Founder & President ,SymbiosisHon’ble Chancellor-Symbiosis International University

Padma Bhushan Dr SB Mujumdar

Vidya YeravdekarPrincipal Director - Symbiosis Society (SIU)

Dear Students,

As Global Technology related spend continues it’s growth trajectory, tremendous growth potential unfolds for the Indian IT sector. Nasscom predicts that by 2015, Indian IT-BPO sector can generate revenues of USD 130 billion and create a transformational impact on the overall economy. The IT sector has the power to transform the socio-economic scenario through IT enabled solutions in education, healthcare, financial services and public services.

Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research is celebrating 25 years of academic excellence and continues to be one of the foremost institutes in the Information Technology sector. It’s Research and Development wing, SDRC provides the students the opportunity to innovate, while NEN, the National Entrepreneurship Network, drives job creation. The revival of “Cursor 2.0” would complement the creative side of students and faculty members and provide an insight into the world of Computer Sciences.

“Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime”. This Chinese proverb gives an interesting lesson. Software Programming is not about piling codes, one on top of the other, it is about removing the weaknesses and overcoming the glitches in order to create applications of value. The best way to acquire the right skills is learning by doing.

Started with vision, driven by innovation, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research is committed to developing talent for the software industry, both indigenous and global.

Wishing the SICSR Team All the Best for their endeavors!

Dr. Bhushan PatwardhanVice Chancellor

Symbiosis International University

“Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself. “

This being the first issue of Cursor 2.0 we had a lot of obstacles and challenges to face, but the team was equally enthusiastic and excited to work for our own college magazine. The perseverance of the core team has made this Mission Possible.

Speaking about the support, we got a lot of backing-up from the Director and Deputy Director of the college. The director went to the extent of revealing some of his well kept secrets and Unplug himself for us.

This issue unfurls a lot of attention capturing and interesting articles including the inevitable debate on the popular outcry on the death of two geniuses. While we mourned the death of the well remembered Apple CEO but forgot the developer of the platform which facilitated the Apple operating system interface. The debate was bound to happen and comparisons were to begin, read our Cover Focus to get a better glimpse of the story.

What would you like in a college magazine? Fashion, entertainment… Oh, yes! We have it all. Get stylish without spending that last penny in your pocket. Our fashion writer tells you how to sport that funky look, with the old pair of jeans lying far down in your wardrobe and get smart while picking up those baubles from your usual FC road hangout.

“Getting smart” reminds me of the financial apocalypse showdown in Europe. We better keep watching, huh! Check out the Euro-in-crisis, the end to end story. The European commission president has called for an end to the “constant drama” about the single currency, Why not? Find the initialization and the consequences of this so called “Crisis”.

To get smarter we also have some innovative gizmos coming up which would make you read the write-up twice to actually believe it. Motes or “Smart dust” as we call it, being one of them. 2012 has a lot to offer you. Find out about it in our technology section.

The show has begun… someone may just pull the rabbit out of the hat..! Enjoy…

Editor’s Take-Disha ManochaSem II ,MBA-IT

Director’s NoteSICSR is changing and the change is reflecting. There is a change and enthusiasm in the atmosphere. It gives me pleasure, happiness and joy to write this piece as Director, SICSR. The time I joined SICSR and now we have made a lot of progress and we have taken all our stakeholders along with us namely the students, the staff, the University and the Management. We are now being ranked as 8th in the Sectoral Index by CSR in the B-School rankings. Our cut-off’s have increased. We are the first institute of Symbiosis to implement MOODLE (Modular Object Oriented Development Learning Environment) and this puts us on par with leading institutions like IIT – Mumbai, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore. Our students like Aman, Meher are behind strong Innovations like WebRupee, Go2Picassa which put us in the forefront for Technologies. We also have another first year BCA student of ours namely Priyanka Nag has represented India in the World Software Quality Competition in London. And yes she did beat the engineers in this competition. Our placements are going great guns for all courses (don’t want to name companies) but our entire PG and UG batches are nearly placed so we have no vacancies. Yes before I forget we are the only Symbiosis institute to have all our internal exams Online which means no paper based exam..We now have one

CEO and two CIO’s teaching at SICSR and we are the only technology and management institute with these credentials. Who are these people ? Well the first one is Mr. Mahesh Baxi , CEO of Thoughtworks, Prof. Ashok Kotwal who has been the CIO at a world’s leading oil MNC and also Dr. Anupam Saraph who was CIO, Pune City and also has taught as a Professor at leading world Universities including the US.

Our infrastructure has also been building up – we have a spanking new lab built on N-Computing Desktop Virtualization products and we have our students working on the ERP implementation of Symbiosis. Also the lifts are being replaced by new ones. We have also received the highest rating on Training and Pedagogy in the student satisfaction survey. We had all our events which went amazing – namely GNUNIFY ‘2012, UNIFY ‘2012, E-Week 2012 – Chrysalis and the new magazine which you are reading CURSOR 2.0. Also there are a lot of students doing lots of good things for e.g. two of our students went on a Student Exchange Programme to NTU (Nanyang Technical University, Singapore).We have added six new faculty on our rolls.

Lalit S KathpaliaDirectorSICSR

So what does the FUTURE behold?

Well the only thing I can say is “If you are not in SICSR then (ahem) you are not in SICSR”

@SICSR – The Happening place for all Events in Technology and Management.

contents

Guest Write-ups:

Academia to the Industry 01

“I Eat with my Hands and Yes, I care about

the MILAN FashionWeek” 04

Placements at SICSR 06

My Journey@SICSR 07

From The HEART of a Mother 36

----25

cover story15

Ritchie: The foundation of Job’s Empire?

tecHNoLoGy

Camera Jargon Demystified 05Emotiv System 13Smart Dust 23

MANAGEMENT

The Toyota Way 09

The Euro Crises 32

Students’ ColumnThis Candle 08The Ticket of Life 12The Stranger 21Ode To The Dark 22SICSR To Me 31

Entertainment

kolavari di ... 11Eco Facts 18Fashionable year 19 Director Unplugged 29

Academia to the IndustryHow to stay ahead of the game?

I happened to watch a Hindi movie called ‘Aarakshan’ the other day and was shocked to see how the education ‘industry’ is portrayed. I am sure not all of it is true but it is a fact that education has been commercialized in last couple of decades and it feels like the gap between academia and industry has widened especially in fast moving fields like IT industry. You combine this with the fact that ~350,000 engineers graduates every year in India and about 2.5 million university graduates. Surprisingly, per McKinsey study, about 25% engineers remain unemployed and contrast that with the fact that there is a shortage of about 500,000 knowledge workers in the IT industry as per NASSCOM study.On the other side, UN is predicting that if certain things are not done globally, world will be pushed into global recession. UN is predicting that developed economies will have negative growth in 2012 and about 1.1% in 2013 while developing economies like China, India & Brazil will drive growth of developing world at around 4% which is still lower than original prediction.What does this mean for you? Won’t there be jobs, won’t companies exist,

won’t start-ups be around, will VCs stop funding? The answer is a big NO. What all of these means is that the competition will only get fierce and intense for you. The good news is that there are things that you can focus on which will help you not only survive but thrive in any market conditions. This article focuses on three key elements, which will help you differentiate yourself from the ‘crowd’.

1. Be Innovative

As vague as the definition of ‘innovation’ might be – it does get recognized when something different happens in the market or when you come across a product that ‘wows’ you. I think we all can agree that Innovation has led to many of the products that we

now use in our day-to-day life and curiosity has fuelled human being to be innovative. Many of the companies we see today have thrived in the global market because of their innovation such as SalesForce.com through their Software as a Service Approach, Apple through many of the products such as iPad, iPhone but primarily about bringing that entire experience together, Flip kart for bringing Amazon.com like buying experience to India with an amazing web site. However, the ones, which managed to fetch my attention, were companies like Tata.

Mahesh BaxiManaging Director at ThoughtWorks

01

They have been doing innovation which is also known as ‘Frugal’ innovation where you not only develop products for the masses and needy people but to make sure that it can reach to rural places. Tata Nano is one such example that everyone is aware. They also have invested water purifier, which costs only $21, doesn’t use any electricity and filter lasts for up to 200 days. What is more fascinating is recent tie-up of Tata with SunCatalytix who have invested a way to generate electricity with just a jar of water.

While companies who are innovative thrive in any market condition, if you are innovative in your approach (irrespective of what you do), you are sure to be noticed and put you in a different comparison bucket.

2. Be Passionate“Passion alone determines what one should or should not be doing

because it enables one to overcome all obstacles” (unknown source). I

think this statement sums it all up as to why following your passion is so important. A great example is Henri Ford who was born to a farmer. At 15, he dismantled and reassembled the timepieces of friends many times and was very passionate about machines. After his mother dies in 1876, his father expected him to take over the family farm but he was absolutely not into farming at all. He argued, fought with father and finally, left home to work as an apprentice machinist in the city of Detroit. From then on – he worked several different jobs and founded Ford Motors. He was one of the most successful people of that time and built one of the most successful companies of that time.While being passionate is important, knowing what you are passionate about is equally important. Also, it is important to understand what big problem of the world serve as your passion such as climate change, sustainability, poverty, education, health care, emerging markets etc. You have to experiment with some, you may have to develop more awareness, travel with your eyes & ears open, look into your past to see what personal issues you have faced which you would like to solve. If you find your passion and make that your profession – you will always be ahead in any competition.

3. Learn-ability and AdaptabilityIf you have chosen to be in the IT field, you are in one of the most non-static field in the industry. If you or your organization don’t have or maintain learn-ability, you will very quickly lose competitive advantage that you may have. Gone are the days when companies used to make really long-term strategy and execution plans. In the current global market place, what you need is an ability to learn, quickly experience and adapt to changing global and emerging markets.So remember – know your passion, always be innovative in everything you do and keep your eyes and ears open to quickly learn what’s happening around you and adapt to changing situations quickly. If you do this – you will help yourself by changing your ‘comparison parameters’ and automatically put you ahead in the game.

02

I Eat with my Hands and Yes, I care about the MILAN FashionWeek...This is a story of a person.... an opportunity ....a journey ...an experience...or rather this should have been my opening line, may be to intrigue my readers. But in fact, this is a story of perception and the fact, that no matter how far you feel you are from your culture or your country, it still gives you an identity and a natural human instinct to defend its honour. I am not here to contradict all the existing problems in the Indian society nor am I a government representative who will give you false hopes. Don’t even think of me as a pro-country extremist : I am very eager to travel around the world and settle in one of the perfect, candid beach locations. I am just an average girl who got a golden opportunity to understand what her culture was being perceived as and how ignorance could lead to stereotypical conclusions. “Indian” , my German friend exclaimed .. “Wow, eating with hands ..you got to teach me that”!!! “By the way , what’s the plan??? Where you want to go in the future. .. You know...U.K.,U.S.A..may be you could come down to Germany??” And then came various others topic in the evening dinner table conversations...Which didn’t even seep down in me. I felt maybe I was naive, a little young but still I kept my patience. And then came the shocker.... “Hey , where did you grow up? Can you do ‘the Indian accent??’ I don’t speak the so called

‘American English’, believe me I don’t even try to eat up my r’s, just normal everyday accent like everybody else. This incident shook me and then began my intricate study of stereotyping and I became aware of “What I was actually,and what I was being perceived as”. I was not naive. I was INDIAN. I was the so called IT genius, nerd kid with zero personality and weird accent. I was the solution to their back-end problems. I was “outsourced”. It got me thinking of the immense talent my country harbours, the largest democratic economy it stands as and is thriving . Sure it has pitfalls but think again: “Is that all you want to portray because that is how you will be perceived.” A girl from California asked me “ How come you are here ? Aren’t you supposed to get married soon?”With a sigh, she said.. “Indian culture is closed”..and pat came my reply “No its rich...not closed and I am 21.. I have many things to achieve.. before I settle.” She looked at me amazed. India is a country which values relationships. Respect for elders and their opinions matter to us because that is what our culture speaks. We don’t follow any of our customs because we are in a closed, narrow minded atmosphere. We do it because it gives us satisfaction, distinction and identity...THE SAME IDENTITY WHICH A GIRL DEFENDED IN A JOURNEY... and urges all to change such stereotypes.

Love your culture, Its where you belong , Don’t let small actions create wrong perceptions about your fellowmen...Grow as an individual and as an Indian and let India grow and shine along with you..and see how your Identity will do wonders for you in your adventurous journey called,or as you would call it,“LIFE”.

“Indian” , my German friend exclaimed ..“Wow, eating with hands... You got to teach me that”!!!

Akanksha Anu, Guest WriterBCA Sem VI

( Reflections : NTU, Singapore)(SIU)

04

cAMerAJArGoNDEMYSTIFIED

S E N S O R

A P E R T U R E

I S O SHU T TER SPEED

-Aanand Lonkar,Sem VI ,BCARecently, the development in the imaging industry has led many people

to adapt to Digital Single Lens Reflect (D-SLR) cameras. People going for higher range compact cameras are ready to shell out some more bucks and instead go for a D-SLR for its superior image quality. D-SLR is all about the word “MANUAL” , wherein you have complete control of the camera unlike point and shoot (read compact) cameras. Initially D-SLR users, always complain about the jargon they face while using such cameras. In this article we will explore some of the jargons and demystifying them. “Let the journey begin!”

Sensor is a piece of silicon inside the camera, made up of millions of light sensitive transistors. According to the intensity of light, each transistor absorbs light and converts it into a pixel. Millions of pixels in turn make up a digital image. The larger the size of the sensor, higher is the quality of the image and costlier will be the sensor to manufacture.

When we compose a shot and click the shutter button on the camera, an “opening” called shutter opens up to let the light fall on the sensor of the camera for a particular amount of time. This time period is called as shutter speed. A shutter can be considered as a curtain. The more time you keep it open, the more light will fall on the sensor. Shutter speed is measured as 1/nth of a second. A fast shutter speed will keep the shutter open for a small amount of time, while a slow shutter speed will keep it open for longer period of time. Therefore a faster shutter speed will freeze the motion while a slower shutter speed will create motion blur. Hence, 1/60 shutter speed is faster compared to 1/30.

Aperture is opening of the lens diaphragm. Wider the opening of the lens, more light will pass through the lens into the camera. Aperture can be considered as a window pane. The more you open it, more will be the amount of light coming through. Aperture is mea-sured in f – stops. Aperture is inversely proportional to the opening of the lens.Hence, smaller f – stops = Wider opening of the lens.Ex - f/2.8 is a wider opening than f/5.6

05

It can be defined as how sensitive the camera sensor is to the incoming light. More the ISO, more efficient will be the camera in taking a photograph in low light. Actually what happens is, increasing the ISO value amplifies the current going to the electronic sensor of the camera. At any given fixed aperture value and shutter speed, increasing ISO will make the sensor absorb more light. But this comes at a price. As the electronic sensor current gets amplified, digital noise (small artifacts that gets introduced in the image be-cause of the sensor getting hotter) gets added to the image, hence reducing the overall quality of the image.

A proper exposed image is one in which, all the elements in the image are neither too bright nor too dark. This can be achieved by a proper combination of Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO. Hope that with the help of “LIGHT”, all the jargons were finally demystified! Happy clicking!

06

SICSR has given me an opportunity to play a key role for student’s placements. SICSR Placements have crossed all the barriers by inviting most of the top-notched companies for campus selection process. This year we began our placements in August and are done with more than 60% of placements. Career ProspectsAfter completing the PG program, students expect to get placed with good companies as they look forward to implement what they have been studying form two years. Students from UG,after completing their program, plan to pursue higher education. Students who do not wish for higher education opt for placements in various areas such as Finance, Marketing, management profiles and other openings that are course specific.Placement CellA placement cell is setup for assisting the students to get placed in corporate sector. We have a committee of students who work together and invite companies for students interested in various profiles.Student committee members try to find the clients in different sectors as per the qualifications,specialization and interest of students.We then plan to meet the required company profile and analyse how our students fit those requirements. We regularly follow up with clients as and when they want us to do so. We keep sharing SICSR Institute profile, curriculum details, and students’ details on request. Profile of StudentsWe have students enrolled with us from all across the world. This global environment causes intellectual churning and brings out the best in our students. Every student passing out from SICSR is a “ready product” to join an industry. AT SICSR we offer two PG programs which consist of specializations. For MBA-IT we offer two specializations Banking and Finance Management and Software Process Management. For MSC-CA we offer two specializations Software Development and System Administration.

Few students have prior work experience. Based on their experience and their specializations, we maintain the data of all the students accordingly and share it with the companies to make the process simpler which helps them to understand the profile of every student clearly. Placement committee members arrange an aptitude test for the students eligible for placements. We invite our internal faculties to evaluate students appearing for Mock Group Discussions. We arrange guest lectures, inviting our alumni with wide industry experience, company experts, and mentors to interact with students to understand the scenario of the IT market, expectation from freshers’, and the technical know how, on how to implement what they have learnt throughout their two years journey. Infrastructure made available for placements1. Placement Cell, Audio Visual Room, Conference Hall: The placement activities for final year students are carried out in Placement Cell. The Corporate Companies presentations happen in the Audio Visual rooms.Audio Visual rooms are spacious with LCD Projectors, the facility of collar mices,seating arrangements with public address systems, well sitting arrangements. Conference rooms are used for taking interviews or for final discussion after students are selected.

2. Class room: The centre has spacious classrooms with LCD projectors used for TEST, GD, and Interview process. Our campus is fully Wi-Fi connected.

3. Computer Laboratory: Well-equipped Lab.One on each floor with internet connections for the students.

4. Management: All our senior management as well as our faculty members are always ready to support the placement activity to take forward smoothly.

Placements at SICSRSICSR-Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research.

-Ashwini Narayanan(Placements Officer )

The library of SICSR has been my second home, since 1987 July.I am Mrs.Swapna Bose, working as a librarian in SICSR. Well, somehow the calendar sneaked up on me and now audits January-2012.Just came the pleasant realization that July 2012 will be marked as my 25th year of employment as a librarian.When I joined, SICSR was situated on Senapati Bapat Road and the basement harbored the library. I nurtured this library from the very beginning and worked hard to make it good in all aspects.I have been treated as a family member at SICSR. Though my colleagues have changed from time to time, the enthusiasm has maintained the same vigor.My aim was and will always be to give an ideal service to all at SICSR.I can proudly say that at present our library has both print as well as non-print media in its collection. The number of E-Resources available motivates students in their study and research.From Senapati Bapat Road to Model Colony, the library has been improving day by day due to its collection and resources. I feel the SICSR library is one of the best libraries amongst the SIU libraries, and the credit for this achievement should be given to all the Staff members for their immense efforts and knowledge.My belief is to keep the candle of knowledge glowing. Each day in SICSR teaches something new about life and provides different perspectives to enjoy it.

My Journey@SICSR

07

-Mrs Swapna BoseLibrarian (SICSR)

Lost in this maze,With darkness surrounding me,

This piece of candle is the only light,And the pen in my hand illuminating the thoughts of my mind.

With every passing second comes the realization,Slowly and steadily, time is creeping by,

Time that is never going to come back,And neither will these moments, that are passing by.

Memories are but a mere note,Etched on the walls of the mind,

To be recalled sometime in the future,And bring a smile or a tear on one’s face.

The wax of the candle starts melting,The flame shimmering still,

I move my finger through the flame,And bear with it, the gratis pain.

The glass of water filled to the brim,Resembles my own mind,

Emotions bottled up within me,Which flow out in the form of tears.

The candle has come to an end,But my words might never will,

For with each new candle that is illuminated,My poem gets a new beginning.

This CANDLEAnwesh Mishra

Sem IV, BCA-

08

Why study Toyota?

Fortune 500 rank Rank: 8 Employees: 317,716

Revenues: $228,247 $millionAssets: $358,607 $million

It is obvious that there is something special about Toyota. The Japanese automobile manufacturer currently has the fastest product development process in the world. New cars and trucks take 12 months or less to design, while competitors typically require two to three years. Toyota has phenomenal quality levels that rivals can only dream of matching. Toyota has turned operational excellence into a strategic weapon not merely through tools and quality improvement methods but a deeper business philosophy rooted in understanding of people and what motivates them. Its success is ultimately based on its ability to develop leaders, build teams, and nurture a supportive culture, to devise strategy, to build deep supplier relationships, and to maintain a learning organization. The Toyota Production System (TPS):- One of the key reason for Toyota’s outstanding performance as a manufacturer was the implementation of Toyota Production System, thousands of executive from varied business have toured Toyota’s plant in USA and Japan for studying TPS.Toyota Production System (TPS) is the philosophy which organizes manufacturing and logistics at Toyota, including the interaction with suppliers and customers. The TPS is a major part of the more generic ‘Lean manufacturing’. It was largely created by the founder of

Toyota, Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro Toyoda, and the engineer Taiichi Ohno, they drew heavily on the work of W. Edwards Deming and the writings of Henry Ford. When these men came to the United States to observe

the assembly line and mass production that had made Ford rich, they were unimpressed by the large amounts of inventory on site and by how the amount of work being performed in various departments within the factory was uneven on most days. However, on their visit to an American supermarket, the delegation was inspired by how the supermarket only reordered and restocked goods once they’d been bought by customers.Toyota applied the lesson by reducing the amount of inventory they would hold only to a level that its employees would need for a small period of time, and then subsequently reorder. This is highly representative of a Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory system. This in short can be described as Right part in Right amount at Right time.

75years of Passion, Challenge and Creativity Established-1937

The TOYOTA Way

MOTORS PVT LTD.

09

The main goals of the TPS are to design out overburden (muri), smooth production (mura) and eliminate waste (muda). There are 7 kinds of muda targeted in the TPS:1. Over-production 2. Unnecessary transport (of operator or machine) 3. Waiting (of operator or machine) 4. Unnecessary movement of parts & people 5. Inappropriate processing – operations that add no value 6. Unnecessary Inventory (raw material) 7. Correction (rework and scrap) As per TPS any activity that doesn’t add value to customer is waste. Inspired by Deming teaching which broadened the definition of customer to include both internal as well as external customers. Internally “The next process is treated as the customer”.Toyota was able to greatly reduce lead time and cost using the TPS, while improving quality at the same time. Toyota’s philosophy is to identify defects when they occur and automatically stop production so that the problem can be fixed before the defect continues downstream. Toyota has a system called Jidoka also referred to as automation – equipment endowed with human intelligence to stop itself when it has a problem. Signaling system called Andon is invoked which flags or light, usually with accompanying music, signal that help is needed to solve the problem.

The TOYOTA wayEven though Toyota has been very open about their practices many of the manufacturing companies tried to imitate it but still were left frustrated as most of them were not able to match the performance of Toyota. Why? One of the reason is these companies considered TPS just as application of piecemeal toolbox but Toyota system is much deeper and in fact is at a philosophical level. It is a system designed to provide the tools for

people to continually improve

their work. In the Toyota Way, it’s thePeople who bring the system to life: working, communicating, resolving issues and growing together. This revolves around“4P” model• Philosophy(Long-termthinking)

• Processimprovement(eliminatewaste)Kaizen• People andpartners (Respect,Challenge themto achieve more, Grow leaders)• Problem-solving (Continuous improvementand learning) Genchi genbutsu It is a development of culture even more than a set of efficiency and improvement techniques. -Pratik Chetan Mehta Sem II ,MBA-IT

10

-Shreerag PalakazhiBBA -IT Semester II

There was a time when songs used to be about how a girl’s hair fluttered in the wind, when songs had the power to change moods and every song made sense. Now the day has dawned where a song is about how a ‘white skinned’ girl has a black heart. Yes, the infamous “Why this kolaveri di”.When I first heard WTKD, the first thing that popped into my head was the hype generated by a similar song a few months back called ‘Friday’. The truth is, today’s song makers have lost the ability to see the distinction between good publicity and bad publicity.They have it in their mind that any publicity is good publicity. The composers of both songs made it so bad that it naturally got popular due to the degree of its badness. Its common sense, if you have a restaurant and somebody dies of food poisoning, you would be popular in a day. This would be popularity, but negative publicity. The makers of WTKD themselves say that they were aware it was a ‘flop song’. The only reason they made it then, as far as

I can see, was to recreate the same hype and so called ‘success’, as Friday made. Where are the ethics in that?I would like to convey a theory on how this song, or any such song, becomes popular. One person stumbles on it somehow, sees how nonsensical it is and forwards it to his friends telling them how bad it is on some social media site. Then those of the vast majority find it. They listen to it and think, “Hey, this is something new. It’s kind of cool. It’s got a good beat and funny lyrics.”, and thus begins the propagation. Somewhere along the way, the line between mockery and genius gets blurred and we end up with a whole country obsessed with a song absolutely nothing worthy of being called a song .

11

Sem VI ,BCA

12

It took me time,Patience, love andHard work, to be able to get theMoney, to be able to get theTicket, to be able to run theRace, which is one of theMany, that life has offeredMe to take part in... And as I hold it in my hand today -Tall and proud,I remind myself thatIf I fall, I shall rise..And if I win it,It's ‘cause I'm wise,And with well wishers,I'll share the prize.

- Rajesh Nichani

12

A long, long time ago there were wired remote controllers. Then came wireless. They were succedded by motion sensitive controllers like the Six-Axis con-troller for the PS3. And again came Kinect by Microsoft. But now get ready for a whole new interface! The NO CONTROLLER interface. Developed by Emotiv Sys-tems this headset like device that fits on the top of your head and goes by the name of EPOC. The EPOC has 14 electrodes (compared to the 19 electrodes of a standard medi-cal EEG). It also has a two-axis gyro for measuring head rotation.

Emotiv Systems claims the headset will make it possible for games to be controlled and influ-enced by the player's mind, and fa-cial expressions. It connects wire-lessly with the PC, and may in the future work on other game plat-forms such as consoles. The Epoc was designed by Emotiv Systems in conjunction with the Sydney based Industrial Design consul-tancy for design. So the practical benefits of this technology will certainly change the way we live, but for now lets discuss the immediate oppor-tunities. With this interface people with physical difficulties could in-

E M O T I VS Y S T E M

Read right through your mind!

teract with the world in the most natural way possible - Through their mind! There are games that are under development that use the Brain Computer Interface (BCI). This could open a whole new di-mension to gaming as well. Al-though it is commercially available for US $299 only, the limited avail-ability of software has resulted in slow sales. According to the devel-opers, “the numerous applications are in development stage and shall be available to end users by the holiday season of this month.”

-Vivek BehaniSem II,MBA-IT

13

“The practical benefits of this technology will change the way we live”

14

Ritchie: The foundation of Job’s Empire?

Ritchie: The foundation of Job’s Empire?Do you know who is the founder of the iPod you’re listening your music on, or the iPhone you’re chatting on?Of course you do… Isn’t it Obvious… Steve Jobs.Ok, Now let me ask you, who is the founder of the language your Mac laptop works on?Alright I’ll tell you, it is Dennis Ritchie, one of the leading developers of the UNIX system and the creator of C programming language.Now let me tell you something very interesting about these two, as we call them, Genius.Coincidentally both of these pioneers died within the same week. Yes Dennis Ritchie also died just a day after Steve’s death. Let’s give some spotlight on their lives individually first.

Rob Pike - 1:02 AM - Public“I just heard that, after a long illness, Dennis Ritchie (dmr) died at home this weekend. I have no more information.I trust there are people here who will appreciate the reach of his contributions and mourn his passing appropriately.He was a quiet and mostly private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has lost a truly great mind.”The above was a twitter post by Rob Pike right after Dennis passed away. Following it were a lot of posts

and replies by a large crowd which mainly included living ‘Sheldon Coopers’.

Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York. His father was a scientist in Bell Labs and the co-author of the

design of switching Circuits on switching circuit theory. Ritchie graduated from Harvard University with degrees in physics and applied mathematics. He also has a PhD from Harvard on “Program Structure and Computational Complexity”.Ritchie’s most important contribution in Unix was to port Unix on different machines and platforms and in C. Unix and C have a lot of incarnations namely Linux, C++, Mac OS and iOS. He ultimately headed to become the head of Lucent Technology System’s software r e s e a r c h development. He received the Turing Award in 1983 and the N a t i o n a l Medal of

Technology in 1999 along with Ken Thompson. He finally ended his rewarding career in 2007. Some of his other awards include ACM award for the outstanding paper of 1974 in systems and languages; IEEE Emmanuel Piore Award(1982), Bell Laboratories Fellow (1983); Association for Computing Machinery Turing Award (1983); ACM Software Systems Award (1983); C&C Foundation award of NEC (1989); IEEE Hamming Medal (1990). All of these awards were shared with Ken Thompson. Hewas found dead at his home in

Berkley Heights, where he lived alone. Rob

Pike was the first person to know about his death.

My ste r i ous ly the time and

cause of death are still not

disclosed. All we know is that

he was

Dennis Macalister Ritchie (Sep 9 1941 - Oct 8 2011)

15

undergoing treatment for prostate cancer and heart disease. For all I feel, he did not get the tribute he deserved he deserved. “If I had a microscope and could look into a computer, I would see Ritchie’s work all over it.”To it sum up “The guy invented OS-Unix and C language, and released them for free”

The college dropout who became one of the richest man on the face of the earth. Sounds familiar? It’s like a trend among billionaires. I really wonder if college is the answer to everything. I f I tell you a b o u t S t e v e J o b s the first t h i n g t o

come to

your mind will be the letter ‘i’ and it is justified. The way Jobs captured the market with his amazing marketing and presentation skills,it is totally alright if you’re no less than in love with the iProducts. I really don’t need to specify his awards and his achievements; instead what I am going to tell you is something not all of you will know. Can you imagine Steve jobs as a hippie? He even used to fast on variety of fruits to prove his spirituality. One more fact that baffles me is that Jobs was as ruthless as a hungry T-Rex. He’s known to lay off employees in a 20 second elevator ride. He started Apple with Stephen Wozniak, in fact Wozniak was the one who was working on a computer board and when Steve saw that many people were interested in Wozniak’s work he suggested they sell the board to them, and thus Apple was born. As aggressive as Jobs was, he was thrown off his own project and then acquired a small project called Macintosh. With Jobs’ continued arrogance the board decided to give Jobs no managerial duties whatsoever, but he was to remain the chairman of the board. With so much time to spare into Steve’s hand he introduced a small team of computer graphics experts that George Lucas was trying to sell and alas Pixar was born for the price of $10 Million in 1986! Steve again left his company and sold almost

all his stock in disgust because he wasn’t allowed to start a

new company named NeXT which would serve

higher education and scientific research.

Later during the year Pixar was not looking

good in the financial department, so jobs shut down everything except the animation division as it was the only source of revenue for them. This dry spell was broken by a contract with Disney to make a full feature film with computers in 1991. This light of hope was also not for long as in 1993 the contract was cancelled. With both his ventures failing, Steve had reached the nadir of his career. He spent most of his time at home with his son Reed and his wife Laurene, whom he married in 1991.I am sure all of you would remember the movie ‘Toy Story’. It was more than just a movie for Jobs, it was his comeback. Looking at what an incredible power the Disney brand was, he decided to make Pixar public the week after the movie released. It turned out to work wonders! He saw his net worth rise to over $1.5 billion!! That is more than five times money he had ever made at Apple in the 1980s. Now comes the interesting part, you must all be thinking he has worked and earned more outside apple and he’s always been related to apple. Sounds messed up? Not quite, let me connect the dots for you. Apple was having the worst year ever in 1995, after the release of Windows 95, The Mac, which had turned profitable but had failed to evolve for a decade while Jobs was away,Apple started losing market at an alarming rate. By 1996 The CEO replaced the old and bloated Mac OS with Steve’s NeXTSTEP, the OS developed by NeXT. Apple ended up paying $400 million to acquire NeXT and this is how Steve was back in Apple. By now his official title was that of ‘informal adviser to the CEO.’ In 1997 the company

Steve Paul jobs (Feb 24 1955 - Oct 5 2011)

16

announced that it lost $700 million for the first quarter, the board immediately retired the CEO and made Steve the interim CEO of Apple. Steve respecting the opportunity,got to work and the results were quite visible. The company launched a revolutionary marketing campaign around a new slogan: Think Different. The introduction of the iMac started everything Jobs is commonly known for, namely the iRevolution.Yet this wasn’t the big bang Apple made to become so famous and far from the reason he was brought back to Apple. It was to bring NeXTSTEP in the Mac machines, it ended up being renamed the Mac OS. This

breakthrough changed everything for Apple. After this, followed the iPod, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, iCal, iPhone, iPad.Tosum him up, “A charismatic Billionaire with stolen ideas and brilliant sales tactics”

Why was Steve’s passing away over-hyped! For one thing, all of his products were over hyped and well they deserve the hype. I am not saying that he did not deserve a huge farewell, what I am asking is why didn’t Ritchie get so much importance? Given that they both did pass away during the same week

and if Ritchie wouldn’t have put in so much effort to create C and UNIX without which the MacOS and the iOS wouldn’t have been possible at all! So my argument lies here, the media celebrated Job’s death so much so,that it overshadowed Ritchie’s death. Do we need to be more famous even after inventing two such programs to get a tribute like Jobs? Do we really need to be in touch with the media to get famous? Maybe Ritchie did not wish for such a huge tribute, but then it is the world’s Job, neigh it is the job of the modern age people whose lives in some way or the other have been touched by him.

-Sumit Mukherji Sem IV ,BCA

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Richie vs Jobs

No trees die because of ageing. They are generally killed by insects, disease or by people. California Bristlecone Pines and Giant Sequoias are regard-ed as the oldest trees and have been known to live 4,000 to 5,000 years.

Leopard and Panther are two names of same animal species!

Unlike most creatures, goats have rectangular pupils!

There are only three species of elephant living today! They are: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant (also known as the Indian elephant). All other species are extinct.

Plastic bags are better than paper bags for the environment provided the thickness is less than 10 mm. The manufacturing process that makes paper bags requires far more energy than that which produces plastic. Recycling paper bags takes more energy than recycling plastic, and paper bags take up more space in a landfill. Be-cause landfills are usually airtight beneath the surface, paper and plastic are equally bad at bio-degrading.

ECOFACTS

Polar bears are fascinat-ing creatures. Their fur is transparent (not white), their skin is black (not white), and when kept in warm humid environ-ments, their fur can turn green from algae.

-Swaroop GokhaleVisiting Faculty ,SICSR

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LIVINGTHE

YEA

R O

F

…And it’s time to say Sayonara to 2011, Ladies…

with the brand new year comes a brand new chance to be more

stylish! With the hottest new fashions all set your way this year,

do not to miss the casual styles when you want to look trendy

even when setting off to college or a walk! Street clothing is a

big fashion hit to make you look all-so-edgy; giving a no less than gorgeous profile with just simple

traditional attire that has ended up on almost every international

fashion runway.Breaking the banks is not all what

you got to do for grabbing your own fashion statement!

Here are some supremely easy ways to up the ante in your

wardrobe without a major commitment!

Harem pants are on the go! And at this time its gaining massive

popularity! The Indian-inspired design “Patola”, from casual to

dressy, can be very comfortable

and fashionable.

The billowy ones with

the crinkle cotton

fabric are on the rise. Pair them

up with tees (a white

tee with a black print

that complements

the pant’s color) , funky ones

would also do,

off-shoulder or cropped tops, black blazers with white

tops and black heels, a simple waist belt, bunch of colourful

bangles (wooden ones) , strappy tan sandals or gladiators, sport it

with a pony, can render a very cool look.

Another type is the Drop Crotch Pants which are apparently

creating a buzz in the fashion world resembling the traditional

Jodhpuri pants. These pants are an amazing way to turn heads and get

noticed. Team them up with short tops and high heels thats all you got to do. Long tees and Kurti’s

worn with them is a complete fashion faux pas.

Ever wondered to make use of those mom jeans ditched in your wardrobe? Or those dusty old

denims left untouched or

FASHIONABLY-Ridhika MehtaSem II, BBA-IT

19

unaltered for perhaps thousands of years? So, to give

new style to your wardrobe here are some tips!

Nothing can get less trendy if you can alter your old denims into ever-

stylish Capri’s or transform them into narrow fits according to your

own comfort. Pair them up with some informal shirts or Casual

tees. Splurge on an accessory in a colour you’d normally never wear.

And with your favourite jeans-

you could experiment a lot of different looks. Team them up with

long line Kurti’s and sequined Scarves and you’re all set to go!

And so is for the leggings which is what your wardrobe needs right now! Not only are they comfy but would go with lots of great spring

looks. Punch up your look with oxidized metal beads, earrings

or necklaces with a sling bag and you’re bound to make a hit!

Look fashionable with these

which leave you with no remorse and have very

little consequences to your bank account. Follow unique yet

affordable style, try exploring local markets of your city in spite of visiting various brand & malls. Sometimes, you find good options

of clothing and accessories that are also available at throwaway

prices. It’s not about the expensive ensemble but how you pull-off a

simple outfit as a fabulous one !

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SHARING CARE

The year 2011 saw a lot of ups and downs ( though mostly downs), but it was a very eventful year for me and what came as a happy surprise,was the willingness of my friends to extend a helping, to share a smile with the differently abled kids of Pune.

The spirit of festivity and caring was taken to a new level with more and more students joining Sharing Care.

Sharing Care is an effort taken by the students of SICSR for building a better society. This initiative was taken by Ramesh Morjari, an alumnus of SICSR in the year 2004 and since then Sharing Care has been a successful student organization working with many NGO’s in Pune.

More and more hands are joining us every day and this wonderful family is getting bigger and more enthusiastic to spread joy and happiness.

Every visit to these NGO’s is a heartwarming experience for every volunteer. These visits have given my life a new perspective. Every time I meet these kids I learn a new lesson to live my life.

These kids can change your life forever and all they ask for is your time to share their smiles with you.

Join us to make this world a paradise and “share the care”.

-Neha Rahaman

Sharing Care

Mba-IT, Semester II

As I walk down the road, I see him sitting there with a smile. When all kids of his age are playing, he has other things to worry.

I rather not look at him for long, because I know I cant help. I rather not walk on that side, he may hold me and ask for alms. I rather not extend my hand for help, he may stain my trousers with his dirtyhands.

as I enjoy this cold breeze, and wear my shawal.

I rather not see there, because he could barely cover himself. there is nothing I can help, I’m struggling in my own way.

but today when I walk down the road, I dont see him anymore. and I wonder if it was the stains, I really cared... and I silently walk on that side of the road.

STRANGERThe

-Neha RahamanSem II , MBA_IT

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Ode to the-Shreerag Palakazhi

BBA -IT Semester II

Not many appreciate the beauty in darkness

In reality she is more beautiful than light

Her magic lies in her endless expanse

Like long hair, the depth of the night.

She is mother to more than just fear

Creatures nocturnal roam about here

Thieves and murders, hold her dear

Without her light cannot adhere.

Not many appreciate the beauty in darkness

In reality she is more beautiful than light.

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DARK

We have all become smarter. We use smart appliances in our household, use smart machines at work, use robots in our factories. Now we have made our surround-ings smart. Enter into the scene- SMART DUST. The concept smart dust isn’t new. We use sensors measure speed, acceleration, wind speed etc. But in a Smart Dust network, it’s a bunch of sensors linked together work-ing in collaboration to sense and report. The network comprises of numerous ‘motes’. A mote is a single sensing device which comprises of a sensor, a microprocessor and a net-work interface. Thus it essentially is a small computer sensing its en-vironment and transmitting it to a bigger, smarter computer to crunch numbers. All this is powered by a

battery (which is the largest part of the unit). Further studies are being carried into more exotic types of powering this device like sound and even vibrations. The applications of this technology are numerous. The sen-sors could be scattered in forests to detect and prevent forest fires. The motes could also be deployed in a battlefield where any activity from the enemy could be detected. Our bridges could be embedded with these devices which would mea-sure the corrosion by sea water and report any mishaps. Our buildings could be embedded with motes which would detect any movement and warn in times of earthquakes. The list of applications is endless!

SMART

DUST

Although making the world all SMART would take some time, it’s good to know the technology go-ing to take us there is finally here.

“The sensors could be scattered in forests to detect and prevent forest fires.“

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-Vivek BehaniSem II, MBA_IT

At first glance I’m just a regu-lar student, like most of other stu-dents you see every day hanging out in a Barista or in front of colleges. Like most other students I struggle through Math’s, cried through my Board exams, and just could’nt wait to grow up. However, there is one major difference . . . I run my own company! Having been brought up in Dehradun (Uttrakhand), I loved the outdoors. I am an extremely pas-sionate trekker, and would escape to the mountains every summer on various mountaineering camps. But then again, people would always tell me, “You can’t seriously be looking at this as a career, Can you?” Unfortunately, parental pressure and more often, social obli-gations compel us to think of career options. Not really seeing myself, conforming to the norms of Medi-cine, Engineering or Chartered Ac-countancy I did what most “street-smart” kids do these days - opted for a bachelor’s course from Sym-biosis, Pune with plans of pursuing Management Studies from the same University later. Surprisingly, it was while I was studying in SICSR that I had the opportunity to attend an Entrepreneurship Program at my college, and that got me thinking of the possibilities of following my heart and converting my passion into a business venture. With tremendous support from my college Symbiosis Institute

Of Computer Studies And Research (SICSR), Pune specially our direc-tor Mr. Lalit S. Kathpalia and My Mentor Mrs. Rajashree Jain who has always been there like a supporting pillars as well as my brother Sauraj Jhingan who has guided me in every part of the venture, today my dream has taken shape in the form of AD-VENTURE -PULSE. I decided to go for a name that captured the essence of what we truly felt. In every person there is a primal urge to rise above their mun-dane life, break free from monotony, an Adventurous Pulse that is just waiting to beat. Thus was born AD-VENTURE-PULSE. ADVENTURE-PULSE con-ducts trekking and adventure camps during the year year. In addition, we are even looking forward to an Ex-pedition to the Everest Base Camp in April 2012 to wish the Pune Ever-est Team while they make their way up. I’ve often heard people de-scribing themselves as a cog in the wheel. The thrill of actually realizing that you are the wheel driving your own business, is fantastic!. Men like George Mallory who pioneered high altitude climbing in 1920’s to My brother Sauraj who also gave up his lucrative job at Standard Chartered Bank to follow his heart has been my guide and mentor, constantly inspiring me to follow my heart, & occasionally my head “Whether the choice has been wise? only time will decide.”

Until then, we do what we love and I can honestly say that I love what I do! Already,our company’s size is growing by leaps and bounds with like-minded Adventure Enthusiasts joining the company. Many Cor-porate houses like Deloitte, WNS, Citibank, Cognizant, Bharat Forge to name a few, are tying up with us for Regular ODMP’s for their se-nior management Employees. We have been doing some retail treks extensively throughout the Sahyadri Range and have had good participa-tion in them As I am still extremely young, I would require tremendous support from my family, friends and College. Getting parents onboard is always an initial challenge, not for anything else, but of the natural concern that they have as far as sta-bility and sustainability of the proj-ect. Making provisions for our Cap Ex, Business Development, gener-ating business, convincing custom-ers, making revenues, handling op-erational expenditures, and deriving profits are but few of the challenges that I would have to deal with. For those of you who aren’t pursuing your dreams, I ask, “Why Not?” What are you waiting for? On a more personal front I aim at conquering the 7 highest summits in the World, starting with Mount Everest. (Who says you can’t have it all?)

If you have the Attitude,

We’ll give you the Altitude-Rachit aroraBCA-semVI

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NainitaCamera : Canon PowerShot A2000 ISFocal Length : 6 mm Aperture : f/3.2Shutter Speed : 1/1000 secISO : 80

Category : Landscape

Rajbagh LakeAamod PotdarCamera : Canon PowerShot S5 ISFocal Length : 11 mm Aperture : f/4Shutter Speed : 1/800 secISO : 80

Beyond the HorizonAbdullahCamera : NIKON D3100Focal Length : 195 mm (35mm eq.)Aperture : f/16Shutter Speed : 1/4000 secISO : 3200

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Category : abstract

King above AceSourabh JagavkarCamera : NIKON D5100Focal Length : 72 mm (35mm eq.)Aperture : f/5.3Shutter Speed : 1/13 secISO : 200

Burning HeartAbdullahCamera : NIKON D3100Focal Length : 72 mm (35mm eq.)Aperture : f/20Shutter Speed : 1/3 secISO : 3200

Shot Taken Shot MissedDhruv Mehta

Camera : SONY DSC-HX7VFocal Length : 4 mm

Aperture : f/3.5Shutter Speed : 1/640 sec

ISO : 125

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GirlNitesh DasCamera : Canon EOS 1000DFocal Length : 34 mm Aperture : f/6.3Shutter Speed : 1/60 secISO : 200

Category : portrait

Child with a DreamDhruv Mehta

Camera : SONY DSC-HX7VFocal Length : 8 mm

Aperture : f/4.5Shutter Speed : 1/500 sec

ISO : 125

Innocence PersonifiedSourabh JagavkarCamera : NIKON D5100

Focal Length : 82 mm (35mm eq.)Aperture : f/5.6

Shutter Speed : 1/60 secISO : 1250

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Hardik SankhlaCamera : SAMSUNGFocal Length : 33 mmAperture : f/3.5Shutter Speed : 1/250 secISO : 125

Category : wildlife

The Pond HeronAamod Potdar

Camera : Film CameraFocal Length : NA

Aperture : NAShutter Speed : NA

ISO : NA

BulbulVikrantCamera : COOLPIX P500Focal Length : 403 mm (35mm eq.)Aperture : f/5.6Shutter Speed : 1/160 sec

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Your life @ SICSR.Fun, Passionate, Enjoyable and love all the Students.

Two things you love as a director of SICSR.When my students give me Sweets on their success and placements.When my students win an event or become “Zuckerbergs”.

Two things you do not love being a director.See my students flunk.Loose a contest by a narrow mar-gin.

Your activities in leisure time?Yoga, Meditation, Badminton, Reading, Facebooking, Tweeting, Games on my Ipad

If not SICSR then what job would you do?Open up a Tea and Vadapav Stall outside SICSR.

Any future plans about SICSR?Revamp infrastructure to the best.Get the best teaching faculty.Provide WOW experience in aca-demics at SICSR to the students.

Any master dream regarding SICSR?Seeing SICSR as No.1 institute in the field of technology and man-agementSICSR students as 1st preference

for recruitment by major compa-nies.

Most memorable moment in SICSRThe day when Microsoft recruited my studentsDr. Mashelkar (former Director General of the Council of Scien-tific & Industrial Research (CSIR)) acknowledged SICSR’s innovative work

SICSR to you in one word :FUN!!

Favourite Actor… Tom Cruz

Favourite Actress… Julia Roberts

Favourite Movie… Jerry McGuire

Favourite Book…The Godfather, Hotel and Airport

Favourite Food…Vadapav

Favourite Sport…Badminton

“If not SICSR then what job would you do?

Open up a Tea and Vadapav Stall outside SICSR.

LALIT KATHPALIA

Rapid Fire round with the Director of SICSR

SICSR TO ME-Priyanka NagBCA - Semester VI

“ Never had I been out of opportunities in the past three years of my life ”

Here I am today, almost at the end of my three years Graduation journey with SICSR. It still feels like yesterday, when holding my dad’s hand I came to this Atur Centre building for my GD and PI.

From the scared, frightened me to the confident, ready to face the world me; is what this place has done to me, a complete makeover. When I say makeover, I mean more than just the change in the attire(well, that’s one of the changes.)

The little kid from Kolkata, just out of school, who had travelled miles to reach Pune

and to study in SICSR, had little idea about how these three years were to completely change her life and her dreams. Going to Singapore as an exchange student, to represent my college and my university, probably was the first step to my realisation about what SICSR means to me and what SICSR has given me. When I was in front of a big crowd, a jury consisting of some important IT heads of India, announced that they were proud to find a BCA student beat Engineers in the field of IT, there were no limits to my happiness. I proudly said that I belong to Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Researh.

Never had I been out of opportunities in the past three years of my life. Whether it’s an opportunity of being an entrepreneur, opportunity of lending out a helping hand to a needy or an opportunity to participate in some of the great events and competitions, SICSR gave it all !

SICSR and Pune also gave me the life’s most important gift - my friends. Here I first learnt to build relations. Here I learnt to make mistakes and also to correct those, to fall down and get up, yet again. Here I surely did learn to live and enjoy Life.

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EUROZONE CRISISHow many times have we criticized the government for taxing us? Most of the businessmen, workers must have thought of a place,where tax levied is low or can be evaded easily & with continued benefits from government like high wages , subsidized services etc. For them moving to Eurozone countries like Greece,Italy or Portugal would have been a good choice in the post year 1999. But it wouldn’t have been long when they would have realized how the decision turned out to be wrong as the one of the world’s biggest sovereign debt crisis popularly known as Eurozone crisis gripped the European countries.

Euro zone crisis also known as European sovereign debt crisis which surfaced in late 2009 following the Dubai sovereign debt crisis sent a wave of fear among the investors. The rising massive debts of Eurozone countries created a negative speculation in the market resulting in dropping of respective government bond prices across the European market making it more and more difficult for countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal to refinance their respective debts . Eurozone era began on a positive note. Lower interest rates and increased investment was made possible by the new euro. Many countries that did not follow strict economic policy empowered by new euro went on a spending spree. But this increased liquidity in the market resulted into inflation,raising the wages and prices, making these countrie’s exports less competitive compared to Germany& China, As these countries soon started heading towards recession. Because they were on the euro, they couldn’t do what most countries do to cool inflation -- raise interest rates or print less currency. As Public spending rose, while tax revenues fell during the time of recession debts of this countries went on piling up.

PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain)

EUROZONE (EUROPEAN UN-ION) AT GLANCE 27 Member states 17 countriesTHE DRIVERS - France and Ger-many Most indebted nations(Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece & Spain)OUT OF ZONE FOR NOW - Po-land, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Roma-nia & Bulgaria.

STAYING OUT FOR GOOD - UK & Denmark OTHER TRIPLE -A EURO STATES - Austria, Netherlands, Finland & LuxembourgSMALLER EUROZONE ECON-OMIES - Belgium, Estonia, Cy-prus, Malta, Slovakia & Slovenia

Eurozone Eurozone was formed in 1999 which compromises of 17 coun-tries which adopted euro as their standard currency.Purpose - The main purpose of eurozone is to create a common monetary system for greater co-operation

Eurocentral bank(ECB) - The Eu-ropean Central Bank is the institu-tion of the European Union (EU) that administers the monetary policy of the 17 EU Eurozone member states.Objective - To control inflation. To create and implement monetary policies. Print & regulate the flow of euro currency

Jagdish Chandra Dasari (MBA-IT ) Pratik Chetan Mehta (MBA-IT)

32

Greece joined Eurozone in 2001.As per eurozone conditions,all the nations should not have greater than 3% Deficit to GDP ratio. Greece can be said either very bad at accounting or deceptive.In 2000 they misreported the country’s economic stats to fall within Eurozone monetary union guidelines so it could adopt euro. Of course the principal reason Greece wanted to adopt the euro was so it could borrow more at lower rates and the government could spend a lot more, which is exactly what it did when it got the euro in 2001 The Greek government borrowed heavily and went on something of a spending spree after it adopted the euro.Public spending soared and public sector wages practically doubled in the past decade. However, as the money flowed out of the government’s coffers, tax income was hit because of widespread tax evasion. When the global financial downturn hit, Greece was ill-prepared to cope.It took 8-9 years when New Greece government came out to declare it true deficit to GDP is 12.7% which was revised up to 13.7 % by EU. Soon the concern regarding all the heavily indebted countries like Italy,Ireland,Portugal & Spain who travelled on similar path like of Greece began to grow in the market making it even more difficult for these countries to borrow externally,as skeptic lenders asked for higher interest rates Rate at which markets are willing to lend to governments for 10 years:

GermanyGermany euro powerhouse remained strong throughout the eurocrisis. Germany’s key success factors like disciplined economic policy , control of labour rates provided them a competitive advantage over other Eurozone economies. Germany was able to produce goods and services at cheaper rate which enabled them

to use a aggressive export policy helping their economy to achieve high growth even during period the of crisis.As the rest of the euro countries look up to Germany bail out of Germany view point is totally different,German authorities believe problems

can be solved only step by step and not in one go. Germany believes Southern European governments borrowed recklessly at the cheap interest rates available inside the euro. Now they are being punished by markets, and must learn discipline.So it wants other governments to incorporate strict budget rules into their constitutions

to stop such recklessness in future.

Why prevent Eurozone meltdown?The countries that would suffer first and foremost would be the eurozone’s weak countries -- the same ones whose governments’

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over-borrowing has sparked the euro crisis. If a country decides to leave Eurozone and decides to print its own money to clear the debt,though the risk involved in such a decision is just too high .The new currency would be devalued in its purchasing power compared to the former euro because people would have little confidence in it and price inflation would almost certainly follow. Banks, brokers, and exchanges around the world are already in the front line of the euro crisis and would take huge losses as governments that owe them default or make payments with devalued currencies All banks would have less money to lend, likely creating another worldwide credit crunch and slowing economies everywhere.

Way out Even though ECB can print money

but it has ruled out the option of printing the money as a way out of debt crisis as they fear it could result into widespread inflation . To avert the crisis in a systematic manner Eurozone countries launched bail out framework called as Euro financial stability facility (EFSF) which aims to safeguard the stability in Eurozone market by providing financial assistanceThe EFSF can issue bonds or other debt instruments on the market

with the support of the German Debt Management Office to raise the funds needed to provide loans to Eurozone countries in financial troubles, recapitalize banks or buy sovereign debt Emissions of bonds that would be backed by guarantees given by the euro area member states in proportion to their share in the paid-up capital of the European Central Bank (ECB). The bailout fund, the EFSF, should be able to buy Greek bonds in the Greece for the price actually paid for those bonds,the amount actually invested in the bonds.The problem is that the EFSF would probably need authority to borrow something like 2tn euros, or more than four times the EFSF’s current size.And the biggest chunk of that 2tn

euros would in effect be lended by German taxpayers, which would be highly controversial in Germany.

As for now,the world awaits the fate of Eurozone,as pointed out by Germany’s chancellor there is no bazooka which will solve the problem in one go it will take step by step,patient approach to solve whichmay take more than a decade before Europe sees itself a in better position.

CURRENT UPDATE -

Greece dilemma: Greek parlia-ment has approved the harsh austerity measures which were put forward by IMF and Euro-zone in return of 136bn bailout, which resulted in widespread violent protest from Greek peo-ple. This bail fund will be needed by the Greek government to pay 14bn debt payment which is due on 20th March & other 100bn of privately held debt.

Austerity measures include:

1) 15,000 public-sector job cuts2) Liberalization of labor laws3) Lowering the minimum wage by 20% from 751 Euros a month to 600 Euro

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At every juncture life puts you on a threshold and you wonder whether to take that

step or not. I also as a parent was at such crossroad when my child had to take a decision of choosing a course and college. As any other child of her age she was full of dreams, far away from the practicalities of life, giving entrance exams and GD/PIs at various colleges.

As the journey progressed she became clear of her dreams and focused on goals. During this phase of exams and interviews one day I saw great confidence emerging out of her as she came out after her GD/PI at SICSR , brimming with confidence she said,” Mom this is the college I want to join and I am coming here”.

I was surprised and happy to see my child bringing with so much confidence, sure enough after the results, she was in and out thrown were the apprehensions and any pretensions we had.

As she joined college and hostel, the cocooned life of home was over. Taking care of herself, handling different chores of hostel life and giving support and comfort to her friends. I was surprised and happy to see her emerging as a confident young lady.

As a parent I am apprehensive of her handling everyday issues and future life. The guidance and care extended by the SICSR family will certainly take care of all. I know my child is in able hands.

My suggestion and guidance to her and all the children of her age is, a positive attitude cannot be taught, it must be caught. Don’t seek peace and tranquility from outside sources; they are hidden inside your own heart.

Never give up on your values to be “At Par” with the group. Maintain your integrity. Realize your dreams, in order to fore see the future, you must understand the past from the perspective of the present.

I wish you all a very Bright Future Ahead.

Go catch your dreams and fly very high…

From The HEART of a Mother -Mrs Madhulika Siddiqui (Guest Writer)

Sketck By-Mrs PRACHI VAISHAMPAYAN

35

GNUnifyGNUnify is an annual tech fest held every year in Pune, Indiaorganized by the students of Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studiesand Research (SICSR) and the Pune Linux Users Group (PLUG), generally during the second week of February.

In its 10th year now, it is a forum consisting of workshops, seminars, installation fests and birds of Feather (BOF) which helpsincrease awareness about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) andemerging technologies. GNUnify has featured eminent people likeRichard Stallman, Brian Behlendorf, David Axmark, Danese Cooper, Robert Adkins, Alolita Sharma, Prof. Tony Wasserman, Prof. Louis Pott, Niyam Bhushan, Sankarshan, Zahira Bohrat and Anant Narayanan.

This year’s GNUnify (Version 10.0) focused on Cloud computing,System Programming, System Admin, Security, Web Technologies.GNUnify had people over from the MediaWiki team hosted ahackathon which was one of the headlining events. Also, GNUnify was host to the All India Mozilla meet up.All in all, as the usual jargon goes – We were . . . GNUnified!

Events at SICSR36

UnifyThe tagline- ‘Come together. Cel-ebrate.’ is aimed at gathering all the students of SICSR andinvite students from other colleges to rejoice and be a part of the cul-tural extravaganza that isUnify.Our aim is to brand our college and bring it back to the heights of yester-year where SICSR wasassociated with Unify on a very large scale and attracted a large audience.The roots of the committee can be traced from mid December, where Pushkar and Vivek alongwith Anushree and Bhavin.Unify 2012 consist of events like, Holi Shot, Burn out, Dhinka-chika,Glitz, Band baaja barat etc.

There have been many setbacks and issues but the journey so far has been worthwhile.Organizing an event of this caliber has built a deep bond among all the members of thecommittee which shows consider-ably in the efforts. Unify has opened new avenues and hopesthat tradition of such festivals con-tinues over the lifetime of this won-derful institution.

E-Week (Chrysalis)

As one awakes to see the dawn of the day, they’re riled up with enthu-siasm and anxiety, as it isthe Inaugural of CHRYSALIS 2012. And as one enters the Institute of SICSR, they feel the spiritof the entire CHRYSALIS team in every breath of air, every drop of water and every atom in thecampus. E-week was about promot-ing entrepreneurship and creating awareness about it. Thus, along withexciting events like Junkyard Wars, Green Athena, Fashion Designing and many more, the Chrysalis teamalso organized campaigns and events at various schools and NGO’s.The opening event was the E-Rally which happened on the first day of E-week. After the E-Rally the mainevents, which were the highlights of Chrysalis was commence. These events went on for three days, ie,from 11th to the 13th of Feb. Finally E-week ended with various pro-grams at NG0’s and other schools.

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