We had made this video more than a year ago for the send-off of our seniors’ batch. It was recently posted on the Institute Facebook page. Here is the text of the poem I had written for those who wanted it (appears at the end of the video). The poem holds true even for my batch- I like to think it’s timeless:
What a journey this was, all the way through
We’ve had so much to see and do
So much we’ve done along this path
So much we’ve learnt from the very start
We’ve learnt the difference between boys and men
The value of a word, the strength of a pen
We’ve learnt to cherish life’s twists and bends
The blessings of a mentor, the importance of friends
The time to leave has come I fear
I end the odyssey I began here
And I recount all the days gone by
Of my life here at VJTI
My memories are what I’ll take along
And the bonds of friendship I’ve tempered strong
To my alma mater, I bid goodbye
And begin the journey to touch the sky!
[RSS feed readers might want to click through if you can't see the video]
Ed Note: This is a guest post is authored by Mahafreed Irani. Mahafreed is a journalist with the Times of India in Mumbai. She blogs here and tweets here. /Ed Note.
While thousands of Mumbaikars spent their weekend lighting crackers on Marine Drive, Twitter members like Anaggh Desai decided to use the power of Web 2.0 to raise money for charity. On Saturday morning, the 46-year-old Mumbai-based entrepreneur asked people to send him a Deepwish (Diwali greeting on Twitter), “For every wish received, I will contribute 0.25p to NGO Goonj’’. Excited by the idea, 41 other tweeple (members of the social networking site) decided to donate amounts ranging from 50p to Rs 5 for every greeting tweeted at them. By the end of two days, an amount of Rs 55,000 was collected from tweeple all over India and even the US and Saudi Arabia towards `educating the girl child’.
On his blog, Desai, who otherwise regularly tweets one-liners, wrote, “I am putting my money where my mouth is and will donate Rs 100 for every Diwali gift received, Rs 5 for every comment on my blog, 50p for every SMS greeting and 25p for every wish on Facebook, Twitter or via email’’.
Excited by the idea, popular tweeple like @b50 mobilized people and posted updates like “476 tweets x Rs 63.75 = 30,345. Those were the effort of 42 people on per tweet basis,’’ from time to time, to thank “ Twitteristan’’ and get more contributors.
While some deepwishes were as brief as, “Play it safe’’ the idea was to get creative and tweet “some genuine, original heartfelt stuff’’. So timelines were clogged with wishful updates asking for, `friendly Indo-Pak ties, non-polluting crackers and no water scarcity’. Actress Gul Panag tweeted, “I wish I could be 4 again, and 12 and 16 and 18. Meanwhile wish to donate to charity.’’
This is not the first time members of the networking site have come together to raise money for charity. Indiantweeplehaveearlier participatedintwestivals, multi-charity fundraising campaigns organised on Twitter.
Given the occasion of Dhanteras has just passed us by, I presume quite a few people would have bought new computers. In fact- I’m expecting a new computer to be delivered to my lab soon. Here are some of the things I do when I have to set up a new computer for myself or any of my friends:
The Operating System
Most computers come pre-installed with Windows these days. So, by and large, the Operating System installation is taken care of. If not, and if the end user in question wishes to have Windows in the long run- the first thing I do is to install Windows.
If you’ve bought your computer recently and it came pre-installed with Windows Vista- you may have the option to upgrade to Windows 7 when it releases. (Bonus tip: You could try your hand at winning a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate at Manan’s launch party in Mumbai on October 24th). If you want Ubuntu, you can download a copy here or request a CD here.
During the Windows installation (ideally during- but you can do this after the installation also) one of the most important steps I take is to make sure that there is a separate partition made for the data and for the OS install. For Windows- the OS is installed by default in the C drive. I usually keep about 15-20GB for the C drive. The remaining space on the hard drive is kept for one or more partitions in which the data is going to be kept.
Even if I install Windows, I usually (for me- always, for others- depending on whether they want to do so) also keep an extra 10-15GB partition vacant. I install a Linux distribution in this partition- my favourite is Ubuntu. I recommend this to others because a Linux distribution serves as a great backup to boot into and gain access to your data should you face any problems with corruption or viruses with Windows. You can easily set your computer to boot into Windows by default for everyday usage- by modifying the bootloader settings. The bootloader is what enables you to select and starts which Operating System you would like to use when you turn on your computer. Prolific Ubuntu user, Aysiu’s most excellent tutorials should help you with your Ubuntu install. Again- if you’re installing only Ubuntu- make sure you have a separate partition for your data. You can do this by setting the mount point of your root directory (denoted by a single forward slash- /) to a small 10-15GB partition and setting the mount point of your data partition to “/home”.
When I get a computer for myself- I always install Linux because there are a lot of things I prefer to do only in Linux. The key here is to install Linux after you’ve installed Windows- if you’re installing Windows at all. The bootloader installed by Linux is usually much better at dealing with multiple Operating Systems than that installed by Windows. Dealing with a dedicated data partition can get tricky here. What I do is to create a separate data partition during the Windows install (let say the D drive), then log into Windows, remap all the folders in the home folder (My Documents, My Pictures, etc) to equivalent newly made folders in the D drive thus: Right Click on the folder > Properties > Location > Move > Select the equivalent folder you’ve created in the D drive. Then, during the Ubuntu install, I simply set the mount point of this partition as “/data”. Then, in order to remap the folders in the home folder here, I add entries to the fstab file. For example, if I have to remap the Documents folder in my home directory (my username is “sengupta”, so my home directory is “/home/sengupta”) to the Documents folder in “/data”, I add the following line to the fstab file (located in /etc/);
You can modify your boot menu order by modifying the file “/boot/grub/menu.lst”. You can change the countdown time by modifying the number next to “timeout”. You can have the menu hidden by default (and have it reveal itself only if you press ESC within the countdown time, you can change the default OS selection, you can reorient the order of the Operating Systems and more. Make sure you back up your original menu.lst though. Also, you can only make changes to the menu.lst file (or for that matter to the fstab file) using superuser privileges. You can perform the two actions on the terminal thus:
I strongly suggest you have a friend around who is more experienced in these matters while you’re making such modifications to your computer.
Setting up Windows
Now that the Operating Systems have been set up, we see how to go about setting up Windows.
The first thing I do is to fire up Internet Explorer- then download and install Firefox. I then proceed to install my favourite addons. To make this easy, I’ve made them available here. The best of the lot is the addon XMarks (formerly Foxmarks). This enables you to sync your bookmarks across computers. It also syncs bookmarklets- making things even more convenient. I also download and install Opera and Google Chrome- both excellent browsers. Opera syncs my bookmarks across devices- such as my phone. Its session management features are better than any other browser I’ve come across yet and the notes feature is an excellent addition- great for research. Having access to these notes on the go is a blessing. Chrome’s raw speed and performance makes it perfect as a quick-launch/quick-read browser. At this point, there is fairly limited extensibility for Chrome compared to the others, so I use it as a secondary browser.
Here are some of the other softwares I install:
Microsoft Office: The only real reason I still use Windows. In my honest opinion- the Office suite is their finest work yet.
7-Zip: A great hassle free tool to open and create most types of archive formats.
µTorrent: A lightweight, but powerful bittorrent client for- you know- seeding Linux distributions and other FOSS software.
VLC: A very useful media player that can play pretty much any media format you throw at it.
Foxit Reader: An excellent alternative to Adobe’s Reader. Very fast and does not hog system resources.
IrfanView: A small but incredibly powerful image editing application.
Picasa: A great photo management tool- I use this to upload photos to Picasaweb (for backups), to Facebook and to Flickr.
Security: I prefer ESET’s Smart Security suite- it’s core antivirus program, NOD32 is written extensively in Assembly which makes it fast and nonintrusive. Free antivirus programs such as AVG and Spybot are pretty good too.
Dropbox: Excellent for backing up important files and syncing them across computers. Also allows you to share certain folders with friends.
CCleaner: Great for maintaining your computer- helps remove unnecessary data, cleans up your registry, helps manage installations and allows you to modify which applications are launched at startup.
iTunes/Songbird: To manage your music collection. I’ve prefer iTunes thus far primarily because of iTunes U.
I choose Ubuntu because it is, in my opinion one of the more user friendly distributions around. Of course- when I say “user” friendly- the term is very relative- it depends on the user. But generally speaking- it’s a great distribution for someone who is interesting in learning about Linux to start with.
As far as installing software is concerned- things are very simple indeed. In the Linux world, large numbers of software packages are generally housed together in “repositories” on certain Servers around the internet. These repositories are generally very well maintained and regularly updated. These repositores can be located in multiple locations. There is in fact an internal Ubuntu repository at IIT Bombay as well. For Ubuntu, there are two main ways of installing new software:
The first is a GUI based method. Open up “Add/Remove Applications” (last option under “Applications” at the top of the screen). Either search for the applications you want or scroll through a category of your choice. Select all the applications you wish to install and hit “apply changes”. That’s it. The required packages will be downloaded and installed. The second method involves the command line. Say I wish to install VLC and Opera. I can achieve that using the following command:
sudo apt-get install vlc opera
Of course- I can install as many packages as I please- by replacing “vlc opera” in the above command by the names of the packages I want. A typical command I issue to set my Ubuntu up would be this:
Issue this command- leave your computer for a while to allow it to download and install everything- when you’re back- everything’s installed. Of course- there are a couple of hoops to go through if you need to install something that’s beta, or commercial- fairly simple for the most part- they usually involve adding/enabling the repository sources and authenticating them.
To know more about any of the packages, say vim-full, type:
aptitude show vim-full
In Ubuntu, you needn’t upgrade every individual package- you can upgrade all packages at once. To do this- your package manager must first be updated about the status of new packages- and then your package manager must to told to upgrade all your packages:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Distribution upgrades require a dist-upgrade. And of course- you can use a GUI if you’re more comfortable with it- Go to System > Administration >Update manager.
I keep a list of useful Ubuntu Packages here for my reference.
It has been quite a while since my last post. The blog’s been dying of neglect- it seemed right to attempt a resuscitation.
In recent news- I’m now pursuing a research fellowship at IIT Bombay. This is an MHRD funded project that aims to develop and deploy open source simulation packages equivalent to MATLAB and OrCAD. My area of interest here is Control Systems and the tool I use is Scilab- though I have been trying my hand at Python (which is also used extensively under this project). Do let me know if you’re ever in the vicinity of the Controls and Computing Lab there.
In my spare time, I’ve been working on a pet project in the Siemens High Voltage lab at my alma mater VJTI (feels funny calling myself an alumnus considering I was a student there just a few months ago). This involves automating the control of the Pulse Transformer there- something that can easily be extended to other equipment in the lab and elsewhere. Both projects are fairly interdisciplinary and immensely satisfying.
I haven’t been attending as many events as I had been while I was back at VJTI- so this weekend’s Barcamp turned out to be a welcome relief, if only to remind me of the hustle and bustle of VJTI. More about that in a future post.
I’ve also been following some very interesting projects and endeavours at VJTI- There is a LOT of good stuff happening. Someeffortsarefairlyvisible, while there are a few gems in the shadows.
While I’ve been away from this blog- I’ve been trying to maintain an “aggregation” blog where I post everything that’s between a blog post and a tweet. I’ve found posterous to be a great way to conveniently share stuff online.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to write an article for the Times Group on what one could do if one was benched at work or had his/her placement deferred. It was published in Mumbai and Bangalore Mirror.
I really hope I blog more often now. I’m getting tired of doing comeback posts. Got something you think I should talk about? Email it in to ‘ideas’ at this domain.
Last week, I wrote an article on the role of Twitter during the Mumbai Terror Attacks that was published in NewsCorp’s Australian news website, news.com.au (on the front page at the time!). It started off with an editor from the website getting in touch with me (through a feedback email address listed on this very site) regarding the Twitter marathon I was on at the time. Here is the text of the article:
#mumbai: three days as a Twitter journalist
LAST Thursday’s terrorist attack in Mumbai in which more than 180 people were killed was a watershed moment for citizen journalism. City residents published minute-by-minute updates to the internet using social media platforms like Twitter, providing the latest facts along with local detail and context as the atrocity unfolded. Major news outlets could not match the detail and pace of their reporting. Aditya Sengupta, a 21-year-old Mumbai student, was one of them. Here, he reflects on the attack and the role of citizen journalists in the event.
I had just gotten home from a very long day at college and was going through my recent emails and social network updates when I saw a couple of very shocking messages.
A quick search through the web and a couple of frenzied phone calls confirmed the start of what was going to be one of the bloodiest and most horrific days in Mumbai’s history.
One of the most interesting things to have emerged from last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai is the significant role played by social media in the coverage of the tragedy – particularly the micro-blogging website Twitter.
While chaotic, disorganised and unverified, Twitter provided fast and helpful updates to the carnage that was underway in the heart of the city.
Updates started appearing on Twitter several minutes before those on local news channels and roughly an hour before they did on CNN and BBC, with Twitter users speculating about loud blasts emanating from various places in and around Colaba, South Mumbai.
Reports of gunshots at several places soon followed, sparking speculation of a clash between gangs and police. Subsequent updates about grenade attacks, fires and hostage situations at other locations made it clear that this was no gang war.
Because of the nature of Twitter, updates were passed on by “retweeting” them – reposting someone else’s update and, ideally, giving credit to the original author. Because of this the information was spread far and wide very fast indeed.
After the initial incredulity and shock, and after the news channels had well and truly caught on, a lot of speculation and guesswork gave way to more accurate updates, largely sourced from various local news channels.
Several constructive actions and initiatives were taken by Twitter users, such as publicising the descriptions of one of the terrorists, the cars that they were said to have carjacked and the fact that they had even carjacked a police vehicle.
Other useful information such as links to video streams of local news channels and lists of important phone numbers (helplines, embassies and consulates) were quickly posted and disseminated.
The human face of Twitter took on another dimension when local users offered to try and call the friends and family of foreigners. What started on Twitter eventually grew into the Mumbai Help blog. I remember trying to call the phone numbers that a commenter on the blog said belonged to Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. They were eventually found dead at Nariman House (Mumbai Chabad House).
Scans of the lists of dead and injured obtained by a blogger were sent to and posted on the Mumbai Help blog. A request for help on Twitter resulted in the images being transcribed into searchable text and republished. Calls for donations of specific types of blood were also posted and widely retweeted.
In a very short while, several websites and blogs collated much of the information on Twitter, the mainstream media and other websites to create pages that served to be real-time compendiums of information – such as those at Pinstorm, my own website Vignetting Life and of course, Mumbai Help.
Twitter users, photographers and bloggers Vinu Ranganathan and Arun Shanbhag posted several first hand photographs of the event, which were eventually used widely by the mainstream media.
As the hours wore by, the importance of attribution of one’s source of news for each tweet became clear when rumours started spreading through the micro-blogging site. One particular rumour spread very far – that the terrorists may have been accessing the internet and the Indian Government had asked Twitter users to stop reporting.
The appearance of the tweet on the BBC website added to the confusion, since a number of Twitter users cited the same BBC article as a source of their information, creating something of a circular reference. Subsequent rumours were quenched quickly, with Twitter users correcting other Twitter users and providing references.
The truth to the speculation as to whether Twitter was actually used as a source of information by the terrorists remains to be seen. Most Twitter users sourced a majority of their tweets providing information about the siege from the mainstream media and by retweeting others who had sourced their posts from the mainstream media. Furthermore, many Twitter users showed a substantial amount of restraint regarding operational details and troop positions, despite the fact that such details were broadcast on some news channels.
While the primary source of information on Twitter about the Mumbai attacks, the #mumbai search, had a substantial amount of redundant, unusable and irrelevant information, it nonetheless provided for a lot of important updates and clarifications. While Twitter might not necessarily be a reliable source of information, it sure is a quick and useful one.
One reason I put the help page on my blog and started going on a Twitter “marathon” was because of the desire to use the resources at my disposal in the most productive manner I could.
Another reason is the fact that I used to study about 10-15 minutes away from most of the attack sites back in junior college. Most of them are places I have been to and have some familiarity with. I would regularly frequent the British Council library which is pretty much in between the major attack sites.
Most of my updates regarding the attacks were sourced from several mainstream media channels and from other Twitter users I trust.
It was originally meant to be an article for the Technology section. So you can imagine my surprise when I received a flurry of messages saying that my article was on the front page of the website. I was in college at the time and knew that it would not stay there for long. So I asked my friend Kushagra to get a screenshot of the page for posterity’s sake:
Please note that the following post applies to an event that is currently underway, and may not be updated. This post may be modified as time passes. Visit http://twitter.com/Sengupta for the latest updates:
edit 14:35, Nov 28: NSG head: Both terrorists at the Oberoi/Trident have been killed. Oberoi/Trident under army control.
Pranab Mukherjee, External Affairs Minister: Elements from Pakistan responsible for Mumbai Terror Attack. Proof cannot be disclosed. New Delhi is expected to take this up with Islamabad. The mobile phone captured from the terrorist indicates calls from Karachi. via TimesNow.
edit 11:10, Nov 28: Excerpts from the press interview by Lt. Gen. Thamburaj: One terrorist is moving between two floors of the Taj Heritage building- has shut off electricity to the Dance floor, two terrorists killed yesterday evening in a firefight, almost all the guests and staff have been evacuated. Possible that this this terrorist has 2 or more hostages, or that there may be 2 terrorists. Some of the hotel guests may have locked themselves in. We’re not blowing opening the doors even after having identified ourselves, for their own safety. The NSG commandos have suffered some casualties. I’m not in a position to elaborate on the casualties (fatal or nonfatal). Operations had to be deliberate and slow as the lives of the hostages were at risk. Don’t want to suffer casualties because of a hurry. Cooperation from the Police, Air Force and Navy. First people to respond were the MarCos- Marine Commandos. Able to put together an ad hoc Crisis Management Center, coordinated by Gen. Sisodiya and Gen. Hooda. Media role commendable. Should be able to wrap up things in a few hours
It’s been about 82024 35 odd hours (as of this post) since a huge siege of Mumbai began, with gunmen ripping through several iconic targets in the heart of the city. Details are sketchy coming out right now, but from what I’ve been able to gather from several news sources (primarily the CNN-IBN and NDTV news channels), the sites that have been hit are:
The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower (Persistent shootings, grenade (and possibly RDX) explosions, fires on a number of floors and a hostage situation)
The Oberoi/Trident Hotel (Shootings, explosions, fire and hostage situation)
Metro Cinema (Shootings from carjacked police jeep)
South Mumbai Police Headquarters (Shootings)
Vile Parle (Explosion in car)
Mazgaon Docks (Explosion)
Several other possible situations were reported at a number of locations like NapeanSeaRoad, Borivali and Santa Cruz. As of the final edit, these situations have not been substantiated, but are widely believed to have been rumours.
More than 80125 160 individuals were reported to have been killed, and over 250 327 injured. ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and ACP of Police, Ashok Kamte were reported to have been killed, along with several other high ranking policemen. NSG personnel are reported to have been killed as well.
A terrorist outfit called the Deccan Mujahideen is reported to have claimed responsibility. edit: “Intercepts show terrorists speaking in Punjabi,” GoC- Army, via NDTV
Westerners, primarily Americans and Britishers are said to have been the primary targets during this siege. They were apparently rounded up from their rooms at the hotels listed above and held hostage. The status of the hostage situation, as of this post is not yet known.
The terrorists have had hijacked a police vehicle and one or more civilian vehicles and have not been apprehended yet. Indiscriminate firing was reported from these vehicles.
J J Hospital Blood Bank: (022) 23739400
Cama Hospital Blood Bank : 022) 22611648
St. George Hospital Blood Bank: (022) 22620344, 22620242
For Foreigners:
Canadians:
Foreign Affairs: 1-613-996-8885 from Canada, 1-800-387-3124 from elsewhere
USA:
Help line number US: State Department number” 888.407.4747 Foreign Affairs: 1-613-996-8885
United Kingdom:
Forgeign Office Emergency Telephone Number – 0207 00 800 00.
Brazilians:
Brazilian help line +919820686143 (C)
Australians:
In Mumbai1800 002 214
International +61 2 6261 3305
France, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Ministère des affaires étrangères
+ 33 (0) 1 45 55 80 00
Nationals of all European Union countries who need assistance in Mumbai can go to the consulate of any of the 27 Member States to receive assistance, announced European ministers in Brussels. (via Briskette’s comment below. Original source here)
Police Control Room: 100
Fire Brigade Control Room: 101
Railway Police Control Room: (022) 23081725, (022) 23007476
Naval Control Room (022) 22663030
Intelligency Bureau Control Room (022) 26522631, (022)26520055
Some thoughts:
One of the most interesting things to note has been the speed at which information has been spread using social media sites, particularly the micro-blogging site, Twitter. You can find my updates here: http://twitter.com/sengupta. Updates on Twitter appeared over an hour before it CNN began covering it. More thoughts on this later.
Useful Links:
Lists of dead and injured (scroll down to find a sortable list embedded in this page). Final Edit: Please note that this list is the one that was initially posted by n to Mumbai Help:
This is a very famous quote attributed to Mohandas Gandhi. I first came across this quote in a Red Hat presentation I attended a while ago. They started off with this video, something that’s stuck with me for a while now-
(If you’re reading this in a feed aggregator, you might need to click through to read be able to see the video)
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