Situated between commercial establishments on Armenian Street, opposite the Madras high court, is the Armenian Church. One of the oldest churches in India, tombs of about 350 Armenians can be found there. But, according to Satenig Batwagan, researcher and historian at the Society for Armenian Studies, Paris, that number actually pales in comparison when one considers the ‘countless Armenians’, who led a happy and prosperous life in old Madras.
Currently in Chennai to organise ‘Armenians in Madras’, an exhibition at Armenian Church as part of the Madras Week celebrations, Ms Batwagan says, “a lot of Armenian school children, today, are aware of the role played by Armenians in Madras. They are curious to know about their past and Madras, especially, played a significant role.” Tracing the movement of Armenians to modern day Chennai, Ms. Batwagan says, “Unlike other Europeans, like the Portuguese, Dutch and French, who also came during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Armenians were primarily merchants and had no colonial intentions. Thus, they were well regarded by locals.”
Giving a measure of the prominent connection between Madras and Armenia, she says it was here in the year 1780, that Shahamir Shahamirian wrote the first constitution for the Armenian state. Another person, Haruthyun Shmavonian, priest at the local St. Mary’s Church brought out Azdarar (The Monitor), the first ever Armenian periodical, in 1794. Quite appropriately, he is referred to as the founder of the Armenian Press. Besides, an altar curtain made in Madras in 1789 can be found at the treasury in Edjmiadzin, holy city of Armenia.
Sadly though, not many among the residents of the city are aware that the Armenians were also benefactors of the city. Khodja Petrus Uscan, a prosperous merchant, originally constructed the Maraimalai Adigal Bridge or Marmalong Bridge, across the Adayar River, in 1728. In addition, he was also instrumental in facilitating access to St. Thomas Mount by building the steps leading up to the church.
“When I mention the contributions to our people, they express surprise. It has taken a lady from Paris to highlight the rich Armenian heritage of Chennai, when ideally, citizens here should have been made aware of much earlier,” Trevor Alexander, caretaker of the Armenian Church says.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC / by Venkatesan Parthasarthy / August 19th, 2014
A copy of the patent being handed over to Srilavanya by VIT Chancellor G Viswanathan on Wednesday | EXPRESS
Vellore :
Imagine travelling in a long-distance train with no idea about the current location, no internet connectivity to identify the spot through GPRS and not knowing when to alight.
What if there’s a gadget inside the compartment that has its own communication network and provides value-added services such as details of the location, the approaching station, food items available in the pantry, social networking with co-passengers and alerts about one’s destination without disturbing others? This is exactly what two students of MS Software Engineering attached to the VIT University have developed in the form of an in-vehicle network based mobile solution, that has received US patent now, for the very first time in the university.
“I am so delighted that we have been able to get the US patent for the very good work done by two of our students – Srisudha Garimalla and Srilavanya Paleti and their guide Dr K Ganesan of TIFAC-CORE at the University,” said VIT Chancellor G Viswanthan, briefing about the patent on Wednesday. He said an application had also been filed for an Indian patent.
He said the application for the US patent was filed in 2011, the details of which were published on the Internet for objection, if any, to the concept and ownership . “We got the approval for the patent on August 5, 2014,” he said, adding: “The patent has been obtained in the shortest period.”
Srilavanya, who is employed at Schneider Electrics at Bengaluru, recalled that it took two years for them to work on the application, which provided a cost-effective, value-added service to passengers, who are travelling in trains, ship or buses where access to internet was problem. “I have experienced the problem while travelling from Vellore to my home town in Vijayawada by train, which made us work on a solution,” she said. Her classmate Srisudha, while explaining about the application said, the hardware built by them comprised GPS, Wi-Fi and bluetooth modules with necessary software. This unit, which provides its own communication network without internet support, can be fixed on the roof of the train compartment.
When a passenger enters the train, he/she has to switch on the bluetooth module on the mobile phone, upon which the software developed by the girls would be downloaded to the mobile phone. The user has to enter certain details such as his destination.
The hardware unit will save this information and remind the passenger with an SMS when the destination arrives. A passenger who is asleep will get the alert with a vibration on his mobile. If the train is running late, the passenger need not wake up early.
Another in-built feature of the system is information about food items available on the train. The passengers can place orders through mobile phone, said Srisudha, presently a senior developer with Sapient Private Limited, a leading multinational company in Bengaluru.
Passengers can get to know about the medical help available onboard during an emergency and can publish request for sharing hotel accommodation and transportation like taxi/auto.
Ganesan said 16 patents had been filed by VIT so far. The US patent received now could be used anywhere in the world, he added.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by V. NarayanaMurthi / August 21st, 2014
Over the last decade or so, as the city has grown as a business and corporate hub, people from other countries have begun to set up base here — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan / The Hindu
A number of people from Belgium, Spain, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, South Korea and several other countries call the city ‘home’
In 2004, when Lydie Vranken Abdulla, a native of Belgium, first came to Chennai, there were only about five buildings from Sholinganallur to Kelambakkam.
In the 10 years since, the city has grown along with her restaurant on ECR.
Mrs. Abdulla is part of a small community of Belgians who call Chennai home. As do a number of people from Spain, France, Russia, Germany, UK, USA, Japan, South Korea and several other countries.
“There is this perceived idea about Chennai — that it is a closed city. But for newcomers who have no existing network here, Chennai is both generous and easy to live in. If you interact with people here on a mutually respectful basis, they are more than interested in what you have to say,” says Bart De Groof, consul general, Consulate General of Belgium in Chennai.
The city has a long history of association with other countries — cultural organisations such as Alliance Francaise of Madras have been here since 1953, while the Goethe Institut was set up in 1960.
British Council too has been here for several decades, while the American Library opened here in 1947.
Over the last decade or so, as the city has grown as a business and corporate hub, people from other countries have begun to set up base here — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan / The Hindu
Over the last decade or so, however, as the city has grown as a business and corporate hub, people from several other countries too, have begun arriving — with some staying here for brief periods and others deciding to settle.
And it’s not just big businesses sending in their representatives — several foreigners have their own enterprises here too. Earlier this year, for instance, Serbian Bogdan set up a restaurant in T. Nagar, with chefs Jovan and Goran.
InterNations — an international community for people living and working abroad — in Chennai, has close to 3,000 members, from dozens of countries.
South Korean Sang-woo Alex Kim has spent almost four years in the city. Though he hates the mosquitoes and the weather, he is a fan of Indian food.
His colleague, Andrew Jung Min Pak, says that despite skin infections, water problems and food issues, he likes the city. “In Chennai, you can see the 1950s, the 60s, the 70s, and all the way up, until the present,” he says.
For American Cailin O’Connor, a teaching artist, it is the people here who have led her to love the city. She says something that is echoed by almost every expatriate — the people here are warm and welcoming, much more so than those in other cities.
And while for German Melanie B., the city may not be ideal, she says, “It always surprises me.”
While expatriates from each country have their own little communities and keep in touch, there’s also a lot of inter-mingling.
The food in Chennai calls out to some, while for others, it’s the history. But for almost all, the charm lies in what Mrs. Abdulla calls a variety of opposites — a combination of the traditional and the modern.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / Madras 375 / by Zubeda Hamid / Chennai – August 21st, 2014
C.V Hanif (right) is the oldest recipient of such a procedure. Dr. Paul Ramesh and Preetha Reddy of Apollo Hospitals are in the picture
At one point, 67-year-old C.V Hanif was mostly confined to his home, entirely dependent on an oxygen cylinder and unable to completely take care of himself without help.
Today, however, nearly five months after a heart and double lung transplant, the patient from Kerala is on the road to recovery and back on his feet with no special oxygen support.
Mr. Hanif is the oldest recipient of such a procedure in the country, claimed doctors at Apollo Hospitals, where the surgery was performed in March this year.
“The patient came to us with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which an inflammation leads to the formation of scar tissue in the alveoli capillary membrane, in the gas-exchanging region of the lungs. This leads to very little exchange of gases and, therefore, lowered levels of oxygen the blood. At the end point, when there is end-stage lung and heart failure, there is no option but a transplant,” said Paul Ramesh, senior consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at the hospital.
Though Mr. Hanif was on the transplant list, he was admitted late one March evening with extreme breathlessness and low blood pressure.
“The procedure for someone as old as him is risky. But Mr. Hanif made it clear that he didn’t mind going ahead if there was a chance his quality of life would improve,” Dr. Ramesh said.
Thanks to a matching donor being available in 12 hours and the organs being transported quickly, the heart and double lung transplant was performed successfully by a team that included Dr. Ramesh, T. Sunder and Madhan Kumar, the last two being senior consultant cardiothoracic surgeons at the hospital.
Despite an infection contracted a few weeks later, Mr. Hanif made a complete recovery, Dr. Ramesh said. “This is a technically demanding and very complex. In Chennai, there have only been four performed so far,” he added.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / Staff Reporter / Chennai – August 10th, 2014
ipika Pallikal (left) and Joshna Chinappa pose with their medals after winning the gold in women’s doubles squash event during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. (AFP Photo)
Glasgow :
Forget the gold. Few gave them a chance to even finish on the podium in the Commonwealth Games, given that teams with pedigree like Australia, England, New Zealand and Malaysia were in the fray.
But two girls from Chennai – Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal – squashed all doubts and did the impossible on Saturday to claim the top prize in women’s squash doubles. This is India’s first ever medal in the sport in the Commonwealth Games.
It took the fifth seeded Indian duo just 28 minutes to tame the top seeds Jenny Duncalf and Laura Massaro of England in straight games: 11-6, 11-8.
The scoreline might suggest that the game was a little one sided but it was not. The British pair, after losing the first game, roared back for a 7-2 lead in the second. The Indians fought back to clinch a famous victory .
“We were down for a while, but we were confident. We were telling ourselves that we could do it. We were not here to settle for the silver. We had the belief and the confidence that we could win the gold medal,” 22-year-old Dipika told TOI.
It was a tough competition for the Indian girls as the field included quite a few former Commonwealth Games medallists. “Doubles was a tough competition. It was important for us to take one match at a time, not thinking about whom we were going to play if we advanced. I guess that paid off as it took away the pressure,” she said.
Dipika admitted that the feeling that she and her 27-year-old partner Joshna were the architects of India’s first medal winners in squash was yet to sink in. “I guess it will take a couple of days to sink in. We are delighted.”
Former national champion Bhuvaneshwari Kumari, here as a coach, said the medal would do a world of good to the game back home. “It will inspire people back home. The government and the federation have been very supportive but I think this gold will help us get more support.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Sports> Tournaments> Commonwealth Games 2014 / by Biswajyoti Brahma, TNN / August 03rd, 2014
Crackers and drumbeats greeted paddler A. Amalraj as he went back home in a chariot. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam / The Hindu
Wide-eyed young table-tennis enthusiasts, learning at the academy run by Amalraj’s family, walked with him
At Pulianthope, on Saturday, the celebration was a flashy affair as people belonging to all communities came together to welcome the hero of their neighbourhood.
The sound of crackers and drumbeats filled the air as Commonwealth Games silver medal-winning paddler A. Amalraj went back home in a chariot.
Despite the fatigue after a long flight, Amalraj didn’t show any hints of discomfort even when his chariot was interrupted every ten metres or so by people, including the elderly, and often stopped to shake hands and receive a shawl or a soft drink.
Speaking to The Hindu, Amalraj said he hoped this success would make the sport popular, particularly in his neighbourhood. “Of course, my next goal is to qualify for the Olympic Games, which I narrowly missed in 2012. Achievements like these have the potential to get many more youngsters interested in the games.”
It was a poignant moment when he garlanded the statue of B.R. Ambedkar, especially after some well-wishers reiterated how Amalraj is an inspiration for the SC/ST community that had been denied opportunities systematically.
Several wide-eyed young table-tennis enthusiasts, learning the ropes at the Amala Annai Table Tennis Academy, which is incidentally run by Amalraj’s family, walked the entire stretch with him.
He arrived at Pulianthope after attending a few felicitation functions, one of which was organised by the Tamil Nadu SC/ST Officers Welfare Association, en route from the airport. A well-wisher, summing up his feelings on Amalraj’s success at the international stage, said, “He is a great inspiration for the entire community. With his success, he has made the entire community proud.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Udhav Naig / Chennai – August 10th, 2014
India is emerging as a vaccine manufacturing hub, thanks to the biotechnology solutions, noted Dr Renu Swarup, advisor to the Department of Bio-technology (DBT), Government of India, who is also the managing director of Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) under the DBT.
She was delivering the Kunthala Jayaraman Endowment Lecture as part of the third edition of the Bio Summit at VIT on Thursday. She said, “Successful trials of vaccines for rotavirus, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, dengue, typhoid, malaria, leprosy, anthrax and cholera were underway in collaboration with many national and international agencies.”
She said the goal of the department was to develop 100 billion US dollar industry in biotechnology in the country by the year 2025, to fuel economic development and employment generation. “A dynamic and vibrant biotech industry is one of the main engines of innovation,” she pointed out, adding, “We have the potential and capacity, and what is needed is collaboration to move forward.”
The infrastructure support and research capacity building by the Indian Government had helped the country to be looked upon by other developed countries as a capable partner, to collaborate in the field of biotechnology. The genome initiative undertaken by India had helped in making considerable progress in the sequencing, she added. She said biotech science clusters were being developed at Faridabad, Mohali and Bangalore, to enable integrated growth of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine in a multi-disciplinary environment. Dr Shrikant Anant from the University of Kansas School of Medicine spoke about cancer stem cells. Abhaya Kumar, CEO and MD of Shasun Pharmaceuticals, Chennai, spoke on entrepreneurship, while Dr Ganesh Sambasivam spoke about his company Anthem.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / August 08th, 2014
This innovator made a kit that frees women in many parts of the world of the threat of infection during childbirth.
Zubaida Bai at the production facility of ayzh, 30km from Chennai. Photo: Nathan G/Mint
Freedom from risky childbirth | Zubaida Bai
Growing up in Chennai, a young Zubaida Bai wanted to study further after completing class XII. A reasonable request, except that in her family, nobody—male or female—had made it to college. The women in her family were usually married in their teens. Plus, Zubaida’s father did not have the finances to put her through college.
Undeterred, she decided to fight fate.
At 33, Zubaida Bai was the founder-CEO of ayzh (pronounced “eyes”), a low-cost women’s healthcare company based in Chennai and Colorado, US. Her biggest achievement: JANMA, a birthing kit sold and distributed through non-governmental organizations and healthcare companies.
JANMA (birth in Hindi) kits consist of six things: an apron, a sheet, a hand sanitizer, an antiseptic soap, a cord clip and a surgical blade. They meet the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of “six cleans” during childbirth—clean hands of the attendant, clean surface, clean blade, clean cord tie, clean towels to dry the baby and wrap it, and clean cloth to wrap the mother. A jute purse in five colours contains the kit and and it can be used as a purse after delivery.
From mundane struggles with a traditional Muslim family to being a successful innovator, Zubaida Bai’s journey has been one about exercising the right to free choice although that involved selling her jewellery to get ayzh off the ground.
Soon after school, Zubaida took a year off, selling retail banking services door-to-door for ABN Amro, cold-calling customers and earning her first pay cheque when she was 17. Soon she was in college, studying mechanical engineering, and went on to become the first graduate in her entire family. After graduation, she dreamt of designing cars, but ended up at auto-parts company Sundram Fasteners. “I was the only girl on the entire floor, all I did every day was change the dimensions on a CAD design or take printouts. I was getting fat from all the thayir saadam (curd rice),” she recalls.
She was soon planning her escape. Scouring the Internet for a master’s degree, she secretly applied to various universities. After an acceptance letter for a fully funded scholarship to an M.Tech programme at Dalarna University, Sweden, arrived, she told her parents. Her father thought this was one of those infamous scams that promised you a job and ended up hiring you as domestic labour. But finally, Zubaida left home.
In the summer of her first semester in college, she took a road trip, was part of a students’ exchange programme, visited Poland and, during a period of self-discovery, she decided to start wearing the hijab, though no one in her family did.
Back in Chennai before her second semester ended and coaxed to meet a potential suitor, Habib Anwar, she feared the worst. “(But) he said that he was looking for an educated girl, who he would like to work rather than sit at home and squabble with his relatives,” says Zubaida.
Anwar supported Zubaida’s plan to study further as well. Soon they were married. Much later, he would be instrumental in providing the necessary support to make ayzh a success.
In 2006, Zubaida gave birth to the first of her three sons, Yasin. It was a painful experience. She needed surgery, was forced to rest for two months and took close to a year to recover fully. In her childhood, she had witnessed the lack of healthcare facilities for her mother, close relatives and community, and the lack of financial resources to pay for these if they did happen to be available.
Sometime in 2009, as part of a master’s in business administration in global social and sustainable enterprises at the University of Colorado, US, Zubaida came to India to research ideas that could be developed into products. She worked with Chennai-based non-profit Rural Innovations Network (RIN), making the JS Milker, a vacuum-driven cow-milking machine, low-cost and commercially viable. In Rajasthan, she met a village dai (midwife) who had just delivered a baby with a grass-cutting sickle.
This was her a-ha moment. She started reading up on institutional childbirth. She stumbled upon a clean birth kit (CBK) while attending a tech event in Denver, US, promoted by the non-profit healthcare organization PATH. The kit had a plastic sheet, a Topaz blade, a piece of thread, a small square of soap, and a plastic coin. All this was wrapped in a box with instructions. She then travelled halfway across the world to Nepal, where a group of women was assembling the kit.
Unimpressed with the quality of the kit, she searched for more samples, but found none that matched her expectations. But she knew she was on to something, and started building her own improved version, using off-the-shelf components and assembling them.
By 2010, she had put together a rudimentary clean birthing kit called JANMA, which she tested in Bangalore, through her gynaecologist. The innovation won the Global Social Venture Competition for business plans at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad in March 2010, and followed it up by topping the Camino Real Venture Competition at the University of Texas at El Paso, US, later that month.
Zubaida Bai also received a 2010-11 fellowship related to maternal health from Ashoka, an organization which identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs. At one event, she met the who’s who of the world of maternal health. “They were folks who were shaping the future of maternal health. These are people I would have found impossible to meet, especially Wendy Graham, who does research on how clean birth kits prevent infections,” she says. Her interactions confirmed her belief that a product such as JANMA would have a market.
By 2011, they had sold 2,000-3,000 JANMA kits, priced at $2-5 (now around Rs.120-300), in India and had made some inroads into the US.
After the initial success, though, Zubaida Bai hit a wall. Ayzh needed funds for operating costs, scaling up and distribution channels. Forced to return to India after completing her course at the University of Colorado, Zubaida and Anwar had two MBAs and two children between them, and no jobs. Those were trying times.
Even as friends and family advised one of them to get a job, Zubaida and Anwar calculated that they needed $300,000 for one-and-a-half years for ayzh to get off the ground. A social impact firm assured them of $50,000 if they could raise $100,000 and $20,000 if they raised nothing. Everything hung in the balance till the end of 2012, when they were awarded the $80,000 Echoing Green fellowship. They also got a Canadian government grant for another $100,000, while an individual investor put in another $100,000.
This was the turning point. In 2013, they clocked $100,000 in revenue, and sold 50,000 kits in India, Haiti, Laos, Afghanistan and Africa.
The JANMA kit’s relevance is irrefutable. According to the UN, India’s maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births reduced by 65%, from 560 in 1990 to 190 in 2013. But that still means 50,000 women die every year in India while giving birth. Seventeen per cent of the women die from preventable infections. More than 300,000 infants in India die the day they are born, according to the report “Ending Newborn Deaths, Ensuring Every Baby Survives”, by the non-profit Save the Children and Joy Lawn, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
Zubaida’s goal for ayzh is three-pronged. She wants women to have power over their health by introducing new products for post-partum haemorrhage, a new-born kit, maternity pad and other innovations in reproductive health and family planning. Instead of creating products from scratch she wants to leverage the ayzh distribution platform to aggregate and sell products already available in the market. And, finally, she wants to launch an innovation lab for low-cost healthcare products, so that an entrepreneur with an idea does not have to go through the same grind that they did.
To realize this ambition they are currently in the process of raising $3 million in funding—a huge sum for a social enterprise selling low-cost products to bottom-of-the-pyramid customers—from social impact investors.
“We want to build a corporate entity, with a group of companies that will focus on women’s health and empowerment. Habib saw his mother struggle doing sewing and embroidery and I saw my mother struggle as well. They always brought in money, but were not appreciated and treated as an asset,” says Zubaida.
Nelson Vinod Moses is a Bangalore-based freelance journalist who writes on social entrepreneurship.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home – Leisure / by Nelson Vinod Moses / Saturday – August 09th, 2014
It can make a breakthrough in the field of regeneration of organs
What is common between earthworms and liver, a lot says researchers.
Since liver, like earthworm, has got regenerating capacity even though 80 per cent of the glandular organ gets damaged, it is believed that some of the crucial findings of the research being done on the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University campus on earthworm’s regenerative capacity and its genome may help in devising a bio-artificial liver through the researches going on in the highly sophisticated laboratories of the Cedars — Sinai campus in the United States.
The MSU research has attracted the attention of Prof. Vaithi Arumugaswami of Regenerative Medicine Institute, Cedars — Sinai, U.S., who is actively working with a team of scientists on bio-artificial liver through stem cell research for the past few years. Manonmaniam Sundaranar University’s Department of Biotechnology, that has established one of the well-equipped labs in the country, is conducting researches on earthworm and mice to study their regenerative capacity after almost completing the gene mapping of earthworm by a team of researchers led by S. Sudhakar, Head, Department of Biotechnology, MSU.
“Since many of the genes of the earthworm resemble the gene found in humans, we, through the stem cell research, can make a breakthrough in the field of regeneration of organs like liver. We’re working towards this direction,” says Dr. Sudhakar, who had worked in the U.S. for several years.
When he recently met Prof. Vaithi Arumugaswami, the meeting gave a lot of confidence for both sides about significant progress in their respective researches and taking it to the next level with their findings.
“Since viral infection or alcoholism cause liver cirrhosis and liver cancer that ultimately leads to death, we’ve to look for liver transplantation involving huge sum of money and have to wait indefinitely for cadaveric transplantation or for a brain-dead patient. As liver has got regeneration capacity, we, through our researches, try to devise a bio artificial liver,” says Dr. Vaithi, who was at MSU for delivering lectures for the students of biotechnology on Monday.
Towards this direction, Dr. Vaithi, who hails from Kadayam in Tirunelveli district and did his master’s degree in veterinary science Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, and his team are now conducting researches on mice, rat and pig by overloading its liver with liver-toxic medicines like paracetamol or dimethyl-nitro-amine.
“With the gene mapping we have the basis to show a lot of similarities between earthworm, mice and pig, we hope that we can take the research on realising the dream of bio artificial liver to the next level,” hope Dr. Vaithi and Dr. Sudhakar.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by Special Correspondent / Tirunelveli – August 06th, 2014
Prof Ghosh and his students discussing the conceptual design at the VIT University | Express
Vellore :
House on Mars will be in cuboidal form with a curved roof! With Mangalyan all set to land on the red planet, a group of students of VIT University here have come up with a conceptual design to construct houses for human settlements on Mars.
The curved roof design is to facilitate light from the sky to be positioned appropriately to optimise solar gains.
“The wall in the building comprises Titanium Aluminium alloys, fibre glass and insulating aerogels. This unique man- made fabric associated with a unique building form ensures that the temperature in the dwelling never gets cold below 25 degree Celsius,” Pranav Sanghavi, one of the designers said.
Combining design components with planetary climate for the first time, the students Pranav Sanghavi, Ashutosh Jadeja and Manu Manish Jaiswal along with their guide Prof. Satyajit Ghosh, have sucessfully simulated Martian climate.
They have presented the findings in a research paper, “A nuanced thermal analysis of a proposed living space on Mars” at a conference on Mars at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, U.S.A.
The students pointed out that with Mangalyan the country was poised to be in the forefront of the Martian explorations.
Prof. Ghosh at VIT’s School of Mechanical and Building Sciences, said the student team had successfully simulated the Martian climate with a state-of-the-art code to help optimise the housing design. ‘As we had mechanical engineers in our team, they presented a robust design using the most sophisticated architectural tools,’ he noted.
The team will soon construct a prototype of the house in the campus, Ghosh added.
VIT chancellor G.Viswanathan appreciated the efforts taken by the team and assured them of all necessary support.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / August 03rd, 2014
