India-UK "NET Zero" Innovation Virtual Centre
27-Apr-2023: India and UK to jointly create India-UK 'NET Zero' Innovation Virtual Centre, announces Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh
India and United Kingdom will together jointly create India-UK "NET Zero" Innovation Virtual Centre.
Announcing this while chairing the India-UK Science & Innovation Council meeting in presence of his British counterpart, UK Minister George Freeman, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is fast moving to become an economic powerhouse, driven by its extraordinary technological and innovative capabilities which the whole world has begun to acknowledge, particularly after the COVID vaccine success story.
The two leaders called for enhanced Science & Technology cooperation between India and the United Kingdom.
Chairing the Meet with Co-Chair Minister Freeman, Dr Jitendra Singh, in his inaugural remarks, said that India is on the fast track move and the nation is determined to achieve its Climate Change and Environmental targets on time.
Dr Jitendra Singh highlighted the close collaboration between the two countries strengthened through an ambitious ‘Roadmap 2030’ that provides a framework for UK-India relations across health, climate, trade, education, science and technology, and defence.
The Indian Minister informed his British counterpart that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the UK has emerged as India’s second largest international research and innovation partner. The India-UK Science & Technology (S&T) collaboration has been growing at a rapid pace and the joint research programme has gone from an almost zero base to close to £300-400 million now, he said.
Both the Ministers appreciated the proposal to create an India-UK "NET Zero" Innovation Virtual Centre which will provide a platform to bring stakeholders from both countries together to work in some of the focus areas including Decarbonization of manufacturing process & transport systems and Green Hydrogen as renewable source. Dwelling on the issue of India’s net zero journey, Dr Jitendra Singh said, energy efficiency and renewable energy are central pillars, where India has already taken lead by various initiatives like India Solar Alliance, Clean energy mission etc.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that during the last 75 years, India has gone through an evolutionary journey that helped us to carve an economic and political identity amidst the global nations. Today when India is celebrating the 75th year of its Independence, the roadmap for the next 25 years for India @100, will be determined by scientific and technological innovations in all walks of life, he said.
The Union Minister said that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to reinforce cooperation, as it has once again reminded us that we all live on one planet. He said that he hoped the India UK MoU signed today will provide a great mechanism to support research and innovation in both countries for long-term sustainable growth through expanding and maximising cooperation in areas of mutual interest.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the multidimensional, multi-institutional, multi-agency cooperation covers energy security, food and agriculture, water, climate change, environmental studies as well as social and cultural changes that are taking place in both countries. He recalled that during the last India UK virtual summit held during May 2021, Prime Ministers from both countries emphasized their shared commitment to an enhanced partnership in science, education, research and innovation and look forward to the next ministerial Science and Innovation Council (SIC).
Dr Jitendra Singh said that in recent past, Government of India has launched several flagship initiatives such as the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (ICPS); Quantum Computing and Communication; National Mission on Supercomputing, Electric Mobility, Green hydrogen etc., which provides newer opportunities for collaboration.
Dr Jitendra Singh mentioned that India is committed towards the Environmental goals which includes consistent efforts towards development of mitigation & monitoring solutions for environmental pollution and techno based pathways for reducing the carbon emissions and achieve the ambitious net zero targets.
Talking about the importance of Industry-Academia collaboration for economic growth and development, the Union Minister said that the revival of DST Innovate UK Industrial R & D programme will provide opportunity to Indian and UK academia and industry for developing newer products/process together for economic growth of both nations.
Dr Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction on the MOES-NEKTON joint research programme towards exploration and conservation of marine Biodiversity under Deep Ocean Mission in India as well as the MOES and UK Met Office collaboration in Weather and Climate Science which aims to undertake joint Research on natural hazards in South Asian Monsoon system, improve the modelling capabilities at different scales and improve tools and techniques for risk based (Ensemble) forecasting of natural hazards at a range of prediction timescales up to a season.
Both the leaders called for newer collaborations for joint R & D Projects between BBSRC- DBT in the area of Farmed Animal disease and Health & MOES-NERC Call in the area of Solid Earth hazards.
Inviting Minister Freeman for the G20 Research Ministers meeting at Mumbai on 6th July 2023, Dr Jitendra Singh said that India is holding G20 Presidency this year and organising number of meetings in scientific tracks, including Science 20 (S20), Research and Innovation (RIIG) and Scientific Advisers meetings and urged the scientific community of both countries to participate in the meetings.
Dr Jitendra Singh concluded by thanking Minister Freeman and his team for successfully organising the SIC meeting. The two Ministers also reviewed bilateral S&T cooperation between the two countries and expressed satisfaction on progress made since the last SIC meeting held in New Delhi.
Nano DAP (Liquid)
26-Apr-2023: Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Minister, Shri Amit Shah launches IFFCO Nano DAP (Liquid)
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah launched IFFCO Nano DAP (Liquid) at New Delhi.
In his address, Shri Amit Shah said that the launch of IFFCO Nano DAP (Liquid) product is an important beginning to make India self-reliant in the field of fertilizers. He said that this effort of IFFCO is an inspiration for all the national cooperatives to research and venture into new areas. He expressed confidence that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the launch of IFFCO Nano DAP (Liquid) product will bring a paradigm shift in the agriculture sector of India, it will make farmers prosperous and India self-reliant in the field of production and fertilizer. Shri Shah said that the use of liquid DAP, through spraying on the plant, will help increase both the quality and quantity of production as well in conservation of the land. This will contribute a lot in restoring the fertility of land and will reduce the threat to the health of crores of Indians caused by the chemical fertilizers.
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Minister Shri Amit Shah appealed farmers to use more effective liquid Nano Urea and DAP instead of granular urea and DAP. He said that the use of granular urea damages the land as well as the crop and the health of the people. He said that farmers have the maximum capacity to accept any new changes. The effect of one bottle of 500 ml on the crop is equivalent to that of 45 kg bag of granular urea.
Indian Summer Monsoons (ISMR)
26-Apr-2023: AI helps improve predictability of Indian Summer Monsoons
A newly devised algorithm powered by Artificial Intelligence can help increase the predictability of the Indian Summer Monsoons (ISMR) 18 months ahead of the season. The algorithm called predictor discovery algorithm (PDA) made using a single ocean-related variable could facilitate skillful forecast of the ISMR in time for making effective agricultural and other economic plans for the country.
While researchers have well established the scientific basis for ISMR predictability and made significant advances over the past century in understanding the variability and predictability of ISMR, the skillful prediction of ISMR even one month in advance has remained a major challenge. Neither the potential (theoretically possible) skill (correlation between the predicted and observed ISMR) and the actual skill of ISMR forecast are available at longer lead times--6, 12, 18, 24- months ahead of the season.
Traditionally, researchers select a predictor of ISMR based on the maximum correlation of an atmospheric or oceanic variable with ISMR over a region of the globe. Such technique restricts in the realization of the true potential predictability of ISMR as it accounts for one predictor over a particular region at a time.
Scientists at the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati, an autonomous institute of DST along with their collaborators have found that the widely used sea surface temperature (SST) is inadequate for calculation of long-lead prediction of ISMR. This, they found was because the potential skill of ISMR estimated by the predictor discovery algorithm (PDA) using SST-based predictors was low at all the lead months.
The team consisting of IASST Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, and Cotton University, Guwahati, devised a predictor discovery algorithm (PDA) that generates predictor at any lead month by projecting the ocean thermocline depth (D20) over the entire tropical belt between 1871 and 2010 onto the correlation map between ISMR and D20 over the same period.
This encapsulated all the potential drivers over the entire tropical region in order to realize the true potential skill of ISMR prediction at any lead month. This is because this one predictor embedded the simultaneous contribution of all the potential drivers over the entire tropical belt at any lead month identified by the correlation map. Besides, the oceanic thermocline depth (D20) is least influenced by the stochastic atmospheric noise.
The new algorithm indicates that the potential skill of ISMR is maximum (0.87, highest being 1.0) 18-months before the ISMR season. At any lead month, the predictability of the annual variability of ISMR depends on the degree of regularities in the annual variability of its drivers.
With the newly discovered basis of long-lead ISMR predictability in place, Devabrat Sharma (IASST), Dr. Santu Das (IASST), Dr. Subodh K. Saha (IITM), and Prof. B. N. Goswami (Cotton University) were able to make 18-months lead forecast of ISMR between 1980 to 2011 with an actual skill of 0.65 using a machine learning based ISMR prediction model. The success of the model was based on the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to learn the relationship between ISMR and tropical thermocline patterns from 150 years of simulations by 45 physical climate models and transferring that learning to actual observations between 1871 and 1974. As the potential skill of ISMR at 18-months lead is 0.87, there is still considerable scope in improving the model.
The findings published in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society paves way for long-lead skilful prediction of ISMR in coming years with accelerating improvement of coupled climate models together with the advent of nonlinear machine learning tools. Skillful long-lead forecasts of ISMR like one year ahead of the season will be highly beneficial to the policymakers and farmers in planning and making the country’s food production resilient to increasing vagaries of ISMR with global warming.