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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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The world runs on energy and devices that store energy whether it’s the supercapacitor, lithium batteries or even the solar panels have done wonders to change our lives and make it as comfortable as it gets. Now to further improve upon the storage of energy, academicians cum researchers from two different Indian institutions teamed up and developed a new carbon based nano material for future improvement in supercapacitor energy storage technology development.
Ms Rinki Malik, Ms Priyank Rani, Dr Suman Lata, Dr Udit Soni, and Dr Rajender Singh Malik have developed a more effective way to store energy as the four academicians used direct electrochemical method to synthesize novel porous nanostructure carbon and polymer composites. Assistant Professor Dr Rajender Singh Malik was team leader from Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Haryana and Assistant Professor Dr Udit Soni was from prestigious TERI School of Advanced Studies (TERI SAS), New Delhi.
This new carbon based nano material is termed as “PPy/CQDs” and improve the electron transfer with a reduction in the internal resistance and charge transfer resistance which makes the transfer of energy faster and more efficient.
The research paper highlighting the major development unearthed by four academicians was published in international journal Electrochimica Acta, Science Direct, Elsevier.
The abstract of the research paper published in the journal reads, “Polypyrrole (PPy) and carbon quantum dots (CQDs) based composite electrodes (PPy/CQDs or PQDs) are designed through one step electro-polymerization technique in aqueous solution for energy storage purposes. Composite electrode, thus obtained exhibits good electrochemical properties due to dotted CQDs structure comprising of high surface area with numerous active sites. Electrical conductivity of PPy was improved noticeably after modifying with CQDs. The charge transfer resistance (Rp) diminishes from 2.7 Ω to 0.11 Ω for PQD composite due to fast charge diffusion.
The impact of varied concentration of CQDs was also evaluated for optimizing the electrochemical behavior of PQDs composites and PPy: CQDs as 95: 5 w/w ratio designated as PQD 0.5 was found to be the most effective composition. Various electrochemical properties of PQDs are also correlated at different time intervals to get an effective electro-polymerized output and observed that PQD 0.5 composition processed for 30 min (PQD 30) demonstrates high specific capacitance of 1073.5 F/g at a scan rate of 10 mV/s and mass loading with 1.4 g/cm2 of the optimized composite with a good cyclic stability as 62% even after 2000 cycles of charge/discharge for the electrode.”
Dr Soni says that team could have taken patent for it but the team believes in making affordable and efficient energy storage available for the people and therefore leaves it open to other people who can use this development and further make energy storage methods more effective and easily accessible. Dr Malik also has pointed out that this electrode nano composite material could be highly useful for supercapacitor application such as rapid electrical charging. Presently this work is in initial stage and the team is working on development of energy storage supercapacitor electrical devices by using this electrode material. This new electrode material has huge potential to contribute in supercapacitor sector.
