Abhivyakti

Today Mr. Arvind Kejriwal took oath as the youngest CM of city state Delhi along with his 6 colleagues, thus forming first non-Congress and non-BJP, and first govt. of "AAM ADAMI", as termed by Mr. Kejriwal. Formation of AAP govt. in Delhi has been closely followed, debated and discussed not only in media, but in general public also. There is no doubt that AAP and Kejriwal have given rise to a new hope to common men that he/she also has a place in the political system of this country, he/she can also be the agent of change, and we can expect for a clean and good administration. But, this is to be noted that AAP has formed this govt. with outside support of Congress. This situation gives rise to certain questions. It can be asked - What kind of politics it is:  opportunistic or practical? साध्य के साथ साथ साधन का भी पवित्र होना जरूरी होता है शायद, लेकिन राजनीति में सब जायज है| I know that they have all reasons t o justify their decision - but any pact or coordination or al

On 8th of this month, a new star was born on the political landscape of this country - Aam Adami Party. It not only surprised the mainstream and old players of Indian politics as well as of Delhi, but also entire country, from its performance in Delhi assembly elections. Although, I have not been a die-hard fan of this party all the way through the entire election and been of the view - let them show where they stand, then will take a view because they parted with ANNA, took a different course that many didn't appreciate or support, a sting operation during the election campaign also created some confusion (now after the election, it can be termed as fake and a malign attempt after the results), but we can sa y that they have shown the way that common man aka mango man can also make a difference - जहाँ चाह, वहाँ राह। Just a bunch of few determined people, Just a collection of volunteers, no age-old history to boast-off, no claim of large cader of karyakartas - still such a splend

This is election year. For 2014, stakes are at their highest point. Every politician and political party will do anything, will go to any extent to be able to raise the toast of power. Both sides, in-power and in-opposition, are leaving no-stone-unturned in their quest to outsmart each other and turn the tide in their favor. It is often said, we are a mature democracy now and elections are issue-based exercise now. So will be the case with next election. One may think, gone are the days of polarization, casteism, communalism etc. and next election will be fought on the basis of bad governance of current government, inflation, corruption, national security, worst situation of economy etc. But, it is wrong. Corruption was never going to be the core issue for Congress and BJP both. It runs in their veins and put them in uncomfortable position, when questions are asked. Same is with other issues also. So, what to do? Best thing for any politician or political party is to distract and dis

CDAC, Mumbai has announced the beta release of portal Sangrah – Knowledge Repository for FOSS in Education . This portal contains resources about different categories like Learning Management System, Content Management System, etc. It also contains user experiences for these categories, comparative analysis of various tools from these categories, specialised search, and collaboration facility for community supported content updates. The portal is maintained with least manual intervention as most of the tasks including, resource collection, categorization, user experience identification, comparative analysis, etc are largely automated. The portal is intended for academic institutions, entrepreneurs, among others to help them to adopt Free and Open Source Softwares (FOSS). The portal is still evolving, hence feedback about the portal, improvement suggestions can be given through the feedback section on portal. Users can visit and register on the portal at -  http://

C-DAC Mumbai is offering 1-year full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Software Technology (PG-DST) for the past several years with excellent placement records. The course provides a systematic blend of theory and hands-on, foundational and advanced concepts, and includes current trends and technologies.   Admission is now open for the next batch of PG-DST commencing on 27th August 2013, and its admission test (CST) will be held on 14th July 2013. Application form and more details of the course are given in brochure: PGDST_Brochure .  The PG-DST course exposes the candidates to a variety of tools and frameworks including programming languages (C, C++ and Java), database systems (MySQL, Oracle, Hibernate, NoSQL), development frameworks (Spring, HTML-5, PHP, JavaScript), tools in software engineering (Redmine, Git), Operating systems (Gnu/Linux, Windows, Android), etc.    Contact details:   C-DAC, Near Kharghar Rly Stn, Navi Mumbai (Tel 022-27565303)  C-DAC, Gulmohar C

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has released the new version (version 0.1.2) of GNU/Linux distribution for CognitivelyChallenged . Cognitively challenged people face different kinds of problems such as memory loss, forgetfulness, attention problems etc. Therefore, the major objective of this distribution is to provide an accessible desktop environment suitable to such users. The major highlights of this distribution are simplified and accessible desktop environment, simplified applications, tagged file system, tag-based searching, user’s activity log, reminder facility etc. that are specifically aimed to reduce distraction and memory load during computer interaction. These salient features of the distribution can be of immense help to such users and their caretakers, while using computer. This distribution is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and offers a number of improvements/enhancements over previously released version (version 0.1.1). These improvements/enha

Computer Programming is an important aspect of any computer-science/information-technology course. This is among the most difficult to teach, since being a good programmer is a skill to be acquired coupled with knowledge of many different aspects such as abstraction, analysis, structured programming, debugging, etc. Usually computer programming is taught through a combination of theory classes on concepts and languages, and lab classes on specific languages. Assignments are given, which are manually graded by the instructor. Manual grading of programs is very tedious and time consuming. While evaluating student assignments the teacher has to act as a compiler/interpreter and inspect each line in program and judge whether the overall program would work correctly. While this grading approach works fine for a small number of simple assignments, it gets unwieldy as the complexity and number of the assignment increases. This, in turn, results in inadequate attention to the practical progra

ALViC- Accessible Linux for Visually Challenged was launched on 11th February, 2013 by Prof R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Adviser, Govt. of India & Shri J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Comm. & I.T., Govt. of India during the CDAC Technology Conclave on 11th Feb, 2013 at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi. During the 2-days technology conclave, a number of technologies and products developed by CDAC under various thematic area were showcased. ALViC is a complete desktop environment which provides a comprehensive solution for Visually Challenged users. This is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 10.04; and uses Orca 3.2.0 xdesktop screen reader as the main interaction mechanism for visually challenged users. They can use it out of the box because accessibility features suitable for fully blind as well as for partially blind users are enabled by default. Main Features : Free and open source desktop environment Enhanced Orca with ski

Anumaan – open source predictive text entry system from CDAC, Mumbai has been added to the database of Softpedia . Softpedia is a library of over 400,000 free and free-to-try softwares. Anumaan on Softpedia can be accessed from here . Anumaan has also been awarded “100% Free” award from Softpedia signifying that Anumaan is a clean product. Anumaan home page

RPM package of GEM (GEstures with Mouse) has been released. GEM (GEstures with Mouse) is a mouse-gesture based input mechanism developed by CDAC, Mumbai for people with motor disabilities. It can be downloaded now from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gem-cdac/files/gem-0.1-1.i686.rpm/download or from http://www.cdacmumbai.in/accessibility.