Dr M Sasikumar retires today as Executive Director, CDAC Mumbai

Dr M Sasikumar retires today as Executive Director, CDAC Mumbai

Many of us who had spent decades working in AI and educational technology are extraordinarily fortunate to be alive and well at this time. We had committed to these technologies, although we knew they were unlikely to make progress in the short term. The Knowledge-Based Computer Systems team (KBCS) at the National Centre for Software Development and Computing Techniques (NCSDCT) had bet on AI and educational technology (ET) forty or fifty years ago. AI and ET sounded like science fiction to most people in those days. Today, they are among the leading technologies of the day.

It has not been a question of making the right choice and waiting for it to materialize. Team members have worked with a commitment to AI all these years. We had written a proposal for a Knowledge-Based Computer Systems project in 1983-84. The government responded by launching a major project, in 1985, involving a number of national institutions and securing the support of the United Nations Development Programme. Of course, the KBCS team had a very significant role in the project.

Meanwhile, a number of us who had worked as members of the NCSDCT team had created an independent institution named the National Centre for Software Technology in 1985, with the full support of TIFR. Sasikumar was a member of the first batch of professionals who joined NCST directly.

Sasi’s lifelong work is recorded in the papers by him and his co-authors. You can find them on Google Scholar (‪Sasikumar M - ‪Google Scholar ) and on ResearchGate. The number of co-authors, the number of topics, and the sustained focus on technology are all there for you to see. I am glad that all this is well-recorded, preserved, referred to, and continues to influence people. His videos on his YouTube channel provide additional information about his work.

This detailed recording of one's life's work through the Internet had not been available in earlier times. For instance, it was not fully available to our Guru, Prof. Narasimhan. He headed NCSDCT and gave us complete freedom and support to pursue our interests.

The NCST team launched the first in a series of international conferences, which soon became an annual KBCS conference. Sasi has a YouTube video (Running an affordable quality-conference -- the KBCS experience ) describing the incredible experience this was. Of course, he played an important role in these conferences.

These conferences allowed us to bring leading researchers to India and to invite hundreds of Indian researchers. All of them presented their research work, and the NCST team edited and had them published internationally—that involved enormous amounts of editorial effort. There were times when the team worked right through the night and rushed directly to the airport at 5:30 in the morning to send the manuscript to the printers!

The effort required to solve certain types of problems grows unavoidably exponentially as you try to use the solution to bigger and bigger systems. Sashi’s MSc (Engg) thesis submitted to the IISc begins by showing that this is the case for scheduling planes efficiently for an airline. If he had worked abroad, Sasi’s work on airline scheduling would have led him to launch a startup and build a large company across multiple countries. It went off very well in India as well, as Air India picked up the idea and sponsored the KBCS team to develop relevant software.

This led to the scheduling of oil tankers to feed Indian refineries, sponsored by the Oil Coordination Committee, and later the scheduling of oil pipelines. The paper describing pipeline-scheduling work has Sasi as the first author, showing his key role in the effort. It is a widely recognized piece of work.

The book on Expert Systems, produced by five members of the KBCS team, again has Sasikumar as the first author, recognizing his key role. Sasi had the energy to collate the manuscript of this book and put it in the public domain, decades after the hardcopy version was published. The book received worldwide visibility. Every week now, I receive notifications stating that someone has published an article in which this book is listed among the references.

NCST’s work on a nationwide public testing system using advanced techniques to create the questions, to grade and analyze the answers, is very well known. The whole NCST worked together to run and develop it over the years. Sasi had his heart in it and had contributed to it from the beginning. Over the last two decades, this technology has played its most significant role through projects at CDAC Mumbai. Through multiple projects, it has served students at several levels and has served millions. Only the other day, a principal told me that he has acquired the CDAC Mumbai system for use by every student of his institution.

AI-based systems use the best algorithms and heuristics they can find on the Internet to solve problems and to create optimal plans for activities. As a result, researchers find that their published work lives on. 

The AI revolution owes a great deal to powerful hardware that utilizes highly parallel computing involving many CPUs. Sasi had worked on this in the last century, if I may say so, and has published his results.

Srinivasan Ramani

 

Surviving the AI wave.

Driverless vehicles? Let them compete with:

the pharmacy that delivers medicines to the home, 
the small restaurant that sends home snacks and beverages, as well as breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
the electrician who makes a home call, finds the problem, determines the solution, goes out to buy the necessary materials, and returns to fix the problem!

My snacks, beverages, breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be free for life if I could invest the price of a driverless car!

Srinivaasan Ramani

P.S. The photograph was published in an article by Amey Tawte. That is a good, heart-warming story!

It can be found at https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-delivery-rider-in-mumbai

 

 

Professor J. R. Isaac, Pioneer of Computer Education

 

Professor Isaac, who encouraged his students to refer to him as Jimmy, was my teacher and mentor during my time at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He had studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, and had worked with IBM. His return to India in the early 1960s was a gift to thousands of students. He inspired and coached his students with an enthusiasm that was amazing. His sustained cheerfulness gave them confidence in their studies and research. He taught the first formal computer courses in 1963 and guided my doctoral work, jointly with Professor Rangaswamy Narasimhan of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, from 1965 to 1970.

He was known for championing his students. A minor incident, as described to me by one of his students, illustrates this. The student was new to the campus and was trying to open an account in the neighbourhood bank. The bank required an existing customer to provide a reference. Prof. Isaac, who witnessed this happening, intervened to provide him with a reference and resolved the problem.

He was a pioneer in introducing computers in schools. Using the BBC Micro in its early years, he trained schoolteachers to impart digital literacy to their students.

In his later years at IITB, he served as a dean.

Dozens of his students have risen to positions of leadership in various fields of work worldwide.  I will be publishing a webpage dedicated to him on my blog https://ObviousTruths.blogspot.com

I post this on the occasion of Guru Poornima, when people of Asia pay their respects to their teachers and mentors.

Srinivasan Ramani
10-07-2025

 

 

Colleges Should Help Students to Become Entrepreneurs

 

Photo Credit: Microsoft Copilot. I had asked it to create an image to illustrate an article on self-employment ideas specifically for Indian college graduates. This is what it created. Please don’t ask me to describe and explain the image!  

The world is in turmoil. Everyone who knows how to download and customize software offers to implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. Irrespective of their merits, they threaten mediocre workers. A mediocre implementation is good enough to replace mediocre employees. Indirectly, they threaten mediocre colleges. Everyone who can drive an electric scooter and home-deliver retail purchases is doing that instead of wasting four years in a mediocre college.

There is no saying if a college education will get one a job. So, we must prepare college students to think ahead about what they would like to do after they complete their courses or drop out earlier.  Some of the world's great entrepreneurs got an idea of what they wanted to do while in college. They were so excited about their ideas that they dropped out!

I propose that investors, including banks and governments, fund commercial property for renting out on a “College Road”. Several colleges could share one such road. Simultaneously, colleges should introduce one or more courses on business management available as electives to students in all disciplinary streams.  These courses should cover what one needs to know to identify promising business ideas, to start up a business, and run it profitably. Students who come up with good proposals would be given loans by the banks involved and invited to rent a shop on the college road.

There are two major developments that shops on college roads should exploit. One is finding niches in the market which enable survivability and profits. A shop offering pizzas in a small town gets a premium as customers wish to experiment with items they perceive as upmarket. A pharmacy that home-delivers medicines gets a sizable market. The same pharmacy could also offer affordable transport of patients to hospitals round the clock. 

The second significant development is quick commerce. Customers want their orders delivered in 10 minutes or less. Millions of youngsters on electric two-wheelers are there to do the delivery. You must pay a commission to sell through a good online network, vastly increasing your visibility. It automates your cash handling with customers paying online in advance. This enables you to increase the variety of items you keep and sell.

Political leaders could endorse shops on the college road by addressing student audiences, telling them how they create job opportunities.  

Srinivasan Ramani 

 

 

Photo courtesy Wikimedia

A Fit Case for Indians to Fight Against

The world is now recognizing that alcohol causes cancer in humans. The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million men and 600,000 women die annually due to alcohol consumption. This accounts for 4.7 % of all deaths. Visit

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol

The US Surgeon General's warning on alcohol consumption is a government warning that appears on all alcoholic beverage containers sold in the United States. The warning is intended to inform the public of the health risks associated with alcohol consumption. The warning includes two statements: (1) women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects, and (2) consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery and may cause health problems. A proposed new language for the warning is "Government Warning: According to the Surgeon General, consumption of alcoholic beverages can cause cancer, including breast and colon cancers."

The Indian Home Minister, Mr Amit Shah, while speaking at a Conference on Drug Trafficking and National Security on Saturday, 11th Jan 2025, said that 7% of all Indians use narcotics. He added that he would fight this menace.

We can ask why plants produce habit-forming or addictive substances. It turns out that it is because this attracts bees, who come back to pollinate the plant repeatedly! Why do plants and germs produce harmful biochemicals? It is to kill or deter their enemies. You must read about goats’ and cows' suffering when they eat coffee beans! However, humans find uses for plant chemicals that harm other living things. This is where care is needed. Tobacco killed over 100 million people worldwide during the 20th century alone and is now killing 8 million people a year worldwide! We don’t need to allow alcohol to kill 200 million more during the 21st century!

 Srinivasan Ramani

 

 

 

 

Young babies learn by imitation

 

Photo by Srinivasan Ramani 

Young babies only understand what you are doing in front of them by imitating you. They are born with this ability, so even very young babies can do it.

So, next time you play with a young baby, try this: Sit where the baby can see you. The effort may take several ten-minute sessions, so the baby should be comfortable and not distracted by movements nearby and sounds. Lifting your hands and the baby's hands once or twice in the beginning will show her where to look.

You need patience. Sometimes, I spend an hour getting the baby to imitate me the first time. It is easier later; the baby treats this as a game. Sticking your tongue out and having the baby imitate that is another challenge to try another day.

I once taught a baby girl to stick out her tongue. When her grandfather came home from work in the evening, the baby stuck out her tongue at him. She repeated this three or four times in fifteen minutes. The grandfather was worried, as he thought that something was wrong! Unfortunately, I did not know how to teach a grandfather not to worry!

Babies learn a lot by playing with us. You can dip your hand in cold water and touch the baby with that hand, saying “cold.” The baby may be unable to repeat the word unless she is approximately a year old or older. However, they seem to learn dozens of words before they can speak.

How can you show that a baby recognizes a word like “cold” even if she cannot say the word? Try saying the word and looking for a response from the baby!

Srinivasan Ramani

Our African Trip Aug 2024

 Video by Srinivasan Ramani

Edited and compressed to suit the blog 

We spent thirteen days in Kenya, traveling through Nairobi, Lake Nakuru National Park, Masai Mara National Reserve, Diani Beach near Mombasa, Samburu National Reserve, Laikipia Plains, which houses the Loisaba Conservancy, and the Loisaba Star Beds camp, crossing the equator near Mount Kenya Safari Club, and finally leaving Kenya from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Thanks to the four-wheel-drive Landcruisers, we saw terrific sights. They drive all over and protect you from lions, cheetahs, leopards, wild elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, wildebeests, crocodiles, hyenas, and ostriches. They get you within a few feet of all these animals, letting you feel the excitement of their birth and their risky lives and deaths. We also saw hyraxes, which look like big rats but are more related to elephants!

Visitors to African national reserves can never forget that we are also a species of animals.

Reading and hearing about the animals of Tanzania and Kenya enhanced what we saw. The cycle begins with newborn animals in Serengeti in Tanzania in January and March. Migration is triggered by a drought that usually occurs in Serengeti in May. Roughly two million animals follow the rains, taking a risky annual trip from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to get fresh grass. The big risk is lack of nutrition, not predators. Migration follows rainfall, going northeast into Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. This reserve is much smaller than Serengeti, so you see a vast concentration of animals. They cross small and big rivers on their trip, risking crocodile ambushes. We saw Wildebeest in pairs, mother and her young one. Roughly one in six of the animals die during the annual migration. Their lives are relatively short, and most die before the usual maximum for their species. Lions live a maximum of 24, leopards 20, and African elephants 60. The hordes start moving south in November and December when rain returns to Serengeti. The next cycle begins with new births taking place from January to March. Many animals have died during the migration, but species flourish! Life triumphs using its old trick of reproduction!

We saw lions on their five-day honeymoons when they did not even eat and focused on procreation.

We saw a Wildebeest limping. The driver, Moses, who knew much about animals, said the predators also noticed it. Along with them, the predators target the old and young animals. The hyenas hang around, and vultures circle overhead, waiting for scraps left over from kills.

We saw a lone Wildebeest running from one part of its herd to another. Moses said that the young one had got separated from his mother and is now taking the risk of running alone to catch up. We saw a newborn giraffe with a visible umbilical cord. It was already on its feet ready to face the risks of life.

We waited hours while an elephant herd prepared for a river crossing from the opposite side of the river. There was much hesitation because there were babies in the herd, and one had to be sure that crocodiles were not nearby. Finally, one young tusker got into the water and led the way. It was risking its life to protect others’ babies in the herd. However, a baby elephant was quite nonchalant and took a voluntary dip in the river to get its skin clean!  The landing point on our side was very close to where we waited. 

We waited until the crossing was over, and the herd clambered onto our side of the river. Some took a dip before coming out of the river, and some covered themselves with dry dust after the dip. They passed within ten feet of our vehicle.  

 Video by Srinivasan Ramani

Edited and compressed to suit the blog 

Compared to India, Kenya had to fight hard and violent battles for its independence from Britain, which it achieved in 1963. We could get a feel for rural life in Kenya during our travels. Many young and old men were shepherding goats, cattle, and sheep. Employment in more profitable jobs is as rare as in Indian rural areas.

This trip was eye-opening. If I could make it at 85, I must be fitter than I thought. Climbing into a Landcruiser requires strong legs and hands. I managed to do this most of the time without depending upon the portable steps Moses carried. My three grandchildren found the trip no problem. When my daughters had suggested this trip, it had taken me much courage to say yes!

The trip's success was due to the meticulous planning and execution by the Travel Unbounded team. Having English as a common language made us feel at home throughout, and the friendliness of everyone involved made the trip memorable. We could even share jokes with Kenyans. At dinner, a chef told us he was serving us leopard skin, referring to chapatis, which were brown and had black dots!  

Srinivasan Ramani

22-08-2024