Access, knowledge barriers going for women to get online
Google India aims to help 50 million more women get online by
2014-end by undertaking a variety of initiatives across the country.
Though India is on its way to become the second largest
Internet market, with 200 million users, overtaking the U.S., only
one-third of the online users are women.
The Internet
can play an important role in empowering women in India and help them
transform their lives. It can help women achieve self esteem and express
their views freely, open up new opportunities and help them gain
education. At the macro level, these benefits can translate into
lowering maternal and infant mortality rates, a higher GDP of the
country and improving standards of living.
But lack
of easy access to the Internet and lack of knowledge of how to use the
global network and its relevance in their daily lives are the biggest
barriers for women to get online. ‘Helping women get online’ is just
that initiative which aims to overcome these hurdles. Google India aims
to help 50 million more women get online by 2014-end by undertaking a
variety of initiatives across the country. “We have already seen many
cases of women benefiting greatly by using the Internet and we are
really delighted to partner with leading brands in the country in this
ambitious project.” said Rajan Anandan, MD and VP Sales & Operations
for Google India.
The initiative will focus on
creating awareness of the benefits of Internet and educating women to
use it to improve their lives, and work with partners to enable easy
Internet access points for women. In the first stage, Google will launch
a mass media campaign and promote the specially designed website
www.hwgo.com which will host content covering the very basics of the
Internet and special content that is relevant to women, available in
both Hindi and English. Women can call toll-free helpline number 1800 41
999 77 for answers to any query about the Internet.
The
initiative follows the success of a pilot programme that was carried
out by Google India at a village in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, where over
1,00,000 women were trained in the basic applications of the Internet.
Now
the programme will be supported by Intel, HUL and Axis Bank through
joint outreach efforts including Internet training in digital literacy.
Intel is also launching a mobile app, “Easy Step,” for women and it
would be available on Android playstore.
Google has
partnered with a host of different companies which will create and share
content relevant to Indian women on www.hwgo.com. These partners
include Johnson & Johnson, Indiatimes.com, Healthkart.com and
Babyoye.com.
The Bhilwara project covered girl
students in the age group 13-18, housewives and working women. Basic
training content was created in Hindi to help the women understand how
they could use the Internet in their day-to-day lives.
Scientists build world’s smallest FM radio transmitter
US researchers have used graphene to create the world’s
smallest FM radio transmitter — a nano-mechanical system that can
create FM signals.
A team of researchers from
Columbia University, led by mechanical engineering Professor James Hone
and electrical engineering Professor Kenneth Shepard, took advantage of
graphene’s special properties — its mechanical strength and electrical
conduction — and developed a nano-mechanical system that can create FM
signals.
“This work is significant in that it
demonstrates an application of graphene that cannot be achieved using
conventional materials,” Prof. Hone said.
“And it’s
an important first step in advancing wireless signal processing and
designing ultrathin, efficient cell phones. Our devices are much smaller
than any other sources of radio signals, and can be put on the same
chip that’s used for data processing,” Prof. Hone added.
In
the new study, the team took advantage of graphene’s mechanical
‘stretchability’ to tune the output frequency of their custom
oscillator, creating a nano-mechanical version of an electronic
component known as a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO).
With a VCO, explained Prof. Hone, it is easy to generate FM signal, exactly what is used for FM radio broadcasting.
The team built a graphene NEMS whose frequency was about 100 megahertz,
which lies right in the middle of the FM radio band (87.7 to 108 MHz).
They used low-frequency musical signals (both pure tones and songs from
a smartphone) to modulate the 100 MHz carrier signal from the graphene,
and then retrieved the musical signals again using an ordinary FM radio
receiver.
“This device is by far the smallest system that can create such FM signals,” said Prof. Hone.
The study is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
C.N.R. Rao laments lack of industry contribution to science
‘Magnates such as Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata should loosen their purse strings’
Science in India gets no contribution from the industry,
C.N.R. Rao, head of the scientific advisory council to the Prime
Minister, has said. “Industry magnates such as Mukesh Ambani and Ratan
Tata should loosen their purse strings,” he said here on Saturday.
They
after all “reap the fruits of science,” Prof. Rao said during a
question-and-answer session organised by Bangalore Press Club.
Over
50 per cent of research funding in the United States, Japan and South
Korea, comes from industry, he said. Prof. Rao reiterated that the
government investment in science should be increased from 0.9 per cent
to 2 per cent of the gross domestic product.
“Only
countries that have advanced in science actually have made significant
progress,” Prof. Rao said, adding that India was “lagging behind in
innovation.”
He said the quality of science in India
wasn’t good, and it was reflected in the fact that “of the top 1 per
cent of global research, India’s contribution is less than 1 per cent…
the USA’s contribution is 63 per cent.” However, Prof. Rao pointed out
that India fared rather well in terms of salaries for scientists.
“India is number 3 in the world for salaries to scientists.”
While
he said around 150 PhD students work under him, in the last 15 years,
“none of them are from Bangalore”. “Most of my students [at the
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research] are from West
Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.”
Young people
appear to choose banking, business and Information Technology over
science, he said, adding that while he was “not against IT”, he believed
that “other sectors should not be denied bright talent.” While everyone
still knows Bangalore as ‘IT city’… they should begin seeing it
‘science city’.Karnataka however has invested substantially in science,
he said, adding that setting up the Vision Group on Science and
Technology was an important step to encourage the discipline.
Orbiter’s Mars Colour Camera proves itself with Earth pictures
The Mars Colour Camera took picture of cyclone “Helen” heading
towards Andhra Pradesh coast. The pictures have a resolution of 3.5 km
The transmission of sharp pictures of the Earth by the Mars Colour
Camera (MCC) on board the Mars orbiter when the craft was at an altitude
of 70,000 km from the Earth has come as a boost to Indian Space
Research Organisation’s capabilities.
The MCC took several pictures on November 19 and ISRO made public one
image. It shows cyclone “Helen” heading towards Andhra Pradesh coast,
the Indian landmass, the Bay of Bengal, cloud formations over the
Arabian Sea etc.. These pictures have a resolution of 3.5 km.
ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said on Thursday evening that there was a
reason behind ISRO switching on the MCC when the spacecraft was at a
height of 70,000 km above the Earth. When the craft is finally captured
in the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, it will have a peri-apsis of
376 km and an apo-apsis of 80,000 km. To demonstrate that “this is the
kind of pictures that we will get when the craft is at a height of
70,000 km above Mars,” ISRO took the pictures when the craft was at the
same height.
Of the orbiter’s five payloads, three had been tested from November 19.
They are the MCC, the Martian Exospheric Neutron Composition Analyser to
look at the exosphere of Mars and the Thermal Infrared Imaging System
(TIIS) to study the Red Planet’s geological activity. “We switched on
these three and their health is normal. They are basically working,” Dr.
Radhakrishnan said. The other two instruments are the Methane Sensor to
detect methane on Mars and the Lyman Alpha Photometer to study Mars’
upper atmosphere.
M. Annadurai, Programme Director, Indian Remote-sensing Satellites and
Small Satellites Systems, ISRO, said, “In Chandrayaan-1, we took
pictures of the Earth with the spacecraft’s Terrain Mapping Camera
(TMC)” after the craft was put into initial orbit by a PSLV-XL rocket in
October 2008. “We made a similar attempt here with the help of MCC.”
ISRO compared the pictures taken by the MCC with the pictures sent by
INSAT-3D the same day. “INSAT-3D is a fully operational satellite and we
are able to compare its pictures with the MCC’s pictures. The pictures
sent by the MCC are sharp,” Dr. Annadurai said.
S. Arunan, Project Director, Mars spacecraft, said ISRO had successfully
completed the calibration of the spacecraft’s high-gain and medium-gain
antenna. “All the spacecraft systems are working normally. We are
preparing for the orbiter’s trans-Mars insertion on December 1,” he
said.
Invasion by soft coral threatens reef ecosystem
— Photo: Special Arrangement
Carijoa riisei, the soft invasive coral in Nicobar Islands.
The soft coral was noticed in Wandoor jetty in the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park, Andaman, in June 2009.
Snowflake coral (Carijoa riisei), a shallow
fast-growing soft coral, is posing a major threat to the coral reef
colonies in the Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kutch and the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands.
Director of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) K. Venkataraman told The Hindu that the invasion by this soft coral on the coral reef colonies was first reported in Kundol Island in Nicobar in May 2009.
The
growth of the soft coral colonies was observed on the pilings of the
100 metre-long abandoned jetty at a depth of three metres to 20 metres.
They were bright red in colour with an orange tinge on the edges. These
organisms were attached to the pilings and had erect growth of up to 40
cm with several intermediate branches.
The soft
coral was noticed in Wandoor jetty in the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National
Park, Andaman, in June 2009. In October this year, the ZSI found the
species in Peel Island of the Ritchie’s Archipelago in the Rani Jhansi
Marine National Park. Observations indicated that four major coral reef
zones in the country had been affected by the this soft coral, Dr.
Venkataraman said.
The soft coral, which monopolised
the food and space resources of the coral reef ecosystem, exhibited
high fecundity and produced hundreds of eggs and appeared to reproduce
continuously throughout the year, irrespective of the seasons, Dr.
Venkataraman said.
Studies by the ZSI and other
organisations revealed that dispersal of this soft coral was through the
ballast water of ships. Translocation of organisms through ships is
considered to be one of the important issues that threatened the
naturally evolved biodiversity.
Dr. Venkataraman
said, “With limited information available on marine bio-invasion in
tropical countries, including India, there is an urgent need to study
the occurrence and impacts of invasive species in coral reefs, whi
