First conference visit

I have not written for a while and a lot has happened since then. Some day, when I have enough time, I will pen down my thoughts from my winter break. One of the good thing that did happen during the break is that I wrote a paper and it got accepted to a conference - resulting in my first paper at cmu and now my first presentation at a conference. I am in Baltimore right now and my presentation is tomorrow at about 4:30pm. I am a little tensed at talking to some very brilliant people and trying to sell the idea of my research. In the past, I have mainly given undergraduate research talks, class presentations, and talks on my research during my qual and proposal. All those had different flavors. Now I will be talking about what new I am bringing to the field and I have to be convincing in my arguments. Another thing is that I am presenting myself to a global audience as opposed to a local audience at UT or CMU. Lets see how it works out.

Anyways, this is my first trip to Baltimore and I had not heard good things about the town. Whoever I talked to said, "Be safe". The town did look a little dead while I was passing through downtown, but the area around Johns Hopkins (where I am staying), seems nice and artistic. I will check out the campus tomorrow morning. I also hope to check out the famous Baltimore harbour.

This is also my first time away from my newly formed home in Pittsburgh. Feels kind of awkward not having G around. Anyways, back to some last minute edits on my presentation and then some sleep!

Mumbai Attacks, Indian Officials, and Media

I felt it was about time to voice my opinion on the issue of the Mumbai blasts. It brings tears to my eyes that some people can act like such barbarians and have so much hatred in them. What brings more grief to me is that the Indian officials are not acting professionaly in dealing with the situation. Today is the third day of the attacks and yet the area around the place of attacks has not been sealed. The media continues to provide live pictures of what is happening around the Hotel. They keep updating the public of things like the army has been called in, the commandos are entering the building, and showing live footage of commandos landing on the roof of Narmida House - a place where terrorists had kept people hostage. This is completely ridiculous! It is as if the media is with the terrorists in the whole things. I was watching a CNN video, and the American reporter was completely shocked at how close she was allowed to be near the Taj hotel. At that moment there were three terrorists inside the massive hotel (which has about 500 rooms) and the people gathered there (primarily reporters) were direct sight of a shooter from the Hotel. In fact as she was speaking, someone in the crowd seemed to have been injured from some gun fire. Angrily, I wrote this email to some of the media companies:

Can you please stop broadcasting LIVE! from the Taj and give the terrorists an open view of what is happening outside. Don't you realize that you have been helping the terrorists with your broadcast? Why would you give out information of how many people are possibly inside! Surely the terrorists won't know that, but since you guys are providing the information - they are well aware of things!

I would imagine the media (yes, sadly others are doing the same) is more sensible than this - but the truth remains that you guys are just out there for publicity of your channel and don't care a damn about people trapped inside. It is all about "who" gets the news first.

Another alarming story is that three of our nation's top officers were killed by the terrorists. That is something I can not understand. I would believe that the top police officers would be involved in planning how to go about capturing the terrorists and not running around freely and playing targets for the terrorists. These were supposed to be our best police officers and we would have needed their experience in guiding a rescue mission.

I think it is time for India to conduct a mission to catch the people involved in the Mumbai attacks. A mission similar in nature to what US did after 9/11. India should gather a force and try to find out where militant groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba are hiding and take them down completley. This will require some kind of assistant from Pakistan - which I am hoping they will provide. The problem lies in whether or not Pakistan will allow Indian officers to work with the Pakistan forces or not. In any case, I am hoping that the new Pakistani government will be more copperative in the mission of flushing out terrorists.

This blog post was more like rumble. Like many people, I am mad about the whole tale of events. I will probably organize my thoughts later, but for now this will do. Some global cause is needed to fight terrorism, but the fact is if people are so much filled with hatred that they are willing to die for some insane cause, you can't stop those kind of people. One way is to completely eradicate the cause of these things - that is, destroying all those training camps for terrorists and the second way is for citizens to be on a global alert. Terrorist activities have resulted in about 4000 deaths in India over the past two years! Clearly, the government, intelligence, and all other Indian bodies are not functioning properly - so as citizens we should be aware of our surroundings. We should report suspicious acitivities in our neighborhood. We should make these suspicions a global voice so as to force the authority to keep a check. Something needs to be done quickly - otherwise this world, and especially India, would not be the place as before.

The next big thing?

It is safe to say that mobile phones have connected the world in a way that was not possible a decade ago. I did not have one until 2003 and now I can not live without one. My Mom has one, my Dad has one, and so does my sister. I come from a middle class family, so it is not something for which we have to go out of pocket to get. What is really surprising is that literally everyone in India has a mobile phone now - and I really mean everyone. A friend of mine from US visited India about four years and was embarrassed that a Riksha driver had a mobile phone and he did not.

My Uncle, commenting on the recent popularity of mobile phones, told me a story of how farmers were getting cell phones to help business. The story comes from Azamgarh, which is very small town near Varanasi. It is surrounded by many villages and naturally farmers from neighboring villages set up their shops in the city to sell fruits, vegetables, and grains. Usually these shops are setup in bulk and there are days assigned for these farmer to come and sell things at a particular place. Naturally, the public is informed of when the farmers come and during this time, there is a huge rush of people trying to get weekly groceries for their house. Mostly, all farmers sell the same things, so the main goal for the sellers is to identify the spots where there is a large crowd. This one farmer had some helpers situated at different part of the market area, who identified the spots in which there were maximum number of customers. These helpers would then call the farmer and he would bring his to the particular shop to attract customers. This way, by using mobile phones, he maximized the number of customers by going to the right places at different times. This is just a simple example of how people in developing countries are using technology in their day to day life.

With the advent of technology, mobile phones are not only communication devices but also knowledge providing devices. A farmer who wants to know about drip irrigation can easily use a mobile handset to Google this and get relevant answers. The problem here lies in whether or not the farmer is educated enough to use a mobile handset. All the technology related breakthroughs in the past decade or two have been revolutionary, but above all there is a need to increase awareness of improving more basic problems of the world. And it is in times like these that the fortunate ones should help out the less fortunate ones. Perhaps, that is what is Google is aiming to find via its initiative to promote people to think about the supposed next best thing to change/improve the world. We would never know, but we do know is that a solution to this global problem should be found soon!

Back in Pittsburgh

So I am back in Pittsburgh after my brief stay in Rochester for a stint in the corporate world. No more tucking-in of shirts folks and no more driving 20 minutes to work. It was really a pain driving to work everyday - especially because of half my driving was on street roads. On days when I would get constant red lights, I would get really mad and be in a bad mood for the mornings. I thought the driving part would be fun and I would listen to radio while driving to work. The radio stations were not too great and I could hardly get any talk show type of channels in air - so mostly I drove with an aura of silence around me or sometimes listened to music. What pissed me off even more was that I could not talk on the phone while driving - a New York state rule! Once when I was doing the same, someone overtaking me indicated I should switch off the phone - it was some crazy looking dude with long hair. I don't know what his problem was, but I am sure he must have been stopped by cops on more than one occasion for breaking that law.

Anyways, things went well in Rochester and I got some decent experience and taste of industry over these three months. Because of this experience, I have now made up my mind of what I want to do in future - that discussion can be held for later. I have started work again at CMU - so things picked up pace pretty quickly. The semester officially starts on 25th Aug and I plan to take two Math classes and also will be TAing a class. Add to that research and I have a packed semester coming up. I might drop one class if I feel the pressure is too high, but for now will go ahead with this load.

In other news, I am moving into a new apartment soon! This apartment, as G keeps reminding me, will be a home and not another student dorm kind of place. More blabbering about this 'home' issue will follow soon and so will my realization that I will soon be living with a woman. I am a little bummed that she would not allow me to have a fooseball table in the apartment! As I said, my tiny frustration on these issues will be iterated in another post.

For now, I am in the midst of furniture hunting. I can't just buy anything - but I have to buy things so that all furniture in a room match. Yes, you can imagine how much time that takes. I guess it has hit me now - I am getting married!

A summer of travelling

So far, this summer has been all about travelling and spending time with family. It started with my Dad and sister coming to Pittsburgh for G's graduation ceremony and subsequent meeting of both sides of the family. My Dad left for India shortly and on the same day, my sister and I drove to Rochester – where I started my internship. More on that experience later – but a week later, my sister and I were cruising to DC to visit more family and obviously to explore Washinton DC. We also paid visit to Luray Caverns – which was a worthwhile experience. The week after, I dropped my sister in Pittsburgh, so that she can attend classes at CMU – and also showed her around Pittsburgh a bit. The following week, my Mom came to Rochester – something G wasn’t aware of. So, my Mom and I drove to Pittsburgh again and surprised the hell out of G. Again, more of Pittsburgh site seeing followed and so did some window shopping of rings. A week later, G paid a visit to Rochester and all of us (Mom, sister, G, and I) went to Niagara – which was too much fun – and also spent time by Cayuga Lake and then a short visit to Cornell University. My Mom went back to India shortly and my sister flew to Pittsburgh to attend more classes. On the weekend that followed, I got some much needed rest. Actually, more than me, my car needed the rest. It had covered about 3500 miles in the past month – a first since I have owned it. I spent my weekend socializing a little and also watched Kung Fu Panda, Jannat, Tashan, and Mere Baap Pehle Aaap. Also made some tasty chicken and for the first time attempted to make some chapatis! They turned out to be okay – could have been better had I got a better pan. But it was still better than eating rice because I obsolutley love rotis.

The next weekend, I again went to Pittsburgh to pick up my sister and now we have this trip to NY area planned to meet my cousin and G’s family. That would be my last trip this summer, except for one or two more trips to Pittsburgh. If I were to rate the places we visited, I would say Niagara was the best. I will write more on that later, but for all those travellers, Niagara Falls is a must see and everyone should go for the Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds.

After two months

As always, I did not run out of things to write, but I simply could not find any time to do any writing. Today, I finally took out some time. Much has happened in my almost two month long hibernation - I have temporarily entered the corporate world, my Dad paid a trip to Pittsburgh, and so did my sister and Mom, and I also did a bunch travelling - DC, Ithaca, and Niagara. Details of the trip will follow, provided my laziness doesn't take over me. Back home, my Dad has taken up a new role as the Director of a new institute because of which my parents will temporarily move from Kanpur to Bhopal. My Dad's new job is exciting, but what is not is the moving part. My Mom will probably move after a year and although we will get to keep our house, my parents might end up subleasing it since there is no use keeping an empty house like that. Looking at the positive part, Bhopal seems to be a nice place from the things I read. It is surrounded by lakes and there are lot of attractions close by. It may not have the glamour of Kanpur or Lucknow, but it certainly seems like a different place than the rest of UP. Maybe the change will be good for Mummy and Daddy.

Anyways, I will more later - hopefully on some interesting things!

PhD Proposal - done!!

What separates me now from becoming Dr. V is my PhD defense. I passed my PhD Proposal, which is the second step towards getting a doctoral degree. The whole process lasted about three hours, with my committee grilling me on the research problems I had proposed to solve. All in all, it was a fun time, and it also gave me insight into how to look at my problem from different angles. One month of writing finally concluded in some positive result.

My dilemma now is that I am not sure how to approach my proposed problem! I mean, I somewhat have an idea, but can't seem to connect things - for which I would need to dig into books and read about some basic material. That is what I have been doing since I have my proposal. It has been fun so far, going through new material and learning some new things, but I need to soon find a way to be able to connect things with my research.

In other troubles, I have been thinking of writing a paper to submit to a conference, but am not sure if I have enough material. Sometimes I think I do, but then after thinking about it more, I think I don't. I will have to talk to my advisor for his opinion - which is what I will do tomorrow. Hopefully, if I write something, I will get it done before I leave for Rochester, which is May 18th.

In what will follow

So I have a lot of catching up to do and here are the blog topics that will follow in the next few days: my proposal presentation, my wedding date!, my thoughts on U me aur hum, IPL, and some general things.