Times of India screws up their Headline: says Mani Ratnam is coming to BITS Pilani Goa Campus

Waves is BITS Pilani Goa Campus' (BPGC) annual cultural festival and after a fairly decent Quark (Tech Fest), which saw Abdul Kalam inaugurating the event, we have BITSian alumnus and famous movie director Mani Ratnam coming to BPGC for Waves.

Wait a second. Mani Ratnam? 

Well, there you have it. Times Of India messed up their headline. The Goa edition of the daily says "Mani Ratnam to open cultural fest at BITS Pilani". You can check out their news item here (which strangely hasn't been edited yet).   

The alumnus in question is actually Mani Shankar who... well isn't in the same league as Mani Ratnam as far as cinema is concerned but has had big success in the ad world/music videos. 

I don't understand what the copywriters and journos at ToI are upto, but this is just too unprofessional. Worst still, I don't see any amends nor apologies etc.

Earlier, Mani Shankar had come to BITS Pilani for Oasis back in 2006.

 

Winter classes and attendance

Here's an effective way to reward dedicated students in class during winter. Give them marks for attending early morning classes instead of bombarding them with tutorials.

For example:

Janurary in Pilani is a nasty month. Coffee can't be left unattended for more than 5 seconds, baths are postponed by a week and mist gives the campus the appearance of a dream sequence.

And since BITS doesn't believe in shifting the 8-5 timetable to a more convenient 9-6 one, a student is left with 2 choices: Either force himself to wake up using all necessary forces or give up.

In economics one always reads about the work-leisure trade off. In this case the trade off between being wrapped up in the quilt and attending a lecture is little. So while the student will come for the tutorial where the marks are at stake, he will not bother with the class since there's nothing tangible at stake. Give them a little incentive (and no, education isn't good enough) and they will come.

Ofcourse, the other way is to threaten to cancel their registration from the course :)

Source Pilani: Empowering Rural India

Inside Goenka Public School, which is situated in the bustling center of Pilani village, is housed one of India’s fastest growing rural BPO’s.

Welcome to the world of Source Pilani who are redefining the concept of CSR in rural India with their socio-economic approach to BPO’s.

A brainchild of L K Maheswari (the current Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani), who convinced the Goenka family to invest in such a venture; he’s played a crucial role in scaling Source Pilani to where it is today. Giving a shout out to the alumni and getting them on board to man the ship, today the gritty team of Manoj Vasudevan. Sandeep Thalluri, Ashish Khandelwal and Bharat Bongu are putting in tons of man hours in order to put Source Pilani on the map.

The establishment of a rural BPO was mainly to tackle and capitalize on the problems faced by the urban BPO’s such as high attrition rates, increasing salary costs and sky-rocketing real estate prices. This lead to the belief that such a move would provide a host to some of the biggest opportunities such as access to a large pool of talented work force in and around Pilani, world class infrastructure facilities. Apart from this it would also help in building a brand name of the Goenka’s in the social entrepreneurship sector.

Today Source Pilani has several clients including some international ones. One success story which the founders narrated to me was regarding their work in the medical transcription domain:

“We partnered with Truworth to deliver Medical Transcription services. We have been consistently achieving 98.9% quality. Trueworth started realizing cost benefits of around 30%”

Source Pilani has also been providing data entry and form processing services to JhunJhunu (district in which Pilani is located) collectorate for e-Gram and NREGS. They have been delivering exceptional service despite the complex work flow. They deal accurately with a large volume of data of 890 villages and were recognized and felicitated by the district collectorate for the outsourcing services they provided

With revenues already in lakhs, an ever increasing list of clients, a stable workforce of 60 skilled personnel who are regularly rewarded based on their performance and a board consisting of BITS Pilani faculty and Alumni, things look bright for Source Pilani.

They are currently also participating in Tata NEN’s hottest Startup award, you can vote for them here

Alternatively, you can also SMS HOT117 to 56767

Suddenly Sarah

For most of us on this side of the globe, Sarah Palin is just another person. She's the governor of a state cut off from mainland America,and now is one step away from becoming the next Vice President of USA.

She was picked by McCain 3 days ago and I somehow feel that he did it to capitalise on the junta that felt that Obama "fucked" Hilary up. She's pro life, pro guns, anti-queer and has 5 kids. It's so easy for someone to judge you for objectifying her. Because she looks like this

Recently she announced that her 17 year old unmarried daughter Bristol, was pregnant. And also that Bristol intended on marrying the father of the child. I wonder if the father actually had a choice. True, that free will exists; however few teenagers would have the balls (ok, bad pun) to express it in front of a politically charged mommy who is big time pro guns. And then starts the rumours. As Reuters points here

McCain officials said the news of the daughter's pregnancy was being released to rebut what one aide called "mud-slinging and lies" that have circulated on liberal blog sites.

According to these rumors, Sarah Palin had faked a pregnancy and pretended to have given birth in April to her fifth child, a son named Trig who has Down syndrome. The rumor was that Trig was actually Bristol Palin's child and that Sarah Palin was the grandmother.

And through Gaurav's blog I found out that there exists this.

On another note, don't be surprised if you see a sudden overwhelming increase in posts relating to BITS Pilani politics. Coup d'etat is something one would never associate with the campus, however in a classic case of events, a coup pretty much sums up what one of the (un)presidential candidate pulled off yesterday. Respect to him for showing how easily the system can be mocked.

Closing thought: You know how how sometimes they say that be very sure about what to ask for, coz you might just get it?

Election Viewpoint

Yesterday, a certain Mr Bhattacharya posted an entry on his blog, where he beautifully articulated that politics at our college is way more serious than it’s supposed to be.

Tasteless mortals and others might view upon that post as an attempt to bastardize the political activities that go on inside the closed gates. In its current avatar, the political scenario is almost always dominated by two secular parties for each post and you have to pick sides. At first glance this seems rather contradictory since the common man (and moreover an engineering college student) is opportunistic and has high hopes and aspirations, but a closer introspection might reveal that many able men/women are already post holders in some club or department. So that takes care of half the eligible people. But what about the rest? Surely they would want to go for the post? There can only be one reason that can explain this. It’s at times like this that you really respect the college. A consensus between nearly 1500 students for 4 posts really shows the maturity levels of the students.

This is probably a perfect example of the “Invisible Hand” that Adam Smith talks about in his Bible for Economics, The Wealth of Nations.

The theory of the Invisible Hand states that if each consumer is allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer is allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it, the market will settle on a product distribution and prices that are beneficial to all the individual members of a community, and hence to the community as a whole. The reason for this is that greed will drive actors to beneficial behavior.

During the election period, the college is divided into three groups. One of them is a massive group A, with little scope of individual thought process and they mostly follow the crowd (a classic case of recursion in case you haven’t figured that out).
Another is a comparatively smaller group B (split into further smaller groups B1, B2 so on) also with little scope of individual thought process however a little more persuasive. Mathematically (and ideally) speaking, it’s a many to many-many (or presumably two way) communication process where these smaller groups go around convincing the larger groups by giving them logical and seemingly obvious reasons to support them in all their endeavours. Experts in this domain also claim that this results in some sort of “My candidate, my family” feeling.

Apart from this there also exists a blimp C, which comprises of n people (n<10)Nazgul. They trot this dystopian earth with a strong sense of conviction. This attitude is evident from the following two points witnessed by those who aren’t of kin and are confronted or cornered by them:

• Expressionless faces
• A copy of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four in the vicinity

They sometimes receive sympathy during dire times in the form of “It’s a dutty job but someone’s gotta do it” and condolences in the form of gtalk status messages.

Now the seriousness that Bhattacharya talks of is basically oozing from the interactions that these three groups have with one another. By themselves, they are informal and a factory of rumours (often witty and scandalous and sometimes sick) and jibes, but in presence of foreign company, this wit and humour is replaced by:

• Jargon and Threat (if the interaction is between C and A)

• Constitutional talk and Jargon and Threat (if the interaction is between B and C)

• Reassurance and concern (if the interaction is between B and A)

(Reminder: Associative property might not be applicable here)

Mr Bhattacharya’s proposal to entertain a more informal election process in BITS can easily be implemented if action can be taken to ensure that the formal relation between these three groups be dissolved.

This can be easily achieved. All that remains is for the following points to be implemented:

• The use of animals for campaigning purposes should be made permissible.

• Merchandise promoting a candidate should be allowed, this can include caps, tees, sports bras et al

• Utilise the Department of Photography for generating campaigning budget. It is almost inhuman to expect the campaigning to proceed on such a shoestring budget. Clearly a campaign budget of 1200(or 1500) rupees isn’t sufficient to carry out the campaigning activities.

• Candidates should be allowed their own entrance themes while entering the auditorium. The candidates can also seek the help of the Department of Lights to ensure there is a sound-light coordination. Even in cricket matches such a move has been welcomed by the International Cricket Council(ICC).

• For the entertainment of students and publicity of clubs/departments, they should be allowed to make special ads for the audi debate (save Dpeartment of CCTV). Something similar on the lines of the Superbowl ads.

• Lobbyists should be allowed to defend their candidates in the audi debates.

• For the benefit of A, the group C should actually collaborate with B so as to ensure a steady kayfabe. The very occasional Screwjob has be tolerated.

And above all, during Audi ragging:

Right to free speech should be introduced where the candidates can show their true identity to the audience. It’s sort of tough to do with an elite panel interrogating you and then not letting you speak your mind.

On Cricket Quizzing

Image via Wikipedia This summer I represented BITS Pilani at ESPN's Champions of the World, a cricket quiz. Along with Navin. A chance to sit on those toilet seats again at Eagle Studios, Noida while Harsha fires trivia questions at me. Ah, sweet memories of the good ol' ESPN School Quiz days. It seems only yesterday that I was humiliated by those little rascals from PSBB Nungambakkam (who made quite a pair since both of them were victims of Down's syndrome) who edged past our team(2004) or that bugger Aravind Vijayasarathy and Pranav Ramkumar who would subject me to a neatly organized session of bondage, rape and then eventually and almost poetically, murder(2003).

Aravind is now a loving senior at college. A fine example of this love was showcased when he invited me over to his room one and said that he had a gift for me. It was the video of him pwning my tush on national television.

I realized 2 years at a coaching facility which trained me for an exam, whose individual subject cut offs these days fail to get off the mark and then another two years in an institute where every question has to be workoutable (lest the quizmaster wants to be lynched); had crippled me and I was clearly a n00b amidst those fine Bengalis who could probably recognize David Johnson from his baby pictures.

I have realized that any quiz that is to be hosted on television has to be trivia based and should involve no room for working it out. The thrill for the viewer then comes from keeping the score and awaiting that nail biting finish.

We're all horses then.

The ignominy of being knocked out in the first round has hurt me, so I'm here digging into my past, ghoting random bits of trivia about Herbert Sutcliffe and Frank Worrell.

Feels good.

P.S: Everyone in my wing is addicted to Bradman's Best. One of the finest sports books that you'll ever get to read. Do give it a try.

On Quizzing

We recently had the Fresher’s Challenge at BITS Pilani. It’s a quiz cum wordplay event held annually at the beginning of the year to find out the best quizzers in the batch. It also mostly transforms into a confidence shattering two hours. The scores are generally not too high, reason being the transition from school quizzing to college quizzing. School quizzing giants enter the campus with past laurels such as the success ESPN School Quiz, Bournvita Quiz Contest, Limca Quiz et al and are humbled by the level of quizzing at the college level.

Though trivia and obscure statistics is fun, college quizzing demands more of an analytical approach and the overly clichéd Steve Jobs advice of “connecting the dots” rather than memory alone. So why is this done?

Flattening the playing field might be one of the reasons. As Amit Varma elucidates on his blog:

A good quiz question is one in which, even if you don’t know the answer, you can work it out through clues given in the question…

I guess it’s also more to do with the fact that in hardcore trivia (read school or corporate business) quizzes it’s merely about knowing the answer. You either know it or you don’t. There aren’t any brain cells put to use. In such a case, a participant might feel cheated or as my British friends would put it “It’s simply not cricket”.

Quizzing then is also about setting good, workoutable questions. This means that the answer, in most cases should be something that everyone is aware of, however only the worthy can deduce that from the information presented to them.

For example one of the question asked during the Oasis Quiz(or simply OQ) last year was:

“Throughout history, the best pictures have always come in a yellow box.” Whose ad line?

The most obvious answer (probably due to 2 key words Pictures and Yellow) that comes to mind is Kodak, or probably some other variation a similar company. However, on closer inspection one notices something odd. The word History. Clearly Kodak is old, but not that old. Something doesn’t fit in.

The answer is actually National Geographic.

I wont deny that it does take a little getting used to for its so much more simpler to simply blurt out the answers which you are already aware of rather than sit and work things out. However the joy of deciphering the code that makes a good question is unparalleled.

Compared to the South, college quizzing in the North is still catching up. Lack of a high number of quality quizzes might be one reason. Another reason why the south is so good is probably due to the prevalence of the biggest quizzing clubs such as KQA, QFI etc.

Let’s refrain from talking about Kolkata :)

New Media as an elective at BITS Pilani

Electives form an integral part of the academic structure. I would consider myself lucky to be in an institute like BITS Pilani. The vast number of electives it offers its students is almost intimidating. Besides, for some, who landed in Pilani accidentally because they somehow managed to clear the exam, and absolutely detest all the courses that form the part of their curriculum (since everyone might not get the branch of their choice), electives provide solace and possibly a hike in the CGPA(cumulative grade point average).

According to me, the students have as much of a right to demand an elective (given the constraints of the college of course). What I mean is that the college academic board should take feedback from the students regarding what sort of courses would they be interested in. BITS Pilani has a special set of technical electives under the category Emerging Areas(EA). I would love to see New Media under EA. BITS Pilani has a large number of bloggers. While many do it for the joy of typing out their thoughts for the world to read, there are some who seriously need the internet to survive and feel orphaned without digital media. One could start it off as an Audit Course(one which doesn't affect your CGPA and you either pass it or you don't) and then possiby make it a regular course based on the response. As part of the course students can be taken to blog camps in Delhi on a weekend(unconferences are usually held on a sunday/saturday) or probably invite successful bloggers/social media experts etc.

Obviously it goes without saying that the instructor has to be someone in the middle of all the action. Because of this, getting a teacher to the campus is going to be a big problem. I suggest then to organise classes via skype(what better way to lear new media, than to actually use it for teaching). Obviously this is just me thinking out loud.

It's time we start experimenting.

And echoing Rachit's thoughts, we should have our own blog aggregator.

Startup Lunch at Hyderabad-23rd August

Image via Wikipedia

Startup Lunch, the recruiting event which is loosely based on the concept of speed dating, is finally coming to Hyderabad. The scheduled date for the event is 23rd August.

Hyderabad has seen a lot of growth, in terms of start ups, in the last couple of years. Naturally, all start ups require good hardworking people, willing to put in that extra effort to make the venture successful. This event is an excellent opportunity for start ups as well as those willing to work for another.You can also check out the presentation uploaded on Slideshare.

Successful Startup Lunches had been held at Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Delhi (which is going to conduct its third start up lunch soon).

Why should you, as a prospective team member, be part of this initiative?

1. One to many interface - One event, many start ups. Imagine the amount of time you would save by meeting them all in one place?

2. Align with your interests - Given the number of start ups and the interaction with their top management, you can decide which one to go with!

3. It's cost effective and helps you meet other people with similar interests.

Why should the startup be part of this initiative?

1. It's cost effective - Bulk recruiting solutions don’t work and customized recruitment is too expensive. This is the middle path - a relatively cost effective way of reaching a group of interested people.

2. It's targeted - Finding the "Eureka" person is tough. This helps enterprises get in touch with those who want to take the risk.

3. It's convenient- A meeting over lunch, a couple of hours to meet a great gang for working or hanging out with

Startup Lunch is an initiative of Proto.in and is being held on the 23rd of August at the Intellecap Office in Hyderabad. All the contact details can be obtained from the wiki itself.

Being stuck in Pilani, it's a pity I can't attend the event.

For those of you who are content with their jobs and would rather engage in something else, head over to the Google office by 10 AM for a workshop on Cloud Computing! This one is packed with speakers from abroad and biggies back home.

BITSAT 2008 and changes in admission procedure at BITS-Pilani

This is one time of the year when the number of phone calls increase, even surpassing those during my birthday. Yep, its the examination season and all the mohalla-wallahs want to know whether pappu paas ho gaya ki nahin. All the aunties from random corners of the nation want an in depth understanding of the BITSAT procedure and all Babloo's and Chotu's want to know how many questions to attempt so that they don't screw it up.

So what is different this year?

Firstly all you Biology fundoos now have a chance to get a Masters(Hons.) degree in Biological Sciences or a Bachelors in Pharmacy.

BITS-Pilani has one of the best pharmacy departments in the country and it might as well become your one way ticket to some really good foreign universities for higher studies, for example Purdue University, Max Born Institute etc.

More information about this here.

Secondly, we have three campuses now.

Well four if you count Dubai, but then lets not get into that now, shall we? The Hyderabad campus offers all the B.E degrees that the Pilani campus does. Oh and some really kick-ass faculty is on its way to the Hyderabad campus, bidding adieu to the campus in the desert ;P
So rest assured the BITS Hyderabad campus will not miss out on the "quality" BITSian education which is so revered throughout the educational circles.

But the biggest worry of all the little ones are CUTOFFS. It's like they can't really think beyond this. So let me give my gyaan on the cut offs for this years BITSAT.

The main factors affection this years cutoff are going to be
1.The Hyderabad Campus
2.Increased awareness in the media regarding BITSAT and BITS-Pilani
3.Newer rival institutions being opened

In my economics courses, we use a term called Cēterīs paribus. Cēterīs paribus is a latin phrase, literally translated as "with other things the same." Now when discussing cutoffs, all we can do is take each factor individually, assuming other things to be the same w.r.t to last year and then analyze its effect on the cut offs. Since we can't predict by how each of these factors will fluctuate the cutoffs, we can't really algebraically sum their net effect on the cut off.

The Hyderabad campus, with its increased number of seats will obviously decrease the cutoff you might think. Well yes. That would make it a fair enough assumption. But then there's another effect. Opening a campus in Hyderabad will motivate a lot of students from nearby towns to attempt the BITSAT. A lot of these students are those who would probably clear BITSAT but are so attached to home or are not allowed to trot outside the state and this includes a legion of above average girls who can very well crack BITSAT. So does this imply that the Hyderabad campus gets more booty? Well not necessarily, since it depends on how much the girls score and how many boys want to be in the hyderabad campus(since the number of boys exceed the girls), but it has definitely increased the number of people giving the exam.

As I have noticed after spending two years in Pilani, the general awareness as well as popularity of BITS is increasing. Be it through social media(blame it on the net savvy BITSAT crowd), or the sudden increase in the number of BITSian achievements in entrepreneurship etc, but we've definitely getting more airtime and print space than what we used to earlier and this has helped lure many gullible young ones to consider BITS as their future alma mater. Effect on cutoffs? More students giving BITSAT, competition getting stiffer. Cutoffs rising.

Three new IIT's have been opened. So thats about 360 more seats, minus the reservations.
But with the whole reservation brouhaha creeping in again, BITS has suddenly gained the respect of the people out there in being the only engineering institution of a high repute selecting purely based on merit. I see a lot more serious aspirants giving BITS a thought while going for that JEE counselling session. In-fact I see a lot more of serious preparation for BITSAT even by the students who are confident of clearing JEE because of the reservation.

I'd like to end this sub topic by saying that according to me the cut offs for each branch will definitely fall, but by how much, that I can't even speculate because anything can happen. So if you do score around 250 plus I'd say you're still in the race.

Tips for BITSAT:

Carry a pencil and an eraser with you. For the sake of your favorite deity, do this. Because you will not be given rough pages, you will be given a little booklet to scribble which will fit in your palm. So you'd want to use the space preciously and then re-use it.

Please use unconventional methods to solve the maths questions, if you see a god damn trigonometry question and substitute theta as zero without thinking Well not without thinking but you get the hint. Don't waste time on traditional methods of solving stuff. Grow up.

Accuracy is as important as speed, so its not only about attempting those 150 questions, its about not getting many wrong.

Please please please don't fucking guess blindly. At least narrow it down to two options and then just GO FOR IT. Don't not, NOT guess if you have two options, just guess.


Ah feels nice.
Peace out.

Next post: Myths bout BITSAT!!!