Broadband gets Rs 18k-cr push

Govt Plans To Lay 5 Lakh Km Optic Fibre Network To Reach Every Gram Panchayat

Shalini Singh | TNN

New Delhi: Access to broadband services in India has been a failure in the otherwise highperforming telecom sector. To address this challenge, the government is planning to spend Rs 18,000 crore over three years to lay a five lakh km optic fibre cable (OFC) network to reach every gram panchayat.

The formation of a Group of Ministers (GoM) to monitor and review the implementation of this broadband initiative is also being considered. Whether the GoM will invite the private sector to participate in the planning of this initiative and focus on wireless as a means of delivery remains to be seen.

An infrastructure company will be carved out of BSNL to implement the project and work with other PSUs like Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) and RailTel. The venture will be supported financially by the Universal Services Obligations Fund (USOF), which holds a large amount of unused resources.

Upon the direction of cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar, a committee on broadband connectivity had been formed recently with officials from six ministries — telecom, HRD, rural development, economic affairs, ministry of panchayati raj and information technology — in addition to the Planning Commission. Chandrasekhar also held discussions with senior officials like Trai chairman J S Sarma and DoT secretary P J Thomas.

The committee is tasked with creating a roadmap for extending affordable broadband connectivity to all villages by leveraging existing infrastructure and augmentation of optical fibre wherever necessary. It is also mandated to pull financial resources from various ministries, including finding ways to subsidise consumer premise equipment using the USOF.

While the plan seems ambitious, the two parts that seem seriously missing are private sector participation and using wireless broadband for such connectivity. The work of the committee has been focused on government or government resources despite the fact that the telecom revolution is almost entirely led by the private sector, at least where mobile telephony is concerned.

And, despite its limitations, wireless broadband connectivity is a faster and cheaper way to reach unconnected areas. With 3G auctions being scheduled this year, the Committee might consider it important to include wireless as an equally important, if not superior, mode for connecting rural India.

Growth, The Virtual Way

An infrastructure company will be carved out of BSNL to implement the project and work with other PSUs

The Centre is considering formation of a Group of Ministers (GoM) to monitor the project

It’s not clear if the GoM will invite the private sector to participate in the project or focus on wireless broadband

Engg students do an Aamir

Camera-Mounted Chopper Model Bags First Prize At Aero Event

Shreya Bhandary | TNN

Mumbai: Two first-year students from the Thakur College of Engineering (aircraft maintenance) won the first prize at an aerospace event held at the IIT-Kanpur Aerospace Engineering Centre last Saturday. Their inspiration, say the winners who returned to the city on Wednesday, was the Aamir Khan starrer and student film 3 Idiots.

“Although this machine is known in the aerospace industry, we were inspired to make it after seeing the movie,’’ said Nilesh Rai (19). Named the Quadrocopter, it is replica of the model made by one of the students in the movie. The model has four sets of bracelet motors set in each of the four corners of a wooden frame and it can be flown with the help of a remote control. “We have also installed a wireless camera on it and a thermal detector to read the temperature around it,’’ said Sanjay Singh (18), who along with Rai, built this machine.

It took 20 days to build the machine, and the raw materials used cost both the students a whooping Rs 45,000. “Thankfully, our parents are very supportive. They not just encouraged us, but also funded our project. Even our professors liked our idea and helped us each time we faced hurdle, especially our instructor Subhajit Maity,’’ said Rai. Amidst 200 other participants, these students brought home the winning cup, certificates and a cash prize of Rs 5,000.

Two others from the same institute came up with another model called the ‘Pheizo Electric Runway’ which works on converting pressure into electricity.

“Each time an aircraft lands on a runway, the air pressure is very high and thissame pressure can be converted to generate electricity,’’ said Kaushal Gohil (18), who along with classmate Anuj Chauhan created this model. This model was also among the head-turners at the event.

These kids were accompanied by two of their professors Prakash Pawar and Varun Bhattacharya for the event.

4 IDIOTS: The students with their models which were displayed at IIT-Kanpur. (R) The ‘Quadrocopter’

Soon, a device that writes data directly into brain

Washington: Scientists in Japan are developing electric sensors using nanotechnology that could not only read information from our brains, but also write information to it.

Keiichi Torimitsu of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) says that the technology could have real practical applications in helping sufferers from Parkinson’s disease or stroke.

“Establishing connections between the brain and electrical instruments is important for understanding how the brain works and for controlling neural activity,” Discovery News quoted Torimitsu as saying.

“To develop some kind of devices or interfaces with the brain that would make it possible to transmit our information, sending it through the telecommunication pathways to another person or device such as a computer — that is the goal”, he added.

The brain-reading device would incorporate a nanosized electrode coated with a membrane that would mimic the receptor proteins found on the outside of brain cells.

There is electrical activity when the receptors and neurotransmitters interact, and the nanoelectrode would be able to pick up that activity, which could then be read by external equipment.

Torimitsu also hopes the device would not just be a bystander but be able to interact in the connections between the neurons, known as synapses.

Professor Gordon Wallace, of the University of Wollongong’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute in Australia, is working with Torimitsu’s team on the device. He said: “People are starting to realize all around the world that there are lots of tools that we can use that we already have at our disposal to make this field progress very quickly.”

The work was presented by Torimitsu, the head of NTT’s molecular and bioscience group, at this week’s International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICONN) in Sydney. ANI

LEARNING WITH THE TIMES

Fuel cells have negligible emissions

What is the conventional method of power generation?
The basic function of any power generation system is to convert energy from any other form into electricity. The most popular energy generation mechanism is based on burning fossil fuels—that is, converting chemical energy into mechanical energy for rotating turbines. The turbine then rotates the rotor of a generator, which finally converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy—electrons flowing in a conductor, like copper wire. These combustion-based power generation systems are subject to the laws of thermodynamics and hence have a predetermined cap on the maximum efficiency defined by something called the Carnot Limit.

How is the fuel cell different?
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen in a way that electrons are produced in a single step. These are then directed outside the cell to do work, like powering an electric motor or illuminating a light bulb or a city and finally return to the fuel cell, completing an electrical circuit as well as a chemical reaction which has water as the byproduct. The energy generation is not based on thermodynamics and hence fuel cells are more efficient in extracting energy from fuel. Apart from this, there are negligible emissions and very little noise and hence these cells are also good for the environment. In simple terms, it’s like the everyday battery. But unlike a battery, which stores the chemical inside it and hence has to be charged again and again, the fuel cell works on a mechanism that allows continuous supply of fuel and hence can work for years.

But why don’t we use them then?
The concept of fuel cells is not new to physics and does not involve any recently developed or discovered principles. Since the 1960s, various countries have been using them for their space programmes. The catch, however, is that they are extremely expensive and a viable design for a fuel cell for commercial purposes has eluded scientists and inventors for years. The conventional methods remain cheaper for generating electricity. Billions of dollars have been spent in the effort to come up with a method of making fuel cells cheaper.

Why is fuel cell technology suddenly in news?
Bloom Energy, a US-based firm researching on eco-friendly methods of energy generation, has unveiled an innovative fuel cell technology called Energy Server priced $800,000, which can be used for generating electricity for big corporate houses. K R Sridhar of Bloom Energy has talked of the concept of refrigerator-sized fuel cells which the firm has named Bloom Boxes.

CLEAN POWER: Bloom Energy CEO K R Sridhar with a fuel cell

Bihar to form law to curb private coaching centres

Patna/Biharsharif: As students protest against private coaching institutes spread across Bihar, the state government on Thursday announced that it would enact a legislation to regulate their functioning.

“I have asked the state HRD department officials to burn the midnight oil to prepare a draft in consultation with the experts to enact a law for the purpose,” chief minister Nitish Kumar said after a high-level meeting.

HRD principal secretary Anjani Singh said the new law would provide for registration of all such coaching institutes and strict monitoring of quality of education and fee structure. The draft was likely to be tabled in the coming budget session of the state legislature.

“This will be the first law of its kind that a state will be enacting to protect the interests of both the coaching institutes and students,” Singh said.

Students went on the rampage against the management of coaching institutes for “cheating” them by not completing the courses within a stipulated time and demanded that such institutes should be regulated. They blocked roads, burnt tyres and shouted slogans against the coaching institutes across the state, sending the authorities into a tizzy. Some students took to the streets in Nalanada, Darbhanga, Siwan, Chapra, Muzaffarpur, and Vaishali districts on Thursday, blocking roads and burning tyres to press their demand. AGENCIES

Last-minute admission policies throw students off course

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Alice in Wonderland (or Blunderland) could well be the name of a book on Maharashtra’s admission policies, which have been changing every year since 2008, and have been announced at the eleventh hour. Some policies have been passed a few weeks before the admissions started, and some have even been passed after the admission process began. And now, in the middle of February, weeks before the SSC, ICSE and CBSE exams will start, Class X students are clueless on the policies that will govern them later this year.

In fact, the government has just opened the floor for discussion on it’s new ‘best of 5’ policy for junior college admissions, which it hopes to introduce this year itself. In a bid to standardise the marks scored by SSC students and those of other boards, the government wants to introduce a system where the marks in the best five subjects are counted during junior college admissions for SSC students. But no final decision has been taken on the matter yet.

While the online admission system, which was made compulsory for Mumbai last year, was a bit of a disaster, the government had earlier said that it wanted to introduce the system across Maharashtra from 2010. But the state has yet to take a final call on the matter.

When TOI contacted Sanjay Kumar—who has been Maharashtra’s school education secretary since 2008—on whether any final decision had been taken on the admission front, he said that TOI was aware of what was happening on the matter. When we asked him why admission policies were being passed at the very last minute, the line went dead.

“The problem with the state education system is that it is being run by babus who don’t give a damn,’’ said Xavier Luis, the parent of an ICSE student who took the government to court over its admission policies in 2008. The government lost the case.

In June 2008, the night the admission process started for junior college, the state government floated a government resolution on its website introducing its ‘percentile system,’ which involved admitting students to junior college taking into account their ‘percentile rank’ calculated using a formula released by the government. The system was challenged in the Bombay high court by ICSE parents, schools as well as the ICSE board, as they felt the formula favoured SSC students. The high court dismissed percentiles, and asked the state government to come out with its policies well in advance.

That’s a piece of advice the government refused to heed. In 2009, weeks before the admissions were to begin, the government announced that all junior colleges would have to reserve 90% of their seats for SSC students. Once again the policy was challenged in the high court and later thrown out. “Admission policies should be announced at least two years in advance. This will give children time to switch schools, or for that matter states, before they reach Class X,’’ said a city parent.

“Of course, college admissions should be announced well in advance,’’ said the principal of a reputed Mumbai college. “I feel that, instead of coming out with policies to compare students from different boards, Maharashtra should work towards putting its curriculum as well as assessment system on a par with the national boards. In junior college, we do find SSC students lagging behind their counterparts in other boards,’’ said another college principal.

Kids can’t go to school in pvt vehicles, says state

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Schools in the state can no longer absolve themselves of all responsibility for their school bus system.

The state government-appointed committee on school buses, set up over a year ago, has come out with its final list of guidelines, which could change the haphazard and often hazard-fraught way that this system is currently run.

The committee has now made it mandatory for all schools to set up a transport committee to look into how their students travel to school. Interestingly, it has also made it compulsory for them to travel to school either by school bus or public transport.

“Those who want to walk to school can also do so. But no child will be allowed to come to school in a private vehicle unless temporary exemption is sought by parents,’’ said Indrani Malkani, a member of the committee. The onus of implementing the new guidelines will lie with the schools.

School buses will now have an age limit—eight years for a regular bus and 15 years for a CNG one—and will have to regularly undergo tests and prominently display their maintenance certificates.

It is also mandatory for them to have two fire extinguishers and an exit at the rear right side. All school buses will have to be yellow; if hired from private contractors, they will have to sport a yellow band across the body. School bus drivers will have to have at least five years’ experience.

The guidelines will now be sent to the state transport minister for his final nod.