IEEE India Bulletin Vol

ACE 2003 in Pune on 12 to 14 Dec 2003 with the theme “Emerging Technology Trends”

ACE 2003 preparations are going on in full swing. The Call for papers has been circulated widely in India and abroad. Each one of you is requested to give wide publicity to our Annual event and motivate as many to participate in ACE apart from own participation. The details of ACE 2003 can be found in both India Council and Bombay section web sites.

I hope TENCON 2003 Region 10 Technical Conference at Bangalore during 14-17, October 2003 is a great occasion for our members.

The Region 10 meeting will now take place in Penang on Oct 10 & 11. Issues specific to India will be discussed with the concerned volunteer office bearers. Are you all receiving IEEE publications such as Spectrum in good time? Arrangements have been made to ensure that publications reach members in India in time and in case there are any issues please let me know.

A reminder that it’s very important for all of us in India to exercise our right to choose the IEEE office bearers. Statistics show that only a few among us vote and hence may be the right candidate does not get chosen. The ballot papers for the 2003 President Elect would have reached all and I once again appeal to all of you to vote.

Congratulations to the Thirteen members from India who have been recently elevated to Senior members. I am looking forward to greeting the many others in waiting.

CSIDC 2004 entries have been invited by the IEEE Computer Society. Atleast a couple of Student Branches in a Section should participate in this international contest. The request is that a Section should identify three or more potential Student Branches in the middle of the year and motivate them to participate by providing encouragement and support.

Looking forward to your active participation in ACE 2003 and casting votes in time,

The CEO of that central PSU asked the HR dept. to prepare a list of chronic absentees in the company, with details like contact address, family status, image in the organization among the peers, the subordinates and the boss etc. After a scrutiny of the list, he selected the first set of names to try out his new plan to bring them back to mainstream. A programme was set out for the next Sunday to make personal visits to their homes along with a small team drawn from HR, Finance and PR departments. Without giving any prior notice, the team headed by CEO walked into the house of the first employee in the list, who had become irregular in attending to work, of late. After the initial surprises and pleasantries, the team got into their real mission – of unearthing the problems faced by the hapless employee and finding ways to help him to return to normalcy and regain his past glory as a dedicated worker. It was a small family- man, lady and two kids. The lady is bedridden now, with a host of medical problems and he is literally running the house, from cooking, sending children to school, arranging medical help for her etc etc. Relatives have also not been in a position to help the family.

The team came up with an action plan to help the family like arranging best medical care for the lady, posting a home nurse etc, thereby relieving him of the chores that have tied him down to the home. In a couple of weeks, everything was in place and once again he became regular in attending to the work - but this time with much more dedication to the organization which has come out on its own to help him when in acute need, saving from a catastrophic situation.

This exercise was repeated in others in the list too, coming out successful in most of the cases. Is it not worth emulating by all?

‘Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning, stays young.
The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young’

IEEE Bangalore Section

PES Distinguished Lecturer
John D. McDonald, P.E.,
Senior Principal Consultant and Manager of Automation, Reliability and Asset
Management for KEMA, Inc, USA

Conference Room, Room No: 217, SCADA/EMS laboratory,
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi-110025

For details regarding registration and other issues, please look at the web-site:

l Earthing of transmission lines, distribution lines, substations, generating plants and at distribution load point

G.N. Mathur
Secretary, Central Board of Irrigation and Power
Malcha Marg, Chanakyapuri
New Delhi 110 021

Students from universities and colleges worldwide are invited to participate in the 2004 IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC). Application materials are due by 1 November. Teams will be selected by 14 November. The annual CSIDC challenge allows teams of undergraduate engineering students the opportunity to design, from inception to prototype, a special-purpose computer-based device to solve a real-world problem. The competition has a US$25,000 first prize. For more information and registration forms, visit:

http://computer.org/computer/homepage/0803/CSIDC/sidebar.htm

The Power Engineering Society (PES) Chapter of IEEE Calcutta Section and Electrical Engg Division, West Bengal State Centre of The Institution of Engineers (India) jointly organized a seminar on September 6 & 7, 2003 at Calcutta. Sri Mrinal K. Banerjee, Hon’ble Minister, Power and Non-Conventional Energy System, GOWB, in his inaugural address called for better power system management and also harmonious actions on the part of the central and state level authorities. This session was chaired by Sri C.Dasgupta, former Dy. MD of CESC Ltd. Chief guest, Sri D.Guha, Executive Director, CESC Ltd, outlined the reasons for integrated operation of power system and the progress made in this area in India. Prof. S.Choudhuri, former President of The IE (I), a power engineer himself, deliberated on the intricacies of power system networks and then followed it up on a broader scale on the issue of networking the engineers through ‘Engineers Mobility Forum’.

In his keynote address on “Availability Based Tariff”, Sri Bhanu Bhusan, Director (Operations), Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd, dwelt upon the significance of such tariff structure and the positive effect it has brought in overall grid management. Dr. K.Bhattacharya, Secretary, PES Chapter introduced the keynote speaker. Sri B.N.Mondal, Hony. Secretary of WBST, The IE(I), proposed the vote of thanks.

In his invited lecture on 7th Sept, Sri B.K.Misra, Member Secretary, EREB spoke on “Integrated Power System Operation of North-Eastern, Eastern and Western Regions”. The session was chaired by Prof. N.Chatterjee, former Chairman of PES. In his very informative lecture, he pointed out the inherent weaknesses of the earlier stand alone eastern regional system and the benefits that have been derived from the synchronization of the North-Eastern and Eastern regions with the Western Region. He explained in detail how this has resulted in improvement in system frequency and voltage profile, increased inertia of the system, increased export, improvement in load profile etc. Sri Misra concluded by saying that the future prospect of the Eastern region is likely to be bright due to integrated operation.

The seminar was sponsored by Eastern Regional Electricity Board (EREB), with collaboration from. Power Development Corporation LTD (PDCL) and Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL). A notable point about the seminar was the participation of significant number of young engineers.

Prof AJIT K CHATTOPADHYAY, FELLOW, IEEE , IEEE-IAS Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE-IAS Calcutta Chapter Chair and UGC Emeritus Fellow at B E College (Deemed University), Howrah, delivered the following IEEE Distinguished Lectures at IEEE-IAS/PES Chapters in SINGAPORE / AUSTRALIA/ NEW ZEALAND during Aug/Sept,2003

a) “High Power High Performance Industrial AC Drives-A Technology Review”

An innovative way to break into mobile phone calls made on the popular GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network, allowing eavesdroppers to listen in on calls and even take on a caller’s identity, has been found by Israeli scientists. The GSM Association, representing vendors who sell the world’s largest mobile system, which is used by more than 860 million consumers in 197 countries, confirmed the security hole but said it would be expensive and complicated to exploit.

This flaw was identified by a doctoral student of the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel, who proved that we can listen into a call while it is still at the ringing stage and within a fraction of a second know everything about the user, followed by listening to it. Using a special device it’s possible to steal calls and impersonate callers in the middle of a call as it is happening, it is claimed.

People with glaucoma or other eye diseases may soon be able to do away with eye drops, thanks to an innovative drug-delivery system using contact lenses. Nanoscopic medicine-filled particles in the lenses would release drugs slowly and steadily into the eye without being diluted by tears and drained into the nasal cavity – a problem many people experience with eye drops. The lenses could also prove an alternative to eye surgery for diseases such as cataracts and glaucoma, suggest Anuj Chauhan, Asst. Prof. of chemical engineering and doctoral student Derya Gulsen of the Univ. of Florida, researchers developing the techniques for encapsulating the drugs into nanoparticles.

Tiny rings of light called optical vortices may one day be harnessed as power sources for microelectromechanical devices(MEMs). The optical vortices rapidly spin microscopic spheres in surrounding fluid. Since they have no moving parts, they are a better option for MEMs motors than electrostatic or magnetic drives, which move slowly and wear out quickly, says physicist David Grier of the Univ. of Chicago. The devices could be used to drive nanorobots and other microdevices.

Smaller and more power-efficient chips based on IEEE 802.11b (TM) (Wi-Fi) technology are set to be targeted to man facturers of portable devices, such as cell phones, handhelds and digital cameras, according to a recent article on CNET News.com. The article also states that these new chips by Broadcom and Philips Semiconductors can help calm experts’ fears of existing 802.11b chips being too large with relatively high power consumptions. Now 802.11b chips can still be used for high-volume products such as portable devices, even with the increasing popularity of IEEE 802.11g (TM). For more details go to:

After the highly successful ‘Intel Inside’ brand building, now it is the turn of `India Inside’.

Computer code written by Indian software personnel powers practically every gadget or computer solution in the world today- be it a hard disk, a banking solution or even the word processing package. Taking note of this unique situation, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) is stepping up efforts in building the ‘India Inside’ brand and projecting the sub continent as a destination for software product development activity. In this connection, Mr Kiran Karnik, NASSCOM president, says “ Though India’s strengths as a cost effective and quality provider of software services is well recognized the world over, the awareness of the product development activities is not high. The effort is to build the concept around software product development and also project India not just as a services destination but also as a product destination”

The ‘India Inside’ campaign is being planned to show Indian strengths in product development, in addition to highlighting some of the global companies that continue to make India as the R&D base for their product development activities.

According to NASSCOM, the revenue from products grew by around 30% ranking second highest in growth after ITES, garnering a total of Rs 6,000 crore in 2002-03. The product and technology services revenue is expected to touch $8 billion by 2008. r

Theme: EMERGING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
12, 13 AND 14 December 2003, Hotel Le Meridien, PUNE
Watch the India Council website for further details.

“Global Information Technology Outsourcing”
– In Search of Business Advantage

With the arrival of the Internet, with its potential to disrupt established markets with new competitors and new business models, many businesses found themselves confronted by the critical impact of successful innovation. The book presents some of the major changes and challenges established companies are going through in their search for new ways to innovate with speed and experimentation.

Ø “ If only Indian businesses indulged in a lower, more reasonable level of corruption, our per capital GDP would vault from the present $2,500 (adjusted for purchasing power parity) to as much as $15,000 in no time”

Ø “India ought to educate her citizens in moving from a knowledge-based system to an inquiry-based system while ensuring education for all”

Ø “ India should also learn to celebrate the successes that no one in the country seemed to appreciate. Perhaps we are overlooking some of the mega success stories in the country. Get them on to the front page. That will encourage and inspire other aspiring entrepreneurs”

‘Good character is not given to us. We have to build it piece by piece—by thought, choice, courage, and determination’

All voting members are requested to cast their votes by returning the Postage-paid return envelope. Please be informed that the return envelopes are International Business Reply Mail and no Indian stamps are to be affixed. This has been verified with the PMG in Bombay. Kindly return the envelopes by end September itself to ensure that they reach IEEE Election office by 3 November 2003.

“We, the members of the IEEE… do hereby… agree to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action” – IEEE Code of Ethics

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