Visit to Kolkata, one of the historical cities in India

Kolkata experience for the second time.

It was in 2010 when I visited this historic city for the first time. Now, after 4 years, again the next visit. This visit was as part of an official meeting related with ICPC. Boarding from Coimbatore, it was around 36 hours of journey in a "super fast" train - Mangalore Santragachi Express. Though the time it arrived at Coimbatore was sharp as per the schedule, it was sharply delayed when it reached Kolkata. And imagine, this train is without a pantry car!  How disastrous it would be to travel for so long without a pantry car in the train. Each and every station, I had to climb down to find something to eat.  But thanks to the Indian Railways at least for taking order for the lunch and dinner, prior to reaching the next station. The interesting fact noticed in the journey was that the AC coach stops at some point in every station where there is no shop to get food easily. It is required to walk at least a short distance to get something. And needless to say, toilets were near to horrible. While I was in 2AC, I had to depend on the toilets in 3AC coach for a "seamless download of junk" :).

Santragachi station is not good for any new comer to Kolkata. It is so crowded, badly crowded. You need not walk, but will get pushed away by the crowd. No cabs in the station and you have to depend on the buses to reach any place in the city. Thanks for my hosts who came to pick me up knowing all these facts. If you want to experience and enjoy the most polluted, populated, dirty city in India, Kolkata would be the best. 

To Dakshineswar:

It was a great experience for me to walk from the ISI campus where I stayed, to Dakshineswar. My Nokia Lumia 720 helped to reach there with "Here" maps. It was around 2.3 km. I was amazed to see how the people live, how the small hotels for the rishaw walas and lorry drivers are run. I couldn't believe my eyes - the owner of the hotel was carrying a bucket (empty plastic jar used to supply paints) of water from a corporation pipe which is in a canal of waste!  He carried it to the hotel and poured in the bucket used to wash hands and mouth after taking the food.  This is really amazing! And as I was watching, I could see one of the drivers taking that water to wash his hands!  Somewhere I messed up without following the direction given by Lumia and had to depend on Cycle Rikshaw to reach the temple. I was attracted by one of the boys to keep the chappal inside a shop and immediately the shop owner gave some water to wash my hands! I wondered what the story is but shortly realized that he wanted me to by something to be offered in the temple and it was costing some hundreds of rupees. I asked the price to keep the chappal but it was thrown away because he told it is not their job to keep the chappals! Strange outside such a famous temple. Everything has become a business now and people know how to fool the devotees. After the Darshan visited 6 shrines installed with Shiva Linga. There were 6 boards placed in front of these shrines stating "Mobile phones / cameras not allowed". But there were hardly anyone who did not use the mobile phone as well as the camera. There is no information about the shrine but only these useless boards.  After that, the shops near the Ganges sell most of the eatables - Pani Puri, Mixture, Ice Cream, Coffee, Tea, etc. I returned by typical private bus with conductor and driver without any uniform.  Here, the auto-rikshaws are allowed to ply only in a predefined route and not as per the request by the passengers. 

Tea is served in clay cups which is quite tasty to drink. 

Rain in ISI Kolkata Campus

It was a nice experience to be in the ISI campus. Nice green campus with a good, reasonable guest house. The people are friendly and served good food. To move from the guest house campus to the main academic campus, there was a tunnel (underpass). It was to avoid walking through the main road. In fact, just above the underpass, there is a road with busy traffic and shops. 

In another day I will leave the city, in the same train (hope the coach changes!).

M.Tech for Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Career in Electrical & Electronics Engineering

With the acute demand for the power growing every day, demand for electrical engineers is also growing day by day. Where ever we look, there is not a single device in the everyday life that doesn’t use power. Now, solar energy generation is growing with a good pace. There is good demand for B.Tech Electrical & Electronics Engineering branch in India too. Unfortunately, the tendency among the students is to get into information technology companies after their graduation.  This makes them leave the core electrical background to code testing / software development or similar IT jobs.  The main objectives of electrical and electronics engineers is to get involved in innovation / research in the field of power generation / manufacturing of equipment,   etc.  Just like any other product, this too has the design phase, development phase, testing, etc.  Manufacturing of power generators which are widely used in the industry need good engineers for its efficient development.

Electrical engineers are also involved in the design of electronic equipment and devices too.  From common man’s point of view, for the electrical wiring of a huge building needs good expertise so that the design is efficient enough to carry the power without any wastage.  Electrical engineers can also play a vital role in the manufacturing of vehicles in the automotive industry.  Apart from automotive, they have ample opportunities to work with robotics, aviation industry.  Electrifying an aircraft is not an easy job. It requires a good knowledge of the electrical engineering domain.  To manufacture electrical motors used for the domestic purposes, those in the consumer electronics also needs the help from the electrical engineers. Control systems, instrumentation that has been playing a critical role in the healthcare sector has also created a demand for the electrical engineers. Any electronic device manufacturing company will need an electrical engineer to develop a complete product. This is one of the branches where there is equal importance given in both the academia as well as the industrial sector.
The role of an electrical engineer depends on the passion in the field. While some are good in designing a good electrical solution for a given problem, there are others to implement it efficiently and effectively. An electrical engineer has to know his/her taste and get groomed at the time of graduation itself. There are some student who can debug a system or test a system properly from different viewpoints.  They can play a good lead in the testing of these devices.  An electrical car is such a good example.  Control devices used in the health care industry requires a good amount of testing where the data output is critical.  Development of Robotics in almost all the sectors now a days has opened up a new horizon for the electrical engineering graduates.
As far as the power sector is concerned, it requires generation as well as distribution of powers where electrical engineers play a key role.  It requires a good understanding of the process of generation, effective way of distribution, etc.
As per the statement from the Rolls Royce Company says that electrical engineers can work in the aerospace industry to design the complicated interface to transfer the electricity from engine to aircraft. This includes all the power systems in the aircraft.
Electrical engineers also has chances in power and safety measures implementation in any organization like oil and gas industries, petroleum industries, etc.

Some of the M.Tech electrical and electronics engineering specializations offered:

Power Systems and Power Electronics (IIT Madras)
Communication Systems (IIT Madras)
Control and Instrumentation (IIT Madras)
Photonics (IIT Madras)
Power Electronics,Electrical Machines and Drives (IIT Delhi)
Power Systems (IIT Delhi)

Department of EE, IIT Bombay
Communications Engineering
Control and Computing
Power Electronics and Power System
Microelectronics and VLSI
Electronic Systems

M.Tech after B.Tech Electronics & Communication

M.Tech Specializations in Electronics

In India, there is a belief that electronics and communication is the best branch in B.Tech. While this is true, other branches too have the same or equal chances of getting jobs as well as higher education prospects. There are wide range of opportunities available for an electronics graduate, after completing the engineering. With the tremendous growth of communication systems and technologies in recent times, there are large number of M.Tech specializations offered by premier institutions in India.  The technological development has also lead to create more job opportunities for electronics graduates. VLSI is the one of the most preferred specialization by electronics and communication graduates. With the growth of mobile consumer electronic market, scope is high for getting a good profile job in the industry.  If you wish to pursue a teaching career after M.Tech in any branch of electronics, VLSI is also a good option. Later in teaching profession, it is possible to select a topic and do a research.

M.Tech after B.Tech Computer Science & Engineering

M.Tech Speicalisations in Computer Science
Even after the successful completion of B.Tech programmes and placements getting dull because of the recent economic downturn in India students tend to move for M.Tech either by attending the GATE or othewise.  Career after M.Tech is also promising as there are so many opportunities for the M.Tech graduates in the public sector, industrial sector as well as in the government agencies. After M.Tech, there is a good chance of getting into teaching and research in the academia. Product based companies are also looking for smart students who successfully complete M.Tech. Scope of getting into the public state understakings for centrally funded departments is also more. Organizations like ISRO, DRDO, Department of Information Technology, etc. seek smart graduates provided you are promising. While doing M.Tech, number and quality of research papers published during the course shape your future. The innovative and analytical research assignments done during the M.Tech programme is the path towards your career after the M.Tech graduation.

Teaching Computer Science

Computer Science is one of the important branches in engineering today.  With vast areas of application and growth of internet has made it a specialized branch in engineering and applications. As far as a computer science student is concerned, if the engineering graduation is taken seriously, it has vast scope to build one's career being Mobile computing, Wireless networks, Network and Cyber Security etc., being the hot topics of today. Whatever is the subject of study, the teacher's role is to create interest in the mind of students by explaining the latest applications used by the students in their daily life. In particular to computer science, the best examples are FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn type of applications where algorithms, user interfaces, web technologies, etc. are used extensively to improve the features for the user.

The core subjects like Programming, Algorithms, Data Structures, Databases, Networks, etc. can be easily taught using the current social networking applications as examples. But the important issue is that the teachers should also be updated with these technologies and they should also explore the internal working of the applications. Most of the applications are now open source and the world is going by analyzing the tons of data that is moves over internet each and every second. Devices and applications used by the students are the best ways of relating the theoretical concepts with the applications.  This kind of approach will definitely make the students interested in the subject.  This also helps the students to think and improve their creative talents.  The concepts explained and the corresponding applications related should be thought provoking in the student's mind so that mind is driven automatically to the subject.

Most of the students have a wrong notion about programming, data structures, especially algorithms, mathematics courses, networks, compiler design, and other technology courses offered in the final semester.  When they cannot perform in programming in the first year, they lose the interest in the upcoming years. So, it is necessary to make them interested in problem solving thus improve their creativity.
(to be continued)