📰 Fighting air pollution the green way
Vertical gardens can do a lot to clean the befouled urban air and relieve the concrete monotony
•The World Health Organisation recently released a list of the 20 most polluted cities, 14 of them Indian cities. Kanpur, Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, Patiala, Faridabad figure here. Delhi has been in the news for more than a decade, grappling with suspended particulate matter in its air, the levels of which are so high that seasonal health warnings have had to be issued. But it’s not just Delhi, pollution is now a problem in all big Indian cities. The cost in terms of the health of citizens will be huge.
•Vehicular emissions, particulate dust from the burning of crop residue, and dust from construction sites contribute to air pollution levels and smog. Use of diesel for vehicles is more polluting than of petrol and CNG. Two and three-wheel vehicles are more polluting than cars. Some seasonal measures have been introduced to tackle pollution, most of them flowing from court rulings. Different lobbies ensure that they are ineffective. Meanwhile, the number of vehicles keeps increasing.
The only option now is to seek the assistance of nature. Greening the environment by planting appropriate trees along roads and separators along highways is a possible solution as trees absorb carbon dioxide, and store the carbon while releasing oxygen. An acre of mature trees absorb in one year the same amount of carbon dioxide produced as a medium-sized car running 40,000 km. Trees clean the air by absorbing odours and pollutant gases — oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide. Trees provide oxygen. In a year, an acre of trees such as peepal can give enough oxygen for 18 persons.
Trees to cool
•Decrease of tree cover and an increase of heat-absorbing roads and buildings raise average temperatures in cities. Trees cool them, muffle noise pollution and create a soothing canopy of green.
•But this is a slow solution. Trees need years to attain sufficient spatial density and canopy. It’s unfortunate that mature trees, older than 50 years, have been sacrificed for widening inner city and highway roads for ‘growth’.
•There are, however, ways to compensate for the absence of mature trees. A a Central American city affected by air pollution as many Indian cities, has deployed one method successfully.
•During the last two decades, Mexico City was badly affected by air pollution. But with public determination and commitment, it found a beautiful way to clean its polluted air with a project called Via Verde, or ‘green way’.
•In a widely circulated video, Ferdinando Ortiz Monesterio, founder-director of Via Verde, says the project has transformed more than 1,000 concrete pillars of the elevated high ways of Mexico City into vertical gardens to improve air quality and aesthetics in the city. The total area of the pillars used is more than 600,000 sq ft. The vertical gardens use soilless technology to grow plants in a special kind of medium made out of recycled plastic bottles and other stuff to have properties and density similar to the soil.
Rainwater use
•These gardens use rainwater captured on the elevated highway and at ground level, to keep the 500,000 plants of the vertical garden, green. They suck more than 27,000 tons of polluting gases annually from the environment. They produce annually enough oxygen for 25,000 persons. And, they capture more than 11,000 tons of dust. The greenery has also taken stress off commuters.
•This innovative technique of growing vertical gardens for fighting air pollution is now in vogue in China, Germany, Japan, the U.S. and France. In China’s Jiangsu province, a “vertical forest” is coming up in Nanjing, with the capacity to produce about 60 kg of oxygen every day and absorb 25 tons of carbon dioxide. People will be able to breathe oxygen 3,000 times purer than the average level in China.
•Designed by Stefano Boeri, an architect, the “forest” will be a pair of towers. The twin towers will have 1,100 large and medium-sized trees on their facade, along with 2,500 other plants and shrubs. One of the towers will be 200 m high, with 35 floors. It will house a museum, a rooftop private club, and a school of architecture specialising in green buildings. The smaller tower will be just over 100 m tall. But this is an expensive project.
•How can Delhi, or for that matter other Indian cities affected by pollution, adapt vertical gardens or forests to suit their budgets? The Mexican Via Verde model is not high-cost as it does not involve building anything. Small plants and climbers can be grown on the supporting pillars of the elevated highway; for aesthetics, one can grow even climbers with flowers. Such plants can be grown with suitable support even on normal road flyovers whose side-walls have a large surface area.
•Such projects can also become job-creators as planting and taking care of the gardens will require hands familiar with gardens. This should be the future for the concrete jungles of India.
📰 Don’t junk the lessons from 50 years ago
Curtailing student participation will turn universities from modern, progressive and democratic institutions into workshops
•By one of those ironies that sprinkle salt on the wounds of history, university students in Denmark are currently collecting signatures to safeguard their democratic say in universities. Since the 1960s, they have been able to send representatives to sit with representatives from other branches of the university — faculty, management, administration — and help decide the sort of courses offered. Now, politicians and university managers want to curtail the role of these student representatives.
•The irony is that I am writing this in May 2018, and the student rights we are talking of largely rose out of the movement of May 1968.
•May 1968 is associated with civil unrest in France. It was a period of massive general strikes as well as the occupation of universities by students, and factories by workers. For 15 days, it brought France to a halt, forcing President Charles de Gaulle, whose use of police force against the agitators had worsened the situation, to flee the country for almost half a day.
Beginning of a student protest
•Starting as a student protest against (mostly American) imperialism, capitalism, and traditional institutions associated with patriarchy (of which de Gaulle was considered a symbol), the movement spread to factories with strikes involving 12 million workers. Most historians claim that there was not much political significance achieved in the end, except in terms of a recognition of some grievances and increased student participation in universities. When de Gaulle returned and announced new parliamentary elections, the protests evaporated. He returned to power with a stronger majority.
•But May 1968 was not just a French political movement; it was also the beginning of a pan-European student protest, with global resonances (including in India), that significantly strengthened the democratic participation of students in universities. Students in Copenhagen University in Denmark organised a lockout that month; it helped Danish students get a say in running their universities. Now student participation in universities all over the world is being methodically dismantled.
•This might sound like a good thing to many Indians, for we are used to university politics of much violence and little relevance to education. Student politics in India has been hijacked by mainstream political parties, so that student organisations not only have affiliations with major political parties, they also cater to the agendas of these parties. In that sense, university politics in many Indian universities is not always representative — it does not represent the educational concerns of students but of external and larger political parties.
•This is largely not the case in Danish, German, French or U.K. universities. Student representatives mostly do not use university politics to step into the state or national political arena; they are there to represent the university concerns of students. But this is being systematically dismantled now.
•There has always been an argument against excessive student say in what universities offer. After all, students are not in the best position to judge what they ought to learn, it has been pointed out. Some things, which students might find boring or difficult, have to be taught anyway. These arguments seem justified — and might be so in some contexts — but they are often misleading. More so today, when the claims of the ‘market’ are being used to restructure courses and fields in universities around the world. The very politicians who do not want students to have a say, ‘for they know not what they do’, are the politicians who want the market to decide what universities offer and do. This is disingenuous. What is this ‘market’, and in what sense does it ‘know’ better?
Students and the market
•Having been a teacher for two decades, I have occasionally had problems with the tendency of universities to please students by offering them softer courses and exam options. But this trend usually does not come from students. It comes from politicians and administrators who privilege only the market: they value the shortest and easiest route by which a student can finish his or her education and join the market.
•Students, on the other hand, mostly want to learn more and well. However, they are induced by these very ‘market-oriented’ administrators and politicians to learn as little as possible and as fast as possible, and cut as many corners as possible in the process. They learn to play the game: Get a quick degree, preferably via a student loan, and a job to pay it off for the next 20 years.
•It is in this light that one needs to look back upon 1968. It was a period in which students stopped being considered empty vessels to be filled with whatever the status quo wanted; they came to have a say in what they wanted to become, and how. One can claim that truly modern universities became possible only from 1968. The curtailing of student participation in universities is not going to increase the level of education or enable a greater pursuit of knowledge. It will turn universities from modern, progressive and democratic institutions into workshops, at best polytechnics.
📰 Watching Swan Lake in Delhi
It’s a good introduction to our dark arts
•I am not a big fan of western classical music. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve nothing against Mozart, Beethoven or any other oven. I actually feel sorry for them. Poor chaps, one died young and the other died deaf. If their work has come to embody high culture 200 years after their respective demises, good for them, I say! Just don’t make me sit and listen to their symphonies, concertos, carbonaras and what not.
•But that’s exactly what my wife did recently. She informed me over dinner that I should make all the necessary arrangements for her to catch Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which was coming to Delhi. “The most beloved classical ballet of all time,” she said, reading from the publicity material.
On second thoughts
•“No problem,” I said. “But count me out.” She then gave me that look Modiji reserves for people who come between him and a camera. I immediately demonetised. “On second thoughts,” I said, “I do have a soft corner for swans and lakes. I’ll make the bookings.” For an amount that could have secured me an entire year’s supply of Shakti Bhog Atta, we managed to get two seats about 3 km from the stage.
•My worst fear came true when we landed up at JLN Stadium, the venue, and found that there were separate queues for each category of price ticket. My inner Marx wanted to jump out and overthrow the bourgeoisie. But luckily I remembered that it was against the strategic-tactical line to waste expensive ballet tickets.
•Inside the complex, the air was pregnant with selfies. I was expecting women to come and go talking of Tchaikovsky. Instead I found them posing before cut-outs of Swan Lake’s prima ballerina, poised en pointe. The whole of Lutyens babudom had turned up – I counted at least 300 heads of bureaucratic cattle, though with less than half a dozen spines among them.
•Signboards at every entrance to the auditorium listed the dos and don’ts: no eating inside, no photography, no talking on cell phone, no horse-trading, etc. We were ushered to our seats by two schoolgirls in masks that did very little to hide the fact that they were only schoolgirls in masks.
•As the ballet began, I waited impatiently for the characters to start talking so I could understand what was going on. But they were less interested in dialogue than India-Pakistan. I tried asking my wife but she shushed me angrily, “No one, neither the actors nor the audience, talks in a ballet.”
•I sank back in my seat and watched mutely as people in colourful, skin tight costumes jumped, leaped and revolved around their own axes like planets. They flitted from one corner of the stage to another, glided on their toes, and did impressive gymnastics. Even the villain and hero, despite their rising conflict, danced together instead of blocking each other on Twitter. I hadn’t seen so many girls dancing in miniskirts since my university days, when I used to wash my clothes using washing powder Nirma.
The basics
•As for the storyline of Swan Lake, it’s quite simple: The hero and his sidekick go hunting in the forest. They arrive at a beautiful lake where they see a flock of swans. The Prince is about to do a Salman on them when all the swans turn into Congress MLAs.
•“Don’t shoot us, please!” shrieks a swan. “We’ve been turned into swans and locked up in this lakeside resort so that we are not poached. We will become human only if we make it to the royal ball in Bengaluru and the Governor falls in love with us.”
•“Oh really?” says Prince Salman. “One would have thought the chances of being poached would be higher if you were birds or animals. No one told me they also poach humans in India! Billions of blundering black bucks!” Then Salman goes away. The curtains come down and it’s interval.
•My wife and I step out for some sanskari pakodas. When we get back, everyone in the auditorium is drinking Coke and balancing samosas on their arm rests. The schoolgirl-turned-ushers try desperately to instil civilisation in the audience. They give up when the curtains go up.
•We are in Act III now. Just as the Prince arrives at the royal ball, a middle-aged man in the front row starts recording the ballet on his smartphone. Somewhere to my right, a mobile rings.
•Its owner answers. “Hello? Bajaj Finance? I am in Swan Lake ballot, can you call tomorrow? Swan-swan-SWAN! S for Swan, L for Lake, where there is water! Yes, like Chilika lake, but in Delhi only.”
•I turn to my wife, and find her in a really bad attitude. Without a word, we both get up, and make a perfect bourrée to the exit.
📰 Where Sultan Razia was imprisoned
In Bathinda, the oldest surviving fort in India
•After reading for the first time the story of Sultan Razia, the first and only woman emperor who ruled from Delhi, I was eager to visit Bathinda where she was imprisoned by Malik Altunia, her governor and then husband.
•I had my chance some weeks back. Seeing the thick walls of the fort from a distance, I thought of Sultan Razia confined within them, while the birds flying over the walls were a reminder of the freedom that she did not enjoy.
•According to Subhash Parihar’s Islamic Architecture of Punjab, the fort of Bhattrinda (bhatti means jungle and rinda means haunt) is named after the Bhatti clan of the Rajputs who lived there. During the Sultanate period, the fort was known as Tabarhinda. Bathinda is the name given to the fort after Independence.
History of the fort
•There are many theories about who built the fort. Some believe that it was Kanishka in the 2nd century; some others believe that it was Bhatti Rao, the king of Punjab, who built it and whose name also inspired the name of the city; while some say that it was Raja Dab who built in in 90-110 CE.
•This is the site of the oldest surviving fort in India. It was built on a rock on the river Ravi, although now the river has shifted course. It was located very strategically — on the route from Multan to Delhi. Mohammad Muizuddin bin Sam, or Mohammad of Ghor, attacked and captured the fort in 1191. Prithviraj Chauhan, who was equally aware of the fort’s importance, launched a counterattack immediately and recaptured the fort. Muizuddin barely escaped. During the reign of Sultan Razia, Malik Ikhtiyar-ud Din Altunia was appointed as the Governor of Bathinda. When the Turkish slaves conspired against her, Malik Altunia, who was part of their clique, rose in revolt against Sultan Razia. At the gates of Tabarhinda, her trusted mentor, Jamaluddin Yaqut, was killed by the Turkish nobles. She was arrested and imprisoned in the Qila-e-Mubarak of Tabarhinda.
•As I entered the huge gateway of the fort, I was told that Sultan Razia had in fact stayed in the Rani Mahal which was just above the gateway. She would have looked at the same walls that I was looking at. After months in captivity, Sultan Razia decided to ally with Malik Altunia and married him. They set off to recapture the throne of Delhi which had been usurped by the nobles who had enthroned her brother Muizuddin Bahram Shah. They didn’t succeed and both were murdered.
•As it was essentially a military outpost, the fort of Tabarhinda lost its importance and Sirhind became a more popular route to Lahore and Multan.
•The fort was in the control of the Bhatti chiefs till it was conquered by Maharaja Ala Singh, the first ruler of Patiala, with the help of the Sikh confederate in 1754. They renamed it Gobindgarh after the tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh. This is the only fort made of bricks and whatever we see now of its massive brick walls and gateway was constructed under the Patiala kings. They used Nanak Shahi bricks which are slimmer and more resilient than the other bricks used in that era.
A historic gurudwara
•Seeing the large number of Sikh devotees going inside the fort, I went in and found that it was the site of a historic gurudwara. In fact, Guru Nanak Dev is said to have visited it in 1515. Guru Tegh Bahadur visited it in 1665 and Guru Gobind Singh in 1705.
•In 1835, Maharaja Karam Singh built the Gurudwara Sahib Patshahi on the spot where Guru Gobind Singh spent the night. This red sandstone gurudwara with a white dome is well maintained and is perhaps the only building in the Qila which isn’t in ruins. Since this gurudwara is on top of the fort and not in any condition to support the visit of the many devotees, another gurudwara has been built at the bottom of the fort. Till 1947, the fort was in the possession of Patiala kings.
•As I walked through the the ramparts, I peeped into the Rani Mahal where history is crumbling, just like Razia’s dream of recapturing Delhi and regaining her rightful position as the Sultan.
📰 Subjects, citizens and maharajas
Thoothukudi tells us that we are still a deeply divided political unit, with varying access to basic democratic rights
•The massacre at Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) made me think of the political status of those who came out to protest against Sterlite Industries. Formally, constitutionally, they were Indian citizens. But were they? Were they not aliens, the new mlecchas, a threat to the political order, to the state? Or perhaps they were neither citizens nor aliens but a subjugated people, subjects who were punished because they dared to be citizens.
The state’s wrath
•What did the locals do to incur the wrath of the state? They were merely exercising their minimal citizenship rights when they were mercilessly beaten by the police or shot by snipers. They made public their grievance about the vulnerable environmental conditions under which they are forced to live, about contamination of groundwater and pollution-induced diseases caused by the Sterlite plant. This discontent notwithstanding, the government, with the connivance of the Tamil Nadu pollution board, granted permission to the industry to expand. In deliberately violating their rights, do they not treat them as their subjects rather than as citizens?
•The distinction between citizens and subjects is important in political thought and practice. To be a citizen is, first and foremost, to belong to a particular political community. Citizenship gives us a sense of who we are and creates a special bond with other members, a fellow-feeling that one might call civic friendship. This is why, along with family, linguistic or religio-philosophical groups, it is a source of commitment and obligation. But citizenship also brings us rights. To secure basic needs, citizens can make claims on each other and particularly on the state. Protection of life comes immediately to mind. That one will not be killed by arbitrary or intentional acts of others or by man-made disease or pollution is a fundamental human right. In large, complex, modern societies, so much has come to depend on the state that it alone must help realise it.
•Other rights, without which survival is impossible, are dependent on the state too: the right to food, water, clean air, shelter, for example. Or rights that marginally improve the quality of our life: to safeguard our personal possessions, ease of mobility from place to place, public playgrounds, illuminated streets, protection of personal freedoms. All these exemplify rights of what might be called passive citizenship. Passive, because here we are essentially recipients. We receive these benefits if we follow laws and pay our taxes and are left alone to care for our families and do our jobs. But unlike other forms of states, democracy also gives rights which change the quality of citizenship. They enable active citizenship — rights to publicly complaint or protest, to deliberate on issues of public good, to scrutinise and criticise public policies, to hold our governments accountable, to form public associations, to vote, and to stand for public office.
•Unlike citizens, subjects have none of these rights. Political participation is simply out of the question — subjects cannot vote, deliberate on public issues, complain, criticise, or stand for public office. They have no claims on the state — not even to the basic right to life. If they get food, shelter or any other personal benefit, it is entirely on the goodwill of the state. Conquered people, the colonised, slaves, all those who live under laws made by others and designed to oppress them, are obvious examples. Subjects live in states meant for others. States, for them, are not political communities but a source of oppressive power. They are located within but do not belong to states. Nor do they identify with them. Subjects are bereft of civic friendship. All they have is a nameless, non-political relationship with other subjects.
A continuum
•So, can we call the Thoothukudi protestors subjects of the Indian state? That may not be entirely accurate either. Perhaps, rather than view citizenship and subjecthood in terms of a binary, it is best to see them as part of a continuum. On the citizenship-subjecthood continuum, Thoothikudi protestors are barely citizens and mostly subjects. Better still, this continuum should be viewed more dynamically; large numbers of people in our democratic nation keep sliding from citizenship into subjecthood. Just as they begin to acquire minimal citizenship rights, they are thrown back to being subjects by an economic or political tornado in their lives. This is a normal condition of persons under conditions of domination — whenever oppression increases, people lose their freedoms, cease to be citizens and become subjects. Those generally without wealth or power are always on the edge of being so. In fact, this is true of most of us: citizenship or subjecthood is not a fixed location but a constantly shifting position. When out of fear of government reprisal, the educated middle class shuts up, it turn into subjects. If you want to experience subjecthood, just step in for a moment into any local municipal corporation office. You will instantly feel like a hapless subject of a powerful, opaque empire!
•Of course, there are some among us who are neither subjects nor citizens, except perfunctorily. They command such enormous resources of power and wealth that they treat the entire apparatus of state power as their private instrument. Some heads of corporations, business magnates and politicians behave like, and indeed are, today’s imperial rulers, reincarnating reckless maharajas of yesteryears who may exploit, oppress, dispossess others at their own sweet will.
•Thoothukudi tells us that we are still a deeply divided political unit — most of us are largely subjects, some are citizens and a tiny group are maharajas who can even use public force as private army to kill, if it serves them or their friends.
📰 Netherlands eyes India, EMs post-Brexit
‘We see future growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, says Dutch Minister Sigrid Kaag
•Dutch Minister for foreign trade and development cooperation Sigrid Kaag is wooing large Indian companies and start-ups to form partnerships with Dutch firms and explore markets in both countries.
•She said in an ‘era of post Brexit’, Netherlands wants to further consolidate its presence in emerging markets for trade. “FDI [Foreign direct investment]... is excellent,” said Ms.Kaag, in response to The Hindu’s queries. “But we can always do better. India is the third-largest economy [in Asia] at present, we foresee future growth in a lot of areas,” she added.
•“The [Indian] Prime Minister has distinctly declared a number of programmes that are his priority and we feel that our expertise, government and non-government, private sectors have a lot to contribute to the achievement of the national agenda of India,” said Ms. Kaag, who was in Bengaluru as part of a trade mission to the country. She said the trade mission was looking to collaborate in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, logistics, water management, information technology and financial services. “A number of start-ups and entrepreneurs have come as well. They are very engaged around the theme of social impact. So, it is technology for [the] good,” she said.
‘Fortifying ties’
•Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was in India this week with the Netherlands trade mission to ‘fortify’ economic ties. Ms. Kaag said there was a strong bond and partnership at the political and economic level between the two countries, demonstrated by the largest-ever trade mission to India, comprising 130 companies and 240 participants, she said. She added the latest mission was not only a sign of Netherlands’ commitment and the political leadership behind it but also the ‘eagerness and strong interest by large Dutch companies and start-ups to deepen the relationship’ with India. “So, I would say [relations] are excellent, but also when relations are excellent, we will do even more to make sure we maintain, sustain and nurture the depth of relations,” she said.
53 MoUs
•Overall, the Indo-Dutch delegation signed 53 memoranda of understanding in the country out of which 15 were signed in Bengaluru on Friday. “I think in six months from now, we should be able to see the first fruits of this mission,” said Ms. Kaag.
•The Netherlands is the fifth-largest investor in India with a cumulative investment of $23 billion from 2000 to December 2017. The two countries have bilateral trade of $5.39 billion.
📰 What if India hadn’t made friends with science?
Within a decade of independence, our food production tripled; small pox was eradicated; five IITs, two agricultural universities and one AIIMS were set up
•Seventy-two years ago, colonial empires collapsed, and close to 80 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America became free nations. And each new nation had to plan for its future. Yet, among these 80, India was the lone nation that “made friends with science” as a policy for development. No other nation did so; it was unique and far-reaching!
•Our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru declared: “The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.” For our growth and welfare as an independent, democratic nation, we chose science and technology as major instruments. A gallery of distinguished and patriotic scientists, technologists and thinkers were approached for advice, and their advice heeded. Within a decade of independence, our food production tripled; small pox was eradicated; harmonious sharing of the five Indus rivers with Pakistan was agreed upon; dams and waterways was built and five IITs, two agricultural universities and one AIIMS were set up. (Readers will surely add more). We reap the benefits of their advice to this day and have added more. What if we hadn’t?
•Was India prepared for this daring initiative? As it turns out, modern (Baconian) science had already taken root in Colonial India since the mid 1700s. (In a forthcoming issue of the journal Indian Journal of History of Science, stories of about 35 successful Indian practitioners of ‘Western Science’ in colonial India will be highlighted). And many of its distinguished practitioners and their students were Indians in India. It was the meeting of minds of these scholars and the political leaders that made India modern.
•It is now 70 years since Independence. How well has the practice of science transformed India? It is on this theme that the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) has come out with the book: “Indian Science: Transforming India — A look back on its 70-year journey; impact of science in independent India”. It has 11 stories, written in a lucid and non-jargonian fashion by Drs. Adita Joshi (biologist and educator), Dinesh Sharma (journalist and science writer), Kavita Tiwari (biotechnologist and writer) and Nissy Nevil (physicist and science policy consultant). These articles showcase how: (i) modern science is the key; (ii) large scale applications are possible which can transform the economy of a nation; (iii) community participation is vital for understanding, acceptance and practice, (iv) a sense of daring or challenging existing mores is important and (v) how a ready adaptation of ‘modern biology’, and its use for general welfare is appreciated even by rural populations.
•Adita Joshi writes on how the indelible ink, used to identify voters, was first developed by Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, way back in the 1940s for the CSIR in Calcutta. (On an aside, it is worth noting here that after he moved to Pakistan in 1951, he became the father of modern science and technology of that nation, establishing the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Pakistan CSIR, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and others. He was thus Colonial India’s gift to Pakistan).
•Dinesh Sharma gives an eminently readable chapter on how the information technology (IT) revolution came about. It comes as a revelation to read that Dr P. C. Mahalanobis (who started the Indian Statistical Institute, ISI) helped fabricate computing machines locally in 1943, and how one of the earliest (analog) computers was the joint baby of ISI and Jadavpur University. Sharma recalls the untiring efforts of Dr R. Narasimhan at TIFR Bombay in developing the TIFRAC digital computer, and salutes the legendary Dr V. Rajaraman, without whose timely books India would not have advanced so fast in IT. His books became the “Grey’s Anatomy” for IT students!
•Kavita Tiwari describes how organic chemistry gave birth in India to generic drugs, and how Dr Yusuf Hamied of Cipla dared major multinational pharma companies and began making and selling anti-HIV drugs to needy patients in Africa for a dollar a day per patient — a Gandhian dare! A similar, though less dramatic, dare is the story of Shantha Biotechnics, who make and sell hepatitis vaccines for less than Rs 50 a shot.
•Kavita also writes about India’s White Revolution, and how community partnership and ownership was brought about by Mr Verghese Kurien, making India the largest milk producer in the world. Community participation again becomes the major source of success in the Lab-to-Land story by Adita on the Samba Mahsuri rice (developed by Dr Ramesh Sonti), and the story of Kavita on the shrimp aquaculture by the Coastal Indian fishermen.
•An unusual and not well known success story, narrated by Nissy Nevil, is that of two engineers Arvind Patel and Dhirajlal Kotadia, who along with the computer expert Rahul Gayvala, invented the technique of laser-assisted cutting of diamonds and quickly made Surat the capital of diamond processing technology of the world. It is also interesting to note that Patel and Kotadia engaged in the famous Indian practice of “reverse engineering”— open up a machine, study its parts, understand them well and then start making the machine yourself.
•There are surely more such examples that transformed India, and we hope INSA will bring out these too. The pdf of the present book is available free at http://www.insaindia.res.in/scroll_news_pdf/ISTI.pdf and the hard copy from Dr. Seema Mandal at < sci-soc@insa.nic.in> for a price. Books of this kind are important since they give a perspective of what all a country dedicated to science can achieve. We need more science and even more science to make our country shine. Technology helps a country grow, but science is vital for technology to be born and to grow. It is for this reason that Prof. C. N. R. Rao persuaded the government to establish several Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), similar to the IITs but with a focus on science. Many of them are already among the best centres of science.
•There is one gripe that many of us have, and that is, while the Central government is the major, indeed lone, supporter of research in these areas, why do the states not pitch in? And why do private industrial houses and foundations not spend even a rupee to fund competitive research? The late Dr K. Anji Reddy was a refreshing exception. He said: “you do good science, and I will give you the money”. When will today’s industrialists ever learn?
📰 What is the connection between fruit bats and Nipah virus?
What is it?
•As the name suggests, fruit bats, or Pteropodidae, are a bat family that eats fruit. Since the Nipah virus broke out in Kozhikode, Kerala, fruit bats have attracted attention as the wildlife reservoir for the virus. This means the virus survives in the bat’s body without causing disease, allowing it to jump to susceptible mammals like humans or pigs, when bats come in contact with them. Such contact is becoming increasingly frequent as agriculture and urbanisation destroy bat habitats, forcing them into human dwellings. In the world’s first Nipah outbreak, which occurred in 1998 in Malaysia, virologists isolated the virus from the urine of the Island Flying Fox, a fruit bat species. In Bangladeshi outbreaks, researchers found antibodies to Nipah in the Indian flying fox.
•This is why, when a bat colony was spotted in a well at the home of Kozhikode’s first Nipah victim, virologists zeroed in on these mammals as a possible source of infection. However, things have not been as straightforward as expected. When animal husbandry officials collected bats from the well, they only found the insect-eating kind, which belong to a different family. There is some evidence that insectivorous bats can host Nipah, but they have not been connected with human infections so far, says Jonathan Epstein, an epidemiologist studying the virus at the U.S.-based EcoHealth Alliance. So, Kerala’s animal husbandry officials are scanning the region for other fruit bats in the hope of finding the wildlife reservoir.
How did it come about?
•All bats can carry viruses, some of them deadly. The Marburg virus, a relative of Ebola, was isolated in 2009 from the Egyptian Rousette, a fruit bat, in Uganda’s Kitaka Cave. After the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China, researchers found antibodies to the SARS Coronavirus in cave-dwelling insectivorous bats. Similarly, Ebola antibodies were found in species like the Hammer-headed fruit bat. In the case of SARS and Ebola though, the virus was never isolated from the mammals. This means other animals may also play a critical role in the outbreaks. Why are so many emerging diseases linked to bats? For one thing, with around 1,200 species, bats comprise 20% of the earth’s mammalian diversity. So, it ought not to be surprising that they host many viruses. Not all of these viruses are threats to humans. The bigger question is how bats stay healthy despite carrying these pathogens. The Indian Flying Fox, for example, hosts over 50 viruses. So far, researchers have only hypotheses to explain this viral diversity in bats. One explanation — the “flight as fever” hypothesis — suggests that long periods of flying raises the temperatures of bats, boosting their immune responses. This helps them survive the microbes’ pathogenic effects.
Why does it matter?
•Identifying the source of the Nipah infection will help prevent future spread. In the Kozhikode epidemic, the virus seems to have moved from bats to humans in one “spillover” event. After this, it moved from one human to another. Nipah spreads differently in different countries. In the 1998 Malaysian outbreak, the virus moved to pigs first — perhaps after a domestic pig consumed fruit contaminated with bat saliva. Once it spread widely on pig farms, the virus began jumping to humans who came in contact with the animals. Around 260 people fell ill after such contact, but no person-to-person transmission seems to have occurred in Malaysia, unlike in Kozhikode.
What next?
•Officials are trying to identify the bat species behind the outbreak. Even if the outbreak is eventually linked to these mammals, the transfer of bat viruses to humans is a rare event. Given how critical bats are to ecosystems, the Kerala government has taken a stand against culling bats in response to the outbreak.
📰 An air cleaner with potential
IIT researchers develop a composite material that could help tackle pollution
•A team of scientists led by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat, has developed a nanocomposite material that can selectively convert environmental carbon monoxide into less toxic carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a major air pollutant that poses a serious threat to health.
•The new composite material is made of graphene and an alloy of platinum and palladium in the form of nanoparticles. In the project, graphene was used as a substrate and then “decorated” with alloy nanoparticles made of platinum and palladium. The novel catalytic structure was then used for selective oxidation of CO into CO2. The use of a metal particle of certain orientation which absorbs or interacts with CO at lower energy helped the conversion.
•“Once integrated, it is the size and shape of the nanoparticles that control the catalytic efficiency of the hybrid material. The efficiency of any catalyst depends on the availability of active sites and the surface area of nanoparticles. Therefore, engineering the morphology of alloy nanoparticles and their integration with graphene is critical to achieve catalytic performance,” said Dr. Chandra Sekhar Tiwary, a member of the research team at IIT Gandhinagar.
•“While platinum and palladium, on their own, are active catalysts, alloying them with graphene does wonders. The hybrid has shown high adsorption and reaction due to synergism among the three,” Prof. Sudhanshu Sharma, also from IIT Gandhinagar, said.
•The catalytic behaviour of the nanocomposite was studied using different morphologies for the oxidation of CO. The conversion rate varied along with the flow rate of CO as well as temperature, showing full conversion at temperatures ranging from 75° to 125°.
•“These are initial results which are exciting. We are trying to build 3D porous architecture using such a hybrid for practical applications and at room temperature,” Dr. Tiwary said.
Potential applications
•The new material could find potential use in chemical industries as well as environmental cleaning, the researchers said.
However, experts sound a note of caution.
•“While the concept used is novel and important as CO is a major environmental problem, it may take a while for this science to be converted into technology because the experimental set-up appears complex and may not be commercially viable,” said Dr. Ramavatar Meena, a scientist at the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, who is not connected with the present study.
•The study was done in collaboration with scientists from IIT Kanpur and the University of Campinas, Brazil. The team included S. Sreehala, R.S. Kumar Mishra, Sudhanshu Sharma and C.S. Tiwary (all from IIT Gandhinagar); M. Manolata Devi, N. Dolai, Krishanu Biswas (from IIT Kanpur); and Y.M. Jaques and Douglas S. Galvao (from the University of Campinas). The results have been published in Nanoscale, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry. — India Science Wire
📰 Colombia to become NATO’s ‘global partner’
Deal to be formalised in Brussels next week, says Santos
•Colombia will next week formally become the NATO’s first Latin American “global partner,” President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Friday.
•Mr. Santos, who won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end a half-century of armed conflict with the former rebel movement FARC, said the move would improve Colombia’s image on the world stage.
•“We will formalise in Brussels next week — and this is very important — Colombia’s entry into the NATO in the category of global partner. We will be the only country in Latin America with this privilege,” the President said in a televised address.
•In addition to Colombia, the NATO lists Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan as “partners across the globe”.
•According to NATO’s website, areas of cooperation include cyber security, maritime security, terrorism and its links to organised crime, as well as building the capacities and capabilities of the Colombian armed forces.
📰 Mamata, Hasina talk culture and education
Neither Bangladesh Prime Minister nor Bengal Chief Minister indicates if Teesta issue was discussed
•Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who completed her two-day visit to West Bengal on Saturday, emphasised the cultural ties between Bengal and Bangladesh but maintained silence on the crucial issue of sharing of Teesta river water.
•On the second and last day of Ms. Hasina’s visit, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Ms. Hasina for about 40 minutes. Ms. Banerjee was asked about the Teesta issue following her meeting, but she did not comment on it.
‘Improving relations’
•“We discussed issues relating to culture and education, and how to improve relations between two countries,” Ms. Banerjee told presspersons. The Bangladesh PM, who attended two public events during the day, emphasised India’s support to the Bangladesh war of independence.
•Akin to what she had said at Visva-Bharati University on Friday, Ms. Hasina said that Bangladesh had provided shelter to over a million Rohingya people from Mynamar, and that she wants an early settlement to the issue.
•At the Netaji Research Bureau, where authorities had said that Ms. Hasina would take questions from media, the Prime Minister did not entertain any questions. “She is one hour behind schedule, and before meeting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, she does not want any wrong signals sent,” a key organiser of the event at Netaji Bhavan told journalists.
•Political observers feel that the Teesta may have figured in the talks between Ms. Hasina and Ms. Banerjee, but they may not want to go public with the issue, which remains sensitive to both sides of the border.
•The West Bengal Chief Minister proposed setting up a museum on ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Kolkata. “If both countries agree and give us the permission, we will do it,” she said.
•On the proposal by Bangladesh to restore the Aurobindo Bhavan located in central Kolkata, which served as the first office of the Bangladesh Government in 1971, Ms. Banerjee said that the matter can be taken up with the trust that has jurisdiction over the property.
•Earlier in the day, the Bangladesh PM, while receiving an honorary D. Litt. from Kazi Nazrul University in Asansol, emphasised the “secular” mindset of Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh.
•“Nazrul was inspired by a secular way of thinking and we are trying to take Bangladesh forward on a similar line of secular thinking. Everyone there [in Bangladesh] enjoys equal rights, regardless of religion and caste,” Ms. Hasina said.
‘Poverty and terrorism’
•She also said that her government was striving to rid Bangladesh of poverty and terrorism, besides protecting youth from the menace of drug abuse. Ms. Hasina said poverty was the main enemy and a barrier to development not only in Bangladesh, but across the subcontinent.
•“We want to transform Bangladesh from a developing nation to a developed nation soon,” she said, while expressing hope for a strong and everlasting Indo-Bangla friendship. Her country had steadily improved its literacy rate, from 66% in 2009 to 72% now, Ms. Hasina said. She also sought cooperation from all the countries in the subcontinent in putting an end to militant activities.
📰 We’ll be sherpa to help Nepal climb to success: PM Modi
Modi lauds Kathmandu’s journey from bullet to ballot
•India is ready to be the sherpa to help Nepal scale the mountain of success, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, hailing the Himalayan nation’s successful journey from bullets to ballots.
•Addressing a civic reception in his honour at the Nepalese capital, Mr. Modi stressed the special relation shared by the two neighbours and admired Nepal’s spirit of resilience and commitment to democracy.
•“Nepal has covered a long journey from Yuddh to Buddh [War to Peace]. You have left the bullet to opt the ballot way... But this not the destination. You have to go a long way,” he told the gathering.
Towards the peak
•“You have reached the base camp of Mt. Everest, and the main climb is yet to be done. As the sherpas [guides] help mountaineers to reach the top of the Everest, India is ready to help Nepal like a sherpa to achieve development,” he said.
•Earlier in the day, in a joint statement, Mr. Modi and his Nepalese counterpart K.P. Sharma Oli agreed to maintain the momentum generated by the visit by taking effective measures for the implementation of all the agreements and understandings reached in the past.
•They also agreed that effective implementation of the bilateral initiatives in agriculture, railway linkages and inland waterways development, as agreed upon by the two sides during the recent visit of Mr. Oli to India, would have a transformational impact in these areas, the statement said.
•The Prime Minister said Nepal must identify its needs and priorities to deliver results. “India will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Nepal in its development journey. Your success is our success and your joy is our joy,” he said.
