Questions your Educational Letter of Intent Must Answer

During the application process most of the schools/academic institutions insist applicants  to submit Educational Letter of Intent (E-LOI). Wide range of programs are offered by numerous academic institutions across the world. And students with diverse background apply for admission to these programs. Therefore, it is very difficult to suggest generic points one should consider while writing E-LOI. 

In my opinion, following points should be addressed in clear and concise way in any E-LOI written by an applicant:-

1) What value addition your profile is going to bring to the class?

2) What are your endeavors? What factors have contributed towards shaping your endeavors? What difference are you going to make by achieving your endeavors? and How committed are you towards achieving your endeavors? 

3) What role the course/program/further studies is going to play for you to enable achieve your endeavors?

4) What are the key challenges on the way to achievement of excellence in your field of studies and how you feel you can overcome those challenges in highly competitive environment?

5) How your efforts have so far contributed towards making society a much better place and how you propose to shape your future to serve society at large?

- Santosh Behar

What were possibilities for exploration of Governance Model to be adopted by India after Independence?

In my opinion, the very concept of modern state (pluralist democratic state system) evolved in Europe along with other developments in contemporary period like - development of social value system, cultural norms, economic models and developments in the area of science and technology. Moreover, rationality and jurisprudence of the modern state were based on core values taken from European civilization.

From the perspective of country like India (with rich cultural diversity), which was British colony for long time until its independence in 1947, adopting pluralist democratic state system as the framework of governance and developing supporting institutions was a very difficult proposition. A much elaborate and comprehensive effort for constituting an indigenous state system much closer to locally prevalent cultural norms could have been tried out by the Indian leadership post independence.

Evolutionary process for establishment of a state may include state formation (an organized political community under one government and under one national identity), state consolidation (laying foundations for functioning institutions and building administrative capabilities) and state stabilization (attainment of maturity in governance and attainment of sovereignty). In natural course of evolution, institution of state is shaped in accordance with cultural hegemony and in accordance with prevailing socio-economic scenario. In the process an arrangement largely acceptable to all the stakeholders (in the state) usually comes into existence.

In context of Indian Independence, it may be noted that Western Democratic Model has been successful for India but may not be called a successful model for Pakistan (a country carved out of British India).

A chance to form a new state brings scope for experimentation of innovative ways to assess what best suits to the masses (so that state is aligned in the best possible way with the expectations of its citizens). Had India not been influenced with the pre-existing administrative set-up established by the UK, a much fair consideration could have been given to alternative ways. In regards to the possible alternative ways, a few options that comes to my mind are -

- Socialist Democracy VS Capitalist Democracy VS Elective Constitutional Monarchy (like Malaysia) VS Communist Model (Communism was a popular alternative at that time and Chinese Model of Communism has worked well for them),

- A Federal structure with tightly coupled Central Government and State Governments VS More autonomous state governments with Central government just controlling military and foreign affairs,

- At the district level delivery of public services through bureaucratic set-up (primarly structured for collection of revenue in British India) VS delivery of public services through locally elected body (like Mayor of Municipal Corporations),

- Design of standardized legal and justice system VS jury like arrangement with more flexibility to local courts

- Constitution of a central agency to manage the challenge of modernity across different entities

...... or probably many other options could have been explored. Each of the options could have been accepted/rejected with comprehensive and convincing reasoning. If required, some sort of surveys or pilot implementations on the probable options may have been carried out before final acceptance.

However, it can be a topic of academic debate whether the arrangement adopted by India is the best possible one or other alternatives could have yielded better results.

—  Santosh Behar


SOME INTERESTING DATA

"1700 AD through 1950 AD per capita GDP of United Kingdom and India during the Colonial Era" by M Tracy Hunter - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1700_AD_through_1950_AD_per_capita_GDP_of_United_Kingdom_and_India_during_the_Colonial_Era.png#mediaviewer/File:1700_AD_through_1950_AD_per_capita_GDP_of_United_Kingdom_and_India_during_the_Colonial_Era.png

WHAT IS GOOD GOVERNANCE?

"Good governance is an indeterminate term used in international development literature to describe how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources." - (wikipedia.org)

The website of "The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)" insists good governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law.

In the context of India (Governments in India), in my opinion Good Governance should have following characteristics:-

1. A Vision - to ensure that governance is in accordance with a generally accepted long term vision for inclusive growth and sustainable development.
2. Sensible Distribution of Scarce Resources - Governance should ensure distribution of scarce resources to meet the objectives for realization of the vision.
3. Rationality - Rationality in governance should be practiced in accordance with progressive social values and with regards to prevalent cultural norms as far as possible.
4. Intent and Ability protect of rights of citizens - Governance should be able to ensure peace in the society and ensure constitutional rights to the citizens.
5. Provisions for Checks and Balances - Governance should ensure checks and balances on authoritative privileges. This may require well balanced distribution of power with different entities within the government.
6. Transparency and Accountability - Executive body with clearly defined accountability should execute with full transparency.
7. Mechanism for Feedback and Fair Assessment - A mechanism for getting feedback from all the stakeholders on governance to ensure fair assessment of governance.
8. Consensus Orientation - Consensus oriented approach on issues of public interest may include co-ordination among political and social leadership, religious bodies and cultural representatives to bring coherence among different voices.


References:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Governance
http://www.unescap.org/pdd/prs/ProjectActivities/Ongoing/gg/governance.asp

BRIEF ON ESTABLISHING NEW PRACTICE FOR E-GOVERNANCE WITHIN A COMPANY

A five slides PPP (Power Point Presentation) on establishing a new practice for e-Governance within a company (having System Integrator capability and Consulting capability) can be accessed at:- 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwOOneTw-vSdZkxYcmZsQ1Bxanc/edit?usp=sharing

BIOINFORMATICS FACILITIES WITH C-DAC

(This blog post sums up details given at official site of Bioinformatics, C-DAC http://bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/. For more details, latest updates and verifications, please refer to the official portal. This is just to share the world class facilities available with the organization for researchers in different areas of Bio-Technology.)

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is the premier R&D organization of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology (MCIT), Government of India for carrying out R&D in IT, Electronics and associated areas.

A.   BIOINFORMATICS RESOURCES & APPLICATIONS FACILITY (BRAF) by C-DAC

 

              I.        INFORMATION ON BRAF

 

This blog post refers to the details given at - http://bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/braf.html

  

            II.        BRAF COMPUTING RESOURCES

·         BIOGENE - supercomputing environment

 

·         BIOCHROME - advance blade server based HPC facility

 

·         BIOBANK - data Storage solution

 

·         NGS Server - high memory CISCO UCS 450 server having 512 GB RAM and 32 computing cores

 

·         Hardware Acceleration using RCS Card

 

           III.        APPLICATION SOFTWARES ON BRAF

·         Sequence Analysis: FastA,BLAST, ClustalW, MEME, Phylip, AlignACE, cross match, EMBOSS, RAxML, Elph, Weeder , Primer3 , Seqclean , SIGNALP , Prophage, Mutual information

·         Molecular Modelling: AMBER, CHARMM, GROMACS, Sybyl, Accelrys NAMD

·         Ab-initio methods: MOPAC, GAMESS, Gaussian

·         Biomolecular Docking: DOCK6

·         Microarray Data Analysis: Cluster

·         Gene Finding Algorithms: TMHMM, Genscan, Glimmer, Prodigal

 

·         Genome Alignment: MUMMER, MGA, LAGAN, mauve, Murasak

 

·         Repeat finding tools: mRep, Phobos, repeatMasker, TRF, tandemscan

 

·         RNA analysis algorithm: RNAmmer, tRNAscan, Vienna RNA

 

          IV.        SOFTWARE LICENSES

 

Following Molecular Modelling facilities need licenses:-

·         The Amber license Agreement is a legal agreement between the end user (either an individual or an entity) and the University of California.

o   AMBER : Users who wish to use AMBER should adhere and follow AMBER License as given in below Link.

o   License : http://ambermd.org/amber11.license.html

 

·         Academic users can obtain CHARMM by contacting The CHARMM Development Project. For-profit companies should contact Accelrys Inc.

o   CHARMM : Users who wish to use CHARMM should adhere and follow CHARMM License as given in below Link.

o   License : http://www.charmm.org/package/license.html

           V.        BRAF ACADEMIC REGISTRATION FORM

 

·         Available at - http://bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/braf_forms/RegistrationForm_Academics.pdf

·         The complete registration form should be faxed to 020-25694084

 

·         For any queries, users can send an email to braf-help@cdac.in

 

          VI.        ACCESS FOR INDUSTRIAL USERS

BRAF is accessible to industrial users on case to case basis and in the mode of contract research projects.

B.   OTHER BIOINFORMATICS FACILITIES (or PRODUCTS) by C-DAC

Some other Bio-Informatics facilities (or Products) with C-DAC are as under:-

 

                      I.        ANVAYA - Workflow Environment for high-throughput genome analysis - (Reference - http://bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/anvaya.html )

Comprehensive analysis of heterogeneous genomic data requires a flexible platform for running complex queries that is capable of integrating and analyzing large amount of genomic data in pipeline.

Anvaya Distribution and Usage:-

·         Free Download Client Installer is available at the site.

·         The client will interact with pre-installed server on C-DAC's BRAF facility (In the downloaded client, ensure Server and Proxy settings are properly done)

·         Kindly Register for dedicated login account. For trial purpose use guest account (login: guest, password: gue2Anv)

·         Login account will be valid for 6 months duration by default and may be extended on further request

 

                    II.        MORE C-DAC Products for BIO-INFORMATICS can be accessed at:-

http://bioinfo-portal.cdac.in/products.html

FOLDIT - AN INNOVATIVE WAY

Protein Folding Problem of Scientific Community in a Computer Game

 

Change in shape of the proteins attribute to biochemical explanation of biological functions. May it be understanding different pathways (series of biochemical reactions) or may be understanding the nature of virus attack, the way the proteins change shape play critical role. Therefore, understanding of protein structure is important for biologists. But, at the same time, it is an extremely complicated task. Further, to simulate the change in the shape of proteins in a dynamically changing environment is a much more difficult task. Today, researchers across the world are trying to achieve perfection in understanding behavior of shapes of proteins (commonly referred as 'Protein Folding Problem').

On the web, there is a protein folding game called Foldit with real protein sequences in three dimensions. Foldit was developed by a large group of researchers who are interested in protein folding. Interestingly, at times humans have done better in folding proteins than computers. This is an innovative move in the area of computer games. The real problems of science would be attempted by zealous community interested in computer games.  

Further details on 'The Science Behind Foldit' can be accessed at:-

http://fold.it/portal/info/about

Foldit can be downloaded from the following website:-

http://fold.it/portal/

Frequently Asked Question on Foldit website are given in the following web page:-

http://fold.it/portal/info/faq

FolditForum

http://fold.it/portal/forum/5

List of the players of Foldit with profiles are listed in the web page:-

http://fold.it/portal/players/profs

In the above link (listing profile of the players), it can be observed that passionate minds are coming from cross-functional background to play Foldit. Probably, this is a dream come true for intellectual community. Success of the promising game (Foldit) may encourage the portal management to innovate with other possibilities to attract more and more passionate people from all walks of life. In the present form, the portal may help in promoting researchers in remote and underdeveloped areas to network and contribute at international level. Let us wish all the very best to Foldit.

BITians HAVE GOT PLACED IN REPUTED ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS DIFFERENT INDUSTRIAL SECTORS - ANALYSIS OF BIT ALUMNI DATA

(Please click on the pictures to view as slide show)

picture - 1 

 

picture - 2 

 

picture - 3

(Please find much detailed data sheet in the section - Analysis Documents) 

 

 

picture - 4

(Please find much detailed data sheet in the section - Analysis Documents)

 

Reference to Previous Blog Post

In the blog post MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE FOR INVESTORS IN KOWLEDGEBASED INDUSTRIES IN CHHATTISGARH

(paragraph-2, point 1), it has been suggested that talented fresh graduates from local institutions could be groomed to work in knowledge based companies of national and international repute. In this blog, an attempt has been made to figure out whether the locally reputed educational institutions (in Chhattisgarh) have been successful in offering quality resources to industries across different industrial sectors. To have a very broad idea on this topic, we have chosen to do an analysis of alumni data of one of the premier institution of the state BIT (Bhilai Institute of Technology), Durg.
 

Source of Data - http://www.bitdurg.org/alumni/seeall.asp as accessed last on 25 OCT 2012.
 

Objective of Analysis

To get a broad idea on how students passed out from any premier institute (for example BIT, Durg) in Chhattisgarh have (in general) got placed? The analysis is carried out using data publicly available at the Alumni section in website of BIT Durg (http://www.bitdurg.org/alumni/seeall.asp)

Brief on BIT (Bhilai Institute of Technology), Durg

1.    One of the premier institutions in Central India

2.    Established in 1986

3.    Affiliated to Chhattisgarh Swami Vivekanand Technical University

4.    AICTE approved Institution

5.    Accredited by National Bureau of Accreditation 

6.    ISO 9001-2008  Certified Institute

7.    Accredited by Tata Consultancy Services

8.    Official Website - http://www.bitdurg.org

9.    WIKI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhilai_Institute_of_Technology_%E2%80%93_Durg

 

Limitations

1.    The data available at the mentioned website does not represent the complete data of all the alumni of BIT, Durg. This data only reflects details of some of the alumni who have updated details in the website.

 

2.    The data at the above mentioned website may not necessarily be showing the latest detail of each alumnus. It may be reflecting the details of the alumni as per the point of time respective alumnus have last filled their details on the website.

3.    It is assumed that all the valid data given in the website are real data correctly filled by alumni.

 

4.    On viewing the data it seems that the ‘Batch’ has been interpreted in different ways by BIT alumni. While most alumni have considered their year of passing out from BIT as their Batch, a few of the students have considered their year of admission to BIT as their Batch. However, this doesn’t make much difference for the objective of this analysis.   

 

5.    Alumni, who have mentioned their company/organization as academic institution (like IIT, IIIT, BIT, etc.) may either be working in these organization or may be pursuing further studies / researches.

 

6.    Industrial Sectors / Domains specified in this analysis may not be as per any formal convention. This classification has been done for ease of analysis. Companies/Organizations are classified based on the details of the organizations given in the websites.

 

Acknowledgements

1.    We are grateful to Dr. M.K. Kowar, Director, Bhilai Institute of Technology for extending all the possible help for this work.

 

Conclusion

Considering BIT to be representative institution in Chhattisgarh, it could be assumed in general, that alumni in institutions of Chhattisgarh have got placed in reputed organizations across different industrial sectors / domains.

 

Disclaimer

All care has been taken to ensure that the information listed is correct. However because of nature, some information might have changed or some data may have lost during data refining / data analysis. Visitors are advised to research independently. www.santoshbehar.blogspot.in shall not have any responsibility in this regard.

 

Analysis Documents

Exported Data from website - http://www.bitdurg.org/alumni/seeall.asp is given in the following sheet:-

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwOOneTw-vSdZG90LVF2ekQtREk/edit?usp=sharing

Analysis of Data from website - http://www.bitdurg.org/alumni/seeall.asp as used in this blog post are detailed in the following sheet:-

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwOOneTw-vSdT0dDZ3FMZ0xVS1E/edit?usp=sharing 

Analysis Team

  Santosh Behar                                                                                      Vikas Mishra

  Neha Behar