According to the Ministry of Science & Technology, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) virtually interacted with the 26 winners of the Initiative for Research and Innovation in STEM -IRIS National Fair, who participated as ‘Team India 2021’ in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). These students have competed with 1833 budding scientists from 64 countries, regions, and territories across the globe and won 17 awards.

“Creativity is connecting dots of knowledge. Our aim should be to become a creative thinker with some nonlinear expertise and to reach out to connect the dots,” Prof. Sharma said on the occasion. He went through all the projects and complimented the winners on the research they had conducted. Also present on the occasion were Dr. Praveen Arora, Head NCSTC, Department of Science and Technology; and Sujit Banerjee, Scientist F, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Ms. Sharon E. Kumar, Fair Director IRIS and Chief Operations Officer, EXSTEMPLAR Education Linkers Foundation, said that IRIS is a platform which celebrates the journey of innovation. The success of programs such as IRIS brings accolades back home and gives an opportunity to young students to showcase their scientific talent at the international stage.

IRIS National Fair was held virtually this year and saw participation from more than 65,000 students and science enthusiasts, wherein the projects represented a wide range of scientific disciplines and were judged under 21 categories. Each project went through a stringent judging process to select Team India 2021. The team was subsequently mentored by the IRIS Scientific Review Committee members to prepare it for participation in ISEF.

‘IRIS National Fair’ is a program of EXSTEMPLAR Education Linkers Foundation; funded by Broadcom and supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. School students based in India in the age group 10 to 17 with innovative projects can participate in it responding to invitations for applications.

IRIS aligns with 5 national level mega-fairs – National Children Science Congress (NCSC); Science Fair by National Council of Science Museums (NCSM); Jawaharlal Nehru Science Fair by National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT); Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Science Exhibition; Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) awards program.

To ensure that the best quality projects from across the country represent India and compete on an international platform, the best-performing students from these fairs are encouraged to participate in the IRIS fair. Selected National Award-winning projects from each of these fairs are invited to participate in Mentoring and Evaluation Camps. They are motivated to develop their projects to meet international standards, after which 5 projects per fair are selected for the IRIS National fair as lateral entries. A 70: 30 model is followed whereby 70 percent of the students are selected from open competition and 30 percent from among the best 5 in the other fairs.

Mumbai: India’s first and only Swadesi public cloud storage DigiBoxx™️ announced that it has acquired over 1 million users within six months of its launch. The platform witnessed over 16% users being active on a daily basis.

Launched in December 2020 by Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, the platform is an Indian digital file storage, sharing and data management SaaS product that provides storage options for individuals and SMEs who wish to store their personal and work data.

The easy to navigate and pocket friendly storage solution is available in monthly and yearly plans starting at INR. 30 per month. For individuals, there is a free account that comes with 20 GB storage, a 2GB maximum file size, and Gmail integration. For SMBs, the INR. 999 plan includes up to 50TB storage and a 10GB maximum file size. True to its ‘Swadesi’ philosophy, Digiboxx is available in Android, iOS and a desktop version currently supporting 8 Indian languages. Digiboxx also plans for launching in other regional languages in its efforts to cater to 700 Mn Indian Internet users across the nation.

Reports suggest that clicking selfies and taking videos are now considered a daily ‘ritual’ for the Indian youth with an average age of 23, they click a minimum of 7 selfies a day. The number can go up to even 100 during festive times and special occasions. Such drastic increases in mobile usage behavior have resulted in storage space becoming a real problem for smartphone users in India and the demand for free and reasonably priced space is ever increasing. With dominant players in the cloud storage services ending free storage for their customers, Digiboxx is the only platform that provides 100GB of storage at INR 1 per day and free storage for all users up to 20GB.

Commenting on the success, Amitabh Kant said, “Touching 1 million lives in just 6 months is a notable achievement, especially for a bootstrapped firm. DigiBoxx has progressed well and has taken calculative steps to reach this stage. India needs more such home-grown technologies to fulfil our vision of an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat.’ As the global tech COS move away from providing the public cloud access for free, DigiBoxx is poised to step into this vacuum, with its aggressive pricing and free storage options for individuals, businesses and academics.”

On the occasion of hitting 1 MN subscribers, Arnab Mitra, CEO, DigiBoxx said, “Launched last year in December, Digiboxx is already being used by over a million users across the country. Together we want to build a Digital Storage facility for the people of our country. Our target is to provide a simple to use, comprehensive solution around storage in 8 Indian languages available in all devices especially to the Indian residents. We are confident of reaching 2 million by the end of this year and the discontinuation of free storage by the tech majors is an opportunity for us.”

Digiboxx offers intuitive services at a lower price, compared to the competition. The swadesi platform offers a search function by keyword, location, or name. Using the app is easy – just drag-and-drop files in, that is encrypted and uploaded on the go. It’s a relatively simple but effective service which makes cloud storage accessible and secure by syncing files between all the devices.

Apart from this, it’s possible to share important files with other people even if they aren’t DigiBoxx users. InstaShare™️, a file-sharing feature allows them to share large-size documents, high-resolution images, videos, PDFs in real quick time with anyone. It has free 2GB storage space and the file shared stays for 45 days in DigiBoxx.

About DigiBoxx™️

DigiBoxx™️ is an intelligent Indian digital file storage and sharing platform that’s secure, fast, intuitive, and easy on the pocket. With a goal to make digital asset management go vocal for local, we have built a robust technology that’s world-class and yet keeps in mind the flavors of India. DigiBoxx™️ is the first of its kind cutting edge indigenous digital asset management SaaS platform introduced in India. It is a tech startup founded and promoted by Arnab Mitra, MD, LIQVD ASIA along with Ashish Jalan and Vivek Suchanti, Concept Group.

According to the Ministry of Science & Technology, the virucidal mask project is among the earliest projects to have been selected for commercialization, by Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, as part of the Government’s fight against COVID-19.

The project received financial support from TDB as part of its search for novel solutions to fight COVID-19 in May 2020.Following this, an agreement was signed on 8^th July, 2020 for developing the masks. The 2016-incorporated firm claims that these cost-effective masks are more effective in checking the spread of COVID-19, in comparison with ordinary N-95, 3-ply and cloth masks.

Thincr Technologies India works in development of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D-printers to discover new pharmaceutical formulations and drug-loaded filaments of different drugs. Founder Director Dr. Shitalkumar Zambad explains, “We started thinking of the problem and possible solutions, during the initial days of the pandemic. We sensed that use of face masks will become nearly universal as the most important tool to prevent infection. But we realized that most masks which were then available and within the reach of common people were homemade and of relatively low quality. It is this need for high-quality masks which led us to undertake a project to develop and commercialize cost-effective and more efficient virucidal coated masks, as a better approach to reduce the spread of infection”.

With this aim, Thincr Technologies began to focus on developing virucidal coating formulations. It was developed with support from Merck Life Sciences located in Nerul, whose research facility was used for the purpose. The coating formulation has been utilized to coat the fabric layer and the 3D printing principle was employed to achieve uniformity of coating. The coated layer can be incorporated as an additional layer in N-95 masks, 3-Ply masks, simple cloth masks, 3D printed or other plastic cover masks, along with reusable filters. These masks thus provide an additional protection beyond the protection achieved by filtration mechanisms.

The coating has been tested and shown to inactivate the SARS-COV-2 virus. The material used for coating on the mask is a Sodium Olefin Sulfonate based mixture. It is a soap forming agent with hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties. In contact with enveloped viruses, it disrupts the outer membrane of the virus. The ingredients used are stable at room temperature and are widely used in cosmetics.

The filters of these reusable masks have also been developed using 3D printing. Further, Dr. Zambad says that the masks have been found to have bacterial filtration efficiency higher than 95%. “In this project, for the first time, we used 3D-printers to make multilayer cloth filters to precisely fit for plastic-moulded or 3D-printed mask covers”.

Thincr Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. has applied for a patent for this product. Commercial scale manufacturing has also started, informs Dr. Zambad. Meanwhile, 6,000 virucidal masks have been distributed by an NGO to four Government Hospitals in Nandurbar, Nashik and Bengaluru, for use by healthcare workers and also to a girls’ school and college in Bengaluru.

Varanasi: Prof. ON Srivastava, Emeritus Professor, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), who was known for his contributions to the disciplines of hydrogen energy and nanotechnology, is no more. He succumbed to coronavirus at the Sir Sunderlal Hospital of BHU on Saturday. He was 79.

Born in 1942, Prof. Srivastava was a material physicist and vice president for India and South Asia of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy. He was the author of two books and over 440 scientific papers and a recipient of several honors including Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the highest Indian award in the science and technology categories. He received the fourth highest civilian honour – Padma Shri in 2016, for his contributions to science.

He obtained his master’s degree in Physics (MSc) in 1961 from BHU and followed it up with a doctoral degree (PhD) from the same institution, under the guidance of renowned physicist Ajit Ram Verma, in 1966. After doing his post-doctoral research at Cornell University, USA, he returned to India to start his career as a lecturer at BHU, where he served in different capacities as that of a reader, professor, head of the department of physics and the coordinator of the Centre of Advance Studies-Hydrogen Energy Centre. After his superannuation from service, he continues his association with the university as a professor emeritus and as an associate faculty member of Condensed Matter Experiment research program of the university.

Prof. Srivastava was a former member of the board of directors of The World Academy of Sciences. Under his guidance, the Hydrogen Energy Centre of BHU got involved in advance research on the practical applications of hydrogen fuel, in association with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), of the Government of India.

He published two books, Crystallography Applied to Solid State Physics and Formation and phase stability of Al based quasicrystals: Quasicrystal and over 440 scientific papers. He delivered keynote addresses in a number of science seminars and had undertaken several projects for various government agencies; Nanoscience and Technology of the Department of Science and Technology (2005–2010), Support to Hydrogen Energy Centre (2007–2012), Development & Demonstration of Hydrogen Catalytic Combustion Cookers (2007–2010), Development & Demonstration of Hydrogen Fueled three wheelers (2009–2012), Mission Mode Project on Hydrogen Storage Materials (Hydride) (2009–2014), all of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and Synthesis Characterization and Properties of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes (2009–2012) of the Defence Research and Development Organization.

New Delhi: A National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications (NM-QTA) with a total budget outlay of Rs 8000 Crore has been announced by the government in its budget 2020. It will be for a period of five years to be implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2020 speech said that the new economy is based on innovations that disrupt established business models. Artificial intelligence, Internet-of-Things (IoT), 3D printing, drones, DNA data storage, quantum computing, etc., are re-writing the world economic order. “Quantum technology is opening up new frontiers in computing, communications, cyber security with wide-spread applications. It is expected that lots of commercial applications would emerge from theoretical constructs which are developing in this area”, she added.

The US, China and the European Union are all in a battle for quantum superiority. In 2018 America decided to invest 1.2 billion dollars for quantum research. Chinese President Xi Jinping has committed billions of dollars for quantum computing as it expects to achieve significant quantum breakthroughs by 2030. India definitely don’t want to stay behind. The NM-QTA Mission will be able to address the ever-increasing technological requirements of the society, and take into account the international technology trends and road maps of leading countries for development of next generation technologies.

Quantum computing is an area of computing focused on developing computer technology based on the principles of quantum theory, which explains the behavior of energy and material on the atomic and subatomic levels. Computers that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. All computing systems rely on a fundamental ability to store and manipulate information. Current computers manipulate individual bits, which store information as binary 0 and 1 states. Quantum computers leverage quantum mechanical phenomena to manipulate information. To do this, they rely on quantum bits, or qubits.

Quantum industry is said to be the holy grail of the technology industry. Quantum computing will process data of mind-boggling sizes in a few milliseconds, something a classical computer would take years to do. Quantum technologies are rapidly developing globally with a huge disruptive potential. The next generation transformative technologies that will receive a push under this mission include quantum computers and computing, quantum communication, quantum key distribution, encryption, crypt analysis, quantum devices, quantum sensing, quantum materials, quantum clock and so on. Quantum computing is expanding to multiple industries such as banking, capital markets, insurance, automotive, aerospace, and energy.

A Bhilai based startup ‘BosonQ’ is building technical infrastructure with a vision to create premier Multiphysics simulation software for quantum computing. ‘Qulabs’ was one of the first quantum computing startups in India. Founded in 2017, It aims to provide services in quantum machine learning, quantum communication, quantum computations, quantum algorithms and simulations, etc. with a multidisciplinary group of research scientists and engineers from IITs, ISI and IISc. Companies like ‘Automatski’, which has a presence in Bengaluru and Los Angeles, are performing research into several areas of quantum inspired software to stimulate various quantum configuration.

Implementation of the NM-QTA mission would help develop and bring quantum computers, secured communications through fibre and free space, quantum encryption and crypt-analysis and associated technologies within reach in the country and help address India specific national and regional issues.

(PBNS)

New Delhi: The CISR- National Institution of Oceanography has launched a 90-day expedition to the Indian ocean which will conduct different researches and will collect samples for genome and proteome mapping of microorganisms present in the ocean water and sediments.

The team will be cruising through CSIR-NIOs Research Vessel Sindhu Sadhana. The team of researchers is led by Samir R Damare. The Expedition team consists of 23 scientists that include six women scientists. The task is not easy as the team will cover over 18,520 kilometers in the Indian ocean to collect samples.

The research is the first of its kind in India. The research aims to understand the genetic of the different organisms in different regions of the Indian ocean. The results of the research will help in understanding the biochemistry of the organism present in the ocean and sediments. Further, the results will help in better undertaking oceans response towards climate change and ocean pollution.

The team will be cruising through the Indian Ocean from India’s east coast to Australia and then onward towards Port Louis in Mauritius and up to the border of Pakistan. The team will look to unravel the mysteries in the Indian Ocean by gathering samples for genome mapping of microorganisms. The researchers will also collect samples from various stretches of the ocean at an average depth of about 5 km.

At various stages and stretches, samples will be collected by lowering a Kevlar cable of up to 8 km with a set of 24 Teflon coated bottles to collect samples. The Kevlar cable and the Teflon coating will ensure the quality of samples. The samples will be stored at -60 degrees Celsius with the help of liquid nitrogen. While some samples will be tested at six laboratories on the ship only while several other samples will be brought back to NIO for further studies and analysis over the next three years.

This research will open doors for more researches as it will add to our current understanding of oceans. It will surely help scientists to understand the internal working of the ecosystem of the Indian Ocean. The expedition will also Identify Mineral Concentration in the Indian ocean giving a clearer picture of which minerals or elements have a greater concentration across the Indian ocean.

New Delhi: Scientists from Bangalore have developed a highly reliable, High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMTs) that is a normally OFF device and can switch currents up to 4A and operates at 600V.

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, this first-ever indigenous HEMT device made from gallium nitride (GaN) is useful in electric cars, locomotives, power transmission and other areas requiring high voltage and high-frequency switching would reduce the cost of importing such stable and efficient transistors required in power electronics.

Power electronic systems demand high blocking voltage in OFF-state and high current in ON-state for efficient switching performance. Specific transistors called HEMTs made of aluminium gallium nitride/ gallium nitride (AlGaN/GaN) provides an edge over silicon-based transistors as they allow the systems to operate at very high voltages, switch ON and OFF faster, and occupy less space. Commercially available AlGaN/GaN HEMTs use techniques to keep the transistor in normally OFF state, which affects the stability, performance and reliability of the device.

Therefore, to meet this need, Prof. Mayank Shrivastava, Dept. of Electronic Systems Engineering, his co-investigators Prof. G. Narayanan, Prof. Digbijoy Nath, Prof. Srinivasan Raghavan and Prof. Navakanta Bhat, from Department of Electrical Engineering, and Centre for Nanoscience & Engineering, and their students, all from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc), have developed the new kind of HEMT, which is in the OFF state by default and works like any other commonly used power transistor. Such transistors are called e-mode or enhancement mode transistors. Supported by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, they developed the new technology and device architecture using an Aluminium titanium oxide gate.

The developed technology is a first of its kind, which uses a type of chemical called ternary oxide (composed of two different metal ions combined in an oxide matrix or Al, Ti and O), which behaves like material having larger positive charge concentration (p-type material). It does away with intrinsic reliability and performance issues of the in-use industrial techniques for e-mode HEMTs, allowing the development of efficient power switching systems.

This device will now be taken up for the prototype development and field-testing level (TRL 5). The scientists used aluminium titanium oxide as the gate oxide, where the percentage of aluminium could be controlled during the fabrication process. Since aluminium titanium oxide is stable, it resulted in high reliability of the transistor.

The projected overall power device market is set to cross the 18 Billion $ mark by 2020, out of which the market for HEMTs is projected to cross the 5 Billion US$ market. So, GaN HEMTs will acquire a major share of the power device market. With a growing market for electric vehicles in India, such an indigenous development can make India self-reliant for transistor technology.

Varanasi: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed on Friday between Atal Incubation Centre – Mahamana Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship-IM-BHU and Drill Insight Pvt Ltd, a technology driven consulting company based in Australia for a joint effort towards promoting excellence in the area of entrepreneurship.

The CEO of the Atal Incubation Center, Paritosh Tripathi said that the purpose of this MoU is to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem with the help of present industry leaders, leveraging their experience and expertise in different areas of collaboration. “In today’s technological age, emerging technologies i.e. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT) & Blockchain will contribute to next generation of technological development. With this MoU, our incubatee start-ups and entrepreneurs will find guidance and support to work on these critical technologies and will be better equipped for further research and applications.” said Tripathi.

Abhijit Barhate, Director, Drill Insight Pvt Ltd, said that their company has always been a strong advocate of encouraging research through knowledge sharing and development training with the help of industry-academia collaboration. Atal Incubation Centre and Drill Insight will jointly work towards developing solutions with cloud based Cyber and Critical technology assisting various stakeholders in Australia and India.

The MoU was signed through a virtual video conference where Mr. Abhijit Barhate, Director, Drill Insight Pvt Ltd, Mr. Paritosh Tripathi, CEO, AIC – Mahamana Foundation for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Dr. P. V. Rajeev, were present for the signing ceremony.

Varanasi. Researchers at School of Biochemical Engineering, IIT (BHU) Dr. Vishal Mishra and his Ph.D. students Veer Singh and Jyoti Singh have synthesized an eco-friendly adsorbent which can remove toxic heavy metal ions such as hexavalent chromium from wastewater.

The hexavalent chromium is responsible for several types of health problems in the human like various types of cancers, kidney and liver failure. This is new eco-friendly product synthesized from rice husk via several modification. Dr. Mishra said that this adsorbent is very effective for removal of toxic metal ions from wastewater compared to other conventional methods and take less time to remove toxic metals contamination. End of the wastewater treatment process, this adsorbent can easily separate from solution and can be used in the next adsorption cycle. Dr. Mishra and his students have been proved this adsorbent shows effective adsorption-cum-reduction of hexavalent chromium. Dr. Mishra and his researcher scholar Veer Singh and Jyoti Singh published this work in the “Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering” journal.

In developing countries, the water-borne diseases are the major problem. According to World Health Organization (WHO) each year 3.4 million people, mostly children, die from water-related diseases. WHO reports that over 2.6 billion people lack access to clean water, which is responsible for about 2.2 million deaths annually, of which 1.4 million are children. Improving water quality can reduce the global water-borne diseases.

Cancer due to heavy metals is a severe problem worldwide. The developing countries such as India and China are very prone to heavy metal contaminations. Human intake heavy metals mainly through skin contact, intake of contaminated water or contamination in the food product. The heavy metals not only cause normal diseases in human body but also results in dangerous disease like cancer. Report from water resources ministry says that large number of Indian population drink water with lethal levels of toxic heavy metals, about 239 million people across 153 districts in 21 states drink water that contains unacceptably high levels of toxic metal ions. WHO has warned that long-term intake water containing toxic heavy metals such as Pb, Cr(VI), Cd and as may cause cancer of skin, gall bladder, kidney or lungs.

Socio economic aspect of this research: This research is focused on the cost-effective, eco-friendly method for removal of heavy metal ions such hexavalent chromium from water. Rice huskies easily available worldwide. Adsorbent synthesized from rice husk and surface of this adsorbent modified through iron doped. Iron doping make it suitable for transformation of Cr (VI) to Cr (III). Cr (III) is 100 times less toxic with comparison Cr (VI).

Lucknow: In a big boost to development of key IT infrastructure to fulfill the needs of industry and businesses, Singapore based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) India has proposed to develop a Greenfield Data Centre Campus in NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh.

In a meeting with Additional Chief Secretary, Industrial Development, Alok Kumar, STT GDC India representative informed that in the first phase the company proposed to develop the data centre campus with Critical IT capacity of 18 MW with an estimated investment of Rs 600 crores. It is expected to create 30-40 direct and around 550 indirect and induced employment avenues.

Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Dinesh Sharma said that in consonance with Union government’s programme to promote growth of digital economy, Uttar Pradesh government was taking various initiatives under the guidance of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to attract investment in Data Centre development and operations sector, which has become a crucial necessity for big enterprises in different sectors.

Kumar said that proposed campus was suitably located within easy access of the industrial hub and the National Capital with seamless international connectivity. He said that there was significant presence of industry and IT majors in and around NOIDA, which would aid in quickly evolving the region as a major Data Centre hub in north India.

“In view of the web-based and digitally driven economy gaining prominence, the State government is preparing new data centre policy with the objective of creating state-of-the-art data and IT ecosystem to meet the requirements of industry, enterprises and citizens,” he said.

A land parcel of around three acres has been already identified by the investor in Noida to set up the data centre campus, which would be scalable to 36 MW IT load data centre capacity in second phase with an additional investment of Rs 500 crores excluding the land cost. After the completion of second phase, total estimated investment would be around Rs 1100 crores with approximately 80 direct job opportunities and around 1000 indirect and induced employment avenues.

The proposed Data centre campus is aimed at providing services to major cloud players, hyperscalers (an operator of a data center that offers scalable cloud computing services) and large enterprise clients.

A data center is a facility that centralizes the shared IT activities and equipment of an organization for the purpose of storing, processing and disseminating information and applications.

Formerly known as Tata Communications Data Centres Pvt. Ltd., STT Global Data Centres India is a majority owned subsidiary of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres of Singapore. STT DCG India operates 16 data centres across eight cities in India with an IT load capacity of over 110 MW, whereas, the parent holding company – ST Telemedia-Singapore operates a portfolio of over 112 data centres across nations directly or indirectly.