Category Archives: Science & Technology

Excellence on Tour flagged off in Hyderabad

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion
Showcasing Indo-German collaboration: Micheal Steiner (left) , German Ambassador in India, with Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan at the German House for Research and Innovation -Excellence on Tour 2013, in Hyderabad on Friday . - P.V. Sivakumar / The Hindu
Showcasing Indo-German collaboration: Micheal Steiner (left) , German Ambassador in India, with Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan at the German House for Research and Innovation -Excellence on Tour 2013, in Hyderabad on Friday . – P.V. Sivakumar / The Hindu

Hyderabad : 

An eight-day Excellence on Tour, an initiative by the German Government involving a variety of programmes to showcase Indo-German collaboration in science and technology, was flagged off here today.

The event is being organised by the German House for Research and Innovation, New Delhi and supported by the Andhra Pradesh Government.

The event will feature exhibitions, workshops, lectures, symposiums and cultural events. The Indo-German Science Slam will be one of the special attractions, witnessing researchers present their topic of interest in ten minutes.

The German Ambassador to India, Michael Steiner, and AP Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, inaugurated the event at Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology.

Interactive sessions with students and academicians during the event will cover topics such as molecular biology, non-invasive medical diagnostics, engineering sciences, geophysical research, climate change and astronomy.

The opening day also brings to India the renowned Guntur Bennung, popularly known as Clown Shiven, who has been travelling worldwide as a clown for 33 years.

The German Government has set up the German House for Research and Innovation in five countries, including Sao Paulo (Brazil), Moscow (Russua), New York, Tokyo and more recently in New Delhi. The New Delhi centre has 14 institutions from science and industry as members. Flagging off the event, Michael Steiner said although Indo-German collaboration was increasing in different fields, “we do not know enough about each other.” There was still a “knowledge gap”, he said, adding that such events would help bridge this gap. Narasimhan said technology by its very nature was penetrating and has gone far ahead than its alter ego, science. “We have become addicted to products of technology to entertain us and engross us. As a result the ‘human’ in us is diminished,” he pointed out.

The event will move on later this year to two more Indian cities—Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by the Hindu Bureau – amitmirta@thehindu.co.in / Hyderabad, April 28th, 2013

NDDB pats Karimnagar Dairy for launching welfare schemes

Business & Economy, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Science & Technology

National Dairy Development Board team inspects functioning of the dairy

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) authorities were all praise for the Karimnagar district milk producer company (Karimnagar Dairy) for launching several welfare schemes for the milk producers and also taking measures for increasing the milk production.

The eight-member NDDB team led by S.K. Dalaal is on a three-day tour of the district to inspect the functioning of the dairy activities, procurement of milk from villages, welfare schemes and other expansion programmes.

The NDDB team toured the villages on Thursday and on Friday and had meeting with the Karimnagar Dairy authorities, including chairman Ch. Rajeshwara Rao and managing director V. Hanumantha Reddy.

The NDDB authorities said that Karimnagar Dairy was doing well and there was a lot of scope for the expansion of its activities to meet the demand in the future.

The authorities said that they were also planning for the inclusion of Karimnagar Dairy in the National Dairy Plan to provide funds for the increasing the milk production, sources said.

The Karimnagar Dairy authorities explained to the NDDB team about the growth of the dairy over the last one decade with the farmer-friendly policies and increase of milk production and sales.

The NDDB authorities complimented the Karimnagar Dairy authorities for launching the ‘Paalanidhi’, a social security pension scheme to the milk producers, which was not existing in any dairy of Andhra Pradesh state.

  • NDDB planning to include Karimnagar Dairy in National Dairy Plan to provide funds
  • NDDB praises launching of ‘Paalanidhi’, a pension scheme for milk producers 

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by Staff Reporter / Karimnagar, April 27th, 2013

Hay-granary technology still popular in Krishna

Business & Economy, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Science & Technology
A farmer proudly displays the traditional granary made of spliced hay for storing grains in Kuchipudi in Krishna District. Photo: T. Appala Naidu / The Hindu
A farmer proudly displays the traditional granary made of spliced hay for storing grains in Kuchipudi in Krishna District. Photo: T. Appala Naidu / The Hindu

Farmers having a land-holding of not less than four-acres are largely dependent on traditional ‘Purri (granary)’ method of storing foodgrains, arguably free from rot and rain affect.

Gone are the days in Krishna district where farmers had to depend on middlemen for selling crop, as they had no godown space to store the produce till it fetched remunerative price. In this traditional farmers’ technology, two-lines of large rope made of spliced hay is tied surrounding a mud-clad space created with gunny bags and the soil for basement.

While constructing the hay rope granary, some farmers use gunny bags to create necessary space, which is simultaneously filled by pouring grains, others make a tight rope tied around a mud wall. “The granary set up in open space would never absorb rainwater and grains are safe from any weather condition” said a woman farmer and entrepreneur M. Vijaya Lakshmi from Kuchipudi.

“It’s a method in which rotting of grains is never reported and even mice cannot gain entry due to its thickness and strength,” added Vijaya Lakshmi, who built 120-bag capacity granary outside her residence by spending Rs.1,500 for labour charges. The strength of the granary depends on how much hay is used in the making of the rope. Irrespective of height or width, each granary serves the purpose for two-years to store grains.

This kind of granary is largely being used to store paddy and blackgram in Krishna district. Unprecedented number of hay granaries welcome the visitor in the villages which are far from mandal headquarters, and which are plagued by poor transportation facilities. Even in Diviseema and Kuchipudi areas village elders said that the farmers in Krishna district used to store grain underground till 1980s.

While small farmers prefer the method of storing grains for their domestic needs, middle and big farmers construct it in business interest, and store the produce till price in market goes up. “This age-old rural technology is a boon for people like me as I have no space inside the house to store the produce,” said Peketi Seetarami Reddy of Kaja village in Movva.

Mr. Reddy, tenant farmer in 23 acres, also buys paddy from his fellow farmers at low prices and stores it for better marketing prices in his 150-bags capacity hay granary. Expert in making hay granary construction, 55-year-old K. Seetaramayya of Arisepalli is happy that the work keeps him busy every January and brings numerous orders. He reveals that he too set up a granary, storing barely 15-bags of paddy for domestic grain storage.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Andhra Pradesh / by T. Appala Naidu / Machilipatnam, April 27th, 2013

Nasscom invites applications for 10,000 start-up programme

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Hyderabad :

Nasscom, which recently launched its ‘10,000 start-ups’ programme, Wednesday announced inviting applications from innovative technology start-ups across the country.

The association has already received over 1,000 applications from budding start-ups since the launch of the programme and is expected to receive 5,000 applications in the next eight weeks.

Nasscom President Som Mittal told reporters that applicants should log on to start-up portal  www.10000startups.com

Nasscom will shortlist 500 entrepreneurs who will be eligible for funding of Rs.25 lakh to Rs.2 crore through the leading angel investor networks of the country.

Selected start-ups will be offered three to four months of incubation along with co-working space at affordable cost.

Under the programme, for which Google, Microsoft and others have partnered with Nasscom, 10,000 technology start-ups will be funded in 10 years.

“We expect 15 of these start-ups will be billion dollar companies,” he said.

The programme is expected to increase start-up funding by 10 times, seed funding by 20 times and start-up jobs by five times. Nasscom expects over 500,000 jobs will be created at the start-up level itself.

The selected start-ups will be provided with a start-up kit worth Rs.10 lakh comprising free business tools from Microsoft, AWS and Google.

Nasscom Wednesday signed MoUs with Hyderabad Angels as funding partner and with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and IIIT Hyderabad as incubators to collaborate and support the creation of an ecosystem to foster technology entrepreneurship.

“We have to create an environment where that early stage funding comes in,” Mittal said, adding that such early stage funding by professionals is lacking in the country.

Andhra Pradesh has been identified as an important start-up hub.

The number of start-ups in India has risen from 162 in 2006 to 450 in 2012.

Stating that massive markets erre emerging for start-ups in India, he said that Internet users were expected to rise to 650 million by 2025 while wireless users are likely to reach one billion.

Global opportunities are $17 billion in big data and $50 billion in enterprise mobility by 2015 and $50 billion in enterprise SAAS by 2025.

source: http://www.twocircles.net / Home> India News / by IANS / April 10th, 2013

Vodafone opens all-women store in Hyderabad

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Records, All, Science & Technology
An all-women Vodafone Angel Store opened for business in Hyderabad on Tuesday. -- P. V..Sivakumar / The Hindu
An all-women Vodafone Angel Store opened for business in Hyderabad on Tuesday. — P. V..Sivakumar / The Hindu

Hyderabad : 

Vodafone India launched its first store run and managed entirely by women employees in Andhra Pradesh in Hyderabad today.

This is the 13th such store of the company and operates under the brand name ‘Vodafone Angel Store’.

“We have launched this concept as part of our commitment to women empowerment. We are opening one store in each State and will subsequently expand the network,” Mandeep Singh Bhatia, Business Head-Andhra Pradesh, said.

Right from security to management-level personnel, these stores have all-women staff. Women employees constitute about 13 per cent of the company’s total staff.

Bhatia said its current subscriber base in the State was about six million. “We have achieved about 75 per cent coverage across the State through 8,300 towers,” he said adding that it did not have immediate plans to expand its tower network.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> News> National / by The Hindu Bureau   amitmitra@thehindu.co.in /  Hyderabad, April 09th, 2013

Hyderabadi kid at Intel Science Fair

Education, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, Science & Technology, World Opinion
Prithvi’s project was one of the three projects selected out of 289 entries for representing Singapore at The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition.
Prithvi’s project was one of the three projects selected out of 289 entries for representing Singapore at The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition.

An alumnus of Hyderabad Public School(HPS), Begumpet, G Prithvi, 17 will be representing Singapore in The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, USA from May 12 to 17.

Prithvi’s project was one of the three projects selected out of 289 entries for representing Singapore at the fair, which is the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. The fair provides an annual forum for more than 1,500 high school students from about 70 countries, regions, and territories to showcase their independent research as they compete for over $3 million annually. The Intel ISEF is the premier global science competition for students in grades 9-12.

Talking of his achievement, Prithvi says, “The recognition is the result of hours of my work, and it is the first success towards fulfilling my ambition to be scientist.”

Prithvi now lived in Singapore with his parents and is currently class 12 at St. Andrews Junior College, Singapore. His ambition is to become a scientist and do research in Particle Physics.

Prithvi was working on research into high performance anodes for Lithium ion batteries using Cobalt compounds obtained by bulk preparation methods at National University of Singapore, and the project was selected for participation in the Singapore Science and Technology fair held recently.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express Features – Hyderabad / April 09th, 2013

MakeMyDabba unlocks culinary skills of homemakers

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Science & Technology

Hyderabad :

Like several homemakers, Aruna Chaparala, who lives in Chandanagar that abuts the IT hub, cooks great food. But all these years, her culinary skills are by and large confined to her family and close kin. But she has just unlocked her skills.

She has become a Partner Chef with a tech start-up that finds a business model in tapping the skill hitherto not valued much outside confines of the house.

Founded by two techies, MakeMyDabba.com targets to address the need for proper dining places for techies and other migrant population in urban areas.

“When you live in a new city, you long for your ethnic food. There are not many options available, say, if someone wants Tamil, Gujarati or Kannada. On the other hand, you have thousands of homemakers who cook wonderful food. We find an opportunity here in this social enterprise,” Akkiraju Bhattiprolu, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of MakeMyDabba.com, told Business Line.

For homemakers, they can cook a few more meals, depending on orders on hand and have it delivered at the customer’s place.

“We have spread the word through pamphlets, explaining our concept. We could rope in 65 Partner Chefs (The term they use for those who supply food) and about 200 customers. We are using social platforms such as Facebook to spread the word,” he said.

This is not the first start-up founded by Akkiraju. He along with his Bay Area (San Francisco) friend Rohit Mathur, have founded YAssume (which throws up meaningful contacts to quicken the marketing operations) but shut it down recently.

HOW IT WORKS

Using information technology tools, the Web site throws possible dining options from Partner Chefs near to your place. A customer can try food from the vendors near by at a discounted price. “If you like it, you can order food (lunches or dinners) for a certain period,” Akkiraju said.

Rohit Mathur, the other founder and Chief Executive Officer, is moving back to India to work on expansion to other cities. “We are getting enquiries from places like Bangalore and Gurgaon. This is a testimony for our business idea – there is a need for ethnic food,” Akkiraju said.

The start-up has begun talks for funding from institutional investors. “We are planning to sign a deal soon,” he said.

kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Industry> Info-Tech / by K. V. Kurmanath / Hyderabad, April 16th, 2013

30 Vizag school students for NASA space design contest

Education, Science & Technology

Students of Ravindra Bharathi School (RBS) will represent Andhra Pradesh in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contest for the year 2013.

Announcing this in Visakhapatnam on Friday, chairman of the schools M Subramanyam said this would be the fifth consecutive year that its students got selected for the contest. Five projects from Dwarakanagar branch and one project form Madhapur branch of the school in Hyderabad have been selected.

He said NASA invites projects from school children every year under its ‘NASA-AMSE’ Space settlement designs contest’.

Dean of the school GR Vasantha said the schools have been providing a ‘healthy and encouraging atmosphere’ for students to excel providing them the latest technology. This enabled the students to perform well in the NASA contests.

She said a group of 30 students from Dwarakanagar, MVP and Madhpur branches will attend the 32nd International Space Design Contest 2013 to be held in Sandiego, California, USA from May 23 to 27 this year.

‘It is the need for the hour for children to gain knowledge about different social elements by which children can be motivated to take up research and development in those areas’, she said.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> india-news / Andhra Pradesh / Hindustan Times, Visakhapatnam – April 05th, 2013

Call for development of more software products

Business & Economy, Science & Technology

 

Honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam P.A. Ramani launching the mobile version of a software product Online Medical Record Vault by Sajix Incorporation in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. Also seen are GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy and vice president of Sajix Arun Kharidehal.--/ Photo C.V.SUBRAHMANYAM / The Hindu
Honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam P.A. Ramani launching the mobile version of a software product Online Medical Record Vault by Sajix Incorporation in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. Also seen are GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy and vice president of Sajix Arun Kharidehal.–/ Photo C.V.SUBRAHMANYAM / The Hindu
Online medical record vault portal is the first launch of a software product from a company based in the city in the last two years and hope more such products are launched from the companies here, president of Visakhapatnam Information Technology Association Peter Schneeberger said.

Speaking at a function organised by VITA to launch the portal by GVMC Chief Medical Officer Ramana Murthy here on Thursday, Mr. Schneeberger said it was indeed remarkable especially when most IT companies in the city are into service. Going for a product requires tremendous effort in terms of planning and implementation, he added congratulating Sajix Incorporation and its vice-president (Business Development) Arun Kharidehal.

Noting that security of personal data is a key issue, Mr. Schneeberger urged the company to take steps to secure the data and also suggested that it be integrated with the hospital records. Mr. Kharidehal explained that the product complies with the security protocols specified by the US Government.

Sajix launched – iHelix Personal Health Record Portal called OMR Vault – at a function organised here.

The portal enables the registered users to upload their personal medical data and records and access it from anywhere.

Access to a database of medical records will help the doctors analyse their work and also improve their diagnosis of different diseases, honorary secretary IMA Visakhapatnam PA Ramani said. GVMC CMO commended the company for developing the first online medical record registry in the city and hoped that it would go a long way in help improving medical care. He urged the company to create awareness on the product among the common man.

All the employees of VITA are going to register on the portal, Mr. Kharidehal explained.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Visakhapatnam / by Special Correspondent / April 05th, 2013

USFDA lifts import alert on Aurobindo Pharma’s unit

Business & Economy, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Hyderabad :

The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has lifted an import alert on one of Aurobindo Pharma’s units here. “The USFDA, in a Web site update, has lifted the import alert for non-sterile products manufactured in Auro Pharma’s Unit-VI cephalosporin facility based in Hyderabad,” the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday.

The removal of the alert will help the Hyderabad-based company to resume the exports of nine products to the US market. Exports of these items were stopped after the alert on the facility imposed in February 2011. Prior to the alert, the Unit had registered annual sales of $33 million. Aurobindo Pharma’s scrip gained 11.67 per cent on the BSE on Thursday to end at Rs 145.90.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home / by The Hindu Bureau / Hyderabad, March 28th, 2013