Downturn drives IITians to air force

D Suresh Kumar | TNN

Chennai: Even when your imagination ran wild, you may not have conjured up the image of an IITian wearing a defence uniform. But this is no longer in the realm of fiction—the economic slump is driving IITians to consider a career with the Indian Air Force (IAF).

With the number of financial majors and global consulting firms on campuses dropping this year, over three dozen final year students of the Indian Institute of Technology here (IIT-Madras) have now applied for a career with the IAF.

“More than 40 students applied for the IAF’s technical graduate entry scheme this year. In contrast, last year, not a single student responded when the IAF came for placements,” Jayakumar, deputy registrar (training and placement), IIT-M, told TOI. “I don’t think such a thing has happened in recent years. We have only heard that in the 1960s, there were IITians in the defence services.”

From among the 40-odd aspirants, the IAF services selection board (SSB) has short-listed 17. “How many of them will eventually clear the SSB is a million dollar question. The SSB has a testing process, which includes a psychology test, group task and personal interview,” Jayakumar said. If selected, these students will undergo strenuous physical training like other IAF officers, but their jobs will be confined to the technical wing.

Amit Garg, students secretary (academic affairs), admitted that the move was a fallout of the meltdown. “Recruitments have been slow with just 50% of the 1,000-odd students who had registered for the campus placements being selected. For the first time, we have found that students responded positively to a career with the defence services and even nongovernmental organisations,” he said.

The slowdown has forced the authorities to extend campus placement till April; it usually ends by February. “We decided to extend the season since many companies informed us that they were waiting for the current financial year to end before finalising their manpower requirement,” Garg said. Sensing that those who had come for campus recruitments may not pick all aspirants, the authorities utilised the PanIIT meet to network with alumni and also entrepreneurs running start-ups to ease the situation.

Cambridge univ scholarships for Indian students

New Delhi: The University of Cambridge in the UK has announced the launching of the Manmohan Singh scholarship for Indian students at the under-graduate level. The vice-chancellor of the university, Prof Alison Richard, said the university intends to provide full funding for about 10 Indian students every year under this scholarship, which will cover their fees and other expenses for under-graduate study in any subject.

“The scholarship is to help needy students get quality education. A 1.5 million pound fund has been set up to support the Indian students,’’ Richard said at a press conference here. The scholarship is being launched with gifts from the Eranda Foundation and Bharti Foundation. The Cambridge University has already started the Dr Manmohan Singh scholarship, funding three post-graduate students from 2008.

The PM has sent a message to the university in which he said this kind of scholarship will encourage Indian students to pursue higher education in Cambridge. The programme will not only strengthen relations between India and the UK but also serve the shared objective of both the countries in creating a better world based on equity and justice, Singh said. The PM completed his masters degree in economics from Cambridge in the late 1950s. Alison said the university would sign an MoU with Infosys for collaboration in the areas of engineering and IT. Some students from Cambridge will be able to come to India for internship at Infosys, she said. AGENCIES

Cambridge has set up a £1.5m fund for the grant. The scholarship will fund 10 needy Indian students. Applicants can study any subject at under-grad leve.

Web searches wreck the environment

Two Google Searches Generate The Same Amount Of CO ² As Boiling A Kettle For A Cup Of Tea: Researchers

Jonathan Leake & Richard Woods

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without a thought for the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle generates about 15g.

“Google operates huge data centers around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its dozens of data centers.

However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally every day, the level of electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern.

A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines — about 2% of global CO ² emissions. “Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” said Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power both to run and cool them.

Though Google says it is in the forefront of green computing, its search engine generates high levels of CO ² because of the way it operates. When you type in a Google search for, say, “energy saving tips”, your request doesn’t go to just one server. It goes to several competing against each other.

It may even be sent to servers thousands of miles apart. Google’s infrastructure sends you data from whichever produces the answer fastest. The system minimizes delays but raises energy consumption. Google has servers in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

Wissner-Gross has also calculated the CO ² emissions caused by individual use of the internet. His research indicates that viewing a simple website page generates about 0.02g of CO ² per second. This rises about tenfold to about 0.2g of CO ² a second when viewing a website with complex images, animations or videos.

A separate estimate from John Buckley, managing director of carbonfootprint.com, a British environmental consultancy, puts the CO ² emissions of a Google search at between 1g and 10g, depending on whether you have to start your PC or not. Simply running a PC generates between 40g and 80g of CO ² per hour, he says. SUNDAY TIMES

CBSE tries to make schoolbags lighter

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Here’s a piece of good news for children groaning under the weight of huge schoolbags. CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi has issued a circular to the board’s schools across the country, asking them to implement a slew of measures in order to lighten the bags, especially in the primary section.

From ensuring that unnecessary textbooks are not prescribed by schools to re-designing the timetable so that soft skills are interspersed with academic subjects, the board has prescribed a slew of solutions to heavy schoolbags.

According to the CBSE circular, the number of prescribed textbooks for a particular class should not exceed the number prescribed by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) for that class. The circular adds that “schools should ensure strict compliance with the number of books prescribed so that students and parents are not burdened academically or financially’’.

The board has also asked schools to maintain the bags of children up to Std II in the institute itself and suggested the setting up a class library, which can lend texts to students who have forgotten their books at home.

The circular goes on to discuss a more modern pedagogy of education in order to lighten schoolbags. These include integrating soft skills with “main course teaching’’, using interesting alternatives to homework and adopting a continuous as well as comprehensive method of evaluation.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done when it comes to reducing the load children carry to school. Several private schools insist on a number of unnecessary books. When I recently went to a book shop and asked for an NCERT text, I was immediately offered a whole range of workbooks, which were double the price of the textbook,’’ said Anita Rampal, Delhi University professor in the department of education and chairperson of the NCERT’s primary textbook development committee.

Rampal said though the NCERT policy clearly stated that only languages and math should be taught in Std I and II, several CBSE schools—both private as well as Kendriya Vidyalayas—often insisted on teaching environmental science in these classes and even prescribe textbooks for the same. “This is against the NCERT policy,’’ she adds.

Schools have welcomed the move to lighten schoolbags. “They need to implement the policy more effectively and come up with alternatives to textbooks—such as worksheets and creative activities—in the classroom,’’ said Dr K B Kushal, director of the DAV group of schools.

Heavy schoolbags have been a concern for a long time,’’ said Avnita Bir, principal of RN Podar School in Santa Cruz. Bir, however, pointed out that it wasn’t just the content of a schoolbag that was to blame. “The shape of schoolbags that are currently used causes an imbalance in the distribution of weight,’’ she added. Students whom TOI spoke to said the CBSE move was a step in the right direction.

anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com

ALL WORK, NO PLAY

[Ants have always fascinated me. As a kid I used spend hours tracing their line and finding out their hideout - used to wonder how they communicate - used to notice how two ants passing by each other would pause just for a moment, may be to greet each other - something like - 'hey man, wats up' or 'how r ya, where r u headed' - then I also remember calculating the speed of an ant when i was 12, using a calculator and then finding out the ratio of human body to an ant's body - then comparing the speed of a human v/s an ant - i don't exactly remember the results of that comparision - was a decade ago when i did it - though I remember that the result was an eye opener - it increased my love and respect towards the ant community :) - sandeep r. sharma]

Worker ants don’t allow any hanky panky in their colony

Worker ants in colonies with a queen are physically attacked by their peers if they try to reproduce, a study says. In ant society, workers normally give up reproducing to care for the queen’s offspring, who are also their brothers and sisters.

The researchers found that chemicals produced by the sneaky ants gave away their fertility status, the BBC reported on Saturday.

The findings by a US-German team of researchers are published in the journal Current Biology.

To test the idea, scientists applied a synthetic compound typical of fertile individuals to non-reproductive worker ants belonging to the species Aphaenogaster cockerelli. In colonies where a queen was present, the workers with the hydrocarbon chemical applied to them were attacked by other ants. The researchers reported that deceitful ants were bitten and pulled by their peers. But this was not the case in colonies without a queen, where ants were free to reproduce.

Co-author Jurgen Liebig of Arizona State University in Tempe, US, said the hydrocarbon chemicals produced by the cheating ants were an “inherently reliable signal”. This “reproductive policing” plays an important role in maintaining harmony in the ant world, Dr Liebig explained.

For cheating to be a successful strategy for some ants, the researchers say, two conditions would need to be satisfied. Firstly, worker ants would need to suppress the hydrocarbon signals on their bodies. Secondly, they would need to continue to express the signal on their eggs, so that their offspring could not be distinguished from those of the queen. AGENCIES

TOP OF THE MIND

Let’s light up the lives of India’s poor millions

R K PACHAURI

One important message that the voters have given, in states where elections were held recently, is a clear preference for performance and development. India’s place in global affairs has been enhanced substantially in recent years, largely because of impressive economic growth. The strength of this country and the influence it is able to exert in global affairs would depend essentially on India’s place as a global economic power. Political leaders, therefore, must not only live up to the expectations of their individual constituencies but ensure the growing economic strength of India. And also see to it that the benefits reach out to every citizen of the country.

Against this background, policy makers must show extreme sensitivity, particularly as we move along the New Year, to ensure reducing disparities between the rich and poor This can happen only if opportunities are created for the poor, and if government expenditure is utilized effectively. Development continues to be lopsided in the country.

India has miles to go in improving human development indicators. For instance, of the nearly four million deaths of new-born children globally in 2007, 28% occurred in India. Despite massive efforts towards immunization, 40% of all the world’s children who are not immunized live in India After 61 years as an independent nation, over half of India’s population practices open defecation. Similarly, despite efforts to universalize primary education, more than one in every five of all primary age children out of school, are in India. It is not as though government funding for programs in the country has been deficient in these areas, but there is clearly a lack of effectiveness in the manner in which programs are delivered.

Officialdom in this country re quires urgent overhaul, and to this extent the latest report of the Administrative Reforms Commission has some far-reaching recommendations, which should be given urgent attention. It is necessary to initiate a countrywide public debate on some of these recommendations in which all stakeholders, including government, businessmen, various professionals and civil society must take part actively. Also, given the growth of entrepreneurial capabilities across the entire spectrum of Indian society, there is a need for closer partnerships between government and the private sector. Indeed, in some areas this has worked well already, where government has wisely vacated the field for private sector operators, for example in the case of mobile telephones. A revolutionary change of similar character is required in the field of renewable energy generation as well, which would bring substantial benefits to some of the poorest citizens living in rural India. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has launched a program called Lighting a Billion Lives, which ad dresses the sad situation of 1.6 billion people globally who have no access to electricity. Unfortunately, 25% of these — 400 million — live in India. Yet, this problem can be ad dressed and solved within a year, if required, through provision of solar lanterns which in the aggregate would cost less than the subsidy provided on kerosene. It is well known, based on studies by respectable organizations, that over 40% of this subsidy goes to benefit those who are in the business of adulteration of other petroleum products. Yet, a rational shift of this nature is obstructed largely by political considerations.

As the country gears up for the general elections and while we are at this exciting juncture of carving out new opportunities for the people of India two lessons are important for political leaders to reflect on. First, some of the basic problems associated with poor human development need urgent readdress. This would happen only if a major overhaul of the government machinery was to take place. Secondly there is a need for rationalizing subsidies and prices that often pervert the very purpose for which they are designed. One hopes that this year will see some new thinking on these critical issues and a change in direction for the benefit of the Indian society.

The writer is chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

India tracks Armstrong’s path

Chandrayaan Maps Landing Sites Of Apollos & 1st Human Steps On Moon

Srinivas Laxman | TNN

Pune: India’s maiden moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, zoomed into the memory lane as it mapped the landing sites of the six Apollo missions that were launched between July 1969 and December 1972.

Among the flights was Apollo 11 which created history in space exploration, taking on board Neil Armstrong, the first human to step on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969.

Talking to TOI, P Sreekumar, a space scientist who quit his job in the US to be a part of the Indian moon mission, said the mapping process began on January 7 and was completed on Saturday. It includes the landing sites of Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 17, besides the historic mission.

“Our purpose of carrying out this exercise was to validate and confirm through global mapping the data about moon’s surface and rocks, which had been obtained by these Apollo flights,’’ said Sreekumar, who is in Pune to participate in the inauguration of the International Year of Astronomy programme at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

He added that the mapping was done by six of the 11 scientific payloads on board Chandrayaan, which included the indigenous Terrain Mapping Camera and the Hyper Spectral Imaging Camera. Among the others are Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, Radom from Bulgaria and the Near Infra-Red Spectrometer (Sir-2) of Germany.

Sreekumar further explained that despite the Chandrayaan flying in the north-south polar orbit, it was successfully covering the entire lunar surface and tracking the Apollo landing sites, which were located on the equatorial region of the moon.

The Sub-Kev Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA), a payload of the ESA from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, the Space Physics Laboratory and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanathanapuram, was activated on board the Chandrayaan this week.

The role of this equipment is to image the moon’s surface composition, including the permanently shadowed areas, study the solar wind interaction and carry out studies connected with space weathering.

TOTAL RECALL: The Indian moon mission is also tracing the landing site of Apollo 11, which took on board Neil Armstrong, the first human to land on the lunar surface