1st March, 2007 Volume 1 Issue 2

THE BITS HERALD

An English Press Club Presentation

Waves and Quark 07 : A Preview

planned for the geeks to relax af-ter a day of brain-storming ses-sions. A pro-nite and a movie-nite are also on the cards. For those who are keen on testing their knowledge, a set of questions has been put up on the website www.quark07.org.

With a large number of students participating, Quark 07, ably buoyed by sponsors with deep pockets, is sure to inscribe a suc-cess story as never seen before at BITS.

Trace Route and Battle of Bots (under the Roboficial category) are expected to be the focal point of our tech fest. Other events like Open Showcase, Paper Presenta-tion, Dexter’s lab and Scion are also being looked forward to by a lot of students. A few workshops and a series of guest lectures are going to be conducted during the fest.

A gamut of events under the ban-ner ‘School Bag’ are specially be-ing arranged for school kids.

A star gazing party has been

Soon after an exhilarating Waves 07, it’ll be time to get Funda Men-tal.

Quark 07 is going to be the first national event to be held in our college. It promises to be a tech-nological extravaganza and an exciting battlefield for some of the smartest students in the country, whilst still retaining the exuberant spirit that character-izes a college festival.

The tech fest encompasses an assortment of events categorized into $bash, Elixir, e-phasor, Roboficial, Mechagi, Corporate and Chaos.

Waves 07, the second edition of our annual inter college cultural festival, is around the corner and we just couldn’t help ourselves to a sneak peek at what we have in store.

The preparation for the mega event has been meticulous. The various clubs and committees were formed well in advance and have since been working overtime. Most of them look set to meet their respective targets and even exceed them. Kudos to everyone involved.

This time too, like the last, only Goan colleges will be invited. However, the number has more than doubled to 14. Apart from that, the event will be open to students from other colleges too. Over 4000 students are ex-pected to attend, making last year's impressive turnout look measly.

There are a host of events lined up throughout the 3 day event. Care has been taken to ensure that the events are diverse enough to cater to everybody's interest.

The main attractions at Waves,

as most will agree, are the DJ Nite and the Pro Nite. For the former, talks are on with DJ Sa-sha from B’lore and a couple of Goa’s best DJs. The bands in con-tention for the Pro Nite include Mother Jane (Cochin), Bhayanak Maut (Mumbai), F*** The Name (Delhi) and a few others.

Waves 07 is predicted to be big-ger than any other event our campus has witnessed. This may eventually prove to be an under-statement, as our college fest seems well on its way to becom-ing the biggest one Goa has ever seen. One thing is for sure though. We are all in for the time of our lives. I can't wait...

E D I T O R I A L

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Dear reader After the success of the first issue, we present to you the second edition loaded with the lat-est happenings in our buzzing campus. This time, with better print quality and a QUIZ Con-test with prizes to be won, it’s bound to be even more interesting. You don’t have to take our word for it. Read on. Next year, many of our present 3rd year students will be busy preparing for and answering a slew of entrance tests. It’s quite incredible that even after going through 4 long years of graduation some would want to add a two year long feather – a Masters degree – to their cap. Well, we all want to lay our hands on that dream car (or home, or whatever…). And it seems worth the sacrifice. A post-graduation degree can be done in various streams. As far as our preferences go, how-ever, management and technology rule the roost. But then, isn’t that one choice too many? Which one to choose? Most people prefer to sidestep that question. They answer entrance tests for both courses and wait for the results before deciding. Why these courses only? An MTech or an MS if done abroad – helps to specialize in a field which the student is already familiar with. An engineer who has a post graduation degree is valued far more than one who has ‘merely’ graduated. This translates into a better job – read more money and better opportunities. Thus, an MTech is a natural choice for BTech stu-dents wanting to pursue higher studies. The second choice is a little more complex. Why would an engineering student want to do a degree in management? Wouldn’t that undermine the time and effort put into the engineer-ing course? There surely is no dearth for commerce students in the country, is there? My mom threw these questions at me the last time we had a dinner table conversation about higher education. After a lot of pondering, yours truly arrived at some vague conclusions that may seem obvious to most but I hope would interest others. Firstly, in India, most students do not really choose to do engineering. They just do it. This is a sad consequence of our herd mentality. As a result, there are just too many engineering students and too few jobs, many of which are not financially rewarding. And most of these students never really wanted to be engineers in the first place. So they naturally start look-ing elsewhere. That’s when an MBA seems the best bet, for at least two reasons. 1) The ob-scene pay packages. 2) The fact that everyone else is doing it. There are others however, who have always had the IIMs in their sights. The engineering degree, for these budding managers, was just an incidental. This article was never meant to decide a winner among the two degrees. There is no winner. It is up to you to decide what you want to do – an MBA or an MTech? Either way, good luck.

The Team:

Alok V

Ankit C

Ankit G

Girish M

Kavya M

Krishna B

Pratik M

Vivek G

Dr. Joy Anuradha

The recordings of interviews can be taken from dc nick

“Ankit”

Any ideas/ infor-mation/ comments

can be shared with EPC team on the following mail

id’s:

epc@ bits-goa.ac.in

editeam@

bits-goa.ac.in

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

Direct. Speak

EPC: Sir, Abhigyan, which is one amongst your many initiatives, has been around for over a year now. Has it met your expectations?

Director: Abhigyan shouldn’t be confined to BITS. Wherever I go, I ask students to undertake the task of teaching at least one illiter-ate person. The success of Abhi-gyan here has made me confident that this is the right way to ad-dress illiteracy.

EPC: Sir, what are your expecta-tions from Quark and Waves this year?

Director: For me, the only important aspect is that the students who are involved in the events should show and gain good organizing skills. I’m not at all worried about the out-come.

EPC: Sir, the first batch of this cam-pus will soon be passing out? How do you feel? Director: Without doubt it’s true that I’m very attached to the first batch since during their first year they were the only students here and all my time and energy was focused on them. But I have to accept the fact that they are leaving to pursue their own happiness and success. If they are happy, so am I.

EPC: Sir, how is the institute prepar-ing for its first placement sessions, next semester?

Director: During placements, it is the performance of the student which matters most. The institute only pro-vides them an opportunity to inter-act with the best firms. The place-ments at both campuses will be managed by BITS Pilani and no dif-ference will arise between the two. So I have absolutely no worries and neither should the students.

EPC: Sir, as the Director, what ac-tivities have you been involved in outside BITS?

Director: Whenever any college or organization invites me to an event, I make it a point to attend. For ex-ample, recently I was in KHC for their inter college festival Phoenix. Whenever there is a Goa Agenda, the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry always invites me. The important thing is that all the high officials visiting Goa are realizing that there is an educational insti-tute of national importance here.

EPC: Sir, what is your opinion on the current state of affairs of edu-cation in Goa?

Director: In Goa, the literacy rate is very high. But I feel the quality of education is not very high. In the last three years, I have dis-cussed this at various levels and found that there is an increasing awareness in the state about qual-ity education.

Our Director Prof. T.C.Goel, apart from handling administrative responsi-bilities has been very active in the social and academic scene of Goa. We talked to him about his involvement and contributions in these areas. Here is an excerpt from the interview :

“The placements at both campuses will be managed by BITS Pilani and no difference will arise between the two.”

Abhigyan, the literary mission of our campus was started on Rajiv Gandhi‘s birthday in the year 2005 by our Director with Sherin Kurian as the coordinator with the aim of teaching the three R’s- Reading, Writing & Arithmetic. It involves the labourers, their children, mess workers and hostel assistants as the students.

The mission started with the support of Director but today it is being helped by various people. Be it in cash, kind or attracting more students. For example, a contractor who learned English, provided a kit to the children which contained essential commodities- soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, school bag etc.; some-times faculty and students on special occasions sponsor snacks for learners; 14 students were vacci-nated against polio on 11th February.

A Note on ABHIGYAN

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T I D B I T S

PHOENIX 07

Phoenix 07 was the inaugural edition of K.H.C’ s annual inter-college cul-tural festival. It was conducted on the 10th and 11th of last month. Our college took part and finished an overall 2nd. Very impressive considering that we didn’t take part in all the events. In fact we finished in the top three in every event we did take part in. GMC, the winners of Waves 06, walked away with the title.

QUIZZER The EPC Plans a quiz in every issue with attractive prizes sponsored by PC Station.

SPREE 07

This year, unlike the last, Waves will be solely a cul-tural event. No. It’s not the organ i z ing commit tee playing spoil‘sport’. This year we are going to have an ex-clusive inter college sports event called Spree 07. The event will be held alongside Waves but the organization will be separately handled.

Guess all you sport fans out there have sufficient reason to expect a lot of action.

‘QUIZ’ZING WITH

ACTIVITY

It seems quizzing in our cam-pus has got a much needed boost in recent times. First, there was a business quiz, superbly conducted by We‘Q’. Then, the mechanical engineering students depart-ment, MAESTRO, organized an inter branch quiz on sci-ence and technology. Wit-nesses claim the quiz was unbelievably tough. EEE walked away with the 1st place and a well deserved cash award of Rs.500.

Then the guys from RIT – one guy and two girls actu-ally – conducted prelims for the Science and Technology Quiz, which will be held dur-ing Techtwister.

ST MICROELECTRONICS

ST Microelectronics, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufac-turers, is setting up joint research and innovation labs at BITS Pilani and IIT Delhi. The partnership agreements aim to combine the best of ST's leading-edge electronic skills and capabilities with the educational and research talents of the two institutes. Both labs are expected to be opera-tional by second quarter of 2007.

PS AUTOMATOR

The site is created by Prakhar Prakash to collect feedback and Practice School reports from 3rd year students and use it to facilitate the process for the next batch.

The site basically asks the seniors FAQs like project details, accommoda-tion details, availability of food, etc. This information can be used by the 2nd yearites to help choose a proper PS station.

SHIP ARCHITECTURE

MAESTRO organized a lecture on ‘Ship Design and Building Process’, was delivered by two gentlemen from Goa Shipyard on the 26th February.

An industrial visit by the P4 stu-dents to the shipyard is also being planned, we heard.

NETWORKED

CEL of our campus has been in-cluded as the member of National Entrepreneurship Network, popu-larly known as NEN. In fact CEL Pilani is one of the founders of NEN. CEL has also in store a host of interesting activities for QUARK and before.

BITS 360°.COM

Abhimanyu Vatsya and Abhinav Asthana developed this site to have a 3D views of the nooks and corners of the campus. They used the Corel Paint Shop pro, Adobe Photoshop to edit the snaps; Panorama to form 360° view; and Flash Actionscript, PHP and My SQL for web designing part.

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SPORTS THIS YEAR Given below are the results of all the inter hostel sports events that took place this year :

In spite of the impending exams, we somehow man-aged to celebrate Valen-tine’s Day this time.

The dress code for the day did confuse a few. (Some people wore yellow and started looking for like minded partners!!!)

A hop was organized on B-Wing in the evening. A few contests for couples helped liven up the otherwise dull event.

B O Y S G I R L S

Why didn’t Arjun Singh ever think of reser-vation for girls. I ‘m sure nobody would have protested.

VALENTINE’S DAY

BLUES

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Devaki Sanjana

BH7

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IIT B TECHFEST 007 IIT-Bombay successfully conducted their annual sci-ence and technology fair, "Techfest 007", on January 26th-28th, 2007. This spectacular celebration of tech-nology was the largest such event in Asia. The budget, it was claimed, was around 90 lakh rupees. With as many as 600 participant colleges from all over Asia, the attendance was estimated to be around 15,000. The innovatively named events included Micro mouse, Void, Tremors, Interconnections, CRO 2.0 and Auctions. A robotics workshop was conducted by TRI (Yeah. They conducted a similar workshop in our campus too). Eminent personalities like Dr. John Nash (Remember ‘A Beautiful Mind’??), Prof. Kevin Warwick, and Dr. Jill Tarter gave inspiring and motivating lectures to the students. To make sure it wasn’t just work and no play, there were some scintillating performances by performers from USA, UK, France and Australia. Our college too took part in this extravaganza. Ab-hishek Kumar won "Auctions", in which he had to write software that maximizes your profits while bidding. Shraddha Vartak, Abhishek Agarwal and Ganesh Vernekar came 2nd in "Radio Sport". They

had to build their own receivers and search for certain radio transmitting sources. Sidhartha Agrawal, Rahul Parsani and Sharanyan came 2nd in "CRO 2.0 ". These guys had to design a game on an oscilloscope. Mandar Gokhale along with a friend from IIT-B fin-ished 2nd in the "Apogee quiz". Techfest 007 ended on a happy note for our college as we finished a commendable 4th overall. And the experience gained will sure prove valuable as Quark goes national this year.

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BITS gets SUN ‘ny A developers workshop was organized on 25th February in the campus by the professionals of the Sun Microsys-tems . The key areas addressed during the conference were future prospects of java, operating system Solaris and building applications for desktop, web and mobile devices. The workshop kicked off with Simon Ritter speaking about the history and future of the computer industry. After enthralling the crowd with some fasci-nating demonstrations Peter Karlsson took the charge of introducing the audience to Solaris, the operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. Mr. Jeevan Rama-krishna discussed about the essentiality and usage of Grid computing with providing insight about its future prospects. The workshop ended with a vote of thanks to the Sun Microsystems and the professionals who enlightened the students with their presentation.

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WEEKEND DESTINATION 1763 and was occupied by the British army between 1797-1813 . This fort until 1955 used to house a prison. There is a small church within the walls. There are Dhabas nearby for refreshment. A couple of kilometers before reaching the fort, just off to the right of the road, is a small cove with a patch of beach at the bottom of a steep, rocky cliff shaded by a few clinging palms. There's no fixed path, and it’s a matter of trial and error to get to the bot-tom.

It can be accessed by taxi, motorbike, motor bike or cycle tours

Daily bus service available from Margao KTC bus stand to Cabo-de Ram. Journey will take about two-three hours along a splendid scenic route, ideal time to unnerve your senses. ! IDEAL DESTINATION FOR A ‘HARDWORKING’

BITSIAN SOUL !

It’s the same place where the Dil Chahta hai Trio parted ways and ultimately united along with their partners. Located in Goa's southern most Taluka Canacona, the fort takes its name from the name of Lord Rama , who had stayed in this place with Sita during his period of exile. The headland itself is a beautiful and wild landscape, with huge areas of terraced fields of the deep red earth common in Goa, and outcrops and cliffs of dark vol-canic rock interspersed The fort was under Portuguese in

CABO-DE-RAM

CARTOON CORNER

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Devaki Sanjana

DC STARS ravemzsdin : Shubham Malhotra, BH3 He started the DC hub TITAN. He is notorious for kicking people at the slight-est pretext. LORD_dc: Ramanuj, BH6. If u r wondering how the dude shares all those GBs; a 380 GB external is his se-cret. KK : Kaustubh Kulkarni, BH4 He spent nearly 50 hours of online on dc which earned him an ‘admin’ title on DC. Sidius: Aravind Subramanian, BH8 Was the lord of dc before LORD_dc came along. ((((Full_of_life™))) : Nita, GH4 Sole female admin in campus.

Ekalavya marks the return of Vidhu Vinod Chopra as a director after a 6 year long hiatus. His last movie was Mission Kashmir (2000). The star studded cast consists of Amitabh Bachhan, Boman Irani, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Sharmila Tagore and Raima Sen. Phew!! The story is a very different take on a tried and tested formula. The death of the head of a royal family is followed by a vicious battle for the throne and the legacy. The ageing Royal Guard, Ekalavya - played by Amitabh Bachhan, takes it upon himself to protect the rightful heir to the throne. The rightful heir, of course, is the prince – played by Saif Ali Khan. The plot, however, gets thicker as the movie pro-gresses. Amitabh Bacchan is at his usual best. Saif shines through too.

But sadly, most of the other perform-ances are overshadowed. Technically, the movie is awesome. And as ex-pected, the soundtrack is very good and blends well with the movie.

M O V I E R E V I E W

EKALAVYA

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Across 2. Device used to control the movements and direction of a model airplane, a video-game character, etc. 7. A covered bundle of wires that carries electronic messages 10. a small device for controlling a pointer on screen. 11. A disk that holds up to 800k of information, but the in-formation stored cannot be changed 12. a device attached to a computer, used for making paper copies of material produced on the computer 13. a place on the outside of a computer where you plug in a cable that connects the computer to other devices, such as a printer 14. an electronic device that takes in input, processes it and gives the desired output. 15. a computer diskette 16. Physical components of the computer, computer equip-ment

Down 1. A thin flat circular plate 3. in a computer, a set of instructions that lets a person perform certain tasks, such as word processing, adding numbers, or reading information on the Internet. 4. an arrow, black line or other sign on a computer screen that shows where you are writing. 5. a screen, as on a television or computer, that displays information 6. the surface on which a computer monitors image is displayed 8. a small, portable device that computes 9. a row or rows of keys (on a piano, computer, etc.) 13. a set of coded instructions telling a computer how to process information Solve this crossword and drop in your entries at PC Station, Shop No 9, Dr. Tarquinho Henriques Appartments, Near St An-drews Church, Opp. Dreamland Ice-cream Corner. The winners will be announced in the next issue. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity of winning a 2GB PENDRIVE !!

CROSSLANES !!

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