M. Sc. in Computer Science in West Bengal

M. Sc in Computer Science is offered by many premier universities in India like Calcutta University, University of Hyderabad, BHU, University of Pune, University of Delhi, Viswa Bharati Universiy etc. All the major universities of our state, apart from two universities from West Bengal mentioned above, like Burdwan University, Vidyasagar University, North Bengal University, West Bengal State University, Gour Banga University, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University offers M. Sc. in Computer Science. Few colleges under MAKAUT (Formerly West Bengal University of Technology) also offer M. Sc. in Computer Science.

Many general degree colleges in West Bengal have started offering M.Sc in Computer Science. The list includes –

i)                    St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata (autonomous),

ii)                   Ashutosh College (Calcutta University),

iii)                 Sarsuna College, Behala (Calcutta University),

iv)                 Panskura Banamali College (Vidyasagar University)

v)                  Acharya Prafulla Chandra College (West Bengal State University), 

vi)                Barrackpore Rashtraguru Surendranath College (West Bengal State University),
vii)       Raja Narendra Lal Khan Women's College, Midnapore (Vidyasagar University). The Google Site for Computer Science M.Sc. of College is https://sites.google.com/view/pg-dept-computer-science/Computer-Science-PG
viii) Midnapore College (autonomous)

The job prospects for M.Sc computer science are same as any other M.Sc graduates such as –

i)                    Software Company jobs,

ii)                   IT Specialist jobs in Govt sectors,

iii)                 Govt sector jobs such as Banking,

iv)                 School / College teaching jobs,

Also students can go for higher studies (such as M. Tech.) or Research (Ph. d.) fellowships after qualifying GATE / NET  examinations. 

RKMVU launches M.Sc. in Big Data Analytics

We all agree that Big Data is the current buzzword. I remember listening to the Microsoft Research executive at Indocrypt 2009 at INSA, New Delhi, stating that enormous data are being populated, but we do not know what to do with them or something like that. 

Last year IIT KGP, ISI Kolkata, and IIMC together started PG Diploma course in Business Analytics, where a student will spend each semester in the three above mentioned Institute campuses and last semester will be project work. Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math has opened a new department named Data Science. They are starting new 2-year M. Sc. course in Big Data Analytics in collaboration with TCS strting from this 2016-17. As per their website, it is India's first M.Sc level course in Data Science in collaboration with TCS. The course is designed by TCS. This course is open to male candidtates only as of now. The application for admission is open now. 

Also it is very heartening to come to know that a new Research Centre for Algorithm has been proposed in RKMVU under Computer Science Department where many peer academicians of Algorithms have been assembled already and moving towards excellence for sure.

HIT Haldia - Kukrahati Bus Service Timings

For last several years there is bus service between Haldia Institute of Technology (HIT) and Kukrahati jetty. Kukrahati is the entry path to Haldia if one wants to come through Raichak - Kukrahati vessel or Diamond Harbour - Kukrahati ferry service through the Hooghly river (or more popularly, river Ganges). Many people from South Kolkata or southern suburban area of Kolkata avails this route for journey to and from Haldia. There is also much more but time consuming frequest  bus service between Haldia Township - Kukrahati (via Balughata, Brajalalchak, BC Roy Hospital), and Haldia - Kukrahati Bus (via Durgachak, Ranichak, Hatiberia). The timing of HIT-Kukrahati bus is as follows:- from Kukrahati: 7:25, 9:25, 11:25, 14:25, 16:25, and from HIT the timing is 8:10, 10:10, 13:10, 15:10, and 17:10. This route avoids the busy market strech of Durgachak. It will be immense helpful if the frequency of buses in this route is increased. Since only one bus provides this service, if for any reason the bus is out of road, the entire service goes off.

Secondary, Higher Secondary, WB JEE results in Online and some business minded false websites

Its time for declaration of several board and JEE results. West Bengal Board 10th examination 2016 result just published today. All the Newspapers carry an article on result declaration and various websites or SMS numbers for knowing the results. But my experience is that except the government websites like http://wbbse.org/  all companies  use this opportunity to collect information like name, mobile numbers, email ids in the name of pre-registration but they do not send you the result and instead they sell these contact information to various private organizations who use this to provide admission related offers specially after 12th. This was my experience last year. I blame the newspapers also as they provide these website names to thousands of common people in their articles.

Competitive Coding

Competitive Programming or Coding Competitions or Coding Contests are few terms used to refer online programming contests among several groups where the problems are given and to be solved within a deadline as a team. These require very intense programming skill. But don’t be afraid. What makes you feel scary today, might make you feel naïve tomorrow.. you never know of it!

To introduce and motivate to this topic, I would mention FOUR events: First, during an event in IIIT Guwahati in January 2016, I met an M.Tech pass out student of IIIT Allahabad. He said the B. Tech students there are very fond of programming / coding. From the third year they participate in different coding competitions in campus and in online. And the recruiters have the perception that IIITA students means very good programmers.

Second, I remember reading an interview in weekly e-newsletter of my alma mater NIT Rourkela with the title “Tale of a Google Girl”, where the girl, Susnata Roy narrated her exciting experience of successful interview at Google and there I first heard of the term competitive programming. Then I searched Internet for this and found that few websites are there for online coding contests.

Third, in 2015 summer, our department organized a Faculty Development Program (FDP) where a talk was given by one successful alumni of our department, Dipankar Dutta, where he mentioned his involvement with coding in his spare time from the otherwise very creative and positive working environment in Microsoft Hyderabad.

Fourth, in 2015 TCS HR Eastern Head visited our campus and met with our students and later on with the faculties and advocated the online coding contest TCS CodeVita from where they would give offer letter to the students, irrespective of their batch (First Year, or Second Year, or Third Year, or Final Year) who will qualify the rounds of this contest followed by an HR interview round. It is very good fact that four students of IT department of our Institute cracked CodeVitae. Meanwhile, it is also not off the track that according to the TCS HR, TCS categorizes our Institute with very high rank as B+ (or A?) category at par with the government engineering colleges like newly set up NITs.

To conclude, few websites that students should refer regarding competitive coding are: Top Coder, Code Chef, IEEE Xtreme (only for IEEE members) etc. Also many articles in blogs are available on these. And students who are feeling excited, do explore this field and get enriched and make your campus empowered with more vibes.

Kashmar Ramakrishna Sarada Sevashrama

We visited the Kashmar Ramakrishna Sarada Sevashrama last weekend. It is a private ashram based on the ideal of Sri Ramakrishna Deva, Sri Sri Ma Sarada Devi, and Swami Vivekananda in the most interrior place of Jungle Mahal area of West Bengal. This is situated in Kashmar village, Chakadoba Post Office, Banspahari Police Station in Jhargram Subdivision of West Midnapore District of West Bengal. We took the route NH-6 - Midnapore - Dherua - Jhargram - Silda - Belpahari - Chakadoba - Kankrajhore. We crossed the Cossaye river thrice in this route. The road thorogh hill and jungle is really thrilling. The condition of road was mostly very good. But mobile phone connectivity is very poor there, specially BSNL signal is not available there, but Vodafone and some other does.

We reached the Sevashrama Campus where Swami Surendrananda-ji (Braja Maharaj) welcomed us by opening the gate himself. We offered our pranam to Maharaj-ji and observed that Maharaj-ji himself is cooking for all of us. So some of us, took the charge of rest of the cooking from him and the rest sneaked into the vegetable garden into the Sevashrama premises. The vegetable garden is really marvelous where lots of onion, potato, cabbage, cauli flower, papaya, lemon tree was seen in the hilly soil. Few local people were seen working in the garden.The Sevashrama campus also houses one Child Education Centre, where local children, mostly tribal, get education. Among other activities of the Sevashrama are the training program of the local farmers with resource persons from outside, providing shirts, dress, cloths, and blankets to the local needy people, and providing nutritious foods to the primary level school children who are mostly tribal and includes children from Shabar community - a section of tribal who are among the most backward and under-developed. I was wondering at the energy level of Maharaj-ji when I saw him supervising the work after the meal without taking any rest and then meeting with all the people who were coming to him and talking. He was discussing about the the program of second foundation day to be held on 17th November, 2015. He was thinking how to reach out to wider section of the society for help towards temple construction to be started. What I was feeling that the struggling times of any organization with limited resources but with strong will power to progress further during the initial period before it gets firm on its own feet is really to be saluted and is to be shared. 

We visited Kankrajhor, 10 KM from here. The route towards Kanrajhor, after Chhurimara is completely hilly and forest area. We spotted the trekking route from Kankrajhor to Bhulaveda, 15 KM trekking route. The road condition here has been well maintained. Also we marched from Kankrajhor further towards Amjharna through Amlashol, and spotted the Elephant Corridor, also the house on the tree top to watch the elephants.

While returning back from Kashmar, halted at Midnapore RKM for few minutes and offered our pranam at the temple in the late evening.

National Workshop on Cryptology 2015, 11-13 September at Bhubaneswar

15th National Workshop on Cryptology is being organized during 11-13 September 2015 at KIIT Bhubaneswar. The website link is http://nwc15.kiit.ac.in/ although this link has not been given yet by CRSI website http://www.crsind.com/