Latest news with #IIT-Delhi
Time of India
13-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Relaxed emission norms for thermal generation to reduce power costs
AI image NEW DELHI: The mandatory retrofitting of coal-fired generation plants with mechanisms to reduce sulphur emission will apply to only units within 10 km of cities with population exceeding 10 lakh instead of all power stations under a 2015 mandate. The revised policy, notified on Saturday, is expected to reduce the cost of power by 25-30 paise per unit, officials and experts involved in the revision of the earlier mandate for installation of FGD (flue gas desulphurisation) units at all power plants said. The new norm lets off the hook 79% of the country's thermal generation capacity, a fact that environmental activists have used to criticise the revision. But officials argued that the 'evidence-based recalibration' makes the policy 'focused, efficient and climate-conscious." For example, they said, under the revised policy, new plants in critically polluted areas or non-attainment cities will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis instead of an omnibus application that would push up the cost of power. The notification justified the revision, saying it is in line with the analysis by the Central Pollution Control Board, which found increased carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the operation of existing control measures. Additionally, studies by IIT-Delhi, CSIR-NEERI and the National Institute of Advanced Studies put ambient sulphur dioxide levels in most parts of the country within the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Power producers have been opposing the blanket FGD mandate for all plants due to the high cost involved. Industry estimates put the cost of installing FGDs at all power plants at Rs 2.5 lakh crore, or Rs 1.2 crore per megawatt. This, industry representatives had said, would jack up tariff for consumers. Additionally, the average timeline of 45 days for each unit was also cited as a threat to grid stability during peak seasons. Differentiated compliance based on proximity to urban populations and the sulphur content of the coal used will ease the burden on power producers, industry executives said. Indian coal typically has a sulphur content of less than 0.5% and due to high stack heights and favourable meteorological conditions, dispersion of SO2 is efficient. Measurements across multiple cities showed sulphur oxide levels ranging between 3 and 20 micrograms per cubic meter, significantly below the NAAQS threshold of 80 micrograms per cubic meter. The officials said studies had also questioned the environmental and economic efficacy of a universal FGD mandate in the Indian context. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Neena Gupta's first love was a Delhi IITian, they rushed into marriage for a Kashmir trip but love story did not last long
Neena Gupta has never shied away from telling her truth, whether it's through her candid autobiography Sach Kahun Toh or her bold choices onscreen. Now, even as she garners praise for her latest performances in Panchayat Season 4 and Metro... In Dino , the veteran actress is reflecting on an intensely personal chapter from her past—her first marriage to an IIT-Delhi student, a relationship that began with youthful passion but ended in quiet separation. In an interview with News18 Showsha, Neena recalled how her romance began with an IITian named Amlan Kumar Ghose , whom she eventually married. During college, her modern outlook sparked jealousy among classmates, especially when her style clashed with their conservative norms. On one occasion, after she casually mentioned her movie plans with her boyfriend to a classmate, the news reached her mother, who forbade her from going. With no phones back then, she couldn't inform him, and he kept waiting. According to reports in India Today, her bond with Amlan formed at an inter-college event and grew in secret through stolen meetings on campus and near her home. Since Amlan's parents lived in another city, he often stayed with his grandfather, who coincidentally lived close to Neena's house, giving them more chances to meet during festivals and holidays. Back then, having a boyfriend was strictly forbidden for Neena, which made the entire experience thrilling. They would go on dates in his car and often spend time together near IIT-Delhi. Despite keeping the relationship under wraps for a long time, Neena eventually opened up to her mother as the relationship grew more serious. Neena Gupta's first marriage As per reports in India Today, the idea of marriage emerged when Amlan planned a trip to Srinagar with friends, and Neena expressed her wish to join them. Her mother, however, permitted her only if she got married. That's when Neena decided to tie the knot in a quiet Arya Samaj ceremony, with close family and friends in attendance. Since Amlan's parents did not approve of his relationship with a non-Bengali girl, they were kept in the dark about the wedding. Post-marriage, the couple went to Srinagar and returned happy. They moved into a small flat in Rajender Nagar as Amlan looked for work and Neena pursued her master's degree in Sanskrit at Delhi University. But life quickly took different turns for them. Problems in marriage While Amlan expected a conventional homemaker, Neena discovered her love for theatre. She realised that she was too ambitious to settle into the traditional role of a housewife. This difference in expectations led them to amicably part ways within a year of marriage. Amlan moved away for work, and Neena returned to live with her parents. Neena Gupta about 'mad love' In the same News18 interview, Neena admitted that despite several relationships, she never experienced the kind of all-consuming love seen in films or novels. She revealed that nobody had loved her like that and nobody fell went crazy with her. However, she recalls only once she fell madly in love—but that story never turned into a relationship, as circumstances didn't allow it. In the late 1980s, Neena Gupta was in a relationship with former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards. Although they never married—since Richards was already married at the time—they welcomed a daughter, Masaba Gupta, in 1989. Choosing to raise Masaba as a single mother, Neena embraced the journey on her own. Years later, in 2008, she tied the knot with New Delhi–based chartered accountant Vivek Mehra in a private ceremony held in the United States. Neena Gupta and her husband, Vivek Mehra. Neena Gupta's recent work On the work front, Neena has been winning hearts once again with her portrayal of the feisty Manju Devi in Panchayat and her role in Anurag Basu's Metro… In Dino, she stars alongside stalwarts like Anupam Kher, Pankaj Tripathi, Konkona Sen Sharma, and emerging stars like Aditya Roy Kapur, Sara Ali Khan, and Fatima Sana Shaikh. The film is a spiritual successor to Basu's much-loved Life in a… Metro.
Hindustan Times
06-07-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
₹390 crore Noida authority building to be completed by September
The Noida authority's administrative office complex which is under construction in Sector 96 is likely to be completed by September this year, chief engineer of the authority said on Sunday, adding that the approved cost of the project has increased from ₹304 crore to ₹390 crore. The Noida Authority's new administrative headquarters in Sector 96. (Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times) The rise in cost is due to the retrofitting work, design changes, and additional finishing requirements, officials said. The authority had approved the escalation in the budget on June 14, 2025. 'We aim to complete the building now in September so that it can be opened for the public use,' Vijay Rawal chief engineer of the Noida authority, said. Notably, it was earlier scheduled to be completed in 2024. With physical work over 95% complete and electrical work over 90%, officials said the authority expects to finish the long-pending project later this year. Officials said the complex, along the Bhangel elevated road, is likely to be inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. First proposed in 2013 on a six-acre plot, the project originally included two towers — one is to house an 18-floor commercial block and Tower 2, an eight-floor office building — both at an estimated cost of ₹478 crore. The original contract for the project was awarded to a company in 2016 for ₹232 crore. Later in 2020, the authority planned to scale down Tower-1 to four floors while keeping Tower-2 unchanged, along with the basement, auditorium and external works. This revision, approved in August 2020, reduced the estimated cost to about ₹304 crore. The project faced further delays due to Covid-19 pandemic, site issues and contractor default. When the original contractor failed to complete the work, the contract was terminated and the firm was blacklisted in May 2022. New tenders were issued, and in October 2022, a new contractor was awarded the remaining civil works contract for around ₹92 crore. By 2023, the building's structure was ready so in November that year, IIT-Delhi was engaged to check the building's structural safety. Following its recommendation to strengthen columns, retrofitting work was awarded, initially worth about ₹29 crore and later revised to around ₹31 crore. The cost rose from ₹92 crore to roughly ₹128 crore, including ₹21 crore for designer tiles, wall panelling and finishing, and ₹15 crore more for carpet and interior upgrades suggested by senior officials. Electrical works, first estimated to cost around ₹81 crore, saw an increase of ₹8.5 crore due to design changes, around ₹1 crore for an audio-video conference system, taking the total to about ₹91 crore. Other works included ₹13 crore for furniture and around ₹9 crore for PU flooring.
Time of India
06-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
IITs ease out traditional dual degree, bring in ‘new avatar'
Mumbai: Over the years, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been quietly reshaping courses. Five-year integrated programmes, once seen as a pragmatic option for those who could not make the cut for a BTech course but were keen on imbibing the rigour of an IIT through an accelerated masters course, are steadily being phased out. Increasingly, even as the five-year courses are being stopped, the doorway to a masters opens not at the start but midway after the fifth semester now. At some campuses, the intake in the 5-year courses is being folded into the expanding sprawl of the BTech programme. Student numbers are surging, partly as a result of widening reservation norms. At other institutes, administrators say, the programme is being repackaged in "a new avatar" to make them interdisciplinary. Unlike a traditional five-year course—where a student deepens their roots within a single discipline—this is a dual degree that is more layered. It allows a student to walk between two worlds: a Bachelor's in one field, and a Master's in another. Mechanical engineering and robotics. Physics and data science. The need for this revamp was felt because BTech students, armed with internships and industry exposure by year three, were walking into job interviews, while their five-year counterparts were not drawing recruiters. "The interest among top-ranking students was steadily waning," said Amit Aahuja, Career Counselling Expert at Allen Career Institute. "This reform reflects that drift—and the system needed to evolve. " You Can Also Check: Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai But there is a deeper re-wiring at play. "A degree in one stream was no longer enough," said IIT Madras Director, Professor V Kamakoti. "To build the systems of tomorrow," engineers were required to learn to think beyond their silos, he added. The future, he said, belongs to cross-pollinators — those who are firmly grounded in one stream, yet fluent in another. "A mechanical engineer who speaks the language of robotics. A chemistry graduate decoding the complexities of quantum computing." Thus, the five-year engineering programme is being reimagined as a multi-disciplinary dual degree. This, he said, "is the new avatar." It's not about abandoning depth; it's about expanding one's roots so they can draw from multiple soils. At IIT-Delhi, there are many students who have chosen the longer road. "Several dual-degree programmes continue to thrive," said IIT-Delhi Director, Professor Rangan Banerjee. Additionally, after the third year, those with a spark for discovery are given the choice to convert their BTech into an MTech. "The ones who opt in," he added, "are truly driven by a passion for research." However, at IIT-Bombay, the 5-year course is being abandoned. Professor Deepankar Choudhury from the civil engineering department said the IIT-B dual degree was marked by a strange dissonance. "By the fourth year, students found themselves watching their BTech batchmates prepare to graduate, take jobs, and step into the world—while they had another year to go," he said. To most students, the fifth year began to feel like a burden. Many sought an early exit, petitioning to convert their dual degree into a plain BTech. Over time, the pattern hardened into policy.
Time of India
04-07-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
Govt to soon introduce rule requiring silent EVs to have vehicle alerting system
New Delhi: In a move to alert pedestrians about approaching electric two and three wheelers, and e-rickshaws, which hardly emit any noise, govt will soon introduce a new regulation requiring manufacturers to have an electronic system that automatically creates sound when these vehicles are moving at speeds of up to 20 kmph. The transport ministry has published a draft automobile industry standard (AIS) for Quiet Road Transport Vehicles (QRTV) requiring fitment of Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS). This safety feature primarily is designed for electric and hybrid vehicles emitting artificial sounds to alert pedestrians, cyclists, and other road users about the presence of the vehicle, especially at low speeds where these vehicles are very quiet. When EVs run at higher speed, their tyres generate noise. You Can Also Check: Delhi AQI | Weather in Delhi | Bank Holidays in Delhi | Public Holidays in Delhi Sources said the need for such an alert was felt soon after the introduction of EVs in the country, especially after reports of road accidents involving these vehicles as pedestrians could not spot them early. The AVAS is mandated in electric and hybrid vehicles across several countries, including the European Union, United States, and Japan. While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US has made this system mandatory for all new EVs sold since September 2020, Europe implemented this regulation in July 2019. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Thị trường có dấu hiệu suy thoái không? IC Markets Đăng ký Undo "Since there is a significant increase in EV penetration, particularly in two and three wheelers, and e-rickshaws, now there is a need to bring this regulation. The matter has been discussed at meetings of the CMVR-TSC, country's apex automotive standard making entity," said a senior official. As per the draft AIS, there may be a mechanism to enable the driver to halt the operation of the AVAS in case of a need. Sources said the standard will be notified soon after completing the consultation process. They added that since this is linked to safety of other road users, govt would have to make this mandatory. "We are carrying out a study on the need of AVAS in electric two-wheelers," said Anoop Chawla, professor of mechanical engineering department at IIT-Delhi. Apex automobile industry body, SIAM had approached IIT-Delhi for the study.
