NIST e-NEWS Vol 2, March 15, 2002

I wish to spare a thought for the new paradigm which is in vogue in most of the reputed technical institutions. The role of the teacher and the student has undergone massive upheavals since the "gurukula" system. Today the teacher is, as someone so aptly put it, "no longer a sage on the stage but a guide by the side". It is therefore the duty of teachers to communicate freely with the students and to assist him/her in understanding difficult concepts, removing doubts and freely brainstorming on research and development issues. Students no longer need spoon feeding as good books, internet and other information sources are available. Is it possible that distance education will replace classroom education the world over ? Most experts disagree that classroom teaching is passe. In fact, more than ever, the presence of a teacher in a class is unparalleled, his guidance sought after and the human touch and the concern of a teacher for his students is a blessing. I hope we all start thinking about the new role of the teacher and the taught.

I wish all the faculty, staff and students a very fruitful academic interaction this semester.

First of all I would like to thank Mr. Basant Kr Dash, Dr RP Reddy, Dr Amalendu Pattnaik and Mr. Gayadhar Panda, all those who have encouraged me by criticising the first issue of NIST e-News. I convey my thanks to all of them who sent me the CONGRATULATION mails. I would have liked to mention their names in this issue but couldn’t do so due to lack of space as the list is too long. Anyway, Thanks again to all!! I hope to get more response in the long run.

After the release of the first issue, I was worried as what to present in my next issue, but after ten days I was thinking as how to manage to present so many news in the forthcoming issue. I am really sorry, as I could not present all the news, articles which have been sent to publish in this issue.

As per my commitment, I am giving a room named ‘ALUMNI PAGE’ to our students of 1996 and 1997 batch and I am also giving another room named ‘STUDENTS CORNER’ for the contribution of our present students. Your opinion is most welcome, now and always.

Amidst the study pressure the Nistians were seen celebrating SARASWATI PUJA in a grand style at the different hostels. All students showed great enthusiasm in organising the Puja and make it a great success. Everything was done in an organized and disciplined way starting from the decoration, Puja arrangement, prasad distribution and last but not the least was the entertainment of the faculties. Rangolee at the SAGAR hostel was really eye-catching!! These depict the creativity and talents ingrained in the students. Our Director Mr Sangram Mudali, Placement Director Mrs. Geetika Mudali, NIST e_News Editor Dr Partha S Mallick, Hostel superitendent Mr M Suresh and Mr Susant Kr Das, 1st Sem. Batch counselor Mr I Bhattacharya and our sports coordinator Mr Vinay Das joined the students on the occasion.

The University Grants Commission(UGC) has selected our Dr AK Panda to work on the Project titled "Effect of Interface properties as the high frequency behavior of GaN based MODFET to use in VLSI circuits" for a period of 3 years. He is fully funded for undertaking this research project. He got the project amidst tough competition from India's best scientists and technologists. We are proud of you.

Mr.Sanjeev Mishra(IAS), Ganjam District Collector visited NIST recently. Mr. Sanjeev Mishra is a IIT, Delhi alumni and was a topper in IAS exam. He gave an encouraging speech to the 1st semester students. He repeatedly pointed out that it is DISCIPLINE that will bring a student nearer to his goal, which is true indeed!!. He also appreciated the management for the quality of education offered at NIST. He favorably compared NIST with IIT Delhi, and hoped that soon NIST will become a Deemed University.

Maj Gen P. K. Saighal, Commandant of Air Defence College visited our institute on 20 February, 2002. He gave an inspiring speech to the faculties, staff and 3rd Semester Students. He joined the Indian Army in 1961 and, after completing 41yrs of service he retired on 1st of March, 2002. He was very much impressed with NIST and said, "NIST provides a very good environment inside and outside the class-room which helps for the free flow of ideas and thoughts". For the Teachers his message is "GURU should be the role-model of students". One of our students said quoting John F Kennedy that "Ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for the country". Our Director made a good comment on the speech and said that "this type of impressive and inspiring speech can be heard, one or two times in life".

It was on October 18, 2001, the final match of Berhampur University Inter College Table Tennis tournament was held.Our students Akash Kamal Swain-5th Sem(Captain), Rajesh Panda-3rd Sem, Susman Das-1st Sem., and Anshuman Mishra-1st Sem proved that NIST is the best among 17 other colleges of Berhampur University. We defeated MKCG medical College in semifinal and Rayagada college in final. We are proud of our Team Manager Dr Partha S Mallick. We are also grateful to both of our coaches Dr Partha S Mallick and Mr I Bhattacharyya. Dr C Nahak encouraged the whole team.

Akash Kamal Swain(5th Semester) was selected to play for the Berhampur University Table Tennis team this year. He played for the Berhampur university team in the NATIONAL LEVEL EAST ZONE TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP '2002 held at Calcutta. He was selected from NIST competing with 17 other colleges. CONGRATS!!

Mr Monoranjan Mishra, Mr Y.Venkateswarlu and Ms Samita Bhuyan of 1996 batch joined REI Systems, Washington D.C., USA on January 7, 2002. After passing out, they worked at NIST Training and Consultancy Services(NTCS) for one and half year. They got selected for the REI systems, USA through on-line test and phone interview. We wish them all success.

Chinmoy K Pattanayak of 3rd semester(CS) was selected to represent the Berhampur university badminton team this year. He played for Berhampur University in the NATIONAL LEVEL EAST ZONE BADMINTON CHAMPIONSHIP '2002 held at Bilaspur, Chhatisgragh from January 28 to February 03, 2002. Chinmoy, you are one of the five players selected for Berhampur University badminton team among all the players. Well done!!! CONGRATS!! once again.

CONGRATS!!! Miss Tapaswini Mishra of first Semester, ECE for being the winner of University prize. She got the first prize at Inter College Debate Competition (Oriya) organized by Berhampur University on February 15, 2002. Tapaswini was honoured with the First prize beating 50 other participants from different Colleges under Berhampur University. Wish you all success.

Dear, Sunkuru Sunil K. Rao. and Gayatri Gouda(3rd Semester-I.T) - an excellent performance you have shown at the International competition organised by the Computer Science and Engineering Department of I.I.T, Kharagpur on February 20, 2002. It was an algorithm based On Line Programming Contest named BITWISE-2001. Both Sunil and Gayatri succeeded from thousands of contestants from different parts of the world. NISTians are proud of you.

Mr Bijoy Sekhar Shroff(3rd Sem., ELE) ans Mr Swastik Bharati(3rd Sem., CSE) have gone to University college of Engineering(UCE), Burla recently to present a paper at the national level technical paper presentation competition named 'MANUFACTURING - 2002'. Their paper is based on "Artificial Intelligence and Robotics" which was among few papers selected from the papers submitted from all over the country. Well done!! Bijoy and Swastik. Thanks.

Our students have shown their talent in number of competitive events held in our Hostels in presence of judges. All these events were supervised by the hostel Superintendents Mr Rabindra K Shial and Mr M Suresh.

Event: Debate
Topic for Hostel 2: Has India done the right thing by going nuclear
    1st : Anindya Kumar Jena
    2nd : Soubhagya Mishra
Topic for Hostel 4: Valentine’s Day celebration is against Indian culture
   1st : Siba Prasad Mohanty
   2nd : Ansuman Mishra

Event: Essay Writing
Topic for Hostel 2: US role as the only superpower in the world
   1st : Saroj Ranjan Mohanta
    2nd : Siddheswar Samant

Topic for Hostel 4: Various Faces of terrorism
1st : Suryakant Routry
2nd : Bijay Kumar Tripathy

Mr Bijay Sekhar Shroff and Mr Satya Sobhan Pattanaik of 3rd Semester(2000 batch) won the first prize of the Web Designing Project this year. Ms. Budhaditya Banerji of the same batch won the 2nd prize and, both Ms. Gayatri Gouda and Mr Ambuja Pattanaik won the 3rd prize. Our Director Mr Sangram Mudali distributed the prize to the winners.

Two of our students were selected to play this year for the Berhampur University Cricket Team in the Inter University Cricket competition held at Bhagalpur, Bihar. They are Sudip Misra of 1st Semester and Soumyajit Rath of 5th Semester. Congrats!! Soumya and Sudip, for this selection and for playing well for the Berhampur University Team.

This is the part of a letter sent by the Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) to our Placement Director on January 11, 2001.
This is a good achievement for all of us.

To
Ms. Geetika Mudali
Placement Director
National Institute of Science and Technology, Palur Hills, Berhampur
Dear Ms G Mudali ,
We would like to place on record our deep appreciation for the support received from your institute during the visit of our technical panel during September 2000. We are pleased to inform you that a number of students of your institute are working with us. Their dedicated effort and professionalism has enabled Tata Consultancy Services to emerge as a leader in the Software industry in Asia. Our mission is to be among the top 10 Consulting Firm in the world. Achieving the same, we look forward to your continued support. With best regards.

Mr Ajoyendra Mukherjee, Resident Manager
Note: More than 70 students of 96 batch are working in TCS alone!!

It was a tough competition between the two teams, Director-11 and the Rest-11 which was played on March 9, 2002 at NIST Cricket ground. The rest of the NISTians enjoyed the game. The team was formed among the staff and faculty members who are not regular players but they played like professionals. The game is over, the Rest-11 won the game but who will forget the eye-catching 6's and 4's of our Director, Deputy Director, Mr Vinay Das, Mr Susant Das, Mr Krishna, the two catches of Dr AK Panda, the excellent catch of Mr Anisur Rahman and the nice job done by the commentator, Ms Manaswini Acharya and our student Naveen T Varghese(7th Sem), the perfect umpiring of our students Soumyajit and Sanjib(5th Sem.) ?

We are glad to welcome Mr. Anisur Rahman in our Computer Science department. He is an M.Tech(Computer Science) of Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. He worked with Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd., Calcutta, as a Programmer cum Software Engineer for more than one year and then worked with the Institute of Cybernetics Systems and Information Technology, Calcutta as a Software engineer for around two years. He was the visiting faculty of BKC College, Calcutta. He has 3 Conference papers to his credit and also communicated 2 more research papers in two renowned journals. His main research interest is in the area of Design and Analysis of Algorithms, RDBMS, Image Processing, Pattern Recognition, Mathematical Analysis and Modern Algebra. We wish him all success.

On September 2, 2001, a tough contest for all the Engineering students of Orissa, was organised by the Orissa Information Technology Society(OITs). Our students Satya Swarup Sahu(7th Sem. CSE) and Prashamik Chatterjee(7th Sem. EIE) proved that NISTians are capable of succeeding in any competitive tests. They are the two from NIST from among 9 prize winners who got selected from engineering colleges of Orissa.

We have received two Trainer Kits(model no. ST2502) for Optical Fiber Engineering/Light Wave Engineering Experiments/Projects from Scientech Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Indore. We will be able to do 18 experiments including PC to PC communication, measurement of various Fiber-Optic losses, fiber characteristics etc. The trainers can also be used to demonstrate voice link using microphone and speaker. Interested people are welcome to meet Dr Partha S Mallick regarding this.

Mr Manash Ranjan Das presented a seminar on "Fiber Optics Communication and Networking" at Room No. 206 on March 01, 2002 at 4PM. Our Director, Dean, interested faculties and some students were present at the seminar. The seminar was based on participation in the 5 days workshop at B. E. College, Shibpur. Thanks Manash once again for sharing your knowledge with us.

Dr S Dasgupta has recently completed a short term course on Instrumentation Analysis and Control Software of two weeks. It was held at the center for Electronics Design & Technology of India, Calicut from December 10, 2001 to December 21, 2001. The center is an organisation of the Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India. The course was basically on "LabView and SoftPLC Programming". Dr. Dasgupta is leading NIST R&D efforts in Microcontrollers, PLC Industrial Automation & Virtual Instrumentation. Interested people are requested to contact Dr Dasgupta in this regard.

A seminar was given by Mr Subhash C Nayak on 8, 2002 on "Power Systems - Recent Advances and Prospects in 21st Century". Recently Mr Nayak attended a national level conference at Rajasthan which was based on the area of Power Systems- its Advances and Prospects in 21st century. He shared his knowledge on that topic with the audience.

CIT-2001: The 4th International Conference on Information Technology was held from Dec.20, 2001 to Dec 23, 2001 in the premises of NIST Campus under the leadership of Dr. Sukant Mohapatra as Organizing Committee Chair, Mr. Sangram Mudali as Local Chair, and Dr. Ravi P Reddy as Finance Chair. It was for the first time that the conference was held outside Bhubaneswar. Prof. C R Das of Penn State University inaugurated the conference and the Chief Guest of the conference was Dr. R C Pattanaik, Honourable MLA of Berhampur. The inaugural function was held at the Library Hall of the Octagon Building of NIST. The importance of the conference of this year was a record number of delegate's (203), a record number of foreign participant's (23), record number of the participants from the Industry (17), and record number of students (around 50) participated in this conference. The students were from IIT Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai, NIST, Berhampur, JITM, Parlakhemundi, Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, C V Raman Engineering College, Bhubaneswar, etc.

Everywhere the prestige of the conference is mainly determined by the quality of its technical program. Technical Program again depends on the Program Committee. This year's Program Co-Chairs were Prof. Arun K Pujari of University of Hyderabad and Prof. Prasant Mohaptra of University of California at Davis. On their able leadership, CIT-2001 had received a record number of 103 technical papers for the presentation out of which 54 papers were selected finally to present, which includes two papers from NIST faculty members(Asutosh et al, and Manash et al). The papers were mainly from USA, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, and of course India. There were 14 technical sessions during the conference. The technical sessions dealt with Intelligent Computing, Mobile Computing, Data Mining, Image Computing, Database System, Agent Computing, Secured Computing, Web Applications, Banking Applications, and Interface Computing.

In addition to the technical sessions, CIT-2001 featured three keynote speakers, five invited talks, seven tutorials, and a panel discussion. Invited speakers were Prof. Dharma P. Agrawal of University of Cincinnati, Dr. Sudhakar Varanasi, Vice President, Satyam Computers Services Ltd., and Mr. Ramanathan of Aeronautical Development Agency, Bangalore. Prof. Giri Narasimham of Florida International University, Dr. Sukant Mohapatra of Lucent Technologies, Prof. Srinivas Aluru of Iowa State University, and Prof. Sanjay Madria of University of Missouri-Rolla delivered the invited lectures. Seven tutorials were held on recent topics of IT on Dec. 23. The tutorials were mainly for the students. Around 40 students from NIST had attended the tutorial. A Panel discussion comprising of Industry and Academic experts was organized under the chairmanship of Prof. Gautam Chakrabarty of Japan. OITS (Orissa Information Technology Society) business meeting was held at the octagon building and OITS president distributed the prizes to the winners of the IT Olympiad.

For the entertainment of the delegates of CIT 2001, NIST had many arrangements. Apart from organising cultural functions it had made arrangement for the tour to Chilka. Cultural function and Dinner was organized at Hotel Oberoi, Gopalpur-on-Sea. A Beach Volleyball match was played between NIST and the rest. A Yoga Program was organized to relieve the stress of the delegates. Renowned Maharshi Dr. Yogiraj of Hyderabad delivered the talk on Yoga and Mediation and how to relieve the stress, which was applauded by the delegates. The rock music party accompanying the dance of the NISTians (including Chairman, Director, Faculty Members, Staff, and students) with the roasted chicken of Oberoi is yet to be forgotten by the delegates, as I am receiving the mail till now.

NIST faculty and staff worked hard for the success of the conference. Special thanks to NTCS(for Registration desk and floor management), Basant Das(for transport), Ranen Nayak(BBSR-Gopalpur transport coordination), Partha S Mallick(evening program management) and Suvendu Das (facilities management).

All the delegates for the successful conference applauded NIST and finally the Organizing Committe of CIT gave a big thanks to NISTians. CIT 2001 was sponsored by NIST, IEEE New Jersy, NJIT(USA), CSIR(India), Satyam(India) and DST(India).

The next CIT will be held at Puri hosted by Utkal University. Dr. Ajit Panda of NIST is the Publicity Chair and hence it is the duty of all the NISTians to publicise CIT-2002. All the faculty members and students are requested to contribute their research work for CIT-2002. To know more and see the photos of CIT-2001, you can log on to www.nist.edu/cit-2001 or contact me.

The NIST Intranet is playing a pivotal role in bringing the NISTians fraternity together. It has started its journey. Right now we are powered with three-NT servers and two 2-Linux servers and with a well-established network of sixty-seven active nodes which enables the faculty and staff to browse the Internet on the desktop. Added to this, mail server has already started working in which everybody has his or her own mailing accounts.

Moving closer towards the aim, we plan to set up an IIS (Internet Information Server) - a local web server and this local network will be connected to the Internet. Along with this we are planning to setup an Exchange Server in which everybody can send and receive mails across the Internet as well. So that one and all can view the NIST Website on their desktops. A chat server is also planned to be configured soon in our Intranet which will make it possible to chat within the intranet.

This network is a major revolution in the NIST work culture. Adding a new dimension to NISTian education, the concerned faculty and the students can upload and download the lecture notes, assignments, online-tests, quizzes etc. Students can post their queries to faculty members and get them answered. There will be a forum and newsgroup over which the fraternity can interact, exchanging ideas and views. And into the natural sequel of things the library can be browsed right onto one's desktop, expanding one's world of knowledge.

Students will be given a mailbox capacity of 2.5MB and 5MB for storing relevant documents like projects, technical papers etc. Let ideas get enlightened fast, propelling NIST to even greater heights. Bringing this to you very soon.

Dr Ajit Kumar Panda was born in a tiny village named Chooragaon of Kalahandi district, Orissa. He got married to Amrita in 1997 who belongs to a highly educated family. Their only child Ankit Panda is three and half years old, recently admitted in Deffodil play school of Berhampur. Dr Panda is one of the first faculty members who joined NIST in 1996. During this period he has established himself as an efficient administrator through all the administrative jobs given to him like Hostel Superintendent, Course coordinator and now, as Dean. He is said to be the "stepney of NIST" who is able to take any class, any time as needed. He had also played a major role in the recently held International Conference, CIT-2001, at NIST campus and his successful effort in CIT-2001 has placed him as the Publicity Chair for CIT-2002. He has a brilliant record throughout his academic career. After completing Ph.D from Sambalpur University, he has never looked back. In 1999, he got the BOYSCAST Fellowship from the Govt. of India and worked with a world famous research group of the University of Michigan, USA. He is the first faculty of NIST who got the DST Young Scientist award to work on the Project "GaN-based Semiconductor Devices" for 2 years. He is also a regular associate of ICTP, Trieste, Italy. Recently he has been awarded the "UGC Post Doctorate Research Award'" to work on the Project "Effect of Interface properties as the high frequency behavior of GaN based MODFET to use in VLSI circuits" for 3 years. He has published 18 Journal papers of International repute and has presented his research papers in more than 20 National/International conferences. We are proud of getting a colleague like Dr Ajit Kr Panda….. We wish you more and more success.

From this month we are starting the "Alumni Page". We have 2 batches of students 1996 & 1997 who have graduated from NIST. Here are some of the responses from the alumni. The alumni are most welcome to contribute their thoughts, ideas, messages, feelings to this page. Kindly send your mails to Dr. Partha S. Mallick (Alumni Coordinator)(E-mail ID: niste_news@yahoo.com).

Dear Madam,
Hope U are fine there. 
I am now working in Dexcel Electronics Design(P) Ltd,Bangalore. I joined here on 5th of July,2001. I had done a course in CDAC,Hyderabad in VLSI before this for 4 mts. I got over here through CDAC campus. My training period was of 6 months. I got my confirmation letter this Jan,2002. Presently working in Embedded Processor project. I feel very fortunate to be in the field of my interest and I didn't have to go forcibly in the software field. And all this had been possible Madam b'coz of our college support and the efforts of our Director to give us exposure in this direction.
I hope everything is going on fine over there. I have seen the various progress made over
there through our college site. I really appreciate the efforts of NTCS group. Rest of the things are fine Mam. I remain.
Asma

From: Gargi Pattanayak ME_GARGI@YAHOO.COM
To: geetika_nist@hotmail.com
Subject: MILLION THANKS TO NIST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 04:26:05 -0800 (PST)
Respected(Dear) Madam,
Hope this letter(mail) finds you in good health and better spirits !

Its been about 2 months since we joined in TCS, Trivandrum .Its been a very pleasant experience. Each day we have technical courses for 6hrs and personality-developement courses for the rest 2hrs. The technical courses are pretty easy thanks to the syllabus in NIST . As we were cribbing about the vast course . But now i can realise its significance . i take this opportunity to thank the my teachers and the administration at NIST for their excellent job in nurturing us as the best ! i feel we the best among the people here. Even being a non CS batch(at NIST) we’ ve had a full course on Data structures, Graphics,software Engg(SE) ,Comp Networks No one else here has such a comprehensive knowledge of these subjects. i think you should concentrate more on the SE course because in a consultancy company that comprises 80 % of the training .

i will tell you something ......i usually get to talk to the Trainig-in-Charge of TCS , Trivandrum. ( He is the Head of all activities here ). He was asking me about the training, the courses, etc. i told him that i personally find all these courses pretty easy cause my college's syllabus has prepared me for all this ! Any student from NIST is prepared for any rigorous ambience ! He was very impressed and asked me more about my college ! Hope that encourages him to take large number of students from our college !

Rest is fine.Hope everything is going fine there at college ! Please convey my regards to Director Sir , Reddy Sir and all others .
Please do keep in touch. With regards
Sincerely yours
Gargi


hi,
how r u madam? and how are all other faculty in our college? 
I am fine here in texas, u.s.a. I think I have already told you about this. I am doing my 2nd semester in University of Texas at Arlington. Its great fun in doing so many projects every semester since I love programming. Important thing is that I am learning to be Independent which I think is a good sign.
everything else is fine here...Just staying here but hearing all the news of our college virtually thr. our group mail. Its great to hear that 3 of the students working in NTCS are in Maryland, u.s.a. I talked to manoranjan and venkat a week ago, they are feeling. great.
have a good and prosperous new year!!!!!!!!
regards
Srichandan

Mam,
hope ur fine n everything is going out fine at NIST. I am still at XIMB, few more days to go before the convocation which is been scheduled on 22nd March
2002. I am feeling happy to inform you that I have been placed at POLARIS Software Labs, Chennai n will b joining the organization during May-June. Expecting their offer letter this month end. please let me know about how things are going on at NIST. Regards
Rakesh Jena, XIMB

Oh Examination!!
Pradyut Kumar Mallick
1st Semester(IT)
Oh! My dear Examination
I have made no preparation
I am terribly afraid of you
Kindly tell me what to do.
You are early I am late
Daily I am loosing my weight.
Oh! go away! go away!
Let me learn my lesson anyway.
My body has become a skeleton
Yet I don't know the law of Newton.
Oh! I shall not bother you
So what if I get zero or two.

The Friday Seminar Series of NIST has been started on February 22, 2002, Friday. Dr. Purna C Biswal has taken the initiative for this Friday seminar series. The aim of this Seminar Series is to facilitate the faculty members/staff/students to present their report on the Seminar/Workshops/Conference attended by them. Others are also welcome to deliver their talk on their topic of interest. Students can also deliver their speech on any new/emerging topic. Dr Purna C Biswal gave the first talk at the Friday Seminar Series on its first day. Interested to contact Dr Purna Biswal.

The Grading Policy for both the internal and sessional marks is being distributed to the students of all batches. The students can meet the course Instructor regarding this. The faculties are following their own grading policy to grade the students.

The next issue will be published on 15th April, 2002. Send your message on or before April 10, 2002 to our e-mail
address : NISTe_News@yahoo.com. Editor.