Once upon a time, there was a Sindbad. And a Gulliver. Mythical guys. There were also some guys named Marco Polo and Magellan and Columbus and Vasco De Gama and Captain Cook, who were not so mythical. Between them, they discovered strange, mystical and fascinating lands which are a part of every tour operator’s offering. Today, the travel industry has grown into a huge hydra headed monster.
A few months ago, we received the sad news of the passing away of Prof. MGK Menon, who was one of India’s most gifted scientists and administrators. Prof. Menon was closely associated with IIT Bombay as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Bombay from 1997 to 2003 and it is a privilege for me to write about him.
“Hey man, it’s such a long time!”
“Twenty-seven years. Wow!”
“You have not changed a bit. Ditto IIT looks. And you, you are now bald and have, err, gained weight. And you! What happened to your specs? Oh, contact lenses! Hey come in…….”
In many such rendezvous of old IIT friends, the introductions are similar. We get engrossed in our lives, lose touch and then we meet years, decades, nay life time after and feel excited as if we are living those magical IIT days again.
‘The Internet Changes Everything’ has been extracted from Part 1: The Internet Wave (1994–2002) of the book ©’The Golden Tap: The Inside Story of Hyper Funded Indian Startups’ by Kashyap Deorah.
Within 50 kilometres from Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, there is the picturesque village of Raghurajpur. The village is just ten kilometres prior to the temple town of Puri, and within a kilometre from NH-316. It is surrounded by tall coconut trees and richly textured paddy fields.
From our first print edition, to a webzine in issue.com, to our very own e-zine which won an award but no moolah, Fundamatics has constantly morphed to ensure that it does not become the latest casualty of the unsure world that we call the publishing business.
So this new look should not come as surprise to you, dear readers.
A lot has happened in the world since we surfaced last.
Pratham, the student satellite of IIT Bombay, was conceptualised in 2008 with the aim of making the institute a center for space science and technology research. The satellite is designed to fit within a cube of 30-cm side weighing nearly 10 kg. Among the mission objectives of Pratham, empowering the students involved with the skill set required to develop a satellite through various stages of design, analysis, fabrication and testing is at the forefront.