Washington NASA’s InSight spacecraft, that has passed the halfway mark to Mars, carries a unique instrument that will enable scientists to understand what geological processes created the massive mountains on the Martian surface.

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

The Mars lander carries a unique instrument — Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) — that is capable of measuring heat flowing out of the planet.

This could shed light on how the Mars’ massive mountains — which eclipse Mt Everest here on Earth — first formed, NASA said in a statement.

“Planets are kind of like an engine, driven by heat that moves their internal parts around. With HP3, we’ll be lifting the hood on Mars’ engine for the first time,” said Sue Smrekar, deputy lead for HP3 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

The Red Planet has some of the tallest mountains in the solar system. They include Olympus Mons, a volcano nearly three times the height of Everest. It borders a region called the Tharsis plateau, where three equally awe-inspiring volcanoes dominate the landscape.

“Most of the planet’s geology is a result of heat,” Smrekar said.

“Volcanic eruptions in the ancient past were driven by the flow of this heat, pushing up and constructing the towering mountains Mars is famous for,” Smrekar added.

The HP3, built and operated by DLR (German Aerospace Centre), will be placed on the Martian surface after InSight lands on November 26.

A probe called a mole will pummel the ground, burying itself and dragging a tether behind it. Temperature sensors embedded in this tether will measure the natural internal heat of Mars.

The mole has to burrow deep enough to escape the wide temperature swings of the Martian surface. Even the spacecraft’s own “body heat” could affect HP3’s super-sensitive readings, NASA said.

The findings of the InSight mission will also reveal to scientists how all rocky planets are formed — including Earth, its Moon and even planets in other solar systems.

[IANS]

Around 99.3 per cent of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that were banned overnight in November 2016, have been returned, the Reserve Bank of India said in its annual report released on Wednesday.

Of the Rs 15.41 lakh crore worth Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes in circulation before November 8, 2016, notes worth Rs15.31 lakh crore have been returned.

The “humungous task of processing and verification of specified bank notes (SBNs) was successfully achieved,” the RBI said.

The SBNs received were verified, counted and processed in the sophisticated high speed currency verification and processing system (CVPS) for accuracy and genuineness and then shredded. “The total SBNs returned from circulation is Rs15,310.73 billion,” it said.

Post demonetisation, the RBI spent Rs7,965 crore in 2016-17 on printing new Rs500 and Rs2,000 and other denomination notes, more than double the Rs3,421 crore spent in the previous year.

In 2017-18 (July 2017 to June 2018), it spent another Rs4,912 crore on printing of currency, the report said.

The demonetisation was hailed as a step that would curb black money, corruption and check counterfeit currency, but the RBI said, “Counterfeit notes detected in SBNs decreased by 59.7 and 59.6 per cent in the denominations of Rs500 and Rs1,000, respectively.”

The RBI said, “Compared to the previous year, there was an increase of 35 per cent in counterfeit notes detected in the denomination of Rs100, while there was a noticeable increase of 154.3 per cent in counterfeit notes detected in the denomination of Rs50.” Counterfeit notes detected in the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes during 2017-18 were 9,892 and 17,929, against 199 and 638 respectively in the previous year, it added.

The government is considering its options in the wake of the Allahabad High Court’s refusal to entertain the power producers’ petition challenging the RBI deadline for starting bankruptcy proceedings against banks’ NPAs, or bad loan accounts, a senior official said on Tuesday.

A Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular had in February directed the banks to take loan accounts of Rs 2,000 crore and above, which remain unresolved for over 180 days starting from March 1, 2018 to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The deadline expired on Monday.

The power sector accounts for the major chunk of banks’ non-performing assets (NPAs) and power producers had approached the Allahabad High Court for quashing the RBI circular.

Rejecting the power producers’ plea on Monday, the court asked the Central government to talk to the RBI for providing some relief to the petitioners within 15 days.

“The matter (power producers’ problems) is being discussed and a decision is being made,” Finance Ministry’s Principle Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal told IANS here.

“We will look at all options and take appropriate action,” he added.

Banks had been working overtime to finalise the resolution plans before expiry of the RBI deadline for around 70 large stressed accounts worth over Rs 3.8 lakh crore, and they have another 15 days’ time to decide on taking them to NCLT for bankruptcy proceedings.

Around half of these 70 assets are from the power sector with a total bank exposure of around Rs 1.74 lakh crore.

According to the RBI, the total outstanding loans of scheduled commercial banks to the sector, including renewable energy, stood at Rs 5.65 lakh crore as in March 2018.

A parliamentary panel report has revealed that there are as many as 34 stressed electricity projects with a total capacity of over 40,000 MW.

The power producers had petitioned the government that the RBI norms on resolving the NPA issue were too rigid in view of the serious problems being faced by the industry in terms of coal shortage and huge bill outstandings from state distribution companies.

The Power Ministry had urged the RBI to extend the deadline by six months, but the central bank has rejected the extension request.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy in its report earlier this month noted that the new RBI guidelines on NPAs will only deepen the crisis of the electricity sector.

(IANS)

The Indian rupee collapsed to a lifetime low of 70.52 by plunging 42 paise against the US dollar on strong month-end demand for the American currency amid foreign fund outflows, reported news agency. The Indian currency was hurt by fresh demand for the American currency from importers, mainly oil refiners, following higher crude oil prices. Dollar’s strength against some currencies overseas also weighed on the domestic unit today. On Tuesday, the local currency had bounced back in a tepid fashion from the record closing low, gaining 6 paise to end at 70.10 against the US currency.

Hitting out at the Narendra Modi government for the rise in petroleum prices, the Congress on Tuesday said even though prices of petroleum products across the world have gone down with the international prices declining, excise duties have been increased many times.

“During the UPA government, the international crude oil prices were double the present rates, but our excise duties were much lower.

“Now the excise duties have been increased many times and even as the international prices have gone down, the petrol and diesel prices are soaring,” said Congress spokesperson Jaipal Reddy.

“All over the world the prices of petroleum products have gone down as the international prices have gone down,” he added.

Reddy further said: “Arun Jaitley (Finance Minister) earlier said they are not getting adequate tax collection.

“The fact is dishonest people are not paying taxes and you want to punish the poor and honest middle class people. How does he advance such an argument in public? This government has become utterly insensitive to public opinion,” said Reddy.

Fuel prices continued to rise on Tuesday, with diesel prices rising to fresh record levels across metros and petrol crossing the Rs 78-per-litre mark in the national capital.

Incidents of lynching have hurt India’s image, Tourism Minister K.J. Alphons, who is in China to draw in more tourists, has admitted.

The minister, however, said that the ban on beef has not affected tourism in the country and sought to debunk a survey showing India as the most unsafe country for women in the world.

“Well, it (lynching) shouldn’t happen. Simple. And, the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) has called them criminals. And, he told the states you have to take action because law and order is a state subject,” Alphons said on Tuesday interacting with Indian journalsits.

Asked if incidents of lynching have affected tourism in India, the Minister said: “Well, not on a big time basis…not really. But anything happening like that is bad for the reputation of the country. We won’t say it’s good for the reputation of the country.”

Has the ban on beef kept foreign tourists away from India, Alphons said that was not the case. “Not really… you see there are states like Kerala, Goa and the Northeast… these are all beef eating states.”

“These are all big tourism destinations… So people would go wherever they are comfortable

“I think we need to respect the sentiment of the people anywhere… that’s so fundamental.”

India has witnessed incidents of lynching over cow slaughter and beef eating in the country. The majority of Hindus in the country consider the animal as sacred.

Alphons is visiting China to attract Chinese tourists who currently generate some 21 per cent of tourism receipts in destinations in the world. He opened a road show in Beijing on Tuesday and will visit Shanghai and Wuhan.

Despite swelling number of outbound Chinese tourists, Indian receives only a very small fraction of them.

“Last year, 144 million Chinese were abroad, but only 300,000 came to India,” the minister said.

He said India plans to get at least 14 million Chinese tourists in the next three years.

Asked about women’s safety, an issue which is among the prime concerns among Chinese to visit India, Alphons said it was “a perception battle”.

He tore apart a recent survey by Thomson Reuters which said India is the most unsafe country for women.

“Thomson Reuters put out a story saying it’s (India) unsafe. We asked them how? They say they interviewed 540 people or something out which 43 from India.”

“You can’t ask the 43 so-called knowledgeable people of India whether India is safe or not because most of these so-called feminists would be anti-government … it is the politics of it,” he said.

(IANS)

Iran on Tuesday inaugurated its largest wind farm as part of its efforts to increase production of electricity from renewable sources.

The 18-turbine wind farm, located in Tarom county in northern Iran, has a nominal capacity of generating 61 megawatt hours of power annually, Xinhua reported.

The wind farm, built with latest technologies at a cost of around $101 million, was financed by the National Development Fund of Iran, the country’s sovereign-wealth fund.

Iran has a comprehensive plan to harness renewable energy and streamline the country’s energy mix which mainly relies on fossil fuel power stations.

True to its vision of Engineering Progress, the organization ups the ante

smartcapture

PAAMA Agrico, India’s fastest growing and innovative, Agricultural Equipment Research & Development organization engages Robotic Engineering to manufacture world-class soil titling blades used in rotovators and cultivators.

The strategic employment of robotics to take over cumbersome and hazardous, manual welding jobs has been appreciated universally. “Engaging a Robot to weld blades will enable the precision function – ensuring uniformity in production while facilitating repeatability function each time; this will in turn increase production rate, decrease cost of product, solve the labour shortage problem and increase work efficiencies by several folds.” says Mr. Vikas Marwah, Technical Director – ‎NexGen Robotic Automation Pvt. Ltd., the team that programmed and installed the Robots at PAAMA Agrico.

Meticulous Agripreneur and Founder of PAAMA Agrico, Mr. Srinivas P Kamisetty, details the objective behind this first of its kind Robotics Engineering initiative by an Agri-Equipment organization as, ” I have been studying and more importantly practicing in the agricultural industry for over a decade now and realize that most of the equipments made available to the Indian Farmers are not what their western or developed counterpart would use.” He further demonstrates that, “50% of the nation’s economy rests on agriculture income; in parallel to food production demand that is skewed upwards owing to the ever rising population rate and exports. It is the responsibility of the Agri-Tech manufacturing fraternity to enable them (Indian Farmers) with the necessary mechanization, that in its true sense will be instrumental in engineering progress at an individual level and collective contribute to the development of nation as a whole.”

It is amidst the foreplay of such dynamics of an agrarian economy that PAAMA Agrico was conceptualized to elevate the standards of Made-in-India Agri-Equipments that will provide sustainable growth propositions to users. “We are delighted to play an active role in PAAMA Agrico’s journey of etching new benchmarks as it determined to channels it efforts towards transitioning the traditional agricultural industry with cutting edge technological advancements.” further expresses Mr. Marwah.

Technological advancements in agriculture are an important element to fodder growth and engaging in robotics is an indispensible technique of driving this as it can help overcome the skills shortage and improve monitoring and enhance efficiency.

About PAAMA Agrico:

PAAMA Agrico is India’s favourite, Agricultural Equipment, Research&Development organization; founded in the year 2015 with the objective of revolutionizing traditional and time intensive farming processes with sustainable technology.

PAAMA’s research centric approach, cutting edge product features, direct communication & distribution touch-points with farmers, after sales services, dynamic leadership that bring in both global and local exposure and ability to provide invincible quality & pricing has earned it the status of being best-in-class among the Rotavators and Cultivator industry.

A make in India brand, PAAMA has its state-of-art manufacturing facility is spread over 30,000 sq ft of Factory Space on a 100,000 sft plot of land in Doddaballapur Industrial Area, Bengaluru of Karnataka. For further information please visit www.paama.in

‎About NexGen Robotic Automation Pvt. Ltd.

NexGen Robotics is formed by dedicated team of Robot engineers having worked in similar field with more than 25 years of experience. We have teamed up with robot manufacturers to give customers optimized integrated solutions. We are single source for robotic engineering solutions and services. For further information please visit www.nexgenrobotic.in

Diesel prices touched record high levels across metro cities and prices of petrol too inched nearer their all-time peak across major cities. As per the daily price notification issued by the state-owned oil firms, in Delhi, diesel price is at Rs 69.61 per litre. In Mumbai, the diesel is sold at Rs 73.90 per litre, Rs 72.46 in Kolkata and Rs 73.54 per litre in Chennai. The new revised rates are applicable from August 28, morning 6 am.

On the other hand, prices of petrol in Delhi is raised to Rs 78.05 per litre. In Mumbai, price of per litre petrol is Rs 85.47. While in Kolkata and Chennai, petrol is priced Rs 80.98 and Rs 81.09 per litre, respectively.

The rise in prices of diesel gains significance as it is mostly used in transportation of food and agricultural products and an increase in its price may lead to higher inflation. The surge in fuel prices is largely attributed to the recent rise in crude oil cost and the high excise duty levied on transportation fuel in the country.

In line with an increase in diesel prices, petrol prices too are on the rise and are nearing their all-time high levels. The all-time high petrol prices in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai are Rs 78.43, Rs 81.06, Rs 86.24 and Rs 81.43 per litre, touched in May 29.

As per a report of PTI, petrol and diesel will not come under the purview of GST in the immediate future as neither the Centre nor any of the states is in favour on fears of heavy revenue loss.

Readying its digital payment service for India, Tez, for a global roll out, Google on Tuesday renamed the app as Google Pay and introduced new features that could soon help its Indian users get instant “pre-approved” loans from some banks.

“Building for India has often meant Google building for everyone all around the world,” Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President, Next Billion Users initiative and Payments, Google, said at its annual Google for India event here.

“At the moment, nothing is changing about the experience in India other than the name,” he said, adding that Google is working with a few of India’s top banks — HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Federal Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank — to offer pre-approved, instant loans to their customers, right from within Google Pay.

This feature will roll out to eligible users within the next few weeks, Google said.

With the roll out of this feature, eligible users will see a notification telling that that they are pre-approved.

Next, the users would have to decide how much they want to borrow, and how quickly they would like to repay.

Finally, after reviewing the terms of the loan, the bank will deposit the money in
their bank account instantly — without the need of any additional paperwork, Google said.

“In coming weeks and months, Google is making Pay even more useful through expanding the places users can pay in-store and online, expanding services for merchants, and working with the banks to provide instant loans to Google Pay users,” Sengupta said.

Google launched the Tez app in India last year and since then over 55 million people have downloaded the app and more than 22 million people and businesses actively use the app for digital transactions every month.

Google Pay works with all major banks in India on BHIM UPI (Unified Payments Interface).

(IANS)