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I did my engineering degree in Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Pennalur, Sriperumbudur. Today SVCE Alumni association celebrated our college ”Grand Silver Jubilee” by having a 25th Year Mega Alumni meet at Hotel Green Park, Chennai.
It felt very warm to meet all my teachers and long contacted friends! The first batch (1985) students were felicitated. The Chief Guest of the event Dr.Manohar Jawahar, Vice-Chancellor of Anna University shared an interesting statistic of about 320 of 420 or so Engineering Colleges in Tamil Nadu have a Mechanical Engineer as their Principal. In the vote of thanks Mr.Vimal recalled how Facebook helped in reaching out to all Alumnus of SVCE. Out of 1500 invited 400 had confirmed, social media does help.
There were events for the whole family and kids organized. Great job by the organizers.
_1.jpg "SVCE 25Years Alumni photos by Venkatarangan (20)")
(Seen Above: Gokul Santhanam (President, Alumni Association,
Prof.Ramachandran (Principal), T.N.C.Venkata Rangan)
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_1.jpg "SVCE 25Years Alumni photos by Venkatarangan (10)") |
_1.jpg "SVCE 25Years Alumni photos by Venkatarangan (2)")
(My son after getting a tattoo in his hand)
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When Dr.Santosh Babu (IAS), Managing Director of ELCOT invited me to present in this year CETIT Conference, I had not known much about the event. Then searching on the Internet, I learned that “CETIT 2010 is the second year of the conference-cum-exhibition on e-Governance organized by FICCI in association with ELCOT. CeTIT claims to provide an opportunity to take stock of the practice and the promise of digital technologies on e-Governance”. This certainly sounded interesting, so here I am.
This year program happened yesterday and today in Chennai Trade Centre. I presented on the topic of “Relevance of Unicode to e-Governance”, this was part of the session on “Back Office” Chaired by Prof.M.Anandakrishnan (Chairman, IIT Kanpur).
In my brief talk (~10 Mins) I was keen that I didn’t confuse audience with too much engineering detail on Encoding. At the same time I wanted to demystify Unicode and what it is, importance of a single uniform encoding, where we are in terms of acceptance of Unicode by various State Governments & Govt. of India. That I think I achieved.
_1.jpg "Venkatarangan in CETIT 2010 Panel (3)")
Download the presentation as a PDF from here, the PowerPoint version can be got from Docs.com. My earlier presentation on UNICODE for Tamil can be seen here.
We all like to have good wireless signal throughout our house, so that we can freely roam between the rooms and use our iPhones or Laptops. But if you live in multi-storied concrete houses (like the one’s we have in India) then getting good signal strength with one Wireless Access Point will be a challenge.
In my case, I have Broadband connections (one from Airtel and a manual failover from BSNL) terminating in my study room in first floor. A NETGEAR Wireless Router connects to Airtel Modem and acts as the firewall. A 8 port Ethernet Switch connected to the NETGEAR Router and makes more LAN ports available. Two desktop PCs in the same room are connected through wire (CAT-6) to the Ethernet switch, apart from wired connections from other bedrooms (2 in each floor) and living rooms (1 in each floor) in the house. The two XBOX 360s that we (primarily) use as Media Center Extenders are in the two bedrooms (1 in each floor) connected through Wire. I get good signal strength if I am in rooms that are near to the Study, but as I move away and go to my bedroom, the signal drops to zero at one point where there are two solid wooden doors between the Wireless Router and the Mobile Device.
The solution I figured will be to have one wireless access point installed in my bedroom, connect it via the wired connection coming from Study, then connect the XBOX 360 in the room to the Wireless AP. When I looked around in the shops, I found only Wireless Routers, no plain Wireless Access Points – but in this case I don’t need Routing or Firewall. Just a Wireless Access Point will do, as connection to the Airtel Modem, Firewall, etc will be provided by the NETGEAR Router. Finally, I bought a wireless router itself (LINKSYS WRT54GH) from CROMA for around Rs.2500. Initially I tried to connect the wire from Study Room to the Internet Port in LINKSYS Router, then tried out different settings in the web console. Nothing worked. After few trial and error I figured how to get this done.
Steps to do in the second Wireless Router (Linksys) (In my case the Linksys router in my bedroom, first one being the NETGEAR Router in my study Room):
- Connect the wired connection from the Study Room (NETGEAR Router which acts as the primary gateway for my house) to one of the 4 Ethernet (LAN) ports
- Connect the XBOX 360 console to one of the other ports in the same LINKSYS Router
- Leave the Internet port in Linksys Router to be empty
- Turn off firewall & DHCP server in the Linksys Router
- Give it a static IP, Configure Gateway and DNS to be the IP address of the NETGEAR Router
- Configured the wireless settings with a SSID and a WPA2-PERSONAL passcode
- Add the new wireless access point and the passcode in your iPhone, mobile phones and Laptops
That’s all. Voila!. Now my XBOX 360 is able to connect to the PCs in the house, go to the Internet; I get excellent signal in my iPhone whether I am in my bedroom or study room or any place in first floor. This way I have avoided using cellular network and hence save on the costs on data transfer. Now I am thinking of a third access point in the ground floor so that I can cover all the areas in my house with a Wi-Fi umbrella!
Tamil Nadu Government runs “Tamil Nadu Text Book Corporation” under its School Education Department for publishing Text books (பாடப் புத்தகங்கள்) under heavily subsidized prices. The text books are written by experienced teachers and are the official curriculum for school students in the state studying under the State Board Education system. Their Tamil Text Books are also used as curriculum for other board students (like CBSE) as well.
![Std 2 Tamil Textbook story[5]](http://venkatarangan.com/blog/content/binary/WindowsLiveWriter/Tam_85EB/Std%202%20Tamil%20Textbook%20story%5B5%5D_1.jpg "Std 2 Tamil Textbook story[5]")
This year I had to buy Tamil Text Book for STD II for my son studying in P.S.B.B.S.S.School and after asking in few book shops got it in a shop[ in T.Nagar. With this background, when I happened to meet our fellow INFITT member Mr.Iniya Nehru, Director in NIC (NIC handles many of the IT Services and Websites for Govt. of India & Govt. of Tamil Nadu) I was mentioning to him that Text Books published by Government can be made available online as a E-Books (say PDF files) for convenience. It will serve as a valuable reference for those living outside Tamil Nadu and studying Tamil. Mr.Nehru replied it is already there, I assumed it will be a shopping cart facility for ordering online or as PDF for electronic purchase. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Text Book Corporation has made all its text books available for free as Adobe Acrobat files (PDF) at its website. Thank you, Mr.Nehru for this information, I hope this post in my blog will help students and teachers who are looking for the books.
 Of course, I don’t see in short term the e-books replacing the printed version as they are extremely low priced due to government subsidy. For example, STD II Tamil text book of more than hundred pages costs just Rs.15.
Today in Hindustan Times Mint business paper there was an article on recently concluded Tamil Internet Conference 2010 and it included a quote and information from me. The article titled “Mixing Tamil and tech to book computing” was done by Ms.Niranjana Ramesh, who interviewed me some time back and we had a good discussion stretching for few hours. You can see more of the past press coverage of TI2010 in my earlier post here.
Article can be found online here in LiveMint.com.
Few months back I read a review of this book “Nine Lives” by William Dalrymple, I picked up a copy in my next visit to Landmark store. Over the next week or so, I finished reading the book, but what an impact this book made on me. I was thinking on it for weeks now, so I got delayed in doing this post.
The book is about “Nine people” and “Nine lives”, the story is about different faiths that prevail in the Indian subcontinent. William Dalrymple, I learned is a scottish born writer who now lives with his family in a farm outside Delhi in India. What was striking to me about the book was the stories narrated in the People’s own voice, rather than the author who tries to stay away for most part and not introducing his judgment, speculation or colour it with his experiences.
The first story on a Jain Nun was very revealing for me, before it I hardly knew anything about Jain Religion other than having visited few of the Jain temples in Rajasthan. The other stories include one about a Buddhist monk who took up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet, a Tantric skull feeder in a remote cremation ground in Kolkata, A Theyyam dancer in Kerala worshipped as a deity for few months returning to his job as a Prison warden, a tribal leader from Rajasthan keeping alive an ancient 4,000-line sacred epic that he knows by heart, a devadasi or temple prostitute called as Yellamma’s children initially resists her own initiation into sex work yet pushes both her daughters into a trade she now regards as a sacred calling, a story of worshippers of of Lal Shahbaz in rural Sindh, Pakistan highlighting the difference between Orthodox Islam vs Sufism.
Overall, a must read book. I was exposed to the various faiths that are being practised in our modern India.
இப்புத்தகத்தின் வலைப்பக்கம் இப்படி தான் தன்னை அறிமுகம் செய்கிறது “உண்மையில் ஒருவருக்கும் பாலியல் தொழில் செய்கிற பெண்களின் வலி புரிவதில்லை. “என்னைக் கல்யாணம் பண்ணிக்கிறியா?” இது வழக்கமாக வாடிக்கையாளர்களில் பாதிப் பேர் கேட்கிற வாசகம். எல்லாமே அந்தப் பத்து நிமிட மயக்கத்துக்கு மட்டுமான பரிவால் வருவது. இது கலைவாணியின் துயரம் நிரம்பிய சுயசரிதை. உயிர்த்துடிப்பு மிகுந்த எளிமையான வரிகளால் இதயத்தை உலுக்கிவிடுகிறார். இந்நூலைப் படிக்கும் யாரும், வயிற்றுப் பிழைப்புக்காக தெருவோரமாக நிற்கும் ஒரு பாலியல் தொழிலாளியை, இனிமேல் மரியாதைக் குறைவாகப் பார்க்க மாட்டார்கள், பார்க்க முடியாது”
இது சென்ற ஆண்டு சென்னை புத்தகக்காட்சியில் நான் வாங்கிய புத்தகம். எப்படி இருக்குமோ என்று தயக்கத்துடன் தான் வாங்கினேன். (உண்மை) கதை என்பதால் சன் டிவியின் ‘நிஜம்’ போல மொக்கையாக இருக்கும் என்று சந்தேகத்தோடு படிக்க தொடங்கினேன். புத்தகத்தை படிக்க அரம்பித்து சில மணி நேரங்களிலேயே முடித்தும் விட்டேன். அந்த அளவுக்கு எளிமையான, சீரான நடையில் நல்ல சுவாரஸ்யமான ஒரு தொடக்கத்தோடு எழுதியுள்ளார் ஜோதி நரசிம்மன். இந்த அளவுக்கு ஒரு உண்மை கதையை அதுவும் தன் சொந்த கதையை, வெளிப்படையாக சமுதாயம் என்ன சொல்லுமோ என்று தயங்காமல் எழுதிய கலைவாணி அவர்களுக்கு வாசகர்களின் சார்ப்பில் என் நெஞ்சார்ந்த பாராட்டுக்கள். பாலியல் பற்றி புத்தகமாக இருந்தாலும், ஆபாச வர்ணனைகளோ, கதையின் ஓட்டத்திற்கு, நடக்கும் வாழ்வின் நிகழ்வுக்கு தேவையில்லாத எதுவும் இல்லை.
கண்டிப்பாகப் படிக்க வேண்டிய புத்தகம் என்று சொல்ல முடியாது, ஆனாலும் தமிழில் இது ஒரு நல்ல முயற்சி. பாராட்டுக்கள்.
After seeing the trailers few months back, I saw this movie today – “The Bounty Hunter” acted by “Friends” fame Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. The movie was advertised as a comedy and it starts out that way, making the first half enjoyable. After that, the Director seems to have dragged it unnecessarily. The rest of the movie is a patchwork of love, action and mystery.
The story is about a divorced couple. Milo Boyd played by Gerard Butler is a ex-policeman and now a Bounty Hunter (someone who catches people who has jumped Court Bail) who is running short of money. His ex-wife Nicole Hurley played by Jennifer Aniston is a Journalist hungry for a good story. Nicole trails a suspected suicide and gets into trouble as Policemen themselves are involved. Milo wants to catch Nicole and put her behind bards for jumping parole, so that he gets some cash as reward. The rest of the story is how Milo helps Nicole, solves the mystery and the couple gets united.
I saw the movie “Raavanan” (ராவணன்) in Mayajaal with my family last week. Had high expectations for this “Mani Rathnam” movie, that was in the making for several years and with a star studded crew especially Aishwarya Rai Bachan & Vikram. I went for the Tamil version as it had got better reviews than the Hindi version.
The scenery and the locations are beautiful and breath-taking. Vikram has delivered a phenomenal performance, Aishwarya Rai has done the stunt scenes well but otherwise haven’t had much a chance to show her full talents. The movie inspired from Ramayana Epic, had presented lot of scope for a director to tell his version of the story in a captivating manner. But Raavanan miserably falls short on this, the storyline seems to be running flat throughout the movie. The dialogues, normally much talked about in a Mani Rathnam movie is below average. Music by A.R.Rahman seems to be better in the soundtrack than in the songs.
Overall, a movie you could easily avoid seeing.
(I am doing this post in English for benefit of a wider audience. Please treat the below post as indicative and as my personal take, for official coverage please contact TI2010 secretariat or INFITT’s secretariat)
Phew! (taking a deep breadth). The last two weeks of working for Tamil Internet Conference 2010 (TI2010) was really tough for me. It was not at all easy, but personally I found it to be a great learning experience for me, worth every drop of my sweat. I have lot to say in this post and I don’t know where to begin – anyway let me make an attempt.
First some background, I am the serving Chairman of a international voluntary organization working on promoting Tamil IT activities called “INFITT” and member of the TamilNadu Government’s committee (LOC) for running TI2010. INFITT was founded in 2000 and is a registered NGO in California, USA. INFITT has conducted eight Tamil Internet Conferences before TI2010. Tamil Internet Conference’s (TIC) are some of the largest of all technical conferences that happen anywhere in the world for an Indian Language & Technology combination.
Typically every TIC has three core committees:
- LOC (Local Organizing Committee) constitutes of that year event’s local (Co-Host) representatives, INFITT’s local representatives. and other local industry bodies. They are in-charge of funding, venue, logistics, travel, infrastructure (in short all the Hardware)
- CPC (Conference Program Committee) constitutes of a scholarly team of Linguistic computing researchers, Technology & Language Experts. They are tasked with forming the agenda of the event, topics, call for and selection of speakers – basically the entire content (or software) for a TIC is provided by this team
- IOC (International Organizing Committee) constitutes of INFITT’s representatives from around the world, they are in-charge of facilitating/getting international delegates and other tasks
TI2010 is the latest in the series and happened last week in Kovai (Coimbatore) in conjunction with the World Classical Tamil Conference (WCTC). Speakers and observers had come from various countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Canada, the USA, Britain, South Korea and Germany besides all over India.Over 110 papers were read in four halls, over the four days.
For me this meant doing hundreds of emails with my fellow INFITTians & committee members, helping in scouting & inviting delegates, answering questions from our General Body, preparing for and attending scores of meetings, the many visits to secretariat, swelling contact list in my mobile & the event website / social media. The most eventful for me and the other teams were the day before (22nd) and the first day (23rd) of the event where we had to handle hundreds of guests coming in, their hotel logistics, answering their queries and so on. Since WCTC was inaugurated by Hon’ble President of India, security was at unprecedented event – so we had to be very careful on handling ID cards/invitations. Most of us (TI2010 organizers) were not from Coimbatore so getting used (in terms of travel time, hotel locations, etc.) to the city took us few days. Getting in & out of venue was not easy due to security to the venue (CODISSIA) being tightened few days in advance and thousands of people were queuing the roads to the venue to see the colourful arrangements even before the start of the event .
The last day of the event saw one of the bitter wars for last decade in Tamil IT come to an end with TamilNadu Governmnent’s GO on 16-Bit encoding that recognized Unicode as the Primary encoding and TACE16 as the only alternate encoding.
For this event to have gone this well, the credit goes to the teams who did a brilliant job – the dignitaries from Govt. of TamilNadu, ELCOT & NIC staffs, Volunteers, Local Organizing Committee, Conference Program Committee & other teams of TI2010 & WCTC (World Classical Tamil Conference). It was my privilege to have served with such qualified & diverse teams.
References
- View the TI2010 Conference book
- Select recordings of TI2010 talks are here and in YouTube – you need to look for WCTC2010 tag and search for hall names like சுஜாதா அரங்கம், உமர் தம்பி அரங்கம், சண்முகலிங்கம் அரங்கம், கோவிந்தசாமி அரங்கம், முரசொலி மாறன் அரங்கம். Sorry, we couldn’t get around to list only TI2010 talks separate from WCTC
- Transcript of my vote of thanks speech (PDF, DOC) delivered during the Inaugural plenary session on stage with Hon’ble Union Minister for IT & Communications Thiru.A.Raja & Singapore’s Senior Deputy Minister Thiru.S.Eswaran
- Press coverage of TI2010
Outside TI2010
Apart from TI2010, there were many other activities going on in WCTC – including Scholarly talks on Tamil language, the Exhibitions (TI2010, WCTC, Bookfair) which were open for public and visited by thousands. Only on the last day I was able to visit the WCTC cultural Exhibition for an hour or so. I found it to be quite informative to know about Tamil Language, Culture & History – I was pleasantly surprised to see a pavilion by ISRO. Normally what would take you visits around the state (TamilNadu) to different museums and some archaeological libraries (not open to public) were displayed in one place.
In the “India Post” gallery I was able to buy for Rs.10 special printed post card bearing the logo of World Classical Tamil Conference 2010 (WCTC) and post it to my friends from there itself – a nice souvenir.
I couldn’t find time to visit the Book Fair or the inaugural day floats procession. On the day of floats it took me 4 hours to get back from the Coimbatore city hotel I was staying to the venue for some last minute arrangements, that too I started after the floats event got over – so much was the crowd.
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_2.jpg "Tamil Internet Conference TI2010 by TNCV (16)")
_3.jpg "Tamil Internet Conference TI2010 by TNCV (27)")
_3.jpg "TI2010 by A Kumaran (9)")
_3.jpg "TI2010 by A Kumaran (12)")
_1.jpg "TI2010 by Devarajan (5)")
