Insomnia going to rock Hyderabad Central

Theres a "Battle of the Bands" going on. Its a rock competition sponsored by "360 Degrees"TM

Insomnia have qualified along with five other bands from all over Hyderabad.

The competition starts at 1730 hrs today so if you wanna see Insomnia kick some ass go to Hyderabad Central.

See you there !!!

Cultural Camp

Finally, IIIT has a well organized plan for cultural activies too. Today, we begin with the much awaited Cultural Camp with Mr.Vasudevan conducting his first session. He would be training students in carnatic vocal and violin. Mrs.Dipti Mishra Sharma, faculty-in-charge of Cultural Activities this year is on the lookout of someone who could train students in dramatics as well. Seems we have an interesting summer vacations to look forward to. Reminds one of school days summer vacations when we would throng summer camps wanting to learn those arts that are now facing lack of interested learners !

Be there in 119 Main Building at the scheduled time (check your mails). You never you could be the on your way to winning a prize at next years Inter-House Singing Competition after 3 months of training.

Submitted by Katalyser Power

UG2k2 rocks further

Did Campus Buzz tell you that 3 students from the BTech passing out batch got into IIM Ahmedabad? Did it tell you that 2 got into IIM Calcutta? And did it tell you that one got into IIM K? And that there are 2 on waiting lists? Oh, another one who earlier was on a waiting list in XLRI gets confirmed. More MS calls. And more and more students getting placed into big shot companies, with most of them at packages above 5 lacs pa. Great that is. Studying at IIIT seems to have been paying off really well.

Surveys for Alumni Fund

People like Vipul Kedia and Abhishek Nayani are taking a big initiative in trying to setup a new fund called the Alumni Fund. Campus Buzz has published about a few details earlier too. Now, when the alumni site seems to have been made and surveys being conducted to see the alumni' reaction in relation to the new fund, people do not seem to be even filling up the forms. It's sad to see that when on one side people are working a great deal to start the fund, others are not even interested in giving back the feedback. Considering the low response, Abhishek Nayani sends a 'seem-to-be-frustrated' mail to ug4 and pg2 asking them to fill up the survey form as to whether they are interested in donating their caution deposit money. Let us see how many of them actually work towards taking the survey now.

CVIT doing great job

CVIT is conducting a great set of classes this vacation for the new group of students (those entering the third year) who'd be joining the lab from next sem onwards. There are around 45 such students and the things are organized really really well. Dr. Jawahar, Dr. PJN, Dr. Anoop, seniors like Tarun, Paresh, Ranta and some others are doing a great work teaching them about a lot of things that a visual technology student should now. They may not be using all of them in their projects but it's a great piece of learning. About images, videos, graphics, about a lot of things. Kudos CVIT.

Smiley Singh is leaving

Smiley Singh, one of our authors, a UG4 student, after having disclosed his identity, is leaving. Smiley Singh is Akansh Kurana (ah.. I can hear the I-thought-so coming). He has authored a large number of humorous, witty, encouraging and like posts on IIIT Buzz.  We are thankful to him for all the time and energy he has devoted to IIIT Buzz. If anything, his posts had one common theme -- they were all aimed at jolting the students into coming to action. There were also times when anonymous cowards posted thoughtless comments, but then, in the end -- no hard feelings.

Ground Breaking Ceremony

A Ground Breaking ceremony held at 8 AM this morning kickstarts the construction of appendages to the existing OBH. The ceremony involved traditional pooja by a pundit and was presided by the Director and the Dean. A board was on display showing the picture of the proposed construction as well as its layout. The new construction covers the concavity of the existing OBH fins leaving open space within. The construction is slated to be completed in 8 months.

Particulars:
    No of rooms: 96 (double bed), 12' x 16' each
    Start date: 13th April, '06 (today)
    Estimated date of completion: 12th Dec, '06

Reservation buzz

The campus is abuzz with talks condemning the proposed 49.5% reservations for SC/STs and OBCs in govt-aided educational institutes. Turbo calculates that these efforts would leave a mere 38.4% seats for boys in the general category. While Nirnimesh appears to be furious, going to hilarious lengths to attack Arjun Singh, Paresh points to a stakeholder analysis of who gains and who loses, by an IIM grad. These efforts join those at other institutes to protest against the proposal. An online petition is in already in heavy circulation, which appeals to the President of India, and the signature count is growing by leaps and bounds every second.

Turns out that the Election Commission's bashing has put the proposal on the back-burner currently, but Arjun Singh appears confident of sailing through. What is more frightening is that the act could be extended to cover private institutes like ours as well. And once introduced, no political party would have the guts/inclination to roll it back.

Railinfo

With the exams about coming to an end, many would be buying tickets or at least checking the availability. And all of us know how the indianrail site abuses JavaScript, besides having a pathetic interface (hopeless color combo inclusive). Did you know that you could ease out all this with the http://railinfo.iiit.ac.in utility? It was developed as an IT Workshop project to continuously pre-fetch the availability status of all interesting trains and make it available in a far more usable fashion. You can even search for your train and the list of options updates itself (realtime) to narrow down your search.

Yet another logo for I.I.I.T

After the hilarious artwork on IIIT's logo, a month ago, Ankit Garg has done it again -- this time more formally so: A new logo artwork for IIIT. Cute, how the tree stands for a T.

BarCamp Review

Vardhman has a nice roundup review and pics of today's BarCamp. Given that this was held on an exam day, the deficit in the number of IIIT participants was made up by our alumni. "Coming to the content part. I was surprized to see the amount of information flow that happened during the presentations. Many ppl in the industry are amazing too was my conclusion, really." Kunal has a more comprehensive report on the individual talks. Besides, it was nice to see so many (working) techies in Hyderabad conglomerate at IIIT.

And just in case you didn't know, BarCamp didn't have anything to do with beer and all.

barcamp hyderabad

Barcamp hyderabad is being organized here at IIIT. It starts tomorrow (Apr 8) at 1500 hrs. Registrations stand at 192 as of now.

A barcamp is an "unconference" wherein people come, share their thoughts and discuss.

The theme of the barcamp is Web 2.0

For more information click here

Who'll be the MessCom?

With the current UG4 passing out, IIIT will also fall short of (working) messcoms. Arpit Baid (with Dharam, and team) has been instrumental in getting the basic structure of the mess in place. They're also responsible for getting the canteen funtioning. Though a passers-by would boast with: "hey.. what's there in being a messcom. Anyone can do that", it's not that trivial. It's not a perfect world, you see. True, with more than 2 years of involvement, Arpit & team have a lot of experience dealing with the caterers and handling them. But with them gone in some time, the future doesn't look conspicuous. The enthusiasm in the messcom from lower batches isn't sparking enough. Whereas the mess portal will continue to work unabated (it's alredy being handled by a UG3 & a UG2 stud), other aspects of the mess committee might get paralyzed unless some saviour, stung by the mess food, surfaces, and takes charge.

Thanks Arpit, Dharam, and team for all your hard work.

Hoax Alumni Caller

Jayaram, an alumni from the 2k1 batch, sent out a mail to the batch warning about a hoax caller who poses himself as an alumni and tries to fool people into giving him money out of pity. He calls saying that he has been pick-pocketed at Mumbai, and has to reach Bangalore urgently. But all's a hoax.

Jayaram's mail:

hi all,  I just got a call from a person claiming to be a Shyam Sundar of th gdit98 batch . He said he was working with microosoft research in sydney and was moving back to India(bangalore)  sadly in mumbai his wallet got picked and he dosent have any cards or cash on him and is in trouble and would like to get to Bangalore urgently. He asked for a internet transfer of funds and for numbers of alumni in bangalore/mumbai.  He took the names of chandramouli and subhash from 98 and was aware of where they were and what they were doing so he seems very belivable.  I called up Somu from 98 to confirm if there was anyone by that name and somu didnt recollect anyone .  It seems he has also called Sandeep Kakani in mumbai with the same story and asked for money.  He calls up from a std booth in mumbai Matunga so he is atleast not lying about being in mumbai.  I think this guy is a hoax and is fishing for contacts and trying to fool them with this well laid story. So if you gett a call please DO NOT give him any more contacts than he already has.If you already have then please call those ppl up whose numbers you have given and let them know.  If someone called Shyam really exists and his story is real then apologies to him.  

and another one:

This 'Shyam Sundar' has been calling up from the following numbers 8-9 people have already recieved a call from him. Please beware .  02232537134 9892019306 02240100038 - std booth near matunga station 09892870003 -std booth in matunga  This guy actually called back to ask for more numbers. I told him that we are onto him and it would be better if he stopped calling. He cut the phone. I feel kind of bad for not abusing him well.

Alumni Taking Initiatives

Mr. Vipul Kedia, a IIIT Alumnus and a very well known guy among most of the batches here and the faculty members, has taken over an initiative to propose starting up of a new fund called the Alumni Fund. The rough draft has been distributed among few alumni, faculty and the final year students. Final Year Students too declared something on the similar track during the farewell speech (Akansh's speech).

Main points from the proposal:

1) Start off a fund and try to reach a target of 25 lacs during next 1 year
2) The money shall be contributed by alumni members and through caution deposits
3) Money from the fund might be used in various ways such as:
- Financial Assistance to students in form of scholarships
- Assistance for students to attend conferences from time to time
- Awards such as best FYP, MS and PHD Thesis etc
- And many others

The success of this proposal mostly depends on how the various alumni members react to it. If they do have a feel for the institute, they shall step up or else things would get dumped.

Contributed by a Final Year Student

Record Breaking Sharing on DC Plus Plus

Third year students are trying their best to increase the total sharing on DC to more than 8 TB. They've already reached successfully the high of 7 TB [7.39 to be exact]. But is that high a score worth it? They're putting all kinds of things on sharing from program files to WINDOWS folder to what not. Be it whatever, the high records are being reached and it atleast makes people happy. I last saw 313 people logged in on DC++ and that's a big number indeed. DC is probably the best thing that students came up with. Thanks to people for putting all kinds of stuff on sharing. It'll only be more helpful if people become generous enough to give certain slots too.

Good luck guys. Keep more things on sharing for people to live happily in IIIT.

PROJECT MATERIAL

Our ears are still echoing with the numerous loud mails from you-know-who, demanding to return the project material. We've also been threatened that he'd inform the director and he'd take serious action. He's also confirmed this with the director, and he has agreed. He confirmed this again and the director has agreed again. But still you-know-who hasn't got back his precious project material. So what can you-know-who do next? All the people who have taken his project material are requested to please return them, at least as a service to the entire student community. Or else he might:

• Sue you in the Supreme Court of India
  
• Refer the case to the CBI/FBI/Interpol
• Take out a supari against you.
• Get the Human Rights Commission into action
  
• Complain to the director. He has already agreed, mind it.
  

Phil & Fine Arts dropped

Hurray! It's a win for all the people who raised their voices against the Philosophy and Fine Arts state of affairs -- the cheap grades distribution, the appeasement, the crap-in-the-course, etc. Appaji announced the next semester's course offerings and these two proffs have been dumped. The students voices -- yes, it's heard.

When attendance is not compulsory

A lot has been spoken often against the attendance rule. Vardhman writes his experiences about organizing the French course without the attendance rule, and things turned out shamefully bad. Wherein the initial reply-if-interested mail was responded by some 150 interested students, about 30 could join the course. "What happened during the course left me amazed. Slowly students started bunking the classes. By the end of Feb the strength would have easily come down to 15-20, after Feb the attendance decrease was even more shocking. In the last few classes we had attendance like 5-4-3 and so on." A petty 3-4!! And all because there was no attendance rule for this course? Or just because there were no grades? In that case, why did 150 odd students reply in he first case? Surely, a crowd was interested, but what happened? Do we even deserve a no-attendance privilege?

Cricket in the OBH lawn

It is supposedly against the rules to play in the lawn (I guess every OBHian or a visitor knows what lawn i am referring to). But the question is why?

The lawn has always been used for playing ... am telling this from 4 yr experience. It is like the best ground available in the whole IIIT .. is there any other ground that is as grassy? And it has the lights which enable sports at night-time ... which is the favorite time of IIITians. Cricket in that limited area is both a source of great entertainment (attracts a few spectators too) and is also a very comfortable for the amateur sportsmen (who are many).

The sole reason that the authorities can come up with to defend this so called policy is that playing in that lawn causes disturbance. Come on! OBH is not quiet and filled with deathly silence .. it has to be the most noisy place in the whole campus. Sports in the lawn and the occasional accompanied shouts would only be a small input to the already existing decibels.

What is the whole purpose of the lawn if it cannot be used? (All those for/against playing in the lawn can give their views in the comments)

Separation time

After the farewell, it's separation time soon after the exams. The air is charged with nostalgia. Memories, from day 1 to day N, rally along; some sad ones, mostly happy ones. This post is dedicated to the passing out class of 2006 (from which IIIT Buzz has 3 authors). IIIT will continue to remember you.

Titles for UG2k2

As in the informal session of Farewell'06, following were the titles given to final year students:

Best Personality:           Shivam Vasisht
Most versatile personality: Shiben Bhattacharjee
Most chocolaty person:      Rishabh Jain
Macho man:                  Sumeet Joon
Best Junior-Senior pair:    Himanshu and Aseem
Awesome threesome:          Prashanth Jaikumar, Praveen and Madhusudanan
Aaj ka Arjun:               Abhay Jain
Beauty and the Beast:       Navya and Nikhil
Main aisa kyun hun:         Sayan Bannerjee
Best Gamer:                 Playboi aka Vishwas Rao
Mr and Mr Touch-me-not:     Gaurav Jain (Meerut) and Satvik
Laurel and Hardy:           Dhruv Sud and Gaurav Jain (Delhi)    

Farewell'06

IIIT had the farewell function organized for the graduating students last evening i.e. 1st April'06. Surprizingly, it wasn't delayed as much as earlier times because people did reach in time. The formal ceremony started at around 6:20 pm and went on till around 8:30 pm. It was followed by ISB caterers' dinner and then an informal session to end with. Formal session included lots of speeches, mementos-giving and candle-light ceremony. There also were awards given to two students for selfless service to IIIT - Satvik Upadhyay for conducting literary events from time to time and Nirnimesh for being an excellent system administrator. All in all, the function was a success.

Akansh and Badrinath have already written the details of the function here and here respectively.