IIT-M develops low-cost nano water purifier

The purifier will be able to provide arsenic-free water at about five paise per litre

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) are gearing up for the commercial release of an affordable nano technology-based water purifier.

The purifier has been developed to address the problem of arsenic contamination, a threat to drinking water sources and an emerging health hazard in several parts of the country.

The Arsenic Task Force of the government of West Bengal has certified and approved the purifier developed by IIT-M. “The pilot phase is over and we are now preparing to take it to the market,” said T. Pradeep, professor, department of chemistry, who heads the research group working on water purifiers.

The team has incubated a company at IIT-M to commercialise the technology, Dr. Pradeep told The Hindu on the sidelines of the Nano India conference organised by the department of science and technology and the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) in Thiruvananthapuram.

The purifier developed by IIT-M uses iron oxyhydroxide, a nanostructured material, to remove arsenic from drinking water. It functions without electricity or piped water supply.

Dr. Pradeep said it could provide arsenic-free water at an approximate cost of five paise per litre. “Over the next few years, we hope it will benefit at least 10 per cent of people living in arsenic-contaminated areas.”

The IIT-M-incubated company will commercialise the technology with partners who can take up distribution.

The research group has also come up with a nano material-based fluoride water purifier. “It will take some more work for field implementation of this purifier. We expect the technology to be ready in six months.”

Dr. Praveer Asthana, director of the nano mission under the Union department of science and technology said the water purifiers developed by IIT-M highlighted the relevance of industry-institution projects in the nano technology sector to deliver affordable, efficient solutions.

Dr. Pradeep said nano materials could play a key role in low-cost solutions to remove water contaminants. “They interact with the contaminant to remove it within a very small contact time. It is also possible to tune the chemistry of any of these materials so they can attack a wide spectrum of contaminants.”

IIT-M has already developed and commercialised a nano silver-based water purifier that breaks down pesticide residue.

The research team is working on an all-inclusive water purifier to address a wide spectrum of contaminants like pesticides, mercury, cadmium, lead, fluoride and arsenic. The group is collaborating with scientists working on other methods of water purification like reverse osmosis, membranes and solar and thermal technologies.

The Hindu : Cities / Chennai : IIT-M to play major role in solar project

The Hindu The project involves the setting up of a solar thermal power system in Kancheepuram. Photo: Special Arrangement 

The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) will not only coordinate part of the much-awaited national programme, Solar Thermal Project, but will also integrate the efforts of all the other IITs involved in the project.

The three-year Rs. 15 crore project, funded by the Department of Science and Technology, aims to use solar energy to find solutions to the country’s energy problems.

“Two years ago, all IITs were asked to present their proposals on energy generation. Expert committees were set up and feasibility studies conducted on the proposals, after which the project, divided into three parts has been sanctioned to different IITs,” said T. Sundararajan, head, department of mechanical engineering at IIT-M, who is coordinating the project.

The foundation stone of the project was laid at Thirukalukundram on Sunday.

Prof. Sundararajan, along with Srinivasa Reddy, another professor from IIT-M and Prof R. P. Saini from IIT-Roorkee, are involved in the first part of the project, which is the establishment of a pilot solar thermal power generation system.

“The project is on a much larger scale compared to regular academic projects. What we will do, is concentrate solar power using flat mirrors – fresnel reflectors, in an array on tubes carrying water, to create steam at high pressure and temperature,” said Prof. Sundararajan

The unique part of the project, said the professor, is that it can take steam up to 400 degree Celsius, much higher than the temperatures attained in other existing projects. “With high temperature steam, we are looking at better energy conversion. We hope to generate at least 75-100 kilo watts of electric power with the project,” he added.

The power generated on a pilot basis, will look at satisfying the energy needs of Pathashala, a school run by the Krishnamurthy Foundation of India, in Vallipuram, a village in Kancheepuram, about 80 km from Chennai. The project needed an open area for this mode of power generation and so this locality was selected, said the coordinators.

“There are nearly 110 students and many teachers there. We will provide power to this community and any excess power can be sent to neighbouring villages,” said Prof. Sundararajan.

The project, unlike many others that are de-centralised, has a distributed way of transmitting power and will be used to provide electricity to remote villages and mountainous terrains.

Since the energy is derived from steam, it can also be used for cooking and washing purposes, the professor added. The first part of the project will run into two phases of 18 months each. IIT-Bombay will meanwhile look into air-conditioning options through solar power while IIT-Guwahati will look at ways of storing thermal energy to be utilised later.

“Both these projects will be integrated with our solar thermal plant project at Vallipuram,” said Professor Sundararajan.

 

Sixty years of IT in India

PTI The supercomputer "SAGA-220", built by the Satish Dhawan Supercomputing Facility located at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. 

By the 1980s, software development by various companies began in right earnest

I was struck by a recent headline that appeared in the business pages of newspapers, stating that the IT-related exports from India are expected to touch US $ 87 billion in 2014. In these days when colossal figures related to scams hit the headlines, this figure, coming out of hard, honest work, largely by “Generation X” is heartwarming. And to put this figure in historical perspective, software and services exports fetched us US $ 2 billion in 1998 and 50 billion in 2010. IT contributes about 7 per cent of India’s gross domestic product and employs about 2.4 million software professionals.

All this in a matter of less than 60 years! The year 2014 marks the start of the Diamond Jubilee of the entry of computers into India. Professor V. Rajaraman, whom all of us consider as the Bhishma Pitamaha of computer education in India, summarizes the story of IT in his recent monograph “History of computing in India – 1955- 2010”. It traces the milestones of the growth of IT in India from day one, 1955, when the first UK-made digital computer named HEC-2M was set up at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta by Drs Mohi Mukherjee and Amesh Roy. Rajaraman points out that this machine had but a memory of 1024 (24 bit words) and arrived at the ISI without any manuals. Mukherjee and Roy had to write them and a dozen people used them.

But a truly Indian-made computer was made by Professor R. Narasimhan at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Bombay, when he put together a pilot computer to design logic circuits in 1956. This was later expanded to produce the TIFR automatic calculator or TIFRAC, inaugurated (and christened) by Jawaharlal Nehru. Professor P.V.S. Rao, who was part of the TIFRAC team describes the story in exciting detail in the scholarly book “Homi Bhabha and the Computer Revolution” edited by Professors R. Shyamasundar and M.A. Pai (Oxford, 201; hereafter called the S + P book) dedicated to R. Narasimhan, whom they call the doyen of Indian computer science. Soon after, ISI combined with Jadavpur University and produced another home made, second generation transistor-based computer named ISIJU.

Even as these computers were getting built and used, two important developments occurred in the 1960s. One was the establishment of the IITs, particularly IIT Kanpur, where the American partners brought in what was at that time a state-of-the-art computer IBM 1620, along with a Fortran II compiler. Prof. Rajaraman points out in the S + P book how important this high-level language was at the time — novel, contemporary and easier learnt than others. The second related development was the teaching and training program that IITK embarked on. Rajaraman wrote has first bestseller “Principle of Computer Programming”, which he forced the publishers to price at Rs 15/- so that many students can buy and learn from it; it has run its 50 edition now. The machine, the mentor, the manuscript, and the bright-eyed mentees basking in the new-found mode of American informality in learning (access to all, 24/7); this invigorating cocktail made hundreds of students take to computers and IT.

The decade of the 1970s is equally important. This was the period when the self-reliant growth of the computer industry blossomed, through the Department of Electronics and the Electronics Commission of India. ECIL designed the Trombay Digital Computer TDC-12 and sold this and other versions in the market. In the private sector, Tata Consultancy Limited (TCS) was established and by 1975 TCS, under Dr. F.C. Kohli, installed Burroughs machines and began to export software. National Informatics Centre (NIC) was established, where Dr. Seshagiri set up networks such as NICNET and the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), providing opportunities for data sharing, monitoring and e-mail (my first emails were courtesy NIC). Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) was also set up.

By the 1980s, software development by various companies began in right earnest. By 1985 software export by TCS, CMC and others touched US$ 30 million. (Dr. Kohli has a fascinating chapter in the S+P book). Private sector entered the IT field in full measure, intercity connectivity via ERNET became operational and the National Supercomputer Centre was established at IISC Bangalore, where Rajaraman moved. Kanpur’s loss was Bangalore’s gain.

Two interesting examples of the adage “necessity is the mother of invention” came about during the 1980s. One was the need to make voting and vote-counting tamper-proof during elections in the country. The Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) was developed by ECIL and Bharat Electronics, and used. The second is the imposition of computer export ban by the US on India, which led our home-grown experts to design parallel processing machines, called PARAM.

A major milestone in boosting computers and IT in India was in the mid 1980s when the government liberalized computer import and use, with Seshagiri, and Pitroda as advisors (read them recount their experience in the S+P book), through the NIC and Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT). Further liberalization and globalization of the economy in 1991 made private players such as Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and others become globally recognized. Rajaraman points out how factors such as “night in India, day in America” and correcting the Y2K problem came in handy for Indian IT companies. By the year 2010, IT had given employment to over 2.5 million Indians and brought in US$50 billion.

This fascinating story of the birth and growth of IT in India has some special features so relevant to current times. Interesting how individuals make all the difference – Nehru, Bhabha, Mahalanobis, Sarabhai, Narasimhan, Kohli, Menon, Srikantan, Rajaraman (not to forget Prof. Mahabala and the IITK Director Kelkar), Narayanamurthy, Premji – with their dedication, character, ethical standards, selfless service and commitment. See how even the Satyam aberration was quickly and admirably corrected. O Tempora O Mores! Or should I say: Cometh the moment cometh the man?

 

All about brain power

 

The Hindu A BIG BOOST Cógnitive skills in kids could improve with brain function training. File Photo: M.A. Sriram 

s there a way to train the brain to perform optimally under pressure?

Can the human brain be trained to overcome intellectual challenges? Can it be trained to perform at its peak, even under pressure?

Consider Jagjit and Navjot, 35-year-old autistic twins from Jabalpur, who were in Chennai for ‘brain function training’ at Medha Mind Enhancement. After their EEGs were studied and the problem areas identified, they underwent FDA (The Food and Drug Administration authority in the U.S.) approved EEG procedures such as the ‘19-lead z-score neuro-feedback’ and gut protocol procedures. “Now, both sleep better and have calmed down; the constant self-talk Jagjit used to indulge in has subsided, while Navjot’s obsessive compulsory behaviour (OCD) that made him prone to ritual cleaning (vigorously cleaning the wash basin 25 times before brushing his teeth every morning) has drastically come down,” says their mother Sadhana.

Chennai-based Dr. A. Banumathi, a paediatrician, whose six-year-old son Nimalan is being given brain function training (BFT) says, “The sensory problems and the self-talk tendency my son had have almost disappeared, though hyperactivity remains. We expect that in three months, this too will reduce.”

Answer to several problems

Though largely unknown in India, brain function training/neurofeedback is a standard feature of intervention programmes for conditions such as ADHD, ADD, epilepsy, seizures and brain injury in the West. In fact, not just to deal with intellectual challenges, brain function could hold an answer to sleep problems, anxiety and irritability, migraines, panic attacks, irritable bowel, allergies and asthma, social and behavioural issues, learning disorders, and realising unfulfilled potential. Neurofeedback is also used to enhance peak performance of sportsmen and corporate leaders. Apparently, the U.S. military, navy and air force used brain function training to improve cognitive function among its personnel. Closer home in India, Abhinav Bindra reportedly used brain function training before the Beijing Olympics to gear up to perform under pressure.

Train the brain

“BFT effects are better in younger people, as the brain would not yet have fallen into rigid patterns, But, it can improve the brain at any age,” says N. S. Srinivasan, founder and chief mentor of Medha Mind Enhancement Company. Author of the book Brain Re-engineering, he is the only invited Asian member of SABA (Society for Advancement in Brain Analysis). N.S. Srinivasan learnt BFT from its discoverer Dr. Barry Sterman, Prof. Emeritus of Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Srinivasan boasts an interesting confluence of educational styles, having three masters degrees, two post-graduate diplomas, besides indigenous education on ‘enhancing mental states’ acquired over 15 years of learning at ashrams in the Himalayas. He has been recently made a resource person by BFE (Biofeedback Foundation of Europe) and was nominated for the “2009 Man of Year in Medicine & Health Care” award by the American Biographical Institute, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.

“BFT is certainly the most advanced and expensive of treatments, but it is also the most effective,” says Srinivasan. “It works by changing the mental state of a person, making him self-aware. It works on phase lock (time taken by neurons to gather resources for brain activity) and phase shift (problem solving activity of the brain). This directs the person’s brain from dis-regulated patterns to self-sustaining, healthy and productive patterns of brainwave activity. Stress-related performance inhibition is reduced and the person’s brain gradually moves towards optimal performance. The learning capacity and adaptive ability is internalised in the brain”.

 

The Hindu : Cities / Visakhapatnam : Don’t settle for mediocrity, students told

The Hindu : Cities / Visakhapatnam : Don’t settle for mediocrity, students told

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The Hindu : Cities / Chennai : Chennai film buff makes a mark at Universal Studios

The Hindu : NATIONAL / TAMIL NADU : Experts urge students to think out of the box

The Hindu : NATIONAL / TAMIL NADU : Experts urge students to think out of the box

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The Hindu : Today's Paper / NATIONAL : “State must play fundamental role to promote education”

Leadership Skills

What Makes a Good Leader?
Why is Teamwork Important?
Why Leadership Is Important in Business organizations and Workplace?

Leadership Training Program was created with an aim to help you analyze yourself and assess your skills, interest, personality and aptitude. Creating and leading a successful team needs time, dedication, effort and skill. With our program, you will learn what it takes to be a good leader, how to form a team, and how to continuously improve the way your team functions and lead it to success.

Our program helps you know yourself and your team better and analyze how well your team works in decision making, problem solving, time management and adapting to change. We also provide interactive sessions and games where your entire team is involved in activities.

There are three levels for different age groups.
Some Leadership Myths:

·         Myth 1 - Leadership is innate and you need to be born with it
Leadership develops through hard work and careful observation. Usually people learn it by experience and waste a lot of time to understand its principles. However, the good news is that leadership skills and qualities can also be taught.

·         Myth 2 -Leadership is possessing power over others
Leadership is a power with people that exists as a reciprocal relationship between a leader and his/her followers. A good leader will have many followers even though he/she may not have authoritative powers.

·         Myth 3 - Leadership and management are the same
The biggest difference between managers and leaders is the way they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do. Leaders lead people to a destiny, while managers manage resources.

What you can expect from this program

·         Learn valuable lessons of leadership and teamwork in fun manner

·         Understand and develop leadership skills and principles

·         Create and motivate effective and successful teams

·         Promote better communication and trust

·         Apply your team's best personality traits to organization's advantage

·         Transform from Good to Great!

  

5 jobs expected to boom this year

1. Business Operations Manager

Leaving their imprint throughout several company departments, operations managers hire people, acquire materials for customers, and attempt to predict what products are most likely to sell.

The field can be characterized as high-demand and low-supply, with plenty of opportunity for those thinking of dipping their toe in it. "If we talk to any employer, that's the [position] they're most interested in, especially around the idea of project management," Cote notes. "So being able to run an operation and [in] particular, to manage complex projects, there's an increasing demand and fewer people there to fill it."

It's also a profession welcoming of individuals who possess the rare duel qualities of business instinct and a penchant for number-crunching. "It tends to require a blending of quantitative skills and qualitative skills, and that seems to be an area where people fall on one side or the other, but that middle road is not one people pursue," he says.

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2. HR Specialist

Depending on the size of a company, the responsibilities of a human resources (HR) specialist can include recruitment, hiring, training, employee benefits, compensation, job enrichment, relocation, performance, termination, and outplacement. Over the coming decade, the field is expected to grow by 20.5 percent.

With a brighter economic picture, companies are seeking more HR specialists to help integrate new employees. "As we come out of the recession, companies are adding people, and you need HR people to take care of the people coming in," says Sharmyn Calhoun, president of the National Human Resources Association.

To achieve success in the field, Calhoun recommends a formal education and possibly a graduate degree in an area like human-resource management or labor relations. A law degree can also be a great asset if you work for a unionized company, she notes.

If the company you work for has a large staff and the area of your focus is singular, it's still important to be well-versed in all HR disciplines and know how they affect the company as a whole. "You have to be able to think strategically across all the disciplines to be successful in an HR specialist or generalist role," Calhoun says.

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3. Market Research Analyst

Conducting polls, crunching numbers, analyzing human behavior--these are a few of the techniques market research analysts use to decipher the shopping patterns and trends of consumers. The field is expected to grow by about 41 percent in the coming decade.

A key driver of that growth is the business world's love of data. By dissecting and analyzing data, companies not only gain a strategy for increasing their bottom line, but for understanding what makes consumers tick.

"The more we have of data and the better quality that data is, the more useful it will be in creating strategy, and so I just don't see the market research analyst as a position going away anytime soon," says Joseph Cote, professor of marketing at Washington State University.

Financial Adviser

Mutual funds, asset classes, diversification--these are a few investment terms financial advisers break down as they direct you on where to allocate your money. Employment in the field is expected to grow by 32 percent by the decade's end.

Thomas Blanchfield, managing director of investments for the private banking and investment group at Merrill Lynch, notes that the need for financial advisers has grown in part because employees are increasingly managing their own retirement savings these days.

"I think that person is obligated to look after their own finances in a way that they perhaps weren't in a previous generation," he says. "For those people that don't feel they are prepared to do it themselves, they are seeking advice," he says.

While successful financial advisers are savvy money managers, they must also understand their clients. "The understanding of human emotions and how that affects people's desire, or lack of desire, to be an investor, is really an important part of the job," Blanchfield says.

Management Analyst

Companies hampered by disorganization often turn to management analysts for thoughtful strategies to shave away inefficiency and increase profits. Between 2010 and 2020, employment in the field is expected to grow by 22 percent.

Good management analysts, according to Cote, grasp how various organizational players create wealth for a firm. Another piece to that puzzle, he notes, is having the skills to manage stakeholder relationships to maximize a company's profits. "As you move into a more global economy, what we're seeing is that what makes a firm successful is understanding how to balance the [corporate] network or ecosystem around it," says Cote.

In that new business climate, "really understanding how an organization functions and how you structure an organization to gain its maximum value--I think that's going to become an increasingly important function," he adds.