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Tuesday, January 05, 2016

IIT-Kharagpur Offers Course in Microbotics
Prachi Verma
New Delhi:


The course is being offered as part of the Global Initiative of Academic Networks
Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur has launched a course in microbotics or micro-robotics -the field deal ing with tiny robots capable o handling very small components.The course is being offered as part of the Global Initiative o Academic Networks (GIAN), a programme aimed at strength ening research collaborations between Indian and foreign in stitutes.
This is the first time that micro botics and nano-robotic manipu lation is taught as a course by an Indian institute, said CS Kumar coordinator of the course at IIT Kharagpur. Robotics, though, is already being taught in various engineering streams, such as me chanical engineering, ocean engi neering and materials science.
The applications of microbotics include automated underwater vehicle, automated ground vehi cle for mapping or accessing areas inaccessible to men, spy robots and healthcare.
“This aspect of robotics, which includes targeted motion and force-planning through manipulation in micro spaces, is gaining considerable attention in applications in medicine as well as in material sciences,“ said Kumar. Sixty students from IIT-Kharagpur and other colleges have already registered for the course. IIT-Kharagpur is planning to pursue highend research in robotics, including microbotics with commercial applications, he said.
Microbotics is the field of miniature robotics, in particular mobile robots with characteristic dimensions less than 1 mm. A nanorobot is a tiny machine de signed to perform a specific task or tasks, repeatedly and with precision at nanoscale dimensions, that is, dimensions of a few nanometres. A nanometre is one billionth of a metre.
Robotics is an integrated branch comprising domain expertise from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering and computer science that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback and information processing.
These technologies deal with automated machines that can take the place of humans in dangerous environments or manufacturing processes, or resem ble humans in appearance, behaviour or cognition.
Robotics engineers design robots, maintain them, develop new applications for them and conduct research to expand the potential of robotics.
IIT-Kharagpur has made this course in microbotics part of its curricula and its students appearing for the course will get two credits that they can add to the yearly credits they need to gather. Students from other colleges will get grades and their colleges may con vert the grades to credits.
The faculty comprises Yves Bellouard of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, GK Ananthasuresh of Indian Institute of ScienceBangalore and experts from IITKharagpur.
The topics will cover long range motion of robotic systems like humanoids or vehicles on ground or water that would require motion planning and autonomy in operations and control.
Apart from students, mechanical, electrical and electronics engi neers, computer or research scientists interested in robotics in appli cations such as medicine, field robotics or micro-robotics, those working in robotics-related areas and faculty from academic institution can apply for the course.


Source: Economic Times, 5-01-2016

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One Hundred Years Of Energisation Exercises
Paramhansa Yogananda


Health does not mean mere existence. Keeping out of the hospital is not health. To be able to resist disease, to bear strain, to stimulate mental vitality , and to feel the body as a luxury ­ as a bird feels when shooting through the air, and as a child does always ­ is health.What distilled water is to a wet battery , food is to the body-battery . Life energy in the body-battery is derived from Cosmic Energy , and from food. It is the intricate task of the life-force to distill additional life-force from nourishment taken into the body , by breaking up foods and converting them into energy . Oxygen and sunshine should have a very important place in people's lives, because of their direct energy-producing quality . And one's diet should be confined to foods that are easily converted into energy .
Good thoughts are nourishing food for the mind, while thoughts of any other nature are poisonous to body and mind. Your mental diet consists of the thoughts you think as well as the thoughts you receive from close thought-contact with your friends. Peaceful thoughts and peaceful friends always produce healthy , magnetic minds. Inner disquiet and worries, due to the wrong sort of friends or unappreciative relatives, produces an unwholesome, gloomy mind.
The mind must manifest calmness. Where worries and trials of everyday life are concerned, the mind must be like water, which does not retain any impression of the waves that play on its bosom.Through instruction on meditation, one can achieve complete calmness in the heart, lungs, and other inner organs. When muscles and inner organs are freed from motion by relaxation, the breaking down of bodily tissues and decay is temporarily inhibited. This helps to keep the bloodstream pure, for when there is decay in the body , waste products are thrown into the venous blood and poison it.
Learn to concentrate on your Life Energy and willpower, and to experien ce your subtle, spiritual nature. Life and strength do not depend solely on food or exercise, but are sustained from the powers within.
The more you depend on the will and Cosmic Energy to sustain yourself, the less your food requirements; the more you depend on food, the weaker your will and the less your recourse to Cosmic Energy .he Our thoughts, will, feeling, muscular strength, proper action of organs and glands ­ all depend for their existence on the Life Force. Billions of body cells are kept alive, properly working through this secret vital power. By consciously willing, you can draw Life Energy into the body through the medulla oblongata to replenish the energy that is expended through thoughts, feelings, and physical activities.
The will bridges the gulf between Life Energy in the body and the Cosmic Energy surrounding it. If you follow these teachings, you will learn to draw on Cosmic Life Energy to vitalise every body cell. You will experience yourself as Life Energy ­ and not merely as a body of bones and muscles. These teachings are based on the axiom: The greater the will, the greater the flow of Life Energy.
Note: Paramhansa Yogananda discovered in 1916 a unique set of 39 exercises called Energisation Exercises. These exercises enable us to draw Life Force directly into the body . This energy is quickly absorbed by the muscles, blood, bones, and sinews for cellular rejuvenation. The energisation exercises give the highest degree of energy with the least tissue destruction.
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Monday, January 04, 2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents


Vol. 51, Issue No. 1, 02 Jan, 2016

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Air in Indian cities fouler than in Beijing


Anand Vihar in east Delhi reported the most pollution

All six north Indian cities for which data was available had worse air quality than Beijing in 2015, The Hindu’s analysis of official data shows. However the south’s comparatively better air quality levels hide some lethal truths.
Launched in April 2015, India’s National Air Quality Index portal produces an Air Quality Index (AQI) value for around 15 cities based on the most prominent pollutant at that time for that city. Pollution monitoring stations measure the concentration of six different pollutants – PM2.5 (particulate matter of diameter less than 2.5 micrometres), PM10, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and ozone.
For the AQI to be calculated, a station needs to have values for three or more pollutants, one of which needs to be particulate matter. The AQI is then classified along one of six categories – good, satisfactory, moderate, poor, very poor or severe.
Analysing AQI data for 2015, The Hindu found that Anand Vihar in east Delhi measured the worst air quality of any of the 25 monitoring stations for which adequate data was available, with just 15 per cent of its days being good, satisfactory or moderate.
Airoli in Navi Mumbai, on the other hand, had the best air quality – all of the days for which it recorded data were of good to moderate air quality. Averaging for multiple stations across cities, Varanasi had the fewest clean air days (52 per cent), followed by Delhi, Faridabad, Agra, Kanpur and Lucknow.
However, the index numbers might not capture the actual magnitude of pollution cities occasionally experience. BTM Layout in Bengaluru had the highest annual average concentration of PM2.5, The Hindu found, owing to massive intermittent spikes. The station’s annual average was a whopping 378 microgrammes per cubic metre in 2015 as against 157 for Anand Vihar.
CPCB officials in Bengaluru claimed that the spikes, however, are not due to construction or the increasing vehicular movement, but due to erratic power supply. “Every time the power supply is cut, our system shuts down. On restarting, erratic values start to be generated and this is sent directly to the AQI,” K. Karunakaran, Senior Technical Officer for the Bengaluru Zonal division told The Hindu. In April last year, meanwhile, state officials had claimed that the high numbers were a result of PM2.5 values being interchanged with carbon monoxide values.
On PM2.5, tiny particulate matter which is highly damaging to the lungs, the six north Indian cities were far worse off than Beijing was in 2015, a comparison with US Department of State data for China showed.
“The north has higher concentration of particulate matter due to dust and biomass burning, while the impact of combustion sources would be higher in the south”, Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment explained. Combustion sources, particularly from vehicles, are more toxic, and therefore, lower values of AQI in the south should not be ignored from a public health perspective. Particulate matter is the dominant pollutant in Indian cities, The Hindufound, followed by carbon monoxide. “Carbon monoxide is almost entirely from traffic,” Ms. Roychowdhury said.
Source: The Hindu, 4-01-2016
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Why opt for a course abroad?

Indian students in the U.S., Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Canada give suggestions for improving higher education at home.

The number of Indian students going abroad for higher studies is rising every year. Not only are students attracted to countries such as the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, where English is the national language, but also to Germany and Italy where English is not the official language. Why do Indians choose foreign universities for higher studies? Is it for prestige or for better career prospects or for any other specific reason? If the quality of education, reputation of the university, research facilities and career prospects could be cited as some of the reasons for Indian students to prefer a foreign university, then these questions arise: Is the higher education system in India not up to the international standard? Do our universities not give much importance to research? What ails higher education in India? What measures should be taken to make our higher education desirable and good, if not great?
Aravintakshan, pursuing his master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, says the main reason for choosing the university was the high-end research facilities available at the university. His interest in research in the field of mechanics and materials and the high reputation of the university — ranked ninth in the world, made him choose it.
For Adlin Selestina, specialising in software engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, it is not just the reputation of the university that mattered, but also courses that matched her interests and the freedom to choose from a wide range of courses.
Elson George had planned to do his master’s either in Germany or in Italy. After weighing the merits and demerits of studying at various universities in the two countries, he landed at the University of Siena, Italy, where he is specialising in electronics and telecommunication engineering. He cites the reputation of the faculty in the university as the main reason for his choice. Avanthi Gopal, pursuing her master’s in electrical engineering at California State University, Los Angeles, U.S., states two reasons for opting to do her master’s at the university. “CSU is a public university with better visibility and affordability and it ranks as one of the safest universities,” she says.
The uniqueness of the programme also makes students opt for a particular university. Vishnupriya, doing her master’s in Applied Science (Information Security and Assurance) at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, says she chose the university because information security and assurance is a blend of both technical and management aspects of information security.
What do Indian students studying overseas think about our education system? They say that the higher education system in the country has both merits and demerits. India has many premier institutions such as IITs, NITs, IISc, IIMs, BITS Pilani and JNU. These institutions do prepare students to face the challenges of the real world. Higher education in India is affordable and the cost of education is cheaper than in many countries. Students with an underprivileged background can also seek admission at top institutions.
Challenges

However, the demerits outweigh the merits. Everyone agrees that our education system does not promote creativity and fails to focus on developing students’ practical knowledge. Adlin says that students do not have freedom to choose courses from within the programme and are not given an opportunity to develop their practical knowledge and skills. “A student pursuing ME Computer Science has to study all the subjects in the syllabus even when his/her interests are more specific. The curriculum encourages the students to study what is in the book rather than exploring the real world scenario in which those techniques/tools/concepts are used,” she says.
Aravintakshan is of the view that research takes a back seat in India. “Most universities lack research facilities and there is not sufficient fund for research. Lack of facilities for carrying out research is the main drawback in the Indian education system.”
Elson says that education in India is based on rote-learning and is exam-oriented. The system focuses more on marks than on assessing whether the students have understood the concepts. According to Avanthi, “Except a few top ones, most institutions do not focus on improving the quality of education.”
Transition

Indian students who move to a foreign country, after having studied in India for over 16 years, do not always find the transition easy. Getting oneself accustomed to a different education system takes time. “It took me one semester to adapt to the educational system here. The transition period was very tough. I underwent a rough patch in the beginning. Being a topper in undergraduation was of no use. Nothing seemed to help but knowledge about the practical applications of what I studied so far,” says Adlin.
Though most students experience an ‘academic shock’ because of a different education system in a foreign country, they get used to it quickly and gain confidence. “In Australia, the academic environment is totally different. Students are given freedom to choose what they want.
The courses are flexible and the pace of learning can be altered according to their comfort,” says Vishnupriya. She also adds that her university was very helpful in providing support to international students.
For Elson, the transition was not difficult as he was mentally prepared to face challenges. “The expectations of professors in Italy are very high. The system here is that the students need to clear a written exam and then an oral exam, which is not like the viva voice conducted in India. The oral exam is a personal interview between the professor and the student and only those who have deep knowledge of the subject can clear the exam.”
Although all of them initially find the transition difficult, they are positive about their experience in a new environment. They gain more confidence and insight by befriending students of different countries, joining different clubs and getting involved in various co-curricular activities.
Advantages

What are the positive aspects of the education system in the U.S., Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Canada? Some of the salient features of most universities in these countries are application-based learning, purposeful research, institution-industry interaction, 24x7 library and lab facilities, superfast WiFi on the campus and faculty support.
Students in Canadian universities acquire knowledge through research-oriented assignments and project work. “The focus is on developing students’ autonomy. Though professors are there to provide a helping hand, it is our work that helps us gain knowledge.”
Echoing the same view, Elson proudly states that the education system in Italy makes students independent and responsible for their learning.
American universities help students gain in-depth knowledge of the courses by providing them with opportunities to work on projects in a team, to present research papers and to interact with the industry. “We also get opportunities to meet and work with people from different places and culture and learn to celebrate diversity,” says Avanthi.
The students believe that India has the potential to compete with the top research-based universities such as the Harvard, MIT and the University of Toronto provided some radical steps such as changing the assessment pattern and providing adequate funds to research laboratories are taken by the HRD ministry.
Indian universities should also attract more foreign students. It is possible only if our policymakers and educationists are ready to undergo a paradigm shift and listen to the voices of education reformers.
Suggestions and recommendations:
  • There could be more practical learning and research-oriented assignments as these would kindle the inquisitive nature in the students.
  • Individuality of the student should be considered and appreciated rather than expecting a monotonous outcome from all students.
  • The courses should be structured with more flexibility.
  • Research should be given importance and students should be encouraged to carry out purposeful research. Research laboratories should be funded adequately.
  • Students’ knowledge and not their marks should be valued. Their knowledge and skills should be tested continuously through research-based assignments, individual and group projects, paper presentations and so on.
  • Facilities such as 24x7 library, high speed WiFi, 24x7 lab should be provided so that students can work anytime.
  • Institution-industry interaction should be made compulsory.
  • Cross-disciplinary courses should be introduced.
The author is Professor of English and Head, Higher Education at KCG College of Technology, Chennai. Email: rayanal@yahoo.co.uk
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All in the spirit of equality


Regardless of what our respective moral positions on policies of prohibition might be, and regardless of the potential efficacy of such programmes, the judgment on the validity of Kerala’s liquor policy militates against the fundamental promise of equal concern and treatment under the Constitution.

As virtually its last significant act of 2015, on December 29, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on the validity of Kerala’s newest liquor policy, which seeks to prohibit the sale and service of alcohol in all public places, save bars and restaurants in five-star hotels. Regardless of what our respective moral positions on policies of prohibition might be, and regardless of the potential efficacy of such programmes, the new law, as is only plainly evident, militates against the fundamental promise of equal concern and treatment under the Constitution. In placing five-star hotels on a pedestal, the law takes a classist position, and commits a patent discrimination that is really an affront to the underlying principles of our democracy. Regrettably, though, the Supreme Court’s judgment, in The Kerala Bar Hotels Association v. State of Kerala, eschews even the most basic doctrines of constitutionalism, and, in so doing, allows the state to perpetrate a politics of hypocrisy.
Kicking off the excise policy
Since 2007, the Kerala government has sought to tighten its Abkari (excise) policy with a view to making liquor less freely available in the State, ostensibly in the interest of public health. At first, the State sought to amend the policy by permitting new bar licences to be granted only to those hotels that were accorded a rating of three stars or more by the Central government’s Ministry of Tourism. In 2011, these rules were further changed. This time, all hotels that had a rating of anything below four stars were disentitled from having a licence issued to serve alcoholic beverages on their premises. However, those hotels with existing licences were accorded an amnesty, which permitted them to have their licences renewed even if they did not possess a four-star mark.
The Supreme Court held, in a convoluted judgment, in March 2014, that the deletion of three-star hotels from the category of hotels eligible for a liquor licence was, in fact, constitutionally valid. The court provided a rather bizarre rationale for what appeared to be a palpable act of favouritism. Even hotels without a bar licence, it said, were entitled to three-star statuses under the Ministry of Tourism’s rules and regulations.
In August 2014, the Kerala government sought to further intensify its Abkari policy, by making its most drastic change yet, in purportedly trying to enforce complete prohibition. Only hotels classed as five star and above, by the Union government’s Ministry of Tourism, the new policy commanded, would be entitled to maintain a bar licence. To give effect to this rule, the Abkari Act, a pre-constitutional enactment that was extended in 1967 to Kerala, was duly amended, and the State’s excise commissioners issued notices to all hotels of four stars and below, which served liquor, intimating them of the annulment of their respective bar licences.
The new policy was immediately challenged in a series of petitions filed in the Kerala High Court by hotels of various different denominations. In May last year, after a division bench of the High Court had ruled in favour of the State, the hotels filed appeals before the Supreme Court. They raised two primary grounds of challenge, both predicated on fundamental rights guaranteed under Part III of India’s Constitution.
Fundamental rights

First, the hotels submitted that in cancelling their bar licences, and in prohibiting them from serving and selling liquor on their premises, the State had infracted their right, under Article 19(1)(g), to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. Second, they pleaded, in separately categorising hotels of five stars or more, and in permitting those hotels alone to serve liquor in public, the new Abkari policy had made an unreasonable classification, by treating persons on an equal standing unequally, and therefore violated Article 14 of the Constitution.
The first argument was admittedly going to be a difficult one to maintain. The liberty to freely carry on any trade or business is subject to reasonable restrictions that may be imposed by the state in the interest of the general public. The Constitution itself, in Article 47, requires States to make an endeavour towards improving public health, including by bringing about prohibition of the consumption of liquor. Therefore, quite naturally, any policy in purported furtherance of such goals would almost always be viewed as a legitimate limitation on any freedom to do business. In fact, in 1994, a constitution bench of the Supreme Court, in Khoday Distilleries Ltd. v. State of Karnataka, explicitly questioned whether any right to trade in alcoholic beverages even flowed from our Constitution.
“The State can prohibit completely the trade or business in potable liquor since liquor as beverage is res extra commercium,” wrote Justice P.B. Sawant. “The State may also create a monopoly in itself for trade or business in such liquor. The State can further place restrictions and limitations on such trade or business which may be in nature different from those on trade or business in articles res commercium.” Therefore, the court, in The Kerala Bar Hotels Association case, perhaps, had little choice but to hold the Abkari policy as being in conformity with the right under Article 19(1)(g).
Such a holding, though, ought not to have precluded the court from scrutinising the liquor policy with further rigour. The mere fact that a commodity is res extra commercium — a thing outside commerce — does not give the state absolute power to make laws on the subject in violation of the guarantee of equal treatment. While a law might represent a valid constraint on the freedom to trade, it nonetheless must confirm to other constitutional commands, including Article 14, which assures us that the state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
The point of classification

Equality, as the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin once wrote, is a contested concept. But it is however, in its abstract form, a solemn constitutional pledge that underpins our democracy. The Supreme Court, in some of its earliest decisions, interpreted Article 14 as forbidding altogether any law that seeks to make distinctions based on class, except where reasonable classifications are made in a manner that does no violence to the provision’s core promise. The court also crystallised a basic two-prong test to determine what constitutes such a classification: there must be, it held, an intelligible differentia, which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from others left out of the group, and this differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the law in question.
Hence, in determining whether Kerala’s Abkari policy violated the right to equality, the question was rather simple: has the State made a reasonable classification in consonance with Article 14 by permitting only five-star hotels and above to serve liquor? When we apply the test previously laid down by the Supreme Court, there is little doubt that the distinction that the policy makes between hotels on the basis of their relative offering of luxuries constitutes a discernible intelligible differentia between two classes of things. But a proper defence of the law also requires the government to additionally show us how this classification of five-star hotels as a separate category bears a sensible nexus with the object of the law at hand. The changes in the liquor policy were ostensibly brought through with the view of promoting prohibition, and thereby improving the standard of public health in the State. Now, ask yourself this: how can this special treatment of five-star hotels possibly help the Kerala government in achieving these objectives?
The Supreme Court, as it happened, made no concerted effort to answer this question. This could be because, however hard we might want to try, it’s difficult to find any cogent connection between classifying five-star hotels separately and the aim of achieving prohibition. The court, therefore simply said, “There can be no gainsaying that the prices/tariff of alcohol in Five Star hotels is usually prohibitively high, which acts as a deterrent to individuals going in for binge or even casual drinking. There is also little scope for cavil that the guests in Five Star hotels are of a mature age; they do not visit these hotels with the sole purpose of consuming alcohol.” Given the palpable inadequacies of such a justification — and also given its validation of a manifestly classist position — the court also used the State government’s excuse of tourism as a further ruse to defend the law. But when a policy exists to promote the prohibition of the consumption of liquor, it’s specious to use an extraneous consideration, in this case, tourism, to defend a classification made in the law, regardless of how intelligible such a classification might be.
Prohibition often has a polarising effect on the polity. But the criticisms of the ineffectuality of such policies apart, Kerala’s new law ought to have been seen for what it is: paternalism, at its best, and, at its worst, an extension of an ingrained form of classism that is demonstrably opposed to the guarantee of equality under our Constitution. The judgment in The Kerala Bar Hotels Association case is therefore deeply unsatisfactory, and requires reconsideration.
(Suhrith Parthasarathy is an advocate practising in the Madras High Court.)
Source: The Hindu, 4-01-2016
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UGC plans BSc, MSc courses in yoga for public-funded universities


The University Grants Commission (UGC) has planned to induct yoga into the curriculum of public-funded universities, hoping to cash in on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for the ancient discipline and its growing popularity across the world.
The apex regulatory body for higher education has prepared a proposal to introduce BSc and MSc in yoga in all 40 central universities from the 2016-17 academic session and, later, in state and deemed universities, sources said.
“It is imperative that Indian universities engage themselves in strengthening scientific evidence of the positive effects of yoga and meditation on human health. In order to pursue education and practice in yoga, it is proposed to establish centres and departments of yoga in the public-funded universities,” the proposal says.

Sources: Hindustan Times, 4-01-2016
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