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Computers and the IT revolution
1.0 Introduction
Computers have undoubtedly been one of the greatest inventions of mankind. Since its invention in 1948, electronic computers have changed the way world works. Today, modern existence without computers is unimaginable.
Though they were originally designed for defence purposes during World War II, the machine called ‘computer’ has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, and its uses are almost beyond comprehension. Present day computers are used to work, to play, to have fun, to shop, to study, to talk, to date and to generally do anything one can think about. Computers have replaced human beings in so many fields that it is easy to list those tasks where it has failed to replace humans till date. Thankfully, so far, computers have not replaced humans in fields where feelings, taste, experience, judgment and creativity are required. However, efforts are on to add these attributes as well to the computer!
A brief timeline with important developments
In 1617 AD, a Scot John Napier developed the logarithm table called 'Napier’s Bones' that was a strip of rods on which numbers were printed. By shaking the frame, in a specialised manner, one could perform multiplication and find quotients of numbers.
In 1621, Englishman William Oughtred invented the slides rule, the first anolog computer. But the same could perform multiplication & division by repetative additions & subtractions.
In 1821, Charles Babbage designed a machine called 'Difference Engine' which could calculate trigonometrical and logarithm tables for astronomical purposes by using the difference method & received the gold medal from Royal Astronomical Society. Later he was called the ‘father of computers’. Lady Augustha Ada, the first software engineer programmer, is known as the mother of computers. Later, Babbage designed a much advanced type of machine called 'analamic engine' which would execute changeable sequence of operations but that was too far advanced to be implemented & manufactured with then existing technology.
In 1884, William S. Burrough, a bank clerk, developed a key set adding printing machine which was mechanical but the machine could record summarise & calculate.
In 1909, Charles Cattering developed the first electro-mechanical Computer (i.e Accounting Machine) for commercial use. Upto 1920 this machine was used for commercial purposes.
2.0 THE FIVE GENERATIONS OF COMPUTERS
The development of computers can be clearly benchmarked on five definable generations of computers. Each generation is defined by a significant technological development that changes fundamentally how computers operate, leading to more compact, less expensive, but more powerful, efficient and robust machines.
1940 – 1956: First Generation - Vacuum Tubes
These early computers used vacuum tubes as circuitry and magnetic drums for memory. As a result they were enormous, literally taking up entire rooms and costing a fortune to run. These were inefficient materials which generated a lot of heat, sucked a lot of electricity and subsequently generated a lot of heat which caused ongoing breakdowns.
These first generation computers relied on 'machine language' (which is the most basic programming language that can be understood by computers). These computers were limited to solving one problem at a time. Input was based on punched cards and paper tape. Output came out on print-outs. The two notable machines of this era were the UNIVAC and ENIAC machines - the UNIVAC is the first ever commercial computer which was purchased in 1951 by a business - the US Census Bureau.
1956 – 1963: Second Generation - Transistors
The replacement of vacuum tubes by transistors saw the advent of the second generation of computing. Although first invented in 1947, transistors weren't used significantly in computers until the end of the 1950s. They were a big improvement over the vacuum tube, despite still subjecting computers to damaging levels of heat. However they were hugely superior to the vacuum tubes, making computers smaller, faster, cheaper and less heavy on electricity use. They still relied on punched card for input/printouts.
The language evolved from cryptic binary language to symbolic ('assembly') languages. This meant programmers could create instructions in words. About the same time high level programming languages were being developed (early versions of COBOL and FORTRAN). Transistor-driven machines were the first computers to store instructions into their memories - moving from magnetic drum to magnetic core 'technology'. The early versions of these machines were developed for the atomic energy industry.
1964 – 1971: Third Generation - Integrated Circuits
By this phase, transistors were now being miniaturised and put on silicon chips (called semiconductors). This led to a massive increase in speed and efficiency of these machines. These were the first computers where users interacted using keyboards and monitors which interfaced with an operating system, a significant leap up from the punch cards and printouts. This enabled these machines to run several applications at once using a central program which functioned to monitor memory.
As a result of these advances which again made machines cheaper and smaller, a new mass market of users emerged during the 1960s.
1972 – 2010: Fourth Generation - Microprocessors
This revolution can be summed in one word: Intel. The chip-maker developed the Intel 4004 chip in 1971, which positioned all computer components (CPU, memory, input/output controls) onto a single chip. What filled a room in the 1940s now fit in the palm of the hand. The Intel chip housed thousands of integrated circuits. The year 1981 saw the first ever computer (IBM) specifically designed for home use and 1984 saw the MacIntosh introduced by Apple. Microprocessors even moved beyond the realm of computers and into an increasing number of everyday products.
The increased power of these small computers meant they could be linked, creating networks. Which ultimately led to the development, birth and rapid evolution of the Internet. Other major advances during this period have been the Graphical user interface (GUI), the mouse and more recently, the astounding advances in lap-top capability and hand-held devices.
2010 Onwards: Fifth Generation - Artificial Intelligence
Computer devices with artificial intelligence are still in development, but some of these technologies are beginning to emerge and be used such as voice recognition. AI is a reality made possible by using parallel processing and superconductors. Leaning to the future, computers will be radically transformed again by quantum computation, molecular and nano technology. The essence of fifth generation will be using these technologies to ultimately create machines which can process and respond to natural language, and have capability to learn and organise themselves.
3.0 Evolution of Computers in India
Even though the world got introduced to the computer technology in late forties, India bought its first computer in 1956 for a princely sum of Rs 10 lakh. It was called HEC-2M and was installed at Calcutta's Indian Statistical Institute. It was nothing more than a number crunching machine and was huge in size. The dimensions of this monster were 10 ft in length, 7 ft in breadth and 6 ft in height. It played a critical role in formulating annual and five-year plans by the planning commission, and in top-secret projects of India's nuclear program. Moreover, it went on to turn out India's first generation of computer professionals. It was at least ten thousand times slower in solving even simple problems than today's machines. But it set the stage for the development of computers in India.
The HEC-2M also played a pivotal role in the statistical data processing that formed the bedrock of the five-year plans. India's weather forecasting model, too, based on statistical analysis of meteorological data, was developed on it. Most importantly, the same machine was used to design the next generation of computers, including India's first indigenous computer, the 'TIFRAC’ (or Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Computer), in 1962.
From that point in time, today India has come a long way. Today almost every office desk in India has a PC and government's computer policies shows its sincere efforts to reach out to every village in the country. For a nation like India which is geographically big and culturally and linguistically so varied, computer technology has proved to be a great tool of overall development. Successful efforts are made at government as well as non-government level to use this technology for the benefit of the Indian society.
3.1 India's first Supercomputer
Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modelling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion).
India's First Supercomputer was PARAM 8000. PARAM stood for Parallel Machine. This computer was developed by the government run Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in 1991. The PARAM 8000 had a rating of 1 Gigaflop (billion floating point operations per second). All the chips and other elements that were used in making of PARAM were bought from the open domestic market. The major applications of PARAM Supercomputer are in long-range weather forecasting, remote sensing, drug design and molecular modelling.
3.2 India's current supercomputers
Today, India is certainly giving the western countries a run for their money where supercomputing is concerned. India has been ranked number four in the world, in a global list of countries with the most powerful supercomputers. Only the US, China and Germany are ahead of India.
The supercomputer facility at Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) has been ranked as the 4th fastest supercomputer in the world and fastest supercomputer in Asia. Called EKA (the Sanskrit name for number one), the supercomputer built at the CRL facility at Pune, India, marks a milestone in India's effort to build an indigenous high performance computing solution. In the supercomputer segment (the performance criteria is minimum of 1.71 TFlops) India can boast of fifteen such machines of which five systems are from Centre for Development of Advance Computing (CDAC), proving its status as a leading high performance computing centre in the nation.
Such computing facilities are essential for any country's growth in fields like defense, meteorology, remote sensing, statistical analysis etc. It offers a centralized facility for large computational requirement. Strategic analysis essential for the defense of the country is not possible without the help of supercomputers. Computers are very helpful to meteorologists because they provide images and maps which help in weather prediction. They also help meteorologists build numerical weather models that can predict future weather patterns. Computers take all the information from weather stations, satellites, and weather balloons and convert it into weather maps. Image analysis of the maps obtained from remote sensing requires very high computing capability. Supercomputers are also helpful for policy makers and statisticians who can get their enormous data analyzed to suit their requirements.
3.3 E-governance and the national e-governance plan
E-Government is the short for electronic government, also known as
e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government. It is creating a comfortable, transparent, and cheap interaction between government and citizens. Computing technology today is recognized as an effective tool for catalyzing the economic activity in efficient governance and in developing human resource. As the era of Digital Economy evolves, the concept of good Governance assumes a greater significance. It is expected that in this context the Electronic Governance will result in improved transparency, speedy information dissemination, higher administrative efficiency and improved public services in sectors including transportation, education, power, health, water, security and the state administration and municipal services.
The National e-Governance Plan of Indian Government seeks to lay the foundation and provide the impetus for long-term growth of e-Governance within the country. The plan seeks to create the right governance and institutional mechanisms, set up the core infrastructure and policies and implement a number of Mission Mode Projects at the centre, state and integrated service levels to create a citizen-centric and business-centric environment for governance.
Online Services under National e-Governance Plan covers Income Tax, Passport/VISA, Company Affairs, Central Excise, Pensions, Land Records, Road Transport, Property Registration, Agriculture, Municipalities, Gram Panchayats (Rural), Police, Employment Exchange, E-Courts, etc. All this will make interaction between government and citizens much better and in turn will also eradicate menaces like corruption and red tape.
3.4 Development of multilingual software
India is divided into states on the basis of language. Even though the Indian government works officially in English and Hindi, the language of administration differs from state to state. The Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages. Due to British rule, English is understood in all the states and is therefore works as a common thread of communication between all the states. Hence when computer was introduced in India, English became the language of communication with computer as well. But general public's inability to understand English became the biggest block in reaching out to masses.
An effort was required to customize this great machine for Indian languages. Many efforts were made at government as well as in private sector to achieve this. These organizations tried to put Indian Languages on the map of digital computing. A new field of Indian Language Technology got developed. New software and hardware technologies enriched this field.
CD AC developed a GIST technology which has to its credit several innovative products and cutting edge technology which have revolutionized computing and made GIST synonymous with Indian Language Computing. Its areas of Research are impressive and cover the full gamut of computing: Natural Language Processing tools (such as spell and grammar checkers, natural query), Search plug-in's, Semantic Web, Video Technologies, fonts technology, expert writing systems, image processing (Optical Character and Handwritten character Recognition), Speech Processing, Embedded and Mobile Computing to name only a few.
Today GIST technologies forms an integral part of mission critical activities of various organizations. Mindful of the social function of computing the GIST technologies also powers the National initiatives especially meant for masses in the areas of e-Governance, education, agriculture, health, banking and communication and so on.
3.5 Google's transliteration effort
The latest to contribute to the development of software offering uniform platform to Indian languages is the software giant Google. Transliteration is the method to enable users to enter text in one of the supported languages using a roman keyboard. Users can type a word the way it sounds using Latin characters and transliteration script will convert the word to its native script. Till recently this service was offered online only -means you need an internet connection for transliteration. Now Google has launched the new transliteration software - "Google Transliteration IME" which enables offline transliteration also.
This is available today for 14 different Indian languages - Arabic, Bengali, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
3.6 Education
By world standards, India is far behind in the field of literacy. In spite of consistent efforts from central and state governments, the literacy rate has not risen to acceptable levels. There are many factors responsible for the same. Huge population and lack of good teachers to reach out to this population are two major factors in addition to scarcity of resources. Computing technology comes handy to solve such problems.
3.7 K-Yan: The Compact Media Centre
New generation communication technologies allow creation of novel media products that can serve the community at large. Such products must be robust, and possess simple and universal interfaces. Prof Kirti Trivedi of IDC has developed K-Yan, such a compact media product for community use. It combines the functions of: a multimedia and internet enabled PC, large format television, DVD/VCD/CD player, CD writer, video-conference device, LCD data projector, and an audio system that facilitates shared viewing and participation by users. Launched in March 2004, K-Yan has been demonstrated to several Chief Ministers, and senior state and central government officials. K-Yan is easy to use, has multilingual facilities, and eliminates the need for investing in other media hardware. A single unit caters to the teaching needs of an entire class, and substantially reduces the cost of computerizing. The integration of various functions not only allows students to learn how to use a computer, but also other subjects, and crafts. The product will also be useful in other group learning or information dissemination programs like healthcare, family planning, agricultural practices, and civic awareness drives.
K-Yan is equipped with extra solar energy-based portable power supply to enable use in areas with no electricity. Mounted on a van, it can also function as a mobile communication centre from remote locations. With an internet connection and a web-camera, it would allow low cost web-conferencing from any location making it useful in disaster management or project progress monitoring. The web-conferencing feature will also be useful in e-governance, as it will facilitate direct communication between various agencies and the administration. K-Yan has evoked enthusiastic response and is on the way to becoming a major commercial success.
3.8 Indians on international computing scene
International computing scene is also enriched by many Indians and persons of Indian origin. Former GM of Hewlett Packard Rajiv Gupta, founder and creator of worlds' No.1 web based email program Hotmail Sabeer Bhatia, Ex-president of AT&T-Bell Labs (AT&T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few) Arun Netravalli, the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems, Sanjay Tejwrika, the creator of Pentium chip Vinod Dham are just a few names to prove this point. It is said that 34% of Microsoft employees are Indians, 28% of IBM employees are Indians, and 17% of Intel scientists are Indians. It clearly shows Indian domination in international computing.
4.0 GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES IN INDIA
4.1 The Electronic Commission
In 1966 Mrs. Indira Gandhi became the PM after the sudden death of PM Shri Shastri in January 1966. The Electronics Committee's Report came out in 1966, followed by an additional report in 1968 from its Working Group on Computers prepared under the leadership of R. Narasimhan of TIFR. It outlined India's electronic and computing plans for the next ten years, and recommended that indigenous design and development of not only the computers but also the components and subsystems. In June 1, 1967, the government set up the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) at Hyderabad for producing electronic and computing systems, instmments and components. Still for immediate needs, India sorely needed modem computing technologies in government, educational and research establishments. Therefore international companies were initially invited in to fill the need.
However, this proved to be a negative experience for India. Multinational companies such as Intemational Computers Ltd. (ICL), UK, and IBM leased obsolete or refurbished equipment that were being phased out in the technologically advanced westem countries. For example, IBM sold the obsolete IBM 1401 computers which were being phased out in the West because of the arrival of the third generation IBM 360 series (Subramanian, 1992). Indian scientists and policy makers took note of these inequities, and the voices calling for self-sufficiency gained strength. The Electronics Committee convened a National Conference on Electronics in 1968, and the conference ended with a strong resolution propounded by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the Chairman of the Committee, to indigenize and attain self reliance in every aspect of computer technology. Even though some scientists such as V. Rajaraman ofthe Indian Institute of Technology expressed doubt at the viability of this goal such notions were ignored and imports were discouraged.
4.2 Through the 1980s
Two other events had a far reaching impact on the government policy. Asian Games were to be held in Delhi in 1982 and Rajiv Gandhi, the son of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was asked to assume overall responsibility of organizing the games. He was technically savvy, being an amateur electronics buff. He decided that computers should be used to draw up the games' schedules, event records, announcement of results, and all other clerical chores. Locally made DCM computers were used as terminals at various venues and connected to a Hewlett Packard server. The entire software system was developed in a short period of six months by the software engineers of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the Government of India. The computerization of the games was a resounding success. This brought N.Seshagiri, the Director General of the NIC, close to Rajiv Gandhi.
In 1984 Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India. He had heard from the private entrepreneurs during his interactions with them when he was organizing the Asian Games their difficulties in manufacturing computers due to myriad rules and regulations. N. Seshagiri who was his informal advisor was also aware of the difficulties faced by the private entrepreneurs in manufacturing and marketing computers. The time was thus ripe for further liberalization of policies relating to the manufacture of computers. A liberalized policy on minicomputers was announced in 1984.
CMC had set up a network of IBM 4342 mainframes known as Indonet. This network was allowed to be used by software exporters at a concessional tariff. Besides these policy changes there were also reforms in the area of communications. The public switched networks as well as overseas communication links were the monopoly of the government and were run by a government department with its employees having the status of government servants. As a government department its budget was part of government budgeting resulting in low investment and poor service. In 1982 there was a waiting time of over 2 years to get a land line telephone connection. While the rest of the world was surging ahead in providing inexpensive communication facilities, the infrastructure in India was primitive.
4.3 MTNL, VSNL and C-Dot
Under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi two policy decisions were taken. The first one was to corporatize the public switched telephone network. A public sector company called the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) was formed to operate telephone services in Mumbai and Delhi. It was given operational autonomy. Another company named the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL) was established in 1986 to improve overseas communication. In 1984 a research group was formed under the leadership of Satyanarayan (Sam) Pitroda assisted by M.V. Pitke (who had led the AREN group discussed earlier) and G.B.Meemamsi (an officer of the Department of Telecommunication). It was called the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT). The main goal of CDOT was to design digital exchanges of small capacity suitable for use in rural India which had problems of poor power availability and extreme weather conditions (45°C in summer and 5°C in winter). CDOT recruited a highly motivated group of engineers and developed a rugged switch and a digital exchange in a record time of 3 years. CDOT switches were widely deployed and they performed very well.
Another important revolution in rural telecommunication in India was the development of public telephone booths with microprocessor based systems for billing telephone calls. These were called Public Call Offices (PCOs). The public could place local, long distance, and international telephone calls from these PCOs and pay the charges to an attendant. A microprocessor attached to the telephone printed the cost of a call as soon as it was completed which enabled transparent toll collection. The cost of establishing such PCOs was low which enabled a large number of entrepreneurs to enter this business. These privately owned PCOs became ubiquitous in small towns, villages, and on highways all over India leading to a communication revolution. Every nook and corner of India was connected within 5 years. The power of microcomputer was visible to all.
5.0 Educational programmes
IIT Kanpur, which had started the first Master's Programme in Computer Science in India, again pioneered in starting an undergraduate programme in Computer Science in 1978. It was the first IIT to start such a programmme. Entry to IITs is highly competitive and over 1,00,000 students took the entrance examination from all over India for the 1500 seats (in 1978) and students were given the choice of the IIT and the programme they opt to join based on their rank in this examination. The IIT Kanpur senate had grudgingly allowed 20 students to be admitted to the Computer Science (CSc) programme as it felt that CSc was not "mainstream" engineering. However, the CSc programme was so popular among the students that the rank of the last student admitted to the IITK CSc course was 40! This came as a surprise to other IITs and all of them started B.Tech. programmes in CSc. Soon a Department of Computer Science and Engineering was started in all the IITs offering B.Tech, M.Tech and Phd degrees in Computer Science and Engineering.
In 1980 the Electronics Commission foresaw the problem of scarcity of human resources for the emerging computer industry. A Panel on Computer Manpower Development under my chairmanship was formed to suggest solutions. The panel recommended expanding the undergraduate programmes in Computer Science at IITs and other engineering colleges.
Another novel proposal of the panel was to start a new programme called Master of Computer Applications (MCA). In the Indian education system, after graduation from high school, a large number of students enroll in a three year B.Sc course with physics, chemistry and mathematics as the main subjects or in B.Com course with commerce, economics, and statistics as the main subjects. These degrees are general ones and do not prepare a student for a profession which requires specific skills. It was felt by the panel that India needed a large number of persons to develop business/management information systems for use in organizations both in India and abroad. This required systems analysts with some breadth in education and specialization in software development.
6.0 Other initiatives
Promoting software exports: In 1981 the Electronic Commission appointed a committee with me as its chairman to promote software export by allowing import of computers. The committee recommended liberalization of import of computers for genuine exporters.
Assisting neighbouring countries in computerization: CMC obtained funding from the UNDP of USD2.75 million for a programme called the International Education and Research for Application of Computer Technology (Project INTERACT). It spread the use of computer technology to neighbouring developing countries by designing training programmes in software development and computer maintenance.
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Programme in Computer Aided Design (CAD): DOE obtained a grant from the UNDP of USD 1.5 million in 1984 and contributed Rs.340 million to establish CAD centres at IIT/Kanpur, IIT/Bombay, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Jadavpur University. These centres developed software and human resources in various areas of CAD. The centre at the IISc/Bangalore, of which I was the coordinator, specialized in developing CAD tools in electronics. The IISc CAD centre collaborated with the Delft University of the Netherlands and obtained NELSIS, a tool for large scale integrated circuit design. Many scientists went abroad to get trained in the design and use of CAD tools and later on developed tools of their own and assisted the industry by offering short term courses and providing trained human resource. (During the mid 80s the US Government had banned the export of CAD tools in electronics to even educational institutions in India.)
Computer Assisted Management Programmes: In 1984 the DoE along with the UNDP funded a programme called Computer Aided Management in the three Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata and at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. This project had two aims. One was to initiate research in the application of computers in management to improve the efficiency of organizations. The other was to train students at these institutes and practicing managers to use computers to improve the functioning of organizations. A total grant of USD 1.25 million and Rs.35 million was provided. Each institute also got a VAX II/750 computer and a number of software packages in optimization. The project was very useful in educating managers in systems analysis and using appropriate software to improve management processes.
Promoting offshore software development: The DoE negotiated with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) in 1985 to allow Texas Instruments (TI) to set up a dedicated satellite communication link to its centre at Dallas, USA. TI's centre in Bangalore developed software tools and sent them to its Dallas centre via a dedicated satellite communication link. This was the first step in breaking the monopoly of the DoT in communications and had far reaching consequences later in the growth of "off shore" software development centres and the Software Technology Parks programme of the DoE.
Teacher Training Programme: The DoE set up a committee in 1985 with S.Sampath as its chairman which suggested training teachers in Computer Science for the colleges which were being newly established.
Knowledge Based Computer Systems Development Programme: The DoE obtained funding in 1985 from the UNDP of USD 5.2 million and invested Rs.140 million to start a programme called the Knowledge Based Computer Systems (KBCS) development. The participating institutions were IISc, Bangalore, IIT/Madras, ISI/Calcutta, TIFR/Mumbai and NCST/Mumbai. This programme led to the design of parallel computers, expert systems in medicine, soft computing including script recognition of Indian languages and research in speech recognition and knowledge representation. A large number of scientists from these institutions were sent abroad for working in renowned Universities in the USA and in the UK. This programme also improved the research infrastructure available in the participating institutions.
Promoting use of computers in banks: A committee set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) with R.Rangarajan as its chairman recommended that all banks should have EDP cells and all back office work was to be done using computers. The committee also recommended the use of UNIX as the standard Operating System (OS) in banks. The computer requirements of banks were large and gave an impetus to private computer manufacturing companies to design and develop minicomputers using UNIX as the OS. The increase in computer use by banks was a red flag to the trade unions and they observed 1984 as "anti computerization year". This perception changed in 1986 when a passenger reservation system was implemented by CMC for the Indian Railways.
Establishment of a National Supercomputer Education and Research Centre: The Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India gave a grant of Rs.500 million (Rs.12 per USD) to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1984 to set up a Supercomputer Education and Research Centre (SERC). A national committee was constituted to select appropriate computers for the SERC. The committee visited two companies in the USA and one in Japan and suggested a Cray YMP as the main supercomputer, a number of front end computers and numerous high end workstations.
An order was placed with Cray and the company signed a contract to install the Cray YMP at the Indian Institute of Science by 1989. Cray was confident of getting a licence to export the computer to the Institute. A team led by an official of the US Department of State visited the institute and a number of conditions for the use of the computer were negotiated and mutually agreed.
The Supercomputer Education and Research Centre continued to receive support from the Government of India and by 2010 it had an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, three high performance computer clusters and an improved campus network. (By 2010 the US government had loosened export controls on supercomputers to India )
Establishment of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing: The Science Advisory Committee to the Prime Minister chaired by C.N.R. Rao set up a committee in 1986 with me as its chairman to suggest methods of designing and fabricating high performance computers. The committee was formed as a consequence of the difficulties encountered by India in buying supercomputers from the USA and Japan. The committee suggested a mission mode project to build parallel computers with a speed of a giga?flop or above. Consequently, the DoE established a Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) at Pune in 1988 with an initial investment of Rs.300 million to build high performance parallel computers.
The project was successfully completed in 1991, CDAC went on to build more powerful parallel computers and in 2007 built a machine called PARAM PADMA which was ranked 171 in the list of 500 fastest computers in the world. Besides its efforts in parallel computing, another notable contribution of CDAC was the development of an integrated circuit chip called GIST (Graphics and Intelligence based Script Technology) which could be mounted on an add?on board for a PC. This board facilitated the use of most Indian language scripts with PCs. GIST used a standard Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII). A common keyboard layout for different Indian scripts was also designed.
Parallel Computer Design Projects: Besides the effort by CDAC there was a flurry of activities in designing parallel computers between 1985 and 1992. A number of other institutions also designed parallel computers as research projects and for their internal use. Notable among these were FLOSOLVER, a machine to solve fluid dynamics problems by the National Aeronautical Laboratories at Bangalore, PACE by the Defence Research and Development Organization at Hyderabad, and ANUPAM by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Mumbai. As part of the KBCS project several low cost parallel computers using PC motherboards were built at the IISc at Bangalore. Around ten students at the IISc obtained doctorates working on various aspects of parallel computing. All the projects described above generated a large pool of engineers adept in designing and programming parallel computers.
Computerizing the ticket reservation system of the Indian Railways: A major project to computerize the reservation of tickets in the Indian Railways began in 1984 and was completed in 1986. India has one of the largest railway networks in the world. In 1984 it handled over 5 million passengers travelling in over 600 long distance trains with around 50,000 reservation requests. Passengers had to stand in long queues to obtain reservations. Clerks kept numerous ledgers, one for each train, and they had to juggle between ledgers depending on the choice of trains by the passengers. The area of reservation was ripe for computerization.
Establishing Software Technology Parks of India (STPI): Another major initiative taken by the DoE was the setting up of Software Technology Parks (STPs). Software Technology Parks provided infrastructure such as buildings, work stations and continuous uninterrupted power supply to software companies located in these parks. In addition STPs established satellite communication links which could be used by these companies to develop software on the computers of their overseas customers from access terminals located in their respective premises in STP. As the investment required to set up a company in STP was low, this initiative allowed many small entrepreneurs to enter the software services export business. The first STP was established in Bangalore in 1990. STPs were set up later in many other cities and incorporated as STPI controlled by the DoE.
Development and use of Electronic Voting Machines: Another significant event which took place in 1982 was the use of microprocessor based electronic voting machines (for the first time probably in the world) in a bye election to the Indian Parliament held in Kerala. The electronic voting machine (EVM) was designed by two public sector companies: the Bharat Electronics Ltd., and the ECIL, for easy use by the illiterate electorate. The use of EVMs allowed the declaration of election results within two days after voting. (Since the general elections of 2004 only EVMs are used in India. The use of manually filled ballot papers has been discontinued.)
The effectiveness of computers in three highly visible projects, namely, the reservation of train tickets, Public Call Offices, and computerized electronic voting, changed the perception of policy makers and the general public about computers and their relevance to India.
7.0 THE 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGY
According to expert, 3D printing is potentially as game-changing as the steam engine or telegraph were in their day and could herald a new industrial revolution.
3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process by which three dimensional solid objects can be created from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. To prepare the digital file created in a 3D modeling program for printing, the software slices the final model into hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers. When this prepared file is uploaded in the 3D printer, the printer creates the object layer by layer. The 3D printer reads every slice (or 2D image) and proceeds to create the object blending each layer together with no sign of the layering visible, resulting in one three dimensional object. The most common technologies used to achieve this are Stereolithography (SLA), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM).
In addition to the potential ecological impact of producing products right where they are needed 3-D printing could make small-scale production of objects cheaper, rather than turning out huge numbers which may go to waste.
Applications of 3D Printing technology range from design visualization, prototyping/CAD, metal casting to architecture, education, geospatial, healthcare and entertainment/retail. Other applications include reconstructing fossils in paleontology, replicating ancient and priceless artifacts in archaeology, reconstructing bones and body parts in forensic pathology and reconstructing heavily damaged evidence acquired from crime scene investigations. With the technology becoming cheaper and more and more number of people beginning to afford it, this technology is now being used for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing.
3D printers capable of producing an output in colour and multiple materials already exist. Continuous improvements in technology will make 3D printing of functional products possible. This will have wide ramifications on energy use, waste reduction, customization, product availability, medicine, art, construction and sciences. Hence it is said that 3D printing has the ability to change the manufacturing world.
8.0 CHANGES MADE BY THE IT ACT 2008
The Indian government enacted an information technology Act in 2000. Later on some changes were made to this act by the IT Act of 2008. The important changes were:
Salient features of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008
- The term 'digital signature' has been replaced with 'electronic signature' to make the Act more technology neutral.
- A new section has been inserted to define 'communication device' to mean cell phones, personal digital assistance or combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text video, audio or image.
- A new section has been added to define cyber cafe as any facility from where the access to the internet is offered by any person in the ordinary course of business to the members of the public.
- A new definition has been inserted for intermediary.
- A new section 10A has been inserted to the effect that contracts concluded electronically shall not be deemed to be unenforceable solely on the ground that electronic form or means was used.
- The damages of Rs. One Crore prescribed under section 43 of the earlier Act of 2000 for damage to computer, computer system etc. has been deleted and the relevant parts of the section have been substituted by the words, 'he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected'.
- A new section 43A has been inserted to protect sensitive personal data or information possessed, dealt or handled by a body corporate in a computer resource which such body corporate owns, controls or operates. If such body corporate is negligent in implementing and maintaining reasonable security practices and procedures and thereby causes wrongful loss or wrongful gain to any person, it shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.
- Sections 66A to 66F has been added to Section 66 prescribing punishment for offences such as obscene electronic message transmissions, identity theft, cheating by impersonation using computer resource, violation of privacy and cyber terrorism. In March 2015, in a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66 A terming it unconstitutional as it infringed upon the fundamental right of freedom of expression.
- Section 67 of the IT Act, 2000 has been amended to reduce the term of imprisonment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form to three years from five years and increase the fine thereof from Rs.100,000 to Rs. 500,000. Sections 67A to 67C have also been inserted. While Sections 67A and B deals with penal provisions in respect of offences of publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act and child pornography in electronic form, Section 67C deals with the obligation of an intermediary to preserve and retain such information as may be specified for such duration and in such manner and format as the central government may prescribe.
- In view of the increasing threat of terrorism in the country, the new amendments include an amended section 69 giving power to the state to issue directions for interception or monitoring of decryption of any information through any computer resource. Further, sections 69A and B, two new sections, grant power to the state to issue directions for blocking for public access of any information through any computer resource and to authorize to monitor and collect traffic data or information through any computer resource for cyber security.
- Section 79 of the Act which exempted intermediaries has been modified to the effect that an intermediary shall not be liable for any third party information data or communication link made available or hosted by him if;
- The function of the intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted;
- The intermediary does not initiate the transmission or select the receiver of the transmission and select or modify the information contained in the transmission;
- The intermediary observes due diligence while discharging his duties. However, section 79 will not apply to an intermediary if the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act or upon receiving actual knowledge or on being notified that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by it is being used to commit an unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner.
- A proviso has been added to Section 81 which states that the provisions of the Act shall have overriding effect. The proviso states that nothing contained in the Act shall restrict any person from exercising any right under the Copyright Act, 1957.
9.0 DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAMME
The Modi government launched its ambitious ‘Digital India’ programme in 2015. The huge and ambitious scale of it promises to transform the basis of transactions and governance in India.
10.0 DATA IS THE NEW OIL
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. Big internet firms are extracting data faster than ever. And hence, the data economy demands a new approach to antitrust rules.
10.1The world has changed - GAFA rules now
"The Big Four tech companies" also called "GAFA" refer to four of the biggest computer or software companies now dominate cyberspace. The four are - Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. There is one more term - "MAGA" - referring to to Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon. What is common to all is the way they capture and monetise user data, globally.
How did this happen? Four factors came together - (a) the theory of media and information technology convergence,
(b) financialization, (c) economic deregulation and (d) globalization.
A new commodity always creates a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting competition regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans — Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft — look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively rack up several billion dollar worth of net profit each quarter. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.
Such dominance has prompted calls for the tech giants to be broken up, as Standard Oil was in the early 20th century. But the giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without Google’s search engine, Amazon’s one-day delivery or Facebook’s newsfeed. Nor do these firms raise the alarm when standard antitrust tests are applied. Far from gouging consumers, many of their services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). Take account of offline rivals, and their market shares look less worrying. And the emergence of upstarts like Snapchat suggests that new entrants can still make waves.
But there is cause for concern. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. Old ways of thinking about competition, devised in the era of oil, look outdated in what has come to be called the “data economy” (see Briefing). A new approach is needed.
10.2The changing dynamics
Smartphones and the internet have made data abundant, ubiquitous and far more valuable. Wherever you are, virtually every activity creates a digital trace—more raw material for the data distilleries. As devices from watches to cars connect to the internet, the volume is increasing: some estimate that a self-driving car will generate 100 gigabytes per second. Meanwhile, artificial-intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning extract more value from data. Algorithms can predict when a customer is ready to buy, a jet-engine needs servicing or a person is at risk of a disease. Industrial giants such as GE and Siemens now sell themselves as data firms. (that, incidentally, is similar to the idea of Industry 4.0)
This abundance of data changes the nature of competition. Technology giants have always benefited from network effects: the more users Facebook signs up, the more attractive signing up becomes for others. With data there are extra network effects. By collecting more data, a firm has more scope to improve its products, which attracts more users, generating even more data, and so on. The more data Tesla gathers from its self-driving cars, the better it can make them at driving themselves—part of the reason the firm, which sold only 25,000 cars in the first quarter, is now worth more than GM, which sold 2.3m. Vast pools of data can thus act as protective moats.
Access to data also protects companies from rivals in another way. The giants’ surveillance systems span the entire economy: Google can see what people search for, Facebook what they share, Amazon what they buy. They own app stores and operating systems, and rent out computing power to startups. They have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond. They can see when a new product or service gains traction, allowing them to copy it or simply buy the upstart before it becomes too great a threat. Example - Facebook’s $22bn purchase in 2014 of WhatsApp, a messaging app with fewer than 60 employees.
10.3New competition law format needed
The nature of data makes the antitrust remedies of the past less useful. Breaking up a firm like Google into five Googlets would not stop network effects from reasserting themselves: in time, one of them would become dominant again. A radical rethink is required—and as the outlines of a new approach start to become apparent, two ideas stand out.
The first is that antitrust authorities need to move from the industrial era into the 21st century. When considering a merger, for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to intervene. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an incumbent is buying a nascent threat. On these measures, Facebook’s willingness to pay so much for WhatsApp, which had no revenue to speak of, would have raised red flags.
The second principle is to loosen the grip that providers of online services have over data and give more control to those who supply them. More transparency would help: companies could be forced to reveal to consumers what information they hold and how much money they make from it. Governments could encourage the emergence of new services by opening up more of their own data vaults or managing crucial parts of the data economy as public infrastructure, as India does with its digital-identity system, Aadhaar. They could also mandate the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent—an approach Europe is taking in financial services by requiring banks to make customers’ data accessible to third parties.
11.0TEN TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE 2020s
As the internet and technology around it evolves, and as hard technologies improve, these are the top ten trends to watch out for in 2020s.
1.Multiexperience - Improvements in wearables and advanced computer sensors are paving the way for the emergence of multiexperience, fully-immersive technology. Traditional ideas of the computer will expand to include new, varied touchpoints. This, of course, will greatly increase the demand for mobile development as firms rush to compete on better, more immersive apps. Currently, multiexperience apps use augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality to deliver ever more immersive experiences.
2. Digital twins technology driven by IoT - Internet of things is an area where the so-called digital twins concept evolves fastest. Modern household appliances use a lot of smart components equipped with sensors to gather data about real-time status, working conditions, and alerts. They’re integrated to cloud-based systems to gather data, then process and analyze it. A digital twin is a pairing appliance which reflects its real-life counterpart in the digital environment. This virtual model of a product or service allows for the analysis of a huge amount of varied data.
3.Distributed cloud - Distributed cloud systems distribute public cloud services to several locations outside a provider’s data centers, but the provider still controls them. Cloud providers take care of cloud service architecture, governance, operations, updates, and delivery. Since data centers can be anywhere, latency and data sovereignty challenges are reduced. Distributed cloud services offer the benefit of a public cloud service with those of a private cloud.
4.Event-Driven Applications - Event programming represents an approach that should be implemented in a product development process. An event-driven application responds to actions generated by the user or the system, for example, mouse clicks or loading a program. From a programming point of view, it’s important to separate event-processing logic from the rest of the coding work.
5.Blockchain - 2017 was the year of blockchain hype and it’s time for practical blockchian applications now. Firms can leverage blockchain technology to improve internal processes and ensure data security. Blockchain is a network of interconnected peer-to-peer devices. This technology provides for the absence of central databases, as well as the lack of clearly defined locations where all data is stored. Use cases here are especially useful to the supply chain and real estate asset management sectors as well as in healthcare data management. Throughout the 2020s, advanced in blockchain technology will improve its usability and enterprise applications. The complete blockchain model includes five elements: A shared and distributed ledger, immutable and traceable ledger, encryption, tokenization and a distributed public consensus mechanism.
6.Progressive web Apps - It's probable that web apps will take a significant slice of market cake from mobile apps. Google talks about focusing on expanding the features of the current browsers to let web applications achieve the same UX level as mobile apps. Progressive web apps are easier to develop and maintain than native applications. They combine the best features of the web and mobile apps.
7.Hyperautomation - Automation uses technology to automate tasks that once required humans. Hyperautomation deals with the application of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to increasingly automate processes and augment humans. Hyperautomation extends across a range of tools that can be automated, but also refers to the sophistication of the automation (i.e., discover, analyze, design, automate, measure, monitor, reassess.) As no single tool can replace humans, hyperautomation today involves a combination of tools, including robotic process automation (RPA), intelligent business management software (iBPMS) and AI, with a goal of increasingly AI-driven decision making.
8.Human augmentation - Human augmentation is the use of technology to enhance a person’s cognitive and physical experiences. Physical augmentation changes an inherent physical capability by implanting or hosting a technology within or on the body. For example, the automotive or mining industries use wearables to improve worker safety. In other industries, such as retail and travel, wearables are used to increase worker productivity. Physical augmentation falls into four main categories: Sensory augmentation (hearing, vision, perception), appendage and biological function augmentation (exoskeletons, prosthetics), brain augmentation (implants to treat seizures) and genetic augmentation (somatic gene and cell therapy).
9.The empowered edge - Edge computing is a topology where information processing and content collection and delivery are placed closer to the sources of the information, with the idea that keeping traffic local and distributed will reduce latency. This includes all the technology on the Internet of Things (IoT). Empowered edge looks at how these devices are increasing and forming the foundations for smart spaces, and moves key applications and services closer to the people and devices that use them. By 2023, there could be more than 20 times as many smart devices at the edge of the network as in conventional IT roles.
10.Autonomous things - Autonomous things, which include drones, robots, ships and appliances, exploit AI to perform tasks usually done by humans. This technology operates on a spectrum of intelligence ranging from semiautonomous to fully autonomous and across a variety of environments including air, sea and land. While currently autonomous things mainly exist in controlled environments, like in a mine or warehouse, they will eventually evolve to include open public spaces. Autonomous things will also move from stand-alone to collaborative swarms, such as the drone swarms used during the Winter Olympic Games in 2018. However, autonomous things cannot replace the human brain and operate most effectively with a narrowly defined, well-scoped purpose.
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