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Shanaaya Anand, an 8-year-old girl, has proven that age does not matter by summiting the Kedarkantha peak. Through this, she has become the youngest girl to summit the mountain in Uttarakhand.

The Kedarkantha trek is not an easy task. It requires four days of walking through tough hills and peaks. It begins from the picturesque village of Sankri, passing scenic spots like Juda Ka Talab and Kedarkantha Base Camp and culminating with the stunning Kedarkantha peak, which is covered in snow during winter. The trek is physically and mentally challenging and it demands more fitness and endurance with minus temperature and less oxygen as one climbs towards Kedarkantha peak, which elevates 12,500 feet (3,850 meters in height).

Shanaaya Anand prepared herself by jogging with her dad every morning and hiking regularly, even venturing into the Chamundi Hills (3,500 ft) with her parents and friends. Her love for trekking began at age four, when she summited Kumaraparvatha (5,617 ft), one of the toughest treks in the Western Ghats.

The Kedarkantha trek was initiated and led by mountaineer Guruclimber (Mysuru) and local guides Mohan and Narendra from Sankri, Uttarakhand. The event was organised by Hillway Treks Founders Bachan Singh Rawat and Sandeep Rawat.

Reaching the summit, Shanaaya was rewarded with breathtaking views of Himalayan peaks like Bandarpoonch, Black Peak and Swargarohini. Shanaaya Anand is a 3rd std. student at Excel Public School in Mysuru. She is the only daughter of M. Anand and T.S. Bhanumathi, residents of Ramakrishnanagar.

source/content: starofmysore.com (headline edited)

Dr Smitha Hegde, a professor and deputy director at Nitte University Centre for Science Education and Research, Mangaluru, is known for her Tree Count Report that turned the heads of policy makers, environmentalists.

From washing test tubes in the 1990s to pioneering phytoremediation solutions for heavy metal pollution, plant scientist Dr Smitha Hegde has carved a significant path in the fields of plant molecular biology, environmental conservation, and education.

A distinguished professor and deputy director at Nitte University Centre for Science Education and Research (NUCSER), Mangaluru, Dr Hegde is known for her Tree Count Report-2023, that turned the heads of policy makers, and environmentalists among others. A year-long study revealed an alarming 6.24 per cent depletion of green cover in urban spaces of Mangaluru, and a five-degree Celsius rise in surface temperature over a decade.

Dr Hegde’s story begins in Mumbai, where she earned an MSc in Zoology in 1991. A twist of fate brought her to Mangaluru, where she answered a newspaper advertisement for a lab assistant at St Aloysius College.

“My first job was to wash test tubes,” she recalls. Under the mentorship of Fr. Leo D’Souza, a pioneer in plant tissue culture, found her calling. She contributed to India’s first test-tube cashew plant and, by 1998, earned a PhD in Biosciences from Mangalore University, focusing on propagating native ornamental plants like ferns. “I shifted from zoology to plants and I’ve never looked back,” she says.

Her fascination with ferns—or pteridophytes—defines her career. These ancient plants, the first to transition from water to land, gripped her attention with their toughness and vast genomes. “They survived hostile conditions—volcanoes, high CO2, low oxygen,” she explains. “Their genes hold secrets we’re only beginning to understand.”

At NUCSER, where she joined in 2017, Dr Hegde has published over 67 journal papers and 32 book chapters, exploring ferns’ potential in phytoremediation—using plants to strip heavy metals like lead and cadmium from soil and water. Her two pending patents aim to harness biomaterials for cleaner drinking water, addressing a pressing modern crisis: heavy metal contamination in vegetables.

Her lab is filled with tissue-cultured ferns, grown on minimal media to test their metal tolerance. This work isn’t just academic—it’s personal. She avoids plants in the food chain for remediation, ensuring toxins don’t cycle back to humans. “Doctors always say eat vegetables, right? But now we are shocked to see the amount of heavy metals that are there in the vegetables—arsenic, chromium, lead. When we consume these plants, it gets into us, and we also do not have a proper mechanism to throw it out of the body. It plays a lot of havoc,” she says.

Further, her 2015 study in Kudremukh National Park, where she and her student DNA-barcoded ferns across 600 km, revealed their diversity and fire-fuelling potential, aiding forest management. Her publications, ranging over 77 with more than 745 citations, include groundbreaking studies like the use of LEDs to boost lipid production in microalgae for biofuels and the development of DNA barcodes for edible medicinal ferns.

Dr Hegde’s ‘Tree Count Report-Mangaluru 2023’ triggered calls for urban reforestation.

Yet, her curiosity runs deeper. She ponders why ferns carry flowering genes without blooming and how they sense altitude or revive from drought.

This ambitious project saw her and 40 student volunteers manually count 19,717 trees across 50 of Mangaluru’s 60 wards in public spaces over a year.

Funded by a modest Rs.1.5 lakh grant from Nitte University, the report maps trees by species, biomass, and carbon sequestration (2.5 million kilos annually), using GPS tagging and Excel sheets. It aimed to inform policy without fault-finding. “It took me one year… every morning, every holiday morning, counting 19,717 trees across 50 wards. It’s pure data to tell Mangalore citizens, ‘Look, you can do something.’ The hidden curriculum is to familiarise Gen Next with trees —it’s been like a tapasya to complete this task,” she says.

She envisions extending it to the remaining 10 wards and integrating technology like drones and computer vision for efficiency.

Her report reveals Mangaluru’s public green cover at 6.24%, with only 0.01 trees per person in some wards (one of the wards had 125 trees for 11,069 people). “Mangalore is green… because of private people,” she observes, cautioning that private land sales threaten this buffer.

She notes, “India is going through a crisis of desertification where 30% of its land is becoming unproductive… just because of the lack of moisture and heat.”

In Mangaluru, she reports a 2024 surface temperature peak of 47°C and a 1.5°C average rise over 10 years, linking it to concretization and tree loss. “You would think it happens only in the deserts,” she says.

She laments Mangaluru’s transformation into a “Concrete Jungle,” warning it could mirror Bangalore’s ecological decline: “Bangalore is an ecological disaster… it’s not sustainable anymore.” She cites local examples of Mangaluru where “almost all the trees on the roadside have gone” due to Smart City projects.

“Next time you see a plant, look around with the eyes of respect and curiosity and humility to know that we don’t know everything about the plant system.We don’t need to save the environment—it can save itself. We need not interfere with them, that’s it.” says Dr Hegde.

source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)

The Climate Incubation Hubwill primarily focus on start-ups working in key environmental areas such as climate, nature and plastics circularity.

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), in collaboration with Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), the startup hub at IIM Bangalore, has launched the Climate Incubation Hub. It is a collaborative programme between industry and academia to nurture Indian start-ups to advance climate-innovations in India.

“The Climate Incubation Hub aims to foster scalable solutions that address critical climate challenges, enabling start-ups to create transformational and sustainable environmental impact,” said a press release.

The Climate Incubation Hubwill primarily focus on start-ups working in key environmental areas such as climate, nature and plastics circularity. This will include regenerative and climate-smart agriculture, waste-to-value technologies to reduce emissions, alternative energy and clean technology, bioenergy & biomass solutions, and more

B.P. Biddappa, Executive Director and Chief People, Transformation and Sustainability Officer at HUL said, “Our collaboration with IIM-B’s NSRCEL to scale innovative solutions addressing the urgent effects of climate change is a testament to our commitment to sustainability, while also contributing to India’s long-term vision of Viksit Bharat”.

Participants will gain a tailored mentorship from IIM faculty and industry leaders. A key focus of the program is ensuring start-ups achieve a strong product-market fit.

Anand Sri Ganesh, CEO of NSRCEL, said, “This collaboration enhances our ability to identify and nurture climate innovators, and we are excited to work together in accelerating impactful solutions. Through this initiative, we aim to create a dynamic network of startups dedicated to addressing climate challenges and driving the widespread adoption of sustainable practices.”

Additionally, the programme will offer a grant opportunity to up to 15 start-ups to help them scale their solutions. The programme emphasises building robust governance frameworks and developing sustainable business models to ensure long-term scalability and impact.

The Climate Incubation Hub is designed for Indian start-ups that are at least one year old, have early revenues and a customer base.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

It would be the first time that aircraft would be manufactured in India based on technology fully designed and developed indigenously,

In a first, the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) — a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) body — has signed a technology transfer agreement with a private company to manufacture trainer airplanes in India. This would be the first time that aircraft would be manufactured in India based on technology fully designed and developed indigenously.

The Hansa-3 NG aircraft is a two-seater aircraft and is the latest iteration of the HANSA planes that have been made by NAL since 1998. Fourteen Hansa planes have been made over the years by NAL and used by the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Indian Institutes of Technology. “While we have had a successful track record, we have now managed to seal a partnership with a private company which will manufacture these planes,” said N. Kalaiselvi, Director-General, CSIR.

The company, Pioneer Clean AMPS Pvt Limited, is expected to set up manufacturing facilities as well as handle marketing, servicing and after-sales, though NAL would be closely involved in the initial years to help them with various aspects of the manufacturing and operations, said Abhay Pashlikar, Director, CSIR-NAL.

At present, all of the aircraft being used in India’s flying training organsations are imported. Kishor Patel, Founder and Managing Director, Pioneer Clean AMPS told The Hindu that his company — newly setup for aircraft manufacturing — hoped to offer a “competitive value” to these organisations. “The aviation sector is rapidly growing and with that, demand for trained pilots. We expect that locally manufactured aircraft trainers will be cheaper and will also offer better value — in terms of quick turnaround time for maintenance — than foreign planes,” he said on the sidelines of a press event on Friday (April 4, 2025), to announce the technology transfer.

While costs are not clear, Mr. Pashlikar told The Hindu that over the “lifecycle of an aircraft” the Hansa planes would likely cost ₹3 crore or “about half” what comparable imported planes would costs.

‘Needs doubled’

“Today we stand as the third largest domestic aviation market in the country,” said K. Rammohan Naidu, Minister, Civil Aviation, at the press conference. “Our needs have doubled in the last decade. At this rate of demand, we will need at least 750 trainer aircraft. This is a good practical aircraft with a glass cockpit and improved instrumentation. We want to bring down the costs of training for a pilot and the time it takes.”

The HANSA-NG is powered by a Rotax Digital Control Engine with features such as a composite light weight airframe, a glass cockpit, a bubble canopy with a wide panoramic view, and electrically operated flaps, among other features, a promotional brochure says.

Currently the entire airframe of the plane can be manufactured in India and over time, CSIR-NAL and the private company hope to be able to manufacture the engine as well as avionics instrumentation, said Mr. Pashlikar.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

This achievement has opened new corridors, setting a new benchmark in making extended surgical care accessible across long distances.

SS Innovations, the maker of home-grown surgical robotic system SSI Mantra, has successfully performed what it claimed to be India’s first north-to-south robotic cardiac telesurgery. The surgery was made possible by the advanced SSI Mantra 3 Surgical Robotic System. This procedure bridged a 2,000-kilometer distance between SS Innovations’ headquarters in Gurugram and Aster CMI Hospital in Bengaluru, according to a release.

This achievement has opened new corridors, setting a new benchmark in making extended surgical care accessible across long distances, the release said. “The success of this critical cardiac telesurgery brings in a big revolution in Indian healthcare, paving the way for a future where advanced surgical technology plays a vital role in making healthcare more accessible and efficient worldwide,” it added.

The long-distance tele-robotic assisted intracardiac surgery was performed on a 35-year-old patient, lasted for 2 hours and 40 minutes and involved closing a complex Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), which is a congenital condition where there is a small hole between the two upper chambers of the heart.

The first robotic telesurgery on the Mantra System from Gurugram to Bengaluru was demonstrated by the successful completion of two highly complex procedures – Transthoracic Oesophagectomy and Pelvic Exenteration for T4 Ca Rectum- remotely performed from SMRSC 2025, Delhi/NCR, while the patient was in Aster CMI Hospital, Bengaluru.

Dr. Arul Furtado, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, Aster CMI Hospital, Bengaluru, said, “The team was highly encouraged by the success of this telesurgery, reinforcing the vital role robotic-assisted surgery will play in the future of cardiac care. This unique insight gives it a distinct advantage, making it highly adaptable and tailored to the needs of cardiac surgeons. As we move forward, I believe robotic telesurgery will redefine access to specialized surgical care, and today’s procedure marks just the beginning of this transformation.“

SS Innovations Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Dr. Sudhir Srivastava, said, “With CDSCO approval, we are not just pushing technological boundaries but fulfilling our mission to democratise robotic surgery. Telesurgery is revolutionising healthcare, eliminating the need for patients to travel and making advanced surgical care truly accessible and affordable.”

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

In a significant milestone for Karnataka, the long-awaited Karnataka Bhavan (Kaveri) in the national capital is set to be inaugurated tomorrow, April 2, at 6:30 pm. The newly constructed building, representing the state’s rich cultural heritage, will be unveiled by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The grand event will be attended by prominent dignitaries, including AICC president Mallikarjuna Kharge, who will grace the occasion. Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi will preside over the ceremony, while Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar will join as a special guest.

Other distinguished guests include opposition leader R. Ashoka and minister Cheluvanarayana Swamy. Additionally, Union ministers H D Kumaraswamy, Pralhad Joshi, V. Somanna, Shobha Karandlaje, and Nirmala Sitharaman have been invited. Delhi’s special representatives, T B Jayachandra and Prakash Hukkeri, will also be part of the inauguration.

The Karnataka Bhavan, located in the upscale Chanakyapuri area of New Delhi, spans 3,532 square metres and boasts a total built-up area of 12,212 square metres (131,450 square feet). Designed as a multi-purpose space for state functions, meetings, and cultural activities, the building is a symbol of Karnataka’s enduring heritage.

This multi-storey complex, which comprises 9 floors, including two basements, is equipped with 52 rooms. Among these are 2 luxurious VIP suites, 32 suite rooms, and 18 single rooms. In addition, the building features 86 toilets and parking for 10 cars in the basement. Originally estimated at Rs 81 crore, the final cost of the project soared to Rs 138 crore, marking the completion of a major architectural endeavour for the state.

“The Karnataka Bhavan will not only provide a warm and hospitable environment for our government officials, dignitaries, and citizens but also serve as a vibrant hub to promote our culture and heritage in the capital,” said Siddaramaiah.

The Bhavan’s facilities include state-of-the-art amenities designed for both comfort and functionality. It features spacious meeting rooms, VIP lounges, conference rooms, a gym, and even a terrace with solar power units. The building’s purpose is to elevate Karnataka’s presence in New Delhi while also providing an official venue for government activities and cultural programmes.

Key features of Karnataka Bhavan:

• Basement 1 (2335 sq.m.): Lift lobby, stairs, driver’s laundry, security room, BMS room, 50 car parking spaces.
• Basement 2 (2335 sq.m.): Stairs, staff rooms, 24 car parking spaces, staff rest room.
• Ground Floor (1050 sq.m.): Reception, waiting room, board room, pantry, media briefing room, VIP lounge, toilets, fire control room, tourism info desk, security room.
• First Floor (1005 sq.m.): RC chamber, DRC, PA room, staff room, administrative record room, server room, pantry, liaison officer room, conference room.
• Second Floor (1050 sq.m.): 3 suite rooms, 4 single rooms, special representative office, PA room, legal record room.
• Third Floor (1050 sq.m.): 8 suite rooms, 3 single rooms, gym, pantry.
• Fourth Floor (1050 sq.m.): 9 suite rooms, pantry, housekeeping facilities.
• Fifth Floor (1050 sq.m.): 6 suite rooms, 4 single rooms, pantry, housekeeping.
• Sixth Floor (1050 sq.m.): 6 suite rooms, 3 single rooms, pantry, housekeeping.
• Seventh Floor (237 sq.m.): Terrace, stairs room, solar power units.

With its architectural brilliance and a blend of modern facilities, Karnataka Bhavan is poised to become a symbol of the state’s pride and a central venue for official functions, cultural exchanges, and public engagements in New Delhi.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

Each of the 204 SDMCs selected from the State have been given a reward of ₹1 lakh, as part of “Pusti” scheme of the government’s Samagra Shikhsana Karnataka Programme.

School Development and Monitoring Committees (SDMCs) of seven government schools in Dakshina Kannada and five schools from Udupi district are among the 204 SDMCs adjudged as the best in the State for 2023-24. Each of the 204 SDMCs have been given a reward of ₹ 1 lakh.

The reward was given as part of “Pusti” scheme of the government’s Samagra Shikhsana Karnataka Programme recognising the role of SDMCs in all-round development of the schools. Starting from this academic year, the reward will be given every year, according to M. Kurma Rao, Director, Samagra Shikshana Karnataka Programme.

The seven SDMCs of Dakshina Kannada are Government Lower Primary School, Emaje in Bantwal taluk, Government Higher Primary School, Kattadabail in Belthangady taluk, Government Higher Primary School in Madhya near Mangaluru, Government Pre University College, Nalyapadavu near Mangaluru, Government Higher Primary School in Neerkere near Moodbidri, Government Higher Primary School at Veeramangala in Puttur taluk, and Government Higher Primary School at Kolchar in Sullia taluk.

The five SDMCs of Udupi district are Government PU College Manoor in Brahmavar taluk, Government Higher Primary School (Hindustani) in Naguru in Byndoor taluk; Government Higher Primary School, Miyaru in Karkala taluk, Government High School Beejadi in Kundapura taluk and Government Higher Primary School in Nandikur of Udupi taluk.

Reward amount for betterment of schools

In a letter to all district Deputy Directors of Public Instruction, Mr. Rao said ‘Pusti’ is a programme to recognise contribution of SDMCs in development of schools. The programme is also for empowering SDMC members. It is also for developing competitive spirit among SDMCs. The reward amount should be used for betterment of schools and utilisation certificate should be submitted by school head master to respective block resource coordinator.

The official further said a total of 44,762 government schools had registered for the survey done for “Pusti” reward. As many as 1,836 schools qualified for the taluk level, and 612 schools at the district-level survey. Ultimately, 204 SDMCs (one for each taluk ) were selected for the reward, the official said.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)