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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Subhrajit GuhathakurtaIIT Kharagpur on Friday signed a memorandum of under standing with Japanese design consultancy giant Nikken Sikei Research Institute to work on quality habitat that is cost-effective and sustainable. IIT Kharagpur director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti says, "Most scientists, engineers and techno crats have not seen the real India. We need solutions that can be implemented to bring about real change in the next two-three years."
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi driving the smart cities initiative, Subhrajit Guhathakurta, professor of city and regional planning and director of the Center for GIS at Georgia Tech, cautioned against marketing hype by technology firms like Cisco and IBM. "Smart cities is essentially about good infrastructure - water, electricity, transport. Robust IT connectivity is one of the components. When a city buys a technology, it must deliberate with public to seek out the appropriate one. The tech must not be a large complex system whose impact with be big if it fails. Instead, open standard should be employed and a climate created so that smaller firms can use it to innovate," Guhathakurta added. Read the full story on The Time of Indias website.
