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Indian Innovation: celebrating the best tech

14th August 2017 Posted by: Student World Online

THIS year, India commemorates 70 years of independence from the British Empire. To celebrate, we look at some of the latest technological developments in the country:  

Celebrating Indian Independence day in Kolkata, 2016

Currently, India is the seventh largest economy in the world. Technical education has grown rapidly in India in recent years, and the number of Indian students pursuing undergraduate studies in either scientific or engineering fields has grown rapidly.  Around 20% of Indian students are studying in the field of engineering with a further 5% in science. India’s annual enrollment of scientists, engineers and technicians now exceeds 2 million.

Furthermore, the standard of higher education within India continues to make great strides. The Times Higher Education Supplement includes Jawaharlal Nehru University in the world’s top 200 universities. In its most recent report, The Times ranked the Indian Institute of Science as the eighth best “small university” in the world and The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has become the first Indian institution to enter the Top 100 universities ranking in engineering and technology.

According to a report by NASSCOM (The National Association of Software and Services Companies), India is ranked the 3rd largest startup ecosystem with more than a 100 accelerators, 200 active angels, 150 VCs and over 4,200 start-ups operating in the region.

 

Here are some of the recent technological developments which Indian expertise and brain power has gone into:

  • The ISRO launched a record 104 satellites from one single rocket from a mission launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

 

  • Magicbricks has launched India’s first real estate Experience Centre in Mumbai. The centre uses technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and on-demand video-call to provide an immersive experience for those seeking to purchase property.

 

  •  A Solar Water Purifier – scientist Dr. Anil Rajvanshi used simple, traditional methods to make a low-cost solar water purifier, which could be immensely helpful for rural households.  The water purifier using cotton cloth, glass pipes and sunlight. 

See the solar water purifier in action: 

 

  • The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has discovered a breed of natural cures for cancer in Quercetin, a compound found in fruits and leaves, as well as the VernoniaCondensata plant, which can significantly reduce tumour sizes and increase life expectancy for those living with cancer.

 

  • Smartphone-Turned-Malaria-Detector - Dr Sai Siva Gorthi and her team from the Department of Instrumental and Applied Physics converted a smartphone into a powerful microscopic device that eliminates the various stages of blood testing to detect malaria. The team replaced the phone camera with the high-resolution optics of a microscope. The smartphone also has software that analyses the captured images and provides an immediate result as to whether the patient has contracted Malaria.
Running Experiments | Places | Student World Online
Scientists in India have been working on natural cures for cancer and vaccines for Hepatitis C. 

 

  • A Vaccine to Combat Hepatitis C In India, 20% of all chronic liver disease has one cause: the hepatitis C virus, which spreads through blood contact, affecting 12 million people. It causes severe liver problems, which can lead to cancer. In February this year, a team of scientists led by Professor Saumitra Das developed a vaccine to fight the virus. Right now, the vaccine is still being tested on animals, but the results are promising.

 

  • Anti-Cancer Drugs: In 2012, Sathees C Raghavan, associate professor with IISc’s biochemistry department and his team developed a molecule inhibitor, SCR7, which has the potential to revolutionise cancer treatment. In 2014, scientists at MIT tested the molecule and concluded it has the potential in becoming an integral part of anti-cancer drugs. The molecule inhibitor binds with the cancer cells to block its DNA from repair, thereby killing the cancer cells. The drugs are currently undergoing further research and tests.