Haage Summane... ಹಾಗೆ ಸುಮ್ಮನೆ

Policymakers and regulators must build the framework required for combining rooftop solar with battery storage and electric vehicles to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a sustainable, energy-secure future, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). In addition to the ambitious renewable energy target of 450 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and media reports suggesting consideration of a mid-century net-zero emissions target, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants India to be a 100% electric vehicle (EV) nation by 2030.   “Combining rooftop solar plus storage in the form of batteries and EVs, or mobile batteries, are in India's near-future,” says co-author Vibhuti Garg, IEEFA Energy Economist, Lead India, in a communique.  Policy initiatives by central and state governments are already boosting the adoption of EVs, and although slow, rooftop solar and battery uptake is increasing. What’s missing however is the opportunity to int

DNV, the independent energy expert and assurance provider has published the world’s first recommended practice (RP) for floating solar power projects following a collaborative joint industry project (JIP) involving 24 industry participants, a communique from DNV states.  The Recommended Practice (DNVGL-RP-0584) will provide commonly recognized guidance based on a list of technical requirements for accelerating safe, sustainable and sound design, development, operation and decommissioning of floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) projects. Floating solar power is a promising renewable energy technology in which solar panels are installed on floating structures on the surface of suitable bodies of water. The technology offers great potential for green energy production, particularly in areas where there is a shortage of available land for large photovoltaic plants.  The wider adoption of floating solar power could scale up particularly in countries that have high population density and limite

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians is monitoring a record 601 cases of alleged violations against parliamentarians around the world. This represents a significant uptick compared to 552 cases in December 2020. The caseload includes many new claims, particularly from Myanmar and Turkey. The committee took decisions on these and a number of other cases of alleged abuse of parliamentarians in Afghanistan, Belarus, Burundi, Colombia, Eritrea, Gabon, Mauritania, Mongolia, Thailand, Togo and Venezuela. Myanmar Since the military coup in February 2021, the IPU’s human rights committee has received specific reports of human rights violations against 39 parliamentarians elected in the November 2020 ballot. The violations include threats, acts of intimidation, arbitrary arrest and the failure of the authorities to respect parliamentary immunity. The alleged violations are taking place against the backdrop of the lethal and large-scale use of mil

Kasturba Hospital, Manipal has received certification from National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare providers (NABH), Quality Council of India for Blood Bank.  This certificate is a testimony to the quality and safety of blood dispensed at Kasturba Hospital Blood Centre. With this certificate, Kasturba Hospital Manipal has added one more feather to the crown of quality and accreditations.  Dr H S Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of MAHE, Manipal handed over the certificate of accreditation to Dr Shamee Shastry, director of Kasturba Hospital Blood Centre. Lt Gen (Dr) M D. Venkatesh, vice-chancellor of MAHE who congratulated the team, emphasized the role of transfusion services in delivering quality healthcare. Dr P L N G Rao, pro-vice-chancellor (Health Sciences) said the certificate of accreditation is the reflection of the quality services delivered by the Blood Centre and it is a process of continuous quality improvement. Complementing the team, Dr Sharath K Rao, Dea

Hubballi based South Western Railway (SWR) on March 26 loaded 2604 wagons. Hubballi division of SWR accounted for 2007 wagons, Mysuru division 447 and Bengaluru division 150. This is the highest single day wagon loading for the period from 2017 to 2021. The zonal railway on March 25 had loaded 2594 wagons which is the second highest number of wagons loaded during the financial year 2020-21. SWR has been steadily loading above 3.10 million tonnes (MT) every month and so far has loaded 37.40 MT till March 26 which is about 97.4% of the target of the FY 2020-21. In a bid to double the freight volume by 2024 and attract more freight traffic, the ministry of railways has advised all zonal railways to set up business development units at all zonal and divisional levels and advertise willingness of Railways to attract new streams of traffic. SWR set up business development units in April 2020, both at the zonal and divisional levels, and these units have shown a consistent improvement in

Reimagining The Idea Of Bharat, albeit under the shadow of the global pandemic will resonate in Namma Kudla as the third edition of Mangaluru Lit Fest gets underway in Mangaluru on March 27. The event is an attempt to showcase the ancient Indian wisdom of peace, prosperity and universal well-being as enshrined in Indian scriptures from the Indian historical perspective through intellectual discourse by the finest literary minds from across the globe. Organised by Mangaluru Literary Foundation in association with The Mythic Society as the Knowledge partners, the third edition will be a one-day affair as against a two-day treat for literature lovers that the previous editions offered. Initially scheduled for November 2020, the event has been organised at a new venue in Hotel Ocean Pearl as against the Dr TMA Pai Convention Centre where the first two editions unfolded the literary splendour. The six sessions planned will focus on issues contemporary including the post-pandemic narrati

In future, the success of Indian Railways will define the success of the Nation, according to Piyush Goyal, minister of railways, commerce and industry and consumer affairs, food and public distribution. Goyal made this observation at a review meeting with the Railway Board members and General Managers of zonal railways and divisional railway managers of the respective divisions to take stock of the year gone by and hit by the pandemic. Goyal said, “The year was the most challenging year for Railways. One year of lock down due to Covid 19 has demonstrated the resolve of Railways to fight back and emerge stronger. Mindset of Indian Railways has transformed. It is no longer business as usual for Railways. Use of new technologies and innovation has created new standards and benchmarks and it is this innovation that will chart the course of Railways in future.” It is  time to rewrite the destiny and future of railways which is  self-sustaining, punctual, passenger friendly, safe, green

As part of development of Mangaluru Central Railway Station, Palakkad division of Southern Railway has taken up the construction of a new pit line capable of holding 24 coaches at the coaching yard. The new pit line is constructed in lieu of the existing 18 coach pit line. This will also facilitate the construction of new platforms four and five to go with the existing three and also enable the railway station to handle more trains. Pit lines are the main infrastructure required for conducting primary maintenance of coaches of both express and passenger trains. The pit line will have facilities for day/night inspection, coach cleaning, coach charging, watering and other allied maintenance works. The catwalks on the both sides of the pit line helps to easily get into the coaches, which makes the maintenance and cleaning work easy, maintain division officials. Pitline Under Construction At Mangaluru Central Rly Station After every scheduled trip, under gear examination, checking of bra

Bio-Gas Plant Set Up At NITK Historical Indo-Italian bilateral ties took a major step ahead in entering the realm of industry-academia relationship. At the end of this relationship spectrum were the Milan based Maire Tecnimont SpA and one of India’s leading premier technical institution – NIT – Karnataka, Surathkal. Maire Tecnimont Group is a global leader in transformation of natural resources with strong commitment to industrialising green chemistry and circular economy. The Italian global natural resource processing industry in signing a memorandum of understanding with National Institute of Technology Karnataka made its first foray outside Italy in such an agreement with any global educational institution of repute. The Group through its Indian subsidiary – Tecnimont Pvt Ltd helped set up a bio-waste recycling pilot plant at NITK campus here at an estimated cost of ₹40 lakhs under its CSR funds. Facilitating this moment was Milind Baride, group vice-president (contract, project

I ndia must address the rising cost of commodities and escalating logistics cost that is impacting the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in its forthcoming foreign trade policy. The rising prices of metals, plastics, fuel and other raw materials along with shortage of shipping containers have been adding to the woes of the MSME sector, said Rupa Naik, senior director, MVIRDC World Trade Center, Mumbai – a trade facilitating organisation. The ministry of commerce and industry is likely to roll-out its new foreign trade policy for a five-year period effective from April 1 in a bid to boost India as a leader in international trade. The need to address the inflationary trend in commodity prices needs to be addressed as India’s MSMEs, which contribute over 48 percent of the country’s exports, are operating on too thin a margin to absorb this cost pressure, Naik said. Also, the forthcoming foreign trade policy should provide renewed thrust on 235 commodities that witnessed strong gr

  Boehringer Ingelheim India on Thursday shared its roadmap of partnerships and patient access programmes to sustain its growth momentum in 2021. The company, one of the fastest growing amongst the top 10 multinational pharmaceutical companies in India, is market leader in the patented non-insulin market.    Vani Manja, Managing Director, Boehringer Ingelheim India said, “Boehringer Ingelheim India aspires to be amongst the top five multinational pharmaceutical companies in India over the next few years. We have been enabling access to our innovator products to patients across India and the neighbouring markets in the diabetes, cardiovascular, stroke and respiratory diseases segments. Our plan in these therapy areas is to build sustainable partnerships to ensure an ecosystem of access and care for patients. We have initiated action in that direction.”   In diabetes, Boehringer Ingelheim’s research and development has been focused on bringing comprehensive solutions to the management of

With so much of our personal data stored online, cybersecurity is of the utmost importance. Each year, our study looks at over 60 countries to find out where in the world you’re most “cyber safe.” This year, we’ve analyzed 75 countries, judging each of them with an extended list of 15 criteria (previous reports had 7). This means countries are now ranked from one to 75 with one being the least cyber-secure country and 75 being the most cyber-secure country. The new criteria are as follows: % of mobiles infected with malware % of users attacked by mobile banking trojans % of users attacked by mobile ransomware trojans % share of users attacked by banking malware (non-mobile) % of users attacked by ransomware trojans (non-mobile) % of computers infected by at least one malware attack (web-based) % of computers facing at least one local malware attack % of mobile users attacked via web sources % of telnet attacks by originating country (IoT) % of attacks by cryptominers % of SSH-based at

In the latest development, CropIn, a leading AI and data-led Agtech organization, has announced the opening of its first international office in Amsterdam. As part of its expansion plans, CropIn is looking forward to setting up its team in Amsterdam, it will also be establishing customer success, sales and data science verticals.  The business expansion plan includes fostering channel partnerships with local companies with an aim to cater to existing customer segments while focusing on offering solutions to new segments like Telecom, Farm Machinery, Plantation etc. CropIn’s AI capabilities will be boosted by continued strengthening of their machine learning based predictive analytics platform, SmartRisk. Krishna Kumar, CEO, CropIn says “CropIn has seen phenomenal growth over the last 3 years fuelled by a combination of new product introduction, entry into international markets and new customer segments in the agri space. This has led to a current team strength of 200+ with a focus on s

Bell O Seal Valves, Udupi has successfully taken up a challenge of supplying special nuclear valves to The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) under the Make in India Campaign when no other valve company in India was ready to take it up. A dedicated team headed by Rajesh K Salins, managing director, Bell O Seal Valves took up the challenge to manufacture these special nuclear valves in 2019-20, with much limitations and challenges during the pandemic. Bell O Seal Valves received this developmental order under the Make In India Program through a competitive procedure. The Department of Atomic Energy evaluated the capabilities of Bell O Seal at multiple levels. As part of Atmanirbhar Bharath movement, these unique valves were developed in close coordination with The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) scientists for extremely critical high temperature liquid sodium service. Bell O Seal team has meticulously designed, developed and manufactured these special froz

As the Indian Government prioritises the rapid development and modernization of India’s fisheries sector with policy reform measures, including the transformative Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojna (PMMSY), the Centre for Strategy and Leadership (CSL), a leading Indian think-tank, has released a whitepaper on the adoption of modern digital technologies to spur growth in this important sector.  The CSL whitepaper— ‘IoT in the fisheries sector in India’— discusses the importance of new technologies for India to realize optimal green growth in the fisheries sector. This is especially important as digital advancements, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), evolve and impact broad economic and social sectors.  Adoption of Technology Is Key To Optimising Green Growth In Fisheries The whitepaper focuses on how technologies like IoT optimise the management of scarce resources and increase the productivity of the Indian fisheries industry as a whole.  The fisheries sector provides livelihood to

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the lack of financial inclusion around the world. Yet the crisis has also furthered innovative and outside-the-box solutions to increase accessibility to financial services, especially in unbanked areas. One of them is digitizing and utilizing post offices. The role of the post office has been steadily diminishing over the last few decades, with volumes of international letter-post items continuing to decline by 3% per year. However, according to Mindaugas Glodas, CEO at NRD Companies, a global IT and consulting group, post offices have remained vital information and services centers in rural, underserved areas, which makes them a perfect tool for promoting financial inclusion. Post Office "Posts can be an intermediary for citizens and small businesses in remote areas who need to make the financial operations like remittances and bill payments necessary for sustaining their activities,” said Glodas. “Post offices have been functioning this way i

S trict enforcement of protocols like social distancing, mask-wearing and proper sanitation are the best tools to deal with Covid-19 and measures like imposing lockdown, night curfew and curbs on movement of people and services, may not be the best way forward as it might have implications on the economy, ASSOCHAM Secretary General Deepak Sood has said. “Traversing through Covid-19 challenge in the last one year has taught us that the economic activities can be best performed with the unrestricted movement of people and services, but with enforcement of guidelines on social distancing, wearing of masks and ensuring adequate sanitation at workplaces,” Sood said.  The coronavirus has extracted unprecedented costs in terms of human lives and the crushing impact on the global economy. “However, India has grappled with the situation with the prudent response from the governments - Centre, states and the businesses. We have limited the impact of the pandemic. Our economy has bounced back fro