IIT scouts for 10 big ideas

IIT Mumbai is out to tap the “10 great ideas” that could change the world in the next 50 years.

This initiative, launched by industrialist Adi Godrej and the tech school’s Mumbai director Ashok Misra, is part of the institute's ongoing golden jubilee celebrations.

Misra said this project is open only to the alumni, students, faculty and staff — past and present — of IIT Mumbai.

“They can send their ideas from across the world in the area of science and technology. A special website has been created which requires IIT Mumbai members to register and send in their entries by October 30, 2008,” he said.

He said the entries will be judged by an international panel of thought leaders, including R. Chidambaram, the principal scientific adviser to the government of India, Mark Welland, the head of nanoscience at Cambridge University, and Narayana Murthy, the Infosys chief mentor, among others. The panel will be chaired by former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Godrej said.

Lt governor on Gandhi path

The culture of conservation that Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi tried to demonstrate by switching off the lights at Raj Bhavan has found an echo in the nation’s capital.

Lt governor Tajendra Khanna has stressed on developing a “culture of conservation” through strict energy efficiency building code in the city. Khanna was speaking at a seminar on “recent trends in high rise buildings” organised by the Indian Builders Congress when he spoke of the worsening power situation in the national capital.

Khanna stressed the need for setting tough energy efficiency standards to encourage awareness on optimal energy efficiency.

He suggested use of green technologies like recycling of water for flushing and gardening along with incorporating renewable energy technologies in the high rises coming up in the city.

Dharmendra success tip

Ask Dharmendra what’s the secret to his success, and the one-time Bollywood leading man would say “ghee”.

It was no surprise then that the Bollywood hero, who spent his childhood in rural Punjab, chose to become the brand ambassador for a pure ghee brand in the capital. “Having grown up in a farmer’s family, I have had the opportunity to partake of things like pure ghee and milk to the fullest. When I was a child, my father made sure I had a glass of pure milk every day and a lot of butter,” he said.

“Today, what I have achieved is largely because of consumption of these things, which is amrit to the human soul,” Dharmendra said while launching the brand of ghee.

He said when the food company approached him with the offer to become its brand ambassador “I immediately agreed as I felt that it was a noble endeavour to bring to the future generation pure milk and ghee products, which has over the last few decades become a rarity”.

UNI

Stuck in airport

A 70-year-old Malaysia-based woman and her companions spent two days at the airport here after their flight took off without them, but with their luggage.

Two days after the Tiger Airways plane took off, airport manager S.T.S. Murthy intervened and put them on another flight. Airport sources said Achiamma, 70, was waiting to be wheel-chaired into the Tiger Airways aircraft with companions Sarika and Susheerata. They had already got their boarding passes, but the airways staff did not turn up to take the old woman to the plane.

PTI

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