FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2017
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Conference for PIO lawmakers
To engage with the Indian diaspora all over the globe, India will host a conference of members of parliaments in other countries who are of Indian origin, on January 9 in New Delhi diplomacy people-centric. Stating that the government’s interaction with the Indian diaspora has been “transformational”, he said that the total number of such diaspora around the world now stands at 31.2 million.
IANS, NEW DELHI
I
n yet another instance of the government giving priority to engaging with the Indian diaspora, India will host a conference of members of parliaments in other countries who are of Indian origin next year, a senior official said this week. “We will have a PIO (person of Indian origin) Parliamentary Conference on January 9, 2018 in New Delhi,” said Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay, Secretary (Consular, Passport, Visa and Overseas Indian Affairs), a newly created post in the Ministry of External Affairs. “There are around 285 parliamentarians of Indian origin and over 125 of them are expected to come,” Mulay said during a media interaction organized by the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs
Novel approach for self-driving cars
The government has laid a strong foundation by making diplomacy people-centric. —Mulay Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay, Secretary (Consular, Passport, Visa and Overseas Indian Affairs), a newly created post in the Ministry of External Affairs.
Correspondents (IAFAC). Of these 285 parliamentarians, 70 are ministers, speakers and even prime ministers in their respective countries. In the US alone, there are four members of the House of
AI shouldn’t be used to replace humans IANS, NEW DELHI
E NEW YORK: A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is developing new depth sensors that could be sensitive enough to make self-driving vehicles practical. The Camera Culture group at MIT’s Media Lab — that has two Indian-origin researchers Achuta Kadambi and Ramesh Raskar — has been developing innovative imaging systems by using “time of flight” — an approach that gauges distance by measuring the time it takes light projected into a scene to bounce back to a sensor. In a new paper in the journal IEEE Access, the team has presented new approach to time-offlight imaging that increases its depth resolution 1,000-fold - the type of resolution that could make self-driving cars practical. The new approach could also enable accurate distance measurements through fog, which has proven to be a major obstacle to the development of self-driving cars. —IANS
Representatives and one senator who are of Indian origin. Giving an update on the work of his division in the ministry, Mulay said that the government has laid a strong foundation by making
He said that there are four segments of the Indian diaspora: the diaspora in the Gulf numbering around 8.5 million; older diaspora who went as indentured labour numbering around 1.7 million; people who hold Indian citizenship but are living abroad; and the
merging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) should not be used to replace human intelligence, instead it should be used to amplify and augment their intelligence, says Indo-Canadian teen prodigy Tanmay Bakshi, known as the world’s youngest IBM Watson programmer. Bakshi, 14, a cognitive developer, TEDx Speaker, Algorithmic as well as an author, was speaking at
an interactive session with technology journalist Rajeev Makhani, organized by FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) this week. “Technology should be used responsibly and with the intent of not replacing your intelligence but allow it to make you more intelligent,” Bakshi said. “When I use AI, my goal is to learn any information as quickly as possible and use it to amplify my capability.” Bakshi believes that like every technology AI also has some ill
Tanmay Bakshi. (Photo: IANS)
effects, but technology is not going to overthrow humanity anytime soon. “AI in its present form is nowhere near likely to overthrow
floating overseas Indians that include students and people going for short and research purposes. Of the 8.5 million expatriate Indians in the Gulf, around 70 per cent are blue collar workers mostly employed in the infrastructure sector. Mulay also spoke about the Madad portal set up by his ministry that is used to address the grievances of Indians living abroad. “We received around 26,000 grievances in the last one year and over 20,000 of these have been resolved,” he said, adding that the grievances were also received via social media and through call centers. Regarding the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) set up in Indian missions to help Indians in distress abroad, the Secretary said that since the fund was set up in 2009, 110,000 people have benefited. humanity. The chances are very low and seems impossible for the next many decades.” He also defied the myth that robots will ever replace humans or take away their jobs, rather it would add newer job profiles. Bakshi, who is one of the youngest cloud computing developers in the world, started computer programming as fun and games at the age of five. By eight, Bakshi designed his first major application. He released his first iOS app, called ‘tTables,’ that helped kids learn multiplication tables, at nine. At 12, Bakshi became IBM Watson’s youngest programmer and even detected a bug in the system. According to Bakshi, AI is not limited to one field but applicable to business, entertainment, agriculture and healthcare etc.
Gune brings innovative approach for PTSD battle MAYANK CHHAYA, DESERT HOT SPRINGS (CALIFORNIA)
A
s America battles a variety of ailments related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Indian American counseling psychologist Ramesh Gune is emerging as a key influencer in the campaign. Gune, who holds a doctorate in counseling psychology with emphasis on mind-body medicine, is bringing to bear a fusion of treatment approaches, which his recent patients extol. PTSD has been described by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as “a disorder that
Ramesh Gune is bringing to bear a fusion of treatment approaches.
develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event”. America’s international engagement in various
wars combined with policing a heavily armed citizenry at home have led to a large number of veterans as well as first respondents
falling prey to PTSD. According to some statistics, eight per cent of Americans, or nearly 25 million, have some form of PTSD. What Dr. Gune and his wife Dr. Sandra Gune, a holistic chiropractor, offer is a five-day treatment drawing on a combined mind-body approach that looks at PTSD related ailments as both external and internal. “In the West, mind and body were always separate. External cure became crucial. There had been no integrated approach to health in the 20th century. We bring a holistic treatment which recognizes that health is as much about body as it is about mind,” Dr. Gune told IANS in an interview.