Better Late than Never

Context :

DRDO offers 450 patents for free access to industries 

Extract :

Ø ( DRDO ) has put its over  450 patents  for  free access to industries  for commercial exploitation.

Ø As per a new policy, the DRDO, under the Ministry of Defense will offer complete access to its patents filed in India without any licensing or royalty fees. 

Ø The DRDO has taken the lead as other leading R&D bodies like ( CSIR ), ( NRDC ), ( ICMR ), ( ICAR ), which have portfolios of national and international patents offer them for a fee and royalty.

Ø “It’s better to offer some patents free than keeping them in the shelf and pay hefty protection fee for its lifetime. After all, commercial exploitation is the key factor that should determine patents”, experts told BusinessLine

Ø The industry must apply with a fee of ₹1000, along with relevant technical and financial details. It will then be screened by an expert committee and if eligible a non-exclusive license for one year will be granted

Ø A one day “DRDO-Industry Synergy Summit 2019” will be held at the Research Centre Imarat (RCI) Hyderabad on Friday

Ø The topics of discussions include latest policy framework and opportunities created, high technology collaborations and defense manufacturing, defense export and a panel discussion on challenges and opportunities for Indian industries

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Why do I say, “ Better late than never “ ?

because :

I hope this bold initiative of DRDO will, someday soon, lead to the creation of a post in the Central Government , called :

Technology Evaluation and Acquisition Minister  [  TEAM  ],

-      as suggested in my following E Mail :

          Need of the hour ? : TEAM                       [ 21  Apr  2017 ],

-      where I wrote :

By TEAM , I mean :  Technology Evaluation and Acquisition Minister

Whose job description will be :

-      Remain constantly on look-out for developing / developed technologies from around the World , evaluate their relevance to India’s myriad problems and acquire the same from the developers ( including patent rights / IP rights , to exploit it / improve upon it )

-      Make available these acquired technologies to Indian Companies ( both , in private and in public sectors ) / NGOs / Start-Ups etc , FREE of cost ( conditions apply in respect of production targets / pricing / time to implement / after-sales service etc )

==========================================

Dear Dr HarshVardhanji  ,

( Minister for Science and Technology )

drhrshvardhan@gmail.com   /   dr.harshvardhan@sansad.nic.in

From among our many talented scientists, I urge you to pick one as your deputy minister for acquisition of technologies from around the World, for FREE licensing to Indian industries

Technologies that I have listed in my above-mentioned blog, are targeted to solve following problems :

----------------

>  Unavailability of clean drinking water in 

    drought / famine affected areas    

>  Pollution thru Plastic Bottles / Mountains 

    of Land Fills – Garbage Dumps

>   Loss of Forest cover / Rampant 

     Desertification  

>  Millions sleeping in Streets / Slums, for 

    want of affordable houses

>   Traffic Jams on City Roads / Hours to reach

      Office-Home

>   Charging of Batteries of Electric Vehicles takes

     hours !

>   No transmission lines for taking electricity to

     far-flung villages

>   No way to store ( for use at night ), billions of

     KWH of Solar Power

>   Fossil Fuel Power killing millions / Urgent need

     to generate Solar Power

>  Dependence on import for Li-ion batteries /

    Fast charging button batteries

>  High value currency notes facilitating

    generation of BLACK MONEY

>   Making available high speed Internet to entire

     India ( remotest corner )

>   Poor road construction methods resulting in

     perennial pot-holes

=================================  

With regards,

Hemen Parekh

===================================================

22  Nov  2019

hcp@RecruitGuru.com

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Added on 23  Nov  2019 :

I request Dr HarshVardhanji  to contact the following scientists , urging them to collaborate with one of our Research Laboratories to further develop this technology, which can , then be made available for FREE licensing to Indian industries  

Indian scientist, others design device that can store solar energy

Contact Details :

Dr. Hadi Ghasemi  /  hghasemi@uh.edu 

http://www.me.uh.edu/faculty/ghasemi 

----------------------------------------------------------

Varun Kashyap  

Postdoctoral Associate, Cornell University 

varun@med.cornell.edu 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kashyapvarun/  

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Varun_Kashyap  

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Right now , for most of north India, the greatest necessity is to get rid of the smog created by stubble burning by farmers in Punjab – Haryana – Rajasthan

While politicians of all hues are making a lot of noise , some people are working hard to find practical alternate solutions to stubble burning

Following are some examples :

[ A ]

BU’s prize-winning model suggests farm fire solution

Extract :

An innovative solution to tackle air pollution due to stubble burning was showcased recently in Bennett University’s ( BU )  second annual Engineering Project Showcase

The winner in the mechanical engineering department , ”  Design and Fabrication of Torrefaction Reactor “, aims to provide a cost-effective solution by converting crop residue into high energy fuel

It may help in eliminating the stubble burning problem that impacts lives of millions of people in North India every year

Torrefaction is a thermal process to convert biomass into a coal-like material called pellets

The estimated 30 – 40 million tonnes of paddy straw that remains unutilized and is burnt, has the potential to generate 6,000 – 8,000 MW of electricity annually by using it with coal in the coal based power plants

This may also provide farmers with additional income, said a source

=================================

  

 [ B ]

Source :  https://www.bygen.com.au/technology 

Extract :

The novel technology developed by ByGen was formulated through several years of intense R&D investigating new approaches to the traditionally energy-intensive methods for activated carbon production.

These conventional thermal approaches utilise high temperatures (800 - 1200 °C) and high purity gases (CO2/H2O).

Our approach requires significantly less energy and can use cheap activation agents to achieve the same quality activated carbon as the conventional approaches.

In addition, as we require significantly less energy infrastructure for our process, we can scale it down, allowing us to access cheap and abundant agricultural waste sites.

Our process can also be retrofitted to existing carbonization / pyrolysis units to upgrade the char output to activated carbon.

These factors mean that we can produce activated carbon at a fraction of the traditional manufacturing cost, while still maintaining the same product quality

ByGen co-founder and CEO Lewis Dunnigan said he believed the breakthrough, made with co-founder Ben Morton, was the first conversion of its kind in the world.

“Agricultural waste has a high carbon content, as does plastic, so the idea occurred to us ‘why not make activated carbon out of plastic?’”

Activated carbon has a variety of industrial uses, including purifying liquids such as drinking water, food and beverage processing, odour removal, contaminated soil remediation and gold processing.

It is traditionally made from coal, hardwood or coconut shells, and sells for about A$2000 a tonne.

ByGen is beginning a campaign to raise approximately A$2.5 million to build a full-scale plant capable of producing industrial quantities of activated carbon from agricultural waste.

“Traditionally, you have to make it at about 1000 degrees using steam or harsh chemicals. We felt like these energy intensive processes, often used in developing countries with non-renewable feedstocks, weren’t sustainable, so we tried lots of different Australian agricultural wastes and identified which ones worked best.”

[  Source :    Activated carbon breakthrough offers solution to global plastic crisis ]

 

Following is my email ( 10 Nov 2019 ) to Lewis Dunnigan 

[ 'lewis@bygen.com.au'  ] :

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Lewis Dunnigan

I write in context of the technology that you have developed for producing Active Carbon , by converting / processing ,

Ø  Agricultural Waste

Ø  Plastic

I wish you all success in obtaining  funding to commercialize your process

As with everywhere else in the World, this technology is badly needed in India, since , both plastic and agri waste are the biggest pollutants here

Stubble { onsite agri residue after harvest }, burning ( by farmers ) is causing havoc with AQI { Air Quality Index } of most cities in North India, exceeding 360 for past 10 days

A single state of Punjab burns 20 million tons of stubble within 15 days !

    According to a government estimate, over 500 million tonnes ( MT ) of agricultural straw are

    produced every year in the country

   Of this, nearly 362 million tonnes  ( from rice-wheat-maize-millet ) , are burnt on the farms

   Amount of surplus crop residue is estimated at 84-141 million tonnes

   Do you think your process could use this waste and convert to activated carbon ?

I would like to alert the Indian Government re your process

With regards,

Hemen Parekh

 

============================================

Today’s Hindustan Times carries following news :

Combating air pollution: Niti Aayog, CII draft plan for clean industry

 

Extract :

 

“Leapfrogging to advanced biomass co-firing [more than 10% biomass] requires a long-term and comprehensive policy for the promotion of biomass co-firing in thermal power plants.

 

Commercial feasibility of enhanced co-firing is still being evaluated at this stage.

 

However, in long term, this could potentially unlock a cost-effective strategy for greening the coal power and simultaneous reduction of emissions from stubble burning in North West region,’’ the report says.

=========================================================

Nearly 2 years ago , I wrote :

[https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/11/amrinder-singhji-has-no-excuse.html  ]

“Power Minister R K Singh on Thursday said that state-run NTPC will float tender to buy farm stubble at Rs 5,500 per tonne for power plants , a move that will check farmers from burning it – a key source of pollution in in NCR

He said this move will help farmers earn around Rs 11,000 per acre from the sale of straw

“ On an average a farmer gets around 2 tonnes of stubble or straw in an acre “ , said Singh at a press conference

Now , Punjab farmers grow paddy in 3 million acres

That means 6 million tonnes of stubble ( @ 2 tonnes / acre )

At Rs 5,500 per tonne , this will amount to Rs 3,300 crore of windfall income - all in a span of 15 days !

And to enable this , all that is required is 30,000 pairs of machines ( costing , approx. Rs 600 crores )

For a comprehensive understanding of why the farmers are helpless , due to poor availability of Happy Seeder machines , this 2 year old observation should be read in conjunction with :

Where are the Happy Seeders that Punjab’s farmers were promised?  [  18  Nov 2019  ]

Happy Seeder: A low-cost alternative to stubble burning                    [  17  Nov  2019  ]

========================================================

I urge Shri Prakash Javadekarji [ Minister for Environment ] to :

#  Publicize how much stubble did NTPC purchase so far – and at what price

#  Get one of our National Laboratories to take up for commercialization, the innovation of

    the students of Bennett University

#  Send an email to Mr Lewis Dunnigan , asking him to give an “ on-site demo “[ at some

    farm in Punjab ], of the technology developed by him

=========================================================

17  Nov  2019

hcp@RecruitGuru.com  

No need to be secretive !

A recent news report goes :

Google reveals ‘Project Nightingale’ after being accused of secretly gathering personal health records 

Extract :

Ø  Google secretly gathered millions of patient records across 21 states on behalf of a health care provider

Ø  Neither the provider’s doctors nor patients were made aware of the effort

Ø  Data amassed in the program includes “lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, complete with patient names and dates of birth,”

Ø  According to the WSJ, Google is using data from the system to design software that tailors individual patient care using “advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

Ø  Ascension health providers could use a tool called Patient Search to pull up individual patient pages

Ø  “The page includes complete patient information as well as notes about patient medical issues, test results and medications, including information from scanned documents.”

====================================================

Google needs to be secretive because it is a private company and most likely to use the data for developing search software which it can sell / lease , to millions of healthcare providers ( including individual practicing doctors ), for a fat profit

But , when it comes to Government of India, there is neither any need to be secretive , nor any need to be apologetic , about collecting such exhaustive data of 1.3 billion citizens

Nor any need to make money by making available such ANONYMIZED health data to healthcare providers

And , not only data but also PREDICTIVE analysis for treating individual patients and for preventive measures for groups of citizens

To know how – and why – India Government must undertake such a project, read :

 Health Data Vault                            [ 16 July 2019 ]

 Healthcare : The Unfolding Story      [ 19 June 2018 ]

Dear Dr HarshVardhanji,

We, the people of India, need a technology-based system for assuring that we enjoy, cheap and timely,  life-long healthcare to remain productive

Please , ignore the critics and tell them :

“ Just as our Constitution confers upon you, certain RIGHTS, it also demands of you certain OBLIGATIONS to share your personal health data, in the larger interests of all of its Citizens “

References :

Saving 1.2 million Kids  ………………………………..[  29  June  2016  ]

A Mobile App named " BANMALI " ………………. [  15  Sept  2016  ]

BANMALI is the TOTAL SOLUTION ………………. [  14  Nov  2016  ]

Health Care through Mobile ?  ………………………..[  24  Nov  2016  ]

 

Can Akshay Patra Banish Malnutrition ? ………… [  05  June  2017  ]

 

 Modicare : A Game Changer  …………………………..[  18  Feb  2018  ]

 

Personal Health History : NHS ……………………….. [  11  Aug  2018  ]

========================================================

15  Nov  2019

hcp@recruitGuru.com