Abhivyakti

How will I remember 2011?

2012-01-06T23:39:00.000-08:00

2011 has set in past now. It was not like all other previous years by any means. I often uttered throughout the year, "यह क्रांति का साल है|". Of-course, it was been a year of "Kranti" (Revolutions) throughout the world starting from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya etc. to far away in west . People demonstrated their dissatisfaction with their respective establishments by every possible means. Our country was also no exception. In the face of "Anna", we found a symbol to fight against corruption. His initiative mobilized general public across the nation and shaken the government and political class. It is due to this initiative that public now desperately wants to have her say in governance matters. She is no longer ready to be the victim of corruption.

This year has also witnessed events that will leave permanent marks in history. One side, demon figures like Osama, Gadaffi met with their fate. On the other side, Steve Jobs, Jagjit Singh, Bhupen Hazarika, Dev Anand etc. left us. Wish they might have enriched human civilization for some more years.

But, why will I remember it for the rest of my life? All these kind of events affect you a bit, but important are incidents or experiences that you undergo on personal front. So, I will remember 2011 due to those events (good or bad) that have affected me personally. There are lessons that I have learnt this year:

1. One should be extremely patient, when he faces his worst. Life always have surprises for you. Much less happened the way you want. So, whatever be the circumstances you are in, Its better you face them, handle them and come out.

2. Do not jump to a conclusion immediately. Wait, analyze, understand and then, act. Because, again Life will give a surprise to you. It may happen that nothing around you is in good shape, but keep faith in life. Good will come one day.

3. Everything you have today will leave you one day. Every story has its end.

4. Life and loved ones in your life are precious. Preserve!

Therefore, every moment in life teaches us a new thing. I have also learnt something. Hope, 2012 is peaceful and healthy for everyone.

GEM (GEstures with Mouse) – a mouse gesture based input mechanism from CDAC, Mumbai

2011-12-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

CDAC, Mumbai has released beta-0.1 version of GEM (GEstures with Mouse). It is an open source input mechanism which uses gestures as input to the system. Gestures can be drawn using a mouse or some equivalent device like touch pad, joystick, pen tablet etc. Gestures can drawn either as single-part (continuous) or multi-part (discontinuous) as shown in screen shots below:

Drawing a single-part gesture in input window

Drawing a multi-part gesture in input window

This Input mechanism is intended for people suffering with different kinds of motor disabilities, who may face problems in using mouse and keyboard in conventional way. Hence, it provides them with an alternate and effective mechanism for using the system to perform various tasks such as navigation, executing commands & keyboard shortcuts, and launching applications etc. on Linux desktop.

More details about GEM can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.

GEM related URLs:

1. Accessibility Project Main page at CDAC, Mumbai website can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.

2. GEM can be download at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/accessibility/gem-beta-0.1.tar.gz.

3. User documentation for GEM can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/accessibility/How-To-Use-GEM.pdf.

Feedbacks, bug reports or feature enhancement requests about the application can be sent to ossd[at]cdac[dot]in.

National Workshop on Adaptive Instruction at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai during December 15-16, 2011

2011-11-23T03:14:00.001-08:00

This workshop will explore the current trends in the field of personalization in the context of e-learning, particularly in instruction delivery. As we all are aware, e-learning has been around for quite a long time now. It is widely accepted by both the industry and the academics as a convenient medium for providing learning environment to the employees/students. E-learning can be made more effective by personalizing the instruction and adapting it to suit the individual learner. The workshop addresses issues and challenges in adaptive instruction and highlights the emerging trends in adaptive instruction. The participants will also get to experience the work of C-DAC Mumbai in creating and using adaptive instruction in education with Anurup . The workshop will also provide an opportunity to interact with participants from different organizations and industry practitioners interested in the emerging area.

This workshop is being organized by CDAC, Mumbai at their Kharghar, Navi Mumbai campus. More details about the workshop can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/news_and_events/national_workshop_on_adaptive_instruction

National Workshop on FOSS Desktop Accessibility on August 26, 2011 at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai

2011-07-08T05:12:00.001-07:00

In today’s world, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is growing day by day. We use these technologies very extensively in fulfilling our routine tasks like bill payments, banking transactions, reservations and many more to the extent that ICT is not a luxury, but necessity today. A large section of the society comprising people with disabilities finds it difficult to use ICT in the same way as normal people do. This includes the visually impaired (fully or partially blind), hearing impaired, people with cognitive disabilities (memory loss, etc.) and cerebral problems etc..

Such people have to be provided with different kinds of assistive technologies either software-based or hardware-based to make ICT accessible to them. A large number of software-based assistive technologies are normally in the form of applications running on desktops which make common desktop applications (office applications, browser etc.) accessible for the disabled person. Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) tools/techniques play an important role in creating assistive technologies that are free-of-cost, available to all, easily maintainable etc. for a large portion of population in a country like India.

The workshop intends to provide a platform for promotion and adoption of FOSS in the area of accessibility as well as creating opportunities for all stakeholders to discuss and identify the areas of accessibility that are still untouched. The workshop will host keynote and invited lectures by distinguished personalities of the field.

National Workshop on FOSS Adoption in Education on August 27, 2011 at CDAC, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai

2011-07-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

Many softwares have been developed for adopting technology in education for resource availability, sharing, and access to them even after school/college hours. There have also been developments aimed to ease other educational activities like course enrollment, conduct of examination from setting question papers to correcting answers and displaying results. Such softwares are available in the market in both forms proprietary and open source.

Unlike the proprietary softwares, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) alternatives are free of cost, source code is available with the software, and the institution has freedom to modify the source code to customize the software as per requirement. For modification and maintenance the institution has full freedom to develop the required skills in-house with the help of faculties and system admin staff or they can choose to hire external help.

However, one of the problems is there are many FOSS tools available and a novice institution/teacher/software development organization has to take lot of efforts to short-list/choose a software for adoption. They will have to spend days looking for different softwares, their reviews, comparisons, etc. If such problems are reduced for the ease of FOSS adoption then the institutions/teachers can reap the above benefits of FOSS much more seamlessly.

The workshop intents to promote technology and FOSS adoption in educational institutions. Various FOSS tools in education will be demonstrated in the workshop. The participants will also get to experience the work of C-DAC Mumbai in promoting technology/FOSS in education. The workshop will provide an opportunity to interact with participants from different organizations and industry practitioners. The workshop will involve keynote and invited lectures by distinguished researchers and/or professionals.

This workshop is being organized by CDAC, Mumbai at their Kharghar, Navi Mumbai campus. More Details about the workshop can be accessed at http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/news_and_events/national_workshop_on_foss_adoption_in_education

Emergency @ midnight in Ram Lila Maidan

2011-06-05T11:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, exactly 60 days were completed, when Anna started his fast against corruption and shook the govt. and won the hearts of entire country. Since then, it has been a hot topic of discussion in public domain. And, everybody wants to be that part of this debate and be the limelight in media. So, Baba Ramdev also decided to be the part of this wagon. Why to miss such sensitive issue. He announced his satyagrah on a very carefully chosen date. But there are some differences between the two. Anna's fast mainly appealed to the Indian middle class, while Baba's anshan mainly involed rural population for whom Baba is everything. But the major and most important difference is: While Anna team was not involved in any kind of secret and closed door discussions with the govt., Baba was holding such discussions with govt. and exchaning written assurances. When this came into open created a layer of confusion and doubt in general public about the commitment of Baba to the fight against corruption. It can be said that Baba Ramdev may have been trying to serve his own agenda through this Satyagrah and may have certain political aspirations. It can also be said that govt. and Baba both were using each other. But the actions and behaviour on the part of govt. are certainly questionable. Why and from whom it is afraid? Why did four senior ministers of the govt. go to receive Baba at airport. Why govt. does not want that issue of corruption is discussed in public domain? Does govt. fear of a public revolt? It seems that govt. just wants to avoid this issue and is passing time. It is creating unnecessary hurdles in joint draft committee of lokpal bill. But emergency @ midnight behaviour of the govt. is totally unacceptable & shameful. It is an attack on the fundamental rights of the people. It shows that govt. is afraid from issue of corruption being discussed in public. It is like when a thief is pushed to the wall and is about to be caught, he attacks. They know they are neck deep in corruption and are unable to digest the activism of public. It is becoming uneasy for them day by day to answer. Last night assault in the Ram Lila Ground has again proved that the party responsible for imposing emergency on the nation becomes nervous and irritated when someone, even a commn man raise a voice and challenges it. Why Dr. Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are silent on this issue. Had they given their nod for this brutal attack on innocent people. They are answerable and they will have to answer. If not now, then after three years.

Insensitivity of Kingfisher

2011-05-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

Constitution of India gives equal rights to each & every citizen of India. There can be no discrimination against a citizen on the basis of his/her caste, creed, gender or anything else. It is supposed so to happen. Is it really the situation in reality? It doesn't seem so. Almost, one third of Indian population falls under the category of disabled. They also have the same rights as we have. They should not be discriminated due to their physical condition. But, at times, society shows bias towards them. However, as civilized, we are assumed to show some degree of sensitivity for them. In a scenario, when there are efforts at various fronts (government as well as individual) to include them into the mainstream, certain incidents force us to pay the attention and give them a thought. One such incident happened recently, one a blind women named "Shabnam Ansari" was not allowed to board the Mumbai-Goa flight of Kingfisher Red. Reason: she being a blind can not board the flight. This incident was reported by a Hindi news channel "Live India" today evening. Is there any rule according to which blind or other disable cannot board a plane? If not, then why such insensitivity from Kingfisher's side? Will Kingfisher answer? Recently some other incidents show how insensitive airlines may be in certain situations. Society should take notice of such incidents and discourage them.

शायद ज़िंदगी बदल रही है|

2011-02-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

जब मैं छोटा था, शायद दुनिया

बहुत बड़ी हुआ करती थी..

मुझे याद है मेरे घर से "स्कूल" तक

का वो रास्ता, क्या क्या नहीं था वहां,

चाट के ठेले, जलेबी की दुकान,

बर्फ के गोले, सब कुछ,

अब वहां "मोबाइल शॉप",

"विडियो पार्लर" हैं,

फिर भी सब सूना है..

शायद अब दुनिया सिमट रही है...
.
.
.

जब मैं छोटा था,

शायद शामें बहुत लम्बी हुआ करती थीं...

मैं हाथ में पतंग की डोर पकड़े,

घंटों उड़ा करता था,

वो लम्बी "साइकिल रेस",वो बचपन के खेल,

वो हर शाम थक के चूर हो जाना,

अब शाम नहीं होती ……….SIRF दिन ढलता है

और सीधे रात हो जाती है………

शायद वक्त सिमट रहा है……….?????

. जब मैं छोटा था,
तब खेल भी अजीब हुआ करते थे,
छुपन छुपाई, लंगडी टांग, पोषम पा, कट केक, टिप्पी टीपी टाप.
अब internet, e-mail,
से फुर्सत ही नहीं मिलती..
शायद ज़िन्दगी बदल रही है…… ??
………….जिंदगी का सबसे बड़ा सच यही है..
जो अक्सर कबरिस्तान के बाहर
बोर्ड पर लिखा होता है...
"मंजिल तो यही थी,
बस जिंदगी गुज़र गयी मेरी
यहाँ आते आते"
.
.
.
ज़िंदगी का लम्हा बहुत छोटा सा है...
कल की कोई बुनियाद नहीं है...........!!!!
और आने वाला कल सिर्फ सपने में ही है..
अब बच गए इस पल में…..
तमन्नाओं से भरी इस जिंदगी में
हम सिर्फ भाग रहे हैं.. कुछ रफ़्तार धीमी करो, मेरे दोस्त,

और इस ज़िंदगी को जियो......
खूब जियो मेरे दोस्त…....... !!!!!!

received in e-mail from Mr. Vikas Jain

रवीश की रिपोर्ट- 'वर्ल्ड क्लास' दिल्ली की सड़कें

2011-02-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/ravish-ki-report/video-story/190082

Thinking for some alternate

2011-01-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Waiting for waiter

2011-01-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

Trying to hide

2011-01-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

Angel Enjoying Party

2011-01-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

Facebook's Social Network Graph

2010-12-16T02:49:00.000-08:00

Facebook's Social Network Graph: "

Paul Butler, an intern on Facebook’s data infrastructure engineering team, was interested in visualizing the "locality of friendship". Luckily, he has some great data to work with: Facebook's social network of the friendships between its 500 million members. But visualizing that much data can be a challenge in its own right -- it takes skill to draw meaning from what could easily be an incomprehensible mess of data. After drawing a sample of 10 million friend pairs from the Hive interface to Facebook's Hadoop-based database, Paul set to using R to solve this visualization problem.

As Paul describes in a post on his Facebook page, initial attempts to visualize the data resulted in a "big white blob" roughly resembling the outline of the continents. But when Paul switched from plotting every friend pair to instead plotting every city pair with a great-circle line whose transparency was determined by the number of friend-pairs in those cities, something beautiful emerges: a clear image of the world, with friendship bonds flowing between the continents:

(Click to enlarge, or visit Paul's post to download a super hi-res version.)

This is a beautiful image, and a testament to Paul's visualization skills (with a little help from the graphical prowess of R). Not only can you see the population centers in bright white (from the density of intra-city friendships), you can also see clear country outlines: look how visible India is, floating in the dark void of China and Russia. You can also see cultural relationships: Hawaii to the continental US; Australia to New Zealand; India to the UK. (The latter's a bit hard to see, though -- it would be fascinating to see this in a 3-D globe form, with relationships flowing through the middle of the globe.) Paul sums up the impact of this visualization best in his own words:

After a few minutes of rendering, the new plot appeared, and I was a bit taken aback by what I saw. The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn't represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.

Mashable also has a nice review of this chart ... with 4,780 Facebook Likes at the time of writing. It was also featured on FlowingData and ReadWriteWeb.

Paul Butler: Visualizing Friendships

In these times of moral crisis

2010-12-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

Some poet has said:-
"राजनीति की मंडी बड़ी नशीली है,
यहाँ दीवानों ने मदिरा पी ली है|
कमरबंद हैं पुख्ता सिर्फ दलालों के,
आम आदमी की तो धोती ढीली है|"

And whatever we are seeing, listening to these days about the morality of our overall democratic and ecomomic infrastructure, these above lines seem totally fit. Now, we can proudly say that corruption is in our blood and we breathe it and practice it with our full efficiency. In this very confusing environment, it is very hard to say who is speaking truth and stands like "Angad" on moral surface. It appears that morality of each & every individual in this country, whether he/she belongs to corporates, politicians, judiciary, army, bureaucrats or a simple common man, is at stakes. There have been many instances of loose morality in recent times in every walk of life. It is now becoming clearer day-by-day that there is and has been a dirty and unholy nexus between some parts of politicians, bureaucrats and corporates. 2G spectrum scam is just one example. God knows how many other 2G like scams are burried somewhere. Even, the institutions like army and judiaciary in whom the citizens of this country has utmost faith, are no exception. Adarsh society scam, SC's reference to some rotten element in Allahabad HC, and latest the letter dispute involving Raja and some judges etc. show that all is not well in these institutions also. Parliament was logjammed for over 23 days. Almost 146 crore of tax payesr's hard earned money was wasted. Crime is on the rise. Incidents in national capital and other cities are example. Our PM is silent on every issue.It has been said also - "एक चुप सौ को हराए|" These are the times of wikileaks and phone leaks involving Assanges and Radias. Persons of suspected integrity and character are occupying higher posts.

Question that I want to ask from myself and others is what kind of society we are living in and what kind of society we want to create for future generations. How will our social, economical and constitutional institution work, if there in no faith.

Is everything OK with Indian Army?

2010-09-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

Few days back, I was hearing a news on NDTV India. It was about the mysterious death of an army officer named "Cap. Sumit Kohli". As per the bulletin, he received "Shourya Chakra" in March, 2006 for his bravery in killing 4 militants in J & K. And, in April, 2006, he was found dead in his barrack. Since then, it is not known precisely what were the actual reasons behind his death. Army's statements in the matter have been contradictory in all these 4 years. One time, they said that he had committed suicide and on another time, they cited some other reason. In all these times, his family has been on suffering end. Unable to bear the shock, his father died of heart attack within one month of his death. And, remaining members of the family, his sister and mother, are trying to unearth the actual reasons of the tragedy from the insensitive bureaucratic establishment. Point here is why a person who received a medal for his bravery a month ago would commit suicide. Definitely, army has not been able to convince the family members. Through some leads, it is being said that Cap. Kohli was aware of some wrong-doings of his senior officers and is a victim of some conspiracy. And, now after 4 years of continuous if-and-buts, defense minister has assured to look into the matter to take it to the final conclusion.

We, Indians, have a very high regard for a institution like army. But, in recent times, there have been many incidents in which the image of army has been dented. Sometime back, L. Gen. Avdhesh Prakash was dismissed due to involvement in Sukhna land scam. Col. Purohit has been arrested in Malegaon blast case. This was first time when an army officer was found involved in a terrorist activity. There have been some other incidents also like fake encounters in J & K (J & K is boiling now-a-days), charges related to conduct, behaviour of officers etc.. It seems that virus of corruption has spread in army too and this is very dangerous for the army as well as for country's security also. General public does not know whats' going in government and army circles. But whatever we see and hear in news worries. Does government and army has the will tohandle the menace of corruption. They have to respect the martyrdom of their soldiers.

Meaning of 15th August in today's scenario

2010-08-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

15th August comes every year. From last 63 years, we celebrate it as our Independence day in the form of various functions held at various levels. But, question should be asked whether this day still hold some significance in our hearts today. Do we still give the same respect to this day as was initially? Do we really understand what 15th August means to us? For me, it was just another day. More, it was a Sunday, a day to have lots of fursat and wake up late. So, I woke up late and started following my usual routine, then realized it is 15th August. It was already 11'O clock. Outside the flat, atmosphere was not much different. Prime minister's address to the nation had been over some 3 hours back. So, whatever he has said, was followed through the scrolls of news channels. There was a time, when prabhat pheris were passed through the streets shouting slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai" etc. There was so much enthusiasm in those childhood days to go to school, to deliver a speech on independence struggle and take part in all activities of independence day celebrations. It seems now-a-days, this has been shrinked a bit. Now independence day celebrations are a kind of entertainment, and independence day another holiday. As was with various cable channels today, where "aazadi" was being sold to the watchers as an entertainment commodity whole day. In those days, from the early morning, patriotic songs like "Jahan Dal Dal par....", "Mere desh ki dharti....", "Yeh desh hai veer...." etc. were played. Lime particles were spread along the sides of streets. A lot has been changed now. But we, as the citizen of free India, should introspect what this freedom means to us, how we belong to our country. In last 63 years, India has progressed in many areas. However, a lot still needs to be done. Kashmir is again burning. Naxalism is there. Nothing has been changed for a large portion of population. Farmers still suicide (and how system makes mockery of them, watch "Peepli Live"). They are sidelined in the current economic development of the country. Our education system is a mess. We still fight in the name of cast, language and religion and so on. It is very much important to tell young generation about the value of this freedom and how it was attained. It is very much required to create a sense of belongingness in them for the country. Country has already paid a huge cost for this freedom. Now, we can't pay more.

"Jinhe naaz hai Hind par, woh log kahan hein ....?"

Maya's swah hitay, swah sukhay raj in Uttar Pradesh

2010-03-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

Uttar Pradesh is the biggest state of India and has been the centre of Indian political stage for a long long time. After BJP got absolute majority state assembly in 1991, this state has seen many turmoils and been the victim of political instability all these times. There have been many uncompatible combinations among political parties to form the government in Lucknow, irrespective of their ideology, just based on oppertunism. And, this has affected the overall development of the state in every sector whether it is power or industry or any other sector. So, after a long time, when Mayavati's Bahujan Samaj Party got majority in 2007 assembly elections with the slogan "Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay", the common thinking was that Mayavati will use this oppertunity for the development of the state and welfare of the common people. Now almost 3 years have passed of Mayavati's so called people-centric raj, but for the people, nothing has changed. Some glimpses of last 3 years:-

1. Expenditure of over 2000 crores on building monuments across the state, but state government has no funds for draught relief.

2. No major projects have been started in last three years except for the above said stone project.

3. Power situation has worsened more.

4. Recently 4 students were arrested by the Lucknow police on the baseless charges of tearing a poster of Mayavati and throwing the color on it. They were kept in jail for over a week. Now who will pay for ruining the future of four innocent students. All of them are selected for NDA.

5. Some 15 days back, almost 60 people were killed in a stampede at Kunda, Dist. Pratapgarh. State govt. said that it is facing financial crisis and will not be able to pay compensation to the kin of victims. Central govt. should take care of them.

But, today Mayavati organises a rally in Lucknow, is gifted with a garland of 1000 Rs. notes, termed as a garland of special flowers from Karnatka by her party. Budget of the rally is almost 200 crore.

There can be many more examples. Will somebody ask the state govt. what is the source of the money spent of such unholy displays. It is taxpayer's hard earned money. In the last three years, this has been an octagonarian rule. And, time has come people should come forward to oust this government. Although assembly elections are 2 years away, though they may be many occassions for the people to show their unrest and protest.

FOSS Seminar in CDAC, Mumbai on March 20, 2010

2010-03-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

CDAC, Mumbai, at its Kharghar, Navi Mumbai Centre, has been conducting a monthly seminar series called (FOSS) From the Open Source Self for quite some time now on every third Saturday of the month. The purpose of this series in the form of lecture demos is to introduce people to the wide range of high quality software(s) available in open source. Response so far has been good enough. This month's seminar will be held on March 20. The topics of this seminar include:

1. NLTK - NLTK [Natural Language Processing Toolkit] is a complete Open Source suite of Python modules, linguistic data and documentation for research and development in Natural Language Processing. It provides utilities for many NLP tasks like chunking, stemming and parsing to name a few. It is a useful tool for students, professionals and researchers interested in Natural Language Processing and is widely used by NLP community all over the world.

2. GNU Build System - The GNU build system provides an environment to a computer programmer that helps them make their software/packages portable across platforms (at least for Unix-like operating systems). It also makes the build process easier for the user, allowing him/her to use just a small set of commands to build the software/package from its source code and install it.

Registration for this series is open till March 17, 2010. More details about the seminar series and registration process can be accessed at CDAC Mumbai's website or at http://www.ossrc.org.in/events/event.html

Contact address:

Course Administration, CDAC (formerly NCST),

Raintree Marg, Near Bharati Vidyapeeth Engg. College,

Opp. Kharghar Railway Station,

Sector 7, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai 400614, India.

Telephone: +91-22-27565303 Telefax: +91-22-27560004

Website: http://ossrc.org.in Email: course_kh@cdacmumbai.in

A nice poem on Holi: festival of colors

2010-02-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

घुल रही फिजा में
रंगो की महक
पागल मन क्यूँ
बार बार जाता है बहक
तोड़कर हर बंधन को
दूर कहीं छोड़कर व्यथित वेदना को
भूलकर हर इक पीड़ा
मन रंग की आगोश में गिरा
रंग है प्यार का , सौहार्द का
आनंद का, उल्लास का
अनेकता में भी एकता
संपूर्ण भारत के इस विश्वास का
इस रंग में न जाने क्या जादू है
कि मन मेरा बेकाबू है
कितने ही टूटे रिश्तों की डोर बाँधती
रंग में इतनी है असीम शक्ति
मन मेरे डूबकर
आज इस रंग में
कर ले यह निश्चय
कि हम अपनी रंगभूमि को
प्यार और भाईचारे से
और रंगीन बनाएँगे
और हर होली में हर बार
हम यही संकल्प दुहराएँगे

By Shiv Nath Kumar, CDAC, Mumbai

A disaster called Hockey (in) India

2010-01-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

Our national sport is in a mess from a long long time, we all know. But this mess has been converted into a disaster, is now proved from ongoing stir between players and the so-called controlling authority of the game in India i.e. Hockey India. Players have not been paid their dues from quite some time despite sponsors are constantly giving money to HI.

Its a hard truth that hockey players not as iconic as cricket players in our country. But, at least, they should be respected. Yet the game officials belonging not only to hockey, but to other sports also behave like maharajas. Player's rights and welfare have no meaning for them. Today Indian hockey is on its knees, yet officials are threatening to sack or suspend the players instead of addressing their concerns and finding some amicable solution. World cup is almost one month away and they have scraped the training camp. Future does not seem very bright. KPS Gill episode in not very old. And, what is happening to CWG preparations in Delhi, is not hidden.

Rome was burning and Nero was playing flute.

SIGAI Workshop on Emerging Research Trends in AI, 2010

2010-01-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

Artificial Intelligence has always been a challenging field providing lots of opportunities of research and development in no. of areas like language processing, multi-agent systems, web mining, information retrieval, semantic web, e-learning, optimization problems, pattern recognition etc. And, there is growing interest in the field in India between academia and industria both.

Keeping this in mind, The Special Interest Group on AI (SIGAI) of Computer Society of India (CSI) announces a workshop on “Emerging Research Trends in AI”. The workshop will be organized and hosted by CDAC, Navi Mumbai, and is meant to encourage quality research in various aspects of AI, among the Indian academia/industry.

For more details, see Call for Papers and visit: http://sigai.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/ertai-2010

How are we after one year?

2009-11-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

Today is another 26/11. Change? Figure in the year column of date has changed. Now it is 09 instead of 08. Remember same date one year ago? Mumbai and India saw the deadliest terror attack with surprise and agony that lasted almost 60 hour. Hundreds dead and wounded! Jawans shahid for Matrabhoomi!

I also felt in the same way as thousands others.

365 days have been passed since then just like sand particles through a tiny hole. From morning newspapers to all-day news bulletins, all are filled up with the stories related to 26/11. Has something really changed in a year? Doesn't seem so.

Some quotes:

"I would prefer Sandeep to be at home."

"When I went to Taj to see the spot where Sandeep died, the highest executive of Taj asked me, who Sandeep?"

-Father of Late Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan

"Why we? Why were we targeted? Who is responsible for this situation?"

- Wife of Late Inspector Vijay Salaskar

(As noted from Jindagi Live program on IBN7 dated 26/11/2009. Although actual words may be different.)

All are aware of the feelings of Smt. Karkare and how she thinks about the system. Families of these martyrs are frustated today.

Today MNS chief Mr. Raj Thakrey pays tribute to martyrs of 26/11. But, he forgets about Major Sandeep and Havaldar Gajendra Singh. Can martyrdom be divided among states, laguages and castes? Many are waiting for their compensations promised. Many are still carrying the bullets of those deadly nights waiting for their turn to be operated. This list is endless.........................

So can we, common men, do? Are we ready to change our characters? Probably not. After one year, we have settled in our routine lives. Yeh hai Hindustan meri jaan!

Someone has said:

जिसे न निज देश, निज गौरव का अभिमान है, वह नर नहीं, पशु निरा और मृतक समान है

Releasing Anumaan-a predictive text entry system

2009-10-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Today Anumaan (alpha-0.1 version) has been released by C-DAC, Mumbai as a part of its activities and commitment in the area of accessibility. Anumaan is a perspective-based, on-screen predictive text entry system for GNOME desktop. Basically, it is an extension of an Input Method (IM) mechanism (on GNOME desktop) in the sense that it extends its (IM) notion by including the power of text prediction. It has support for UTF-8 unicode encoding. The system allows users to train it and personalize and as per their writing style into different named domains. Hence, it adapts to user's writing style in some sense. Although, the current version does not support live mode adaptation, still a user can train a domain as many times he likes.

Anumaan is designed for a (text) sequence prediction based on a certain Context.The context can either be a partial word context or a partial sentence context. Therefore, it is intended to help people suffering from different kinds of motor disability by allowing it to be customized for different kinds of Input devices (e.g. keyboard, mouse, joystick or any other pointing device especially built for people suffering from motor disability). In other words, it can be customized very easily to cater to different hand movement capabilities. The current version is only for mouse and keyboard based interactions. But, we can easily customize it for different hardware input device requirements.
The current released versions have two flavours:
1. Anumaan-standalone: The base system which runs on Java Swing Interface.
2. AnumaanLinux: The Linux version which uses Anumaan-standalone as base and is ported to utilize the accessibility features of GNOME GAIL library. The current interface is accessible to almost all Gtk+ Editable Text Widgets.
Anumaan URLs:
1. Anumaan Main Page on CDAC Mumbai Website:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/cdacmumbai/research_and_publications/research_groups/open_source_soft_division/projects/anumaan
2. AnumaanLinux source download:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/anumaan/downloads/AnumaanLinux-alpha-0.1.tar.gz (released under GNU/GPL 3.0 License)
3. AnumaanLinux Documentation can be accessed at:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/anumaan/docs/AnumaanLinuxUserManual/index.html
4. Anumaan-standalone download:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/anumaan/downloads/Anumaan-standalone-alpha-0.1.tar.gz
5. Anumaan-standalone Documentation can be accessed at:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/anumaan/docs/AnumaanStandaloneUserManual/index.html
6. Anumaan Default Language Model download:
http://www.cdacmumbai.in/projects/anumaan/downloads/AnumaanDefaultLM.tar.gz
Anumaan Videos:
A session of AnumaanLinux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSzLt9ZVnOY

A session of Anumaan-standalone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah9w37JY7ec

AnumaanLinux build and install: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYW2LDh4v0c
NB: The application is still evolving, hence please do give us your feedbacks, bug reports or feature enhancement requests.
Please mail us at mailto:predictanumaan@gmail.com

Railway week: Now Rajdhani is the victim

2009-10-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

On Friday, it was the Thane local train accident that caused disruption in the routine life of Mumbai people, again on Monday, they once again suffered by the strike of Central Railway motormen. Now, on tuesday it was the turn of Bhuvneshwar-Delhi Rajdhani Express, when it was abducted either by naxalites or by some naxalites sponsored group near the Jhargram station in West Bengal. Really, this as a railway week :). No, No don't misunderstand :), it is actually :(. In all these incidents, the ultimate sufferer in the poor common man (R. K. Laxman listening?) and culprit who? - The establishment who has the responsibility of manging all those tasks that affect our lives in way or the other, either directly or indirectly, or our so called destiny. Why common people should suffer? Today's incident is serious. An elite train is hijacked by a group. They write slogans to release their leader onto the walls of the train. The visual of these activities are flashed across all channels and our establishment from Kolkata to Delhi is unable to give a satisfactory answer. Passengers in the train and their relatives back home are bound to suffer all this, just praying to God. So, who is responsible here? These naxalites for their anti-social and anti national behaviour or our governments for their inefficiency in tackling the problem. Naxalism is an age-old problem and is becoming more and more serious day-by-day in various states of the country. What is the solution of this problem? Only gun can not be answer. It is required to analyse the social aspects of it also. India is a heterogeneous society and still their are many regions that are untouched from the mainstream India. This kind of scenario most possibly give rise to some inhabited frustrations among some sections of the society forcing them to take law in their hands. Naxalism has to be defeated at any cost. A bloody ideology has no place in democracy and in a civilized society. But, use of force is only one aspect of the solution, we have to search of the root cause of the problem that is rooted in our own social surroundings.

From CST to Kharghar on 23 Oct., 2009

2009-10-24T00:44:00.000-07:00

Local is the life line of Mumbai and if this life line gets even a single cut into its body, how chotic life can be in Mumbai, it was evident from scenes spread over CST to Vashi to Thane. Yesterday, in afternoon, when I saw the news of crashing of a pipeline over a local train in Thane, I didn't give much attention to it. But what I saw on CST in the evening, while trying to catch a Panvel-bound local to come to Kharghar returning from Mumbai Central, I realized how wrong was and perhaps Railway machineary was also not able to properly assess the seriousness of the situation. Normally, one is able to get on the train on harbour line rather comfortably from CST. But, the first Panvel-bound train I saw was jam-packed. I left that thinking of catching another one. What a big deal it is, was the thought. But I was amazed on seeing the crowd onto the platform. It was a "Jan sailab" indeed. As the next train came, people rushed madly towards the train just to board any how. There was no display about the final station of the train. After some some hard work, I was able to get on the train and set in a corner. It was like cattles are packed in some cage not able to move a little bit. After boarding, I came to know that It will go to Vashi only. So, again thought, will change the train from Vashi easily. Again I was wrong, but possibly luck was with me. It was an unusual scene on Kurla. Platform were empty!. Wadala passed, Kurla passed, nobody was getting down from the train. Train was twice full from its capacity. Some fighting in between also. Vashi station was jammed from Thane-bound passengers. Train to Panvel was approx. 20 min. late. When it came, I was unable to board. Luck came into the form of a chain-puller. Train halted and I was on the train. But others were not that lucky. They were to wait there for some more time. So after about 2 hours, I was at home around 8 or 8:15 p.m.. Later hearing the news about the jams on various nakas, roads and train situation, I again thanked my luck that I was at home in time. However, the question here is who is responsible for all this chaos. Every now and then in Mumbai, such type of problems arise and we all suffer. Do we still require some civic sense? Where are our disaster management guys sleeping?

For club or country?

2009-10-08T23:04:00.001-07:00

For club or country?

Posted using ShareThis

Google makes it easier to search for what’s really, really new

2009-10-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Google makes it easier to search for what’s really, really new: "

Google announced several refinements to its “search options” feature today, which give users more control over the kinds of the results they see in Google.

The most interesting addition, especially for folks interested in the potential of real-time search, is the ability to look at search results from the last hour, or from the date range of your choice. Google already included the ability to narrow results to the past day, week, or year in its initial set of search options, but the “past hour” feature is a real step up in timeliness. This is still distinct from real-time search, though, since the results come from Google’s standard web crawling, rather than instantaneous tracking of conversations on sites like Facebook and Twitter, as Search Product Manager Nundu Janakiram tells The New York Times.

Another new feature lets users control how many shopping sites they see in their search results. If you’re actually looking to buy something, seeing a bunch of shopping-related links can be useful, otherwise they can be annoying. This could also be helpful for Google’s advertising, since you’re providing more information about your intent as you search, and targeting ads to users who explicitly acknowledge that they’re ready to make a purchase could be more lucrative.

The final addition allows you to see only pages you haven’t visited yet, or on the flip side, only pages you have visited. The former is useful when you’re trying to do research and don’t want to waste time reading sites you’ve already seen, but the latter is nice when you’re trying to track down a site that you found in your search results a couple of days ago.

Some of these changes may remind you of Bing, since Microsoft also touts its search engine’s ability to deliver results customized to a user’s intent, but Janakiram says these new features aren’t a response to Bing. Of course, Google probably wouldn’t admit it if they were …

NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

2009-09-24T21:50:00.001-07:00

NASA Instruments Reveal Water Molecules on Lunar Surface

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XlitHindi extension for OOo released by KBCS, CDAC Mumbai

2009-09-16T01:45:00.000-07:00

KBCS division of CDAC Mumbai has released its transliteration extension for the OpenOffice writer. This tool enables to write in Hindi very easily without knowing the Hindi typing. It is very much helpful for the people using Hindi for the e-communication and documentation.More details of the English to other Indian Language transliteration system can be read at:http://www.cdacmumbai.in/xlit. To download the extension and other details, visit : http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/xlithindi.

भाजपा-२० साल: उत्थान से मानसिक दिवालियेपन तक

2009-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

साल १९८४: इंदिरा गाँधी के पक्ष में सुहानुभूति लहर, कांग्रेस की सबसे बड़ी विजय और भाजपा, लोकसभा में सिर्फ़ २ सीट।
साल १९८९: राम जन्मभूमि में शिलान्यास, राजीव गाँधी की हार, वी.पी. की सरकार और भाजपा, लोकसभा में ८४ सीट। उत्थान की शुरुआत |
साल १९९०: राम जन्मभूमि आन्दोलन, आडवानी की रथ यात्रा और भारतीय राजनीति यहाँ से दो खेमो में विभाजित हो जाती है| भाजपा बढ़त लेना शुरू कर देती है।
हालाँकि जन्मभूमि आन्दोलन की परणीती १९९२ में बाबरी मस्जिद की विध्वंस के रूप में होती है। पर तब तक भाजपा अपनी जगह ले चुकी होती है और "पार्टी विथ अ डिफ़रेंस" के साथ सामने आती है। देश कांग्रेस के विकल्प के रूप में भाजपा को देखता है| उस समय में "चाल, चरित्र और चिंतन" पार्टी के मुख्य आधार होते हैं, और मेरे जैसे कई नए वोटर पार्टी की इस छवि से प्रभावित होते हैं। सन् १९९६ में जब मैंने पहली बार वोट दिया था, तब से अब तक मैं भाजपा को ही वोट करता आ रहा हूँ। सन् ९६, ९८ और ९९ के चुनावों में तो वाजपेयी जी की लोकप्रियता शिखर पर थी और उसके सहारे पार्टी भी अपने उत्कर्ष पर पहुँच गई। अभी सन् २००३ तक ऐसा लगता था की देश की बागडोर अब भाजपा के ही हाथों में रहेगी, कांग्रेस कहीं भी नहीं दिखाई पड़ती थी। देश एक नई राह पर अग्रसर दिखता था| ऐसा लगता था कि "पार्टी विथ अ डिफ़रेंस" में दम है। पर २००४ कि चुनावों में मिली अकस्मात् हार जिसने कांग्रेस को पुनर्जीवन प्रदान किया, उससे भाजपा अभी तक उबर नहीं पाई है। और रही सही कसर २००९ कि हार ने पूरी कर दी है। लगातार मिली दो हारों का मनन करने के बजाय पार्टी में लोग एक दूसरे के कपड़े उतारने में लगे हैं। हालिया उदाहरण जसवंत सिंह का निष्कासन है। ऐसा लगता है कि यह पार्टी अब वास्तविकता का सामना नहीं करना चाहती। विचार कि जगह संकीर्ण सोच ने ले ली है। यह मानसिक दिवालियापण नहीं तो और क्या है। सही है विनाश काले विपरीत बुद्धि।

IPL III to kick off in Hyderabad, new venues unveiled

2009-08-11T21:36:00.001-07:00

IPL III to kick off in Hyderabad, new venues unveiled

test post

2009-07-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

9jhiukb37c

Century's longest solar eclipse

2009-07-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Tommrow morning (of 22.07.2009) will witness the longest solar eclipse of this century. In India, this will start around 5:30 a.m. and will reach to totality around 6:30 a.m.. The total solar eclipse ( 3 min. 30 sec.) will be seen in a belt starting from western part of India to the distant north-east . This includes Surat, Vadodara, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Darjeeling and Dibrugarh. In rest of India, it will be partially visible. Right now, I am in Mumbai (where % will be 96.6) and its raining here. So, in the early hours whether I will be able to see it, only clouds will tell. I am keeping my fingers crossed. However for online coverage, check on http://mashable.com/2009/07/21/solar-eclipse-online/

This eclipse will be the longest seen in India since Aug. 18, 1858 and the next big one will be on June 3, 2114. In this way, it is a once-in-the-life opportunity. Still today, there are many superstitions are associated with this normal celestial event, about which I have written in my previous post. Its a pity, I can say.

Stats in this post: Times of India dated 21.07.2009

Solar eclipse and India

2009-07-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Three points come to my mind for the possible subject of this post. All three relate to quite different domains.

First is : the possible impact of new 10 Rs. coin in the buying behavior of Indian consumers.
Second is: the surprise retirement of Andrew Flintoff from test cricket about which I came to know, when I switched on the television listen to the news this evening.
Third is: the total solar eclipse on 22nd of this month and how it is being considered in India.

I wanted to write on all three. But, third seems more appropriate. Although, solar eclipse is a common phenomenon, but in India, centuries old superstitions still exist. This eclipse is of its own kind as next one will be in 2034 in India, twenty five years later. Hence, most of us have one possible last chance to see it in their life times. As, this may be a good experience to watch. But important is, still in 21st century, superstitions are deep rooted in Indian society. Psychologically, everyone fears from any kind of loss, whether it is economical, physical or emotional. So, fear is a good business and so called "dharm ke thekedar" have always miked from many centuries and still doing that. And, the new entrants in this business are our modern day Hindi news channels. Like all other previous occasions, this time also, they have again called their future specialists to tell the public about the upcoming disasters, "vinash" due to this eclipse. So this is bazaar, every thing is sellable, fear and feelings also. When will Indian society break these chains? Will these channels be regulated through some mechanism for the rubbish they serve? Only time will tell. Till then, just wait and watch!

राहुल द्रविड़ की वापसी का मतलब

2009-07-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

तो कल चैंपियंस ट्राफी के लिए भारतीय क्रिकेट टीम के तीस संभावित खिलाड़ियों की घोषणा हो गई| आप सोच रहे होंगे की इस में कौन सी नई बात है। यह तो एक औपचारिकता है जो की पूरी होनी ही थी। परन्तु जो गौरतलब है वों राहुल द्रविड़ के नाम का उस सूची में होना। लगभग दो साल के बाद राहुल द्रविड़ को एक दिवसीय क्रिकेट टीम की सूची में शामिल किया गया है। इसके क्या मायने हो सकते हैं? वैसे तो क्रिकेट समीक्षकों की इस पर अलग-२ राय हो सकती है। फिर भी लगता है की हाल ही में संपन्न टी२० विश्व कप में भारतीय टीम की असफलता का असर टीम चयन पर भी दिखता है। इस पूरे कप के दौरान मध्य क्रम खासकर उन खिलाड़ियों जिन्हें भारतीय क्रिकेट का भविष्य कहा जाता है, बड़ा ही लचर रहा| शायद इसी के द्रष्टिगत चयनकर्ता मध्य क्रम में स्थायित्व की तलाश में हैं। और इस के लिए राहुल द्रविड़ से अच्छा खिलाड़ी कौन हो सकता है। अब राहुल द्रविड़ का चयन टीम होगा या नहीं यह तो सही वक्त आने पर ही पता चलेगा। परन्तु ३३३ मैचों का अनुभव मायने रखता है। और राहुल द्रविड़ ही वह खिलाड़ी हैं जो मध्य क्रम में स्थायित्व दे सकते हैं|

Socket Programming Tutorial

2009-06-25T03:37:00.001-07:00

Interaction Design & Psychology (2002)

2009-06-24T01:26:00.001-07:00

New Can, Old wine

2009-06-17T04:11:00.001-07:00

On the road to the Suiside

2009-06-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

The loss is ‘just deserves’ for the team and its captain who chose to treat Lord’s as a laboratory to conduct experiments when commonsense cricket would have been enough.
Fielding first, sending Jadeja (25 off 35 balls) at 4 ahead of Yuvraj (17 off 9 balls) and Yusuf Pathan, when the scene was set for the in-form hitters to explode, bowling Yuvraj ahead of Harbhajan and fielding like novices, India, it seemed, only had one plan—to crash out.

(Courtesy: Times of India)

From ICL to ICCL

2009-06-12T03:06:00.001-07:00

NCOSS-09 concluded successfully on May 26, 2009

2009-05-27T01:37:00.000-07:00

NCOSS-09 was successfully concluded on May 26, 2009. This two day conference was organized to provide a plateform to showcase the work or research being done in open source with respect to various verticals like knowledge management, e-commerce, Indian language computing etc. Experts and distinguished professors expressed their views on open source through invited talks apart from paper presentations under various vertical-specific sessions. The common view point was that India must play a crucial role in the adoption of open source world wide. Although there are many initiatives both in government and private sector, but still a lot more is required to be done. Apart from paper presentations, demo hall session were also organized as a showcase of open source technology. Pre-conference tutorials held one day before i.e. May 24, 2009 also received good appreciation from the audience. In the last, during the panel discussion, views were expressed on the various barriers in FOSS adoption. Last, but not the least, it was a great collective organized team effort from NCOSS team that made the conference a thumping success. Participation from various parts of the country was very encouraging. For conf. related news and photos, check http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

NCOSS-09 begins on 25/09/2009

2009-05-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

NCOSS-09 begins at CDAC, Navi Mumbai on 25/05/2009. This conference will provide a platform to showcase niche technologies being developed in the area of FOSS and discuss about open source softwares in various verticals like knowledge management, e-learning, e-commerce, Indian Language Computing etc. More details on http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in.

Welcome to NCOSS-09

2009-05-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

Last three days to go for NCOSS. For latest updates visit http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

One interesting yatra vratant

2009-05-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

http://mallar.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/

Call for Participation : NCOSS-09, May 25 - 26, 2009, Navi Mumbai, India

2009-04-14T22:12:00.000-07:00

Call for Participation

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software

May 25 - 26, 2009, Navi Mumbai, India.

Organized by

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Mumbai

Supported by

IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters &

CSI, Div II on Software & SIG-OS

Media partner

Linux for You

The National Conference on Open Source Software is intended to act as a forum for promoting adoption of open source softwares and solutions in different areas, by sharing experiences in solution selection, customisation/adaptation, etc. Over 110 papers were submitted to the conference from all over India. After a rigorous international refereeing process, about 30 papers have been selected, which will be presented during the conference.

Conference Programme :

Paper Presentation in areas including
- e-Learning
- Collaboration Technology
- Language Computing and Localisation
- Knowledge Management
- e-Health
- Machine Learning and Data Mining
- Testing and Application Frameworks
Invited Talks
Panel Discussions
Live demos of FOSS applications
Pre-Conference Tutorials (on May 24, 2009)

Programme Committee :

Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (chair)

Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi

Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai

Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai

Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai

Rishab Aiyer Gosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands

Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai

Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi

Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai

Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore

Nagarjuna G, HBCSE, Mumbai

Demo Hall :

NCOSS-09, announces DEMO HALL for show-casing open source applications. The aim is to provide a platform for people to demonstrate their open source works/tools. Irrespective of whether you have a paper at the conference, you can use this opportunity to showcase your work.

All those participating in the demo hall must register for the conference. Mail your applications to ncoss@cdacmumbai.in giving a brief description of the demo sessions by May 05,2009.

For more details visit http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

Registration Fees:

	Conference	Tutorial
Not for profit/ educational institutions	Rs. 2200/-	Rs. 700/-
Industry	Rs. 3500/-	Rs. 1000/-
Student	Rs. 1100/-	Rs. 500/-

( Registration form and more details on website )

Contact :

(For more details and registration)
NCOSS-09 Secretariat,
C-DAC Mumbai, Raintree Marg, Near Bharati Vidyapeeth,

Opp. Kharghar Railway Station, Sector 7, CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400 614, INDIA.

E-mail : ncoss@cdacmumbai.in
Phone : +91-22-27565303
Fax : +91-22-27560004
URL : http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

AI today

2009-01-28T02:47:00.000-08:00

Read at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software&articleId=332273&taxonomyId=18&intsrc=kc_feat

From 2008 to 2009

2009-01-01T00:35:00.000-08:00

So, the second last year of the first decade of 21st century has dawned and 2008 is over. At this moment, how I look at 2008 : A year which can be attributed as an extraordinary one at personal level, because, In the month of May, My sweet little daughter was born and that gave a new meaning to life. On the other hand, in social aspect, this was a year which saw so many incidents which were not so good. This was a year of calamities (natural or man-made). Terrorism has come to our neighborhood and now it is being treated just like a routine crime. Perhaps, next time, It may be in our houses too. God knows! This was also a worst year with respect to economy. Major financial players at world level are part of the history now or some may be in time to come. However, as said there is always light at the end of the tunnel, so was in the case of unpardonable Mumbai attacks. The unity shown by the entire nation once again shown that India is able to face and handle any type of crisis.

Hope, 2009 bring peace and harmony to everyone.

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software being organized by C-DAC, Mumbai

2008-12-22T22:56:00.000-08:00

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software

May 25^th - 26^th, 2009, Mumbai, India

Organized by

C-DAC, Mumbai

Supported by

IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters

Computer Society of India, Div II on Software & SIG-OSS

* * * CALL FOR PAPERS * * *

NCOSS - 2009 is being conceived of as a forum to bring together the various groups working on developing Open Source Applications catering to specific domains in the ICT world, including education, health, accessibility, localisation, e-commerce, disaster management, expert systems, machine learning, etc. A number of high quality software solutions are available in many of these areas, for example, SugarCRM, Koha, Drupal, Moodle, Sahana, CollabCAD, etc. Work on these systems require a combination of domain knowledge and development expertise. Much of the public awareness in open source is focussed on desktop, operating system and general productivity tools. With this background, NCOSS-09 has chosen to focus on the layer above this, bringing together groups working on various application domains.

The conference will present experiences in deploying FOSS applications, comparative studies among competing software solutions, efforts in adapting and localising FOSS applications, development of new applications, etc. The conference will consist of the following:

Invited talks by experts from India and abroad
Presentation of contributed papers selected based on refereeing by a panel of referees
Exhibition by industry and academia
Pre conference Tutorials (on May 24^th )
Panel discussion

Papers are invited on the topics listed below. All papers will be subject to external refereeing and acceptance will be subject to referee evaluation. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings. We also invite proposals for tutorials.

*** TOPICS ***

Other application areas may also be considered.

Accessibility	Machine Learning and Data Mining
Indian Language Computing	e-Health
Localisation	Knowledge Management
e-Learning	Collaboration Technologies
Information Extraction and Retrieval	Content Management
Disaster Management	e-Commerce
e-Governance

*** INSTRUCTIONS ***

Papers must report original work carried out by the authors. The work can include enhancing existing Open Source applications for specific requirements, development of new solutions and comparative analysis of competing solutions. Direct survey or overview papers are not acceptable.
Length should not exceed 10 pages of A4 size in length (approx. 5000 words) including figures, etc.
Papers should be in English.
An abstract of about 100-200 words and the area(s) under which the paper can be categorized, must be included with the paper.

Papers exceeding the specified length are subject to rejection without review. Since reviewing will be blind, the author names and affiliations along with the main area of the paper should be given only on a separate cover sheet. Papers should be in one of the following formats: PDF, RTF or ODT.

Papers may be submitted via the web at the URL http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in.A template paper is also made available at the URL for formatting reference. Those who are unable to make electronic submissions may send four copies of the paper to the address listed below.

*** PROGRAMME COMMITTEE ***

Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (chair)	Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi
Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai	Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai
Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai	Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai
Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai	Rishab Aiyer Ghosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands
Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai	Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi
Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai	Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore

(This list is partial)

* * * IMPORTANT DATES * * *

Submission of papers	February 15, 2009
Acceptance intimation	March 15, 2009
Camera ready due	April 15, 2009
Tutorial Proposals due	March 15, 2009
Tutorial Acceptance intimation	April 15, 2009

* * * CONTACT DETAILS * * *

Address :

NCOSS Conference Secretariat

CDAC-Mumbai (formerly NCST), Rain Tree Marg, Sector-7,

Near Bharti Vidyapeeth, Opp. Kharghar Railway Station,

CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400614

Maharashtra, India

E-mail: ncoss@cdacmumbai.in

Web: http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

Ph.: +91 - 22 - 27565303

Fax: +91 - 22 - 27560004 (on request)

India on Moon

2008-11-14T02:32:00.000-08:00

Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from Chandrayaan-1 will hit the Moon's surface tonight. This is indeed a historical moment of India. For more details : http://www.isro.org

Dada's final frontier

2008-11-07T03:18:00.000-08:00

Life is a full circle. Now Dada has reached at his final frontier and has shown his immortal fighting spirit to the world. Now when India-Australia test series in coming to end, at Nagpur, this is the last time when India's Fab-4 are playing together. Possibly end of a golden era of Indian cricket.

Hats off to Saurav and his fighting spirit

New release of BOSS

2008-11-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

New version of BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions) i.e. BOSS 3.0 has been released. It can be downloaded from: http://bosslinux.in/downloads/welcome-to-boss-downloads.

India on Moon Mission.

2008-10-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

India is set to launch its first ever moon mission on Oct. 22, 2008 around 6:00 a.m.. 52 hour long countdown for the launch of the probe begins today i.e. Oct. 20, 2008. Wait and watch out for India's entrance into the outer space.

Reading...

2008-10-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

Difference between reading a book and reading on a computer screen: You can take the former with you, while going to bed.

No God

2008-10-07T20:57:00.000-07:00

Now there will be no God on offside. Dada call it quits.