The Continuum: A Blog by PHI Learning

PHI Learning, a trusted name in academic publishing with 62 years of excellence, offers affordable, NEP 2020-aligned textbooks, expert-authored content, and global reach, driving academic progress in higher education.

Author: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.

  • Accounting More Important Than Ever During Pandemic

    Accounting being the language of business has always played a significant role in every economy of the world. The increasing significance of accounting in a digital world during pandemic COVID 19 has become a debatable issue among students, academicians, professionals and industry experts. The accountants have played a considerable role in managing the funds of businesses during this great pandemic. The analytical skills and ability of accountants have made accounting really a highly demanding profession during the great pandemic COVID 19. Accountants and corporate finance professionals have helped organizations a lot by increasing effectiveness by comparing pricing scenarios, evaluating investment opportunities and looking for new ways to curtail operating expenses.

    Due to the emergent degree and interval of the pandemic, organizations have been experiencing circumstances associated with a general financial recession due to financial market volatility, fading credit, liquidity concern, additional increase in government interference, growing unemployment, turn down in consumer discretionary expenditure, rising inventory level, less production due to reduced demand, layoffs and other reshuffling activities.  To save the economies from this crisis, accounting has been playing a beautiful role in the current scenario by serving the best interests of entrepreneurs, creditors, investors, employees, management, government and others. It has helped to gauge the financial health, profitability, viability and consistency of business organizations. As a fundamental and comprehensive tool, it has supported every organization to achieve the aim of value maximization.

    With this aim, the importance of talented and steadfast financial accountants have heightened during times of financial upheaval. Even during uncertain times, the business community has to look to accountants for their analytical insights and their stewardship of corporate finance.

    To cope up with the challenges of this global pandemic, the book Basic Accounting provides an in-depth knowledge of accounting concepts, procedures and techniques which are a must for accounting as well as non-accounting professionals. 

     

    The book covers the most important topics like preparation of final accounts, the rectification of errors, Bank reconciliation statement, depreciation, computerized accounting, fund flow statement, cash flow statement, accounts of non-trading organizations and sources of finance as well as share capital also. This book fosters a firm understanding of these topics to help finance managers as well as accountants to effectively hold the revenues and funds of organizations.

    The book has been especially designed for undergraduate students of computer application (BCA) and business administration (BBA). It also proved to be of immense value to the postgraduate students of business administration (MBA).

    Visit www.phindia.com to have a glimpse of the book and its detailed contents. 

    Click https://bit.ly/3A4A1wn to purchase it.

  • Learn How to Manage Emotions and Build Self-Confidence

    Stress Diaries is an interactive self-help book that tells real-life experiences of people’s troubles at work and in their relationships, and how they eventually overcome them with the help of therapy. This is a must-read book for anybody who works or is preparing to work, as it inspires us to hope and fight. 

    In today’s fast-paced world, we often juggle multiple roles at the same time. No one is immune to stress and mental problems, and this tendency is more visible in the workplace, compromising work-life balance. Professional problems, the fear of resigning, unhappiness at work, and a resulting state of worry are not uncommon. 

    It is, therefore, imperative to deal with this new impending epidemic—the stress. In an attempt to address these wide-ranging problems, Stress Diaries is an interactive self-help book comprising real-life stories and anecdotal narratives of people’s struggles in their work environment and how they emerged victorious with the help of therapy. 

    This book is based on concrete methodology and comprises assessments, self-help tools, and specialized tips and tricks to deal with our daily problems. A comprehensive volume of this book will help people manage their emotional troubles better and will prove to be a journey of hope. Easy-to-relate and anecdotal narratives of real-life problems of people at the workplace compiled by a renowned therapist, this is a self-help book that can be used as a first-aid kit for any socio-emotional and stress-related issue. It discusses highly effective, standardized, and scientific measures—Self-Administering Psychometric Assessments, paper-pen activities such as mood logs, thought diary and so on—and gives out specialized tips which can be implemented by readers. 

    A must-read for all students and working individuals to equip themselves with tools to deal with the daily challenges at the workplace. It allows you to introspect on your immediate surroundings and tells you that you are not alone in this situation. There are plenty out there! It’s one of the best stress-management books to be kept on your shelf. It is now acclaimed as the ‘Mental Health First-aid Kit’. 

    It is a great book to prepare college students for a real-life working environment scenario. It gives a bird’ eye view of work-life and how to create a work-life balance. The book discusses the one common problem that everyone, regardless of age, faces— “stress.” Everyone, whether a youngster or a well-established adult, faces some level of stress in their daily lives. This book is a fantastic way for students, teachers, and everyone to learn about stress, why it occurs, what a person can do to overcome the feelings associated with the stressful event and, most importantly, people will be able to learn about anecdotes where people have come forward and shared their own experiences of being under stress.  This book is highly valuable for students as they confront several stressors on their journey, such as getting good grades in an exam or selecting the best college to begin their studies. Life is like a wild ride, and this is the apex of the roller-coaster for the kids. 

    There can be no discussion of kids without mentioning teachers. Both of these species must overcome numerous obstacles in order to succeed in school or college. Because different people can read about the various approaches and apply them to themselves, this book works as a source of distress.  To conclude, this book is an excellent resource for self-help; anyone facing stress can apply the tactics described in this book to make a significant difference in their life on their own. It is a book that has the potential to alter our perception of stressors. As a result, for anyone who is ready to fight their own conflicts, this book is an excellent tool.

     
     
     
     
    Mayo College, Scottish high, Cambridge schools, DPS, etc) and colleges (IITs, IIMs, NMIMS, BITS Pilani, Sharda Group, etc) Pan India, and has also made a mark internationally (Royal College of Physicians-London, Tokyo Medical College, University of Exeter-UK, University of Minnesota (USA), etc).

     

    Dr Rachna Khanna Singh is a Mental Health Professional, and a TEDx Talk Speaker, with a medical background, focused on providing Individual, Group & Corporate Counseling with a strong focus on Hospital & Clinical care. 

    She is currently the Head of the Department of Holistic Medicine & Mental Wellness at Artemis Hospital, Gurgaon. Also, she is the Founder and Director of The Mind and Wellness Studio, which provides services like STRESS MANAGEMENT, COUNSELING & LIFESTYLE OPTIMISING to create positive changes in the lives of people to ensure holistic health for a better tomorrow.

    She is a Corporate Health Care Consultant and has conducted various workshops, webinars, & one-on-one counselling for over 500 leading Corporate houses and Banks of the country, like Amazon, Accenture, Ford India, CII, Aditya Birla Group, Airtel, SAR group, Ericsson, Genpact, HCL, Hero Honda, Infosys, Nestle, Phillips, Pepsico, Coca-Cola, Reserve Bank of India, HDFC, Bank of America, HSBC, etc, focusing on Mental Wellness & Soft Skills Training.

    Besides working with adults, she has also worked with students from over 300 schools.

    Having achieved proficiency as a Health Care & Wellness Consultant, she is also a Consultant with important NGOs and is an Executive Board Member with Ngo Serve Samman, where she works with underprivileged women and children for various medical and psychological ailments.

    Dr Rachna is the weekly Columnist for the Ask The Expert online section of The Times of India.

    Her writings are regularly featured in the print media, including columns and articles infamous medical journals, magazines and newspapers, such as – India Today, Men’s Health, The Week, Economic Times, HT Brunch, Times Life, Dainik Jagran, Femina and many more.

    She is also the proud author of a highly proclaimed book on Mental Wellness which has been stated as the “Mental Health first-aid kit” with tips & tricks to manage day-to-day stress published by BLOOMSBURY- “STRESS DIARIES: From the Eyes of the Therapist.” (Available on Amazon).

    Another feather in her cap is The Mind & Wellness Studio’s DE-STRESS App, which has also been given the “Special Recognition Award” by The Times of India’s Times App Search Contest (available on Android).

    http://www.themindandwellness.com/rachna.php 

    https://amzn.to/2XZWL3s

    You may also be interested in reading PHI’s Book on Emotional Intelligence (Mangal and Mangal) for self-exploration.

    Know how one can manage emotions and be self-confident. https://bit.ly/3zUaNAO

     

     

     

  • A Quick Start to Mission Karmayogi Dr. Sameer Sharma

    Simply, the goal of Mission Karmayogi is to transform civil servants into catalysts of change. The challenge is how to quickly transmute the existing training wherewithal (e.g. course material, physical infrastructure) of different training institutes to fulfill the core principles set out in the mission.

    One core guiding principle of Mission Karmayogi is to create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure, including that of learning materials, institutions, and personnel among training institutes. This requires the unification of capacity-building programmes being organized by training institutes of different services. The means to do this is the Integrated Govt. Online training (iGOT) platform.

    The iGOT is conceived as a continuous online training platform, which would allow all civil servants to undergo continuous training, depending on their areas of domain specialization. The structure of the iGOT should be in the form of a hub-and-spoke with the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) acting as a hub. The training academies of different services would be the spokes. The hub would provide the best-of-its-kind courses and evolve into a vibrant and world-class marketplace for content, where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material would be made available. The hub would also create the content, and organize remotely proctored self-assessments. Some of the key features of services provided by the hub are given below:

    • Simple e-learning modules of short duration – not more than of 30 to 45 minutes.
    • Use state-of-the-art Moodle Technology to develop modules.
    • Create a hierarch of modules – common modules for officers of all services, particular modules for different services, and basic and specialized modules for functional areas.

    Another core principle is to provide an opportunity to all civil servants to build their competencies in their self-driven and mandated learning paths. For this, the bespoke approach would be used to impart skills and knowledge. There are two distinguishing characteristics of the bespoke approach – self-learning and self-assessment.

    Self-learning allows officers to acquire knowledge and skills at their own pace depending on their position on the learning curve in key areas linked to their job profiles. This takes care of the diversity in knowledge, backgrounds and experience of officers. On the other hand, self-assessment would be done through mock tests and assessment tests. Self-assessment reduces the fear of taking examinations, as well as allows learners to test themselves at a pace they feel comfortable at.

    One more core principle is to create and deliver learning content relevant to the identified framework of roles, activities, and competencies of positions in different organizations and services. For this, the flipped classroom method holds much promise.

    The first “flip” is to ask learners (officers undergoing training) to assume the role of a teacher and teach practices to peer groups in the classroom. The instructor manages the process as a guide. In this, the passive elements (e.g. lectures) become homework, and active elements (e.g. assignments) become classroom learning. The learner-teachers are evaluated on the “teaching performance – ability to answer questions and think on their feet”. The instructor acts as a student and steers the group to understand which theory works best for what kind of practice. Another flip is that students are graded on the relevance of questions asked, not on the answers given.

    For the flipped classrooms, training content would primarily be in the form of accounts of practice (e.g. case studies, narratives, vignettes).

    The aim of accounts of experience will not be to provide learners with universal rules and generalizations, but to give insights into processes of decision-making in messy problems involving values, judgment, multiple interpretations, administrators’ particular identities, and personal and group agendas. Learners obtain answers to the question – How did the conventional practices and decision-making come about, and how have these have been modified in response to the social, economic, political and cultural orders?

    The accounts of practice would be rich in history or process (contextual).

    The depth of contextualizing detail provides the “toolbox” to learners to draw on understandings or ideas developed in another context to the current decision setting, and determine what is unique to a particular time and place, versus what is more general. The deep situational understanding is expected to empower learners to deal with new problems and circumstances.

    Some ways of providing a head start to Mission Karmayogi have been spelt out. The proposed roll-out is expected to morph civil servants into change agents who possess “a set of capacities, sensibilities and perspectives that bridge common divide between theory and praxis and also the multiple divides between disciplines and professions that are necessary to decide in uncertain, unstable settings containing value conflicts found in the unique Indian environment”. 

    (Author has a PhD from USA and a DLitt from Kanchi University. The article is based on his research and practice and views are personal)

     

  • Virtual Book Release: A Textbook of Urban Planning and Geography by the Hon’ble Vice President of India

     A Virtual Book Release of A Textbook of Urban Planning and Geography written by Sameer Sharma was organised by PHI Learning Private Limited – a renowned Indian Academic Publisher with 58 years of experience in the Textbook Market – on January 20, 2021. The book was released by the Chief Guest Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, Hon’ble Vice President of India.

    The Vice President, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, said that Covid-19 pandemic has taught us the importance of good ventilation and sunlight for our health. He expressed his disapproval of the growing tendency of living in closed spaces and emphasised that proper air circulation must be ensured in homes, offices, restaurants and conference halls.

    The Vice President made these remarks in Hyderabad while virtually releasing the book titled – A Textbook of Urban Planning and Geography written by Dr. Sameer Sharma, Director General and CEO of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs. Shri Naidu rued that in their aspiration for a modern lifestyle, city dwellers have lost connection with nature and many a time, we find that even sun rays don’t penetrate our homes. He advised city planners and architects to give precedence to comfort over the fashion and design structures and buildings which exist in harmony with nature. He wanted cities to have more breathing space such as parks, gardens and playgrounds. A tightly paved urban area is one of the reasons for runoffs during floods, he said.

     

    Complimenting the author, Dr Sameer Sharma and the publisher for coming out with the book, Shri Naidu expressed happiness that the author has advocated home-grown solutions for cities based on our experiences and indigenous knowledge on city planning, rather than blindly aping the West. He said that this book is very timely as we go through a shift in how we view the ‘urban’ in the post-COVID era. 

    In his address to the participants, the Vice President said: 

    I would like to commend the author, Dr Sameer Sharma and the publisher for coming out with this book. I am happy to note that the author has advocated home-grown solutions for cities based on our experiences and indigenous knowledge on city planning, rather than blindly aping the West. This is a good suggestion that city planners must take note of.

    May this book trigger many conversations, inspire more research in this field and spark new innovations in urban planning.

    Dr. Sameer Sharma, Author of the book, Mr. Hitesh Vaidya, Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs, Mr. Asoke K Ghosh, Chairman and Managing Director, PHI Learning Private Limited were among the dignitaries who attended the virtual program.

    This event was concluded with a word of thanks by Mr. Asoke K Ghosh, Chairman and Managing Director, PHI Learning Private Limited. While thanking the distinguished speakers and Honorable Vice President of India for sparing time from their busy schedule to join the event, he announced an introductory discount of 30% on the book. Mr. Asoke K Ghosh also mentioned that:

    PHI Learning is a leading Indian academic publisher. Established in 1963 with the motto Helping Teachers to Teach and Students to Learn, we are committed to publish low-cost, high-quality affordable texts for the students across the globe. 

    In 58 years of publishing, we have published more than 5000 titles in various disciplines. All our books are written mostly by Indian Authors. We are marketing our books globally so that students in India and abroad get benefitted from the books published by us. 

    Keeping pace with digitisation, we also publish e-books for e-learning. Our e-books are available on online platforms like Amazon Kindle, Nook and Google Play. If you want to learn more about us, I encourage you to browse our website www.phindia.com 

    About the Title “A Textbook of Urban Planning and Geography“ 

    This book has a strong potential to empower Indian universities’ students to craft and implement new approaches, unconstrained by orthodox theories and biases in the field

    of urban geography and urban planning. The present text reconceptualises Indian urban studies by dissecting western theories, concepts, paradigms, and principles and practices, and placing them alongside how Indians experience their urban landscapes. Such juxtaposing analysis allows readers to break from their past inferences of the structure and dynamics of Indian cities and enable researchers to make exploratory assumptions.

    Primarily intended for the students of Geography and Urban Planning, the book covers the evolution of urban structures and dynamics of settlements in India, mainly after India’s Independence. There are seven chapters in the book. First three chapters describe and explain the evolution of Indian settlements up to the present. The next four chapters focus on regions, urban planning, urban governance and the social landscape of Indian cities. Each chapter ends with a set of short and long answer questions.

    Key Features

    • Extensive coverage of the syllabi prescribed in Indian academic institutions
    • Strategically organised text of each chapter for the ease of learning
    • Abundant case studies in each chapter
    • Chapter-end short-answer, long-answer and fill-in-the-blank type exercise problems

    The book (both in e-book and print book formats) is available for purchase through all leading e-commerce websites including www.phindia.com.  

    About the Author 

    SAMEER SHARMA (PhD in metropolitan development, University of Cincinnati, USA) is First Missions Director India: Smart City Mission Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Capacity Building for Urban Development. He is also a researcher in metropolitan and regional development as well as a practitioner in urban development. He has taught courses on ‘spatial structures’ and ‘statistics for urban planners’ to postgraduate students in the USA.

     He has published several academic papers, research papers on spatial economics, social capital and metropolitan development, contributed several articles to many widely read newspapers, written two books, and contributed chapters in many books. He has also worked as Municipal Commissioner of three cities in India. He has won more than seven awards and appreciations, including the President’s Award for Best State in the promotion of Community Organisations in slums (2014) and the V. Ramachandran Award for Excellence in implementation of urban decentralisation.

  • Book Review: A Close Look at Groundbreaking ICT Inventions

    During my school days, a computer was a machine occupying a garage space, used only by engineers. Now, within 50 years, I hold it in my pocket like a mobile smartphone, as do 50 crores other Indians! How did this revolution happen? Many of these inventions in information and communication technology have occurred in the last 55 years.

    Do you know who invented such groundbreaking inventions in Information and Communication Technology (or ICT)? This is the theme of a remarkably informative and educative book Groundbreaking Inventions in Information and Communication Technology recently authored by V. Rajaraman, who taught at the Supercomputer Education and Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and published by PHI Learning, Delhi.

     

    In this book, Prof. Rajaraman lists the history of 15 groundbreaking inventions and innovators who have made these hand-held fast, versatile computers possible. I believe that with computer-based education has become a part of the New Education Policy (NEP), it is vital that students and teachers get to learn the story of these 15 inventions and the innovators, not just as a part of the history and development of these innovators, but as an inspiration for the future.

     

    As per Prof. Rajaraman: (1) The idea should be novel; (2) It should fulfill a need; (3) It should improve our productivity; (4) It should change the way in which computing is done, and computers are used; (5) It should lead to innovations; (6) The invention must have a long life and be continuously used and not be transient; (7) It should create new industries that lead to further innovations and may, as a consequence, disrupt some old industries and (8) It should transform the way we live and thereby result in societal changes. It is not necessary that a groundbreaking invention satisfy all these; it is enough if it meets a majority of these.

     

    Recent History

    Interestingly, many of these inventions to have occurred in the last 55 years — starting from the computer language FORTRAN in 1957 to Deep Learning in 2011. A brief history and description of these, and the innovators associated with them are given in his book. We will take up the first seven innovations here and the rest in the next article.

     

    Programming Languages

    The first is FORTRAN or Formula Translation, developed by John Backus and his team in 1957. This translated the binary language (0 and 1) of digital computers into everyday language that can be understood and used by all, using the IBM computers and later by other computers as well. (I remember how Prof. Rajaraman taught FORTRAN to all of us — students and faculty — at IIT Kanpur, and several lakhs of others elsewhere through his lectures and books). FORTRAN made computers usable by non-professionals too- to start programming and solve problems. Others designed similar programming languages for specific uses, but FORTRAN is still the language used by scientists.

     

    The second is the introduction of what is called integrated circuits or ICs. Until they were invented, signals were amplified using vacuum tubes that were large and became hot during use. When John Bardeen and colleagues invented transistors’ way back in 1947, they reduced the size and power consumption of amplifiers.

     

    This caused a revolution in information technology because using these, Jack Kilby (and a few months later, Robert Noyce) could actually make a fully integrated complex electronic circuit on a single silicon chip.

     

    The third innovation discussed is databases and how to manage them in an organised fashion. For example, our own Aadhaar Card contains in it a variety of data (age, sex, age, address, fingerprints, and such), put together in a compact fashion. Such a database system is what is referred to as a relational database management system, or RDBMS. Earlier, these files were stored in magnetic tapes, then in floppy discs and now in CDs and pen drives.

     

    LAN and Ethernet

    The fourth is what is known as local area networks (or LANs), introduced first by Norman Abramson’s group in Hawaii, where they used a wireless broadcast system called ALOHA net to interconnect computers across the islands to share a broadcast medium. Then Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs modified this protocol and put together what they called Ethernet, which has allowed multiple computers to share and exchange messages and files through cable connections. We now use LANs in the office to transfer hard-copies into e-files and to connect various departments in a University.

     

    The fifth innovation is the development of personal computers, which has allowed us to work and study from our homes. The first person to design a personal computer was Steve Wozniak in the mid-1970s and brilliantly marketed by Steve Jobs. By 1981, PCs began selling like hotcakes, and by the late 1980s, Apple, IBM and its clones captured the market, with Microsoft supplying the operating system.

    To open your phone or a computer, you need a passcode, which is secure and known only to you. And when a bank or a sender sends you a ‘confidential’ message, they too send a secure passcode (e.g., OTP). This aspect is what is known as an encryption system (allows secrecy between the sender and receiver). This public-key cryptography is the sixth innovation.

     

    Your computer now has built-in programs that not only allow you to take photographs, movies and send them using applications like WhatsApp, Facetime, and such. This has come about thanks to the seventh innovation called computer graphics, which Prof. Rajaraman discusses in his book in detail. In addition, he discusses in detail the compression of multimedia data that has allowed exchanging audios and videos over the Internet.

     

    Source:https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/a-keen-look-at-groundbreaking-inventions-in-ict/article32588770.ece

    The book is available in print book format as well as e-book format.

     

    In case you want to reach us, visit the webpage of the book at

    https://www.phindia.com/Books/BookDetail/9789389347524/groundbreaking-inventions-in-information-and-communication

    OR

    Write to us at phi@phindia.com

     

  • PHI Learning’s Book Launch Event GROUNDBREAKING INVENTIONS IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

    PHI Learning is going to release a book Groundbreaking Inventions in Information and Communication Technology by V. Rajaraman on 24th September 2020. This virtual book launch event is being organized by the Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter, ACM Chennai Professional Chapter, and IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter in association with PHI Learning Private Limited. 

    The book will be released by Dr. Srinivasan Ramani, a Ph.D. from IIT, Bombay, who has worked as a researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. He played a key role in creating India’s academic network, ERNET, which brought the Internet to India.

    Following the book release, the author of this book, Dr. Rajaraman (Emeritus Professor, SERC, IISc, Bangalore) will make a presentation on Groundbreaking Inventions in ICT. An author of several well established and highly successful computer books, Prof. Rajaraman has published a large number of research papers in reputed national and international journals. A Padma Bhushan awardee in 1998, he is also a recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1976, the Homi Bhabha Prize by UGC, Om Prakash Bhasin Award, the ISTE Award for excellence in teaching computer engineering, Rustam Choksi Award, the Zaheer Medal by the Indian National Science Academy.

     
    Mr. Asoke K Ghosh, CMD, PHI Learning will address the Book Launch event on 24th September 2020 at 6 pm IST. Mr. Asoke K. Ghosh is one of the pioneers of the concept of publishing low-cost editions of highly expensive books in India that are published abroad and making them affordable to Indian students. An alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, he is a trendsetter in the world of publishing and regarded as the Father of Indian Publishing Industry.
     
     
    The event will be in virtual mode using Google Meet. All registered participants will receive a free copy of Chapter 1 of the book in pdf format at the time of receiving the Google Meet credentials to join the event. All attendees of the event on 24th September 2020 will get a special discount of 35% on the purchase of the book from www.phindia.com.  
     
    To participate, please register using the Google Form at https://bit.ly/2QA8Fdp 
     
    About the Book
     
    Nowadays, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) touches every aspect of our life. When we get up in the morning, we check our smartphones for any missed calls, SMS, and WhatsApp messages that include audio clips, video clips, and sometimes computer-generated cartoons and animations. Many of us read the latest news and email on our smartphones, tablets, or laptop computers that are connected by Wi-Fi to the Internet. Researchers search the World Wide Web for relevant research papers using a search engine, usually Google. To hear an old favourite song, we turn to YouTube. Books are bought by logging on to Flipkart or Amazon and placing orders. Air tickets are booked by logging on to an airline’s or travel agent’s websites. Train tickets are booked on the IRCTC site. Banking is done from home using Internet banking. When we want to go out and need a taxi, we use Ola or Uber App installed in our smartphones to find out in a map where taxis are, and the time it will take to get one. The taxi driver uses his phone to find our location (found by GPS) from the map on his smartphone screen. The fare is automatically deducted from our pre-paid accounts with Ola or Uber. Else, we may use a digital payment App such as Paytm or BHIM. If the Internet cannot be accessed for some reason, it is extremely inconvenient as a lot of our work gets delayed. Undoubtedly almost everyone has become dependent on ICT in their daily life. ICT has spawned many new industries that employ millions of people. All this has happened in a relatively short period of about seventy years.
    In a short span of seventy years, Information and Communication Technology has changed the way we live. Often, we wonder how we lived without the Internet and smartphones!
     
    PHI’s recently released book GROUNDBREAKING INVENTIONS IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY by Rajaraman is written in a simple style without too many jargon terms to allow anyone with a pre-university education to understand and appreciate how ICT has developed. 
    • What do we mean by a “Groundbreaking Invention”? Some of the meanings of the word “groundbreaking” taken from dictionaries are:
    • “innovative, pioneering” (Oxford Dictionary)
    • “A very new and big change from other things of its type” (Cambridge Dictionary)
    • “Introducing new ideas or methods” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
    • “Something innovative, pioneering or that has never been done before” (Your Dictionary)
     
    Of these four meanings, the one given by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is closest to the criteria that are used to select the fifteen groundbreaking inventions presented in this book. What then are the criteria to classify an advancement in ICT as a groundbreaking invention? The following criteria are used:
    1. The idea should be novel.
    2. It should fulfil a need.
    3. It should improve our productivity.
    4. It should change the way in which computing is done, and computers are used.
    5. It should lead to innovations.
    6. The invention must have a long life and be continuously used and not be transient.
    7. It should create new industries that lead to further innovations and may, as a consequence, disrupt some old industries.
    8. It should transform the way we live and thereby result in societal changes.
     
    Every groundbreaking invention does not need to satisfy all the above criteria. If it meets a majority of these, the author of this book has classified it as groundbreaking.
     
    The book identifies and explains fifteen groundbreaking inventions in ICT from 1957 to-date. The first chapter explains what is meant by the term groundbreaking invention and the criteria that have used to identify groundbreaking inventions. The second, third, and fourth chapters describe the inventions, how they were invented and the biographies of prominent inventors. The biographies are given in Boxes. They may be skipped while reading about the inventions and read afterward to get an idea about the inventors and their careers. In the fourth chapter, concluding remarks are added that discuss whether there are some common features in the inventions and about the nature of the inventors and why they succeeded.
     
    In this book, Dr. Rajaraman has described the following for each of these inventions: 
    • History of the invention 
    • A brief biography of persons who were associated with the invention
    • Why the author considers the invention as groundbreaking
    The inventions are grouped as follows: 
    • Between 1957 and 1974 (the first four inventions)
    • Between 1975 and 1984 (the middle five inventions) 
    • Between 1985 and 2011 (the last six inventions)
    Each group of inventions is described in a chapter. 
    This book seeks to answer the following questions lucidly to a non-specialist general reader:
    • How did this revolution happen?
    • What groundbreaking inventions led to this revolution?
    • Why are they groundbreaking inventions?
    • Who were the innovators and inventors of these technologies?
    • What led them to these inventions?
    Fifteen groundbreaking inventions: Fortran, Integrated Circuits, Relational Database Management Systems, Local Area Networks, Personal Computers, Public Key Encryption, Computer Graphics, Internet, GPS, World Wide Web, Search Engines, Digitisation and Compression of Multimedia, Mobile Computing, Cloud Computing, and Deep Learning (AI) are described cogently by Professor V. Rajaraman, a doyen of Computer Science education and research in India.
     
     
    About the Author
     
    V. RAJARAMAN – A Pioneer in the Field of Computer Science Education in India
    Born: 8th September 1933, Madras Presidency, British India 
    Occupation: Computer engineer & Academic Author 
    Known for: Computer science academics and literature 
    Awards 
    • Padma Bhushan 
    • Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 
    • Om Prakash Bhasin Award 
    • Homi Bhabha Prize 
    • IISc Rustom Choksi Award 
    • INAE Lifetime Contribution Award 
    • IISc Distinguished Alumnus Award 
    • CSI Lifetime Achievement Award
    An interview with Dr. Rajaraman is available at http://voxiitk.com/interview-with-dr-rajaraman/ 
    The Series of Books by Rajaraman, published by PHI Learning, is available for purchase from www.phindia.com.
     
    The books are available in print book format as well as e-book format.
     
    In case you want to reach us, visit the webpage of the book at
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    Write to us at phi@phindia.com