UGC NET Question Paper on Computer Science & Applications

A good news ! UGC has uploaded few of previous year's question papers for subjects for which it conducts NET examination. One can visit the webpage http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/oldqp.html and search for any particular subject.

For Computer Science & Applications the subject code is 87. And the site address is http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/oldqpyr.php?sub=87

UGC conducts NET exam twice a year, once in June and other in December. They have uploaded following question papers: Dec. 07, Jun. 07, Dec. 06, and Dec. 05.

One can even get to know her/his marks obtained in the exam - http://www.ugc.ac.in/inside/marks.html. This is very helpful in the sense we can understand how close we were to the target.

Football Match in HIT

Last Week there was final match between Civil Vs Food Tech n Bio Tech departement students of HIT. Civil own the match. After that there was a match between staffs (Chairman's Team Vs Principals Team). I Played for Principal's Team.

After Listening of this match to be played, I was very enthusiastic to participate - after initial hesitation. SkS sir of MCA n SM sir of CSE also played for our team. Last ween there a bit of rain, and the ground was quite slashy. Enjoyed the match.

I had a long wish for football. After school days, there was no football till NIT life at Rourkela. In NIT we played a lot of football. We m.tech students used to play among ourselves - mainly students from Kerala. Last year during this time (in Aug Last week I guess) there was inter hall Football tournament in NIT Rourkela. And we participated. Before us M. Tech students from C V Raman Hall never participated in Football !! From Monday Morning online Newsletter of NIT RKL (http://mondaymorning.nitrkl.ac.in/mmb/pages/frontpage.aspx) I got to know that htis year also our juniors kept our tradition and participated in Football.

Project Positions in Cryptography in ISI Kolkata

Project Title: Research & Development of some Cryptographic Primitives.
Position: Project-linked personnel
Number of vacancies: 4
Consolidated Salary: Rs. 15,000 to 18,000/- p.m.
PI: Prof. Bimal Roy, Applied Statistics Unit, ISI (www.isical.ac.in/~bimal)
Qualification: M.E/M.Tech or M.Sc (Math/Stat/CS/Electronics), BE/B.Tech or MCA.
Last Date of Application: 10 September 2009
Detail of the ADVT can be downloaded from the following Link
http://www.isical.ac.in/download.php?file=JobApplicationFiles/Appl SU.pdf

Note: Cryptology Research Group (www.isical.ac.in/~crg) at ISI Kolkata under Prof Bimal Roy is world famous group. Anybody interested to work in Cryptography would definitely get exposure to a very exciting atmosphere of work there.

Right Question and Kid Nobel

I was reading an article "The Power of Question" by Richard N Zare in the Science Education Journal Resonance (http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/) August 2009 volume, published by Indian Academy of Sciences (http://www.ias.ac.in/). I quote some portion from the article.

".. some question is at the center of every scientific and technological advance, and fundamental questions underlie every humanistic quest to comprehend the world about us. The question is a central aspect of both learning and knowledge creation. Yet, students often seem to value more the answer than the question... It is my contention that posing a new question may be the more valuable pursuit – for it is by questions that we probe the unknown and discover new paths to take for ourselves..."

He then described about a platform for children upto the age 18 for raising a good question and justifying that question's merit.

"... This competition, which some have nicknamed the “kid Nobel,” is meant to foster inquisitiveness and creativity in young people around the world. It is open to anyone, from anywhere, so long as the participant is under eighteen years of age (http://www.moleclues.org/). Children as young as eight from all over the planet participated in the competition via the free science-discussion Molecular Frontiers website (http://www.molecularfrontiers.org/) where they could chat with young scientist mentors or their peers in an environment that was designed around our moto: Curiosity–Creativity–Honesty–Knowledge. The competition entrants, in addition to asking a short question related to molecular science, had to explain to the judges why they thought theirs was an important question, where they have already looked for the answer, why they were unsatisfied with the answers they received, and what they suggest scientists do to obtain better answers. The winning entries sounded simple at first glance, yet quickly made for furrowed brows among the world-caliber scientist jury. For instance, Vladimir Leopards, age 15, wondered “Why aren’t plants black?” noting that since black absorbsmore sunlight than green, why haven’t plants evolved to take advantage of this extra energy available for photosynthesis?.."

Sri Ramakrishna dev told that to be innovative we should always be like children who are always questioning and wondering...

Also I read an interview of Mr. Kumar (?) of famous Super 30 free coaching centre in Patna, Bihar (http://www.super30.org/) for poor students to prepare for IIT JEE, that it's very important for a good teacher not to give correct answer to students but to pose right question to the students so that they themself come out with correct answer.

(I first heard of them while watching the movie Rang De Basanti in TV.. During breaks, they showed about 5 exceptional people from different parts of our country who are trying to make our society better by their unique efforts..)

Projects in IIT kgp and ISI Kol

(1). Project at IIT KGP (http://iitkgp.ac.in/topfiles/sric_job_details.php?serial=1162)

Project Title: Investigation of Cryptanalytic Techniques
POsition: Senior Research Fellow (SRF) /Junior Research Fellow (JRF)
Number of vacancies: 1
Consolidated Compensation: Rs. 12,000 to 15,000/- p.m.
Coordinator / PI: Prof. Abhijit Das, Dept. of Comp. Sc. & Engg, IIT KGP.
Qualifications & Experience
BE/ME (or equivalent) in CSE. Students from other branches of Engg. (Electrical/ Electronics/Instrumentation) with good academic records may also apply. Applicants with marks below 75% in Class X or XII, or with CGPA (or equivalent) below 6.5 (or marks below 65%) in BE/ME will not be considered.
Last Date for application : 30 Aug 2009

(2). Projects at ISI Kolkata
( http://www.isical.ac.in/download.php?file=JobApplicationFiles/ACMU.pdf )
Project Titles: (i) "Geometric Covering Problem"

(ii) "Moving Guards in Polygonal Environment"
PI: Prof B.P. Sinha, Advanced Computing & Mocroelectronics Unit.
Posts: 02 Project linked person (one for each of) purely on temporary basis

Qualification: ME/MTech/MCA/MSc/BE/BTech

Walk-in on 15 th September 2009 at 10 AM at ACMU unit ISI Kolkata

Swine Flu at HIT

Yesterday one student of HIT was confirmed to be Swine Flu affected. There was panic among many students, and that was natural. In the evening, college authority notified suspension of classes for this week. Recently, there is little bit of Swine Flu outbreak in our country. City like Pune is worst affected. As I am teaching Microproceesor, thinking to utilize this week to go through more deep into the subject. Also have to go through Unix shell programming if time permitted.
My parents are reaching home today. They were in P Sai Nilayam, Andhra Pradesh for little over a month for my fathers prostate operation in the Sai Baba's hospital (http://www.srisathyasai.org.in/Pages/Service_Projects/psn_sup.htm). The treatment including surgery is provided completely free of cost to the patients. So it's really astonishing just to think how many noble minded people are donating generously so that this kind of completely free treatment is provided to the people. Due to several reasons like sudden high blood pressure, infection at urinary system, post operation bleeding etc, the total process of treatment of my father took more time than the usual.

Couldn't Attend the National Workshop on Cryptology

Our paper "On Resiliency of Orthogonal Array based Key Predistribution Scheme" was accepted in 9th National Workshop on Cryptology (http://www.svnit.ac.in/CRSI). This workshop was held in NIT Surat from 7-9 August. Total 17 papers were selected for the workshop. Objective of this workshop is to provide a platform for Indian researchers and students to meet and exchange their ideas on cryptology. Also to make the researchers aware of recent progress in this fieled, talks by many eminent professors and scientists are arranged in every workshop.

I registered for it (It's free for members of Cryptology Research Society of India) and booked the ticket for presenting our paper there. But on 6th August I had to cancel the tickets as I didn't get leave from my institute. It would have been great to be there and present there. But our junior at NIT Rourkela, Sourav Addya talked to Prof Bimal Roy there regarding my Registration kit including Proceedings and brought that for me. Thanks Sourav. Prof Bimal Roy gave a talk on Key Predistribution. This talk was not among the pre scheduled list of talks.