The state animal husbandry department will launch its first laboratory complex which boasts of biosafety level 2 security systems at its chief disease investigation office campus at Palode on January 20. The lab will have the standards prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The inauguration of the referral diagnostic laboratory will be followed by a science conference led by scientists from central government institutions including National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal and Southern Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (SRDDL), Bangalore.
The high-tech security systems at the new laboratory will prevent pathogens in the test samples from getting transmitted outside the lab and protect staff from animal-borne diseases like rabbis, bird-flue, kyasanur forest disease or monkey fever and anthrax. The entire expenditure in establishing the laboratory has been borne by the state government.
The new laboratory complex will house a sericulture lab which will help in confirming viral diseases that occur more frequently in the recent times and in further research and studies on them, and a molecular biology lab with most-modern diagnostic equipment. Besides there will be a residue analytical lab which can diagnose the levels of chemicals in anti-biotics and pesticides, and a biomedical incinerator, which can treat laboratory waste. There will also be a VIP guesthouse to accommodate visiting scientists and doctors.
Chief minister Oommen Chandy will inaugurate the laboratory complex at the function to be attended by agriculture minister K P Mohanan and deputy speaker Palode Ravi.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Thiruvananthapuram / TNN / January 18th, 2016
The first hydroelectric project in the district, coming up at Barapol in Ayyankunnu panchayat near Iritty, will be commissioned by the end of this month.
The work of the Rs 120-crore project is in the final stage and almost 96 % of the works have already been completed, said an official. Only some minor equipment are to be installed, which would be completed in the next few days.
The water flow through the canal to run the turbine was successful and the trial run will begin in the next few days to solve last minute glitches, he said.
“Though this is a small project with the capacity of producing only around 36 million units a year, which is hardly equal to the power consumption in the state in a day, the advantage is that the maximum production would be during the rainy season, which would help save the water in the dams like Idukki, and it could be used in the summer,” said Anil G, the executive engineer of the project.
He said a three megawatt solar power station is also coming up there, and the panels are being installed over the canal.
The power project is developed by making a three kilometer canal from Bharathapuzha coming from Coorg, and the water reaches through this canal at Palathinkadavu, where three turbines have been set up, which could produce 15 megawatt power a day.
The project is directly implemented by the KSEB and the power from Barapol would be taken to the 110 KV substation in Kunnoth, from where it would be distributed.
Apart from the power production, the power project would also increase the tourism potential of the place. Though major developments cannot be made there, as the Karnataka forest is nearby, KSEB is planning to develop some facilities like watch towers and gardens to promote hydel tourism, said the official.
Meanwhile the district tourism promotion council (DTPC) officials are also exploring the possibility of an ecotourism project there on the lines of Malampuzha. However, it is just in the planning stage and the project could be finalized only after getting environmental clearance, said officials.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / January 02nd, 2016
At a time when the Malayalis are reveling in obscurantism of all sorts, ranging from vasthu to alternative medicine and vedic mathematics to astrology, a small group of dedicated and committed volunteers have taken up an ambitious task of bringing back the scientific temper to the society.
`Swathanthra Lokam’, is a Facebook community of people from different backgrounds such as doctors, journalists, teachers and IT professionals, who are united for a cause.Some of them are former members of the Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham, who parted ways with the organization on some fundamental issues.Others are activists of Kerala Free Thinkers Forum and Science Trust, Kozhikode. “Our primary aim is to carry forward the rational thought process started by people like Sahodaran Ayyapan. Somehow, it was was stalled midway in Kerala, unlike in the West where it was allowed to bloom completely ,” said Dr C Viswanathan editor of Yukthi Yugam, the organ of the collective and a specialist in orthopaedics.
For the Swathanthra Lokam activists, the Western society is a model in many respects. “They are an open and a post-religious society but we still carry many traces of a tribal life. We seek to demolish the clan mentality and modernize the socie ty,” Viswanathan said.
Naturally fundamentalists of all hues view Swathanthra Lokam community as their opponents. They are in an open confrontation with practitioners of naturopathy and homeopathy , which they believe have no scientific basis. “We were actively involved in debunking cheating in the name of mid-brain activation. We oppose everything that is against sci ence and reason. We resist all regressions happening in our society be it the reversal from Sree Narayana Guru to Vellappally Natesan or Nehru to Modi,” said Anu Vinod, an IT professional and an active worker of the group.
The activists of Swathanthra Lokam also take on religious dogmas fearlessly in their endeavour for a free society. E A Jabbar, a teacher from Malappuram, relentlessly fight against the dogmas in Islam and questions the very basis of the religion. Viswanathan has delivered talks against futility of rituals such as yagas and yagnas.
The reactions from the other side had come in many forms including mass reporting to suspend Facebook account to open abuse in social media and even physical attacks. “I was assaulted several times in the past.Once a mob had barged into my house and threatened me. On another occasion I was attacked with iron rods. But nothing stopped me from campaigning against the Islamic fundamentalists,” said Jabbar.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> city> Kochi / by M.P. Prashanth, TNN / December 31st, 2015
An engineering student, who developed a device which ensures safety of KSEB workers engaged in hazardous tasks, has won the first prize at a project contest based on the theme ‘IoT With Open Source Hardware’.
The contest was held as part of the FOSS Young Professional Meet. The meet was organised by the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) here the other day.
The device called iPost or Intelligent Electric Post was developed by Shyam Pradeep of Government Engineering College, Thrissur. He won a cash prize of Rs 50,000.
iPost has an in-built facility to control the power line with a simple circuit fixed on the safety gloves of the worker. iPost can also be used by KSEB is the functioning of streetlights. It informs KSEB office whenever a streetlight malfunctions and this could help in rectifying the defective streetlights quickly.
The first runner-up prize of Rs 25,000 each was shared by two teams – National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology, Calicut, for their project ‘Citywide Water Quality Monitoring’ and TCS team which developed the product ‘iBot’, a social cognitive robot.
Kerala State IT Mission director K Mohammed Y Safirulla presented the prizes to the winners at a function held at Mascot Hotel in the presence of ICFOSS director Jayasankar Prasad.
Delivering the valedictory address, Safirulla said that Kerala was a frontrunner in the use of Open Source software. ‘’Those who had participated in the meet should use their expertise in creating new devices using free software,’’ he said.
Earlier, during the day, experts in the domain of open source computing spoke on the topics related to open software. Christy Jacob, data scientist, TCS, spoke on the topic ‘IoT Data Analytics’. He said that the Internet of Things had brought about revolutionary changes in the way business is conducted.
Amit Dev, senior, Principal Applications engineer, Oracle, spoke on the topic ‘IoT protocol’.The challenges and opportunities of using Internet of Things in various sectors were explained. Mathan Raj of SECO and Shahim Baker of Grey Technologies spoke on the topic of ‘Open Source Hardware’.
Contest held for projects
using open source hardware
Safety device for KSEB
workers wins 1st prize
Device developed by engineering college student
Device can also control functioning of streetlights
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / News> Cities> Kochi / by Express News Service / December 28th, 2015
If high-adrenaline action is the surest sign of transmitting a message, Deepak Ravindran is sending out one loud and clear. His Bengaluru-based startup Lookup, which has Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Infosys’s Kris Gopalakrishnan as investors, is in the final stages of closing its latest round of funding. And the CEO and founder of the hyperlocal messaging app, that allows businesses to connect with local consumers, reveals the announcement can be expected within a week.
Inspiration for Lookup struck Ravindran while visiting his hometown of Kasargod, Kerala. “I saw my mom chatting with her grocer over WhatsApp and placing her order. That was an eye opener about the way people use chat,” Ravindran says, in a telephonic interview from Bengaluru.
With WhatsApp, he noticed one needs to save the number for ease of communication. Once that is done, you can see each other’s frequently changed display pictures, which may create privacy issues. He addressed those with Lookup, ensuring consumers do not have to worry about chatting with storekeepers they’ve never met before.
The messaging industry has been this 30-year-old serial entrepreneur’s core strength, with this being his third venture in the space. Keeping an eye on the shifting tech landscape, he has morphed the form to suit changing needs. His 2007-launch student startup Innoz for example, was an SMS-based search engine. “It was a time when mobile phones were becoming popular. But internet was still not so common. We saw the potential for an offline search engine,” says Ravindran.
But by 2014, with data lording over voice, Ravindran realised the rules had changed again. To meet the challenge, he decided to merge the two big trends of messaging (chats) and apps. Lookup was born out of this union.
Meet Lookup’s Deepak Ravindran, a CEOentrepreneur who chose funding over finishing college and got his competition (no less than Twitter co-founder Biz Stone) to invest in his venture.
Fashioned after Steve Jobs
Ravindran’s story at 18 wasn’t typical of the average Indian science student. He took his medical and engineering entrance exams, securing ranks in both. He liked computer science, so he picked engineering.
He had discovered the internet just a few years before at 15. Logging on via a dial-up connection, he was fascinated by the worldwide web. He says, “I started looking for inspiring stories and read about Steve Jobs and a few others. I read how he started a company at a very young age and that idea stuck.”
By the time he entered Lal Bahadur Shastri Col lege of Engineering in Kasargod in 2005, Ravindran had decided that he would use it as a fertile ground to found his own company. He did so in 2007, with three classmates. When his startup was picked by IIM-A’s iAccelerator program that promised funding of Rs 3-5 lakh, things came to a head. The founders had to shift base to Ahmedabad, which meant a choice between college and the accelerator.
The quartet made their choice. They dropped out of college. “Dropping out is a fad now. But it was extremely risky back then. The only reason we did it was because we were getting funded for the first time,” says Ravindran, disclosing that they did worry about getting good placements if things didn’t work out.
For a month, the families of Ravindran and his friends believed they had quit college to pursue an MBA at IIM. “It sounded all fancy,” he said. It eventually worked out, as from dropouts, they went to being the largest recruiter at their erstwhile engineering college, taking on over 100 students within a couple of years — first at Innoz and later at Lookup.
From competitors to partners
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was Ravindran’s competition at one point. After Innoz plateaued in 2013 and the team failed to sell it off, Ravindran decided to move to US for an MIT incubator program. He founded a Q&A platform Quest, that competed with Quora and Stone’s Jelly.
Stone was interested in acquiring Quest for a possible expansion into the Asian market. But Ravindran managed to raise just $50,000 over a year, falling way short of the $500,000 target. That’s when he decided to wind Quest down and return to India
Incidentally, Stone’s Jelly failed too. In an interview with Mashable, he even admitted that today, a small group of dedicated users is the only thing keeping the app alive. But a previous failure didn’t hamper Ravindran’s prospects according to Stone, who came on board Lookup after a San Francisco meeting in April.
Undoubtedly, things are looking up for Ravindran at Lookup.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / ET Home> Magazines> Panache / by Masoom Gupte, ET Bureau / September 03rd, 2015
The neighbourhood kids in Saji Thomas’s remote Idukki village used to call him ‘potten’ (idiot) and not just because, as children often cruelly do, he was born deaf and mute but because he was also constantly trying to piece together junk into something new.
Touching the sky: Saji Thomas will now feature in a TV programme
The 45 year-old ‘potten’ has come a long way. Thomas designed and built a twin-seater ultralight aircraft on his own from used parts and recycled material which got him into the record books and will see him featured on Discovery Channel in a programme called HRX Superheroes beginning on Monday. The programme is anchored by Hrithik Roshan and showcases nine people who overcame physical disability to achieve their dreams.
His ultralight aircraft, called Saji X Air-S, has already done several successful flights at a private flight training academy owned by Thiruvananthapuram-based SKJ Nair, a (Rtd) Wing Commander. Thomas’s passion for planes was kindled when as a 15 year-old he saw a small aircraft spraying pesticides on nearby rubber plantations.
He mustered the courage to go and ‘talk’ to the pilots, one of whom gave the mute kid their Mumbai address. A few months later, Thomas ran away from home to Mumbai. Impressed by his enthusiasm, the pilots gave him some manuals on aviation to read up and put him on odd jobs.
Over the years, Thomas has had to undergo severe hardships to build the aircraft, even selling all five cents of land he owned. “First he could only construct the frame of an aircraft and the second one could not fly as an engine from a motor bike was used in it,” his wife Mariya told TOI.
After Thomas sold the second aircraft’s model to an engineering college, he bought an aircraft engine with that money and completed the work on Saji X Air-S last year. Thomas, whose name is mentioned in India Book of Records as the first differently abled person to build an aircraft, often worked as a rubber tapper, an electrician and band photographer to earn a living.
“It was when we lost all hope that support came from Nair who made arrangements for Thomas to test his aircraft and also helped him in flying the aircraft at Manimuthar in Tamil Nadu,” Mariya said.
Thomas is now seeking a licence from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and plans to build a twin-engine aircraft. He is also seeking a job as an aeronautics mechanic and hopes that some reputed company recruits him.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / National> City> Thiruvananthapuram / by Anasooya S, TNN / November 02nd, 2015
Labrador Jack undergoing dialysis at the District Veterinary Centre in Kollam on Thursday.
Jack, the Labrador, is the first dialysis patient in a government vet hospital in the State.
Jack, a seven-year-old ebony Labrador, has become the first canine patient to undergo dialysis at a government veterinary hospital in the State. The dog, diagnosed with acute kidney failure, underwent treatment on Thursday for about six hours.
Veterinary surgeon B. Aravind, who led the treatment, said the dog would have to be on treatment for two weeks. The owner, Dilip of Mundakkal in the city, took Jack to the District Veterinary Centre (DVC) after noticing that the animal was constantly vomiting and was very lethargic.
Dr. Aravind, who found that Jack was not responding to medicines, subjected the dog to a thorough check-up and diagnosed it with acute renal failure, probably caused by ingestion. The dialysis was carried out with machines installed by the district panchayat at the DVC.
The fee for the treatment on Thursday was Rs.5,000. On subsequent days, the fee will be less. The Kollam DVC is attached with a superspecialty veterinary centre constructed with funds provided by the panchayat. Dr. Aravind said that another canine patient bitten by a snake will also be given treatment at the DVC on Friday.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Ignatius Pereira / Kollam – October 30th, 2015
Attinad Software, a leader in SMACT (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and IoT) space announced that it has been named as ‘Vendor to Watch’ in the upcoming product space of Rapid Mobile Application Development. Attinad Software’s flagship product called Cantiz Mobility platform has been featured in the Gartner report.
Attinad Software CEO, Mohammed Rijas, credits this acknowledgement by worlds renowned IT research firm to its award winning products in the SMACT space. He said, “I dedicate this fabulous recognition to the entire team at Attinad Software and thank them for the hard work and dedication which has got us this recognition.”
Attinad Software has been on a fast track growth path over the years aiming at being the preferred SMACT partner for enterprises across the globe. Attinad Software has a strong footprint in verticals such as Oil n Gas, Education, Media and Entertainment, Healthcare and Logistics. Attinad, had won numerous international awards including the prestigious Deloitte Technology Fast 50, Red Herring Top 100 Global Award. “Cantiz Mobility platform has created immense value for number of leading enterprises,” said Shafeer Badharudeen, CTO, Attinad Software.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by Express Features / October 17th, 2015
Two technologies developed by Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Thrissur, have been transferred to industries for commercial production.
Debashis Dutta, Group Co-ordinator, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, handed over the technologies to give a facelift to the ‘Make in India’ programme of the government.
Sreekar Reddy, CEO, Speedlam Electomaterials, Hyderabad, and Manohar Nambiar, MD, Deem Sensing Technologies, signed the Technology Transfer agreement with C-MET.
The products developed by the C-MET are Flexible Microwave Substrates and NTC Fast Response Thermal Sensors.
Flexible microwave substrates are extensively used in a variety of high-end microwave circuit applications such as high power solid state amplifiers, patch antennas, missile guidance and mobile base stations. World over only a handful of industries are manufacturing these technologically and commercially important class of products, according to C-MET sources.
More than 70 per cent of the cost of any microwave device accounts for the base microwave circuit board and the availability of such circuit boards in the country are going to make a phenomenal change in the overall performance of the microwave industries, they added.
C-MET has developed a patented SMECH process methodology for the commercial manufacture of these circuit materials.
NTC chip thermistors are extensively used for accurate temperature measurement and control in automobiles, medical field and electronic appliances. C-MET has developed different NTC compositions, chip thermistors and chip in glass thermal sensors suitable for various temperature ranges of sensing applications. C-MET has developed extremely small sensors of sizes 0.3mmx0.3mmx0.3mm.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Staff Reporter / Thrissur – October 13th, 2015
A 53-year-old man, who was diabetic for the past 18 years, became the first patient in south India to have an artificial pancreas after a successful procedure at Jothydev’s Diabetes Research Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. The first generation artificial pancreas, 640 G, was implanted earlier this month. Artificial pancreas was first tried on a four-year-old Australian boy who had type-one diabetes in January this year.
Dr Jothydev Kesavadev, who heads the centre, said that the 640 G is a network of devices that includes a device for continuous glucose monitoring and an insulin delivery system that are connected wirelessly. “In type-one diabetes and in many type-two cases, the biggest challenge is to keep the sugar level normal and avoiding hypoglycaemia or low sugar. It is a major cause for patient deaths in diabetes and a major reason for treatment failure. 640 G comes with an innovative technology where the pump will predict an impending low sugar 30 minutes in advance and automatically shutdown to prevent a low sugar episode. This system has automatic sensor to assess impending drop of blood sugar – say 60 – even when sugar level is 100. The pump will resume functioning once the sugar level is normal,” he said.
The device – which is almost the size of an iPhone – can be attached to the stomach, buttock of kids or on thighs of patients wearing dhoti. Insulin must be refilled every three days. 640G is so unique that the device need not be removed even while bathing or swimming. A tiny remote control, the contour meter helps glucose monitoring, insulin infusion and wireless communication between devices. The device is painless and ideal for kids,” said Dr Kesavadev.
“When insulin was founded in 1922, it was big remedy. But sudden change in sugar level remained a challenge. About 80-95 % of diabetes patients experience sudden change is sugar level. Either they get admitted for hypoglycaemia or for high sugar by eating sugar to control the sudden drop. This could be prevented if there is a device like 640 G,” he said.
The device is priced at Rs 5 to 6 lakh and entails a recurring monthly expense of Rs 10,000-20,000. However, the doctor said that it was cost-effective considering the cost for a pancreas transplant and related treatment.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Thiruvananthapuram / by Jisha Surya, TNN / September 14th, 2015
