IIT Roorkee researchers develop a sentiments analysis method for Sanskrit text

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IIT Roorkee

Dateline Roorkee: A proposed sentiments analysis technique has achieved 92.83 percent accuracy for sentiment classification in Sanskrit text by the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) researchers who have developed an efficient method for Sanskrit text sentiment analysis.

Sanskrit is one of the world’s most ancient languages; however, natural language processing tasks such as machine translation and sentiment analysis have not been explored. The proposed technique has achieved 87.50% accuracy for machine translation and 92.83% accuracy for sentiment classification.

Sanskrit sentiments analysis

Sanskrit is one of the world’s most ancient languages; however, natural language processing tasks such as machine translation and sentiment analysis have not been explored for it to the full potential because of the unavailability of sufficient labeled data.

The research proposed a method that comprises models for machine translation, translation evaluation, and sentiment analysis. The team involved in this research are Prof. Balasubramanian Raman, Department of Computer Science and Engineering and his Ph.D. student Mr. Puneet Kumar, and M.Sc. student Mr. Kshitij Pathania, Department of Mathematics.

The machine translations have been used as cross-lingual mapping of the source and the target language. The obtained English translations are sufficiently mature and natural as the original English sentences. The model has been published as a Research Paper in a reputed peer-reviewed journal Applied Intelligence (DOI – https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-022-04046-6)

Elaborating on the sentiment analysis model, Prof. Balasubramanian Raman, Department of Computer Science, IIT Roorkee, said, “We have trained our model to predict sentiment scores in the range of positive, neutral, or negative. And the model uses statistics, natural language processing, and machine learning to determine the sentiment with over 90% accuracy.”

The dataset to perform this research was taken from the Valmiki Ramayana website (https://www.valmiki.iitk.ac.in ) developed and maintained by the IIT Kanpur researchers. The future plans of the researchers are to exploit the morphological properties of Sanskrit for better classification using only root words with their respective suffixes and prefix. It is also planned to evaluate whether the morphological richness of Sanskrit is retained while translating to English. Moreover, the researchers also plan to obtain a model that discerns the context of words in multiple languages and provides word embeddings of lesser dimensions.

Actress Kavya Thapar heads to Dehradun

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Kavya is all smiles

Dateline Dehradun: Post the success of her debut movie Middle Class Love Actress Kavya Thapar made her way to Dehradun to take the blessings of her Guru Ji and offer Langar at Anantdham.

Kavya Thapar, one of the cutest women in show business, continues to win over audiences’ hearts with her alluring attitude and enchanting personality. The actress has been praised for her portrayal of Sysha. The debut actress was seen at the Mumbai airport on her way to celebrate the success of her movie with her Guru Ji and to give langar after the release of her debut film ‘Middle Class Love.’

Kavya is all smiles

A spiritual person, Kavya feels that it is important to make everyone around her happy. Post the release of the movie the actress visited her guruji’s Anantdham in Dehradun and offered lungar to all the needy people on her behalf and shared the success of her movie with them. Pictures  of the actress beaming as she takes part in the langar hands-on are doing the rounds on the internet.

Definitely, this beauty knows how necessary it is to be grateful.

The actress looked every bit elegant in a stunning pastel printed dress. Talking about the makeup, to give perfect Desi kudi vibes she kept it very subtle with a nude lip shade, rosy cheeks, and a defect black bindi. She accessorised her ensemble with minimal jewellery while keeping her in a bun.

Delhi to host Uttarakhand’s first film and music cultural tour.

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Dr Tania Saili Bakshi
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Anubhuti, Uttarakhand's first film and music cultural tour

Dateline Delhi: Uttarakhandis in Delhi are in for a treat!  Uttarakhand Film Company along with musical band Pandavaas is putting together Uttarakhand’s first film and music cultural tour that will be flagged off from the national capital.

Coming Sunday i.e. 25th of September the team will perform in front of a packed audience at the Nehru Stadium from 5:00-8:00 p.m. beginning  with a special screening of Director Rahul Rawat’s ‘Sunpat’, Uttarakhand’s first movie to win the coveted ‘Indian Panorama Award’ at the International Film Festival of India.

Sunpat

Why did the team chose Delhi for their maiden event,  Kunal Dobhal of Pandavaas tells us, “Anubhuti Uttarakhand is being flagged off from Delhi as we wanted to give it a befitting take off. We will perform in all leading Metros before we end the tour in Dehradun. We would like to make this is a quality event where Art is given priority over everything else.” He further adds, “This is the first Uttarakhandi event that has entry-tickets.  We want to ensure quality over quantity. We plan to make this an annual cultural event where we give Uttarakhand artists a stage that they truly deserve.“

So what has the response been thus far? We ask Ishaan Dobhal and Rahul Rawat, respectively , “Whenever you start something new there are people who will always judge your decision, doubt your judgement and wisdom. But we stuck to our road-map regarding the event.” Rahul adds, “We, as a team, wanted to bring about a change and it has worked wonders. We have had an excellent response and are sold out in two out of the three categories.“

So for those who haven’t booked their ticket just yet, log on to bookmyshow and make sure you too are part of this ‘once in a lifetime’ experience doing your bit by encouraging talent from your home state.

VoW launches it 6th Edition with G-Literati 

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Dr Tania Saili Bakshi
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Dateline Dehradun: Valley of Words, Literature and Art Festival  in partnership with Daly College, Indore, will be hosting the ‘Young Adults Literature’ vertical on the 13th -14th  of September, 2022. This maiden event at the 150 year old prestigious institution aspires to give children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine and understand.

‘G-Literati’ is a fresh, innovative event aimed at promoting reading among children. Organised by Daly College, Valley of Words and AFS India, students from over a dozen schools will get the opportunity to interact with authors and take part in activities based on literary themes.

Daly College, Indore

Talking about hosting the event in their esteemed institution, Dr. (Ms.) Gunmeet Bindra said, “I am a staunch supporter of promoting the love for reading in children.  No graphic or digital form of knowledge can ever replace man’s best friend, the ‘book’. Creating a vibrant reading environment excites and enthuses me! A book, a story, can help a child step into someone else’s shoes, understand that they are not alone, experience a magical adventure and travel to new worlds.” She further added, “With Valley of Words and AFS India , by our side,  ‘G-Literati’ is a completely new initiative, rarely seen in schools, and I am highly optimistic that it will achieve resounding success, not only in terms of outreach but also in motivating the students to become avid readers.”

The two-day lit fest include physical sessions with authors of selected books under the Young Adult category hosted in its huge verdant campus. Moderated talk shows with the authors will be a prime attraction. These sessions would include a book review and a questionnaire for the concerned novelist with a teacher moderating the session.

As the authors would be present on Daly College campus, they would provide the students with first-hand insights pertaining to reading, novel writing, writing as a career, literary criticism, etc. The sessions will be recorded and shared from all social media handles of Valley of Words.

Thrown in are competitive events such as Animated Videos; Poster Making, Character Enactment and a Short Story Writing competition for students to add more icing to the cake. Also a book fair at the venue will give students the opportunity to grab books of their choice and get them signed by the authors themselves. An experience that the students will cherish forever as they personally get to meet, interact and hear authors talk about the written word.

Dr Sanjeev Chopra, Festival Director stated, “Our partnership with AFS schools has started on a very positive and vibrant note. We hope that this will become an annual feature and the young students and their teachers will find it a rewarding experience. My congratulations to Principal Bindra and her very efficient team for putting this together in one of India’s most well-known public schools in the historic city of Indore.’

Two SRHU research scholars bag top awards at International Conference

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Dateline Dehradun: Two research scholars from the Himalayan School of Biosciences, Swami Rama Himalayan University, bagged top honors at the International Conference GangaAyurCon-2022.

Anjali Uniyal and Sweta Upadhyay won the first and second positions respectively in the Scientific Poster Category.

The Conference on “Medicinal Plants of Ganga River Basin and Their Therapeutic Importance in Indian System of Medicines,” was held at Gurukul Campus Uttarakhand Ayurvedic University, Haridwar from 5th to 6th September, 2022

Anjali Uniyal presented her perspective on, ‘Genetic Diversity Assessment Using Molecular Markers for the Conservation of Rheum Species.’ This has been her research topic as well which she is conducting along with Akhilesh Kumar, Sweta Upadhyay, Sanjay Gupta and Vijay Kumar.

Sweta Upadhyay, a PhD Scholar at Himalayan School of Biosciences, SRHU was awarded 2nd position in Scientific Poster Category. The title of her presentation was ‘Molecular analysis of micropropagated Rheum emodi plants using RAPD and ISSR markers for ascertaining Clonal fidelity.’ Her co-researchers in the above research are Anjali Uniyal, Vijay Kumar, Sanjay Gupta and Akhilesh Kumar.

Overwhelmed with the achievement of SRHU’s students, Vice Chancellor Dr Vijay Dhasmana stated, “Their research topic has huge relevance to the welfare of humanity. Their main projection is that cultivation of plants can be planned to meet the needs of the industry in required quantities and at required time. If efforts were made for systematic cultivation of medicinal plants instead of collecting them from the wild, many of the problems like unplanned harvesting and threats to the plant specie would be minimized. Properly identified, certified and biochemically characterized planting material can be supplied to the growers. Unintentional adulteration can be avoided and it will be easier to check deliberate adulteration.”

The proposal presented by the duo was how to develop efficient routine procedures and facility for obtaining genetic data on large numbers of samples in order to specify and detect the variation among the distinct geographical sources through molecular markers, which will be used for the authentication of the plant material. Hence the herbal wealth of the State could be utilized to its optimum. Up grading of plant tissue culture facility at Himalayan School of Biosciences, SRHU, Dehradun will help in implementations of improvement programme for medicinal plants of the State of Uttarakhand more vigorously.

The project was given to Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Principal Investigator and Dr Vivek Kumar, Co-PI by the Uttarakhand Council for Biotechnology, Haldi, Govt. of Uttarakhand.

Swami Rama Himalayan University honors Shourya Saini

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Dateline Dehradun: Deaflympics 2022 Bronze Medalist, Shourya Saini, was handed over Rs 4 Lakh by the Vice Chancellor Dr Vijay Dhasmana to celebrate his spectacular achievement.

Shourya Saini, a first year Baslp (Bachelor of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology) student at Swami Rama Himalayan University has done Uttarakhand and India proud, by clinching a Bronze Medal in 10m Air Rifle shooting event in Brazil held in May this year. He finished third with 622.7 points.

To honour his achievement Vice Chancellor of Swami Rama Himalayan University, Dr Vijay Dhasmana, gifted him a cheque of Rs 4 lakh, to help Shourya buy his personal practice Air Rifle which will be delivered to him in September.

“When Dr Dhasmana learnt that I have difficulty in practicing due to lack of a personal Air Rifle, he very kindly offered to support me in my journey,” shared an elated Shourya. “I want the world to know him by his abilities, not his disability,” states Dr Dhasmana. “He is nothing short of a brand ambassador for our youth,” he added.

The father-son duo travel to Delhi every weekend, as Shourya needs to practice for other events on a 50-meter shooting range, unavailable in Doon. But Shourya believes that hard things are put in his way, not to discourage him, “I want youngsters like me to see that that they shouldn’t let a disability get in the way of their dreams,” Shourya avers. “I believe that the impediments in our way are only there to strengthen us. Therefore I don’t need things easy. I need things possible.”

His father SC Saini informs that Shourya’s coach too lives in Delhi. “So we do not mind travelling regularly. It’s not an issue with us. His passion for his sport is like a mechanism for health and endurance. He was truly determined and totally focused on his training. In such a short span of time he became part of the Indian team and went on to represent India at Brazil.”

The next goal for the champion is a Gold Medal at the Olympics and Deaflympics together.

Save Water Campaign executed in Swami Rama Himalayan University

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Project for rain water conservation launched at Himalayan Institute

Dateline Dehradun: Swami Rama Himalayan University initiated a mammoth ‘Green Initiative’ for the conservation of water within the campus.

With the technical expertise of ‘Uttaranchal Koop Man’, HP Uniyal who planned and managed the initiative a valuable natural resource will now be used for non-domestic purposes within the University campus.

Launched today and dedicated to India’s Save Water Campaign, Vice Chancellor Dr Vijay Dhasmana said, “The project will increase awareness of students about ‘scarcity of clean water’ and sensitize them on the importance of ‘conservation of water,’ a precious natural resource. When we realized that 80% of water requirement of the SRHU campus could be met with or replaced through rainwater harvesting we decided to go ahead with the project.”

After three months of meticulous planning and construction, close to 2 crore litres of rainwater is being collected, stored and re-used for non-potable purposes like toilet flushing, cleaning and ground aquifer recharge.

9000 sq mtrs of roof top areas of the Nursing College, Medical College and RDI Building at Swami Rama Himalayan University and HH campus have been prepared to collect roof top rainwater. One lakh fifty thousand litres of water collected, is treated and filtered through a natural process with the help of ‘Uttaranchal Koop’ method, for which Uniyal was conferred the National Urban Water 2008 Award. This water is collected in a 1.5 lac litre ‘Storage Tank’, which is completely underground.

“The water collected in 1.5 lac storage tank will be supplied to different buildings for flushing and cleaning and will be sufficient for 365 days. It will cater to 111 toilets and 138 taps. “We have cut off the normal supply of water, and instead supply 3000 litres per day of collected roof top rain water, which we calculated is the daily need,” Uniyal explained.

To arrive at this figure, close to to two decades of rainfall data was studied, average monthly rainfall calculated, inlet and outlet water supply quantity calculated. 9 lakh 45000 litres of roof top rain water will be used for daily flushing and cleaning needs. And importantly 1 crore 57 lakh litre of water will be utilized for ground water recharging.

The capacity of our underground storage tank is 1.5 lakh litre. It would be sufficient to supply 3000 litres of water to the 111 toilets and 138 taps for a period of 365 days, Dr Dhasmana proudly revealed.

Golden Achiever Award for Dr Data Ram Purohit

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Dr Tania Saili Bakshi
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Data Ram Purohit

Dateline Srinagar: Shri Data Ram Purohit prominent educationist, folk artist from Uttarakhand will be receiving the coveted Golden Achiever Award, in Jaipur on the 17th of September this year.

Synonymous with Garhwali folklore and tradition, Dr. Purohit is a humble, hard-working and focused person known to me as Dr. Dataram Purohit. Born on 8th August 1953, in the quaint hill village of Queeli in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, Purohit sir, as I fondly call him, has come a long way since.

A Ph.D. in Medieval English Drama and Folk Theatre of Garhwal, Purohit sir became an Assistant Professor of English in HNB Garhwal University. Soon after be took charge of cultural programmes of the University and stood so until 1992. He formed and directed a folk orchestra “Himalayi Taal Vaadya vrind” in 1986-87 and conducted concerts.

Along with  his teaching assignments, he conducted research and documentation on the folk forms of Uttarakhand. Most prominent of his documentations include a thousand page  folk Mahabharata of Kedarnath valley, two hundred page – Bagdwali, rhythmic patterns  of regional  dhol drumming, Chaiti, Pandwani, Nain , Mahabharat and Ramayan Theatre, Mask theatre, Theatre of the bards  and variants of Nanda Devi lore.

Instrumental in founding Centre for Folk Performing Arts and Culture in HNB Garhwal University in the year 2006. He headed the same for three years. Under his academic leadership courses like M.A. Theatre, six diplomas in Folk music, and thirteen diplomas in Folk dance and songs were introduced with a view to promoting the culture and arts of the Uttarakhand mountains.

He became a visiting DAAD Professor of Performing Arts in Ruprecht Karl University, Heidelberg, Germany in 2009 and taught courses in Folk Performing Arts of Uttarakhand. He was nominated as Baden Wurttemberg Fellow in Heidelberg University in 2018-19 and translated Garhwali Mahabharata into English in collaboration with Prof. William S. Sax and Prof. Friederick Smith.

In order to propagate the aesthetics and cultural values of folk performances and culture of Uttarakhand, he directed and staged “Nanda Devi Raj Jaat” in Heidelberg University.  Penned close to three dozen Garhwali, Hindi and English scripts and produced plays. He was instrumental, as a cultural coordinator, in production of Goran Paskal-je-vic’s feature film “Land of Gods” (Devbhumi), a film based on the social theme and landscape of Garhwal Himalaya.

At present,  he is working as an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Folk Performing Arts and Culture of H.N.B. Garhwal University. With 16 awards and honours to his credit and over sixty published papers in renowned journals, magazines and books, besides three audio albums and documentaries, this award adds another feather to his cap.

Road accidents in Uttarakhand a grave concern for all

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Dateline Dehradun: State Director General of Police Ashok Kumar described the increasing road accidents in Uttarakhand as a matter of great concern for the state. He said, “on an average 200 people are murdered in the state every year, whereas five times more i.e. about 1000 people die in road accidents.” The DGP was speaking on the topic ‘Road Traffic Accidents in Uttarakhand’ in the 4th VoW Policy Dialogue organized by PHD Chamber of Commerce and SDC Foundation at VoW Cafe. Also on the panel were Dr. Madhur Uniyal, Assistant Professor Trauma Care from AIIMS Rishikesh and senior journalist Gaurav Talwar.

DGP Ashok Kumar said, “one of the major reasons for road accidents in the state is the increasing traffic pressure on the roads. At the time of formation of Uttarakhand, the number of vehicles was about 4 lakhs, whereas now it has increased 8 times to 32 lakhs.”  He also cited drink and drive, over speed and overloading as major reasons for road accidents.

Senior journalist Gaurav Talwar said,“if we analyze the statistics of road accidents in the state, it is found that the nature of road accidents is different in the plain and hilly parts of the state. In plain areas, where two-wheeler accidents are more frequent, larger vehicles are more prone to accidents in mountainous areas.” He emphasised on different strategies from the hill and plains to prevent road accidents. He stressed the need to effectively curb over speed and rash driving.

Dr. Madhur Uniyal said, “If we analyze the statistics of deaths and injuries of working age people in accidents, Uttarakhand has the highest disability-adjusted life years across the entire country.” He further added, “We are limited to over speed and drunk and drive, while there are many other reasons for accidents. Zero fatality corridors are being built in many parts of the country. There is a dire need to build such corridors in Uttarakhand.”

The VoW Policy Dialogue was co-chaired by Hemant Kochhar, PHD Chamber of Commerce, Uttarakhand Chapter and moderated by Anoop Nautiyal of SDC Foundation. DIG Traffic Mukhtar Mohsin, SP Traffic Dehradun Akshay Konde, Rashmi Chopra, Venu Dhingra, Sanjay Bhargava, Ashish Garg, Ganesh Kandwal, SS Rasayali, Paramjit Singh Kakkar, Vishal Kala, TN Jowhar and otherswere present in large numbers in the program.

NDRF rescue and relief work in Uttarakhand

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NDRF Rescue

Dateline Dehradun: Incessant rainfall and cloudbursts rigged the hill-state on the night of 19th-20th of August leading to loss to life and property in low-lying areas of Dehradun and Tehri district. Fifteen National Disaster Relief Force personnel under the directions of Commandant, Sudesh Kumar Drall rushed to the disaster site and started simultaneous rescue operations in the villages of Sitapur, Gwad, Bhainswada and other nearby affected areas.

In the past forty hours and counting close to two hundred local residents and tourists including children who were stuck in different resorts in the area, have been evacuated and moved to safe zone.

Pushkar Singh Dhami, Chief Minister, Uttarakhand along with senior officers of the State administration visited the area and directed concerned authorities to carry out rescue and relief operations. Working on war footing to help normalise the situation as soon as possible, NDRF Officer Shri Rohitashwa Mishra, Deputy Commandant who was present on the disaster site during the visit, apprised the Chief Minister about the rescue operations being carried out in detail.

NDRF officer briefing the CM

Using the rope-rescue technique for crossing the river Song, the team has been working relentlessly in relief and rescue efforts.

A team of fifteen NDRF personnel made their way to Gwad to retrieve bodies of victims missing in flash floods in the village which falls in Tehri district. The team travelled close to eighteen kilometres on foot with their equipment to reach Gwad and are still working on relief and rescue in the area.

Tourists and locals who were rescued by NDRF teams also applauded the prompt action, risks taken and efforts made by the team for saving lives.

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