GSec GKeshari

I do not remember if I have written a post about my friends before; I have probably not. But this time it is special. The post is about my very close friend Govind, who celebrates his birthday today!

I have not been in IITB for days; first due to my prolonged illness and the actuarial science exams. The illness cost me a lot of days and I am having a hard time completing studying for the CTs. I am staying at home, and the saddest part about the CTs this time is probably that I had an exam today and I couldn't be in college to wish Govind. So I take this opportunity to say something about him and our friendship in this post, which I will probably never say to him in person. But if you are new to this blog, you must be wondering...

Who the hell is Govind??

Govind is my classmate in IITB. He is the General Secretary of our Math Department. He hails from Chandauli District of Uttar Pradesh. Govind is one smart chap. He is most of the time topping the class in the incessant tests and quizzes that are held every week or so. He is an NBHM scholarship awardee. No mean feat, that is (He bought a laptop with the money!). He is very witty and always has the class in splits with his jokes and has great timing too (His "Gappu ka Pappu peeche hai!" is legendary!). He is always dependent on Arun for solutions to math problems, but seldom realises that he is good at them too. That is one area where I have found him lacking-Self-confidence. If Govind develops that in him, it will be really great for him.

Govind and I during Freshers' 2009

But what makes Govind and me such great friends?

We share the same ambition. Govind wants to be an IAS officer. He is the first person I know who shares my ambition. I have found in him the friend I really wanted all these years. None of the people I knew before him, think like me. Govind has been through a lot. He is the first person from his family to study science and that too in an IIT. He has also had to face many struggles that a small town boy might face. He cracked the BHU entrance test and graduated in Math. And then stood 2nd in JAM to come here in IITB. He had to face many problems. He tells me he studied in the light of a kerosene lamp for his exams. His house was not too far away from BHU but transport was a problem. It used to take him four hours to cover just 30 km to get to his house. I can never fully understand his struggles and sacrifices, but I am happy and proud of him that he made it this far.

How the IAS became his ambition is another story. He had a divine revelation one day when confronted by his parents to leave his lady love. "Yeh tum kya kar rahe ho? Desh ke liye kuch karo," he said to himself. And he dumped his girlfriend. Just like that. Govind and I spend hours talking about the economy, the WTO, policy-making, state of our country... I am amazed by his maturity and awareness about issues and challenges facing our country and proud of his fire-in-the-belly to do something about them. We learn so much from each other. If you ask him, he'll say that he learnt a lot from me. But his experiences have been an eye-opener for me. They have brought to me stories of an India I never knew. "Tune desh nahi dekha hai,"he tells me. And it is so true! One thing I am happy about is, that just like he has come here to my hometown, even I have been to what we can safely call his hometown, Varanasi.

His marks have tumbled this term as he is bracing himself to chase his ambition after IITB. I am sure he'll crack the Civil Services Exam next year. He is working hard, and his knowledge is increasing exponentially these days. His grip over English has also improved. You can see that from his Tweets.

What makes Govind so special to me?

Like I said before, he is the friend I always wanted. I have many friends, but none like Govind. He has been an inspiration and I consider myself fortunate to be his friend.

To the only IAS Officer I personally know:

Happy Birthday Govind!

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The Karnala Conquest

Yesterday, the Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay organised its first 'official' trip of the year to Karnala Bird Sanctuary, on the Bombay-Goa Highway near Panvel. We hired the 'official' IIT Bombay bus, to take us to Karnala. After a breakfast of 'Pohe' and tea; we began our climb up to the Karnala Fort within the sanctuary. Among us, were experienced trekkers like Arun, Siddharth, and even me! In spite of clear instructions to wear the necessary footwear, some people still showed up in slippers! The climb was arduous for some and many began to give up after walking only a few hundred metres. But the others egged them on. Ojas pulled a muscle and Abhishek fell on his leg, spraining it. He was limping for most of the trek. But Ojas and Abhishek both showed gumption and carried on steadily up the steep trail to the fort. Pappu and Navin were leading the trek and were the first to reach the Fort. I was trekking along with GSec Govind, Cult Secy Bunk, Ashish, Yogendra, Uma, Riddhi and Manoj for most of the while. We used to stop at various spots and soak in the view from my binoculars. Everyone used my binocs to see the sprawling Sanctuary below. The 450 metre Fort is reached through a 4km trail that has many perils along the way. This made it a bit 'risky' as Bunk put it. Due to the hot and humid weather, and inexperience of many of the trekkers, many were gulping down water by the buckets and we ran out of water as soon as we reached the top. Thankfully Arundhati had some water with her to give to Ojas, Siddharth and Abhishek as they at last made it to the top. The first and foremost principle of trekking is: conserve water.

The top of the Fort offered a breathtaking view of the Sanctuary below. The climb back down was more difficult than the climb up, as we had to negotiate some dangerous sections of rock cut steps. The trail was laid with loose stones and mud and that made it quite slippery. Many slipped, me too. But thankfully no one was seriously hurt. After we came down, we had lunch and whiled our time away playing Dumb Charades before we embarked on the journey back to IIT Bombay. Our class played 'Mafia' on the bus, and many of us are now hooked to the game. Poor Abhishek was the only big casualty and was left nursing his terribly sprained leg after we came back. A special mention has to be made about Bibek, who played football till 3am in the night before and trekked with us in spite of running a fever of 100F. Siddharth, Yogendra and Govind showed environmental consciousness as they kept the trail clean by picking up plastic bottles thrown away by others.

Below is a Picasa slideshow of photos of the Karnala trek taken from my cam. The pics taken by Abhishek can be seen on his Picasa site.



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The Pittsburgh Pitstop

I cannot believe that I have not blogged for almost a month, leading up to this post! Maybe it was the mid-sem or the change of base to Pluto; perhaps a blogger's block or the new rage, Twitter. But those are no excuses to disappear from the blogosphere for such a long time. Govind and Abhishek, have been urging me to blog. I was on the look out for a topic, and Govind suggested, why not blog about the G-20 meet in Pittsburgh, USA? I said, well, why not?

As I blog this, leaders of a self-anointed group that decides the economic course for the entire globe are meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to debate on a variety of issues; from evaluating the road to recovery after the recent economic slowdown to charting a new framework for the world's financial system, that will prevent another meltdown. They will be taking stock of the lessons learnt from the recent credit crisis, and how the global economic system will guard itself against too-good-to-be-true financial products that keep rearing their ugly heads on the Streets. Dangerous levels of exposure to untried and untested-even illegal-debt instruments was the reason behind the caving-in of Wall Street behemoths like the Lehman Brothers. Some like, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae received life support from the US Government. But a few others like Lehman were allowed to implode, taking with them investor confidence and sense of financial security, that engulfed the whole world in a pall of gloom. Now after a year, the new engines of global economic growth, India and China, are getting out of the so-called recession in their domestic markets and surfing a new wave of consumption-led growth. In an increasingly Asia-dominated world, the relevance of the G-20 and its policies and actions will be under the microscope in Pittsburgh. Can the developed nations, along with new power-centres like India and China come to agree on a common framework to re-direct efforts for financial recovery, and put the worst crisis in recent memory behind them?

Pittsburgh, USA

One hard lesson to have come out is, stocking dollars is probably not a country's best bet. The need to diversify export markets and not just be a large trading partner of the US has emerged as an important policy agenda of different countries. Exploring new markets and diversifying the exports basket will be on top of policy-makers' minds. But here is a catch. Governments are turning to protectionist policies to drive up domestic production and consumption. Re-energising entire sectors that have been in a hole for a year requires infusion of money, referred to as a 'stimulus package' and new tax regimes. The resurrection of comatose industries requires nipping the flood of cheaper imports from other countries that have been equally hit by the recent economic crisis. But these countries are just boosting their exports by helping their own domestic industries, right? One man's terrorist is another man's friend, right? Wrong!

This is exactly why the leaders are meeting in Pittsburgh. To chart out a path to recovery that will be acceptable to all stake-holders. More importantly, there is a need for monetary policy-makers to come together and develop new regulations for the global financial system. One that will have checks in place and uniform rules across the board for trading in untested financial instruments. But here lies the problem. No one is quite sure of what these rules and checks should be, and how much protectionism are they going to allow to be weaned away from them. Reminds you of Doha, anyone?

The summit will be a great test of the relevance of G-20. They need to come to agree upon various issues if the group is to be taken seriously. Otherwise we may not have seen the last of the 'big bubbles just waiting to burst'. Some pundits are predicting a W-shaped recovery. It is up to the G-20 leaders that it stays U.

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* Tailpiece *

The major change to have happened since I last blogged is that our class in IITB is no longer HIV- The Incurables. With the exception of our Class Rep Ojas, all of us have moved to a colder, more distant world, HIX-Pluto, just like the eponymous former planet. With marginally better mess food, our new home is treating us well, I hope it stays that way. Abhishek and I are roomies no more but we do make it a point to loaf off in each other's rooms. Also, my comp in my room makes up in part for his absence(I know he'll kick me for writing this!)!

This Wednesday, I was in Khagol Mandal, editing the coming issue of the club magazine, 'Vaishwik'. I went scissor happy, after Dilip Sir gave me a free hand to 'tear articles apart' as he put in Marathi. It was a different experience to edit a magazine. I hope I get this chance every issue. I learnt elementary editing techniques. I hope to learn type-setting next!
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H4 cha Ganaraya!

Gajanana shri ganraya aadhi vandu tuz morya
Mangalmurti shri ganraya aadhi vandu tuz morya

Shindurcharchit dhwale aang chandanuthi khulvvi rang
Baghata manas hote dang jeev jadala charani tuziya

Goritanya bhalchandra deva krupechya tu samudra
Wardvinyak karunagara awghi vighne nesi vilya

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Where All Her Children May Dwell...

Let's Find Utterance...

1) Right to Information, made available in a few days
2) A PDS that does not steal food from people's plates
3) Everything we fought and have yet to fight for
4) Being in school and not on the streets
5) Rivers being cared for and not being prayed to
6) Rioting to root out communalism
7) A vote counted and not just cast
6) Awareness of duties and not just rights
8) Soldiers being given their due and farmers not driven to suicide
9) Civil Society stronger than the political class
10) A 21st Century beacon and not a Third World hag
11) 62 years of introspection but not looking back
12) India awakes to life and freedom all over again

This and more...

Happy Independence Day to every Indian out there! Jai Hind!

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* Tailpiece *

My friend Anand, is developing his own homepage on the TIFR site. Even roomie Abhishek has one. This has inspired me to have one of my own too. So I'll be working on my own website. Of course, the blog does suffice in a lot of cases, but I guess having my own site will give me more functionality to add the kind of stuff I cannot put up on my blog.
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IRS: Views from Space

I am preparing a presentation on 'Remote Sensing' to be presented in Wednesday's meet in KM. The decision to have such small presentations is a welcome move; it helps people learn about space science, without having to go around scouring for good books. It becomes a kind of a preparatory lecture that stirs interest in the topic and enables members of the audience to prepare themselves for further reading into that topic. Since the age of the audience members is anything from ten to 60, it becomes a challenge to reach to the lowest denominator so that all of them feel that they have learnt something exciting. In this post, I introduce remote sensing and summarise India's advances in the field, particularly ISRO's with its IRS-series satellites.

Remote Sensing literally means making observations and collecting information of a particular object of interest, remotely, i.e., without being in contact with it. This crude-sounding 'definition' has outlived its utility and remote sensing is nothing like it was a few decades ago. But how did it all begin?

It all began when aerial surveys were carried out to assess damages due to natural calamities, from balloons fitted with cameras. Soon, the military advances during World War II, made available balloons that reached very high altitudes, from where troop positions could be monitored. The Cold War led to development of aircraft that would fly high enough to be undetectable by radars, and take photographs of civilian and military infrastructure. The launch of Sputnik 1, led to apprehensions of espionage opportunities being exploited from space, and quickly, satellites reached a stage of development, where they could be put in polar synchronous orbits and made to cover a large area of the planet in one revolution, and many such could cover the whole Earth and relay important military data in close to real time. The military advancements spawned civilian technologies too. Weather satellites and satellites that could monitor land use were put in space, that helped in development of advanced early warning systems and efficient resource management policies respectively. The US-Landsat satellites are an example in point. The progress in imaging technology is the cornerstone of remote sensing. Detectors that allow 'seeing' an object in various wavelengths helped find not only bases that housed nuclear warheads but also the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.

The Palm Jumeirah, captured by IRS-P6

What about India?

The vision for India's satellite programme mandated two crucial components of space technology; to develop a national communications network and integration with the National Natural Resources Management programme. The first led to the development of the INSAT series of satellites and the second to the lesser known but oft-envied IRS series of satellites. Why envied? I did talk about this in one of my earlier posts, 'Forays into Space', and I reproduce it here.

Though the launch of the IRS-1A was a success there was a problem with the on-board camera equipment. The ISRO engineers and scientists tested the replica of the satellite on the ground in space-simulated conditions. They left the ground replica for tests and soon enough the same problem occurred in the model. They licked the problem after applying knowledge of theoretical physics learnt in college! The two IRS satellites IRS- 1A and IRS 1B have contributed immensely to the study of agricultural resources, geology, water bodies, crop patterns, soil study and oceanography. While at that time, the US LANDSAT and the French SPOT were ahead in the technology of the camera resolution, the guys at ISRO took it upon themselves to have the next two IRS satellites, IRS-1C and IRS-1D leave them far behind. They thought "Why should westerners say that the Indian Earth Observation satellites are comparable to the best in the world? We should have them saying, 'Our satellites should be comparable to the Indian ones'." And they did it. Indeed, IRS-1C and IRS 1D, at the time of their launch, were the best in the world.

IRS satellites did something else. They enabled India to become a potent military power. The programme is entirely indigenous, hence opium to a lot of speculation in international military and space circles. The military use of the IRS satellites has not been fully established, but these satellites have led to the development of India's own spy satellite, RISAT-2 launched on April 20, 2009 with an Israeli-built Synthetic Aperture Radar. The satellite is supposed to carry out defence surveillance, and especially keep an eye on India's borders. Indian agencies are already in the process of developing their own SAR technology, which means more military satellites in the coming future.

India's Remote Sensing is handled by the National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad. As such, it is a very important cog in the Indian space programme. It provides geospatial solutions to organisations that need data on resources and also plays a crucial role in disaster management. It also houses training facilities at the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun to train scientists and engineers in remote sensing.

India's remote sensing story has a come a far way; this can be seen from the quality of images produced by the IRS satellites. With India going to the Moon, and looking to go further into Space, new indigenous technologies in remote sensing will need to be developed, that will push the nation's capabilities.
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* Tailpiece *

I saw Jennifer Eight(1992) today, starring Uma Thurman and Andy Garcia, and was wowed by the highly engrossing crime thriller. Such movies are rare, and it is highly recommended. Watch out for John Malkovich, who delivers a stunning performance. Highly under-rated actors pack together a highly under-rated performance in a highly under-rated movie. Conrad Hall(Yes, DP par excellence) creates the perfect gloomy moods in various frames to highlight the desperation, helplessness and insecurity among the skillfully etched out characters. It is surely a not-to-be-missed movie. Those who watch it should tell others about it. It deserves a lot more than its current IMDB rating.
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