The New Year

It has become almost habitual for everyone of us to plunge into party mood on every new year's eve. This celebration of ours is of course aimed at welcoming yet another year of happiness and prosperity. But, do we just focus on just the new year day i.e., Jan 1 and fail to make the most out of the remaining 364 days? I guess, this is the scenario! What does a new year mean? If not as a general opinion I would like to project my thoughts here as simple as possible. The year that has gone by might have given us all sorts of experiences ranging from sadness to extreme happiness, failure to pinnacle of success and countless. We might have done some highly noble deeds and at the same time harmed a few hearts, with deeds and words. The year is the excellent opportunity to put all our negatives on a hold and gear up for the future, retaining those noble qualities.

Yet, I haven't mentioned what we need to do as we usher in to the new year! Well, here is one short list of activities, which I have shortlisted through my observation and experiences. The first and foremost would be adjust with the circumstances. There are many people who decline to bend for the situation. They command the similar requirements even knowing that it's not available. This is not fair as we need to travel places around the globe. It may sound so silly but you'll realize its worth only when you start working for a concern. So be prepared. Next would be, analyze things better before you speak or do. This is an elementary fact, but i feel that everyone of us forgets it with high probability! Analyze the people around you and also the situation before you proceed with your word or action, because it will decide how good you are with people or even the otherwise!

Moving on, concentrate more on retaining your friends rather than trying to make new ones. Many of u would take this sentence in the negative sense. "Concentrate" implies 'give extra efforts to'. So take efforts to keep your current friends from moving away, because that's the toughest thing since you need to take care of friends with varying attitudes. Making new friends doesn't require any effort, as they come when they like you, without any stimulus. When your current comrades are not reciprocated by you, you may lose a valuable asset. So be warned. Further, try to use knowledge for the welfare of people and country rather than to showcase your grey cell potential alone. This is the trend with almost every learned men/women nowadays. Learn to educate others. This should be the motto and this is how many world nations stand tall. So drop all your pompous display of knowledge and start working on how you can be worthy to your country, after all it's you who has to take care of your mother, i.e., your country.

A final note will be don' t take what people do to you for granted. Nobody does something to you without a pinch of care imbedded in it. So try not to harm them at least, if not you reciprocate to the fullest. These are my simple observations that can be embodied as traits of human behavior. Some may be tough to practise, but am sure the effects are divine. If you are ready for all these rejuvenations then you are ready to party out! Finally, be humane in your behaviour and be concerned in your attitude. Happy New Year friends!

Hyper-Media

The role of media, especially television is so commendable these days. The news channels in particular provide us with the latest update of events occurring in the most isolated part of our country. We come to know about the celebrations that create a jocular mood among the public or the deadly terror attacks that leave people maiming and their relatives in a sullen mood. We get to know about the stock rates at the share markets and views of educationists on various critical issues. All these services from our visual media make one doss their hats in respect. But, there is yet another issue that sometimes, can tarnish the image of these media enabled services. That's none other than going 'hyper' over the issues.

To get clearly what the term 'hyper' really means when we throw accusation at the media, the recent coverage of Mumbai terror attacks can be taken as the impeccable exempli-gratia. We, the citizens of India were deeply drowned in sorrow on viewing those harrowing attacks on our fellow countrymen and we really appreciated the media lens men for getting the glimpse of the happenings, in real time. But, this note of praise soon ended when the news channels started dealing with news as 'commodity' as a well known national daily rightly quoted. The channels started flashing sophomore news on the screens terming it as 'breaking news', even as the officials were waiting for confirmation from the personnel inside the action points.

Each channel wanted to prove its supremacy over the other and in the race failed to bring in the feeling of national sensation into the minds of citizens rather made them irritated with half-baked news that were later stated as false by the same media that reported it. The news correspondents at one point even questioned the rescued hostages who obviously had had a gruelling experience. This showed the media's hunt for news that made them go mad at the hostages. I duly respect the news correspondents who spent hours covering the events of terror attacks, even risking their lives. At one point, the media started reporting the commando plans even! This portrayed their cursory act towards news coverage and how unmindful they were of the consequences of revealing the very sensitive army plans. The message is simple. India is a democratic country where everyone has fundamental rights to his/her own credit. The media has the full freedom to write or telecast anything they wished. It would be more sensible if this freedom is used for what it is intended for, of course with minimal recklessness and maximum enlightenment!

Solitude

In this busy world most of the children are forced to experience solitude or loneliness. This pushes them to extremism of boredom leading to depressed minds. Often this may lead to detachment from life and may impose a negative impact about life in to the young minds. They may turn shy and become less sociable. But, does solitude have any positive influence? Well, like two sides for a coin, benefits of solitude are aplenty! First and foremost we get to know the challenges of maintaining the house. It's not an easy task to look after your living place. You need to answer people of diverse disciplines from electricity to dairy. These experiences will lend us the helping hand in our future. These minutes of direct interaction with these people are otherwise unavailable.

Many feel that being alone drives your mind towards deleterious thoughts that may affect your intellect. The wise uses it the other way. We can use our solitude as a blessing in disguise, an environment that is calm enough for one to think on. A noisy place is not ideal if one wants answers to his questions, be it scientific or spiritual. Yet another impact of solitude is the confidence that it leaves on the person it affects. Devoid of people to help, a solitary being plunges in to activities all alone with the only weapon 'confidence'. When we get constant pushing from friends and well wishers in solving our issues we only become too much dependent upon them. This by no way means that the help they render is useless, it only highlights the conducive nature of solitude. Thus, next time when you feel lonely be proud of it since it has greater benefits of leaving you undisturbed from gossips and at the same time be sociable.

When fishes go fishing

Terrorism has spread its wings so wide all over the world that nobody has got any clues as to how to suppress it! The major flaw lies in trying to eradicate the effects of terror every time rather than taking measures to uproot the prime cause of this ugly act. Nobody has ever thought as to why most youth resort to this deadly act of massacring people. The cause needs to be analyzed from the destitute point of view to get a clear understanding of the reason as to why these youth fall prey to terror groups. As always, survival is the key for any human being in this world and everyone looks for a chance to edge over the other. In this race for supremacy, the brainy community enjoys the top luxury and amasses most of the available wealth through business. The poor go poorer. This is not a imposed stature on the poor but it's their only option as they have no other means of livelihood.


From where do the so called terrorists spring from? They are initially one among the billions in this big world and trying to earn their living as everyone do. But, these youth have a family that is unable to sponsor them a day's meal. Under the pressure to live in this world somehow these youth resort to some illegal activities in their childhood. Their minds, from then on refuses to cooperate for any productive activity in life. A sort of addiction. The already existing terror groups look for these kind of hapless young men and mesmerize them with offers such as compensation for family and canvassing in the name of religion. As these men are already in a sullen mood they immediately yield to the bait of those illicit groups and start working for them as suicide bombers!

The leaders of the world who have great care in reviving this only living place in this Universe so far, must try to find all these young minds with anger on life and try to relieve them off their poverty. It's human nature to look out for obvious means of earning wealth, not fearing of the consequences. These minds must be ignited with good thoughts of peace and also they need to be convinced that prosperity springs from peace. This can also be done on a humanitarian basis, educating those juvenile criminals about the ill effects of taking a weapon that will ultimately end as noose for their own neck! This cannot be called a novel way of eliminating terror as it'd been carried out for sometime in the past time, must be done on a full fledged basis. It's high time for us now to prevent these maniacs from hunting men as some fishes go for the kill of fellow fishes. In both the cases, the result is adverse

Indian Pot-Pouri

Why is it so difficult in a country like India, where taking some crucial decisions by any leader always beckons criticism? Why is that any measure or an act finds colossal time to get itself implemented despite its immediate allocation of resources? Well, this one is best answered by analyzing the people of India rather than its administration. India is a land of people who are from variety of races and religion. They speak multifarious languages and follow a myriad of customs. They have plethora of cuisines and piebald of clothing. In a country of such diversity it becomes extremely difficult to arrive at one single conclusion before imposing an act as part of the constitution.


Any decision taken in our country must not affect the sentiments of the masses. The sentiments may be religious, customs performed throughout time or their aesthetics. When several of these factors contribute to the glory of particular group of people it becomes mandatory for the leaders of our country to take decisions such that none of the groups get agonized or feel that their glory is being tarnished. Each state in India has got its own tradition and none of them, of course would like to give up their prosperity, under any case whatsoever. This is not an accusation thrown at the organization of our country, but a description of the demographic layout of our nation. Leaders taking strategic decisions in country like India must analyze the consequences in terms of mentality of all the groups of people who would be affected.



Yet another conflict that arises during decision making is due to the large population of our land. This huge population count has led to various economic classes. The leaders have additional burden of making sure that their decision suits all those classes and none of them is dissatisfied. India is the biggest democratic country in the world and its constitution is so big only to make the law benefit all the classes of people. So, lets not simply accuse our leaders for not taking the most accurate decision for the very first time since it may also due to the fact that they might have come to that conclusion, excluding a class of people by mistake. By this point I by no way support politicians who take crude decisions. Its only an observation that would corroborate good leaders who take strategic decisions. For other reckless leaders, the preliminary task is to first understand that they have been elected to work for the people.

Love out of(f) life....

It was drizzling outside and Ryan was watching over the window that provided a graceful view of the beautiful pathway in front of Ryan's house. It looked as if it was a path leading to heaven. So magnificent it was in the drizzling rain. As Ryan was looking through the window, drops of raindrops were pouring over his head and trickled down through his lips into the floor. Ryan tasted those fresh raindrops and was enjoying the rain when the water turned salty. Ryan wondered if the ocean went over the sky, though it sounded crazy. But, Ryan realized that it was not the result of ocean over the sky or of any supernatural phenomenon, those were his tears that rolled down his cheeks and into his lips. Ryan was surprised that his emotions over powered his intellect that they expressed themselves as burst of tears. But, Ryan was not so surprised of this emotional outburst!

Well, Ryan is like any other ten year old living with his working parents in an apartment in Utopia. Both of his parents were working and they leave home by 7 am and Ryan sees them only at 7 pm. Ryan always got the best in his life, best house, best food, best education and everything that a 10 year old needs. But, Ryan missed out the parental love, which Ryan has rated as his prime requirement. He wanted to be with his mom, wanted her to teach him lessons and feed him food. He started feeling that life is full of sacrifices where loss of one leads to gain of another. His parents used to convince him saying that earning now will provide him a better future. They used to say him about the financial burden. Ryan is so intelligent that he understood all these factors.


Inside Ryan was this longing mind, that even though it was convinced that his parents are working hard only for his wellness and the ultimate benefits are only for him, the need for that emotional comfort kept haunting his mind and made him a wistful creature. He was not sure if the trend in global education is the cause for all these increased burden on his parents. The world was initially with men working hard to earn the family's living and the mother takes pains in bringing up her child. She gets immense joy in seeing her child grow in front of her eyes. But, the race for survival in today's world has made even that holy heart (mom) to hurry towards office. Ryan was upset at his mother's pains in working too.

But, what will this ten year old do? He was eagerly awaiting a change in his family. Ryan also knew that the change is to be brought all over the world. Distribution of wealth rather accumulation, elimination of black money, terminating education as a business commodity and so forth. But, this little mind, not want of killing his joy of enjoying rain, slowly subsided to the window pane again and once again looked at that heavenly pathway. He was still confused as whether his parent's efforts to bring the love out 'of' his life to him, leading to taking the love out 'off' his life! Drops trickled down his cheeks this time too, but were not salty as those salty ones had had their emotions!

Vox Populi

The people of America have spoken out (vox populi). Its "Election America" and finally the race to White House has ended with a spectacular showdown with Barack Hussein Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States. The leader in himself has an excellent orator, a powerful lawyer and a strategic leader. The America that 'was' when he started his election campaign bore no resemblance with the one it is currently in! Lets put aside Obamian tactics and the disconcerted situation that Americans are facing now. The focus of this post is to analyze the attitude of the two candidates for the Presidential election that was expected to be a tight finish but it proved the other way with Obama getting the clean chit!

The famous speech that fetched Obama this scintillating victory was delivered by him at Illinois, the constituency from where he was elected. His speech clearly enunciated his background i.e, who and what his parents were, about his education and his entry into the US Senate. The comparison can be started right away from this point. Indian politics has its own flavors. Each one accusing every other candidate. Obama never accused McCain publicly, instead he insisted on how his principles and ideologies will take America to a new dimension both in terms of wealth and intellectual enrichment. Politicians in every level, in India concentrate mainly on acquiring crowd and make impossible promises. The decency that Obama and McCain maintained during public campaigns is worth emulating.

The post electoral reactions from these two candidates was even more amazing. McCain calling up Obama and wishing him good luck in his tenure! Never can we imagine such a noble gesture from a single politician in India, how nobler he may be in other spheres of life. Politics in India is simply considered as a race to power and not as an opportunity to take the lead in improving the nation's prospects with immediate involvement. McCain announced that he would render full support for the decisions that Obama would be taking in the future. Such is the trust of an opposition on the ruling party. Indian politics and politicians must learn a lot of moral lessons from one of the finest elections and these lessons are worth learning too.

Rejuvenate admissions

Admissions for most educational institutes, if not for all in India are based purely on the higher secondary school examination marks and the entrance test scores. One good aspect of this metric is that students with high problem solving skills enter into the institutes. But, there is the darker side of this procedure. Students with not so good attitude enter into institutes and violate the very purpose for which the institutes have been established. Mere numerical abilities don't command an excellent character from the student. These abilities can be acquired by anyone through rigorous preparation and regular practice. To be more precise these abilities are not inborn but imparted.

Then what's that thing that is unique or which distinguishes one from the other? Its the passion for study and the future goal the students wish to achieve through their course. Studying high speed databases to steal money would be of no use to society and would go to trashes! The motive behind study is all the most important. In this aspect, its better we learn from other nations. Countries like the USA and almost every European nation adopts this policy where they require a letter written entirely by the student stating his purpose of study. This letter will speak one's heart and any artificial manipulations will be easily found out by the evaluation team. Numerical scores are also taken into account by the selection team and an overall criteria is established which determines the student's admission into the university.

Yet another policy that is outstanding with foreign universities is their selective appraisal of undergraduate courses for admission into graduate courses. For example, if one plans to do an MS in Computer Science and submits his undergraduate score sheet, the evaluation team evaluates his/her performance in courses pertaining to computer science only and give lesser importance to courses not so related to computer science. This method of evaluation clearly filters out students who have a zeal for computers. Similar methods can be adopted for other engineering disciplines. Still, the post graduate admissions for IITs follow the entirely mark based metric and it must be revamped. It would be a sea change if this procedure is adopted for undergraduate courses whose admissions strictly command a high numerical score and not measure of other required skills. This all round evaluation of candidate avoids future complexities like lack of required skills during job interviews, where the candidate is required to take up special soft skill classes. Research oriented minds can also be found out with ease if multiple criteria are established. Lets hope for this method to get established in India in the earliest possible time.

Prediction

Solving a problem requires good professional skills but predicting a problem in prior needs extremely good analytical skills. Predicting problems early helps us to plan the solution in advance so that the problem can be solved with less side effects. A good example would be the kathiapara project. The traffic at kathiapara has been heavy for a quite long years. Had we anticipated this traffic a bit early, the project could have been implemented without the traffic chaos that has been affecting commuters through the junction. The analysis could have been made using the data such as number of vehicles in the city, the purchase ability of people i.e., if the purchase ability is more, more people would buy vehicles and therefore will lead to increase in traffic and similar other factors.


Predicting problems also has many other advantages like adequate planning of resources, developing an accurate plan, establishment of an efficient implementation team, creating a co-ordination among team members (which is otherwise impossible, since we would be concentrating more on the problem rather than team co-ordination). A separate team can be dedicated for prediction of possible threats and problems, the team must be provided with the necessary details from all departments to derive out the possible problems in the future. Software industry also requires anticipation of problems in the software. It is better to predict the possible bugs that may creep in or possible points of system crash. This will help in embedding proper recovery measures into the software. But, its always better to be cautious that we don't predict too much and create unwanted complexities. A good planner will anticipate problems that will occur in near future with high probability and solving which will benefit most number of customers.

Fostering research

This article suggests an idea to foster research at professional educational institutes.  This suggestion is an amalgamation of solutions that will finally produce the tendency of research amongst the students and professors.  The problem, first with the professors in colleges is that they are satisfied with the salaries they get and don't take the risk of investing time into projects that command more time and resources.  The other problem in which the professors are involved is the state where they are payed minimal salary.  When the professors are provided with a salary that is not in par with their work, they naturally lose interest with the institution they work in and in the end have absolutely no interest towards research.

Not to blame the professors all the time, students on their part also are a major cause for research not being done at colleges.  Students look for enjoyment all the time and when it comes to project, they do it for name sake or some even make an "outright purchase!!".  When one student of a class does this, it spreads to everyone in the class and the whole class gets infected by this syndrome and no body does a worthy project "on their own!".  One way to encourage research among students is to award good cash prizes for outstanding research done.  But, the originality of project must be taken into account.  Only through pure commitment from professors and students can a good research project evolve and this is entirely a collaborated work rather than a success of an individual!

Touch of socialism

Graduates of engineering studies are nowadays eyeing at starting their own companies in other words wishing to become entrepreneurs. This is a good sign which will contribute towards nation building. But for the business to succeed what do you think is the most essential ingredient? Of course, the first option that comes strikingly forward is the "love for money". This quality is the most important because without a want for money, you can never make a successful business. Fine, but to keep the business surging ahead there is yet another feature that needs to be embedded in the business process. Guess what? Its socialism or love for customers!!


This may sound a bit too excessive for the one who wishes to do a lucrative business. Believe me, without loving your customers you can never bring improvements in your business. Trade must be customer centric, whatever changes you bring to your business see to that it benefits your customers ultimately. Care for customers can be brought into products that you deliver by maintaining good quality raw materials and ensuring long term usage. This quality applies to both software and manufacturing industry products. Retaining your customers is also possible only when your customers realize that you care for them.


World famous industries like Reliance, Microsoft, Apple, General Electrical, Ford all have succeeded only after realizing what their customers want and producing the products that conform to customer satisfaction. So, whenever you plan a change for your business process first study customer reaction to your existing process and try to predict the effects of customers that would result from the change you plan to bring in your business. No product, that is technically precocious, but less customer friendly manages to bring valuable returns for your business. So, young tycoons realize this golden trick, I might call it, that caring for your customers is the prime virtue that will keep your business rolling for many a years.

Animated Learning

The topic by itself is too interesting to discuss. Some of us are actually following it, for others here is this post which throws light on this beautiful form of learning. Every subject in the educational field has got its own domain of knowledge. The knowledge of each subject is inculcated into student's mind through books, audio clips and video strips. But, in our country education is mostly text oriented with exception on some parts where audio and video content may be used.



Plunging into the topic, animating what you learn is nothing but remembering what you read or hear as a sequence of events. When you study some complex text, say about psychology of human beings, it would be very hard to remember the text as such and may lead to easy deletion from memory. On the contrary, if the psychology note describes different characteristics of humans and if the student imagines these features in terms of pictures of human faces showing similar characteristics then it would never be forgotten. Similar justification applies all science subjects like Physics, which of course requires lot of imagination, Biology, Chemistry and Math.


Engineering could also be made so enthusiastic if one studies everything in correspondence to real world happenings. A good example of one such methodology is the object oriented programming in computer science, wherein the real world objects are converted into logical objects into the system. Such is the educational process and it would be highly successful with much more animation being done in remembering things. Animated learning also greatly helps in remembering what you hear for a longer period than just remembering things as such, particularly when the listening period is short and the content you hear is complex. Competitive exams that have listening skills test how accurate the students are in recollecting what they hear. Under these circumstances it is better to form still images of what we hear and believe me this surely helps you score better than taking notes of what you hear! So, animated learning is a magical tool that helps you learn better, faster and more importantly retain whatever you learn for longer time!!

Emotional Needs

This post is dedicated to all those people who have been wistful in their early childhood for want of emotional comfort. Emotional need, like any other needs like material and physical is a vital entity in shaping a child's future. A child under the watchful eyes of a strict father grows out to be an obedient, calm and a being with no love for socialism. Being strict on the parent's part is good unless it doesn't affect the child's emotional balance. A child in its early stages looks out for comforting gestures from his/her parents. The emotional gesture will help in creating a confidence in the kid's mind that there is someone who will support him/her in all endeavors.

Satisfying a child's emotional needs include talking to him in a friendly manner, taking time in listening to his problems and giving him advices that boost his morale rather than tarnish his confidence. Bringing up a child on purely a academic note will make him handicapped on other spheres of life which include moving with society and facing different challenges. Criticizing a child too much would too affect his emotions leading to a inferiority complex. Guidance to children must be such that the child must feel that he/she must do what his parents say out of love, not by force or through intimidation. Threatening a child with harsh punishments will help parents get the things done by the child, but the results will be poor and also this will only be transient. Though I am too young to comment on this aspect, this post is no literary script but a result of careful observation and analysis.

How the space smells??

The most amazing result from NASA is that the space smells like fried steak, hot metal and the most interesting, welding of a motorbike!! A steak is nothing but meat or fish that is cooked quickly! NASA is using these findings now to simulate a condition that is akin to the space which would prepare the astronauts for the space conditions. NASA has commissioned a research project with the help of a chemist Steven Pearce, who will be simulating the lab conditions that would have the smell of space as described above. At last, mankind is successful in smelling the space!!

The US Hegemony

The world has witnessed some 40 years of US hegemony (dominance). They have been dominating almost every commercial field ranging from food, agriculture, medicine, engineering and many other fields not only in terms of quantity but also in quality. US has been the pioneering nation in taking the first step towards a novel field. Of course, in the case of space exploration it was the Russians who took the lead but the Americans quickly caught up and now they lead the research in exploring the space and beyond. When it comes to engineering, the premier engineering institutes are located in the American states, MIT, Stanford, University of California-Berkley ( Which pioneered in creating the socket concept used in Internet programming) are to name a few. Not to forget the mind boggling basic sciences research at Harvard!


The Film industry of the US based at Hollywood rocks the World with its awesome movies that keep the people dumb struck for ages. The music bands that originate from this Western country have got fans larger than any personality in this world! I can hear you readers grumbling as to why I am iterating the points that everyone knows! rite? Well the scope of this post is to analyze the cause for US' success and to discuss the possible measure that we could take as Indians to rise in par with this country.


To start with, lets analyze a common man's attitude. Every single person on this earth wants to do only things that interest him. When he is forced to do something that doesn't rejuvenate him, he naturally produces a bad result and this would invite poor impression on the person from his superior, be it in school, college, work place or sport coach. Now, in the US nobody does that doesn't interest them. A swimmer in the US is never forced to take up a course at Stanford rather he is advocated to take part in World Aquatics Championships, a rock star finds his way by producing albums that mesmerize the crowd, by the same token a math student finds his way into top notch institutes only because he does what that "interests" him.


Now the problem with Indian educational system is that we look upon education as a lucrative and a easy option to earn money. The success rate as a sports person in India is much lower when compared to an engineer in India. A gifted singer has to struggle through unbearable hurdles to project himself to the selectors. Education in India is looked upon as a mandatory asset to everyone which is good from one point of view but at the same time it deters the hopes of children gifted with some other talents. A child with some other talent like painting, is not encouraged to pursue it as his career rather is asked to keep it as an extra-curricular talent and study some blah blah degree course. The pain of not being allowed to paint through his life will reflect on his studies where the dissatisfaction will lead to poor grades and ultimately he will perform sub-optimally.

The only way to alleviate this delicate problem that has crept into our intellectual society is to allow children to pursue their ambition right from their childhood. The US dominance clearly teaches us this lesson. The people in every department in the US are those who have pursued their passion as their career. Some examples from multifarious fields include Michael Phelps, Pete Sampras, famous music bands like Blue, Backstreet Boys, Beatles, Pink Floyd, educationists like Paul Krugman, inventors like Charles Babbage, entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet to name a few. I accept that our country too boasts of people who have anchored their names in many fields but there would have been many such ones had our people be allowed to pursue the song of their heart, their passion. So, lets think on this and bring in a intellectual revolution that would surely put India far ahead of its competitors.

Attitude

This post discusses the most vital virtue needed for almost every human being in this world. That virtue is none other than, "attitude". The education that we acquire at schools and colleges will give you an insight into what our forerunners have done exploring this nature. There is yet another feature unique to every individual in this earth and that is "talent". Whatever endevour we undertake, talent and education lend us a helping hand in tasting success. But, the noblest quality that takes us even beyond is our attitude
.

There may be people who might haven't had a formal education. Those people would not know how to go about in life in earning money and to rise high in their lives. But, there would be some urge inside their hearts that keeps on telling them that they need to surge ahead, that they need to prove their worth! Thats none other than their attitude. This positive attitude of theirs will keep their efforts going on, will keep their optimism evergreen and finally take them atop the victory podium in their life.



Attitude not only helps us in tasting success, but also helps us in making a better living. Looking at things with a positive attitude gives us a peace of mind and motivates us to do things that are beyond our capacity! Many of us would have experienced this phenomenon. When you lack this positive attitude towards life, everything looks unwanted and everyone will look fiendish to our eyes. We tend to hate others and lose hope in ourselves and finally fall into a wistful life, longing for sympathy and mental calmness!



Right attitude at the work place is also a key to earn better positions in an organisation and also will motivate our colleagues. Always try to do the best out of available resources and don't grumble on the nonavailability of suitable materials to achieve a task. If at all we aren't capable of doing a job, its better not to comment on people who do the job with fullest dedication. This kind of teasing will not only harm the doers but also instill a negative attitude into our minds thereby our mind gets rusted, refusing to take up any innovative jobs! I have seen people who just sit back and comment on people who try to turn the tide. So, to conclude keep your mind free of unwanted thoughts, keep your optimism high and always wish to rise in life along with others rather than rising alone!

Concept Vs Syntax

Having done 3 1/2 years of engineering, it looks very obvious to me that many of us concentrate on getting the syntax right rather than absorbing the concepts. Concepts are implemented using programming language syntax, which are of course necessary. But, students tend to give more importance to syntax rather than the concepts that these syntax statements emphasize. This is not the consequence of the students' interest. The laboratory examinations of engineering colleges focus mainly on programs that are strongly syntax oriented. In the earlier years, lab examinations were conducted with the questions being provided on the spot. This made the students' mind to do some brainstorming and get the problem solved. The case is entirely different in our colleges, where the same programs would be provided and the one with the best memory passes out clean!



Many of us would have heard of state-of-the-art software products like Linux and Face book which are nothing but projects that were done by two engineering students in their colleges. These two software, obvious enough, are ruling their own domains of implementation. What made these people to develop such innovative software? The primary reason that I would give is that the educational system there demands students to produce such a project to get their course completion certificate. The students would naturally put their grey cells to work and come out with a novel solution that will naturally act as a trend setter for future projects.


To sum up, unless we revert back to the method of the past, where lab questions for the end examinations would be provided on the spot, we can never expect students to do extremely great innovations in the software field. The lighter side of this issue is that, since the lab exercises are syntax oriented students pay very little heed to the instructor's words and spend the hour gleefully chit-chatting! I had been the victim of those "Don't talk!" people who eargerly await to see someone talking in the lab and hand them over to higher authority! If we have a challenging task at hand, why do we think of whiling away the time?? We can't blame the system as a whole to take responsibility for this poor situation but its also on the students' part to get the better half. This situation should change, else computer engineers will become idiot-boxes, repeating the syntax alone rather than climbing up the innovation ladder!

Infrastructure & Mathematical Libraries

India is country that has produced mind blowing Mathematicians since time immemorial who took this world on their stride. Their theorems on number theory were something that no one could imagine of! Computer Science is an applied field of mathematics, where the mathematical principles are applied to solve the problem rapidly. When this is the case, why is that we don't produce efficient computer scientists as we produced Mathematicians, when its just an application of those glorious mathematical principles? The European and American countries hold the lead in fields of Computing Sciences. Its time for us to sit back and do a little brainstorming so as to find out where the problem lies.

Colleges are places where the young Engineers are groomed for the industry. Its the place where students are being made employable. An ideal ground where the scientific principles are put into action. Ironically, most of the college labs, particularly computer science labs lack infrastructure needed for high speed computing. The fault is not only on the infrastructure but also on the care taken in keeping the software library updated with the latest in the market. Computing sciences require high end software mathematical libraries as the normal compilers do not support high speed operation on large numbers. Most colleges are not even aware of these packages and therefore the onus on the students who have to search and collect these software themselves.



Onus here refers to not only the effort taken in locating Mathematical libraries but also to the fact that most of these libraries are not freewares and therefore require an amount after which the software unlocks. The institutions must take efforts at least to fund these amounts to purchase these software on students' requests. Its a pity that most colleges lack such software where the Internet-Superhighway is extremely pervasive and information is omnipresent. This calls for an urgent improvement in the infrastructure of colleges and will also help the colleges themselves to raise to the ranks of premier institutes like the IITs.



The students have a burning passion to do high end projects in computing sciences , for which high quality software is needed. The institution on its part is required to pay heed to student requirements and provide them wit adequate facilities rather than just iterating the derogatory statements like "finish the projects within deadline". Statements like these will drive students to frustration leading to sub-optimal projects, which are projects only for name sake. I hope, in the near future a sea change in infrastructure will occur and an era in which the computer scientists from India will soon begin. I can hear some of you referring to those top positions in foreign institutes being held by Indian Engineers, but those people are from top notch colleges like IIT. The solution is as simple as this. Satisfy the students' needs and they will rise to glory!

Learn How to find things....

We are living in an era in which information is freely available. Whatever may be the area, whatever may be the subject, you get the answer in a second. The trend in problem solving nowadays is to figure out where to find the information rather than building an application from scratch. We want to solve the problem quickly rather than proving our technical expertise, when it comes to pure problem solving. We need to sacrifice our personal ambitions while trying to solve problems. Searching for an information not only requires special skills but also sufficient training in handling the information source, say the Internet.


Once given with a problem, the first thing to look for is the essential steps required to solve the problem. The second one will be look for the tools to implement them. The next step would be not to start working with the application but rather looking for an already existing tool. This not only saves us time, but gives us a confidence that the problem is half solved. Later, try to modify the tool according to your application, which is possible in most of the open source tools. This is the basic principle used with the Object Oriented System Design Methodology to write softwares.


There is yet another crisis with this Object Oriented Systems Methodology. When programmers use an already existing object in their application, their Manager often questions their skill sets!! Because, he feels that they don't have a brain of their own! This problem is somewhat difficult to tackle, because it deals with the psychology of the Manager. The programmer needs to convince his Manager of his skill and expertise. So, a sufficient trade off is required between using an existing object and writing your own applications and a clever programmer always find the fine thread connecting these two.

Educate thru interest not thru force!

Hello ppl! Back again, this time with a more controversial topic to discuss. Education and how it is being handled in India. Education is a virtue, a precious commodity and this must not become an object of business! The second aspect regarding education is, how its being brought into student minds. Its a pity that education is being imposed into young minds rather allowing them to enjoy a lovely feeling called "education". Yes, education is a lovely feeling, it has a gentle breeze in it, a feeling called "awareness". The pleasure of knowing something can only be felt!


Today's plight of education is, particularly in India, we are forced into a rigorous course called "education". Forced tests, punishments and other unpleasant treatments. Why it is being stuffed into our minds? Why is that we are not allowed to think a moment and enjoy what we learn? Why is that examination still remains as the student evaluation criterion? These remain a billion dollar question in India forever! This is not the first time a student like me is feeling for this miserable happening. Many educationists have written columns of articles and many speakers spoke volumes about this issue. But in vain.


The solution is simple. People who are really interested in educating the masses must run the institutions. Education as a business object must be a punishable crime. No rule can impose the two above said principles. Its purely subjective. One has to be true to oneself and must look upon education as a way of making people realise what the world is and make the young minds feel at ease while learning.

Sizzling Schumi

Gone are the days when F1 was a one man show with the German maestro who with this dexterous hands drove the red-machine to victory every other time. The driver, who had fans almost equal to Michael Jackson, made people frantic about this racy sport at least for a decade. Ferrari was its career best when schumi was its driver along with Barrichello. Both these men made sure that victory was the only result for the Ferrari, whatever circuit may it be, Silverstone, Magny Cours or Sepang. It was akin to the wave of the magician's wand when Schumi waves to the crowd atop the podium.

But then, every good run must come to a halt and so did Schumi. Fortunately, not for Ferrari. The Massa-Raikkonen duo seem to be doing a better job in retaining the name that the red-machine had during the tenure of Schumi. On the other side, the podium seem to enjoy this season with winners changing from circuit to circuit and this variety in the race results have also made F1 fans happy. The dominance of Schumi also yielded a boring sensation from other F1 patrons who felt that the sport had become one sided. But now, each race brings in different adventures, neck to neck podium finishes ( which was a rare phenomenon during Schumi's period when the German lead the race by more than a minute). In all, though the retirement of the flying German made F1 fans heavy hearted, it has also sparked a new phenomena of variety and surprising minutes in the world of F1 sport.

Trust

Trust goes a long way in maintaining almost every kind of relationships. An employer must trust his employee that he will produce best results. This trust gives the motivation to the worker and he ultimately gives his best. A father must trust his son/daughter that he/she will come out with flying colors. The trust of his/her father will naturally induce the much needed responsibility to achieve the goals. The trust of a father is the best motivation a child needs to progress. In team games, the Captain needs to trust his players so that there exists a cordial relationship among the players and also between the players and the Captain. Lack of trust from the Captain will induce negative thoughts into the minds of the players.

When it comes to friendship, trust means a lot. One must trust their friends always. This trust does not come in just a matter of days' acquaintance. It takes a much longer time to build this trust. The situations during which you don't let down your friends are the basic building blocks of trust. The real show of trust is exposed when you support your friend(s) when the whole society is against him/her/them, when there is nothing wrong on his/her/their part. Trust helps in building strong relationship. Lack of this trust among friends will lead to superficial relationships that may break down at any time.

The most important trust, which I believe is to "trust yourself". You need to trust yourself that you are capable. Trust yourself that you are born to win. Trust yourself that you will bring glory to your nation, to your parents, to your family and all your well wishers. Have the trust in yourself that whatever job you undertake, will surely end in success. This trust in yourself is the first step to victory. This trust will put you miles ahead of your competitors and will surely help you scale greater heights. Failing to trust yourself will bring all your skills to nonentity. So, understand how vital it is this "trust" and try to incorporate this virtue into your life as soon as possible. Once you do this, you will have better relationships and success will become a habit!

Quantum Computing

Gone are the days of Classical Computers that are designed using transistors. The era of Quantum Computing has dawned. A quantum computer works under the quantum mechanical principles of superposition and entanglement. In a classical machine data is stored in bits, whereas in a quantum machine data is stored as qubits (Quantum Binary Digits). The basic idea of quantum computing is that the properties of quantum can be used to represent data and quantum mechanics can be used to perform operations on this data.

The efficient use of quantum machines will be in the field of cryptography for cryptanalysis. The Shor's algorithm which aims to solve or crack the RSA algorithm will work perfectly in polynomial time if quantum computers are used. The RSA algorithm can be cracked if we are able to factorise a number 'n' into the two primes that constitute the product. The Shor's algorithm finds those two numbers in polynomial time while the other algorithms can solve only in exponential time.

The problems solvable by quantum computers area called BQP, "Bounded Error, Quantum Polynomial time". Quantum computers run only "probabilistic" algorithms. A quantum computer is said to "solve" a problem if for every instance the solution it provides is right with high probability. Even though, quantum computers are faster than the classical computers, quantum machines can't solve problems that are not solvable by classical machines. Since the quantum machines can be simulated using "Turing Machines", quantum computers cannot solve undecidable problems. But, a realization of quantum computers, which is still in the research phase, will add a new dimension to the Computer Science.