World Development Foundation

06/06/2023

Awards & applauds to Prof. Dr. Sir Hari Om Srivastava
Good morning. I am Dr. H. O. Srivastava. I am narrating in this episode my journey from 1982 to 1997 in All India Radio Directorate where I established the computer division and headed it as Dy. Director and thereafter as Director. The journey provided me an opportunity to learn, explore, research, discover and invent the domains untraversed so far. All in all an exciting, interesting, challenging, rewarding, soul-satisfying, enthralling and very worthwhile experience at the same time! Let me share this.
In the end I express my gratitude to many people whom I want to say that I am more grateful to you than you’ll ever know. My early teachers Shri Mishra and Shri Asharfi Lal, my senior colleagues, Shri P. S Dhagat, Shri S. P. Bhatikar, Shri J. N. Bisaria for their guidance and support and many of my junior colleagues who worked tirelessly for the success and achievements.

Good morning. I am Dr. H. O. Srivastava. I am narrating in this episode my journey from 1982 to 1997 in All India Radio Directorate where I es...

30/05/2022

Birth of Computer in All India Radio (Ministry of I&B) : A saga of computer history in India from 1980's:
In this video, I am describing the birth of Computers in All India Radio & Doordarshan, Ministry of I & B. In 1982, there was a rapid expansion plan of Doordarshan and staff at 180 new TV stations had to be posted. I was finalizing the places of posting for gazetted staff. One evening at about 20.00 Hrs., Shri P. S. Dhagat, Engineer in Chief walked to my chamber, sat down and enquired what was I doing so late in office. He also asked me what were the bundle of letters lying before me. I told him that, I had written letters by hand individually to about 200 officers asking their choice of place of posting. The idea was atleast, a majority of the people shall be posted at their place of choice and we shall have to deal with few people who shall represent against their transfer. He was surprised at my effort and jokingly told, “you know there are computers, in which you could just push a button and you can get all the information about personnel, their previous postings, home place, optional places etc.” The idea stuck to me.
I started examining about the availability of computers and possibility of using these for Personnel Management Information System (PMIS).
In 1982, computers in India were rare. Wipro, DCM and Usha used to sell PC XT with 8088 chip for about Rs. 5.0 Lakh. After examining their PCs, I wanted to procure slightly more powerful computer. I found about two computers being used in Delhi at that time, one by Cabinet Secretariat, a US manufactured PDP-11, computer and the other by Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), a mini computer made by ESPL, Mohali Punjab. The visit to these places was facilitated by Sh. S. S. Varma, Director General. My first preference was PDP-11, but I learnt US was very reluctant in exporting computers to India and export could take several years. So I decided for Mini Computer from ESPL, a PSU which was faster. We procured the first computer and it was installed on 5th Floor of Akashvani Bhawan with PMIS and Payroll to start with. The Computer center was inaugurated by Shri V. N. Gadgil, Minister of I & B.

I attribute the credit of giving idea for use of Computer to Shri Dhagat and I mentioned this in my interview published in Telematics. Shri Dhagat, who had retired by that time, saw the article and on his visit to Delhi, he met me and expressed his joy for this. One of the finest persons, and a great humane, I can never forget Shri Dhagat. The humility can just be felt that a speaker in his farewell speech at his retirement mentioned that he was the son of a State Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
Shri Bhatikar took over as Engineer-in-Chief after Shri Dhagat’s superannuation. He was equally keen in promoting IT and computer system in AIR.
We procured four more mini computers and commissioned in the four Zonal offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
I was not satisfied with the computing power. Those days, US or its allies had put restrictions on procurement of main frame computers, with the fear that India could use it for defense purposes by using simulation of processes. National Informatics Centre (NIC) wanted to control all processing systems in his center with computer terminals with Govt. departments. No Government department could procure Computers without approval of NIC. Maize of restrictions nationally and internationally. With lot of persuasion and the fact that, AIR wanted to use Computers for Computer aided design (CAD), whose data could not be transferred using DOT lines during those days, NIC ultimately approved the setting up of Computer division with a mainframe computer and CAD terminals with necessary staff under a Director IT for which the post was also created. During 1985, Norwegian Government agreed to supply main frame computers to India though it’s company Norsk Data, Norway, which used its proprietary OS (SINTRAN) and Database. They were supplying computers to CERN, Finish and Swedish nuclear plants. India jumped on the opportunity and procured six super-mini computers, one for AIR, one for DESU (Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking) and four for Defense.
We established the computer division with Norsk Data ND-550, supermini computer with CAD center and a Mini computer in Computer Headquarter in Akashvani Bhawan, four mini computers in Zonal offices, several PCs at various AIR centers including News Division and started implementing automation in several processes. We operated 14 databases and automated many processes that received several awards and acclaims. We shall discuss a few processes in other series. Dr. H. O. Srivastava was the Director and pivotal in establishing the Computers in AIR, DD and several other departments of Ministry. He also started networking of the centers under the project (AIRNET).
https://youtu.be/L8nCHs1kRag

Birth of Computer in All India Radio (Ministry of I&B) : A saga of computer history in India from 1980's:In this video, I am describing the birth o...

04/03/2022

Hybrid Radio Based Solution is best suited to supplement offline study that enhances effectiveness of teaching using different mode of transmission including Cloud Radio*.

Note: Cloud Radio is registered trade mark of World Development Foundation.

https://wdfuniversity.org/covid-2019-education/
(Pl go though Case Study of Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, West Bengal, India

27/01/2022

Top Indian Scientists
A blog has been published by Indian American Community on their website. Since it is a closed group, I am enclosing a copy of the same.
https://wdfindia.in/top_inian_scientists.pdf
Source: aminoapps.com

11/01/2022

Memoir: Science Center, Surat-"Scientist of the Month"

27/12/2021

l Broadcasting in 2030: Crystal Gazing
Srivastava, A., & Srivastava, H. O.(2021). Broadcasting in 2030: Crystal Gazing. European Journal of Applied Sciences, 9(6), 453–462. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tzrB6lhyL8-yOA4EBWDx84wrDl48LauR/view
Broadcasting has informed, educated and entertained the world population during last 120 years of its inception. There has been lot of technical evolution during this period namely coming of digital and compression technologies, emergence of satellite, internet and fiber optics adding to the earlier terrestrial mode of transmission and providing simplex to duplex mode and interactivity. This has also led to any person becoming a broadcaster using her/his smart phone and the social media like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook etc. apart from tens of thousands of DTH channel operators. In this scenario, the content called king, has suffered most, losing its appeal, integrity, reliability and ethics. Authors feel that by 2030, this will lead to the closure of most of the Public Broadcasting services, News Channel and unethical content broadcasters on social media. Only A few bigger global delivery companies will possess the skill and finances to harness the potential of interactive
and enhanced TV (ITV and ETV) which shall permit the users to view or skip a program or commercial.

27/11/2021

Broadcasting today:
Prasar Bharati which controls both All India Radio & Doordarshan has been shutting down the terrestrial transmission systems at regular intervals. This was predicted by me in my paper, "Broadcasting in 2020: A Prediction" published in 2003. An excerpt is given below:
"broadcasting is bound to change a lot by the year 2020. This paper predicts the shape of broadcasting in 2020. The key predictions are death of public broadcasting, emergence of many key players such as network provider, program houses, subscription management agencies etc."
Most of the predictions have come true. You can read the full paper on the link given below.
https://wdfindia.in/Broadcasting_in_2020.pdf
Paper citation:
H O Srivastava FIETE (2003) Broadcasting in 2020: A Prediction, IETE
Technical Review, 20:4, 369-375, DOI: 10.1080/02564602.2003.11417094

I am shortly publishing another paper, "Broadcasting in 2030: A Prediction".

21/10/2021

Birth of Agriculture Channel in India
In this episode I narrate the efforts of AIR Resources to start the Kisanvani Channel. In a country like India, where the literacy level is low and different languages are spoken in different parts of the country, radio and television play significant role in informing the farmers for using the modern methods of farming in their own language. Although some agriculture programs were broadcast from AIR and Doordarshan for a long time, it was Nov. 2001, when the Ministry of Agriculture approached Ministry of I & B and Prasar Bharati to provide a channel exclusively dedicated to farmers for broadcast of information regarding agriculture and allied fields. It was the year 2003, when Dr. H. O. Srivastava, Head AIR Resources from Prasar Bharati had a meeting with the Secretary and other senior officers of Ministry of Agriculture to frame the proposal. Ultimately, a meeting was fixed with the then Honourable Minister of Agriculture, Shri Rajnath Singh to finalise the proposal which was attended by me from Prasar Bharati side and senior officers of Ministry of Agriculture. Honourable Minister asked me to provide a channel just like All India Radio and Doordarshan, for farming community. I told him, “Sir it will cost about Rs. 50,000 crores.” He told, “It is OK. Prime Minister wants this and it must be done immediately.” My next reply was “Sir, such a network will take some time. I have an immediate solution to start the channel. I can provide the entire AIR & DD network dedicated to kisan program for a few hours and we may launch it tomorrow.” Everyone in the chamber was excited. I was requeued to submit the proposal along with the draft Cabinet note. I did it in a couple of days and the approval of the Government was obtained and the Kisan Channel was launched on 15th Feb 2004. The salient points were:
An exclusive project on Mass Media support to Agriculture Extension entitled ‘Kisanvani’ from February, 2004, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, to keep the local farmers informed about the daily market rates, weather reports and day to day information in their respective areas, at micro level.
Broadcast from identified 96 AIR stations across the country in a narrow casting mode.
The program is mostly interactive in content involving field-based recordings of farmers and
studio dial outs and dial-ins with experts and farming community which are quite popular among the target audience.
The immediate solution was provided in 2004. However, the total solution could not be undertaken due to change of Government and change of my portfolio.
As on date, the agriculture productivity per worker in India is 2% as compared to a farmer in USA, primarily due to lack of education, skill, knowledge and capacity. There is need for lot of upskilling of farming community for transformation of traditional agriculture to knowledge agriculture. A new mode of upskilling of farmers using technological intervention is required immediately.
If we provide right skill and tools to the farmers, the farming will be a profitable business in the country.

02/10/2021

Opportunity for Universities to Emerge Global leaders
The COVID has severely affected the education system all over the world. The Institutions had to resort to closure affecting 98.6% of worlds learning population totaling to 1.3 billion of the learners around the globe. AS recommended by UNESCO, many institutions are turning to remote learning. Many Institutions are also preparing to open their premises. Moving from on-campus to remote learning needs several issues to be addressed ranging from creating interactive compelling content, setting up technical infrastructure, logistics, engagement, access, and delivering everything for which students pay for the expensive education in renowned Universities. The present paper advocates a new world order for learning; partially remote learning supplemented by use of labs carefully at Universities; opening of branches of IVY leagues in less affected locations in several countries, collaborations, use of emerging technologies like AI, VR etc for compelling and entertaining content and providing a feel of vibrancy typically found on campuses by using video options for counselling, online mindfulness classes.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a massive toll on lives and livelihoods of people around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational sy...