Indian Innovators Association (IIA) organised GYSC ( Global Young Scientists Challenge ) in 2018 at Visakhapatnam. Saif Seas exibited their rescuse device. Inventor Alisgar Calcuttawala explained their innovation to AP Innovation Society and other visitors. The startup is mentored by IIA founder member GV Ramana. The startup is now a reliable supplier to Indian navy and others.
Journalist Anuradha travelled to SriLanka, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and narrates story of telugu people's journey to these distance lands in the form of a fictional story.
Buy the book: https://www.telugubooks.in/products/jagamunelina-telugu
In this article, HBR highlights the 50 cities with the largest AI talent pools worldwide and evaluate them using a framework that we have developed at Digital Planet: TIDE (for Talent pool; Investments; Diversity of talent; Evolution of the country’s digital foundations). These factors collectively give companies a way to prioritize their AI talent sourcing choices by scoring the different locations on the concentration, quality and diversity of the AI talent pool. The diversity measure combines several factors: the proportion of female AI workers, racial diversity and migrant acceptance along with the cost of living in a city.
Pepsi got an USA patent for potato cultivator 2027. IP protection granted in USA under Patents and Plant Variety Protection (PVPA). In India patent protection is not available but Plant Variety Protection avaiable. Pepsi registered this 2027 variety in 2016 and promptly sued farmers in Gujarat growing this without license.
Now, Plant Varieties & Farmers' Rights (PPV&FR) Authority, rules Pepsi registration under Plant Variety Protection as invalid.
More information: www.motguru.com
The ZyCoV-D is the world’s first and India’s indigenously developed
DNA based vaccine for COVID-19 to be administered in humans
including children and adults 12 years and above. This vaccine has
been developed in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology
(DBT), Government of India under the ‘Mission COVID Suraksha’ and
implemented by BIRAC, a PSU of DBT. This 3 dose vaccine which when injected produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a vital role in protection from disease as well as viral clearance.Vaccine Technology Centre (VTC), vaccine research centre of the
Zydus group, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute
(THSTI), an autonomous institute of the DBT and Interactive Research
School for Health Affairs (IRSHA), Pune, GCLP Lab set up under the
DBT- National Biopharma Mission (NBM) also played a vital role in this
success story. The plug and play technology on which the plasmid DNA platform is based can be easily adapted to deal with mutations in the virus, such as those already occurring.
Read about the amazing journey: DBT publication
Catching up:
Development in weapon system in advanced countries have been invariably driven by innovativeness of their defence scientists and the ability of such scientists to think well beyond the existing systems and technologies. Here, in India, TDE ( Technical Development Establishments , earlier called Inspectorates) and others insisted that development work by the DRDO should be taken up for only after the services had laid their requirements in the form of Qualitative Requirements/ Operational Requirements (Qrs/Ors). The Qrs/Ors were invariably based on the products already available abroad.Technology Transfer
Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP)
The appointment of DR VS Arunachalam as the SA to RM and Secretary DDR&D in 1982 was the turning point. During his leadership, several programmes were launched including IGMDP, LCA, UAV,Sonars, Torpedoes etc. His initiatives were supported by R Venkataraman, Defence Minister. Dr Kalam took command of the organisation in 1992 when DRDO enetered the development of mega systems. The rest is history.In the GII 2021 India is ranked 46 and moved 2 levels high. Five Asian economies feature among the top 15 – the Republic of Korea (5th) and Singapore (8th) are in the top 10, followed by China (12th), Japan (13th) and Hong Kong, China (14th).
India ranking by pillars:
Institutions-62
-Political environment -66
-Regulatory environment-71
-Business environment-62
Human Capital and Research-54
-Education-102
-Tertiary education-64
-Research and development (R&D)-35
Infrastructure-81
-Information and communication technologies (ICTs)-86
-General infrastructure-52
-Ecological sustainability-98
Market sophistication-28
-credit-56
-investment-45
-Trade, diversification, and market scale-7
Business sophistication-52
-Knowledge workers-83
-Innovation linkages-50
-Knowledge absorption-34
Knowledge and technology outputs-29
-Knowledge creation-51
-knowledge impact-51
-knowledge diffusion-13
Creative outputs-68
-intangible assets-61
-Creative goods and services-55
-online creativity-105
India's best
Graduates in science and engineering, %-12
Global corporate R&D investors, top 3, mn US$-15
QS university ranking, top 3*-23
Government online service-24
E Participation-29
Gross capital formation, % GDP-28
Ease of getting credit*-23
Microfinance gross loans, % GDP-25
Market capitalization, % GDP-19
Ease of protecting minority investors*-13
Domestic industry diversification-12
Domestic market scale, bn PPP$-3
Joint venture/strategic alliance deals/bn PPP$ GDP-35
Intellectual property payments, % total trade-27
High-tech imports, % total trade-26
Citable documents H-index-21
Labor productivity growth, %-17
ICT services exports, % total trade-1
Global brand value, top 5,000, % GDP-28
Cultural and creative services exports, % total trade-18
Creative goods exports, % total trade-24
Tokyo–Yokohama is the top performing S&T cluster once again, followed by Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Beijing, Seoul and San Jose–San Francisco. The U.S. continues to host the highest number of clusters, followed by China, Germany, and Japan. Bengaluru is ranked 62 in the S&T cluster, downgraded by 2 ranks in 2021.
The top five R&D spending economies in 2019 were the United States (+10.9 percent), followed by China (+11.1 percent), Japan (−0.4 percent), Germany (+2.3 percent) and the Republic of Korea (+4.8 percent). These five economies have consistently been the world’s major R&D spenders since 2011. Business R&D expenditure – the largest component of total global R&D – grew by 7.2 percent in 2019, up from 4.6 percent in 2018.
Innovation and Technology Transfer Cell in Pune supported by the Rajiv Gandhi Science & Technology Commission identified few technology/processes that are ripe for commercial exploitation:
As per a policy decision by the Sri Lankan Government the country is moving toward an eco-friendly sustainable agricultural system by promoting organic farming within the country. Going with this decision the government issued the Gazette Extraordinary No. 2226/48 of May 6, 2021, banning the importation of chemical fertilizers and pesticides with immediate effect. As a country which relies heavily on agriculture this decision came as a surprise and discussions, arguments and debates began surfacing over the good and bad sides of it. Group of Agricultural Scientists and Professionals representing universities, research stations, and other Agriculture related organizations formulated a special report and forwarded it to His Excellency the President Gotabhaya Rajapakse urging the government to rethink the strategy towards an eco-friendly sustainable agriculture as these sudden decisions could lead to catastrophic situations in Sri Lankan Agricultural sector.
There is much criticism globally on this organic only policy of SL. Many countries have suffered food shortages due to idealistic pro-organic policies. But analyzing the situation as it unfolds exposes precisely what goes wrong when governments make decisions based on bad ideology and ignore evidence.
Recommend this paper Organic Agriculture, FoodSecurity, and the Environment for informed discussion on this vital subject. There are several areas that deserve more research to further improve our understanding of the effects of organic agriculture.
First, many of the available studies on yield performance and environmental effects refer to developed countries. Additional studies under typical conditions in developing countries would be very useful.
Second, many of the existing studies with farm survey data have not properly controlled for selection bias. More rigorous empirical studies are needed.
Third, while several studies showed that organic farming can be profitable with the existing support through subsidies and development projects, it is less clear whether organic farming could also be profitable without such external support.
Fourth, the net food price effects of organic agriculture are not sufficiently understood. Although it is clear that organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods, it is less clear how much of the price markup is attributable to differences in farming practices as opposed to other factors such as scale effects, market structure, and efficiency.
Finally, it would be interesting to analyze how the productivity, environmental, and profitability effects of organic farming might change through slight adjustments in the definition of what is allowed and disallowed in certified organic production.
Report by ORF makes few pertinent observations:
The progress of the Mission has been best in the states of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat, figure repeatedly among the best performers on different criteria.
An India Smart Cities Awards Contest (ISAC) has been organised every year since 2018 to recognise the best performing cities. A special award was also instituted at the third edition of the contest in 2020 to recognise the most innovative responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The winners of this prize, announced at the fourth edition on 25 June 2021 were Chennai (Round 1), Kalyan-Dombivali and Varanasi (Round 2), Bengaluru (Round 3) and Saharanpur (Round 4).
During the current monsoon season in 2021, it has been seen that drainage systems in many of the selected smart cities have still not ensured proper management of rainwater.
In March 2021, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) published the UAS Rules, 2021. They were perceived by academia, Startups, end-users and other stakeholders as being restrictive in nature as they involved considerable paperwork, required permissions for every drone flight and very few “free to fly” green zones were available. Based on the feedback, the Government has decided to repeal the UAS Rules, 2021 and replace the same with the liberalised Drone Rules, 2021.
Features of Drone Rules 2021
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Indian Prime Minister announced nutrient fortified rice through under welfare schemes like public distribution system and mid-day-meal scheme.
Rice fortification is currently compulsory in six countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the Philippines. In USA FDA has not issued any mandatory standards for manufacture and follows labelling as standard. Manufacturers need to identify versions of food products that are enriched and those that are not.
health strategy to improve the iron status of populations, in
settings where rice is a staple food. Fortification of rice with
vitamin A may be used as a public health strategy to improve
the iron status and vitamin A nutrition of
populations. Fortification of rice with folic acid may be used as
a public health strategy to improve the folate nutritional status
of populations.
Are the nutrients in fortifed rice retained after preparation and
cooking?
When produced using extrusion or rinse-resistant coating
technologies, fortifed rice will retain nutrients through various
preparation and cooking conditions, including washing and
cooking in excessive water that is later discarded. The
micronutrients in the fortifed kernels produced with extrusion
technology are evenly distributed throughout the kernels.
Therefore, the nutrients are adequately sealed and
adequately retained through preparation and cooking.
However, when fortifed rice is produced using dusting or
coating that is not rinse-resistant, nutrients will be lost if the
rice is washed prior to cooking. There is ongoing additional
research in this area to further identify potential diferences in
nutrient retention between diferent rice preparation and
cooking methods and fortifcation technologies.
Extrusion is the preferred technology for rice fortification
because of the stability of micronutrients in the rice kernels
across processing, storage, washing, cooking, and in view of
cost considerations. Fortified Rice Kernels (FRK) produced
using extrusion technology are made with rice flour and
micronutrients such as iron, folic acid, Vitamin B12 as
mandatory and zinc, vitamin A, thiamine (vitamin B1 ),
riboflavin (vitamin B2 ), niacin (vitamin B3 ), and pyridoxine
(vitamin B6 ) as optional micronutrients.
Best Engineering Technologies is one of the manufacturers of
Fortified Rice. The firm is a supplier of Herbal plants,
Essential oil plants, Food processing plants, spice powder
plants, cashew nut processing plants etc.
