Security in Hostel Sector

I finished the work I had planned to do about the message board and left the lab at 4 a. m. As I was on the way to Cauvery, I found some of security guards were in deep sleep when on duty. This led me to check security in some hostels and Office of Hostel Management. As a fall-out of this action, I found seven security guards in deep sleep and one in suspicious condition. Watching on-duty security guards deep in sleep was funny on one side and equally alarming on the other. It’s most undesired situation as far as the security of the institute is concerned.

Most of the guards, when awakened, could not judge what they were up to. One guard, rubbing his eyes, asked me to write my name in visitor’s register, one guard gave ten thousand excuses for sleeping and finally begged pardon. At one place the intercom receiver was put down from instrument and as per the guard’s statement, he had done so to avoid disturbing phone calls.

This whole exercise of checking the security arrangement was unplanned but I decided to go ahead with checking the places after seeing. It's is mainly because I am concerned and being a representative I need to be concerned about the security in the hostels. This is especially in the context of various construction activities going in the hostel sector and presence of numerous workers due to construction. In saying that I don't want to show the workers in bad light but it's my sincere feeling that if we overlook these lapses in security, we may have face unexpected consequences. A stitch in time will save nine.

I have given a detailed report to the authority. They have promised me to take severe action. But considering conditions in which these security guards are recruited, considering the meager salary they are paid by this private security service, and considering the duty officer also is caught in this, I have requested the authorities not to impose a monetary fine on the individuals. I have asked them to summon these people and issue a memo to the security agency with a stern warning of action in case there personnel are again found failing in performing the duty.

Students Board Ready for Operation

The Students Board is ready for operation and can be accessed at
http://students.iitm.ac.in/forum/. Testing is in progress and the board will be available for usage by students from 25th December.

The logins are created as per the roll numbers. The passwords are generated and will be sent on 24th Dec morning to individual smail account. An email account boardadmin@iitm.ac.in is being created which will be operated by student administrator, Arun Kumar. Guests to this forum can view some key forums but can not participate in discussion and also can not read the topics of some sub-forums.

Key forums are created and can be seen on the notice boards. Essential moderation settings are done for these forums. There are forums for Exec Wing members, SAC members, and Dean Students under Open Forums. There is one Lost and Found Section also created. This will certainly reduce spamming through mailing lists. New forums can be created as and when they will be requested for, or when need will arise.

There will be three Root Administrators: Arun Kumar, Shantibhushan Sale and myself. Apart from them there will be moderators for different forums. e.g. Each Hostel General Secretary will be the moderator for the separate forum for his hostel.

Message Board Installation Completed

A few minutes back I was informed by Bhushan and Arun that message board installation was completed. I have started testing the installation and has suggested them to create some forums. We will have a detailed discussion today evenings in Office of DoS. Configuring and testing of this board will be done in the coming week.

Library Needs to be Kept Open Round-the-clock

To DoAC,

There is some feedback about closing the library earlier during the week
at the year-ending.

Since a good reading room and discussion room facility is made available
to students, more and more number of students have started using these
places for studying, not only during examination period but also rest of
the year. Now students feel that earlier closing of library during
year-ending will cause a great inconvenience. Good thing is many have
formed habit of studying that environment which is certainly good sign as
far as their academic progress is concerned and I am sure that you will
certainly appreciate that the students should be encouraged by all
possible means to study as much as possible with full focus. Keeping
library open round the clock will be an important measure towards this.

I am forwarding a representative email from Ashok, a post-graduate student of Chemical Engg. There are many more students, including myself, who echo with Ashok's views.

May I humbly request to reconsider your decision and keep library open to students for the whole day. Albeit, there may be put a time constraint on the book transactions.

With best regards
Prasad
Member of Library Advisery Committee

EFSI Endowment Lecture by Shree Venkatramani

In the morning I received a call from office of DoAC asking me to be present for the lecture as I will be presenting the speaker, Shree Venkatramani, a bouquet. In any case I was going to attend the lecture. This was EFSI Endowment Lecture arranged every year in our institute. Shree Venkatramani is the Managing Director of India Pistons Ltd, a major supplier of pistons and piston rings to almost all the automobile manufacturers. He was given welcome in the Board Room with high tea. Somehow they thought it alright to invite me also for joining them for high tea. It turned out to be quite interesting interaction.

The lecture itself was quite a revealation. He spoke on “Changing face of Industrial Relations from the context of Globalization”. The speaker has seen his organisation going through various phases since globalization started in 1984. All the experience of the distinguished speaker was visible throughout the lecture.

After the lecture, I had a brief chat with him. The mention of Tata Motors was obvious when he asked about my background. It was quite a good feeling when talking about 407 and Spacio, BS2 emission development of these two vehicles.

Hike in Cable Connection fees

Executive Committee of the Staff Club has DECIDED to increase the amount of subscription to Rs 75 per semester per students (from Rs 50). Thus any hostel with @225 inmateswill end up paying ~ Rs 3125 per month which is certainly a huge amount.Bigger hostels like Cauvery, Krishna are already paying ~ Rs 5000 whichwill increase to Rs 7500 with this hike as they use two connectios. This is especially uneconomic when a much cheaper alternative is available inmarket that is DTH. DTH connection can reduce these expenses to ~10% ofthis and also the equipment will be owned by the hostel.

There are DTH services provided by Dish TV and one by Star-ESPN network.Please study their packages. You can get information on internet.

In fact, General Secretaries of Cauvery, Krishna, Sarayu had decided tochange over to DTH in June/July itself. But as some popolar music channelsand sports channels were not available so we cancelled the plan.

May be this is time for us to seriously think about continuing staff club cable connection. DTH is working very well in Sindhu. Other hostels can follow this route.

Students evaluate performance of Campus Cafe

There is a mixed reaction to the running of canteen by institute staff that was previously outsourced canteen known as Nandhinee. Most of the comments/complaints were oral. So I decided to conduct a brief survey. I would like to present the outcome of this survey to you. I have found that all the respondents (100.00%) have stated clearly in their feedback that the performance of Campus Café is not up to the mark.

After compiling the feedbacks, I have interpreted the feedback in the following way.* When the comments of respondents are categorized on the basis of quality, quantity, service and hygiene, it can be noticed that except for quality, Campus Café even fails to open account for other criterions. There are some respondents (9%) who have said that they are satisfied with quality, where they mean the taste of the items served is good. But then there are 74% who report that the quality is bad. 17% respondents have not commented about quality of the items served in the café.

Not all respondents have mentioned their opinion about all the criterions. Their opinion is counted as neutral. Perhaps if they were asked categorically to evaluate the café on these criterions, we would have had smaller percentage under Neutral.

There are more respondents who have not commented upon the service provided in the café. It is understandable as the café works on the self service by the customers.

One thing worth mentioning here is that many of the respondents have strongly appreciated the special tea served in the Campus Café. Also there are comments which say that the rates of items are less as compared to outsourced canteen. But the question is at what cost this low prices can be set?

It is a fact that the largest number of customers for the Campus Café is student community and, surprisingly, their representation on the Canteen Committee has been nil. It is a point that need to be noted by the authorities and should include a student member in the committee as it is done in practically every committee related to facilities in the campus.

Consolidated Results:

Parameter (Percentage of total respondents)
(Good,Bad,Neutral)

Quality (9,74,17)
Variety (0,74,26)
Service (0,65,35)
Hygiene (0,78,22)
Overall (0,100,0)

* As the feedback was invited, technically, it is not a survey that is based on usual random sampling. The percentages presented above are based on the interpretation of the comments/observations willingly given by students on a particular criterion.

I hope the Canteen Committee will take enough corrective actions to ensure better functioning of the Campus Cafe.

Email Accounts for getting Feedback about Facilities

Email accounts for feedback about facilities:

Some email accounts can be created to get feedback from the students about various facilities, transport, alumni affairs involving students and external enquiries. It may be appreciated that these accounts are easy to remember and they will eliminate the need of knowing name/contact of the person accountable for a particular facility. Thus feedback can be given by students pretty quickly and the feedback will be documented properly. To elaborate this point further, I will explain how these accounts can be used as the link between a particular portfolio and the general student body.

transport@iitm.ac.in
Students can give their feedback about the transport facility. They can also register complaint about the facility.
sfc@iitm.ac.in or facilities@iitm.ac.in
Students will report the complaints about facilities in Students Facility Centre, power laundry, eateries (not hostel dining halls) etc. They can also suggest any new addition to the present facilities.
network@iitm.ac.in
Students can write their problems/suggestions about the internet and intranet access to this account. The problems can be forwarded to the newly proposed Campus Network Users Committee for the further action.
aaincharge@iitm.ac.inThis will be used by the Alumni Affairs In-Charge who is the link between Alumni Associations, Office of Alumni Affairs and current student body.

These accounts can be displayed appropriately so that they strike students’ attention. They can be displayed at respective facilities also. These accounts can be operated by the respective in-charges in General Secretary’s Council.

Email accounts for Hostel General Secretaries:

There are email accounts created by hostel names. There is ambiguity in minds of most Hostel General Secretaries upon who operates these accounts. Perhaps the wardens are operating these email accounts. In order to facilitate a better communication from secretaries to students and from students to secretaries I suggest creating email accounts for General Secretaries of all hostels. The Ids can be

gsalak@iitm.ac.in, gsbrahms@iitm.ac.in, gscauvery@iitm.ac.in, gsganga@iitm.ac.in, gsgodav@iitm.ac.in, gsjamuna@iitm.ac.in, gskrishna@iitm.ac.in, gsmandak@iitm.ac.in, gsnarmada@iitm.ac.in, gssaras@iitm.ac.in, gssindhu@iitm.ac.in, gssarayu@iitm.ac.in, gssharav@iitm.ac.in, gstapti@iitm.ac.in

To take this point further, all other hostel council members can also be given email ids using a combination of abbreviation of the post and the hostel name as given above.

Bus Route Modified and Other Points

Minutes of Transportation Committee Meeting held in Office of DR-Admin on 12th Sept 2005 at 1645h

1. I briefed about the feedback given by student community about transportation service. Based upon these inputs and also upon inputs by other members, the committee has taken the following decisions.
2. A new route will be introduced from 13th Sept 2005 in hostel zone during the time period when students go to classes. The route is as follows: Jamuna – Tapti – Taramani Guest House – Cauvery – NCC – MSB – Gajendra Circle.
3. The electravans will operate on this route will run at 0740h, 0750h, 1240h, 1250h.
4. A diesel bus will operate from hostel zone to the academic zone (without going to Tapti for the time being) at 0745h and 1245h. Transportation Cell will study the route via Tapti keeping running of diesel buses on this route and will come up with recommendations in a week. Administration will take necessary action based upon these recommendations.
5. In order to keep a check on the running of buses on scheduled time, timing ledgers will be kept at Main Gate Security and at Jamuna Hostel Security desks. Committee will review the provision of timing ledgers after one week (on or ofter 20th Sept 2005). Random checks of these timing ledgers will be carried out by the committee members.
6. Transport Cell will display the time table of bus services in all the hostels, all terminuses and at key bus stops to enable the campus residents and also visitors to know the bus timings. It will also make arrangements to put permanent time table at all terminuses (bus stops at Gajendra Circle, Jamuna Hostel and Main Gate). This display will be updated as and when time table is changed.
7. Use of Smart Card for billing of travel by students was reviewed by committee. Committee felt that such provision will significantly reduce the load on bus conductor (driver in case of electravans) arising from giving tickets to students. The committee will work out the details of such a provision in due course of time.

Telecon with DoP About Problem in Internet Access

After reading the mail that I sent yesterday night and the mail that I sent today morning at around 11 am, DoP called me and we had a very elaborate discussion on phone. One might guess what it was about. I am sure most of you must have guessed correctly. Our talk was about the painfully slow internet access in hostel zone. He said that Prof TAG is fully upon it. One of the prominent reason for the sluggishness in internet access, as per their investigation, is the net servers which are run from many computers in the hostel zone. But he said that there could be other reasons also and they are being checked. DoP has assured that the problem will be solved and also we will be getting 34 Mb/s connection but... it will take some time. Hopefully this time will be counted in days not weeks or months!

Anyway now a Campus Network Users Committee will be constituted and I am asked by Prof TAG to nominate somebody as students representative. I have nominated Abhiram (Internet Incharge, General Secretary's Council) for the job. This committee will form a much-needed feedback control loop. For satisfactory performance of the system this loop is the most essential component which is missing at presence.

Our first meeting will be on Monday, 4th Sept, to finalize the details of working of this committee.

Ambassador of USA Visits the Campus

Dr Robert Mulford, Ambassador of USA, wanted to interact with students and thus officials US Cosulate in Chennai felt that our institute could be one place he might be interested in. And thus his visit to our campus was decided.

Today evening he was here after visiting a school in Teyanampet. He was accompanied by other officials in Consulate those included Dr David Hopper, US Consul General of South India and his deputy. Dr Robert Mulford talked mainly about the developing US-India relationship and said that he was optimistic about India's position of great strength after twenty years if, in his opinion, India continues with its plans and policy of open economy.

It was a quite good experience as far as arrangements and coordination was concerned. Also there were security concerns. The hall and surrounding area was thoroughly checked using metal detector and also by a sniffer dog.

DC Meeting Over

Doctoral Committee was meeting to review my progress after two years. So there was a lot of thigs to be shared. I tried to make the presentation as concise as possible. It was quite well received by committee members. They have given advised me to wind up my work by July 2006. Looking at the things I want to do it seems pretty difficult. But they say that one can not do too many things and I may even continue with research after getting degree. Their appreciation of the work is quite encouraging.

Dr Syam Sunder's EML

It was an extraordinary EML. We had the chief of investigation team for WTC attack. It was a great learning experience. The brief talk with him before the lecture in the guest house also was quite pleasant. Like most of the people to who I am introduced as SGS, he also asked me in which year I was studying. My patent answer was "the fourth year!". But this time I went ahead and informed him that it was fourth year of my doctoral research! We had a pretty well interaction.. and a pretty long time.. as we want to delay our entry to CLT as late as possible as CLT had not even 100 students!

Progress Report Submitted

Progress report copies are given to all Doctoral Committee members except one. That job I can do tomorrow. The review is on the day after tomorrow. I have to work on the presentation now.

Naresh Gets His Wheelchair

After waiting for long three weeks finally Naresh got his wheelchair today. It must be a very happy day today. We requested Hon'ble Director to hand over the chair to Naresh. It was a very low profile function that took place near Admin Block. It was over within 10 minutes. DoS, DoP and some students also were present there. The chair is funded from Students Welfare Fund.

We have made 75% advance payment and in a day or two should pay the balance. That means I still have some more work to do.

Doctoral Commitee Meets on 31st August

Doctoral Committee (DC) meeting is scheduled on 31st of August. It is an annual review of my reserch. I need to write a report and give copies to six DC members and departmental office. So mostly I will not be convening any meeting from today as I need to concentrate on analysis of the results, report and presentation preparation. Eventhough I will take care of EMLs scheduled during this period. I will try to attend some meetings if necessary.

But naturally, I will complete my responsibility over this weekend in the Tsunami Challenge BPlan Competition.

Green Peace Exhibition on 2nd and 3rd Sept

Most of us know about Green Peace. If some body does not he or she can do a search on net. They will be in the campus on 2nd and 3rd Sept for an exhibition about there history of their evolution as an international organisation. We will provide them mostly HSB113/114 and CLT.

First EML Videographed

We had the first EML of the season. It went exceedingly well. I am completely impressed by politeness and simplicity of Prof Krishnan Balasubramanian. All the arrangements were made well. I must congratulate Harshit and all members of EML team for their excellent job.

This lecture was unique in one aspect. EML team started videographying the lecture series by its own camera which is just twenty six hours old as of now. These lectures will be put in library and also on a streaming server for future use.

Servers for Message Board and websites of Shaastra/Saarang

I again gave the desired specifications for the computers to DoS. One computer will be used for the Institute Students Message Board and the other will be used to host the websites of Shaastra and Saarang. The approval for these computers is already taken. Also the software for the message board is already purchased.

First extramural lecture of the year

Today evening we will have the first extramural lecture of this year. We have invited Prof K Balasubramanian of University of California Davis, Livermore for the talk. He will talk on Computational and Mathematical Methods in Arts and Science.