What started as a fun little project managed to become the official student body of the campus in a few years. Watch Out! has remained the voice of IIT R ever since, and has evolved and expanded from a 7-member team to its present self.</div>
|
||||
|
||||
<div>Founded in 1993, we trace our roots back to an attractive looking poster pinned to Govind Bhawan’s notice board. Started off by two entrepreneurial third-year students of the erstwhile University of Roorkee, our first issue was the handiwork of a humble team consisting of seven people and was printed under the kind patronage of Govind Bhawan’s Warden.</div>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>Contact us</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<div>To get involved, email us at <a href="mailto:watchout@iitr.ac.in">watchout@iitr.ac.in</a> or talk to any of our members.</div>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>The Team</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<div>
|
||||
<b>Co-Presidents</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Atharva Shukla Mohit Sharma
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
<b>Executive Editors</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Aditya Ramkumar Agastya Varahala Manish Prasad
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
<b>Chief News Coordinator</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Divyam Goel
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
<b>Chief Web Coordinator</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Jayati Shrivastava
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
<b>Chief of Design</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Prakhar Kothari Shivam Maan
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
<b>Chief Multimedia Coordinator</b>
|
||||
<br>
|
||||
Mohammad Zaryab
|
||||
<br><br>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
<div>To get involved, email us at <a href="mailto:watchout.iitr@gmail.com">watchout.iitr@gmail.com</a> or talk to any of our members.</div>
|
||||
|
||||
</div>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
category: filtercoffee
|
||||
---
|
||||
@ -1,3 +0,0 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
category: summer2020
|
||||
---
|
||||
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Reference in New Issue
Block a user