NHAI enters Guinness World Record for laying 75 km highway in 105 hours: Nitin Gadkari

Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that the 75 km stretch of the Amravati-Akola highway in Maharashtra was laid in 105 hours and 33 minutes, setting a Guinness World Record

State-owned NHAI has created a Guinness World Record for the longest continuously laid bituminous lane of 75 kilometres in 105 hours and 33 minutes on the national highway between Amravati and Akola districts in Maharashtra.

Mentioning about the record, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the project was implemented by 720 workers including a team of independent consultants who worked day and night.

The total length of the 75 kilometres of single lane continuous bituminous concrete road is equivalent to 37.5 kilometres of two-lane paved shoulder road and the work started on June 3, at 7:27 am and was completed on June 7, at 5 pm, the minister said in a video message.

The previous Guinness World Record for the longest continuously laid bituminous was for building 25.275 kilometres of road that was achieved in Doha, Qatar in February 2019 and that task was completed in 10 days, Mr. Gadkari said.

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International Catholic Migration Commission elects Christine Nathan new president

 The Council of the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) has elected Christine Nathan from India as the commission’s new president. She is the first ICMC president from Asia. She belongs to the Archdiocese of Bombay and nominated to the ICMC Council by the CCBI Migrant Commission.

The ICMC Council has its members from the National Episcopal Conferences. The 58 members representing the Episcopal Conferences all over the world elected her on June 1, 2022 at its meeting held in Rome.

Apart from the Episcopal Conference His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin Secretary of State, Giorgio Bertin O F M Bishop of Djibouti and Fr Fabio Baggio, cs, Co-Undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development attended the ICMC Council meeting in Rome.

She is the member of Migrant and Labour Commission of the Archdiocese of Bombay. Christine is a senior education specialist in Adult and Workers Education with experience over 40 years. Having a strong multi-speciality background Christine has worked with the International Labour Organisation (ILO – UN) with Govts, employers and workers. Regional specialist on adult education, Occupational safety and health.She has engaged herself with NGO’s and Civil Society Organisation’s on several social issues at the National and international levels.

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Artist who designed ‘Gandhi’ posters no more

Artist P. Sharath Chandran had designed over 800 cigarette covers, but is better known for his only movie poster

Noted artist P. Sharath Chandran (79) passed away at his residence at Eranhipalam here on Friday morning. Though a designer of more than 800 cigarette packets sold across the world, he is best known for his poster design for Richard Attenborough’s epic movie ‘Gandhi’. Ironically it is the only movie poster he had ever designed.

Born in Kozhikode, Sharath Chandran moved to Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1964, after completing his art education at the Thalassery School of Arts. He was employed as a designer at ‘Golden Tobacco’ there for which he designed the cigarette covers. He got the offer to design the ‘Gandhi Poster’ through an advertising agency. The poster, which depicts a side profile of Gandhi and a boy crying over the body of his dead mother after the Jalianwalah Bagh massacre, was used across the country for the movie’s promotion and Sharath Chandran’s work was much appreciated.

However, the artist went back to design cigarette covers. After 18 years of service, he quit his job and launched ‘Orbit’, an advertising agency, along with his friends and later on, became a freelance designer.

Call it fate, but all the posters and promotional materials Sharath Chandran had designed for ‘Gandhi’, besides a few of his paintings, were destroyed due to a leakage in his roof years ago, leaving no keepsakes for the artist.

The artist returned to Kozhikode in 2016 and his first come-back exhibition held at Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art gallery in the same year was notable for the realism and attention to details in his works that made them life-like. He was a master at close up portraits of people, especially old people, monks, with detailed wrinkles and bright eyes. He went on to conduct 9 more exhibitions later.

The funeral of the artist will be held at Mavoor Road Crematorium in the city at 4 p.m. on Friday.

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Ananth Technologies opens spacecraft manufacturing unit at Aerospace Park in City

Ananth Technologies which designs and produces systems for Indian aerospace has set up a 15,000 square metre spacecraft manufacturing unit at KIADB Aerospace Park, Bengaluru, said to be the country’s first such facility in the private sector.

The manufacturing unit would be able to conduct assembly, integration and testing of four large spacecraft simultaneously, the company said in a statement.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Subba Rao Pavuluri, Chairman & Managing Director, Ananth Technologies, said, “India is on the cusp of revolutionising the spacecraft industry. As a nation, we are capable of manufacturing world-class spacecrafts.’‘

“Over the years, Ananth Technologies has successfully contributed to major launches of ISRO. Our technology acumen is such that none of the sub-systems supplied by Ananth Technologies has ever failed in orbit,’‘ he claimed.

Since its inception in 1992, Ananth Technologies has contributed to the manufacturing of 89 satellites and 69 launch vehicles built/launched by ISRO, including two satellites for European customers that ISRO had built in collaboration with Airbus, France.

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Bannari Amman College students team selected for final event of RoboBoat 2022

Organised by RoboNation, RoboBoat invites participants to tackle simplified versions of challenges facing the modern maritime industry

A 35-member team of students from Bannari Amman Institute of Technology in Sathyamangalam, who developed an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), has been shortlisted for the final event of RoboBoat 2022, an international student competition, which will be held in Florida, U. S., on June 20, 2022.

Organised by RoboNation, the competition invites participants to tackle simplified versions of challenges facing the modern maritime industry like coastal surveillance, port security and oceanographic exploration. The boats are designed to take on tasks that are similar to those faced by the maritime industry in the real world.

The students team “Vyuha ASV” from the institute is the only team representing India in the 15 th RoboBoat 2022 Worldwide Autonomous Surface Vehicle Development competition.

Team leaders for their respective teams were Thiruvarulselvan Karunanithi (Team Management), Saravanan Elangovan (Hull design), Krishnan Murugan (Failsafe system), Srisanthosh (Propulsion system), Puviyarasu Sakthivel (Control system) and Tharakeshvar Padmanaphan (Computer vision). The faculty mentors were D. Selvamuthu Kumaran, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and V. Baranidharan, Assistant Professor, ECE. Both the faculties were UUV lab in charge and facilitated the team.

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George Uglow Pope’s legacy at Sawyerpuram

A video on George Uglow Pope who lived at Sawyerpuram in Tamil Nadu for eight years, did missionary work and translated Tamil classics

Sawyerpuram was created on 150 acres purchased by Samuel Sawyer, a merchant of the Portuguese East India Company.

When missionary and Tamil scholar George Uglow Pope arrived here 180 years ago, the area was nothing but acres of sand dunes. Before his arrival, he had learnt Tamil literary works from Suryanarayana Sastry, Ariyangavu Pillai and Ramanuja Kavirayar in Madras.

It was Pope who created Sawyerpuram and another missionary, Robert Caldwell, in his writings referred to him as its founder. Pope decided to set up a seminary at Sawerpuram as there were only two of them in Tamil Nadu.

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Stalin hands over awards to Aaroor Das, I. Shanmuganathan

amil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin handed over the Kalaignar Kalaithurai Vithagar Award to veteran screenwriter Aaroor Das at his residence in T. Nagar and the Kalaignar Ezhuthukol Award to senior journalist I. Shanmuganathan at the Secretariat on Friday, the birth anniversary of late DMK leader M. Karunanidhi.

At another event, the Chief Minister handed over orders for allotment of houses in Tamil Nadu Housing Board tenements under the ‘Kanavu Illam’ scheme to six writers: N. Jagadeesan alias Erode Tamilanban; S. Jagannathan alias Kavignar Puviyarasu; E. Sundaramoorthy; P. Manickavasagam alias Poomani; K. Mohanarasu; and V. Annamalai alias Imayam. 

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From IIT Guwahati, a device to turn wastewater into energy

The device uses microbes to convert chemical energy in organic substrates into electrical energy

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati have developed a microbial fuel cell (MFC), a bio-electrochemical device that can generate “green energy” by treating wastewater.

The researchers said the device offered a dual benefit — generation of bioelectricity and waste management — by converting chemical energy contained in organic substrates into electrical energy through microbes.

The Department of Science and Technology supported the research led by Mihir Kumar Purkait and his Ph.D student Mukesh Sharma of IIT Guwahati’s Department of Chemical Engineering.

The IIT Guwahati claimed the device could be used for obtaining clean energy from municipal wastewater economically.

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ISSF World Cup | Elavenil, Ramita and Shreya win gold in 10m air rifle team event

issf completes on June 07th

Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita and Shreya Agrawal outplayed Denmark 17-5 in the gold medal contest of the 10m air rifle team women’s event at the ISSF World Cup

India opened their account at the ongoing ISSF World Cup with the trio of Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita and Shreya Agrawal claiming the gold medal in the 10m air rifle team women competition in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Indian trio outplayed Denmark represented by Anna Nielsen, Emma Koch and Rikke Maeng Ibsen, 17-5 in the gold medal contest. Poland won bronze

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India, Bangladesh flag off New Jalpaiguri-Dhaka Mitali Express

Three days after restarting two cross-border trains stopped amid Covid-19 pandemic, India and Bangladesh jointly flagged off a new passenger train – Mitali Express – on Wednesday.

The new bi-weekly Mitali Express will connect New Jalpaiguri in North Bengal with Dhaka in Bangladesh through Haldibari in India and then Chilahati in Northern Bangladesh. The train will travel the 513 km distance in about 9-10 hours twice a week from India and back.

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