• These Cows Have a Chip on Their Shoulder
• India a Favoured Facelift Destination
• A First: World's Safest Nuke Reactor In India
• Painless Surgery For Cataract
• Deep Space Antenna For Chandrayan-I
• Ayurvedic Tea Ensures Healthy Living

• Space Lab Just Went Swadeshi
• PSLV To Launch Foreign Satellites
• TN Student Extracts Bio-Diesel From Vegetable Oil

Cattle with Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) tagged to their ears, soon to be GPRS - (general packet radio service) enabled, are grazing the pastures near Sangli, about 240 kms from here. Technology, instead of the traditional string of bells and beads, will identify the cattle for the doodhwala and his milk union. The RFID tags will carry their janampatris, the entire life history of the individual head of cattle and its genetic make as well. Dr Abdul Samad, head, department of medicine, Bombay Veterinary College (Bombay Vet), said this was part of a year long $20,000 World Bank project. "We have found that the animal's health is very farmer dependent: if he feels the animal is not well, he calls the vet.But 80%of the times, the animal has a sub-clinical problem and this is usually overlooked as it has no obvious symptoms. This way, with the RFID tag, everything about the animal is known," Dr Samad said. The pilot project is being run by the veterinary college in three locations, with the milk unions at Sumul, in Surat, and at Sangamner in Ahmednagar district. The third is the Chitale Dairy in Bhilawadi, in Sangli district of western Mahrashtra, which handles 4 lakh litres of milk per day. It is at the Chitale Dairy where 5,000 cattle, as part of the pilot, sport their RFID tags. By December, they expect to tag up to 50,000 head of cattle, Vishwas Chitale, partner, BG Chitale, of the Chitale dairy, said. "The farmers are very keen on participating in the project and are prepared to pay for the services. They are aware of the benefits and are prepared to make the one-time investment of Rs 100-200 per RFID tag per animal."

Courtesy: The Economic Times, August 30, 2005

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When the professors here look up at the night sky, they think of invisible X-rays beamed from stars and black holes in a galaxy far far away. The inspiration is not Star Wars but a unique space mission that scientists and engineers from Mumbai to Pune and Bangalore are getting off the ground with modest budgets that would make NASA notice. ''We rely on experience, books, and sometimes hunches,'' remarks one senior scientist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) on the edge of south Mumbai. India's first space observatory for multiwavelength scientific explorations of the invisible universe-Astrosat, launch 2008-will carry a payload of five major instruments being designed and built hands on in labs nationwide with some foreign collaborations. o Astrosat is first Indian space observatory under development for multiwavelength studies of cosmic sources and X-ray emissions from stars, black holes and galaxies. Complex instruments of payload are being made in-house by small teams in national labs, not outsourced. For example, a large area X-ray detector would cost $ 20-30 million. TIFR's making it at Rs 10 crore. The digital camera's one-inch chip involves a collaboration with UK's Leicester University but the camera will be in-house. With Astrosat to weigh just around 1.6 tonne, the mirrors will be 100 times lighter and almost 1,000 times cheaper than the mirrors used in NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. ''Chandra has four mirrors in the diameter of one metre,'' says Singh. ''Our design includes about 40 mirrors within the diameter of a foot.'' Planned since the nineties, Astrosat was approved last year.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, August 30, 2005

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Britons, especially cricketers, travelling to India were invariably forewarned about Delhi belly. But, now all that is being ignored, as Delhi becomes the favoured destination for Britons who want a facelift. More and more Britons are turning their back on British surgeons who charge up to four to six times more than the Indian plastic specialists. Med de Tour, which flies patients to Madras, reported that the number of British patients has doubled. Its director Prem Singh told a Sunday paper that the big advantage for India was that the National Health Service was run mostly by Indian doctors and nurses. "They are trusted." There are more opportunities for Indian plastic surgeons as increasing number of UK's cosmetic tourists are travelling abroad for plastic surgery because of soaring prices even for straightforward procedures in this country. It is estimated that over 10,000 travel every year as far as Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia for cheap plastic surgery. There is surge in demand for tummy-tuck operations, which cost as much as £6500 in Britain compared to £1500 in South Africa. The total expenditure including flight and accommodation costs comes to £3800. Malaysia is being favoured for breast enlargement and liposuction, where it costs only £4500. Alarmed British plastic surgeons are now trying to hit back and defend their higher charges. They allege that the standard of surgery abroad is often not as high as in Britain. Past President of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, Norman Waterhouse, said many cheap deals were proving to be more expensive in the long-term. But companies here promoting plastic surgery abroad, including India, are now offering to fly their surgeons to Britain for check-ups on regular basis. A senior Indian doctor who has office in Harley Street told HT that he would be soon talking with surgeons in India to facilitate their coming here and for check-ups. The doctor said, "it's now well-established that top Indian plastic surgeons are as good as any here. In fact they and their staff provide better after-surgery care." Patients who went abroad for surgery attest this.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, August 30, 2005

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India unveiled before the international community on Thursday, its revolutionary design of 'A Thorium Breeder Reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.' Designed by scientists of the Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world. Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as 'seed' to ignite the reactor core initially. Eventually, the ATBR can run entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment). BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented at the week-long 'international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems' in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years. According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from 'seed' rods, converts 1,100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. This diffrential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder. The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect 'balance' between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years. This does not happen in the present day power reactors because fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones. BARC scientists say that "the ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of the future reactor programme." They say that long fuel cycle length of two years.

Courtesy: The Times of India, August 25, 2005

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The country's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will set off three foreign satellites, including one for Indonesia and the other for Singapore, in the coming two years, Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday. Three contracts have been signed for launch of foreign satellites using PSLV, Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Prithviraj Chavan said in a writen reply in Lok Sabha. Under an agreement between Antrix Corporation Limited (ACL), a commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation, and Indonesian agency, Lapan, PSLV would be used to launch a microsatellite during 2005-06, he said. There is also an agreement with Cosmos International, Germany for launching 350-kg Agile satellite for Italy during 2006-07, and with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore for launching a microsatellite during 2006-07, he said. He said ACL was marketing launch services using PSLV and Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) on commercial basis.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com, August 25, 2005

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Dr Sunita Agarwal, medical director of Agarwal Hospitals has just returned after successfully conducting instruction courses at the recently concluded International Eye Meeting, which was held in Beijing. Dr Agarwal conducted live surgeries using advanced procedures like 0.7 mm super phakonit for cataract removal, with acrismart intraocular lens plantation. This is accomplished with a bloodless, painless, sutureless and patchless technique and doesn't require hospitalisation. She is one of the few surgeons to achieve this breakthrough.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, August 21, 2005

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A student of Madurai Kamaraj University here, helped by a research scholar, has successfully extracted bio-diesel from residual vegetable oil. The fruits of research by postgraduate Energy Science student T Jincy got sweeter with the university officials organising a city tour in one of the staff buses run on the bio-diesel produced by her on a trial basis. According to Jincy and A Ramalingam, research scholar, who assisted her in the bio-diesel conversion project, waste oil is trans-esterified chemically and then reacted with alcohol under alkyl condition after which the glycerine module is cracked to extract bio-diesel. The process will take two days as the oil contains fat. The storage stability for the oil is high too. About the emission characteristics of the diesel, they said: "They are very much within the norms. The waste oil from the vegetable oil refineries could be used to produce bio-diesel which is eco-friendly," said R Kasturi Bai, Jincy's guide. The fuel will cost about Rs 30 a litre. The rate can be brought down if produced on a large scale.

Courtesy: www.deccanherald.com, August 15, 2005

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Chandrayan-I, ISRO's first moon mission, is to be outfitted with a antenna manufactured by BARC and ECIL.

Scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) jointly with Electronic Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) have designed a deep space antenna system for telemetry for country's first spacecraft to Moon - Chandrayan-I of Indian Space Research Organisation. ISRO has embarked upon Chandrayan-I mission for moon exploration in 2007-08. This programme needs a precision deep space antenna system for telemetry, tracking and control of the space-craft orbiting the moon at a distance of 400,000 kms from earth. While ECIL, a corporate sector of the Department of Atomic Energy, has been identified as a nodal agency for design, manufacture and supply of this antenna system, BARC has taken up the responsibility for the analysis, design and development of the Antenna servo control system for meeting the precision tracking requirements of the mission, BARC Director Dr S Banerjee said. Besides servo controls, BARC is also providing support for the structural analysis for the antenna system. The servo system is being built using state-of-the-art technology and will incorporate advanced control algorithms, he said.

Courtesy: www.deccanherald.com, August 08, 2005

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Cha Bar at the Oxford Bookstore, hosted a talk on the "benefits of tea and herbal drinks for healthy living" on Wednesday by renowned weight management expert and nutritionist Dr Shikha Sharma. Addressing an enthusiastic health-conscious audience, Dr Shikha Sharma highlighted the benefits of several herbs such as jasmine, camomile, basil and thyme. Bakshish Dean, executive chef, The Park, who conceptualised Delhi's first Cha Bar which serves over 60 different concoctions of tea, was also present on the occasion. Dr Sharma said, "Our tea can be consumed in several forms such as fruit infusions, herbal and ayurvedic tea." She also enumerated the benefits of herbal tea which include detoxification, stomach acidity and blotting control, nerves stimulation and calming of nerves. She also focused on the importance of having the right herbs at the right time. For instance, Assam or Darjeeling tea is good in the morning to fight lethargy and acidity. At noon time, Basil tea is the best for health. Chef Bakshish said, "Indians have been drinking tea for the past 4,000 years. There are so many different concoctions of tea that one can have." While speaking to The Asian Age, Dr Shikha Sharma said, "Overbrewing of tea or addition of milk diminishes its nutritional value." She added, "One should avoid doing so and instead try out adding various herbs including rose, which is known as the 'happiness flower'."

Courtesy: The Asian Age, August 05, 2005

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