Official Students’ Newspaper Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

5 February 2012 . Volume 2 Issue 3 . 14 Pages

moremoreKolaveri03 After their debut in the last issue, the

duo from the first-year provide a hu-morous take on their lives

featurefeature

Since Last IssueA compilation of events over the past 3 months

04

World News10 A section where you get the all-you-

should-know dose of information in one place

s & m's food guide12 Our in house culinary enthusiasts re-

view the handful of eateries in this city

Valiamala: A lot has happened in and around the campus since the last issue. Firstly, the road from ISRO junction underwent a much needed repair. The road was completed till IIST in about two days in the second week of December, coincidentally right before our Chancellor Dr Kalam’s visit. Why did Dr Kalam visit the campus when no one was here? Well, wrong question. IIST hosted a national level Research Scholar’s Day on 17-18 December last year, in which research scholars from various IITs, NITs, IISERs and other institutes participated.

A workshop on soft and evolu-tionary computing was organised by the department of avionics which is being regarded as one of the best ever held in IIST. Apart from the lecture, the resources and interaction provided made the workshop unique. The gen-eral, simple and robust nature of the algorithms discussed made the workshop useful for everyone who wants to use computing in their respective fields of work.

In the first week of this semes-ter, ASTROSAT workshop was conducted by ISAC. The satellite, slotted for launch later this year, was explained to the participants against other astronomy satellites launched by other space agencies. Participants were introduced to various payloads aboard the satel-lite and the science involved.

After over eight months of the ini-tial team formation, and a delay of about two months after the Tech-

nical Council embarked upon the task, the team of coordinators for Conscientia 2012 was altered without considering the opinions or asking for suggestions from coordinators of previous versions of the fest. A “final” list was pub-lished in the second week of this semester but no selection proce-dure for the new additions (who were clueless about the fest) was disclosed. A few new members are reportedly about to resign from the team.

However, the institute has shown a lot of enthusiasm and liveliness in the promotion of clubs recently. Conscientia too has got the green signal from the authorities and will be backed strongly by the in-stitute, leaving its success only to the students now. The formalisa-tion of clubs has taken place at a good pace this week and initiation of new clubs like Dance club and Dramatics club is being consid-ered. The Student Activity Board is looking for interested student volunteers who will run these new clubs, and firstly, help in the for-mation of the same.

The Student Activity Board will also be funding TSR from this is-sue onwards, which is good news for all of us. Read more about this in the editorial. Despite the holi-days, a lot has happened since the last issue, both inside and outside the campus. And as you read this, you realise we did not have a suit-able cover story and summed it up with this. We hope you find the rest of the newspaper a good read.

.For internal circulation only.

Chetta po13 Snap of the month

No Argumentaaa, V for Venkata!

Our always-online correspondent details the impact SOPA and PIPA can have on you and why you should worry!

y

news02 News

Editorial BoardThe Sounding Rocket

Shashank STanveer AliAnkesh MishraNavjot SinghSiddharth SrivastavaPrabodh KattiSourajit Debnath

02echoes

Flying SR to be launched soonThis headline has been a constant in our echoes section since day one. With the Indian Express coverage of this project putting the "project heads" on cloud nine, they are now marching through to have a launch by March 2012.

Convocation?The Student Activities Board meeting, which was held recently, clarified that the convocation is being delayed by the non-availability of dates from the Prime Minister and the President. So, instead of waiting, there is talk of in-viting a technocrat as the chief guest. Watch this space for more updates.

Conscientia 2012After lots of delays, the fest has final-ly taken off. But, some veterans have said that the excitement is not palpa-ble yet. Other than a small amount of controversy generated by the first event launch (rand(x)), the fest seems to be in a good shape.

Sports DayAfter being postponed due to rea-sons yet unknown, the sports day will be held on March 10th 2012. The dream of having a sports day in our own campus is not likely to be ful-filled this year too.

Swimming classesA notice inviting registrations for swimming classes was recently spot-ted in the Dhruva hostel. It came as a surprise to many and people were left wondering why only Dhruva?

Awards galoreIIST has been in the limelight with its top people receiving the top awards.Our Director, Dr. K.S. Dasgupta and our emeritus professor, Dr. K.N. Ninan, were recently presented with the ISRO performance excellance awards by the President when she visited SHAR.The Sounding Rocket sends it heartiest congratualtions to them, after all we did get the sweets.

New dishes in canteenThe canteen has added new dishes making its menu look more like a res-taurant menu. Pizza and pasta(appraised to be better than the one served in the mess) are the eye-catchers. Chicken Biryani is a special on some days and at Rs.60 a plate, con-noisseurs of it (read Hyderabadis) have labelled it value for money, although the minimum order of 10 is still a de-terrent.

Republic DayThe Republic Day was celebrated with much fanfare in IIST. The event was well-attended by students and faculty alike. A spell-bounding speech by the director left the audience in awe.

Change of guardThe Registrar of IIST's office now lacks the lustrous board proclaiming "N.Vasudevan, IFS". Shri N.Vasude-van was appointed as Chief Conser-vator of Forests (Mangroves), Mum-bai and he has taken charge on December 29. A farewell ceremony was organised on 19th December. A new registrar is yet to be appointed and until then, K.Sasikumar, Con-troller, LPSC is the registrar on addi-tional charge.

RetiredThe Dean of Academics, Dr. R. Krishnan, has retired. We wish him a happy retired life

Not so Fresh 03

“Beta, what kind of work do you do at a space institute?” “We print ABCD, aunty.”

We are not kidding. And the icing on the cake is that it takes 2 hours to print (read, write and then fervently hope it looks like ‘print’) to cover all variations of the English alphabet. A non-engineer (that vanishing species) might wonder why a UGC-recognised Institute of National Importance and Asia’s only space institute is making the “best brains of India” write A B C D 1 2 3 4 . . .

Speaking of UGC, school memories cropped up of the times when inspec-tion days suddenly bring about a trans-formation across the school. Walls got painted, plants got watered, charts got hung, teachers started teaching (we mean responsibly) and overnight, you are like “Whoa, we could do with more of these things”. Here, thankful-ly, nothing was that phony, except for those new posters with golden bor-ders (you can’t, and won’t, miss them) propped outside the labs. An inter-esting pattern emerged, the students from the first year “handpicked” for the panel discussion with UGC were two departmental toppers, one boy, one girl (except for Aerospace, which is a no-girl zone) and a third guy, who’s normal. Those who can come up with the logic behind this are welcome to contact us, or paste it on any of the infinite IIST related Facebook groups.

Ah, Facebook groups. Even if the ad-min is a not so close friend of yours, you’re added anyway, the guy’s los-ing sleep getting members, go on the page, see vacuously boring statements

and pointless arguments, get out, get in again, teeter on the sidelines like a stalker, even like a ‘Rage Comic’ on the page (pic was unrelated) and lose interest. Then one day a member of the opposite sex with a nice picture and carefully manicured profile ap-pears and you try impressing her with your learned opinions, only to realise how the vacuously boring statements you found originally were created in the first place, get bashed around by everyone else there leading to the ar-guments (see, it’s the circle of life), and then get kicked for being too nasty. The end.

We recently had someone come up with a page for H10. In a few days, we may even have a page called “All those who hang out at Room 103” or “Those who ate Maggi made by the guy in 408”.

OK, now back to where we were. En-gineering Graphics (guess it sounds better than plain old Drawing). The Universal Language of engineers will piss you off so much that Chinese will begin to seem easier in comparison. Why does it matter whether the gap between the two intersecting lines in “A” is 7 mm, the ratio of the length and the width of arrowhead is 3:1 or that the gap between two dimension lines must be 8 mm? Seriously, we are go-ing to use AutoCAD for the rest of our lives (Or not?). Drawing desks are the beds of the future.

Hmmm, AutoCAD. Have you ever used that on your laptops? We don’t have time for THAT on laptops. The greatest invention of our age, long ago replaced dogs as man’s best friends,

now all the inmates of H10 and H12 seemed to have been married to it. Looks like we are in what is called the ‘Honeymoon period’ with the new laptops. Inseparable. With almost everybody having a laptop and appre-ciable internet speeds, the only place where we do get to see live breathing people is the Mess, lectures (oh wait, strike that out, that’s for sleeping) and Conscientia meetings.

So here we are, half a month after coming back from the comfort of our homes, where you get the world’s best food, mom-made (love this cliche be-cause its true), where the internet is painfully slow (probably the only thing that the students miss), where we die of boredom and where we don’t have to do our laundry.

Oh wait, laundry! The Great IIST Washing Machine Saga. All the dam-aged washing machines have been dumped near the drinking water filter at Ashwini since last semester. Differ-ent proposals have been put forward and subsequently trashed. All we can say that till then, if you dont want to pay for the laundry service at H12, then “Apna Haath Jagannath”.

There is so much that’s happening, the new badminton court at D2, the pseudo-improved mess (still no good fish) and the library that seems to be growing taller and taller but nowhere near completion. That’s all on our mind right now, but we really have to go back to finish that Engineering Graphics assignment, which is still going to take a long, long time. Happy February folks! y

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions expressed in the above article belong to the original authors and do not neces-sarily reflect the opinions or policies of The Sounding Rocket and its editors.

bySOURAJIT DEBNATH

PRABODH KATTI

Why dis kolaveri di?A couple of first-years kvetch about their life in IIST

Opinion04

byHEMAN PHINEHAS

SOPA, PIPA, how about NOPA?A well-researched opinion on the hottest topic on the planet

SOPA or Stop Online Piracy Act (Not to be confused with the much awaited Stop Online Protests ActTM), is a Unit-ed States Bill proposed to prevent theft of intellectual property which is being marketed in various digital forms viz., software, games, music, movies, eb-ooks, etc. It is predominantly directed against sites based in other countries. File sharing sites make money in two ways- Advertising revenue and charg-ing users for secure data storage. So this bill along with its Senate coun-terpart PIPA aims to take down these so-called “rogue sites” (as opposed to rogue nations) by cutting down their financial sources (Ad agencies) and asking financial processors (Paypal, MasterCard etc) to freeze payments via court orders. If the said website has evidence of not infringing copy-right violations, then they can file a counter-suit in the US court challeng-ing the aforementioned piracy claims.

Proponents: Most media companies, proprietary software companies, news agencies, the RIAA, the MPAA…The Hollywood in general.

Opponents: IT companies, Wikipe-dia, Bloggers, MessageBoards, Rage-Makers, Independent Artists, Hack-ers, Free Man, Hitler…The Internet in general.

A lot of money had been spent on bribing lobbying for and against the bills by both sides. To spread aware-ness on this, websites decided to black out their pages on January 18 and urged the country’s citizens to call/e-mail their representatives showing their dissent on the proposed bill. Over 9000 websites have participated on this errand and millions signed Google’s online petition against the bill. There was a hartal in Kerala but

that’s a story for another day.

As a result, the bills started losing sup-port from legislators in both houses and were shelved indefinitely or that’s what we’re made to think. As of now the sponsors (people who introduced

the bill) are working some changes in the bill hoping to present it at an ap-pointed time (see Patriot Act). Mean-while in Europe, the EU has intro-duced ACTA on similar lines but at a larger stretch.

The arguments put forth by its sup-porters being• US losing billions of dollars every year due to widespread piracy leading to content providers paying lesser salaries…also lesser jobs• Current laws such as AHRA and DMCA not effective on curbing piracy• Foreign sites don’t come under US jurisdiction

The main problem with the bill is that it allows companies to have the offending sites removed from the Domain Name System regardless of whether or not there was evidence of actual infringement to begin with. This means when one types www.piratebay.org it won’t show up. The same bill has provisions which out-law circumvention measures that al-low users to gain access. This would mean that any website that links to the aforementioned website can also be banned. Web-proxies and VPN serv-ers will have to be blocked too. One should note that citizens living in sup-pressive regimes (China, North Korea etc) use proxies and VPN servers to communicate with the outside world and this have been instrumental in the recent uprisings in the Middle East and Africa. The language used in the bill is so vague that a media company can single-handedly take down thou-sands of websites just because some users posted copyrighted content or even linked the content in the sites.

The sites challenging the closure should provide evidence against the claims at a US court and that’d mean thousands of dollars of lawyer money. Startup companies with low capitals get the most damage and hence share-holders would not choose to invest in them. Any site could be shut down and pronounced guilty until proven innocent and the plaintiffs aren’t the good kind of people who strictly verify whether actual infringement has been committed or not.

So why are lawmakers companies re-sorting to such ‘guerilla tactics’? To answer that one must have an idea about how Capitalism works. Com-

This is too much power - Morgan Free Man on SOPA

Continued on Page 05

The attempt to wholesale remove a certain type of content from the Internet via legislation would ultimately fail due to the many technical complexities which legislators are not trained to grasp.

-Adrian Lamo

Opinion 05

petition is very crucial in capitalism. So is acquisition and mergers. Acqui-sition of smaller companies not only waivers the prospects of royalties to patents but also usually gives lesser competition. Although absolute mo-nopoly is not allowed by law in most economies, it is possible for compa-nies to form cartels. Cartels allow them to control the supply and price of products. So even if a particular product does not provide value for money, the company can still be able to market it at higher prices if compe-tition is eliminated. It is to be noted that companies have only one motive, being profit. So it is imperative for them to maximize profits how-ever possible.

History:When CD recording systems for household use were intro-duced in the late 80’s the Re-cording Industry Association of America felt that this could lead to widespread piracy of music that was previously made in Professional Studios. The Home and Audio Recording Act was made in their favour in 1992 requiring all digital recorders to include Serial Copy Management Sys-tem. This allows people to be able to make only first generation copies. Also for each blank CD sold to the public a part of the revenue goes to the record-ing industry. Conveniently, this didn’t go really well with amateur artists who wanted to record their music at home.

The internet became popular in the 90’s with computers evolving in stor-age and power. So had the need to get a hold on digital content. The US introduced Digital Millennium Copy-right Act in ’98 which mandated the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) which prevented copying of digital content between machines. Measures to get around the DRM are outlawed. However, the law had a lot

of exemptions provided for Fair Use. One can take portions of a movie for his work/review/criticism or educa-tional purposes etc. User submitted infringing content is not the site’s lia-bility but can be removed upon notice from the copyright holder. Sites link-ing to pirated content were not liable for action.

Did it Help?Not a bit. Sites quickly found a way to get around the laws and piracy was more rampant than ever. File-sharing sites decided to cash in on this by charging users for data storage and downloads offering premium pack-

ages etc. What’s more amusing was that there were other sites offering free premium accounts to the said file-sharing sites which would also gain some revenues through advertising. Even if SOPA gets through there are many ways a pirate can do his busi-ness and infringe on copyright.

The main reason why piracy still exists because the media companies have failed to conform their marketing ef-fectively on par with technology. The other one is them being apprehensive about selling their products to 2nd and 3rd world countries. For exam-ple, let’s say a new TV series has been aired in the US. If the response to the Pilot is good enough, the series will be aired simultaneously in only select countries viz., Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand etc. Other countries will

have to rely on the success of the first season, and then wait for the DVD’s to come out the following year. That’s not really fair because we deserve to have the fair share of entertainment, even at a reasonable price. Moreover, the episodes are freely streamed on the network websites in case they couldn’t watch it on TV. But they are view-able in their country only. Why would someone wait a whole year just to watch a series which might or not be good when there’s a Good Guy Greg out there providing it fast and for free? Just because it does not fit your busi-ness model does not mean that you should seek to ban other providers.

This argument can be extended for all ‘intellectual properties’. It all comes down to this- People will always buy from those who provide a better service. Piracy is wrong for sure but if you can’t attract people in buying legitimate products by provid-ing quality support, obstruct-ing pirates being committed to the same will help in no small measure towards increasing their profits. Companies must reach out to foreign countries

rather than cut off services provided by third-parties. This approach might not be enough to bring balance to the force but will sure give a moral boost to customers trying to buy legit goods.

While we’re still on the topic…The demand for a law that prohibits proliferation of copyright over the in-ternet by people in foreign countries looks to be inevitable. But the same law allows companies to censor/block sites at their will (till proven innocent). Such vague language on the bill could give the government an opportunity to control the flow of information over the internet, thus control over the internet self. Meaning which, it could be ap-parent that, certain people within the government might have had a hidden

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Opinion06agenda on their own.

The advent of Wikileaks forced the government to draw a sharp line between journalistic freedom and censorship. Not that wikile-aks has caused a serious damage to the US foreign policy but there arrived a need to prevent future disclosures which could have a threat to the National Security. In layman words, they needed to get a hold on the internet so that any damage could be dealt with in a short time. 2011 had been a year of protests en masse. It was almost every-where. There was Occupy Wall Street in America which spread to Europe and other countries. The Arab Spring Revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. Not to mention the anti-corruption movement in India and the recent protests in Rus-sia.

The success of these movements in getting the attention of both the public and the respective governments is that they were all co-ordinated through so-

cial networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There were thousands of blogs

reporting and detailing on the events to help make the people aware. Citizens with sites blocked had to go through Web-proxies and VPN services. Gov-ernment agencies usually conduct sur-veillance on sites having user-generat-ed content looking for terrorist threats.

Learning from what had happened over the past year, governments are assumed

to be in the process of being prepared for future mass pro-tests. If a revolutionary move-ment threatening the political stability of a country is on the cards, a government might want to undermine it by crippling the communications between pro-testers. What one can expect in future are bills that can em-power governments to filter out ‘objectionable content’ as they please while its citizens con-tinue to live in the dark.

The fight against piracy should undoubtedly be an interna-tional effort but it should not threaten the very existence of the internet as we know it. It is

supposed to be a vast network of infinite human knowledge, ex-

pression and creativity. SOPA is a cure worse than the disease. The world has bigger problems than just being unable to pay the entertainment industry. y

Even the Greeks had a really bad year

Continued from Page 05

Watch man!A couple of movie recommendations from Bruce Wayne himself2012 is set to be a crazy movie year. I’m sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to The Hobbit and The Dark Knight Rises. But there are oth-ers I’d like to put out there. These are a few of the titles I am looking forward to:

Snow White and the HuntsmanStars: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hems-worth, Charlize Theron“In a twist to the fairy tale, the Hunts-man ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up be-coming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen.” (IMDb)Reason: Kristen StewartThis is me giving her a second chance.

I saw one Twilight movie total and, like almost every other self-respecting straight adult, I got so emotional at the stupidity of it all I just don’t have any words left for it. In any case, if you’re putting her with Thor and Stella Bridger in something that promises to be at least vaguely Grimm Brotherly, I am so in. She’s really a nice girl, that Kristen. Just some bad career choices.

SEE ALSO: Mirror Mirror. Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen in another Snow White adaptation. Sounds great.Prometheus. Saving the human race with Charlize Theron. Perfect formu-la.The Avengers. I’m a DC fan when it

comes to comics, but I have to hand it to Marvel for the live-action movies. Green Lantern was unbearably ter-rible. What do Marvel have that’s so great? Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, X-Men, Nick Fury, Punisher. I’m talking Famke Jannsen and Scar-lett Johannson and Hugh Jackman and Samuel L Jackson. Even though the Batman Nolanverse is the pinnacle of DC live-action, I positively hate Chris for Maggie Gyl-lenhall. I suppose he’s making up for it with Marion Cotillard and Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises.No, I did not forget Robert Downey Jr. Yes, he is the boss.

Continued on Page 07

byNAVJOT SINGH

-With inputs from Navjot Singh

Opinion/News 07

Continued on Page 07

The VowStars: Channing Tatum, Rachel Mc-Adams“A car accident puts Paige (McAd-ams) in a coma, and when she wakes up with severe memory loss, her hus-band Leo (Tatum) works to win her heart again.” (IMDb)Reason: Rachel McAdamsI’m a sucker for love stories. Beneath my hardened, care-free, rude exte-rior there’s a little pussy cat who has this huge innocent thing for genuine sappiness. Not the Titanic kind, the Priceless kind. Also, I’ve been in love with Rachel McAdams since Mean Girls. I’ve seen Time Traveler’s Wife and The Notebook eleventy-seven times and I always cry. I found the original book of The Notebook to be a bit too much though. I suppose it’s Rachel that makes the difference. (I’m still reading Time Traveler’s Wife.) Channing Tatum is that dude from G.I. Joe (whose sequel I sincerely hope is not overdone, like so many these days. Guy Ritchie, I’m talking to you!) and Step Up 2 (If you’re into that sort of thing.)

SEE ALSO: The Words. Olivia Wilde. Enough said.Celeste and Jesse Forever. Because Emma Roberts is the bomb.Hors de Prix. I swear by Audrey Tautou and that awkward French guy.

The Perks of being a WallflowerStars: Logan Lerman, Nina Dobrev, Emma Watson

“An introvert freshman is taken un-der the wings of two seniors who wel-come him to the real world.” (IMDb)Reason: Emma WatsonLike I’ve said before (though not here), Emma Watson is filthy rich, has amazing legs and a British accent. And she’s older than me. It’s like we’re meant to happen. And as I’ve watched her grow into the tease that she’s be-come (yes, I take the Emma part of Harry Potter very seriously) I feel she just owes a decent non-HP movie to me. Don’t disappoint me, love.

SEE ALSO: The Amazing Spider-Man. Emma Stone is Gwen Stacy, which I think is brilliant because Kirsten Dunst really wasn’t working for me. Plus if you’ve read Spiderman: Blue, which you should because it’s a beautiful novel, you’ll know that Mary Jane was just half the picture, if that. It’s Kind of a Funny Story (as long as we’re discussing Emmas). Because Emma Roberts is the bomb. And Zach Galafianakis (that bearded guy from The Hangover) is brilliant. You might wanna YouTube “Between Two Ferns” while you’re at it.

Total RecallStars: Colin Farrell“As the nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai vie for supremacy, a factory worker (Farrell) begins to sus-pect that he's a spy, though he is una-ware which side of the fight he's on.” (IMDb)Reason: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckin-

saleColin Farrell is the man. There’s just something about his demeanor and unsymmetrical eyebrows that puts him up there with Mark Wahlberg and Brad Pitt for me. Sometimes I think he was the only thing that was left out from The Departed. I read somewhere that Chinese companies paid for their country to be depicted as a future superpower in this mov-ie. I’d love to see how that plays out. Apart from the fact that Kate Beck-insale and Jessica Biel are part of the credited cast.

SEE ALSO: Serendipity. Kate Beautiful Beckin-sale in the perfect Shakespearean love quest.Underworld: Awakening. 7.2 on IMDb, plus vampires don’t sparkle here.Infernal Affairs. The original Chi-nese thriller that inspired Scorsese’s The Departed. Insane movie. Red Lights. Robert deNiro. 8.6 on IMDb.

Iron SkyStars: Julia Dietze, Christopher Kirby and Götz Otto“The Nazis set up a secret base on the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.” (IMDb)Reason: The Nazis set up a secret base on the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018. y

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ISAT 2012Facts compiled by TSR about the entrance exam

Valiamala: The ISAT examination for the 2012 batch is slated to be held on 21st April 2012. The exam clashes with the VITEE, the entrance exam for Vel-lore Institute of Technology.

It will be conducted in 22 centres all

over India. The IIST team will con-duct the examination.

A total of 1,55,000 students registered online for the exam, of which 1,22,000 have paid the registration fees. This is the highest number of registra-

tions for ISAT till date. The maximum number of registrations are from the Delhi, Hyderabad, Thiruvanathapu-ram and Jaipur. There are also a num-ber of global registrations. y

Information Courtesy: Prof. Kuruvilla Joseph

EDITORIAL

news08

“How will TSR survive?” is a ques-tion that has plagued this newspa-per ever since its inception. And like everything which requires funding, the “first resort” was the institute. But for the institute, af-ter wasting money on things which have rarely been utilized (read hobby labs), a newspaper sounded too good to be true. So, to show our “initiative” we conducted what has got to be the most successful public donation drive with the ATF buckets. It has so far funded three issues of the newspaper and just like your end-of-month bank bal-ance, ours too has dried up.

After countless headed-for-failure business plans proposed by our biz-crazy editor, we decided to fol-low up on the promise given by our former registrar. And here’s where we struck gold. The Student Activi-ties Board in a meeting has prima-facie approved funding. So what does this mean for TSR?

Well, for one, it will become more

regular. We hope to concentrate more on editing and less on where those elusive 10 rupees were spent.

Secondly, you, the reader, won’t have to strain your eyes to read the print on the computer as we will have enough of hard copies to dis-tribute.

Will this arrangement compromise the integrity of content in TSR? Ab-solutely not. The editorial board is

still an independent entity and the content will be as usual screened by a member of the publication council. Our mission still remains to showcase students’ creativity and to keep every IISTian well-in-formed.

To make sure that TSR does not become a headless chicken after a year or so when the senior editors retire, we have recruited two junior editors.

In other news, TSR is going online. We will be launching our website shortly. It will provide you in-depth analysis of how awesome your life in IIST is while also balancing it with news from around the world.

So, why an editorial to explain all this?

Because we have nothing else left to whine about. We have the fund-ing, we have the news and we have the heirs.

Editorial/News08The TSR story

The editors views on your college newspaper

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Innovation centreA dream of the former director, Dr.B.N.Suresh, the innovation centre was started last semester. Ideas were invited for it then. It is infact a sad af-fair that not even a single good quality idea has been proposed. While other institutes of national importance have come up with wonderful innovations, IIST is yet to come out of the robocar fad. The chairman has asked the stu-dents to come up with original new ideas be it from the social or techno-logical field. Only when the institute starts to surge ahead in the innova-tion front will it become world-class.

SAB Snippets Alumni Cell

An alumni cell has been proposed to be set up. It will provide a forum to discuss the experiences of alumni in different centres of ISRO. Semi-nars and interactions can be arranged so as to fa-cilitate a better under-standing of the working environment for the stu-dents. This will enable them to become produc-tive right from day one.

Open HouseThe mentoring system is back though with some modifications. Remem-ber the class teacher you used to have while you were in school. The open house is such a thing. For each class, a faculty member will be assigned and the stu-dents can discuss aca-demic as well as other issues with them.

ClubsIIST is well-known for the formation and later demise of a number of clubs. Inorder to curb this as well as to maintain clubs to nurture talent, the Student Activity Board has called for the formation of official clubs. All clubs, which until now, had no record for their existence are re-quired to register them-selves with the respective councils so that all offi-cial help can be provided. Student reps: Parth Sharma, Neha Chohan, Anand Shankar, Devesh Lakhotia, Sourajit Debnath

news 09Op-ed

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Pune Sports FestSiddarth Krishna provides a brief overview of IISTians' performance in Pune

Pune: IIST was taking part in Zest 2012, the annual sports fest of Col-lege of Engineering Pune (COEP) which was held from the 11th to 14th of January. Events were plen-ty but we participated in Cricket, Football, Basketball and Volleyball.

We came to the campus a week before re-opening and underwent strenuous training which included jogging all around the campus and numerous practice matches. We left for Pune on the 9th of Jan and after a 40 hour grueling journey, we reached there at 1 am on the 11th.

It was quite cold, a welcome change from the weather of Trivandrum. We were accommodated in the hostels of COEP .

Our cricket team faced a local side in their first and only match, we failed to chase down a target of 161

in 20 overs and ended up with 148 with Syed Moosa Ali scoring 66.

Football team faced the eventual winners, D.J Sanghavi College of Engineering from Bombay. We lost 1-0, with their goal coming from a corner. It turned out to be a disap-pointing performance by the team.

However there was some respite offered by the Volleyball team. Un-like cricket, football or basketball, volleyball was of a league format. We won two out three matches and were through to knockouts, where we lost after an inspired performance.

Basketball suffered the same fate as Cricket and Football and we were out in the first round. The team was relatively new after the passing out of 2007 batch.

We managed to progress in Fut-sal and gully cricket (which comes as no surprise as we have to suf-fice with playing on the basket-ball court on the campus), but lost eventually.

All in all it was a welcome experi-ence and it was IIST football and volleyball’s first foray into tour-naments. The non-availability of reserved tickets while returning turned out to be a rude shock and students had to run to the station at 5a.m to book tickets on their own.

On a concluding note, we hope a proper ground is made available before most of the batches gradu-ate and also we are thankful to the authorities for granting us the opportunity to participate in the tournament. y

The author blogs at http://cloakedespionage.wordpress.com

Padmashri awarded to Dr. V. AdimurthyValiamala: Dr. V. Adimur-thy, Dean (Research & De-velopment), IIST has been awarded the Padmashri, the fourth highest civilian award. He has been with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre since 1973 and has contributed im-mensely in the areas of aero-dynamics and space dynam-ics. Dr. Adimurthy received the 1997 Astronautical So-ciety of India Award for his Contributions to Rocket Tech-nology. He has published more

than 100 research papers in re-puted archival journals and na-tional and international confer-

ences. Dr. Adimurthy is also an expert in the field of space debris. He has served as the Chairman of the Inter-Agen-cy Space Debris Coordina-tion Committee (IADC), the body of space faring nations addressing the issues of Space Debris during 2002-2003.

Other than his scientific achievements, he is also known for his avid love for

cycling. y

World News10Around the World

Things happening around the world while you were tucked away at our green cam-pus at Valiamala, 18 kms from Thiruvananthapuram city, on the way to the famous

hill resort of Ponmudi. Yes, part of the last line is from the institute website.

RT, the Russian equivalent of BBC will premiere a chat show in March this year hosted by none other Julian Assange, the founder of United States secrets busting site Wikileaks. The first season is expected to host ten “"icono-clasts, visionaries and power in-siders" as quoted by the RT web-site and Wikileaks.

Assange is currently under house arrest in Norfolk, England from where he will be hosting the show. Last heard, he was plan-ning to buy a boat and settle in international waters. Now for the funny part, RT or Russia Today is funded by the Kremlin (also know as the Russian Government) and many people are questioning Assange’s move to host the TV show with them. As you people must be knowing that Kremlin Putin has been facing huge pro-

tests against allegedly rigged elec-tions and the usual stuff that goes with it (Refer below story), the same thing that Assange says he is fighting. Hence, his move to host the TV show with a Kremlin funded channel has raised some eyebrows. RT has also long faced allegations of being a channel for state propaganda targeted at the western population. However, I have been watching RT for quite some time and beg to differ. Yes, RT is Russia centric but their re-porting style is unique and to the point. And I guess we Indians always love channels that take a stance against US policy. Those interested in watching the “most awaited news show of the year” can tune into RT in March on Dish TV and other DTH opera-tors in India or just download the show off the internet. y

Julian Assange to host chat show, promises more controversy

Photo by A

dam Feuer

Speaking of Russia, we come to our next story about a Rus-sian UFO. December saw waves of protesters on the streets of Moscow furious over the alleged election fraud committed by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. What separated one such protest from the hundreds that have been taking place all over the world this spring/winter is the fact that it had an UFO hovering above it. Western media immedi-ately jumped up on this and soon conspiracy theories were being thrown around which thankfully did not include any aliens hatch-

ing grand plans to takeover earth while distracting Russian protest-ers.

As with most UFO sightings the quality of images and videos were extremely poor leading one to wonder where all the smartphone HD cameras go during such oc-casions. However, soon it was found out that the UFO was in fact a device launched by some Russian citizen journalists from the Russian news agency, Ridus.So much for Russian UFOs and Putin colluding with aliens. y

UFO spotted over Russian Protesters, Putin prime suspect

Photo C

ourtesy: Dm

itriy Ch

ristoprudov

Continued on page 11Yes we can make this UFO in IIST too

"Am I not the TV darling?"

World News 11

Speaking of Drones, looks like the Iranians have got their hands on something Ameri-can at last after Barbie dolls were banned in Iran citing vague reasons like “Western cultural influence and the usual balderdash”A Lockheed Martin RQ 170 Sentinel unmanned recon-naissance aircraft has been allegedly shot down by Ira-nian forces while Americans were doing the stuff that they do over Iranian airspace. The RQ 170 is a stealth drone and is shrouded in secrecy with few details know to the out-side world. It is designed like a flying wing and has an clas-sified, probably General Elec-tric Turbofan engine. Ameri-cans claim that the drone has not been shot down and had encountered some technical difficulties which caused it to

land in enemy territory. They have also requested Iran to return what they believe to be US property. The funny thing is that Iran in reply has de-cided to send a Pink coloured toy model of the aircraft to the US via the Swiss embassy in Tehran. Meanwhile, Iran has promised to reverse engi-neer the technology from the downed drone and mass pro-duce it. My guess is that it will probably end up with the Chi-nese. See the pictures to your right for the drone and the the pink toy version Obama will receive in mail.Meanwhile, American ships have been arriving near Iran in what will be another Iraq like scenario alleging that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. We will be the first to inform you when World War III starts. y

American drone-RQ170 Sentinel ‘lands’ in Iran’s hands. Future uncertain

Around the world...

Photo C

ourtesy: masslive.com

Continued from page 10

Dassault Rafale wins the Indian Air Force MMRCA Deal. No free CATIA licenses. Ph

oto Courtesy: D

assault

Talking about flying things, the French aircraft Rafale has won the IAF’s MMRCA Deal, the largest such open tender aircraft deal in the world. 18 jets will come directly in “fly away condition” from France by 2015 and the rest will be built by HAL under a Tech-nology Transfer agreement. It is said that only the Eurofight-er Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale were compliant with the stringent requirements of the IAF and the Rafale was

the cheaper of the two. It also comes with Leather seats, touchscreen input and HMD (Helmet Mounted Displays) It has a delta wing design and active forward canard (tail at front) to maximize manoeu-vrability. The Rafale carries, for the first time in aviation history, an integrated elec-tronic survival system named SPECTRA which features a software-based virtual stealth technology. y

"Are you sure you want to open this up?"

Le French beauty

-Compiled by Tanveer AliContinued on page 11

A gift for your daughter, Mr.President

Food & FunSiddarth & Mohsin’s Restaurant Reviews

Episode-4

AMBROSIA

Kowdiar

M:S

Value for money 7:5

Quality of food 6:6

Ambience 8:8

Cost 7:6

Fairly wide range of burgers, sandwich-es, beverages and pastries. A definitive go-to for birthday cakes. 'Ambience' gets extra brownie points for the "view"

Suggestions: Tuna saladDream burger(for the dressing)Devil's cake(pretty overpriced now, though) and certain pastries on offer.

Avoid: Most burgersAll pizzasA few of the floats

Ratings

Remarks

MARRYBROWN

Bakery Junction

M:S

Value for money 7:7

Quality of food 7.5:7

Ambience 5:5.5

Cost 6:6.5

Pretty limited options, and pretty much

a no-go for vegetarians. Has its off days,

yet arguably the best fried chicken in

town.

Suggestions:

The classic chicken burger

Fried chicken

Avoid:

Chicken poppers

Nuggets

Ratings

Remarks

In our endeavour to provide you with information about food choices in and around Trivandrum city, we will pre-sent you with what we feel is the best way to spend your money and gastric juices.

All numerical ratings are on a scale of 10(10 being impossibly impressive, seeing as we are difficult to please).

In this episode, Navjot has been re-placed by Siddarth as the former's tongue still tastes of the cake from his birthday and hence was deemed unfit.

LocationLocation

STATUSsimble

1First PrizeConfucius say:Man who forget history prone to repeat it.Man who remember his-tory known to delete it.

2Second Prizewonder why men and women are paid the same prize money!

(After the Australian Open 6-hr long Finals)

Quotable QuotesQuotes that brought a

smile :)

1. "Conscientia kab hain?"-An IISTian who missed all the glar-ing posters

2. "If you want to finish me at 11.30, tell me. I will finish "-(Over)heard during a lecture

3. "ISAT will start on 21st April this time"- A faux pas on Republic Day

3Third Prize

IIST ke har ek gali mein ek club hai

(When one too many clubs were proposed)

12

(Anonymous)

Chetta po 13

The cartoons displayed are a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person(s), living, dead or IISTian is purely coincidental

This photograph was taken by Shakun Yawatkar while at home

Mail in your photographs to thesoundingrocket@gmail.com. The best of the lot will be printed in the next issue.

Camera: Canon EOS 1000DF-stop: f/5.6

Exposure time: 1/125 sec.ISO: 400

(Anonymous)

IIST’s annual astronomy and technology festival

THE QUEST FORKNOWLEDGE

IS HERE.

WHERE ARE

YOU?

INTO THE UNKNOWNwww.conscientia.co.in

If your life does not existoffline, go to our official page:

www.facebook.com/Conscientia.iistOnline events have already started.

For the Flipkart sponsored event whereyou can win prizes daily, go to the album

rand(x).

Good engineer

NOT Good engineer