Tag: kapil sibal

The Indian Govt will make the fastest super Computer in the world by 2017 – with Rs 4700 Crore

The Govt of India is planning a supercomputer which will run at an Exaflop, a computing speed which is 61 times faster than the fastest supercomputer yet, Sequoia, which has registered a top computing speed of 16.32 petaflops.

Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal is understood to have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sharing the roadmap to develop “petaflop and exaflop range of supercomputers” at an estimated cost of Rs 4,700 crore over 5 years.

[quote]In his letter, he has said that C-DAC has developed a proposal with a roadmap to develop a petaflop and exaflop range of supercomputers in the country with an outlay of Rs 4,700 crore. The Minister has written that C-DAC developed first supercomputers in the country, the PARAM series. Presently Param Yuva with 54 teraflop computing power is serving many researchers through Garuda Computing Grid,” a government official said.[/quote]

The proposal made in the letter says that DEITY should be given tasks to set up a National Apex Committee to oversee the implementation of the proposed Supercomputing Mission and C-DAC should establish peta and exascale supercomputing facilities and development activities.

September 17, 2012
Governments enforces stringent mobile radiation standards

The government has imposed stringent mobile radiation standards which will come into effect from today.

With new guidelines coming into force, radiation emission from telecom towers will come down to 1/10th of the present level, a development that will address public health concerns. Also, the handsets to be rolled out from domestic manufacturing units or to be imported will have reduced absorption capacity, as per the new guidelines.

[quote]”Now with more stringent rules, we want to make sure that there is no violation. We told them to make required changes in all areas to meet new emission norms immediately,” Kapil Sibal said.[/quote]

Mobile phone companies would have to provide self-certification of compliance with the new norms and register with the telecom enforcement resource & monitoring (Term) cells. Term cells would conduct random audits and in case of complaints. The telecom department can impose a fine of 5 lakh per tower per telco if the rules are flouted.

September 3, 2012
Aakash 2 to be out soon : Kapil Sibal

As declared by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today, very soon an improved version of Aakash will be introduced in the market. In the month of June, this new and much better version of Aakash has been already inaugurated by Sibal at IIT-Bombay.

The improved version is fitted with a faster processor (most probably an 800 Mhz processor) and enhanced battery life among other features.
[quote]
“It (the idea of low cost computer) was rejected throughout the world and it was said that India would not be able to make it. Our HRD ministry was committed to the Aakash project and ultimately we came out with the first version of the Aakash which costs Rs 2,276. Now, Aakash-2 has been rolled out with battery life of three hours, 800MHz processor, providing internet access everywhere and it has a capacitive screen. The process to distribute this device has begun and it would be formally launched very soon,” Sibal said. [/quote]

August 14, 2012
Delhi High Court to hear Facebook and Google Appeal today

The Delhi high court will on Thursday take up the pleas filed by Google India and Facebook India challenging the summons issued by the lower court, for ‘offensive material’ posted on their websites.

Google and Facebook on Tuesday said that it was impossible for them to control the internet content uploaded by billions of people. Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul, appearing for Google India, had said that the summons issued to social networking sites by a metropolitan magistrate showed complete lack of understanding about how the online system worked.

The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China

–Neeraj Kishan Kaul

The advocate had tried to mention the fact that Google India and Google Inc. were infact two different entities and that Google India had no control over the actions of the US counterpart, nor are they responsible for it.

While companies in the US protest the SOPA and PIPA, India is still fighting for freedom of speech and expression of mind.

January 19, 2012
Delhi High Court to hear Facebook and Google’s petition

The Delhi High Court will hear the petition filed by Google and Facebook challenging the trial court’s order to prosecute them for objectionable content. Google, Facebook and 19 other social networking sites faced legal action for offences of promoting enmity between classes after Kapil Sibal led govt. team granted sanction to prosecute them on Friday.

The government is threatening to block Google and Facebook like in china if the companies fail to comply.

Like China, we will block all such websites, they need to check on offensive and objectionable material and remove such content from their web pages

-Justice Suresh Kait

The trial court had earlier summoned representatives from 21 of the internet based companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Youtube. A legal complaint has been filed under Section 292 (sale of obscene books etc), 293 (sale of obscene objects to young person etc) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. The court ordered the sites to remove all “anti-religious” or “anti-social” contents by February 6, 2012.

Google India, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi talking against this matter said

Billions of people across the globe, post their articles on the website. Yes, they may be defamatory, obscene but cannot be checked, The US-based Google Inc is the service provider and not me (Google India) and hence, we are not liable for the action of my holding company. Moreover, it is criminal case where a vicarious liability cannot be fastened on a company which has no role, whatsoever, in the alleged offence.

-Mukul Rohatgi

The govt. countered this statement by stating that the Indian Office can ask the US office to then remove such content.

January 16, 2012
Kapil Sibal aims to control Social Media

Bye bye democracy and welcome communism, India is heading the China way, as Kapi Sibal contacts Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in order to control the content that is rolled into free space, demanding they ban material that could incite tensions on the subcontinent. This all happened after his team spotted a group criticizing Sonia Gandhi on Facebook.

Wow talk about talking everything personally!

[Reuters]

December 8, 2011
EDIT: Kapil Sibal and the Indian Vaporware

Its been almost 2 full years since the announcement of the 20$ Tablet for the Indian market which has come and gone into release cycle time and again. From changing vendors to dropping manufacturers,Why is Kapil Sibal good at making excuses?

The tablet deemed to be an Indian product from the core, yet manufactured in China? HCL was the first company to refuse the manufacture of this tablet soon to be followed by Wipro, Satyam and others. The manufacturers all possibly gave up on the possibility of such a device, why make it impossible for a device to exist, and if you launch one 3 years later what is the point anyway.

A year ago a touchscreen tablet with Android 2.1 and a resistive touchscreen made sense, the recent news showed a device with a capacitive screen and other bits such as WiFi and USB ports etc. Also news upped the OS to Android 2.2. But is it really happening ? The usual bits are in place and excuses follow. The govt. gave a grant of several hundred crore to the project, an undisclosed amount, but to our dismay we could neither get details of the grant or what actually happened to the device.

A tablet that has touchscreen, WiFi and Android may or may not be able to educate the kids of today. But will definitely be a source of entertainment to them. low price- large screen Angry Birds anyone? There goes the education system down the drain.

Post this discussion the biggest question remains : whether or not the device would be even capable of playing Angry birds? Imagine you pull on the bird and it just gets stuck in mid air!

When we tried to contact Mr. Sibal’s office to get a comment, we got a polite reminder of how the country’s politics are more important

Abhi Anna Hazare is taking too much time!, whatever the Govt. wants to do-will do. You please mind your own business”

-Refused to tell us name – Assistant at Kapil Sibal’s Office

Why does “Anna Hazare” have anything to do with the Launch of a tablet that was supposed to happen last year. If anything the protests should speed up the process not slow it down.

Fortunately for us China is a wonderful country and many companies have started to bring in tablets in the price range of 5-10 thousand rupees. The HCL and Beetel Tablets cost 10,000 and the Reliance tab costs 12,999. With pricing already dropping daily, we can expect a good 2000-3000 tablet before the govt. even begins to allot this “Ration” based tablet. Which will probably end up going to “Politician and Family” as Diwali Gifts.

Here is a “Poof” to the Sakshat Tablet for India. Come on Mr. Sibal we expect a better result with a IT oriented country.

August 26, 2011