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Ranjan Piyush

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Jilt SebastianPh. D Scholar

Computer Science & Engineering

Malini Ranjan

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Rights and Responsibilitiesof

Research Scholars

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Charter of Rights and Responsibilities of Research Schloars at IIT Madras

2013

• ‘Computational Methods in Engineering’ by Prof. S.P.Venkateshan and Dr. Prasanna Swaminathan, former PhD research scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering.• ‘Essentials of Radiation Heat Transfer’ by Prof. C. Balaji, Department of Mechanical Engineering.• Paper titled "Masculine Practices and Reception of Chinese Cinema in India" by Dr. Aysha Iqbal Viswamo-han, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences published in 'Literary Insight : A ref-ereed International Journal', has been selected as the Best Paper from the Issue by Higher Education and Re-search Society, New Mumbai.• Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC, IIT Madras) signed an MoU with National Instruments (NI) to collaborate on the design and development of new, affordable, high-impact medical devices based on NI platforms.• Our alumnus Prof. Vijay Shenoy [1992/BT/ME], Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore is selected for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award 2013.

awards & honors

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Hello everyone, here are the updates on the placements and stipend over the past month. There are three major updates on the placement front. Firstly all M. S scholars can apply for the companies which are open to M. Tech. The placement office will send the resumes of even the M. S scholars along with the M. Tech re-sumes. This, we feel might improve the placements of the M. S scholars to some extent. Though it will be upto the individual companies to shortlist the MS scholars or allow them to sit for the tests. Secondly plans are un-derway to make placements for M. S/Ph. D scholars round the year. It has been in principle approved in the Pan –IIT placement advisors meet. The nitty-gritty of it is being worked out. Lastly there has been an issue with many M. S/Ph. D scholars not finishing their thesis and completing the degree in time to join the compa-ny. This has caused a lot of agony to many companies, to an extent that they have stopped recruiting M. S Scholars. To overcome this situation a proposal is being mooted wherein M. S/Ph. D scholars can appear for placements only once. In case he is not able to finish his thesis on time and the company rejects the offer or does not get placed, he/she will not be allowed to sit for placements next year. In case if he does wish to sit for placements next year he will be allowed from day five. There will be no eligibility criteria of publishing a paper or conference paper to sit in placement.

Regarding the stipend, the method of payment has been shifted through the workflow. Though there have been a few glitches during the transition. A Google form was circulated among the scholars to report any dis-crepancy. The same has been sent to the scholarship unit for updating and most of the errors have been recti-fied and three supplementary payments have been made. In case anybody has not received the stipend may please contact the accounts section and sort out the problem directly. There has been no word from the Admin side about the work log that the scholars need to update every month. Also the senate has approved the sanction period of M. S/Ph. D scholars in blocks of 2 years instead of the current practice of semester wise.

To enable better participation for the seminars of M. S/Ph. D scholars, a Google calendar has been started which lists out the details of time and venue for the seminars. Anybody can now easily sync the Google calen-dar and be sure not to miss out any seminars.

Things which Research Affairs Council is planning to take up in the month of November are to address the issue of the allotment of Quarters to married research scholars and the shortage of licenses for softwares in the computer center.

• Dr. V. Subramanya Sarma, Associate Professor, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering has been selected as a Key Reader for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, one of the prestigious jour-nals in the field of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.• S. Kavin Kumar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CS13B014)has been named the Aditya Birla Scholar by the Aditya Birla Scholarship Apex Team. He is one among 16 students to be so chosen from among 138 students in the engineering stream for the above scholarship.• Vaibhav Pratap Singh (EE11S070), MS Research Scholar, Department of Electrical Engineering has been named a winner of the Bayer Young Environmental Envoy 2013 (BYEE 2013)• Prof. R. Graham Cooks, Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemistry at Purdue University and a Distinguished Professor of our Institute has won the 2013 Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences.• Prof. Satyanarayana N. Gummadi, Department of Biotechnology has been chosen for the Talented Indus-trial Biotechnologist Award for the year 2013 by the Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy (ABAP).

ras desk2013

As part of the ongoing Extra Mural Lecture Series, on Wednesday 30th Octo-ber, we had the luxury of having amongst us , Dr. Paulraj, a Phd from IIT Delhi and a successful entrepreneur in the valley. He is a pioneer in the area of MI-MO(multiple input multiple output) technology and also did commending work on SONAR for the Indian Navy. He was also Professor emeritus at the Stanford University and has successfully guided and took part in many start-ups in the valley. He spoke at length about his involvement with the start-up scenario in the valley, it's interesting history and how it all came into existence. He, perhaps having lived a dream, quite vividly shared his experi-ences of the close shaves he had with the leaders of the electronics and wire-less industry. He has/had shared a platform or table at different stages of his career with very well-known personalities including Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Russ Varian, Fredrico Faggin and many others. He is on the board of di-rectors of a number of enterprises and has a keen interest in the anthropology of start-ups at Stanford University. With the valley's success as a canvas, he also expressed his views about the magnitude of importance that Indians, and specially graduates from IITs (IIT Madras , a special mention) have in the val-ley.He has been a part of the Stanford University for 20 years and started off the lecture with a duereminder of the premonitions that the academicians hold about the University and Valley, with a popular view terming it as an unholy alliance. Critics hold the view that too much interest in start-ups damages the academic interest. He defended this argument with the stable number of Nobel Prizes that Stanford still wins, despite the number of start-ups it churns out. He believes since most of the start-ups are in the dotcom and electronics industry, it doesn't much affect other academic fields at the Stanford University.

Well, the one question that naturally comes to our mind is 'how did Stanford get involved with the valley?' The answer lies in its rich history. Harris Ryan, with collaboration from the industry established High Power Transmission Lab at Stanford Campus. This lab turned out to be the forefront of all that was about to come. Then came the era of Radio Engineering and several other milestones were reached. Prof. Vladivar and Cryl (his Phd scholar) built up a high power arc transmitter, which was a revelation. In fact even before the valley was termed 'Silicon Valley' it was popular as 'Spark Valley'. 1920's and 40's was the era of electronics and Fred Terman,Terman, Russ Varian, Phil Farmsworth helped to accelerate the development in the field. This was perhaps the time when lawsuits and patent wars first burst onto the scene. As a matter of fact Dr. Paulraj is himself in-volved in a lawsuit with the CEO of Linux Mr. Shilling over a MIMO concept, which Dr. Paulraj together with Thomas Kailath proposed in 1993.

A technology park was established in the vicinity of Stanford and was closely linked to the university, but the pace at which start-ups were growing soon made the park irrelevant. The semiconductor industry was born in 1956 and the invention of Transistor soon led to the industries such as Shockley semiconductors and Fair-child semiconductors. Noyce and Moore who worked for Fairchild semiconductors, quit the company and started INTEL ( acronym for Integrated Electronics) in the year 1968. There was no looking back since, INTEL leapt forward crunching out patents and inventions. Intel 1101 256 bit SRAM became a phenomenon and

events

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perhaps around this time, somewhere in a magazine the famous Moore's law was published. Another interesting account was of how Intel 4004 came into existence, and as it follows, it was actu-ally made for a Japanese firm which wanted to do something with the calculators but didn't want to invest in the computer. Intel promised them the chip but with the clause that all the rights would be theirs and the Japanese firm would just use it for calcu-lators. And the rest is history.

Another big step came when a prodigy from Taiwan, Morris Chang, Bs and MS at MIT and a PhD from Stanford University set up the TSMC. He was awarded the Jack Kilby medal of Honour and today lives humbly in a 2bhk apartment. Another famed personality, George Danzig( Goodwill Hunting) created the Simplex Algorithm. He is well renowned for his exceptional intelligence. Some of the factors that made the start-up scene to thrive at the valley was the lenient immigration policies of the US govt. and labour fluidity which enabled an incessant flow of knowledge across different firms.

Dr.Dr. Paulraj winded up by mentioning Vision, Willingness, Passion, Persistence and a strong founding team (in-cluding nerds and eloquents) as the best recipe for a successful startup. A quote which could well be a watch-word for the budding entrepreneurs, and indeed is the watchword of the established one ….

“Way often you learn much more from failure than from success.”

It is a survival tale. Pi Patel is the sole human survivor of a shipwreck. He soon realizes that the lifeboat he has escaped on; also holds a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The hyena eats the zebra and the orang-utan and the tiger eats the hyena. Now only Richard Parker and Pi remain. Pi realizes that he has to establish his dominance in order to survive. He trains the tiger to be submissive and establishes himself as the ‘alpha animal’ on the boat.

ItIt is also a ‘coming of age’ novel. Hardships force the 16 year old Pi to grow. Pi and Richard Parker survive at sea for 227 days. Pi fights despair, fear and boredom every day. He sets himself chores like collecting water, catching fish, having meals, maintaining the boat, praying and maintaining a diary. He says he thought he will run out of paper but finally he runs out of pens.Pi, a strict vegetarian becomes an expert fisherman. He reflects: “a personcan get accustomed to any-thing, even to killing”. The castaways have to face scorching sun, storms, starvation, fatigue and illness. Pi continually struggles to ensure not only his own but also the tiger’s survival.

The solace is found in the breath-taking beauty of the sea and its life forms. As Pi observes: "For the first time I noticed - as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next - that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still."

The story is original and is narrated entrancingly. Using fantasy and adventure, Yann Martel has created a wonder-filled book that will definitely raise your spirits.

The author claims that the story will make you believe in God. It did not make me believe in God but it did make me believe in the power of courage, hope and perseverance.

2013

Reading Between Linescolumns

“Hey, you’re back!?! How was it in India?” “That was awesome, really! ...”Once more, I am facing this question: How to synthesize one whole year full of experiences into an ade-quately brief answer?I’ll try to do it for you, IITians. You, who made this year in India the best one of my life.I’ll start by saying that my exchange in India has been an emotional roller-coaster ! I remember having been through intense joy, terrible homesickness, consternation, admiration, frustration and hope within periods as short as a single day.

Joy ! Joy to have a whole new world to discover and inspiring people to get to know. I have been amazed by the helpfulness and simple generosity of some of my classmates and neighbors.

MostMost of the people I had the chance to meet there, Indian as well as exchange students, were curious and eager to share their thoughts on life, society, world or India’s future and make things change in a better way. I learnt to keep hope and faith in the future.

There is something else that India taught me: the importance of family.ItIt has often been hard to share my experiences of India with my friends in Europe. Just as I was before this ex-change, most of them do not know anything about Indian culture, values (e.g. simplicity of life, spirituality, pureness…) and way of living. But I have been disappointed to see that very few of them actually tried to un-derstand and that they rather preferred to think of India just as a far and strange country. In this contextmy family, who was always willing to discover the Indian life with me, has been a great support! I have never felt so close to my family as since I went to India and I admire the way Indians generally manage to keep strong family links.

On the other hand, I never agreed with the way parents decide what their children’s life would be: especially through arranged marriage or education. The status of women in the traditional families (or in society in general) has always bothered me too.Even though there are many things I do not support in the Indian society, it has been really enriching for me to actually face this reality, try to form my own opinion of them and then debate and exchange ideas with people thinking in a totally different way. This made me think beyond the a priori European judgment on a different culture, which was definitely not easy at first.

II have often been amazed by how much Indians know about European culture whereas Europeans know so little about Eastern cultures in general. And I can only respect the way my Indian friends, instead of feeling offended, explained me with patience and tolerance the details of the Hindu epics, traditional Indian artsor history.

InIn this small text, I could have talked about the injustice I felt by being always privileged in any aspects of my life there (starting from the fact that we were living in a closed “oasis” remote from the outside chaos of Chennai streets), about both the delight and frustration created by the value of time in everyday life, about the way Indian megalopolises can become oppressive,about the exciting feeling of adventure arising every-day,about the pressing competition in Indian education system, or about many other things; but the most

important memory I keep from my exchange at IITM is the inspiring people I have met there, with whom I have lived, with whom I have learnt and who I consider now as my family.

My advice to anyone who wants to hear it: If you can, go! Go wherever you want,somewhere you maybe know nothing about, and you will come back being a greater person!

Experiences from Exchange

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shutterbug

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“Smile and the world will smile back to you”, is one of the famous quotes, which elucidates the significance of a smile in today’s world. In fact it won’t be wrong to allege smile as a contagious disease. For at least once, all of us have been associated with an instance where a glimpse of flashing smile on an unknown person’s face, flutters our heart. This highly infectious disease can encourage a person to garner hope, recollect mem-ories or thrive enthusiastically.

I often cogitate over the thought why it is so difficult for a person to smile? Sometimes I end up earning no solution while at other instances I swim down into other thoughts. Today as I pen down this article, I am able to perceive a definite explanation. I am able to realize the fact why isn’t the world happy? Why is man mad

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at man? Why isn’t peace able to prevail in the world? The answer seems so formidable to interpret yet so lucid. Give everyone a reason to smile, a moment to cherish, a thought to ruminate and an ardor to be pas-sionate.

Is giving everyone a reason to smile so toilsome? Is it so enduring to find a precious moment, which a person can treasure throughout his life? I would like to disagree with this notion. According to me to give someone a reason to smile is the most blissful task. I understand the true fact that it’s easy to preach than comply. So I would describe an episode that occurred with me and which I still cherish.

It was summer of 2012 and I was still a new guy on the campus. I became part of the IIT Madras family in the pleasant January of 2012. I was allotted a single room at Brahmaputra hostel. My room is situated on the fourth floor and as I am God’s favorite child, we don’t have the facility of lift. My stay at IIT was still having hic-cups when I became part of a captivating incident. Like every other evening I was filling my water bottles from the water dispenser placed at our floor. The rays of the sun could be seen fading behind and the birds were chirping back to their nests. The dispenser had only a little water left in it and it was evident to me that after my turn the dispenser will lack any water.after my turn the dispenser will lack any water.

Suddenly I heard someone profusely breathing. As the sound came nearer I could see a man towering up to six feet. The man possessed a sturdy built but his clothes were inordinately simple. As he advanced towards me I could clearly see his bare feet. His feet reflected the enduring task he used to perform. In both his hands he held two large cans of water. The weight of the cans could be judged from the fact that each contained about twenty liters of water. Sweat gushed down from his brow to all over his chest. His sable eyes revealed his weariness.

He performed the task of delivering water cans to our hostel. One could term it as my folly but I had never ac-knowledged his presence before. He balked as soon as he saw me and allowed me to continue filling my water bottle. To him I was just another guy in the town who was trying to satiate his thirst. He was focused on his task and did not desire any help. He was an average hardworking man, fighting hard to meet his daily ends.

Suddenly a pity ran through my spine. As soon as I filled my water bottle, I removed the empty can and ap-proached towards him to offer my help. He saw me advancing and smiled, and I acknowledged his efforts back with a gleaming smile. Together we placed a new can on the dispenser. Then I offered him my bottle to drink water but he shied away. The only dialect he knew was Tamil and I knew English. I could hear him utter a few words of which only “Thank You” was discernible. Still his voice was able to melt my soul away.

Since that day we are friends. Two people from disparate parts of society, performing distinct duties, having different responsibilities and not even knowing the same dialect can talk. Whenever I see him I bow my head down and smile towards him and he in turn raises his hand and utters few words. If I meet him again on some floor, changing some can, I take out my time and try to help him. Though for him my little help is of no good use, but it’s my gesture that pleases him.

II believe, now it’s evident that churning a smile isn’t that difficult task. Our small everyday deeds can help us to smile and bring forth a smile on someone else’s lips. A small step in this direction could play out a large role in soothing the existing chaos.

2013

Suyash GuptaM. S Scholar

Computer Science