5-Apr-2023: Weather Based Agro Advisory Services
India Meteorological Department (IMD) runs an operational Agrometeorological Advisory Services (AAS) viz., Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa (GKMS) scheme for the benefit of farming community in the country. Under the scheme, medium range weather forecast at district and block level for next five days is generated and based on the forecast, 130 Agromet Field Units (AMFUs) located at State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), institutes of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) etc. and District Agromet Units (DAMUs) at Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) under ICAR network prepare Agromet Advisories on every Tuesday and Friday for the districts under their jurisdiction and for the blocks of the district of their location and communicate to the farmers to take decision on day-to-day agricultural operations.
Presently Agromet advisories are being prepared on every Tuesday and Friday for all the agriculturally important districts (~700) and around 3100 blocks by 130 AMFUs and 199 DAMUs.
Weather plays a crucial role in agriculture and changes in weather patterns can have a significant impact on crop yields. Weather-based crop advisory services can provide real-time information about weather patterns, crop health and appropriate measures to the farmers enabling them to make informed decisions about various crop management practices leading to higher yields and increased income. In order to cater the need of the farming community, District level AAS was initiated in collaboration with ICAR and SAUs through the network of 130 AMFUs located across the country with an aim of providing more relevant weather information and location and crop specific advisories. After successful implementation of district level AAS, with the introduction of upgraded high-resolution models, the service has further extended to the block level with the establishment of DAMUs in the premises of KVKs of ICAR. AAS rendered by IMD is a step towards weather-based crop and livestock management strategies and operations dedicated to enhancing crop production and food security besides reducing crop damage and loss due to unusual weather.
Along with the biweekly bulletins, daily weather forecast and nowcast information are also disseminated to the farmers by Regional Meteorological Centres (RMCs) and Meteorological Centres (MCs) of IMD. Impact based forecast (IBFs) for agriculture are also being prepared by AMFUs and DAMUs based on the severe weather warnings for different districts of various States and UTs across the country issued by National Weather Forecasting Centre (NWFC), New Delhi and RMCs and MCs of IMD.
Agromet Advisories are disseminated to the farmers through multichannel dissemination system like print and electronic media, Door Darshan, radio, internet etc. including SMS using mobile phones through Kisan Portal and also through private companies under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
Farmers access the weather information including alerts and related Agromet advisories specific to their districts through the mobile App viz., ‘Meghdoot’ launched by Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. These weather details are also accessible by farmers through another App ‘Kisan Suvidha’, launched by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
Social media like ‘WhatsApp’ is also used for quicker dissemination of weather forecast and Agromet advisories. WhatsApp groups of farmers have been created by various AMFUs and DAMUs to disseminate Agromet services. State Agriculture Department officials of District and Block level are also included in these WhatsApp groups.
IMD is also taking continuous efforts to popularize the services among the farming community by organising Farmers’ Awareness Programmes (FAPs) in collaboration with AMFUs and DAMUs in various parts of the country. IMD along with the experts from AMFUs and DAMUs also participate in Kisan Melas, Farmers’ Day etc. to create awareness about the services, so that more farmers get benefitted.
To assess the economic impact of weather forecast-based advisories, multiple studies were conducted by an independent third-party organization viz., National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in 2009, 2015 and also recently in 2020.
The recent study of 2020 concluded that 98% of surveyed farmers (3,965 farmers across 121 districts of 11 states of India) made modifications to at least one of nine practices based on weather advisories. Average annual income of farming households increased from 1.98 Lakh, which adopted no modifications to Rs 3.02 Lakh which adopted all the 9 practices. An additional annual income was estimated of Rs. 12,500 per agricultural household belonging to Below Poverty Line category in rain-fed areas, while total income gain was estimated at Rs. 13,331 crore per annum in rain-fed districts. An investment of Rs 1000 crores will yield economic benefits of about Rs 50000 crores over a period of 5 years.
10-Jan-2023: New technique of corrosion-resistant nickel alloy coatings can replace toxic chrome plating
A new method of deposition of Nickel alloy coatings on high-performance materials in engineering applications can replace environmentally toxic chrome coatings. The coatings obtained are also highly corrosion-resistant and useful for the plastic ware industry.
With ever-increasing demand for high-performance materials in engineering applications, nano-crystalline coatings can cater to the need for the replacement of environmental hazardous chrome coatings.
Chrome coatings have been used in plastic bottling industry to improve the service life of die-casting components. However, chrome plating is a toxic process, and the stringent standard permissible exposure limit (PEL) for toxic hexavalent chromium and all its compounds has to be complied in all chrome plating industrial workplaces. Finding a procedure for adhering to this limit is a challenge for scientists.
Scientists have developed a lab-scale process to deposit novel nanostructured Nickel alloy coatings. The process uses pulsed current electroplating, which is environmentally benign with high production capacity. In contrast to conventional, direct current used for chrome plating, researchers used electric current in the form of pulses of duration of a few milliseconds for electroplating purpose.
The process consists of environment-friendly electrolyte consisting of nickel and tungsten ions that is the source of strengthening elemental tungsten (W) and nickel (Ni). The pulsed current is applied between the components to be coated, acting as cathode and non-consumable anode.
The pulsed current effect was used for nano-crystalline coatings wherein high instantaneous current density for very small duration resulted in high rate of nucleation. Unlike in conventional direct current plating, the coatings were virtually porosity free, crack free with minimal hydrogen uptake. The use of pulsed current resulted in the nano-crystallization of nickel tungsten alloy coatings with high hardness (700-1200 HV) and wear resistance. The coatings were extremely corrosion resistance and could withstand up to 700 hrs. of salt spray.
The coatings developed at ARCI can withstand temperatures up to 500°C without thermal softening and can improve the life of die components by at least two times than conventional chrome plating. They were successfully applied to die-casting components used in plastic bottling industry, wherein the temperatures at the die interface can be over 280°C. With numerous applications in automotive, defense, and aerospace for these coatings, the process know-how is ready for transfer as a replacement for conventional chrome plating.
27-Dec-2022: Ministry of Power signs Memorandum of Understanding with Defence Research and Development Organization for Implementation of Early Warning System for Vulnerable Hydro Projects/Power Stations
Ministry of Power signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Ministry of Defence today here for Implementation of Early Warning System for Vulnerable Hydro Projects/Power Stations. The MoU was signed by Shi Alok Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Power and Dr. Samir V Kamat, Secretary, Department of Defence (R&D) & Chairman, DRDO.
Ministry of Power and DRDO will jointly work towards developing suitable mitigation measures against avalanches, landslides, glaciers, glacial lakes and other geo-hazards. The expertise of DRDO will also be utilized in developing comprehensive Early Warning System for vulnerable hydro projects/ power stations in hilly regions. Separate and specific tasks will be formulated between DRDO & respective project developer(s) in agreement with broad understanding developed through this MoU.
Under the visionary leadership of Union Minister of Power & NRE, Shri R. K. Singh, Ministry of Power has taken the initiative of implementing Early Warning System (EWS) in the Hydro Power Projects especially those located in upper reaches of Hilly regions. EWS is an integrated system of hazard monitoring, forecasting and prediction, disaster risk assessment, communication and preparedness for timely action to reduce disaster risks in advance of hazardous events. Ministry of Power has already signed MoUs with CSIR-NGRI, IMD, WIHG and NRSC-ISRO for implementation of EWS.
14-Jun-2022: Novel experimental framework in fluid dynamics can help in earthquake early warnings
Scientists have developed a novel experimental framework in fluid dynamics to describe deformation in disordered soft solids formed by mixing solid grains at significant proportions in a simple liquid which can help in developing early warning systems to minimize damage due to catastrophic events like landslides/earthquakes.
Granular systems exist all around us --- in material processing industries that deal with dry grains and slurries flowing through pipelines over large distances and in catastrophic natural phenomena like earthquakes and landslides.
These systems are comprised of grains that are essentially similar to grains of rice. Rice grains can be packed better into a container by shaking the container. The forces coming from shaking make the grains gradually more compact until it reaches a critical degree of compaction. Interestingly, such critical compaction encodes the information about the interactions between the grains coming from inter-particle friction, the shape of the particles, sticky-ness, and so on.
Although it is well known from previous studies that the complex flow behaviour in dense suspensions is determined by the inter-particle interactions, a quantitative correlation between the flow behaviour and the inter-particle interactions remains missing.
A group of researchers from Raman Research Institute, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology has proposed a novel experimental framework, combining the concept of fluid dynamics and how grains become gradually immobile at high enough compaction (called the jamming transition), to describe the deformation and failure in disordered soft solids formed by dispersing granular particles in simple fluids. They have established a quantitative correlation between the flow behaviour and the inter-particle interactions and validated it over a wide parameter range.
The researchers have used the concept motivated by the compaction of rice grains to understand dense suspensions and have further confirmed the idea by tuning the inter-particle interactions using surfactants (which are essentially soap molecules).
Using a combination of experimental techniques like shear-rheology which essentially measures the force-deformation response of materials, particle settling to determine the degree of compaction, and boundary imaging to observe the nature of flow in the system, they establish such a correlation in a quantitative manner in a paper recently published in the journal Communications Physics Journal of Nature publishing group.