S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E

MARCH 11, 12007

IIT KHARAGPUR www.scholarsavenue.org

Inside � Opinions4

Partha Ghosh3

Budget Explained7

Facchas’ Hall Issues2

iitkgp.ac.inLap it up!

Computers are almost an essential

commodity at IIT Kharagpur, and a

growing trend has been to replace clunky

desktop machines with sleek beauties of

the laptop variety.

So a new initiative should come as

great news, if you are in the market a

laptop in near future. Deepak Rathee, VP,

Gymkhana is in the process of negotiation

with laptop computer manufacturers like

Lenovo, HCL, Dell and Toshiba to get

laptops for Kgpians at subsidized rates.

The scheme will be valid for one high end

and one low end model. Bulk orders will

be placed and the collection of orders will

be underway before the last week of

March. The discount is expected to be in

the range of 18K – 25K per laptop. To

make things even better, the VP has also

struck a deal with SBI under which

students will be able to get loans at lower

interest rates for buying Laptops (the

interest rates will be lower than those

applicable on educational loans). Happy

shopping!

Kgpians are among the most talented

in the country when it comes to

harnessing the power of the web. From

academic projects to entrepreneurial

ventures and student organizations, web

sites run by Kgpians show an incredible

degree of skill and professionalism. A case

in point is the Kshitij 2007 site, which

utilizes advanced concepts like AJAX (the

same technology that powers GMail) and

is far ahead of other institutes' fest

websites.

In this scenario, the state of our official

institute website comes as a big letdown

for many. Critics assert that its awkward

aesthetics, unintuitive navigation and

dearth of front-page content pale in

comparison to the websites of other IIT's,

notably those of IIT Bombay and IIT

Kanpur. Given the important role the

website plays in forming the "first

impression" about any organization, we

met Prof. B. K. Mathur, head of the

institute's Information Cell, to find out

more.

(continued on Page 5)

Of all curriculum changes undertaken by

the institute in recent years none has been

quite as tumultuous as those in the

Architecture Department. The current

academic year has fared extremely well for

the department but it has hardly been

surprising. The foundation began to be laid

soon after the Council of Architecture visit in

2004 which could hardly be said to have

gone off well. The degree of dissatisfaction

could be judged from the fact that the

council's subsequent date of visit was set for

about two years later while if everything had

been found to be quite alright the

intermittent period would have been close to

five years.

The Council of Architecture (CoA) is a

government body that registers architects

following which they are legally allowed to

practice. Hence within its purview lies the

regulation of the education of later-day

architects. Architects graduating from

institutes approved by the CoA receive their

registrations automatically; therefore

periodic inspections of these institutes are

mandatory.

Coming back to the inspection of '04

several suggestions were made by the

council most notable of which was the

induction of students into the department

from the first year itself. The suggestions

were implemented almost immediately with

the fabrication of a new course-structure,

increase in the intake of students as also with

the upgradation of existing facilities.

Here though the department went far

ahead of what was demanded by the

stipulated guidelines and began a process

whereby four new labs were set up. The first

amongst these was the Graphics and Visual

Communication (GVC) Lab. This Lab. is of

interest mainly to the first years in the

department and those outside who might

choose GVC as breadth. The Lab. aims to

instill proficiency amongst students in the

use of digital means of presentation like

Flash and Photoshop. The Design

Simulation Lab. might be the first of its kind

in the country. The lab. aims to emulate

others in existence like the Kinetic Design

Group at MIT and the Architecture Science

Group at Cardiff. The scope of this lab.

would span from architectural morphology

to building performance analysis. At a more

fundamental level it would be aspiring to do

research in the field of theories of

architecture in itself or parameterization of

aesthetic sensation. The Environmental Lab.

consists of instruments to measure air

quality, a weather monitoring station, pH

level meters and should be operational by

the coming semester. A potential cause of

cheer amongst all students though could be

the Photography Lab. which aims to involve

"everyone" through a series of workshops.

By the time of the inspection this year

round the tables had turned full circle. The

students and faculty worked hard preparing

for the inspection all for good measure. The

visitors were reasonably impressed but had

a few words of warning regarding getting

too complacent. Ending the close-doors

student-inspector interaction session the

inspectors commented they were so satisfied

as not to want to come back even five years

down the line.

Architects of ChangeMassive upgrades to the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning

www.iitkgp.ac.in

www.iitb.ac.in www.iitd.ac.inwww.iitg.ac.in

www.iitk.ac.in www.iitr.ac.inwww.iitm.ac.in

tod

ay

The IIT Kharagpur website compares poorly with those of other IIT’s.

T H E

Owing to the increasing space crunch in

the six senior halls, making MS a senior

hall seems the most logical option. But the

logical option isn't always the best option

as was demonstrated when the first step

taken in this direction

fell flat on its face last

year, due to fierce

opposition from the

student community.

It is a fact that a very

large majority of first

years do not want to

be isolated from

s e n i o r s a n d i n

e s s e n c e a l l t h e

student activities in the campus, which is

exactly what will happen if they are

forced to shift to MS in their second year.

A chat with the Dean of Students

Affairs, Prof. HR Tewari revealed that

although no decision has been made on

the matter yet, the top priority of the

institute is comfortable accommodation

for the students. How this has to be done

in view of the space constraints is up to

both the students and the institute to work

out together to avoid any complications.

For now, the best option seems to be to

allow those students who want to

voluntarily opt for MS to do so (as has

been happening in the case of HJB hall)

and then accommodate the rest in the

senior halls. The issue is a contentious

one. If MS is made a senior hall, then we

risk alienating a section of students. If not

then there's the obvious problem of space.

But with the student intake being

increased in leaps and bounds every year

(the projected intake next year is 1200

undergraduates), it is obvious that

without a new senior hall, it will be

impossible to accommodate everyone on

campus. But when exactly this will

happen is a question that the institute

authorities need to answer, and soon.

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E NEWS AVENUE MARCH 11 20072

TEAM SCHOLSAVEExecutive Editors � Chintan Thakkar, Nitin Basant, Sunny Somani, Swati

Editors Aneesh Jain, Aravind RS, Riti Mohapatra, Rohit Shankar, Saahil Bhanot, Samya Mandal, Shishir Dash, Umang Jain

Sr. Reporters Aditya Marathe, Anuj Dayal, Arish Inam, Robin Anil, Sheekha Verma, Sreeja Nag, Suvrat Bafna

Reporters Anup Bishnoi, Deepak Cherian, JS Deepthi, Mithun Madhusudan, Pranesh Chaudhary, Srinath Sinha, Vinayak Pathak

Jr. Reporters AVN Murthy, Bharat Bhat, Mayank Kedia, Pallavi Jayannavar, Siddharth Singh, Suyash Bire

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editor@scholarsavenue.org

MMM Fees Clarified

MMMites can breathe a lot easier now.

The hullabaloo created over the amount

that MMMites had to pay in advance

towards hall expenses has been more or

less resolved. Following the initiative

taken by the VP, the initial notice which

asked MMM residents to pay Rs. 2500 as

advance for various hall expenses was

withdrawn. An in-hall meeting of the Hall

Council Members, The Office bearers, and

the Assistant Wardens was held,

following which a new notice was issued

on the 2 nd Feb.

The new notice states that students

need to pay Rs 2100 now, and more

importantly the amount will be adjusted

from the mess refund. This essentialy

means that MMMites will not have to

shell out anything extra as the mess

refund amounts to around Rs. 3000 for the

whole year.

However, First year M. Techs and

VGSOM students will have to pay Rs. 500

as advance, as their mess refund would be

insufficient to cover the expenses due to

their longer stay in the hall.

A pleasant surprise for MMMites was

the fact that electricity charges and the

hall establishment charges were

reduced.The electricity charges were

slashed from Rs. 1200 to Rs.1000 per

student. Hall establishment charges were

reduced from Rs. 500 to Rs. 300, naturally

giving rise to question as to why this

reduction couldn't have been made

earlier. The general feeling is that if the

issue had been handled more carefully, a

lot of the inconvenience could have been

avoided. In the end, however, MMM

residents are happy that their concerns

over the matter have been satisfactorily

resolved.

Where To Now?Will MS become a senior hall?

As another year draws to a close, 800

undergraduates get ready to pack their

bags and wait for a computer to decide

their fate

It's that time of the year again.

Gymkhana elections,

Hall Days, a time

when politics in the

Institute is at an all

time high. But behind

all this there's a little

m a t t e r t h a t w i l l

decide the fate of 800

odd first years.

In a little over a

month the first years

will come to know which hall they will

live in for the remainder of their stay in

KGP. KGP has a rich tradition of halls with

each hall having its own credo and its own

image in the Institute. It is impossible to

remain aloof from an issue as important

as this, and each and every first year is

likely to have an opinion about which hall

they want to go to.

Like last year, this year too, the

allotment will be computerized and

random. Once again, speculation is rife

over the conversion of Meghnad Saha

Hall (MS) into a full fledged senior hall.

- 1200 new undergrads next year- Senior halls already overcrowded- First years unwilling to go to MS

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U EFEATURES AVENUEMARCH 11 2007 3

“If you’re at IIT for a job, shame on you!”Former McKinsey Partner and Global Advisor, Mr. Partha Ghosh’s maverick views

A renowned innovator of

Business and Economic models,

Partha Ghosh is a household name in

the realm of strategy-building. This

class-of-1971 graduate in Chemical

Engineering from IIT Kgp, who now

resides in Boston, has spent his last

30 years as a professional consultant

to leaderships of prestigious

organizations, corporates and

governments, as a partner of

McKinsey and Co, and later as the Managing

Director of his own firm, 'Partha S. Ghosh &

Associates'. Recently, he also founded 'The Boston

Pledge' to promote socio-economic development,

and to develop environment friendly technologies.

With a hands-on approach to deal with the world's

emerging problems, he is quite a 'dial-a-quote'

maverick! Excerpts from a long chat with SA after

his lecture series and workshops at Kgp last month:

Q] Could you talk us through your time at

Kharagpur as a student?

A] Those were interesting times. India was

a closed economy and creativity and idealism

was in the air. Although everyone wanted to

come here, IIT was not as hyped as it is today. It

was heartening that neither of us ever felt a

sense of superiority over fellow students from

other colleges. There was a sense of idealism

among the students, and the environment was

competitive yet collaborative. We also had an

increasing trend among the final years to go

abroad after they passed out. I must add that

the level of energy that I sensed back then has

rather dropped now, which is very contrary to

what I believed would happen. We tend to be

too casual about our approach. At MIT and

Harvard, on the other hand, students are

becoming increasingly concerned about global

issues such as poverty, divide between rich

and poor, health care, ecology and energy

balance.

Q] How did your 12-year stint at

'McKinsey & Co' change your outlook of the

world?

A] At McKinsey and Co, I grew up with

many offices all over the world. To be very

honest, I never looked at McKinsey as a place

to make money, I viewed the place as a place to

learn and develop myself. The company

inspired my ability to define and engage a

problem, enjoy the process of problem solving

and thinking with an open mind. I learnt to

take every opportunity and contribute to

India. In fact, after leaving McKinsey, I decided

not to use its name, and instead established my

own Policy Advisory and consultancy firm,

'Partha S Ghosh & Associates' in Tokyo.

Q] Why not Kolkata then? That would've

probably made it easier to contribute to the

country.

A] A bittersweet truth about our attitude is

that to be accepted as a major force in India,

you've got to be first accepted in the world. I

still find it easier to introduce

myself as a former partner of

'McKinsey and Co' rather than the

founder of 'Partha S Ghosh &

A s s o c i a t e s ' ! ( s m i l e s ) M o r e

significantly, at Japan, I could place

myself strategically between India

and USA, and keep in touch with

my older contacts in the US while

also maintaining close proximity

with India and contributing actively.

Q] What motivated you to found 'The

Boston Pledge'?

A] Within a small group of professionals in

the US Indian community, we have committed

to work on the grass-root problems in India.

After all, who else but Indians would connect

better with India? The idea is to bring the

problem-solving process to India and create a

force on the lines of Ramakrishna Mission by

Swami Vivekananda. I would be glad if IIT

students come forward to become an

important part of The Boston Pledge and take

it to the world. Our underlying goal is

essentially to raise the confidence levels

among those at the bottom of the social

pyramid. It would be great if you guys could

chip in, in your own small ways. It could even

be as trivial as maintaining our website or help

in local fund rasing.

Q] We remember you talking about a

major restructuring of the engineering

education system at IIT Kharagpur during

your talk…

A] I think if IIT Kharagpur wants to be a

premier engineering institute of the world

(and not just in India), it needs a global

perspective, think about what the other

countries are not doing, and whether we could

stay ahead in the curve.

If I ever ran an IIT, I would firstly package

all the pure sciences and mathematics as a

single unit in first year and lay emphasis on

their inter-relationships. The second year

would be conventional engineering in the

major field of study. In the third year, I would

introduce 21st century courses such as

nanotechnology, genetic engineering,

environmental engineering, renewable energy

resources and transportation, in their

respective branches. The final year(s) would be

all about bringing the head, heart and hand

together, and tackling real problems of the

world such as global warming, renewable

energy, transportation systems etc. The

industry should also get more involved in

articulating the dissertations. See, the bottom-

line is that engineering should be also be a

pain-killer – not just a vitamin.

Q] The biggest crisis that IIT faces right

now is a dearth of Faculty. Given this

scenario, how do we even think of this

overhaul in the first place?

A] Our society (in particular the media)

should provide teachers a hero status, above

the industrialists and businessmen that

currently command all the limelight. Nobody

wants to be a teacher because it isn't heroic in

nature, unlike entrepreneurs who make cover-

page news. Furthermore to provide a boost to

our education system it won't be asking for too

much to get the alumni involved and deliver

lectures on their respective fields of interest.

We can even arrange for a larger share of

visiting faculty, from all over the world.

Bitwise, the annual online program-

ming contest organized by Computer

Science Department, IIT KGP was held

this year on 11th February. The teams had

12 hours to solve a set of problems and the

emphasis was primarily on the algo-

rithms.

Bitwise has gone from strength to

strength since it's inception in the year

2001 and it now has a very good reputa-

tion both in India and abroad .This is

evident from the fact over 2500 teams

registered for the contest this year and out

of these around 300 were from outside

India. In addition to this, separate threads

for Bitwise were started by the partici-

pants at sites like www.topcoder.com.

The problems were a fine mix in terms

of the difficulty level. At the end there

were 2 problems (out of 10) that no team

was able to solve.

“TwoDashHeadedSpaceMonkey", the

team from Sweden successfully defended

their crown. "HimalayaZerlings" from

China were second and "NeedForX" from

Russia were third. The best performing

Indian team "Top_coder" from IIIT

Allahabad was placed at 12 and the best

KGP could muster was a lowly 91 by a

team called "npcomplete".

The prizes at stake were worth a total

of Rs. 120k with the first and second prizes

being Rs. 50k and Rs. 25k respectively. The

event was organized by the 4th year batch

of CSE department under the leadership

of Prof. Niloy Ganguly and Prof.

Aurobinda Gupta.

Bitwise 2007Swedish Team Wins Again

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E OPINION AVENUE MARCH 11 20074

It is agreeably moot to discuss why one might want to

contribute only to one's own hall. It is but natural to have fond

memories of a place you spent the better part of your four/five

years in. Friendships, thankfully, know no distances. During

your stay in the campus you inevitably made friends

irrespective of whichever hall they belonged to. A fact to be

considered while contributing for the betterment of your hall is

also the glaring distinctions it would lead to compared to other

halls that have no such guardian. Every hall needs money but

some need it far more than do others. (Read A StaRK Contrast -

Page 2, January 5, 2007 issue). Notably, the RK Hall renovation

scheme was meant to be a pilot, a guide for other hall alumni to

step up and chip in to better their halls. A lack of other alumni as

motivated as Mr. Vinod Gupta, though, has made this scheme

appear a show-off for the rest of the campus. To reiterate, Mr.

Gupta's efforts are nothing short of laudable. An example has

been made; an obscure path has now been mapped. Talk of

major donations to the campus, though, and only two names

spring to mind: the other being of Mr. Arun Sarin. The question

that arises now is of how sustainable that path is. Two years and

two alumni meets have come and gone since Mr. Gupta made

RK's renovation a priority. Few donations have come in to prove

that that example is being followed.

The equal amount each of us pays towards hall development

and as rent as also the virtue of being of Kgp itself everyone is

entitled to an equal standard of living. It no more seems unlucky

but downright unfair that while paying the same money as

anyone else a few of us enjoy far greater privileges. A cleaner

mess or hall library isn't probably very noticeable but a few

inequalities are much more in the face. Additional money for the

hall's frill facilities could threaten the very fabric of intra-campus

competitions. Better musical instruments, better sports facilities

and the GCs are suddenly not as fair as they used to be.

One probable way out of this conundrum could be

earmarking a percentage of the donated fund for the donor's

own hall and the rest for other halls on the basis of requirement.

It is only a matter of time before students realize the broken

floors in their halls are not going to be tiled anytime soon. The

rancour that results would hardly be unjustified. Students stay

in different halls that have different facilities and living

conditions, but then halls are allotted on a lottery basis. So there

is some sort of uniformity in the process.

Before we start to justify hall specific donations, it must be

stated that hall specific donations are in our opinion not

completely fair and should not be encouraged in an ideal world.

But our world, and more specifically kgp, is far from utopian.

Sometimes it is necessary for moral ideologies to take a backseat

to pragmatism, and to take expedient measures as opposed to

those which qualify as 'the right thing to do'.

The institute's track record of maintaining the halls has,

overall, been less than ideal. Sluggishness brought on by the

overreaching bureaucracy, rampant red-tape, inefficiency of the

institute's works sections, and a lack of transparency make the

“official” channel of alumni contributions to the institute

unappealing to potential contributors. Moreover, there exists a

trust deficit that cannot be wished away.

In this scenario, there are very few options for alumni who

seek to ensure that their money is well spent. The one that was

chosen by the largest alumni contributor, Mr. Vinod Gupta of RK

Hall, was to contribute directly towards improving his hall. It

must be noted that no financial contribution was made to RK

hall; instead, through his representatives in Kharagpur, he paid

the contractor who carried out the renovation work. In this way,

he was able to ensure that his donation was well-utilized.

The role played by student representatives cannot be

downplayed – in RK they were involved working out, with the

contractor, the specific improvements to be carried out. This

expedited the process of planning, and ensured that items that

held the greatest impact on the lives of residents were prioritized

accordingly. This would not have been the case had the institute

been in charge, since student involvement is anathematic for

them.

Another underrated benefit for these kinds of alumni

contributions is the effect they have on our concept of the hall as

a family. It takes on a whole new meaning when alumni who

graduated decades ago still exhibit the same hall tempo they did

while they stayed here.

A commonly raised point against alumni contributions

involve the inequality between halls that this has caused. The

answer to this is more such contributions, not less. All halls have

large numbers of extremely successful alumni, who are willing

to contribute the money. The only advantage RK has is that Mr.

Vinod Gupta was willing to lend his voice as well - so that the

non-trivial task of obtaining permissions from the institute

could be accomplished. If the institute becomes more

forthcoming in granting these permissions, alumni-supported

hall renovation can really take off.

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Should alumni contribute directly to their halls?

What are your thoughts regarding alumni contributions?

Visit www.scholarsavenue.org to discuss.

TALKBACK

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and need not necessarily reflect those of The Scholars’ Avenue.

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U EFEATURES AVENUEMARCH 11 2007 5

www.iitkgp.ac.in(continued from page 1)

The website started out in 1996 under

the ERNET project in ECE department,

and was a static HTML page with some

Java applets. The website has undergone

seven major redesigns since then, and

since Prof. Mathur. took over in 2002, it

has been a PHP based dynamic website.

Currently, it has over 260 pages, and

about 700 MB of data.

In the past, students were heavily

involved in the website design process,

and many of the first websites were

created by student teams working under

the Information cell. However, the system

of student web teams were discontinued

around 2004 as a result of deadlines not

being met, as well as a policy shift away

from student involvement in something

that was considered a mouthpiece of the

administration.

Nevertheless, Prof. Mathur still

utilizes students occasionally to carry out

work involving technologies with which

he is unfamiliar. "Students pick up new

technology quickly", he says, highlighting

their importance in the website design

process.

When asked about the aesthetic

unattractiveness of our site in comparison

to those of other IIT's, Prof. Mathur held

that the high traffic and limited

bandwidth requires certain compromises

when it comes to design. A quick study of

other IITs' websites reveals that IIT

Kharagpur does, indeed, have the

smallest homepage among all the IIT's, at

just 48 kb, compared to 68 to 227 kb for

other IIT websites. However, this is at the

cost of much less useful information being

on the homepage itself. Furthermore,

Alexa traffic statistics (which are the most

comprehensive on the

web ) show t ha t I IT

Kharagpur's site has the

lowest internet traffic

among all IIT websites,

less than one-fifth that of

I I T B o m b a y ' s . T h i s

indicates that with similar

hardware to those in other

IIT's, our website should

be able to pack in far more jazz.

A more likely reason for the design

shortcomings might be the lack of

involvement of skilled web designers,

either professionals or students. Current

web design techniques permit the

complete segregation of the design and

the content - the information cell can hire

skilled designers for a professional-

looking website, and still have complete

control over the content.

A mention needs to be made of the

institute website that was introduced in

2002-2003. One of the student-designed

websites, it introduced the database and

some other elements that continue to be

used today. Many of those who have seen

it consider it to be better in terms of design

than any subsequent website, including

the current one. Prof. Mathur says that the

exponential increase in website traffic had

necessitated the removal, from the

homepage, of many features (such as

"latest announcements") that required

slow database access. This resulted in a

rather unattractive links-only homepage

between 2004 and 2006. The latest design

has reintroduced some of those

dynamic features, but has not

regained much in terms of

attractiveness.

Looking into the future,

Prof. Mathur hopes to be able

to completely revamp the

website in about six months.

He hopes to introduce AJAX

for faster page loading, as well

as providing profile pages for each

student that can be edited by the students

themselves. For all these, he invites

students with experience and interest in

web design to contact him for working on

the institute website. You can meet him at

Information Cell (Opp. F-127, main

b u i l d i n g ) , o r e m a i l h i m a t

infocell@webteam.iitkgp.ernet.in.

For web site traffic statistics, visit Alexa

(www.alexa.com)

Historical versions of sites are available at

the Wayback Machine (www.archive.org)

2004

2003

1998

1996

20052002

2001

Several historical versions of the IIT Kharagpur website

some of them were arguably better designed than our current one!

What are your thoughts regarding the

institute website?

Visit www.scholarsavenue.org to

discuss.

TALKBACK

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E FEATURES AVENUE MARCH 11 20076

The rest, they say, is history. It’s the

making of history that matters the most,

though. With this edition, Scholars’ Avenue

unfolds a series on the heroes of IIT Kharagpur

– both celebrated and unsung – who have

changed the face of Kgp through their

endeavors.

The 2007 edition of Kshitij that took

place last month witnessed a mammoth

participation of 2000 students from out-

station colleges. What might be a

revelation is that a whopping 1200 of

these were ROBOTIX participants, from

places as far as Ahmedabad, Trivandrum

and even Katmandu (not to mention,

online entries from across continents by

world class institutions such as Princeton

University). With no less than 546 teams

competing for the honors at the 6 events of

ROBOTIX, IIT Kgp has evolved as the hub

of Asia’s single largest Robotics

competition. If it were to be reminded that

just 3 years ago, ROBOTIX was a

struggling entity, with last-day snafus

and a tepid turnout of teams in double-

digits, the current figure of 546 would

raise eyebrows to say the least. Quite

simply, one might wonder – how?

R O B O T I X

was kick-started

in 2001 as an in-

house event at

Kgp’s tech-fest

(Ideon), with all

of 9 participating

teams from Kgp.

With 2002 came a

r a i s e i n

standards, and

the formation of

K R A I G

( K h a r a g p u r

R o b o t i c s a n d

A r t i f i c i a l

I n t e l l i g e n c e

G r o u p ) t o

develop a sound

technical base

among students.

India Today went

on to feature

ROBOTIX that

year. 2003 saw,

for the first time,

p a r t i c i p a t i o n

from outstation

teams. It was a

triumph of its own sort. When Kshitij

formally came into existence in 2004,

ROBOTIX had grown to

90 participants. The

s t r e a m l i n i n g w a s

missing, but growth

was apparent.

There was an upper

limit for publicizing the

event, beyond which it

was impossible to make

the participation grow.

R O B O T I X s t a r t e d

afresh at the grass-

roots. For the first time

ever, a lecture series on

the bare necessities of

robot-building was conducted at

Vikramshila by the ROBOTIX team. The

website was up with the problems as early

as September to give prospective teams a

head-start for the February fest. Doubt

solving was topmost on the priority list,

with answers emailed back in less than 24

hours. Small teams were sent to potential

centers like ISM Dhanbad, NIT Rourkela,

and KIIT Bhubaneswar for helping

participants with their robots. Everything

put together translated to a participation

by 220 teams – over 8 times that of 2004. It

was a defining leap.

Nevertheless, the

burst of participants

at the 2005 event saw

more than just a few

disgruntled teams

d i s m a ye d a t t h e

management. The

run-up to 2006 saw

renewed efforts to

w i n b a c k t h e

c o n f i d e n c e o f

participants through

a r o u n d o f

w o r k s h o p s ,

distribution of lecture

CDs and personal

interaction. The final

e v e n t w a s a l s o

organized much more

professionally with

an eventual turnout of

270 teams. Then 2007

happened. ROBOTIX

exploded – doubling

its participation to 546

teams. In both quality

and quantity, IIT Kgp

has, despite lacking

an urban face, outgrown its IIT Bombay

counterpart, which was only a few years

ago, the largest in India.

It would be a mistake to

discount the role that

Kshitij has played over the

years. The growth has

come hand in glove with

increased participation

and popularity of the

Techno Management fest,

of which ROBOTIX is an

integral part. Critics have,

although, seldom shied

from panning ROBOTIX

and stating that the

competition has never

looked beyond its 3-day status and

catered to practical problems whose

robotics solutions could potentially

improve lives of thousands across the

country, if not the world. The next step for

ROBOTIX does seem apparent, with

plenty of food for thought.

The KRAIG arm of ROBOTIX has,

alongside, gone from strength to strength

– so much so that second-year students

have been single-handedly delivering

workshops outside Kgp. It has also been

developing a Robo-Kit to make the

construction of microcontroller-based

autonomous robots as easy as snapping

fingers. The idea won the Rs.15-lakh

business plan, Concipio, last semester,

and KRAIG plans to dish out the product

commercially. KRAIG is also in talks for

collaboration with the Robotics Lab of the

University of Cassino, Italy for taking up

some of the University’s projects. The

Technology Robotics Society (TRS) has

been formed under the umbrella of the

Gymkhana, as a channel for the inflow of

funds to KRAIG. Prof. D Gunasekaran,

Registrar, IIT Kgp, has been instrumental

in setting up a dedicated lab for TRS and

KRAIG at Vikramshila, while the

Gymkhana has earmarked a fund of Rs.14

lakh for further developing the

infrastructure at KRAIG. The T in IIT Kgp

is finally beginning to emerge from the

shadows of Sports and Soc & Cult.

With 546 teams, now the largest in Asia

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

546

270

220

3530

159

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

No

. o

f p

art

icip

an

ts

Year

The exponential growth in

Robotix participation

The movers and shakers of ROBOTIX share

their experiences:

Vivek Lath (Head, 2003) – "Already

handicapped with a minimal budget, we woke up on

the second day to see the arena being washed away

by a pipeline burst. We nevertheless defied all odds,

did well, and even managed to get outstation teams

for the first time."

Nitin Mohta (Head, 2004) – "We were then the

only group in Kgp in which people were taken in

without any influence of Hall Politics. This ensured

that we had those people in our team who truly

deserved the place."

Aneesh Reddy (Head, 2005) – "On the day of the

event, when the number of teams crossed 100, I gave

a bear-hug to (Anant) Choubey!"

Anant Choubey (Head, 2006) – "Our USP is

constant innovation. We are looking at KRAIG being

self-sustained in the future and real-time projects

which will get industrial exposure."

Aamir Ahmad (Head, 2007) – "ROBOTIX at IIT

Kgp is synonymous to the Renaissance and the

Industrial Revolution and has the vision to fortify

Indian engineers to the extreme level of proficiency.”

Kapish Saraf (GSec Technology, 2005-06) –

"ROBOTIX has been a strange experience for me

personally. They definitely have initiated a

technological revolution which strongly supports

innovation and if heads forward as it has in the last

few years, can create an industry with potential far

better than those provided by IT.”

RO

ES

OF

GP

HE

K

The average temperature

for this time of the year

in Kgp is 37/22 C (max/min).

This year it has been just

30/19 C.

SA SNIPPET

Budget 2007And its impact on the kgpian’s pocket

�

�

�

Good time to gift a watch to your

loved ones – there's a duty cut on watch

dials.

Coffee and plywood get cheaper.

We hope this prompts all the Nescafe

outlets in our halls to get their sheds ready

and start functioning.

R&D costs in scientific and

industrial fields are about to drop.

Before we sign off, here's a final piece

of good news – mess food is about to

improve big time.

Why?

Ummm… haven't you heard about the

33% reduction in duties on dog & cat food!

You'd be forgiven if you felt 'aam

aadmi' and 'cats and dogs' were the two

most important phrases in a nation's

finance. After all, these are pretty much

the two terms that have appeared without

fail in every mention of India's Budget

'007!

Scholars' Avenue takes a look at the

various provisions of Budget '07 and

points out those that would be of

immediate interest to the Kgp 'aam

aadmi'.

Additional educational cess of 1%

spells bad news for the just-placed final

years although the increase in Income Tax

threshold limit to 1,10,000 INR for guys

and 1,45,000 INR for girls will temper that

news a little.

Further bad news for some final

year students – the Employee Stock

Option Plans that various companies

offer as part of CTC will now invite a

Fringe Benefit Tax.

For those employed by IT

companies, well, your company's on the

�

�

�

MAT! A Minimum Alternate Tax has been

slapped on IT companies on their

adjusted book profits.

Expect biscuits to get cheaper, and

we aren't just talking about dog biscuits

here! There's zero excise duty on biscuits

that cost below Rs. 50 per kg.

Cigarettes are about to get costlier.

But then we guess all Kgpians follow the

no-smoking-inside-campus rule already.

Good news for all those who lost

their shirt (or more) on holi - clothes are

going to cost less

Rainy season coming up soon –

and the FM has duly taken note of this.

Umbrellas prices are expected to drop.

And just in case you broke a

slipper/shoe while giving a GPL, there's

good news. Footwear is about to become

cheaper.

Oh and if you broke a toe in the

same process, there's further good news –

customs on medical equipment has been

reduced.

�

�

�

�

�

�

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U EFEATURES AVENUEMARCH 11 2007 7

With the aim of creating outstanding

management professionals with technical

backgrounds, VGSOM has introduced a

unique programme – the Dual MBA. First

year students(both B.Tech and dual M.Tech)

can avail the opportunity

These

students will get their B. Tech degree from

their respective departments and an MBA

degree from VGSOM at the end of five years,

and The first

year subjects of MBA are split over six

semesters with two subjects per semester. The

Scholars’ Avenue met Professor Kalyan K

Guin, Deputy Dean, VGSOM to find out

more.

SA: What is the motivation behind

introducing such a unique program?

K. K. Guin: VGSOM intends to

impart JEE cleared brilliant students

with good managerial skills. Through this

program, students can save a year by

completing their B.Tech and MBA in five

years and get a much stronger foundation

by filling out an

application form and appearing for the group

discussion and personal interview.

get placed with MBA students.

for their skills.

The present batch of dual MBA

students is facing a lot of problems

regarding time-table clashes with their

B.Tech curriculum and the burden of

taking two additional subjects per

semester. What are the steps taken to

tackle it?

KKG: We have come up with some

solutions. We took measures to reduce the

academic load by converting all breadth

subjects to management depths. Certain

courses are exempted for dual MBA

students keeping in view their strong

technical background.

How will the Dual MBA students

be placed?

Dual MBA students can either

get placed through VGSOM or through

the institute depending on the type of job

they prefer at the end of the course. A

management degree will surely help even

if a student is interested in a technical job.

VGSOM has a compulsory six month

SA:

SA:

KKG:

work experience arrangement in the

industry in a management post. This will

be part of the curriculum of the 9th

semester of all dual MBA students.

Through this, dual MBA students will be

able to relate all they have learnt in

classrooms with what is happening in the

real world industry.

It is often said that MBA students

learn more from peer-to-peer interaction

than from classroom teaching. Dual MBA

students will miss this as they can't stay

with students of VGSOM. What can be

done to fill this void?

KKG: Students can stay in their

respective halls till they complete their

B.Tech courses. However, interested

students can come and stay with VGSOM

students in SDS block of MMM Hall in

their fifth year. We expect dual MBA

students to actively participate in all the

socio-cultural events along with our MBA

students. They can avail all the library and

computer lab facilities of VGSOM offered

to MBA students.

SA:

Dual-Degree MBAEverything you wanted to know but didn’t know whom to ask

Breakup of sectors where the 2007 batch of VGSOM was placed

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E NEWS AVENUE MARCH 11 20078

Established in 1993, VGSOM is the

first and the largest management school

to be setup within the IIT system. Over the

years VGSOM has evolved into a business

school of top caliber, this being reflected

in the placement statistics for 2007. The

school has grown significantly in

infrastructure, knowledge base and core

faculty strength with an increase in the

intake of students from 85 to 120.

As many as 60 companies confirmed

their participation in the final placement

process this year, which saw the entire

batch being placed with 34 organizations

on day one itself.

Almost 20% of the batch already had

pre-placement offers at the end of their 6

month internship. The average salary

increased by an impressive 20% to a figure

of 8.78 lakh p.a., and three students were

given an offer of 13 lakh, the highest in

VGSOM.

Apart from regular recruiters like-

IBM, ITC, Citibank, Wipro, Voltas,

Convansys, HCL Technologies, HSCB

Analytics, Infosys, Maruti, Tata Motors,

the first time recruiters who visited

VGSOM were- Cognizant Technology

solutions, Kotak Mahindra Bank,

Cholamandalam, Telelogic and others.

Exciting profiles were offered by several

organizations, such as equity research

(Irevna), treasury & investment banking

(SBI and SBI Caps), Global Leadership

Placements @ VGSOMThe average salary up by an impressive 20%

Program (Tech Mahindra). PwC offered

profiles in its prestigious GRID division.

Aricent, ITC (International Tobacco

Division), Hutch and RPG Retail offered

some of the most sought after profiles in

sales, marketing/merchandising and

branding.

T h e c o n s u l t a n c y s e c t o r wa s

represented by the best names in the

b u s i n e s s s u c h a s

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture,

Ernst and Young, Headstrong, Mindtree,

and A. F. Ferguson.

The MBA course offered by VGSOM

strikes an innovative balance between

theory and practice of management. The

two year-four semester course includes

an entire six month industry exposure

devoted to training on live projects, which

is a unique feature. The students of

VGSOM have the added advantage of

interaction with diverse people with

ample work experience. They are offered

courses in behavioral sciences by the

H u m a n i t i e s & S o c i a l S c i e n c e s

department, while faculty from CS,

Industrial Engg. & Mgmt. and Mech.

Departments offer technical subjects.

The students see strong campus

interaction and cooperation among

students from different halls as well as

departments, as a way of strengthening

ties within the campus.

The campaign to save Piyush has

been a huge success in the campus. For

those who don't know who Piyush is, he

is a Pune kid suffering from blood cancer

and in need of Rs. 1.5 crores for a

transplant.

Organized by final year students,

Dipayan Banerjee and Atanu Basak, the

campaign saw the KGP junta pooling in a

sum of Rs. 2 lakhs for the cause, which is

much higher than the expected Rs. 1.5

lakhs. Students formed the major chunk

with 1.4 lakhs with the rest coming from

faculty and the non-teaching staff.

"Its all about seizing opportunities to

make a difference", said Dipayan when

asked about the motivation behind such

a campaign. They were especially

thankful to Mr. H.R.Tewari- Dean of

student affairs, Deepak Rathi and

VGSOM for their support and

encouragement. Ample help came from

Mr. Partha Ghosh of The Boston Pledge

who chipped in with Rs. 10,000.

Dipayan and Atanu believe that their

small step will help in creating

awareness about community service in

the campus and prompt further such

efforts in the future. They expressed

gratitude for the trust placed in them by

the students and have promised to come

up with follow up notices regarding the

utilization of the money.

The money will be transferred to the

boy's parents in Pune. An appeal may

also be made to the IIT alumni in

Singapore to arrange for the boy's stay

during his treatment in Singapore.

"KGP ka tempo high hai, hats off -

student community" was the message

sent out by the organizers, thanking the

students for their support.

“Save Piyush” Campaign

GCsHow the halls match up

Did You Know: The movie “300” is already in the IMDB top 250 list - it hasn’t even been released yet!

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U EBHAAT AVENUEMARCH 11 2007 9

word

s t

hat

don

't a

ppear

in t

he

dic

tion

ary

bu

t sh

ou

ld !!

My 8th standard grammar teacher had a

favorite joke. This was roughly how it went.

Q: Why doesn’t it take ‘four’ to tango?

A: Because that’s not alliterative!

Here’s a short story. A long time, let us say,

four score and eighty hundred years, ago a fine

gentleman noticed something funny. Or

maybe someone else before him did, but was

afraid to own up to it for fear of being branded

a heretic and burnt, or being drawn and

quartered, or disemboweled/dismembered.

Or maybe he was straight and just wasn’t

amused by funny things since most of

whatever they called life then wasn’t. In any

case, we had a eureka moment. Or wait, what if

it was before Archimedes? Sheesh !

Digressions kill. So do indigestions. Either

way, our man was walking down the Bridge on

this beautifully bright day when lo and

behold! he heard someone shout, “Baked

buns, blueberry biscuits, buy a bunch, get a

bunch free !”. Yeah, okay, so i added that last

bit!

Our man, who we’ll call Bob for the story’s

sake, was befuddled and beguiled. What was

it? Surely, ‘twas not illegal for people to sell

their ware on the street. This generally needed

making some noise as a device to attract

attention too. What then was so unmistakably

ungainly about the whole affair?! And then,

right when he crossed the orchid seller who

beat his wife every Wednesday, it hit him. He

jumped for joy while the epiphany eluded

everyone else.

Bob died of Beriberi on his Birthday.

Alliteration is one of the many ways of

rusting the aforementioned bearings of

language, metaphorically. Metaphor is

another. Figures of speech provide flavor and

flair to the dry as desert structure of common

word usage. This is accomplished by breaking

the flow of thought transmission by a sudden

change in semantic structure; either

incongruous, or more than average lyrical, or

just plain weird. The reaction is a subconscious

equivalent of “What the …?!”. Precisely

because the effect isn’t very pronounced, it

provides the occasional clever court jester

opportunity to show off for the Queen and the

occasional slick marketing executive chance to

get an inside track with the target buyer.

Consider alliterations, again. Ever

wondered why all tongue twisters are, almost

without exception, alliterative in nature?

Okay, so this crackpot allegory may have no

neuro/psycho logical backing but is it a really

huge leap of imagination to assume that

maybe, there’s a fixed, finite quota of each

alphabet, or more generally, each sound, in the

universe?! And that, maybe, the universe

prefers lower entropy, phonetically. So maybe,

it’s the universe’s fault that she can’t sell sea

shells at the sea shore. The universe would

seem to be against this particular figure of

speech, though this certainly doesn’t explain

the Big Bang, its alliterative genesis. But then

nothing much explains the Big Bang so we

may as well skip this inconsistency. Whichever

reason suffices, it’s kind of an established fact

that our brains slow down while processing

alliterative structures. And that momentary

lapse of reason is precisely what the poet and

the copywriter hopes and aims for. Trust me

this was what was on Richard Wilbur’s mind

when he wrote Junk:

Of plastic playthings, paper plates.

and on Walt Disney’s, when he created that

legend of a rodent, Mickey Mouse and the

equally famous feather ball Donald Duck.

What do you think of Archie Andrews,

Jughead Jones, Dilton Doiley and Moose

Mason ?! Want superheroes ? Peter Parker.

Bruce Banner. Clark Kent is phonetically

alliterative. Meanwhile, Lois Lane, Lana Lang,

Lex Luther and Lionel Luther are every which

way. Coca Cola is alliterative. So is the World

Wide Web. I wonder if there’s much that isn’t.

I don’t have much else to write. I’ll just

reiterate the universe’s sentiments, that

someday, there’s gotta be about enough of

crazy, cheesy and crappy alliterations.

Borrowed heavily from the 1999 movie

Mystery Men, when the three protagonists are

trying to decide what they’ll call their

superhero group.

- Wait! Wait, that’s it. We are the Super Squad.

- No, no! Alliteration in these situations is corny.

Language LamentsOf plastic playthings, paper plates!

The Shah-Shank Inquisition

This time, it’s random observations

ver notice how language is a subtle

mirror of the prejudices inherent in our Eculture? For example, there are so

many derogatory synonyms for a 'working

girl' / 'woman of the street' (you know what

we're talking about right) – tart, cyprian,

‘worhe’, ‘badw’, etc.? The middle man is also

labeled in a similarly condescending manner:

‘fancy man’, ‘pmip’, pander, etc. But for some

strange reason, there is no corresponding

word for the person who actually pays for the

service and perhaps commits the biggest

moral crime. This person is at best referred to

as a client, which for crying out loud even

sounds respectable, I mean McKinsey has

clients!

n the recent inter-hall debate, a low 'ratio'

was cited as being a cause of stress. If you Ilook at it, isn't a low sex ratio really the

social equivalent of 'inflation', 'too much

money chasing too few goods'? Maybe the

solution to the inflation problem can be

extended to the social domain, if of course a

low 'sex ratio' really is a cause of stress.

nterviews are designed for narcissists. If

you think about it, all a narcissist really Iwants to do is talk about himself, probably

even more than he wants to get a job. The

interviewers, of course, encourage these

narcissistic tendencies with questions like 'tell

me something about YOURSELF', 'tell me

something MORE about YOURSELF'.

e aren't really scholars of political

science but how does sex work in Wcommunist countries? Seeing that

their philosophy about bread is that no one can

butter up until everyone has at least a loaf, can

we extrapolate and say that everybody needs

to have 'indulged' in the act once before a

person can 'indulge' for the second time?

MERE PAAS CORE TEAM MEMBERSHIP HAI,

INTER-IIT HAI, HALL COUNCIL POST HAI, SPONS DEALS HAIN, HUHA PROPOSALS HAIN, PAISA

HAI, BANGLA HAI, GAADI HAI... TUMHARE PAAS

KYA HAI?

MERE PAAS PACT HAI!

OVERHEARD...

T H E S C H O L A R S ’ A V E N U E MARCH 11 200710 BHAAT AVENUE

AOE

NFS

FIFA

zzz...

zzz...

zzz...

zzz...

zzz...

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

CS

UT

IIT Bombay

NFS

CS

FIFA

zzz...(in class)

zzz...(in class)

zzz...(in class)

zzz...(in class)

zzz...(in class)

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

AOE

UT

IIT Kharagpur

IIT Bombay disables its hostel

network for 13.5 hours a day,

from 11 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. to

combat LAN gaming'Fetishized Armadillo'? 'Disenthralled

Nimrod'? 'Insolvent Pachyderm'? Do these

terms leave you wondering just where

exactly is the world heading to? Well then,

before you get the handy paper barf bag and

twiddle your thumbs waiting for the worst

to happen, here's the lowdown for the

uninitiated. The above three

phrases, far from being an

indicator of the world's

sanity level are actually the

result of the machinations of

inexplicably creative people

known as Googlewhackers.

As a little digression, permit

us to clear up the muddy

water. A Googlewhack is a search string of

two words that when entered into the

Google search engine returns only one result

out of the gazillion web pages that the

Google spider indexes.

Googlewhacking was conceptualized by

a certain Gary Stock in 2002, and was widely

publicized by Dave Gorman through a series

of comical , dramatic presentat ion

throughout the world. One of the Dave

Gorman shows was recorded live and

released in 2004, titled 'Googlewhack'. Both

his book and the show feature interesting

whacks such as Francophile Namesakes,

Dork Turnspit, and Unconstructive

GoogleWhacked!Games you can play with Google

Superegos.

For purists, a Googlewhack is meant to

be a test of creativity: dictionary words and

enclosing quotation marks aren't allowed,

each Googlefactor is meant to be short (at

most 12 characters) and each whack must

return exactly the following phrase:

"Results 1-1 of 1 for <blah>".

See this and you have

attained Googlewhack

Nirvana!!!

As an illustration,

here ' s how someone

actually got down to

finding a Googlewhack.

A s ta tu tory word o f warn ing :

Googlewhacking is a pastime that can soon

turn into an obsession. If you've seen Dave

Gorman's famous show, you'll know what

we mean. For the determined, however, it

promises to be a fruitful and exciting

journey… So get Whacking!

P.S: For purely historical reasons, behold the

first ever Googlewhack (not technically so, it

having 3 words) in all it's wacky glory:

"orangutan popcorn fishwife". The rule was

eventually tightened to 2 words.

cerulean adhesion - 318wristwatch intestine - 153silverware toothache - 122

polypropylene obfuscation - 8defibrillation concertina - 7

referential tintinnabulation - 6comparative unicyclist - 1!

Woohoooo!!!!!”

The Scholars’ Avenue is published by an independent student body and is not associated with, or supported by, the institute.