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Lucknow: The School of Management Sciences (SMS), Lucknow, organised a two-day national conference focusing on sustainable business approaches for a collective future.
At the collaborative event with the Indian Society for Training & Development (ISTD) and the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) , institute director Ashish Bhatnagar said, "Sustainability is not an option, it is a necessity."
Speakers, including former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh R Ramani, former director of IIM Kozhikode Krishna Kumar, and TERI SAS New Delhi Associate Professor, Shruti Sharma Rana, led discussions on sustainable finance, circular economy, and ESG practices. TNN
Read MoreProminent environmental experts have challenged the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) report declaring Triveni Sangam water unfit for bathing during the Mahakumbh. The experts argue CPCB report is incomplete citing missing data on nitrates and phosphates.
New Delhi: Prominent environment experts have countered Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report claiming poor quality of water at Mahakumbh. The CPCB report said that Triveni Sangam water is not fit for bathing. The CPCB cites high levels of biological oxygen demand (BOD) in the water.
Prof Umesh Kumar Singh, who teaches at Centre of Environmental Science at the University of Allahabad, said that water at Sangam is fit for taking a bath keeping in view the current set of data.
‘CPCB needs to work more’
“A few days back, the Centre Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report stated increased levels of faecal coliform (bacteria) in the water. I believe that the CPCB needs to work more on the report because their data is not complete,” Professor Singh said. “The level of nitrates and phosphates are missing from the report. The level of dissolved oxygen in the water, as shown in the report, is good. And on the basis of the current data, I can say that the water at Triveni Sangam is fit for taking a bath,” Professor Umesh Singh told ANI.
“Report very inconsistent”
Similarly, another professor RK Ranjan termed CPCB report “very inconsistent”. According to RK Ranjan, who is Associate Professor Central University of South Bihar, the Central Pollution Control Board data is very inconsistent and to conclude that water is unsafe to bathe in would be to say things in haste.
He added, “There is not enough data to conclude that the waters in Prayagraj are not safe to bathe in. Similar data can be seen from Garhmukteshwar, Gazipur, Buxar and Patna. There could be many reasons for this to happen. Among others one reason behind this is when a large number of people bathe in the same waters. It also matters from where and when the sample of water is taken.”
“Coliform bacteria is nothing new”
Dr. Amit Kumar Mishra, another environmental scientist from JNU, also holds the same opinion. Mishra says the presence of coliform bacteria is nothing new and called for new data set.
I would say we need more data sets, we need more measurements. There is a huge number of population which is taking bath at Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj. If you talk about the coliform bacteria, it is nothing new. If you see the data of the Shashi Snan peaks, you will see that the E.Coli bacteria peaks at that time. So, I would say that we need more data sets, we need more parameters, we need more monitoring stations, especially down the stream,” Amit Kumar Mishra said.
Prof. Chander Kumar Singh of TERI School of Advanced Studies also said that many parameters are not present in the CPBC report.
“In the CPCB report available, many parameters are not present. I believe better information can be given if more data and facts come out,” Prof. Chander argued.
https://x.com/ANI/status/1892903056926486548
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Researchers at Delhi-based TERI School of Advanced Studies have developed an early flowering transgenic variety of mustard.
The work is important as Indian mustard is a major oilseed crop in the country and due to changing climate the number of cold days required for full plant cycle has shrunken.
Scientists have been working on improving crop varieties by modifying plant genes to make them more adaptable changing climate. Early flowering and maturing varieties can help cope with climate change, without compromising on yields.
Researchers led by Dr. Anandita Singh figured out the role of a regulatory gene, called MIR172 belonging to the micro RNA family, that is present in functionally varied forms in Indian mustard (Brassica juncea) and is responsible for a number of traits including timing of flowering. In plants, this microRNA enacts by negatively regulating the expression of some protein-coding genes involved in flowering time.
By increasing the expression of this microRNA, the researchers have developed an early flowering transgenic plant of Indian mustard cultivar Brassica juncea cv. Varuna and shown that by manipulating flowering time, one can develop a plant variety with shorter life cycle and thus help have better yields through reduced exposure to the harsh climatic conditions in the fields.
Given the diversity in evolutionary lineages of Brassica MIR172 candidates that were discovered in our study, it will be interesting to characterize the entire range of natural variants of Brassica MIR172 by altering, modulating or tinkering the expression levels and pattern of these genes and studying the impact/outcome in the plants, Dr Singh explained while speaking to India Science Wire. She said “we have good reasons to believe that novel natural alleles of Brassica MIR172 are both a blueprint and a valuable resource of favourable agronomic traits to be transferred into elite crop varieties.
Apart from MIR172, the research group is studying several genes that affect other traits that might be useful in generating better varieties. Analysis of transgenics in natural field conditions showed that most Brassica genes govern several dependent and independent agronomic traits. Changing one trait to achieve a favourable out-come may offset another trait. Thus, future studies will involve careful optimization of gene levels for minimizing trait trade-offs,Dr. Singh added.
Dr. Sunil Mukherjee, NASI Senior Scientist at the Department of Genetics, University of Delhi South Campus, who was not connected with the study, feels the study is important. Most crop plants are polyploids or having multiple copies of a gene in nature and a longstanding question in biology is how polyploidy influences gene expression. This research is a welcome move in this direction as MIR172 has been used as a probe in Brassica polyploidy and structural variants of MIR172 family have been nicely portrayed. It has also been shown that family members are functionally different and polyploidy affects gene outcomes.
The research team included S M Shivaraj and Aditi Jain, besides Anandita Singh from TERI School of Advanced Studies. The research results have been published in journal Molecular Genetics and Genomics. This work was supported by the Department of Biotechnology.
