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.

A long-cherished dream of Kerala, Vizhinjam International Container Terminal to be revived! The project had to face many obstacles but now the State Government has decided to revive the mega port project with a state-run company Vizhinjam International Seaport (VISL) to create an infrastructure worth Rs 450 crore. VISL would complete the basic works like road and rail links at the project site. The company will also find a private partner for the development of the subsequent phases of the project.

The co-operation from the Railways and the National Highway Authority would also be sought to complete the works within 12 to 18 months from now. The project had to run into difficulties, mostly on account of legal flaws in procedures in finding private partners. The infrastructure major Lanco Kondapally Ltd was the last one to opt out of the scheme due to court issues. In the mid-20^th century, Vizhinjam was identified as a major port considering its natural depth and strategic location in the international maritime route. The past estimation of the greenfield project had been that it would require Rs 4,500 crore to Rs 6,000 crore for completion of all stages.

The Traffic Police have taken initiative to create awareness among children on traffic rules. As part of this, the Traffic Police will be distributing a booklet on the topic among the schoolchildren here. The booklet will be having songs on traffic rules as well as details regarding traffic rules. Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan released the booklet today. The 48-page booklet has five Malayalam songs and two English songs, besides notes on traffic rules. It would be distributed free of cost among third-standard and fourth-standard students. Around 3 lakh booklets would be distributed in the first phase. The scheme is launched by State Bank of India in association with Org People. Recently, the Traffic Police had launched a new logo, a Zebra named Pappu to create awareness among the public, especially the young people. The artist Nandan Pillai prepared the booklet for the public. Lets hope everyone would get to know the traffic rules.

The Thiruvananthapuram scheme of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is going through a major phase now – laying of water pipelines under the railway lines. The pipelines have already been laid under the tracks at two spots. And now, JICA is awaiting the sanction of the Railways to carry out the work at RMS, Trivandrum Central. The scheme has pipeline work under four railway lines – at Station Kadavu, VSSC area (Kochuveli), RMS (Trivandrum Central) and Kunjaloommoodu.

The use of trenchless technology i.e., jack and pushing method makes the work more significant. The tunnels are made using this method under the railway lines and pipelines are laid through them. While 27 m of pipeline was laid at Station Kadavu, at VSSC area, a 47-m pipeline was laid. At RMS, the total length of the pipeline will be 60 m and it will pass under seven railway lines, at a depth of three-and-half metres. Ninety percent work of Package I of the scheme, i.e. water treatment plant, is complete.

We can expect it to be commissioned by December. Phase II, which has the transmission main, is 42 km long and, of this, 39 km has been completed. Phase III, the distribution main, is 380 km long and, of this, 270 km has been completed. Phase IV includes service reservoirs. Of the 11 tanks, the work of four tanks has been completed. Thiruvananthapuram city, Kudappanakkunnu, Vattiyoorkavu and Sreekariyam panchayats will be benefited by the scheme.

College of Engineering hosted the inauguration of Special Postgraduate Expansion Drive in IT (SPEED-IT) here on Wednesday. Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan was the chief guest and formally inaugurated SPEED-IT. SPEED-IT is the latest initiative of the Department of Information Technology and aims at setting up special Masters and Doctoral programmes in Information Technology in selected engineering colleges and universities in the State. The initiative will induce students to pursue M.Tech in IT and related disciplines through scholarships offered by the State government. The programme will consist of scholarship students and sponsored students. The course curriculum has been designed on the pattern of the MBA programme offered at the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram.