Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
‘Intelligent’ green solutions claim top prize at tech contest - Three-pronged strategy for solid waste management wins at CreaTech 2019
An intelligent dustbin, cloud-based waste monitoring and a sensor to detect water pressure were some of the solutions developed by students at ‘CreaTech 2019’, a competition organised by Larsen & Toubro to encourage top engineering talent in the country to solve challenges through technological innovations.
Shreya Srivastava, Jyoti Kumari and Anshu Kumari, third year electrical engineering students at the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, who bagged the top prize, developed a three-pronged strategy to tackle solid waste management. “We had three prototypes for collection of garbage, waste monitoring and waste segregation. We had been thinking about some solution to tackle waste but got more focused when Crea Tech was announced,” Ms. Srivastava said.
As part of their solution, the team built a sensor-based moving garbage bin that will enable garbage collection from various points, a waste-monitoring mechanism which can intimate authorities about the amount of waste generated in a locality or street, and a waste-segregation system for dry waste such as plastic and metal. Ms. Srivastava said they focused on finding solutions that can be adopted by localities, since a lot of work had already been done for solid waste management solutions at an industrial scale.
Other innovative solutions were displayed for an Internet of Things-enabled water management solution. A team from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, the runners-up of the competition, developed a prototype for sensors that could detect water pressure and flow rate of water on main pipelines. “We developed a system, which will alert authorities as soon as there’s a dip in water pressure or a reduction in the flow rate, intimating them of a problem in a particular section of the pipeline,” said Sanjana Raisa. She, along with her teammates Puja Saha and Ram Kumar, came up with the solution in nearly a month. “We realised that the authorities learn about the lack of water pressure after it reaches the end user and complaints are lodged. Users across the country, especially in the agricultural sector, rely on adequate water pressure,” Ms. Raisa said.
Several teams from across the country participated in the competition out which 12 were selected for the grand finale organised on February 15. Participants had to build technological solutions for challenges such as developing a solution for solid waste management, developing a traffic improvement solution, IoT-enabled system for monitoring supply of drinking water to consumers in water distribution networks, etc.
The first edition of ‘Crea Tech 2019’aimed to offer the engineering student community “a platform to showcase their hands-on problem solving skills in frontier technology areas,” said Yogi Sriram, Senior Vice President (Corporate HR), Larsen & Toubro. It also hoped to inculcate the culture of innovation and a problem-solving approach using engineering and technology expertise, which the organisation is known for, he said.
Source: THE HINDU-27th February,2019
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Govt to Launch Public DNS for Secure, Faster Internet Access
The
government is soon launching a public domain name system (DNS) server that
could protect the users from any malware or phishing with enhanced security
features as well as faster response time, a senior official of the ministry of
electronics and IT (MeitY) told ET.
“We
are expecting it to be ready in next three months, and we will be doing a proof
of concept (PoC) starting next week,” the official said, adding that the new
system would be completely secure and always available with faster response.
DNS
is a system that translates domain names to Internet Protocol or IP addresses
that allows browsers to load Websites sought.
“This
(DNS) is an important tool that requires to be fool-proof, and has a major role
in browsing the Internet,” he said.
The
Narendra Modi government is eyeing a new and robust platform in the wake of
critical digital services being delivered online requiring enhanced security to
discourage cyber-attacks and a quicker site loading time.
If
a user inadvertently accesses a malicious or phishing site, the new public
system would immediately open up a page or popup to alert the user of such
potential threat so that the suspicious resource could be avoided, the official
who is aware of the initiative, said.
The
new DNS will be placed across the country to minimise outage and would be
available round the clock. Users can simply use it by typing the IP number into
the Internet browser.
DG Shah a Mentor to Indian Pharma
Dilip G Shah, founder of Indian
Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), an industry association that played a key role
in Indian generic drug makers’ growth in the country and abroad, passed away in
Mumbai on Friday. He was 77.
Known
in the industry as ‘DG’, Shah started Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) in
early 2000s, at a time when Indian pharmaceutical companies were trying to find
their feet in the global pharma landscape that was dominated by the
multinationals, predominantly based out of Europe and the US.
Indian
drug makers, who were struggling for validation of their products, became a
saviour to countries in Africa and Asia that could not afford the high price
tag that original drug makers had placed on life saving drugs, specifically
those fighting HIV and AIDS.
Shah
played a key role in helping the generic industry with its so-called ‘copycat’
drugs break the monopoly of big pharma in these countries, which were
criticised by the West for not respecting the IP (intellectual property) laws.
“Shah
was a torchbearer of the pharma industry both in India and globally,” said
Dilip Shanghvi, managing director at the country’s largest drug maker Sun
Pharma. “He tirelessly worked with the government and industry to find the right
balance between protecting innovation and providing access to life-saving
medication. He was a mentor to me and his guidance has helped numerous pharma
companies achieve their potential. With his demise, the pharma industry has
lost one of its shining stars and I have lost a dear friend and mentor,” he
told ET.
Glenn
Saldanha, president of IPA and MD of Mumbai-based Glenmark Pharma, said Shah’s
demise is a great loss to the entire pharmaceutical industry and his
contributions in the areas of advocacy, strategic planning, advisory and
knowledge sharing have been invaluable.
An
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad alumnus, Shah spent most of his
five-decade long pharma career with multinational drug companies, like Pfizer.
He
made a role switch when he decided to take up the cause of Indian drug makers.
IPA positioned itself as the voice of generic drug companies that challenged
intellectual property rights rules after lower-income countries like India
signed the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
IPA
represented the interests of Indian drug companies that were under pressure
from TRIPS agreement.
Some
industry veterans recall that at times Shah was even more powerful than the
Indian CEOs whose interests he represented to the bureaucrats and ministers in
Delhi.
In
the last two decades since Shah floated IPA, the Indian generic drug industry
has grown to become a $5- billion industry, as some of the local companies have
gone on to establish their names in the global pharma market, predominantly the
the US.
In
the last two years, Shah and IPA were involved in some run-ins with the Indian
drug pricing regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).
IPA has also been working with the US drug regulators on addressing quality
issues of Indian drug makers, which has halted the industry’s growth in the
last three years.
One
remark that many industry leaders made about Shah is that he was a one-man
army. With his demise, they said, the Indian pharma industry has lost its
voice.
Source: THE ECONOMIC TIMES-23rd February,2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Anjuman has shaped minds for 145 years, to recall glorious past on founders’ day
MUMBAI: The heritage Anjuman-I-Islam building in south
Mumbai is currently getting a fresh coat of paint. Its thick walls, high
ceiling and antique wooden gate are being scrubbed clean too. The iconic
structure will soon be bathed in delightful lights as it does on special
occasions such as Independence Day and Republic Day. Anjuman has turned 145 and
will celebrate its founders’ day later this month. Even as an impressive list
of guests is being finalized to mark the founders’ day, an appraisal of
Anjuman, located in the heart of the city, seems in order. Anjuman opened its
doors in February 1874 with three teachers and 120 students simultaneously at
two places—Babula Tank in Dhobitalao and Dongri. Today, it is a conglomerate of
97 institutions that caters to more than one lakh students. Anjuman’s story is
not just about statistics though; it is also about the nationalistic and
secular values it has imparted over the years. “Since it was founded by people
of stellar nationalistic and secular fervour, Anjuman has imbibed those values
and is committed to imparting quality education, discipline and service to the
nation,” says Dr Zahir Kazi, Anjuman’s president and radiologist, seated at his
ground-floor office in the building whose walls adorn old photos of the city’s
many landmarks. Kazi has evidently crammed important milestones in Anjuman’s
journey and rattles them off enthusiastically. In 1874, Badruddin Tayabji, the
first Indian judge of the Bombay high court and third president of Indian
National Congress, solicitor Qamruddin Tayabji, his elder brother, philanthropist
Nakhuda Mohammed Ali Roghe, social worker Munshi Ghulam Mohammed, and a few
others met at the Tayabji house and decided to establish a school. “Munshi
Ghulam Mohammed had travelled to several north Indian cities such as Lahore and
Delhi where Muslims had established schools named Anjumans. The group decided
to have such a school in Mumbai as well and called it Anjuman-I-Islam. At the
meeting, Roghe donated Rs 10,000 while Tayabji contributed Rs 7,500 towards the
school fund,” says linguist and researcher professor Abdus Sattar Dalvi.
Once the number of students—all boys; a girls school came
up later—swelled to 628, the founders decided to have a permanent building,
says Kazi. The then Bombay governor, Lord Reay, laid the foundation stone of the
present building on May 31, 1890, while his successor, George Harris,
inaugurated it on February 27, 1893. While retaining its Islamic roots, Anjuman
has maintained its secular character. When Anjuman opened its girls school,
later named after Saif Tayyabji, at Mumbai Central in 1936, an eclectic list of
women manged it: Ms Samson, a Jewish woman, was its principal, Ms Bharucha, a
Parsi, its vice-principal, and Ms Parulekar, a Hindu, its head teacher. When it
opened its girls school in Bandra next year, Ms Mathai, a Christian, became its
principal. Although several past presidents, including barrister Akbar
Peerbhoy, freedom fighter Moinuddin Harris and Dr Ishaq Jamkhanawala, expanded
Anjuman, the institution has grown “phenomenally” in the past decade. A jewel
in Anjuman’s crown is its Integrated Technical Campus at Panvel. Anjuman’s
alumni include thespian Dilip Kumar, actor-writer Kader Khan, producerdirector
Ismail Merchant, cricketers Salim Durrani, Ghulam Parkar and Wasim Jaffer, Dr A
R Undre, Dr M A Patankar, politicians A R Antualy and Majeed Memon, and several
corporate leaders.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Binge-watching robot spots dementia
Robbie can recognise signs of
depression and aggressive behaviour
A
team led by an Indian-origin researcher has trained a robot to spot the signs
of dementia by watching popular British soap opera, Emmerdale, with the hope to
help people living with the neurodegenerative condition.
Robbie,
developed by researchers at Edge Hill University in the U.K., watched over 13
episodes of Emmerdale, featuring the storyline of dementia sufferer Ashley
Thomas.
The
robot can now spot signs of depression and aggressive behaviour in the hope
that robots like him will be able to help people living with the condition,
researchers said.
“There
are 46.8 million people living with dementia and this is set to rise to 115.4
million in 2050,” said Ardhendu Behera, senior lecturer at the university, who
led the project with three students.
“Depression
and aggressive behaviour are often the most upsetting and challenging symptoms
for those closest to the person living with the condition,” Mr. Behera said.
Currently,
the only ways to monitor and manage dementia is by direct observation — which
is labour intensive, time consuming and can be costly from a care perspective,
researchers said.
Another
way is to use wearable bio-sensing devices, they said.
“Monitoring
and recognition is still very much in its infancy and we believe Robbie is the
first robot to use vision-based recognition to recognise four behaviours;
aggressive, depressive, happy and neutral,” Mr. Behera said.
The
team chose the Emmerdale episodes as the Alzheimer’s Society described them as
a ‘realistic portrayal’ of the condition, researchers said. They broke the
35-minute-long episodes featuring Ashley into 65,082 images, teaching Robbie to
recognise facial expressions and body language.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Monday, February 11, 2019
Friday, February 08, 2019
Thursday, February 07, 2019
First career portal for students launched in Rajasthan
Will address the needs of students
for information on scholarships and career choices
India’s
first “career portal”, addressing the needs of secondary and higher secondary
students for information on scholarships and career choices, was launched with
the support of United Nations Children’s Fund here on Wednesday. The portal is
expected to help the students take “informed decisions” about their academic
and professional pursuits.
To
benefit lakhs
Minister
of State for Education Govind Singh Dotasra and UNICEF-Rajasthan chief Isabelle
Bardem inaugurated the portal, set to benefit about 23 lakh students, at Dr.
Radhakrishnan Shiksha Sankul here in the presence of school principals,
teachers and senior officials.
Mr.
Dotasra said the portal would promote employment-oriented education in the
State and provide information on 200 vocational and 237 professional careers,
455 employment avenues, 960 scholarships, 955 competitive examinations and
10,000 institutions of higher education to the students from Classes IX to XII.
Experts
in UNICEF have developed the portal after an assessment of needs, awareness and
perspective of students, teachers and system functionaries. Dr. Bardem said the
assessment had indicated that most of the boys and girls in the State were keen
to join the workforce as soon as they finished Class X or XII. Besides, the
assessment revealed a substantial progress in terms of gender equality among
the students.
“The
career portal will serve the needs in the educational stream, enabling the
students to choose their career path matching with their aspirations, interest,
inclination and aptitude,” Dr. Bardem said, adding that this would reduce
dropouts at various stages in schools and improve retention in jobs. UNICEF had
selected Rajasthan for launching the portal because of its track record in
employment-oriented education, she said.
Mr.
Dotasra also announced setting up of the Rajiv Gandhi Career Counselling Cell
for adolescents and youths on the occasion. The cell will link school and
college students with skill development programmes and internship opportunities
in the pursuit of their career choices.
Career
information
UNICEF’s
studies in Rajasthan have highlighted that two largest sources of career
information for students are teachers and family members. About 69% of students
mentioned that they were using Internet for their career-related queries, which
indicates that the adolescents will quickly learn to use the career portal.
Source: THE HINDU-7th February,2019
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