Abhyasasathee Wi-Fi cha Wapar Kameech (Marathi article)

Source: Loksatta dated 22 March, 2019

Niranjan Karagi’s Nirnal world’s cheapest portable water filter

Sometimes, the inspiration for the most brilliant of inventions can come from the most humbling of places. Such is the case for NirNal founder Niranjan Karagi while he was playing in a schoolyard nearby his home has invented and patented the world’s cheapest water filter which costs Rs.30 and can be used for 100 times and fits any water bottle and this removes 99% of bacteria and other disease-causing water contaminants.

AAB is proud that we were the first ones to cover his project in December 2016, An Engineer Filters the Way to Success.

Niranjan now has many accolades to his name including Best Entrepreneur Award by Deshpande Foundation – Feb 2017, Best Entrepreneur Award by Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) – Jan 2017, Yuva Shilpi Award by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

It is a compatible, portable, reusable, healthy and an eco-friendly water purifier. A product that ensures ‘Safe Drinking water ’ at an affordable price. This acts as a filter when the water oozes out of Nirnal fixed to the bottles. It is easy to use, imparts taste and also adds some essential minerals to the water. It uses activated charcoal, Filter cloth.

Niranjan did his schooling from St. Mary’s school Belagavi and PUC from Govindram Seksaria Science College, Belagavi. Later completed Mechanical engineering from Angadi Institute of Technology and Management in Belagavi.

During his free time, he noticed some small children using the playground and filling up their plastic water bottles from a potentially unsafe tap. Bearing witness to the scene, Niranjan reflected sadly on this reality and felt that all children should have clean water despite their income or area of residence. It was certainly not a surprise for the young leader to think of such social issues, given his involvement in the LEAD program at AITM College Belagavi. But it was this particular case that leads him to create something that would make a significant social impact for many people.

Water filtration became the main theme for Niranjan as he began to brainstorm ideas on providing a clean, low-cost source of water. Seeing as his research revealed the relatively high prices charged by competitors for filters, the future entrepreneur settled on creating a water filter that was both very affordable and portable for bottles. His first prototype used materials that were easily accessible around the house but after some assistance from LEAD, a second prototype was created that took Niranjan 4 painstaking months to perfect. The result was a small filter that could be fitted into any standard plastic bottle with an incredibly low cost of 20 rupees.

At that point, all the hard work put into the prototype paid off. Approval was given by the Food Divisional Officer stating that the filter could purify up to 100 liters of water. Furthermore, Niranjan turned to social entrepreneurship as a means of spreading his technology by agreeing to receive tier-ii incubation support in Belagavi by the Sandbox-IMER center. Sandbox Startups was instrumental to the founding of the NirNal enterprise, officially registered with the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises in Belagavi. Furthermore, the incubation center gave him a platform to pursue his ideas for his product while gaining business knowledge about scalability and validity for the purposes of society. Complete with networking events, partnership opportunities, mentoring, and investor meetings, Sandbox Startups was an essential springboard to Niranjan’s growth as a social entrepreneur.

The social impact of his product has been significant. With the distribution of his product to various villages, schools, and even India’s military, it is evident that NirNal has been widely acclaimed for its ingenious and inexpensive technology. But on a personal level, Niranjan is happy with the fact that children could use his filter, knowing that they would always have a reliable source of water as they grow up. Niranjan’s initial wish to provide clean water to everyone has become more and more of a reality through the means of his portable water filter. This reality was made possible for thousands of people as 12,000 units of his filter have already been sold.

Indeed, it is exciting to see how NirNal will scale with its water filters. Niranjan himself has stated that he would like to improve the unit even further while maintaining a low price, all while maintaining his goal of providing clean water to all rural people. If he were to truly succeed in his endeavors, there would be much cause for celebration for this ingenious invention.

Order request can be sent from here  

Niranjan can be contacted at +91-888-466-0444 or +91-779-533-9714 or contact@nirnal.in

Source: https://allaboutbelgaum.com/specials/niranjan-karagis-nirnal-worlds-cheapest-portable-water-filter/ (Accessed on March 20, 2019)

Do It Yourself Projects

Here is a list of "Do-It-Yourself" projects curated from the magazine - Electronics For You. The library shall keep on updating the list every month.

Do-It-Yourself Projects

Do have a look at the following too:

All Electronic Projects

Top 50 Projects

Latest 50

Arduino Projects

Raspberry Pi Projects

Software Projects: 

MATLAB

Image Processing

MU reschedules 76 examinations

REGULAR FINAL EXAMINATIONS OF MOST SELF-FINANCED COURSES WILL NOW BEGIN ON MAY 2

MUMBAI: The University of Mumbai (MU) has rescheduled 76 semester examinations, including final BCom tests and most self-financed commerce courses, and few papers of 27 examinations, to avoid a clash with next month’s Lok Sabha elections.

The 76 examinations, which include sixth-semester exams of BMS, BCom (Accounting and Finance) and BCom (Banking and Insurance), have been entirely pushed ahead by a few days.

Some papers of the other 27 examinations, including sixth-semester BCom examinations, will be held on different dates, which are yet to be announced.

“The university has tried to make minimal changes,” said Vinod Patil, director, examination and evaluation board.

The four phases of general elections on April 11, 18 and 23 and 29 are set to overlap with MU’s examination schedule.

With the colleges doubling up as the examination and polling centres, and teachers assigned various election duties, the university has decided to move all the major papers being held on the polling days as well as the days preceding and following them.

The regular final examinations of most of the self-financed courses, which were to start on April 22, will now begin on May 2.

“The university should have ensured that all the examinations end on April 30 — the last day of the term. The teachers will now have to be requested to work during summer vacations. The academic calendar won’t be affected if the date of commencement of the next term is not extended beyond June 11,” said Asgar Lakdawala, principal, Royal College, Bhayander.

However, Gopal Kalkolti, principal, MV Mandali’s College, Andheri, said, “The revised schedule may delay results and admissions to post-graduation courses to some extent.”

Source: Hindustan Times (Mumbai edition) e paper dated 20 March, 2019

Move IST ahead by 30 mins, save 3.5 billion units of energy: Scientists

Two time zones will create a divide between the eastern parts of India and the rest of the country. Our proposal for advancing the clock will not force people to change their schedules or habits. DP SENGUPTA, Retd professor, Indian Institute of Science

MUMBAI: The country can save 3.5 billion units of electricity every year if the Indian Standard Time (IST) is advanced by 30 minutes, two senior Indian scientists who first proposed the idea of a timezone shift a decade ago said on Monday.

At present, India is five-andhalf hours ahead of the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and among few nations with a fractional shift — in minutes — from GMT. Most countries add or subtract hours from GMT to create their standard time zones.

In 1884, India had two time zones – Bombay time and Calcutta time. On January 1, 1906, British India adopted IST of fiveand-half hours ahead of GMT. Only the Assam tea gardens operate one hour ahead of IST (chai bagan time).

Retired professors DP Sengupta from the Indian Institute of Science and Dilip Ahuja from the National Institute of Advanced Studies (both based in Bengaluru) in a 2009 study funded by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency had recommended advancing the IST by 30 minutes to obtain energy and non-energy gains. They estimated India would save an estimated 2.1 billion units of electricity every year or 0.3% of the annual consumption of 750 billion units.

For 2019, the duo has said if IST is made six hours ahead of GMT, India can save 3.5 billion units from the annual 1,200 billion units of electricity consumed. According to their study, there will be a saving of 17-18% during peak energy time, such as during evenings when there is a lot of power demand.

“India is investing heavily in rural electrification, and therefore energy demands will also increase in the future. With most of the electricity requirements met by thermal power plants, a one-time advancement of 30 minutes will save us from burning coal to produce 3.5 billion units every year,” said Sengupta during a talk at the Observer Research Foundation.

The scientists are opposed to the idea of implementing daylight savings twice a year as is followed in Western countries or two time zones for India as recently recommended by the National Physical Laboratory. “Two time zones will create a divide between the eastern parts of India and the rest of the country, and lead to confusion in travel schedules. Our proposal for advancing the clock will not force people to change their schedules or habits,” said Ahuja.

Five Asian countries that have implemented one-time advancement in their clocks are China, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

Despite making several presentations to various government departments and bodies between 2010 and 2014 and getting letters of endorsement on their proposal, nothing has happened.

“Governments and policymakers have shrugged their shoulders and moved on. We need individual states on board as stakeholders,” said Sengupta.

Source: Hindustan Times (Mumbai) e-paper dated 20 March, 2019

India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0

The India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) 2.0 is a unique tripartite initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, Lockheed Martin and Tata Trusts.

Supporting the Government of India’s missions of “Start-up India” and “Make in India”, IIGP 2.0 enhances the Indian innovation ecosystem by enabling innovators and entrepreneurs through the stages of ideation and innovation, to develop technology-based solutions for tomorrow.

Complemented by several implementation partners, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; the programme aims to build an innovation pipeline in India through a high-impact programme focused on the social and industrial innovation ecosystem.

Launched in 2007, India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) has been one of India’s longest standing public-private partners. The programme has provided mentoring and handholding assistance to over 400 innovators coming from diverse sectors from across the country; generated over 350 commercial agreements and over $900 Million of economic value for India. (Source: Second Impact Analysis Report by Ernst & Young in 2015).

Through two annual parallel tracks viz. University Challenge and Open Innovation Challenge, IIGP 2.0 identifies and supports both industrial and social innovations through:

• Phase A: Ideation
• Phase B: Innovation

To read more and register, please visit:

http://www.indiainnovates.in/abouttheprogram.aspx (Accessed on 20 March, 2019)

The big deal

ON OFFER Students graduating from the Arts, Commerce and Science streams are being offered hefty starting salaries in campus placements. The big selling points, say companies, are their soft skills and analtyical capabilities

There’s a rapidly growing number of positions that require data crunching or analysis, for which students from maths, statistics and economics backgrounds are well-equipped. DEVASHISH SHARMA, founding member of HR consultancy PeopleStrong

It’s not just engineering, management and law. Highly paid campus placements offers are now being made in fields beyond the professional and technical courses, to students graduating in arts, science and commerce too.

ISTOCK

This year, a final-year Economics student at Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College received a salary offer of Rs 38 lakh (all salary figures are per annum); last year a Commerce student from Sriram College of Commerce (SRCC) got a starting offer of Rs 31 lakh. In Mumbai, arts and commerce students got offers averaging Rs 6 lakh, with the highest going up to Rs 19 lakh.

Companies are offering better packages because they would rather hire young people who are easy to train than experienced people who need to unlearn practices and come with a higher price tag, says Smita Sharma, placement advisor at SRCC.

Another big draw is the fact that these students tend to be equipped with good soft skills.

The average engineering student, for instance, is less likely to have good communication skills, says Devashish Sharma, founding member of India’s largest HR Technology and Talent Acquisition solutions company PeopleStrong. “There’s a rapidly growing number of positions that require data crunching or analysis, for which students from maths, statistics and economics backgrounds are well-equipped,” says Soni George, placement convener at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. “Students from other departments are also eligible to apply for these. We have had students from life sciences take up analyst jobs too.”

At both Xavier’s and SRCC, campus recruitment picked up around 2004-2005 and has been growing steadily since. “This year, we added 20 more companies. Some startups have started coming to campus too. Though they don’t offer huge pay packages, they do offer a lot of exposure,” says Smita Sharma, placement advisor at SRCC.

The brighter job prospects in these subjects have now allowed more students to choose freely when it comes to picking a stream. “I chose economics because I really wanted to study the subject. I did not even know whether I wanted to do a job right after college or not,” says Yashovat Saharia, who graduated from SRCC in 2017. He received among the highest salary offers of his year, according to his college, and has worked with that company, Parthenon EY, ever since.

Saharia says he doesn’t plan to study economics further but he’s glad he picked it to begin with. “I now firmly believe that one should study the subject one likes and not look for one with ‘better job prospects’ because it gives you a strong foundation when you specialise in one field,” he says. At Parthenon EY, his job is that of a senior associate; it involves crunching data to explain to companies why a deal or acquisitions is or isn’t a good idea. “My background in economics and my grooming in presentations made me both good with numbers and capable of communicating what those numbers say, effectively,” Saharia says. Economics has been on the top of recruiters preference for a long time but now recruitments in good honours courses in both sciences and humanities have a lot of takers too, says Sharma of PeopleStrong. “Whereas campus recruitment for general science courses are increasing in fields like pharmaceuticals and chemical research, in the humanities and social sciences there is a rise in recruitment from among psychology students, by corporates and institutions like hospitals and schools. Also, the services side of new age Internet companies are employing humanities graduates with good communication skills in their customer support teams,” Sharma adds.

Source: Hindustan Times (Mumbai edition) e paper dated 20 March, 2019.