Hi Friends,

Even as I launch this today ( my 80th Birthday ), I realize that there is yet so much to say and do. There is just no time to look back, no time to wonder,"Will anyone read these pages?"

With regards,
Hemen Parekh
27 June 2013

Now as I approach my 90th birthday ( 27 June 2023 ) , I invite you to visit my Digital Avatar ( www.hemenparekh.ai ) – and continue chatting with me , even when I am no more here physically

Monday 6 March 2017

“ Slow and Steady “ loses the race !



Business Line ( 07 March 2017 ) carries following news :


“ Government to give a leg up to start-ups “


DIPP to make  DEFINITION  more inclusive , re-look tax benefits for some 200 start-ups

To give further impetus to the start-up ecosystem, the government will , before the end of this month, re-look the DEFINITION of start-ups, revisit the tax benefit eligibility of 200 odd start ups, and work towards enabling incorporation of companies within six days

“ Just as we are re-looking the DEFINITION of MSME , we would like to re-look at the definition of start-ups to be more inclusive of the ground realities “ , said Ramesh Abhishek , Secretary, DIPP

Speaking at IVCA’s Annual India Alternative Conclave 2017 here on Monday, he said the government is committed to strengthening the start-up ecosystem and was not hung up on the  DEFINITION  aspect




Dear Shri Abhishekji  :


This is indeed a great news , considering that the original  DEFINITION  ( of a Start-Up ) was quite daunting , as pointed out in my following blog / email ( 20 Jan 2016 ):

START UP RE-DEFINED


No doubt , you have read the  DEFINITION  of a Start Up in the Start Up Action Plan document


I have tried to envisage below, how that might look on that Mobile App for Registration :


*   Is yours a Private Ltd Co / LLP / Partnership  ?.................. ……….  Yes  /  No


*   Is your Company more than 5 years old ?....................................Yes  /  No


*   Is your Start Up formed by splitting an existing business ?............. Yes  /  No


*   In last 5 yrs, has your turnover exceeded Rs 25 Crores ?.................Yes  /  No


*   Is your product/service " DIFFERENTIATED "  ?.............................. Yes  /  No


*   Is your product / service " COMMERCIAL "  ?.................................. Yes  /  No


*  Is your product / service " INNOVATIVE "  ?..................................... Yes  /  No


Is your product / service driven by ,
    " TECHNOLOGY  / INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY "  ? ...............................Yes /  No


Is your product/service ,

   " NEW / SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED "  version "  ?.................... .......... Yes / No

  
Does your product/service add " VALUE " to customers  ?..................... Yes / No


Does your product/service add " VALUE " to " WORKFLOW " ?............... Yes / No


Have you got certification  from Inter-Ministerial Board ?....................... Yes /  No


Have you got recommendation from Incubator in Post Grad Indian College ?.Yes / No



I hope Shri Narendra Modiji asks you to accompany him to his planned visit to Israel , in the near future , so that , together , you may get an idea of :


The  Spirit of  Israel  ( 19  Feb  2017  )




If we want to win the “ Start-Up Race “ , we will need to give up on our “ Slow and Steady “ approach and hurry up to implement :


·          Blue  Print for  a  Start Up Nation  (  27  Dec  2015  )




·         A NEWECONOMIC ORDER ? aka " Start Up Act - 2015 "( 12  Sept  2015 )


      { https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-new-economic-order.html  }



 

With 5G internet around the corner , it will be no more,


·         Big will eat up the Small

It will be ,

·         Fast overtake the Slow  !

 

 

07  March  2017

www.hemenparekh.in / blogs




Saturday 4 March 2017

Internet of Vehicles ( IoV ) ?



Exactly what we need – and NOW  !


On the surface , the following new reports seen unconnected .


·         Business Line ( 28 Feb 2017 )




·         DNA ( 02 March 2017 )




·         Business Line ( 16 Feb 2017 )



·         Economic Times ( 10 Feb 2017 )




·         The Guardian  ( 21 Feb 2017 )




·         Economic Times ( 01 March 2017 )




·         Times of India ( 21 Feb 2017 )



·         Economic Times ( 28 Feb 2017 )


Mukesh Ambani-led telco plans to enter auto telematics with the launch of device in India under its JioCar Connect initiative



·         DNA ( 17 Feb 2017 )


To develop connected vehicle technologies , first such vehicle under TAMO platform to be showcased in Geneva in March

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

But when you try to “ connect up “ all of these into a single , over-arching message , things become clear

Each of these initiatives is trying to solve / mitigate , one of the following problems :

·         Rapidly growing Vehicle population

·         New road lengths not keeping up with this growth in vehicles

·         Petrol / Diesel vehicles polluting atmosphere – causing early deaths

·         Deterioration of roads due to increased traffic

·         Road congestion leading to increased travel time / petrol wastage

·         Increasing road accidents , maiming and killing people or damaging property

·         No space for footpaths for walking

·         No space for bicycle tracks

·         Unbearable noise pollution causing deafness

·         No place for parking along public roads ( cause for corruption ? )



The list keeps growing !


There is no perfect , one-shot , immediate solution , to take care of all of these problems in one go


The news reports listed above, are attempts by companies / organizations / governments etc , to address , one or more , of these problems


I expect that , over the next 5 years , all of these will converge into an Internet of Vehicles ( IoV ), when :



·         Most vehicles will  be electric ( essentially , “ computers on wheels “ ), automatically determining the best / shortest, route / stops and optimizing vehicle performance . Mobile Apps will be a governing device


·         Vehicles will be internet connected with one another , exchanging data


·         Vehicles will be internet connected with servers of Transport Authorities / Traffic Police / Pollution Control Boards and a host of other governmental / institutional organizations , and be relaying all sorts of data  24*7 .  Vehicles will report accidents ( being hit ) and thefts ( being stolen ) , on their own !


·         All vehicles will carry a whole lot of “ Sensors “ , which will continuously “ monitor “ the conditions of the vehicles and relay the same to all the authorities


·         All vehicles will be equipped with RADAR – LIDAR –CAMERAS – GPS locators – / Augmented Reality  etc , to avoid collisions / accidents


·         Prepaid RFID chips ( linked to Aadhar / Bank Accounts  ? ) for Road Taxes / Insurance Premiums / Toll charges / Fines / Carbon Credits ( through DBT )



·         In-Built Sensors will measure , ( and request maintenance on their own ! ),

#   Engine ( or Electric Motor ) temperature

     #   Pressures / Displacements / Compression Ratios in case of petrol / diesel

          Vehicles / Battery Charge Levels / fuel consumption

     #   Emission Levels ( PM2.5 / CO2 etc ) in petrol / diesel vehicles

     #   Tyre pressures / wear and tear of moving parts / RPM

     #   Vehicle speed / acceleration / braking distance

     #   Proximity to other moving / stationary vehicles or objects

     #   Weather conditions / Visibility levels / Traffic Density

     #   Condition of the road being traversed ( co-efficient of friction )

     #   Condition of the person driving ( sleepy / drunk etc )

     #   Whatever else you want “ measured / monitored / relayed


To know , how such an Internet of Vehicles ( IoV ) can solve the various problems listed above , you may want to read my following earlier blogs (  all sent as emails to NDA ministers ) :

·         Un-ImplementableLaws : Unstoppable Corruption ( 20 Feb 2017 )

·         Welcome !Elon Musk  (  10  Feb  2017  )

 { https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/02/welcome-elon-musk.html  }

 

·         Letus Leapfrog the World !  ( 27  Nov  2016 )


·         AStep in the Right Direction  (  26  Nov  2016  )

 { https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-step-in-right-direction.html }

 

·         One Carper Family ?  ( 27  Sept  2016  )


·         FromOLD to NEW ? No , go NEWER !  ( 22  Sept  2016  )


·         Horn  OK  ?  (  22  Aug  2016  )

·         ARickshaw  by  Any Other  Name  ?  ( 20  Aug  2016  )

·         All  Charged Up  ?  (  15  Aug  2016  )

·         Retiring  Old Vehicles  -  Gadkari style ?  ( 30  May  2016  )

·         Piyush  Plan   (  27  March  2017  )

·         Pollution  Solution – aka  “ PollSolve “  (  30  Dec  2015  )

IoV will pave the way to IoT  !


05  March  2017


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

Added  on  05  March  2023  :

Friday 3 March 2017

Not a straightforward Answer !



Economic Times ( 28 Feb 2017 ) carries following report :



“ Govt to Formulate Policies on Ethanol, Methanol soon , says Gadkari “


The Centre will soon come out with policies on the SECOND-GENERATION ethanol as well as methanol, non-conventional fuel resources, which will bring down the crude import bill by Rs 1 lakh crore, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today.

After chairing an inter-ministerial meeting attended by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, among others, Road Transport and Highways Minister Gadkari said this will also create an industry worth Rs 1 lakh crore and provide employment to around 25 lakh youths, he said.


Gadkari said it was decided to take SECOND GENERATION ethanol production on mission mode as India accounted for a huge Rs 6 lakh crore imports bill on crude per annum and exploring and generating indigenous alternative would cut crude imports by at least Rs 1 lakh crore.


He said at present ethanol is derived from molasses which is barely 119 crore litres as against a minimum requirement of about 500 crore litres.


"We get hardly three per cent ethanol whereas we can mix 22 per cent in petrol. There is shortage of 19 per cent...We can make SECOND GENERATION ethanol from bamboo, cotton straw, wheat straw, rice straw, bagass etc... This will generate employment for 25 lakh rural youth....The industry will be of Rs 1 lakh crore size," the Minister said.

He said the biofuel was not only cost-effective but a pollution free import substitute.

The Minister said that in countries like the US and Brazil, there are flex engines of cars where 22 per cent ethanol could be easily blended in petrol.

Promotion to green fuel like ethanol will not only arrest migration of people from villages to town but using bio technology production of biomass could be enhanced and more people could be roped in for employment, he said.

Gadkari also said in view of surplus coal production it has been decided to promote methanol output and Petroleum Ministry will also bring a policy for production of methanol from coal.


While it is true that a few countries have been experimenting with blending of bio-fuels with petrol , experts have raised serious concerns re its impact on a country’s eco-system

I reproduce below , a few such concerns listed in book “ CLEAN DISRUPTION “ by Tony Seba { pg 201-210 }: { https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM }


·         It takes 13,676 gallons of water to produce a single gallon of biodiesel from soybeans

·         It takes 1700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol . Assuming a 30 gallon gasoline tank in a SUV , we calculate 51,000 gallons of water for the corn ethanol fill up ( Prof David Pimentel of Cornell University )

·         Each time someone fills up an SUV with corn Ethanol, he or she uses as much water as the average American residential user consumes in 16 months !

·         IBM’s “ Carbon Disclosure Project “ provides following data to generate 1 MWh of energy :

#  Solar PV and wind use negligible amount of water : 0.1 litre or less than half a cup

#  Biofuels use an astonishing 1.78 million times more water than Solar to generate the same amount of energy !

·         All the water for drinking , agricultural irrigation , power plants and factories that 2.5 billion people in CHINA and INDIA need per YEAR , is roughly equal to the water biofuels require to produce two days’ worth of energy in USA !

·         According to WaterFootprint, 19,924 gallons of water are needed to produce ONE gallon of biodiesel from jatropha

·         Sugarcane , one of the biofuel industry’s “ success stories “ , converts just 0.38 percent of sunlight into biomass . In the end, the solar-to-ethanol conversion ratio for sugarcane is just 0.13 percent , according to “ Scientific American “

·         The average Solar Panel is 123 TIMES more efficient in converting sunshine into usable energy

·         Concentrating photovoltaic { CPV } can turn about 40percent of the sunshine into electricity, which makes it THREE HUNDRED TIMES more efficient than sugarcane ethanol biofuel

·         SOLAR IS ANYWHERE FROM 123 TO 550 TIMES MORE EFFICIENT THAN BIOFUELS

·         SOLAR CHP ( COMBINED HEAT AND POWER ) CAN CONVERT SUNSHINE 550 TIMES MORE EFFICIENTLY THAN SUGARCANE CAN


Dear Shri Gadkariji :


Research by reputed scientific organizations all over the World , project a Water Stress situation of unprecedented proportions in India , within the next 10 years




Last year’s “ Water Wars “ of Latur ( Maharashtra ) will get replicated in many parts of our country , in next 20 weeks !  And every year thereafter !




Production of biofuel on the massive scale envisaged in the new policy , will only further push down the already deep water tables and accelerate the droughts / famines


IN LIGHT OF THE ARGUMENTS LISTED ABOVE , I REQUEST A RE-CONSIDERATION OF THE PROPOSED POLICY



04  March  2017



www.hemenparekh.in / blogs