The President of India presented the “Dr. Ambedkar National Award for Social Understanding and up-liftment of Weaker Sections for the year 2011, 2012 and 2014”.
The function was organized by The Ambedkar Foundation under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
The award was instituted by the Government of India in the year 1992 and one award each year is presented to individuals or organizations and is presented jointly or shared by more than one recipient or organization as may be considered by the Jury to be equally deserving of recognition in the year.
The award for the year 2014 was jointly presented to Shri Babu Lal Nirmal of Rajasthan and to Amar Sewa Sangam of Tamil Nadu.
3D bioprinted cartilage
A team from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has been successful in 3D bioprinting of cartilage using a bioink.
The bioink has high concentration of bone-marrow derived cartilage stem cells, silk proteins and a few factors.
The chemical composition of the bioink supports cell growth and long-term survival of the cells.
The cartilage developed in the lab has remained physically stable for up to six weeks.
While the cartilage found in the knee is an articular cartilage that is typically sponge-like and has a huge load-bearing capacity, the ones produced in the lab so far are of a different kind — transient cartilage.
Unlike articular cartilage, transient cartilage becomes bone cells and, therefore, brittle within a short time.
As a result, the engineered cartilage loses its capacity to bear huge load that is typically encountered in the knee.
Electric Mass Mobility System
Nagpur earned the distinction of becoming the country’s first city with electric fleet of 200 electric vehicles, including taxis, buses, e-rickshaw and autos.
Maharashtra CM inaugurated India’s first multi-modal electric vehicle project at the Nagpur Airport Complex. With this, Maharashtra has become the first state to provide various incentives to e-taxis.
With an aim to promote eco-friendly vehicles, the government had launched the FAME India scheme in 2015 offering incentives on electric and hybrid vehicles of up to Rs 29,000 for bikes and Rs 1.38 lakh for cars.
Accelerated adoption of electric and shared vehicles could save USD 60 billion in diesel and petrol cost while cutting down as much as 1 gigatonne (GT) of carbon emission for India by 2030.
