IIT Kharagpur’s Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa is forecasting climatic risks and advising farmers for better agricultural decision-making
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Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an advanced weather prediction system to facilitate better decision making in agricultural production and reduction of climatic uncertainties and risks. Sponsored by the Ministry of Earth Sciences the two projects ‘Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa’ ‘and ‘Forecasting Agricultural output using Space, Agrometeorology & Land based observations’ provide timely and right management decisions to farmers to minimize the climatic risk of agricultural production and improve economic return of farming community. The Institute, in collaboration with India Meteorological Department, is disseminating a weather based agro-advisory to farmers for improving agricultural production in highly variable weather conditions.
“The agro-advisory indicating crop and variety selection, sowing/planting time, land preparation, input management, harvest, etc are prepared based on future weather and land characteristics of specific location,” said Prof. Dilip Kumar Swain, from the Dept. of Agricultural & Food Engineering at IIT Kharagpur.
Yield forecasting of crops such as rice, mustard and potato are done at the beginning of sowing/planting, during cropping season and before crop harvest for different districts of West Bengal for introducing specific actions to avoid the yield loss due to weather abnormalities.
“Farmers get awareness on input management such as fertilizer, irrigation, and pesticide application every week throughout the cropping season. Based on a five-day weather forecast, the agro-advisory is prepared on Tuesday and Friday every week and communicated to farmers’ through their mobile phone,” he added.
The advisory is sent in local language to about 3 lakh farmers of five districts (West Medinipur, Jharagram, Bankura, Birbhum, and Purulia) in West Bengal. The advisory is also communicated to district level agricultural officers, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, NGOs, farmers’ portal, TV programme, etc. Using the advisory, farmers protect their crop from extreme events and reduce the production cost by need based irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide application.
“Besides sending the agro-advisory, we also conduct training and awareness programmes regularly in villages on organic farming, vermicomposting, hydroponics, integrated farming, advanced production technology, etc for sustainable agricultural growth, farmers’ capacity building, rural employment generation, increasing economic profit, etc.,” remarked Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.
A good response from the farmers was received about the agromet advisory services provided by IIT Kharagpur, he confirmed
Prof. Surjya K Pal who is heading the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur points out at Industry 4.0 as a pertinent solution for MSMEs under the current situation and the way ahead. 
Industry 4.0 is an umbrella of several digital tools such as cloud computing, big data, augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, deep learning, robotics, additive manufacturing etc. These have high potential for use in different industrial sectors and various phases of manufacturing to make headway into the process of automation, reduce production time and accelerate the return to normal business operations. Further this process transformation would also create more resilient business operations. 
Role of Technical Institutions:
IIT Kharagpur took a lead in achieving the aforesaid goals by setting up the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies supported by Dept. of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Govt. of India and an industrial consortium comprising six large scale capital goods manufacturers and a startup. The Centre has been designed to provide technological solutions, R&D facility in digital tools, new materials, additive manufacturing, automation, training of human resources engaged in production. The interdisciplinary Centre has been conducting training programmes on Computer Numerical Control and has also developed a training module for industrial robotics and other short-term courses and training programmes. 
Reassuring the smooth continuation of industrial manufacturing through automation, Prof. Pal also dispelled the speculations of a distressed employment situation. MSMEs employ more than 75% of the workforce in the manufacturing sector. While automation would lead to downsizing the manpower requirement, through upskilling and re-skilling the workforce can be deployed in the new industrial environment. 
The therapy requires the use of Collagen, the protein that helps maintain the structure and functionality of the cartilage. Once Collagen becomes available as oral nutrient supplements or injectable gel, the therapy will receive a big boost. However, isolating the protein in large amounts is a problem and researchers the world over are looking for ways to do that from various sources.
The isolated Collagen was incorporated in a highly stable Pluronic F127 gel base. The CP (Collagen-Pluronic) hydrogel could be used for cartilage regeneration therapy. In addition, when combined with stem cells derived from the goat ear adipose tissue, this injectable hydrogel was found in laboratory conditions to highly facilitate cartilage formation. It could thus speed up the healing of cartilage injury.
Prof. Dhara said, “The blended CP hydrogel has an encouraging result to be used as injectable hydrogel for cartilage regeneration and also to perform as a stem cell delivery vehicle by minimal invasion.” The multi-institutional and multidisciplinary team included researchers from the School of Medical Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology and Rubber Technology Centre of IIT Kharagpur and from the Centre for Healthcare Science and Technology, IIEST, Shibpur.
The identification and mapping of Hyp position in signature motif plays an important role to correlate molecular alteration of the component chains of cartilage with the progression of arthritis. Prof. Dhara said, “This identification may contribute to early prediction of dysfunctional collagen leading to rheumatoid arthritis as well as molecular identification of Collagen from other sources.”
The first year classes with their larger size were the first to be facilitated on YouTube Live using the National Knowledge Network. The lectures were also video recorded and made available online for future reference. Following the lockdown announcement on March 24, all classes were moved to web-conferencing mode, video lectures of NPTEL, or through email. 
Atul Jain, Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering who has been teaching a course ‘Mechanics of Composites’ shared his experience on his online teaching and students response tracking. He has been using Microsoft Office extensively to create lectures and share exclusively with students enrolled for the course as unlisted videos on YouTube. He further uses Google Analytics to derive useful insights about student participation and attention span etc. 
Inside though, a marvellous chemistry is at work. The airtight wrapper of this pack contains fine iron particles combined with vermiculite (a form of clay which holds water) and carbon or charcoal. When the wrapper is torn and the contents are exposed to air, the iron, highly reactive in its ground form, reacts with the air exothermically, producing oxide a la rust, and heat. The charcoal disperses the heat.
We invariably associate ‘nano’ with everything small – Tata Nano, iPod Nano, or even the Paper Pro Nano desk stapler. But, Prof. Jacob explained, “In the world of science, ‘Nano’ does not necessarily mean small. What I want you to recognize is that in the world of nanotechnology something is happening that makes the same material behave very differently when it is small than when it is at the conventional scale.”
People down the ages have been aware of what can be called the marvel of the tiny, although they could not put a name to it. Take the stained glass windows in the cathedrals all over Europe that go back to the 12th century or even earlier. “They put metallic salts in the glass during processing to get color, although they did not know they were using ‘nanotechnology’. By controlling how these metal containing glasses were heated up, one could decide the colour since the color depended on the shape and size of the metal nanoparticles that were formed,” said Prof. Jacob. [3]
It was the advance of microscopy that made it possible to see at the atomic and molecular level that gave a fillip to nanotechnology. “It is because we can see at this level, and can manipulate objects the way we want, that we can move at a much faster pace,” said Prof. Jacob.
“Leadership is more about taking tough decisions now while keeping the greater good in mind than appeasing your countrymen with misleading information. Covid-19 has turned every one of us into soldiers fighting for the very survival of our species and the real leader here is invisible. So when we miss the leader micromanaging things, we look inward for leadership,” said Pinak Samui, student at VGSOM.
“This assignment has helped us to keep track of the COVID-19 situation and all related happenings as they are happening around the world. It also helped us to dive deep into the invisible leadership principle and apply the same, in order to add a new perspective to the current situation, just like looking through a different lens,” said a student Pritam Sharma.
Sharing about his learning, another student Aniket Sanyal said, “Leaders, who can take quick actions, who are flexible in adapting their bold decisions to suit the needs of a situation, will have more success in a crisis environment.”