National Conf. on Open Source Software 2009

NCOSS - 2009 is being conceived of as a forum to bring together the various groups working on developing Open Source Applications catering to specific domains in the ICT world, including education, health, accessibility, localisation, e-commerce, disaster management, expert systems, machine learning, etc.

First day of conference May 25, 2009

Last day of conference: May 26, 2009

Venue: Mumbai

Website: http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/oss/OSS09

The conference will consist of the following:

• Invited talks by experts from India and abroad
• Presentation of contributed papers selected based on refereeing by a panel of referees
• Exhibition by industry and academia
• Pre-conference tutorials (on 24th May 2009)
• Panel discussion

~Sri

Producing Open Source Software

http://producingoss.com/

"Producing Open Source Software" is a book about the human side of open source development. It describes how successful projects operate, the expectations of users and developers, and the culture of free software. The book is released under an open copyright it is available in bookstores and from the publisher (O'Reilly Media ), or you can browse or download from the website.

~Sri

cancer research in india

Recently I attended a conference that involved a lot of cancer researchers from all over India. Having attended a lot of US-based cancer research related conferences, this was a first of its kind for me in India. 

Some observations from the meeting:

1. Most cancer research in India is sponsored by pharmas. This means that it will be focussed around drugs which has potential to make most money rather than than the drugs which will be cheap and can help the poor (which is the need in India)

2. Govt. aided researchers have issues like lack of funds, proper infrastructure like labs, computers, high-speed internet, good staff, etc.

A lot of them seem to be doing a great job, like the Adyar cancer center, Chennai.

Also it was very interesting to see how Indian conference are conducted, with every speaker being invited with his/her background - like "Shri Srikanth Adiga is .....", bouquet and momemto for every speaker, etc - which is not something I have ever seen in any international conference. Ofcourse the cocktail dinner was the icing on the cake.

Overall a good conference and an interesting experience.

~Sri

Keremane Shambhu Hegde - a tribute

People from the South Kanara district of Karnataka would know Shambhu Hegde as a pioneer of Yakshaghana. Coming to know that he passed away recently was sad. Ironically, he passed away while actually playing his fav character Lord Rama. Yakshaghana lovers will miss him sorely.

~Sri

From: http://bilimale.blogspot.com/2009/02/keremane-shambhu-hegade.html

Shri Keremane Shambhu Hegade : A tribute

Shri Keremane Shambhu Hegade ( Born, June 10, 1938) is no more. He expired yesterday while performing his favorite character Shri Rama in an episode called Kusha –Lava, at his birth place called Gunavante, a tiny village in Honnavara Taluk, Karnataka State. He has been performing Badagu tittu (Northern Style) Yakshagana from more than 50 years. His contribution to the development of Yakshagana is unique and unparallel. He worked as an artist, organizer, innovator and researcher. His success in all these roles is highly commendable. He brought century old Yakshagana into a new height with his brilliant ideas. Through his ‘Idagunji Mahaganapathi Yakshagana Mandali’, Shri Shambhu Hegade brought freshness into every aspect of the Yakshagana theater. Though he is the son of another great artist, Keremane Shivarama Hegde, Mr. Shambhu Hegade, made Yakshagana of his own with his luminous ideas and an imaginative application of them with out breaking the traditional canvas. Some of the characters portrayed by Shambhu Hegde were that of Dhuryodhana, Dushtabuddhi, Karna, Shrirama, Hanuman, Kartavirya, and Jarasandha. As we all know, originally Yakshagana was performed for the rural audience, but with his command on artists, Shambhu Hegade changed the history and gave new dimension to Yakshagana theater which was appreciated even by the urban audience. He broke the linguistic boundaries of the theater and performed in many parts of India. Few times, he took up the arduous task of presenting Yakshagana to global audience. As an excellent demonstrator, he introduced the art to the various linguistic communities like Tamilians, Telugas, Marathis, and Maleyalis and North Indians. In his troupe he always encouraged the artists to introduce many varieties of novelty which have enriched the art. Above all, with his extraordinary command on English and Hindi language, he became a powerful ambassador of the art during all the Regional, National, and International tours of the ‘Idagunji mela’ He is responsible for the many honors the troupe received from the various reputed organizations. He gave the Yakshagana Theater a place of honor and distinction. He was awarded Sangit Nataka Academy and Karnataka State awards for his unique contribution to the theater. He served as the president of Karnataka Janapada Academy and also a member of Central Sangith Natak academy. He was a member of the Governing body of the South Zone Cultural Centre. 

Shri Shambhu Hegde, revolutionized the Yakshagana theater. His influence could be seen in almost at every stage of the Yakshagana performance today. This was just possible because of his rare genius, untiring efforts, spirit of enquiry and experiment. Yakshagana theater gained liveliness and new appeal. Now, the Yakshgana could effectively compete with other major forms of theater and hold its head high as a great art form.

I salute Shri Shambhu Hegade for his remarkable contribution for the art.

Change!

Many of you already know about this... but now directly from the donkey's mouth...

Feb 28th will be my last in Persistent as an employee. I will continue to work with the same teams @ Persistent as an independent consultant. I will be very much in Pune and continue to sit at the same place. So nothing much changes for the most part for most people, especially for Rakesh's teams. Just that i wont get to the do the bossgiri which i am so used to.

I had one heck of a stay in Persistent. Persistent gave me a chance do to whatever i wanted to do and most importantly do it my way. I worked with some great people and great clients, and i owe a lot to Persistent!

Ten years is a long time, and this has been a hard decision to make. Though I should say i have never bothered to "think through" my decisions. You always get to know whether a decision is right or wrong only in retrospect. So what the heck!

Jai Ho!

Slumdog - whats so great?

I dont get whats so great about this movie! No wonder, Slumdog didnt do well in India.  

So, either we in Indian dint like the so called "truth", or its a hit in the west because they liked its poverty porn. I just didnt feel "entertained" enough. Rest I dont care. Though Rahman's mucis, as always, is great.

There also seems to be a trend now with movies getting great reviews but movies turning out to be not so great. E.g. devd, gajani. I wont be surprised if the number of stars a movie gets is directly propotional to how much ads the paper gets from that movie! :)

Post Oscar: Should admit that it felt very good to see SM winnig those awards...

~Sri

Why I hate unnecessary Word docs!

Do you get emails like this?

Agenda for tomorrow's meeting attached.

Agenda.doc contains

Call in details: XXXX

Agenda:

 1.

 2.

 3.

It beats me why do we need a Word doc for this? Its a pain for the sender & pain for the reader. Why dont you just write it in the email itself?

Better still, write it in a Wiki and send the Wiki link (now dont attach the doc in Wiki, more about it later). That way Wiki contains all the Agendas, MOMs, status reports in one easily accessible way.

Someone might say, "I can create tables easily in Word doc" or "Wiki is hard to use", etc. Most of these apprehensions come from the fact that many people have not used Wiki and more importantly most of these artifacts (Agendas, MOMs, status reports) dont need any fancy formatting. Just simple text is *the* best way to use it.

Now coming to attaching a Word doc in Wiki. This is equally bad as per  my opinion.  Then you need a CVS/SVN, not a Wiki.

So keep it simple. Use Word for req specs, design docs etc.