I am back :)

Its been a while since i wrote my last blog..i have been preparing for various mba exams in india and as a result dint find much time:(
but in this same time period, many changes has happened in indians. with larger then life scams i am not really sure what is there in stock for india in the future.

I have been acting against my parents wishes by not going for a masters in US or Europe. There used to be a feeling in me that I have to be among the set of people who should stay back in India and do something for it, its people. But now I have my doubts. It is worth staying in this country? Could I or people like me really do anything?Will this system allow me to do anything? Or should i pack my bags and leave this country for a more peaceful life and thereby keep my parents happy. I see my parents, both government employees, the difficulties they have faced in their jobplace and tend to agree to what they say. i.e. leave this country.

I seriously hope, the government and opposition both at the national level as well as state level mend their ways and bring in the necessary reforms..

India vs China

Can India ever overtake china? can India ever feel all of its billion population? can India make nalanda university an MIT?

Before answering any of these I would like to highlight some of the factors i have considered for comparison!!

Infrastructure!!
Some of the buildings/railway networks that china has built over the years made the world stand up and notice. For example let us take the Tibet-china superfast express ( Qinghai Tibet Train aka the Lhasa Express), In certain parts in this networ, the tracks have been laid over ICE. ya I mean actual ICE!!! It works fine in winter, but summer?? chinese government, keep the ICE in the full length of the railway network frozon! This is the first of its kind, hundreds of kms of ICE kept frozon for almost 4-5 months every year!! Another example I am giving here is the the new buses chinese are planning to introduce by the end of 2011. The buses will be running like trams, 20-22ft above the ground, the two legs of the train being in the two ends of the road!!ya!! and cars can will run underneath this!! this sounds like some scene in James bond movie to me!! But chinese will do this as early as 2011.
Where India stands in comparison? roads that are literally washed away by the first monsoon, power shortage even in major cities like mumbai, bangalore, kolkotta, chennai, hydrabad etc (I am purposely not including Delhi here!! CWG effect :( ), In most of these cities metros are being built right now, there will be atleast a 1000 cases in the court for staying the construction of the metro!! 90% of the railway network in India were laid by the Britishers in 1920s!! post independence, all the expansion work of the rail network was stopped!! Can we boast of any engineering marvel in India?? and for heavens sake please dont tell Taj mahal or any other monument!!

Corruption!!

the punishment that china gives to corrupt officials is death!! India, years in court!! most of the politicians in India would be having accounts in Swiss bank!! They have cini-houses, tv channels etc!!most of the police fellows in India are corrupt!! I need not give any more information on this, we have living examples like the bhopal gas tragedy, boffors scam etc which have stood the test of time, and has not punished a single officer!!

Politics
This has been the only setback in India, most of you may argue that chinese setup may not stand the test of time, but Indian democratic setup will outperform all our competitors on a long run!! my only question is 'really??'

Despite all these, and all our politicians, Myself, being a patriotic citizen of India, believe that there is a way forward, India has the likes of tatas, birlas ambanis and agarwals(vedeanta). I beg the indian government not to bring in politics in between to make these people consider other countries as thier possible future destinations. With three major avoidable incidents in the last decade(Singur and the most recent one of Orissa and Cairn Energy). We have got the best private workforce in the world. These workforce will take India to the next level, perhaps India can be a better country if it becomes a capitalist economy.

India may never overtake china, but India can always try to follow the chinese model. Many of its policies can be studied and implemented in our system. Instead of spending crores in research, India can start adopting some of these strategies and apply in our economy.
The rest can be left to the Indians!! they will take better care :)

The true face of Nehru

Offlate there are lot of political issues that is bothering me as an Indian. Perhaps the most painful one is the kashmir issue. So I wanted to do some background check on why and how did this problem arise!!
In 1946, i.e. before india got independence, congress wanted to elect a president for its party. At that time, there were 16 states in India, out of which 13 states voted for Sardar Vallabhai patel. But gandhi wanted Nehru to be the congress leader for some reason. Patel being a true patriot and a staunch follower of gandhi request of him not being the first prime minister. Now here I am not sure why gandhi did this. Instead Nehru was made the president of congress then. This i would say was the darkest phase of any congress government.
Then once India got independence, nehru was automatically made the first prime minister of India.
Why patel should have been a the first prime minister??? Patel as home minister Patel merged all parts of India under federal control but Jammu and Kashmir was left out because of Nehru.
When the British mission proposed 2 plans 4 transfer of power, there ware considerable opposition within the Congress to both. The plan of 16May 1946 proposed a loose federation wid extensive provincial autonomy, and the 'grouping' of provinces based on religious-majority. The plan of 16 June 1946 proposed the partition of India on religious lines, with over 600 princely states free to choose between independence or accession to either dominion. The League approved both plans, while the Congress flatly rejected the 16 June proposal. Gandhi criticized the 16 May proposal as being inherently divisive, but Patel, realizing that rejecting the proposal would mean that only the League would be invited to form a government, lobbied the Congress Working Committee hard to give its assent to the 16 May proposal. Patel engaged the British envoys Sir Stafford Cripps and Lord Pethick-Lawrence and obtained an assurance that the "grouping" clause would not be given practical force, Patel convinced Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and Rajagopalachari to accept the plan!!
There is one famous incident that happened during this merger of states. At that time the nizam of hydrabad wanted to an independent state. So when negotiations were going on, Nizam threatened patel with the lives of over 2million hindus staying in hydrabad. In reply, patelji coolly said, 'Its ok if you dont merge with India, but I am worried about the crores of muslims who live in other parts of India. If hydrabad doesn't merge with India, I dont guarantee any of their lives!!' This was the statement by the home minister!!
Why was kashmir left alone?
We had Nehru as our prime minister then!!! Nehru was a Kashmiri and he thought he was better suited to handle the Kashmir issue. He thus took the ill fated step of dealing with this problem himself and did not allow the IRON MAN, Patel, the home minister to deal witd it. Kashmir was a complicated issue and nehru was not smart enough to deal with it.
The Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh, who decided he wanted to remain independent. It is difficult to imagine why Nehru did not move decisively at that time.

Pakistan was then encouraging the tribal warriors from the North West to attack Kashmir. The raiders made an advance into the province. Gilgit was taken over and the Maharajas troops were all annihilated. Still Nehru did not wake up(sleeping in the mountain with?? ) and waited on the advice of Mountbatten, for the instrument of accession duly signed by the Kashmir ruler. It cannot be understood what kept Nehru from ordering the Indian Army into Kashmir at this critical juncture, when the raiders were advancing into the valley.
The tribal's reached Baramulla and occupied it. They soon however continued their advance on Srinagar. Still Nehru dutifully waited for the instrument of accession. How nice it would have been if Nehru had followed the dictum 'offense is the best form of defense 'and sent in the Indian army when the tribal's had just begun their advance into Kashmir. But being naive and having no idea of the politics of power he just waited and waited. The Pakistan aided tribal's reached Srinagar and that's the time the Maharaja panicked and signed the instrument of accession. In hind sight history will judge Nehru for his biggest blunder here. His failure to react to a fluid military situation and excessive reliance on the advice of Mountbatten resulted in vast tracts of the valley being occupied by the raiders and irretrievably lost forever. It was only when Srinagar airfield was almost occupied that the green signal was given to the Indian army to move in.

Nehru however was an intellectual and had no stomach for any prolonged war. The Army pushed the raiders back and in about 6 months of fighting cleared the valley of the invaders who were aided and abetted by the Pakistan army. The Indian general staff then made plans to advance into western Kashmir, but Nehru again committed a fatal blunder. He stemmed the tide of the Indian army and agreed for a cease fire and reference to the United Nations. It's difficult to understand what prompted Nehru to do this. Perhaps the facts will come out later, but there is no doubt that he was greatly influenced by Lord Mount batten and his family.

The blunders of Nehru did not cease there, but he made another commitment that was to hang around the neck of subsequent Indian governments that followed. He promised a plebiscite in the valley at a suitable time .In a state where religion is the by word and the two nation theory accepted by the Hindu and Muslim leaders, a plebiscite can never go in India's favor.

Nehru thus laid d seeds of a perpetual conflict. I always wish that the clock can be put back and Nehru had intervened when the raiders had just entered the valley. Perhaps his mind did not accept that power politics is all about military power. Rosy ideas and philosophy cannot replace the power of a nation which rests on military might. He blundered and tied the Indian nation to a perpetual problem in Kashmir. In hind sight his listening to the advice of Mountbatten and waiting for the instrument of accession to be signed, his acceptance of a cease fire and reference to the United Nations coupled with the offer of a plebiscite, will show him forever as a man who never understood the game of power politics. History may judge Nehru harshly for these blunders.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what the nehrus and gandhis have done to India!! There are some unanswered questions that questions how mahatma was gandhi actually? like for example, why did gandhi want nehru to be congress president even though 13 of the 16 states voted for patel? Why dint gandhi intervene when nehru was playing around with kashmir? Was gandhi competeting for attention with patel? As someone truely said, patel was the true mahatma of India.

Thanks to wiki!! I got most part of this story from there

The GAM days

I had joined SANDI in the first week of June. Though i was very tired or organizing events and wanted a break, GAM was too big to be ignored. I saw another opportunity to learn new ways to organize events.
So the day i landed up in bangalore, thanks to Ankit Shah ( my batchmate in NITT), i got in touch with organizers of GAM. From then on it was mere application of what i learned in Pragyan. Soon Mradul joined me :).
GAM was very different from Pragyan or Festember or Nittfest. Here most of the work was outsourced, we were involved only with generating ideas, it was a difficult model for me to work in, i was used to do lot of work in my college, but here we did only quality work, I am waiting for the day when Pragyan will also be able to adopt this model :)
Rajan, Ganapathy, Madhur, Mrinal, Vibhu, Mahesh etc reminded me the like of Anand, kaushik, greg and co, the people who were my role models in my college. These people have been very active in keeping the NITT flag flying!!
I wanted some sort of reunion with my guys from college, perhaps GAM was a place where all of us can work one last time with each other. Shyam Ram and Vijaykumar also joined the OC team of GAM. But then we badly missed abhi, sura, raggit, venky, pambu and nami :(. They would have added up to all the fun we had in GAM.

Second year in NITT

its been due for few days now. Finally got some time to write this.

My first year in Nitt was nothing less then a rajnikant movie, second year proved to be even more challenging to me. From the day when i entered Nitt my only aim was to make sure that every soul in NITT knows me by name, I dont know whether it was good or bad, but i wanted to be like that.
I had gone for trip to badrinath and kedarnath so i joined college a week late. I started my second year with very high hopes. I had opted for chemical engineering perhaps thinking that, it will be more practical then Mechanical and Instrumentation Engineering. Only now did i realise that chemical was a very boring course and to make things worse we dint get the best of facultites in Nitt to teach us. :( My frustration with chemical engineering led me to quit as the class rep. I wanted to be as away as possible from the dept :(
But this opened up a new challenge for me. I wanted to do something different in college. I dint want to end up being yet another studnet passing out of Nitt!! Thanks to the boring chemical engineering my focus shifted to extra curricular activities in my college.
I had worked for Nittfest '07 ( intra collegiete cultural festival of NITT) in my first year. I had befriended many seniors in that process. The likes of Anand, Kaushik, JK, Patwa etc were role models to me. They were the perfectionist in my college. These were the people because of which Nitt life was not boring. I enjoyed their company and made sure that i spent as much time with them as possible.
Also before i forget, i would also like to mention about my days in Diamond hostel. I was staying in room number 50!! second floor in diamond. For everyone who stayed in diamond second floor, i am sure it would have been the best years of their collge life. For me, it was a big difference. My close group of friends, abhi, shyam, pam, ram, kums, dawals. sura, venky, puna, sab etc all lived in second floor (pls note that there were only 5 rooms in second floor and three huge balconies!!). This is where my group formed. I will forever be indebted to diamond!!
It was a year of learning different things for me. I had quit studies. Thanks to likes of rachit and sab, i would pass in my exams. My focus shifted to organizing fests in college. Together our group become THE organizing in our batch. My second year was probably the second fasted year in my life( fasted being my final year).
Festember 08 was a sort of eye opener for me. Till then i really dint understand the amount of effort that goes behind organizing a fest. That too in a government college like Nitt where the faculties are against anything new. There were so many teams, subteams etc. There were so many meeting happening in differnt places of the campus. No one person can keep track of whats happening. With a budget that runs into few millions, this was an event of very high standerds!! I am sure Just understanding how fests like festember, pragyan etc work will surely make any big organization learn a lesson or two about management!!
It was time for me to dream big. I consulted many seniors, many friends, faculties i knew etc and finally i stood for the election for the post of VP of students union of NITT. My good friends helped me make an election agenda, we printed posters, spoke to different people etc. All this was new to me. But i liked it. I along with my friends went door to door, spoke to all the people in my batch. We dint know many ppl's names, but we would speak to them as thou we were friends for years!!
I would both like to thank and apologies to my organizing team friends. Thou we worked as a group, all the time there was any work the senior would call me. If he wanted to thank us, he would call me. I would try my best to make sure that the credit goes to the right guy but many a time it never would. But my friends never complained!! I dont know why, i felt bad many a times but these things were unavoidable!! again sorry abhi shyam dawals pam kums venky and co!!
Soon the day of election came. We were desperate. we dint want only to win, we wanted to win by a big margin!! the election started at 5 in the evening. I would like to pay tribute to my friends here, you knw why. here is the reason. The election was held in SJB. A good 200-300mts from both beryl and jade. There were many lazy people who dint wantt come for voting. My frinds would go room by room, cycle them to the election arena and drop them back!!!! ya, people these people did this!! There was no compulsion for them to do this. I did not ask them to do it, but they DID!!!
The election got over and it was the time of counting. I had won!! it was a movement of joy for all of us. Abhi and shyam were in pragyan marketing interview then!! pam dawals were waiting for me outside SJB. they were the first people i talked to!!
This is where it all begins!!

I will be back with my blog about my third and fourth year in the very near future.
Sorry i couldn't include pics.

CFD, what is the potential!!!

Applications of CFD

CFD is the abbreviation of computational fluid dynamics. A google search of CFD and you will realise that it is nothing but a tool which combines Maths and Physics, and applies it to solve engineering problems. It has found large scale applications in various fields like Aerospace engg, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering etc. In 1900's, man used life sized pilot plants to design planes, choppers, cars, manufacturing units etc. Just imagine how much money would have been invested/wasted in doing that. Also this is not a very efficient method as the data has to be extrapolated to get the data for real life sized models (which is not very reliable).

With CFD, all these problems are solved. CFD is a tool by which you can simulate literally any living/non-living entity in the whole universe. Right from the Space Aircraft to the satellites to the cars that run on the road to the reactors that forms the core of chemical engineering plants, CFD has been successfully used in all these fields.
Here, in this post I would like to list out some very very interesting uses of CFD (this list does not include the regular uses of CFD).

Modeling Commercial Aquaculture Systems:

Many factors influence marine aquaculture: tidal fluctuations, water temperature, food concentration and stocking density, among others. Success in this industry depends on balancing what you can control with what you can’t, and putting years of experience behind day-to-day decisions. Nowadays CFD is used to help identify productive sites and plan management strategies, especially considering sustainability: computer modeling targeted to aquaculture.
(Source: www.flow3d.com)

SPACE Rentry capsule
Flying at Mach Number near 5 ( 1 Mach - Ratio of speed of vehicle and Speed of sound in the same physical conditions), it near impossible to replicate the same physical conditions in a pilot plant. CFD has been an very effective tool to solve this problem. All space organizations in the world like NASA, European space Research, National Space organization, Japan(JAXA) etc have used this tool to design their spacecraft.
(Source: www.sandi.co.in, will be up soon)

Needle-Free Drug Injections
A novel, needle-less, powdered drug delivery system is currently being developed. It makes use of biolistics technology, where tiny particles are injected through cell walls by a high-powered gun. The technology provides a unique capability; it effectively delivers vaccines in micro-particle form through the skin, into an epidermal layer.

Space Shuttles
Man has not even explored moon, but most of the organizations like NASA, JAXA etc are already in the process of designing space shuttles that can fly at an speed of Mach 5(that's roughly 1500m/s!!!). Imagine all these can be done sitting right in front of a computer.
Fuel Cells, Civil Engineering, Nanotechnology, Motor Design etc.

Applications of CFD are growing by the day. Hope this blog was informative enough. If you want any information feel free to contact me.

Cheers,

Shanky

P.S. The best part of this blog is, research in most of the uses of CFD listed here happens in my lab. I am lucky enough to get an opportunity to simulate Space Reentry capsules, Space Shuttles etc. :D :D

Also if you are interested in knowing more about this software do contact me at shankar.ganapathy@sandi.co.in

Where India fails

people say "by 2020 India is going to be the second largest economy after china!!" How many of you agree?? I certainly do not agree with it.

Where India fails?
1. India is predominantly the back office of all the major companies in the world!! ya, India is the IT hub of the world!! but for how many more years? The world prefers India cause labour force is cheaphere!! but now chinese people have started speaking English and the IT industry is moving towards countries like china, africa, Vietnam etc.

Coming to the bigger picture, Where India lacks?? Inventing our own technology!! We do have Reliance petrochemicals, Tata cars, Tata power etc, the list is long!! but how many of you people know that all the technologies they use are bought from the west!! L&T makes buildings super-fast, but all the technology they use is bought from the west.
If the tats, ambanies, birla take a small part of their fortune and invest in R&D, most of the technologies can be procured for less then half the prize. I have already lost hope with the indian government.

What India needs today to save itself is more entrepreneurs!! India should start inventing technology. All these IT and BPO jobs are not going to stay here for long.
Unless we manufacture our technology, things will get costlier with time and there will surely be a day when only the rich in this country have access to basic amenities!!

Jago Bharat!! Come out of the dream that India is in a boom phase. It is all media hyped!!

how i ended up at Sandi.

A short intro about my company. Check out www.sandi.co.in . This is an aerospace consultancy company. Started by Prof Balakrishnan and Dr. Nikhil Shinde of IISc, Bangalore, this is one of the fastest developing aerospace consultancy companies in the world. Started under the SID program this is an MIT and government of India funded company.
It all started for me at the end of second year. Like every other student in NIT Trichy i was also looking to get an summer intern in some IIT. I dint know the existence of IISc then. I had mailed couple of profs in IITkgp and IITd and got projects there. While i was deciding on where to go after my semester exams, my friend Sabharish (known to everyone as sab) gave me a call and asked me to join him at IISc banglore. After a quick google search in my mobile, I realise that IISc is the premier institute of research in India. I quickly said a 'yes' to my friend.
Only later did i come to know that our proj was in Aerospace Engg dept. Though initially i regretted my decision to go to IISc, later on only did i realize that this was the best decisioni have made in my academic life :) :D What started off as a project in my second year eventually become an intern in my third year summer vacation. I had earned my first salary then :) :)
In my third year my prof had already started the company. He had shown an inclination towards making me an employee in his company( Though he never made it clear then).
In my eighth sem when i had totally forgotten about IISc, i got a telephone call from my prof and he offered me a position in his company. It was a matter of great pride for me. Before that i had sat for many companies in my campus interviews, sadly i never cleared any interview round( though for the record sake i had cleared the Written and GD rounds of almost every company i sat for).
College life getting over is the saddest thing in my life so far. Though I was home sick I couldn't stay at home, i was already missing my friends. I wanted to go for job at the earliest.
I joined sandi on June 1st and thankfully i like my job. The best part about my job is the freedom I get here. There is no official timing for me to report at office and i get to do some quality work too :) :). Being a start-up company i can choose what area i want to work on :) This is the best possible way for my mind to come out of NITT.

My first blog_ first year in NITT

I always wanted to write a blog, and finally got time to write one. My first blog is dedicated to NITT: what it has given to me and how it has changed my life.
I was always a outgoing person, wanted to make new friends. In school though i was more concerned about my academics. Coming to NIT Trichy changed my life. It added a totally new dimension to my life.
I still remember the day- july 16th 2006. I had packed my luggage and was leaving chennai to join college. I was waiting for my dad to accompany me, when he said "son, you have grown up now, you have to manage yourself now so you leave to college by yourself". I was standing there shocked!! dint know what to do, but ya from then i had to take care of myself. I will always thank my dad for this one movement :D.
Then enters NITT, the most amazing thing that happened to me. I was walking towards Agate hostel( first year hostel in NITT). I was alone :( , dint know anyone. I was shocked there were some students(soon to become my friends :D ) waiting outside agate hostel with their parents. I dint know what to do, I was not prepared for this. But soon I gained courage and went to my room. Sridhar (fondly known as dhadi, was sitting there in my room with his parents). I had not made any arrangements, I had to buy a bucket, bed etc. Dhadis father came to my rescue. He took me in his car to the shopping complex and i bought all the things i wanted.
This was nothing compared to what awaited me the next day. I entered my class at 825( thought I was early but the class was already full, lol it happened only in the first day at NITT :D ) People were talking to each other. Thambis from TRS coaching center(popular IIT coaching center in Chennai) had already formed a group. Northis were with their state-mates. I was all alone :(. I wanted to get noticed, I wanted to make friends(i had made it a point to myself in my first day in college that all my batchmates should be my friends at the end of four years).
It was the second day in college. Sheeba madam( lol she is more of my friend then a faculy:) ) asked who is the class rep. As soon as she realized that the class rep was not yet selected/elected she asked for an election. Gaining some courage i raised my hand( actually i wanted the people of 'I' Section to know my name :) ) . To my amazement no one else raised their hand. I was shocked!! I dint want to be class rep and there i was, the class rep of 'I' Section. What happened after that was history. I quickly made friends with my class. That one minute of madness helped me a lot. I gained confidence, made lots of friends.
For what I am now ,credit should go to every member of 'I' Section. When there was mass bunk everyone, including the topper would not go to class. We got the best set of faculties, they were very flexible :). No one knows this, but i wanted to tell this now. For what i was as a classrep in first year, lor of credit goes to four people : Anirudh( fondly known as ragha), Ramshankar (dawals), Dhivya and Abhinav( abhi). Ragha was my roommate, the best part about him was he would always help me judging the profs who teach us. He would tell me whether the profs were cool or not. Abhi was doing the same thing. Dawals was also a psedo class rep. He would help me out in everything, right from collecting assignments, to convincing my classmates not to attend class. Dhivya would take care of all the girls in the class.
I had to best time in my first year during section dhamaka and I section class trip to athisayam theme park, Madurai. There are many incidents from my first year that i would have like to include but I guess this is enough for one blog.