The winners of the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE 2016 Competition, received their awards from President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi, today.

Speaking on the occasion, the Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, congratulated all the winners and said he was really amazed by the range of creativity expressed by these young minds.

 The Minister further said, that the “many wonderful ideas coming from children from diverse backgrounds and regions, goes to show how much pervasive the spirit of creativity and innovation is in our country”.

Addressing the young winners, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, said that they have a duty not to adapt to the problems our society is facing but transcend them and to help India become a creative, compassionate and collaborative society. Given the various challenges the country faces and may face in this 21^st century, “we will need an army of young people like you who would help the Government and society by identifying and addressing problems faced in day to day life and also likely to be faced in the long term. I am sure you all will live up to our collective expectations”.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE 2016 competition –is a national competition of original technological ideas and innovations by children up to class 12 or those out of school up to the age of 17 years -it is organized by National Innovation Foundation(NIF) every year to promote creativity and originality among children.

The awards of IGNITE competition are announced every year on October 15th, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s birthday, which is celebrated as the Children’s Creativity and Innovation Day by NIF.

Starting in 2008, in the last eight years, 173 awards have been given to 246 children. This year, a total of 31 students have been awarded for their ideas/innovations (List of award winners annexed). Overall, 55,089 submissions of students from 458 districts of all the states & Union Territories of India were received during the IGNITE 16 competition, which ran from September 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016.

An exhibition showcasing award winning ideas has been put up at the venue. NIF will file patents in all applicable cases in the name of the students and will also engage designers/fabricators to develop prototypes of the students’ ideas.

NIF, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, has been actively engaged in promoting creativity and innovation in our society with active support of Honey Bee Network. NIF has taken major initiatives to serve the knowledge-rich but economically poor people of the country. It is committed to making India innovative by documenting, adding value, protecting the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the contemporary unaided technological innovators as well as of outstanding traditional knowledge-holders and disseminating their innovations on commercial and non-commercial basis.

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE Award is an effort to focus primarily on the creativity of the children and promote inclusive and compassionate thinking among them.

Click here to see the IGNITE Award list :0 bytes

CSIR has come out with a “Game changing technology” for enabling the Indian leather sector achieve the set target of USD 27 billion by 2020 by making leather processing environmentally sustainable. This “Waterless chrome tanning technology” is a first of its kind technology to reduce chromium pollution load.

The Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences and Vice President CSIR, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, informed the Media while addressing the press in New Delhi today. The Minister highlighted the strategic role of CSIR in the exemplary growth of the Indian Leather industry.

Tracing the history of Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) of CSIR, established in 1948, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that this was a unique institute which from the very start had a strong academic and industrial linkage. A tripartite arrangement of industry-academy-research is a first of its kind, which is a role model for other sectors to emulate. The Institute represents the leather sector in all its planning and policy development. Over the years, the Institute is the global hub for transformation of a tradition bound industry into an innovation driven one. Technologies for bio-processing of leather, zero waste water discharge, value added materials from leather and indigenous chemicals for processing, are some of the highlighting features of this institute. CSIR-CLRI is a recognised Centre for testing of restricted substances, finished leather certification. CSIR-CLRI in association with other world bodies develops protocols for testing of restricted chemicals.

The Minister was proud to inform that CSIR Researchers today also adorn the position of Chairman of the BIS committees on leather, tanning materials etc. and footwear and also provide inputs to other committees as members. CSIR researchers are also members/chairmen for the relevant committees in International Standards Organization (ISO).

Through the Institute, Indian leather sector strives to achieve economic and environmental sustainability, leading to more than doubling of the annual turnover from the present in about 4 years. CSIR has been hand holding the industry since its establishment and has taken the export turnover of Rs.40 crores in 1960s to Rs.40,000 crores in 2015 through technological interventions, training and service. The re-enabling of the tanneries in Tamil Nadu in 1996 stands a strong testimony to the contributions of this organisation.

The Minister further elaborated that Chromium is the most sought after tanning agent with about 2.0 billion sq. ft. of leather being made in India. About 20 thousand tons of chrome tanning agent is discharged in the wastewater.  CSIR’s “Waterless tanning technology” has now found PAN INDIA acceptance, with tanners in all clusters enrolling for its adoption. Significance of this technology is that a) it completely eliminates two processes before and after tanning, b) eliminates the use of water in tanning, c) reduces the total dissolved solids in wastewater from this process by 20% and also d) brings down the usage of chromium by 15-20%, resulting in material saving. Efforts are now on to translate this technology both nationally and globally. Several countries including Ethiopia, South Africa, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Vietnam and Brazil have evinced interest in this CSIR technology.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, then highlighted that such technological interventions in the leather industry will realise the vision of Make-in-India, in terms of development of first of its kind leather chemicals, environmental friendly leather processing, global fashion forecasting for colours, designs thus leading to increased trade and exports.

Growth of any industry strongly depends on the availability of associated skill as well. CSIR has a strong mandate to develop, train and re-train the required manpower for this sector. The Minister highlighted that Prime Minister’s Skill India dream is realised through training programs of CSIR-CLRI. About 60% of the skilled manpower in leather industry is from CSIR-CLRI. Training comes at all levels, be it the technical degrees or vocational programs, the Institute has tailor made programs to suit the needs of the industry, from time to time including reaching the unreached and under-privileged sections of the society.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan informed the media that CSIR has prepared and submitted to the Government, a Technology Mission plan for Leather sector at a cost of approximately Rs.2400 crores. This initiative is a inter-ministerial project with M/o Small and Medium Enterprises, M/o Skill Development, M/o Environment and Forest, M/o Water Resources. Through this plan, it is envisioned to provide proactive measures to upgrade and expand the technologies and thus the capacity of CETPs, along with skill development required. The envisioned modules include

a. Systematic collection of raw hides/skins

b. Technologies for capacity utilization of tanneries

c. Enhanced environmental management

d. Framework for quality benchmarking and certification

Over the years, CSIR is the global hub for transformation of a tradition bound leather industry into an innovation driven one. CSIR-CLRI’s role in R&D consultancy has the paved way for other sectors like metal, food, pharma and chemicals for similar interventions and positioning themselves globally.

The mission of CSIR through CLRI is to meet the requirements of global leather sector, relevant regulatory and statutory bodies and other stake holders with continual improvement in its services, while aligning itself to the National agenda through technology innovation led solutions for the sector.

A newly built, state-of-the-art Plant for extraction, formulation, packaging of medicinal plant based phytopharmaceutical drugs under internationally accepted GMP guidelines was inaugurated by the Vice President, CSIR and Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan and Minister of State for DoNER (Independent Charge), Dr Jitendra Singh, PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, DoAE and Department of Space,at CSIR-IIIM, in Jammu on 20^th October, 2016.

 This is first such national Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP) Plant facility established in the public sector in India. The facility has been issued a manufacturing license by Drug & Food Control Organization, Jammu & Kashmir.

  The CGMP facility would provide a high level world-class infrastructure for the manufacture of botanical/phytopharmaceutical in a way to ensure their safety, efficacy and quality for global market.  The establishment of this facility at CSIR-IIIM will also help all CSIR Institutes engaged in drug discovery & development in converting their natural product leads to pre-clinical and clinical development for marketing approvals.It will also provide opportunity to new entrepreneurs/SMEs engaged in manufacture of standardized extracts and botanical drug formulations, natural products etc. to evaluate their research leads and eventually graduate as entrepreneurs so that more number of industries can be setup and employment can be generated.

This facility will also be used as the Technology Business Incubator (TBI), for which Department of Science and Technology has already approved a project. The experience, expertise and infrastructure like state-of-the-art QC/QA division coupled with GLP standard Animal House available with IIIM are suitable to extend incubation ecosystem to entrepreneurs/SMEs by providing wide range of services available in the Institute as an overall holistic research and development support, mentorship and hand holding in all spheres of phytopharmaceutical product development cycle. The facilities will also be used in conducting certified training programs for students, entrepreneurs, etc.

Himalayan region has the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar caps, as this region is aptly called the “Water Tower of Asia” is the source of the 10 major river systems that provide irrigation, power and drinking water for over 700 million people live in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh– nearly 10% of the world’s population. Understanding the behaviour of these glaciers and their contribution to the sustainable supply of water for mankind and agriculture is one of the grand challenges of Indian scientific community.

As part of the Indian government’s initiatives to better study and quantify the Himalayan glacier responses towards the climate change, National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences has established a high altitude research station in Himalaya called HIMANSH (literally meaning, a slice of ice), situated above 13,500 ft (> 4000 m) at a remote region in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.

The station was unveiled by Dr. M. Rajeevan, Secretary to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India, on Sunday 9^th October 2016, in presence of Dr. M. Ravichandran, Director of National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research. The station houses many instruments to quantify the glacier melting and its relation to changing climate. Some of the instruments that are available at this research facility include, Automatic Weather Stations for weather monitoring, water level recorder for quantifying the glacier melt, ground penetrating radar to know the thickness of glaciers, geodetic GPS systems to study the glacier movements, snow fork for studying snow thickness, steam drill, snow corer, temperature profilers, as well as various glaciological tools. Further, the researchers would be using this as a base for undertaking surveys using Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) that would digitize the glacier motion and snow cover variations with exceptional precision.  

The ongoing initiatives by NCAOR would contribute to the integrated study the glaciers in the upper Indus basin (Chandra basin) in Himachal Pradesh and their contribution to discharge.  According to the UN data, the contribution of snow/glacier melt in annual stream runoff is substantially higher (>40%) in Indus basin as compared to Ganga and Brahmaputra basins (<10%). Therefore, understanding the glacier mass balance and their contribution to the Indus River is more critical than other basins towards the understanding on the impact of glacier retreat on the water cycle in the northern India and Pakistan. Some of the bench mark glaciers that are already being studied under this project include Bada Shigri, Samudra Tapu, Sutri Dhaka, Batal, Gepang Gath and Kunzam. An integrated study using glaciological, geodetic, glacio-hydrological methods will shed light on the glacier response to the changing climate in this region and will also quantify the contribution from glacial melt water to the river discharge in Indus basin. “Himansh” will provide the much needed fillip to the scientific research on Himalayan glaciers and its hydrological contribution.