• Indian PC Programme set to take up Chinese Challenge
• ISRO-Boeing Deal on Satellites Likely
• IITian Turns PC Junk into 'Supercomputer'
• Keltec Develops GSLV Components
• Aim to Induct BrahMos into Combat Aircraft
• India Plans to Clone Iranian Cheetah
• ISRO's Mapping Satellite in May
• UK to Tie up with India in Stem Cell Research
• Varsity Designs Micro-Satellite
• AGNI-III Missile to be Test Fired by Year-End

• Multi-Barrel System Pinaka Test-Fired
• IIT Develops Eco-Friendly Electric Bus
• A Desi Answer to Google
• Raman Govt Unveils Mega IT Blueprint
• Indian Software to Curb Porn Sites in Thai Schools
• Hyderabad to Become Aviation Hub by 2008
• India to Soon Test 1st Long-Range SAM
• Bio Diesel to Hit Markets in Jan'06
• Buffalo Vein Saves Infant's Life
• Saving Khaled

Balasore (Orissa), April 28. (PTI): India's indigenously developed multi-barrel rocket system 'Pinaka' was successfully test-fired from the Proof and Experimental Establishment (P and E) of Defence Research and Development Organisation at Chandipur-on-Sea, about 15 km from here today. Defence sources said two rounds of 'Pinaka' were test-fired between 1215 hours and 1245 hours. The 10-foot-long ground target mobile launch artillery rocket has been designed and developed at the Armament Research and Development Establishment in Pune. Pinaka, which has undergone several tough tests since 1995, had been inducted into the armed forces. However, today's trial is said to be aimed at improving the entire system and sub-system of rockets developed by the DRDO. The sophisticated rocket is an area weapon system aimed at supplementing the existing artillery guns at a range beyond 30 kilometre. Its quick reaction time and high rate of fire gives the Indian Army an edge during low intensity war-like situations. Earlier, the Indian Army was solely dependent upon foreign countries, mainly Russia, for the multi-barrel rocket launcher system, the sources said. The unguided rocket system, which was test fired here was meant to neutralise a bigger geographical area with its rapid salvo of rockets. Having a range of 39 km, Pinaka can fire a salvo of 12 rockets within 44 seconds. One salvo each (12 rockets) from the battery of six launchers can neutralise a target area of 3.9 sq km at a time. Its capability to get fitted with different types of warhead rendered it deadly for the enemy as it could even destroy their solid structures and bunkers, the sources said.

Courtesy: The Hindu, April 28, 2005

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With just 14 personal computers (PCs) for every 1,000 people, India is lagging far behind China which boasts of 40 PCs per 1,000 people. India is planning a slew of measures to achieve a target of 60 PCs per 1,000 people by 2008. Based on the recommendations of a panel, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which has put manufacturing on top of the list of priorities, is contemplating an "India PC Programme" to make PCs affordable. Under this initiative, a special PC configuration may be opened up to component manufacturers in India with India-specific prices. A mid-term option is to design a no-frills PC in collaboration with the Manufacturers' Association of Information Technology (MAIT), IITs and C-DAC. On the manufacturing front, the panel has stressed the need to "challenge taxation levels" by prescribing drastically reduced total tax burden for PCs of a defined configuration that sell for a price below say, Rs 9,000. With double benefits of lower tax and lower pricing, it would be a win-win situation for both domestic manufacture and consumption.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, April 28, 2005

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The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, has developed an electric bus that can be a boon for the country's polluted cities and towns dependent on diesel-run public transport. The battery-operated bus can carry about 150 people at a top speed of 65 kmph and cover about 160 km at one go. The vehicle runs free of vibration, noise and heat. The project follows years of research at the Instrument Design Development Centre of IIT. "Since 1996, we have been experimenting on various models. The aim was to come up with a pollution-free and efficient transport infrastructure," said project chief R. Arockiasamy said The Rs.56 million ($1.2 million) spent on the project came in 1999 from the Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB) of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. The computer regulated engine of the bus works through a motor that draws power from a battery. An onboard charger that charges the battery runs on diesel, which is why the bus is called "hybrid electric vehicle". "When operated without an onboard charger, it is called a zero emission vehicle (as diesel is not used). However, the onboard charger operates at the minimum specific fuel consumption point (of the engine) and therefore has negligible emission," Arockiasamy added. "Initially, there was much appreciation from the government. But before the vehicle could be commercialised, CNG (compressed natural gas) buses came in." According to Arockiasamy, "The governments of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi have shown interest in procuring this vehicle. Recently, the West Bengal government asked for 20 buses, but the final paper work is yet to take place." S.K. Sud, chief design engineer of the project, said the technology can be used to convert 9,000 diesel buses in Delhi that are no more in use after public transport in the city shifted to CNG. "To convert the buses into hybrid electric vehicles will be less expensive than switching to.....

Courtesy: The Times of India, April 28, 2005

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The Indian Space Research Organisation and Boeing, the US firm, are likely to work together for the development and international marketing of satellites. A senior official said the first step towards such a deal was being worked out. As per the Indo-US agreement on strategic issues, the two countries have decided to exchange data first. Then, there is a likelihood of Isro building satellites that Boeing would market all over the world. The economic agreement is yet to be signed but Boeing could provide some technical expertise as well. Over the years, Isro has developed high-quality communication satellites for various uses including television networks and communication. It has also built good cameras for satellite photography. Boeing's agreement could be with Antrix, Isro's marketing wing. Meanwhile, Chandrayan, India's moon mission will include payloads from several countries. The payloads will comprise technical equipment to monitor the Moon during the fly-by, planned in three-four years. There is an agreement on data sharing. Besides the USA, Germany, Britain and Malaysia are some of the countries involved.

Courtesy: The Statesman, April 25, 2005

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After developing the world's first search engine for Tamil language websites, city-based Anna University-K B Chandrasekar (AUKBC) Foundation is now in the process of developing an Internet search engine for Hindi. "We are at the second stage (alpha level) of the development of Hindi search engine," S Bhaskar, a research scientist at the language technologies division of the foundation, told PTI. The language technologies division, which comprises of 16 research scientists, last year developed a search engine for Tamil websites, which can do both site specific and web searches. Bhaskar said the Hindi search engine, perhaps a first of this sort, would be ready in the coming months. Now, only 'webduniya.com' possess a Hindi search engine. The Hindi search engine would search the contents of several Hindi websites to produce a result, which is not possible in the existing search engines. The foundation is a novel private-public initiative, where the land was provided by the university and the initial seed capital of Rs 7 crore from Chadrasekhar who belongs to the 1983 batch of Madras Institute of Technology. The foundation, Bhaskar said, was also looking at developing Internet search engines in other languages like Malayalam, Telegu and Kannada. The AUKBC was now self-sufficient by earning handsome revenues through the various research products. For instance, the Tamil language search engine 'Kazhugu' (Tamil for eagle), which was hosted on the Sify website, generates income for the foundation.

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

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Is your PC at home gathering dust and lying in an unusable condition? If yes, then donate it to Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. A student at IIT used 20 such discarded computers to make a supercomputer, with great computing capabilities and scalability. Exhibited at IIT's Open House exhibition, this supercomputer, called Rocks Cluster, could easily replace a super-computer at the Indian Meteorological Department used for weather monitoring. The cluster can be used for all the specialised applications involving a massive amount of mathematical calculations that a supercomputer is used for. The cluster can also be used for animated graphics, bio-informatics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear sciences, seismic computation and petroleum exploration. Using a PC of 800 megahertz each, the Rocks Cluster computing power reaches 8,000 megahertz. The main advantage of the cluster is that the computation power depends on the number of computers one adds to the master machine. While the scalability of the cluster varies in a normal supercomputer, the computation power stays fixed. If there are 20 computers attached to the switch, then the computing power of 20 computers get added to the cluster. Given 20 obsolete computers, Rishi took out the best parts from these and made 10 working PCs to create a cluster of 10 machines. "The results are faster, and if one PC solves complex calculations in a day, Rocks Cluster will do it in one-tenth of the day," says Rishi, the mastermind behind this project. "Working through a coordinated master machine, the cluster channels all its power into executing a few programs as fast as possible," he adds. The cluster works through a master machine, which divides the workload among 10 PCs in order to obtain results faster. The Message Processing Interface in each machine ensures efficient channelling of the workload.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, April 24, 2005

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A controversy over the private university notwithstanding, the Chhattisgarh government in its bid to make the state an IT hub has decided to invite the national and international level private IT groups to set up universities in the private sector and install their units in the state. The state government has decided to invite private IT companies like Wipro, Satyam, Infosys and others to set up their units. Chief Minister Raman Singh will visit Bangalore on April 25 and 26 to hold discussions with private IT companies and invite them to the state. Unveiling the first-ever IT policy, Industry and Finance Minister Amar Agrawal said the companies coming to the state to set up their own units will be accorded industry status. The companies will also be given facilities on a par with the "first-thrust" sector. Private groups will also be invited to set up national and international-level university, Agrawal added. The decision has been taken against the backdrop of the fact that Chhattisgarh has made little progress in the field of information technology.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 20, 2005

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State-owned Kerala Hitech Industries Ltd (Keltec) has developed two major critical components for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The components, L40 tanks and L40 contour nozzle thrust chamber, are to be used in the second stage of the GSLV (Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle). They are manufactured indigenously using special alloy materials for the first time in the country. The components were handed over to Dr G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO and Secretary, Department of Space, here on Tuesday. Dr Nair said that since ISRO is concentrating on solid, liquid and cryo engines, it has adopted a policy of sub-contracting to potential vendors. With two PSLVs and two GSLVs planned every year, he hoped that Keltec would be loaded with orders. Mr G.M. Nair, Managing Director of Keltec, said the company had developed a proven product line in the form of L40 tanks, Vikas engine, contour nozzle and gas bottles. The manufacture of L40 tanks involves chemical milling and sophisticated automatic welding. The contour nozzle combustion chamber was manufactured using high temperature-resistant satellite material end employing hydraulic expansion process. Mr Nair said the turnover of Keltec increased form Rs 11.20 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 15.20 crore in 2004-05. It has targeted a turnover of Rs 20 crore in the current year.

Courtesy: www.thehindubusinessline.com, April 20, 2005

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The ministry of education in Thailand is piloting the use of a software from India to prevent students from accessing pornographic materials from school and college computers. For the past couple of years the government had been liaising with an Indian company and had come up with a software which censored nude pictures immediately they appear on computer screens, Prasert Kaewphet, the ministry's information technology advisor, said on Sunday. "If this software works, we will propose that the ministry makes a large-scale purchase of it," he added. The software is particularly useful, as it does not require schools and colleges to key in the names of individual website that they wish to ban although specific websites can be unlocked if the education institution wishes to use them for the purposes of sex education. The software is initially being piloted in one school and one university and the results will be assessed once the first semester of the 2005 academic year begins. A second pilot programme will then be conducted in a 50 schools, and if successful, the ministry will then choose to purchase the software for the schools and colleges.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, April 20, 2005

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The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was aiming to induct BrahMos cruise missiles into country's combat aircraft, A Sivathanu Pillai, CEO and Managing Director of BrahMos Aerospace, has said. Pillai described the tenth flight of the cruise missile last week as a naval exercise and said that earlier flights were all experimental while this one was with a warhead. "We are producing the missiles for the Indian Navy. It had given its initial requirements and we are at it," he told the agency on Sunday night. Simultaneous development work would take place according to the requirement of the Army, and production for them will commence by the year-end, he said. For the Indian Air Force, the designing was already over. "The development exercises would be completed in another two years and by 2007 we want to fly from an air platform. Finally, it will be inducted into SU-30-MK I before 2007 end. Before that we are identifying ideal platforms," Pillai said. The target range was maintained at 300 kms in adherence to international regulations, he added.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, April 19, 2005

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With seven international airlines apart from national carriers Air-India and Indian Airlines now operating from here, this historic city is emerging as a favourite hub among international air carriers. There are 50 weekly flights being operated from here to various destinations in the world connecting the us, europe, Far East, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. It was former chief minister n chandrababu Naidu, who came out with the idea of making Hyderabad an aviation hub between Europe and China and had successfully pleaded with the Centrral government for permitting foreign airlines to operate from here. The previous government also set up a greenfield international airport at Shamshabad in neighbouring Rangareddy district to be functional by 2008. At present, about 15,000 international passengers use the present airport situated in the heart of the city. It, however, is not adequately equipped to handle the rush while Shamsabad airport is designed to handle a large number of aircraft.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, April 18, 2005

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Indian scientists plan to clone an Iranian cheetah to revive a species that became extinct in India more than four decades ago, an expert said on Friday, in what would be the country's first animal cloning bid. A team of scientists would soon travel to Iran, one of a handful of countries that still have cheetahs, to collect sperm and tissue samples from a cheetah in a zoo there, said Lalji Singh, director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology. "The Iranian government has agreed to support the project, which assumes importance as the Indian cheetah is extinct now," said S. Shivaji, a deputy director at the centre. Cheetahs are the fastest animals on earth with a speed of up to 95 km (60 miles) an hour. They were once found in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. But they are now largely extinct in the wild except in Africa, where there are only about 12,000 to 15,000 left. There are about 1,200 in captivity worldwide. The Indian cheetah became extinct in 1962 because of large-scale hunting.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com, April 17, 2005

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Taking a quantum leap forward in its air defence system, India will begin test-firing it's first long-range surface-to-air missile in eight months. With its hit-to-kill power and 100-plus km range, the missile will be an enviable weapon for many technologically developed nations. The yet-to-be-named missile will match or even better the American Patriot class of missiles in certain ways. The details about the new missile are still under wraps. But the trickling in of bits of information on the new weapon within two months of India completing trials of the medium range missile Akash are a cause of happiness for the Indians. Akash, that weighs 700 km, went through a successful trial on February 21 this year. The 25 to 30 km range missile can carry a payload of 70 kg. The trial on the missile system in November last year conducted with a live warhead and active terminal radar navigation achieved good performance. According to director of research centre Imarat V.K. Saraswat said the new missile will be fitted with a radio or radar seeker capable of multiple target tracking. Detecting an incoming object 400 km from its location, the missile flying with high super sonic speed, will meet the object in its flight and destroy it. It will be a multi-platform and may be launched from ground or ship. The weapon that is being developed for the Indian Air Force, will be canister-based. Unlike the present open launchers, it will pop out when it is ready to be fired. "The distance will be reduced and the target accuracy increased tremendously in the new missile," Dr Saraswat said. The new missile is a pet project of Dr Saraswat who has been working on it for several years.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, April 15, 2005

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By the first week of May, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch Carto 1, a satellite with a stereoscopic imaging, which will help with high resolution mapping of the entire continent. Cartosat, with a capability of 2.5m resolution, will be followed by the Insat 4A, the heaviest launch built by India, ISRO chairman Dr G. Madhavan Nair said today at the inauguration of the Master Control Facility (MCF) at Ayodhya Nagar. ''The Ariane will ship it (Insat 4A) by the end of July,'' Nair said. These will be followed by the launch of PSLV and GSLV from Sriharikota. Nair added that ISRO, with other agencies, would try to put in place systems that could provide speedy warning on the tsunami: ''It is basically the detectors on the ocean or at bottom, which can pick up the signals and relay them on to the satellites so that an effective warning is issued. We are now working in association with other agencies to put in place such a mechanism. Maybe in a year-and-a-half, such a system will be in place."

Courtesy: The Indian Express, April 12, 2005

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Di Mohan Bio Oils Ltd, a joint venture between the Chennai-based Mohan Breweries and D1 Oil Mills of UK will commercially launch the bio-diesel extracted from Jatropha, an oil-bearing plant, in January 2006. "We are in talks with the government to obtain formal clearances. The response from the Central as well as the state governments has been positive," Mr M. Nandagopal, executive chairman, Mohan Breweries and Distilleries told this correspondent on the sidelines of a press meet here. A bio-diesel extraction plant will soon be commissioned near Chennai with an investment of Rs 15 crores with a capacity to process 8,000 tonnes of oil per annum. "A prototype of this plant was developed by the UK partner. The company plans to have a second plant handling one lakh tonnes of oil by 2007," Mr Nandagopal said. Jatropha grows in wastelands and requires little care. It takes three years for the plant to grow and bear seeds. One lakh acres of cultivated Jatropha can produce 3 lakh tonnes of oil, he said, adding the company plans to cultivate five million hectares of the plant in the next five years.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, April 12, 2005

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Recognising India's strength in stem cell research, United Kingdom has expressed keen interest in taking up collaborative therapeutic work in the field. Addressing a press conference here on Monday to announce a week long 'Indo-UK stem cell workshop', British high commissioner to India Sir Michael Arthur said the UK has a pragmatic, but not permissive, policy on embryonic stem cell research. "We are pleased that India shares a similar position on stem cell policy. And we recognise India's growing strengths in this field of research." "We hope that the stem cell workshop will be a catalyst for a number of Indo-UK collaborations in this area of research that holds much promise for benefiting human health," he added. At the start of the 21st century, bilateral relationship between the two countries have begun to to change significantly. "We have all the traditional bonds -- shared history, language, legal framework, pluralist political culture -- and both governments are now harnessing those links to a new wide-ranging agenda," he said. "Last September the two prime ministers -- Tony Blair and Manmohan Singh -- recongised that we are now becoming strategic partners. With this, the UK has recognised that we cannot achieve our global policy goals without working with India. There are very few countries about whom we say that," he added. According to analysts global revenues in the stem cell and tissue engineering market is likely to touch $10 billion by 2013 and UK plans to achieve sizeable share through collaborations and joint ventures. The UK has been represented at the workshop by National Stem Cell Bank, the UK Stem Cell Initiative, the UK Stem Cell Foundation (led by private sector), the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority and a number of stem cell centres.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, April 06, 2005

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A team of Chennai surgeons gave 32-day-old Khaled Majedrabah, a Palestinian infant, suffering from a complex congenital heart disease, a new lease of life. The baby had arrived in Chennai when he was barely 20 days old suffering from high lung pressure and a heart condition called "truncus arteriosus". A team of doctors operated on the baby, and fixed the heart condition, using a "bovine jugular conduit" or jugular vein from a buffalo. Explaining the the rare surgery, Dr KM Cherian, well-known cardio-thoracic surgeon of the Frontier Life Line Hospital (known as Dr KM Cherian Heart Foundation) in the city, said the team of surgeons led by him set right the "truncus arteriosus", a rare condition that occurs in one child in every 10,000, using the vein from a buffalo's neck, "to establish continuity between the right ventricle and arteries". In a person suffering from "truncus arteriosus", there is no clear demarcation of the walls of the pulmonary veins and the aorta. "This results in both oxygenated and de-oxygenated blood getting mixed, causing severe and high lung pressure," Dr Cherian explained, adding: "We created a separation through surgery and connected the right ventricle and the arteries using the vein of an animal." "Ours is the only other centre in the world besides a bio-technology firm in Germany, to have this unique facility of providing a vein with a valve," Dr Cherian said. The "buffalo neck veins with valve", costing about Rs 25,000 as compared to about Rs. 80,000 in Europe, was very strong and could withstand strong pressures. "Though the valve is available commercially from the German firm, we have decided that we will manufacture our own," he said, adding that the product was a result of complex tissue engineering process. The bovine cells had to be removed and sterilised before creating the conduit.

Courtesy: The Statesman, April 07, 2005

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The Anna University, a premier institute of Tamil Nadu, is designing and fabricating a micro-satellite, Anusat, which is expected to be ready by December this year. Once the satellite, which is funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation, is tested and validated, it will be put into orbit by a PSLV flight from Sriharikota near here, according to Anusat project director Dr K. Jayaraman. He said the experimental satellite will weigh 35 kg and will be placed in a polar orbit, orbiting the earth from pole to pole, at an altitude of 600 to 800 km. "The initial satellite design has pushed its weight to 60 kg, but some sophistication in electronic components delayed the project by six months," Dr Jayaraman said. Students, researchers and teachers will be able to use the satellite's store and forward facility to transmit and access information from any of its four ground stations at Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati and Pune. Anusat's VHF and UHF transponders will also give hands-on experience on satellite communication, Dr Jayaraman said. Anna University vice-chancellor Dr E. Balagurusamy said eight departments of the university were involved in the Rs 5.5 crore satellite project. "Anusat might appear to be primitive by the Indian Space Research Organisation standards, but the purpose of building the satellite here was to create manpower in space technology at the university level," he explained. Anusat has launched India into a select group of four nations-U.K., Germany, Israel and Korea -whose universities have designed and launched their own satellites. A German university has sought collaboration with the Anna University on future satellite projects, Dr Balagurusamy said.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, April 06, 2005

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Khaled Majedrabah was 27 days old and had high lung pressure when he was brought to Chennai from Palestine. His heart needed to be fixed. Today, 10 days later, Khaled, swathed in white, sleeps easy in his mother Rola's arms after doctors at the Frontier Lifeline (Dr. K.M. Cherian Heart Foundation) here prevented oxygenated blood from getting mixed up with de-oxygenated blood. For this, they used an indigenously created "bovine jugular conduit." Dr. Cherian, a pioneer in cardio-thoracic surgery, says: "Truncus arteriosus is a rare and congenital condition where there is no clear demarcation of the walls of the pulmonary veins and the aorta. We created a separation through surgery and connected the right ventricle and the arteries using the vein of an animal." In Khaled's case it was a buffalo, for the vein can withstand the pressure. "It was not easy," says Dr. Cherian, "the only other manufacturer in the world of such a conduit is a German company." According to the doctor, the product is a result of complex tissue engineering processes. Bovine cells had to be knocked off and sterilised before creating the conduit, which costs Rs. 25,000. The price of the German counterpart comes to nearly Rs. 78,000, says the doctor. Khaled will eventually outgrow the 14 mm vein, which will then have to be replaced with a normal 21 mm vein. When? "Depends on how his heart works. Probably by the age of 6 or 7," says Dr. Cherian. Majedrabah and Rola say they will come back to India to strengthen the heart of their only son. It has already cost them more than Rs. 3 lakhs for the surgery.

Courtesy: The Hindu, April 06, 2005

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AGNI-III, the latest and advanced version of India's long range ballistic missile, is all set to be test fired by the end of 2005, the Programme Director of AGNI, Mr R.N. Agarwal, has said here. Some important milestones that will establish several indigenous technologies, which in turn would make the missile more robust and gain advantage over the existing versions would be completed in the next few months, said Mr Agarwal, who is also Director of the Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL), a leading missile technology development institute. Agni-III is designed to have a capability of hitting targets 3,000-3,500 km away. In 2004, the country successfully launched Agni-I and Agni-II with the participation of the user teams. Both these variants of the intermediate range ballistic missile have completed development flight tests and are in the process of being handed over to the Indian Army. Mr Agarwal told presspersons that the development programme of the Agni project is going on as per schedule. "Agni programme is a standing example of the synergy between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the developer, and the Army, the user. There are no delays."

Courtesy: www.thehindubusinessline.com, April 01, 2005

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