Govt plugs in electric vehicles, but will the charge last?

The push The Centre has decided to offer a direct subsidy of around Rs 1.4 lakh for each electric car, while extending benefits to those purchasing other electric vehicles too. The subsidy may be as high as Rs 4 lakh for high-end electric cars, some of which are not on Indian roads. The government on Friday approved a subsidy of Rs 5,500 crore — for all electric vehicles, including passenger cars — as part of an updated policy, called Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles (FAME-II), that would be in place for the next five years. The FAME-I policy, announced in 2015, had an initial corpus of Rs 75 crore. This follows the ministry of power's recent notice clarifying that charging stations do not require the same licences as discoms do. It said charging station convert electric energy to chemical energy (battery), and thus no sale or distribution of electricity was occurring. Various states, too, have their own policies. Karnataka last year launched an EV policy that, among other incentives, provides interest-free loan of over Rs 1,000 crore for large companies setting up facilities in the state. The Maharashtra cabinet recently approved a policy that provides 15% subsidy to the owners of the first 100,000 EVs. Telangana, Andhra and Gujarat, too, have their policies, while Delhi and UP have plans to buy electric buses. The pushback EESL, the PSU, has an agreement with Tata Motors and M&M to acquire 10,000 electric cars to be distributed across government departments. But after complaints of poor mileage on a single charge and rapid discharge of batteries, EESL had to consider sending a show-cause notice to Tata (Tata delivered the first batch of 5,000 cars). By end of FY17, India sold about 25,000 electric vehicles, but most of these are two- and three-wheelers. This and the cost of making an electric car were among the reasons Maruti Suzuki was sceptical of the policy initially — the company has since tiptoed into territory with plans to set up a Lithium-ion battery plant in Gujarat with the help of Toshiba and Denso. Also, the Li-ion market has a unique challenge: It is in China's grasp, with its companies controlling almost all the metals required for its manufacture.

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Too young to get a licence, but good enough to win gold

Class XI student Saurabh Chaudhary won gold in the men's 10m air pistol at Asian Games on Tuesday; Abhishek Verma took bronze in the same event. The 16-year-old took up the sport just three years ago. Elsewhere, Sanjeev Rajput got a silver in men's 50m Rifle 3 and Divya Kakran claimed bronze in women's 68kg freestyle wrestling. India also won a maiden bronze in men's sepaktakraw. India is also assured of four more medals as Wushu Sanda — a martial-art — athletes have reached the semifinals of their respective bouts.

Swiss want their cows slimmer and petite

Cowing down: As dried out pastures force European farmers to buy expensive feed for their bovines, a Swiss dairy association has called for engineering smaller sized cows that will not only eat less but also give a comparable amount of milk as the existing breed of Simmental cows. Muscular cows: In the last 50 years, Swiss cows have bulked up — tipping the scales at 800kg — having been sired from the semen of the American Red Holstein bull, and doubled their milk output to 7.400 litres annually. The dairy association says the smaller bovines, weighing 500-600 kg can give an annual milk output of 6,000-7,000 litres. Continental crisis: It's not just the Swiss dairy industry that is feeling the heat — Germany, Europe's second largest grain producer, is looking at its smallest dairy harvest in nearly a quarter of a century due to extreme drought and heat, forcing it to import costly feed for its pigs and cows.

Eid al-Adha

What: Eid al-Adha (also known as The Festival of Sacrifice or Bakrid) marks the end of the Hajj pilgrimage (one of the five pillars of Islam). When: Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu'l Hijjah, the 12th and final month of the Hijri calendar (a lunar calendar comprising 12 months in a year of 354 days). In India, it will be celebrated today, according to a government circular. The new moon sightings vary between countries, so the exact date depends on local religious authorities. Why: The festival remembers the story of Ibrahim when Allah appeared to him in a dream and asked him to sacrifice his son Isma'il as an act of obedience to God. As Ibrahim was about to kill his son, Allah stopped him and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. Every year, just before Eid al-Adha, Muslims purchase animals (sheep, cow, camel or goat) to sacrifice. The animal is to be treated, fed and loved till the day of the sacrifice, when it is slaughtered.The practice of sacrificing animals commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to follow God's command to sacrifice his son. How: Eid al-Adha is different from Eid al-Fitr. Eid al-Fitr means the festival of the breaking of the fast and is celebrated at the end of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Hijri calendar. However, there is no sacrifice of the animal, as on Eid al-Adha.

Your car seat will now give you a wake-up call

Drowsy and driving: Fatigued drivers falling asleep at the wheel can now be shaken awake by smart car seats embedded with sensors, a study by scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, which was published in the scientific journal 'Transportation Research', has shown. At the heart of it: The sensors record the electrical activity in the driver's heart through the process of capacitive electrocardiography (cECG) — which unlike the regular ECGs in a doctor's clinic do not have electrodes that are stuck to the skin, instead, the sensors are placed in the seat's fabric. Sleepless in Chennai: Between January and June 2018, there were 33,026 road accidents in Tamil Nadu, killing 6,510 people and injuring 3,044, according to data from the state home department. Over 150,000 dies in traffic accidents a year in India.

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Source: Various

Why is Microsoft fighting Russian military

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that a hacker group close to the Russian military intelligence that tried to influence the US presidential election has targeted two Republican-leaning think tanks, ahead of the midterm elections in the country. Only last month did the FBI director reveal the existence of foreign-origin information operations "aimed at sowing discord and divisiveness" in the US. But why is Satya Nadella & Co. playing cybercop? In the latest incident, two websites posing as the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute was detected and seized by Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit after obtaining a court order. The company says six internet domains were created by a group known as Strontium, or Fancy Bear, which is thought to be associated with the Russian government; it has taken down 84 fake websites associated with the group over two years. Predicting more attacks as the US heads to the elections, Microsoft says it is expanding its Defending Democracy Program; the company will notify organisations and election candidates of any threat to their website or emails, provide security guidance, and provide security features. But Microsoft's policing has more to do with its interests than the stated claim of "tech sector will need to do more to help protect the democratic process". By strengthening the security team it is essentially protecting its product: the ubiquitous Windows platform. After all, the 200,000-plus computers affected by last year's WannaCry ransomware were all run on Windows. In a way, Microsoft is proactively getting involved in the fight before a Facebook-Cambridge Analytica-like episode forces the hands of authorities worldwide. (Can there be a better way to enter a lawmaker's good books than helping him get elected?) Meanwhile, in India, WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels assuredIndia's IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, that it would develop tools to combat “sinister” messages.

An 'Indian' confirms ice on the moon

Nothing loony about it: Data gathered by India's spacecraft Chandrayaan-1, launched a decade back, has confirmed the presence of frozen water deposits, aka ice, on the Moon's polar regions, according to NASA. Moony staycation: The ice deposits, which are non-contiguous and thought to be extremely old, have raised hopes of their being used as a resource for future expeditions that could not only explore the moon but also plan for a longer stay there. Sighting the site: Unlike the Earth's axis, which has a tilt of 23.5 degrees, the Moon's axis is tilted only slightly, to 1.5 degrees — due to which sunlight never reaches the regions where the water has been found, the shadows of the craters near the poles, where the warmest temperature is minus 156 degrees Celsius.

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