A Reason for failure

IIMs are the top institute for Management in the country and recognized worldwide for producing Masters in Business Administration.

In our country, it is very difficult to get into these institutions. There is a single joint competitive examination called CAT (Common Aptitude Test) held every year. This year the organization planned to scrap the OMR based paper test and have a complete online test. The contract for the job was given to Prometric. The tests were planned in some selected cities and applicants were given an option to book a preferential slot in the available testing dates. The aspirants from all around the country booked their slots and made their train reservations (These have to be made three months prior to journey date to secure a berth). On their allotted slot time, the applicants sat in the examination centre for two hours and gave their exams but some unlucky ones couldn’t  give their exam because either the connection was slow / not working, their was a virus problem or the applicants didn’t follow the instructions well (as quoted by Prometric’s CEO & IIM-Ahmedabad Director). Throughout the duration they were ordered to sit and not given any possible reason. This went on throughout the testing period at many centers. Many applicants were unable to give in their exams due this reason. Seeing the failure of the newly adopted testing system (which was tested as the organizers say), the IIM management & Prometric called on a joint press conference, here the Director of IIM-Ahmedabad, who is on board as Independent Director of many eminent companies in our country, point-blankly said that the applicants would be given a specific date for their exam and everything now is in GOD’s GRACE. The blame was being tried to put on the applicants for the failure saying that they didn’t know how to use the computer.

Listening to these responses, I couldn’t stop wondering that these are the people who will teach us management and make us a responsible manager. If God’s GRACE is the solution they can offer for this failure and play blame game to shove-off responsibility from their shoulders. Then I think it’s better if I let go of my dream of joining an IIM and think on something more productive.
Coming back to the issue of failure of this new testing system, I think it would be a good Case-Study that I would like to take-up when I join a good management institute (That actually practices what it teaches). Also I think if these people have little integrity and morality left, they should accept their responsibility and provide suitable compensation to the applicants affected due to their mismanagement.

It’s been a long going debate on “should the private enterprises be made liable to answering public queries?” Many countrymen support it stating that they have a right to know and claim the simple reason that these enterprises are based on our soil, but thinking rationally is it morally right to interfere in the matters of a corporate as they have earned everything they own righteously and through fair practices under the close vigil of law. They provided us services for which we paid them and we were never forced to use to their products (as we are forced to pay taxes to the Government for just providing a civil framework by providing services like police, ambulance etc though we may hire our security agency & private medical assistance in case of emergency). So do we earn the right to question them and seek information with authority? We hold no such right until and unless we are an investor or part of the organization. The right of disclosing information should totally reside with the enterprise as the consumer is in no way being compelled to buy their product and in a regulated economy where enterprises are already subjected to various conditions, guidelines and inspections, our right to further questioning is too invasive.

In no way I endorse the idea that RTI act should be subjected to private enterprises but this doesn’t mean that I am totally against the notion. From my perspective some enterprises involved in various key commodities/services need to be opened up for public questioning like the medical sector consisting of pharmaceutical industries, hospitals and private clinics so as the patients may know about the various pharmaceutical companies that their doctor is receiving favors of, so they may be in a position to judge if any malpractice is in subject.  Since application of RTI act on a sector can solve problems of a section of social needs, hence by bringing all the enterprises under this law, complete transparency can be maintained in the private sector as well.

RTI act has empowered the countrymen and got the evil corruption out of many public offices. It has instilled morality among the bureaucrats as they now are vulnerable to public questions with a liability to answer. In a very short span it has worked wonders and its extension to Private businesses will be a good idea to experiment on.

The story starts with the founder of this cell, Mr. Debashish Mohapatra- a Mining Engineering undergraduate with appreciable managerial skills. He brought together a bunch of friends and started an initiative to inculcate entrepreneurship in students. The first task they planned was Arthayan, a business event held in Confluence-2k8. They had planned everything and promoted it well. The students who worked on the brochure and promotion- Nishank Kanungo, Rashmi Ranjan Nayak, Shakti Swarup Sahu- were promised membership of e-cell (but were never inducted or recognized). But on the D-day the organizers were contemplating the cancellation of the event as the organization which Mr. Debashish & Co. had handpicked for providing them the required software had swindled them and the organizers had fallen short of funds. This resulted in the postponement of the event and a search for an alternative. The reputation was at stake, after all. It was at this stage that I was called in and handed a challenging task of preparing the software within 24 hours. I had accepted the challenge and remember working non-stop to complete the task in 18 hours. The events in the itinerary went well and were the biggest hits; I was congratulated by a lot of people and was inducted into e-cell. I started working with them despite being the only second year amongst the lot. I loved sharing some of my business ideas with my club mates, but later I realized that they were using my ideas and taking credit for the work, so I stopped working.
In the session 2007-08, e-cell had managed a single event; Arthayan and a small guest talk. So, we planned to change things- yoke together more enthusiastic people and form a larger community. The group was inducted but the majority was the product of nepotism. As is obvious the planning of year round events by the group yielded nothing but another Arthayan to be held in the Conflence-2k9- and this time there was no preparation/sponsorship. I was the convener of the technical society in those days and the organizing body of Confluence-2k9; we tried to help them saying that the technical society would provide accommodation to the Arthayan guests and other required resources, although no financial aid would be given. Initially they agreed on this but on the very last day they tried to press-gang me to provide funds as they had been unsuccessful in managing sponsors. However, I couldn’t heed to their ‘requests’ as major events had already been planned and approved and only minor changes in the budgets were permissible. So these people- who were supposed to have all the managerial skills in the world- went to the authorities and started a crusade against the technical society. Being the head of society and a member of the e-cell, I was in a dilemma so I called a meeting of the organizing body to see if anything could be done. Despite my efforts, there was nothing substantial that could be done. I had to explain my predicament to Mr. Debashish & Co., so they went to the Director with their woes and complaints. The Director asked me to look into the matter and help them in any way I could. I tried my best and did all I could to get Arthayan bailed out. But after the Technical festival was over I was never invited to any meetings and later not even recognized as a member.
And what is disheartening is that none of the founders of the club, now alumni, have pledged financial aid to the promotion of the club.

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

Supposedly, this riddle was created by Albert Einstein and, on
average, only 2% of solvers will be successful. Are there any logic
puzzle experts out there who can verify the source of this riddle? If
so, they can add a comment here.

Neighbors

Five people of different nationality live in a row of five houses of
different color. Each person prefers a different beverage, smokes a
different brand of cigar and keeps a different kind of animal. Can you
figure out who owns the fish?
The Brit lives in the Red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The Green house is on the left of the White house.
The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the center house drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blends lives next to the man who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the Blue house.
The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.
Who owns the fish?

I really doubt If Einstein really built this puzzle or the statement
that only 2% people were able to solve it

But As far as my reasoning goes.. the solution is German owns the fish.

Nexus as the name suggests is an event with series of connections. A truly National Event with its preliminary rounds being held in five zones namely north, east, central, west, south in collaboration with the eminent institutes of the location. The final round will be conducted by the epicenter IIT Bombay itself.

Nexus is an initiative taken up by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay for encouraging robotics at the grass root level in India. The event being organised under the Nexus in all the zones is CommQuest. CommQuest is conceptualized around Wireless Communication between Robots. The problem statement for the event is simple, i.e. Make an autonomous machine which traverses a grid to reach the destination which is communicated to it wirelessly by a computer. And the prize money for this is Rs. 10,000. Visit the link for details, hints & tips.

http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/commquest/

The event along with a competition is also hosting a workshop for students conceptualized around Wireless Communication between Robots. The participants will learn about emerging technologies like Wireless Communication, Swarm Robotics and Microcontroller Programming in this workshop. Attending this workshop will drive your instinct to deliver in the domain of robotics and wireless communication.

National Institute of Technology, Rourkela (NIT Rourkela) has been chosen to host the Nexus event for the East Zone. The schedule has been published on the event website. http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus. The students should actively take part as it is a unique opportunity to display their skills with home advantage and win some accolades.

Important Links

Nexus Website: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/

CommQuest: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/commquest/

Workshop Link: http://www.techfest.org/initiatives/nexus/workshop/

Richard E. Smalley, the 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Rice University has shown his energy concerns and the solution the world community should follow to curb the crisis of energy.

This is the summary of the information I read in the article containing the edited transcript based on the Symposium X- Frontiers of Materials Research presentation given by Richard E. Smalley on December 2, 2004, at Material Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston.

The top ten Problems faced by the world are:

1. Energy
2. Water
3. Food
4. Environment
5. Poverty
6. Terrorism & war
7. Disease
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Population

The major problem is Energy and finding its solution can easily help us solve  the other problems as well. For example, The second problem Water, the drinking water is the major issue for large population of the world and the resources to fulfill are limited. Hence we need to purify the existing vast mass of sea-water to solve this issue and to reduce the salt and purify the sea water we need cheaper energy for an acceptable solution. Hence energy is a solution to most of the problems on the top-10 list of problems.

The world population is expected to go around a maximum of 10 billion in our lifetime, hence we need to plan our resources so as to cater to these 10 billion people distributed throughout the globe. The total energy requirement to give all the 10 billion people on this planet the level of energy prosperity the developed world enjoy would be around 60 terawatts. If we rely on oil, which is our major source of energy it will take 900 million barrels of oil per day.

In 2004, the consumption of oil per day was 220 million barrels of oil per day to run the world, or 14.5 terawatts. The vast majority of this energy was from oil, gas and coal. Fission and biomass were also significant players. The biomass was the energy source for the bottom half of the global economic ladder, approximately three billion people. Quite a bit of this 14.5 terawatts was the hydro-power and an incredible small amount of energy about 0.5% was solar, wind, and geothermal with geothermal composing the largest part.

To solve  the energy challenge, we will have to find a way to produce, everyday twice as much we produce now. Since resources like Hydropower have been tapped to their potential and oil and coal wont last long.

To provide the technology for accomplishing our energy goals, what we need to do is to find the “new oil”.  Searching for the enormous amounts of energy that could accomplish this goal, the biggest resources are in the areas where we generate hardly any energy at all right now-solar,wind, and geothermal.

The solution to the current & future global energy crisis lies in the big hydrogen fusion reactor up in the sky , the sun. 165,000 terawatts of power hits the earth’s disk every moment of every day from Sun and it has been going over 4 billion years and will continue for yet other billions of years.

Nate Lewis of California Institute of Technology demonstrates that we could cleanly meet the world’s entire energy needs, 2 kilowatts per person for 10 billion people, by applying the following elegant solution shown below.

Solar Power Map

On a global map, identify six rectangular spaces located in areas of high solar radiation, create 10% efficiency, then collect the power, which would be about 20 terawatts of electrical power, the equivalent of 60 terawatts total energy power at a 30% energy conversion. Since at the time the technology to develop it at a few pennies per kilowatt-hour is not available. It can be done at 20-50 cents a kilowatt-hour currently but that is too expensive. Hence there is requirement of scientist to develop more efficient systems to contain this solar energy. The next issue is the distribution of energy to all the places in the world. This can be solved again with the aid of science & technology by development of Local Energy Storage Units, equivalent to an uninterrupted power supply  for home computers, to provide a backup of 12-24 hours of full operation. This can only be done with the help of nano-technology & advents of science. These units should be small and cheap. This local energy storage would get us past the problem and give us an extremely robust, terrorist-resistant, delocalized electrical energy system. In addition to the local system, one other innovation is needed on the grid to make it work i.e the capability to transport electrical power in hundreds of gigawatts over thousand of miles. The High-voltage transmission lines would be very efficient for the purpose as they already carry electricity for 1500 miles with fairly low losses but they carry only about 1 gigawatt of energy we need innovation & new technology to solve this.

The solution of using solar energy is an efficient solution as it solves the problem of global warming as no CO2 emission takes place in this process and moreover no fossil fuels are used.

Dr. Ranjan Dash

On 2nd August, 2009, An alumni of my institute, Dr. Ranjan Dash, who completed his B.Tech in 1998 and then went on to do  PhD.at Drexel University in Material Science Engineering along with an MBA in organization management, visited the institute campus and met the students in an interactive session. The session was so interesting and encouraging that I was compelled to share the information on my blog.

He told about the difference in education in US and India stressing the point that the education in US is practical as the resources are unlimited and easily approachable. He also told about the various points that can help the students to get  into a good campus in US, Some of them are:

• For applying for a M.S or PhD, having practical experience of handling equipments of that field plays a huge advantage.
• The recommendation letter should be sought fro concerned people in that field and alumni support should be sought without hesitation.
• Knowledge about the developments in the concerned field should be updated.
• Talk to Admission office for information on the criteria and requirements, and try your best to represent yourself to meet their requirements
• Add a Research Synopsis in your application
• Make sure that your Resume is in US format

Knowing people in the concerned field plays a major role in getting into a good university in US or anywhere in the world, he asked the students to search the web and find the experts in their field of interest and to make sure that they interact with experts through mails and even try to meet them when they come to India for any visit.

According to him Ph.D. should be pursued from a different institute altogether from the place you have done your M.S/M.Tech so that you have a broader profile and more experience. The MBA education should be pursued from schools like Wharton rather than IIMs because in Wharton School, the students are future CEOs  and competition is less as compared to the IIMs. He also suggested that students should have prior work experience before going for MBA education as real understanding comes after experience.

Regarding Future career opportunities, the scope is in:

• Energy generation, storage and management
• Material Chemistry
• Security
• Biotechnology & Biomedical

He finally asked people to read the paper “Terawatt Challenge“

The session with Dr. Ranjan Dash was very interesting and educating, he made me remember the forgotten fact about having good interaction with the alumni as these people have tried and gone through the same stage that I am facing now.Thank you sir for coming to the institute and sharing the valuable information with us.

"New York" Movie Poster

Although I scarcely watch bollywood movies, but reading the review given by my close-friend on the movie and the daily advertisements making sense, I finally made my plan to watch the movie. The movie had the loud and clear message as far I believe that with so much discrimination and racialism we are breeding hatred which in some cases results to acts of  terrorism. The scenario depicted in the movie is about how the life of a young Indian-American is affected after the September 11 attack. This young American studying in New York State University is tortured by the FBI on suspicion of his involvement in the September 11 attack but after sometime when conclusive enquirers negate his involvement in any terrorist activity, he is cleared of the charges but the torture faced by him in the custody leaves hatred in him. He now forms a terrorist group and attacks the FBI head-quarters seeking revenge. The FBI keeping watch on him through his university’ friend, kill him when he just steps away from his goal and foils his plan. The movie’s story is good and carries a message as far I believe, i.e, through the hatred instilled in us for various ethnic groups due to some people wrong doing’s we are creating more hatred around us. The recent world scenario makes me feel that many countries are sowing the seeds to terrorism due to their own actions and are facing the consequences of their mistakes.

Coming back to the movie, the storyline was good but not aptly depicted in the movie, the planting of bombs on the FBI head-quarters in the movie was hard to believe, rest the movie was fine, but I wouldn’t suggest it as a must-watch.  Anyways, I appreciate the efforts made by all in the movie.

This is the complete guide on how to use Right to Information Act, 2005 to retrieve any information from any public authority. The contents have been divided into sections to facilitate reading. If you have any suggestions/ queries please feel free to contact me on my mail: sunxran@gmail.com.

Article Index:

* Introduction
* What is Information under the RTI Act, 2005
* What is Right to Information Act, 2005
* Exemptions from Disclosure of Information under RTI Act, 2005
* Writing an RTI Application to seek information
* Sample Format
* Mode of payment for seeking information
* Submitting the application
* Some useful links

Introduction

The Right to information Act,2005 provided the citizen of India the power to seek information regarding the working of the Government and its public units. This act has converted the prevailing culture of secrecy into the culture of openness and transparency in the working of the Government.

What is Information under the RTI Act, 2005

Information is any material in form. It includes records, documents, memos, e-mails, opinions, advices, press releases, circulars, orders, logbooks, contracts, reports, papers, smaples, models, data material held in nay electronic form. It also includes information relating to any private body which can be accessed by the public authority under any law for the time being in force.

What is Right to Information Act, 2005

The Right to Information Act 2005 (Act No. 22/2005) is a law enacted by the Parliament of India giving citizens of India access to records of the Central Government and State Governments. The Act applies to all States and Union Territories of India, except the State of Jammu and Kashmir – which is covered under a State-level law. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen (including the citizens within J&K) may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

Exemptions from Disclosure of Information under RTI Act, 2005

It may be noted that the right to seek information from a public authority is not absolute. Section 8 and 9 of the Act enumerate the categories of information that can exempt from disclosure.

According to section 8 of the RTI Act, 2005:

1. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,—

(a) information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence;

(b) information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court;

(c) information, the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature;

(d) information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;

(e) information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;

(f) information received in confidence from foreign Government;

(g) information, the disclosure of which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or identify the source of information or assistance given in confidence for law enforcement or security purposes;

(h) information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders;

(i) cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers:

Provided that the decisions of Council of Ministers, the reasons thereof, and the material on the basis of which the decisions were taken shall be made public after the decision has been taken, and the matter is complete, or over:

Provided further that those matters which come under the exemptions specified in this section shall not be disclosed;

(j) information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information:

Provided that the information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.

2. Notwithstanding anything in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 nor any of the exemptions permissible in accordance with sub-section (1), a public authority may allow access to information, if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests.

3. Subject to the provisions of clauses (a), (c) and (i) of sub-section (1), any information relating to any occurrence, event or matter which has taken place, occurred or happened twenty years before the date on which any request is made under secton 6 shall be provided to any person making a request under that section:

Provided that where any question arises as to the date from which the said period of twenty years has to be computed, the decision of the Central Government shall be final, subject to the usual appeals provided for in this Act.

According to section 9 of the RTI Act, 2005:

Without prejudice to the provisions of section 8, a Central Public Information Officer or a State Public Information Officer, as the case may be, may reject a request for information where such a request for providing access would involve an infringement of copyright subsisting in a person other than the State.

Along with the mentioned exemptions the Intelligence and Security Organizations, which are exempt from the purview of the Act. The exemption of the organization doesnot cover supply of information relating to allegations of corruption and human rights violations.

Schedule II:

Intelligence and security organization established by the Central Government

1. Intelligence Bureau.

2. Research and Analysis Wing of the Cabinet Secretariat.

3. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.

4. Central Economic Intelligence Bureau.

5. Directorate of Enforcement.

6. Narcotics Control Bureau.

7. Aviation Research Centre.

8. Special Frontier Force.

9. Border Security Force.

10. Central Reserve Police Force.

11. Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

12. Central Industrial Security Force.

13. National Security Guards.

14. Assam Rifles.

15. Special Service Bureau

16. Special Branch (CID), Andaman and Nicobar.

17. The Crime Branch-C.I.D.-CB, Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

18. Special Branch, Lakshadweep Police.

Writing an RTI Application to seek information:

There’s no specific format for an RTI application, some salient features need to be kept in mind while drafting the application.

Pre-requisites:

* Please mention your name, contact address and If possible your phone number also.
* The application should be addressed to Public Information Officer of the concerned department. In case you have problems locating your PIO/APIO you can address your RTI application to the Pio C/o Head of Department and send it to the concerned Public Authority with the requisite application fee. The Head of Department will have to forward your application to the concerned PIO.
* Do not address your RTI application to the PIO by his name, just in case he gets transferred or a new PIO is designated in his place.

Application Guidelines:

While filing an RTI application, the framing of the questions is very important. A slight misunderstanding or vague questions gives the PIO a chance to reject your application. Follow these guidelines:

o Use a white sheet of paper to write an application. There is no need to using Note-sheet, or the Court stamp paper. You can use your letter pad for asking for information.
o The matter can be hand written, or typed. There is no compulsion of typing the content.
o Make sure the application is legible and easy to read.
o The application in English or Hindi or in the Official language of the area in which the application is made.
o There is no restriction on number of pages for asking information.
o There are also no restriction on number of questions that can be asked in one application. However, it is generally advisable to ask restrict one application with limited set of questions and generally related ones.
o Be very specific & ask to the point questions. Don’t ask vague questions.
o Ask as many short questions as you like ,but don’t ask for voluminous information.
o Ask information always by writing your name and signature, and not by your post, as only citizen have the right to information.
o Do not ask a question containing ‘WHY’! For example, questions like why you failed to pass the bill, is liable to be rejected for not covering under RTI Act.
o You can ask for reasons behind a “administrative” or a “quasi-judicial” decision under Section 4(1)(d), especially if you are a “affected person”
o If the information sought is voluminous, it is better to ask it in the form of CD to save on cost.
o Remember that, you do not need to write the reason for asking the information.
o Mention the payment details like BC/DD/IPO number, issuing bank/post office, date, cash receipt details , etc., towards the end of your application
o The subject of the application should contain “Application under RTI Act”

Sample Format

Format of application for obtaining information under the Right to Information Act, 2005

To,
The Central Public information Officer,
(Name of the Office with Address)

(1) Full name of Applicant: Mr./Mrs./Ms.

(2) Address:

(3) Particulars of the information required

(i) Subject matter of Information:

(ii) The period to which the information relates:

(iii) Description of the information required:

(iv) Whether the information is required by post or in person:
(the actual postal charges shall be included in additional fees)

(v) In case by post (Ordinary, Registered or Speed):

(4) Whether the applicant is below poverty line
(if yes, attach the photocopy of the proof thereof.)

Place: Signature of the Applicant

Date: Fee of Rs.10/- sent in cash/by moneyorder/
by payorder no.###########

Mode of payment for seeking information

The applicant, along with the application , should send a demand draft or a banker’s cheque or an Indian Postal Order of Rs.10/- payabe to the Accounts Officer of the public authority as fee prescribed for seeking information. The payment of fee can also be made by way of cash to the Accounts Officer of the public authority or to the Central Assistant Public Information Officer against proper receipt.

Public Authorities under the centre, states, legislatures and Supreme/High courts have framed separate rules for RTI. The amount of fees and the mode of payment varies and you should check the correct rules as applicable in your case.

Generally, you can deposit your application fee via:

* In person by paying cash [remember to take your receipt
* By Post through:
* Demand Draft/Bankers Cheque
* Indian Postal Order
* Money orders (only in some states)
* Affixing Court fee Stamp (only in some states)
* Some state governments have prescribed some head of account. You are required to deposit fee in that account. For that, you can either go to any branch of SBI and deposit cash in that account and attach deposit receipt with your RTI application. Or you can also send a postal order or a DD drawn in favour of that account along with your RTI application. Please see respective state rules for complete details

The applicant may also be required to pay further fee towards the cost of providing the information, details of which shall beintimated to the applicant by the CPIO as prescribed by the Right to Information (Regulation of Fee and Cost) Rules, 2005. Rates of fee as prescribed in the Rules are given below:

* Rs 2/- for each page (in A-4 or A-3 size paper) created or copied.
* Actual charge or cost price of a copy in larger size paper;
* Actual cost or price for samples or models.
* for inspection of records, no fee for the first hour; and a fee of Rs 5/- for each subsequent hour (or fraction thereof);
* for information provided in diskette or floppy rupees fifty per diskette or floppy; and
* for information provided in printed form at the price fixed for such publication or rupees two per page of photocopy for extracts from the publication.

NOTE: If the applicant belongs to below poverty line (BPL) category, he is not required to pay any fee. However, he should submit a proof in support of his claim to belong to the below poverty line. The application not accompanied by the prescribed fee of Rs 10/- or proof of the applicant’s belonging to below poverty line, as the case may be, shall not be a valid application under the Act and therefore, does not entitle the applicant to get information.

Submitting the application

Since you will need a proof, that your RTI application has been received by the PIO. The tested methods to submit a RTI application are:

* Personally, by hand: Please ensure that you get your copy of the application and proof of payment duly stamped, signed and dated, either by the PIO or by the inward department
* Registered Post AD: The AD card will act as proof of submission, after it is returned to you by the postal department. In case the AD card does not come back with a proper stamp, signature and date of receipt, follow up with the despatching post office to get the AD card completed
* Speed Post (A postal department service): Once the application is sent by Speed Post, track it on http://www.indiapost.gov.in/Speednew/track.aspx and keep a print out of the delivery status carefully with you

Do not use ordinary post, private courier companies, etc. since these will not provide you with a confirmed proof of delivery.

Designated Post Offices:

In order to facilitate citizens in filing RTI applications, the government has designated certain Post Offices for accepting RTI applications addressed to Public Authorities (PA’s) under Central Government. These cannot be used for submitting RTI Applications addressed to State PA’s, Legislatures, Courts, etc.

A list of designated Post Offices is available here:

http://www.indiapost.gov.in/rtimanual16a.html

You can read the following thread for further information regarding submitting your RTI applications through designated post offices:

http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/1653-t…end-cpios.html

Some useful links

Important Information & Discussions on Right to Information http://www.rtiindia.org/

Portal of the Right to Information http://www.rti.gov.in

Website of the Central Information commission: http://cic.gov.in/

Sixth Sense in Use

‘Sixth Sense’ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. It has been designed by Mr. Pranav Mistry at MIT Labs. The device is very handy & can store/retrieve/process information with just a few gestures of your hand. Remember in the movie “Minority Reports” how Tom Cruise used to use the gesture of his hand to sort the information on the glass screen. Well this is much more advanced than that, you dont need a glass screen nor any specific hardware for display, stand in front of wall or just slide your hand in front of it and enjoy working on your hand or watching your favorite movie. With this newspaper reading wont be boring anymore but more interactive with videos being played when it senses the headlines and scans the related news videos from youtube.

The device can even help you in shopping and can also do the money tracking for you. It can search for your friend in a crowded place (Convicts pray that this device never goes in production). You can do calculations and do your precious work on this device while moving around. This device will surely open the gates for the next revolution.

How this device works?

The prototype model of this device consists of pocket projector, a mirror and a camera coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

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This is a revolutionary product which will surely change our lives.I am waiting for this product to come in production so that I don’t have to use my brain anymore.