Author: Aashikaa R. Mohan

WHATSAPP COME TO BLOW AFTER NEW IT RULES:

WhatsApp to implement traceability of messages and those messages will be sent from India to users in other markets. The same rules would apply to other messaging apps that use encryption such as Signal or Telegram and they have to adhere the rules which the government has set as a criteria for the new IT rules, as notified on February 25.  On may 25, WhatsApp which is owned by Facebook moved to Delhi high court to file a case against the new IT rules as it was a threat to social media intermediaries

NEW IT RULES:

The new rules of WhatsApp undermines the privacy and security provided by end to end encryption. It shall enable the identification of the first originator of the information on its resource as may be required by judicial order. Another such problematic rule is traceability.

PROBLEMS OF NEW RULES:

Traceability, is a threat to WhatsApp and its people because in order to trace one message , it has to trace all messages which leads to lack of privacy and WhatsApp are against it. WhatsApp quoted that “traceability violates human rights” and also added “innocent people would get caught up in investigation, or even go to jail, for sharing content that later becomes problematic in the eyes of government ,even if they not mean to harm by sharing the content in the first place”.

INDIA’S RESPONSE:

Electronics and IT minister Ravi Shankar said the government , ” is committed to ensure the right to privacy to all the citizens but at the same time it is also the responsibility of the government to ensure the law and order and ensure national security”. There was a difference in opinion between the netizens and the government as a result social media is flooded with debate about these new rules and every other individual raising their voices to prove their point.

DEBATE:

Union Of India vs Antony Clement Rubin was one of the prominent cases where the questions related to traceability was discussed. Later on , supreme court took over the case but there was no technical solutions on tracing.

FINAL DECISION:

Social media such as Facebook, Google and WhatsApp have finally agreed to comply with the Indian government’s new IT rules. Initially Twitter didn’t say anything and failed to comply with the rules. But the government asked social media giants,  “stop beating around the bush and comply with laws. Later on twitter also agreed to comply with the rules.

Facebook owned WhatsApp, claimed that the Centre’s rules for intermediaries put end-to-end encryption and its benefits at risk.

NEW HORIZONS: MISSION TO PLUTO AND KUIPER BELT

LAUNCH: JANUARY 19,2006.

VEHICLE: Atlas V 551 first stage, Centaur second stage, STAR 48B solid rocket third stage.

LOCATION: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station , Florida.

PATH: To via Jupiter gravity assist.

REASON FOR STUDY:

There are 2 main reasons why they wanted the mission to start early. They are Since 1908, Pluto has been moving faraway from the sun by which it gets colder and finally freezes out as per reports. So they wanted to study about it as early as possible. The other reason is that Pluto and Charon never sees sun in decades as it will be shadowed by “artic nights” which leads to inability of taking pictures.

PATH:

By launching on Jan 2006, it took the advantage of a gravity assist from Jupiter. Then it passes Jupiter and ended upon Pluto on July 14,2015. During this course of time observed studied KUIPER BELT OBJECT(KBO) by which the space craft could fly further after reaching Pluto. Basically KBO are icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune.

THE VOYAGE:

EARLY ENCOUNTER: The first encounter included space crafts checkouts, rehearsals for Jupiter encounter. New horizons passed the orbit of mars on April 7,2006, it also tracked a small asteroid which was later names as APL on June 2006.

JUPITER ENCOUNTER: Closest approach on Feb 28, 2007. New orbiter flew about three to four times closer to Jupiter than the Cassini space craft.

INTERPLANETARY ENCOUNTER: Activities during these eight years included trajectory corrections, instruments check outs and Pluto encounter.

During this course, new horizons also crossed the orbits of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

PLUTO ENCOUNTER:

In Jan 2015, it entered first of several approach with first close up fly by of Pluto on Jan 14,2015.The space craft came about 7750 miles from Pluto and about 17900 miles from its largest moon, Charon.

BEYOND PLUTO – KUIPER BELT:

New horizons are designed to fly beyond Pluto system and explore Kuiper belt. It carries extra fuel for KBO fly by. Its system can work far beyond Pluto and even work in dim light conditions. In 2014, new horizons team members found 3 KBO with a billion miles beyond Pluto. In 2015, it also worked with NASA on a small KBO named as 2014 MU69, which is also a billion miles beyond Pluto. NASA also accepted the proposals for the extended mission by new horizons.

JUPITER ENCOUNTER:

New horizons passes Pluto in 28 Feb, 2007. It was the eighth space craft to explore Jupiter and discovered various details that no probe has ever did before such as lighting near planets pole, structure inside volcanic eruption on moon and several other things. The Jupiter system was constantly monitored as it was always changing and new horizons was in the correct position and time to have an eye on it. Apart from that, new horizons also captured clear image of tenuous Jupiter ring system. New horizons spied on 11 different volcanic plumps of varying sizes, three of which were seen the first time. It also spotted infrared light of at least 36 volcanos and also measured lava temperature of over 1900 degree Fahrenheit.

PLUTO SYSTEM REAVELED:

This it turned out to be a new beginning, revealing for the first time the potential complexity of the Kuiper belt. Pluto was revealed to be a geologically and meteorologically active world. As of now, Pluto remains the physically largest world in the Kuiper belt. Pluto’s atmosphere was measured by New Horizons UV solar and radio occultations. The relativities and surface compositions of Pluto’s small moons are quite different from most Kuiper belt objects in their size class, which are much darker and spectrally featureless, but are consistent with being debris from the giant impact that created the Pluto-Charon binary at the beginning of solar system history.

CORPORATE WIKI VS KNOWLEDGE BASE WHICH ONE IS BETTER?

Initially, corporate wiki and knowledge base might seem as the same that but in reality they are entirely different things.

DEFINITION OF CORPORATE WIKI:

It is as simple as it sounds. If you know how Wikipedia works then you’ll get the basics of what corporate wiki is apart from the fact that only companies can accesses and edit it. It is a database where a community of people can write and edit content related to companies project, products and other services. Wikis are in one sense extremely democratic. 

BENIFITS:

As mentioned earlier corporate wikis allows employees to share information about project and other news related to that particular work. This benefits the whole business industry.

KNOWLEDGE IS BEING PRESERVED: The information that was shared by the employees earlier exist till the very end. By this the upcoming employees and people would get to clear their doubts, gain knowledge and have a clear information about the same.

TIME SAVING: If any queries or general problems arises, then the solution can be obtained easily as the companies wiki already has enough data to some common queries and help the team to swiftly process.

A CENTRALIZED SEARCHING POINT:  Important company information is inherently scattered throughout manuals, websites, handbooks, emails, recorded conversations, and even the minds of your employees. A company wiki can bring all that knowledge together into one searchable location.

CHALLENGES:

ADDITIONAL WORK: Employees are asked to contribute knowledge to wiki which is not a part of the core work. Also creating content for wiki takes an ample amount of time. But good part is that a little work now will reduce the amount of work needed later and that the ultimate key.

LACK OF KNOWLEDGE: It does not give much of an insight as compared to that of a employees knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE BASE:

In knowledge base one can store information online that a particular company team can access at their own will. Companies knowledge database helps companies to spend less time on answering simple questions and more time on complex questions.

TYPES:

There are six main types of database.

INTERNAL : It is a type of knowledge database that is restricted only for employees of particular organization.

EXTERNAL: It is a type of knowledge database that can be publicly visible for users about a particular company or product.

HOSTED: This collects and stores information about internal and external customers keeping the data well organized.

SELF HOSTED: This is type of self hosted by one’s own organization servers which also means that the organization is responsible for fixing issues.

CUSTOMER: It is an organization that organizes in a way that it makes it easy for customers to access.

OPEN SOURCE: It has open accessibly to the public.it may or may not be free of cost.

BENEFITS:

USER FRIENDLY: This lets users update content without using special markup language and hence makes it user friendly.

FAST AND RELIABLE: It is fast and has advanced search engine and linking capabilities as compared to wiki.

VERIFICATION AND REVIEW: Users can easily delete, edit or amend that content. It also supports automated identification and verification.

CHALLENGES:

ACCURACY: Be sure it has built-in rules and validation,

SECYRITY: Security is important and make sure that the content is shared only with your employees and not your opponents.

CORPORATE WIKI VS KNOWLEDGE BASE – WHICH IS THE BEST:

Corporate wiki and knowledge base are likes frogs and toads, they look similar but are actually different. Wikis are fantastic for collaboration and planning. There are always ideas down on a page. Knowledge Bases are great for authoritative content that’s reliable and finished. There’s no one such solution for the argument of a Wiki vs a Knowledge Base. Just like frogs and toads they co exists without being same. At the end of the day, one can choose what’s relevant and easy for them.

ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON – HURRICANE ELSA

ATLANTIC HURRAICANE SEASON , is part of the annual tropical cyclone season that happens in the northen hemisphere.

Start date: June 1, 2021.

End date: November 30, 2021.

Every year, the  NATONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHEREIC ADMINISTRATION  releases a predetermined list of 21 names that will be assigned to major storm.

The 21 names issued by NOAA are:
Ana, Henri, Odette,
Bill, Ida, Peter, 
Claudette, Julia, Rose,
Danny, Kat, Sam,
Elsa, Larry, Teresa, 
Fred,  Mindy, Victor, 
Grace, Nicholas,  Wanda. 



Among that HURRICANE ELSA, takes the fifth place on the list of names. Of the previous four storms, only Tropical Storm Claudette caused severe damage to the environment and also killed at least 14 people in Alabama, US. Particularly, this season would create more impact than usual as per NOAA.

HURRICANE ELSA: Talking about ELSA, was first monitored by NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER (NHC) on 29th June and on the next day is was defined as potential tropical cyclone. It was an active tropical cyclone affecting parts of Caribbean and Southeastern United States. Initially it was defined low-level circulation, then cyclone was upgraded into a tropical depression by 03:00 UTC on July 1.By 09:00 UTC the depression intensified to tropical storm after which NHC assigned its name ELSA . It also surpassed the record held by TROPICAL STROM EDOUARD that occurred previous year. It also became a tropical storm further east in the Main Development Region (MDR) than any other tropical cyclone so early in the calendar year on record, leaving behind only the 1933 TRINIDAD HURRICANE. It strengthened overnight and accelerated westward and at 10:45 UTC on July 2 and based on surface observation from BARBADOS , the NHC upgraded ELSA to a CATEGORY 1 HURRICANE. Around this time ELSA was moving at a speed of 49 km/h and also recorded the fastest moving tropical cyclone under rapid intensification and was also found to be the first storm to undergo rapid intensification in that part of the Atlantic that early in the calendar since another storm in year 1908. By 15:00 UTC on July 3, ELSA weakened back into a tropical storm, because of the northeasterly wind shear, which was partially due to the storm’s rapid forward motion which was more or less 48 km/h. By the next day ELSA’S forward motion significantly slowed down to 22 km/h as the storm’s center relocated to the east under the region with the strongest convection, while passing just north of Jamaica. Then on July 5, Elsa underwent strong burst overnight and began strengthening again.

IMPACTS:

UNITED STATES: On 2nd June, Florida governor Ron DeSantis declared “state of emergency” for 15 country within the state. He futher expressed that the high winds from ELSA could cause several structural damage and also arranged rescue teams.

BARBADOS: Sustained winds of 119 km/h were recorded on Barbados. It damaged the southern part of the island with power cut, along with downed trees, floods and roof tops being ripped off, Barbados Minister Abrahams reported.  Initially there were no injuries or deaths but later more than 1,100 homes including 62 homes were completely damaged. The entirety of the island lost electricity with 24 electricity poles being knocked down and trees being uprooted as Elsa passed to the south. All flights from Grantley Adams International Airport the were suspended on July 3, due to structural damage and power outrages.

SAINT LUCIA AND SAINT VINCENT: In Saint Lucia, power outrages occurred as tress and branches fell off on the power lines. About 90 percent loss electricity at some or the other point. In Saint Vincent, many houses were damaged and still they are in the verge of recovering. They loss access to electricity and clean water. They have loss huge revenue on agriculture and livestock.

Apart from these there were several places that’s been affected. In the capital city of Grenada, St. George’s, severe flooding left a road submerged. In the Dominican Republic, strong winds led to toppled walls in houses. In Venezuela, heavy rainfall from Elsa caused flooding in Caracas.

COLOMBIA:   Colombia was hit by heavy rainfall and waves of up to three meters on the Caribbean coast. This was about to happen before the storm headed to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

As of now the tropical storm Elsa neared downfall along CUBA’S BAY OF PIGS on the south central coast by 5th, monday morning bringing winds and heavy rains. Elsa was set to make landfall in the vicinity of the BAY OF PIGS around mid day and exit CUBA overnight.