The DBT BIF  Centre for Bioinformatics, University of Kerala is organising
Bioinoformatica Indica 2010, International Symposium  from 11-13 of January 2010. The scope is to introduce various advances in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology with special focus on traditional as well as advanced areas of computaional work in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, structural bioinformatics, drug discovery, immunoinformatics, systems biology & synthetic biology.

Prof.Alessandro Giuliani, TCE Laboratory Instituto Superiore di Sanita’, Italy will be the symposium chair

Prof. Alessandro Giuliani, Dr. Pawan K. Dhar, Riken Yokohoma Institute, Tokyo; Dr. Chandra Verma, Bioinformatics Institute, Singapore; Dr. Clif Kussmaul, Muhlenberg College, USA; Dr. P.R. Sudhakaran, University of Kerala are the confirmed speakers so far.

Dr. Achuthsankar S Nair and Dr. V.S. Sugunan are the organizing Secretaries of Bioinformatica indica

MAD has entered an online competition called Indiya Shine Awards, that identifies new and promising organizations in India and promotes them in their Magazine “Little India” which is the largest overseas Indian Publication. MAD- Make a Difference is an Organization of young people working amongst orphans and other underprivileged kids to provide them with quality education

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If you have ever got an opportunity to interact with their volunteers or children and if they have touched your life in any way, do take 2 mins and write a two line review about them here

http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/make-a-difference

It would help create awareness about their work and raise some funds for their activities in India. If you have the time, do check out our blog: www.makeadiff.in/blog to a sneak peak on what’s going on in MAD

Is it just me or is the trivandrum traffic chaotic? I have been noticing this fact in Trivandrum for the last few months I have been in this capital city.

• People rarely use Zebra crossing even though, unlike Cochin, they are marked very appropriately.
• Automatic Traffic Signals, if not watched over by a policeman, is a complete joke. Here RED is the YELLOW here which means “USE your own discretion if the signal is red!”
• Free left is another joke. If you are turning right, you are o.k to be on the left end of the road!

Though the capital city has done a lot to ensure the huge numbers of pedestrian traffic in Trivandrum, it is ignored blatantly. It makes me wonder if traffic is the real culprit here more than the discipline.

Do let me know your thoughts on the traffic of Trivandrum!

The National Cadet Corps (NCC)and the State Education Department, will jointly organise a national symposium on October 23 and 24. The symposium will be held at Kanakakunnu Palace here bringing together expertise, experience, wisdom and youthful energy to share views, experiences, ideas and aspirations and would deal with ‘contemporary issues confronting the voluntary youth service with special reference to role and relevance of nation-building.’ On October 23, Governor R.S.Gavai will inaugurate the symposium at 4.30 p.m.

The symposium would focus on two thematic sessions – ‘assessing the contribution of NCC towards nation-building and socio-cultural and human resources development’ and ‘paradigms in the education sector and their implications on NCC’s youth development activities’. The symposium would also focus on questions like whether the NCC had kept pace with the developments and demands of a growing nation. The main objective is to bring together policy-makers, political thinkers, intellectuals and academicians under one roof to discuss the issue.

In near future, the existing six-digit Postal Index Numbers are going to be replaced with 11 digit Delivery Point Identity number in the Kerala Postal Circle. The preliminary work of the system has already begun. But the full implementation of the system would require some time to come into operation. Five more digits would be added to the existing PIN number under the new system. The first two digits would refer to the code of a postman serving a locality, while the remaining three digits would represent the code of an address.

All the 5000 odd post offices in the state would be computerized in the next couple of years. This would be done as part of enhancing the efficiency of the Postal Department. About 900 would be computerized soon. Attitude and skill training programmes are being conducted for the employees of the Postal Department. The post offices are receiving good response for various add-on services including ticket reservation services, sale of gold coins and various financial products. The department is also planning to introduce an insurance scheme for rubber saplings. Another interesting fact is out of 639 crore letters being handled by the Postal Department annually, a major part of it comes from Kerala circle.

Corporation has finally decided to set up biogas plants in the city. To reduce the waste heaps at Vilappilsala treatment plant, biogas plants will be set up in major markets. This is done as part of the decentralization of waste treatment. Biogas plants will come up at the main markets, including Pettah, Palayam, Karamana and Peroorkada. The health committee took the decision on biogas plants as waste produced in markets forms 5 to 10 percent of the total waste taken to Vilappilsala. The health committee at present is striving hard to reduce the waste being transported to the Vilappilsala plant so that no more garbage hills are formed. The accumulation of animal remains and flesh has been posing big job hazards to the Kudumbasree women and Corporation cleaning employees in Karamana and Pettah markets. Corporation had many plans of modernizing the markets and had set aside money in many of its budgets, but then markets have always remained neglected.

Meanwhile, the Corporation is expecting its air-tight vehicles to arrive any moment. Waste removal and transportation will no more be a stinking affair, once these vehicles get into work. One of these vehicles would be specifically set aside to collect and transport waste from the markets. Special provision would be made available to segregate the plastic and transport the bio-degradable waste alone. A waste disposal mechanism in markets has been a long-standing demand of councillors and locals. The Sreekariam panchayat had successfully installed a biogas plant a couple of years ago at the market there, which produces electricity from the gas to light the area.

An IT firm Travancore Analytics located in Trivandrum Technopark has developed a version of the very common snakes and ladders board game. Snake and Ladder, the exciting board game popular among the young and old alike, is now turning out to be a major hit on the iPhone and iTouch. This has turned out to be one among the most favorite free-downloads at App Store. Anyone who owns an iPhone or iTouch can download the games from iTunes. The game has managed as many as 2,50,000 downloads in the past week alone, which is the highest for an iPhone application developed by any Indian software company. More than 70 percent of the download was from Canada, UK and US.

The free version of the game allows the user to be the first player while iPhone being the second player. When the dice appears on screen, just shake the phone as you would do it while playing on the board game and the dice shows the number. Currently, the Snake and Ladder application occupies the numero uno position in 12 App Stores worldwide. IT companies based in Kerala are evolving as strategic players by providing cutting edge solutions to global companies for sustaining their competitiveness.

As part of e-governance, the Kerala government has launched a programme to digitalise all records in the Secretariat. Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan formally inaugurated the digitalization of records at the State Secretariat here on Wednesday. People will get better services with the completion of digitalization of all records. As of now, about 3.5 lakh files from 1991-2009 in 28 departments had already been digitalized.

Digitalization is still an ongoing process. Nearly 15,000 to 35,000 files pertaining to each year between 1991 and 2009 have been scanned and these have been included in a searchable database. About 1.25 terabytes of data have been stored as images. The work is still on to convert to all files in digital format. The work of scanning and preserving the records has been handed over to a public sector company Keltron. The process of digitalization started off four years ago and half of records from 1991 have been digitized. The work will still continue in coming days. Once completed, old records can be retrieved within seconds when necessary.

The electrification of more than 20,000 classrooms in government schools will be funded by the IT@School programme this year. Around 2,035 schools will be benefited by this and the work would is expected to be completed by December. Out of 2,035 schools, 1,045 will be high schools and the rest, higher secondary/ vocational higher secondary schools. Electrification will be done in 10 classrooms in a school. Upto Rs. 15,000 will be given for this purpose. The schools having more number of students will be provided with power connection of 20 classrooms. Also Rs. 5000 will be given to each school to upgrade their existing computer lab network. To install new such networks each school will be given Rs. 20,000. Once classrooms get power supply, laptops and projectors can be used there itself. This would enhance the quality of ICT-based teaching and learning, The deployment of broadband Internet connections in government high schools had been completed. And so each classroom would be having wireless access to the Net once the electrification is completed.

Kerala cafe is a novel concept which is being first introduced in Malayalam Movie industry .Though not alien to movie culture Kerala Cafe is made up of ten short films where the theme of travel blends all the movies together.  “Paris J’taime” was the first of its kind in this genre. Indian example include Mumbai Cutting.  Ace director and script writer  Ranjith who has given  movie buffs  many movies to cherish has been the chief architect behind this project.  He has involved some of the best directors in the movie industry to work on this project. Ten different short films are packed into one single movie under the common theme of yathra ( travel ). The movie is produced by Backwaters Entertainment Private Limited. The short film includes

1. Lalitham Hiranmayam directed by Shaji Kailas and starring Suresh Gopi, Jyothimayee and Dhanya Mary George.

2. Puramkazhchakal directed by Lal Jose and starring Mammootty, Sreenivasan, Manikandan, Sreelekha and Suresh Nair.

3. Aviramam directed by B.Unnikrishnan and starring Sidhik, Swetha Menon and Sudheesh.

4. Bridge directed by Anwar Rasheed and starring Saleem Kumar, Kozhikode Santhadevi, Kalpana, Jinu Joseph,
Molly Master Akash, Baby Karthu.

5. Offseason directed by ShyamaPrasad and starring Suraj Venjaramood, Frank Pietropinto, Marie Muscroft, Vindhyan.

6. Nostalgia directed by M.Padmakumar Dileep, Navya Nair, Suresh Krishna.

7. Makal directed by Revathi and starring Sona Nair, Augustin, Srinath, Sreelakshmi, Archana, Jayarao, Sasi,
Master Arun, Sai Shree.

8. Happy Journey directed by Anjali Menon and starring Jagathy Sreekumar, Nithya Menen, Mukundan.

9. Mrityunjayam directed by Uday Ananthan starring Thilakan, Fahd Faazil, Reema.

10. Island Express directed by Shankar Ramakrishnan  starring Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Rehman, Manian Pilla Raju,Sreejith Ravi,  Sukumari,  Kani, Shelly,Geethu Christie.

The cast includes all the leading male and female actors of Kerala Film Industry with the exception of  Mohanlal.  the movie is set to hit theatres on October 29 2009. For interviews, exclusive contents and wall papers visit keralacafe.moviebuzz.org.