Dated October 4, 1999
Indian Express, Mumbai

Dr. Jabbar Patel, Director of mega-movie Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, has achieved a casting coup of sorts in selecting Mamooty to play Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. While the Malayalam actor essays the role of Ambedkar effortlessly, a credit deserves to be given to C-DAC's Dinesh Katre.

Patel was on an elusive hunt for an actor to perform the lead role. This almost had stalled the project when Katre became his man Friday.

After a lot of hard work with graphics, imaging and latest software technology, Katre zeroed in on Mamooty. With the aid of computers, Katre was able to demonstrate how Mamooty's face could be successfully manipulated to that of Ambedkar from the age of 24 till his death in 1956, apart from his physical resemblance with the leader. Even Mamooty had been left surprised by entire process, Patel said while introducing Katre to the audience at the screening of the film.

C-DAC gets into the act
Dated Nov 22, 1999
The Hindu Business Line, Mumbai

WHEN film director Jabbar Patel wanted to find the actor to play the role of B.R. Ambedkar, Malayalam filmstar Mamooty's name was suggested to him. The director was not sure the actor bore any resemblance to the Father of the Indian Constitution. The actor too said his looks were nowhere close to that of Ambedkar. For confirmation, Patel sent Mamooty's photograph to the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).

Mr. Dinesh S. Katre of the National Multimedia Resource Centre (NMRC) of
C-DAC started computer visualization work on the photograph. He removed Mamooty's mustache, pushed back his hairline and gave him black-framed round glasses. When this was done, Mamooty bore a strong resemblance to Ambedkar.

The director was amazed. To persuade the hesitant Mamooty to take up the role he sent the printout of the transformation.

Visualization is among the interesting work that C-DAC has taken up recently. The multimedia resource centre has produced a CD-ROM compilation of ethnic Indian designs, which can be used by Web, print and textile designers for their creations. According to Mr. Katre, the CD-ROM will help to fill the vacuum that exists today in software on Indian designs. Since computer technology has a strong Western base, much of the design libraries that are available have a strong emphasis on Western designs.

C-DAC, which was born in 1987 when the US Government refused to supply the Cray supercomputer to India, developed the country's first supercomputer PARAM in 1993. An improvement of this, the PARAM 10000, was developed in 1998.

According to Shri. R.K. Arora, Executive Director - C-DAC is in the process of setting up a facility in Chennai within the Anna University campus. Talks have been on with the University for some time and an agreement is expected within a couple of months.

``The idea is to work on areas of common interest for mutual benefit.'' While the infrastructure and the building for the centre will be provided by Anna University, C-DAC will provide the equipment and the staff. Shri. Arora said there was also a possibility of setting up a parallel application lab with a PARAM or its improved configuration system.

The application laboratory can be used for the research interests of the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, mathematics and statistics departments of the university, according to him.

C-DAC may also start other activities, like workshops on advanced computing, very large scale integration technology designs and designing multimedia packages. The initial collaboration would be for the benefit of the students who have passed C-DAC's six-month postgraduate diploma course on advanced computing, Shri. Arora said. These students would be able to apply for credit if they did a related post-graduation degree course at Anna University. The credits could save as much as six months for the students.

C-DAC, which works on a mission mode, has started on a project to develop a next generation high performance computing system and its application. The project, which began early this year, is expected to be completed by mid-2002. According to Shri. Arora, C-DAC has decided to have a deliverable target at the end of every year. The aim is to develop a deliverable prototype by March 2000.

C-DAC had also developed a PARAM based on a cluster of Pentium processors. Shri. Arora said this product provided a high-end but low-cost computing system. The centre carries out sponsored projects for Government outfits and the private sector. It gets approximately half of its financial resources from each of these sectors.

The rapid growth of the IT industry in the recent years has also benefited C-DAC, according to Shri. Arora. Its turnover grew from Rs. 25 crores in 1997-98 to Rs. 36 crores in 1998-99. The target of Rs. 71 crores fixed for 1999-2000 is almost double the previous year's turnover.