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Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Google Science Fair: Indian-origin teen wins $50,000 scholarship

A 16-year-old Indian-origin South African teen has won a $ 50,000 scholarship at the annual Google Science Fair in the US for using orange peel to develop a cheaper “super-absorbent material” that helps soil retain water.
Kiara Nirghin, a Grade 11 student at private school St Martin’s, submitted her project titled ‘No More Thirsty Crops’ which was aimed at alleviating the severe drought plaguing South Africa.
Her solution to the problem of drought uses the peels from orange and avocado fruits, which were normally discarded.
The Google Science Fair is a programme for any budding scientists between the ages of 13 to 18, who are invited to solve world’s biggest challenges using science and technology.
“I have always had a great love for chemistry since I was young. I vividly remember at the age of seven experimenting with vinegar and baking soda solutions in plastic cups,” Nirghin said in her submission, in which she cited a renowned Indian scientist as her greatest inspiration.
“MS Swaminathan, has always been an inspiration of mine as he truly believed in the necessary movement of not only India but the whole world towards sustainable agricultural development,” she said.
“I hope to one day become a scientist specialising in agricultural science and also become a molecular gastronomist,” she added.
Nirghin explained how she had found an alternative in the fruit peels to super-absorbent polymers (SAPs), which absorb and carry about 300 times its weight in liquid relative to their own mass.
“These SAPs are not biodegradable, costly and full of acrylic acid, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals. During more research in the topic, I found that natural occurring polymers exist in most citrus fruits,” Nirghin said.
After 45 days of experimentation, Nirghin was successful in creating a low-cost super-absorbent polymer, made out of waste products found in the juice manufacturing industry, that is biodegradable, can retain large amounts of water, keep soil moist and improve crop growth without regular water supplements.
“The only resources involved in the creation of the ‘orange peel mixture’ were electricity and time, with no special equipment or materials required,” she said.
Nirghin’s discovery has huge financial implications for agriculture, as her creation could retail at $ 30 to $ 60 per metric tonne, as compared to the $ 2,000 plus costs of SAPs.
The young scientist is convinced that her mixture will help assist farmers in agricultural drought disaster areas, where food security could increase by 73%.
Now Nirghin has set her sights on using orange peel SAP in experiments testing water filtration and oil removal from water.“I would also like to make large amounts of orange peel SAP and apply it to crops such as maize and wheat in poorer communities in South Africa,” she added.
Source: Hindustan Times, 4-10-2016
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Violence against women has increased, but no sign of rape crisis centres


The 2015 National Crime Records Bureau report is as grim as the earlier ones: Overall, crimes rose to 7.3 million, a 3.4% increase compared to 2014. The only comforting news is that the number of rapes has come down from 36,735 (2014) to 34,651 (2015), though the dip in numbers is too insignificant to crow about. “You cannot also cast aside from the fact that there were as many as 4,000 foiled rapes,” a senior police officer wrote in a website.
This large number of registered cases, foiled rapes and numerous cases of stalking --- there has been a 33% increase in stalking cases between 2014 and 2015 --- show that these are more than just a law and order problem; the discussion on violence against women has to start in every home, and it has to involve both boys and girls. On Monday, Hindustan Times started a special eight-part series --- Let’s Talk About Rape --- where eight eminent Indians will write open letters in the newspaper to discuss the reality of sexual assault in India. It is an effort to look at the issue of violence against women from different perspectives. But such efforts by media, citizens and NGOs need a strong support from the government.
But is not happening: In 2014, the Centre announced that it would launch Rape Crisis Centres in every district in India. But by 2015, that came down to 36 centres; to date only 18 have been built. But even these centres are not functioning to their full capacity because of lack of personnel, infrastructure and convergence among different departments. This is not all: There has been no utilisation of the Rs 2,000 crore fund that was set up in memory of the December 16, 2012, gang rape victim; in fact, there is no national plan as to how rape victims are to be compensated. As the Supreme Court reminded the government earlier this year, setting up of the fund is not enough and it is just paying “lip service”; It added: “The State must ensure adequate relief to the victims of sexual offences”. Do we say more?

Source: Hindustan Times, 4-10-2016
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Modern-Day Satyagrahi
HOPE K FITZ


For quite some time, I have considered myself to be a modernday satyagrahi, as one who is dedicated to satyagraha -Gandhi's Truth Force or Soul Force against himsa, or harm.However, whereas Gandhi's efforts were directed primarily against the actions of a corrupt government or government officials in the struggle for Indian rights and ultimately independence from colonial rule, I take the role of the modern-day satyagrahi to be actively engaged in a force against oppression of any kind; conflict and violence at all levels; harm to animals; and the wanton destruction of the environment. Satyagrahis should try to alleviate suffering whenever and wherever they can.
Following Mahatma Gandhi's thought, I believe that ahimsa is fundamental to satyagraha.Also, because he tried to practise ahimsa at every moment of his life, I think that as his followers, we should adopt his notion of ahimsa and try to practice it to the level of each of our abilities. According to Gandhi, ahimsa has negative and positive aspects. The negative aspect can be expressed as no intentional harm to any living creature by thought, word or deed. The positive aspect is the greatest love or compassion for all living beings.... What Mahatma Gandhi emphasised for all satyagrahis was that they were not to harbour hatred or even anger against their opponents. A true satyagrahi only seeks to convert his oppressor to ahimsa. I believe that this is an essential truth for every satyagrahi or would-be satyagrahi.
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Monday, October 03, 2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 51, Issue No. 40, 01 Oct, 2016

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Indian NGO bags UN climate award for clean energy project

With India ratifying the Paris agreement on Sunday, the project highlights the importance of micro-level, scalable initiatives to contribute to India's ambitious renewable energy target.

An Indian NGO, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, has bagged the UN climate award this year. The NGO, which trains women to become clean energy entrepreneurs across Maharashtra and Bihar, is one of the 13 projects to be recognised at the forthcoming UN climate summit in Marrakesh in November.
In an official release, the UNFCCC, the nodal UN climate body, has applauded this project for building a rural distribution network of 1,100 women entrepreneurs facilitating access to clean energy, water and sanitation products and services in several communities.
Prema Gopalan, co-founder of Swayam Shikshan Prayog, who has worked for ten years in the clean energy sector, told The Hindu that many of the women in her NGO hail from the Marathwada drought-hit areas and have attained a new identity as a result of their entrepreneurial work.
“They have learnt to be better community leaders. The initiatives they have undertaken are both sustainable and scalable,” she said. The NGO, founded in 1989 in Mumbai, has received financial support from the Maharashtra government, USAID, Miseorer, Europe, and CSR funds from HSBC and Alstom, till now.
With India ratifying the Paris agreement on Sunday, Ms. Gopalan highlighted the importance of micro-level, scalable initiatives such as these to help the rural population contribute to India’s ambitious renewable energy target. India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), submitted to the UNFCCC, speak of increasing share of renewable energy in India’s energy mix to 40 per cent by 2030.
“While the government only eyes big-ticket projects when it comes to renewable energy it should also look at the potential of reaching out to vast rural population through small initiatives such as these. It requires marrying the government’s livelihood missions with that of new and renewable energy,” Ms. Gopalan, who is also an Ashoka Fellow since 2003, said.
Improving the quality of living
Nita Tanwade, 36, one of the rural entrepreneurs who works with the NGO told The Hindu that over 2000 families in her village Sawargaon in Tuljapur taluka have purchased solar lights and cook stoves from her, helping the villagers improve their quality of living.
“For several hours in a day, people in my village suffered power cuts. Many couldn’t afford to get an electricity connection. An aged couple who lived in my neighbourhood often complained about having to eat and sleep in the dark at night and feeling unsafe due to lack of lighting, but after villagers pooled in Rs. 500 to install a solar light in their house, they were grateful to have it,” she said.
For those who cannot afford to buy the solar lamps, priced between Rs. 500 to 700 and the cook stoves that cost between Rs. 2500-3000, Ms. Tanwade said she sold it to them on credit and the villagers paid her back in monthly instalments they could afford.
The use of woodfire for cooking in rural areas has been identified as one of the primary causes of indoor air pollution, which contributes to global warming, and also causes respiratory illnesses. According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2015, 67 per cent of the population in India depends on traditional biomass for cooking, which, in absolute numbers, works out to 841 million people in the population.
Ms. Gopalan said that the UN climate award is a global recognition for replicable models on clean energy that can help put an end to India’s biomass dependency. The UNFCCC release cites how through the promotion of clean cook stoves by women entrepreneurs, over 200,000 women and households now save almost 100 tonnes per day of fuel wood.
“Maharashtra has now started allowing women to even supply excess solar energy to the grid. If all Indian states adopt such enabling policies, India can soon become self-sufficient in energy, the clean way.”
Source: The Hindu, 2-10-2016
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Just a question of rights

The plagiarism allegations against Udta Punjab come as a huge disappointment at a time when the film industry is becoming acutely aware of the importance of obtaining rights to novels

Of late, Bollywood has begun to read. An industry not known to dive into literature, other than a rare Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay or Premchand, has been seeking inspiration in books. While embarking on his Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee bought the rights to all of Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi stories in all the languages other than Bengali. His Shanghai was based on the French novel Z by Vassilis Vassilikos. He also has the film rights for V. Sudarshan’sAnatomy of an Abduction: How the Indian Hostages in Iraq Were Freed, about the kidnapping of three Indians in Iraq in 2004.
Banerjee is not the only one. Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions had acquired the film rights for Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha, Rahul Bose clinched Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke, and Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment is reported to have Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor in its kitty. Not to forget the crowd favourite author, Chetan Bhagat.
Plagiarism allegations

It’s in this light that the plagiarism allegations against Udta Punjab, a film on the widespread drug abuse in Punjab, come as a huge disappointment. A recent story on a news website detailed the striking similarities between certain characters, situations, plot points, and devices in the film and Ben Elton’s 2002 novel High Society. If there were so many takeaways from the book, why couldn’t the film rights for it have been negotiated legally? In times of the World Wide Web, when any information is just a click away, the stealth also smacks of sheer foolhardiness and misplaced overconfidence that the inspiration will remain covert, that it won’t become public. The truth is that in this day and age, we have no place to hide.
Plagiarism is not new in Bollywood. It has been an eternal hashtag, especially when it comes to music. You can draw up a huge laundry list of films copied from — or, at the least, inspired by — other films.
It Happened One Night became Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin and Chori Chori, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers got made as Satte Pe Satta, Sabrina got turned into Yeh Dillagi, The Silence of the Lambsplayed out as Sangharsh, Ek Chhotisi Love Story blatantly lifted from A Short Film About Love right down to the title. Nothing came out of these revelations; perhaps the makers of the originals never even got to see or hear of these tributes.
The possibility of the imitation getting called out openly happened a few years ago when an online post went viral for detailing scene-by-scene lifts from foreign films in Anurag Basu’s Barfi!, India’s official entry to the Oscars.
Obtaining rights 

Something has been changing since then. Even filmmaker Sanjay Gupta, much maligned by accusations about consistently stealing from foreign films (he turned Reservoir Dogs into Kaante and Oldboy intoZinda) sought legal remake rights for his recent film Jazbaa, based on the Korean film called Seven Days. Like him, most mainstream filmmakers are becoming conscious of obtaining legal permission and remake rights. Warrior was officially adapted as Brothers, and The Man From Nowhere became Rocky Handsome. The Hindi version of The Fault in Our Stars is under production. Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh travelled all the way to Japan a while ago to seek the film rights of Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X, even as viewers kept debating about the shadow of it lurking in the Malayalam film Drishyam.
At one level, the disingenuity of the makers of Udta Punjab undoes their own genuine efforts as well — the socio-political contextualising of the story, for instance. The time and effort spent in doing research in Punjab, the recreation of the dystopia the State has become, and how the film sheds light on the havoc that drugs are wreaking in Punjab all get sidestepped now under the looming shadow of the allegations.
It also comes as a major blow in how it gets the emerging young, offbeat, idealistic Hindi cinema under the scanner. In one shot, the cinema that had purportedly been re-energising the industry with its inventiveness, out-of-the-box ideas and narratives stands to lose much of its sheen, capacity for grandstanding, and moral high ground. If only the makers of Udta Punjab had made a call or sent an email to Ben Elton.
namrata.joshi@thehindu.co.in

Source: 2-10-2016
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IITs to set up special cells to help Hindi-medium students understand better

If all goes well, students from Hindi-medium schools who gain admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will no longer face the language barrier in class.
IIT authorities are setting up a support system to ensure that study material — otherwise taught in English — is put across in a way that students from Hindi-medium schools can understand. The institutes are using their Hindi cells, which handle administrative work such as translating texts and organising seminars, to assist them.
As the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) is conducted in both Hindi and English, many students from Hindi-medium schools manage to enter IITs across the country. It is after classes begin that things get tough — they fail to understand the study material and lectures, which are predominantly made in English.
Sources said many IITs, including the ones in Delhi and Roorkee, have witnessed a large number of such students failing or performing poorly due to this issue.
Incidentally, the IIT council – the highest decision-making body of the prestigious institutes – had commissioned a study in August to assess the performance of Hindi students who appeared for the JEE.
Admitting that students from a Hindi background have trouble understanding subjects taught in English, IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said: “If they don’t grasp the basic concept, they face difficulties in exams. Hence, we have formed a support system, through which staffers of our Hindi cells explain the subject to them. We have launched it for first-year students.”
IIT-Roorkee, for its part, is holding extra classes where professors fluent in both the languages explain scientific concepts to such students in chaste Hindi. “This will help clear their doubts, ensuring that they don’t lag behind,” said Pradipta Banerji, director of IIT-Roorkee.
Sources said language was a major reason why many such students fail to achieve the required cut-off marks for getting promoted to the second year. A large number is also expelled from the premier institutes due to their inability to grasp the concepts taught in class.
An analysis of JEE results also showed that students who took the examinations in English performed much better than their Hindi-medium counterparts. For instance, while the success percentage of English-medium students who appeared for the Advanced exam in 2016 was 24%, only 15% who picked the Hindi option made it through.
Source: Hindustan Times, 2-10-2016
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