Category Archives: India News

Doodle for peace in Google’s homepage

  By Jit | November 23, 2010 - 1:49 pm | India News, Science & Technology, Web Related
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Many of you may have noticed the special doodle on search engine giant Google’s India home page on Children’s Day this year.

Guess who was the creator?

Akshay Raj, a class IX student of St. Aloysius High School, Mangalore, is the winner for this year’s ‘Doodle 4 Google‘ competition, a release issued by the company said.

His doodle ‘Technically and Naturally Growing India‘ was chosen from over 1,08,000 sketches submitted by students from across the country and was selected on the basis of artistic merit, creativity, and expression of the theme.

The winning doodle was live on the Google India homepage on this year’s Children’s Day (14th November 2010), which is also the birth anniversary of the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Raj will also receive a Technology Starter Package and 2 lakh technology grant for his school, the release said.

It took 90 days and over 1 lakh entries for the country to get its second ‘made in India’ doodle.

Dennis Hwang

Jennifer Hom

Dennis Hwang - the Master Doodler – and Jennifer Hom – the creative force behind the Google Gandhi doodle – chose the winning doodle for India out of the 41 semi-finalists.

The ‘Doodle 4 Google’ competition was open to all students from I to X standard. This year participants were challenged to imagine their own version of the Google logo based on the theme ‘My Dream for India‘.

Besides the national winner, three group winners were also chosen. These were picked through an online voting system where the Indians voted for their favourite doodle from the finalists.

Google ‘doodles’ are creative logos that appear on some special days, to commemorate scientific and artistic achievements, historic or seasonal events, and other local occasions. For over a decade, Google has been designing innovative logos called ’doodles’ for its homepage.

Click here to see Google’s ‘doodles’ through the years…

IPv6 task force units will be in place soon

  By Jit | November 23, 2010 - 1:06 pm | India News, Information, Science & Technology, Web Related
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All the committees and working groups forming part of the IPv6 Task Force that will oversee the country’s transition to a ‘new’ global web-address protocol are expected to be in place by this month-end.

Deadlines have been set for different stakeholders to prepare themselves for the major change, and a road map spelling out the details of the migration from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was officially released in July.

Version 4 of the protocol, which has so far been dominantly used on the Internet, is made up of a set of numbers that help to identify web addresses, besides facilitating communication from one point to the other.

As the Internet grew phenomenally, the sets of numbers that could be used as digital addresses started getting exhausted, making it imperative that a new and expanded system with the potential for a tremendously larger number of unique addresses be deployed to keep it going.

The world will run out of IPv4 addresses in a matter of months, experts say. (See Hurricane Electric IPv4 Exhaustion Counters)

It is, however, not as if the IPv4 system would be shut down to make way for the new one. Both systems will co-exist; the future will however belong to the IPv6 system which has slowly been gaining global acceptance in recent years. Meanwhile, various techniques will be used to facilitate communication between the two. Isolated IPv6 networks will also have to communicate with each other using the IPv4 networks till they gain ground.

The National IPv6 Deployment Roadmap detailed the creation of the Task Force which was to have several committees and working groups to pave the way for this transition, a major technical challenge for infrastructure and service providers in the country besides the government itself. It will be very difficult, “if not impossible,” to acquire new IPv4 addresses after mid-2012.

The Task Force was to be made up of officials from the Departments of Telecommunications and Information Technology, organisations such as the National Internet Exchange of India, the Education and Research Network and the National Informatics Centre, as well as various other Central and State government departments and agencies, and representatives of telecom and Internet service providers, educational institutions, industry associations, equipment vendors and content providers, software vendors and cable TV industry representatives, apart from the IPv6 Forum.

Though the extent of progress achieved by the big Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get themselves ready for the transition seemed to vary, R.M. Agarwal, Deputy Director-General, Telecommunication Engineering Centre, expressed confidence in their being able to meet the December, 2011 deadline.

He told The Hindu that preparatory to the change, the ISPs were also ‘taking care’ of issues like acquiring enough IPv6 address blocks, resources that are apportioned internationally to networks in different regions of the world.

While some of the big ISPs were already in a position to offer IPv6 connectivity, the small and medium ISPs were not prepared for transition “because they are dependent on their upstream larger service providers in the chain,” the report had said. They would follow suit once the large service providers migrated to IPv6. All important Central government Ministries appointed nodal officers to get set for the transition, Mr. Agarwal said. All Central and State government Ministries and Departments, including its public sector units, are expected to switch over to IPv6 by March 2012.

The road map had suggested that a national center of excellence, ‘Indian IPv6 Centre for Innovation,’ be created to take over the activities of the Task Force in the long run. A separate ‘Transition Pipe,’ which will channel traffic from one IPv6 network to another, has been suggested, especially by the ISPs. “The working group concerned will take up this issue with all stakeholders,” Mr. Agarwal said.

Winning robots run obstacle course, climb steps

  By Jit | November 22, 2010 - 5:00 pm | India News, Science & Technology
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The challenge was to build all-terrain vehicles that navigate natural and man-made blocks. It was quite a challenge for young minds to showcase future unmanned all-terrain vehicles.

For three days, 13 teams from engineering colleges across the country showcased their robotic skills by building autonomous off-road unmanned ground vehicles, navigating through rough terrain avoiding natural and man-made obstacles in the shortest time.

At the national-level robotic competition held at Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), Avadi, organised by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), five teams bagged the prize money of Rs. 60,000 each.

IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, MIT-Chennai, Thapar University, Patiala and ISM, Dhanbad were awarded the top prizes by a panel of judges from DRDO, industries and academia who had more than two decades o rich experience in the domain of robotics.

“It was an autonomous, all terrain vehicle. We were able to guide our vehicle through sand, gravel, make it climb stairs,” says Brij Bhushan, an IIT-Madras student. Except for the corrugated surface, as the actual track was different from the specifications given before the event, the IIT-M vehicle performed admirably to impress the judges.

SRM University, Chennai, bagged the award for innovation; IIT-Kharagpur for kinematics and engineering design and Malaviya National Institute, Jaipur for algorithm. The prize money for each category was Rs 25,000.

As the teams had only three months to prepare and the track was advanced, the robotic vehicles had difficulty in navigating through the terrain and the last event had to be conducted indoors.

“Our prototype was much more realistic. It was built on two scales and it was not a scaled-down version,” said Rahul Das, a mechanical engineering student at IIT-Kharagpur.

The three types of wheels ensure that the vehicle is able to use a different wheel for climbing steps or navigating through sand. His team comprised of three electrical engineering students and one aerospace and electronics student each. And the team’s inspiration came from the `Landmaster’ from a 1960s Hollywood movie.

Unmanned vehicles is an exciting field for innovation and research as it involves kinematics, precision engineering, embedded systems and sensors needed for intelligence systems, said S. Sundaresh, Chief Controller, R&D, DRDO.

“The objective is to attract a large pool of young minds to the DRDO and tap ideas for the Indian Armed forces.”

Watching weather…

  By Jit | November 18, 2010 - 1:13 pm | India News, Places to Visit, Science & Technology
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Look around the skyline of Secunderabad and you will notice the addition of a white dome that stands out for its size and shape.

This is the newly inaugurated Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Begumpet making ours the second city after Delhi to be equipped with this advanced facility in the first phase of modernisation of IMD.

Simply put a Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) is a computerised Radar which scans the atmosphere round the clock and relays information about the presence of clouds, their location, intensit, height within the range of 500 Km radius in and around Hyderabad. Information about general weather such as wind velocity, movement of clouds within a range of 250 Km and the rate of rainfall within an effective range of 150 Km is also recorded.

The radar makes it possible to ascertain the development and movement of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall zones. This in turn helps provide aviation warnings, agro-meteorological advise for the benefit of the farming community in the State, climatology data that is required for maintaining a data base.

“The large dome called a Radome is 11.8 m in diameter and shields the sensitive Radar Antenna. It is made of foam sandwiched fibre glass to allow the passage of radio waves,” says Y.K. Reddy, Scientist, IMD.

The observatory is kept open for school children/public on IMD Formation Day (January 15), National Science Day (February 28) and Word Meteorological Day ( March 23).

Shakespeare’s play comes to Indian villages – in tents

  By Jit | November 17, 2010 - 10:35 am | Culture, India News
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William Shakespeare will soon travel to the villages of India when a leading French repertory company in collaboration with the Mumbai-based Prithvi Theatre stages his masterpiece “The Tempest” in a mobile tent.

The 35-year-old Paris-based Footsbarn Theatre is a travelling tent theatre troupe. It has announced a two-year theatre exchange project between India and France, “Dream Project”, which will see the troupe tour India with Shakespeare’s ”The Tempest” in a customised tent in 2012. The troupe is already in Delhi with another production.

However, it will begin rehearsing for “The Tempest” in Portugal, the cultural capital of Europe, where it has been offered a six-month residency project. ”We have started designing the tent for the play. It will be equipped with an open-on-all- sides circular central stage and surrounding seats that can accommodate 600 people. The portable tent, made of cloth, can be carried to far-flung venues,” Paddy Hayter, artistic director of the Footsbarn Company, told IANS in the capital.

The troupe is likey to travel to southern India, Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. ”After the end of the tent tour, the tent will be gifted to India for future productions,” he added.

Tent theatre takes plays out of the proscenium format and closed theatre houses to the common people in small cities, circus venues, streets and villages. It is a form of traditional nomadic theatrical genre prevalent in India as well as Europe.

The genre combines elements of circus, Shakespearean stage performances, acrobatics and conventional theatre. A dress parade on the streets, in the style of medieval English and French roots theatre, announces the arrival of the production company to the venue.The company uses mask, puppetry and live music in its productions. While performing, the company camps in gypsy trailers around the tent in remote locations for days.

The company, which has been visiting India since the mid-1990s, has performed at the Globe Theatre in London. Hayter, who is leading the 15-member repertory company in India with his wife Fredericka, will stage Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs” on Nov 16 at the Bahai House of Worship, Lotus Temple, Delhi. The play, set in the England of 1690, will be presented by Alliance Francaise. Sanjana Kapoor of Prithvi Theatre is helping the Footsbarn Company design the tent along with designer Fredericka and her son, a designer at the Globe Theatre from London.

The theatre company has also moved to the National School of Drama (NSD) to liaise with regional and local theatre companies for collaboration. “With four extensive national tours, workshops and two productions, including local artists from Kerala behind us, the time has come to tour India in a tent,” Hayter said.

In 1994, the company had collaborated with local artists of four Kerala drama companies for “Odyssey“. ”We had improvised on the play for 12 days in Thiruvananthapuram with members from four troupes after which we staged the play to an overwhelming response. In March 1995, five artists were chosen from Kerala to tour Europe with the company,” Hayter recalled. The same year, Footsbarn toured Mumbai, Goa, Kolkata and New Delhi with “Romeo and Juliet” in collaboration with Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai.

“At a time when theatre is becoming contemporary with special effects around the world, we prefer to cling to the roots and people, to make it a live art,” Hayter said.

Tent drama is common in northeastern India, specially Assam where troupes like the Kohinoor mobile theatre carry their productions across the state in tents. A play like “The Titanic” has achieved cult status.

India is a world power, can work with U.S. for global peace: Obama

  By Jit | November 12, 2010 - 12:32 pm | India News, World News
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U.S. President Barack Obama today said India is now a world power and the two countries can work together on issues like counter-terrorism to promote peace, stability and prosperity for the whole world.

He said he has undertaken the trip to India to strengthen what is already an incredible friendship that would be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century, to build on commercial ties and strengthen cooperation in bilateral relations and international economy. Mr Obama was talking to reporters after a ceremonial reception given to him at the forecourt of the majestic Rashtrapati Bhawan formally kick starting his official visit.

“My hope is that during these discussions between myself and Prime Minister, myself and President and other members of the Indian delegation, we will be able to build on the commercial ties that we already have, to strengthen cooperation in bilateral relations and international economy.” He said that the two countries would be able to focus on issues like counter-terrorism in order to ensure that both the U.S. and India are secure well into the future.

“Given that India is not simply an emerging power but now it is a world power, U.S. and India can work together to promote international principles, rules, relations between nations they can promote peace, stability, prosperity not only for just two nations but for the whole world,” he said.

Obama’s trip has created thousands of jobs for Americans

  By Jit | November 12, 2010 - 12:27 pm | India News, World News
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President Barack Obama’s India visit has been successful in creating thousands of jobs for Americans; which was one of the major factors for the shellacking received by his Democratic party in mid-term polls, U.S. media said on Sunday.

“Days after reaping the political consequences of a poor economy, President Obama announced a set of measures Saturday to increase trade between the U.S. and India, his first stop on an Asian tour focused largely on promoting economic growth at home,” The Washington Post said.

“Obama’s remarks placed the U.S. economy at the centre of his first extended foreign trip this year, and highlighted the political challenge he faces in promoting economic policies abroad that divide Americans at home, including many within his own party,” the daily said.

“Eager to fend off any criticism that he’s globe trotting just days after a disastrous midterm election, President Obama unveiled about $10 billion in new contracts for US exports to India on Saturday as he launched an aggressive push to show his trip to Asia will deliver jobs back home,” CNN said. Even before a midterm election dominated by concerns about stubborn unemployment, the image-conscious Obama White House designed this trip as a job-generator, the CBS news reported.

“As the administration sought ‘deliverables’, it packaged a series of trade deals, including many that were already in the pipeline. The White House said the agreements dominated by aircraft sales would create about 54,000 jobs at home,” it said. Any improvement in the dismal jobs picture is welcome but economists have estimated it will take 300,000 new jobs each month to have an impact on an unemployment rate hovering around 10 per cent.

“The White House is in the midst of a post-election outreach to business, hoping to thaw chilly relations with business leaders and organisations. White House officials brought forward the leaders of Pepsico, Honeywell, AES, and the McGraw-Hill Companies to vouch for the sincerity of the U.S. president’s efforts to promote U.S. exports in India and other parts of the growing Asian market,” The Wall Street Journal said.

“Obama Boosts Indo-U.S. Economic Ties,” it said.

“President Obama, fresh off a stinging electoral defeat for Democrats, opened a 10-day tour of Asia on Saturday with a courtship of corporate America, including private meetings with American business executives… and an announcement that he will lift longstanding restrictions on exports of closely held technologies to India,” The New York Times reported.

The Associated Press new dispatch from Mumbai, with headline, “Obama: India creates, not poaches jobs,” was carried widely by American newspapers.

600 Million to get ‘Aadhaar’ number in 4 yrs

  By Jit | November 11, 2010 - 5:32 pm | India News
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Around 600 million Indians will get the much-cherished Unique Identification Number (UIN) in the next four years, helping implementation of various social welfare schemes.

“About 40,000 to 45,000 people have been enrolled by September 29, 2010. Many more will get the facility in one year and about 600 million in the next four years,” Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman Nandan Nilekani said here today.

UID, also known as Aadhaar number, will be helpful in opening a bank accounts, passport and ration card and many other things, he added. ”The Aadhaar number will be of much help to the people migrating from one place to another,” he said.

Stating that out of the 1.8 billion people, about 120 million migrate in search of jobs and other activities, Nilekani said migration affected about 480 million people in the country. The UID number, therefore, will help people in getting essential services like PDS, bank account, LPG connection and other jobs in new places, he said.

Terming the exercise as the biggest event in the world, Nilekani said that bi-metric system would prevent duplication. “We have de-duplication exercise which will include or exclude people from the list of people in the UIN list,” he added.

Chennai students win Robotic competition

  By Jit | November 6, 2010 - 11:31 pm | India News, Science & Technology
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Considering that Endhiran created a flurry of interest in robots in recent times, the achievement of a group of youngsters from the city recreated the robot-effect at an international competition.

Students of Anna University, Bharath University and Saveetha University triumphed in the International Robotic Competition organised by the Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT) and The Iranian Research Organisation for Science and Technology held in Tehran, Iran, earlier this month.

The two teams guided by Roboin, trainers in robotics, bagged the silver and bronze medals in two categories of the cup.

The students demonstrated the Spider Robot they had assembled and programmed. “The robot has been designed to move around and away from any obstacle on its path and lift light objects,” said Jaishankar Bharatharaj, founder, Roboin. The design of the 18-member team from the three universities in the city, fetched them the silver medal in the ‘@home category‘, that focused on robots for household assistance.

Another team demonstrated the model they had set up, which fetched them the bronze medal in the ‘Underwater category‘. Explaining the features of the robot that swam across the pool and spun, Aparna Mariam Thomas, a fourth year B.Tech student of Bharath University said, “This robot can withstand pressure under water for a depth of 100m. It can also move vertically up and down, which few robots can.”

Speaking about research in robotics K.P. Thooyamani, vice-chancellor, Bharath University said, “We are also planning to launch a robotics laboratory, in association with Roboin, to cultivate interest among students in this field.

Scientists to unravel bio fuel production from microalgae

  By Jit | November 4, 2010 - 4:52 pm | India News, Nature, Science & Technology
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Scientists from a consortium of nine central laboratories have undertaken a project to discover potential of making bio fuel commercially from microalgae.

The project called “New Millennium India Technology Leadership Initiative” (NMITLI) – initiated by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 2006 to develop a scalable commercial model of producing biofuel from microbes has taken off recently and research has got underway.

“Members of the nine inter laboratory consortium shall be assessing techno-economic viability of making bio diesel from microalgae,” Director of the Bhavnagar-based Central Salt and Marine Chemical Research Institute (CSMCRI) Pushpito Ghosh said.

The objective of this project is to create primary reliable data bank and also assess techno feasibility of commercial production of bio diesel from microalgae using core research strength of each of the consortium laboratory.

World over a general belief prevails that microalgae can grow very fast and is able to produce large amount of bio-mass.

“But, when it comes to putting them (microalgae) in use for manufacturing high volume and low value products like bio diesel then not many practical established processes are still known,” Mr. Ghosh said.

“The focus will be on looking at two or three varieties of lipid producing microalgae which has the potential to manufacture bio diesel at commercial scale,” Mr. Ghosh said.

“The possibility of putting effluents and exhaustive gases emitted from the thermal power plant to productive use shall be explored as part of this project to enhance growth,” he said.

“We will explore if emissions from thermal power plants can be used to accelerate photosynthesis process using the type of CO2 emissions from it and them reverse the process to convert it into lipids,” Mr. Ghosh said.

Microalgae are usually found in sea or along the coast lines. They are presently being used to manufacture protein supplements like Spirulina, which are low volume and high value products.

The inter laboratory consortium comprise CSMCRI, Department of Marine Living Resources, Andhra University in Vishakhapatnam, Calcutta University in Kolkata, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) of Hyderabad, IIT-Kharagpur, National Chemical Laboratory at Pune, National Institute of Oceanography at Goa, National Institute of Ocean Technology – Chennai and National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science and Technology of Thiruvananthapuram.