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Economic Times March 22, 2020 PTI Researchers at the  Indian Institute of Technology   here have developed a method to detect COVID-19 which can significantly reduce the test cost making it affordable for large sections. The  National Institute of Virology  (NIV), Pune is in the process of validating this test on clinical samples. The "probe-free detection assay" developed by the researchers at the prestigious institute's Kusuma School of Biological Sciences has been optimised and tested for sensitivity at the research laboratories of the Institute. According to the team, considering the scale of the ongoing pandemic, development of indigenous kits is the need of the hour. The central government on Saturday recommended that the maximum charge for each COVID-19 test by private laboratories should not exceed Rs 4,500. All private laboratories which have NABL accreditation for real-time PCR SA for RNA virus will be allowed to conduct COVID...

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, 29 Jan 2020 Tidewater glaciers, the massive rivers of ice that end in the ocean, may be melting underwater much faster than previously thought, according to a Rutgers co-authored study that used robotic kayaks. The findings, which challenge current frameworks for analyzing ocean-glacier interactions, have implications for the rest of the world's tidewater glaciers, whose rapid retreat is contributing to sea-level rise. The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, surveyed the ocean in front of 20-mile-long LeConte Glacier in Alaska. The seaborne robots made it possible for the first time to analyze plumes of meltwater, the water released when snow or ice melts, where glaciers meet the ocean. It is a dangerous area for ships because of ice calving - when falling slabs of ice that break from glaciers crash into the water and spawn huge waves. "With the kayaks, we found a surprising signal of melting: Layers of concentrat...

Times of India, TNN | Nov 20, 2019 Sea levels along the Indian coast have risen by 8.5 cm during the past 50 years with an average increase of 1.7 mm per year, said the government in Rajya Sabha as it shared data from 10 major ports across the country in response to a Parliament question. Compared to global data, the annual average seal level rise along Indian coast is, however, almost half at present. UN’s latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows that the sea level globally is currently rising at the rate of 3.6 mm per year and “accelerating”. The long-term data, collected at 10 Indian ports, indicates sea levels at Diamond Harbour in West Bengal recorded the highest annual average increase (5.16 mm/year) followed by Kandla (3.18m/year) in Gujarat, Haldia (2.89 mm/year) in West Bengal, Port Blair (2.2 mm/year) in Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Okha (1.5 mm/year) in Gujarat. These annual average figures were, however, no...

Balakrishna Pisupati / Shyama Kuriakose Updated on August 17, 2019   The revised guidelines are unclear on issues of benefit sharing and do not inspire confidence with respect to dispute resolution India is one of the few countries around the world that enacted a legislation to protect, sustainably use and share the benefits of use of biological resources present in the country — The Biological Diversity Act (2002). Seventeen years of implementation have provided the country with enough experience on how to implement the Act, as well as how not to interpret certain provisions. One key component of the Act is to devise ways and means to seek benefits from the commercial utilisation of biological resources and the associated traditional knowledge pertaining to the use of such resources. Guidelines for such access and benefit sharing (ABS) were issued in 2014. However, the interpretation of these Guidelines during implementation has been severely problematic. This h...

Dushyant Dave, 16/AUG/2019 The following is the text of a letter senior advocate Dushyant Dave has written to Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, and all judges of the Supreme Court, on August 16, 2019. The Adani Group’s response to the letter has also been published below. Respected Lordships, 1. On January 12, 2018, addressing a press conference, four honourable judges of the Supreme Court declared, “…administration of the Supreme Court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months…”. In a seven-page letter addressed to the then Chief Justice of India, the justices had stated, “…It is too well settled in the jurisprudence of this country that the chief justice is only first amongst the equals – nothing more or nothing less”. The letter reads, “It is with great anguish and concern that we have thought it proper to address this letter to you so as to highlight certain judicial orders passed by this court which...

Published time: 22 Feb, 2019 The genetically-modified Chinese twins born resistant to HIV last year may also have mental ‘superpowers’ their creator has kept quiet – a cognitive superiority that could kick off a genetic arms race, according to new research. Lulu and Nana, the genetically-modified Chinese twins reportedly born HIV-resistant courtesy of the CRISPR gene editing tool, may also have been born with markedly superior mental abilities linked to the same gene edit. New research has confirmed that deleting the CCR5 gene – the same modification performed on the girls’ DNA – significantly improves cognition, learning, and memory in mice and men. “The answer is likely yes, it did affect their brains,” University of California at Los Angeles neurobiologist Alcino Silva told MIT Technology Review, after publishing a paper demonstrating CCR5 deactivation’s beneficial role in post-stroke recovery this week.  “Those mutations will probably have an impact on cogniti...

Updated: Feb 21, 2019 Chetan Chauhan The Supreme Court has asked the governments of 17 states to evict an estimated one million tribal and other households living in forests after their claims of the right to live in forests were rejected under the Forest Rights Act. The court has asked the evictions to be carried out by July 12 and directed the Dehradun-based Forest Survey of India to submit a satellite-image based report on the encroachments removed. According to affidavits filed by the states in the top court, about 11,72,931 (1.17 million) land ownership claims made by scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers under the Forest Rights Act have been rejected on various grounds, including absence of proof that the land was in their possession for at least three generations. The law provides for giving land rights to those living on forest land for at least three generations before December 31, 2005. The claims are examined by a committee headed by the dist...

FP Staff Feb 21, 2019 The proposed $44 billion (Rs 3 lakh crore) refinery and petrochemicals project at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra may be shifted to neighbouring Raigad district, according to media reports. Raigad is located in the Konkan region of Maharashtra. “They (the state government) are looking to shift the Ratnagiri refinery project to Raigad district," an official said, according to a report in Mint. A five-member committee of government officials, including those from the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), was set up in January to look at alternative land for the mega refinery. State-run oil companies and Saudi Arabian Oil Company known as Saudi Aramco have teamed up to build the $44 billion (Rs 3 lakh crore) refinery, which is aimed at giving India steady fuel supplies while meeting Saudi Arabia's need to secure regular buyers for its oil. Earlier, Nanar village in Ratnagiri district, some 400 km south of Mumbai was the site f...

The Washington Post | Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post | Updated: February 17, 2019 NEW YORK: On the ninth Friday of her strike, 13-year-old Alexandria Villasenor wakes to a dozen emails, scores of Twitter notifications, and good news from the other side of the planet: Students in China want to join her movement. Every week since December, the seventh-grader has made a pilgrimage to the United Nations Headquarters demanding action on climate change. She is one of a cadre of young, fierce and mostly female activists behind the "school strikes for climate" movement. On March 15, with the support of some of the world's biggest environmental groups, tens of thousands of kids in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 U.S. states plan to skip school to protest. Their demands are uncompromising: Nations must commit to cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half in the next 10 years to avoid catastrophic global warming. And their message is firm: Kids are done wa...