Cochin International Airport- World's first Airport to be powered entirely by Solar Energy

          Located in the southern state of Kerala, Cochin International Airport is now the first airport in the world to run completely on solar power. It is indeed a proud moment for each keralite that a project like this is first successfully implemented in a developing country like India. On August 18,2015, the Then Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurated the 12 MW solar power plant, comprising 46,150 solar panels laid across 45 acres of land (near the cargo complex).

          CIAL first ventured into the Solar PV sector during March 2013, by installing a 100 KW solar PV Plant on the roof top of the Arrival Terminal Block wherein a total of 400 polycrystalline modules of 250W with five 20kW capacity 'Refu-sol make string inverters' were used in this plant. Following its success, CIAL installed a 1 MW Solar Photo Voltaic power plant partly on the roof top and partly on the ground in the Aircraft Maintenance Hangar facility within the airport premises. Later on, 4000 monocrystalline modules of 250W with thirty three  Delta make string inverters of 30kW capacity were used in this plant, to make it the first Megawatt scale installation of solar PV system in Kerala.

          The Cochin International Airport on an average, has a demand of 50,000 to 60,000 units of electricity , costing over 3,50,000 rupees for its operation every day. Thus by installing a 12 Mega Watt Solar PV system integrated with SCADA(Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) for remote monitoring, the airport became totally self sufficient in meeting its energy demands. The company is hopeful of recouping the costs incurred in the installation in less than six years. Today, with its solar power plant it produces more energy than it needs and banks the rest with the state power grid for rainy days and night-time requirements.
          The project was initiated mainly with a sense of duty towards the environment and to promote self-sufficiency. Solar Energy is a clean source of energy and is abundantly available over an average of 300 days a year. By the installation of a 12MW solar PV power plant, the airport has succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300,000 metric tonnes which is equal to planting three million trees or not driving 750 million miles. Also, the problems of power scarcity leading to frequency instabilities in the grid could be partially solved by the project.
I hope that the country will achieve more such milestones, and generation of power through greener sources of energy will be promoted.

Joining formalities for Tata Consultancy Services

          In this post, I would like to take you through the joining formalities and things that you have to keep in mind before joining TCS. On the day of joining, you will be asked to submit a few essential documents without which they will not be able to confirm your employment, the most important of which being the Service Agreement.

          The list of documents that have to be submitted is available in the Nextstep portal under the Joining Annexure tab. You have to be very careful with the requisite documents or you will end up being rescheduled.

          The most important document as I have already told, is the Service Agreement. The Service Agreement has to be made between you, The Surety and TCS. The surety has to be mandatorily an Income Tax payee. Land Deed will not be accepted though it is said in the Joining Annexure that surety can be a person with land deed. If your surety is not an income tax payee, you have all chances of getting rescheduled. Also, make sure you attach a Xerox copy of Surety's PAN card and Surety Signature Verification Form. If no competent authority is available to attest the surety's signature, you may attach photocopy of surety's passport.

          Another important document is your PAN card. Acknowledgement slip of the PAN card application will not be enough and you have to have your own PAN card at the time of joining. The documents such as Non-criminal affidavit, Medical certificate etc. can be easily obtained and so if there is an error in your documents, they will give you one or two days time to re-submit the documents. Keep in mind that your photograph should be attested by the doctor who gives you the medical fitness certificate. Also, the Non-Criminal Affidavit has to be made on 100 rupee stamp paper.

          About the academic qualifications, you have to carry original mark lists of all semesters and the Degree certificate(Provisional Certificate if Degree Certificate not yet issued). You have to clear all the backlogs and you should have received the updated mark lists at the time of joining, without which you will be re-scheduled. If you have any query regarding these, contact the ILP support at the earliest.

          You also might know about the National Skills Registry(NSR) e-card. You have to carry NSR e-card on your joining date. Make sure you have at least applied for NSR e-card when you join. Similar is the case for Passport. If you don't have one, make sure you have the acknowledgement slip of the Passport application.

          In addition to all these, make sure you have completed your Background Check(BGC) which is mandatory. Once you join TCS, option to edit BGC data will not be possible. You will have no more access to Nextstep portal. If you have entered any data incorrectly, it might result in you getting rescheduled at a later time(like after one month) when the verification is completed by the Head Office in Mumbai.

          The above-said documents are most important and are the ones people usually make a mistake with. Please check the Joining annexure and Joining Formalities in the Nextstep portal for more details and clarity.

          About my experience at TCS, the first few days will be very hectic and you will be asked to fill a number of forms like the I-DAF form, the Intellectual Property Agreement etc. There are chances that you may not have to attend IRA-1 depending on your location. I had to attend IRA-2 which is based on TechLounge. The top-scorers of IRA-2 will be given location of their preference. ILP will mostly constitute of tests, so preparing for TechLounge will definitely give you an upper-hand.

If you have any queries about the joining formalities, feel free to comment on the post.

Read also: Tips and Tricks to clear TCS Aspire Learning Course

What after Engineering?

What to do after Engineering? This is one of the serious questions engineers passing out in India every year asks themselves. It is a common fact that a very huge number of Engineers pass out every year and many among them haven't even the slightest of the clue about what to do. Many get placed in leading companies (especially software companies) during their campus placement drives but in this post, I would like to highlight my viewpoint on what an Engineer should think of doing after their four year  engineering programme.
          It is a commonly known fact that the jobs in software companies are not secure and surely is not a field where you wouldn't want to stay for long time unless you are a Computer Science engineer. For those of you who aren't one, I would recommend you to try for a government job which is ofcourse the most secure job. And I believe that the easiest way to get one is to prepare for GATE exam (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering). Gate exam is a very high standard exam which tests for your depth of knowledge in your Engineering discipline. With the preparation for GATE exam, one could also attempt a number of other recruitment exams like BARC, ISRO, JTO, BEL, and state electricity boards and Public Service Commissions. Based on the rank  obtained in the GATE exam, multiple Navaratna companies like BARC, BHEL, IOCL, HPCL, NTPC, Power Grid, NHPC etc. does their recruitment and they provide a very attractive salary package. Gate exam is conducted primarily as the admission test to premier colleges like IITs or IISc and other engineering colleges for Masters or Ph.D. programmes.
          GATE exam is the right option for those who are ready to work quite hard and luckily the exam requires only a preparation time of around 4 to 6 months.  Another option is the Indian Engineering Services (IES) conducted by the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) which lately has introduced a more student-friendly syllabus. Surely, IES exam requires a wider preparation strategy and requires a much longer preparation time. The Highlight is that preparation for both Gate as well as IES can both go hand in hand. IES offer much less job vacancies compared to GATE.
          Getting a respected government job is much better than trying to meet extreme project targets in a Software company, which surely loots your peace of mind. It is not about getting a job just after graduation, but  about getting a respected and enjoyable job wherein you wouldn't have to compromise much on your peace of mind

Please feel free to comment your doubts and queries.

Tips and tricks to pass TCS Aspire Learning Course

          Hello everyone. In this post I will brief out a few tricks to pass the TCS Aspire Online Learning modules. The Aspire Modules are quite lengthy and for those who are not much familiar with programming languages may feel difficult to clear the cut-off soon enough. You might as well know that the batching process is carried out on the basis of the cut-off score for every month. If you don't clear the cut-off score for this month, you will get an option to reset the modules in which you have undertaken atleast one quiz(after the batching process of the month is completed). So, you might have to redo the module in order to improve your score.

          The reason why I am making this post is because I am used to learning stuff at the last moment and that I am quite sure that there is absolutely no use in learning these modules long before the joining date.(Once you clear the Aspire Batching Cut-off, you will be allotted to a particular stream and will be given the tech-lounge modules to learn before you join. Also, your joining date will be around two months(usually) after the month in which you cleared it.). I have also come across so many future-TCSers asking for easy ways to crack the Aspire module. My advice is to try to do the Aspire module in fair manner and resort to this strategy in the worst case.

Tip 1: The questions that are asked in the quiz are mostly repeated again and again. So, before every quiz go through the queries at the end of each chapter and find out the answers to it. The answers that are given by others are not very trustworthy.

Tip 2: Again, as I have already mentioned that, after each batching process, there will be an option to reset the module. So, for those modules that you find tough, you could simply attend every quiz before the end of the batching process and if required, take a screenshot of the questions so that when you have the reset option available, you could reset the module and take the quiz once again.(Before taking the quiz, find answers to all the questions that you have come through, as the questions are mostly repeated.)

Tip 3: This is the easiest way to score in Aspire modules. Once you start learning each chapter, copy the entire text into a MS Word document. When you start attending the quiz, there will be a time countdown of 30 to 60 seconds. In the mean time, open the word or pdf document and use CTRL+F to search for the answer.(When searching for the answer, choose a keyword from the question which would easily fetch you the result). For the final module quiz, you could copy-paste the entire module text and keep in handy. It is advisable not to directly use CTRL+F on the web browser as it may be detected.

Tip 4: The Python Module is the easiest and the most important module which could fetch you easy marks. Download the Python software (version that is recommended in the course material) and keep it open while you attend the quiz. There are so many "Find the output" type questions which you can type in the Python software and find out. Also, use Tip 3 to find answer to non-output type questions

Please use these tips only if it is absolutely necessary. It is always better to depend on your abilities. Do take the Aspire modules seriously as these tips might make you clear the cutoff, but you might not be so lucky in passing the Initial Readiness Assessment (IRA-1) when you join TCS. Please feel free to comment below if you have any queries regarding the joining and the tests.

Good luck to all future TCSers

Read Also: Things to keep in mind about the Joining Formalities for TCS