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This initiative of the Ecological Restoration Alliance-India, offering more than 1,000 germination techniques, intends to help restoration practitioners, nursery managers, and native plant enthusiasts be more successful with their greening endeavours.

An informal network of individuals and organisations working together to foster the knowledge and practice of ecological restoration of natural ecosystems in India is releasing a first-of-its-kind seed germination database on Wednesday (April 16, 2025).

This free-access database, an initiative of the Ecological Restoration Alliance-India (ERA-I), offers more than 1,000 germination techniques for 465 native plant species. It intends to “make it easier for restoration practitioners, nursery managers, and native plant enthusiasts” to be more successful with growing native plants in nurseries.

“One of the fundamental and most practical steps in the process for ecological restoration is to create a native plant nursery, which requires the knowledge base of germination protocols. This database is the first step toward that goal,” conservationist Paul Blanchflower, director, Auroville Botanical Gardens, said.

Auroville Botanical Gardens is one of nine institutional partners of ERA-I. The others include the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), and the Wildlife Trust of India.

“Most people who established nurseries of native plants have learnt about seed ecology through trial and error. Now that there is a wealth of learning and information available, a database such as this can surely make it easier for people starting new native plant nurseries or even some of the older nurseries can now perhaps grow the species that they did not manage before,” Divya Mudappa, a senior scientist at the NCF, said.

Ms. Mudappa and Mr. Blanchflower are in the ERA-I’s 11-member steering committee, which includes Anita Varghese, Aparna Watve, Pradip Krishen, and Rita Banerji.

India’s restoration pledge

The ERA-I said India has pledged under the Bonn Challenge to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land, a major issue across the globe. The Bonn Challenge is a global initiative launched in 2011 to restore degraded and deforested lands, intending to bring 350 million hectares under restoration by 2030.

“Native plants play an important role in ecological restoration projects. These are plants that have established complex relationships with mammals, birds, insects, and fungi, found in that area,” ERA-I’s senior project manager, Arjun Singh, said.

“Over and above this, they have learnt to cope with the soil conditions and even vagaries of the climatic conditions prevalent in the area, and once established, do not need support in terms of watering, fertilizers, or any other human intervention. They are our best bet towards creating climate-resilient natural ecosystems and landscapes,” he said.

Right knowledge matters

According to the ERA-I, a systematic reintroduction can help restore lands with a sparse presence of native plants and bring the ecosystem back in balance.

“While plants produce thousands of seeds, the chances of a single seed becoming a healthy mature plant would be one in 100, as they struggle to find the right climatic conditions and ecological niches to prosper. This works well for established ecosystems, but when restoring degraded landscapes, each seed counts, and this is where reliable knowledge of the right conditions helps nurture the seeds to saplings,” a note by the ERA-I reads.

Twenty-three individuals from 11 institutions contributed to creating the seed germination database. They uploaded their germination experience onto a public platform for people to learn and benefit.

The native plants in the ERA-I database include Aegle marmelos (wood apple), Bauhinia racemosa (beedi leaf tree), Canthium coromandelicum (Coromandel boxwood), Daphniphyllum neilgherrense (Nilgiri Daphne-leaf), Elaeodendron glaucum (Ceylon tea), Ficus benghalensis (banyan), Gmelina arborea (white Kashmir teak), Hopea indica (Malabar ironwood), Ixora pavetta (torch wood tree), Justicia adhatoda (Malabar nut), Knema attenuata (wild nutmeg), Lawsonia inermis (henna), Madhuca longifolia (mahua), Vachellia nilotica (babool), Withania somnifera (ashwagandha), Ximenia americana (hog plum), and Ziziphus mauritiana (Indian jujube).

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

The topic of this year’s programme was ‘How Artificial Intelligence will Transform Airports and Customer Experience’.

An official of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) has won the ACI Asia-Pacific and Middle East Young Executive Award 2025.

Naga Satyanarayana Vattipalli bagged the award for a submission at the ACI Asia-Pacific and Middle East’s annual research paper competition.

The topic of this year’s programme was ‘How Artificial Intelligence will Transform Airports and Customer Experience’.

Adoption of AI

In his paper, Mr. Vattipalli explored the opportunities and challenges associated with airports adopting Artificial Intelligence and related technologies to improve the overall passenger experience, regulatory and ethical considerations, sustainability, and environmental impact.

“With the advent of rapid development of technologies, AI is being applied to provide innovation throughout the entire airport experience. The exceptional research papers bring us new visions into the role of AI in aviation, and its potential in enhancing airport operations and passenger experience at large,” said Stefano Baronci, Director General of ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East.

The panel of judges also awarded Honourable Mention to Patrick Su from Airport Authority Hong Kong on his research paper entitled ‘Revolutionising Aviation: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Airports and Passenger Experience’. His research paper examines the impact of AI on airports and customer experience.

Innovative solutions

Introduced in 2009, the ACI Asia-Pacific & Middle East Young Executive Award (YEA) is an annual research paper competition that encourages young talent in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions to contribute innovative solutions throughout the entire airport experience.

This is the second consecutive year that an official of BIAL, which operates the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, has bagged this award.

Manoj Kumar Ashok Kumar won the award in 2024 for his paper, which emphasised the urgent need for airports to invest in strong defence mechanisms to protect operational technologies from cyber attacks. His research highlights the importance of implementing advanced cybersecurity measures within the airport community.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Chinmaya P. Chigateri has been elected president of the Executive Committee of Alliance de Française Bangalore for the term 2025–2027.

The Registrar of Societies, Government of Karnataka, conducted the elections on April 6. 

The newly-elected office-bearers include Anush Solomon Joy and Ramaya Bharadwaj K.B. as Vice-Presidents, Abhishek S. Iyengar as Treasurer, and Aditya Surana as Joint Secretary. Other elected members of the committee are Chander P. Mannar, Punya Gopal, and M. Anand B.G.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

Senior member of South Kanara Photographers Association (SKPA) from Dakshina Kannada–Udupi district and former district president of SKPA, Jagannath Shetty, has been selected for the prestigious Chhaya Sadhaka award for the year 2024–25.

The award is conferred by the Karnataka Photographers’ Association, Bengaluru, in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of photography. Jagannath Shetty was felicitated on the occasion.

On behalf of the president and all members of SKPA Mangaluru region, heartfelt congratulations have been extended to Shri Jagannath Shetty for this well-deserved honour.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

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)