Labs closed: why?

Campus Life Council enquired of the certain circumstances that led to yesterday's announcement of hibernating the Computer Labs for the summer. Electricity needs to be saved. Agreed. But the surprise announcement raises a slew of questions:

• Has the administration lost faith in students? Students were not only not consulted, they weren't even properly informed of the intention. I thought IIIT was a place where students' life was managed by the students. Have we lost this unique feature?
  

• Games/Movies: Well. Is it really that bad to play games and watch movies in labs? It's holidays, isn't it?
  

• PCs or ACs? What really consumes power -- PCs or ACs?
  

Computer Labs Hibernated

As per a mail sent to students, due to certain circumstances, the computer labs will be closed for the rest of the summer hols. Only one lab remain open, and students have to register to avail this opportunity. I might be uninformed here but I think that such circumstances have occurred for the first time in IIIT, forcing the closure of labs. And it comes as a surprise.

Anti-Reservation Protest March

Following heated d i s c u s s i o n s over the Reservation issue on the Life mailing list, IIIT students participated in the Anti-Reservation protest procession organized today morning at Indira Park near Tank Bund. The IIIT crowd was spearheaded by Sumeet Gupta. Requisite permissions had already obtained from the police, who manoeuvred the crowd along some by-lanes in that locality. Interestingly, a pro-reservation gathering, albeit thin, was co located.

The event was covered by a few news channels as well. The entire procession was totally peaceful (physically, that is). Several philantropers also distributed water packets during the entire rally. The slogans raised by the crowd totally flamed Arjun Singh:

• Gali gali mein shor hai, Arjun Singh chor hai
• Arjun Singh, Hai Hai
• Arjun Singh, kursi chhoro
• We want -- Justice
• 1 2 3 4, Band karo yeh atyachaar
• 1 2 1 2, Arjun Singh ko phenk do
• Reservations, down down

Some representatives are to meet the governor in the evening today, and submit a memorandum against the reservations policy as a whole.

PG Entrance Exam '06

Entrance test (PGEE 2006) for admission to over 22 Postgraduate courses at IIIT was held today. The examination centers were at Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. This examination decides students for 6 programmes in M.Tech, 7 in MS by Research, and 9 programmes in PhD at IIIT. The results for this test will be available by June 6th, and the classes will commence from July 14th.

Reservations

The reservations issue seems to be bringing out a type of discussion never seen before. (Partially due to the resources that enable people to express opinions better).

There is a debate going on at life

Pranav called a meeting at 104 today. Technically this post should have come before the meeting. (im sorry).

Ravi Shankar has blogged about it ... and also about a related issue

Siddarth Ravi has blogged about it

Vardhman Jain has written about a related issue.

Halleyji writes about it

Sumeet has written about it strongly. Coincidentally he started the discussion on life.

So, join the discussion at life@students or on any of these blogs, or here itself at IIIT buzz.

ESWC

ESWC Prelims in hyd on 28th ...

Register at Indiatimes ... (hopefully its not too late yet)

Best of luck to all IIIT teams (lets win ESWC this year)

PS - ESWC - Electronic Sports World Cup

GO iiIT

-obelix