Nearly 40 percent of Indian children suffer from zinc deficiency, a reason behind the whopping malnutrition in India, a top government official said Tuesday.
'We know that zinc deficiency among children of poor and middle-class families is quite high. This is the problem and the government is trying to give zinc supplement to children,' said M.K. Bhan, secretary in the department of biotechnology.He said the government is trying to provide zinc supplement in the form of tablets in areas where diarrhea and its related deaths are quite high.'Some states like Orissa are running p..
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday asked the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the country's premier military organisation, to gear up for the future needs of the armed forces and speed up delivery of defence equipment.
He also said that private-public partnerships should be encouraged to ensure that the defence forces get critical products and systems at affordable costs.'In the coming years, the DRDO will focus on several state-of-the-art technologies such as hypersonic propulsion, unmanned air, land and underwater vehicles, robotics, stealth, smart material..
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the country's premier military research organisation, Monday said it had successfully acquired the technology to launch missiles from the ocean depths, becoming the world's fifth country to do so.
The acknowledgement came when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave away the performance excellence award 2007 to A.K Chakrabarti, under whose leadership a team of 86 scientists achieved the success under this project called K-15. 'The team has designed and developed a state-of-the-art missile system with the capability of bein..
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday asked the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the country's premier military organisation, to gear up for the future needs of the armed forces and speed up delivery of defence equipment.
He also said that private-public partnerships should be encouraged to ensure that the defence forces get critical products and systems at affordable costs.'In the coming years, the DRDO will focus on several state-of-the-art technologies such as hypersonic propulsion, unmanned air, land and underwater vehicles, robotics, stealth, smart material..
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), celebrating 50 years of its establishment this year, Monday put across the message that its scientists were not immune to market forces and needed better remuneration.
'The scientific temper, while being lured by technology challenges, is not immune to the world outside. The phenomenal remuneration package of India's private sector is a powerful inducement in drawing away the scientific talent from government establishments,' M. Natarajan, scientific advisor to the defence minister, said here on the occasion of World Te..
With more hits from countries like China, Germany and Japan, the Incredible India website, the country's popular tourism campaign, has moved from the 100,000 rank to 25,000 in the World Wide Web Space.
Believing in the power of the Internet, the tourism ministry revamped its website to make its Incredible India campaign popular in India and abroad. It was first launched in December 2004.
'Our consistent efforts in the last three years have yielded visible results in terms of the Incredible India site being ranked at 25,000th place,' a tourism ministry official said Monday. ..
Hundreds of techies in India's silicon hub took a break from writing codes and logged on to electronic voting machines (EVMs) Saturday to cast their votes in the first phase of the Karnataka assembly election.
Though many of them did not show any hurry to vote, they turned up in good numbers in the afternoon to exercise their franchise. Clad in T-shirts and jeans or Bermudas, they queued up at the designated polling stations and waited patiently for their turn to press the green button on the EVMs, making a calculated choice of the candidate.
With the majority of about 1,500 IT fir..
A Jaipur-based mechanical engineer and an architect from Ahmedabad have jointly developed a fuel free passive cooling system for buildings.
Jyotirmay Mathur of Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur and Rajeev Kathpalia of the city-based Vastu Shilipa Consultants have developed the system that comprises a solar chimney and a wind tower.
The solar chimney that will be installed on the roof of a building will provide ventilation while the wind tower will provide a breeze.
Mathur told IANS that the design represented a new approach as the concept of a combined solar chimney ..
As Myanmar copes with the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis, meteorologists from South and Southeast Asia are ready with the name of the next cyclone to hit the region - one called Abe.
And astrological predictions are not at work here; only a systematic way of listing names for disasters yet to strike.
'It's better to give identity to the cyclones. Countries around the north Indian Ocean have prepared a list of names which will be given to the cyclones,' said R.C. Bhatia, additional director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
'A name helps a..
A Jaipur-based mechanical engineer and an architect from Ahmedabad have jointly developed a fuel free passive cooling system for buildings.
Jyotirmay Mathur of Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur and Rajeev Kathpalia of the city-based Vastu Shilipa Consultants have developed the system that comprises a solar chimney and a wind tower.
The solar chimney that will be installed on the roof of a building will provide ventilation while the wind tower will provide a breeze.
Mathur told IANS that the design represented a new approach as the concept of a combined solar chimney ..
As Myanmar copes with the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis, meteorologists from South and Southeast Asia are ready with the name of the next cyclone to hit the region - one called Abe.
And astrological predictions are not at work here; only a systematic way of listing names for disasters yet to strike.
'It's better to give identity to the cyclones. Countries around the north Indian Ocean have prepared a list of names which will be given to the cyclones,' said R.C. Bhatia, additional director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
'A name helps a..
With the Indian gaming and animation industry growing by leaps and bounds, the information and broadcasting ministry has engaged a top multi-national firm to prepare a report on the burgeoning manpower needs in these sectors.
The ministry has asked PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's largest professional services firms, to prepare a report on the future requirement of skilled manpower in gaming and visual effects sector.
'The report would aim at giving the government an understanding of the requirement of skilled manpower in view of the growing demand for professionals in..
The jatropha plant, a rich source of bio-fuel that is being grown on a large scale in Chhattisgarh, can harm the soil and aquatic life, cause skin cancer and even affect the brain of children if accidentally consumed, claims a scientist.
'Researchers found in 1987 itself that jatropha oil contains tumour-promoting substances,' Pankaj Oudhia, a Raipur-based agricultural scientist, told IANS.
'People across the world know that jatropha oil is harmful for the skin. This is the reason why it is also known as 'Hell oil',' said Oudhia, who has done extensive resear..
It was invented in India, but Vedic mathematics is more popular abroad, says expert Pradeep Kumar who has authored more than 75 books on the subject. He believes it could banish the fear that creeps into the minds of millions of children at the mention of math.
The world of Vedic maths, says Kumar, is mental - doing away with finger counting, carrying over digits, manual calculations and electronic computations.
Kumar, a mechanical engineer and an alumnus from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bangalore, heads the institute, Magical Methods in Delhi, which works with several school..
It was invented in India, but Vedic mathematics is more popular abroad, says expert Pradeep Kumar who has authored more than 75 books on the subject. He believes it could banish the fear that creeps into the minds of millions of children at the mention of math.
The world of Vedic maths, says Kumar, is mental - doing away with finger counting, carrying over digits, manual calculations and electronic computations.
Kumar, a mechanical engineer and an alumnus from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Bangalore, heads the institute, Magical Methods in Delhi, which works with several school..
India and Australia Wednesday signed a partnership agreement for working together on environmental sustainability issues.
The agreement, which was signed in the presence of Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, is between Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and India's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which is said to be the world's largest publicly funded civilian laboratory.
Australia is funding it under Australia-India strategic research fund. The fund has been allocated $20 million over a five-yea..
India Wednesday successfully tested its longest-range nuclear capable missile Agni-III, catapulting the country into the select group of nations that have intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM).
Adding another dimension to the nation's arsenal, Agni-III with a range of 3,000 km is a mobile system capable of being launched from anywhere in India. Its range includes major cities in China, apart from all of south Asia.
Agni-III, which is capable of carrying warheads weighing up to 1.5 tonnes, was tested at exactly 9.56 a.m. from the Inner Wheeler Island at Dhamra, a launch site i..
India tested its longest-range nuclear capable missile Agni III, that can hit a target 3,000 km away, from a defence base here Wednesday morning, military sources said.
The Agni III, which is capable of carrying warheads weighing up to 1.5 tonnes, was tested at exactly 9.56 a.m. from the Inner Wheeler Island at Dhamra, a launch site in Bhadrak district, about 200 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar.
Agni-III, one of the Agni series missiles, is 16 metres in height and weighs 48 tonnes.
This was the third test of the missile, which scientists say has the capability of hitting stra..
India tested its longest-range nuclear capable missile Agni III, that can hit a target 3,000 km away, from a defence base here Wednesday morning, military sources said.
The Agni III, which is capable of carrying warheads weighing up to 1.5 tonnes, was tested at exactly 9.56 a.m. from the Inner Wheeler Island at Dhamra, a launch site in Bhadrak district, about 200 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar.
Agni-III, one of the Agni series missiles, is 16 metres in height and weighs 48 tonnes.
This was the third test of the missile, which scientists say has the capability of hitting stra..
Myanmar's Cyclone Nargis reminds us that we can't stop nature's fury. But a group of techies and communicators believe they can help people cope with such tragedies - via cyberspace.
Worldwidehelp.blogspot.com is an online venture started with volunteers, including those from Mumbai, following the tsunami of December 2004. Currently, it has been continuing its work at disaster time in different parts of the globe, in varying ways.
'We're trying to get information about the situation in Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis. If you have access to reliable information about ..
The Kerala Agriculture University's Pepper Research Station at Panniyur in Kannur district is getting ready to release a new pepper variety which is more resistant to wilt disease and drought conditions.
Quick wilt is the major disease that has devastated pepper plantations in Kerala.
'We have sent the new variety to different states to assess its performance in diverse environment. We are waiting for feed-back,' said K.P. Mammootty, an associate professor of the university, who heads the research station.
The new variety 'Panniyur 8' is said to be early bearin..
City-based Nethotzone Monday announced that it would launch a free internet kiosk at an agricultural fair being held in Vadodara to provide valuable information to farmers free of cost.
Nethotzone will open the kiosk at the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) during the month-long agricultural fair beginning Wednesday.
'Providing connectivity with content to the farmers will surely bring about a sea change in agrarian economy of Gujarat,' said Ravin Vyas, CEO and promoter of Nethotzone.
The farmers would be able to utilise internet service for selling their produce..
City-based Nethotzone Monday announced that it would launch a free internet kiosk at an agricultural fair being held in Vadodara to provide valuable information to farmers free of cost.
Nethotzone will open the kiosk at the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) during the month-long agricultural fair beginning Wednesday.
'Providing connectivity with content to the farmers will surely bring about a sea change in agrarian economy of Gujarat,' said Ravin Vyas, CEO and promoter of Nethotzone.
The farmers would be able to utilise internet service for selling their produce..
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was Monday presented with images of the national capital taken by the recently launched satellites Cartosat-2A and IMS-1.
A group of scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), led by its chairman G. Madhavan Nair, met Manmohan Singh and briefed him about the space programme, a statement of the science and technology ministry said.
The statement said the prime minister was highly appreciative of the success of the PSLV-C9 mission, which placed 10 satellites into orbit. Manmohan Singh congratulated the entire team for the magnificent performa..
Chinese officials Monday dismissed as 'baseless' reports that their government was involved in cyber warfare targeting Indian computer networks and stressed that such activities were not in sync with the developing trust between the two countries.
'The Chinese government has nothing to do with it. The Chinese government discourages such activities against all countries, including India,' said a Chinese embassy official, who did not wish to be named.
'These reports are baseless. They are not in tune with the growing trust and friendship between India and China,..
Gujaratis living in any corner of the world will soon be able to contact anybody in the state through 24X7 e-connectivity, Chief Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday in his interaction through satellite with people of Gujarati origin in the US and Canada.
During the 100-minute question-answer session, part of the Gujarat Foundation Day celebrations, he shared his vision of progress with the diaspora.
People's participation and technology adoption had delivered tremendous results, Modi said.
..
Graphic designers from as far apart as Mauritius, Seychelles, Costa Rica and Philippines conducted a weeklong workshop here for hearing and speech impaired children
The workshop concluded Saturday. It was organised by Arena Animation, the multimedia training wing of Aptech Global Learning Solutions Limited, for Udayan, a non-government organisation.
'Being physically challenged does not mean one has run out of creativity. We are trying to exploit the creative side of these children so that they too can start an independent career,' Aptech's chief executive officer and mana..
Graphic designers from as far apart as Mauritius, Seychelles, Costa Rica and Philippines conducted a weeklong workshop here for hearing and speech impaired children
The workshop concluded Saturday. It was organised by Arena Animation, the multimedia training wing of Aptech Global Learning Solutions Limited, for Udayan, a non-government organisation.
'Being physically challenged does not mean one has run out of creativity. We are trying to exploit the creative side of these children so that they too can start an independent career,' Aptech's chief executive officer and mana..
In what Indian security officials find alarming, Pakistani mobile phone service providers are believed to have erected nine mobile towers in their territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
In February this year, the Vigilance and Telecom Monitoring Cell of the Department of Telecommunications conducted a survey at 44 locations on the Indian side of the LoC - the de facto borderline that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. It found that at 39 locations, Pakistani mobile signals reached Indian territory.
'Pakistan has erected nine mobile towers in its ter..
In what Indian security officials find alarming, Pakistani mobile phone service providers are believed to have erected nine mobile towers in their territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
In February this year, the Vigilance and Telecom Monitoring Cell of the Department of Telecommunications conducted a survey at 44 locations on the Indian side of the LoC - the de facto borderline that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. It found that at 39 locations, Pakistani mobile signals reached Indian territory.
'Pakistan has erected nine mobile towers in its ter..
ATLANTA, GA - January, 2008 : â GE Energyâs most advanced, F-class gas turbine technology has been selected for a new combined-cycle power plant that will serve the Port of Barcelona as well as help to meet the future requirements of the Spanish electricity grid.
Owned by Gas Natural SDG, S.A., the Port de Barcelona Power Plant will feature two GE STAG 109FB combined-cycle syste..
Climate change is warming Britain's waters, eroding its coastline, harming its marine wildlife and increasing the likelihood of devastating storms and floods, the government said in a report published Wednesday. The "Marine Climate Change Impacts" report, drawn up by coalition of government bodies and researchers, said 2006 was the warmest year ever recorded for Britain's water..
A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the âflesh-eatingâ MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday. In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces..
Bangalore, January 15th , 2008, Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), today announced that it is among the first systems integrators (SIs) to provide design and implementation services for the SAP® Interactive Forms software by Adobe. This new, innovative SAP program is designed to enable selected SIs to provide SAP customers business process ..
Torrance, CA.â GizMac Accessories, manufacturer of innovative products for Apple iPod, iPhone and Xserve product lines, will announce and display new products at MacWorld.
Known for the Titan line of iPod and iPhone cases and their XRackPro2 line of Xserve noise reducing racks, GizMac plans to show an expanded line of products at their MacWorld booth. This year, a few new product lines ..
In a new report, U.S. researchers describe the improvement in brain function that occurred in a patient with Alzheimer's disease just minutes after receiving an injection in the spine of the arthritis drug Enbrel (also known as etanercept). For instance, just prior to treatment the patient was agitated and could not name the state. Ten minutes after treatment, he appeared calmer, more attenti..
HOUSTON - NASA will hold a media briefing at 1 p.m. CST Tuesday, Jan. 15, with the next resident crew of the International Space Station and a South Korean spaceflight participant. The briefing will originate from NASAâs Johnson Space Center, Houston, and be broadcast live on NASA Television. Questions will be taken from news media at participating NASA sites.
The briefing participants ..
This morning at the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, Google Engineering Director Andrew Moore announced a new version of Sky in Google Earth. Sky now includes several new features that provide scientists, students and amateur stargazers with new tools to explore the millions of stars and galaxies visible in Sky, get up to date on current sky events, learn basic concepts of astronomy..
Two major new studies grapple with the conundrum at the core of autism, the often-devastating disorder that can make it difficult for children to connect with their fellow humans. This news brings us two big steps further down the path of understanding this complex, enigmatic disease. And it reassures all parents that childhood vaccines do not appear to increase the risk of autism.
On Thursday..
Toronto has become the first city in North America to have more than a million Facebook users.
An online survey released Wednesday also showed that seven million Canadians of a total population of 32 million use Facebook as of today.
'Facebook started just over a year ago and has already stormed Canada. It has become a phenomenon here,' Brian Singh, managing director of ZINC Resea..
Goa has unveiled plans for a super-ambitious broadband network project to build a state that's 'enabled by IT to be efficient and accountable with a global thinking approach'.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the Goa Broadband Network (GBBN) Friday amid both expectations and apprehensions as to how exactly the project will work and at what cost.
Official statements here s..
Sky-watchers had a good day out Wednesday as Mars came closest to Earth since 2003 and was visible to the naked eye from the eastern sky.
Astronomers said Mars' closeness to Earth would remain a record at least till 2016. Currently, Mars is some 87 million km away from Earth and experts say it is pretty close.
Nehru Planetarium director N. Rathnasree said Mars was closest to Earth at 5...
Ayurveda remedies now at the click of a mouse! This is what the National Institute of Ayurveda (NIA) here promises for those who want to follow the age-old herbal system of Indian medicine for any ailment.
The NIA will begin its online consultancy services within a month and later also offer telemedicine, said institute director Mahesh Chandra Sharma.
'With our online consultancy service..
A low-cost technology developed by scientists at ICARDA to treat high level of magnesium in soil by using calcium has demonstrated the potential to double the crop yield in magnesium-rich soils in Central Asia. In southern Kazakhstan alone, more than 150,000 hectares of land is affected by high levels of magnesium, which causes soil degradation and seriously reduces crop yield. Scientists have ..
Anand Mani, a pathology test vendor, wanted to gift his unborn child something special and his heart was set on saving the baby's stem cells for a disease free future. But the process was expensive.
Mani's dream may not have come true but for a new EMI (equated monthly instalments) payment plan.
'I wanted to bank my child's stem cell. If I hadn't been able to do it fo..
Astronaut Sunita Williams arrived here Thursday to a warm and cheerful welcome, a day after her 42nd birthday was celebrated. Her father Deepak Pandya cut the cake at the residence of Sunita's uncle Vithal Pandya.
The astronaut, who stayed a record 195 days in space, arrived on an Air India flight Thursday morning. This is her second visit to Gujarat; the first was in 1998.
Sunita is sch..
According to a recent article in Computerworld, Microsoft released a new Windows Vista update, specifically designed to boost performance in the new operating system proving that performance remains a top concern for computer sites. Issues addressed by the "performance booster" update are speed of wake-up from hibernation and quicker time calculation for the movement of large files.
P..
While India is still debating how to make the Indo-US nuclear deal work, an American company, anxious to enter the Indian market, has offered to build commercial nuclear power reactors in the country.
These reactors will rely entirely on India's thorium resources -- except at the start - and thereby remove the objections of critics.
The California-based Dauvergne Brothers Inc (DBI) says ..
Every year crops worth hundreds of millions of dollars are lost and thousands of farmers are driven towards economic despondency because of drought. Climate change and global warming are increasing the threat of reduced rainfall and availability of water for agriculture.
Agricultural scientists are faced with the challenge of developing varieties that can withstand drought and save the liveli..
Scientists have for the first time found uranium in 'exceptionally high concentration' in Ladakh, the icy Himalayan region in Jammu and Kashmir that has strategic significance for India.
Samples of rocks analysed in a German laboratory have revealed uranium content to be as high as 5.36 percent compared to around 0.1 percent or less in ores present elsewhere in the country.
India..
The Jharkhand police plans to set up a Geographical Information System (GIS) centre to track the movement of Maoists in the state.
The state police would seek the help of the Jharkhand Space Application Centre (JSAC) to get a detailed report of the topography of the state. 'We will set up a GIS centre which will help officials to crack down on criminals and Maoist rebels,' a senior p..
India is considering a manned mission to space soon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said Thursday.
'We are seriously considering a manned space mission. But we will first have to study and prepare a report within a year on newer technologies to develop capsules to send men to space and bring them back safely,' Nair told a press conference here.
..
Micronet, a worldwide provider of innovative networking products, today announced its new innovative gigabit switch for carriers and enterprises.
Micronet SP6148WS 48-Port Gigabit Web Smart Switch delivers truly non-blocking and wire-speed Gigabit performance for service providers and enterprises that demand high-port density applications. Moreover, it brings advanced features, such as tag-base..
NETGEAR® Technologies India Pvt. Ltd., a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking products, today announced the availability of ReadyNAS⢠NV+ product family in the Indian market.
NETGEARâs ReadyNAS NV+ is the single, safe and effective solution for storing and serving all digital data â designed specifically for home offices, sm..
Wipro-NewLogic, the semiconductor IP business unit of Wipro Technologies, today announced the release of its Bluetooth 2.0+EDR baseband RTL and software stack.
This low-power and flexible Bluetooth 2.0+EDR architecture is upgradeable to Bluetooth 2.1+EDR by software and builds up on the companyâs silicon-proven and fully certified Bluetooth 1.2 solution. Combined with the Wipro-NewLogic..
Global software giant Microsoft Wednesday unveiled yet another initiative to make computer education easier, accessible and affordable for the poor through the use of information, communication and technology (ICT).
With the launch its programme called Unlimited Potential Microsoft aims to make technology available to over a billion poor people by 2015.
'Our founding vision of a comput..
NASA managers kept close tabs on the weather Thursday as thunderstorms and low clouds threatened to prevent space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts from landing after a trip to the international space station.
The shuttle's first landing opportunity was at 1:55 p.m. EDT Thursday, when predictions called for thunderstorms within 34 miles and clouds within 8,000 feet of the landing s..
Apple Inc. says its highly anticipated iPhone will have a battery life that supports 8 hours of talk time, better than what the company originally estimated in January. The company said Monday the battery also supports 7 hours of video playback, 6 hours of Internet use, 24 hours of music playback, and it will feature up to 10 days of standby time before requiring a recharge.In January, Apple said..
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis lifted off into outer space Friday to repair the international space station. The voyage is the shuttle's first mission this year, following a freak hale storm earlier in the year. VOA's Jessica Berman reports.
The first space shuttle launch of 2007 went flawlessly. George Diller is a NASA spokesman.
"Five, four, three, two, one, and lift-off of..
Mark your calendars and get out your sleeping bags. Apple and AT&T stores will begin selling the much-awaited iPhone on June 29, and lines are expected to be long. The combination iPod, cell phone and Internet device "will be sold out by mid-afternoon" on opening day, predicts Richard Doherty, an independent analyst with The Envisioneering Group. "There's that much anticipa..
