Young Indians corner glory at the Intel ISEF
Houston: One of the world's most prestigious pre-college science exhibitions, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, has this year seen four Indians, and 26 students of Indian origin from across the world, winning a wide range of awards.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) is the world's largest pre-college celebration of science. Held annually in May, the Intel ISEF brings together over 1,400 students from more than 40 nations to compete for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prize: a $50,000 college scholarship.

The ISEF was founded by Science Service in 1950.

According to the Science Service website, students competed for $3 million in total scholarships and prizes at the 56th Intel ISEF.
Mihir Tandon and Riddhiman Yadav, both students of Modern School Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, have won scholarship awards of $1,000 for designing an improvised artificial limb for above-knee amputees.

The Delhi students won the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance/Lemelson Foundation prize that is awarded for creativity, technological innovation and commercial promise. Suvrata Desai, 16 and Mallika Dhillon Desai, 16, of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Goa, have won the second award of $500 US Savings Bonds for their project "Traditional Spices as Bio-pesticides".

These awards have been presented by the 'Ashtavadhani Vidwan Ambati Subbaraya Chetty' (AVASC) foundation for projects that display outstanding creativity, ingenuity and have the potential to alleviate the human condition or mark a substantive advance in the scientific field.

Apart from this a total of 26 Indian origin students - 23 from America, two from Canada and one from Scotland have won prizes in various categories including, astronomy, physics, mathematics and physiology.

Anirudh Venkat Ramesh, 17, Sachem High School East, Farmingville, New York, Yaagnik Doraiswamy Kosuri, 18, Sachem High School East, Farmingville, New York, won the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society Certificate of Honorable Mention awards for the development of a Helium Neon Laser-Based Optical Spanner.

Student winners are ninth through twelfth graders who earned the right to compete by winning top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair. Special Awards are presented by scientific, professional and educational organisations and include scholarships, summer internships, book and equipment grants and scientific field trips.

Over 70 organisations had the opportunity to reward the most talented young scientists in the world. The top prize at the Special Award Ceremony, the Ricoh sustainable Development Award was awarded to Tyler Glen Lyon and Daniel Rees Winegar of West Jordan, Utah for their project "The Peltier Effect: Eliminating the Use of Freon in Automobile Air-conditioning Systems".
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Kamal Nath and FICCI delegation head for Australia
New Delhi: By way of providing a fresh impetus to Indo-Australian trade and investment ties, FICCI is taking a high-powered business delegation led by Commerce Minister Kamal Nath to Sydney and Melbourne for 'Destination India' from May 16-22.

As part of 'Destination India', Nath will have meetings with Australian business and Government leaders and presentations would be made by Ministry officials and FICCI to highlight the investment and trade potential of India.

Besides Nath, the 45-member delegation includes, Umesh Kumar, Anthony de Sa, S S Kapur, Joint Secretaries in Ministry of Commerce and Industry, FICCI President O S Kanwar, Vishnu Dusad, Managing Director, Nucleus Software, Arun Kumar Jagatramka, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Gujarat NRE Coke, Mukul Kasliwal, Director, S Kumars, Tarun Somani, Managing Director, Somani Group, Somak Biman Ghosh, Country Head, Yes Bank among others.

FICCI President O S Kanwar has said that both the countries had attained a certain level of maturity in their relationship and now it was time for it to take off. He said the time was ripe not only for their investment into India but also for Indian companies to spread their wings in the country.

Both the countries had immense synergy and could intensify their cooperation in mining, Information technology, animation, Special Economic Zones, financial services, education, healthcare and food processing and machinery, Kanwar said.
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Govt. to tap Indian industry's captive power capacity
New Delhi: With power shortages the order of the day, the Government plans to bring in around 5,000 MW of electricity into the system over the next two years by providing grid connectivity to the captive plants set up by the Indian industry.

Captive units, mostly set up by industry for its own consumption, accounts for a cumulative power generation capacity of nearly 20,000 MW. Following the passage of the Electricity Act 2003, owners of captive plants can sell their surplus power to the grid.

Speaking about the ongoing shortage of coal and gas, Union Power Minister P.M. Sayeed said that despite the loss of generation on account of a shortage of fuel, the Ministry had exceeded its power generation target during the last fiscal. "During the year 2004-05, there was record power generation of 587.3 billion units, which is 100.2 per cent of the target set for the year and 5.2 per cent higher than the generation in the previous year. The growth would have been around 8.5 per cent but for the loss of generation due to a shortage of coal and gas," he said.

He said the Ministry was also working on putting in place contingency measures for the long-term and has already started working towards improving the efficiency of power stations with a plant load factor (PLF) of less than 60 per cent to improve overall output, he said.

Claiming that the Ministry would achieve over 90 per cent of its capacity addition target of 41,110 MW during the current Plan period, Sayeed said: "We are making all efforts and I am confident we would be able to achieve a major portion of the target during the current Plan period."
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