Srinagar, June 25: At a time when picturesque Valley is attracting thousands of people, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Kapil Sibal too aspires to visit this City in the Himalayas.  For him, mouth watering Kashmiri cuisine –Wazwan –seems to be an inspiration.
 The Union Minister looks to be so fond of Wazwan that he couldn’t miss to speak about the cuisine during his online interaction with techies and other professionals at the inauguration of countrywide “biggest ever” training program where apart from other developments, world’s low cost computing device, Akash was discussed.
 “I would love to have Gushtaba and Tabakmaaz when I come to Srinagar,” Sibal said. His remarks came in response to videoconferencing with NIELIT’s JK Director, AH Moon who extended an invite for Kashmir visit to the Minister, after giving some suggestions for the promotion of IT sector in the state. Moon was interacting with the dignitary online from the NIELIT (formerly DOEACC)’s Srinagar centre at Rangreth.

HAILS JK SUGGESTIONS
 To Moon’s suggestions, Sibal said: “I think you have some very good suggestions… We should move forward to cluster mode.”
 Moon, a prominent technocrat from Kashmir suggested “cluster formation among institutions to promote exchange of academic and research programs in a meaningful manner.”
 He also threw light on the “importance of networking among all the participating institutes through National Knowledge Network so as to provide better virtual learning environment.” To this all Sibal responded, in affirmative.

AKASH ‘INAUGURATION’
 The Union Minister “symbolically inaugurated”, the much awaited low priced tablet Akash. Sibal said he was happy that Aakash project has picked up and is ready for release.
 Unlike other tablet devices, experts said, Aakash can also be used to create computer programs, in Python, C, C++ and Scilab.
 In addition to being a computer, Aakash will also be an access device, in applications, such as e-governance. The Minister thanked IIT Bombay for the Aakash development.  “We can’t let the history control us, the future is in our grasp,” he said.
 A representative of IIT Bombay symbolically presented an Aakash Tablet to the Minister. The Minister suggested that the IIT Bombay Director Prof Devang Khakhar presents Aakash devices to the Heads of a few institutions which host the remote centres of the 10,000 teacher training programme.

10,000 INAUGURATION
 Sibal was addressing online on the inauguration of 10,000 teacher training programme conducted by IIT Bombay under the Talk to a Teacher project of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT) of MHRD.
 The Union Minister said it was the first time in the world that a simultaneous training of 10,000 engineering college teachers was being conducted leveraging the broadband network and ICT tools. “It’s something truly historic... Indian solution to challenges we confront,” Sibal said.
 The training programme is conducted through 168 remote centres located all across India including the NIELIT’s Rangreth camp.
 The lectures in this course are delivered from IIT Bombay by Professors from IIT Bombay and IIT Madras. Through the software A-VIEW, audio-video connectivity is provided between all the centres and IIT Bombay.
 The Minister interacted with the remote centres from Kanyakumari, Rajkot, Srinagar and Nagpur.

SRINAGAR EVENT
 Meanwhile, during the workshop, AH Moon “appreciated the efforts of Prof DB Phatak, project coordinator and his team at IIT Bombay for bringing in live IIT teaching and learning experience at remote locations like Srinagar.”
 The workshop coordinator at Rangreth Muneer Ahmad Dar said the NIELIT centre hosted some 50 participants from various institutions including Kashmir University, SKUAST, Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University, IGNOU and Islamic University of Science and Technology.
 “The workshop is being conducted through AVIEW software developed by Amrita University which is part of Talk to a Teacher program led by IIT Bombay and funded by NME-ICT, MHRD. This is the 5th workshop of its kind which is being hosted by NIELIT Srinagar as a remote centre of IIT Bombay under National Mission on Education through ICT,” said Ummer Khan remote centre coordinator at NIELIT Srinagar.
 Under ISTE activity, NIELIT Srinagar has also become the nodal centre of J&K for offering spoken tutorial workshops to students who would be later on certified by IIT Bombay, he added.
 Senior techie at NIELIT, Ashiq Hussain Dar said the increasing bandwidth in the field of communication has been pivotal in making such live events possible.
 He said upcoming trends in the field of 3G would further boost such events adding that the Rangreth centre was coming up with local solutions to ease communication flow.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00:00 IST