BRICS meet pledges to work for inclusive growth
A two-day conference of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians’ Forum 2016 ended in Jaipur with a call for women’s involvement in the development process for ensuring inclusive growth.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said the governments should strengthen innovative partnerships with civil society groups to assess effectiveness of their development initiatives. While discussing the strategic partnership among the BRICS countries, the delegates stressed the need for greater role of their respective countries in the global bodies and strategies for combating global terrorism.
The Lok Sabha Speaker laid emphasis on inclusiveness in development to make it sustainable and effective and said the role of legislations to achieve sustainable development was equally significant. She called upon the delegates to learn from best practices in the BRICS member-countries to deal with the effects of climate change and to promote women’s welfare. She cited the initiatives and action plans taken up in Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa for fostering an environment favourable for women’s growth.
A Jaipur Declaration adopted on the conclusion of the conference stated the pledge of women parliamentarians to work together in the fields of economic growth, social inclusion and environment protection by intensifying mutual cooperation and strengthening strategic partnerships.
Iran releases images of new indigenous missile system
Iran released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defence system, a project started when the country was under international sanctions.
The new Bavar 373 missile defence system was designed to intercept cruise missiles, drones, combat aircraft and ballistic missiles.
The project was launched as an alternative to the Russian S-300 system, the delivery of which was suspended in 2010 due to sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme.
President Hassan Rouhani also unveiled the first Iranian-made turbo-jet engine on Sunday, saying it was capable of flight at 50,000 feet.
“The Islamic republic is one of eight countries in the world who have mastered the technology to build these engines,” the President said. Iran was now looking to develop seaborne cruise missiles capable of supersonic speed.
The new Bavar 373 has Iran’s first vertical launcher, using Sayad 3 missiles that were first tested in September 2014.
Man with a huge ‘negative’ carbon footprint
Known as the “man with the largest negative carbon footprint in the world,” Indian-born American electrical engineer Jayant Baliga is the inventor of the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), a device that enabled the electronics in the now ubiquitous CFL lamp. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Dr. Baliga, won the global energy prize in 2015.
While he has many inventions to his credit, the one that stands head and shoulders above the rest is the IGBT, which functions as a kind of electronic switch.
A CFL lamp needs such a switch as opposed to a tungsten-based lamp. In the latter, energy is lost due to the heating required by the tungsten filament. A CFL lamp works through a gas discharge. IGBTs are used to generate the gas discharge, which lights up the bulb. The IGBT’s other advantage was to allow for electronics to fit into the small volume of the base below the gas tube.
The use of electronics helped bring down the size, as well as the cost, of CFL lamps. Compared to incandescent bulbs, CFL bulbs improved lighting efficiency by 75 per cent. Use of CFL lamps instead of traditional lighting, in the last 25 years, has saved the world 73,000 Terawatt-hours of energy and almost 5.7 trillion litres of gas, and has helped decrease carbon dioxide emissions by 49.5 billion metric tonnes.
General Electric then accepted the technology for a range of small appliances (steam irons, space heaters, etc), major appliances (refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, etc), air-conditioning heat pumps, numerical controls for factory automation (robotics), lighting products, and even in their medical products (X-ray, CAT, MRI).
Dr. Baliga’s 1979 theory relating properties of semiconductors to the performance of power devices resulted in an equation named Baliga’s figure of merit (BFOM). This led to a comparison among semiconductor materials – Silicon, Gallium Arsenide and Silicon Carbide. This predicted 13.7x enhanced performance by replacing Silicon with Gallium Arsenide and it predicted 200x enhanced performance by replacing Silicon with Silicon Carbide.
New Fishery and Oceanographic Research Vessel (FORV)
Expert Committee constituted by the Ministry of Earth Sciences have drawn up the scientific specifications for a Fishery and Oceanographic Research Vessel (FORV) that would be used for marine and ocean research. The new vessel is being envisaged as a replacement to the ageing Sagar Sampada, which has been facilitating marine research activities of India since 1984.
The FORV would have latest hydro-acoustic equipment, low noise signature for minimum fish stock disturbance, together with increased stability in worse weather conditions and overall cost effectiveness, it says. The proposed vessel would have a length 90 metres.
It will have on board, fish-finding sonar with long range capability to detect fish schools to about 3,000 metres under favourable oceanographic situations. The long-range detection of fish shoals would be obtained by omni-directional transducers operating at a frequency range between 20 Hz and 30 kHz. Hull-mounted high-precision acoustic position system transponders, fishing equipment and deck-controlled underwater video cameras will be on board.
The Automatic Weather Station on board the vessel would have facilities to record wind speed/direction, wave heave, roll and pitch, sea surface temperature, sea surface air temperature sensor and other sensors with data telemetry for in-situ data collection onboard.
Buoys for monitoring sub-sea parameters including wave height and period, sea current speed and direction, dissolved oxygen and facilities for keeping track of solar radiation will also be on board. There would be an integrated fish-finding system and facilities for preparing electronic chart for seabed mapping interface with echo-sounder data from the scientific echo sounder.
A hydraulically operated fish handling and conveyor system will be on board for the convenient sorting and studies of fish catch.
The vessel will also be equipped with multi-function positioning transponder, deep-sea echo sounder, high-precision scientific wide band fishery echo sounder, hull-mounted broadband acoustic doppler, spectrometric auto-analyser for nutrient analysis, salinometer, digital deep sea reversing thermometers, in situ chlorophyll analyser and laboratory table-mounted dissolved organic carbon analyser for sea water analysis.
Micro, nano, pico plankton/algae culture facility, high magnification trinocular microscope with digital PC output and onscreen display has also been proposed.
FORV Sagar Sampada
Fishery Oceanographic Research Vessel Sagar Sampada (FORV Sagar Sampada) is an Indian research vessel that is equipped to carry out multidisciplinary research in oceanography, marine biology and fishery science. The vessel is currently managed and operated by the Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology (CMLRE), Kochi, a research institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, and is operated from Kochi. FORV Sagar Sampada is a platform for interdisciplinary expeditions in and around the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone, with participation from various institutions, from India and abroad.
Built in Denmark, the vessel was commissioned at Mumbai in 1984. As of June 2014, FORV Sagar Sampada has completed 326 oceanographic expeditions, which includes one expedition to the Southern Ocean in the winter of 1995-96 for surveying fishery resources in Antarctic waters
The vessel would cost around Rs.700 crore and is expected to be ready for its maiden cruise by 2020.
DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course)
DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course) is the name given to the tuberculosis control strategy recommended by the World Health Organization. According to WHO, “The most cost-effective way to stop the spread of TB in communities with a high incidence is by curing it. The best curative method for TB is known as DOTS.” DOTS has five main components:
- Government commitment (including political will at all levels, and establishment of a centralized and prioritized system of TB monitoring, recording and training).
- Case detection by sputum smear microscopy.
- Standardized treatment regimen directly of six to nine months observed by a healthcare worker or community health worker for at least the first two months.
- A drug supply.
- A standardized recording and reporting system that allows assessment of treatment results.
Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program
Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program (RNTCP) is the state-run tuberculosis (TB) control initiative of the Government of India. As per the National Strategic Plan 2012–17, the program has a vision of achieving a “TB free India”, and aims to achieve Universal Access to TB control services. The program provides, various free of cost, quality tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment services across the country through the government health system.