Ruchira Kamboj to be India’s Permanent Representative to U.N.

Ruchira Kamboj, who is currently serving as India’s envoy to Bhutan, will succeed T.S. Tirumurti as the Indian ambassador to the U.N

Senior diplomat Ruchira Kamboj was on Tuesday appointed India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.

Ms. Kamboj, a 1987-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, is presently serving as India’s envoy to Bhutan.

She will succeed T.S. Tirumurti as the Indian ambassador to the U.N.

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PM Modi flags off first-ever torch relay for Chess Olympiad

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event.

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event.

The international chess body, FIDE, for the very first time has instituted the torch relay, which is part of the Olympic tradition, but was never done in the Chess Olympiad.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich handed over the torch to the prime minister who gave it to the legendary Viswanathan Anand.

The torch will be taken to 75 cities in a span of 40 days before arriving in Mahabalipuram near Chennai. At every location, chess grandmasters of the state will receive the torch.

Leh, Srinagar, Jaipur, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Patna, Kolkata, Gangtok, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thrissur, Port Blair and Kanyakumari are among the 75 cities.

In nearly 100 years of the history of the Chess Olympiad, it’s the first time that India will be hosting the prestigious event. With 188 countries registered for the upcoming Olympiad, the country is set to witness a huge congregation of nations for a sporting event for the first time on Indian soil.

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Battle scars fail to deter Indian Army’s para-rowers from winning medals

 Both of them lost their left foot to a landmine during counter-insurgency operations in Nowshera, Jammu. It meant they had to change their respective sports. Narayana K was a canoeist while Kuldeep Singh used to play volleyball before the injuries were sustained.

Both switched to rowing on the advice of Colonel Gaurav Dutta, chairman of the Para-Rowing Commission, Rowing Federation of India (RFI). Since the switch, the army duo has never looked back.

They started with a bronze at the PR3 M2- (men’s coxless pair) at the World Rowing Cup 2 in Poznan, Poland in 2019. They followed it up with another bronze at the Asian Rowing Championships in Chungju, South Korea in the same year in PR3 Mixed4+ with Jyoti and Kritika.

Narayana and Kuldeep returned to Poznan to compete in the 2022 edition of the World Cup and they made sure that they finished on the podium. The duo finished third behind rowers from France and Ukraine in PR3 M2- with the timing of 7:33.35.

Besides, the Indian Men’s Eight (M8+) and Women’s Eight (W8+) also entered Finals A and finished fifth in their respective races.

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NLCIL chief gets award

Rakesh Kumar, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NLC India Ltd (NLCIL), was recently conferred with the ‘Top Rankers Excellence – CEO of the Year Award’, according to a press release issued by NLCIL.

The award is instituted by a private agency – Top Rankers Management Club. He was also given the ‘CEO Leadership Excellence Award’, the release said.

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Quantum diamond microscope to image magnetic fields

Researchers tap fluorescence changes in special, diamond sensors to image time-varying fields

Researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Mumbai and Kharagpur have built a microscope that can image magnetic fields within microscopic two-dimensional samples that change over milliseconds. This has a huge potential for scientific applications, such as in measuring biological activity of neurons and dynamics of vortices in superconductors. The work, led by IIT Bombay professor Kasturi Saha, from the Department of Electrical Engineering, has been published in  Scientific Reports. This is the first time that such a tool has been built to image magnetic fields that change within milliseconds. 

he team had started a collaboration with IIT Kharagpur in 2017 with the ambitious target of building a novel system to image the brain. They collaborated with Sharba Bandopadhyay, who brought in an expertise in neurobiology and bioengineering to complement the knowledge of quantum optics, quantum computing and quantum sensing that was Prof. Saha’s forte.

“We have, along with PhD student Madhur Parashar, developed an algorithm to image neurons in 3D using NV quantum sensors,” says Prof. Saha.

This work was published in  Communications Physics in 2020. We have jointly filed a patent for the present work, she adds.

  • Researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Mumbai and Kharagpur have built a microscope that can image magnetic fields within microscopic two-dimensional samples that change over milliseconds.
  • Prof. Saha explains that the ideal frame rate to capture a changing magnetic field is one that captures data at twice the frequency of the changing field.
  • The key aspect of this sensor is a “nitrogen vacancy (NV) defect centre” in a diamond crystal. Such NV centres act as pseudo atoms with electronic states that are sensitive to the fields and gradients around them (magnetic fields, temperature, electric field and strain).

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Guwahati: IIT prosthetic leg that allows deep squatting

Research for developing artificial limb is funded by Union ministry of education and the department of biotechnology.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) have developed an affordable prosthetic leg with advanced features, specifically designed for Indian conditions.

The IIT Guwahati said on Monday that the artificial limb allows its user to sit cross-legged and squat deep and is suitable for uneven terrain.

“Affordable prosthetics that are available in the market have many functional limitations. In addition, the Indian lifestyle and uneven terrain require prosthetics with specifications unique to India, which are not widely available in the market. The leg developed by us is state-of-the-art technology, affordable, light weight, stable and capable of mimicking most of the human joint’s motion, the IIT-G said, adding cost of around Rs 25,000 is ensured using the technology.

IIT Guwahati researchers collaborated with 151 Army Base Hospital, Guwahati, Tolaram Bafna Kamrup District Civil Hospital, Guwahati Neurological Research Centre (GNRC), North Guwahati, and North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGHRIMS), Shillong, to develop the leg.

A team led by professor S. Kanagaraj, department of mechanical Engineering, IITG, set out to tackle these issues. Prototypes of their models developed by this research team are currently undergoing trials.

Professor Bhaskar Borgohain, head of department (Orthopaedic) at NEIGHRIMS told The Telegraph that work on the project started in 2013 with the objective of developing a “user-friendly and light weight” limb.

He has been associated with the project from the beginning.

“The legs developed by us will not only help cut down on imports of prosthetic legs, especially from Germany and UK, but will also be a huge relief to those in need of such legs. An imported artificial limb will cost anywhere between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh. Our legs would cost much less. It will be launched soon,” Borgohain said.

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IIT Madras professor T Pradeep chosen PSIPW laureate

Thalappil Pradeep, institute professor, Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), has been selected as the laureate of the 10th edition of the ‘Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water’ (PSIPW). He was selected for the award under ‘Creativity Prize’ category given for ‘breakthrough discovery’ in any water-related field.

Pradeep developed environmentally-friendly ‘water positive’ nano scale materials for the affordable, sustainable, and rapid removal of arsenic from drinking water.

He was recognized earlier with the Padma Shri, and Nikkei Asia Prize, among many others and his technologies are delivering clean water to over 1.2 crore people.

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A network of spiking neurons demonstrated

IIT Bombay team has designed the first spiking neuro-synaptic core on 45 nanometre silicon-on-insulator technology

Using the phenomenon of quantum tunnelling, IIT Bombay researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, a spiking neuron network that is highly compact and shows potential for brain-scale implementation. The research, published in the journal  IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, demonstrates the use of a 36-member network of spiking neurons in a speech recognition module.

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IPL media rights: Star India bags TV rights; Viacom18 digital rights

At the end of intense bidding over three days through e-auction, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced the winning bidders.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has fetched a total revenue of ₹48,390 crore through Indian Premier League’s (IPL’s) media rights.

At the end of intense bidding over three days through e-auction, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced on Tuesday evening the winning bidders.

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Centre clears ‘Agnipath’ scheme for recruitment of youth in armed forces for four years

‘Agniveers’ can apply for regular employment after four years, may get priority for jobs in other govt. departments

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday announced the “Agnipath” scheme, as approved by the Union Cabinet, for recruitment of youth in the armed forces for four years. The process of recruitment will commence in 90 days with a planned intake of about 46,000 young men and women this year. This will be the only form of recruitment of soldiers into the three defence services hereon.

Mr. Singh said the scheme was aimed at strengthening national security and also for providing an opportunity to the youth to serve in the armed forces. Recruits under the scheme will be known as “Agniveers”. After completing their four-year service, they can apply for regular employment in the armed forces. They may be given priority over others for various jobs in other government departments.

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