bits herald february issue 2007

7/28/2019 BITS Herald February Issue 2007

1/8

1st March, 2007Volume 1 Issue 2

THE BITS HERALDAn English Press Club Presentation

Waves and Quark 07 : A Preview

planned for the geeks to relax af-

ter a day of brain-storming ses-

sions. A pro-nite and a movie-nite

are also on the cards. For those

who are keen on testing their

knowledge, a set of questions hasbeen put up on the website

www.quark07.org.

With a large number of students

participating, Quark 07, ably

buoyed by sponsors with deep

pockets, is sure to inscribe a suc-

cess story as never seen before

at BITS.

Trace Route and Battle of Bots

(under the Roboficial category)

are expected to be the focal point

of our tech fest. Other events like

Open Showcase, Paper Presenta-

tion, Dexters lab and Scion are

also being looked forward to by a

lot of students. A few workshopsand a series of guest lectures are

going to be conducted during the

fest.

A gamut of events under the ban-ner School Bag are specially be-

ing arranged for school kids.

A star gazing party has been

Soon after an exhilarating Waves

07, itll be time to get Funda Men-

tal.Quark 07 is going to be the first

national event to be held in our

college. It promises to be a tech-

nological extravaganza and an

exciting battlefield for some of

the smartest students in thecountry, whilst still retaining the

exuberant spirit that character-

izes a college festival.

The tech fest encompasses an

assortment of events categorized

into $bash, Elixir, e-phasor,

Roboficial, Mechagi, Corporate

and Chaos.

Waves 07, the second edition of

our annual inter college cultural

festival, is around the corner and

we just couldnt help ourselves to

a sneak peek at what we have in

store.

The preparation for the megaevent has been meticulous. The

various clubs and committees

were formed well in advance and

have since been working overtime.

Most of them look set to meet

their respective targets and even

exceed them. Kudos to everyone

involved.

This time too, like the last, only

Goan colleges will be invited.

However, the number has more

than doubled to 14. Apart from

that, the event will be open to

students from other colleges

too. Over 4000 students are ex-

pected to attend, making last

year's impressive turnout look

measly.

There are a host of events lined

up throughout the 3 day event.

Care has been taken to ensure

that the events are diverse

enough to cater to everybody's

interest.

The main attractions at Waves,

as most will agree, are the DJ

Nite and the Pro Nite. For the

former, talks are on with DJ Sa-

sha from Blore and a couple of

Goas best DJs. The bands in con-

tention for the Pro Nite include

Mother Jane (Cochin), Bhayanak

Maut (Mumbai), F*** The Name

(Delhi) and a few others.

Waves 07 is predicted to be big-

ger than any other event our

campus has witnessed. This may

eventually prove to be an under-

statement, as our college fest

seems well on its way to becom-

ing the biggest one Goa has ever

seen. One thing is for sure

though. We are all in for the time

of our lives. I can't wait...


2/8

E D I T O R I A L

P a g e 2

Dear reader

After the success of the first issue, we present to you the second edition loaded with the lat-

est happenings in our buzzing campus. This time, with better print quality and a QUIZ Con-test with prizes to be won, its bound to be even more interesting. You dont have to take

our word for it. Read on.

Next year, many of our present 3rd year students will be busy preparing for and answering aslew of entrance tests. Its quite incredible that even after going through 4 long years of

graduation some would want to add a two year long feather a Masters degree to their

cap. Well, we all want to lay our hands on that dream car (or home, or whatever). And it

seems worth the sacrifice.

A post-graduation degree can be done in various streams. As far as our preferences go, how-

ever, management and technology rule the roost. But then, isnt that one choice too many?Which one to choose? Most people prefer to sidestep that question. They answer entrance

tests for both courses and wait for the results before deciding.

Why these courses only? An MTech or an MS if done abroad helps to specialize in a field

which the student is already familiar with. An engineer who has a post graduation degree isvalued far more than one who has merely graduated. This translates into a better job read

more money and better opportunities. Thus, an MTech is a natural choice for BTech stu-

dents wanting to pursue higher studies.

The second choice is a little more complex. Why would an engineering student want to do adegree in management? Wouldnt that undermine the time and effort put into the engineer-

ing course? There surely is no dearth for commerce students in the country, is there? My

mom threw these questions at me the last time we had a dinner table conversation about

higher education. After a lot of pondering, yours truly arrived at some vague conclusions

that may seem obvious to most but I hope would interest others.

Firstly, in India, most students do not really choose to do engineering. They just do it. This

is a sad consequence of our herd mentality. As a result, there are just too many engineering

students and too few jobs, many of which are not financially rewarding. And most of thesestudents never really wanted to be engineers in the first place. So they naturally start look-

ing elsewhere. Thats when an MBA seems the best bet, for at least two reasons. 1) The ob-

scene pay packages. 2) The fact that everyone else is doing it. There are others however,who have always had the IIMs in their sights. The engineering degree, for these budding

managers, was just an incidental.

This article was never meant to decide a winner among the two degrees. There is no winner.It is up to you to decide what you want to do an MBA or an MTech? Either way, good

luck.

The Team:

Alok V

Ankit C

Ankit G

Girish M

Kavya M

Krishna B

Pratik M

Vivek G

Dr. Joy

Anuradha

The recordings of

interviews can be

taken from dc nick

Ankit

Any ideas/ infor-

mation/ comments

can be shared

with EPC team on

the following mail

ids:

[email protected]

[email protected]

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2


3/8

Direct. Speak

EPC: Sir, Abhigyan, which is oneamongst your many initiatives, hasbeen around for over a year now.Has it met your expectations?Director: Abhigyan shouldnt beconfined to BITS. Wherever I go, Iask students to undertake the

task of teaching at least one illiter-

ate person. The success of Abhi-

gyan here has made me confident

that this is the right way to ad-

dress illiteracy.

EPC: Sir, what are your expecta-tions from Quark and Waves thisyear?Director: For me, the only importantaspect is that the students who are

involved in the events should show

and gain good organizing skills. Im

not at all worried about the out-

come.

EPC: Sir, the first batch of this cam-pus will soon be passing out? How doyou feel?Director: Without doubt its true thatIm very attached to the first batch

since during their first year they were

the only students here and all my

time and energy was focused on

them. But I have to accept the fact

that they are leaving to pursue their

own happiness and success. If they

are happy, so am I.

EPC: Sir, how is the institute prepar-ing for its first placement sessions,next semester?Director: During placements, it is theperformance of the student whichmatters most. The institute only pro-

vides them an opportunity to inter-

act with the best firms. The place-

ments at both campuses will be

managed by BITS Pilani and no dif-

ference will arise between the two.

So I have absolutely no worries and

neither should the students.

EPC: Sir, as the Director, what ac-tivities have you been involved inoutside BITS?Director: Whenever any college ororganization invites me to an event,

I make it a point to attend. For ex-

ample, recently I was in KHC fortheir inter college festival Phoenix.

Whenever there is a Goa Agenda,

the Goa Chamber of Commerce

and Industry always invites me. The

important thing is that all the high

officials visiting Goa are realizing

that there is an educational insti-

tute of national importance here.

EPC: Sir, what is your opinion onthe current state of affairs of edu-cation in Goa?Director: In Goa, the literacy rateis very high. But I feel the quality

of education is not very high. In

the last three years, I have dis-

cussed this at various levels and

found that there is an increasing

awareness in the state about qual-

ity education.

Our Director Prof. T.C.Goel, apart from handling administrative responsi-

bilities has been very active in the social and academic scene of Goa. We

talked to him about his involvement and contributions in these areas.

Here is an excerpt from the interview :

The placements at both campuses will be managed by

BITS Pilani and no difference will arise between the two.

Abhigyan, the literary mission of our campus was started on Rajiv Gandhis birthday in the year 2005 by

our Director with Sherin Kurian as the coordinator with the aim of teaching the three Rs- Reading, Writing

& Arithmetic. It involves the labourers, their children, mess workers and hostel assistants as the students.

The mission started with the support of Director but today it is being helped by various people. Be it in

cash, kind or attracting more students. For example, a contractor who learned English, provided a kit to

the children which contained essential commodities- soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, school bag etc.; some-

times faculty and students on special occasions sponsor snacks for learners; 14 students were vacci-

nated against polio on 11th February.

A Note on ABHIGYAN

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 PAGE 3


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P a g e 4

T I D B I T S

PHOENIX 07

Phoenix 07 was the inaugural edition of K.H.C s annual inter-college cul-

tural festival. It was conducted on the 10th and 11th of last month. Our

college took part and finished an overall 2nd. Very impressive consideringthat we didnt take part in all the events. In fact we finished in the top

three in every event we did take part in. GMC, the winners of Waves 06,

walked away with the title.

QUIZZER

The EPC Plans a quiz in every

issue with attractive prizes

sponsored by PC Station.

SPREE 07

This year, unlike the last,

Waves will be solely a cul-

tural event. No. Its not the

organiz ing commit tee

playing spoilsport. This year

we are going to have an ex-

clusive inter college sports

event called Spree 07. The

event will be held alongside

Waves but the organization

will be separately handled.

Guess all you sport fans outthere have sufficient reason

to expect a lot of action.

QUIZZING WITH

ACTIVITY

It seems quizzing in our cam-pus has got a much needed

boost in recent times. First,

there was a business quiz,

superbly conducted by

WeQ. Then, the mechanical

engineering students depart-

ment, MAESTRO, organized

an inter branch quiz on sci-

ence and technology. Wit-

nesses claim the quiz was

unbelievably tough. EEE

walked away with the 1st

place and a well deserved

cash award of Rs.500.

Then the guys from RIT

one guy and two girls actu-

ally conducted prelims for

the Science and Technology

Quiz, which will be held dur-

ing Techtwister.

ST MICROELECTRONICS

ST Microelectronics, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufac-

turers, is setting up joint research and innovation labs at BITS Pilani and

IIT Delhi. The partnership agreements aim to combine the best of ST's

leading-edge electronic skills and capabilities with the educational and

research talents of the two institutes. Both labs are expected to be opera-

tional by second quarter of 2007.

PS AUTOMATOR

The site is created by Prakhar Prakash to collect feedback and Practice

School reports from 3rd year students and use it to facilitate the process

for the next batch.

The site basically asks the seniors FAQs like project details, accommoda-tion details, availability of food, etc. This information can be used by the

2nd yearites to help choose a proper PS station.

SHIP ARCHITECTURE

MAESTRO organized a lecture

on Ship Design and Building

Process, was delivered by two

gentlemen from Goa Shipyard

on the 26

th

February.An industrial visit by the P4 stu-

dents to the shipyard is also

being planned, we heard.

NETWORKED

CEL of our campus has been in-

cluded as the member of National

Entrepreneurship Network, popu-

larly known as NEN. In fact CEL

Pilani is one of the founders ofNEN. CEL has also in store a host of

interesting activities for QUARK and

before.

BITS 360.COM

Abhimanyu Vatsya and Abhinav Asthana developed this site to have a 3D

views of the nooks and corners of the campus. They used the Corel Paint

Shop pro, Adobe Photoshop to edit the snaps; Panorama to form 360

view; and Flash Actionscript, PHP and My SQL for web designing part.

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2


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P a g e 5

SPORTS THIS YEAR

Given below are the results of all the inter hostel sports events that took place this year :

In spite of the impending

exams, we somehow man-

aged to celebrate Valen-

tines Day this time.

The dress code for the day

did confuse a few. (Some

people wore yellow and

started looking for like

minded partners!!!)A hop was organized on B-

Wing in the evening. A few

contests for couples helped

liven up the otherwise dull

event.

B O Y S G I R L S

Why didnt Arjun Singh ever think of reser-

vation for girls. I m sure nobody would

have protested.

VALENTINES DAY

BLUES

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

Devaki Sanjana

BH7


6/8

P a g e 6

IIT B TECHFEST 007

IIT-Bombay successfully conducted their annual sci-

ence and technology fair, "Techfest 007", on January26th-28th, 2007. This spectacular celebration of tech-

nology was the largest such event in Asia. The

budget, it was claimed, was around 90 lakh rupees.With as many as 600 participant colleges from all

over Asia, the attendance was estimated to be around

15,000.

The innovatively named events included Micro

mouse, Void, Tremors, Interconnections, CRO 2.0

and Auctions. A robotics workshop was conducted byTRI (Yeah. They conducted a similar workshop in

our campus too).

Eminent personalities like Dr. John Nash (Remember

A Beautiful Mind??), Prof. Kevin Warwick, and Dr.

Jill Tarter gave inspiring and motivating lectures to

the students.

To make sure it wasnt just work and no play, therewere some scintillating performances by performers

from USA, UK, France and Australia.

Our college too took part in this extravaganza. Ab-

hishek Kumar won "Auctions", in which he had towrite software that maximizes your profits while

bidding. Shraddha Vartak, Abhishek Agarwal and

Ganesh Vernekar came 2nd in "Radio Sport". They

had to build their own receivers and search for certain

radio transmitting sources. Sidhartha Agrawal, RahulParsani and Sharanyan came 2nd in "CRO 2.0 ".

These guys had to design a game on an oscilloscope.

Mandar Gokhale along with a friend from IIT-B fin-

ished 2nd in the "Apogee quiz".

Techfest 007 ended on a happy note for our college

as we finished a commendable 4th

overall. And theexperience gained will sure prove valuable as Quark

goes national this year.

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

BITS gets SUN ny

A developers workshop was organized on 25th February

in the campus by the professionals of the Sun Microsys-tems . The key areas addressed during the conference

were future prospects of java, operating system Solaris

and building applications for desktop, web and mobiledevices. The workshop kicked off with Simon Ritter

speaking about the history and future of the computer

industry. After enthralling the crowd with some fasci-nating demonstrations Peter Karlsson took the charge of

introducing the audience to Solaris, the operating system

developed by Sun Microsystems. Mr. Jeevan Rama-

krishna discussed about the essentiality and usage ofGrid computing with providing insight about its future

prospects. The workshop ended with a vote of thanks to

the Sun Microsystems and the professionals who

enlightened the students with their presentation.


7/8

P a g e 7

WEEKEND DESTINATION

1763 and was occupied by the British army

between 1797-1813 . This fort until 1955

used to house a prison. There is a small church

within the walls. There are Dhabas nearby for

refreshment. A couple of kilometers beforereaching the fort, just off to the right of the

road, is a small cove with a patch of beach at

the bottom of a steep, rocky cliff shaded by a

few clinging palms. There's no fixed path, and

its a matter of trial and error to get to the bot-

tom.

It can be accessed by taxi, motorbike, motor

bike or cycle tours

Daily bus service available from Margao KTCbus stand to Cabo-de Ram. Journey will take

about two-three hours along a splendid scenic

route, ideal time to unnerve your senses.

! IDEAL DESTINATION FOR A HARDWORKING

BITSIAN SOUL !

Its the same place where the Dil Chahta hai Trio parted ways

and ultimately united along with their partners. Located in Goa's

southern most Taluka Canacona, the fort takes its name from

the name of Lord Rama , who had stayed in this place with Sita

during his period of exile. The headland itself is a beautiful and

wild landscape, with huge areas of terraced fields of the deep

red earth common in Goa, and outcrops and cliffs of dark vol-

canic rock interspersed The fort was under Portuguese in

CABO-DE-RAM

CARTOON CORNER

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

Devaki Sanjana

DC STARS

ravemzsdin : Shubham Malhotra, BH3He started the DC hub TITAN. He isnotorious for kicking people at the slight-est pretext.

LORD_dc: Ramanuj, BH6.

If u r wondering how the dude shares allthose GBs; a 380 GB external is his se-cret.

KK : Kaustubh Kulkarni, BH4

He spent nearly 50 hours of online on dcwhich earned him an admin title on DC.

Sidius: Aravind Subramanian, BH8

Was the lord of dc before LORD_dccame along.

((((Full_of_life))) : Nita, GH4

Sole female admin in campus.


8/8

Ekalavya marks the return of Vidhu Vinod Chopra as a director after a

6 year long hiatus. His last movie was Mission Kashmir (2000). The

star studded cast consists of Amitabh Bachhan, Boman Irani, Saif AliKhan, Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Jackie Shroff, Sharmila Tagore and

Raima Sen. Phew!!

The story is a very different take on a tried and tested formula. The

death of the head of a royal family is followed by a vicious battle for

the throne and the legacy. The ageing Royal Guard, Ekalavya - played

by Amitabh Bachhan, takes it upon himself to protect the rightful heir

to the throne. The rightful heir, of course, is the prince played by

Saif Ali Khan. The plot, however, gets thicker as the movie pro-

gresses. Amitabh Bacchan is at his usual best. Saif shines through too.

But sadly, most of the other perform-

ances are overshadowed. Technically,

the movie is awesome. And as ex-

pected, the soundtrack is very good

and blends well with the movie.

M O V I E R E V I E W

EKALAVYA

P a g e 8

Across

2. Device used to control the movements and direction of a

model airplane, a video-game character, etc.

7. A covered bundle of wires that carries electronic messages

10. a small device for controlling a pointer on screen.

11. A disk that holds up to 800k of information, but the in-

formation stored cannot be changed

12. a device attached to a computer, used for making paper

copies of material produced on the computer

13. a place on the outside of a computer where you plug in acable that connects the computer to other devices, such as a

printer

14. an electronic device that takes in input, processes it and

gives the desired output.

15. a computer diskette

16. Physical components of the computer, computer equip-

ment

Down

1. A thin flat circular plate

3. in a computer, a set of instructions that lets a person perform certain tasks, such as word processing, adding numbers,

or reading information on the Internet.

4. an arrow, black line or other sign on a computer screen that shows where you are writing.

5. a screen, as on a television or computer, that displays information

6. the surface on which a computer monitors image is displayed

8. a small, portable device that computes

9. a row or rows of keys (on a piano, computer, etc.)

13. a set of coded instructions telling a computer how to process information

Solve this crossword and drop in your entries at PC Station, Shop No 9, Dr. Tarquinho Henriques Appartments, Near St An-

drews Church, Opp. Dreamland Ice-cream Corner.

The winners will be announced in the next issue. Dont miss this exciting opportunity of winning a 2GB PENDRIVE !!

CROSSLANES !!

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

bits herald february issue 2007

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