6 egov / www.egovonline.net / February 2012

In the previous efforts to build supercomputing in India, we ended up funding projects in IISc, CDAC etc. However these ended up as damp squibs as they never really opened up the youth to teachers and students, or became a part of the culture iin the educa-tion system. Past record of access to supercomputing set up in IISc to those desirous of using it has been abysmally poor. We may be repeating the same mis-take by just funding a small group in IISc once again without it becoming a truly national mission. Here I may quote William Press of Harvard, “Simulation and Mathematical Modeling will drive the 21st Century just the way steam did in the 19th Century.” Hence building a culture of supercomputing in the nation needs a national thrust in nurturing a national culture among the youth in colleges in the algorithms and their implementations in different architectures. The NAL group in Atmospheric Sciences did a great job in building a truly ‘desi’ supercomputer. Others essen-tially imported available hardware from abroad and used it for their own individual research interests. I do hope that this time we learn from past poor record in this area. We need to set up a national mission in supercomputing with equal emphasis on UG and PG

education in Simulation and Mathematical Modeling with opportunities for scholars to develop algorithms and applications. We may note that Supercomputing implies capacity for managing large volumes of data and capacity to build gigantic scientific databases. We have treated this vast and strategically important field in fragmented ways in the past. We need the spirit of NPTEL that engages large numbers of faculty across multiple institutions. Hopefully we shall not fall into the past trap of a few possessive researchers restricting the developments in this area. The new and younger scientific minds in this area should drive this project itself in well organized and professionally managed ways across an open network of institutions and scholars.K R Srivathsan on eGov portal news item “Minis-try of Science and Technology Sanctions 5000 Crore for Supercomputer Research”

february 2012issue 02 n volume 08

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It has been excellent commentary. In my opinion our awareness about data/informa-tion security is in very nascent stage. Even though we do have very innovative applica-tions, and the process of transition to the e-mode is very commendable, our prepared-ness to tackle any untoward happening is very much wanting. I really like that with all secured networks in advanced nations still we have so much of threats like WikiLeaks, we wonder what could be our response. Dr Sunil K Agrawal, Director, STPI Maha-rashtra on eGov January Interview with Dr Avinash Vashistha, Chairman & MD, Accenture India

It is, no doubt, an ambitious project of the Government of Gujarat to ensure social justice for the poor and deprived sections of our population. But the important areas which need to be covered under ICT are the additional employment created under MGNREGP, public distribution system and the land ownership patterns of the SC and ST households. Binayak Rath Professor of Economics IIT KanpurBinayak Rath, Professor of Economics, IIT Kanpur on eGov January interview with Sanjay Prasad, Principal Secretary, Depart-ment of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of Gujarat

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