Nuclear Power Generation

This topic comes late but at a time when everyone around the world is worried about power generation and especially Nuclear Power generation. With any other kind of Energy source no country in the world has problems except taking the above mentioned. Sanctions, negotiations, treats to economically isolate and others words and phrases are being brought into the picture.

First of all what right does one country have on another to decide who should utilise some kind of resource or not. This becomes a dictatorship only but with the country taking the place not a person. India's power generation through Nuclear is hardly 5-10% but does India need to answer USA for whether it is using for Military or Power generation. Does USA disclose whether they are using Nuclear for Military or Power generation. USA has millions of documents which are classified and are related to nuclear weapons. It posses so many nuclear weapons that can destroy the world over. Then who gives USA the power to question any other country until it solves its own problem.

India whereas should learn that for 5-10% power generation through nuclear should not make it bend before any country. It has been busy trying to purchase fuel for the power stations which has been provided by Russia. First policy of Power-generation is that the source should be available then only should the project be considered. We are on such cross-roads that we need to purchase nuclear fuel for power stations. It sounds like what the Maharashtra government has done with ENRON. They made a power plant which runs on some kind of synthetic fuel which by the way led to the price of power generation go upto Rs 8/unit. So the whole ENRON company went bankrupt and Maharastra government suffered.

What the whole point here is that first of all we have to weigh our options. We need not bend before any country for listening to them as long as we are using our own resources for our own benefits. This point is not valid for our country itself but for all others in the world.

Delays in starting malls

When I was reading today's newspaper, I came across an article stating that the IT mall (off Brigade Road, Bangalore) is going to be inaugurated in the first week of April. I am pretty sure a month back I read in the newspaper about the starting of the same mall by the first week of March. Looks like India will stick to its name of delaying things either in completion of a project or waiting for someone to inaugurate it.

Many more things have been pending and keeps getting delayed. Another best example is the Bangalore airport project, which was supposed to be completed some time back and dates keep on getting postponed not in days or months but in years. What the main point is that when will India improve on its timings. We keep expecting to go against International countries but with this kind of habit, we may as well take another 20-30 years. The same Indian people working in the other countries are punctual and meet their deadlines on time or in advance. When we come back to good old India things are back to normal.

Things have to change, people have to take responsibilities and then only will life for people improve in image, time and other factors. The Indian President has some great ideas and trys to spread them but what to do, people are ready to listen since he is the President. Once the President is out of the picture, they return to normal and are joyous as they have got there photos taken with such a big personality and forget the main purpose of the visit or the cause.

Authenticity of CVs by Googling

An article in the Times of India March 27th, 2006 talked about people applying for jobs through CVs are now being scrutinised by search engines like Google and Yahoo through their prospective employers. This has come as a concern for job-seekers as many informations which are not related to the work are seen and checked out by the prospective employers and these influence their decision in hiring them. Many people have already been rejected due to this.

The problem is that job-seekers are worried that whatever will pop-up in the search engines will result in deciding their future even if it were true or not. Also their are somethings which are personal to people and should not be taken into consideration while hiring for a job.

Now the employeers are finding this useful as they think that knowing the person better for a job is important and then again while searching one can come across their blogs which give a lot of insight into a person's characteristics. As one person stated, "With google you can check a person's CV, but ofthen you want to find out what makes them tick, dig behind the CV and see whether they will fit culturally withing the organisation."

Rave Magazine

Recently I bought a copy of RAVE Magazine from the news stands. It takes out 10 issues in a year and they have just celebrated their Fourth anniversary. What I found interesting about the magazine was the details about Music, not only international but also Indian music. It sums up about the latest in the market and the upcoming events with whose in the making of new ablums and on on... it goes.

I guess anyone should pick up one copy atleast and check it out yourself to see what it really contains. The price is also pretty okay with Rs 50 per issue. For gaining the knowledge of artists and their albums before buying them, this is a little price to pay. It gives ratings and other information which is what we are really searching for. The best thing I like is the bottom footers on each page which contains 'Soundbyte' that gives interesting info on anyone or anything in one sentence.

Got myself Sketched

I really love sketches of anything as it really looks amazing. It has something more special than photos. If you people have seen Titanic then you will see the amazing hand movements in the making of sketches and those beautiful descriptions of the subject. Not only in the movies, in real life I have seen many people who make amazing sketches but I doubt whether they are given much importance or appreciation which they deserve.

Since it was a Sunday, I dropped by Forum Mall with a friend of mine. There is a sketch machine put up and I got myself snapped by it. The whole process takes hardly 2 minutes. Intially they will take 3 snaps. Before each snap is taken, 5 seconds countdown is given to prepare oneself. There is a gap of another 10 seconds between the next snap. After the 3 snaps are taken, we are given a choice to choose which snap is to be sketched. After this, there is another type of choice which deals with the smoothness or sharpness and also the strokes which are brush or fine. Each type is mentioned after a famous painter like Leonardo and Michelangelo. After this whole process of choosing, there is a minutes time for the printout to pop out. Framing of the sketch is also done.

At the bottom right, name of the artistic type is mentioned. Like in mine Leonardo is signed with the date mentioned as 23.03.06. On the bottom right corner, the logo of the company which owns the machine is mentioned. Not a bad way to have a memory saved in a different format. At one time, people wanted to shift from Black & White to colour, but looks like old things hardly die out. It's a different experience.

Trip to college

Today I made a trip to my college VIT for which I had to leave early from my home to catch a train. Since I had already checked up on the internet that seats were available on the Shatabdi Express leaving Bangalore at 6 am and reaching Katpadi at 9 am, so I left my house early intending on catching a BMTC bus or an auto. Funny as it may sound, I kept waiting from 5 am till 5:30 am in search for a BMTC bus or an auto, neither of which were available. The road on which I was waiting is actually having heavy traffic of buses and autos throughout the day. So it looked like my day wasn't starting of well.

Anyways I did get an auto who was charging me 1.5 times the meter. Since it was way before 6 am I accepted, as if I had a choice due to the scarcity of autos (This is were I keep trying to figure out where are the 1 lakh autos in this city disappearing to). I reached the station around 5:45 am and was happy that I will make it. Now when I stood infornt of the current reservation counter, that was it. A large queue of people waiting for booking ticket or cancelling existing ones. There were 3 trains going to leave in the next 45 minutes. Shatabdi at 6 am, Intercity Exp at 6:15 am and Lalbagh at 6:30 am. Now I was hoping to get my tickets by then. The person sitting at the counter said 'stay in a queue and wait for your turn' which I had to do to get a ticket. The only difference is that I got my ticket at 6:15 am that also for Lalbagh as Shatabdi had left the station as I was waiting for the tickets. I kept guessing that the priority for trains should be given at some point but looks like the person behind the counter just cares about doing his job comfortably without any problems or doesn't care if one misses his train or not. Lucky for me I got one of the last seats on Lalbagh Exp. while Shatabdi had a lot of free seats. The system at some point sucks.

I reached my college at 10 am and finished up my work at the student's records and then met up with some of my juniors. They all were busy with there exams or project reviews. The temperature at the college was soring high. Some things had changed at the college since I had last visited like infrastructure. After all this, I planned to return back to Bangalore by the 4 pm bus. The bus was an A/C Volvo run by a private agency group. The buses are always amazing, well maintained and the roads have improved. The road on which we were travelling is part of the 'Golden Quadrilateral' project so the quality is good, not only that I guess it could be due to the newly built roads. Anyways the journey was comfortable, only thing to find was the amount of vehicles moving on the roads. Large quantities of Trucks were travelling and the process of overtaking keeps occuring frequently.

The bus was able to cover the distance until Hosur town without any interruptions as not much traffic on the roads. This town being just 40 kms from Bangalore is very easy to reach in 45 minutes. When travelling from Hosur to Bangalore usually the trip will be 1 hour due to the major checkpoints for vehicles by the Karnataka Transportation check post. After this when we pass the famous Electronic city which can get the roads to a standstill due to traffic problems can get anyone in 1.5 to 2.5 hours. But today being a saturday was comfortable enough to get through to the town without any jams. I was able to get down at the dropping point and then hired an auto after bargining as all were quoting there own price.

This is how a trip can go by. Sometimes the days are worse than all this. One comes to know about it when you see the person cursing or dead sleeping after arriving. What can one do to improve the system and make it more efficient.

CV Fakers enjoy job for some time

Curriculum Vitae (CV) which is important for any person who wants employment irrespective of their work experience. It is also known as Resume or Biodata. This topic is being brought into the picture only for one reason, that is many people who faked their CV's are paying the price dearly by losing their jobs. Recently Wipro has fired some employees for faking their CV's and also has filed police complaint against several recruitment agencies for helping these employees falsify CV information.

Manipulation of resumes, often in active collaboration with the recruitment agencies and sometimes with the knowledge of the recruitment personnel of the IT companies, is assuming alarming proportions. IBM India recently sacked amny employees for the same reason. Some are said to have worked there for nearly two years. TCS, also facing the same problem has from this year outsourced the entire process of CV verification to a specialised agency.

The main reason for the above problem is due to the huge and fast recruitment process as companies have many projects than they can handle. So the recruitment process has been undermined, enableing people with manipulating CVs to get in. Also recruitment agencies are into this due to the commision they receive on getting a person recruited. Therefore for fast making money they compromise with the situations. The only best solution to stop all this is at the company level where stricter cross checking of CVs are to be undertaken.

Alternative power - Wind Energy

This is another type of energy which is not much publicised due to many factors. The amount of intial investment is very large and also the requirement of wind to flow throughout the year in the same place is very less. Also the cost of maintenance is high as the blades of the windmill is to be really taken care off. Usually installation of these are done on large scale to cut down on the overall costs of the windmill. When many number of such windmills are put then they are known as wind farms. With wind farms, production of power is done on large scale to meet the power demands.

Currently in India those places which have a very good possibility of having winds flowing throughout the year are taken into consideration. Tamil Nadu state is one of the best locations were winds flow throughtout the year. This state produces 60% of the total wind power produced in India. It' s current status is 1600 MW and is planned to increase by double soon. These quantities of power donot contribute much to the national power generation but it is way better than burning that much fossil fuel to gain that energy. Sooner or later better renewable energy will be taken into consideration.

Better ways to perfect and gain more from these wind energies are still underway. Hopefully in the future better solutions can be found for harnessing wind energy. Also lately offshore wind energy farms are being made. These are in experimental stages to check out the after effects of such projects to the surroundings and environment. Example like conditions where ships or boats colliding with the windmills; also effects seen by birds and fishes on these windmills have to be seen and determined. But this could be another future prospect if we are running out of land. Even there is 20-40% more wind energy detected in the sea compared to the land.

Let's see the round about figures for the height of the windmills and blade sizes with the amount of power produced. A Windmill with 3 blades are attached at 120 degrees are taken into consideration. The height of the windmill is from the ground to the center of the blade joints. The following will give the data (these windmills should be set up at good wind flowing locations) :

• Height is 100 feet & blade length is 12 feet. Power 10KW.
• Height is 132 feet & length is 66 feet. Power 500 KW.
• Height is 262 feet & length is 135 feet. Power 1650 KW.

Status of Solar Energy

I was going through an article in 'The Hindu' regarding solar energy. Its main focus was to use solar energy for street lights and also how to use it in homes to cut down on the electric bills and power problems. The main reason about power cuts is that there is an overload somewhere, that is somebody is using excessive power some place. Hence, we ourselves are slightly a reason for the power cuts. So we have to work on the problem.

It is estimated that nearly 5 lakh homes in Bangalore city consume 3 Million units of power everyday between 6 am & 9 am for water heating alone. If just 20% of the households in Bangalore switch to solar energy to heat water, about 150 MW of power will be saved during peak hours everyday. Also 75% of total expenditure of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) goes into keeping streetlights glowing. (Courtesy to Metro Plus, the Hindu, March 20, 2006)

Water heaters are a good investment in a long run. Intially the cost will be heavy than an electric water geyser but then again we need not pay any electric bills for the water heater. The life time of a water heater is also long. So intial investment is everything. In Bangalore itself there are more than 50 companies dealing in solar water heater and will install it in 2 days period. This is just one example.

In many new types of Solar energy experimentation, a solar furnace has been created. But in this instead of Solar cells, concave mirrors are used to divert the sunlight to a single point like pointing to a top of a tower. This way large scale temperatures can be attained. One such example can be seen in France.

This is the future, where we need to use clean source of energy and sunlight is in abundance, so more practical use should be implemented. This way we can meet the demand of power generation that keeps on rising. More things like solar heaters should be implemented for human use.

Patents to bring money to colleges

Stanford university gets $88 million annual royalty for its inventions; Massachusetts Institute of Technology gets a huge royalty from optical mirror technology which alone can run the university for the next 10 years; Oxford has invested 10.7 million pounds in research. In India, despite having more than 250 universities, 800 engineering college and 1300 research and development facilities, IIT's are the only educational practising patenting thoroughtly. (courtesy to Times of India, March 17,2006)

The question here is that in every college there are many students who are capable of inventing or perform amazing research projects. There are many things that stop a student from performing something amazing. One is the college and staff do not support the student in there endeavours and in many cases I have seen sometimes the staff taking the full credit to what the student is performed and sidelining the student.

The second thing is as mentioned in the above article. Not knowing the knowledge of patents and other things. Even if one patent is done to a college in India, it will give popularity to the college and also can get funds for the department and college. The colleges in India should encourage there students and assist them. In the end, it is the name of the college that will gain popularity.

Cognizant's gift to Employees

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) has crossed the $ 1 Billion turnover and for celebrations is gifting there employees. People who have joined before 30th June 2005 will be given Apple Video Ipods which has a capacity of 30GB. The company wants to gift its employees who are mainly in the 20-30 age group a techie gift.

Looks like other companies will have to do some good competion with CTS by providing better bonuses or gifts for their employees. These Ipods are usually costly but since being purchased in a whole set and imported by CTS will be very cheap for the company. With each company providing better perks and services, the competition for better jobs is on full flow.

Bangalore Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls are opening at tremedous rates as they have noticed that current working class people are spending money openly. One of the first malls to be seen in Bangalore is 'Bangalore Central', which opened in 2004. This is situated in the heart of the city on residency Road. Later in the same year another mall opened towards the south of Bangalore which proved to be a success. 'Forum' is situated next to Kormangala which is a host to many IT companies. PVR Cinemas are located in Forum with 11 screens making it India's largest Multiplex. With the success of these malls, many more Mall projects came into the picture.

Garuda Mall on Magrath Road started off at the end of 2005. INOX has 5 screens in the Garuda Mall. Soon after the opening of this mall another mall which is exclusively for Women is the EVA Mall situated on Brigade Road. Also Sigma Mall on Cunnigham road is another mall that recently opened up. With the beginning of this month, another mall exclusively for IT products like softwares, hardwares and computer peripherals opened up on brigade road known simply as IT Mall.

With the huge success seen by malls in bangalore, huge investments are being made to open many more. It is estimated that Bangalore's IT Industry forks out wage bill of nearly Rs 9,000 crore annually on an employee community of 3 lakh-plus (courtesy of Economic Times). The list of other malls that are underway are

• Brigade Metropolis in Whitefield
• Brigade Gateway in Rajajinagar
• Forum Mall [Shantiniketan, Whitefield]
• Sobha Minerva [Minerva Mills]
• G Corp Lido Centre [old Lido Theatre] in Ulsoor
• Galaxy Embassy [old Galaxy Theatre] on Residency Road
• Mantri House [Sarjapur Road]
• Ozone [Factory Outlet, Whitefield]
• Sigma Grand
• Tata Imperial [Old Imperial Theater] off Brigade Road
• Poorva Mall on Old Madras Road

The above list is only of the ones that are under construction. Let's see what else Bangalore holds for the 64 lakh people staying in the city. Atleast people will get to enjoy malls on weekends better as the crowds in any of the malls on the weekends are immense and sometime can really exhaust anyone.

College weather

This post is about the how weather changes around my college, VIT. During my stay for 4 years, the climate had always been pretty hot. But there were times when during the monsoons or winters when one could see amazing things. In the early hours of the day, one can find some awesome scenery which could blow your mind away. I would have not been suprised if I were in a hill station but when I saw the clouds passing through the hills near our college, it was an amazing sight.

During the monsoon months, the showers are sometimes heavy and it is difficult for us to leave the hostels. This sometimes used to be the best reason for not attending classes but the timing is supposed to be correct like raining at the time when we have to leave for class. But that mostly never happened making us attend classes. Worst is when it rained during our classes, we could never get to bunk or get free classes as there was nothing to do. But when it rained during the day time then the nights used to be pleasant so we had good walks around the hostel campus and also enjoyed sleeping comfortable during the nights.

During the summer months, the sun would really make the days tough and drive us into the showers couple of times a day. The temperature could easily go to 40C +. That would really make us tired if we returned to hostel and had to go again to college. During a semester break, who will like to stay in the college and spend there time getting baked, so almost everyone use to go home for vacation.

These pictures which are displayed were taken in the early hours in November. After staying in college during the hot months I never had expected to see this.

Progress on Metro Rail

It's amazing to see the boards put up for the Metro Rail. Traffic was already have a field day when you see boards of Metro on the road. These holes that they have dug up is for soil testing. Anyways hope this project goes on schedule otherwise it could end up like the Bangalore International airport project getting extended without anyones knowledge when its completion is going to be taking place.

Also amazing is the Logo that has been selected after so much competetion. I am still trying to anazlyse that from which angle does the logo tell you that it is Bangalore Metro. It is colourful, could be the Holi effect on it. On the logo the words are "Namma Metro". WOW!!! Now I know what actually the Bangalore Metro should do, they should also rename their name as Bengalooru Metro. If they continue this trend, then I can say that they have been doing a lot of work as they have been busy changing names. First they change the Bangalore Mass Rail Transit Ltd (BMRTL) to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL). So the trend of renaming can go until they really go into working.

The project is a Rs 6200 crore and if not finished on time then the pricetag is going to rise. Why do they need to talk so much, they have a real live example of Delhi Metro and can use the assistance of those people who have gained a lot of experience during the construction of the Delhi Metro. There experiences can really speed up the process of the construction of this Metro. This city desperately needs some sort of rescue from the choking that is building up. The BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) can do as much as they can but still the roads and infrastructure is what the Bangalore authorities have to work on.

Mornings of Peace in BLR

In a city like Bangalore, the mornings are really beautiful. I enjoy it in one way as I have to attend a 7 am class and therefore leave around 6:30 am to catch a bus. There is no traffic jam at this hour and the bus journeys are smooth with regarding to the number of people not the road. The road conditions are as they were but recently have seen an increased amount of road maintainence going on. The bangalore authorities have been quiet busy by putting another layer of tar on the roads. That also on all the inner roads of many areas. Anyways, the roads are peaceful at this hour until after 7 am when the rush begins. The same 30 minute trip when made during the rest of the day can be 50 minutes to an hour and half.

The rest of the day in Bangalore until the night time is as congested as it can be. Also like the recent newspaper article which states that BESCOM is helpless if there is loss of power in areas from 6-9 am and 6-9 pm as they are busy trying to replace transformers which are damaged due to overloads. BESCOM is finding it tough to handle the large power requirements but ofcourse they do love going on diconnection drives in different areas when bills are not paid.

Echo: Sounds of Music

In 2002, when i had entered into my second year of college, Echo took place. It was a symposium in which technical papers were presented. Apart from the hectic paper presentations which started in the morning after breakfast at around 10am would go on till lunch at 1 and then resume at 2 which will then finally end by 5pm. Rest of the time would be for fun. We had food stalls set up so that food can be taken which was atleast not the one in the hostel mess. (What can we do, we got too used to the food!!!) Apart from the food stall would be the Music stall, which had a computer with large speakers connected to the amplifier. The music was being handled by me, but ofcourse at that time the computer belonged to my senior who had let me borrow it. For 3 days I would move the computer to the college campus and start off with the music.

Since my college has many students from diverse regions with different languages, this music stall was very tough to handle. I had the usual English songs to play, apart from that the Hindi, Tamil, Telgu, Malyalam and many other kinds of songs were needed. In this particular system, I had varieties of English, Hindi, Arabic, Malyalam, Telgu but by chance I had no Tamil songs. The songs kept playing throughout the day. The worst moments were when I had seniors who were breathing over my neck just to get there songs to be played. That is when I used to get up, give it to them and walk to the food stall to have some food. During that much time they kept themselves quiet busy trying to play some song or the other but could not make up there mind who should take charge of the keyboard and mouse.

During the duration of 3 days in which I was handling the music stall, I had taken assistance of a friend of mine who knew telgu songs as I only knew about English, Hindi and Arabic songs. Those 3 days became really unbearable at points when a few seniors would try using there authority to play there songs. For me, it was important to handle songs in the sequence of requests which were given first come first serve. This sometimes got the situation heated up.

Apart from this was the Last day factor. The last day or 3rd day will always be a weekend so people had a tendency to spend their evenings at the stall for dancing and eating. So we used to keep a playlist which would contain dance numbers. Some of our college authorities never liked the idea as the dance would go on till late night and ofcourse never enjoyed the gender mixing. Those moments remind me the pressure from various people like the management, then the seniors and last but least the crowd which would be in a full groovy mood. After all this, I still remember that I had to take a complete 1-2 days rest just to get all the loud music out of my head. My ears were hurting as i couldnot hear much and then ofcourse I had lost my voice. That experience was really different as I had to try keeping the crowd happy with the different kind of music with different language which is actually a really pain staking work. Now where would one's life be without the fun of handling pain and problems.

Auto fare hike

Bangalore is supposed to be better than other cities like Chennai or Delhi were Meters on the Auto-Rickshaws or Taxis are not implemented. In those cities, one has to bargin just to get around. Here in Bangalore with the meters running, it is an amazing site, but then again there are bad habits of charging Double meter and other kinds of things on the oddest hour or place. With this happening, I dare think, providing hike on the Auto fares will bring down this kind of behaviour of the Auto drivers.

When it rains, the Auto drivers automatically start charging double meters. When as per rule Double meter are to be charged only between 12 midnight and 6 am. One and half meter after 10 pm until 12 midnight. Rest of the time it is supposed to be simply meter charge.

Another worst kind of behaviour that an auto driver can do is not take you if he is not going that way. In one incident, my friend and myself were trying to hire an auto but it took us more than 15 empty autos to get one that agreed to take us to our destination. Every other Auto said that they are not headed that way so they just drove away. It took me more than 25 minutes to get an Auto that day.

The hike given to these auto-meters which now will be Rs 10 for 1.6 kms and Rs 6/km from 15th March 2006. Naturally it is going to make auto travellers feel slightly heavy on the pocket but atleast hopefully the Auto drivers can now behave little better by being polite enough to pick us up rather than us asking them "If you are going this way, can you just drop us there. Ofcourse if its convenient with you" (What to do, the auto drivers are doing such a big favour to us.)

March Rain

With the starting of this month, Bangalore has seen rain with thunder showers. Till now the rain that has been falling has been sudden and for a short period but heavy. Already into a week in March and we have broken the 25 year record of rain in the same month. With the first rain showing the real Bangalore with potholes and stagnant water has really put pressure on the new government of JDS-BJP coalition.

The sudden showers has brought down the temperatures a little bit which can be a relief to many people as the days had started to heat up. Even if the government is planning on the Metro Rail or the Elevated roads or also the many flyovers, it has to pay attention on the quality of the road and also try making less traffic problems for the people and give some relief to the traffic police. The March rain is not in there control so they have to be well planned for everything. Just hope that Bangalore lives through all this.

Time Flies

It's amazing to notice how time flies. I had written my last post just one week back on Friday when the weekend was beginning. During that weekend I had some ex-collegemates drop by and the weekend went by. At the beginning of the new week, I ended up getting sick with stomach trouble and some temperature. So that day goes by. The next day I am nearly recovered and I had to leave town for some work. I show up on Thursday early morning and am so tired that I sleep through out afternoon. Now I am back on the computer just to find that it's been 1 week since anything had been posted on the blog. What can one say when time can fly so fast.

During my school or college days when exams were flying over my head, time stood so still that I thought I could run faster than the second's hand of the clock. But looking at this week and other things like the time I have spent in Bangalore makes me think whether the second's hand would stop if I glued it to the clock. Probably it will but I guess TIME wouldnot stop. The saying 'TIME and Tide wait for no one' holds truth.

IH T-shirts

Today I will talk to you about how the guys in International Hostel (IH), VIT pulled off a T-Shirt for the hostel. I will also be uploading the pics of the T-shirt. When my batch entered final year, we thought of making a souvenir which would remind us the good times we had in college. So the idea was to make a T-shirt with our own customised designs. We expanded this idea of giving the T-shirt to as many of the IH students possible, be it juniors or ex-seniors.

When some of the guys started to work on the designs, we thought that it would get ready in 2-3 weeks time but then everyone got busy with their final year projects. Some of the guys were doing their projects in Bangalore, some in college and other places depending on the company location. Therefore the design kept on getting prolonged and also kept on getting modified from time to time. We eventually came to the conclusion and gave it for manufacturing. The time it took for making the designs was 6 months. Also the final product which we received from the manufactures took 1 month. So the T-shirts came out in July 2005.

We were really thinking of making the base colour of the T-shirt as black but then again in our college many events were organised and everyone had been using the same base colour. So we went for the white base colour and got the T-shirts bleached. The designs were strictly kept as black and blue which really gave a good effect on the white background. The pic on the top is the front of the T-shirt while the one on the side is for the back of the T-shirt.

The T-shirt contains many designs contributed by many of the guys at the hostel. The motto "Cogito Ergo Sum" is Latin which means "I think, therefore I am". This statement has been taken from René Descartes (1596-1650) who was a noted Philosopher, mathematician & scientist. Also the word 'Revellers' was used due to the merry & party nature of the IH guys. In the center we have the alphabets IH printed in Blue. The year when the T-shirt came out is on the left sleeve 'MMV' which is 2005.

The main thing is that this is a great reminder to all of us about the good times we spend in the hostel. The juniors are planning on taking out another new model for the T-shirt, I am sure they will be able to do better. I would like to say thanks to all the people who were able to make this T-shirt come out.

College Fest - RIVIERA

Today I will talk about an event which I had been part of since the time of its starting. In 2001, when I entered college, my seniors were planning on holding an event which would bring the college together. Since every department kept on having their own conferences and symposiums, it was getting difficult to organise as their attention was more towards their departments. But I still respect my seniors as they pulled off this event which has now become a tradition of our college. This event is held every year since January 2002 and has completed its 5th Anniversary in January 2006. Every year it has performed better and flourished over the period of time.

In January 2002, this 3-day event was held between 17th-19th January. Since I was in first year we were not allowed to organise any event, instead we to assist our seniors who were busy organising. The kind of things that needed to be organised were divided into 15 committees. All the committees were overlooked by the main committee known as the organising committee. This contained a few final years which overlooked the working of the entire fest. They were the main mediums between the management, staff and the committees. Since this was the first time, seniors had a hard time but they were able to organise things like sponsors for the event, get the judges for the event, lighting, sounds, bands for the groups etc. For this particular year we invited the group 'Ideas' to perform in our college. The rock concert was not much fun as we were all asked to be seated in chairs which was unbearable for a rock concert. Fireworks was something our seniors had organised and it really lit the night sky and captivated all of us for those 15 minutes.

As for me in Riviera 2002, I was working for the 'guest care and accommodation' committee. I still remember that around 60 first years were part of this group. Our seniors had assured us that there was not much work in this group, but were proven wrong on D-Day as we were suppose to lift pillows and big carpets of sizes 6X2 metres to 1st-2nd floors. All the guys did some of the work and then disappeared for lunch or tea, never to return. By that much time all the things had been kept in their proper rooms. The other things that really made people run away from this group was escorting the guest college teams to their accomodations from the reception area. The distance to cover is usually 1.5 kms and above, this is not much but for a volunteer in first year who has to make couple of trips up & down to escort couple of teams can make anyone runaway. My chance came when everyone was ready for the rock concert and a group of participating guest college team had shown up at that very moment so everyone was reluctant to go towards the hostel side for their accommodations. I donot think it was the tiredness (which by the way was), but mainly the time wasted in going & returning back. I had performed that task and returned in time to sit along with my hostelmates. Another incident was that during the concert we were suppose to sit quietly on our seats and attend it like some lecture. Imagine sitting for a Rock concert. One of my friends sitting next to me was wearing formals due to a prior function he attended. With the music rocking, he just took out his tie and waved it in the air, for this his ID card was seized and was asked to leave the auditorium. I think rest was history with the concert closing down early. Overall the whole fest was successful giving us a good ahead for the next year.

In 2003 (2nd-4th Jan), I was given the same committee, due to prior experience and I think that could have been my downfall. I was never able to lead any other committee due to the experience in guest care & accommodation otherwise also known as 'hospitality' committee. This year I had a senior heading the committee who also was part of it last year. I had another friend of mine tag along with me for the work. We pulled off the event better than the previous year because we had learned our mistakes. We had asked suppliers of the pillows & carpets to dump it in a room on the ground floor of the hostel. Then we decided to dispatch the pillow and carpet to the guest college directly when they are taken to their accomodation. This way we were able to cut down on the work our students had to do. Also each volunteer escorting a team to the hostel was asked to take leave so they could take a breakby going to their rooms. This way only one trip, one way was made by each volunteer. This really cut down on their fatigue level. The interesting part of guest care is that you get to take care of everyone including chief guest, rock groups and other college students. That year for the rock concert the group was David Pascal & group. Unlike the year before this time the concert was held in the Stadium area but the seating arrangements were still valid. The reason for not letting us loose was that we were considered uncontrollable and could not take care of ourselves. The event went on without a hitch.

In 2004 (8th-10thn Jan), I was to head the committee and ofcourse was given the same guest care & accommodation. The only problems I faced during 2003 & 2004 was the lack of first years as our college had given them a semester break exactly at the time of the fest which really made it difficult for us to get hold of them. It was sheer temptation and participation in a major event which made them stay for the fest. Anyways the number of people I used to keep in my committee for assistance used to drop to anywhere between 40-60% during the event as they were busy seeing the other events or had prior engagements. That year for the rock concert we had the group 'Moksha' and also 'Malgudi Suba' for the musical night event. This time during the rock concert the people were able to dance for 10 minutes before the event ended. This was another successful step for the students.

In 2005 (5th-7th Jan), I had taken control of the same committee for the final time as I was in my final year. This time as i was close with the organising committee, I was able to give my experience I had for the past 4 years for the success of the event. I organised the event and as each time had to face some problems but was able to tackle them with time. This year we had to take care of many groups for the event. We had 'Parikrama' for the rock concert with opening bands of 'Yellow' & 'Vinapra' capturing the moment. Also the musical night was amazing with Shankar Mahadevan singing the songs. Ofcourse this time everyone got to dance the entire show without any problems. I guess 4 years of hard work taking each step did pay off. The event was pulled off beautifully.

I did always have a team of few people who really participated by putting there full efforts. I am sure that I could have never pulled off the event without their help. I take this moment to thank them all. Everyone should understand, to pull off any event you have to take help and always you have to respect others who have put their efforts in it.