Students’ Newspaper Indian Institute of Space science and Technology

01 March 2012 . Volume 2 Issue 4 . 16 Pages

moremoreQuizzing06 The QC champions are giving away

their quizzing trade secrets here

featurefeature

Vyom all set for launchLong awaited sounding rocket finally ready for take-off

10

Sound of Music07 An all encompassing view of the

evolution of the music scene in IIST over the years

n & m's food guide14 Our in house culinary enthusiasts re-

view the handful of eateries in the city

Valiamala: The IIST Sound-ing Rocket, Vyom is all set to launch on March 14th. So, we decided to bump it up from our Page 2 Echoes section where it has been languishing for most of the previous issues to the Page 1 Cover story. We take you through the timeline of this project from its beginning at IIST’s old campus at ATF, Veli to the scheduled launch at TERLS on March 14th 2012. The IIST Sounding Rocket project had a not-so-humble beginning in IIST’s ATF cam-pus about two and a half years back. Under the expert guid-ance of Dr. B.N. Suresh, Former Director,IIST, Dr.K.N.Ninan, Emeritus Professor, IIST and a team of experts from VSSC including Shri Somnath.S, Pro-ject Director, GSLV-MKIII, about fifty students from the first two batches of Asia’s first

space institute set out to build the first student-made Sound-ing Rocket in the country.

Preliminary studies were car-ried out by the seven sub teams though not very smoothly with some people getting fired from the team and some more leav-ing on their own. Soon, it was time for the first PDR, also known as Preliminary Design Review, which is essentially a big meeting with big people. Following the first PDR, the team realised that their prelim-inary design was very academic in nature and could not fly. The team also discovered that the initial acceleration of the rock-et was not supposed to be 3-4g but 13-14g. Following it, sum-mer internships in critical areas of propulsion and structures were done to understand the ‘Rocket Science’ where after,

.For internal circulation only.

Chai Time16 The Crossword is back

An exclusive interview with the di-rector of IIST, Dr. K.S.Dasgupta.

The Vyom motor static test

news02 news

Editorial BoardThe Sounding Rocket

Shashank STanveer AliAnkesh MishraSiddharth SrivastavaPrabodh KattiSourajit DebnathNavjot Singh

02the grain design was optimized and performance parameters predict-ed for VYOM. It was also decided that the struc-ture of Vyom would be closely built around the RH200 (Read as Rohini 200, where 200 is the diameter in ‘mm’) sounding rocket.

The payload team came up with an innova-tive idea of using a mobile trans-mitter as the payload in the rocket which would lead to significant in-crease in savings. However the idea was rejected for reasons not dis-closed to us. Not deterred by this, Dinesh Dhankar and GauravYadav from the class of 2011 went ahead and won the Mahindra Satyam Young Engineer Award with the same idea.

Shri Bhagvathiappan, Head, RSMD at VSSC helped the team immense-ly in the realisation of the motor design and Shri VKS Panicker, As-sociate Project Director (APD),

ATVP helped in the payload re-alisation along with scientists and engineers from all other divisions

in VSSC. VYOM’s Payload essen-tially measures the forces on the rocket with its 3-axis accelerom-eter. ATVP (Advanced Technol-ogy Vehicle Project) at TERLS will be handling the launch and other activities related to Vyom with PD Shri Ratnakar Rao being extremely helpful to the SRP Team. The same division launches ISRO’s sounding rockets.

Next, they had the PDR 2 which was extremely successful when compared to the PDR 1 and the propulsion system design was fro-

zen. Orders for manufacturing the ‘mandrels’ and ‘nozzle thermal liners’ were placed with compa-

nies from Chen-nai, Pune and Hyderabad. Due to certain delays in the realisa-tion, Umang Rathi (Class of 2011) had to literally carry the Mandrels from Chennai to Pune in a train. Meanwhile, students from the 2009 batch were inducted into the team.

June 2011 saw the first static test of the motor and to the joy of the team, the perfor-mance was found to be as predict-ed. This was followed by a series of

A part of the team behind the flying sounding rocket

editor@thesoundingrocket.org

static tests in the latter half of 2011. Riding high on the success of these static tests and PDR-3 in September, the team went to the Range Safety committee in VSSC pre-maturely and as Gagan Agrawal from the Sys-tems team puts it, were promptly tossed out.

The past few days in Feb-ruary have been really eventful with a windfall of committees in VSSC with the VYOM design and realized hardware fi-nally getting the ‘thumb up’ from LVDRT Mission Com-mittee headed by Dr V. Adimurthy, AD, VSSC. When this issue was

going to press, the date finalized for launch was Wednesday, March

14th 2012. We have also been in-formed that there are plans to in-vite the entire institute to TERLS

for the launch, followed by a press conference at IIST. A launch cam-

paign is planned but de-tails are still sketchy.

Vyom, will be the first sounding rocket to be launched by students in India. IIST’s closeness with ISRO does put it at an unfair advantage over other colleges in this regard. However, we would like to give our heartiest congratula-tions to the team behind Vyom and wish them all the success, even though

they refused to give us pictures of the rocket saying it was classified. y

echoes

news 03

T10 Cricket LeagueA cricket league was held among the staff and faculty with six teams from transport, admin, faculty, canteen ser-vices, lab tutors and CMD. The Trans fighters won the league after trumping CMD challengers in the finals.

Konchords 5The fifth edition of Konchords was held on 24th February. It introduced a dy-namic visual background (read as pro-jector screen), gap fillers and a silent audience for the first time. Konchords also saw two debut performances from the first-years.IIST's most famous ban, "Reverb" played their original composition, "Tum Kab Aaoge"We have received information that Konchords 6 is scheduled on the 6th of April.

Reprographics FacilityA new reprographics facility was inaugrated on 24th Feb-ruary by the director. It has a state-of-the-art Xerox repro-graphics machine, which the students can use for taking printouts/photostats of more than 25 copies. It is a paid fa-cility with charges of Re.1 per page. A colour machine is also slated to arrive by next semes-ter. This issue of TSR was print-ed here.

NAAC visitA team from NAAC (National Assess-ment and Accreditation Council) is scheduled to visit IIST in the next few months.

Accreditation from NAAC is a three part process consisting of the prepa-ration and submission of a self-study report by the unit of assessment. Once completed and published, an on-site visit of the peer team for validation of the self-study report is done with recommendations of the assessment. Lastly, the final decision is made by the Executive Committee of the NAAC.

-With inputs from Gagan Agrawal

Sports DayThe annual sports day of IIST will be held on March 10th. For the first time, the sports day will feature online reg-istrations. A total of 32 events will be held and the venue is now University stadium, Palayam.

New Badminton CourtA new outdoor badminton court has almost been complet-ed in front of H7 (Rohini). This is in addition to the already ex-isting indoor badminton court in D2 (physical sciences block).

opinion04

We study in a college which unargua-bly provides best facilities to its under-graduates than any other government funded college of India at the cheap-est possible price (in fact at virtually zero cost). And like every other insti-tute, this one too has its pluses and its minuses. As usual, no one cares about the plus points; it is the minuses which raise eye-brows. So let us discuss one of them.

The present procedure of buying the books using the book grant that IIST provides is not only lengthy and time consuming, but clumsy as well, and hence is a big pain in the neck. Setting up a “Campus Book Shop” or CBS for short was always a better idea, but how it must work, what guidelines are to be followed for the delivery of books, well seems like either no one gave much thought to it or they are there just on paper!

To buy any book you don't have to go anywhere outside the campus. That is the best part of the CBS and prob-ably the only good part. The problem is that on an average they take more than a month to get one book. As a consequence, you have to go to CBS innumerable times to check if your book has arrived.

I personally don't feel that reimburse-ment wasn't a better system than the existing one! When I overheard some-one saying that the institute has start-ed this because they wanted to keep an eye on the kind of books that students are buying using the money from the book grant I cannot help but wonder if it was really the reason, for this very

thing was present in the previous sys-tem as well. Though you could buy books on your own, you were eligible for the reimbursement only if your book list has been approved by any faculty with his/her sign and stamp af-fixed. You were also required to have proper bills. I fail to see how the new system helps in keeping more “eyes” on the purchase, for the two processes are virtually same, with only differ-ence being that it takes more time to get a book now and in some cases the discount is just 20% (whereas some other online book shops (read as flip-kart) offers more than 35% discount on the same book of same edition).

Despite several complaints and sug-gestions the Campus Book Shop peo-ple don't seem to care. I feel this is because the market is monopolized in the campus thanks to the CBS be-ing the only option available to the students. No matter how and in what time they supply the books, they know that with the reimbursement option closed for students, they are the only one who can sell books to the stu-dents.

I would like to propose a different sys-tem and let the readers decide if this would be better and more efficient than the existing one!

The thing is that IIST anyway has to allocate INR 3000 to the account of every student's book grant. So begin with opening an account in any bank under the name of student book grant and deposit the total sum to be allo-cated to the students in that account for that semester. Now, in the college

find a room and a person, and install a PC in that room containing the data-base having the book grants details of every student of IIST.

Now suppose I want to buy a book, all that I will be needed to do is to get the book grant form and have it approved by a faculty. Then the student can ap-proach the person sitting in that room and show him/her my book list. All that that person needs to do is to buy those books on line from any website of either college's choice or mine (does this really matter? The money in book grant fund is my money, why should the college be worried about which place I am buying the books from? Af-ter all, I myself would have searched for the best deal available) and pay for the cost of the book from that bank account and put the purchase under my name. In 4-5 days, the student will have his/her book.

Apart from these benefits, there are other spin-offs of following this pro-cedure. Students need not run around the campus, as the present system requires them to do, once to get the form, then to get it signed by a faculty, then to the Administrative office to get their seal, then to CBS to submit the form, then at least 5 times to CBS to inquire if the book has arrived, then once the book arrives again to the Ad-ministrative office to get the coupon (exactly between 1140-1300) and then finally to the CBS to get the books! It is not only a lengthy and time consum-ing process, but also a clumsy one.

I think it is high time that institute should give a thought to this problem.

Book Shopping on CampusAhmad Ryan laments on the problems plaguing the book grant system and pro-

poses a solution to it.

Editor’s note: When we received this article, the editorial team decided to conduct an online poll on the lead time on books ordered from the cam-

pus bookshop. The opinion of the au-thor of the above article was reflected in the result of the poll. 7 percent of the voters never received their books

and the orders had to be cancelled and 12 percent of the voters had to wait more than a month for their books to arrive. Not a single voter received their

random 05book in less than a week. Please note that most online retailers like Flipkart, Crossword and Indiaplaza guarantee delivery in 3-4 working days. Mostly the average in the poll seemed to be around 3 weeks. Aakash Sane, a fi-nal year student received books with Flipkart stickers at the back. In what seems to be an isolated incident, Pra-chi Agarwal, a third year student re-

ceived her thirteen book order in eight days.

An alternative method which is cur-rently in place but is little known to the students is as follows. A student can buy the books online and can get the bills countersigned by the con-cerned faculty. The countersigned bills can be handed over at the office for re-

imbursement. The only catch here is that a student needs a letter from the bookshop certifying that they are un-able to procure the said book within a reasonable time period. y

IIST- a Memed UniversityA witty take on the meme fever that has gripped IIST

bySIDDARTH SRIVASTAVA

Not long ago, while killing time on fa-cebook, every once in a while people stumbled onto some random IIT Tips and wished someone made a page for IIST too. They could connect to most of the IIT Tips, and though everyone knew the spicy potential the concept of “IIST Tips” held, no one actually did gather the courage (or whatever is required) to make a page and update it with genuinely witty, funny stuff at least daily.

And one fine day, we woke up, and there it was, adoring our walls. IIST Tip #1 was the mother of all tips which could possibly be given at IIST, and the response clearly reflected the public opinion. Then the level dwin-dled and so did the response. IIST Tips seemingly ran out of ideas and all that was left was random, mean-ingless rant. If one believes in the myth that a non-IISTian made the facebook page, the dwindling would seem only logical. But then, the page says “True tips by a true IISTian“ (suspicious, “ALIENS”); and most of us do believe in IIST Tips.

How did the Tips originate? We at IIST like to believe the father of all tips series was IIT Tips. But a certain friend of mine who stormed into the room and saw me writing this claims that Bong Tips and Gujju Tips are the founding fathers. Doesn’t matter if the guy running IIT Tips is studying

in some phoren college, if you Google IIT tips, all you get is ‘Tips to crack JEE’ (as if we need that). So, we will never know for sure, what came first.

Facebook has become the new “Let’s meet downstairs” and the new “Let’s have a meeting”. From ‘C-12 Publicity Team’ to ‘Earth Observation Minor’, there is a group for everything. No wonder, just like daily life, little, fiery battles are fought here too. One ex-ample would be the disappearance of the whole Avionics 2009 Batch group. Wait, is it back? Let me check. Whoa, another IIST Tip? And did it just try to make fun of the IIST Memes page? One does not simply make fun of IIST Memes.

IIST Memes page, not as mysteri-ous as the Tips page, is the outcome of all of the second half of 2011. This was the time when rage com-ics and memes became virally popu-lar around the world and of course, in IIST due to facebook (Reddit still is the nursing home of rages and memes). The founding father in this case happens to be Stanford Memes, as credited by IITB Memes them-selves. IIST Memes certainly is fun-nier than IIST Tips. But talking about the regularity of this page, the page does not always post a meme, but when it does, it makes sure the meme is funny.

Brace yourselves, the conclusion is about to come. Since we are talking about the internet and free opinion here, the conclusion is very inconclu-sive. Just like the Tips and the Memes, Success Kid

First World Problems

The author can be contacted at ryanmathemagic@gmail.com

random06

The Hitchhiker's Guide to QuizzingPrabodh Katti and Sourajit Debnath, the IIST quizzers who stumped Trivan-

drum quiz veterans let you in on their secretsA strong and generally unshakeable sense of good humour. Don't read TSR without it. After our rather contro-versial second article, we decided to take a break from whining. Something more inclined towards a topic is a re-freshing change.

Human beings have always felt the need to create confrontational pas-times to survive periods of boredom. The Vietnam War, Gulf War (any war waged by the US in the past half cen-tury will do), nuclear testing, shoot-ing at fishermen, the anti-corruption movement, fencing, dueling (the whole gladiator ruckus), chess, Angry Birds, quizzing. Quizzing: we had to arrive there somehow <shrug>. From elation when your wild guess goes right to the moment when you screw things up and plunge into an abyss of lamentation and anguish (zyada bhari ho gaya na?) to excitement when the question to which the answer you know is posed to your neighbouring team, that 'shit yaar' feeling when that team answers it to Eureka moments when you finally remember what the answer is (usually happens in a writ-ten quiz). These are the emotions of an sporting arena, whether you're in the middle or on the sidelines.

Excited yet? If not, please blame it on our writing and not quizzing.

Most people here in IIST reply in the negative when asked to join a quiz. Some of us have bad memories as-sociated with the term. Others say:

"Kuch nahi aata yaar, yaad nahi rahta, bahut dimaag kharch hota hai, Fri-day evening toh relaxation time hai..." Well, quizzing is relaxing. We believe that there is a quizzer in every one of us. In no-pressure situations, that guy shines through us, like when we are watching KBC, "Asia's first space institute...hmmm...wait, I know that one...hmmm...option B, betcha its B. (It was actually C, but no matter.)" If that was not the case, why would 27 million people be glued to TV's watc-ing a reality show without any ma-jor gimmicks (here's looking at you, Roadies and Bigg Boss) where a celeb-rity quizzes an ordinary person? You may say it's because we identify with that aam aadmi. But, probably, that's not the whole reason. It's because we feel the excitement of the show, of the quizzing.

So, (you ARE still there?) are you con-vinced yet there is a quizzer in you? If no, just take a leap of faith, and con-tinue.

Is quizzing only for those who possess a very high level of intelligence? Obvi-ously not( we are doing it). Although you do need to be up to date with the latest news, so use the Internet for something other than those down-loads and social networking (LAN play included). And, if you have in the habit of spending more than 20 min-utes with a newspaper every day, be-lieve me, you are an ultimate quizzer (note: Sudoku, Calvin and Hobbes and, more often than not, Page 3, are

not counted). But, on the other hand, quizzing does not necessarily mean just mugging up trivia and crazy facts and blurting them out at opportune moments. Well-thought guesses do go a long way. Use your brains.

If you live your life on Facebook (don't lie, we know you do), quizzing groups and circles (if you're a Google+ per-son) are a great way to pass time, practise a wee bit, and whet your ap-petite for quizzing in general, and it's also a more socially acceptable way to kill time since stalking other people's timelines and sending random friend requests is not really nice (plus, it may get your account blocked). You could start with the Official QC of IIST.

And if you do have a life outside, apart from lecture hours, practical hours, eating and sleeping, do pay IIST QC a visit. It's an open club and anyone can participate. All you need is a pen (most times, the organisers are kind enough to provide that too, but don't count on it) and a partner. Members often take part in quizzes outside and have established QC as a prominent entity in the Trivandrum circuit. Con-scientia '12 is organising Techwhiz and the prize money is enticing.

Happy Quizzing!

P.S. The prodigal aunty is on holiday. She's bad at quizzing. y

this article too serves only one pur-pose, entertainment which is easy to connect to. And if someone does not like what they see, they are free to come up with a retort, it’s internet af-

ter all. The retort and the wars waged thus on, give more and more of enter-tainment. The success of memes, rage comics and internet in general lies in the fact that anyone can do it, and they

can do it whatever way they like. y

The author can be contacted at templar@thesoundingrocket.org

The author can be contacted at dsourajit@thesoundingrocket.org

opinion 07The Sound of MusicA guitarist discusses the musical scene in IIST

bySIDDARTH SRIVASTAVA

“Without music, life would be a mis-take”

I am pretty sure that the person who said this was not born in India. With days dedicated primarily for singing and the various fam-ily gatherings which turn out to be social torture for children having even a mildly good voice, staying away from music is im-possible.

Since the day I was born, I re-member people singing to the confused child in the cradle, who would either laugh or cry to the amazement of all. What else could he do? Then this lit-tle baby grew up, learnt to recite some songs for the pleasure of his neighbours and family mem-bers. One of these songs was the reason he worked his way to school, where he encoun-tered an especially vicious mu-sic teacher, and a world of music filled with bonnie and peanuts. High school meant dividing music into different genres (al-though frankly, the usage of this word came to me much later). And then he entered college.

Music in college is more like a semes-ter thing. Everyone’s taste grows with every semester. And with so many friends from so many different parts and cultures, the music vocabulary was sure to increase. Now I can appre-ciate music from different regions, and from totally disjointed genres. Music became an inseparable part of life, so much so that now I am considering the Bangalore option for the job as it is the centre of all major band activities in India.

Back in our old ATF campus, we had a music room and some instruments. The music club was like an under-

ground group of some people, who would meet in the room just to be there. But then time passed and things started to improve. The pro-nite at Dhanak was a major boost to our own music scene and much more people started to show interest.

Recently, with the formalisation of music club and with events like Kon-chords becoming permanent, our col-lege is all set for a musical renovation. The club has a lot of ideas and is just waiting to implement them. We have a temporary room for all our practice sessions, but with the construction of SAC, we might have a permanent

room housing all our requirements. We even held a small audition for first years, to make them formal members of the club. This process would help in

the better utilisation of the musi-cal instruments.

The college has been very support-ive of our efforts so far, purchas-ing new instruments, and getting

the old ones repaired. Many of our professors are taking the club and its activities very seri-ously and thereby nurturing its growth. Though many are still unaware of Konchords, they want the musical scene in the college to grow.

Various shows and perfor-mances have inspired many of the students to take up new instruments and start playing. Especially the performance by

Dr. G. Rajesh on IIST day was the one event that turned many peo-ple into aficionados than all other performances combined.

We hope to turn IIST into a place where art and science shall grow to-gether, and like a fairy tale, live happily ever after. And one day when people start appreciating music for all its in-tricacies and complexities they will re-alise that music is nothing but love in search of a word; you just have to find an inspiration.

And the night shall be filled with music,And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the ArabsAnd as silently steal away.

-HW Longfellow y

Photograph

by vaibhav m

athur

The author can be contacted at templar@thesoundingrocket.org

news08

It was a little over a month in the new semester, the fifth batch of IISTians had become all comfy in the campus and everyone had set into the their jam-packed schedules. Yes, I am talk-ing about last semester. Every time I set out for the academic blocks from my room, I would pass the canteen and would see groups of students streaming out of the canteen onto the road to D4. In every group, people could be seen enjoy-ing ice-creams or cold drinks or chips or chocolates. And then, after a lot of loud and cheerful (sadly, many a times I could not understand the conversations due to my lin-guistic limitations) talk and adlibbing, suddenly, one of the students in the group would uncaringly swing his arm to the side and fling a soda can away.

On the road, on the roadside, in the roadside drainage, and where not? I could see cans, cans and only soda cans after a while. Something had to be done about this. So I asked the people who I knew would be ready to help any day. Sid-dharth, Arvind, Jaswanth and I set out on what we called the first “Stud Drive” in honour of the studs who threw these cans away. We started picking up only cans thrown around the cam-pus at 6 am, and were done in about 2 hours. We were unable to count the number of cans. You can get an idea of the quantity if we tell you that they could more than fill a large dust bin (the one most commonly found here) easily. We did the next week too, and I made a facebook page about the

drives.

The number of likes crossed hun-dred in two days and the next week, we had more than 10 people for the drive. So effectively, we expanded. Now, ILS picks up everything lying on the ground which is not supposed to be there. Canteen, undoubtedly is the worst affected area.

Why not spread awareness? Well, you cannot tell the “best brains” of the country what to do and what not to, can you? And apparently, this is India, yahaan sab chalta hai, kisi ko koi fark nahi padta hai. No one cares. Which is very true. My initial intention was to keep ILS out of any kind of atten-tion as all of us do this voluntarily. But

then isn’t everything, in IIST? It cer-tainly cannot continue like this, where a handful of people clean up the mess left around by hundreds. And moreo-ver, there are no students from 1st year in ILS. Apparently, they do not know such a thing exists.

Given my observation that there are more people who than those who

don’t, I have two messages:

For the studs:Feel ashamed! And since the article doesn’t make any dif-ference to you, even being stopped on the road by a sen-ior or a fellow shouldn’t. They won’t do much. They’ll just ask you to go back, pick the litter up and throw it in the bin.

For the sensible lot:You should be the one stop-ping the studs. Feel free to humiliate them (at your own risk). They probably deserve it. And if you are willing to wake up at 6 on a weekend, go to www.facebook.com/iistls and check out what we do. If you like what you see, bring a polybag and join the ragpickers on any Saturday (after Conscientia), in front of Dhanistha Hostel, at 6 in the

morning. We can always use some help.

This is our campus after all. It being under construction does not give us a licence to litter it or shudder away from our responsibility of keeping it clean. y

random08

The "collection" after a Stud Drive

IIST's Litter-ary SocietyNot to be confused with IIST's non-existent literary society

byANKESH MISHRA

The author can be contacted at kukkur@thesoundingrocket.org

news 09news

Dr. R. Krishnan retiresValiamala: Dr. R. Krishnan, the recently retired Dean of Academics, was one of the few members who has wit-nessed IIST since the day of its inception. A part of the initial administration, he was presented with the chal-lenging task of preparing the entire academic struc-ture from scratch. And the smooth functioning for the past five years, with only mi-nor changes to the curriculum,

is proof enough of his excellence in it. Before he was appointed as

the Dean in IIST, he was the director of Advanced Data Research Institute (ADRIN). He has also served at the NRSA and is regarded as one of the foremost specialists in image processing and remote sensing.

On behalf of all our readers, we wish you a happy retired life. y

QC-Fixion (The quizzing festival)Thiruvananthapuram: QC, the Quiz Club of IIST held its 2nd annual quizzing bonanza QC-FIXION this month. Renowned quizmaster Prof P Vijayakumar (formerly HoD Eng-lish at Government Women’s College, Thiruvananthapu-ram), conducted the quiz which was held at YMCA Hall near Statue in the city. Along with the club, Publicity team of Conscientia 2012 too played a crucial role in organising the quiz. Partici-pants from over 10 colleges attended the quiz, and a few school-going fans of IIST too turned up.

The main quiz started after a pre-liminary written round which elimi-nated all but six teams. After break-ing the initial tie between the four

teams in the first quarter of the quiz, IIST’s team maintained a constant lead throughout the competition and emerged victorious. The new face of QC, IIST’s team had both its

members from the first year: Soura-jit Debnath and Praboth Katti. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd runner ups were NIT-C, MIC and CET respectively. The winners received prizes worth `4,000 while the runner ups got priz-

es worth `3,000 and `2,000. The quiz was conducted without any hassles in the presence of Dr. C. S. Shaiju-mon, QC’s Faculty Advisor.

This quiz, alongwith the General Quiz conducted during Dhanak 2011 has put IIST in Trivandrum’s quizzing circle, which has very much fulfilled the purpose of QC. It must be mentioned that QC was formed in March 2009 by 2007 batch stu-dent Vijith Mukundan (currently working in VSSC) and two then freshers. The club has conducted over 50 week-

ly quizzes and has hosted all the quizzes (except astronomy quizzes which are organised by the Astronomy Club) in various fests of the institute. It has over 80 regis-tered members and a strong alumni base. y

The quizmaster telling his "name and address" to the audience

interview10The man at the helm, researched

After a hiatus on interviews, TSR interviews the head of the institute, Dr. K.S.Dasgupta. In this interview, he speaks about the academics, his penchant for research and a host of other things.

TSR: How has your transition from a scientist to an academic been?

Dr. K.S.Dasgupta (KSD): To become a good scientist, you have to understand the fundamentals thoroughly. Scientist without academics cannot survive. In my case, I was not only interested to design things but also to understand how the thing works. From the very beginning, I was involved with lot of students, projects and in universities in and around Gujarat. I also had a lot of Ph.D. students. So, in that process, I had to learn besides teaching them. I considered my job not only as a scientist but also a propagator of the subject. You know when you lead a team; you have to work with the team. You cannot be a boss. Here, when we give an order, you also should understand that it may not be possible. The projects we do in ISRO are not written in a book. Many innovations are required. And sometimes, in the projects of communication for example, we create problems for ourselves. We create challenges that keep us motivated. Sometimes I ask you questions. The purpose of that is not to understand how much you don’t know. The purpose is that if I make you know that these are the areas that you have to study. It is good enough for me. So, really speaking, it is not a great transition except that I have shifted my place from Ahmedabad to Trivandrum and now, I am more with

the students. There is something called the half-life of an engineer. Now-a-days, in my view, if you don’t read or anybody doesn’t read, within six months, his life will be half. That means you will not be useable to the society. You cannot contribute. I think it is true for you also. But, if you think that after joining ISRO,

I got 9 CGPA and I will not study. It is not correct. Because, what you are getting is only the exposure. When you work in an institute, you go in depth. Now, you don’t have time to go in depth. The reason is that you have to score marks, exams, time schedules, everything is there. But, there you may go for one particular topic and go much deeper. So, if anybody is in R&D, academics have to be there. Otherwise, one cannot survive. For me, I was reading earlier also. Now also I am reading. Only difference is I have more contact with the young students.

TSR: What differences do you find when you compare your college life to the life you see on campus now?

KSD: I tell you, you are very privileged. My college life was much different from yours. I don’t envy you people. But, I enjoy seeing the facilities that you have. Really speaking, the institute

from where I have done my post-graduation did not have very powerful computers. Your laptop today is more powerful that the desktops back then. I remember when I was doing my post-graduate in computer science; I had to go to IIT-Kharagpur to run a program. Those days IBM 1620 was available. It was a IBM machine. We used to discuss whether the memory should be 64 KB or 124 KB. Now-a-days you people may laugh at us. But, there was a difference between today’s thing and our thing. Today’s thing, for you it’s a black box. If something goes wrong, either you

interview 11will replace it or you will exchange it. But, in our case, we used to work with the computer. For whatever hardware, we used to design we used to write the program in assembly language. Sometimes, we used to write program in the machine code, which some of you may not be willing to do or you may not know such a thing exists. It is something like this, I may speak in English, but when you exchange your things with the mother tongue, you get much more feeling about that. Work in those days was much more thrilling and challenging. But, it was sometimes frustrating also. Here, you have enough facilities and flexibility, but, sometimes you skip the obvious. In that respect, if I ask one of the avionics people what are the internal details of a computer, they won’t be able to say. If I ask how a mouse works, fundamental parts of it, somebody may not be able to tell. So, to get closer to the hardware means, you should be very close to programming in assembly language. It was time consuming. Today, Matlab is there. It is such a beautiful tool. If you have a new concept, you can immediately test it. Visualisation is a great thing, but those days, you had to write a program in FORTRAN or C, and then, you will get lost whether the display part is correct or the graphics is wrong. So, definitely you people are very privileged. But, when you have such big machines with such huge powers, you should also try to understand slightly as to how internally it is designed. Not that you have to be a designer, but, you should atleast know how the basic blocks looks like. Some people may think of it as trivial. But they are not trivial. They provide you a better understanding of your fundamentals thus helping you develop better and faster things.

TSR: The alumni as well as the current fourth years are very eager to know when the first IIST convocation will take place. Your comments?

KSD: We are really working on it.

TSR: There were echoes of some disappointments among the alumni with the selection procedure for centres and projects. Will this bring about any changes in it this time?

KSD: Once you are recruited in a

particular centre, it is the prerogative of the centre director to put you into different places. So, we have no role to play. But, one thing I can tell you having spent so many years in ISRO, wherever you are, you can learn and you have every opportunity to excel. We have no control. Because, you know, every center has some projects and these projects have some requirements and that requirement is controlled by the project head or group director. Then, director has to deploy the manpower depending on the urgency of the project, depending upon the criticality of the project, depending upon the complexity of the project. So, it is his prerogative in which I think, director of IIST has no role to play. Some projects may be very innovative; some may not be that much innovative. But, it is not the end of the tunnel. You have forty years of life available and you will have a lot of opportunities. If they know that you are capable, then they will definitely put you into a better project. So, in the first year, you have to project yourself, prove yourself and see that you are respected not because of your marks, but because of your sincerity and contribution.

TSR: The Procedure will remain the same?

KSD: The posting procedure will be exactly the same as last year. Depending on the marks and your choice, we don’t come into the picture at all. Because, you know, it is a very democratic process. You have earned your marks and you should go for that.

TSR: Is there any news about the number of seats in different centres?

KSD: Right now, no. But, we will know soon enough. We will know before your exam finishes.

TSR: You are known as a person who encourages research activities. What is your motivation behind it?

KSD: See, in my view, any institute cannot survive with only an undergraduate program. Undergraduate program is to teach bright young students on the fundamentals. Now, when the students of an undergraduate program have to do a project, there are two possibilities. One is to do a very theoretical project

or to do a very run-of-the mill kind of a project. But, if there is a research, it will give a lot of live problems. And those problems in some form can be passed on to the undergraduate student. In that, what happens, they get the thrill. They get motivated in solving a new problem. Faculty is happy because it ultimately becomes a publication thing. So, the student gets benefited, the faculty gets benefited and the research community gets benefitted. And the second thing is if I have a research like this, then the lab develops. And if the lab develops, then the students, undergraduate as well as postgraduate, can use that lab. If it is an undergraduate lab, you cannot expect beyond a particular point. If it is a research lab, a lot of extra features will be there which some of the bright students can exploit. For any institute, there should be an under-graduate stream, a post-graduate stream and a research stream. I feel that without research, neither the faculty learns, nor the students get benefitted. And another thing is, if you want to retain good faculty, you have to have a research. For every faculty, their main thing is research, which is supplemented by the undergraduate teaching. If it is only teaching, we will not get the best faculty. Fortunately, for us, we have the best faculty with a very good background. And so, I am a firm believer that research should be the lifeline of an institute. And if research is good, then I assure you that labs will be good, students will be motivated and faculty will be interested and that will run the whole show.

TSR: Internships are a prime part of learning. IIT’s and NIT’s encourage students to secure internships in India as well as abroad. This practice is not in place in IIST. What is your opinion on this?

KSD: It is partially in place in IIST. Our people went to USRA but, last year it could not be done because they were not ready to take our students. But, we are working on it. Similarly, Caltech also, we are trying our best to see that we get the necessary clearance. It will be a reality. Maybe not today, but after 6 months or so. Regarding internships, IITs and NITs are compelled to send students outside. But, we send it to ISRO and when you send them to ISRO, the purpose is you

interview12rub shoulders with working scientists and engineers and you learn from them. You get the latest technique and also the problems and also you can do a small amount of contribution into that. If I am correct, all undergraduate projects in IIT is residential. That means they don’t go out. Why it is so, because it is sandwiched with other courses. But, here we don’t have that thing. So, that way we are a little different. Now, what we are trying to see is that our faculty number is quite high now and so, we are trying to have some projects here and some projects in ISRO. But that does not mean that we discourage projects in other institutes. One of your seniors has done a project in IIT. We have no objection to it.

TSR: We were enquiring about internships sir, not projects.

KSD: Summer internships, you see, there is a big rush from other institutes to come to ISRO to get an internship. Now, here, our own people are giving that opportunity and you have to exploit it. Someone may take a letter from a private company for your internships and that private company may not do justice for you internship

TSR: What about MNC’s like Boeing, Airbus etc.?

KSD: But, the point here is if there is a case one or two like that, one can always examine it. We have not closed that option once for all. But, you know the problem is like this. If I open it up, then whether it is Boeing or Bosch or a small company, how to stop it. Then, what will happen is you have to do a lot of explanation on that. As on today, our ISRO projects are quite challenging. When do you go for outside ISRO. When you don’t have any challenges in ISRO. We have enough challenges in ISRO as well as here. You know now every faculty has a research program. So, you may contribute in that. So, why is it required in other places? It is required because you are creating an opportunity to get a better job or an understanding to your employer so that at some point you may join there. What is the purpose of an internship? It is to get an industrial experience. You should be self-reliant and you should be confident enough to handle the real life

problem. Now, in this situation when you are in ISRO, you get a feel for the work they do there and it will aid you in choosing your centre

TSR: Teachers in IIST must be having contacts in the industry who can help the students in securing internships.

KSD: But, I tell you, these big companies don’t take students unless as a management trainee because they are busy in their time-schedule and management that they don’t spend time. When I was a student, I went to Phillips, but, they did not help out and that is the reason I always help the young students who come for their project in ISRO. I go out of my way to help them. We have enough opportunities here. When our opportunities are exhausted, we will open them up. No issue.

TSR: What about Government companies like HAL, DRDO, ADA etc?

KSD: See, the main purpose of sending you to ISRO is that you get to know your employer. When you go to a centre for you internship, you know what is the work being done there and you will know if it matches with your interest. This helps in making an informed choice while choosing your centre. That is the purpose of it. This opportunity will be missed if you don’t go for an internship in an ISRO centre.

TSR: Will there be any increase in number of students sent to USRA and Caltech?

KSD: To tell you the truth, my first job is to see that the five students we have sent, we should be able to send the same number again. And Caltech thing is very fixed. The topper has to go for this one. The number of students strength cannot be increased now.

TSR: What about EADS?

KSD: There were talks. We have to re-initiate it. But, if an opportunity comes up, we will do it.

TSR: A section of the students have a feeling that GPA and academics are the only things which are given importance here. What is your view on this?

KSD: GPA and academics are important but what is more important is the understanding of the subject thoroughly. You are all really bright students. Our selection is like 500:1. This year we have 1,22,000 people who are appearing for ISAT, out of which we will be taking 150 students. So, that’s a ratio of nearly 700:1. So, definitely you are the cream. But, you know what happens. Clearing IIT-JEE exam or the ISAT exam is just one game. You have to make a balance. I am not saying that you should know the subject and get a bad CGPA, because a good CGPA is also required after all, your selection or choice is based on CGPA. So, you have to make a trade-off between these two. Because, if you are very good at the solving certain problems but, in real life you are not able to be more useful and you may not be able contribute. Now, why are we doing internships and projects? You must have seen the person who is not doing that well in academics does an excellent performance in project. The reason is he/she likes it and he contributes. But, it should be a mix-and match.

TSR: Shouldn’t all this be included in the selection criteria? Performance in projects, internships, co-curricular activities, sports etc. should be included?

KSD: I have a question. Do you think all of you will agree to add this to the selection criteria? The reason is some of you may not agree. Some of you may agree. Because, when we put you in this institute, it was on the basis of a merit. Merit is something nobody can question. Any other thing you do, people may question. What you are saying may be logical, but it may not be logical for everybody.

TSR: Generally companies have Group Discussions, Interviews etc. before taking new entrants.

KSD: You are very fortunate that written test is not done and viva is not done for you guys while recruiting you to ISRO. I myself have set some questions for it. There you know, the screening test is very tough and viva is equally tough. That viva should be similar to our comprehensive viva-voce in a right spirit. You know, we are just beginning.

interview 13Not that all these procedures are rigid. If we see that things need to be changed, we will change. Time will tell us whether we should change. You tell me why we should not change if it helps the students. You should allow the system to be stabilized for some time and then you can do experimentation on it. Merit is one thing. Now, suppose I include the other things in the procedure. Question comes up what weightage do I give to the components. A person who is very bookish may say “No, you have to give maximum weightage to CGPA”. Then, you know there will be some sort of a

disturbance in the system. So, let us see and decide later.

TSR: How was the present system arrived upon?

KSD: In IITs, if you are a 10-pointer or a 9-pointer, you go straight to Ph.D. You know why? That is because we believe that a person who has earned this credit is really good. Whether you have earned this credit through actual hard work or not, is very difficult to tell. But, as of today, merit, according to me, is the safest thing. But, if we see

that things are going wrong, we will try to modify it. We will take your feedback on this too. We will be having an alumni cell. We are open for discussion, we are open for debate.

TSR: What are the plans for the Alumni association?

KSD: For the alumni association, I would prefer to call it alumni cell. In fact now, we have the IQAC (Internal Quality Assurance Cell), in which we have put alumni into it. We are concerned about their feedback too. y

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An Appeal

The TSR team does not consist of professional journalists. We are students who have intense academic courses and a CGPA to maintain. Even though we try our very best, pursuing every lead and cross verifying every single fact is a herculean task. In this regard, we would like to appeal to our readers, especially the various council members, to keep us informed of the hap-penings. Drop in a mail to editor@thesoundingrocket.org with the minutes of your council meet-ing to keep us updated.

Also, if you have any comments or complaints on the content published in this newspaper, please mail us and we will get back or contact the Chairman, Publications Council, IIST

Food & FunNavjot & Mohsin’s

Restaurant ReviewsEpisode-5

ARIYA NIVAS

Near Central Railway Station

M:N

Value for money 7:5

Quality of food 7:7

Ambience 6:8

Cost 9:8

*A pure veg restaurant. *Mainly south indian.

Recommendations: Dosas, milk shakesAvoid: Chinese

Ratings

Remarks

NOORIYA

Nedumangad

M:N

Value for money 7:8

Quality of food 7:9

Ambience 5:8

Cost 8:9

*Close by.*Apparently Arabian cuisine

Recommendations: Shawarma, other meat itemsAvoid: Shavaya

Ratings

Remarks

In our endeavour to provide you with information about food choices in and around Trivandrum city, we will pre-sent you with what we feel is the best way to spend your money and gastric

juices.

All numerical ratings are on a scale of 10(10 being impossibly impressive, seeing as we are difficult to please).

Location Location

STATUSsimble

1First Prize

nahi badlega yeh status jab tk 100wi century nahi aa jati sachin ki

2Second PrizeIndian team is like a rock-et...will not fly until tail is on fire!

(After Kohli bashed Malinga in the CB series 2012)

Quotable QuotesQuotes that brought a

smile :)

1. "There is no such thing as 5 minutes"-A frustrated Conscientia coordina-tor

2. "It's all part of the game"-A lab tutor on nicking his finger

3. "Atleast airships don't crash"- An amateur aeromodeller after his first crash.

3Third Prize

Third prize illa(Due to the increase in memes, the status updates have dwin-dled)

14

<< The cartoons displayed are a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person(s), living, dead or IISTian is purely coincidental

(An ardent Sachin fan's status since the last semester)

Chetta po 15

This photograph was taken by Vaibhav Mathur. It won the third place in the photography competition at Mood Indigo 2011, the IIT-B cultural festival.

Camera: Sony DSC W-90F-stop: f/2.8

Exposure time: 1/10 sec.ISO: 400

The cartoons displayed are a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person(s), living, dead or IISTian is purely coincidental

chai-time16Across6. Served over 36 years in ISRO and has a degree in law.

Currently holds two positions in Dept. of Space(9)8. Published in 'Nature' and present Chairman, Technical

Council. Knows UAVs.(6)11. Polymer expert from Kottayam. Former head, Cultural

Council.(9)14. Your signature is not the only signature on your ID card.(6)15. Top expert in Manufacturing. Vast experience.(13)

Down1. First TSR interviewee.(7)2. Former Senior Professor at an IIT. Plays Cricket.(6)3. Voted coolest faculty in IIST.Thanks to his lab, you get the

pictures on the D4 TV.(13)4. Humanities department faculty. Very friendly. Taught Science

fiction.(4)5. Ex IIT-M Assistant Professor. Organized exhibition at

Conscientia 2011. Great at experiments.(5)7. Synonymous with Astronomy. Main faculty member behind

Aparimit, the astronomy section of Conscientia. (3)9. Former employee of Infosys. Ranks just above hostel

warden in heirarchy. (5)10. Faculty incharge of Sensor Networks lab. Part of several

large American Research Projects. (5)12. Former reader in Aerospace dept. Many 2007 and 2008

batch students' favourite. Now on leave for PhD.(7)13. Youdon'twant tobe late tohisclass.Knownforfillingup

entire blackboard which is divided in three parts. Mathematics department faculty.(4)

CROSSWORD