The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) are now offering ‘Manage Tuberculosis – an online certification course for Doctors.’ It is expected to impart a major boost to the ‘End TB’ Strategy & ‘TB Free Chennai’ initiative.

This eight-week course has been prepared in consultation with experts in the field of TB management and covered the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of TB as a public health problem. The NPTEL has provided the support for recording and hosting on the portal, along with coordination for conduct of final exams.

The ‘Manage TB – an online course for Doctors’ was developed by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – NIRT in collaboration with the NPTEL. It is an initiative to address this felt need of sensitizing doctors both in the public and private sector to the standards of care and the new guidelines and developments in the modern management of TB.

The course has been designed after extensive discussions with subject experts and has been planned keeping in mind the busy work schedule of doctors in practice. This 8-week course consists of video lectures, case discussion scenarios and video demonstrations of laboratory procedures.

Speaking about the course, Prof. Andrew Thangaraj, NPTEL coordinator at IIT Madras, said, “We believe that this is the first course of this nature addressing a specific disease of public health importance in India. We hope that it will benefit doctors treating TB patients and help them to offer care of a higher order to their patients.”

He added that there was vast potential to develop online courses in a range of subjects and the NPTEL would welcome new proposals and coordinate the offering of the same.

The course was launched recently by Mr Madhusudhan Reddy IAS, Deputy Commissioner (Health), Greater Chennai Corporation, at ICMR-NIRT in the presence of Dr. Srikanth Tripathy, Director-in-Charge of NIRT. Expressing happiness with the move by NPTEL to enter the field of medicine, Mr. Madhusudhan Reddy said that a course like this was very much needed in view of the ‘End TB’ Strategy and the ‘TB Free Chennai initiative that have been rolled out recently.

Mr. Madhusudhan Reddy said that he would urge all the doctors in the Chennai Corporation to enroll in the course. He also said that courses aimed at the paramedical staff involved in TB control would be very helpful. Dr. Sanjay Mehendale, former Additional Director General of the ICMR advised the organisers to explore the feasibility of awarding CME credit points for the course as that would encourage a larger participation among doctors.

Tuberculosis continues to be a major public health problem in much of the developing world. India has nearly one-fourth of the global TB patients and an estimated 4.8 lakh lives are lost every year due to this illness. The End TB strategy of the World Health Organisation (WHO) seeks to achieve 95% reduction in TB mortality and 90% reduction in TB incidence by the year 2035.

The National Strategic Plan of the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) has a more ambitious target of working towards TB elimination by 2025. To achieve these goals it is important to build the capacity of Doctors to appropriately diagnose and treat TB. There have been major advances recently in the diagnosis and treatment of TB. There are also new national and international guidelines.

The NPTEL was initiated by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati and Roorkee) along with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 2003. The online courses cover all disciplines of Engineering such as Biotechnology, Ocean Engineering and, Metallurgical Sciences apart from the popular courses such as Computer Science Engineering or Electrical Engineering.

Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee have developed computer vision approach for monitoring of railway track using a drone. The technology is a fusion of drone and satellite data.  The aim of the project is to provide some automated techniques for track inspection, which is carried out manually today.

Railway track health monitoring is one of the major tasks in railway inspection and monitoring system which is performed in order to maintain safety and security. The track-monitoring task involves inspection of various railroad components such as loose rail fasteners, defect in clips and switches, broken and misplaced crossties, cracks in various components of track and gauge measurement between the rails.

Due to the course of time, rail track component come across various defects like: loose rail fasteners, rail cracks, rail burns, misplaced crossties, broken crossties, a problem with the joints, and defect at switches as well as less visually evident defects like shifting from the mathematical model of track geometry over time. In particular, a common problem in the railroad industry is the tendency of rails to deviate from their proper gauge.

The existing system is expensive, time-consuming, involves human inspection, and automated vehicle-based system that needs proper track engagement for inspection. Researchers from IIT Roorkee is using computer vision for railroad component analysis to improve efficiency, objectivity and accuracy in the inspection system. This system helps to achieve cost-effective solutions with a higher level of performance, which is often unattainable through human inspection, a statement issued by the IIT-Roorkee said.

The inspection of rail track is done by applying Image processing, Computer Vision techniques on the images sent by drone. Images and generated data obtained from the drone is analysed which gives useful information about the health of the rail tracks.

Speaking about the technology, Dr. Dharmendra Singh, Coordinator, RailTel – IIT Roorkee Center of Excellence in Telecommunication, Professor in Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Microwave Imaging & Space Technology Application Lab, IIT Roorkee, said: “Computer Vision Approach for the Drone data is a good alternative to monitor the railway track health in less time and it is also a very cost effective system. Some modules has already been developed which are giving quite satisfactory results and in some other modules like crack detection and all work is in progress and  hopefully it will be completed soon”.

The main objectives of the technology are  pre-processing of the data collected using a drone, creation of reasonable, simple, and fast computer vision algorithm that is capable of processing the experimental field data and finding railroad defects reliably, comparative evaluation of the performance of different algorithms and design schematics uncovering their better and worse features, automated gauge Inspection through data provides by drone to see whether the gauge is constant throughout, and tracks are aligned or not,  and find the localization of defect in a particular area using latitude and longitude.

Automated computer vision mechanism for railway inspection system provides a fast, accurate and cost-effective way of detecting various anomalies present in the railway track.

Drone data has proven much more effective as it provides high-quality images that contain large information for monitoring and analysis. Inspection through drone does not require dedicated track for inspection, hence, it does not affect the smooth running of trains. The calculation of gauge gives the highly accurate results.

New Delhi : Interpol has issued a red corner notice (RCN) against fugitive diamond jeweller Nirav Modi after the CBI requested this in connection with the Rs 13,500 crore fraud on Punjab National Bank (PNB), officials said here on Monday.

“Interpol has accepted our request to issue RCN against Nirav Modi, his brother Nishal Modi and an executive of his company Subhash Parab,” a Central Bureau of Investigation official told IANS.

The official also said that the Interpol has put the charges of money laundering against the fugitive diamond jeweller, as levelled by Enforcement Directorate (ED).

According to agency officials, with the RCN issued against the three, now they can be arrested by any of the 192 member countries of the Interpol, after which extradition or deportation proceedings can begin.

The financial probe agency and the CBI had written to the Interpol to issue the RCN against the jeweller in June.

On June 11, the CBI first approached the Interpol to issue the RCN. On June 13, it again approached the Interpol to issue an RCN against Nishal Modi, a Belgian national, and Parab.

The CBI sent the request to the Interpol after it filed the first charge sheet naming Nirav Modi, Nishal and Parab beside 18 others in a special court in Mumbai on May 14.

The CBI filed three FIRs between January and March to probe the PNB fraud. Most of the accused are common to these cases. The fraud was committed during 2011-17 by illegally issuing Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Foreign Letters of Credit (FLCs).

In its first charge sheet, the CBI alleged that Nirav Modi, through his companies, siphoned off funds to the tune of Rs 6,498.20 crore using fraudulent LoUs issued from PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai. Meanwhile, his uncle Mehul Choksi of the Gitanjali Group allegedly swindled Rs 7,080.86 crore.

Nirav Modi left the country along with his family in the first week of January, weeks before the scam was reported to the CBI.

His wife Ami, a US citizen, left on January 6 and Choksi on January 4.

Chandigarh : With the opposition mounting pressure on the Congress government to take action against rampant drugs abuse in the state, the Punjab cabinet on Monday decided to recommend death penalty for drug peddlers and smugglers to the Central government.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who chaired the special meeting of the cabinet on Monday to discuss the drugs issue, directed Director General of Police Suresh Arora to intensify the police crackdown on the drug menace.

The decision to recommend death penalty for drug peddlers and smugglers was taken at the cabinet meeting, and it was resolved to send a formal recommendation soon to the Union Government to this effect, an official spokesperson said here.

“The cabinet also decided to constitute a special working group under the Additional Chief Secretary, Home, N.S. Kalsi to review and monitor, on a day-to-day basis, the action being taken to check and control drug abuse,” the spokesperson said.

The cabinet took stock of the cases of deaths resulting from drug overdose, which Special Task Force (STF) chief Harpreet Singh Sidhu admitted to be a matter of concern.

Citing data relating to arrests and seizures under the NDPS Act, the DGP pointed out that there had been a sharp increase in the figures since the present government took over.

National Geographic explorer Mike Libecki and his 14-year-old daughter Lilliana are essentially travellers who have been to several remote corners of the world. But it is not just the high-ranging mountains or far-flung seas that have a distinct pull for the American father-daughter duo; in fact, most of their travels are humanitarian- and- philanthropy-based expeditions.

In their latest venture, they collaborated with Dell as a part of its Give Back Project and worked in a remote village of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.

At Jhamtse Gatsal’s Children’s Community, which is home to about 90 children, the father-daughter duo, along with Dell employees, have installed 20 new laptops, new printers, internet access and are imparting computer education to kids and teachers in Tawang.

They have also installed new solar power panels and solar generators for the computer centre and other buildings in the community.

“We worked closely with the community. All of the kids at the community are orphans or they have come to live there because they have family issues. They are all first-generation learners, none of the families of these kids have had an education.

“We came here to provide solar energy, a new computer lab with computers and internet installed, because the goal of the orphanage is to provide education to the kids. They want the children to go to college; without having computers and internet, they will lag behind and not be able to do. In the times that we live in, we need to be technologically advanced and savvy to make progress,” Mike told IANS.

Maintaining that progress is not possible without access to technological tools such as computers and the internet, Mike explained that all the equipment was shipped from the United States to Tawang and Dell employees were on ground to help in the installation process.

“But just installing the computers wasn’t enough. We needed to ensure that the children are able to use them… that they are trained properly and, whenever the situation arises, they should have help from technicians. We also had to ensure that these systems run on solar power because remote areas like these do not have electricity running most of the times,” he said.

And so when they set out on what turned out to be a very enriching and satisfying experience, there was a lot of anticipation in the air as many of the kids at Jhamtse Gatsal’s Children’s Community were seeing computers for the first time.

When the young children saw Lilliana, who at the age of 14 has already been to 26 countries, all seven continents, five major expeditions and has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, helping her father set up the computers and teach not just the kids but also the teachers and other workers at the community on how to go about using the computer and accessing the internet, their faces lit up with brightness and, in Mike’s words, “They learnt to aspire.”

“Every-time we connect with a community and we try to give back, we get more than we give. We have opportunities that they don’t and making a little impact on their lives really leaves us with a great feeling of satisfaction. We are giving them computers and internet.

“Think about you and I, we have access to these technological boons but we take it for granted every day. We never think what our lives would be had we been unfortunate too. We just have these at our disposal. So why should other human beings not have them too?” he asked.

Mike said that just like the word “technology” comes from the word “tool”, they envisaged a similar approach towards this project.

“We are using technology as a tool. These kids want to go to college, just like anybody else. Why shouldn’t the most remote and poor kids have the same opportunity that you and I have? So we want to do our part. If we are doing our part and impacting one community may be we are impacting thousands of people because initiatives like these create a ripple effect. The one who has been benefited will, some day, if he/she has an opportunity to, make a difference in the lives of others,” Mike said.

Jhamtse Gatsal’s Children’s Community is located in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The nearest town is Lumla, less than half an hour away by car, or an hour or two by foot. It is a community, a school, and a home for about 90 children ranging in age from toddler to adolescent.

Most of the children at the community have a background of adversity and the driving goal of the community is to provide these children with better lives, helping them to achieve their fullest potential.

(IANS)

Thousands of Americans from all walks of life took to the streets of cities across the US and chanted “families belong together”, nearly two months after President Donald Trump implemented the “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants, prompting the separation of thousands of children from their parents.

The main rally on Saturday was in Washington, D.C., but hundreds of marches, protests and rallies took place across the country in major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Miami, St. Louis, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where crowds called for the immediate reunification of migrant families and an end to family detentions and separations, reports CNN.

According to organisers, the protesters called for three demands: they want separated migrant families to be reunited immediately; they want the government to end family detentions; and they want the Trump administration to end its zero tolerance policy.

Attendees in Washington marched from Lafayette Square to the White House — though the President is at his golf resort in New Jersey — and down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Trump Hotel, where chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” broke out.

In Atlanta, demonstrators carried cages with dolls inside, and marchers in Chicago encouraged each other to “fight back”.

In New York, protesters overflowed Foley Square in Lower Manhattan and filled the surrounding sidewalks. Crowds also inched across the Brooklyn Bridge for more than two hours.

Protesters in Houston chanted, “No baby jails”, outside City Hall. Crowds gathered in McAllen, Texas, the border town where one of the Customs and Border Protection agency’s processing detention centres sits.

Several celebrities joined the rallies, including singer-songwriter John Legend, who sang his song “Preach” at a demonstration in Los Angeles, veteran singer Cher who encouraged people to vote in November, actresses Kerry Washington and Amy Schumer marched in New York while singer Alicia Keys performed in Washington.

Many attendees carried signs, some demanding a change to the administration’s policy, others celebrating the contributions that immigrants make to the country.

There were also plenty of signs and shirts declaring, “I really do care, do u?” — a dig at the jacket First Lady Melania Trump wore while departing for a trip to the southwest border last week.

Event organisers said Saturday’s protests were about addressing an ethical issue.

“This is not left or right,” Anna Galland, Executive Director of MoveOn.org, one of the organisations leading Saturday’s protests, told CNN. 

“It is right and wrong.”

Galland said she and Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal put out a call for protests less than two weeks ago and they were “overwhelmed” by the response.

Jayapal, who was also arrested during a similar protest at the Senate office building last week, said: “This is beyond politics… You don’t put kids in cages. You don’t separate breastfeeding babies from their mothers. You don’t put asylum-seekers in prison, and we’re calling for an end to that today.”

More than 2,500 undocumented children were separated from their parents in the weeks since the zero-tolerance policy took effect, reports CNN. 

Under the policy, any adult caught crossing the border illegally faced prosecution and their children were sent to federal shelters all over the US.

There were widespread outrage over the separations which prompted Trump to sign an executive order on June 20 reversing the family separation policy.

Six days after that order was signed, only six children had been reunited with their parents — meaning more than 2,000 children were still in limbo.

The directorial debut of Shekhar Kapur was an adaptation of Erich Segal‘s novel Man, Woman and Child, (1980) was released on October 22, 1983 seven months later the Hollywood version starring Martin Sheen and Blythe Danner.  The film is a rare attempt in the coming-of-age genre in Bollywood. The screenplay, dialogues and lyrics were penned by the inimitable Gulzar and the music was by R.D. Burman.The film went on to win five Filmfare awards for Best actor (Naseeruddin Shah), Best music (RD Burman), Best lyrics (Gulzar) and Best female playback singer (Aarti Mukherji) and Best Film judged by Critics. It had further garnered nominations for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress.

Shekhar Kapur completed his chartered accountancy course from London and after some years of the routine grinding returned to Mumbai to seek a career in films. Dev Anand gave him the first break in Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974), he got his full fledged role in Jaan Hazir Hai (1975) along with Prem Kishan and Loveleen. Both films failed to register at the box-office and with the audience. He next featured opposite Shabana Azmi in his cousin Ketan Anand’s debut vehicle Toote Khilone (1978). 

In 1984, the year his last mainstream film featuring him as an actor, Bindiya Chamkegi, was released, Shekhar Kapur made the low-budget Masoom with Naseeruddin Shah, Kapur’s then-girlfriend Shabana Azmi and a trio of child artistes. Kapur still recalls with fondness the period he stayed at the Taj West End for three weeks along with Gulzar, while writing the script for Masoom. And although he has never shot any film in Bangalore but the gulmohur trees around the hotel in full bloom is a sight that has stayed with him. 

The Urban middle-class India was mesmerised by the film and Bollywood itself mostly a cynical fraternity fell for it hook, line and sinker! Javed Akhtar was so impressed by Kapur’s directorial debut that he went to the extent of lowering his price to work with Shekhar on his next venture, Joshilaay (1989) the critically correct film that was a dud at the box-office! It was during the making of Masoom that Shekhar Kapur met and married Medha Gujral, niece of former Prime Minister I. K. Gujral.

Naseeruddin Shah considers Masoom as one of his favourite films in a career lasting over four decades and lambasted the buying of remake rights of the movie by actor-singer-producer Himesh Reshammiya in 2013 saying Masoom cannot be made in the present world of emails and mobile phones in which a father has no clue of the existence of his 10 year old son! The original film had a far more innocent and technologically laid back world as its setting! Shekhar Kapur regrets that Naseer and he never worked together after Masoom, the director feels that Naseer’s character was so finely etched and was so humane that nearly four decades later, generations of film-goers still respond with the same warmth as if the film was made yesterday!

 The film belonged to the child actors in a forceful way and had the premise been not a lost love story, reconciliation and coming of age then you would be fooled in believing that one of the finest films after Bootpolish or Jagriti was unfolding before you! Jugal Hansraj was a successful child model from the age of 2years and had 75 ad campaigns under his bet when at 11 he acted in Masoom. Jugal shot for Masoom in his summer vacations. The 80s saw him in cast of hits like Sultanat, Karma and Loha. He made his adult debut with Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1994), opposite his Masoom co-star, Urmila Matondkar. In 2000, he made another comeback in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein as the refomist at heart. He directed the animated film, Roadside Romeo (2008), jointly produced by Yash Raj Films and Walt Disney Studios, the first mainstream CGI feature film to come out of India. 

Urmila Matondkar had a tiny role in the Marathi films Karm (1977) at 3, Zaakol (1980) at 6 and then found herself at a tender age of seven playing the son Parikshit in Benegal’s, Kalyug (1981).  At the age of nine, she got Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom and later made her adult debut in N.  Chandra’s Narshima. Her as a heroine arrived with Chamatkar (1992), opposite Shah Rukh Khan. Her biggest and critically hits were with Ram Gopal Varma in films like Rangeela (1995), Satya (1998), Kaun (1999) and Bhoot (2003).

Aradhana Srivastav was recommended by writer-lyricist composer Gulzar to Shekhar Kapur to play the youngest child in the film. She bonded and had found a mother figure in Shabana who fondly called her Ijji-Bijji. After Masoom, Aradhana was cast and did her own playback in Kidar Sharma’s Khuda Hafiz (1983) with her Masoom co-star Urmila and Ram Terey Kitney Naam (1985) , these films flopped and Aradhana faded away from public memory.Aradhana completed her studies at Pune’s Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce and got a PhD in Hindustani vocal music. Aradhana Shrivastav is at present teaching in one of the best music schools of the country in Delhi. She wrote the lyrics for the Delhi anthem, One Billion Rising, in 2013.

This film was among the critical milestones in the life of a genius called Rahul Dev Burman. The 80s as a decade saw him bag two back to back film fare awards for Sanam Teri Kasam (1982) and Masoom (1983). Sagar (1985) failed at the box office and his stock plummeted to the extent that he lost Ram Lakhan (1989) which Shubash Ghai had promised him, to Laxmikant Pyarelal, the duo who had played in his orchestra! Rahul Dev Burman once said that his best tunes came to him in his dreams and that he had to be in happy frame of mind even while composing sad tunes, he is also reported to have said “…When I am down, I end up making a mess of things!”.

Aarti Mukherjee won the Metro-Murphy music contest, where the judges were music directors like Anil Biswas, Naushad, Vasant Desai and C. Ramchandra. She got her first break as a playback singer in Hindi film Sahara (1958) .Aarti Mukherjee, won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer in 1983 for the song, Do Naina Aur Ek Kahani from Masoom, but her career graph in Bollywood didn’t progress due to her limited oeuvre. Arati Mukherji joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.

Anup Ghoshal is known in Bengal as one of the foremost Nazrulgeeti exponents. He first performed at 4 yrs, for Shishu Mahal children’s programme from All India Radio, Kolkata. Anup Ghoshal got dream break as a playback at 19 yrs, in Satyajit Ray’s classic Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne and got National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer in 1981 for Ray’s Hirak Rajar Deshe. Anup Ghosal was elected in 2011 to West Bengal Legislative Assembly as All India Trinamool Congress candidate. In an interesting episode, Anup Ghoshal not a gifted orator, found that hardly anyone was listening while he was delivering a brief speech during the Budget session in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. He swirched to singing to make a point and started crooning Tujhse naraaz nahin hain zindagi, hairaan hoon main, his most famous ditty from Masoom and got the rapt attention of everyone in the House both from the Treasury benches as well as the Opposition. 

Anup Ghoshal despite his hugely popular Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi from Masoom, was never repeated as a playback for any other Hindi film. Both Mukherjee and Ghoshal though, were highly popular Bengali playback singers in their native film industry.

Shekhar Kapoor tweeted about his directorial debut in 2017-“Masoom. My first film. Never learnt filmmaking, never assisted anyone. No knowledge of filmmaking at all. Nothing but pure instinct.” Not vainglorious words from a man who has just directed 8 complete films and walked out of 2 films midway in a career lasting 35 years and is still considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the world!

A new formulation of a drug to prevent excessive bleeding following childbirth could save thousands of women’s lives in low- and lower-middle-income countries, according to a study led by the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration with MSD for Mothers and Ferring Pharmaceuticals.

Currently WHO recommends oxytocin as the first-choice drug for preventing excessive bleeding after childbirth. Oxytocin, however, needs to be stored and transported at 2–8 degrees Celsius, which is hard to do, in many countries, depriving many women of access to this lifesaving drug. When they can obtain it, the drug may be less effective because of heat exposure.   

The study, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, has shown an alternative drug – heat-stable carbetocin – to be as safe and effective as oxytocin in preventing postpartum haemorrhage. This new formulation of carbetocin does not require refrigeration and retains its efficacy for at least 3 years stored at 30 degrees celsius and 75% relative humidity, a statement issued by WHO has said.

“This is a truly encouraging new development that can revolutionize our ability to keep mothers and babies alive,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.

Approximately 70 000 women die every year because of post-partum haemorrhage – increasing the risk that their babies also die within one month.

The clinical trial, the largest of its kind, studied close to 30 000 women who gave birth vaginally in 10 countries: Argentina, Egypt, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda and the United Kingdom.

Each woman was randomly given a single injection of either heat-stable carbetocin or oxytocin immediately following the birth of her baby. The study found that both drugs were equally effective at preventing excessive bleeding after birth.

Since both drugs in the study were kept in at the temperatures required to ensure maximum efficacy of oxytocin, the trial may underestimate the benefit expected with heat-stable carbetocin use in real-life settings where oxytocin may have degraded due to exposure to higher temperatures.

“The development of a drug to prevent postpartum haemorrhage that continues to remain effective in hot and humid conditions is very good news for the millions of women who give birth in parts of the world without access to reliable refrigeration,” says Dr Metin Gülmezoglu, from the Department of Reproductive Health and Research at WHO.

The next step is regulatory review and approval by countries.

WHO will ask its Guideline Development Group to consider whether heat-stable carbetocin should be a recommended drug for the prevention of postpartum haemorrhage. 

This WHO study, also referred to as the CHAMPION  (Carbetocin HAeMorrhage PreventION) trial, was funded by MSD for Mothers. Heat-stable carbetocin was provided by Ferring Pharmaceuticals, the product innovator and oxytocin was provided by Novartis for the study. The study was conducted under a collaborative arrangement between WHO, MSD for Mothers and Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Following the positive results from the trial, the parties will now work to advance affordable access to this lifesaving drug in countries that have a high burden of maternal deaths.

NEW DELHI : The price of non-subsidised LPG cooking gas will be hiked by Rs 55.50 per cylinder in New Delhi, and that of the subsidised one by a marginal Rs 2.71, effective July 1.

According to Indian Oil Corporation, the increase is mainly on account of GST on revised price of domestic non-subsidised LPG.

“There is a marginal increase of Rs 2.71 per cylinder (from Rs 493.55 in June 2018 to Rs 496.26 in July 2018) in the effective price of subsidised LPG cylinder in Delhi for domestic customers for the month of July 2018,” IndianOil said in a statement on Saturday.

“The increase is mainly on account of GST on revised price of domestic non-subsidised LPG.”

As per the statement, the price of non-subsidised LPG at Delhi which consumers buys after exhausting their yearly quota of 12 will increase by Rs 55.50 per cylinder in July 2018 due to increase in international price of LPG by $57 per MT.

“The balance Rs 52.79 (Rs 55.50 minus Rs 2.71) is being compensated to the customer by increase in subsidy transfer to their bank account,” the statement said. 

Accordingly, the subsidy transfer in customer’s bank account has been increased to Rs 257.74 per cylinder in July 2018 as against Rs 204.95 per cylinder in June 2018. 

Oil companies revise the rates of LPG on the 1st of every month based on average crude price and foreign exchange rate. Prices vary at locations according to local taxes as petroleum products are not included under the pan-India GST.

NEW DELHI : The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Task Force of the Ministry of Defence led by Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran on Saturday submitted its final report to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on using AI for military superiority.

“The Task Force handed over the final report to Raksha Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman to accept it and to implement its recommendations,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The Task Force was constituted in February 2018 to study the strategic implications of AI in national security perspective and in global context. It is a multi-stakeholder group comprising members from government, services, academia, industry and start-ups. 

“AI has the potential to have transformative impact on national security. It is also seen that AI is essentially a dual use technology. While it can fuel technology driven economic growth, it also has potential to provide military superiority,” the statement said.

The government wants to leverage the country’s strong IT industry and huge talent pool of engineers. The ministry has initiated the process of preparing Indian defence forces in their use of AI and how these capabilities can be increasingly developed within the country.

The report, which studied the level of AI or machine learning (ML) development in India mainly in context of defence needs, suggested making India a significant power of AI in defence specifically in the area of aviation, naval, land systems, cyber, nuclear and biological warfare.

It made recommendations for policy and institutional interventions that are required to regulate and encourage a robust AI based technologies for defence sector in the country. 

Considering that most AI work is happening in private sector, it made recommendations to work with start-ups and commercial industry in the field of use of AI for defence purposes, the release said.

As part of its deliberations, the Task Force had an intensive deliberations with all stakeholder representatives including officers from Army, Navy, Airforce, Coast Guard, representatives of all Defence PSUs, namely BEL, HAL, BEML, BDL, MIDHANI, MDL, GRSE, GSL and HSL and OFB. 

Defence Minister is the main promoter and patron of the AI Task Force.

(IANS)