bits herald march 2011 issue

8/7/2019 BITS Herald March 2011 Issue

1/6

THE BITS HERALDTHE DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM AND MEDIA AFFAIRS

Page 6Admits and Placements

MARCH 2011 Page 2Graduation Calls

Page 3A lookback at 3 FestoonsPage 4C.S.A. Review

t I

Spree finals round up Receipt Please!!

"Spreedom"Kudos to the Purple Patch for the two matchscreeninqs, by far the best special nights ourcampus has seen in a very long time.

With only T1 interrupting thefestivities on campus, thejam-packed first half of thesemester has probably left usall a little dazed.The Spre e 0 rg ani ze rs mad e r-r:---"""/':~"'A"''''''-~''':''''''''''~'''''''''''~-~-----=--''little effort to build up publicanticipation for the fest, fail-ing even to convince the rela-tively impressionable first-yea rites to stay behind. Theresu It - ha If - dese rt ed h0stel sall through the four days ofSpree.Thanks to the strong outsta-tion participation, we did wit- .---~ ...ness some nail biting matchesand spectacular individualperforma nces. Despite themuch resented presence ofce rt a ins port s quo t a coil egesIthe home teams held theirown, with BPGC bagging theCricket trophy and the Girls' - ..::..,.........Basketba II team com ing in ......_ ____Jsecond. Day 3 was definitely The organizers looked on helplessly as the handful ofthe most uneventful day of teams completely ripped apart their clues.Spree 2011. And we admit Kudos to the Purple Patch for the two match screen-(very reluctantly) .the. DoJMA inqs, by far the best special nights our campus hastreasure hunt did little to seen in a very long time.raise excitement levels.

The usually desolate SAC lawnswere transformed during Spree,thanks to add-ons like theshamianas, lights and cutesporti ng fig ures. Dese rvi ng spe-cial mention are the food stalls.No other festival has seen aworse range of food stalls.

Despite being the mostlow profile fest, Spreecontinues to h old its fo rtew ith its e ffervescen t b len dof zest, zing and zeal.

Two of the stalls were noneother than our messes churn-ing out the night canteen foodat inflated rates. We are grate-ful to the food coordinator fornot having brought the andapav stall and Nescafe as well.Also, a welcome but low pro-file addition to Spree was theDoJMA Wall Bloq, a less an-noying (and definitely more in-formative) alternative to theLM-Spree texts.To sports lovers, Spree is andwill always be special. Now itjust needs to be told to the"losers" who went home.

F r o m t h e E d i t o r ' s q u i l L .The middle of March is a time of great flux. The testsloom menacingly in the horizon and the fests seem adistant memory. We cry out alternatingly for rain andinspiration, but we realize that the dog days of the se-mester are finally here. What better time then, to takestock of what we did, and what we should have done?How have we grown? These pages aim to do exactlythat.The 2007 batch continues to achieve. After acing theCAT I numerous BITSGians are now headed to the likesof Sta nford and Carneg ie Mellon for further study.What does this mean for the campus?

We report on another great achievement, something veryclose to our hearts, the (planned) very first ConvocationCeremony in the history of the Institute (and all its campus-e S ) 1 courtesy, the Goa Cam pus students. The placements,however, still appear not to have met expectations. CS un-dergrads bask in glory while other branches are nowhere tobe see n. TaIkin gab 0 ut the f est sI aft e r the ire xp0nent ia Igrowth in their initial years, Ouark, Waves and Spree allappear to have reached a plateau. What happened? Whatneeds to change? Finally, we bring you our CSA review, nowords minced.So here we a re i with the fun pa rt of the semester over, withthe knowledge of the many ways in which we have grown.Here's to hoping we continue the growth story, but in theright ways. Enjoy reading.1 http://www.bits-dojma.org/write
http://www.bits-dojma.org/writehttp://www.bits-dojma.org/write


2/6

MARCH 2011

Graduation CallsA fter four years of chasing that elusive CGPA, anyone would say that aquiet graduation ceremony at home is something much less than what wedeserve. Finally, after so many failed attempts to restart the convocationceremony, somebody seems to have heard our voices. The process isfinally on the go after being promised to us for two consecutive years bythe present student president (he had it in his agenda when he stood forgen sec) and this year by our current gen sec. The initiative was backed bythe Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of BITS. The Vice-Chancellor, an liTgraduate himself, where convocation is a tradition, was highly in favor ofgetting it started in BITS. What followed were a series of meetings withthe steering committee. This, combined with the efforts ofL.K.Maheshwari has pushed the idea out of hibernation.

DoJMA has learnt (duly con-firmed by the president) that theceremony was put to a stop dueto "India-Bangladesh vier" in the1970'S. The happy news is thatthe present fourth yea rites aregoing to get a proper graduationceremony next semester (thedate is not yet finalized, butrumors suggest September).

PresentationbluesOne of the major highlights of SPREE 111wasundou bted Iy the cricket fi na I between BITS-Goa, and SSN- Chennai, which eventually BITS,Goa went on to win by a close margin of 8 runs.However, the presentation ceremony which fol-lowed did not Iive up to the spirit of sportsman-ship; Spree is supposed to uphold the traditionof sport. It sta rted off with the fel icitation of thechief guests, followed by a 30 min long powercut during which the crowds got rather restless.Fi na Ily, the awa rds ceremony sta rted a nd thecaptains of the winning teams were presentedwith the medals. It ended with a bang, by callingupon the victorious cricket team of BITS-Goa,whereupon each member of the team was calledforward to receive their medals, to thunderousapplause and cheering, amidst fire-crackers.Almost as an afterthought, the SVC footballchampions were unceremoniously (and ratherclumsily, it must be said) given the medals in abunch instead of being called individually. And ifthat wasn't bad enough, they were all butshooed away after the team photo.And then we complain of no t getting enoughoutsid e pa rtic ipa tion for ou r festiva ls!

pree Finals Round upA thwack! And then an uproar! More than 200 BITSGians were thenrunning towards the field, rejoicing and celebrating ...T here was an intangibletension hoveri ng over thecricket field. Sweat beadsslithered down their neckas they marked each andevery muscle twitch of theopponent SSN team. Athwack! And then anuproar! More than 200BITSGians were then run-ning towards the field, re-joicing and celebratingthe victory of the home-team in the most popularevent of Spree 2011.Despairingly, a few BITSGoa teams, however,failed to deliver to the ex-pectations of the crowd,which meant that thefinals of most of thegames were played byoff-campus teams. Never-theless, this did not makethe finals any less nail-biting!

C rjcf~et Champs!SSN, Chennai, which was unquestionably the star collegeof Spree 2011, made it through the finals of most of theevents and also bagged quite a few wins by displayingcommendable sportsmanship. At the Basketball Boysfinals against NIT, Trichy, the game spirit which theyshowcased, made them even lose the match with dignity!Perceptibly though, they didn't essentially put in volun-tary efforts to stay modest or humble after their triumphin other sports.

Some active players and sport-fanatics incampus couldn't help but cry out loudagainst the injustice as SSN happens to havea sports quota, which gave them an upperhand and also some great national-levelplayers in their teams! Others, however,couldn't care less.All in all, the four days of Spree 2011 broughtback to campus the much needed zest, zealand zing. (Especially considering that it wassandwiched between T1 and T2). It show-cased some memorable matches that actu-ally did the unthinkable, made our studentscome out to watch!

2


3/6

ARCH 2011

A leehbaeh at the3 fESToons - t h e f e s t c r i t i q u e

~r= ?' _''-',.he one fest to really go \BITSerk' / Waves was certainly found wanting inrms of star quotient (especially considering the rumours of Amir Khan's,jun Rampal's and Katrina Kaif's presence doing the rounds of the campus) asmpared to its predecessors. This/ however/ did not seem to discourage out-ation partici pants as th is ed ition saw thei r num bers increase from an earl ier0 to a phenomenal goo .While many do feel that Waves 2010 was a bit of at-down in terms of sheer spectacle/ it remains one of the best managed fes-als that the campus has seen in its short history with no major glitches orof-ups during its course. While paintball had most of us locked in intensemed combat/ the Waves Ball gave the opportunity to a fortunate few to im-erse themselves in a few precious moments of romantic bliss. The nights/aturing a shamelessly infatuated DJ accompanied by a shoddy rain dance ar-ngement/ Shafqat Amanat Ali and the magical combo of TAAQ and Black-ratblues, atleast did their bit in living up to the well hyped theme of Viva La

I

whopping 7500 registrations/ an astounding 50/000 hits on the official siteJanuary a lone (a major surprise consideri ng its convol uted Iiterature) ande towering boards of Dell Alienware placed at regular intervals aroundDome seemed to indicate the birth of a phenomenon unlike any other thishad seen before. Few could have predicted the end result. With no informalents to speak of/ overpriced food stalls and an endless chain of tediousents and workshops/ Quark 2011 turned out to be a major disappointment.th participants and campus residents preferred to stay indoors/ or worse/ek their thrills elsewhere. Only the destructive monstrosity of RoboKombatd an enchanting performance by the Mime club managed to salvage someide and generate a decent interest level among the people at large. To capoff/ a very promising TEDx/ featuring an array of illustrious speakers fromfferent spheres of life was scarred by the repeated erring of its not-so-arming host. Certainly/ no parallels met here. \

nce again/ within not more than a month of Quark/ an array of registrationsd sponsors marked the oncoming of another major campus festival. Fortu-tely/ however Spree 2011 did not come crashing down like its technicalu nterpa rt. The inherent exh i laration accom panyi ng intense/ impassionedd nail biting sporting action is bound to make a success out of most majororting festivals/ and this was no exception. Interestingly/ Spree saw the coremmittee doing away with the whole infamous system of food coupons/uch to the disappointment of many free-loaders in important positions.hile the special nights found themselves struggling to live up to the 'special'their name/ the live screenings of the India- England classic and the Chel-a-Manchester United Premier League clash hit right on the spot when itme to creating the atmosphere befitting a sports fest. The matches/ whichre not as one sided as last year to the spectator's delight/ also helped. Side-ck attractions like the Zapak Alienware gaming lounge and the workshopsso ended up adding that extra zing to the overall flavour of Spree.

D T H E YL I V E D H A P P I L YE V E R . A F T E R . . .One of the many love stories brewingon campus sustained the test of timeto furnish BITS Pilani K.K. Birla GoaCampus' first married couple(technically/ it was just BPGC for themback then).P.Chaitanya of the 2004 batch/ whogot into BITS Pilani after fighting acase in the Supreme Courttl), and whodid his PS -2 at Infineon Technologies/Singapore/ tied the knot with SmritiGupta of the 2005 batch. Debater/jammer/ writer and scad-topper,P.Chaitanya on marrying the bubbly/movie and rock music lover/ SmritiGupta earlier this year became ourcampus' first hitched couple.May it serve as an inspiration for theother cupid-struck couples of thiscampus.

f i r s t m a r r i e dc o u p l eo f o u rc a m p us . I ts o s w e et .. . . .

H E Y . . . : . . .

M E E T Y O U L A T E R !! !

3 http://www.bits-dojma.org/write


4/6

MARCH 2011

Disclaime-r: The facts and opinions paraphrased here are solely that of the (SA members, and are trueto the best of our knowledge.

Aditya Chintawar already occupies a prime pedestal in the brief yet turbulenthistory of this campus. He has since been the architect of many a change, chiefamongst those being the abolition of the infamous 11.30 rule. Today, as he nears theend of his tenure, one can safely say that being at the helm of affairs at the CSAwasn'tnearly as easy a ride as the tasks of the Gen Sec for Chintawar.When asked to list his biggest achievements as President, Chintawar immediatelybegan with the "ERC room". Next, he mentions the increase in efficiency of the festivalcoordination committees in ensuring better managed and more productive fests (no"major deficits" incurred) as a major step forward.In spite of this, a significant part of his manifesto remains unfulfilled. One sees no signof any new stationary shops or food outlets, prices in the Shopping Complex remainvirtually the same and the highly anticipated and built up CSAwebsite still

remains in its primary stages. And, to top it all, no meeting of the general body has been called since the CSA's incep-tion.Perhaps the biggest shortcoming on the part of the President, at least as far as his agenda goes, is his failure to intro-duce a monthly activity report from all elected representatives to the general body - although in this regard, one mustask what the hostel representatives were doing when they were supposed to send in their reports. Evidently, it doesnot speak too much for a CSAwhich promised more transparency, better interaction and no excuses.Another thing that has happened in his tenure is the institution of the convocation ceremony. However, he admits thatthe process had begun much before his time and "takes zero credit for it". The fact that it will happen this year sym-bolises the culmination of many years of hard work put in by a lot of other people, although this CSAhas also chippedin.On the other hand, a notable achievement is the institution of the ERPsystem. This 7.5 crore project, already inkedwith Wipro, which is to be implemented in all three campuses, aims to simplify all student activities and formalities toone touch. From entry and exit at the gate, to the issue of complaints or even certain components of registration, thissystem promises to simplify it all. When completed, BITS Pilani would become the largest fully ERP-enabled Universityin Asia.Quite clearly, several major issues haven't been addressed and we are not too far from where we started off this aca-demic year. In such cases one readily points the finger at the people in charge, the elected representatives. But asChintawar rightly points out, no member of the general body has ever approached him to put forth an opinion or criti-cize his activities in any sort of way. Hostel representatives seem to have no motivation for carrying out their duties ef-ficiently, thereby disrupting the whole chain of student welfare activity. Sadly, a mail sent out by the President tosecond and third year students, asking them to post queries or complaints regarding PSallotments received only 26responses, even though the issue was pertinent to all. Finally, he finishes off by saying that a dedicated CSAteam hasbeen his backbone as far as a lot of his endeavours are concerned.

President

Vice president

Mourya Krishna says being a part of the CSAas well as on the organizing commit-tee of the three fests of our campus was a great experience. When asked about his ac-complishments, he is proud about the spread-out schedule of Slam and IYCN. Character-izing the outstation participation as "good",he blames Indiafest for poor in-campus par-ticipation in Quark. According to him, the large number of events was also a problem.Many of his campaign promises seem to have turned out to be unfeasible. The fees forUPSCcoaching classes were too high, he said. Moreover, as only 50 people responded tothe notice, the demand was deemed too less.Another campaign promise was the setting up of websites for "various organizations" in the campus. In spite of thewebsite templates being ready, the content is still on its way and actually setting up the server will not happen any-time soon, he opined. We felt it was strange that the templates were "finished" first, considering finished templatesare readily available free of cost, on open-source platforms. He has also realized that the mess blog wasn't a "greatidea" as the mess committee is doing a good job. The rosy promises of guitar instructors and separate rooms for clubsperished into oblivion a lot sooner than one expected. But the vice president has to be credited with the reinvigora-tion of our very own "zephyr", which was literally brought back from the ashes.

4


5/6

ARCH 2011

We didn't actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure. III-Keith Davis.n the past few weeks, there has been intense speculation over the financial state and theno-show of budgets of the festivals. To put these matters to rest, DoJMA interviewedCha pa ra la S r i V ija y , the treasurer for the CSA.Excerpts from the interview:BITS Herald: So tell us, how has been the year so far as the treasurer?Treasurer: To put in one word, a great experience. To be the head of a whole department,the whole campus, is a different experience in itself. To deal with ego clashes, coordinat-ing with the faculty and outsiders and finally managing to pull it all off - no other feelinglike that.BH: How has been your experience working with the other CSAmembers?Trez: This is the best CSAteam ever. Chintawar has been a true leader, always at the fore-front of things. The Vice-President has been extremely supportive and motivational;supporting a number of initiatives on the campus. The GenSec has done his bit as well.Although, I need to say, there is a sort of disconnect between the student representatives (the hostel ones and themess committee) and us, the senior core.

Treasurer

BH: When you are talking about ego clashes, whom are you referring to? The CSA?Trez: No, not the CSA- I was talking about the coordination committees for the various festivals, the various depart-ment heads and senior members, that way. I feel it is prevalent almost everywhere in the campus.BH: Okay, coming to your core work during the festivals ...the question that everybody's asking - why haven't thefestival budgets been released yet? Also, the prizes haven't been distributed yet.Trez: I can promise you they will be out before this month end, the closing of the financial year, couple of things toiron out.For Waves, the ledger is still not closed due to that episode with Myantra - we had to send back the initial batch ofgrey t-shirts due to poor quality. We are now negotiating a reduced price for the t-shirts, a sort of a penalty you cansay, for not delivering quality on time. Regarding Quark, we have had issues with sponsors not giving us the moneythey promised -yet. Mahindra needs to cough up around 5 lacs, GSLand others also owe us some money, so we can'tclose the Quark ledger as well.Regarding the prizes, we didn't get the money/goodies on time. Ideally, the sponsors are supposed to carry theirsponsorship cheques to the festival - but that's obviously not happening. We do sign a MoU, but it's not legally bind-ing. Also, the faculty (Chief Finance Officer), I should say, hasn't been as helpful as I would have preferred - but tobe fair, it isn't really his fault either.BH: The general buzz in the campus is that the festivals have not been as profitable as we would have wished. Is itso?Trez: Firstly, we don't organize festivals for making a profit out of them. Secondly, no, we are not going to have a def-icit in Waves/Quark/Spree, I am confident they will break even.We think we have performed our best, and have done a better job than the last year's treasurer and his team. Thisyear, DOFAM/DOSM have been much cleaner and more transparent than the last time around.BH: And there's also this issue about the food stalls during the festivals, that they have been largely overpriced ...Trez: Yes, I do know about that - I have received complaints about that. It goes like this -we have been charging thefood stalls a 15% commission rate, so probably they have raised the prices to maintain their profit margin. So inSpree, we decided to charge the food stalls a flat rate of Rs. 6000 per stall.BH: Coming to your biggest agenda/promise on manifesto, the smart card? You seemed very upbeat about its roll-out, but so far, there has been no word.Trez: We have not been able to stick to the timeline - only now I have put together a team to program software forthis smartcard which will be, on a pilot basis, be used for the night-canteens in both the messes. However, we havehad trouble convincing the retailers like Borkars to accept the smartcard, as that would entail getting the money onlyat the month-ends. So yeah, at this stage, it will be difficult to comment on its utility - it is just a small step now.Let's see how it plays out.

Whenever you speak to our amusingly benign General Secretary (AnikethReddy ) with a perpetual smile on his face, it's very hard to escape the feelingof being in a utopian world. But then there is always reality to give you a kick bythe back side.His agenda had promised a sea of changes - and while he has tried his utmost totranslate some of them to action, the rest have met a premature death. Althoughas he points out with a genial swagger that he has succeeded in meeting the aimGen. Sec. of coping with the frantic rush in library during exams by throwing the top flooropen, there's been a lot left to be desired.

You knew that the IPL style dugouts on his agenda was always for mere posterity. The shopping Complex prices remainas they are - no reforms, as was promised. His plan of setting up sensors to reduce water wastage was nipped in thebud by the CSA,but it really has to be attributed to a lack of persistence. And another very striking aspect is that therehas been no individual accomplishment on his part. Most of his endeavors have been united efforts of the CSA.Andto finish off on an 'aal iz well 'note, the Gen Sec says, "I have given my 100 % and done whatever was possible". Butsometimes a cherubic facade and a perennial grin can't put a lid on a tenure that has been at times marked by incom-petence.5 http://www.bits-dojma.org/write


6/6

MARCH 2011

50> 50> qooc ...Placements have always been the ubiquitous yardstick believed to speak volumes about any instituteof higher education in our country. Of late, admissions to universities abroad and internships havealso jumped into the bandwagon. With just a couple of months more left for the end of the academicyear, we shed some light on where BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa campus stands.While placements on campus this year haven't picked up as muchas expected, there are a few who secured job offers from top com-panies through off campus recruitment. While Computer Scienceand IS dominated the placement scenario on campus with a ma-jority of recruitment companies hailing from the IT sector, Chemi-cal Engineering Graduates had relatively little to choose from,with Mechanical Engineers faring a shade better. While EEE andEnl students had the option of applying to most of the IT compa-nies in addition to core Electronics companies, fact remains thatthe candidates selected were, quite naturally, overwhelminglyfrom CS or IS. NVIDIA Graphics, looking to recruit students fromEEE and Enl, had one of the highest pay packages in addition to a

CGPA cut off of 8.0. However, last semester, they recruited justone undergraduate student, who has also received acceptanceletters from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon University. Apart fromtechnology and engineering companies like Google, CISCO,Yahoo, TATA Motors, Sun Microsystems, BPCL and Renault-Nis-san, jobs in the marketing and financial sectors were up for grabstoo with the likes of Wells Fargo and Absolute Data recruitingacross all disciplines. Infosys has gone on a massive recruitmentspree akin to last year (hiring more than a hundred). Overall paypackages from different companies ranged from around 3 to morethan 10 lakhs per annum.While current third yea rites have started planning for their PS and some plan to pursue internshipsabroad with a list of destinations featuring NTU Singapore, Florence, DAAD Germany, besides thehallowed MITACS, Canada. Not to be left behind, many BITSGians graduating this year have made itto universities abroad to continue their studies. With multiple admits to Stanford, Purdue and CMSamong others, BITSGians are making their presence felt. While all the figures for this semester aren'tout yet, about three each have made it to UIUC and USC, and at least ten have received admission let-ters from Carnegie Mellon. Apart from universities in the US, some have also secured admissions inUniversity of Southampton and EPFL, Switzerland.

As per sources, though Foodkhoj, BhookBhagao and other associated businesses have acquired per-mission to run on campus, there is no system of issuing receipts for orders. While there is no doubtthat these services are a boon, the CSA believes that these profits should be accounted for. The saleof hard drives for which receipts are being issued has been quoted as a model and students are re-quested to insist on bills the next time they order.Ankit HatalkarRohan MenonMadhupurna BiswasAditya PalnitkarAnusha MeghavatAchintya PrakashAastha SrivastavaSaagar GadhokSmarjeet SharmaAbhishek Ravi

THE TEAM Akshay VikasFrancis JamesAashish BeheraSushant KumarRadhika ParikRenuka Pai

Yogesh KansalSatya Prakash DashAbhijit JoshiVipul PandeyAnmol SrivastavaParth NarielwalaBasanti NashineMili Mishra

Disha GujarMimosa SharmaChinmay DeshpandeRitisha LaunganiNamrata NadkarniMeghna MehtaAmit BhaleraoNeeraj SinghSpecial Thanks to:Yuvraj AnejaSarthak Phadke

bits herald march 2011 issue

Documents