'How to reap the best'

Take a sneak peek in to Rabi Kisku's maiden effort - Silicon Jungle.

reative ideas find clear expressions in a film. To film makers, a film is a means of important art form and a powerful medium of communication with the masses. The visual elements cast a powerful influence on the audience. IITs help students to attain versatility and provide a canvas to them to portray their creativity. Rabi Kisku, a young IIT - Graduate in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Madras, throws light on his film 'silicon Jungle' in a conversation with his friend, Vaibhav Badhan, also a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the same institute.
Rabi: Silicon Jungle shows various shades of IIT life through the eyes of four students - the main character - Frooti (Kashyap Arora) and 3 of his IITian friends - Bulby (Nitish 'Fubar' Joshi), Shocker (Abhijit Mohanty) and Stud (Mihir Mysore) coming from different backgrounds. The story is one that many IITians can relate to. Frooti has come to IIT just to app, Stud is a creative guy who is disappointed at IIT due to the grade-centered approach, Bulby is highly interested in Physics but there is pressure from home to get a job and settle down in life, and Shocker is a typical guy from Hyd who considers that getting into IIT is enough and that he can now rest. The story takes you through the four years that these guys spend at IIT. It shows you that IIT is not all about studying and then going to the US. It shows the emotional side of IITians.
Vaibhav: What was the inspiration behind the movie?
Rabi: When I first came to IIT, I found that the life here was pretty different than what I had imagined it to be. This is completely a different world. The way most of us live, the emotions that we go through are what I wanted to portray to the outside world - especially to those tens of thousands of students who write the JEE every year.
Vaibhav: When did you decide to make this movie?  Rabi: I was interested in movies from my second year onwards. I initially wanted to make a documentary movie, but that didn't get much support. I also thought that it might not be that interesting. Then I thought of making a short movie. When I approached alumni and the corporates for funds, I was advised to make it on a larger canvas with a better story line - and it was then that I decided on making this movie.
Vaibhav: Did anyone sponsor the movie?
Rabi: Apart from friends, there are corporate sponsors including Airtel, Honeywell, and AMD. This movie is made on a shoestring budget.
Vaibhav: Tell us something more about the movie?
Rabi: The movie was shot in a digital format. It was mostly shot on IIT campus. The other locations include the Besant Nagar beach and a couple of eateries in Chennai. The music is by Vaibhava, for whom this is the second movie. We plan to release it in Bangalore, Kota, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Chennai and are on the lookout for distributors in the US.
Vaibhav: Personally, when did you start planning to enter movies?
Rabi: Movies have fascinated me from childhood. I have always had an interest in photography. After seeing movies like Roja, Titanic, and  Braveheart, I knew that I had immense interest in this field.
After my second year, I realized that I was not cut out to be an engineer and I wanted to do something that I was really interested in.
Vaibhav: Did the IIT system help?
Rabi: The IIT culture surely helped me. Working as the movie coordinator during Saarang, playing for the institute Cricket team and participating in other cultural activities helped a great deal in my personality development and inculcated in me the spirit to achieve. I received help from most of my hostel mates (Narmada). The Dean - Prof. Idichandy, the Registrar - Dr. Usha Titus, and Prof. KN Satyanarayan helped a lot to make this dream come true.
Vaibhav: What are your future-plans?
Rabi: After the release of Silicon Jungle, I plan to work for some time as an assistant director. My next movie will be on a larger scale. This will give me exposure into film-making and would also help me establish contacts.
The creative stuff in Rabi Kisku's thoughts and visualization has molded his life. He is keen that his thoughts travel from one mind to another through his films. To achieve a goal, one has to think and imagine hard like kisku from within and only then one can reach one's goal.

Inculcate the Gandhian Prowess to transform your dreams

If you've assumed that Mahatma Gandhi was one of the brightest students in class or one of the most outstanding student leaders in his youth, then you may be in for a surprise.
Not only was he a mediocre student, he was a very quiet and shy teenager too. But did that stop him from becoming India's “Father of the Nation”?
No.
Like other great men in history, Gandhi took his time to grow and develop his techniques to ensure that his actions made an impact. His faith in different religions was commendable. He was brutally honest and truthful and this helped him throughout his life.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 at Porbandar (Gujarat). Gandhi was educated in Gujarat and England, where he qualified as a barrister. He immediately went off to South Africa after marriage and worked as barrister there for twenty years. On return to India he was unable to secure employment in the legal profession and then left for South Africa in 1883. In South Africa Gandhi was employed by a firm of Muslim lawyers in Pretoria and became involved in number of struggles against the authorities. During these agitations Gandhi perfected the technique of non-violent protest that he was to use later in India.
In South Africa, he had his first brush with apartheid. Once, while he was traveling in a train, he was thrown out of the first class compartment despite having a ticket. This made him swear that he would do his best to erase apartheid from the face of his world. He went back to India only to find that his own country was being ruled by the British and his fellow citizens were being treated harshly by the British. He sacrificed his own life for the sake of his country. The respect that he earned for himself despite leading a simple lifestyle is much appreciable. Played a pivotal role, Mahatma Gandhi opted for non violent ways and peaceful methods and fought persistently hard for the freedom struggle and laid a strong foundation for gaining independence from the British.
The way he gave shape and character to India's freedom struggle is worthy of a standing ovation. According to Mahatma Gandhi freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. But it wasn't all that smooth sailing in South Africa either. Instead of landing on a clerical position, he realized that he was engaged for a civil suit that required strong accounting knowledge and detailed legal analysis. The realities of the life and the harsh discrimination against Indians in the country cornered Gandhi into making a decision whether he should pack his bags and leave South Africa or stay on to fight the case.
Gandhi then started working hard on his potentials and abilities drilling into the details zestfully. With his diligence and perseverance, he learned a lot and developed in him chutzpah and adeptness in handling the punitive nature of the lawsuits. This earned him the respect of the Indian community so much so that he was asked to delay his departure back home to fight for the rights of Indian settlers in the country. All his work for civil rights, India's Independence and active propagation of love and peace wouldn't have been possible if he did not carry in him firm conviction; if he did not believe in the innate capability to change from within, in the pursuit of what's right.
His fight for the truth; his fight for freedom and his fight for excellence are not by mere chance but it's a “taken initiative” from within.
Who would have imagined that the shy and introverted boy who refused to stay back after school to interact with his classmates for fear of being laughed at, to be able to speak with such eloquence and persuasion, winning over the whole nation in his pursuit for India's independence? Who would have expected the young timid lawyer who used to scram the courtrooms at the slightest tinge of fear to be able to stand up against tyranny and injustice?
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will and similarly the real freedom comes from ability to unlock the innate potential within and taking the accountability for our own self.” Like Mahatma Gandhi let's unleash ourselves in the pursuit of achieving the dreams within.

IIT SNIPPETS

The recent approval of the cabinet committee for granting the status of IIT to IT-BHU under the XI five-year plan may have given the much needed push to the long pending demand of the university authorities and students, but senior IT-officials feel there are a number of steps to be cleared before the long cherished dream gets to see the light of day.
While the decision of the cabinet committee has already cheered the IT-BHU fraternity, top officials also believe that the move has definitely pushed one of the oldest engineering institutes in the country closer to the IIT status.
The recent cabinet committee meeting in New Delhi has sanctioned special grant of Rs 422 crore for IT-BHU, apart from Rs 3132 crore for other institutes under the XI five-year plan.
All eyes are now on the Parliament session where the bill would be tabled for discussion with amendment in the IIT Act, 1961. Once it gets clearance from both Houses of the Parliament, the proposal would really get to see the light of the day, IT-BHU officials sources said, informing about the steps to be cleared for the much deserved IIT status for the institute.
It is also worth mentioning that IT-BHU is one of the oldest engineering institutes in the country with some of its departments, including mining, metallurgy, ceramic and pharmaceutics, being the firsts to be started in the country.



IISc proposes to offer admission to 110 students in its new under-graduate Bachelor of Science (BS) course that is set to begin from August 1, 2011.
Of this, seats will be allotted to general and special categories as per government regulations. IISc officials said existing national-level entrance examinations such as KVPY, IIT-JEE and AIEEE will be considered for admission to the BS course. The institute is also considering ways to ensure that rural and women candidates are well represented.
The under-graduate programme is open to class XII students with physics, chemistry and mathematics as main subjects.
A formal notification for applications will be issued in December and applications will be received between January 1 and March 31, 2011. The first set of admission offers will be made to KVPY candidates in April 2011. The next set will be announced during the first week of June 2011. Counselling of students will be conducted during the third week of June. Classes will commence from August 1, 2010.
The four year under-graduate course has been designed for specialization in six streams - physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, materials and environmental science.
In the first one and a half years, core courses in physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, humanities and

engineering are offered. Specialization will be offered in the following one and a half years when students will be free to choose courses from electives and other areas. The programme culminates in the fourth year with a research project under the supervision of an IISc faculty.

IITs to offer MBBS,
have foreign faculty, students







Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) across the country will soon introduce new courses in medicine and even enroll foreign students as well as recruit foreign faculties at the post graduate level. The government will seek the approval of the Medical Council of India (MCI) for the course. The IIT council meeting decided to carry out appropriate amendment in the Institute of Technologies Act to enable the IITs to offer the medicine programme. The IIT council Will make sure that the clearances from Medical Council of India are taken  to comply with the instructions leading to a degree relating to any branch of medicine. The council has also decided to enable IITs to recruit foreign faculties, which should not be more than 10 per cent of the total faculty strength. A mechanism will be set up with the help of the Home Ministry to ensure that there is no hiccup in the process and there is easy exit and entry of people.

A message of hope

 

After the Indian techies, it is the turn of Indian Teachers. I read with interest the news piece that a north London school has outsourced mathematics teaching to India. As per the reports, the pupils are remarkably improving .The very essence of Indian teaching lie in recognizing the curiosity of human mind and giving it the due place. We have witnessed this at Resonance too.

The teaching methodology adopted at Resonance plants in the students from the very beginning the seeds of 'concept understanding' as it is a pre-requisite for cracking IIT-JEE. Daily Practice Problems (DPPs) and Sheets propel the student's morale as 'DPP' sums up the entire session of the day and makes the student recollect of the class room sessions and 'Sheets' serve as the tool to enhance the skills of the students from basic to advanced. To ensure success, I advise you to follow certain guidelines like, attending your classes regularly, writing your  class notes as much as possible, highlight important concepts/formula with RED INK Pen, doing your homework regularly, maintaining your Class Notes, DPPs, Sheets and the test papers/ solutions systematically, writing down formula of each chapter on a separate page, keeping the page of formula of one chapter of each subject in your pocket and reading it at least once in a day, analyzing wrongly attempted & not attempted questions and writing your mistakes with RED INK pen and never hesitating to get your doubt clarified from your teachers. The students of VIJETA & VISHWAAS courses need to keep in mind that the board topics have largely been covered in teaching at Resonance. The board pattern tests and the Hindi and English classes to commence in December will help them make a good score in the board Exams. They should simply squeeze 4 to 5 hours a day for the NCERT books during the months of January and February.
Most of the faculty members have themselves gone under the rigors to JEE and have successfully cracked it, impart the students an up-to-date training and sharpen their mental faculties. Some of the members had the coaching for IIT-JEE and become well familiar with the format and the pattern. Few others, who didn't have coaching but by contributing in the success of a large number of students to crack IIT-JEE over the years gained rich experience.
The history of past nine years has established Resonance meritocracy in the field of IIT-JEE and other engineering competitive examinations. After pre-planned initiative of launching AIPMT and AIEEE, we have worked tremendously hard in developing appropriate material and competitive content for successfully cracking AIPMT and AIEEE. Our batches for both the newly launched courses other than already running courses have effectively begun.
I am also happy to state that next year's session will certainly witness the magnificent new building which will surely add to the luster of Resonance Eduventures Pvt. Ltd. (REPL) in terms of good and grand infrastructure which will further add to Resonance's brand name, efficiency and performance.
Unlike run of the mill stuff, Resonance is always in the process of upgradation and strives to be at par with highest standards. Resonance's initiative to launch BIT-SAT test series in 2009-10 came as a great help to the students when no organized testing facility was available to the aspirants. Continuance of Resonance BIT-SAT Test series is an effort to train the students for this important competitive exam which opens an equally good avenue. Last but not least, we are in the process of excellence with continual practice and persistence to attain strategic performance. And I wish my students all luck and may they be great engineers and provide the best to our nation.

Words Worth

Make way for the new Rupee symbol, India's new representation in the international arena.

The new Rupee symbol, designed by Bombay IIT Post-graduate student D.Udaya Kumar reflects the Indian ethos and culture and is backed by an over one trillion dollar economy.

Creative visualization is a mental technique that uses the imagination to make dreams come true. Used in the right way, creative visualization can improve our lives and attract success and prosperity. It is a power that can alter our environment and circumstances, cause events to happen, and attract money, possessions, work, people and love into our lives. Creative visualization uses the power of the mind, and is the power behind every success.
Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam's visualization and its affirmation have made him won nationwide contest run by the government to design a symbol for the Indian rupee which can represent the historical and cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country. A symbol he designed, incorporating elements of Devanagari and Roman scripts, now represents India's growing economy and its currency. It would be incorporated in Unicode, computer keyboards will have a dedicated key for the symbol and it will come to be seen and recognized around the world. A designer gets to create a currency symbol just once in a nation's life.
Designing the simple-looking Indian rupee symbol did not come easy for Udaya Kumar. He spent endless nights on trial and error. The symbol had to have universal design features while staying Indian in spirit. That explains the propensity of his symbol towards the Latin letter form, 'R' for rupee, and the stroke across the top curve, parallel to the 'shirorekha', the line heading the alphabet in Devanagari script. ''Most international currencies have double strokes such as the Australian dollar, Korean yen, the Euro or the Lira. The feature pronounce its identity as a currency,'' he says. D. Udaya Kumar after spending five years earning a Ph.D. in industrial design from The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) - the first doctorate to be awarded in the discipline in India  is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. Udaya has a master's degree (M. Des, Industrial Design Centre Visual Communication) from

IIT Bombay and Bachelor's degree in Architecture from Anna University. He worked as a senior designer and then as a design head in a monthly magazine  Intelligent Computing CHIP. His two years professional experience in the publishing house has given him a good knowledge on publications  design process, coordination, work flow and print techniques. He has also extensively worked in print medium as a freelancer. A Myriad personality, his areas of interest include graphic design, typography, type design and design research with special focus on Tamil typography.
He visualized and affirmed his goal  and gained much more than just programming his mind. He channeled his attention, intention and energy in visualizing and affirming and developing his inner strength, concentration, willpower and self-discipline and wishes to become a good teacher and a leading communication designer.
Born in Chennai on 10 October, 1978, Kumar's family hails from Thanjavur. The magnificent temples there must have had something to do with his decision to study architecture, which he pursued at Anna University in Chennai. His creativity and visualizations bought him national and international fame but still he thinks they are yet to be tapped to its fullest potential. He shares what he knows and eagerly learns what he doesn't. He is dedicated to his work and keeps up his commitments. He also has signs of leadership qualities like organizational skills, team building and resource management.
Udaya Kumar believes in humbleness and leads a simple lifestyle. He also strongly believes in himself and certain fundamental principles  honesty, equality, love, trust, cleanliness and discipline. He is a sports enthusiast and a nature lover.
He avers, “Symbols have a very heavy western influence. I will do more work on Indian scripts,” For the design, he took inspiration from the symbols of such currencies as Korea's won, UK's pound sterling, euro (official currency of the Eurozone. It has a harmonious identity as far as international currency symbols are concerned and at the same time it has the Indian uniqueness, he said about his winning design.
Over 3000 entries received were evaluated by a Jury headed by the Deputy Governor, RBI, which also  included experts from three reputed art and design Institutes.
The entries were presented to the Jury in such a manner that identity of the competitors was not revealed to the Jury members. The Jury selected five final entries and also gave its evaluation of these five entries to the Government to take a final decision - out of which the IIT grad's design was finalized.
Kumar will receive an award of Rs.2.5 lakh for his design.
The accepted symbol will standardize the expression for Indian Rupee in different languages, both within and outside the country. It would better distinguish the Indian currency from those countries whose currencies are also designated as Rupee or Rupiah, such as Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
Udaya's strong will power and channeled energies gelled with creative visualization made him achieve victory.
His below given explanation of the symbol gives an in-depth explanation of the symbol and is the testimony of his maven creative visualization.
Features of the symbol:
»    Devanagiri & Roman script
»    Indian Flag (Tri color)
»    Equality sign represents a stable    

    and balanced economy
»    Harmonious with other currency     symbols
»    Global and Local Appeal
»    Simplicity (High recall Value)
»    Familiar and easy to read
»    Easy to write and design
»    Easy to recollect and adapt
»    Blends with numerals
»    Balanced and stable form
»    Unique and dynamic design
»    Easy to reproduce and implement
Other Important points:
»    Symbol has taken parts from         devnagri “Ra”.
»    It is also having a touch or English     “R”.
»    Cross at the middle of “Ra” is         taken from the Indian tri-color     flag.
»    Cross shows equality which is         available in most of the currency     symbol world wide.
»    It is easier to write or design this     symbol as it is having less joints
»    Udaya has shown many demos of     this new symbol. e.g. on stamp     paper, shopping bags, railway     tickets, government's official         documents etc.