அரசுப் பள்ளிகளைப் பாதுகாக்க ......

திருப்பூர் மாவட்டத்தில் உள்ள உடுமலைப்பேட்டை வட்டாரம் ஏழைகளின் ஊட்டி என்று அழைக்கப்பட ஏதுவான இதமான கால நிலையைக் கொண்டதாகும். வேளாண்மைத் தொழிலை அடிப்படைத் தொழிலாகக் கொண்ட கிராமங்கள் நிறைந்த பகுதியாகவும் உடுமலைப்பேட்டை வட்டாரம் விளங்குகிறது. 38 பஞ்சாயத்துக்களைக் கொண்ட இவ் வட்டாரத்தில் உடுமலைப்பேட்டை நகரமும் அடங்கும். ஏறத்தாழ 2,30,000 மக்கள் இவ்வட்டாரத்தில் வாழ்ந்து வருகின்றனர். உடுமலைப்பேட்டையில் கல்வி கற்று உலகின் பல நாடுகளிலும் இந்தியாவின் பல நகரங்களிலும் பணிபுரிபவர்கள் உண்டு. இப்பகுதியில் படித்து நாற்பது நாற்பத்தைந்து வயதைக்கடந்தவர்கள் பெரும்பாலோர் அரசு அல்லது அரசு உதவி பெறும் பள்ளிகளில் படித்தவர்களே.

மக்களின் அறிவுக்கண்ணைத் திறந்து மக்களிடம் செல்வாக்குச் செலுத்திய இப் பள்ளிகள் இன்று தங்களைத் தக்கவைத்துக் கொள்ளப் போராடிக் கொண்டிருக்கின்றன. தங்கள் குழந்தைகளை மெட்ரிக் பள்ளிகளில் சேர்ந்து படிக்க வைப்பது பெருமையான நடவடிக்கையாக ஒரு பகுதி மக்களிடம் மாறியது. அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் சேர்த்துப் படிக்க வைக்கும் பெற்றோர்கள் உளவியல் ரீதியாக சமமற்ற நிலையில் பின்னுக்குத் தள்ளப்பட்டனர். அரசுப் பள்ளி மாணவர்கள் எண்ணிக்கை மெல்ல மெல்ல குறையத் தொடங்கின. இன்று வேக வீச்சாகி தமிழகம் முழுவதும் 1700 அரசுப் பள்ளிகள் மூடப்பட்டும் மாணவர் எண்ணிக்கையைக் காரணம் காட்டி இன்னும் பல பள்ளிகள் மூடப்படலாம் என்ற அபாயத்திற்கும் உள்ளாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன.தமிழகத்தின் ஒரு பகுதியான உடுமலை வட்டாரத்தையும் இந்த தனியார்மய மெட்ரிக் கல்விக் காற்று விட்டு வைக்கவில்லை.

அரசு, நகராட்சி, ஆதி திராவிடர் நலத்துறை, எஸ்.எஸ்.ஏ மூலம் துவக்கப்பட்ட பள்ளிகள் உதவி பெறும் பள்ளிகள் என ஆரம்ப, நடுநிலைப் பொதுப் பள்ளிகள் மொத்தம் 119 செயல்படுகின்றன. 412 ஆசிரியர்கள் இப்பள்ளிகளில் பணியாற்றுகின்றனர். மேலும் 5 அரசு உயர்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளும், 9 அரசு மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளும், 4 அரசு உதவி பெறும் மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளும் செயல்பட்டு வருகின்றன. தொடக்க நடுநிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் 8053 மாணவ மாணவியர்களும், 5 உயர்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் 1010 மாணவ, மாணவியர்களும் 9 அரசு மேநிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் 5640 மாணவ, மாணவியர்களும் 4 அரசு உதவி பெறும் மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் 6915 மாணவ, மாணவியர்களும் ஆக மொத்தம் 21,618 மாணவ, மாணவியர்கள் படித்து வருகின்றனர். ஆண்டுதோறும் இந்த மாணவர் எண்ணிக்கை குறைந்து வருகின்றது. இவ்வட்டாரத்தில் உள்ள சைனிக் பள்ளி நீங்கலாக இரண்டு சி.பி.எஸ்.இ பள்ளிகளும் ஒரு இன்டர்நேசனல் பள்ளி மற்றும் 31 மெட்ரிக் பள்ளிகளும் செயல்படுகின்றன.

இப் பள்ளிகளில் ஒரு சிலவே 15 வருடங்களுக்கு முன்பு தொடங்கப்பட்டவை. மற்ற அனைத்தும் சில வருடங்களுக்கு முன் தொடங்கப்பட்டவையே. இப் பள்ளிகளில் எல். கே.ஜி முதல் 12 ஆம் வகுப்புவரை 17,836 மாணவ மாணவியர்கள் படித்து வருகின்றனர். இங்கிருந்து பொள்ளாச்சி, தாராபுரம் பகுதிகளில் உள்ள மெட்ரிக் பள்ளிகளில் படிக்க மாணவர்களை அழைத்துச் செல்லும் பள்ளி வாகனங்கள் காலை ஏழு மணிக்கே உடுமலை நகரை வலம் வருவதைக் காணலாம். இந்நிலையில், அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் குறைந்து வரும் மாணவர் எண்ணிக்கையைக் காரணம் காட்டி வரும் ஆண்டுகளில் இப்பகுதி அரசு ஆரம்பப் பள்ளிகள் மூடப்படுமானால் ஆச்சரியப்பட ஒன்றுமில்லை. 2015-16 ஆம் ஆண்டுக்கான தமிழக அரசின் வரவு-செலவுத் திட்ட அறிக்கையில் பள்ளிக் கல்விக்காக ரூ 20,936.5 கோடி ஒதுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. “கடை விரித்தேன் கொள்வாரில்லை’’ என்பதைப் போல சைக்கிள், மடிக்கணினி உள்ளிட்ட பல நலத்திட்டங்களை அரசு செயல்படுத்தியும் அரசுப் பள்ளியில் சேரும் மாணவர் எண்ணிக்கை குறைந்து வரக்காரணம் என்ன?. ஒரு கிராமத்தில் உள்ள நண்பர்களுடன் பேசிக் கொண்டிந்த போது அரசு இவ்வளவு வசதிகள் செய்து கொடுத்தும் குழந்தைகளை சுயநிதி தனியார் பள்ளிகளில் சேர்ப்பதை பெருமையாக கருதுகிறீர்களே என்று கேட்டவுடனே அவர்களின் பதில் முகத்தில் அறைந்தாற்போல் இருந்தது.

அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் பணியாற்றும் ஆசிரியர்கள், அரசு ஊழியர்கள், உயர் அதிகாரிகள், அரசியல்வாதிகள் ஆகியோரின் குழந்தைகள் அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் படிக்கிறார்களா? எங்கள் குழந்தைகள் மட்டும் ஏன் அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் சேர்க்க வேண்டும், நாங்கள் முன்னேற வேண்டாமா?. பதில் கூற முடியவில்லை.தரமான கல்வி, திறன்மிகுந்த கல்வி ஆங்கில வழியில் கற்றுத் தரும் சுயநிதிப் பள்ளிகளில் மட்டும்தான் கிடைக்கிறதா என்ற கேள்வி பெரிதாக எழுந்தது. சில மாதங்களுக்கு முன் உடுமலைப்பேட்டை வட்டாரத்தில் உள்ள அனைத்துப் பள்ளிகளுக்குமான கட்டுரை, ஓவியம், பேச்சுப்போட்டிகளை நடத்தியபொழுது அனைத்துப் பள்ளி மாணவ மாணவியர்களும் கலந்து கொண்டனர். முழுக்க முழுக்க விருப்பு வெறுப்பின்றி பதிவெண்கள் கொடுத்து இப்போட்டிகள் நடத்தப்பட்டன.

போட்டிகளின் நடுவர்களாக சுயநிதிப் பள்ளி ஆசிரியர்களும் இருந்தனர். போட்டிகள் முடிவில் அரசுப் பள்ளி மாணவர்கள் முதல் அல்லது இரண்டாமிடத்தைப் பிடித்தது வியப்பை அளித்தது. கடைசி நேரத்தில் வந்து ஓவியப் போட்டியில் கலந்து கொண்ட போதுமான கலர் பென்சில்கள் கூட இல்லாத பத்தாவது படிக்கும் ஒரு அரசுப்பள்ளி மாணவன் இரண்டாவது இடத்தைப் பிடித்தது திறமையைக் காட்டுவதாய் இருந்தது. இது அரசுப் பள்ளிகளிலும் திறன்கள் நிறைந்த கல்வி மாணவர்களுக்கு அளிக்கப்படுவதைக் காட்டுகிறது. உடுமலை அரசு மகளிர் மேல்நிiலைப் பள்ளி மாணவி மாநில அளவில் நடைபெறும் அறிவியல் படைப்புப் போட்டிகளில் மூன்றாண்டுகள் தொடர்ந்து முதலிடம் பெறுவது மேலும் ஒரு உதாரணமாகும். அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில்தான் முழுக் கல்வித் தகுதி பெற்ற அரசு நடத்தும் திறனறி தேர்வுகளில் வெற்றி பெற்ற ஆசிரியர்கள் நியமிக்கப்படுகிறார்கள் என்பது நடைமுறை உண்மை.

ஒரு அரசுப் பள்ளித் தலைமையாசிரியர் மற்றும் ஆசிரியர்கள் மனது வைத்தால் மாணவர் சேர்க்கை குறையாமல் பார்த்துக் கொள்ள முடியும், கூடுதலாக்கவும் முடியும் என்பதற்கு சின்னவீரம்பட்டி நடுநிலைப் பள்ளி, குறிஞ்சேரி அரசு ஆரம்பப்பள்ளி ஆகியன எடுத்துக்காட்டுகளாகும். சின்னவீரம்பட்டி நடுநிலைப் பள்ளி தலைமையாசிரியர் மற்றும் ஆசிரியர்கள் பெற்றோர் ஆசிரியர் சங்கத்தை சிறப்பாக அமைத்து பள்ளிக்குத் தேவையான வசதிகளைப் பெற்றுள்ளார். சுத்தமாக உள்ள பள்ளி வளாகத்தில் கணினிப் பயிற்சி கீ போர்டு பயிற்சி உள்பட மாணவர்களுக்கு ஆசிரியர்களால் வழங்கப்படுகிறது. ஊரிலுள்ள பெரியவர்கள் வசதி படைத்தவர்கள் பள்ளிக்கு வருகை தருவது,உதவிகள் செய்வது போன்ற நல்ல செயல்களால் மாணவர்கள் எண்ணிக்கை குறையாமல் ஆண்டுதோறும் அதிகரிக்க காரணமாய் அமைகிறது. தற்போது 172 மாணவர்கள் படித்து வருகின்றனர். அரசு மேல்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் 12 ஆம் வகுப்பில் 90 சதவிகிதத்திற்கு குறையாமலும் அரசு உயர்நிலைப் பள்ளிகளில் பெரும்பாலும் 10 ஆம் வகுப்பில் 100 சதவிகிதம் தேர்ச்சி பெறும் பள்ளிகளும் உண்டு. என்றாலும் ஒரு உண்மை நெஞ்சைச் சுடுகிறது. அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் படிக்கும் மாணவர்கள் பெரும்பாலும் பொருளாதார ரீதியாக பின் தங்கியவர்கள், ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட மக்கள் பகுதி சார்ந்தவர்களின் குழந்தைகளாக உள்ளார்கள். இது பொருளாதார ரீதியாக, சமூக ரீதியாக சுயநிதிப் பள்ளிகள், அரசுப் பள்ளிகள் என இரு கூறாகப் பிரிக்கிறது. சகோதரத்துவம், கூடி வாழ்தல், விட்டுக் கொடுத்தல் முதலிய பண்புகள் சமூகத்தில் வளராமல் சிதறடிக்கப்படும் சூழ்நிலையை உருவாக்குகிறது. சமூக வளர்ச்சியை பின்னுக்குத் தள்ளும் மோசமான நடவடிக்கையாக உள்ளது. அரசு மட்டும்தான் அனைவர்க்கும் சமமான கல்வி வழங்கக் கூடிய பிரம்மாண்டமான நிறுவனமாகும். எனவே கல்வியில் தனியார் மய ஊக்குவிப்பைக் கைவிடுவதுடன் பொருளாதார அடிப்படையில் கல்வி என்பதை முடிவுக்கு கொண்டு வர வேண்டும்.உடுமலை வட்டாரத்தில் மட்டுமல்லாமல் தமிழகத்தில் அரசுப் பள்ளிகளைப் பாதுகாக்க அரசு, ஆசிரியர்கள், கல்வியாளர்கள், பொதுக்கல்வியை மேம்படுத்த விரும்புவோர் அனைவரும் கைகோர்த்துச் செயல்பட வேண்டியது இன்று அவசர அவசியமாகிறது.

                                                                                                     -ச செல்லதுரை 

                                                                                                     

Enigma Machines, Alan Turing, The Imitation Game

Back in February 2013, I was assigned to work as contractor for an IC design project in European Semiconductor Company. IC which we planned to prototype is related with security protocols. Project Architect planned to give us introduction on the technical aspects of the project on a particular day. Architect was a security expert, worked on many security projects for many long years in European market. He was of Dutch origin. Particular day arrived and he started the presentation initially by throwing few questions among us. “How many of you have idea on cryptography?” “Do you have any idea on Engima Machines”? Though I know something on cryptography, I was very curious to know the enigma machines’. I researched for few months on same topic, but put back forth my plans to write on it. Today after nearly two years, my inspiration got rejuvenated again to write back on the same topic, after watching the film “The Imitation Game”.

The Imitation Game is a biographical film portraying, legendary British mathematician, computer scientist, war time code breaker “Alan Turing”. He is widely seen as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Film depicts life of Alan Turing, explores how his genius mind played a pivotal role in cracking enigma cipher codes, bringing the victory for allied forces in WW2 and shortening the course of WW2.Film also touches the controversial topic of homosexuality as Alan himself was a homosexual. Despite his achievements, he was prosecuted for homosexuality which was illegal crime then.

What are Enigma Machines? How they were important for Germans?

During World War 2 Nazi Hitler introduced a new kind of warfare known as Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg means lighting speed. Enemy defense lines were attacked through lighting speed of massive military forces mainly armored tanks along close infantry and air support. Based upon his four year stint as commander during WW1, Hitler believed tactical victories in war field can be achieved in quick time with blitzkrieg, avoiding any battlefield status quo situation. Speed of attack needs speedy communication among troops operating in battlefield. World war 2 was also known as wireless war as everyday sky was flooded with hundreds of radio messages. Nazi government trained thousands of wireless operators during preparation of WWII; Main motto behind their training was to interpret Morse code under any bad conditions. Sending any unencrypted secret messages in open sky is a risky choice; So Germans built an invincible cipher machine known as Engima machine. Enigma machine turns every input message into unintelligent gibberish, letter by letter. When the enemy intercepts this secret message, enemy will see only meaningless string of letters. In this way vital German war plans during initial years of WW2 remained complete secret.

Engima machine was initially built in 1920’s by Germans for commercial purposes. The German Navy began to use it in 1926, but it was the German Army who in 1928 created a version distinctly different from the commercial machine. They added a few modifications which vastly increased the encipherment permutations. Engima machine looks like an ordinary typewriter. But instead of printing letters in a paper, enigma machine outputs with an illuminated encrypted letter. Inside the enigma machine, system is built with few rotors. Pressing a key caused an electric current to run through a complex system of wires and gears, resulting in a ciphered letter illuminating. For instance, you might press the key for the letter "A" in the Keyboard and see "X" light up in lightboard.

Major components associated with Enigma machine are indicated in the above diagram

•  Keyboard
•  Plugboard
•  Rotors
• Lampboard

When the first rotor has turned through all 26 positions, the second rotor clicks round, and when that’s made it round all the way, the third does the same, leading to more than 17,000 different combinations before the encryption process repeats itself. Adding to the scrambling was a plugboard, sitting between the main rotors and the input and output, which swapped pairs of letters. In the earliest machines, up to six pairs could be swapped in that way; later models pushed it to 10, and added a fourth rotor.

Below videos will give better undertstanding of relation beteween encryption process and rotors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcX7iO_XCFA

     Complexity of the enigma machine is enormous. A standard three rotor Enigma with plug board could be set up 158,962555,217826,360000 different ways, that’s almost 159 million million million. If a normal human being start decoding the letter, it will take 20 Million years to complete it? Even with this colossal complexity, all the operators needed was information about the starting position, and order, of the three rotors, plus the positions of the plugs in the board. From there, decoding is as simple as typing the cyphertext back into the machine.

      With blitzkrieg and cipher machines, Hitler’s Nazi regime brought European countries to kneel in the early stage of the WW2.  Britain and other allied countries were clueless in cracking the Enigma machines.

  How Enigma machine was cracked?

     As the military strength of the Germany increased progressively after 1920’s, Poland which is at doorstep of Germany believed they are highly vulnerable. To gather intentions of potential enemy, Polish started intelligence gathering. Polish intelligence started intercepting the German radio transmissions which was using new cipher system (Enigma machine) and they didn’t find any considerable success in breaking it initially. In 1932 Polish Intelligence assembled a team of young mathematicians. It included Jerzy Rozycki, Henryk Zygalski and Marian Rejewski. With support of few stolen German documents and Engima daily keys, Polish team was able to crack the code. Rejewski built a first code breaking machine, which was later modeled exclusively as bombe by Alan Turing. Though Polish Team made good progress  in breaking the enigma, Germans added further 2 rotors in their Enigma machine, which made decrypting the message an impossible task. In 1939 When Germany invaded Poland, Polish intelligence has no options, as they met the British and French intelligence in outskirts of the Warsaw to handover the technology of code breaking to them.

Marian Rejewski

      

     Predicting the role of Enigma cipher messages in any future wars, British intelligence setup a secret workplace, 50 miles north of London known as Bletchley Park. Mathematicians, Chess champions were recruited to work in this secret place, to only crack the enigma codes. When UK announced the war on Germany in 1939, Alan Turing a young bright mathematician was summoned to work in Bletchley Park.  As Alan Turing always believed the concept that “A Machine can only break another Machine “, he made further modifications to the Polish code breaking machine,inventing a more powerful code breaking machine known as “Bombe”. German naval messages were still more secure that time, but with Alan Turing complex analytical bombe machines, the deciphering of the secret naval messages was made possible. Turing designed a machine that greatly reduced the tedious work of decoding. This development of breaking the enigma secret massages changed the course of war towards the Allied forces. Though Bletchley park team played a big role in the war, few brave soldiers who stole the secret enigma code documents from sinking submarines also needed to be mentioned here. As the Germans became more suspicious, security-conscious of the enigma machines, they changed the number of rotors and formats. At this stage U.S too entered this crypto analysis building bigger and faster machines for breaking the code. A number of faster versions were produced and were in almost constant use in the final months of the war.

Alan Turing

    Alan Turing Legacy 

• Turing broke the German Navy, Airforce and Army Enigma codes and handed the allies an advantage in the Second World War Historians estimate that breaking Enigma shortened the war by more than two years, saving over 14 million lives. It remained a government-held secret for more than 50 years

• Turing's work inspired generations of research into what scientists called "Turing machines", now known as computers. With his invention of Bombe, which was later modelled as the World’s first computer with enhanced capabilities. Turing also proposed the concept of “Turing Machines” a machine which could perform any algorithmic functions. For these contributions, He was called as “Father of Modern computers and Artifical Intelligence”

      Some of his legacy associated with fields like Speech encryption, Morphogenesis, Chemistry and physics and Chess computer models were explained in below article.

              http://www.wired.com/2012/06/alan-turing-legacy/

     Conclusion:

     Just like great scientist(Nikola Tesla), Alan turing death was sad one. He was casualty of the end of hostilities. In 1952 he was arrested for homosexuality and lost his security clearance. He was convicted of what was then criminal activity and chose to undergo a program of oestrogen treatment rather than go to prison. In 1954, he committed suicide by taking cyanide. He died at very less age of 41. Between 1885 and 1967, approximately 49,000 homosexual men in the UK were convicted and imprisoned of gross indecency under British law. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted a posthumous royal pardon, honoring Alan Turing for his achievements during the war.

      The movie “Imitation game” was based on book “Alan Turing: The Enigma”. Few inaccuracies from book to film related to character and story are listed below

•     Alan Turing had more sense of humor, the movie makes him look like that he is on the other side of the spectrum.
• ·     He did know German, in fact he have traveled before and after the War to Germany.
• ·     He did not call the first machine "Christopher", that is just too much right in the film
• ·     Hugh Alexander was not competing with Alan, he joined the team after a while when he was already working on creating the machine.
• ·    The majestic Joan Clarke was not recruited by Alan through a word puzzle. She was recruited by one of her academic advisors. In the movie it makes it a bit awkward to show their relation. But they actually did love each other according to conversations they had.

         Java Source code for Engima cryptography is available in below link

             https://code.google.com/p/startpad/source/browse/labs/js/enigma/enigma.js

      Sources: Wikipedia, Quora, Other science and history websites

Peshawar attack, Pakistan Proxies

Its 16 December, a day which was generally mourned in pakistan, for losing one half of its terrority in 1971. Another big tragedy was waiting for this country in 16 December 2014. Six gunmen entered army school in Peshawar and massacred nearly 150 children of age 8-15 years. Its a shocking apocalyptic attack.The picture showing the dead children lying on one another in pool of blood was gruesome. What is the motive behind these terrible attacks? Why these terrorists killed the children inhumanely by shooting them in head? What is the rage behind this? To answer these questions, I have few dots.

Betrayal of Pakistan Proxies
In late 70’s when the soviet occupied the Afghanistan, a mega alliance of U.S, Pakistan, China and other U.S allies were formed. Their main motto was to drive away Soviet Union from Afghanistan for geo political dominance. For U.S, to avenge its wounds in Vietnam, it was a big opportunity so they funded heavily. Using these funds Pakistan grown some poisonous snakes namely Mujahidin in their own backyard, only to fight Soviet forces. For Pakistan it is different avenge motive as still to date their army and Intelligence agencies believe Soviet Intelligence (KGB) played a big role in split of their nation (Bangladesh). Within 10 years, Soviet Union faced decisive defeat due to superior fighting capabilities of mujahidin and tough landscape of Afghanistan. When the proxy war ended in late eighties, Pak president( at that time) Gen Zia ul Haq and ISI chief Gen.Akhtar khan felt their real time has came. They had already blueprint for their dream operation.Islamic jihadi’s now were ordered to fight in another land(Kashmir) which they dreamed to capture for last 30 years .
Here i present two proxy insurgents they were diverted for Kashmir. They initially involved in all shootings,beheadings in Indian Kashmir. Later when Kashmir conflict started to wane, they started turned against their own state and bitten them hardly.

MastGul:

Mast Gul also known as Haroon Khan was send from Pakistan as militant commander for Hizb ul mujahedeen, to fight against Indian security forces. In 1995, a famous 14th century shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Wali was destroyed in an encounter between security forces and mast gul group near Charar-e-Sharif town in Budgam district (Kashmir). More than 25 dead in this 2 month siege, still Mast gul managed to escape to Pakistan Kashmir. When he arrived in Pakistan Kashmir, he was greeted with rose petals. Gul later addressed various meeting and even public rallies in places like Rawalpindi and became the ISI's blue-eyed boy. After a while, Gul vanished from the public eye with little information on about his whereabouts.

Few months back, When the Pakistan investigative agencies investigating for an attack on Shias, his name resurfaced again This time it was revealed that he is in opposite side to Pakistan. It was found that he aligned with the Tehreek-e-Taliban(TTP) and waging a war on Pakistan which loved him as its hero in 1995. Few other attacks was also attributed to him

Ilyas Kashmiri

Whenever Ilyas Kashmiri name falls in ears of any Indian army man, it is easy to notice a big anger coupled with sadness in their face. This dreaded terrorist led a brigade of terrorists to raid an Indian Army post; in return he took back to Muzaffarabad the head of one of the Indian soldier and showed it off like a trophy. According to reports that appeared in the Pakistani media at that time, General Pervez Musharraf had rewarded Kashmiri for the barbaric operation. Next day newspapers of Pakistan Kashmir published the picture of Ilyas Kashmiri with severed head of Indian soldier.

Later Ilyas Kashmiri joined with Taliban and involved in many assassination of big leaders inside Pakistan including Benazir Bhutto. One of the biggest and audacious attack he orchestrated is “PNS Mehran attack”. Pakistan Naval air arm is attacked by group of terrorists masterminded by Ilyas Kashmiri. At the end of the attack, 33 were killed that includes 18 Naval soldiers and commanders. Attack created more than billion dollar damage for Pakistan with destruction of Two American-built P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft. He was later killed in an U.S drone attack in Pakistan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Operation Zarb e Azb

Due to continuous attack by TTP militants towards Pakistan security forces in last few years, army establishment became impatient towards talks to TTP. With Karachi airport attack (June 2014) adding fuel to fire, Pakistan army started operation Zarb e Azb with aim of clearing militants operating in tribal areas. Similar idea was also in mind for previous army general Pervez Kayani during his time. But he was hesitant to start the operation, as he felt it will bring destruction from TTP to their own civilians. In July 2014, after safely evacuating common civilians to IDP camps, Pak army started the operation in North Wazirstan. Based on local intelligence inputs, militant infrastructure and dens were pounded with air force ammunition. Local journalists were not allowed to report the death and destruction inside war zone.

After this yesterday heinous attack by TTP, they claim that many of their children and women were killed in Pak air assault during operation zarb e azb. As per their assertions, they choose the Army school to attack their children only because of this incident

Taliban: We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/16/pakistani-taliban-massacre-more-than-80-schoolchildren.html

Conclusion:

Attack on children is unforgivable for anybody. To avoid further blood shed inside,Pakistan should have rational approach in dismantling all terror infrastructure inside its premises. This infrastructure includes camps catered to attack India. By promoting these kind of militant camps in Eastern border and attacking similar camps in western border won’t serve peace for Pakistan in long time. i want to repeat Pak general Raheel Sharif words again

Enemy ‘lives within us and looks like us’

http://www.dawn.com/news/1148898/enemy-lives-within-us-and-looks-like-us-says-army-chief

The Science behind 'Interstellar'

Recently released ‘Interstellar’ film created more enthusiasm and expectation among the science fiction film lovers. Film subject deals with the search of a habitual planet in nearby galaxy after earth became inhospitable for life. This film has been aptly released at a time when kepler mission (which is associated with finding habitual planets in nearby galaxies) is giving encouraging results. Though the film script is weak, still the movie is interesting with many realistic scientific concepts like black holes, worm holes, time dilation. Any unfamiliarity with many of the scientific terms in the movie will lead viewers to get feel lost in middle of the movie.

Here are the short brief of some of physics concepts used in the “Interstellar”

What is Black hole?

As per physics, any mass if squeezed massively to below “Schwarzschild radius”, it will become black hole. Mass may be anything, may be its stone or tree or camera or humans. Schwarzschild radius is radius of imaginary sphere. 

Imagine

·          If the Mount Everest is squeezed to size of white blood cell, it will become a black hole.

·          If the Earth is compressed  to size of peanut, it will become a black hole

Schwarzschild radius is defined by

where:

r_s is the Schwarzschild radius;

G is the gravitational constant;

m is the mass of the object;

c is the speed of light in vacuum.

Is the black holes are there in Universe? How they are formed?

Yes, they are in the universe. They are formed when very massive stars (more than hundreds of size of our sun) collapses at end of its life. A star is a sphere of gas held together by its own gravity. The force of gravity is continually trying to cause the star to collapse, but this is counteracted by the pressure of nuclear fusion inside the star core. This is called hydrostatic support. When massive star reaches end of its lifecycle (entire hydrogen got drained), the nuclear fusion stops. Eventually, when these reactions no longer generate sufficient heat to support the star against its own gravity, the star will collapse into an infinitesimally small point called a SINGULARITY. The Singularity has an area around it, called the EVENT HORIZON. Density of Singularity is infinite and Event Horizon is a notional boundary around a black hole beyond which no light or other radiation can escape. Once formed black holes will continue to grow by absorbing nearby mass including stars, planets, even other black holes     
                  

Black holes are also formed when neutron stars collide and collapse to form single entity. Generally black holes are present in center of every elliptical, spiral galaxy. Even our own milky way has super massive black hole namely Sagittarius A at its center

In the Interstellar, non-stationary spinning black hole namely Gargantua has been shown. This spinning black hole distorts the time and space and it is scientifically proven to be accurate.

What is a worm hole?

If two Singularities of a black hole can be merged in universe, worm tunnel can be formed. Worm tunnel links extremely distant locations with shortcut of few miles apart. For example, to get from Earth to Alpha Centauri(nearest star), a distance of 20 million million miles would have to be traveled around the curve. By taking a short cut such as a wormhole, only a few million miles would have to be traversed. The wormhole is direct, whereas the curved route is much longer. The only other way to cut down on time is to travel faster than the speed of light. The Theory of Relativity forbids this outlaw speed. The speed of light limit has not been violated, because a short cut is taken. The worm hole is still theoretical not a practical proven concept. Worm hole was first proposed by Einstein and his colleague Rosan

What is Time Dilation?

According to “Thoery of Relativity”, time gets bend due to differences in either gravity or velocity.

Relative velocity time dilation:

 If someone travel around the solar system at 50% the speed of light and then come back to earth they will have experienced less local passage of time than others in earth.They might have effectively have traveled to their future. Space orbiters and planes are examples of velocity time dilation. Astronauts orbiting in ISS and other orbiters will age slowly when compared to other human beings in earth?

Gravitational Time Dilation

Time in planets or other bodies pass slowly near to strong gravitational fields, whereas it runs fast near weak gravitational fields.

In the “Interstellar” film, planet orbiting close to black hole has high gravitational force, so clock ticks much much slower than on a spaceship which is farther away. As a result, when Cooper and Amelia(main characters) spend few hours in the planet and return to the spaceship, the other colleague romiley will inform them that 23 years had passed already.

Gravitational Lensing:

As already saw that time is bend by Gravitational field, gravitational field bends space and light. One of the better examples of the concept is, stars behind our sun appear to be slightly shifted from the original location. This phenomenon is due to sun’s gravitational force which bends light coming from stars behind sun. When coming to black hole, which has much more gravitational force distorts the light coming from farther galaxies, and as a result light appears to have much smudge. This effect is known as Gravitational lensing.

                           

In the Interstellar film, Kip Thorne one of leading astrophysicist helped Christopher Nolan to create a black hole with the Gravitational lensing effect in background. Blackhole  in the film is known as Gargantua. Gargantua’s accretion disc(just like Saturn rings) contains gas and dust which provides light and heat to gargantua’s planets. Black hole complex appearance is due to image of accretion disc being bent by gravitational lensing. One looping over the black hole and the other under it.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/

Conclusion:

Though the film has touched so many complex science elements, its storyline is flawed and failed to support the science. In some places, science laws were bend by Nolan to suit his film, which has been criticized by many astrophysicists. One among them is entering the black hole event horizon and safely reaching into some multidimensional space having nonlinear time. As per physics any mass entering the black hole event horizon will be spaghettified. Due to extreme tidal forces near black hole, mass will be horizontally compressed and vertically stretched, which is known as spaghettification.  

http://time.com/3572988/interstellar-science-fact-check/

Good science with bad story is documentary, but a good story with bad science is still a good film. Interstellar fits more for a documentary?

Sources :  Wikipedia, Science magazines,Dailies

India's Hardware Hunger- Made in India - Part 2(Telecom Industry)

In modern digital world, every nation’s sensitive information related to defense, banking, foreign policy, etc. are protected in cyber space. Country’s core assets such as power grids, financial and transport networks are fast getting connected to the internet and more official data are getting stored online.  With conventional warfare of armies fighting in land, sea, air became limited to few pickets; cyber warfare became a new battlefront in the world. By cyber warfare, nations often attack their enemies mainly for espionages and sabotage purposes. Using illegal exploitation of internet, telecom equipment and computer software, they stole the classified information of their enemies. Also certain groups engage in cyber terrorism (controversial term) through which they convey message to enemy nations by defacing their websites. In this cyber warfare prowess, china was repeatedly alleged to use its expertise to access highly confidential information relating to the national security of other nations, including India. How India prepared for this cyber warfare? How nation’s indigenous telecom hardware will play a vital role in this cyber warfare?

                                    

Frightening Examples

   

In middle of Feb 2014, there was viral news in Indian media about alleged hacking of telecommunication network tower belonging to state run telecom operator BSNL by Chinese telecommunication firm Huawei. Minister of communications and IT Killi Krupani then informed the Lok Sabha—the lower house of the Parliament of India—that the government has formed an inter-ministerial team to investigate the incident. At the end of the investigation, it was concluded that tower’s base station controller was hacked by Huawei engineers during up gradation process in Rajamundhary, Andhra Pradesh. Later Huawei issued an apology assuring actions will be taken so that similar instances won’t be repeated in future.

With National Security Agency (NSA) espionage episode in 2013, it was alleged that NSA widely used U.S manufactured internet routers to crack the online encryption standards. Disclosures by leaker “Edward Snowden” allege that US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's GCHQ cracked the encryption codes protecting the emails, banking and medical records of hundreds of millions of people. Later in April 2014, Cisco systems and Juniper networks agreed that their network equipment’s like routers, switches and security firewalls are highly vulnerable to infamous encryption bug namely “Heart Bleed” which was alleged to be implanted by NSA. Heart bleed bug exposed user names, passwords and other sensitive information of millions of worldwide customers. Through another Malware namely “FEEDTHROUGH”, NSA smuggled many hacking programs into mainframe computers which are running in Juniper Firewalls

Above mentioned incidents are glaring examples of how a telecommunication equipment can be used to hack the data for espionage and sabotage purposes. Thanks to India’s recent growth in information and communication technology (ICT), there is huge influx of foreign-made telecom equipments inside the country. Telecom equipment business in India is mainly controlled by five companies - Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia Solutions Network and Alcatel. But still  equipments from Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE occupy the majority. Initially, European and American manufacturers were supplying majority of such equipments, but in the last five years Chinese players have established their dominance in this area. BSNL had awarded a major part of its network expansion tender of about 10.15 million lines to Chinese company ZTE in 2012.As these equipment manufacturers never share any technical details, widespread usage of these foreign equipments in strategic telecom sector may lead to comprise of nation’s security. Also due to lack of indigenous players in this equipment production, India had to rely heavily on these foreign companies. 

First Indigenous Product

To address these potential threats, previous government announced an initiative to boost the local manufacturers related to telecom equipment. In one such initiative, Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) joined hands with Premier Indian Institute of Technology to develop indigenous products. By October 2013, their joint partnership yielded a “State of Art” indigenous Carrier Ethernet Switch Router. This joint product was successfully installed and activated by the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) in Mumbai recently. This development touted to infuse new confidence among nation engineers to develop indigenous secure, low power telecom products. These cost effective technology products not only save foreign exchange, but also address security and secrecy issues in strategic areas of defense, process control, nuclear power, space, electronic security and e-Governance.

Indian Government's other Intiatives and Challenges ahead

In 2012, previous government also announced an initiative to boost local manufacturing; this preferential policy states that 30% of the orders of government departments would be reserved for local telecom equipment makers. But also the policy underlines that the local manufactured product need to add value addition of 25%.Current finance minister announced a proposal in his maiden budget. Proposal states that 10% basic customs duty would be imposed on specified telecom products that are outside the purview of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA).But this announcement did not receive overwhelm welcome from Indian telecom operators. Experts in this field say they may help in long term, but in short term this may add a big headache. More than 90% of telecom equipment are imported, and advanced technology products are no way available in the domestic market. As a consequence, imposition of duty would just increase expenses of the telecom companies, and would not increase domestic sourcing. Indian telecom operators, who are sitting on accumulative debt of Rs 2.5 lakh crore, import telecom equipment worth about $8-10 billion every year, and the imposition of 10% duty comes as an additional burden.

Local manufacturers also blame cost disadvantage of about 20-25% when compared to foreign companies. With lack of any indigenously manufactured IC components, components imported will bear  a duty ranging from 10% to 15%. Also Indian telecom equipment makers pay 16-18% interest on loans. so with zero import duty which existed before, Chinese products have 30% cost advantage. According to industrial experts, investment in telecom equipment will go up by staggering Rs 5,21,940 crore in 2020. India still lacks 4G infrastructure, if significant percentage of this infrastructure is build using local made equipment it will add pride to the indigenization, add more security to the national network as well as boost the economy.

Sources: Wikipedia, other Indian Daily's and Magazines

India's Hardware Hunger - Part 1

 Indian election results were announced on May 16 2014.Nation was cheerful to welcome a new leader to Delhi durbar (an elite cliques dating back to Mughal era). He was called by working class voters as “incorruptible outsider who would impose discipline”. Industrialists, entrepreneurs, engineers who got lured by his pre-election speech, believed that he will bring massive mandate to introduce economic reforms leading to reawakening of Indian economy.  After 70 days from his swearing in, chorus of disappointment came from intellectuals who advised him during pre-election campaigns. To counter these concerns, he gave another attractive speech from “Redfort” on the eve of 68^th Indian Independence day saying “From ramparts of the Red Fort, I would like to call people of the world to 'come, make in India'. Come here and manufacture in India. Sell the products anywhere in the world but manufacture here...we have the power, come I am inviting you”. If Indian Government wants to bring back these dreams into reality, government needs to bring back neglected electronics hardware manufacturing industry into mainstream. Electronics semiconductor manufacturing industry has both commercial and strategic advantages for the country. This article explores the same

India : Brand Software, Neglected Hardware

On April 22, 2014, Indian IT services company “Tata consultancy services” (TCS) made a landmark for Indian IT industry. Company had peeped into the prestigious league of top 10 global IT services companies for the first time. Other Indian IT services companies like Infosys, CTS are globally giving tough competition to IT giants like IBM, Accenture. Indian Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad have well established R&D centers, to propel innovative software designs for multinationals like Microsoft, Intel, Google, Cisco etc.. But when it comes to hardware, India is far behind. India’s lag in the hardware manufacturing industry will have significant impact for the Indian economy in the coming years. May be but how?

With smartphones to semiconductor chips, India’s electronic goods import stood at staggering $33.5 billion. That’s more than it spent on any imports except oil and gold.  Almost all kind of electronic gadgets like smartphones, tablets are released in Indian market immediately after their release in U.S and European markets. India’s large middle class procures more and more digital devices every year, and this trend going to accelerate in coming years. These heavy import phenomena lead more strain to Indian economy and its currency. By making few necessary electronics goods inside India, these strain can be partly avoided But Electronics manufacturing industry in India is not in good state, absolutely in poor state.  Its inefficient labor markets, unreliable power supply, and creaky transportation infrastructure have discouraged investments from even multinationals to start new electronics manufacturing industries inside country.  Even companies that assemble TV’s like Samsung, LG import most of their valuable chips, equipment from outside leaving behind the electronics manufacturing industry in very low end.

Semiconductor Industry Setup

Globally semiconductor industries with sales of around $300 billion have 3 tiers, Companies like Intel, Samsung, Toshiba, IBM not only design, also make the chips that end up in the devices they make. This kind of strategy not only helps them to yield high profits, also prevent their rivals from commoditizing the chips. These companies form the First tier. Second tier are the “fabless” designers of chips, who outsource the manufacturing to the specialized chipmakers. Broadcom, Qualcomm, NVidia belongs to these tier.  “Foundries” which have established huge capacities for a variety of chips that they produce for clients, form the last tier. Companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the biggest independent foundry, and Global foundries are in this league.

India’s Dilemma

As a Late entrant, India faces several obstacles and dilemmas in entering this highly complicated, expensive chip making industry. Silicon wafer is one of the important components in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Silicon wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other micro devices. Using these wafers a manufacturer can place anywhere from 10 to several hundred semiconductors or ICs onto it, which are later cut out and used in computers and other electronics. Depending on the size of the Silicon wafer, the sophistication lies. The current state of the art is at 300 mm, however the global fab plants planning to move to 450mm by 2015-2016.

So dilemma with the Indian setup is that whether it is worth to start late or now. If now then how much Indian fabrication industry will gain from the internal Indian projects. Good Profits associated with these fabrication industries can be achieved, only if the plants are loaded more than 70% of the total capacity. If anything less than this, it will end up in huge losses. Current estimates say, Indian electronic products can hold to mere 30% to 40%, catering to the needs of low end tablets (India Manufactured) like Akash and other secure telecom products. In addition to this, every year the technology with which number of transistors accommodation inside the chip increases as per the famous Moore’s law. Due to this it will add more benefits like small size, less power consumption, more advanced functionality. Industry experts say planned Indian setup can start from 65nm to 45 nm. Though 65nm to 45nm is outdated technology (latest technology is 22nm to 14nm), it can cater well to Indian electronic products need within next 5 years.

Chip fabrication industry is a gigantic project, which needs intervention of government at multiple levels. Backbone of the fabrication plant installment is its initial funding. As per 2013 statistics, building a next generation wafer fab was estimated to be $10 billion. This massive initial investment can be achieved by means Public-Private partnership. In India too, private investment along government subsidies and incentives will play a major role in the success of the project

 Sources: Wikipedia, other electronics magazines.