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INDIA
SURGES AHEAD NEWS
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March
2003
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Canada,
India to Jointly Undertake Moon Mission
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Canada
has agreed to participate in India's mission to the moon
with Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman Dr K Kasturirangan
and the President of the Canadian Space Agency, Dr Marc
Garneau, signing a memorandum of understanding in this regard.
The
other areas of collaboration include satellite communication,
remote sensing, encouragement of academia and private sector
participation in the use and exploration of space, an official
release said in New Delhi on Friday.
The
MoU covers bilateral support to telemetry, and tracking
and command operations for satellites, the release said.
Canada
has also agreed to support the setting up of the UN Centre
for Space Science and Technology education at Dehradun.
It
will also help develop instruments for Indian satellites,
the release added.
Courtesy:
www.rediff.com, March 29, 2003
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The
country's most sophisticated medium range surface-to-surface
missile Prithvi was on Wednesday, the 26th March, 2003,
successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR)
at Chandipur-on-sea, about 15km from Balasore in Orissa,
defence sources said.
With
a one tonne payload, Prithvi has a minimum range of 40kms.
With
the latest on-board computer and an advance inertia navigation
system, the missile can use both solid and liquid propellant
and takes just 300 seconds to reach a target at a distance
of 150kms.
The
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has
so far conducted 16 trials of the army version of the missile
since its first trial on February 22, 1988 at Sriharikota
in Andhra Pradesh.
Courtesy:
www.rediff.com, March 26, 2003
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| Indian
Medical Scientist Get Highest Award |
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Indian
Wins Prestigious International Award for Conservation |
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Washington:
Renowned Indian medical scientist Jyoti Ghosh will
be conferred upon with one of the highest ever award
for excellence in the field by the prestigious Diabetes
Foundation of Monroe, Georgia for his effective management
of Diabetes Mellitus Type II.
Hailing
Ghosh's effort as a "remarkable breakthrough" in the
history of medical science, the foundation said the
award, second only to the Nobel prize, carries a prize
money of half a million Dollars.
The
award will be presented at a ceremony to be held on
World Health Day, on April 7 in Atlanta, a foundation
press release said.
Ghosh's
remarkable breakthrough, a result of painstaking and
selfless research and studies undertaken over several
years, ensures that for millions of people the world
over, Diabetes Mellitus need no longer be a lifelong
ailment, it said.
"It
has also become possible to control and virtually
eliminate the progression of the disease and consequent
loss of limbs," the foundation said. The scientist
used phyto-pharmaceutical drugs in combination with
natural origin medicine during his research.
According
to World Health Organisation statistics, there were
177 million diabetes patients the world over in 2000,
causing enormous loss of productivity and hiking health
care costs.
Courtesy:
PTI, March 15, 2003
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Founder-Director
of the Bangalore-based Asian Elephant Research and
Conservation Centre Professor Raman Sukumar has won
the Whitley Golden Award, the most prestigious international
award in the field of environment conservation, for
his work in saving endangered Asian Elephants.
Sukumar
received the award popularly known as the "Green Oscar"
along with a cash prize of 50,000 pounds from Princess
Anne at the Royal Geographical Society here on Thursday
night.
This
is the fourth year in succession that an Indian has
bagged the award. Last year, a Pune scientist, Dr
Anand Karve won the award for developing a technique
to produce clean fuel from sugarcane waste.
In
2001, Vivek Menon, chief of the Wildlife Trust of
India, was chosen for the award for his fight against
poaching of elephants. In 2000, Gargi Banerji, a botanist,
won the Golden Award for work in conserving medicinal
plants in Himachal Pradesh.
After
receiving the award, Sukumar said he planned to spend
the cash prize to provide support to local farmers
to mitigate the impact of elephants on their lands
as well as to help his field research team which acts
as a "watchdog" - identifying threats such as poaching
for ivory and monitoring the health of the elephant
population.
Courtesy:
PTI, March 14, 2003
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Isro
to Launch Seven INSAT-4 Series Satellites
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BANGALORE:
Indian Space Research Organisation plans to launch seven
satellites in the INSAT-4 series to augment its capacity
to 250 transponders by 2007.
According
to ISRO's annual report for 2002-03, the transponder capacity
of INSAT-4 series has been worked out after evaluating the
requirement projected for different uses and by user departments.
With
INSAT-4 series, the INSAT system will have about 250 transponders
in various banks catering to a demand of up to 11 giga bits
per second capacity, the report said.
Distribution
of transponders in INSAT-4 satellite series are: INSAT-4A
12 Ku band 12 C band, INSAT-4B 12 Ku band 12 C band, INSAT-4C
18 Ku band, INSAT-4D (spare) 12 C band, six Extended C band,
INSAT-4E 12 C band, six Extended C band, INSAT-4F 12 C band,
6 Extended C band and in INSAT 4G 18 Ku band transponders,
the report said.
The
INSAT-4D satellite will be a spare satellite. The series
will have 60 Ku band transponders, 48 C band transponders
and 12 extended C band transponders, the report added.
Courtesy;
PTI, March 14, 2003
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Advantage
South for Biotech Growth
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CHENNAI:
It is now pass. Emerging South has a new wave to ride on:
Biotech. According to Frost & Sullivan, the key biotech
centres in India would be in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,
Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Frost
& Sullivan director (India operations) Aditya Sapru told
ET, "These states offer a more structured approach to growth
for this industry. Also, the government's budgetary support
to research and interest in the creation of physical infrastructure
like bio-parks and bio-valleys make South a more attractive
destination in India."
Traditionally,
research bodies in India have been government-funded due
to the long gestation nature of research and shying away
of private funders. Frost & Sullivan estimates venture capital
funding in India at $20m while total investments by biotech
companies till date stands at $100m.
Cities
like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and New Delhi would
be top on the radar for contract research and manufacturing
activities. However, Mr Sapru says biotech will not see
such a major BPO boom as is witnessed by the IT industry
at present. South, particularly Chennai, is also being seen
as the BPO capital of Asia. But, perhaps the same scope
for development does not quite exist in biotech.
This
is because contract research and manufacturing in pharma
and drugs have been going on in India for many years. Many
small scale units, nearly 28,000 of them, manufacture pharma
products for big companies. Therefore, process outsourcing
is not alien to biotech industry, Mr Sapru says.
Estimated
to be a market of $2.4bn in '02, it is expected to grow
on a year-on-year basis by around 12-13%, according to Frost
& Sullivan, which has launched its new lifesciences subscription
service. On an attractiveness index, India ranks fourth
in the Asia-Pacific region only after Japan, Australia and
South Korea. The consulting firm says the biotech industry
comprises pharmaceuticals, agriculture, diagnostic devices
and chemicals. At present, agriculture applications account
for 35% of the marketshare in the biotech industry.
Courtesy:
Times News Network, March 12, 2003
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| China
Can't Compete with India in IT: Study |
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ICAR
made Kela Kela Against Colas |
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The
Chinese software industry, which is domestic-focused,
lacked the process capability of Indian firms to put
them in a bigger league and compete globally, according
to a joint study by a Singaporean and Chinese university.
The
study by Ted Tschang of ADB Institute and Singapore
Management University and Lan Xue from the School
of Public Policy and Management, Tsing Hua University,
China, said there were features, which were unique
to the Chinese model, like the large number of product
firms catering to the domestic market.
While
Indian software firms began with export services and
were built by existing professionals who quit multinational
companies and first generation Indian IT firms like
TCS and Wipro, the Chinese industry grew by developing
products in the Chinese language, it said.
The
study on The Development of Software Industry in China
and India: A Comparison was presented by Rajeev Gowda
of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore at
a workshop on Indian development experience recently.
It
said Chinese firms were yet to reach the process maturity
of Indian software companies and lacked the ability
to manage and control large projects.
Courtesy:
PTI, March 10, 2003
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While
there are many in India who are crazy of anything
or everything west and thus emulate western culture
in order to tread the primrose path, here are still
some who take pride in Indian traditions and try to
bring best out of these before the world. One such
organization is Thiruchirapalli-based National Research
Centre for Banana, which is all set to give the soft
drink giant Coca Cola and other aerated soft drinks
companies a run for their money. The Centre, a leading
agricultural research institute and a wing of the
Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), has
made "Kela Kela", a banana-based, carbonated, healthy,
ready-to-serve beverage. "A method has been standardized
for the preparation of ready-to-serve banana-based
juice and aerated soft drinks, which taste best when
served chilled. The cost of production of these drinks
is only Rs 2 or 3 per 250 ml bottle," said officials
of ICAR in New Delhi. When carbonated and chilled,
Kela Kela is reported to make a nutritious and refreshing
drink. The nutritive value of real fruit beverages
is far greater than that of synthetic products, the
ICAR officials said. If real fruit juices were substituted
for synthetic preparations, it would be a boon for
the consumer as well as the fruit grower.
Courtesy:
Organiser, March 16, 2003
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India
a Step Closer to AIDS Vaccine Trial
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MUMBAI:
Even as the world comes to terms with the failure of the
first AIDS vaccine trial, India moves a step closer to starting
trials on its first therapeutic AIDS vaccine.
The
vaccine candidate has been developed by the Indian Council
of Medical Research (ICMR) scientists at the National Institute
of Cholera and Enteric Diseases. It has been further developed
at the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI). The project,
under which the vaccine has been developed, is an alliance
between the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI),
the Government of India and ICMR. It is now being produced
on a pilot scale for Phase I clinical testing in India.
IAVI has an agreement with the US-based Therion Biologics,
under which Therion will produce the AIDS vaccine on a pilot
scale.
In
the phase I trials, the safety of the vaccine will be tested
on a small sample of about 40 people. IAVI and scientific
institutions involved in the development of the vaccine
have started a community outreach programme to set the stage
for initiating clinical trials. The first state-level interactive
meeting held at Pune is seen among the most important vaccine
trial preparedness activities in India as they will set
the stage to build consensus regarding preparedness for
AIDS vaccine trials.
While
the Phase I study is expected to commence by end of '03,
the Phase III trial will take much longer if the candidate
clears the first two phases of clinical trial. However,
it may take about 10 years for an effective vaccine to become
available in the market. According to Sekhar Chakrabarti,
deputy director of the National Institute of Cholera and
Enteric Disease, the preventive vaccine under development
is described as a 'Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vaccine'.
Genetic material from six HIV genes (env, pol, gag, rev,
nef and tat) from an Indian isolate of sub-type C (accounting
for 80% of infections in India) is inserted in an MVA viral
'vector' - or transport mechanism for the HIV DNA.
Vaccinia
Ankara is a harmless version of a pox virus; it was also
the basis for smallpox vaccines. The vaccine is constructed
from pieces of HIV DNA, which cannot form a whole virus,
and so there is no risk that recipients of the vaccines
could become infected with HIV.
Courtesy:
Times News Network, March 08, 2003
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India
to Launch 9 Space Missions in 2003-04
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India's
space programme would not be affected because of the Columbia
disaster and nine space missions are to be launched in 2003-04,
Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Four
launch vehicle missions and five satellite missions are
slated for 2003-04 followed by two launch vehicle missions
and four satellite missions the next year, Minister of State
for Space SB Mookherjee said in reply to a question.
He
said India had a self-reliant space programme which was
supplemented by bilateral agreements of cooperation between
ISRO and US National Aeronautics and Space Administration
and Russia in the area of space applications.
Courtesy:
PTI, March 5, 2003
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India
will Soon Use Radar to Stop Infiltration
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New
Delhi, India will soon start using the Battlefield Surveillance
Radar system to check infiltration on the Line of Control
on the international border with Pakistan.
An
official said the BFSRs, some of them indigenously made,
will be deployed on the Line of Control. "According to recent
figures, infiltration is on the rise. A string of these
radar will be deployed along the LoC and this should ensure
reduction of infiltration from across the border."
The
Defence Research and Development Organisation had developed
the BFSR system - which is man portable, battery-powered,
short-range radar for frontline ground surveillance and
observation. When deployed, it will serve as a primary surface
sensor for forward troops, border surveillance and intrusion
detection.
The
system can spot a crawling intruder from a range of 500
metres and a man 2 km away. It can detect a group of people
from 5 km.
The
system generally weights about 30 kg but can be reduced
to about 15 kg removing some of its weight in order to allow
soldiers to carry it in difficult terrain such as Jammu
and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The system can also
detect light vehicles from a 5 km range.
Courtesy:
The Asian Age
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