Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Post removed

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I removed this post because the originator of the information did not want the information put up on a public website. They were under the impression that I was going to mail it out to people. Apparently, mailing it out is fine, but putting it on a website is not. I don’t understand it, but removing it at their request. Oh well…

A perspective on The Indian Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006

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Government of India - Lion Capital of IndiaOne of our favorite Pune Bloggers, Dhananjay Nene, has written a blog post analysing the the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2006, that was passed by the Indian Parliament last month. He has described the important points of the bill like:

  • Wireless networks are now added to the defintion of computer networks
  • The “hacking a computer system” offense is expanded to include sending and forwarding of material that is offensive, intimidating, etc.
  • Definition of pornography is slightly expanded. (And transmission and publication is an offense, but as far as Dhananjay can make out, consumption of pornography is not an offense.)

But Dhananjay’s main reason for writing the post is the fact that this law is being widely misconstrued and/or misunderstood, and he wants to provide a contrarian view. He points out:

I wasn’t quite sure how to react to blog posts like “India Sleepwalks To Total Surveillance“. However I really can’t respect the way the bill has been represented. Some of the bold statements in the post say, “Thou shall not author a joke. Not even forward one”, “Thou shall not surf Bollywood news” and ” Thou shall not watch porn”. I really could not find any evidence to support such views whatsoever. The sad part is that such posts get picked up in articles like Blogger Writes from Inside the Newest Police State on the Planet, discussions such as slashdot – India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society and tweets such as these. I have spent about 6 years in US, and the remainder in India. I have always been very happy with the freedoms I have received in India, even though I do know that very unfortunately a small proportion of the population does get victimised or harassed due to the stringent laws from time to time. I won’t be surprised if a substantial proportion of Indian Citizens actually support the clauses against pornography. And finally the draft bill has been under discussion since 2006 so I couldn’t understand how the world’s largest democracy sleepwalked into something (though I am certain this and another bill got completely fast tracked after the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks). The fact of the matter is that this has always been a state of stringent laws, with laws which don’t always agree fully with the western world. I think we should rate our laws based on our aspirations and desires. While I shudder at the privileges the government has in terms of eavesdropping, I am quite ambivalent on the strictures against pornography and greatly welcome the enhancements related to electronic signatures and increased accountability in terms of online communication and network security maintenance. Its really a mixed bag in my opinion. If at all India is to be considered a police state as in some opinions, in my opinion it is certainly not because of this bill.

Read his whole article to understand this important development in detail.

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PuneTech’s 11 most popular articles/pages of the year

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Pune TechnologyThe end of the year is time for resolutions, introspection and top-10 lists. We too got swept up in the wave, and here is our top-11 list of the most popular articles on PuneTech in the last year. PuneTech started on 6th March, 2008 and at that time, we were not sure of what directions it will take, and whether we’ll be able to sustain or grow it. It has exceeded our expectations in terms of impact and interesting new directions. But we have been a little disappointed with the amount of community-contributed content – most of the content is still put up by just one or two people – I was hoping that there would be at least 10 people contributing regularly by now. If you would like to contribute articles to PuneTech, please get in touch with us.

In any case, here are the most popular pages on PuneTech as measured by the number of people who viewed them:

  1. Building Eka, the world’s fastest privately funded supercomputer: This was one of the first articles I wrote, and has hit the #1 spot because it got picked up by slashdot. I’m fairly proud of the fact that my server survived the slashdotting without going down or even slowing down. The related page announcing this event, and the PuneTech wiki page for CRL managed to get other spots on this list due to spillover traffic, but since they are pretty much the same, I’ve not included it in the list.
  2. The PuneTech Blog main page: Not surprisingly, the main page – which essentially holds the PuneTech blog – is the second most visited page on PuneTech.  I would still prefer that people subscribe to PuneTech instead of visiting the main page – that way, there’s less chance of missing any articles.
  3. The PuneTech wiki: This page is unfortunately a distant third – I was hoping that over time this would become the “main page”, but we are still some way away from that. The problem partially is that it doesn’t get much prominence on the main page. Also, the content there needs some work. Amit Paranjape is working on a new improved categorized list of companies to spruce up the wiki, so expect more prominence for it in this year.
  4. About PuneTech: Have you read that page? If not, maybe you should look at it, to get an idea of the how any why of PuneTech.
  5. Categorized List of Companies on the wiki: While this is very far from where it should be, it is still a useful resource – and expect it to become better. Please note, you too can add your company to this list. It’s easy and free.
  6. The list of all company overview articles on the PuneTech blog: The PuneTech blog has categorized listing pages that you can browse by clicking on the “More Links” bar at the top.
  7. Badmash.tv: Pune-based Animation Studio: To be frank, I have no idea why this one is so high up on the list. In any case, animation is a hot and happening area for tech in Pune, and I am hoping that one of these days, someone will write an nice in-depth article on this area, covering the important technologies, companies and organizations in Pune in this area. Anyone up for the challenge?
  8. Vision for Pune – 2015: Specific projects – This page, and the companion article giving the broader, longer-term Vision for Pune was written by Anupam Saraph, CIO of Pune, at the insistence of PuneTech. I’m glad to report Anupam has found some collaborators for some of these projects due to the appearance of these articles and at least one pilot project is under way already.
  9. Data Leakage Prevention overview: While it might not be obvious from this list, overview articles like this one, which introduce our readers to a new technology area are some of our most popular articles – and they do form a bulk of the #11 to #20 on the most popular list. One of my favorite such articles is the overview of SCM, (which is not on the list possibly because it is “too young”). I’m hoping for more such articles this year. Look out for overviews of CAD, CAM, CAE, life sciences, animation, etc. Suggest your own areas for an overview like this. Or best, write one such article.
  10. Narendra Karmarkar’s recent research: Karmarkar revolutionized linear programming by his Interior Point Method. After this, he worked on a new architecture for supercomputing, based on concepts from projective geometry. Currently, he is based in Pune and is synthesizing these concepts with some new ideas he calls sculpturing free space (a non-linear analogue of what has has popularly been described as folding the perfect corner). This approach allows him to extend this work to the physical design of machines. This article on PuneTech and the corresponding PDF represent the first public disclosure of his new ideas.
  11. Category:Events: I had to extend this list to 11 instead of 10 because I could bear to leave out the events page. PuneTech has easily become the most comprehensive source of information about interesting technology events happening in the city. There are various different ways in which you can keep track. All tech events that we find interesting are added to the PuneTech calendar. You can subscribe to the RSS feed or email alerts. Additionally, we’ve found that people prefer to be reminded of events by SMS, hence we’ve started the (free) PuneTech SMS reminder service. And, of course, if you are aware of an event that is not listed, please let us know.

There is much more in store for 2009, so stay tuned.

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Govt. of India’s Technopreneur Promotion Programme

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Yesterday, Dr. A.S. Rao, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was in Pune, to meet with innovators of Pune and talk to them about DSIR’s Technopreneur Promotion Programme. This was immediately after NASSCOM’s innovation awards roadshow (liveblogged by Manas Garg (part 1, part 2)).

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) is a part of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and has a mandate to carry out the activities relating to indigenous technology promotion, development, utilization and transfer. The primary endeavour of DSIR is to promote R&D by the industries, support a larger cross section of small and medium industrial units to develop state-of-the art globally competitive technologies of high commercial potential, catalyze faster commercialization of lab-scale R&D, enhance the share of technology intensive exports in overall exports, strengthen industrial consultancy & technology management capabilities and establish user friendly information network to facilitate scientific and industrial research in the country.

The Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) TePP along with its network partners provide grants, technical guidance and mentoring to independent innovators to emerge as entrepreneurs by incubating their idea and enterprise in two phases. Till date 250 innovations have been supported. Proposals are now invited on for support in the year 2008-09.

PuneTechies Amit Paranjape (of PuneTech!) and Unmesh Mayekar (of SadakMap) who attended the event sent in the following notes of the meeting for the benefit of PuneTech readers.

Amit writes:

TEPP Program can provide grants upto Rs. 60 Lakhs to entrepreneurs. Note these are ‘grants’. For further details on the application process and other details, please checkout the following website:

http://www.dsir.gov.in/tpdup/tepp/tepp.htm

Also checkout Dr. Rao’s blog that contains a lot of other relevant information regarding the TEPP program.

http://tepp-innovators.blogspot.com/

The TEPP Program does not directly cover software companies (All companies that develop some ‘hardware’ are covered). An exception is made in case of software companies in the ‘Security’ area.

However, TEPP/allied programs can help software entrepreneurs in patents/copyright protection related expenses, upto Rs. 15 Lakhs.

Unmesh adds:

  • Rs. 60 lakhs is given in 2 phases of 15 and 45 (the second phase funds becoming available if the first phase is successful)
  • The process takes from 3 to 6 months. It takes time to prepare the application for the grant. The acceptance rate is low.
  • It helps to have patents. The IP stays with the innovator.
  • There is a students entrepreneur program that funds upto Rs. 75000 for projects.
  • Other tidbits:

Moral of the story: If you are an innovative entrepreneur, check out the TePP. And if you are attending some tech event in Pune, please take notes and send it to us, for the benefit of the larger community.

Do an industry-supported “free” PG Diploma in Systems Programming

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This is the second in PuneTech’s Improving Education series of posts detailing the efforts being taken by people in the tech industry in Pune to give our students a chance at giving their career a solid foundation by acquiring skills that are valued in the industry with guidance from experienced mentors from the industry. The first in the series was Techstart.in, a program to nurture the passions of students by guiding them to implement specific, and interesting projects. Today we cover KQInfoTech’s idea of having a Post Graduate Diploma in Systems Programming where the students don’t actually pay for the course, but end up being funded by industry in return for completing projects.

KQInfoTech was started by Anurag Agarwal and Anand Mitra, both of whom chucked high-paying jobs in the industry because they felt that there was a desperate need to work on the quality of students that is being churned out by our colleges. For the last year or so, they have been trying various experiements in education, at the engineering college level. All their experiments are based on one basic premise: students’ ability to pay should not be a deterrent – in other words, the offerings should be free for the students; KQInfoTech focuses on finding alternative ways to pay for the costs of running the course. Their latest offering is the KQInfoTech PG Diploma in Systems programming which they explain thus:

This PG Diploma is for the people looking for making a career in the system programming.

It is a program in the “Gurukul” tradition of education. There are two unique features to this program :

  • Cost: Your education does not depend on your capacity to pay. This course is effectively free. Your education gets paid by your work during this program.
  • Work experience: You are also getting real industry work experience during your education. During this course, you will get one year worth industry experience.

Does working in Linux Kernel, writing device drivers for Unix and Windows, writing system level programs that interacts closely with operating system interests you? But you don’t have the right skill set for this.

KQInfotech is lead by people who have spent decades working in the area of file system, kernel programming, Linux kernel etc. They are ready to educate you in “Art of System Programming”. Are you ready for all the hard and interesting work required?

It is a unique post graduate program of one year, which would provide you education as well as work experience. This program will cover Unix internals, Linux kernel programming, Multi-threading, Windows internals, Writing device drivers etc.
1. Industry Experience

Experience gained working on live industry project is more important than just theory based education. Two third of this program’s duration will be spent on real industry project as interns. Beside gaining industry experience, internship makes this program free for participants.
2. Course Details

Experience of Unix or System Programming is not a pre-requisite for the course.

The course is divided into three broad areas namely Unix internals, Linux Kernel and Windows System programming. To cement the concepts candidate will have to submit a month long project or thesis in each area. Whole course is divided into a number of modules. These modules are:

  • Introduction of Unix
  • Advance system programming in Unix
  • Rapid development tools
  • POSIX multi threading
  • Linux Kernel internals
  • Linux device driver development
  • WinAPI
  • Windows device driver development

Each module will be covered over a duration of 4 to 6 weeks and each project will run for 4 weeks.The program stresses on imparting knowledge through practicals and hence more than 50% of the time will be spent on programming.

3. Eligibility

Participants with following qualifications can apply for this course.

  • BCS, or BSc with Computer Science
  • MCS/MCA final year students
  • BE in any field
  • People with industry experience

4. Selection Process

Candidates will be selected on the basis of a written technical and aptitude test, followed by a technical and personal interview. Syllabus for technical test contains :

  • C programming language
  • Data structure and algorithms
  • Operating system concepts

Entrance exam will be held on 20th Jan at 10:00 AM. Duration of exam will be 2 hours.

Diploma course will start from 2nd Feb.

Next batch will start from 3rd Aug. Corresponding entrance exam will be held on 20th July.
5. Logistics

It is an intense program with 12 hours of daily commitment for one year. One third of that time would be training and the rest will be internship.

There will be security deposit of 10,000/- (Ten thousand) rupees for this course. On completion of this course, deposit will be returned to the participant. Every participant needs to have a laptop for this course, participant can bring their own laptop, or we can arrange one for them for a security deposit of 25,000/- (Twenty five thousand). At the end of the course, the participant can return the laptop to get back the deposit.

6. Placement

Market for system programming is huge. There are a large number of companies looking for people with these skills. Symantec, Symphony, Calsoft, Persistent, Marvell, KPIT, Wipro, Infosys are to name few of them.

We will provide placement assistance to all participants.

The website for this course is here. For more details on Anurag and Anand’s background see the about us page on KQInfoTech.

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How is the Indian IT industry handling the recession – facts and figures from NASSCOM

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Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, and President of NASSCOM, gave a talk last week about how the Indian IT/ITES industry is tackling the recession. It was full of facts and figures about the state of the industry, and the initiatives that are being taken by NASSCOM. This talk was given during the IndicThreads conference on Java technologies. I’ve already included this in my overall report on the IndicThreads Conference, but thought that it was interesting enough and important enough to warrant a post on its own.

The basic point he made was that we are not going to affected as badly as the rest of the world because of the following reasons:

  • We had already been tightening the belt for almost an year now, so we are in much better shape to handle the recession than those who weren’t being so prudent
  • We are creating new products, tackling new verticals, and focusing on end-to-end service (and these claims were all backed by facts and figures), and this diversification and added value makes us resilient

And he spent a lot of time pointing out that to do even better, or primary focus needs to be the tier 2 / tier 3 cities, 43 of which have been identified by NASSCOM and whose developement will get some attention. Also, our tier 2 / tier 3 colleges are sub-par and a lot of work is needed to improve the quality of students graduating from there. NASSCOM has started a number of initiatives to tackle this problem.

His full presentation with a whole bunch of interesting graphs, facts and figures from NASSCOM is here. Definitely worth checking out.

Why you should be on Twitter – and how best to use it

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This weekend, at Barcamp Pune 5, I gave a presentation targeted towards people who are new to Twitter, or who do not see what the hype is all about. The presentation went into the reasons why people find Twitter so useful and why it’s considered to be the next best thing after email. I also gave tips and tricks on how to use twitter effectively.

You can view the presentation online via slideshare:

Why you should use Twitter, and how best to use it.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: twitter convince)

or you can download it in your favourite format: PDF, Powerpoint 2007, Powerpoint 97-2003. Please feel free to download it, forward it to your friends, especially the ones whom you want to convince to start using twitter.

The 10 industry trends programmers need to understand -Anand Deshpande

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Anand Deshpande, CEO of Persistent, gave this keynote address last week during the IndicThreads conference on Java technologies. I’ve already included this in my overall report on the IndicThreads Conference, but thought that it was interesting enough and important enough to warrant a post on its own. The basic thrust of his talk was that often, programmers just think about their programs and disregard what is going on in the industry outside. Having this perspective is important, and keeping track of important industry trends will improve you technically. The top trends he identified are:

  1. Multicore chips, and why programmers need to worry about them
  2. Mobile Telephony: the desktop/laptop is no longer the primary target device for programmers. Think about the mobile users, and how what they want is different from the traditional PC users
  3. Cloud and SaaS: is coming in a big way, and will change the way people use software. Also, it makes life easier for users, but much more difficult for programmers. So need to improve skills in these areas
  4. Web 2.0 and Social Networking: these are exciting new fields with a lot of growth. They require a different kind of programming mindset.
  5. Rich Internet Applications: Similar to above
  6. Large Volumes of Diverse Data (including BI and analytics)
  7. Open source is on the rise. As programmers, you must have a good understanding of various open source licenses
  8. Gaming and Entertainment boom: Too many programmers think of only corporate world & green monitors etc. Think different. E.g. Gaming and entertainment are large markets and require a different mindset to come up with new ideas in these fields.
  9. Green IT: Instead of worrying about speed and efficiency, for the first time, worrying about power consumption has started affecting programmers
  10. Be a part of the community. Give back. Do open source. Join CSI ACM. IEEE. (and I would like to add contribute to PuneTech)

His full presentation is here.

Calling all open-source product development companies

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Browne and Mohan, a global consulting firm is attempting a maiden research study on Open Source Product Development companies from India. So if you are aware of a company that develops some open source product (or offering open-source based productized offerings like SaaS) please get in touch with Browne and Mohan (ganapathy@browneandmohan.com or trmadanmohan@gmail.com). Please note, the report will be free to share and remix for all future studies and references. Also, this study is not supported by any vendors and all the costs are completely borne by Browne & Mohan only.

Sounds like a useful study, and the fact that the results will be made freely available (as in beer and as in speech) makes it a good effort to support. Also, a strong participation from Pune-based companies will benefit Pune’s visibility. So please participate, encourage others to participate, and forward this to your friends.

Additionally, we at PuneTech would love to feature such interesting companies and technologies on PuneTech – so get in touch with us too.

Here are more details of the Browne and Mohan study from TR Madan Mohan:

Open source products are a reflection of maturity of entrepreneurship and innovation in an economy. Understanding the status of open source product companies, their offerings, the challenges they are facing and how they are responding to the larger economic turmoil is important. Moreover, it is unfortunate the attention of media, researchers and analysts covering India is predominantly focussed on software services only. Little is known or published about the Open source products from India. Towards filling up this gap, Browne & Mohan, a global consulting firm is attempting a maiden research study on Open Source Product Development companies from India. The objective of the study is to highlight their product, the strategies adopted, growth options for these companies in international markets etc. Based on the extensive study, a report shall be released through a Creative Commons License. Hence, the report shall be free to share and remix for all future studies and references. Pl. note this study is not supported by any vendors and all the costs are completely borne by Browne & Mohan only. We expect the report and subsequent coverage benefit the Open Source Product Companies directly and the larger cause of innovation from India indirectly. A copy of the report shall also be sent to Punetech members.

We request Punetech members support and encouragement for this endeavor. ny company that has an open source product (those offering productised services such as SaaS) are the targeted audiences. Pl. forward the details of the companies you are aware of, including the email id’s of key contacts and help us speard the reach. Thank you for your support. Pl. forward the information to ganapathy@browneandmohan.com or mail to trmadanmohan@gmail.com

Thanking you in advance:

TR Madan Mohan

About Browne & Mohan

Browne & Mohan is a management consulting firm that employs integrated approaches to solve client issues. Browne existed as an independent consulting company till February 2008 registered in Toronto and keeping in with the growth of new partners it was rechristened as Browne & Mohan in March 2008. With offices in India, Dubai, USA, Canada and Singapore, we bring together multi-cultural expertise and best practices across countries, industries and verticals. With backgrounds in management, finance, KPO, legal, medicine, our consultants work in an environment which nurtures creative analysis and integrated approach to issues. Browne & Mohan team consists of thought leaders, industry experts and experiences professionals drawn from different industries. We pride in attracting entrepreneurial professionals who not only can “think out of a box”, but “walk the talk” driving the implementation. Indian arm of Browne & Mohan consists of former academic who had taught at prestigious Indian Institute of Management, consulting professionals, investment banking professionals, and heads of analytical research of large multinational companies. for more details see, http://www.browneandmohan.com.

Tech User Groups / Communities / Mailing lists in Pune

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This is information about various technology-oriented groups and organizations in Pune. As Gireendra Kasmalkar advises getting involved in communities like this is an important factor in your success. So, pick one (or more) and get involved!

If you are aware of an active tech group in Pune that is not on this list, let us know and we’ll add it.

And of course, in this list, don’t forget PuneTech, your one stop shop for all information about interesting technology in Pune: events, news, companies, technologies, and people. Subscribe now for updates by email or via RSS. If the information isn’t already there in the PuneTech wiki, then ask us and well try to find it for you.