CSIC 2010( October ) - Computer Society Of India

October 201026th National Conference on E-GovernanceDate : 8-10 October 2010Hosted by: Trivendrum chapterFor details contact: Ms. Mini Ulanat, [email protected]

National Conference on E-GovernanceDate : 8-9 October 2010 Hosted by: Kolkata ChapterFor details contact: Dr. A K Roy

Workshop for the Faculty of Technical Institutions Date : 15 - 16 October 2010Hosted by: Sona College of TechnologyOrganised by: CSI and Sona College of TechnologyFor details contact: Dr. G M Kadhar Nawaz, [email protected]

National Conference on Mobile and Ad Hoc NetworksDate : 22-23 October, 2010Organized by : CSI Div. III, IV, Region-VII and CSI Coimbatore ChapterFor details contact: Mr. S Mahendra Kumar, [email protected], Mr. Prashant R Nair, [email protected]

24th Karnataka Student ConventionDate : 22-23 October 2010Hosted by: SJCE Mysore and CSI Bangalore Chapter Organized by : Dept. of Information Technology, Anna University Chennai, MIT Campus and IEEE Madras Section and Supported by Computer Society of India Div IV & Chennai Chapter, IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and University Grants Commission (UGC)For details contact: Prof. B.G. Sangameshwara, [email protected]

NCMAN-2010: National Conference on Mobile and Ad Hoc NetworksDate : 29-30 October, 2010 Hosted by : SJCE MysoreOrganized by : CSI Bangalore ChapterFor details contact: B G Sangameshwara, [email protected], Tel.: 0821-2548285, [email protected], Tel.: 080-22862215, 22860461

November 2010

5th CSI National Conference on IT for DefenceDate : 12-13 November 2010 Host: CSI Bangalore ChapterOrganized by: SIG-IS, Div.IV, CSIFor details contact: [email protected],[email protected], Tel.: 080-22862215, 22860461

National Conference on IT for Rural & Agriculture Development Date : 23-24 November 2010 Host: Indian Institute of Business Management, Patna Organized by: Patna Chapter For details contact: Prof. A K Nayak

National Conference on Theoretical Computer Science & ApplicationsDate : 25-26 Nov. 2010 Hosted by : B S Abdur Rahman Institute of Science and TechnologyOrganised by: CSI Chennai Chapter and B S Abdur Rahman Institute of Sc. and Tech.For details contact: Dr. K M Mehata, [email protected]

45th Annual ConventionDate : 25-27 Nov. 2010, MumbaiVenue : Mumbai Host: CSI Mumbai ChapterFor details contact: www.csi-2010.org

December 2010

Emerging Technologies in the Modern BattlefieldDate : 2-3, December, 2010Host : CSI Bangalore ChapterOrganized by: CSI-IS, Div-IV, CSIFor details contact: Dr. C R Chakravarthy, [email protected]

Region-I Student ConventionDate : 4-5 December 2010Hosted/Organized by: CSI Student Baanch at Graphic Era University, DehradunFor details contact: Dr. Harish Kumar, [email protected], Dr. R.K. Vyas, [email protected]

COMAD-2010 International Conference on Management of DataDate : 8-10, December, 2010Organized by: CSI Division II (Software), SIG-Data, Region VI and Nagpur ChapterFor details contact: P S Deshpande, VNIT Nagpur E-mail: [email protected]

National Conference on E-Governance & E-Society (NCEGOVS-2010)Date : 11-12 December 2010Hosted by: Allahabad ChapterFor details contact: Mr. D K Dwivedi, [email protected]

Workshop on Java Androids & Web TechnologiesDate : 10-12 December 2010Hosted by: Jaypee University of Engineering & Technology, Guna (MP)Organised by: CSI and Jaypee University of Engineering & Technology, GunaFor details contact: Dr. Shishir Kumar, [email protected]

National Conference on E-Governance & E-Society (NCEGOVS-2010) Date : 11-12 December 2010Hosted by: Allahabad ChapterFor details contact: Mr. D.K. Dwivedi, [email protected]

ICoAC 2010: 2nd International Conference on Advanced ComputingDate: 14-16, Dec. 2010 at Chennai, India Organised by: Dept. of Information Technology, Anna University Chennai, MIT Campus and IEEE Madras Section and Supported by Computer Society of India Div IV & Chennai Chapter, IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) and University Grants Commission (UGC)For details contact: Dr. S. Thamarai Selvi, Professor, Dept. of Information Technology, MIT Campus, Anna University Chennai, Chromepet, Chennai 600044, India. Email: [email protected] OR Mr. H.R. Mohan, Chair Div IV at [email protected] Website: www.annauniv.edu/icoac2010

ICSIP-2010: International Conference on Signal and Image ProcessingDate : 15 – 17, Dec 2010 at Chennai, IndiaOrganized by: RMD College of Engineering and University of Mysore in association with Computer Society of India Div IV & Chennai Chapter and IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter For details contact: Prof. Dr. R. M. Suresh, Chair – Programme Committee at [email protected] or [email protected] OR Mr. H.R. Mohan, Chair Div IV at [email protected] Website: www.rmd.ac.in/icsip2010/

Role of IT in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)Date : 17-18 December 2010Hosted by: Tata Institute of Social SciencesOrganised by: CSI and Tata Institute of Social SciencesFor details contact: Prof. Bino Paul, [email protected]

January 2011ConfER-2011: The 4th National Conference on Education & ResearchDate : 23-24 January, 2011 Hosted by: Shambhunath Institute of Engineering & Technology, AllahabadOrganized by: CSI Division V, Region-I and Allahabad ChapterFor details contact: Prof. J P Mishra (e-mail: [email protected]), Mr. Zafar Aslam (e-mail: [email protected])

February 2011CONSEG-2011 : International Conference on Software EngineeringDate : 17-19 February, 2011Organized by: CSI Div. II (Software) and Bangalore ChapterFor details contact: Dr. Anirban Basu, [email protected]

Second International Conference on Emerging Applications of Information Technology (EAIT 2011) Date : 18-20 February, 2011Host by: Kolkata ChapterFor details contact: Mr. D P Sinha, [email protected]

M D AgrawalVice President & Chair, Conference Committee, CSI

CSI COMMUNICATIONS | OCTOBER 2010 1

Volume No. 34 Issue No. 7 October 2010

President Prof. P Thrimurthy [email protected]

Vice-President Mr. M D Agrawal [email protected]

Hon. SecretaryProf. H R [email protected]

Hon. TreasurerMr. Saurabh H Sonawala [email protected]

Immd. Past PresidentMr. S Mahalingam [email protected]

Regional Vice-Presidents

Mr. M P Goel (RegionI)[email protected]

Dr. D P Mukherjee (RegionII)[email protected]

Prof. S G Shah (RegionIII)[email protected]

Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra (RegionIV)[email protected]

Dr. D B V Sarma (RegionV)[email protected]

Mr. C G Sahasrabuddhe (RegionVI)[email protected]

Mr. S Ramanathan (RegionVII)[email protected]

Mr. Jayant Krishna (RegionVIII)[email protected]

Division ChairpersonsDr. Deepak Shikarpur Division-I(Hardware)[email protected]

Dr. T V Gopal Division-II(Software)[email protected]

Dr. S Subramanian [email protected] (Applications)

Mr. H R Mohan [email protected] (Communications)

Prof. Swarnalatha Rao [email protected] (Edu.&Research)

Nominations CommitteeDr. Shyam Sunder Agrawal

Prof. (Dr.) U K Singh

Dr. Suresh Chandra Bhatia

Publications Committee

ChairmanProf. S. V. Raghavan [email protected]

ChiefEditorDr. T V Gopal [email protected]

Director(Education)Wg. Cdr. M Murugesan (Retd.) [email protected]

ExecutiveSecretaryMr. Suchit Gogwekar [email protected]

Published by

Mr. Suchit GogwekarForComputer Society of India

Executive Committee 2010-11/12 CONTENTS

Theme Section : Social Entrepreneurship

04 India’s Tryst with Social Entrepreneurship Manoj Chandran

06 Need of the Hour Raja Shanmugam

08 The Solution is the Key Rikin Gandhi

10 Relevance of Technology in Social Sector Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya

HR Column

12 Sexual Harassment at the Workplace V Srinivasan

Articles

14 A Study of Computational Intelligence in Agriculture L Pradhan, S Dehuri, B B Mohapatra and A K Panda

26 Effective e-Governance and Development: Case Studies from Kerala Raju Narayana Swamy I.A.S

Departments

02 Community Talk

03 President’s Desk

35 CSI2010 – Curtain Raiser

36 CSI2010 – “Awards for Excellence in IT” – A Curtain Raiser

4 2 ExecCom Transacts

CSI Topics CSI Calendar 2010-11 (2nd Cover)

25 National Conference on Mobile and Ad Hoc Networks

25 CSI SIG on “Web 2.0 and Social Networking Sites” – A Report

33 Workshop on Intelligent Systems & Knowledge Web Preeti Aggarwal

34 INDIACom-2011 – Announcement and Call for Papers

37 NWWN-2010 & WNTB-2010 – A Report

40 CSI Elections 2011-2012/2011-2013

41 Workshop on Distributed Systems 2010 Second International Workshop on Distributed Systems

43 COMAD 2010 – Call for Participation

44 From CSI Chapters


COMMUNITY TALK

Entrepreneurs are innovative, highly-motivated, and critical thinkers. When these attributes are combined with the drive to solve social problems, a Social Entrepreneur is born. Although academics and lay observers generally agree what a social entrepreneur is, there is still ambiguity surrounding the definition of a “social enterprise.”

Social entrepreneurs tap inspiration and creativity, courage and fortitude, to seize opportunities that challenge and forever change established, but fundamentally inequitable systems. The social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of transformational change that will benefit disadvantaged communities and, ultimately, society at large. Social entrepreneurs pioneer innovative and systemic approaches for meeting the needs of the marginalized and the disadvantaged.

“Social entrepreneurs have existed throughout history. St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order, would qualify as a social entrepreneur – having built multiple organizations that advanced pattern changes in his “field.” Similarly, Florence Nightingale created the first professional school for nurses and established standards for hygiene and hospital care that have shaped norms worldwide. What is different today is that social entrepreneurship is developing into a mainstream vocation, not only in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but increasingly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In fact, the rise of social entrepreneurship represents the leading edge of a remarkable development that has occurred across the world over the past three decades: the emergence of millions of new citizen organizations.

- David Bornstein, Journalist, leading expert on the global rise of “Social Entrepreneurism.”

Some of the basic definitional issues that remain include the choice of for-profit / nonprofit structure, the necessity of earned-income strategies among nonprofits, and the degree to which social entrepreneurs/enterprises can manage the toughest social and environmental issues.

Bunker Roy, created the Barefoot College in rural communities in India to train illiterate and semiliterate men and women, whose lack of educational qualifications keeps them mired in poverty. Presently, Barefoot College graduates include teachers, health workers and architects who are improving communities across India, including hundreds of “barefoot” engineers who have installed and are maintaining solar-electrification systems in over 500

villages, reaching over 100,000 people.Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006

Nobel Peace Prize, created the “Grameen Bank”. Ann Camfed has broken the cycle of poverty for hundreds of thousands of young women in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania through “Social Entrepreneurship”.

Gramateller is a Low-cost ATM for Rural India created by Vortex Engineering. The start-up was incubated at the Tenet Group at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai (IITM). Other Tenet incubated social enterprises include Rural Opportunities Production Enterprise and Desicrew Solutions. Conventional ATMs consume about 1,800 units of electricity a month, but Gramateller requires 72 units which means less heating and therefore no need for air-conditioning.

Today many services and products are flourishing in the “Social Entrepreneurship” mode both in India and Abroad. There is plenty of support forthcoming in concept formation, community building and forging appropriate collaborations. ICT based tools and techniques for “Collaborative Work” including mailing lists, blogs and discussion forums are proving to be the key enablers in catalyzing the progress of this idealogy. It is widely believed that there is more than US$100 Billion untapped market that can open up for innovative business models based on “Social Entrepreneurship”.

Social entrepreneurs function as the agents of change, questioning the status quo, grabbing the new yet overlooked opportunities, and changing the world for the better.

Omar Garriott, Berkeley wonders what it will take to create the field of Social INtranpreneurship, when change agents inside corporations also become key parts of the social change equation.

“Founded on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship and self-employment, underpinned by the values of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative movement can help pave the way to a more just and inclusive economic order”

- Kofi Annan, Formerly Secretary - General of the United Nations

On behalf of CSI, I take immense pleasure in thanking Mr. Manoj Chandran of Ashoka.org for providing very useful content for the theme section.

Dr. Gopal T VHon. Chief Editor [email protected]

“I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun.”

-Muhammad Yunus Founder, Grameen Bank & Winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 2006


From : [email protected]

Subject : President’s Desk

Date : 1st October, 2010

Dear Affectionate Members of CSI Family,

A good discussion has been initiated during the past two months on promoting the membership of women in CSI. An effort is also made by our active members to understand and to feel the necessity of having a forum (or association with like minded groups) for exchange of ideas and for forging pioneering initiatives so as to unleash the potential of women and drive their growth in IT/ITES sector.We have 4581 women members and about 22,000 female student members on the rolls of CSI.

Empowering Women in ITWe have discovered a voluntary, not-for-profit forum that was initiated by senior women professionals of IT/ITES industry in the year 2006 with the key objectives of “Increasing the Share and Sustainability of Women in the IT/ITES industry” and is registered as eWIT. The forum has been very active in Chennai conducting various workshops, training programs, networking events and has earned a good repute in the IT/ITES sector. eWIT can be accessed at www.ewit.co.in. On Sep 3rd, 2010, CSI entered into an agreement with eWIT. Both organizations focusing on IT professionals, synergizing through Collaboration is the right choice. The MOU provides for exchange and sharing of information & publications, mutual invitation and participation in each other’s events, joint organization of events and collaborative development of Research & Education activities.

CSI-eWIT event:The first joint event has already happened at Anna University, Chennai on Sep 23 under the auspices of CSI-Division II and eWIT. The theme of the one day event was “Role of Stake Holders in Increasing the Share and Sustainability of Women from Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and Rural Areas in IT/ITES industry”. The program also consolidated inputs from women who work in these areas and address their expectations. The program was well attended with over 120 participants and turned out to be a huge success. This first step is a pointer for a large number of such joint efforts for the benefit of community. We welcome eWIT into CSI family and I am sure this will spur the growth and results achieved by both organizations. Our Education Directorate may be approached, with new initiatives so that similar activities could be organized in other chapters.

KLEF University Student Branch:A new student Branch with 300 student members has been inaugurated by Shri K. Satyanarayana, Chancellor of the University on 15th September 2010 in KLEF university campus situated at Green Fields, Vaddeswaram (Near Vijayawada), which is in association with CSI Koneru chapter. I congratulate Prof. Praveen Krishna, Student counselor, Prof. Krovi Rajasekhar, Koneru Chapter Chairman, Prof. K. Rajasekhara Rao, A.P.State Student Coordinator and Dr. DBV Sarma, RVP5 for their excellent planning and organizing the event with the Participation of Industry, represented by Sri M Neelakanteshawar Rao, Deputy Manager ADP Limited as the key note speaker. It is timely that an effort is made to motivate students towards Management subjects with the involvement of Dr. G Prasada Rao Dean AMITY School of business, who had explained the audience the role of management in IT industry. It is time that our youth with engineering background

need to be oriented on management subjects, so as to improve the quality of services/productivity and above all to improve the career growth of the individual. The inauguration has attracted several deans of the faculties lead by Prof. GL Dutta Vice chancellor of the University, who had stressed the importance of the CSI and advised students of the campus to become members of CSI.

KIET fest in KakinadaIt has been a festival of Learning that was organized by the student Branch of Kakinada Institute of Engineering & Technology during the third week of September 2010. While the student chapter which has won best student Branch award, has organized several innovative programs, I am attracted by the presence of several mathematicians with expertise on Information Security. I am glad that Dr. C.R. Chakravarthy, Chairman, SIG (IS) is associated in developing programs at KIET. In order to promote research in Information Security areas, a research centre is announced at KIET in association with CSI, An MOU would be signed between CSI and KIET to that effect soon. While CSI provides the resource persons, KIET provides infrastructure and financial support for promoting Research. This model could be followed in other institutions depending on the expertise available at the corresponding Institute. We appreciate the efforts of Shri P. Viswam, Chairman, KIET, and Prof. Ramakrishna for making the fest, a memorable event for the couple of thousands who participated from all over Andhra Pradesh.

Lean Six Sigma programs for CSI Professionals:The Indian IT Industry is reinventing itself today, to not only deliver better IT / ITES services and products, but also to deliver direct business value to its clients all over the world. Computer Society of India have taken a lead to enable the industry in this direction, by launching advanced management and leadership certification programs on Lean Six Sigma for corporates, professionals, faculty and students. After a thorough evaluation, we have partnered with KINDUZ Consulting: (http://www.kinduz.com), to train and mentor our corporates, professionals, faculty and students at affordable costs. The pilot programs in Hyderabad and Delhi Chapters have been very successful. Recent programs in Mumbai and Bengaluru chapters have generated a lot of interest and positive feedback from the industry. Keeping these in view, we have decided to take these programs national and have recently signed the MOU with KINDUZ Consulting. CSI chapters may approach our Education Directorate. This is one of the many ways we can make India more competitive in the global market, and I look forward for CSI delivering even more value to the Indian industry way into the future.

Prof. P ThrimurthyPresident, Computer Society of India

PRESIDENT ’S DESK

4CSI COMMUNICATIONS | OCTOBER 2010

India, today, has one of the most fertile environments for entrepreneurship in the world. Several positive changes have taken place during the last two decades that have resulted in entrepreneurship being accepted as a good career decision. Availability of better infrastructure, policies, skills and finances are just a few of these encouraging signs. The most important change has been the creation of a robust marketplace in the country, which has given rise to innumerable innovative entrepreneurship ideas that are being experimented. It, therefore, does not surprise us when a young management student expresses her desire to “start something of my own.”

Even as India’s entrepreneurial success stories have covered a wide spectrum of industries, technology has played a key role in several of the recent innovations, not to speak of those numerous, well-known success stories in the technology industry itself. Both technology professionals and entrepreneurs are increasingly aware of the role of technology in the creation of innovative enterprises. Internet and telecom sectors are filled with innovative ideas made possible by the use of cutting-edge technologies.

A look at the NASSCOM Emerge 50 2010 will give us a glimpse of how young entrepreneurs are leveraging the power of technology in creating innovative enterprises. An organization that makes travel booking easier, another that makes innovative applications for the cellphones and yet another organization that helps collect knowledge from volunteer experts and make them available for the seekers.

In this highly entrepreneurial environment, there’s another tribe that is steadily increasing in numbers. They are the ones who detect social problems and have some of the most innovative solutions for these problems. They are the people who fight against all odds to offer solutions that improve the quality of life of citizens across all sections of the society.

Social entrepreneurs are no different from business entrepreneurs in their spirit of innovation,

commitment and clarity in vision. They are able to see opportunities in challenges in the manner business entrepreneurs smell market potential. Social entrepreneurs, however, are driven by the objective of creating social values that bring systemic changes in the society.

Social entrepreneurs in India have invented products that solve power problems in the villages, implemented innovative methods of communication that help farmers adopt more efficient farming processes, launched campaigns that bring to the fore issues of food security, nutrition and social and economic exclusion.

For the last nearly 30 years, Ashoka has been closely observing these social entrepreneurs and identifying the leading ones among them who have some of the most innovative solutions to most urgent problems of the world. By offering them Ashoka Fellowship and supporting them in their endeavor, Ashoka has been able to study the changing patterns that result out of the efforts of these social entrepreneurs. Please read more about Ashoka.org at the end of this editorial.

Today, the world has reached a crucial phase of entrepreneurship. For both business and social entrepreneurs to succeed in their next big ideas, the world needs to witness a tipping point that includes the 4 billion people of earth that are yet to participate in the global economy. The next set of unique challenges business and social entrepreneurs are facing today will throw opportunities for them to collaborate and co-innovate. The tipping point can only take place when the leading business and social entrepreneurs grab the opportunity to take the lead together.

And, this is where ICT has an extremely crucial role to play. Technologists and technology entrepreneurs are some of the most innovative people. They have the knowledge of what technology can deliver and what the market needs. Even as they are aware that technologies are a means to an end objective, they are driven by newer problems that can be solved by technologies.

India’s Tryst with Social EntrepreneurshipManoj Chandran

Director – Marketing, Ashoka India, 54, Svapna, 1st Cross, Domlur Layout, Bangalore – 560071 Email: [email protected]

GUEST EDITORIAL


There is a huge opportunity for these enthusiasts to learn about the problems of the society that are being addressed by social entrepreneurs. There are scores of challenges faced by these social entrepreneurs that can be addressed by technologists.

As a technologist, your real power will emerge when your knowledge of technology meets your awareness of the problems in the society. You have a crucial role to play in making ICT relevant to the society. And, in doing that, social entrepreneurs, who are closer to the problems of the society, can help you finding the right match.

The first chapter on India’s tryst with entrepreneurship is being

written. Even as India masters the spirit of entrepreneurship that the developed nations have experienced over the last 50 years, we need to traverse this path our own way. We have a long way to go before the entrepreneurship spirit grips a whole generation. Technologists and technology entrepreneurs are at the forefront of innovation today and can play a crucial role in looking for solutions that are inclusive and ensure larger participation. Die-hard technologists, who are known to love challenges should know that some of the best opportunities for innovation lie in this space.

Manoj is the marketing director with Ashoka India. In this role, Manoj is responsible for building a marketing, branding and communication strategy for Ashoka with the objective of making Ashoka’s vision and its various programs successful in India and South Asia. The author brings in rich experience in corporate marketing and journalism.

About the Guest Editor

ASHOKA INOVATORS FOR THE PUBLIC

About ASHOKAAshoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1980, Ashoka has elected nearly 3,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in 70 countries. Fellows inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations - demonstrating to all citizens that they too have the potential to be powerful changemakers.

Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors to address, social entrepreneurs are innovating solutions, delivering extraordinary results, and setting new milestones in their fields. By unleashing the same innovative and entrepreneurial mindset that has driven business sector growth over the last two centuries, Ashoka’s global community of social entrepreneurs is fueling civil society’s unprecedented growth.

Through identifying and investing in the boldest actors of our time, Ashoka seeks to empower social entrepreneurs addressing issues as far ranging as economic development, environmental degradation, healthcare, education, and human rights. Ashoka has demonstrated since its establishment that a small direct investment in social entrepreneurs leverages their work enormously, seeding powerful ideas and creating a high return on initial investment.

Ashoka’s presence in India over the last 28 years has created a formidable community of Ashoka Fellows. Today in India, more than 320 Ashoka Fellows are ushering in fundamental changes across a wide range of social spaces. While these Fellows have made significant progress in their fields, Ashoka remains committed to seeking out and supporting new leading social entrepreneurs who are bringing innovative solutions to the areas of social business, rural development, education, and human rights.

Ashoka understands that the work of these exceptional Fellows will expand only when we engage every citizen in the process of change. We have seen the power of social entrepreneurs to bring about systemic change in society. We have also seen that, without proper support across sectors, these entrepreneurs find it difficult to carry that change to the larger world. Fellows are in a prime position to carry the message that every individual has the potential to become a changemaker – by either following in the footsteps of a social entrepreneur or charting their own path with innovative solutions. Ashoka is committed to bringing the “Everyone a Changemaker” message to India.


Through the Generations in India, we have seen a lot of parents of differently abled children putting their lives on hold to look after them well. Absence of systemic support system for their children compels them to take up the entire burden with some support from volunteers and NGOs. Already laden with guilt for their perceived role in bringing such a child to the world, this is a huge struggle. It is no coincidence that most of these NGOs have a pivotal and personal role in the well-being of such children.

A bigger problem looms around the corner. What happens when the parents pass on? What becomes of the child then? This is a nightmare that awards many parents with sleepless nights.

Employment and self sustenance of People with disabilities becomes an extremely relevant need in this context. Economic self-sufficiency is the key to emancipation. Inability to earn and fend for oneself has been used to crush the aspirations of countless downtrodden sections of the society for a long time. The plights of women and the lowest rungs of the caste system in this country are painful examples.

However, the liberation of these social segments was steered through focused support in education and job opportunities over the last few decades. If women and Harijans can rise up from such desperate situations, there are possibilities for differently-abled people too.

This is easier said than done, though. The Indian education system already struggles with an 85% drop-out rate even for regular students. A large section of students with disabilities do not even make the start line at the primary level, let alone them becoming a part of the 15% who eventually step out of the secondary school system. For those who brave the secondary system and step into Higher Education, the real challenges are just dawning . Many of them, especially, those who are visually-challenged are advised not to take Science and Math streams. This shuts down their entry to the huge set of technical careers, irrespective of their aspirations and aptitudes.

Nevertheless, we have a miniscule number of people who show Herculean resolve to conquer all

these prejudices and complete their professional qualification, either in technical (BE/Diplomas/Comp. Sciences) or in managerial streams (MBA/BBA). They now face the next Great Wall to scale – ignorance, apathy and under-preparedness of the Corporate sector to integrate them into the workplace.

The path ahead, is daunting. To put it in simply, we need to ensure that a) these children join and progress through the

education system in an integrated and inclusive manner

b) they can follow their aspiration to pursue Higher education in a stream of their choice

c) all corporate careers are accessible to all people, irrespective of their disabilities, as long as they meet the relevant qualifications for a jobSheer apathy and ignorance have kept PWDs

away from enjoying the fruits of the society for too long. However, there are some genuine practical issues that need to be defeated. For example: A) How will a teacher ensure a child with visual /

hearing impairment absorb the learning with the rest of the class?

B) How does she seek and respond to their feedback in the classroom?

C) How does a child with such problems interact with other children?

D) How do you teach a child with visual impairment the nuances of geometry and other visual aspects so integrated to our ways of exploring science and math?

E) How do children with Cerebral Palsy with no way of holding a pen or pencil in their hand and with a speech impediment to boot, communicate their feelings and write exams?

F) How does a person with total visual impairment interact with a computer terminal and be involved in high quality ICT development or financial analytics processes?

G) With a public transport system that is unfriendly to majority of usow can these people commute to their jobs?Sounds impossibly difficult, isn’t it? Not

THEME ARTICLE

Need of the HourRaja Shanmugam

CEO, MindTree Foundation, West Campus, Global Village, RVCE Post, Mysore Road, Bangalore- 560 059, India. Email: [email protected]


really. Here is where IT can help. More appropriately, this is where AT (Assistive Technology) can help.

Assistive Technology (AT) is a generic term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities. AT promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to or changed methods of interacting with the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. (Wikipedia)

There is a wide range of AT- Low tech & High Tech. From Ramps to White Canes to Prosthetics to hearing aids to Speech Generation Devices to motorized wheel chairs to screen readers to eye trackers to cochlear implants to brainwave triggers. As we go higher on the level of inclusion we seek to accomplish, ICT becomes more and more integrated into the AT required.

And ICT has the power to deliver on this promise. Yes. Blind men can “see”, deaf men can “hear”, mute men can “speak” and lame men can “walk”. Even people with Autism and Cognitive challenges have access to AT that help them organize their lives more effectively and independently.

AT has been around for more than three decades in western world. Differently-abled people have integrated in the education system, have access to all streams of higher education and are integral part of many successful corporations and businesses. Rather than just sympathy, these individuals have played key roles in increasing the social fabric of their organizations, enabling higher customer acceptance, higher level of innovation by bringing in wider perspectives and fostering universal design. All these have been possible through a combination of statutory requirements laid down by enlightened governments and excellent progress and availability of AT.

In India, though, the picture is different. We are just beginning to acknowledge PWDs as contributing members of the society. Laws that mandate inclusion are neither comprehensive nor implemented with strong will.

When it comes to AT, indigenous AT is almost non-existent. Imported technologies are extremely expensive. Even those who can afford them hesitate to buy/use them, due to scarce local training and support. A screen reading software like JAWS sells for INR 51,000 per user license for corporate license, discouraging the most-enlightened organizations to take the leap in integrating visually-challenged in mainstream jobs. Motorized Wheel chairs cost no less than INR 100,000. The locally-built basic models start at INR 65,000+ for. Awareness of AT’s potential for inclusive education at the grassroots level is almost zero. Affordable tools like Access switches and Speech Generation Devices with local context that can significantly improve integration of the child with disabilities into the education stream are simply not available.

The irony in India is that a big gap in perception and understanding regarding ICT’s role in disabilities exists in both directions. The community of people with disabilities is not still aware of the full potential of ICT to integrate them into the society. At the same time, our professionals in the ICT business in India have shown very limited understanding of the plight of people with disabilities and how ICT can help in closing the gap. Nor have they shown significant inclination towards getting formally involved in solving these issues at the technology levels.

For a country that boasts of arguably the largest and best technology talent pool in the world, this is a sorry state of affairs. Paradoxically, almost all institutions of technical education have excellent programs to develop socially-relevant solutions as part of their curriculum. Highly-relevant technical solutions that can potentially address the problems of our millions of disabled are sitting on the shelves of these institutions through decades. Many new ones are being developed as I write this.

Unless corporations step up to the plate, this will not change. When I attended the National Conference on AT by ISAAC in Mumbai last year, MindTree was only the listed Indian IT company participating formally in the proceedings. Sadly, the

situation was the same 16 months later at the International AT conference in Bangalore in July this year. The only ray of improvement was in the form of two local start-ups that showcased their commercially available solutions.

There is business in it. We have close to 10% of our population as a potential and captive market for these AT. It may not be apparent now but it is a surety within next 10 years. And we need to start somewhere. We need not do everything from the onset. A lot of ground work has already been done. What we need to bring to the table is our strengths in product engineering and marketing, eco systems development and competition.

MindTree’s first product in this space, ADITI, is an access switch developed by an IIT Chennai professor and Vidya Sagar, a Chennai-based NGO for PWDs. We polished the design, made the device Ready to manufacture, encouraged an ecosystem partner to build and sell it at almost 1/10th the price of Internationally-available products. We are now working towards a design overhaul to make it world-class in every sense.

Challenges still remain though. How to keep the price low, while building world-class solutions at low volumes and still build a viable business? How to assess this complex community, where each individual’s need is unique? How to design for mass production at the same time provide for local customization? How to cater to the immense cultural and linguistic diversity of this vast nation?

The answers, of course, are not easy! Nevertheless, we have shown the world how to accomplish difficult things in the past. Most recently, through our ICT story. We have built unique business models, eco systems, processes and disciplines that have awed the world. We now need to turn our collective attention to AT.

It means telling one-tenth of our population that they matter. With one out of three families involving a PWD, every one of us has a personal stake in this. We need to act. Now.

(The author is CEO, MindTree Foundation.)

“Today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world – out of six billion people, more than three billion – do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.”

- Muhammad Yunus Founder, Grameen Bank & Winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 2006


The battle against poverty is a continual engagement with humility — especially for technologists. In the area known as information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), engineers work to develop novel solutions to the challenges faced by the world’s poorest communities.

Although it’s easy to specify the technical requirements to set up a PC with Internet access in a slum or a remote agrarian village, what it takes for technology to meaningfully impact a poor migrant worker or rural farmer is an altogether different problem that requires considerations of local economy, cultural norms, and stakeholder needs.

The Digital Green team faces these kinds of challenges every day. The solutions, however, rarely come easily and require extensive time in the field, honesty about what does and doesn’t work, and a willingness to accept technically simple solutions.

More than 60 percent of India’s population relies on agriculture as a means of livelihood, and most of these people are marginal farmers who earn less than $2 a day and often lack the knowledge to improve their farm’s productivity. At Digital Green, we work to address this knowledge gap by using video as a medium for improving the speed and effectiveness of disseminating information about better agricultural practices to farmers at a reasonable cost.

Using an iterative approach that combined an ethnographic investigation of existing agriculture extension practices with prototyping of both technology and its use in a village context, we gradually acquired a better understanding of the problems of classical agriculture extension itself as well as the challenges of using video as a medium in rural areas.

Digital Green consists of locally produced videos of farmers adopting good agricultural practices along with screening sessions in which farmers gather to watch the videos in the presence of a mediator from the community who frequently pauses the video and provokes discussion. It complements the systems of NGOs and government departments by involving extension officers as key elements of the videos and mediation. On a per-farmer basis, Digital Green costs are actually lower than the classical, government-supported model. In a controlled evaluation, we found the system to be at least 10 times more effective, per

dollar, than traditional methods in converting farmers to use better farming practices.

What’s most interesting about Digital Green are the insights we’ve gained about farmers, which have turned out to be nothing other than identification with what’s common to people everywhere. For example, the farmers’ interest in video depended strongly on the content. Videos of classroom-style lectures and large events were perceived to be monotonous, and the farmers often requested a variety of more intimate content types that included concrete demonstrations, testimonials, and even outright entertainment.

The mediator’s effect during screening was also significant. In particular, playing back the video unattended, no matter the content, frequently resulted in audiences leaving well before it was over. Because mediators make the content active through reiteration of concepts between clips, questions to gauge interest, and announcements of follow-up visits and subsequent screenings, more often audience remains engaged.

Another observation was the degree to which farmers trusted videos featuring people like themselves. They made snap judgments about a person’s background, apparently based on language, clothing, and mannerisms, and were more inclined to trust videos featuring their neighbors than information from government experts. Sociologists suggest that people tend to absorb innovations through homophilous social networks—when they perceive themselves to be similar to one another.

Finally, perhaps the most interesting identification occurred when we saw just how much farmers delighted in seeing themselves “on TV.” In fact, some were motivated into adopting better farming practices simply with the promise that they would be in the next video. This turned out to be a powerful incentive in a world with limited financial opportunities, and it perhaps echoes the enduring popularity of American Idol and similar TV programs. We sometimes joke that Digital Green is, in fact, “Farmer Idol.”

The Digital Green system took shape as a research project at Microsoft Research India. In 2009, Digital Green was spun-out as an independent organization with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Deshpande Foundation. Our team of trainers is working with partners and

The Solution is the KeyRikin Gandhi

Digital Green, Second Floor, Building 2A, Corner Market, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi - 110017, India Email: [email protected]

THEME ARTICLE


communities across Karnataka, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh to extend the system to 1,200 villages over the next three years.

To support these efforts, our software engineering team has developed an open-source technology platform to enable the exchange of data across the areas in which we operate. Digital Green’s software stack is founded upon a data management layer that we call COCO (connect online; connect offline). The system and its name were inspired by persistent and at times debilitating data connectivity at the field level, specifically in gathering and exchanging operational data.

COCO is designed to support up to 100,000 users located anywhere in the world and only requires Internet connectivity when a user is ready to synchronize their data with a global repository. As a robust standalone application in the Internet browser, COCO requires no additional software installation or maintenance and is designed an open-source, customizable framework and is built upon Google Web Toolkit, Google Gears, and Django and hosted on Amazon.com’s EC2 web service.

On top of the COCO foundation layer, we have developed an Analytics suite to provide day-to-day business intelligence on our field operations, performance targets, and basic ROI (return on investment) metrics. These systems are freely available and accessible online without the need of onerous technical infrastructure and expensive commercial licenses.

Though technology provides a valuable role in the Digital Green system, we have found that the most critical factor to success is spending time with potential users in those circumstances in which the innovation takes hold. Time spent with users “in the field” is more valuable than just about anything else.

Most of the work that we undertake is in partnership with NGOs who share our goals. Digital Green takes not only time and inspiration, but also its name, from our first partner organization, GREEN Foundation, which supports resource-poor farming communities several hours outside of Bangalore. Our partners are essential in helping us gain access to the target communities — they frequently have years if not decades of experience working with the communities and have earned a degree

of trust we couldn’t hope to build in a short time.

Another key to success is honesty about what really works. For us, whether a system “works” isn’t merely a technical question. Does it make sense economically? For instance, we are careful to ensure that existing agriculture extension officers are a key part of our system, not entities to be replaced by new technology.

At Digital Green, we began by taking the technology -- digital video -- for granted. The true innovations are how to set up screenings, motivate farmers, and make the content as meaningful as possible. Though not technical innovations, the novel solutions to these questions are what make Digital Green what it is.

Unlike basic technology research in which invention itself is often the goal, ICT4D work is necessarily applied—it is, after all, for development. Thus, a stress on impact isn’t just appropriate it is a requirement.

(Rikin Gandhi is the founder of Digital Green and an Ashoka Fellow. He was recently selected among the top 35 young innovators in the world by Technology Review magazine.)

ClarificationRam Basnet, Ram Swaroop Movva, “Detection of Phishing Attacks”, CSI Communications, Volume No. 32, Issue 7, October 2008.Computer Society of India [CSI] is a non-profit society registered in 1965. CSI Communications is a registered newspaper with the Registrar of News Papers for India – RNI 31668/78 Regd. No. MH/MR/WEST-76-2009-11. CSI Communications [CSIC] is sent to all members of CSI as a service. During the year 2008, CSIC had a theme for every month and Guest Editor(s) for the theme section. The themes were planned well in advance.

For the October 2008 issue of CSIC, the theme was “Information Assurance”. CSI is thankful to Andrew H. Sung, Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science Department, New Mexico Tech., USA and Srinivas Mukkamala, Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Faculty at New Mexico Tech., USA.

The paper mentioned above is an adapted version of a paper published by Ram Basnet, Srinivas Mukkamala and Andrew Sung. The details of the original publication are given below:

Ram Basnet, Srinivas Mukkamala, and Andrew H. Sung, Detection of Phishing Attacks: A Machine Learning Approach, New Mexico Tech, New Mexico 87801, USA, Soft Computing Applications in Industry, B. Prasad (Ed.):, STUDFUZZ 226, pp. 373–383, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg, 2008.

Ram Basnet is a Ph.D student at New Mexico Tech., USA.

I deeply regret the inconvenience caused to Ram Basnet, Srinivas Mukkamala, Andrew Sung, Ram Swaroop Movva and the Ethics Reporting at Springer-Verlag for not securing explicit consent from Ram Basnet for the adaptation made for CSIC prior to its publication.

Gopal T VHonorary Chief Editor


Arguably, the steam engine was the most important technology innovation in the 19th century, which established the foundation of industrial revolution and unprecedented growth that world has ever seen till the Information Technology revolution in the late 20th century.

The remarkable strides that human civilization achieved in the last 200 years have been largely supported by developments led by technological innovation. Technology has a sort of democratic value that allows its spread through market mechanism in a way that no other form of human knowledge has been able to spread, except perhaps religion. In the late 20th century, developing countries like India have led their economic recovery through technology-assisted services markets, while China, through production markets.

Technology today forms part of the day-to-day life of people across the world. From using the means of transport, to means of production, preparing food, education and entertainment, in every aspect of life technology is pervasive. However, one question that remains in the minds of the people and is on the radar of governments and development planners is - is technology an enabler of development or an obstacle in removing poverty by taking away jobs and replacing manual labor by machines. The dilemma remains in the minds of development agencies, although over the past few years there is a going realization that “appropriate technology” alone have multiplier effect on the problems of poverty and development.

While this argument continues, the emergence of new technologies in the communication space during the last 20 years has led to the unleashing of knowledge dissemination at a pace unprecedented in the history of human civilization. We are increasingly living in this ‘connected’ world where every information and/or service is just a few buttons away. However, once again, the relevance of these technologies to social

development is questioned. Several initiatives over the years have been exploring dimensions of technology in social sector, to identify tenets under which a near perfect synergy is established for a sustainable and poverty free world.

In the Oddanchatram vegetable mandi (market), one of the largest vegetable markets in the state of Tamil Nadu in India, while there are large traders, small head-loaders also earn their living by meeting the needs of households in nearby vicinity. Traditionally, margins on final sales available to these head-loaders are very low. Hence, any marginal increase in cost of marketing is unwelcome. Each of these women, who on an average earn less than `100 per day, has a mobile phone that they recharge for Rs 5 every other day. The mobile phone helps them get connected to the households they serve, the traders for purchase of vegetables at good rates and to the money lender, who provides them daily credit of `100 @ 3650% annual interest (vendor has to return `110.00 in the evening) for their business. In Rs 2.50 per day they find value in buying, learning and using mobile phones, a technology that is not more than 10 years old and was at that time thought to be of and for upper elites.

If we analyze this story we have an interesting observation. While the factors of the market remain the same, it’s the mobile phone (read technology) that has introduced a new dimension in business for this women vendors. They now have easier access to credit (considering the money lender is more confident now that he can trace them on their mobile phones), bigger market share (can serve more customers and meet their demand of a particular vegetable, etc.) and cheaper costs from traders (they can know where in the markets is the cheapest bulk purchase available).

The most important observation we can make in this story is that there is absolutely zero intervention by any development organization (NGO), government, banks or any other formal markets player, except that

THEME ARTICLE

Relevance of Technology in Social SectorVijay Pratap Singh Aditya1

Chief Executive Officer, Ekgaon Technologies, E-142 A, Lower Ground Floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi - 110 019, India Email: [email protected]

1Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, is Cofounder and CEO of ekgaon technologies, a leading information technology social enterprise. ekgaon is the 2009 winner of Dell Small Business Excellence Award. Vijay is Ashoka – Lemelson Fellow.


of the telecom service provider company, which has offered a recharge product affordable to the women vendor (`5).

We have several such great success stories - innovative use of mobile phones by auto-rickshaw drivers to home tiffin service providers. India is reaping rich dividends from the manner and speed in which mobile phone technology has reached the masses. However, the formal markets as well as social sector organizations are still learning to understand how such technologies can be leveraged to enhance their business processes and help their social development agenda.

Poor has been traditionally understood to be a bad customer by any business. At the same time social sector organizations and welfare governments have considered poor as people who can only survive on dole outs. However, there is a small group of practitioners of technology toward social goals - Social Entrepreneurs who believe otherwise. From sustainable energy generation to creating value chain of food crops, value addition at source for market and environment-friendly products, these entrepreneurs have created an avenue for socially responsible businesses creating

sustainable livelihoods for millions, by leveraging technology to there advantage. Numerous such examples of products and services such as micro-hydropower, organic cotton, minor millets, vegetables and other FMCG products are finding a way towards markets through supply chains enabled by these enterprises, who, though nascent, have been able to build on sound business principles and use of some cutting edge innovative technologies.

Microfinance in the last decade has been celebrated and awarded (the Nobel Price to Dr. Mohammed Yunus) for its potential and ability to lift people out of poverty. It has been included as a strategy for elevating poverty by 2015 in the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) by the United Nations. Celebrated financial services organizations and companies including the venture capital community showed immense interest and invested heavily in microfinance, essentially micro-credit over years. However, one of the best-known ‘secrets’ of microfinance is that it has ‘never reached the poorest’. It did reach a segment of population that is under-served but not the poorest, who lack ‘sustainable’ means of repayment. Two factors contributed in this

situation, one being ‘bankability’ of these clients while the other was clearly the ‘cost of providing services’, which is considerably high as compared to traditional sources of personal finance.

Microfinance has failed to leverage technology for reducing cost of service delivery. While regulatory reasons are one factor, other is simply lack of learning and understanding of market and customer it serves. The use of mobile phone as illustrated in the women vegetable vendors is a case in point to demonstrate the potential it offers in distributing financial services to the under-served. However, this potential remains to be tapped in a much larger scale.

Technology serves itself, developers of the technology serve themselves; it is the users of technology who need to leverage the potential through innovation and vision. It’s the vision that differentiates the use of technology; you need not be as smart as a Silicon Valley geeky innovator to understand that, you just need to match the smartness of the women vendor in Oddanchatram vegetable market. Will the social sector wake up to face this reality and adopt technology in innovative ways?

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing,

announces that on 26 September 2010, mr Leon Strous (right) from

the Netherlands, took over from professor Basie von Solms (left)

from South Africa as the new President of IFIP for the period from

September 2010 to September 2013. The change of presidency

took place at the end of the General Assembly meeting in Brisbane,

Australia, following the very successful IFIP World Computer

Congress (WCC) 2010.

About the new president

Mr Strous is an IT Auditor employed by De Nederlandsche Bank,

which is the Dutch central bank. He has been a Vice-President of IFIP

from 2007-2009 and the President-elect from n2009-2010. From

2001-2007 he has been the chair of IFIP’s Technical Committee

11 covering the aspect of Information Security. He is the national

representative in IFIP for the Dutch Computer Society (NGI).

[Excerpted from an IFIP Press Release]

International Federation for Information Processing IFIP Secretariat: Hofstrasse 3, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria; Tel. +43 2236 73616, Fax: +43 2236 736169; e-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.ifip.org DVR: 0825590

Press release - New officers in IFIP

IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, announces that on 26 September 2010, mr Leon Strous (right) from the Netherlands, took over from professor Basie von Solms (left) from South Africa as the new President of IFIP for the period from September 2010 to September 2013. The change of presidency took place at the end of the General Assembly meeting in Brisbane, Australia, following the very successful IFIP World Computer Congress (WCC) 2010.

Among a number of other changes in officers at the General Assembly, IFIP specifically wants to mention the change in Honorary Secretary. After eleven years of hard work in this task by dr Roger Johnson from the UK, this role is now taken over by professor Maria Raffai from Hungary. IFIP thanks all the outgoing officers for their contributions.

Upon his installation the new president expressed his gratitude for the trust that IFIP has put in him for his term as president and he is looking forward to an active relationship with all the member societies and their representatives, the technical committees and their working groups and all other volunteers involved in IFIP.

IFIP in its jubilee year is looking back at a history of 50 years but is certainly also looking forward to the future. Changes that have been started some years ago will be continued in order to adequately react to changes in the world. For some views of the new President, addressing the five strategic goals of IFIP, see- ITU interview: http://www.itu.int/net/newsroom/wtdc/2010/videos/index.aspx- The next ten years: http://www.ifip.org/images/stories/ifip/public/Archive/50thanni/c01-strous-the%20next%20decade.pdf- See also the transcript of the tele-interview of mr Strous with Stephen Ibaraki in September 2009.

About the new president

Mr Strous is an IT Auditor employed by De Nederlandsche Bank, which is the Dutch central bank. He has been a Vice-President of IFIP from 2007 – 2009 and the President-elect from 2009 – 2010. From 2001 – 2007 he has been the chair of IFIP’s Technical Committee 11 covering the aspect of Information Security. He is the national representative in IFIP for the Dutch Computer Society (NGI).

About IFIP The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a non-governmental, non-profit umbrella organization for national and regional societies working in the field of information processing. It represents societies from 55 countries and geographic regions who together have a membership of more than 700.000 individuals. IFIP organises about 100 conferences annually and links more than 5.000 scientists and professionals from academia,

International Federation for Information ProcessingIFIP Secretariat: Hofstrasse 3, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria

Mr Leon Strous takes over as President, IFIP


HR COLUMN

Sexual Harassment at the WorkplaceV Srinivasan

Head – HR, Ma Foi Randstad, No.49, Cathedral Road, Chennai - 600 086, India E-mail: [email protected]

‘I am looking for a change’, declared Anita to her best friend Sunil who also happened to be her colleague. Over lunch at the office pantry, when Sunil heard this he was taken aback at the statement as well as Anita’s lack of concern on the risk of being overheard. ‘Hold it’, he said in an undertone, we can discuss this after work today.

Anita, a young marketing graduate worked in a team comprising 15 members reporting to the National Sales & Marketing Head of the organization. Anita’s issue was the boss; a very aggressive and expressive professional who was in the habit of gestures like touching the shoulder, patting the head and so on while showing appreciation or care. ‘That’s his style, Anita, read nothing more into it’, pleaded Sunil while at dinner at Anita’s home the same evening. `If that is the case, how come he adopts this style only for the women?’ `Well, maybe because you girls are much younger than the men in your team. He is treating you like kids. If it offends you, perhaps you should tell him that you do not like to be touched. I am sure he will appreciate your candor and also be happy you shared this feedback with him, rather than talking about it behind his back’.

Not all perceptions of sexual harassment at workplace are this simple. While we do not know enough and therefore cannot judge whether Anita’s boss was an affectionate boss or a masked subtle abuser at the workplace, we are all well aware that there is a fine invisible line between being friendly and turning abusive.

Peter Drucker, in The Practice of Management says – ‘What is most important is that the management realize that it must consider the impact of every business policy and business action upon society’. While an array of issues like lack of loyalty to the company, employee mistrust, cynicism amongst senior management challenge the well being of organizations, instances of sexual harassment can cause visible decay in the organization’s management capabilities. Perceptions, even if exaggerated, greatly affect the work environment which can in turn be

destructive within the system and also in societal terms.

Culture, upbringing and beliefs rule evaluation of behavior and this need to be taken into account while probing into harassment cases. Having said this, we also should keep in mind that one cannot approach colleagues the way one is wont to in his/her own culture. The regional and cultural borders are indeed boundaries – global organizations keep this in mind while creating HR policies. Traditional setups define every rule or guideline in black and white. Policies once adopted are non negotiable and there is no compromise even if there are business implications. The modern organization (the term modern is certainly not synonymous with permissive) allows for a few grey areas where decisions are taken on a case basis. With biases, prejudices, stereo types and mental models largely impacting behavior assessment, an accusation needs to be supported with verifiable proof. As is the philosophy of law – a thousand culprits may go scot free (due to lack of evidence), but even one innocent should not be punished (based on fabricated proof). However, the blanket rule, which underpins an organization’s moral fibre is that a grievance recorded by any employee, irrespective of gender, designation, age and position should be paid immediate heed to. Else, it defeats the belief in organizational ethics and decries human values.

Gender discrimination is tantamount to harassment and organizations do not take such occurrences lightly. Personal comments, made though in a jocular vein are unacceptable and there have been instances where the `accused’ is severely reprimanded or even terminated from service. An employee in a software organization sent a birthday wish to a woman colleague who turned forty. Using a comment from the popular series ‘Friends”, he stated in the mail, ‘Happy birthday. It is better to be over the hill than under it!’ Needless to say, the birthday girl deeply insulted ensured her birthday was also the colleague’s last working day.


SRINIVASAN has rich work experience in the field of Human Resources with special exposure in the fields of

performance management and rewards, talent management & development and employee relations. He has

worked with organizations such as Mahyco Seeds (Pune/Aurangabad), Times of India Group (Delhi & Bangalore)

in the HR domain and was also heading Talent Management & Capability Building (Telemedia Business South)

at Bharti Airtel.

About the Author

Women as well as men have complained of mental torture by reporting authorities. Though there may be no sexual overtones in the treatment, nevertheless the harassment is real. Bosses and employers can get used to the power they wield over their subordinates or employees and at times, professional boundaries are overstepped to the point of bullying. While team play or relationship building which aids immense rapport and emotional expression is encouraged, this may result in the thin line that differentiates collaboration and closeness to blur. Majority of complaints come from women, but the number of complaints filed by men is now on the rise. The complaints are usually against women bosses. However, there have also been cases where subordinates are known to create problems. In such cases, the assumption is that the woman, being a reportee should have enough reason for complaint and therefore the prejudice against the hapless boss is strong. A young and dynamic management professional in an emerging organization was a suspect only because he showed intolerance towards lackadiasical approach to work. The team member, also young and attractive could not accept that the boss was more focussed on work than on personal rapport. It was a classic case of rejection, however imaginary. A situation where the boss reprimanded the member for taking a customer’s issue lightly, stirred dormant feelings of scorn and the team member recorded a complaint of sexual harassment. The boss, who was in the management’s good books for his total professionalism and passion for work, was regarded by the same management as someone demonstrating boorish behavior which was bordering on mental torture and sexual harassment. A detailed enquiry, mercifully, revealed the facts.

Notwithstanding prejudices and predictions of gender behavior, professional setups are known to give a fair hearing to both parties before arriving at a decision.

Reasons behind sexual harassment at work can be varied and severely complex, and primarily to do with socialization and psychology. Personal problems can also be a factor, where harassment becomes a symptom of the effects of life traumas such as divorce, loneliness, extreme financial problems or death of a close one. Some deep rooted psychiatric issues like persecution complex, ill treatment by parents or relatives in childhood, and experiences of physical abuse are known to cause negative behavior at work.

A singular approach to handle delicate disciplinary issues like sexual harassment can be, what the high gurus of Human Resource call the hot stove rule. As per this rule, result of the action taken is akin to touching a hot stove. The four aspects comprise:

Immediate burn – the action must take place immediately, without letting the issue die on the one hand or brew on the other. The guilty will understand the reason for this.

Warning – Advance information through clear cut policies that behavior of this kind is unacceptable is similar to going near a hot stove and feeling the heat. If one yet risks touching it then punishment will follow like a severe burn.

Consistency – Anyone who touches the burning stove with same level of pressure for a same duration gets burned to a same degree. In other words, any employee/employer who behaves in a similar fashion gets punished with uniform severity.

Objectivity – Follow up action and enquiry into the issue should be professional and impersonal. Anyone who touches

the stove suffers burns. The stove does not play favorites and neither should the organization.

Having said this, there are few difficulties in this approach. Situations, issues, instances, reasons, and behaviors vary. Therefore progressive action is more realistic which would be based on understanding of personalities, information obtained from the probe, and also the ways in which the victim wishes to handle the case.

Most organizations have introduced the whistle blower policy where any employee can register a complaint against the boss, colleague, employer, client or just about anyone with respect to the organization. Absolute protection and privacy is provided to the complainant while the issue is probed thoroughly and appropriate action taken. This helps immensely for suffering individuals to overcome embarrassment, guilt, insecurity and at times, even shame.

More international the organization, more stringent are the policies on behavior at work. From an intern to a veteran, no man or woman needs to put up with harassment of any nature. Initially, fear of adverse publicity prompted active involvement of management in settling harassment issues. However, now organizations are proactive in their approach to people problems. There is genuine concern to ensure that happiness and peace pervade the work environment.

After all, the single objective of every organization would be to groom high performance professionals; focus on work can happen only if comfort, freedom and care is provided to every person who walks into the office to build his/her future and in turn contribute to the growth of the organization, the industry, the nation and the world.

Laugh IT OffSanta and Banta work in a software company. One day, they were to move their m/cs to another building. Banta was having a tough time carrying his machine.Santa : “My m/c has 500 MB disk. See how easily I am carrying it. Yours has just 250 MB. Can’t you carry even this much?”Banta : “But yours is empty and my disk is full”!!!


A Study of Computational Intelligence in Agriculture

L Pradhan1, S Dehuri2, B B Mohapatra1, and A K Panda3

1 Department of Business Management, Fakir Mohan University, Vyasa Vihar, Balasore-756019, Orissa, INDIA. Email: [email protected] 2 Department of Information and Communication Technology, Fakir Mohan University, Vyasa Vihar, Balasore-756019, Orissa, INDIA. Email:[email protected] 3 Abhaya Kumar Panda, Principal, Fakir Mohan (Auto.) College, Balasore-756001, INDIA. E-mail: [email protected]

In this paper, we present a rigorous study on the current advancement of technology in agriculture using the computational intelligence techniques. Computational intelligence techniques particularly artificial neural networks (ANNs) and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) to ameliorate and modernize the research challenges in agriculture sector is the primary focus of this paper. Further, we highlighted the applications of stateof-the-art (wireless) sensor technology, mobile communication, and robotics in agriculture, which can show the path to the rural farming community to replace some of the traditional techniques.

Keywords: Agriculture, Artificial neural networks, Evolutionary algorithms, Sensor technology, Mobile communication, and Robotics.

1. Introduction The digital rebellion has made digitized information

effortless to capture and practically inexpensive to store. With the rapid advancement of sophisticated devices like sensor [1], barcode reader, RFID reader [2], scanner, other commonly used computers peripherals, software and the computerization of agricultural sector, huge amount of agridata have been collected and stored in databases [3]. The rate at which such data is stored is growing at a phenomenal rate. As a result, traditional ad hoc mixtures of statistical techniques and data management tools are no longer adequate for analyzing this vast collection of data. Therefore, one way to handle such data is to adopt the computational intelligent (CI) data analysis methodologies, which could discover useful pattern from data for further decision-making.

Further agricultural systems, such as an environmental plant system, are quite complex and uncertain and they can be considered as ill-defined systems. They are characterized by non-linearity time varying properties and many unknown factors. It is therefore, difficult to quantify the complex relationship between the input and the output of a system based on analytical methods. Recently intelligent system control

based on CI [4] has been one of the most prosperous technologies in the complex system sciences.

Therefore, it may be timely and reasonable that this paper is focused on CI-specifically the use of ANN [5,6,7,8,9] and EA [10,11,12, 13,14,15] in the system science approach in agriculture.

In the same way advances in (wireless) sensor technology [1], and communication devices like cell phones [16,17,18,19,20] continue to change the ways of agriculture. Information driven management has been fundamental to modern agriculture for many decades, but until recently the decisions were simple and the scale was broad. With information-driven agricultural systems such as precision agriculture [5], basic principles of resource management cannot be ignored. Time and capital resources spent to collect intensive information from production fields, and then process that information into practical decisions, need to be offset by some type of improvement. If this is not realized, negative feedback to the investor (the producer) will result in a retreat to former ways. The paramount test of improvement in an open market-based economy is profitability, since financial matters have the greatest effect on a crop producer’s decision of whether to adopt practices long-term or not [21,22].

ARTICLE


Additionally, the idea has been forwarded in recent years that a precision agricultural system should include conservation measures that provide environmental benefits [23, 24]. Thus precision agriculture information increases in value when data collection, data processing, and management actions are integrated. Even the case that precision agriculture research and development will only succeed as an integration of multiple disciplines has been forwarded [25]. End users want to know the science and technology are employed, but not necessarily the details of how worthy that information is needed for an action. This phenomenon is typical of all consumers of new applications of science or technology. Since modern farming enterprises are already complicated and time-demanding, producers seeking improvements want science and technology delivered, but without increased complexity. Convenience is a major driver. Given these observations, what are the characteristics of viable precision agriculture systems of the future? Four points seem certain. When at all possible, the information-to-action decision process needs to be: (1) in intelligent sensor-based; (2) automated for real-time (or near real-time) computer processing into decisions (the task of “post processing” is quickly becoming antiquated); (3) packaged so that sensing and processing of information are a part of the equipment used to accomplish the required management action; and (4) transparent to the operator/manager for decision confirmation. This last point is important for two reasons. First, producers want to maintain control, described as the “human touch” [21], since management is still viewed as much as an art as it is an application of science. Second, since technology is not fail-proof, the operator needs to have over-ride control based upon his own experience of what is right.

Like sensor technologies, the advent of intelligent robots in agriculture has the potential to raise the quality of fresh produce, lower production costs and reduce the drudgery of manual labour [27]. Robots are perceptive machines that can be programmed to perform a variety of agricultural tasks such as spraying, cultivating, transplanting and harvesting. In Section 4 some of the issues and applications in agriculture is discussed.

Mobile phones [20] have emerged as the most popular medium for communication during the last decade. Mobile phones come with various value-added features, which makes mobile phones truly a multi-purpose equipment e.g., it can be used as calculator, video game, digital camera, tape recorder,

as a medium of railway inquiry, etc. Further one can send short massages, pictures, and voice massages from mobile phones instantly. Mobile phones are also used for accessing information like news, weather, stock prices, and cricket scores. The user charges of mobile phones have now reduced to such an extent that these have become affordable to the common man including a rural farmer.

The rapid development and convergence of information technologies should make it possible in near future to provide most of the services of government specifically agriculture related information available to a rural farmer electronically. Additionally farmers can request and receive extension and market information by cell phones instantly. Farmers’ groups use mobile phones to coordinate collective actions in response to soaring food prices. However, a forum on aspects of the use of mobile phones in agricultural development should be organized and analyzes the pros and cons towards successful use in farming community.

The spurt in the demand of mobile phones in recent times has the potential to bridge the digital divide. Unlike computers, the distribution of mobile phones is not restricted to those on the higher socio-economic levels but distributed much fairly to all socioeconomic levels. Thus, the telephones including mobile phones are the technologies, which can play a great role in farming community [26].

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 some of the computational intelligence techniques and their application in agriculture directly or indirectly is discussed. Section 3 discusses the state-of-the-art sensor technology and their application in agriculture. Robotics and cell phones in agriculture are discussed in Section 4 and 5 respectively. A conclusion and discussion is drawn in Section 6 with

an extensive collection of informative bibliography.

2. Computational Intelligence in Agriculture

2.1 Computational Intelligence Human beings learned much from

studies of natural systems, using what has been learned to develop new computational models to solve complex problems occurring in our dayto-day life. This section presents two technological paradigms under the umbrella of computational intelligence (CI) as a viable tool for solving problems in agricultural domain such as evolutionary computation and artificial neural network.

The world we live in is changing constantly. In order to survive in a dynamically changing environment, individuals must have the ability to adapt. Figure 1 shows a typical evolution. Evolution is this process of adaption with the aim of improving the survival capabilities through processes such as natural selection, survival of the fittest, reproduction, mutation, competition and symbiosis.

The no-free-lunch theorem [28] states that there cannot exist any computational technique for solving all problems that is on average superior to any other algorithm. This theorem motivates research in new optimization algorithms, especially evolutionary computation (EC)-a field of computational intelligence, which models the processes of natural evolution. Although, several evolutionary algorithms have been developed, for sake of simplicity we illustrated a common framework in algorithmic form.

Algorithm_EA 1. Let g=0 be the generation counter. 2. Initialize a population Cg of N

individuals, i.e. C = {C | n = 1,2,.. N}. 3. While no convergence

(a) Evaluate the fitness f (Cg ,n

) of each

to-day life. This section presents two technological paradigms under the umbrella of

computational intelligence (CI) as a viable tool for solving problems in agricultural

domain such as evolutionary computation and artificial neural network.

The world we live in is changing constantly. In order to survive in a dynamically

changing environment, individuals must have the ability to adapt. Figure 1 shows a

typical evolution. Evolution is this process of adaption with the aim of improving the

survival capabilities through processes such as natural selection, survival of the fittest,

reproduction, mutation, competition and symbiosis.

The no-free-lunch theorem [28] states that there cannot exist any computational

technique for solving all problems that is on average superior to any other algorithm. This

theorem motivates research in new optimization algorithms, especially evolutionary

computation (EC)- a field of computational intelligence, which models the processes of

natural evolution. Although, several evolutionary algorithms have been developed, for

sake of simplicity we illustrated a common framework in algorithmic form.

Algorithm_EA 1. Let g=0 be the generation counter.

2. Initialize a population Cg of N individuals, i.e. },..2,1|{ , NnCC ngg == .

3. While no convergence

(a) Evaluate the fitness )( ,ngCf of each individual in population Cg

Figure 1. Theory of Evolution (Source: http://luqmanhasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/evolution-theory.gif)

Fig. 1 : Theory of Evolution (Source: http://luqmanhasan.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/evolution-theory.gif)


individual in population Cg (b) Perform cross-over:

i. select two individuals Cg,1

and C

g,2

ii. produce offspring from Cg,1

and Cg,2

(c) perform mutation i. select one individual C

g.n

ii. mutate Cg.n

(d) Cg+1

= Replace (Cg, newly generated

population). (e) evolve the next generation g=g+1

Convergence is reached when for example, • the maximum number of generation is

exceeded • an acceptable best fit individual has

evolved • the average and/or maximum fitness

value do not change significantly over the past generation. The human brain provides inspiration

for artificial neural network researechers, however there is no consensus on how closely it should be simulated. Figure 2 illustrated a human brain with artificial neural network. Artificial neural networks were inspired from brain modeling studies. A neural network is basically a realization of a non-linear mapping from R1 to RK, f

NN : Rl

→ Rk, where I and K are respectively the

dimension of the input and target space. The function is usually a complex function of a set of non-linear functions, one for each neuron in the network.

(b) Perform cross-over:

i. select two individuals Cg,1 and Cg,2

ii. produce offspring from Cg,1 and Cg,2

(c) perform mutation

i. select one individual Cg.n

ii. mutate Cg.n

(d) C g+1= Replace (Cg, newly generated population).

(e) evolve the next generation g=g+1

Convergence is reached when for example,

• the maximum number of generation is exceeded

• an acceptable best fit individual has evolved

• the average and/or maximum fitness value do not change significantly over the

past generation.

The human brain provides inspiration for artificial neural network researechers, however

there is no consensus on how closely it should be simulated. Figure 2 illustrated a human

brain with artificial neural network. Artificial neural networks were inspired from brain

modeling studies. A neural network is basically a realization of a non-linear mapping

from IR to KR , KINN RRf →: ,

where I and K are respectively the dimension of the input and target space. The function

is usually a complex function of a set of non-linear functions, one for each neuron in the

network.

Figure 2. Brain with Artificial Neural Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArtificialFictionBrain.png

Fig. 2 : Brain with Artificial Neural Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArtificialFictionBrain.png

2.2 Evolutionary Algorithms in Agriculture Recently, evolutionary algorithms

(encompassing genetic algorithms (GAs)[11], evolution strategies (ES) [29, 30, 31], genetic programming (GP) [32] and evolutionary programming (EP) [31]) have proven to be the best general method for the optimization of large and complex problems, including agricultural models.

The use of numerical optimization techniques on simulation models is a developing field. Many of the available algorithms are not well suited to the types

of problems posed by models of agricultural systems. Coming from different historical and developmental backgrounds, both genetic algorithms and evolution strategies have proven to be thorough and efficient methods in identifying the global optimum of such systems. A challenging herd dynamics model is used by Mayer et al. [33], to test and compare optimizations using binary and real-value genetic algorithms, as well as evolution strategies. All proved successful in identifying the global optimum of this model, but evolution strategies were notably slower in achieving this. As all is commonly adopting the more successful innovations of each of these methods, the boundaries between them are becoming less clear-cut.

Further, Mayer et al. [34], studied and identified that evolutionary algorithms (including genetic algorithms) are superior in optimizing the models obtained for agricultural domain to simulated annealing, tabu search, hill-climbing, and direct-search methods. Results of a complex beef property optimisation, using a real-value genetic algorithm, are presented. The relative contributions of the range of operational options and parameters of this method are discussed, and general recommendations listed to assist practitioners applying evolutionary algorithms to the solution of agricultural systems.

Differential evolution (DE) [12] is one comparatively simple variant of an evolutionary algorithm. Mayer et al., [35] has investigated its performance in the optimization of a challenging beef property model with 70 interacting management options (hence a 70dimensional optimization problem) indicate that DE performs better than Genial (a real-value genetic algorithm) [11]. Despite DE’s apparent simplicity, the interacting key evolutionary operators of mutation and recombination are present and effective. In particular, DE has the advantage of incorporating a relatively simple and efficient form of self-adapting mutation. The results show that the baseline DE parameters work effectively, but can be improved in two ways. Firstly, the population size does not need to be overly high, and smaller populations can be considerably more efficient; and second, the periodic application of extrapolative mutation may be effective in counteracting the contractive nature of DE’s intermediate arithmetic recombination in the latter stages of the optimisations. This provides an escape mechanism to prevent sub-optimal convergence. With its ease of implementation and proven efficiency, DE is ideally suited to both novice and experienced users wishing to optimise their simulation models.

In earlier research, the optimal spatial distribution of agricultural ammonia emissions to minimize atmospheric nitrogen deposition in nature reserves was determined. Linear programming (LP) has been applied because of the approximately linear atmospheric transport relations between emission and deposition locations. A more thorough analysis necessitates the addition of other nitrogen contributions important for the quality of nature, such as by groundwater and surface water transport. These processes can no longer be considered linear, so the application of non-linear optimization methods is necessary. Several non-linear programming methods can solve large-scale problems, but are not capable of dealing with non-smoothness and qualitative relations, especially when the number of variables and/or relations is large. Therefore, Loopen et al. [36], has evaluated the potential of genetic algorithms (GA), by comparing the GA results for the linear atmospheric emission–deposition process with results of LP. GA was shown to perform well, producing similar results to LP. Calculations showed that almost identical minimal deposition patterns might be achieved with somewhat different emission patterns. This is a potentially interesting feature for policy-makers, who may evaluate alternative emission distributions on a small scale, each with their specific socioeconomic impacts, while still achieving optimal results for nature quality.

Due to increasing human activities on land to meet various demands, land uses are being continuously changed without any attention to their long term environmental impacts. Thus affecting the natural balance of the environment, in the form of global warming, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, air and water pollution, and so on. Hence, it has become urgent need to manage land uses scientifically to safeguard the environment from being further destroyed. Owing to the difficulty of deploying field experiments for direct assessment, mechanistic models are needed to be developed for improving the understanding of the overall impact from various land uses. However, very little work has been done so far in this area. NSGA-II-LUM, a spatial-GIS based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, is developed by Dutta et al. [37], for three incommensurable objective functions: maximizing economic return, maximizing carbon sequestration and minimizing soil erosion, where the latter two are burning issues to today’s researchers as the remedies to global warming and soil degradation.


2.3 Neural Networks in Agriculture Most of the research on the application

of ANN in agriculture science has been done in the last decade. It is mainly in the area of yield prediction, spatial modelling, spatial-temporal forecasting, etc. Here we will discuss some of the attempts made so far.

Within Asia, rice is a main source of nutrition and provides between 30 and 70% of the daily calories for half the world’s population. The importance of rice production demands an effective rice crop monitoring system to provide food security for this region. Recent research has proven radar’s capabilities in rice crop monitoring. Radar backscatter increases significantly during a short period of vegetation growth, but large spatial variations in rice crop growth occur due to shifting in the crop calendar. The significant increase in radar backscatter over a short period of time can be used to differentiate rice fields from other land covers. The inter-field variations can be used to derive information on local farmer practices and to enhance rice field mapping and yield prediction. The rice crop monitoring system developed by Chen et al. [38], was based on these variations as applied to a neural network classification. The system delineated rice production areas for one wet and one dry season, and was able to extract information on rice cultivation as a function of different planting dates. A minimum mapping accuracy of 96% was achieved for both seasons. This information was then used in a neural network-based yield model to predict rice yield on a regional basis for the wet season. When the yields predicted by the neural network were compared with government statistics, the result was a prediction accuracy of 94%.

Soil erosion by water is one of today’s most important environmental problems, in great part due to changes in agricultural land use and management. Rosa et al. [39], illustrated the formulation, calibration, sensitivity and validation analysis of a hybrid model of expert decision trees and artificial neural networks (named ImpelERO) to evaluate the soil erosion process. Because of the complexity of the soil erosion process, and the interrelationships of the parameters, ImpelERO was developed as a Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) type model following traditional land evaluation analysis and advanced empirical modelling techniques. Using expert-decision trees, soil survey information and expert knowledge of the soil erosion process were combined through land and management qualities. An artificial neural network approach was then applied to capture the interactions between the land and management qualities and one output: vulnerability index (Vi) to soil

erosion. The neural network was trained using the Correlation-cascade algorithm (shown in Figure 3). The trained network estimated the output with a high degree of accuracy (maximum deviation 14%), and also had a good generalisation capacity. By means of correlation analysis, observed erosion vulnerability data were compared with predicted data using a previously developed model and using the ImpelERO model. The latter model gave more accurate results (r = 0.91) than the previous approach (r = 0.66). Along with the prediction of soil loss by water erosion, ImpelERO could be used as an optimisation tool for selecting the land use and management practices which satisfy the optimum environmental protection including reduction of soil erosion.

Movagharnejad et al. [40] has made a study, which involves experimental works on drying of tomatoes in a tray dryer covering different variables like power of heater and air flow velocity. The data are modeled using artificial neural network and empirical mathematical equations. The results were compared with experimental data and it was found that the predictions of the artificial neural network model fit the experimental data more accurately in comparison to the various mathematical equations.

Torrecilla et al. [41], has obtained, through a proper selection of the training algorithm, an optimized artificial neural network (ANN) able to predict two parameters of interest for high-pressure (HP) food processing: the maximum or minimum temperature reached in the

Figure 4 shows the flow diagram of the agricultural soil erosion land evaluation

ImpelERO model.

Torrecilla et al. [41], has obtained, through a proper selection of the training algorithm,

an optimized artificial neural network (ANN) able to predict two parameters of interest

for high-pressure (HP) food processing: the maximum or minimum temperature reached

in the sample after pressurization and the time needed for thermal re-equilibration in the

Figure 4: Diagrammatic Representation of the Agricultural Soil Erosion Land Evaluation ImpelERO Model [8]

Figure 3: Structure of the Correlation Cascade Neural Network Fig. 3 : Structure of the Correlation Cascade Neural Network Figure 4 shows the flow diagram of the agricultural soil erosion land evaluation ImpelERO model.

Figure 4 shows the flow diagram of the agricultural soil erosion land evaluation

ImpelERO model.

Torrecilla et al. [41], has obtained, through a proper selection of the training algorithm,

an optimized artificial neural network (ANN) able to predict two parameters of interest

for high-pressure (HP) food processing: the maximum or minimum temperature reached

in the sample after pressurization and the time needed for thermal re-equilibration in the

Figure 4: Diagrammatic Representation of the Agricultural Soil Erosion Land Evaluation ImpelERO Model [8]

Figure 3: Structure of the Correlation Cascade Neural Network

Fig. 4 : Diagrammatic Representation of the Agricultural Soil Erosion Land Evaluation ImpelERO Model [8]


sample after pressurization and the time needed for thermal re-equilibration in the high-pressure process. To do that, 13 training algorithms belonging to 4 broad classes (gradient descent, conjugate gradient, quasi-Newton algorithms and Bayesian regularization) have been evaluated by training different ANNs. The network trained with the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm showed the best overall predictive ability. The performance of this network was subsequently optimized by varying the number of nodes in the hidden layer, the learning coefficient and the decrease factor of this coefficient, and selecting the configuration with the highest predictive ability. The optimized ANN was able to make accurate predictions for the variables studied (temperature and time). These predictions were significantly better than those obtained by a previous ANN developed without selection of the training algorithm, that is, assuming the default option of the ANN computational package (gradient descent with a user-defined learning rate). Torrecilla et al. [41], shown that a correct selection of the training algorithm allows maximizing the predictive ability of the artificial neural network.

Zhai et al. [42], has determined the effectiveness of artificial neural networks for the classification of bare soils, and to compare alternative neural network architectures. A group of classifiers, based on feed-forward back-propagation neural networks, was trained with either satellite or aerial remote sensing data. These classifiers were considered as either experts, trained to classify more than one soil texture, or specialists, trained to identify only one of the soil textures. Committee machines (CMs) and specialist committee machines (SCMs) were generated by applying a stacked generalization voting scheme. Both Landsat images and panchromatic aerial photographs, which were taken from bare-soil farmland in the Delta area of Mississippi, were used as spectral radiance sources. Sample points collected from two fields based on a 0.4 ha (1 acre) grid were split into two nonoverlapping subsets serving as training and test sets. By including the spectral radiance values from pixels surrounding the pixels where soil sample points were located in the data sets, contextual information of those sample points was included in the training. The impacts of contextual information of the sample points were investigated by analyzing the relationship between classifiers’ performance and the size of input matrices that were used to collect spectral radiance data. The analysis showed that both CMs and SCMs performed better

than any single classifier. In particular, the SCMs achieved the best performance by taking advantage of the generalization ability of CMs and the focusing ability of a specialist classifier. Both spectral radiance and contextual information of the samples played important roles in soil texture classification. Compared to panchromatic aerial photographs, training based on multispectral Landsat images led to better performance. Classifiers, and the CMs and SCMs generated accordingly, performed well when applied to test data sets that were collected from the same fields from which the training data sets were collected. They performed relatively poorly when applied to test data sets that were collected from the fields other than those from which the training data sets were collected.

Forecasting the international trade of rice is difficult because demand and supply are affected by many unpredictable factors (e.g., trade barriers and subsidies, agricultural and environmental factors, meteorological factors, biophysical factors, changing demographics, etc.) that interact in a complex manner. Co et al. [43], compares the performance of artificial neural networks (ANNs) with exponential smoothing and ARIMA models in forecasting rice exports from Thailand. To ascertain that the models can reproduce acceptable results on unseen future, Co et al. evaluated various aggregate measures of forecast error (MAE, MSE, MAPE, and RMSE) during the validation process of the models. The results reveal that while the Holt–Winters and the Box–Jenkins models showed satisfactory goodness of fit, the models did not perform as well in predicting unseen data during validation. On the other hand, the ANNs performed relatively well as they were able to track the dynamic non-linear trend and seasonality, and the interactions between them.

3. Sensor Technology in Agriculture Wireless technologies have been

under rapid development during recent years. Types of wireless technologies being developed range from simple Infrared Data Association (IrDA) that uses infrared light for short-range, point-to-point communications, to wireless personal area network (WPAN) for short range, point-to multi-point communications, such as Bluetooth and ZigBee, to mid-range, multi-hop wireless local area network (WLAN), to long-distance cellular phone systems, such as global system for mobile communications/general packet radio service (GSM/GPRS) and code division multiple access (CDMA). Most people feel the strong impact of wireless technology mainly due to the astonishing growth of cell-

phone market. However, not many people have realized that the demand of bandwidth for wireless, interpersonal communications, such as cellular phones, will soon become a minority share of the total available bandwidth, perhaps only 3% by the end of the decade [44]. A far greater potential exists for development and applications of other types of wireless technologies, especially wireless sensors and sensor networks, starting from military and environmental monitoring, moving towards machine-to-machine communications (M2M), and eventually reaching all aspects of our lives.

A wireless sensor network is a system comprised of radio frequency (RF) transceivers, sensors, microcontrollers and power sources. Wireless sensor networks with self-organizing, self-configuring, self-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities have been developed to solve problems or to enable applications that traditional technologies could not address. Once available, these technologies would allow us to find many new applications that could not have been considered possible before. Wireless sensor technology is still at its early development stage. Applications of wireless sensors in agriculture and food industry are still rare. This Section intends to give an overview of available wireless sensor technologies that are applicable to agriculture. One such example is given below.

PhyTech is a pioneer and a leader in Phytomonitoring: the practice of remote sensing and monitoring of plants. The advanced solutions use innovative software for collecting and analyzing data, state-of-the-art sensors, and wireless communication. The system improve crop production and reduce cultivation costs by providing timely and accurate information regarding the physiological status of the plants and identifying stress conditions before they impact the plant or the fruit. Figure 5 describes the system.

In a nutshell, PhyTalk is designed as a modular and distributed system. New sensors can be added as and when needed. The architecture supports cost effective deployment of sensors over large geographical area. The system consists of four modules.

Sensors: Measure a variety of parameters, providing relevant and precise information

about plant and environmental conditions. Example of such type of sensors is illustrated

in Figure 6.

Communications: Supports cordless deployment of sensors in the field and wireless

communication to remote computer anywhere in the world.

Software: Developed by experts in the field of phytomonitoring, the software supports

the analysis and interpretation of data in real time by displaying it in easy to read formats

such as graphs and tables and supporting disorder prevention.

Application Technique: Recommended measurement protocols and decision support

procedure for major horticulture crops.

Deployment of wireless sensors and sensor networks in agriculture is still at the

beginning stage. Applications can be classified into five categories: (1) environmental

monitoring, (2) precision agriculture, (3) machine and process control, (4) building and

facility automation and (5) traceability systems.

Figure 5: The PhyTalk System

Figure 6: A Field Sensor

Fig. 5 : The PhyTalk System


Sensors: Measure a variety of parameters, providing relevant and precise information about plant and environmental conditions. Example of such type of sensors is illustrated in Figure 6.

Sensors: Measure a variety of parameters, providing relevant and precise information

about plant and environmental conditions. Example of such type of sensors is illustrated

in Figure 6.

Communications: Supports cordless deployment of sensors in the field and wireless

communication to remote computer anywhere in the world.

Software: Developed by experts in the field of phytomonitoring, the software supports

the analysis and interpretation of data in real time by displaying it in easy to read formats

such as graphs and tables and supporting disorder prevention.

Application Technique: Recommended measurement protocols and decision support

procedure for major horticulture crops.

Deployment of wireless sensors and sensor networks in agriculture is still at the

beginning stage. Applications can be classified into five categories: (1) environmental

monitoring, (2) precision agriculture, (3) machine and process control, (4) building and

facility automation and (5) traceability systems.

Figure 5: The PhyTalk System

Figure 6: A Field SensorFig. 6 : A Field Sensor

Communications: Supports cordless deployment of sensors in the field and wireless communication to remote computer anywhere in the world.

Software: Developed by experts in the field of phytomonitoring, the software supports the analysis and interpretation of data in real time by displaying it in easy to read formats such as graphs and tables and supporting disorder prevention.

Application Technique: Recommended measurement protocols and decision support procedure for major horticulture crops.

Deployment of wireless sensors and sensor networks in agriculture is still at the beginning stage. Applications can be classified into five categories: (1) environmental monitoring, (2) precision agriculture, (3) machine and process control, (4) building and facility automation and (5) traceability systems.

3.1 Environmental Monitoring In spite of the rapid development of

computer technology, field measurements of environment variables, such as weather data and geo-referenced water quality data still depend on stationary sensors and dataloggers, pencils and paper notebooks, which are labor-intensive and susceptible to recording errors during transcription [45].

3.1.1 Weather Monitoring In [46] reported an application of a

wireless sensor network in a vineyard in BC, Canada. Sixty-five motes were installed in a 1-acre land to remotely report temperature, moisture and sun light intensity to a central PC every 5 min. The owner could easily monitor each area of the vineyard in real-time to avoid frost, manage irrigation, determine fertilizer applications and arrange harvest schedule. A solar-powered wireless sensor network was reported in [47] to provide weather information in fields. A remote application server relayed data from the sensor network to local users via a WLAN and remote users via cellular

network and the Internet.

3.1.2 Geo-referenced Environmental Monitoring Vivoni and Camilli [45] developed

a wireless prototype system to acquire, store, display and transmit real-time, geo-referenced environmental data between multiple field teams and remote locations. In the system, field teams with handheld data collection units communicated to each other or with a field station server through a WLAN. The field station server combined information received from all the teams and periodically reported to a remote web/data server through a dual-frequency mobile phone (GSM/GPRS service at 900MHz and 1.9 GHz). Field tests, conducted in MA, USA and NSW, Australia, demonstrated a great potential to improve efficiency and precision for field environment data collections. Perkins et al. [48] introduced a low cost, low power, self-organizing sensor network, (neuRFon), developed by Motorola Labs. The system can be used to sense agricultural, environmental and process parameters. A passive remote identification and sensor system was developed by Rusko et al. [49], using surface acoustic wave resonators in the European 433.92MHz ISM-band. The system featured long durability and environmental compatibility for identification and environmental monitoring applications.

3.2 Precision AgricultureWireless sensors have been used in

precision agriculture to assist in (1) spatial data collection, (2) precision irrigation, (3) variable-rate technology and (4) supplying data to farmers.

3.2.1 Spatial Data CollectionA mobile field data acquisition system

was developed by Gomide et al. [50] to collect data for crop management and spatial-variability studies. The system consisted of a data collection vehicle, a manager vehicle and data acquisition and control systems on farm machines. The system was able to conduct local field survey and to collect data of soil water availability, soil compaction, soil fertility, biomass yield, leaf area index, leaf temperature, leaf chlorophyll content, plant water status, local climate data, insect-disease-weed infestation, grain yield, etc. The data collection vehicle retrieved data from farm machines via a WLAN and analyzed, stored and transmitted the data to the manager vehicle wirelessly. The manager and engineers in the manager vehicle monitored the performances of the farm machines and the data acquisition systems, and troubleshoot problems based on received data. Lee et. al. [51] developed a silage yield mapping system, which included

a GPS, load cells, a moisture sensor and a Bluetooth wireless communication module. The moisture sensor and the Bluetooth transmitter were installed on the chopper. Signal from the moisture sensor was sent to a Bluetooth receiver on a host PC at a data rate of 115 kbps and was used to correct the yield data. Mahan and Wanjura [52] cooperated with a private company to develop a wireless, infrared thermometer system for in-field data collection. The system consisted of infrared sensors, programmable logic controllers and low power radio transceivers to collect data in the field and transmit it to a remote receiver outside the field.

3.2.2 Precision Irrigation Damas et al. [53] developed and

tested a distributed, remotely controlled, automatic irrigation system to control a 1500 ha irrigated area in Spain. The area was divided into seven sub-regions with a total of 1850 hydrants installed. Each sub-region was monitored and controlled by a control sector. The seven control sectors communicated to each other and with a central control through a WLAN network. Field tests showed 30–60% saving in water usage. Evans and Bergsman [54] are leading a USDA research group to study precision irrigation control of self-propelled, linear-move and center-pivot irrigation systems. Wireless sensors were used in the system to assist irrigation scheduling using combined on-site weather data, remotely sensed data and grower preferences.

3.2.3 Variable-rate Technology Cugati et al. [55] developed an

automated fertilizer applicator for tree crops. The system consisted of an input module for GPS and real-time sensor data acquisition, a decision module for calculating the optimal quantity and spread pattern for a fertilizer, and an output module to regulate the fertilizer application rate. Data communications among the modules were established using a Bluetooth network.

3.2.4 Supplying Data to Farmers A web server developed by Jensen et

al. [56] provided information on pest and disease infestation and weather forecasts. Farmers can download the information directly via Internet and use them for operation scheduling. USDA [57] conducted a research in Mississippi to develop a high-speed wireless networking system to help farmers download aerial images via WLAN to their PCs, laptops or PDAs. The images were mainly used for precision farming applications.

3.3 Machine and Process Control–M2M M2M is a technology that supports


wired or wireless (WPAN, WLAN, cellular systems, etc.) communications from machine to machine, from machine to mobile or from mobile to machine. M2M technology greatly enhances automation of a system (a machine system, a process or a business) and integrates discrete assets within the system with an IT system. To date, this concept has been developed mainly for industry and businesses. Application examples of M2M in agriculture given below can be categorized to (1) vehicle guidance, (2) machinery management, (3) robotic control and (4) process control, although none of these applications completely used M2M in its real sense.

3.3.1 Vehicle Guidance A WLAN-based, real-time, vehicle-

to-vehicle data communication system was established by Guo and Zhang [58] to exchange information between vehicles on vehicle states and operation control variables. Laboratory and field tests demonstrated the feasibility of real-time, wireless data communications between vehicles in autonomous, master-slave vehicle guidance. Charles and Stenz [59] implemented an autonomous tractor for spray operations in fields. During spraying, the tractor drove fully autonomously at least 90% of the time. This tractor could also be precisely controlled by a supervisor through a radio link. Rebeiro et al. [60] developed an autonomous guidance tractor for spray operations in citric and olive trees fields in Spain. A user-friendly visualization agent was developed for human operators to remotely control and supervise unmanned tractors in a field through WLAN. Stenz et al. [61] developed a wireless link between tractors and a human supervisor in a fleet of semi-autonomous tractors. Each tractor had the capability to detect people, animals and other vehicles in its predefined path and to stop before hitting such obstacles until it received control commands from a supervisor over a wireless link. A wireless personal safety radio device (WPSRD) was developed to avoid collisions between human and vehicle [62]. The WPSRD system included a host system, a number of stationary radio units installed on fixed properties, and a number of mobile radio units carried by personnel or autonomous vehicles, covering a known area. The host system communicated with all stationary and mobile units wirelessly, monitored the distance between any two units, and initiated various actions and warnings in response to possible collision.

3.3.2 Machinery Management McKinion et al. [63-65] established a

WLAN-based data communication system

to connect a farm station with machines, such as cotton pickers, spray equipment, variable-rate fertilized application equipment and handheld personal digital assistant computers in the field and allowed a rapid, bi-directional communication of data and information. Krallmann and Foelster [66] reported a remote service system for agricultural machinery to achieve maximum availability and minimum break down time. A wireless LAN with a data transmission rate of 11 Mbits acted as the communication medium.

3.3.4 Process Control Heimerdinger [67] designed a wireless

probe system (WPS) to monitor moisture content of wood during the drying process in real-time. The WPSs installed at various locations of the wood had self-powered radio transmitter to send data to a receiver at a central station using unlicensed ISM bands of 900MHz in North America or 433MHz in Europe. The experiment proved that the WPS greatly improved the accuracy and efficiency of the drying processes and reduced the cost of the data acquisition system.

3.4 Facility Automation Agricultural facilities, such as

greenhouses and animal-feeding facilities, includes HVAC, lighting control, energy management, access control, structural monitoring and fire/security. Standards for wired HVAC control systems (Lon-Works, BacNet, etc.) have been established for a long time. Standards for wireless-based systems are currently under development [47].

3.4.1 Greenhouse Control Serodio et al. [68, 69], developed

and tested a similar distributed data acquisition and control system for managing a set of greenhouses. Several communication techniques were used for data communications. At a lower supervision level, inside each greenhouse, a WLAN network with a radio frequency of 433.92MHz was used to link a sensor network to a local controller. A controller area network (CAN) was provided to link an actuator network to the local controller. Through another RF link (458 MHz), several local controllers were connected to a central PC. A high-level data communication was provided through Ethernet to connect the central PC to a remote network. Morais et al. [70] implemented a wireless data acquisition network to collect outdoor and indoor climate data for greenhouses in Portugal. Several solar-powered data acquisition stations (SPWAS) were installed indoor and outdoor to measure and monitor the climate data. RF links were established

among multiple (up to 32) SPWASs and a base station, which was used to control the SPWASs and to store the data. Liu and Ying

[71] reported a greenhouse monitoring and control system using the Bluetooth technology. The system collected environment data from a sensor network in a greenhouse and transmitted the data to a central control system. Mizunuma et al. [72] deployed a WLAN in farm field and greenhouse to monitor plant growth and implemented remote control for the production system. They believed that this type of remote control strategy could greatly improve productivity and reduce labor requirement.

3.4.2 Animal-feeding Facilities Monitoring climate-related variables

within an animal house can help maintain good animal health. Pessel and Denzer [73] developed a portable, mobile instrument to measure temperature, relative humidity, noise, brightness and ammonia content in the air within the house and transferred the data wirelessly to a PC through an infrared data link. The quality of indoor environment of a horse-riding arena is very important to the horses as well as the riders. To monitor temperature and humidity, several Hobo Pro dataloggers with wireless radio modems (Onset Computer Corporation, Pacasset, MA) were used by Wheeler et al. [74] to measure temperature and humidity inside the arenas. Data were transmitted to a central controller via the 900MHz license-free ISM band to realize online, indoor environment control.

3.5 Traceability Systems (RFID)With an increasing demand for security

and safety, complete documentations for food products, from field to customer, have become increasingly demanding [75]. RFID has been accepted as a new technology for a well-structured traceability system on data collecting, and human, animal and product tracking [76]. It has been projected that the applications of RFID will grow rapidly in the next 10 years with a compound annual revenue growth rate (2003–2010) of 32.2% [77]. To support these great application potentials of RFID, much research has been conducted.

3.5.1 Animal Identification and Health Monitoring Nagl et al. [78] designed a remote

health-monitoring system for cattle that incorporated various sensors, including a GPS unit, a pulse oximeter, a core body temperature sensor, an electronic belt, a respiration transducer and an ambient temperature transducer. The system communicated wirelessly with a base station via Bluetooth telemetry. Taylor and


Mayer [79] reported a study on a “smart”, comprehensive animal management system. Each animal is fed with a wireless sensor and a mote, which can provide accurate measurements of the location and health-related information of the animal wirelessly. Haapala [80] tested the performance of electronic identification tags and various readers on cattle under extremely cold temperature in Finland. Brown-Brandl et al. [81] tested a short-range telemetry system for measuring core body temperature in poultry, beef and dairy cattles. Temperature transmitters were implanted into the body of animals. A CorTempTM miniaturized ambulatory logger received the temperature data wirelessly. Test results showed good accuracy, resolution, and response time for temperature measurement. Kononoff et al. [82] used a wireless automatic system to record the chewing and ruminating behaviors to study the dietary factors affecting normal rumen function of dairy cows. Butler et al. [83] developed a “moving virtual fence” algorithm for herding cows. Each animal in the herd is given a smart collar consisting of a GPS, a PDA, a radio unit (WLAN) and a sound amplifier. The animal’s location was determined using the GPS and was verified through a measurement of proximity of the cow relative to the fence boundary. When approaching the perimeter, the animal was presented with a sound stimulus, which drove the animal away from the fence.

3.5.2 Food Packaging Wentworth [84] conducted a study

aimed at inexpensive, disposable RFID biosensor tags used on food products for history checking and contamination and inventory control. The biosensor was based on an acoustic wave platform and used antigen-antibody reaction to detect bacteria. Chandler [85] discussed the potential of RFID tags for “smart packaging”, automatic checkout, “smart appliances”, “smart recycling” and marketing/promotional opportunities. He believed that this type of technology could improve security, productivity, inventory control, traceability and result in capital and operational savings.

3.5.3 Transportation Gebresenbet et al. [86] and Geers et al.

[87] proposed an on-the-road monitoring system for animals during transportation. The system included sensors installed in the animal compartment to identify the animals and to monitor the air-quality, vibration and animal behaviors. A GPS provided the location of the vehicle. A data transfer unit regularly sent data to a service center via the GSM network. It was reported that the system greatly improved animal welfare during handling and transportation.

3.5.4 Food Inspection Najjar et al. [88] developed a handheld

PC for quality inspectors of a food-processing plant. The system allowed inspectors to select a form, complete the form, and send the data to the plant manager’s computer through a 16-bit, full duplex audio, and 2 Mb/s wireless data communication. The system also allowed mobile workers to use their voices, rather than their hands, to enter data from anywhere in the plant. In recent years, wireless sensors have been adopted in food processing to monitor and control the quality attributes of food products. For example, a temperature sensor can be inserted into a food can to record the evolution of temperature, and transmit the temperature data wirelessly to a central controller. Marra and Romano [89] developed a mathematical model to study the effects of different methods of inserting wireless temperature sensors into conductive canned food for monitoring thermal sterilization. A wireless, passive resonant sensor was developed by Ong et al. [90] to monitor the bacterial concentration in food products. The sensor was built on a thin film with an LC resonant circuit and was placed on a biological medium. The resonant signals related to the bacterial concentration in the medium were detected remotely by a loop antenna. The sensor showed great potential for food quality monitoring.

4. Robotics in Agriculture The advent of intelligent machines in

agriculture has the potential to raise the quality of fresh produce, lower production costs and reduce the drudgery of manual labour [91]. Robots are perceptive machines that can be programmed to perform a variety of agricultural tasks such as spraying, cultivating, transplanting and harvesting. However, a robot acting in the agricultural environment must contend with an uncertain and unstructured environment that requires development of technologies to solve difficult problems such as • Mobi le operat ion in a three-

dimensional, changing track; • Random location of targets, i.e., fruit; • Variability in fruit size and shape; • Delicate products; and • Hostile environmental conditions like

dust and extreme temperature and humidity. To achieve fast and robust operation in such a complex and dynamic environment, the agricultural robot must be equipped with sensing, scheduling and adaptive planning capabilities. An intelligent sensor-based control system must be structured for efficient planning, coordination and control of these tasks [91-93]. The control system must be capable

of: monitoring and interpreting data from multiple sensors; transforming the multitude of data to information; planning tasks and controlling task execution while dynamically making conclusions about the environment and reevaluating the intermediate targets as additional data are acquired [94, 95]. The objective of the work was to

develop an intelligent control system for an agricultural robot. Specific objectives were to: define how to organize sensory data; define how information is represented, coordinated and communicated; and develop methods for online integration of sensed data with dynamic motion planning and execution. The intelligent control system developed in this work was implemented for robotic melon harvesting. Melons [96] do not ripen uniformly and therefore must be selectively harvested. There is no current machine available for harvesting melons [97]. Melons were selected as an example for using robotics with other delicate and high-value horticultural products. The data flow and plan execution must be verified before implementing it on actual hardware to confirm that the control architecture performs effectively and to ensure that the algorithms and computer programs execute as intended. Since the intelligent control architecture involves functional and logical flow of data, which are of qualitative nature, it could not be verified using numerical algorithms and thus, conventional simulation methods were not suitable for model verification.

In the agricultural environment, simulation is essential because of the variability of crop conditions [98]. Experiments are difficult to reproduce since crop conditions change with time and vary spatially in the field. Performance differences caused by changes in the control algorithms are often impossible to distinguish from those caused by changes in crop conditions.

To save on labor, a cherry-harvesting robot was manufactured by Tanigaki et al. [99] for trial purposes and initial experiments were conducted (Figure 7 shows a typical cherry harvesting robot). A lot of research on fruit harvesting robots has already been carried out by leading experts and researchers (e.g., Kawamura et al., [100]; Harrell et al., [101]; Fujiura et al., [102]; Hanten et al., [103]).

5. Mobile Technology in Agriculture Mobile phones have emerged as the

most popular medium for communication during the last decade. Mobile phones come with various value-added features, which make mobile phones truly multi-purpose equipment. Mobile phones can be used as telephone directory, calendar,


calculator, video game, digital camera, and tape recorder. Further one can send short massages, pictures, and voice massages from mobile phones instantly. Mobile phones are also used for accessing information like news, stock prices, and cricket scores. The user charges of mobile phones have now reduced to such an extent that these have become affordable to the common man. As per the data provided by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India [27] (TRAI), the annual growth rate of mobile phone in China in the period 1995–2002 had been almost 100% and the mobile phones users has grown from 3.6 million in 1995 to 206.6 million in 2002. In India also the mobile phone users have risen from mere 0.3 million in 1996–1997 to 12.6 million by 2002–2003 (April 2002–March 2003). The Mobile phone users doubled in just 6 months to over 23 million in the period April 2003 to September 2003. At the end of August 2006, total mobile users were 123.44 million [27]. The average person per household in India is estimated by TRAI in India as 5.3, which means by 2005 mobile phones may be accessible to almost half of the population. The rapid development and convergence of information technologies should make it possible in near future to provide most of the services of government available to the mobile users electronically.

The spurt in the demand of mobile phones in recent times has the potential to bridge the digital divide. Unlike computers, the distribution of mobile phones is not restricted to those on the higher socio-economic levels but distributed much fairly to all socioeconomic levels. Thus, the

telephones including mobile phones are the technologies, which can play a great equalizing role between the “haves” and “have-nots” very dissimilar to the disparities that exist with respect to the other technologies like the Internet thus helping to bridge the digital divide.

2002–2003 (April 2002–March 2003). The Mobile phone users doubled in just 6 months

to over 23 million in the period April 2003 to September 2003. At the end of August

2006, total mobile users were 123.44 million [27]. The average person per household in

India is estimated by TRAI in India as 5.3, which means by 2005 mobile phones may be

accessible to almost half of the population. The rapid development and convergence of

information technologies should make it possible in near future to provide most of the

services of government available to the mobile users electronically.

The spurt in the demand of mobile phones in recent times has the potential to bridge the

digital divide. Unlike computers, the distribution of mobile phones is not restricted to

those on the higher socio-economic levels but distributed much fairly to all socio-

economic levels. Thus, the telephones including mobile phones are the technologies,

which can play a great equalizing role between the “haves” and “have-nots” very

dissimilar to the disparities that exist with respect to the other technologies like the

Internet thus helping to bridge the digital divide.

Figure 9 shows how we can save the water through mobile phones.

Figure 8. Mobile at the time of Cultivation in Land (Source: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/

Figure 9. Mobile for Saving Water (Source: http://expozaragoza2008.europa.eu/GBR/f/32/The-EU-Pavilion/The-

challenge-of-agriculture---Saving-water-from-mobile-phones)

Fig. 8 : Mobile at the time of Cultivation in Land (Source:http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/

2002–2003 (April 2002–March 2003). The Mobile phone users doubled in just 6 months

to over 23 million in the period April 2003 to September 2003. At the end of August

2006, total mobile users were 123.44 million [27]. The average person per household in

India is estimated by TRAI in India as 5.3, which means by 2005 mobile phones may be

accessible to almost half of the population. The rapid development and convergence of

information technologies should make it possible in near future to provide most of the

services of government available to the mobile users electronically.

The spurt in the demand of mobile phones in recent times has the potential to bridge the

digital divide. Unlike computers, the distribution of mobile phones is not restricted to

those on the higher socio-economic levels but distributed much fairly to all socio-

economic levels. Thus, the telephones including mobile phones are the technologies,

which can play a great equalizing role between the “haves” and “have-nots” very

dissimilar to the disparities that exist with respect to the other technologies like the

Internet thus helping to bridge the digital divide.

Figure 9 shows how we can save the water through mobile phones.

Figure 8. Mobile at the time of Cultivation in Land (Source: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/

Figure 9. Mobile for Saving Water (Source: http://expozaragoza2008.europa.eu/GBR/f/32/The-EU-Pavilion/The-

challenge-of-agriculture---Saving-water-from-mobile-phones)

Fig. 9 : Mobile for Saving Water (Source: http://expozaragoza2008.europa.eu/GBR/f/32/The-EU-Pavilion/Thechallenge-of-agriculture---Saving-water-from-mobile-phones)

Fig. 9 shows how we can save the water through mobile phones.

Fig. 10 illustrated how we can collect the a priori knowledge about the market place using cell phones. Some of the commonly used mobile phones are given in Fig. 11.

Figure 10 illustrated how we can collect the a priori knowledge about the market place

using cell phones. Some of the commonly used mobile phones are given in Figure 11.

6. Conclusions and Discussions

With the ever-growing pace of the world population, the role of world agriculture will

therefore becoming increasingly crucial in forthcoming decades, as concerns over food,

the environment and energy increases. On-going investigations are attempting to

understand, explore and solve these issues as they relate to agriculture. The inherently

complex, dynamic, and non-linear nature of agricultural systems has always required

solutions based on advanced techniques and technologies to provide greater accuracy,

better understanding, and appropriate solutions. The recent application of the

technologies computational intelligence (i.e., evolutionary algorithms, neural networks,

etc.) and other advanced form of information technology (i.e., wireless sensor networks,

Figure 10. Mobile for Awareness of Market Place (Source: http://www.w3.org/2008/07/sb_pc_2/sms_system.jpg)

Figure 11. Commonly Available Mobile Phones (Source: http://www.prlog.org/10066317-nokia-mobile-phones.jpg)

Fig. 10 : Mobile for Awareness of Market Place (Source: http://www.w3.org/2008/07/sb_pc_2/sms_system.jpg)

Figure 10 illustrated how we can collect the a priori knowledge about the market place

using cell phones. Some of the commonly used mobile phones are given in Figure 11.

6. Conclusions and Discussions

With the ever-growing pace of the world population, the role of world agriculture will

therefore becoming increasingly crucial in forthcoming decades, as concerns over food,

the environment and energy increases. On-going investigations are attempting to

understand, explore and solve these issues as they relate to agriculture. The inherently

complex, dynamic, and non-linear nature of agricultural systems has always required

solutions based on advanced techniques and technologies to provide greater accuracy,

better understanding, and appropriate solutions. The recent application of the

technologies computational intelligence (i.e., evolutionary algorithms, neural networks,

etc.) and other advanced form of information technology (i.e., wireless sensor networks,

Figure 10. Mobile for Awareness of Market Place (Source: http://www.w3.org/2008/07/sb_pc_2/sms_system.jpg)

Figure 11. Commonly Available Mobile Phones (Source: http://www.prlog.org/10066317-nokia-mobile-phones.jpg)

Fig. 11 : Commonly Available Mobile Phones (Source: http://www.prlog.org/10066317-nokia-mobile-phones.jpg)

6. Conclusions and Discussions With the ever-growing pace of the world

population, the role of world agriculture will therefore becoming increasingly crucial in forthcoming decades, as concerns over food, the environment and energy increases. On-going investigations are attempting to understand, explore and solve these issues as they relate to agriculture. The inherently complex, dynamic, and non-linear nature of agricultural systems has always required solutions based on advanced techniques and technologies to provide greater accuracy, better understanding, and appropriate solutions. The recent application of the technologies computational intelligence (i.e., evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, etc.) and other advanced form of information technology (i.e., wireless sensor networks, mobile technologies, robotics, etc.) provides solution to problems in agricultural systems. The adaptation and promotion of these technologies as their costs decrease is catalyzing additional investigations of the applications in agriculture.

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Fig. 7 : A Cherry Harvesting Robot

control algorithms are often impossible to distinguish from those caused by changes in

crop conditions.

To save on labor, a cherry-harvesting robot was manufactured by Tanigaki et al. [99] for

trial purposes and initial experiments were conducted (Figure 7 shows a typical cherry

harvesting robot). A lot of research on fruit harvesting robots has already been carried out

by leading experts and researchers (e.g., Kawamura et al., [100]; Harrell et al., [101];

Fujiura et al., [102]; Hanten et al., [103]).

5. Mobile Technology in Agriculture

Mobile phones have emerged as the most popular medium for communication during the

last decade. Mobile phones come with various value-added features, which make mobile

phones truly multi-purpose equipment. Mobile phones can be used as telephone

directory, calendar, calculator, video game, digital camera, and tape recorder. Further one

can send short massages, pictures, and voice massages from mobile phones instantly.

Mobile phones are also used for accessing information like news, stock prices, and

cricket scores. The user charges of mobile phones have now reduced to such an extent

that these have become affordable to the common man. As per the data provided by

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India [27] (TRAI), the annual growth rate of mobile

phone in China in the period 1995–2002 had been almost 100% and the mobile phones

users has grown from 3.6 million in 1995 to 206.6 million in 2002. In India also the

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Figure 7: A Cherry Harvesting Robot


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ooo


DR MAHALINGAM

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

Enlightening Technical Minds

National Conference on Mobile and Ad Hoc NetworksNCMAN 2010

October 29 & 30, 2010Organized by: Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Department of Computer Applications Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology, Pollachi & Computer Society of India (CSI) Coimbatore Chapter

Supported by: Computer Society of India Division III, IV and Region VII IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter.

The objective of NCMAN 2010 is to highlight the latest developments, strategies, techniques and applications of Mobile AdHoc Networks. The conference will provide a forum for the dissemination and exchange of latest research findings by academicians, researchers and industry delegates.

NCMAN 2010 invites papers in the following areas (but not limited to):� Mobile Ad Hoc Networks � Mobile User Interface � Wireless Sensor Networks� Pervasive Computing � Vehicular Adhoc Networks � Wireless Technologies� Mobile Computing � Cloud Computing � Service Oriented Architecture � Network Security

Papers should be in two column IEEE format not exceeding six pages. Contributors are requested to email the softcopy to [email protected].

Important Dates:

Last date for paper submission 04.10.2010 Notification of acceptance 15.10.2010 Last date for Registration 22.10.2010

For further details please contact

Dr. A RathinaveluConvenor, NCMAN 2010, Professor, Dept. of CSE,

Dr. Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology, Pollachi.E-Mail: [email protected] • Mobile: 9842304211

Dr. S SubramanianPrincipal, SKCET &

Chairman, CSI Div IIIE-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Prashant R NairSecretary

CSI Coimbatore ChapterE-mail: [email protected]

Mr. Mahendra KumarChairman

CSI Coimbatore ChapterE-mail: [email protected]

Mr. H R MohanChairman

CSI Div. IV & IEEE CSE-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.mcet.in/ncman2010

CSI SIG on “Web 2.0 and Social Networking Sites” - A ReportMr. Harish Tibrewala

[email protected] http://www.csi-india.org/web/csi/sig-web-2.0

1. First meeting of SIG was held on 12th July 2010 at CSI Mumbai Chapter office. There was discussion on broad aims and objectives of the SIG. At the meeting the final deliverable objectives of the SIG were established.

2. In order to make the SIG more broad based and include representations from other stake holders, it was decided to extend an invitation to social media product developers, social media agencies, CIOs of organisations who have already successfully executed internal SNS applications, etc to join the SIGa. A database of potential invitees was created and emails sent outb. We have received a very good response from the industry for our initiativec. The next meeting of the SIG with the extended group is now planned for Oct/Nov at which definite projects will be taken up

3. Training program for CSI office staffA training program was conducted in August 2010 at the CSI Mumbai Chapter office to train the office staff on using SNS for promoting the aims and objectives of CSI, eventually resulting in membership development

4. Paid workshop on “Harnessing the Power of Social Networking Sites” conducted at CSI Mumbai Chaptera. A paid full day workshop was conducted by Harish Tibrewala, on 17th September 2010 on behalf of CSI Mumbai Chapterb. The workshop was attended by about 60 delegatesc. The overall feedback from the participants about the workshop was very good


ARTICLE

Effective e-Governance and Development: Case Studies from KeralaRaju Narayana Swamy I.A.S

Secretary,Parliamentary Affairs Department, 301, III Floor, Annexe Buildings, Govt Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram. Email: email:[email protected]

Introduction The advent of Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) in the recent years has presented an opportunity for the IT managers and the senior officials in the government to change the way organizations leverage and value their information assets. With the ability of easy access to information mission delivery, resource management and data dissemination can be raised to levels, which were previously not at all possible. In contrasts to the private industrial and business, government organizations are measured not by profits mission. Regardless of this mission, the ability to understand the citizen and the ability to use the resources are the key factors in matching services to citizen needs.

e-Governance Governance is an activity of economic, political and

administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. Electronic governance or e-Governance is the latest buzzword for governments trying to involve people in administration, address transparency in their bureaucracies, and make themselves more responsive to their citizens.

To quote Preet Inder Singh (2010), “e-governance is neither just about government website and e-mail nor is it just about digital access to government information or electronic payments. Rather, it will bring forth new concepts of citizenship, both in terms of needs and responsibilities…. It can be defined as the application of information technology to the processes of government functioning inorder to bring about SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent) governance. E-governance also involves transformation from being passive information and service provider to active citizen involvement… It provides a common framework and direction in the implementation of government policies for G2G (government to government), G2B (government to business) and G2C (government to citizen) communication.

According to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2003) e-governance is the transparent, smart, seamless access, secure and authentic flow of information crossing the inter-departmental barriers and providing

a fair and unbiased service to the citizen. The UNESCO has defined e-governance as “the

public sector’s use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision making process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective.” The Council of Europe defines e-governance as “the use of electronic technologies in three areas of public action : relations between public authorities and civil society; functioning of the public authorities at all stages of the democratic process (electronic democracy) and the provision of public services (electronic public services).” Thus in short we can say e-governance is ICT-enabled governance that aims to put in place the use of ICT for making government systems more efficient, transparent and accountable decentralization of power distribution of wealth, dissemination of knowledge and active participation of citizens in the administrative functioning. It is an initiative in administrative reforms and a tool for citizen’s empowerment.

e-Governance Evolution in India The concept of e-governance had its origins in

India during the seventies with a focus on development of in-house government applications in the areas of defence, economic monitoring, planning and the deployment of IT to manage data intensive functions related to elections, census, tax administration etc. The efforts of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to connect all the district headquarters during the eighties was a very significant development. In fact, e-governance in India has come a long way since the computerization of railways reservation systems in the 1980s and today has an ambitious goal of making all government services accessible to the common man in his locality. Projects like eSeva and Sampark have been successful in transforming the Government-Citizen (G2C) interface. e-governance in India has matured over the last decade and attained a critical mass in terms of efforts and investments.

From the early nineties, IT technologies were supplemented by ICT technologies to extend its use for wider sectoral applications with policy emphasis on reaching out to rural areas and taking in greater


inputs from NGOs and private sector as well. Experimentation of using ICT for delivering e-government services to the citizen began during 1990s. Since then the Central Govt and several State Govts have made investment in e-government projects. This has resulted in implementation of projects like Bhoomi, Gyandoot, Lokvani, etc. There has been an increasing involvement of international donor agencies under the framework of e-governance for development to catalyze the development of e-governance laws and technologies in developing countries. The first decade of the new century has witnessed a revolution in mobile telephony and hence ICTs are expected to serve as catalysts for the e-governance implementation. Affordability of mobile telephones is increasing and the usability is going up. Mobile technology is a unique channel for service delivery. It not only serves high tech youngsters but also the poor in rural areas.

Transparency is at the heart of the e-governance regime. According to Prabhu and Baba (2006) “thee-seva Kendram runs on a district portal that allows access to various citizen centric services. These services range from the issuance of various certificates to getting information about various programmes and also go to the extent of networking citizens to each other and allow them the flexibility and convenience of mutually beneficial transactions. There are many kinds of certificates that the citizens need from the governments, the important among them is the integrated caste, nativity and income certificate. Over 4,00,000 certificates have so far been issued to the citizens that tantamount to a saving of over Rs 30 million to the citizens, an indirect cost that the hapless citizen incurs due to rampant corruption in issuance of such certificates.”

No doubt, it has bridged the communication between citizens and government and built stronger trust and commitment between citizens and public servants. It has simplified administrative processes and made them smoother and transparent. ICT has become an essential element in making governments fit for the 21st century and providing qualitative and trustworthy services that are oriented to the needs of citizens. Tax paying citizens benefit from 24 x 7 access to information via 3G, call centres, internet etc. Response time of government improves. Also a citizen can avail multiple government services from a single point. What is needed is proper planning and support from citizens.

India’s emerging experience in e-Governance/ICT initiatives has demonstrated significant success in

improving accessibility, cutting down costs, reducing corruption, extending help and increased access to un-served groups. In this phase of experimentation, e-Government initiative has reached millions of people belonging to the diverse sections of society. Improved access to information and services has provided economic and social development opportunities, facilitated participation and communication in policy and decision-making processes and empowerment of the weakest groups. This has led to fostering a sense of ownership and building of social capital, which in turn, constitute a basis for local revitalization.

But we have miles to go. e-governance has to be utilized for eliminating limitations of long distances that citizens cover to access government services. Administrators have to take the pain of getting friendly with the new technologies so as to provide services in time to the citizens. The success of all these of course depends on capacity building activities targeted at stakeholders at all three levels - leadership or elected members, managerial or higher departmental officers and operational or the team members involved in day to day activities.

Kerala’s Paradigm Kerala’s development practice is

reflected in its high levels of human development and low industrial development. It has high physical quality of life index and social infrastructure development. ICT was seen as an enabler of the region’s socio-economic development and a sound physical digital infrastructure was put in place. In Kerala the new paradigm of governance has got special significance in the state which has demonstrated a high degree of social and political development. The institution of state has been, traditionally, held in high esteem by the people of Kerala. This, in turn,

had the effect of keeping private initiative and volunteerism at a reasonable distance from the public realm. The people, by and large, looked towards the intervention of the government for the betterment of their living conditions and infrastructural development. The political aspects related to e-Governance are the formulated strategy and policy, laws and legislations, leadership, decision making processes, funding issues, international affairs, and political stability.

The government of Kerala has recognized the significance of information technology for the overall development of the State and employs IT as a tool for both economic development and increasing productivity. To provide a common base for all departments in government, the state government implemented a SWAN (State Wide Area Network). Centralized infrastructure at the state level (SII (ie) State Information Infrastructure) has already been completed and commissioned.

Major Initiatives by the State of Kerala The grassroots ICT ventures in Kerala

shows rapidly increasing promise for alleviating the powerlessness, voicelessness, vulnerability and fear dimensions of poverty where local governments have taken positive steps to spread democracy and inclusion of the people. E-governance is not just about government web site and e-mail. It is not just about service delivery over the Internet. It is not just about digital access of government’s information or electronic payments. It will change how citizens relate to governments as much as it changes how citizens relate to each other (Pankaj Sharma, 2004). The ICTs have demonstrated how they can be used to facilitate this process. The effect in this regard is to breakdown traditional pattern of inefficiency and neglect in public interacting with government officials. Table 2 giving list of beneficiaries experiences from Kerala demonstrate this,

Table 1 : Some indices of development in Kerala

Category Literacy & Education Health Information Communication Technology

Milestones State having the highest Literacy rate First Indian state to achieve Total Literacy Rate in 1990 First state to implement education reform bills State with lowest birth rate State with lowest infant mortality rate Only state with hospital facility in every village State with maximum life expectancy India’s most advanced data-com and telecom infrastructure 100% digital exchanges- 988 exchanges Universal OFC connectivity across state Highest telecom density, SEA - ME - WE - 3 & SAFE cable landings abundant band width State in which the communication infrastructure is the highest India’s first e-district (Malappuram)

Source: Rahmath, Safeen (et.al), E-governance in Kerala: an exploratory study, paper presented at the 7th International Conference on E-Government, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, 22nd to 24th April, 2010).


covering most of e-Governance Projects undertaken.

ICT in Parliamentary Affairs Department Experience demonstrates that

without good governance an efficient, competent, professional, responsive and highly dedicated public service sustainable development and livelihood is jeopardized

iii

. The key role of any government is to work for the welfare of its people. For any successful government, the relation between government and public is must. There must be transparency in the system. Information and Communication Technology is one of the most democratic tools. For clear visibility, e-governance is essential. In this spirit the Parliamentary Affairs Department is planning to set up a computerized Assurance Implementation Desk (AID) for efficient distribution, follow-up and monitoring of assurances made with respect to legislative questions. The aim of the automated solution is to expedite the process of obtaining the “Assurance Reply” report on the assurances given on legislative questions as per the Assurance-List prepared by the Assurance Committee and thereby enhance the efficiency of the system.

In the legislative assembly, a number of assurances are given by various ministers. For the healthy growth of any democracy, it is important to ensure that the assurances given on the floor of the Legislative Assembly are properly implemented by the respective departments for which there should be an effective monitoring and follow-up mechanism. Proper monitoring and follow-up is required from the very initial stage of preparation of Draft Assurance List till the last mile implementation of the assurance in letter and spirit. Needless to say that the implementation process requires more transparency by which the citizens as well as the legislative members representing them will come to know how effectively the assurances have been implemented which will enhance the efficiency of the system. The concerned Departments in this regard are: (i) Assurance Committee, Legislature Secretariat, (ii) Question Sections (A and B) in Legislature Secretariat, (iii) Parliamentary Affairs Department, Govt. Secretariat, (iv) Departments which are responsible for taking action on the assurance given in Legislative Assembly (39 departments),

(v) Members of Legislative Assembly (optional).

The Workflow Various Assurances are given by the

Minister concerned on the floor of the Assembly. An Assurance can be based on: a particular Question asked in the Assembly [QU], Supplementary Questions [SQ], Submissions [SB], Calling Attention [CA], It can be an assurance given during Discussions [DD]. The Committee on Assurances decides on finalizing the Assurance List wherever certain assurances are made as part of the answers to Legislative Questions by the minister concerned. The same is intimated to the Departments concerned in a particular format called “Assurance Format”. The Format in Malayalam will have the following details like Reference File Number, Legislative Session details, Assurance Number, Question Number, Date of Assurance, Ministry concerned, Subject, the concerned sub-Question and the assurance given.

At present, the Parliament Affairs Department (PAD) headed by a Secretary is

Table 2 : E-governance Projects and Beneficiaries

Department Project Beneficiaries

Agriculture AIMS; e-Krishi; Kissan; Agrisnet Farmers

Animal Husbandry AHEAD Animal husbandry

Education/Labour CAP-HSCAP EMS; Thozhil; Malayalam Computing Students

Water authority ABACUS Public/citizen

Civil Supplies TETRAPDS Public/citizen

Finance BOUGETTE; EMLI; e-stamping Government

Health HIS; Dr. SMS; Telemedicine e-Dhanwanthari Public/citizen

Revenue SWIFT; LRIS, Land Records Computerisation Project (LRCP) Public/citizen

Motor Vehicle Smart-Move; FAST Public/citizen

Rural Development Rural soft Public/citizen

Registration PEARL Public/citizen

Fisheries FISHNET fisherman

IT for masses Akshaya; FRIENDS; Frees; Insight; CCC Public/citizen

Kerala Sahitya Academy E-book facility Digital library Public/citizen

Election Department TREND Public/citizen

Forests & Wild life FMIS Department

General Admn. PGMS; IDEAS Department

Home Department CAPS Police

Factories & Boilers FAB Net Licensing Software; HFIS Industrialists

Law LIMS Judiciary

Parliamentary Affairs Department Assurance Implementation Desk (AID) Public/Government

Higher Secondary Education Department HsCAPNIC Students

Source: Rahmath, Safeen (et.al), E-governance in Kerala: an exploratory study, paper presented at the 7th International Conference on E-Government, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, 22nd to 24th April, 2010).


responsible for the distribution, monitoring and following-up the assurances with the departments to ensure that they provide timely reply to the Legislative Secretariat. There is an Assurance Committee (AC) functioning in the Legislative Secretariat consisting of legislative members. This Committee finalizes the assurances out of the draft assurance list prepared by the Question Section (QS) which is headed by a Joint Secretary. Once the replies for the assurances are received, Assurance Committee reviews the action taken by the concerned departments regarding each assurance. If the action taken is not acceptable to the Assurance Committee, they will pursue the matter by giving directions or by asking additional information from the Concerned Section (CS) of the Department. Each Department is having a Parliament Section (PS) which is dedicated with the task of interacting with the concerned sections within the departments as well as PAD and Question Section for the timely action on assurances and replies/reports thereof.

Disadvantages with the Present System There are a number of disadvantages

associated with the present manual system. For the distribution of Assurance related documents, the present system is dependent on messengers as well as the postal system. The non-availability of Department File Number makes the manual delivery further difficult. Documents like Draft Assurance List, Assurance Format etc are prepared by Fare Copy Section either through Electronic Type Writers of PCs. Corrections and editing is done after taking hardcopies. There is lot of work duplication involved at various stages. When Assurance Reply is prepared by the concerned department based on the Assurance format, the document is getting re-typed even though most of the contents are similar. Duplication of data entry work recurs at every stage. Acknowledgement of documents is not effectively done by the concerned stake holders due to various limitations imposed by the manual method. Further, many of the communication/information is not reaching all concerned Stake holders and hence monitoring and follow-up is not effective.

The main disadvantages of the existing system can be broadly summarized as follows: � Manual preparation and distribution of

Assurances often leads to delay � Information is not reaching all

concerned Stake holders � Acknowledgment functions by the

concerned stake holders not being done effectively

� Difficulty in centralized monitoring and

follow-up of Assurances � Difficulty in compiling data and

generating Analysis Reports The subject of implementing an

Assurance Implementation Desk was included in the last budget speech by the Governor. Further, this requirement was raised in the 4th session of the 12th Assembly vide un-starred Question No. 2915 for which the Minister for Parliament Affairs has given an assurance on setting up of an Assurance Implementation Desk and the same is recorded as Assurance no 175. Subsequent to this National Informatics Centre (NIC) prepared and submitted a Preliminary Report for circulation among all stake holders as per the directions of Information Technology (b) Department for development of software for setting up of Assurance Implementation Desk.

The major users of the proposed Assurance Implementation Desk are the (i)Assurance Committee, Legislature Secretariat, (ii) Question Sections (A and B) in Legislature Secretariat, (iii) Parliamentary Affairs Department, Govt. Secretariat, (iv) Departments which are responsible for taking action on the assurance given in Legislative Assembly (39 departments) : (a) Parliament Section of the Department, (b) Concerned Section of the Department, (vi) Members if Legislative Assembly (optional).

The Proposed System The proposed system designed by

NIC will develop a web enabled interactive Assurance Implementation Desk (AID) over intranet/internet. The solution will be developed after a detailed system study and approval of the SRS document. The steps required and the various features of the Proposed System are explained in the following steps:

+ Data Codification: Codification of key fields is an important step towards computerization.In the context of AID, codification of

the following key fields is required: (i) Assurance Source - An Assurance can

be based on, (a a particular Question asked in the Assembly [QU], (b) Supplementary Questions [SQ], (c) Submissions [SB], (d) Calling Attention [CA], (e) It can be an assurances given during Discussions [DD]

(ii) Legislative Members-Codification of Legislative Members will uniquely identify each Member

(iii) Ministry-Codification of Ministries will uniquely identify each Ministry

(iv) Departments-For the online distribution of Assurances, it is mandatory that each target department is identified by a unique code

(v) Designated Officials: Codification

of Designed Officials in legislative secretariat, PAD and other Govt. departments.

+ Access Mechanism: All designated users of Assurance Implementation Desk will be provided with user-id and password for accessing the System. The designated user will have to type his user-id followed by his password for logging into the system. The Password need to be kept confidential. There will be provision to change the Password periodically.

+ Preparation of Draft assurance List: The designated users of the Question Section will be provided with Web interface for preparing the Draft Assurance List. The existing staff in Question Section A and B can be trained on the proposed system for this purpose. Shifting of one or two clerical staff from Fare Copy Section to Question Section may also be considered if viable.

+ Verification of Draft Assurance List: Online Provision will be given to the designed officer of Question Section to verify the List prepared. Date of verification and the Officer’s code will be stored as part of the database.

+ Hard copy: After verification, the provision for printing will be enabled for taking the hard copy of the Draft Assurance List as required for filing process. This conditional enablement of the Print Button is to ensure the verification step.

+ Finalization of Assurance by Assurance Committee: The Assurance Committee members will be provided a Web interface to go through the draft Assurances listed. Provision will be given to: (1) Accept the assurance, (2) Modify the assurance (3) Delete the Assurance. The Assurance Committee may be provided with a large LCD screen to ease the scrutiny process.

+ Assignment of Assurance Numbers: After the approval stage, designated users of the Question Section can convert each assurance to the standard format by supplying the additional data required. At this stage the assurance number will also be allotted by the system.

+ The Data fields required for the Assurance Format in the proposed System are given below: (i) Reference File Number (E.g. 194/

QNAA2/2008/Legi) (Note: The non-bold characters are fixed letters and need not be typed)

(ii) Legislative Session details:(a) Legislative Assembly Number

(E.g. 12th),


(b) Session Number (E.G.2nd), (c) Session From Date (E.g. 18.09.2006), (d) Sess ion to Date (E .g .

26.10.2006) (iii) Assurance Number (E.g.375) [to

be allotted by the system] (iv) Question Number (E.g. S 563)

(Note: applicable only if Assurance Source is QU)

(v) Question Number (E.g. S 563) (vi) Date on which the Assurance was

given (E.g. 16.10.2006) (vii) Department - (This is mandatory

for the correct online transmission Codification required)

(viii) Subject (E.g. Security Provided to Tourists)

(ix) Ministry concerned-Home And Tourism (Codification required)

(x) Legislative Member concerned-to be selected from the Lst

(xi) Subject Matter (Text Box) (Note: The option number of the sub-question as given in the Question Booklet to be mentioned if applicable)

(xii) Assurance given (Text Box) (Note: The option number of the sub-question as given in the Question Booklet to be mentioned if applicable)

(xiii) Department File number- (Note: Legislature Secretariat may not have this data at present. However , the Department concerned can fill it up while preparing the Assurance Reply)

(xiv) The date by which the Assurance Reply should reach the Question Section (Note: The default date with 3 months gap will be displayed. However, this date can reset as per the nature of the Assurance under consideration. In case the reply is not received by this date, the System will alert Question Section and PAD to take appropriate action. This date field is important for effective monitoring and follow-up in the online system)

+ Verification of Assurance Format: Provision for the Designated Officer to verify the Assurance Format online. Data of verification and the Officer’s code will be stored as part of the database.

+ Provision for taking the hardcopy of the Assurance Format after its verification: Hardcopy of the ASSURANCE

FORMAT may be taken to fulfil the standard file approval/ filing procedure of Legislature Secretariat. Printing option will get enabled

after the verification has been done. This conditional enablement of the Print Button is to ensure the verification step. 1. Online submission of Distribution of

Assurances: Provision will be given for the approval authority (Joint Secretary) to approve, digitally sign and forward the Assurance online to the PAD. This action will trigger email intimations in this regard to the mail-ids of the designated official of PAD. Designated officials of PAD in-turn can forward the same to the parliament section of the concerned department. The parliament section in turn can forward the same to the concerned section in the department. This approach will avoid the manual dispatch of assurances to PAD and the subsequent distribution of Assurances to the Department’s Parliament Sections and then to the concerned sections. This will avoid delay and will facilitate the Department to take necessary timely action with respect to the Assurance. This will, in turn, help the Department to prepare the Assurance Reply in time. The date stamp and the user code of all actions will be captured by the system.

2. Provision for knowing the status of action taken on the Assurance: Sending Acknowledgment is a tedious process in the existing System. In the proposed system, the status of assurances and action taken at each level will be available online.

3. Provision for taking Hardcopy of Assurances by stake holders: Provision for printing will be enabled for the designated users of PAD, Parliament Section and Concerned Section to take hard copy of assurances for filling procedures.

4. Follow-up on Assurances sent to the Concerned Section: It is the responsibility of the Concerned Section of the department to take necessary action and send “Assurance Reply” with respect to the Assurances. If timely reply is not sent to the concerned section, then necessary follow-up action needs to be taken by the concerned stake holders.

+ Action to be taken by the Concerned Section for providing the Assurance Reply: It is the responsibility of the Concerned

Section of the department to take necessary action and send “Assurance Reply” with respect to the Assurance under consideration. 1. Verification of Assurance Reply: Provision

for the Designated Officer to verify the data online: Date of verification and the

Officials code will be stored as part of the database.

2. Provision for taking hardcopy of the verified Assurance Reply: Provision will be given for taking hard copy of the Assurance Reply after its verification as required for Department’s filing purpose.

3. Sending digitally signed Assurance Reply to Question Section: Provision will be provided for the Designated Official (Joint secretary or above of the concerned department) to give online approval and forward the Assurance Reply to Question Section.

4. Provision to acknowledge the receipt of Assurance Reply by the Question Section: This will facilitate PAD and the

Department to ensure that the Reply has been received by Q.S. System will capture this date as well. 1. Provision to take Hardcopy of the

Assurance Reply: This provision will be enabled for the Question Section after they have been sent the Acknowledgement.

2. Review of Assurance Reply by the Assurance Committee: The Assurance Committee members will be provided a provision to review the Assurance Replies. The Date of Review by the Committee will be stored as part of the database.

3. Action to be taken by the Concerned Section w.r.t the decision made by the Assurance Committee: Concerned Section will have the provision to enter the additional information asked for and forward the same to question Section.

4. Follow-up if no timely Additional Information is received from Departments: Parliament Section PAD and Question

Section will follow-up with the concerned Department for getting the additional information sought by the Committee.

+ Action to be taken by the Concerned Section for providing the Additional Reply: It is the responsibility of the Concerned

Section of the department to take necessary action and send “Additional Information” with respect to the Assurance under consideration. 1. Verification of Additional Information

entered: Provision for the Designated Officer to verify the data online. Date of verification and the Officers code will be stored as part of the database.

2. Provision for taking hardcopy of the verified Assurance Reply: Provision will be given for taking hard copy of the Additional Information after its


verification for Department’s filing purpose.

3. Sending digitally signed Additional Information to Question Section: Provision for Designated Official to give online approval and forward the Additional Information to Question Section. Digital signature technology will be incorporated.

4. Provision to acknowledge the receipt of Additional Information by the Question Section: This will facilitate PAD and the Department to ensure that the Additional Information has been received by Question Section. System will capture this Acknowledgement date as well.

5. Provision to take Hardcopy of the Additional Information: This provision will be enabled for the Question Section after they have sent the Acknowledgment. This conditional enablement of the Print Button is to ensure the Acknowledgment by the concerned.

6. Provision for Analysis Reports/Periodical Reports: Analysis Reports will be available for all stake holders. This will facilitate effective monitoring and reporting by respective stake holders.

7. Query provision for MLAs: Members of Legislative Assembly are keenly interested in knowing the status of assurances made on the floor of the assembly and how best they are getting implemented.

Advantages of the System � (i) Online preparation of Assurances,

(ii) Quicker and efficient distribution of Assurances compared to the manual distribution, (iii) Easier access to data for designated users, (iv) Simultaneous intimation through email alerts can be generated as required,

� (iv) Easy to generate Analysis Reports/Periodical Reports (v) Query provision for MLAs.

Issues with Proper Functioning Some major issues being faced in the

distribution of the Assurance Format to Departments concerned are as follows: 1. At present, in many cases, it is difficult

to identify the Department which prepared the REPLY to the original question because their REPLY FORMAT does not mention the “Department File No.” maintained by the Department concerned. The department is identified based on a guess work according to the nature of the Question.

2. The ASSURANCE FORMAT prepared by the Legislative Secretariat mentions

only the Ministry Name. The concerned Department Name of Dept. File Number is not being mentioned by the Legislature Secretariat as the data is not available with them.

3. Because of this, Parliament Affairs Department too finds it difficult to distribute the Assurance Format to the Department concerned.

4. For the Department concerned too, in the absence of “Department File Number”, it is difficult to locate the Section which prepared the reply.

5. If the “Department File Number” is included in the original REPLY FORMAT (prepared by respective departments) itself, this issue could be solved.

6. In the automated system too, entry of the correct “Department’ is mandatory for the online distribution. However, the “Department File Number” field may allow blank entry as the data is currently not available with Legislature Secretariat. The Department concerned can fill it up the same while preparing the ASSURANCE REPLY online.

Implementation Guidelines 1. The Central Server required for hosting

the proposed Web enabled application and database may be co-located at the State Data Centre.

2. Each identified user of the proposed system from Legislature Secretariat, Parliament Affairs Department and concerned Departments would require a Computer with connectivity to the Central Server.

3. Sufficient number of Laser printers would be required for taking the hardcopies as required.

4. Official email id is required for each official handling the Assurance Desk.

5. Concerned departments may train their existing staff in the Parliament Section on the proposed System.

6. Codification of Ministries and the Departments under each Ministry is required. During the data entry, it is required to select the Ministry as well as the Department concerned accurately for achieving the correct online distribution of Assurance Format.

7. Steps may be taken for the inclusion of Department File Number in the “Reply to Questions” prepared by respective departments. This will avoid a major existing “missing link” while distributing the Assurances to the Department concerned. This step is required in the resent manual system as well.

8. For the successful implementation of the Assurance Implementation Desk, it

is required to complete the backlog data entry of the Pending Assurances.

Major Findings 1. E-governance is generally considered

as a wider concept than e-Government a n d i n c l u d e s e - D e m o c r a c y , e-Government and e-Society. The purpose of implementing E-governance is to enhance good governance. Good governance is generally characterised by participation, transparency and accountability. The recent advances in Parliamentary Affairs Department in Kerala provide opportunities to transform the relationship between governments and citizens by moving close to the good governance goals and provide the citizens annoy free situation.

2. E - g o v e r n a n c e p r o j e c t i n t h e Parliamentary Affairs Department involve that the government may provide better service in terms of time, making governance more efficient, transparent, responsive and more effective.

3. This new venture has helped to enable the government to be more understandable and responsible to the citizens, open to democratic involvement and scrutiny, and have well designed procedures without bureaucratic red tape.

4. Information and communication techno log ies can he lp pub l ic administration to cope with many challenges of modern society. However, the focus should be only on ICT itself. Instead it should be on the use of ICT combined with organizational change and new skills in order to improve the quality of public services, demonstrate processes and public policies.

Suggestions 1. Services such as Network speed and

quality-bandwidth have to be made available.

2. While internet regulation is still a fuzzy space, with convergence it has to be made an increasingly important arena.

3. The Government of Kerala should devise detailed guidelines that include the Technology framework, Resource Framework, Prioritization framework and Implementation framework, to support the departments at every levels of project deployment.

4. Both the central and the state governments have to think of ways to find and implement solutions and also to monitor progress made in this direction.


5. It is grafting to note the remarkable efforts made by the government tp promote ICT participation, by the support of the general public at large remains vital if ICT participation is to be enhanced in line with the success of the project.

6. To conclude, a normative vision, involvement of gram panchayats and linkages to other state Parliamentary departments’ processes all provide the governance context to ICTs. These principles can root any e-governance initiative within tenets of governance reform and participatory development, highlighting the true transformatory potential of ICTs.

Conclusion e-government is a function of citizen,

government and technology. Evolution of e-governance is a highly complex process requiring provision of hardware, networking and software and re-engineering of the procedures for better delivery of services. Thus the basic requirements for the e-governance components are: a) high and affordable information and

internet infrastructure within govt ministries, private sector and citizens.

b) Extensive ICT human capacity development in govt, private sector and citizens c) Legal framework that recognizes and supports digital communication.” People are now more aware about the

political issues that interests them and also about the implications of the actions made by their representatives. e-Governance models can directly connect individuals with officials in the government and decision-makers. The impact is immediate. It puts greater access and control over governance mechanism in the hands of citizens. Spaces are then created within the existing governance mechanisms that would be democratically informed by citizen’s voice. This process makes the government more responsible and accountable to its citizens. For example, for the success of the project the government may constitute an Assurance Implementation Desk Committee involving all stake holders. The NIC should be provided with approved list of departments, Ministry, Legislative members, designed users of the proposed system etc.

The success of an e-Governance initiative lies in how efficiently it can enhance people’s participation in

government functioning through wide ICT access, bringing government and the services it offers closer to its citizens, promoting accountability, transparency and responsiveness in government functioning and ensuring that government works better at lesser costs. e-Governance models bring a potential impact to produce far-reaching changes in governance structures in states like Kerala. The approach to it however has to be cautious and well-thought, and should take into consideration the existing situation, like lack of private means to own an ICT node, and poor infrastructure availability.

References 1) A Project Proposal for “Assurance

Implementation Desk’, National Informatics Center, Kerala State Center, July 22, 2009.

2) Abdul Kalam, A.P.J. (2003), Citizen Centric E-governance: Technology and Management Policy, Finance India, 17(4), pp.1273-77.

2) Achuth Sankar, C-Dit Convergence and beyond, Kerala Calling, October, 2002, p.3.

3) ‘Advantage Tamil Nadu’ , Good Governance Magazine, Vol.4, Issue.5, March, 2010, p.23.

4 ) B a l a r a m & B i b h a v A d h i k a r i , ‘E-Governance: A Medium for Moving towards Good Governance’, Administration and Management Review, Vol.21, No.1, January, 2009.

5) B e l l a m y , C h r i s t i n a ( 2 0 0 0 ) , ‘ Implementing Information-Age Government: Principles, Progress and Paradox, Spring, 15(1).

6) CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2008-09: Recognizing e-Government Initiatives in India, SIG eGovernance, Computer Society of India, 2009.

7) Heeks, R.(2003), Most E-government for Development Projects Fail: How can Risks be Reduced?, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, I government Working Paper Series, Paper No. 14.

8) Higher Secondary Single Window Admission 2009, Department of General Education, Govt. of Kerala, 2009.

9) ‘ICT for Homeland Security’, e-gov, Vol.6, Issue.3, March 2010, p.14.

10) Joseph, T M & Jos Chathukulam, ‘The New Paradigm of Governance: A Case from Kerala’, Administrative Change, Vol. XXXVI, No.2 & Vol.XXXVII, No.1, January-December, 2009.

11) Kalsi, N S, Ravi Kiran & S C Vaidya,

‘Effective e-Governance for Good Governance in India’, International Review of Business Research Papers, Vol.5, No.1, January 2009, p.217.

12) Parminder Jeet Singh, Recommendations f o r M e a n i n g f u l a n d S u c c e s s f u l e-Governance in India, Paper submitted to the second Administrative Reforms Commission, Bangalore, June, 2008.

13) Pankaj Sharma, E-Governance, APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, 2004, p.74. Prabhu, C.S.R. & Baba N.S.S., ‘Rural e-Seva: A Project Empowering Citizens through Information Technology’ in Sahu, G.P. (2006), Delivering E-government, Gift Publishing, New Delhi, pp.322-24.

14) Rahul De, The Impact of Indian E-government Initiatives: Issues of Poverty and Vulnerability Reduction and Conflict, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (Year not mentioned).

15) Safeena, Rahmath, (et.al.) (2010), E - g o v e r n a n c e i n K e r a l a : A n Exploratory Study, paper presented in 7th International Conference on E-governance, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, 22nd to 24th April.

16) Shir in Medon, ‘Evaluat ing the Development Impact of E-Governance Initiatives: An Exploratory Framework, EJISDC, Vol.20, No.5, 2004, p.6.

17) Shirin Medon, Nicolau Reinhard et.al., Digital Inclusion Projects in Developing Countries: Processes of Institutionalisation, Proceedings of the 9

th International

Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 2007, p.4.

18) S i n g h , P r e e t I n d e r ( 2 0 1 0 ) , E-governance: A Boost to Indian Democracy, Paper presented in 7th International Conference on E-governance, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, pp.22-24.

19) Suri, P. (2005), Strategic insights into an E-governance Project - A Case study of AGMARKNET based on SAP-LAP framework, Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 6(3/4), pp.39-48.

20) Sushna Yadav , ‘ Implement ing E-Governance in India: Exploring the Administrative Reforms Agenda’, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol.LXX, No.3, July-Sep, 2009.

21) ‘Taking India Ahead’, Good Governance, Vol.4, Issue 5, March 15, 2010, p.10.

On behalf of the CSI Communications team, I thank Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Dr. R K Bagga AVSM Advisor (Outreach Div.) IIIT Gachibowli Hyderabad-500032 Chair CSI SIG eGovernance & Member CSI e-Gov Awards Email : [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] for the timely advice and guidance on this article

Gopal T V, Honorary Chief Editor, CSI Communications


A three day national workshop titled Intelligent Systems & Knowledge Web was organized from 22nd–24th July, 2010 by KIIT College of Engineering in collaboration with Computer Society of India (CSI) at the KIIT College of Engineering Campus in Sir C. V. Raman auditorium. The workshop encompassed the latest trends and highlighted the research advancements in the field of intelligent systems and knowledge-based applications. The workshop was spread over three days. Eminent scientists, educationists and industrialists delivered talks and made presentations.

The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. B R Kamrah, Chairman Vidyapati Sansthan, by lighting the ceremonial lamp along with other dignitaries and experts. The welcome address was delivered by Prof. (Dr.) S S Agrawal, Executive Director, KIIT World. He highlighted the importance of this area and its significance in education and research.

The technical session started with a presentation by Dr. B K Murthy (Director & Head National Knowledge Network Division, Department of IT, on “Semantic Web”. He incorporated in his talk the intricacies and services provided by web series and Web 3.0 and how these are being used in communication and business systems. Dr. D. K. Tayal, IGIT, GGSIP University presented his views on Fuzzy logic in detail and gave vivid examples on the usage of these techniques using probability theory. Dr. Madhusudan Singh (Chief Scientist, Hi-Tech Robotics Systemz) made his presentation titled “An Introduction of Soft Computation and its applications in Robotics

(Neural Networks)”, in accordance to human mind perception. He also established the correspondence between soft & intelligent tools, and expert systems. Thereafter the presentation included neural networks and a practical demonstration on robotics.

The second day of the workshop consisted of the talk titled “Fuzzy rule based categorization of broadcast video clips” by Dr. K. K. Biswas from IIT Delhi. He talked about challenges in video data characterization, and shot segmentation. The presentation included an in-depth description of genetic algorithms and their use in the representation of Fuzzy systems. Ms. Aditi Kapoor from IIT Delhi gave a detailed presentation on the use of MATLAB, its portability features and interoperability with other software. She demonstrated the use of MATLAB in image processing and other graphics applications along with its utility in knowledge systems. Ms. Anu Khosla of Scientific Analysis Group (SAG) DRDO gave a talk on “Interface for Speech & Intelligent Systems”. She gave a wide range of examples of intelligent systems, especially in the area of speech recognition and text to speech synthesis along with a practical demonstration of it.

On the third day of the workshop Dr. R. K. Aggarwal from NIT Kurukshetra gave his talk on “Automatic Speech Recognition / Pattern Recognition (Statistical approach)” which gave an insight of the research work going on in this field. He illustrated the indispensability of Gaussian methods. Ms. Sunita Arora, Sr. Scientist from CDAC, Noida delivered an excellent and elaborate

Workshop on Intelligent Systems & Knowledge WebGurgaon, 22nd-24th July, 2010

A Report prepared by: Preeti Aggarwal

A REPORT

Mr. M D Agrawal, Vice-President and President Elect, CSI at workshop in Gurgaon

Inaugural session of National Workshop on Intelligent Systems & Knowledge Web


pursuit in these fields in the minds of all the participating delegates.Finally mementoes were presented to the invited dignitaries and

certificates were given to the participating delegates.

Presentation of Certificate by Mr. M D Agrawal, VP, CSI.

INDIACom-20115th National Conference on

“Computing for Nation Development”(March 10 - 11, 2010)

Organized by Bharati Vidyapeeth’sInstitute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi

Jointly with BVP Computer Society of India (CSI) Students’ Branch, DelhiIEEE Computer Society, Delhi Section

Institutions of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers (IETE), Delhi Centre

Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE), Delhi Section and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.

Announcement and Call For PapersInformation and communication technology plays a dramatic impact on effectiveness, efficiency, growth and development in various areas such as education, health-care & modernization. Foreseeing the importance and impact of the above and encouraged by the resounding success met with the past four editions of INDIAComs since its inception in 2007; we hereby announce INDIACom – 2011 which aims to develop a strategic plan for balanced growth of our economy through IT in critical areas like E-Governance, E-Commerce, Disaster Management, GIS, Nano-Technology, Intellectual Property Rights, AI and Expert Systems, Networking, Software Engineering and other emerging technologies. Instruction for Authors: Original papers based on theoretical or experimental works related to the above mentioned sub themes are solicited for presentation in the conference. The paper should begin with a title, a short abstract, and a list of key words. The total length of the paper must not exceed Six A4 size pages including bibliography and appendices.

–: Important dates :–

Submission of Full Paper30th November, 2010

Paper Acceptance Notification11th December, 2010

Detailed guidelines are available at www.bvicam.ac.in/indiacom for download. All the submissions will be online at www.bvicam.ac.in/indiacom. All correspondences, related to INDIACom – 2011 must be addressed to:

Prof. M. N. HodaChief Convener, INDIACom – 2011, Director, Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management,

A-4, Paschim Vihar, Rohtak Road, New Delhi – 63.E-mails : [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Tel.: 011-25275055 Tel. / Fax: 011-25255056, 09212022066 (Mobile) For further details, Visit us at: www.bvicam.ac.in

presentation on “Part of Speech Tagging” which encompassed the intricacies of linguistic approach. She gave a detailed example of the tagging of English language text, along with a demonstration of the syllable-based classification of text.

The Workshop culminated with a valedictory session graced by the senior members of CSI and members of the KIIT world Fraternity. Dr.P.S.Grover chairperson of the valedictory session gave an insight into the integration of traditional software engineering principles and artificial intelligence knowledge based systems. Mr. V. N. Shukla (Director & Head NLP Group, CDAC, Noida) talked about real-time knowledge based applications. Mr. M. D. Agrawal, Vice President cum President Elect, CSI, emphasized on the need to bridge the gap between industry and academics. He strongly reminded the academicians to focus on practical and industry oriented instruction. He also expressed that CDAC and CSI have always been together in providing the best to the country.

Dr. S. S. Agrawal FCSI, Executive Director KIIT World gave the final culminating address and felt very satisfied and happy about the success of the workshop. He is a world-renowned scientist in the field of speech recognition. He also narrated his own experiences in the speech recognition research. He summed up the proceedings of the previous three days and stated that it has been able to trigger the


Programme – Some Vignettes

CSI2010-CURTAIN RAISER

Dr. Atanu RakshitChairman, Programme Committee

Information technology is all pervasive and computing has become a necessity and is no longer a luxury. With the soft launch of UID project in a small village in Nandurbar in Maharashtra by the Prime Minister, in a record time, with the likes of Google, IBM and other giants making India its focal point for research, and with the advent of the $ 100 laptop, IT in India is on the threshold of a revolution – for the teeming masses.

It is in this context that this year’s National Convention that we are hosting is every signifi cant. As members of CSI, I urge upon all of you to come forward and participate in the convention to make it a grand success.

Kindly avail of the special rates for Members including the early bid discount which makes it ` 6,000/- for all 3 days of the convention – at just ` 2,000/- per day it is a bargain for the wonderful program consisting of 8 tracks, 80 world renowned speakers, Keynotes by Key person including those at the helm of affairs and at the cutting edge of IT.

To top it all up, are the sights, sounds that Mumbai is famous for. Enjoy a drive on the sea link the longest bridge over the sea in Asia, the temples, the Gateway of India, … and of course the Vada Pav, Bhel and Pani Puri to tickle your palate. Be there, be a part of CSI, and enjoy to the core….

It’s our convention – and we want all of you to be there. Our active participation will make all the difference.

For more details please visit: http://www.csi-2010.org/convdtls.html

Mr. Rajiv Gerela Dr. Vishnu Kanhere Chairman, Organising Committee Chairman, Mumbai Chapter

Dr. Vishnu KanhereChairman, Mumbai Chapter

Mr. Rajiv GerelaChairman, Organising Committee

The 2010 Annual Convention of CSI is a rich tapestry of presentations from different aspects of the IT Industry, covering most of the emerging developments in software, hardware, applications, communications, media and education.One of the important presenters is Dr. Sorel Reisman, the President-elect of IEEE Computer Society, the foremost community of computing professionals. Dr. Reisman will deliver a keynote on the iResearch track.Wikipedia has been one of the most revolutionary modes of information production and dissemination that emerged in the last decade. Ms. Bishakha Datta, Board Member of the Wikimedia Foundation, will be talking to us about Wikipedia’s priorities for India.The Project Management Institute (PMI) has been at the forefront of developing and nurturing project management skills globally. We have Mr. Raj Kalady of PMI speaking at the Convention about emerging paradigms in this domain.

Padmashree Dr. Vijay Bhatkar, Chairman, ETH is an eminant scientist, Creater of Param Super Computer, ex-founder Director of C-DAC will address the impact of IT in the society.

Dr. S Sadagopan, Director, IIIT, Bangalore will give the keynote address for the usage of eemerging technologies and solution architecture to create smater and challenging environment in the Enterprise.Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, CEO of Airtel will address the recent growth in telecomm section. Eminent professionals like Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Director, IIIT, Hyderabad, Prof. S S Mantha, Vice-Chairman, AICTE, Prof. Dheeraj Sanghi, Director, LMNIIT, Jaipur and Prof. D B Phatak will address the Education and Research in Indian and Global context.There will be industry leaders from Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, TIBCO, SAP, VMWare, AmazonTCS, L&T and many more to address various aspects of emerging technologies, their usage and impact in reall world.Altogether, the CSI 2010 Annual Convention promises to be of high value to the participants.

Dr. Atanu RakshitChairman, Programme Committee

IIT Mumbai M u m b a i

Knowledge PatnersiGen 2010Technology for the next decade...

Mentoring Partners


With the approval of National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) by Government of India nearly ` 45,000 crores is likely to be invest in eGovernance Applications in the country to benefit the common citizen.

This is the Seventh year that CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards are being presented. The Computer Society of India and Nihilent have jointly instituted and managed a series of awards for recognizing the contributions made in the field of e-Governance in the country. The basic objective of these awards has been to recognize and appreciate the successful efforts by the States, Government Departments, Project initiatives and Districts in achieving good governance using ICT.

As part of these awards, another major value addition being made towards knowledge sharing is documenting and bringing-out a publication, for the benefit of all at large.

Maj Gen. (Retd.) Dr. R K Bagga AVSMChairman. CSI SIG on eGovernance [2010-2011]

Maj Gen. (Retd.) Dr. R K Bagga AVSMChairman, CSI SIG on eGovernance (2010-2011)

For the betterment of IT industry CSI has made a remarkable presence since over 4-5 decades. This year we at CSI have planned to felicitate those organizations who has utilized IT services to improve their productivity and reaching to the masses. I welcome one and all to participate and demonstrate the uniqueness of the IT usage during “CSI 2010 – Awards for Excellence in IT”. Prof. P. Thrimurthy

President, CSI

“CSI 2010 – Awards for Excellence in IT” were instituted to acknowledge, encourage and appreciate the efforts taken by individuals and companies to excel in IT, under the project INTENT – Information Technology for National Transformation. “To propagate and publicize good IT Applications… indigenously developed and implemented”, this year awards would be conferred in following sectors: i. Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), ii. Product Manufacturing, iii. Service Industries, iv. Non Profit Organizations (e.g. Micro Finance, Rural development), v. Quality Assurance

CSI 2010 Awards for Excellence in IT will be presented during 45th Annual National Convention, CSI 2010 on 26th November 2010 at Hotel Taj Lands End, Mumbai. All are requested to make the event a great success.

Mr. Anil SrivastavaChairperson & Convenor, CSI National IT Awards

To encourage innovation and indigenous development in the field of Information Technology CSI has instituted a number of awards for both members and non-members who are trying to achieve extra ordinary feat in the field of Computer science and technology. “CSI 2010 – Awards for Excellence in IT” is one such initiative in achieving this mile stone.

S. MahalingamChairman, Awards Committee

For more details please contact :

Computer Society of India122, TV Indl. Estate, S K Ahire Marg, Worli, Mumbai – 400 030

www.itawards.csi-india.org


National Workshop on Wireless Networks (NWWN-2010) was organized by Special Interest Group- Wireless Networks, Computer Society of India (SIG-WNs, CSI), Udaipur Chapter and Geetanjali Institute of Technical Studies (GITS), Udaipur during 17th to 18th September 2010 at GITS Campus. More than 100 IT professionals, researchers, students from various organizations across the country participated in the conference.

Emerging trends of Wireless NetworksMr. Harsh Shah and Mr. Ankit Arora,

Business Executives from Siemens Enterprise Communications Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, delivered an expert talk on Wireless Network Set-up and Configuration modalities. Mr. Naveen Malkani, Director Microsystem, Udaipur, gave talk on security issues on Wireless Networks. Mr. Chirag S. Thaker, Lecturer-LD College of Engineering, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), delivered an Expert Lecture on Wimax & Wi-Fi networks.

The second day was unfolded with the invited talk by Ridhima Khamesra on Budgeting and planning for a wireless network. Dr. Dharm Singh gave the presentation on Wireless Infrastracture, Wireless standards and protocols.

One day National Workshop on National Workshop on Wireless Networks Today & Beyond (WNTB-2010) was organized by Special Interest Group- Wireless Networks, Computer Society of India (SIG-WNs, CSI), Udaipur Chapter and Suresh Gyan Vihar University (SGVU), Jaipur, on 20th September 2010 at SGVU Campus. More than 300 IT professionals, researchers, students from various organizations across the country participated in the conference.

WiMax and Mobile IPThe workshop proceedings were scheduled and

deliberated in six sessions, which included keynote addresses and hands-on experience. Invited talks in technical sessions were delivered by Mr. Rajesh Khandari – Data Head and Mr. Rohit Mishra Assistant Manager – AIRTEL, Rajasthan on Wireless in Telecom Solution and Service Scenario, by Mr. Uttam M. Sharma, RNS Infotech, Jaipur, on Networking Concepts in IT and Enterprise Wireless Networks, by Mr. Abhinav Sharma on WiMax and Mobile IP - Protocol Requirements, Mr. Bhargu Sharma and Mr. Puran Rathore on Hands on Basic Configuration of Wireless Devices.

REPORTS

NWWN-2010: National Workshop on Wireless NetworksA Report prepared by: Dr. Dharm Singh, Convenor SIG WNs and Hon. Secretary CSI, Udaipur

WNTB-2010: National Workshop on Wireless Networks: Today & BeyondA Report prepared by: Dr. Dharm Singh, Convenor SIG WNs and Hon. Secretary CSI, Udaipur

Inaugural Session : (L to R) Dr. Dharm Singh, Dr. Pratap Singh, Dr. S L Mehta, Prof. H R Vishwakarma, Mr. K S Sardalia,

Mrs. Ridhima Khamesra

Inaugural Session : (L to R) Dr. Dharm Singh, Maj. Gen. B K Varma, Prof. H R Vishwakarma,

Mr. Narhari Sharma

Honorary Chief Editor’s Choice:“No matter how you look at it, there’s an insatiable appetite for more speed and more content. We believe that OFDM and MIMO will help transport us to a future where people can experience full-motion video, gaming and other bandwidth-intensive applications at speeds four to 10 times faster than what they live with today- over the air. The result is an amazing ability for users to interact with people, devices and applications like never before, and for providers to get more out from their networks at less cost.”

- Peter Carbone, Acting CTO, Nortel


CSI ELECTIONS 2011-2012 / 2011-2013

Dear CSI Members,Under Byelaw 5.1.1 of the Computer Society of India, the

Nominations Committee (NC) is required to invite appropriate groups of members to submit names of Voting Members for considering them for the Various elective offices of the ExecCom and the Nominations Committee.

Members are accordingly invited to submit the names of candidates who are valid Voting Members for the following elective offices:

For the Term 2011-2012 (Apr1, 2011 – March 31, 2012)1. Vice-President cum President Elect2. Nominations Committee (3 members).

For the Term 2011-2013 (Apr 1, 2011 – March 31, 2013)1. Hony. Treasurer 2. Regional Vice-President (Region I)

* Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and other areas in Northern India.

3. Regional Vice-President (Region III)* Gujrat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other areas in

Western India.4. Regional Vice-President (Region V)

* Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.5. Regional Vice-President (Region VII)

* Tamil Nadu, Pudducherry, Andaman & Nicobar, Kerala, Lakshadweep.

6. Divisional Chairperson (Division I) – Hardware.7. Divisional Chairperson (Division III) – Applications.8. Divisional Chairperson (Division V) – Education and Research.

The proposal for Nomination should be accompanied by:1. Signed letter/ E-mail from at least 2 valid voting members

Proposing the Nominee.2. A signed letter/ E-mail from the Nominee confirming:

2.1 Acceptance to stand for election to the nominated office.2.2 Willingness to devote adequate time for the Society’s

work.2.3 Commitment to attend at least 3 ExecCom Meetings In

a year (Not for Nominees to NC).3. Passport size Photograph (printed or digital).4. Statement of Intent on how the nominee intends to serve The

Computer Society of India.5. Bio-data in the following suggested format:

1. Name :2. CSI Membership No. :3. CSI Membership since :4. E-mail address :5. Date of Birth (Age) :6. Postal Address :7. Phone/ Mobile/ Fax Nos. :8. Educational Qualifications :9. Publications – relevant to the office being nominated for:10. Contribution to the IT profession :11. Contribution made to CSI :12. Experience - relevant to the position nominated for :13. Honours/ Professional Recognition:14. Other Relevant Information :15. In case of Nominees who are holding or have held an

Elected post in CSI in the last 3 years:

a. Positions heldb. Statements of Intent submitted for the above

positionsc. Results achieved/action taken

Note-1 : If the name of any Nominee appears for more than one Office, the Nominations Committee will be empowered to decide on the office for which he/she should contest. The NC will take into consideration any e-mail or signed written preferences submitted by the nominee received prior to the last date of nominations.

Note-2 : Nominees will NOT be considered in the following cases:(a) Nominees with pending dues to CSI or(b) where Disciplinary action has been taken or(c) Nominees with pending issues with the Disciplinary

Committee.The last date for receipt of proposals is November 11, 2010.The proposals must be sent to the Chairman, Nominations Committee C/o Executive Secretary, Computer Society of India,122, T.V. Industrial Estate, SK Ahire Marg, Worli, Mumbai–400 030. (E-mail: [email protected]) with a copy to Dr. Shyam Sunder Agrawal, Chairman, Nominations Committee (E-mail: [email protected])

All election related notices will be published on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india,org. The date of publishing election related notices on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india.org will be considered as the date of publication. As per Section 4.6.4, “The word mail includes e-mail and the word publication includes web publication”. The proposed dates for various stages of the above elections are:Call for Nominations to be published on CSI Homepage & In CSI Communications Oct 2010 issue : 11 Oct 2010Last date for receipt of Nominations : 11 Nov 2010Last date for Withdrawal of Nominations : 20 Nov 2010Communication of slate by NC to ExecCom : 24 Nov 2010Slate to be published on CSI Homepage & in CSI Communications Dec 2010 issue : 01 Dec 2010E-mail Posting of Passwords : 06 Dec 2010.Opening Election site : 08 Dec 2011. Last date for receipt of Ballots (Internet) : 09 Jan 2011.Declaration of Results : 15 Jan 2011.

The dates can be changed by the Nominations Committee, if Required – by suitable announcements on the CSI Homepage www.csi-india.orgWe would urge all members to register/ update their latest e-mail Ids with the CSI Headquarters. This will allow the members to derive Full benefits from Internet Balloting and to take CSI to a leadership Position in showcasing the use of IT for Elections.Elections for Chapter Office Bearers

As intimated in the past, Chapter Elections will also be Held simultaneously with the National Elections. Nominations Committees at the Chapters will invite Nominations for these positions from their respective members.CSI Nominations Committee 2010-2011, [email protected]. Shyam S Agrawal (Chairman), [email protected]. (Dr.) U K Singh, [email protected]. Suresh Chandra Bhatia, [email protected]


The WorkshopThe second International Workshop in Distributed Systems (IWDS) is being organized jointly by CSI SIG¬DS, IIT

Kanpur and IIT Madras. SIG-DS was formed in 2009. First IWDS was held at IIT Madras during December 8-10, 2009 which included tutorials, invited talks and contributory sections. About 100 participants from industry and academia from India and abroad attended the workshop.

Computer Society of India and SIG-DSComputer Society of India (CSI) established in 1965, is the largest body of computer and IT professionals in

India with 66 chapters and 381 students branches having more than 40000 members. The Special Interest Group on Distributed Systems of CSI was formed with the objectives to foster the growth

of distributed systems research community in India. SIG-DS plans to realize its vision by conducting annual workshops bringing together researchers, students and practitioners from all over the world, conducting tutorial sessions, floating student projects etc. The expected outcomes include strengthening the work on distributed systems and actionable agenda like evolving collaboration among practitioners and researchers.

Submission procedureAuthors are invited to submit extended abstracts of technical working papers describing unpublished results

in one of the following areas:

� Distributed Systems � Web Service Specification

� Cloud Computing Web � Service Composition

� Self-stabilizing Distributed System � Web Service Monitoring/Testing

� Distributed Operating System � Wireless Sensor Networks

� Real-time Distributed System � Distributed System Security

� Semantic Web Services � Grid Computing & SOA

� Web 2.0 � Multi-Channel Service Delivery

� Distributed e-Application Models � Agent-Based e-Services

Papers should be sent as email attachments to [email protected]. Only PDF submissions can be considered. The page limit for all submissions is 2 pages. The authors are requested to follow standard IEEE double column template for conference (http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/pubservices/confpub/AuthorTools/conference Templates.html). At least one of the authors of the accepted papers must attend the conference.

Important Deadlines

Extended abstract submission 15th October, 2010

Notification of acceptance 31st October, 2010

Camera Ready Copy 10th November, 2010

Early Registration 10th November, 2010

Conference 27-29 November, 2010

SIG-DS Chair Program Chair Prof. D Janakiram Prof. R K Ghosh IIT Madras IIT, Kanpur Email : [email protected] Email : [email protected]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Workshop on Distributed Systems 2010 Second International Workshop onDistributed Systems27th-29th November 2010, Kanpur, India

ExecCom Transacts


1. New Membership Development Initiatives: In order to reach out the talented Diploma and Schools students, appropriate initiatives towards amendment in the CSI Constitution and Bye-laws are being taken. The CSI-HQ and membership committee are actively working towards strengthening membership drives through leading chapters and using services of membership development volunteers across India. The special attention will be for enrolling young ICT professionals, ICT companies and Research organizations.

2. Education and Professional Development Programmes: The CSI Education Directorate has been working towards offering Education and Professional Development Programmes targeting the students and early-career IT professionals in addition to initiatives for offering New Value added programmes. The CSI Education received a large number of proposals from leading education institutions across India for conducting joint education and professional development programmes. The process for selecting proposals is currently on.

3. Fostering Research: Apart from funding minor research projects of the students and faculty members, the efforts are being made to facilitate our members undertaking research and consultancy with the help of a few of Hon. Research Directors nominated by the CSI President. The following recommendations have been made for fostering research:(a) CSI may consider provide small grants only for Inter-

disciplinary research proposals.(b) Provide Travel Grants to present papers at National and

International Conferences(c) Nominate members to fund granting agencies(d) Strengthen Publications to report in-depth research results(e) Evolve Success Factors for CSI Transactions

4. Upcoming National/International Events: The events and programmes of the Annual Convention CSI-2010 (being held during 25-27 November in Mumbai) have come up very well. All the Chapters, Student Branches and members at large are requested to actively participate in this mega-event of the year 2010-11. The other important events for the year include- COMAD-2010 (Nagpur), ConfER-2011 (Allahabad), CONSEG-2011 (Bangalore), ISEC-2011 (Trivandrum), EAIT-2011 (Kolkata), COMNET-2011 (Udaipur). These events are being hosted at the respective Chapters with organizational support of respective RVPs, Divisional Chairpersons and SIG Chairpersons/Conveners.

5. Inter-Societies Interaction and Collaboration: Our members across nation have been requested to organize and participate in joint CSI activities with our partner/sister societies such as IEEE, BCS, PMI, IE(India), IETE in addition to nomination of our CSI members in IFIP TCs, participation in IFIP WG and SEARCC activities. Our members, especially students are requested to take benefits of CSI collaborative agreements C-DAC and DOEACC. With a view to give impetus to the above, about 8-10 Faculty Development Programmes (FDP) are being planned spread across different regions of India. The Chapters and Student Branches are requested to send their proposals to host these FDPs at their locations to CSI Education Directorate.

6. Membership Services and Infrastructure Development: With an aim of providing better services to CSI members and stakeholders, the development of human resources,ICT and physical infrastructure has been given adequate attention at CSI-HQ Mumbai, CSI-ED Chennai and a few chapters which were facing resources crunch. The concerted efforts are being put in with regard to process re-engineering and knowledge management portal enhancements. Some initiatives towards online manuscript management and digital library are being explored. The members are requested to send their suggestions and volunteer their expert services for the above.

7. Student Activities: To cater to the student educational and professional development needs, the state-wise Student Coordinators have been nominated for most of the states in India

in addition the National/Regional Student Coordinators which has been a practice for last several years. The list of National/Regional/State Student Coordinators is available at our CSI website. All out efforts are made by our staff at CSI Education Directorate, Chennai to answer the queries of student members and student branch counselors. A few of Chapters and Student Branches are exploring (a) to host HR summits and to conduct industry-oriented short-term courses with active involvement of leading ICT companies with a view to improve employability (b) To provide incubation services to students and young faculty members for entrepreneurship development (c) to establish research centres for facilitating joint faculty-student projects in emerging technological domains.

8. Awards and Recognition: Awards and recognition play vital role in improving the visibility of professional societies like CSI and also fulfilling objectives of encouragement to the professionals who have excelled in ICT domains at national and international level. The process of selection of awardees has been evolved over the years which has been employed for CSI instituted awards such as CSI Service Awards, National IT Awards and Young Professional in IT (YITP) Awards. There are suggestions to explore instituting awards exclusively for academia and research organizations. Several of our CSI members have been serving on Govt. Agencies/Industry Associations/Other Professional societies which is in deed a testimony of their credentials and professional standing.

9. Publications: With a view to address a wide-spread concern of members and stakeholders, the CSI publication activities are being given special attention. Our flagship publication CSI Communications has earned an international recognition for its quality. “CSI Communications is now listed on The New York Times Syndicate”. Our endeavor is to include the latest developments in Science and Technology published in over 100 prestigious publications and reported by more than 1000 world class Times journalists. The CSI Adhyayan especially targeted for students communication is being brought out in electronic version on our CSI website while the efforts for revival of CSI Journal are being made. The newly launched CSI eNewsletter has been well appreciated by members. Several of our Chapters and Student Branches are publishing their Newsletters to serve the local needs of the members and community. With a view to enhance productivity, quality and reach of our publications, it has been decided to appoint full-time Associate Editors to assist the respective Hon. Chief Editors of CSI Publications.

An Appeal to Chapters and Student Branches: With a view to address the issue of disconnects at different levels, the Chapters and Student Branches are requested to explore the following RECOURSE:

(a) REvisiting some of our best practices of previous years as well as Reconnecting with past presidents, fellows and other seniors- thus regaining the past glory of CSI

(b) Connecting peers i.e. members to members (including institutional members), chapter to chapters (including student branches) and CSI partners and associated organizations at various level - thus building a community of academicians, researchers, engineers and professionals

(c) Out Reach - focused outreach programmes to bring Business, Industry, Government, Academia, Research and Consultancy sectors into CSI’s fold

(d) Sharing of Resources (including infrastructure, human resources and learning experiences)

(e) Engaging our members with consulting assignments, resource persons with students and entry-level working professionals, visiting faculty, authors, industry leaders with our student branches and institutional members

Prof. H R VishwakarmaHon. Secretary, CSI


For close to two decades the International Conference on Management of Data (COMAD) series of conferences (http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/comad), modeled along the lines of ACM SIGMOD, have evolved to become the premier international database conference hosted in India. Every year, it attracts some of the best papers from around the world. It is also known to be very competitive, with its research paper acceptance rate sometimes rivaling that of other premier international conferences, coupled with an excellent program of keynote speakers, tutorials, demos, panels, and industrial presentations. The first COMAD was held in 1989, and it has been held on a nearly annual basis since then. COMAD has always had a significant international participation, with about 30% of the papers being from outside India, including Europe, USA and East / South-East Asia. This year the conference runs as an event of the newly formed Computer Society of India (CSI) Special Interest Group on Data Management (SIGDATA).

COMAD 2010’s scope includes all areas in the data management space including Database management system, Web & Information Retrieval and Data Mining. The conference has a history of attracting participation from reputed researchers from all over the world. The conference offers students, faculty and people from the IT industry an opportunity to interact with leading researchers of the field and come up with new research directions. The conference is well marked with keynote talks, elaborate discussion sessions, tutorials and coffee breaks to provide ample time for interaction amongst all. The industry track features talks by leading persons from the database, data mining and IR industry highlighting the latest developments and future directions in the industry. Important Dates:Early Bird Registration : November 25, 2010. Conference : December 8-10, 2010

Registration Fee :

Early Registration(ends November 25,2010)

Standard Registration(from November 26,2010)

Indian (Regular) INR 4000 INR 5000

Indian (Academic) INR 1750 INR 2000

Indian (Student) INR 1000 INR 1200

International (Regular) USD 100 USD 125

International (Student) USD 50 USD 55

Conference Program, Registration and other information at: http://www.cse.iitm.ac.in/comad2010

General ChairS. Sudarshan, IIT Bombay

Program ChairsP Sreenivasa Kumar, IIT MadrasSrini Parthasarathy, OSU, USA

Industry and Applications ChairS Seshadri, BolTell, Bangalore

Tutorial and Panel ChairsAmol Deshpande, Univ Maryland, USA.Mukesh Mohania, IBM IRL, New Delhi

Publication ChairShantanu Godbole, IBM, IRL Bangalore

Publicity ChairsMeera M Dhabu, VNIT Nagpur, Srinath Srinivasa, IIIT Bangalore

Demonstrations ChairArvind Hulgeri, PSPL, Pune

Chairman, CSI Division II (Software)T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai

Email:[email protected]

Organizing ChairsP S Deshpande and A S Mokhade, VNIT, Nagpur

Email: [email protected]

VenueVisvesvaraya National Institute of TechnologySouth Ambazari Road, Nagpur 440 010 (MS)

Media Partner

CALL FOR PARTCIPATION

16th International Conference on Management of Data

COMAD 2010December 8-10, 2010

Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpurhttp://www.cse.iitm.ac.in/comad2010


� BANGALORE

Bangalore : Participants at Android workshop

� On 7th of Aug. 2010, the chapter conducted one-day workshop on “ANDROID (Operating System for Mobiles) - Orientation Seminar”, in association with Integra Micro Systems, who offer world-class software products and services in networking, telecom, embedded systems, and wireless Internet.

There were 55 participants, who mostly comprised of software professionals (inclusive of both developers and trainers) from prominent companies such as Cognizant Technology Solutions, 3i Infotech Consumer Services Ltd, Honeywell, Infosys, Ion Idea Inc., ITC Infotech, Kalki Communication Technologies Ltd., Logica, Mindtree, Mphasis, Robert Bosch, SPAN Infotech, Tata Elxsi, Thinkahead, Thomson etc.

Mr. Viswas Bondade, Hon. Treasurer of Banagalore chapter, inaugurated the workshop. The workshop commenced with an introduction to mobile operating systems and thereafter moved on to Android. A detailed discussion on the Android platform, the Android development environment, Android tools, application building, application availability etc. was discussed. The workshop concluded with a session on the future of Mobile operating systems, application areas, ideas etc. Considering the highly experienced audience, there was a significant amount of interaction and exchange of ideas. The participants were encouraged to build on the learning gained from the Android seminar and to create winning solutions based on the Android platform. Each participant was awarded a participation certificate with a CD containing the content of the seminar.� The Chapter organised an event for CIOs on the 22nd September at Hotel Chancery. The topic at the event was “Business Agility thro’ Business Intelligence”.

QlikView and KPMG sponsored the program. About 40

delegates from various companies like Bosch, Siemens Information Systems, Kurlon etc. participated in the event. Prof. Vishnuprasad Nagadevara of IIM Bangalore was the Chief Guest and Keynote speaker.

Dr. Aniban Basu, Chairman Bangalore Chapter welcomed the guests and key note speaker. Mr. Vishwas Bondade, Hon. Treasurer introduced the speakers.

Prof. V. Nagadevara, spoke on the emergence and importance of Business Intelligence. He analysed the impact of using Business Intelligence on business. He used different types of data to prove that the business can indeed be improved by scientific forecasting, using BI techniques. This was followed by another interesting talk by Mr. Abhijeet Varma from KPMG. He dwelled on the importance of goals and deliverables in the business.

Mr. R. Raghuraman, Country Manager of QlikView presented the solution offerings from QlikView and spoke on a few success stories. This was followed by demonstration of QlikView solutions by Mr. Paul Rajesh, Support Specialist.

The program ended with vote of thanks by Mr. G. Balasubba Raman, Chapter Vice-Chairman This was followed by cocktails and dinner. � The chapter took part in Tree Planting and Information Technology activities in Sri Vivekananda Vidya Kendra School in Hoskote on 22nd August 2010 along with Cymfony, IBM and NGO-TreesForFree.

Jeeva, Amar, Siddu, Ganesh, Sabapathy & his family from Cymfony, Bala, Krishnaprasad & his daughter from CSI – Bangalore chapter, Shiva & Anil from IBM, several school teachers, 68 students of 7th class, Nagaraj, Secretary of the school and the team from NGO ‘Tree for Free’ participated in the event.

The school had procured a cart full of red soil to supplement the growth of the trees. They had organized lunch for all the participants. The school also chose 7th standard students to plant trees, so that the trees, planted by students, would be looked after by them for the next 4 years. The NGO ‘Trees For Free’ supplied the saplings, manure, and tree guards (all sponsored by Cymfony). The NGO volunteers had visited the school a day earlier, identified exact positions for each sapling to be planted and dug the pits. The NGO also donated a solar lamp to the school.

Students answered the IT quiz with ease, though it was meant for 10th standard students. Concepts of Greening & Green IT were explained to the students. Cymfony donated a PC for computer Lab of the school. The chapter donated two DVD packs for Science and Mathematics (sponsored by Appa Rao, CSI MC Member) for 10th standard students to the school.

Coimbatore

ANITS


� COCHIN

Cochin : Mr. S P Soman, Chapter Chairman addressing the participants

All India Seminar on “Web Technologies: Emerging Trends & Social Impacts” was held in Cochin during 30-31 Aug. 2010 at International Hotel, Ernakulam. Four professional organizations, viz., The Institution of Engineers, Cochin Local Centre, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Kerala Section, The Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) Cochin chapter and Computer Society of India, Cochin Chapter, jointly organized this two-days seminar.

The seminar was inaugurated by Mr. Shouvick Mukherji, Vice President, Yahoo India Research & Development. In his inaugural address he emphasized on the opportunities and challenges posed by the new paradigm of computing, the aftermath of Web 2.0 technologies. Addressing the delegates, he explained the process of how to link data and information of individuals in a seamless fashion for data mining.

Mr. G. Vishwanathan, Chairman IEI, in his presidential address, stressed upon the influence of Web technologies - positive and negative impacts on the society. Programme coordinator, Mr. T. Sreeprakash briefed about the events and gave an overview of the seminar. Mr. B. Parameswaran, Chairman IETE Cochin, Mr. S P Soman, Chairman, CSI Cochin Chapter, Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Vice Chairman COMSOC, IEEE, felicitated the gathering. Ms. Mini Ulanat, Regional Student Coordinator, CSI welcomed the gathering. Prof. M. V. Rajesh proposed the vote of thanks. Mr. Anand Parthasarathy, Editor, India Tech Online.com delivered the keynote address on the theme “Riding the Internet Wave: Harnessing today’s Web Technology Opportunities”.

The first technical session started with an invited talk by Mr. Manu Zakaria, technology evangelist and cyber forensic expert, on “Cloud 9 – Uncovering Security and Discovering forensics in cloud”. He briefed the audience about security concerns related to the cloud-computing paradigm. Post lunch session started with invited talk on “Web Technologies: Social Impacts” by Dr. M. P. Sukumaran Nair, special secretary to the chief minister of Kerala. Various initiatives taken by the Government and affecting common man were dealt with by him in detail. Mr. N. Krishnan, Director CERT IT Department, Government of Kerala, spoke on “E-Governance and Cyber security”. He stressed the need for the awareness and exposed many traps of the cyber world. The last talk in this session was on “Cyber crimes & Cyber Forensics” by Mr. Balan. C., Deputy Director, CDAC, Trivandrum. Prof. G. Madhu chaired the last session of paper presentation.

The second day started with an invited talk on “Modelling networks using Social Network Analysis” by Ms. Mini Ulanat. This

was followed by a talk on “Next Generation Network” by Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Technical Head, Reliance Communications. This was followed by research paper presentation spread over two sessions. Prof. M. V. Rajesh and Mr. G. Santhoshkumar chaired these sessions.

The two day seminar concluded with a Valedictory function on 31st August at 3 p.m. Mr. B. Parameshwaran, Chairman, IETE Cochin chapter presided over the function. Mr. Suresh Narayanan welcomed the gathering. Prof. M.V.Rajesh summarized the events. Mr. V. S. Shenoy & Prof. Mariakutty spoke on behalf of the participants. Mr. T. Sreeprakash, Programme Co-ordinator thanked all the stake holders.

The event received wide media coverage. The sponsors of the programme were M/s SBL, Kerala IT Mission. The organizers placed on record their appreciation and gratitude for the whole hearted support of all professional organisers, and other well wishers, who helped directly and indirectly in making this conference a great success.

� DEHRADUN

DEHRADUN : Chapter Delegates at CSI Seminar on Emerging Trends & Practices in ICT. (L to R) Mr.Vinod K Taneja, Mr. Vinay Avasthi, Mrs. Ritika Arora, Prof. Durgesh Pant, Dr. Sudhanshu Joshi, Dr. Pradeep Suri, Dr. Jitender Joshi, Mr. Sushovan Saha, Brigadier (Retd.) K G Behl, Dr. Jowhar Tejender Nath, Mr. Polash Bora, Mr. Narender Kumar.

The Chapter organized a Seminar on “Emerging Trends & Practices in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)” on 31st August 2010 at Uttaranchal Institute of Management, Dehradun.

Mr. Vinod K. Taneja, DGM, NIC Services Inc. (NICSI) & Vice- Chairman, CSI - Dehradun chapter delivered a talk on “De-Mystifying the Cloud”. Cloud computing is the latest, most hyped concept in IT. Cloud computing is a revolutionary style of computing. It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they will acquire or deliver IT services. It offers potential benefits, but users must be aware of the risks.

Mr. Sushovan Saha, Chairman, CSI - Dehradun chapter delivered a talk on “Harnessing Cloud for Enterprise” and said, “The ‘cloud’ model initially has focused on making the hardware layer consumable as on-demand computation and storage capacity. This is an important first step, but for companies to harness the power of the cloud, complete application infrastructure needs to be easily configured, deployed, dynamically-scaled and managed in these virtualized hardware environments.”

A humorous Poem in English was recited on “Byte” by Brigadier (Retd.) K. G. Behl. Students actively participated in Techno Knowledge Session - “Tripod”, conducted by Mr. Polash Bora GEOPIC, ONGC and won many prizes.

Mr. Vinay Avasthi, Hon. Secretary, CSI - Dehradun chapter said,


“The promotion of Information Technology as a profession is the top priority of CSI today”. To fulfill this objective, CSI regularly organizes conferences, conventions, lectures and gives various awards.

During the technical session entitled “Role of ICT in Rural Development and Business Excellence - Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid by ITC’s e-Choupal” Dr. Sudhanshu Joshi, IT Head & Assistant Professor School of Management, Doon University, delivered an interactive session by bringing the compiled competitive advantages through the supply chain integration and building stakeholder development, and using the “RIGHT Strategy” adopted by the ITC (Indian tobacco Company limited ) to develop the rural markets. The case study on the Usage of ICT (E-chaupal) for rural development was discussed, which explores the corporate responsibility towards rural people and also the increasing concern of the organizations for this high potential rural market.

The Convener of this Seminar was Mrs. Ritika Arora Mehra, Head of the Department of Computer Science UIM. She proposed vote of thanks. Ex-Chairman CSI - Dehradun chapter Mr. R K Verma, DGM (Programming), ONGC also graced the occasion. Prof. Dugesh Pant, Dr. Jowhar Tejender Nath, and Mr. Narender Kumar were also present in the seminar.

� LUCKNOW

LUCKNOW : Prof. Nuri at a Session on ‘IT Product and Process Engineering’.

The Chapter organised a very interesting talk by Prof. Kesav Vithal Nori, on ‘IT Product & Process Engineering’ at the Anjuman auditorium, Tata Consultancy Services’, Awadh Park office. Prof. Nori is a former Executive Director and Executive Vice President, TCS. Mr. Jayant Krishna, Regional Vice President (International) and Principal Consultant, TCS introduced the guest speaker and the subject.

Prof. Nori focussed both on product engineering as well as software process engineering from the perspectives of education, training, business and customers. He also emphasized that merely delivering a quality IT product conforming to functional and performance specifications alone cannot ensure that the customer would perceive ‘value’ and be in a state of delight. He enumerated various measures, which would facilitate value delivery to the customers.

There was an engrossing question and answer session after the formal address. At the end, Mr. Ashesh Agarwal, Chairman, CSI, Lucknow Chapter and Technical Director, NIC presented a memento to Prof Nori. The talk was attended by over 100 CSI members and IT professionals.

STUDENT Branches � AISSMS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, PUNE

A motivational talk on “Benefits of CSI Student Chapter” was delivered by Prof. M A Pradhan, HOD Computer Engineering, AISSMS College of Engineering Pune on 6 July 2009. The talk was structured to provide informationa about CSI Student Branch Membership.

� Another talk on “CSI Past, Present and Future” was delivered by Prof. N P Mawale, Staff Coordinator, CSI Student Chapter AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune on 13 July 2009.

� The branch conducted session on “Leadership skill” for F.E. (Comp Engg.) students on 17th Aug 2009. The talk was delivered by Prof. Mrs. Madhavi Pradhan, Head of Computer Engineering Department, AISSMSCOE, Pune. She stressed upon maximizing our leadership potential in a rapidly changing global economy. The main objective was to motivate the students to become good leaders. Session included topics such as –

AISSMS COLLEGE OF ENGG., PUNE : Motivational Talk : Prof. M A Pradhan and Prof. Nitin P. Mawale.

• Definition of Leadership, • Emerging Trends in Leadership and• Is Leading Different than Managing?

� AESICS, AHMEDABAD

� The Branch organized many events for the members and professionals. Some of the major events are - � A lecture on Network Protocols by Prof. Aditya Patel, Asst.

Professor, AESICS was organized on 31st July, 2010 to give exposure about network architectures and protocols involved in intranet and internetworking.

� A seminar on “Six Sigma” by Mr. Amal Derasary, Vice President, V & V services, Gateway Technolabs, Ahmedabad was organized on 07th August, 2010. The seminar covered the explanation of comparison and integration between different quality systems like ISO, CMM with Six Sigma concepts and process capability, GE case study of Six Sigma, Six Sigma roles and Six Sigma certification Criteria.

� A seminar on Smart Phone Application Development was organized on 21st August, 2010 to create awareness in students about mobile computing technologies and mobile application development. The seminar focused on different mobile operating systems and devices, different smart phones like Applet Iphone,


Symbian, Google Android, RIM (Blackberry) and mobile application development technologies.

� A workshop on Business Analytics was organized during 20th- 21st August, 2010 to impart knowledge about contemporary techniques of Business Analytics.

AESICS, AHMEDABAD : Prof. H R Vishwakarma, Honorary Secretary, CSI interacting with AESICS students

� Prof. H. R. Vishwakarma, Hon. Secretary, CSI and Senior Professor (Software Engineering), VIT University, Vellore visited AESICS campus on 16th September, 2010. Prof Bipin Mehta, Director, AESICS welcomed him. In his lecture, Prof. Vishwakarma informed faculty members and students about the initiatives taken by CSI about research and certification programmes. He also talked about career prospects, how students should pursue different courses and projects in order to be successful in IT industry. He encouraged students to develop innovative applications in different areas like agriculture, healthcare, natural language processing and compilers, application performance management.

� A Seminar on career counseling by TCS was organized on 21st September, 2010 for final year MCA and BCA students. Speakers talked about different career opportunities available in IT infrastructure management and services in TCS and other leading IT companies.

� RVCE, BANGALORE

RVCE, BANGALORE : Speaker Mr. Stallman addressing the audience

The departments of MCA, CSE & ISE of R. V. College of Engineering, jointly organized a Technical Talk on “Free Software” on Wednesday, 08-09-2010 at 9.00am. Mr. Richard M. Stallman, President, Free Software Foundation, was on India tour and visited RVCE (as a part of his regular visit) and addressed the students. He delivered the information about the free software movement. Users

can do wonders by effectively using the free software, which has the similar features as those of proprietary software. The freedom to use the software, modify the software has been dominated by the proprietary software developers. He encouraged the younger generation to be the part of free software movement. This will strengthen the software domain with high degree of freedom. More than 500 students & some faculty members participated actively and were benefited from the interaction.

� SIRTS, BHOPAL

CSI student chapter was inaugurated at Sagar Institute of Research Science and Technology (SIRTS), Bhopal, on 19/08/10 by Dr. Harshvardhan Tiwari, Ex Vice Chancellor, Barkatullah University and Chairman Affiliation, Fee Regulatory Committee, M.P. (AFRC). The function was presided over by the Chairman of the group Mr. Sanjeev Agrawal and the Guest of Honour was Dr. R. K. Datta, Ex Advisor DST and Director Research CSI.

SIRTS, BHOPAL : Inauguration of CSI student chapter

The Director of SIRTS welcomed the guests and encouraged students to continue working hard. The Chairman of the group Mr. Sanjeev Agrawal congratulated the students for their efforts and for showing interest in research activities. The Chief Guest emphasized on computer literacy for all under his mission “Education for all”. He also promised to provide e-books to all the students.

Dr R K Datta emphasized the need for research in the current scenario. He encouraged students to undertake innovative and research oriented projects.

The Guest also released the brochure for the journal of “Society for Inter Disciplinary Research and Technology”, a Journal of Engineering Management and Pharmaceuticals Sciences. This is the first Research Journal covering diversified fields, published by a private engineering college in M.P.

At the inaugural activity, the final year meritorious students were felicitated. About 85 students of CSE/ IT dept. are now members of Student chapter of CSI.

� KLEF UNIVERSITY, VADDESWARAM, KONERU

KLEF University Student Branch of CSI was inaugurated on 15th September 2010 at peacock hall of KLEF university campus, situated at Green Fields, Vaddeswaram (Near Vijayawada), Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh, in association with CSI Koneru chapter. More than 300 student members of University participated in this function.

Mr. Koneru Satyanarayana, Hon’ble Chancellor of the University was the Chief Guest and inaugurated the function with inspiring speech and advised the students to conduct more number of events


in the coming years. Mr. M. Neelakanteshawar Rao, Deputy Manager, ADP Limited, was the key-note speaker. Mr. P. Thrimurthy, President of CSI has been the function chair and delivered a thought provoking address to the audience with his vibrant speech. Mr. DBV Sarma, Regional Vice President, CSI, was the chief guest. He advised the students to carry and share their knowledge through CSI forum. Mr. G. L. Dutta, Vice chancellor of the University advised the students about the importance of forums like CSI.

KLEF UNIVERSITY, VADDESWARAM, KONERU : Mr. K Satyanarayana, Dr. G Prasada Rao, Mr. G L Dutta, Mr. M Neelakanteshwar Rao, Mr. P Thrimurthy, Mr. DBV Sarma, Dr. K Raja Sekhara Rao, Mr. K Raja Sekhar.

Mr. K. Raja Sekhara Rao, State Student branch coordinator, CSI, Andhra Pradesh directed the students to concentrate more on the activities to be conducted with CSI to fulfil its objectives. Dr. G. Prasada Rao, Dean, AMITY School of business, was the guest of honour and explained the audience the role of management in IT industry. Mr. K. Raja Sekhar, Chairman, CSI - Koneru chapter, explained to the students the importance of knowledge sharing and appealed to them to participate in the CSI events and to make the branch the best one in the coming years.

� BHARATI VIDYAPEETH, NEW DELHI

BHARATI VIDYAPEETH, NEW DELHI : FDP on Cloud Computing is in progress

CSI Student Branch of Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management (BVICAM), New Delhi, in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organized one day Faculty Development Programme (FDP) on 18th September, 2010 at BVICAM, New Delhi. The topics covered in the FDP were-Cloud Computing, Software Assurance & Software Testing, Professional Ethics and Moral Values and Enhancing Employability of Young Graduates. It received an overwhelming response with over 50 participants from various eminent institutes like DTU, Delhi, JMI, Jaypee, MAIT, MSI, CDAC, DIAS, MERI, JIMS, BVCOE, RCIT, TIAS, RDIAS, NIEC, BCCIT, etc.

The FDP programme started with a welcome note by Mr Rajit Sikka, Academic Relationship Manager, TCS. First talk of the day was on Cloud Computing by Cdr. Manash K. Paul, TCS. He discussed important concepts such as SaaS, PaaS etc. and also threw light on risks regarding the subject and possible solutions to handle them. Second talk was on Software Quality Assurance and Estimation by Mr. Debasis Behura, TCS. He discussed important aspects of Software Quality Assurance including PDCA Cycle, Cost of Quality, Quality Models and Tools, V Model of Testing etc and Function Points, LOC, Use Cases and other approaches of Software Estimation with the intent of new thinking.

Third talk was on Professional Ethics and Moral Values by Mr. Mohan Masson, TCS. He discussed the importance of professional ethics and moral values in an organization. He took various examples to set forth his rationale. Fourth talk was on Enhancing Employability of young graduates by Dr. Anil Chawla, TCS. He flagged the session by discussing the issues and concerns of the industry as well as the challenges of the academia in mind. He emphasized re-skilling and retooling of engineers and graduates and updation of syllabus with latest technologies.

The FDP was well received by the participants. The event was co-ordinated by Mrs. Anu Kiran Jain, Training and Placement In-Charge, BVICAM, New Delhi.

� THIAGARAJAR COLLEGE OF ENGG., MADURAI

As a part of CSI student branch activity, a Group Discussion was held on 29.06.2010 in order to test and improve students’ interactive skills. Final year student coordinators organized the event. Many CSI student members from second year as well as pre final year participated.

Student Coordinators were Muthukumaran B, Karpagalakshmi R, Narasimman V. and Srividya K., while Mrs. M. Vijayalakshmi was the Staff Coordinator.

It turned out to be a grand occasion for the students to learn how to behave and communicate as part of a team and also get trained to be open minded in discussions.

Paper Presentation : As a part of another CSI student branch activity, a paper presentation contest was held on 01/07/2010 to test students’ technical knowledge in the chosen topics. Around 15 teams from second and pre-final year participated and presented their papers. Final year student coordinators organized the event.

Student Coordinators were Muthukumaran B, and Karpagalakshmi R, while Mrs. M. Vijayalakshmi was the Staff Coordinator.

It provided a unique opportunity to the students for developing their skills in presenting papers and clarifying queries on the spot.

� UIM, DEHRADUN

Inter-College Poster Competition, Thursday 23rd September 2010, Venue: Uttaranchal Institute of Management (UIM), Dehradun

The Branch organized Inter-College IT Poster Competition, where participants were students of Uttaranchal Institute of Management, Dehradun (UIM) and University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun (UPES). Various themes selected for poster competitions were:-1) Green Computing2) IT for Energy Sector3) Network on Chip4) Wireless Technology5) IT in Health Sector6) 5G language and its application

Terms and Conditions to make poster were: 1) Only CSI student members are eligible to participate.

2) Only hand-made posters are allowed, printed posters are not allowed however stickers can be added and

3) Poster size should not exceed 2 feet x 3 feet.

UIM, DEHRADUN : College Poster Competition

Evaluation of poster was done by judges (Mr. R. K. Verma, Deputy GM, ONGC, Dehradun and Dr. T. N. Jowhar, Scientist-E Wadia Institute, Dehradun) at Seminar Hall of UIM, Dehradun. In all 3 prizes and 11 consolation certificates were distributed by honorable judges on 24th September. Winner and First runner up are students of UIM, Dehradun and Second runner up is from UPES, Dehradun.

� ANITS, VISAKHPATNAM

ANITS, VISAKHPATNAM : Mr. Ashok is delivering the lecture on “QUAL NET Simulator”

Nihon Communications Pvt. Ltd., a Japan based MNC located at Bangalore, in association with CSE department under the banner of CSI student branch conducted one day Advanced Networking workshop with “QUALNET SIMULATOR” on 16th September, 2010 at Anil Neerukonda Institute Of Technology and Sciences. Mr. Ashok, Application Engineer from Nihon Communications, gave hands-on sessions on WI-FI, WIMAX, WIRELESS MESS NOTWORK, and WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS. As a part of value addition training (VAT), the Department of CSE has incorporated this training program. Total 70 participants attended this seminar including the faculty members of the department. The Department is planning to conduct QUALNET training programs under VAT for the engineering college faculties across Andhra Pradesh for the benefit of faculty community across the state.

� JDIET, YAVATMAL

JDIET, YAVATMAL : Prof. M V Sarode is delivering a lecture.

The Branch organized an expert lecture on the topic of “How to prepare for GRE, TOFEL, GMAT Examination”.

Prof. M V Sarode from Jawaharlal Darda Institute of Engineering & Technology, Yavatmal delivered the lecture on 14th September 2010. He gave information to the students about how to prepare for competitive examination for the higher studies in foreign Universities. All the third year Computer Science & Engineering and Information Technology students appreciated the lecture.

� MET’S BUJBAL KNOWLEDGE CITY, IOE, NASHIK

MET’S BUJBAL KNOWLEDGE CITY, IOE NASHIK : Technowar 2010 in progress.

Inter College District Level Technical Quiz competition, “Technowar10” was organised on 13th and 14th September, 2010. Under Technowar10 two events, Q-Warrior and C-Spartan were conducted. Q-Warrior was Quiz competition based on subjects like Programming languages C, C++, Data Stucture, Network Technologies. Q-Warrior was totally online competition.

To maintain transparency External judges and competition supervisors which include H.O.D’s of other Engineering Colleges, Senior Faculties, CSI Members from other colleges & Heads of reputed Technical Institutes like Aptech, System Domain & NIIT were invited for both Competitions & results evaluation.

Mr. M D Agrawal elected as Vice President of SEARCC, President of Australian Computer society,

Mr. Anthony is President of SEARCC and Dr. K K Agrawal, Ex Vice Chancellor of Guru Govind Singh

University, Delhi is out-going President of SEARCC.

Announcement

Published by Suchit Gogwekar for Computer Society of India at 122, TV Indl. Estate, S K Ahire Marg, Worli, Mumbai-400 030 • Tel.: 022-249 34776 and Website : www.csi-india.org • Email : [email protected] and printed by him at GP Offset Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai 400 059.

Licenced to Registered with Registrar of News Papers If undelivered return to : Post Without Prepayment for India - RNI 31668/78 CSI, 122, TV Indl. Estate, MR/TECH/WPP 241/WEST/09-11 Regd. No. MH/MR/WEST-76-2009-11 Mumbai - 400 030

Financial Capital• Philanthropic Funders:

Corporations, Foundations, Individuals, Venture Philanthropy Funds, etc.

• Financial Institutions• Equity Investors (for-profit)• Government Funders:

Federal, State, Local

Policy & Politics• Tax Policies & Regulation• Legislators & Politicians• Government Agencies:

Federal, State, Local• International Governing

Bodies

Media• Reporters, Journalists,

Book Authors• Media Outlets• Recognition & Awards

Programs• Media Associations and

Foundations

Human Capital• Undergraduate Colleges/Universities• Business & Other Graduate Schools• Youth Social Entrepreneurship Orgs• Retiree Engagement Organisations• Social Entrepreneurship “Attractors”• Social-Purpose Organisations• Volunteer/Board Matching Orgs

Intellectural Capital• Consultants• Academic Research Centers• Training Providers• Think Tanks, Action Tanks• Peer Organisations• Stakeholder Strategy Advisors• Evaluation Providers

BENEFICIARIES SERVED

Direct and indirect outcomes for

clients, communities, and

markets

POSITIVE SOCIAL IMPACT

Improvement on social needs and

problems;Reduction of gap between real and ideal conditions

Social/Political Capital• Associations• Network Convenors• Advocacy Groups• Political Consultants• Funders’ Portfolios• Incubators• On-line Communities

CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

CONTEXT-SETTING FACTORS

Economic & Social Conditions• Economic Forces and Trends• Social and Cultural Forces and

Trends• Public Awareness, Knowledge

and Opinion

Related Fields• Specific Domains: Education, Health

Environment, Development, etc.• Adjacent Fields of Knowledge

and Practice: Corporate Social Responsibiilty, Nonprofit Management, Sustainability, etc.

Fig. : Ecosystem of Social Entrepreneurship*

*“Developing The Field Of Social Entrepreneurship”, Center For The Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship Duke University: The Fuqua School Of Business, June 2008

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship[http://www.skollworldforum.com/about]

The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship accelerates the impact of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage and large scale social change. The Forum is a joint venture between The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and The Skoll Foundation. Both organisations share a commitment to understanding, expanding and supporting the field of social entrepreneurship.

Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship[http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/skoll/about/Pages/missionvision.aspx]

The Skoll Centre is a leading global entity for the advancement of of social entrepreneurship. It fosters innovative social transformation through education, research, and collaboration. Social entrepreneurship is about innovative, market-oriented approaches underpinned by a passion for social equity and environmental sustainability. Ultimately, social entrepreneurship is aimed at transformational systems change that tackles the root causes of poverty, marginalization, environmental deterioration and accompanying loss of human dignity.The key concepts of social entrepreneurship are innovation, market orientation and systems change.

The Skoll Foundation[http://www.skollfoundation.org/]

Jeff Skoll created The Skoll Foundation in 1999 to pursue his vision of a sustainable world of peace and prosperity.The Skoll Foundation drives large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and other innovators dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. Social entrepreneurs are society’s change agents, creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world for the better.

CSIC 2010( October ) - Computer Society Of India

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