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India Ranked 100th in FIFA Rankings

As per the updated FIFA world football rankings, the Indian national football has managed to secure a 100th spot and entered into the top 100 of FIFA rankings. This is the first time in 21 years that India has been ranked into top 100. India has been placed 100th alongside Nicaragua, Lithuania and Estonia with a total of 331 points. India had ranked 101st in the FIFA rankings for April. The team climbed one spot up owing to the recent wins over Cambodia and Myanmar. The current ranking is a 72-place jump from being 173rd in March 2015. In 1996, India managed to secure the 94th spot. Till date, it remains the country’s best ever FIFA ranking.

The FIFA World Rankings ranks the men’s national teams in association football. The rankings were first introduced in 1992. The teams are ranked based on their game results of all FIFA-recognised full international matches. The teams are ranked based on its performance over the last four years. The rankings are currently led by Brazil. The teams like Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have also held top positions previously.

SAMPADA Scheme

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved re-structuring the schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) under new Central Sector Scheme called as SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) for the time period 2016-20.

SAMPADA is an umbrella scheme incorporating ongoing schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) such as Mega Food Parks, Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure, etc. It will also incorporate the new schemes like Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters, Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages, as well as Creation / Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities. SAMPADA with an allocation of Rs. 6,000 crore is expected to benefit 20 lakh farmers and generate 5,30,500 direct and indirect employment opportunities in the country by the year 2019-20. The objective of SAMPADA is to supplement agriculture, modernize processing of agri products and decrease their wastage. The new umbrella scheme gives renewed thrust to the food processing sector in the country. It aims to develop modern infrastructure to facilitate entrepreneurs to set up food processing units based on cluster approach and provide effective and seamless backward and forward integration for processed food industry. It proposes to achieve this by plugging gaps in supply chain and development of infrastructure facilities for processing and preservation and modernization of existing food processing units. As a result, SAMAPADA will result in the creation of modern infrastructure coupled with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to a retail outlet. It would provide better prices to farmers and would help in doubling their incomes. Implementation of the scheme will result in creating huge employment opportunities, especially in rural areas. From the perspective of the consumer, it would promote the availability of safe and convenient processed foods at an affordable price.

World’s Highest Railway Bridge to Come up Over Chenab River

World’s highest railway bridge which will be 35 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower is to come up over the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir at a cost of around Rs. 1,100 crore in around two years from now. The bridge will connect Bakkal (Katra) and Kauri (Srinagar). The bridge will be a part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project. Once completed, the bridge will be an engineering marvel. The project is expected to be completed by 2019. After completion of the bridge it will surpass the record of the Beipan river Shuibai railway bridge (275 m) in China. The bridge is expected to contribute to the economic development of the state and improve its accessibility. The new railway bridge will be of an arch-shaped structure in hostile terrain. It will be constructed using over 24,000 tonnes of steel and will rise 359 m above the river bed. Steel has been chosen as the construction material as it would be cheap and would be able to resist temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius and wind speeds of above 250 kmph. The design of the bridge will be such that it will be able to withstand wind speed of up to 260 kmph.

Security features

The Indian Railways is also planning to install sensors on the bridge to check the wind velocity. The sensors will turn the track signal red to prevent the train movement if the wind speed exceeds 90 kmph. The bridge will be constructed using a 63mm t

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How a Mid-Market Biopharma Company Avoids the Risks of Being Wrong

“You can be wrong in academia, but it’s a huge risk to be wrong in drug discovery.”

—Roger Parker, Pre-Clinical Research Leader

Avoid the risks in late stage R&D

Roger Parker*, a leading pre-clinical research leader recently shared his advice on how to avoid costly mistakes when working in pharmaceutical and biotech companies in early-stage drug discovery. Investigating potential new molecules and validating methods of action are two of his primary tasks. To overcome the challenges of validation in early stage research, Roger needs access to reliable, up-to-date and comprehensive scientific information. He recognizes the dangers involved in not consulting full-text articles in his work: “You can be wrong in academia, but it’s a huge risk to be wrong in drug discovery.” Parker has witnessed how the failure to conduct thorough literature research in early-stage R&D can create significant problems in later phases. A pharmaceutical company he worked for earlier in his career bought a compound in Phase III but discovered in trials that patients did not tolerate it well. Parker’s team was able to develop a coated formulation for the compound, but its successful development required substantial  dditional investment. His experience illustrates the importance of consulting the literature from the outset. “Without thoroughly looking at the details, you can end up wasting a lot of money,” Parker notes. Relying only on abstracts and excerpted data in the early stage introduces the possibility of not recognizing a serious issue until later stages. “There’s a huge risk in not reading the full text and not having access to the graphs and the actual data to ensure you have the context and understanding as to why something was done and not just how.”

Improving early-stage viability time and costs

Science Direct helps Parker improve R&D productivity and make validation processes more efficient, resulting in time and cost savings. “Being able to review full-text articles online prevents you from moving into the next phase without being sure of what’s been done before and how well previous compounds or formulations worked,” Parker says. “The more vetted you are on the scientific front, the more viability you have in getting to later stages in the development process.” Another benefit of being well-vetted on the scientific front is that it can improve the rate of success in qualifying for government grants, compared to the competition. Non-dilutive funding from these sources can provide millions of dollars to support a start-up’s R&D efforts, without requiring the sale of company shares or the loss of control over the company.

Scientists at IIT Create Low Cost Solar Cells using Jamun.

Scientists at IIT Roorkee have used Indian summer fruit, Jamun, to create low cost and more efficient solar cells. To create the solar cells, the researchers made use of naturally occurring pigment present in jamun as an inexpensive photosensitizer for Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSCs) or Gratzel cells. Gratzel cells are nothing but thin film solar cells made of a porous layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2) coated photoanode, a layer of dye molecules that are capable of absorbing sunlight, an electrolyte for regenerating the dye, and a cathode. The above components of the Gratzel cell form a sandwich-like structure with the dye molecule playing a crucial role through its ability to absorb visible light. Researchers made use of ethanol to extract the dyes from jamun. The extracted coloured pigment called anthocyanin was used as a sensitiser. The research got published in the Journal of Photovoltaics. Significance Natural pigments are cheaper in comparison to regular Ruthenium-based pigments to create solar cells. The research like this assumes importance at the backdrop of increasing pressure on fossil fuels and concern about global warming. It will also augment in realizing the country’s vision of building up a 40% share of non-fossil fuel capacity in the power sector by 2030.

Twitter partners with Bloomberg for streaming TV news – WSJ

Twitter Inc is partnering with Bloomberg Media for a round-the-clock streaming television news service on the social networking platform, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. The channel, which is yet to be named and is expected to begin operations this fall, would be announced Monday, WSJ said. on wsj.com/2oNTp10. Twitter's user growth has stalled in the past few quarters and the company has been trying to convince

advertisers that it will strengthen its user base. As part of its efforts, it has updated its product offerings including live video broadcasts from its app and launched new features to attract users. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in an internal memo last October one of the company's missions was defined as being the "people's news network". Twitter has made a push into news and sports on mobile devices last year and this foray could pique the interest of a media company as an acquirer, analysts have said.

Google Announces 'Solve for India' to Inspire Entrepreneurs and Developers in Tier-2 Cities

Google on Friday announced a new "Solve for India" initiative that aims to expand and energise the startup ecosystem in tier-2 cities across the country.The programme aims to inspire new wave of entrepreneurs and startups in emerging cities like Pune, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Kochi, Indore, Nagpur, Nashik, Madurai, Kanpur, as well as Kolkata and Chennai. Speaking about the initiative, Karthik Padmanabhan, Program Manager Lead for Google India, said, "Majority of India's Internet users are Indian language users, and over 80 percent of them access the Internet from their mobile phones. But the current Indian startup ecosystem is building products for English speaking audience and caters only to 15% of the population. There are growing number of entrepreneurs in smaller Indian cities who are focusing on building solutions that caters to the real needs of India. Through this initiative we want to bring the best of Google under one program and join forces with them to help create solutions that serves the needs of a billion Indians." Developers and entrepreneurs will get access to a variety of Google programmes, including the Google Launchpad mentoring programme which will help them to build, scale and accelerate early stage product ideas, and take them to the next level. The Launchpad accelerator program comes with six month mentorship program along with $50,000 (roughly Rs. 32 lakhs) equity-free investments. Google says it will also provide over $20,000 (roughly Rs. 12.8 lakhs) of Google cloud credits. Developers will have the opportunity to lear from the experts in across the areas of Android, Firebase, Machine learning, Cloud APIs, Progressive Web Apps, and Indian language translation solutions.