MIT’s MonThly news leTTer
REFLECTIONS
D E C E M B E R
2 0 1 6
THE SECOND MONTH OF DEMONETISATION
Slogan of the
NamanRathi
Academic Year
“Success is never ending and failure is never final”. “ If the path is beautiful, first confirm where it leads. If the destination is beautiful, do not check how the path is…. keep walking”.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Techno-Freak
2
MIT in December
3
Book Review
4 4
Movie Review
4
Place to visit
5
After announcing the ban on the currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000, the month of December proved to be a lot of field work for all the sectors of working community. Let’s look at all the implications and consequences which occurred during the implementation of demonetisation. History of Demonetisation: This is not the first time that India has demonetized its currency. The same strategy was adopted by the Reserve Bank of India in 1946 by actually banning Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 notes to deal with the unaccounted money. After demonetizing Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 notes there was introduction of Rs 5,000 notes in the year 1954 which didn’t stay for long in the market and was eventually demonetized again in 1978. However, one of the key factors which made this year’s (2016) decision unique was that the nation was told about the ban just before 3 hours from implementation. Also, a limited time is given for exchanging notes. Objective of Demonetisation: This initiative of the government is to attack corruption and to make it hard for those in possession of black money to use it. The aim of taking out Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes out of the circulation in the market is to reduce the amount of illegitimate money in the economy, or, as termed by the government, the amount of
money in parallel economy. It is an enormous move from a government that is getting the midway mark of Narendra Modi’s term and something of a chance ahead of elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, where one might expect much cash to be flying around. It follows Modi’s financial inclusion scheme, an income declaration scheme and a special investigation team aimed at cracking down on black money, and suggests an actual attempt to deliver on the black money promises made in BJP’s campaign. Cues in banks and corrupt bank officials: For the first 30 days out of targeted 50 days, there have been long lines in front of banks. As most of the banks were working day and night for the people, still there were also reports of bank officials misusing their positions and converting black money to white for other people. But as soon as the government stopped and started arresting these corrupt bank officials and as the ATMs were prepared for the new currency, the lines in front of banks dramatically started decreasin g. Th ese measures allowed the banks to do other works apart from exchanging notes. India for promotion of “cash less” economy have been preparing the nation for this decision only. Second, many raised their eyebrows on the rapid frequency of the de-
cisions taken by the government. People’s Reactions: There have been varying reactions on this decision. There were intellectual reactions. There were reactions and concerns from common people worrying over short term implications and daily routine chores. There were reactions from people who were trying a little too hard for sounding like a renowned economist. And then there were people, who without knowing any facts, simply liked or disliked the decision based on whether they like PM Modi or not. Conclusion: The latest initiative of BJP government is the direct result of the injury caused to the Indian democracy and its individuals by the amount of corruption taking place in India. Corruption is a menace to the society. The steps taken by the BJP government was much needed for a very long time to remove this tumour which was killing the society. The success of this policy as of now cannot be scaled as it totally depends upon implementation process but what one can be sure about is that this step would bring a huge amount of undisclosed assets into picture which could further be used by the government to fight against the main issues such as poverty and lack of good healthcare system.
PAGE
TECHNO-FREAK
2
Puru Khanna
BUILDING FUTURE: BUILDING JARVIS Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg loves coding. That’s very clear from his own post, and the recent reports surrounding his latest personal project - Jarvis. At the beginning of 2016, he had written a post on how his 2016 challenge was to build a simple, artificial intelligence algorithm to run basic operations at home. On December 19, he published a note on his 100 hours of coding through the year, which he spent building Jarvis. The naming is not a mere coincidence, and Zuckerberg’s intention is somewhat similar to that of Tony Stark - build an assistant that, in the truest sense, will be an intelligent, highly personal virtual helper.
It is this very aspect that Mark Zuckerberg has addressed, and this is what Jarvis does for a living - connect the entire house, understand personal contexts, and somewhat recognize you to carry out personal tasks. Jarvis is, in a fascinatingly simplistic way, the forerunner to personal home AI assistants that our future will hold. Oh, and he’s also Morgan Freeman (whom voice is been used in Jarvis). Through all of this, Mark Zuckerberg has also addressed the need to consider the accuracy and purview of input methods. With the rise in personal assistants like Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant, we saw a definite rise in voice commands given out to search for basic (or even slightly complex) instructions.
To execute tasks provided by the input interfaces, Jarvis’ intelligence depended BLOCK DIAGRAM on three AI systems - a natural language However voice input may not always be processing engine to understand context and improvisation instead of robotic, preset commands, a speech recognition en- a feasible option. To give a verbal instruction, you would prefgine to recognize and respond to voices contextually, and a erably be in or around a more personal environment, one that face recognition engine that will read information of a storage does not distract others. Voice commands also have the barrier vat. All of these three systems essentially work in tandem. The of languages and accents, and engineering barriers like ample natural language processing engine was custom-built by using voice receptors, processors and (as would be required) translabasic keywords, and then building on them. For instance, using tion engines for AI. In such context, as Mark Zuckerberg very the words “bedroom”, “lights” and “dim” gave a specific com- importantly highlighted, he found himself to be using text inmand to Jarvis - dim the lights of the bedroom. Facial recogni- structions more often than what he expected. tion was used by Zuckerberg in order to recognize those that visit his house. When anyone would reach his place, the multiple cameras would show various angles, and as a result, make it easier to get a direct view of the person on the door. This further allowed Jarvis to better “recognize” him or her by tallying with photographs and facial patterns of Zuckerberg’s trusted contacts.
While Jarvis may not be a final blueprint for future home automation platforms, it is a very proficient platform to build upon. There’s predictably a long way to go before this technology makes its way to homes across the world, but until then, we get a glimpse into what can go right (or wrong) with smart technology taking over home appliances.
WEBSITES YOU MUST KNOW http://spectrum.ieee.org/
https://hackaday.io/
http://www.instructables.com/
https://www.edx.org/
http://stackoverflow.com/
https://www.coursera.org/
http://makezine.com/
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/
Arpita Bhatnagar
PAGE
3
MIT IN DECEMBER BOOK INAUGRAL FUCTION
Deepti Agrawal
Today, youth is always seemed to get attracted to Engineering,
for a Nagar Nigam and a peon in banks is not only a mirror to
Medical or Management but often it is found that they succeed
the education system but also defamed the word 'Engineering'.
only in favourable circumstances and get distracted from path
Many MITians graduated have made their names shine in differ-
under unfavourable circumtances. These all
ent fields world wide. Aditya and Akash
things were there in the book "Dagar
are a resent example of this who have
Panghat Ki" by "Sudhir Gupta Ji" who is the
come in lime light for thier high salary
MIT chairperson and founder.
package. Where one side is satisfied with MIT and its youth is on other side a little
His book is launched in MIT’s Camous. He
worried as most of youth is running before
says in his book that there are many paths
Engineering, Medical or Management stud-
leading to a common success and thus in unfavourable conditions a youth follow a different path for his/ her success instead of changing the goal. An engineer applying
ies but in the rate race they are unable to understand their ahead living. .
ALUMNUS MEET “The future lies before you Like a field of driven snow, Be careful how you tread it, For every step will show.” It’s a pleasure day in Moradabad Institute of Technology when stars came here to brighten the future of other rising stars. One of the star is Pooja Gupta, 1996 batch alumni of MIT which was also the foundation year of MIT. She did B.Tech in Computer Science and did various jobs as a Software Engineer in India then she shifted to California, America. She also told that there were not much resources at that time but still almost all the students of that batch get placed in most reputed companies, thus she tells how MIT played a very important role in shaping the future of it’s students at that time. She also told that now there are many resources available from throughout the world, so students should set to
their target and try to explore their learnings. Thus, this will make students different from others.
Siddhanth Sinha all personalities, then they can become a successful engineer. Another star Shobhit Gupta who is also well placed in MNC outside India also told the students that students should get with their interests. After engineering their many-many options after engineering as Engineer can do anything in the world. Students also discussed their views for how to become a successful engineer. All of these wished students for their better and bright future.
Her husband Amit Gupta who also studied Computer Science from ‘Univesity of Pune’ and also an IITian where he studied M.B.A. from there, is well placed in CISCO, California. He told that the basic education should be strong and during studies students should focus on new learnings and should develop their over-
This event would not be possible without the effort of faculty members Ms. Deepti Shinghal, Ms. Shuchita Saxena, Ms. Pragati Gupta, Ms. Ritika Tandon, Mr. Alok Pandey and the student coordinator Siddharth Puri and whole Mitians.
PAGE
BOOK REVIEW Twinkle Khanna falls back on this premise heavily in her latest book ‘The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad’. In all the four short stories she conjures up in this collection, there is a certain simplicity- an element of every day. The book opens with the title story wherein we follow a frail but spirited 17-year old Lakshmi Prasad and her dream to secure independence for every girl child of her village. It is followed by the tale of two sisters in their sixties, trying to piece together their lives between loneliness and unexpected friendship. The third story takes us into the world of a young Malayali woman who continues her search for meaning in life amidst multiple Author: Twinkle Khanna marriages. The final story, the longest of Pages: 256 the four, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a village simpleton who takes up Price: INR 299 the cause of making affordable sanitary napkins for women from all strata of the The images that touch our hearts most often wear the attire of simplicity. A smil- society. ing child, a shower of rain, an evening walk At heart, the stories mean well. While and a heartfelt conversation; they all have there is a strong undercurrent of feminism the power to move us and secure them- in each of the 'fictional’ protagonists, the selves in our memories for a long time. underlying intentions make the collection
4
Divyansh Goyal
a good read. Khanna’s language is easy on the senses, with the occasional humor filling up the space perfectly. She evokes vivid images in her character sketches that appear to have been done with a caring brush, duly aided by the bounty of nature and its many beautiful days and nights. She also seems to have a penchant for brief chapters and sentences which infuses the right amount of rhythm in shorter stories but turns rather agonizing in the longer ones. Almost one third of the book is dedicated to the fourth story which is anything but fictional. It generously draws from the real life of Arunachalam Muruganathan, the social entrepreneur who was the somber crusader of women’s independence and hygiene and made the world’s first lowcost sanitary pad making machine. The strong voice of a refreshingly original plot found in the first story, gradually loses steam in the fourth.
MOVIE REVIEW
Sanya Arora
Movie: Dangal Cast: Aamir Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra Director: Nitesh Tiwari Genre: Biography
The film wouldn’t have been made if Aamir Khan hadn’t green-lit it, and he brings to it the sincerity of purpose which makes it not just a starry vehicle. That was crucial for us to believe in Dangal, which borrows several elements from the real-life Haryana wrestler who trained his two older daughters, Geeta (Fatima Sana Shaikh) and Babita (Sanya Malhotra), in the art of wrestling, and turned them into winners. Dangal works on the twin parameters it sets up for itself. One is a straight-forward film about a popular sport and those who play it: we feel and smell the `mitti’ of the `akhara’, the `daanv-pench’ (moves) of truly skilled wrestlers. We see the blood, sweat and tears that go into the making of champions. Here Aamir Khan, a grizzled wrestler has to work his way to believing in his daughters, and in the fact that his ‘chhoris’ are no less than ‘chhoras’. It echoes the belief the real-life Phogat showed in his girls, as they went on to win medals and prizes in national and international arenas (gold and silver medals in Commonwealth games, Olympic qualifier).
PAGE
PLACE TO VISIT
5
Swapnil Kaushik
JAIPUR “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.” Located 260 km from the Indian capital New Delhi, Jaipur is a popular tourist destination in India and serves as a gateway to other tourist destinations in Rajasthan such as Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Udaipur.It was founded on 18 November 1726 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amer after whom the city is named.
of Rajasthan. The page discuss about the different aspects to focus when visiting Jaipur. Every local person in the city expects the visitors to experience the best days of their life in Jaipur, and thus contributes their best for the same. The traveler wishing to visit Jaipur must be aware of the reason to travel in Jaipur. The rich cultural views that one is bound to shares in their memories embracing and demonstrate the heart and soul of ‘Pinkcity’. The shopping articles and entities signifies the rich art and culture of Rajasthan.
Jaipur is titled as the finest and well planned city in India which shares the rich heritage of Rajasthan fashioned with modern lifestyle. The city is a main attraction to the tourist people coming to visit Jaipur from all over the globe. The city is famous for its Rajasthani Culture and Art not only in India but has gained the round of applause in the whole globe. The city ensures the unforgettable memories of the journey of visitors embracing and beautifying their heart with rich values
Importantly, remember to pack your bags for two days. One day for visiting all the forts and palaces. Half-a-day for seeing the parks, gardens and monuments after which you can tickle your taste buds with spicy Mawa Kachori and Mirchi Bada and enjoy the aroma and sweet taste of Dal Batti Churma. And it’s worth spending a whole day for shopping and souvenir purchase.
Team Reflections Coordinator
O.C. Ms. Deepti Shinghal
Vice-President
Areeb Ur Rehman
Keshav Mehrotra
Shruti Bhatnagar
Arpita Bhatnagar
Moderator: Shagufta Naaz, Saurodeep Chaterjee, Deepti Agarwal, Siddhant Sinha Columnist: Sanya Arora, Divyansh Goel
Editor Dr. Sangeeta Mahesh Dr. Nishi Chauhan
President
Tech Reporter: Naman Rathi, Swapnil Kaushik T & P Reporter: Srashti Bhatnagar, Sophia Qamar Journalist: Puru Khanna
To be a part of Reflections, e-mail us at-
[email protected]
