Official Growth of AI in India

I was glad and proud to see the growth & development of AI supported by Government of India through HelloUPI, AI4Bharat, NPCI, DigitalIndiaCorporation, MeitY

Hello UPI is a conversational AI built into BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) UPI App.
AI4Bharat is a research lab set up by IIT Madras to build open source models to support Indian languages.
Some of their collaborative AI based developments are as follows:
– Shoonya (https://lnkd.in/gGJ5jPAf),
– Chitralekha (https://lnkd.in/ghBxHDjN),
– Anuvaad (https://www.anuvaad.org/),
– BHASHINI : Your Voice Translator (https://lnkd.in/gguDYXtP)

Source: https://lnkd.in/gAhb4dhi

Local GenAI chatbot – Nvidia’s Chat with RTX

Nvidia has launched a local GenAI chatbot named as Chat with RTX. I couldn’t try due to system requirements and memory size needed. But, here is a 5-points summary if you’re interested further:

1. This could help querying from the local notes, files, pdfs, YouTube video/transcripts, etc.
2. It leverages RAG, TensorRT-LLM, and RTX acceleration.
3. This uses open-source models like Mistral,  Llama 2 .
4. It’s around 35 GB zip to be downloaded.
5. Considering it would download models also locally, you should reserve ~100 GB space again for this purpose.
   
   If you’re interested, detailed steps to set up the chatbot are here.

Increased ROI for your learnings as an IT professional

I have been a great fan of O’Reilly Learning platform. It has helped me a lot upgrading my Software Architect skills. In my view content here is of the top notch quality from the industry experts. However, what I never liked was the high subscription price $49(INR ~4075)/month.

However, I am glad that ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) has now again started offering the O’Reilly Learning subscription as a part of it’s Skill Add On package in just $75/year (INR ~6237). Good thing is that, under this Skill Bundle Add On, you get subscriptions of not just O’Reilly but three: O’Reilly, Skillsoft, and Pluralsight. ACM Basic professional membership in India costs INR ~1770.

So if we continue, the total cost for the whole package in INR for an year is: 1770 + 6237 = INR ~8007. This includes followings:
– ACM India Basic professional membership
– O’Reilly Learning Subscription*
– Skillsoft Percipio Subscription
– Pluralsight Learning Subscription

I really loved the deal and couldn’t stop myself sharing it with you too in case you also get an interest.

So keep learning with an increased ROI (Return on Investment). 😉

Happy Learning! 👍

* O’Reilly Learning through ACM excludes any live events e.g. Superstreams, etc. so that’s a trade-off😞

Note: Any $ to INR or vice versa conversion is based on today’s rate. So does have approx. (~) before.

NPS – Highly recommended if you are under 20% or 30% Tax slab

I wondered when found that some of my close friends/colleagues didn’t yet opt for NPS (National Pension Scheme) through Employer – 80 CCD2. This forced me to write this post even when I am not a Tax expert. Based on my experiences it’s the highly recommended option if you fall under 20 or 30% Tax slab. Here is why:

– If you take home this amount, practically it’s very difficult to consistently generate 30% plus returns on this amount. However opting NPS option, immediately you earn 30% return (tax exemption) as well as secure investment for your retirement in the equity linked scheme for higher returns.

– Employer NPS contribution is also carried forward to new Tax regime. So even if you decide to go with new Tax Regime later, you still have the benefit of 30% plus returns 😀

Disclaimer: I am neither a Tax professional nor a Finance expert but an IT professional. Motive is just to share my experience with friends to benefit them too in their personal finance journey. So you may please want to consult your tax advisor before taking any further actions.

Dev Containers – Why should DevOps only have fun with Containers?

Why should DevOps engineers only have all the fun with Containers 😉! I loved when Microsoft went ahead and launched the concept of Dev Containers in VS Code.

Dev Containers help developers to ensure they don’t struggle with code set up in every machine they have. Just set up once using Dev containers in VS Code and commit to repo. Other devs could simply clone the repo and run the set up in a few minutes. Isn’t it interesting? 😀

Here are some helpful official videos explaining the concept in easy fashion:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/shows/beginners-series-to-dev-containers/

Actually they didn’t just stop here but went forward to enable running code on a remote machine with Remote Development VS code extension pack.

Happy Learning!

Death is announced for Azure Media Service

Microsoft has announced the retirement plan for Azure Media Service. It’s a cloud platform to build media/video/OTT solutions. Retirement would be on June 30th 2024.

Some of the alternatives to go with are as: AWS Elemental, Harmonic, Mediakind.

Here is an official retirement guide by MS: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/media-services/latest/azure-media-services-retirement

So it’s time now to move away from AMS and take a shift towards alternatives if you’re already planning something with Azure Media Service!

SIP to NPS account

We could generate Virtual Account against NPS (National Pension Scheme) PRAN account. This would help to anytime do NEFT/RTGS or an SIP through bank standing instructions. Here is the link to register for NPS virtual id/account: https://cra-nsdl.com/CRAOnline/VirtualIdCreation.html. Go ahead and enjoy hassle free NPS investment. Usually it’s advised to one to must go with NPS investment if the tax slab is 30% though it’s optional. This allows you to save a good amount of tax in on top of traditional 80C, with a retirement benefit. Thank You!

Initial commit to Git Lab from your existing code base

Hi Friends,

I was wondering how to upload my existing code to Git Lab to share with others. After some R&D I could get this done. I would like to share the summarized steps with you all so you could save your time :). Please follow the below steps:

1. Create a blank project on Git Lab with any desired name. e.x. MyProject

2. Start gitbash, and go to the code base directory using ‘cd’ command

3. Now run the following commands:

git init

git add .

git commit

git push –set-upstream https://GitUrl/MyProject.git master

Let’s talk about each command here:

git init -> This would create an empty git repository.

git add . -> this would add all existing files in the current directory to the index

git commit -> This would commit the files locally

git push –set-upstream giturl -> This would push or upload all the files under the master branch under the specified project (ProjectName).

That’s it. Thanks for visiting! Happy Learning  :).

A unified app for all government services

I am really impressed with the government mobile app UMANG. This is unified app provisioning most of the Central/State government services e.g. Digilocker, ePathshala, CBSE, EPFO, Bharat/Indane/HP Gas, NPS, GST,MyPAN, Bharat Bill Pay, Passport Seva, Kisan Suvidha, Swachh Bharat, Ayushman Bharat, SARAL, etc.

Please do make a use of this to get most of the gov services under one umbrella.

https://web.umang.gov.in/web/#/

https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/umang/id1236448857?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.gov.umang.negd.g2c

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/p/umang/9mt92gmrj19c?rtc=1&activetab=pivot%3Aoverviewtab

Remove duplicates from JavaScript array

We can use Array.from and Set to remove duplicates from an array. Here is the sample code:

var arrayWithDuplicates = [‘h’, ‘b’, ‘l’, ‘b’, ‘h’, ‘k’, ‘h’, ‘l’, ‘s’, ‘d’, ‘k’, ‘k’];

var uniqueArray = Array.from(new Set(arrayWithDuplicates));

console.log (uniqueArray);  // [“h”, “b”, “l”, “k”, “s”, “d”]