Celebration time. My son, Udit, selected to represent India in Int'l Olympiad in Informatics (IoI) next month. This is the most prestigious school level programming contest in the world. He narrowly missed for last 2 years. Was
#5
in India in 2018 and in 2019 for a 4-member team.
Three years ago, I found out about every Indian medal winner of IOI since its beginning. While a few studied in CMI, IIITH and IITs, the largest numbers studied in MIT and NUS and a few in places like UCLA. A majority went on to do PhD from top universities.
It is official now. Udit has won a Silver Medal in International Olympiad in Informatics 2020, held online last week. Everyone in the Indian team has won a medal - 2 Silver and 2 Bronze. This is the 4th time India has had this performance. We got 2+2 in 2005, 2010 and 2016.
The problem of engg edu in India is not lack of industry interaction, but lack of integrity. Students cheat in assignments. Faculty do not evaluate honestly. Regulatory bodies encourage that behavior by considering student failure to indicate poor quality
So sad. And this is not an isolated case. I know of others who have done exactly the same mistake as is being claimed by this student. The key problem here is interfaces and processes designed by privileged people for privileged people.
@i_sudeepa
MS in US is an immigration degree. Locals don't need it (except for change of career). Skill upgradation has largely shifted to online courses. Universities understand that they are not providing education but enabling 3-year OTP. And they charge heavily for it.
My latest blog. How does a hard working school student get into the habit of copying every assignment/project in an engineering college.
(There are a lot of posts on this on X, and I decided to put all ideas in one place rather than 10s of tweets.)
More than 200 videos on deep learning by a faculty of
@jklujaipur
Kshitiz Verma did his BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from
@IITKanpur
before pursuing his MS and PhD from abroad. It is his mission to make deep learning accessible to masses.
@AngadDaryani
Ethics is a big problem with Indian education. In my career, I have interviewed thousands of BTech/CSE graduates from top colleges and almost everyone has admitted that they copied most programming assignments in all courses throughout 4 years.
It happened with
@airindia
at Delhi airport. My aunt had booked a wheel chair. At the entry, they asked if she can walk some steps. She could. So they suggested that she takes wheelchair after checkin as there was a shortage of the same. She being a kind soul, agreed.
Researchers from Stanford released a database of top 2 percent scientists in the world on 16th October.
The database has about 1.6 lakh scientists.
Less than 1% of these (about 1500) are from India.
And in that one percent is Rashmi Sanghi, my wife.
Conduct JEE Mains October end. No JEE Advanced. IITs should use Mains. Students join colleges in 2nd sem around 1st Jan. Use a couple of summers to graduate in time. Will help college teachers with reduced load this sem.
Replugging old blog:
@AngadDaryani
My advice to students: Every semester, choose one course that you enjoy the most. Do all assignments and projects honestly in just that one course. Hope this will encourage you to be honest in all courses next semester, but even if not, you would learn more than most students.
There have been several reports saying that there aren't many IITians in ISRO. There is an accusation that IITians only want high paying MNC jobs. I show in my blog that this is not the reality.
My blog on my son's journey with programming. The main takeaway for parents and students:
Start programming early. At the end of 10th class, if doing so well that you qualify for admission in IIITH/CMI/IIITD, then you may decide to not worry about JEE.
My son reached training camp stage for IOI four times, getting into team India twice, and won Silver medal both times. He also reached training camp stage for Maths. Didn't take JEE, joined NUS which attracts the largest number of IOI medal winners from around the world.
Lots of people have still not decided their engineering college, and some have decided but are not happy with their choices. Well, here is an updated version of my old blog on how to choose an engineering college.
Coffee with Director. Mahima graduated with BTech in Civil Engineering from
@_PECChandigarh
this year. Joining Indian Army as Technical Officer. We exchanged stories of our respective SSB experiences. PEC wishes her a great career ahead.
#missingstudents
#pecalumni
On World WiFi Day, I am recollecting my experiences when we first started working with WiFi at
@IITKanpur
. Not in terms of research, but learning about our society, our people and the hugely privileged life that we lead.
#WorldWiFiDay
Surabhi is now a graduate.
As a parent, I thank faculty and founders of
@AshokaUniv
. Because of Ashoka, today she has a keen understanding and appreciation for our history and heritage. My blog on her journey:
@razumikhin888
@ANI
It is interesting story. Air Vice Marshal Harjinder Singh had actually predicted in 1960 that there will be war with China and we won't be able to use Air Force since we didn't have enough maintenance engineers. He was a PEC alum and approached PEC to start Aeronautical program.
We at
@_PECChandigarh
decided to award Pass/Fail grades to all final year UG students in 8th semester based on their performance in continuous evaluation till mid-March. Top (majority) students pass. Some students asked to complete an online course and then pass.
Once again,
@_T1duS
was part of Team India for International Olympiad in Informatics this year. And once again, he has bagged a Silver medal.
A Proud father.
During my brief visit to the Washington area, I met with my PhD. supervisor, Prof. Ashok Agrawala, after many years. During the couple of hours we spent at his palatial house, he had so many new research ideas to share.
Swayam Sevika: The bot for supplying food and medicines to patients in Covid wards. Built by students and faculty of
@_PECChandigarh
with help from doctors at GMCH-32.
Farewell by students.
They had made a beautiful collage of photographs of last two years and gifted that to me. Students are the biggest strength of
@_PECChandigarh
We have signed an MoU with Alliance Francaise Chandigarh to teach French to our BTech students in online mode. It will be treated as a credit course.
Learning never stops at
@_PECChandigarh
, not even during Covid times.
There are likely to be lesser jobs this year. If you haven't been learning new things while staying at home for the last two months, blame yourself and not Covid, and not Economy. My blog:
Our 4th year UG students started receiving their provisional degree and transcripts this week. Sad for no farewell, no celebrations, no award ceremony, and not sure of convocation. But we will organize an alum get-together for your batch when it is safe to do so.
@_PECChandigarh
7 students of
@jklujaipur
are spending a semester at
@iitgn
. We encourage our students to explore the world by spending a semester elsewhere not just for projects but for courses, to rub shoulders with the best students, to experience different cultures, and make new friends.
@AngadDaryani
Not getting employment because of market conditions is one thing, but not getting a job because the industry feels that they don't even know the basics should never happen. But industry reports have said in the past that most graduates are unemployable.
Meeting my former colleagues. Joydeep Dutta is a professor of Economic Sciences at
@IITKanpur
. Somitra Sanadhya is a professor of Computer Science at
@iitjodhpur
. Both are here because respective wards have taken admission in
@jklujaipur
.
Lots of people have written about the Institutes of Eminence this week. Let me add to the noise. I don't think it is going to make any difference to anyone. But I must voice my opinion.
A lot of newspapers have picked up the story on more Indians traveling by air than by AC classes in trains. None of them have asked the most basic question: How many by air and how many by trains. This is the level of journalism in this country.
I am dismayed when people tell me that students are our customers. I think education is not a transactional business but is a lifelong relationship between the alum and the alma mater.
My blog on "Study in India":
If we really want to understand why foreigners don't want to study in India, the easiest way to find out is to understand why Indians don't want to study in India.
It was always Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore. In the last 10 years, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad have caught up. But beyond metros, the city that has attracted the maximum funding for startups is Jaipur.
Yes, Jaipur is fast becoming a startup hub in India, as per an Inc42 report
Which engineering college to study in. Look for flexibility in curriculum. Don't join college (even IIT) if they put restrictions on how many students can do a "minor." You don't know what you may like after you join. Flexibility is important. My blog:
In the new year, I look forward to a new challenge, new role, new geography. No resolutions or goals. Just a wish that I improve myself and do better tomorrow than yesterday.
When you round off or truncate an integer, it becomes a real number -- This is as per the order of Madras High Court.
I, of course, beg to disagree in my blog.
On one hand, we keep complaining about poor financial state of our academic institutions. On the other hand, we run programs which consume a lot of resources, and have no commensurate benefit to the society.
After 56 years of efforts to become an IIT, and we were shortlisted by Central Government about 15 years ago to be one, we are changing our focus to rebuilding
@_PECChandigarh
We are not against online exams, but against exams with no proctoring, lots of cheating. Some folks ask me, why does
@_PECChandigarh
think itself as special. If so many universities are conducting exams without proctoring, why not us. Well, we are not them, and they are not us.
Those who had finished education were working in top research labs or FAANG companies. It was obvious to me that these were a bunch of smartest kids. But when I shared this data with colleagues in different IITs, their view was that JEE selects even better students.
A team from
@_PECChandigarh
led by Prof. Rajesh Bhatia has developed a database of Indian academics abroad. The database was released on
#nationalscienceday2021
by Minister S&T.
Party thrown by Jalotes. Pankaj Jalote, the founding director of IIIT Delhi, was first my teacher, then a guide, then a colleague, became a friend and a role model. It was good to meet several folks who had earlier lived on the IIT Kanpur campus.
A great move by Government. I hope they allow outright donations to educational institutions.
@_PECChandigarh
would be happy to work with any company who wants to support R&D at PEC.
We welcome Manushi Gupta to
@jklujaipur
as faculty of Mathematics. Submitted PhD at IIT (BHU). Excellent research record. Experience of collaborating with engineering faculty.
#jklu
In our times, it was said that continuous evaluation was good to keep stress low since every evaluation has small weight. Now, apparently fewer exams are considered better from stress perspective.
First major university to decide no classes next semester. Lots of univs have been saying they are evaluating all options. Can we in India open our universities in August given that our infection spread is much lower than US.
The chancellor of the California State University system told the board of trustees that the risks were too great for the more than 480,000 undergraduates enrolled to return to campus in the fall. Classes will continue virtually, as they have since March.
The oldest alum to attend
#Homecoming2020
of
@_PECChandigarh
, Shri Bikram Singh Grewal, a 1943 graduate from our Lahore campus. It happened to be his 97th birthday too. He could recognize some 1960s alums in the gathering who had worked under him. We pray for his long life.
OK, here’s the answer. There are four ways that location of a phone can be identified/tracked even if Cellular Data, Location and WiFi are switched off. The following analysis is for
@Android
as I don't have iPhone but it could as well be true for iOS (one has to deep dive).(1/N)
Sports facilities at PEC are very good. All outdoor facilities becoming flood lit. Our sports teams compete and win in several inter-collegiate competitions. Education in
@_PECChandigarh
is not just listening to lectures, but a whole lot more.
Completed two years at
@jklujaipur
today. A very satisfying time. We have recruited great faculty, our student body is fantastic, and that is reflected in internships/placements/start-ups/higher education, etc. Hope that we will keep improving every year.
Koffee with Kuvelker is one of the most awaited session of any convention. This year's guest is Mr. Sadanand, who was associated with Konkan Railways from the day the survey started. He started at the daily wage of Rs 30 per day.
@irfcaconv
App of
@IndiGo6E
claims no convenience fee if ticket is booked on app. But it is charging when I reach the payment point. Their chatbot tells me there is no convenience fee. Their live chat agent initially says there is no fee, but later says, perhaps there is. False advertising.
JEE Mains should be postponed. But don't do all 10 sessions within a week. Do it over the next 10 weeks. Will take care of almost everyone's objections.
My blog:
Tributes to the first Indian origin woman in space
#kalpanachawla
on her death anniversary. The woman who inspired millions of girls to dream big and fly high... you will be remembered forever.
@FinancialTimes
PwC Australia will on Monday release a report which recommends a tighter partnership between industry and government to address future skills needs with "micro-credentials". OpenLearning is leading this Micro Credentials!!
He has shown that if a farmer uses just as much water as is needed to maintain the ideal moisture level in soil, the water usage for rice cultivation can be reduced by half without compromising on yield. One can use sensors to measure moisture level.
IITB had then started admissions for some of the toppers in Maths Olympiad, but the campus treated them as backdoor entries and placed several restrictions on them.
Congratulations, Riddhima, an alumna of
@_PECChandigarh
, for being successful in UPSC Civil Services exam with a rank of 74. I am sure your career will make us proud.
"The
#COVID19
curve is relatively flat as of now. If we work collectively, peak may not come, but if we fail, then we may see a spike in cases," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the Health Ministry.
Looking for engineering admission?
Taken JEE Mains in 2020 or 2021 (Jan/Feb)?
If your score is 80%ile plus, read the scholarship scheme at
@jklujaipur
and if your score is 90%ile plus, you may get free education all 4 years, including hostels.
I think some Indian university will start offering a hybrid model of higher education (combining online and on-campus) as soon as regulatory hurdles are removed.
My blog:
Should a government institute prefer IIT PhDs over NIT PhDs in the shortlisting process - a controversy initiated by Prof. Rao, VC of BITS Pilani. My blog on same. A bit long, but if you are interested in faculty recruitment, you may enjoy it.