Oxy-Con inventors
Three youths of modest socio-economic backgrounds have developed a new device named Oxy-Con — a non-invasive ventilator — which gives the medical practitioners’ fraternity an option to control oxygen supply administered to patients. The inventors of Oxy-Con are Nilanjan Ghosh (21), Sheikh Akram Ali (22) and Dipayan Jash (21), all final year electronics and communications students at the MCKV Institute of Engineering, a well-respected private college of West Bengal (estb. 1999). While Nilanjan’s father, Atanu, is a manager in the biomedical department of A.M.R.I, a private hospital in Kolkata, Dipayan’s sire, Manoj Kumar is a deputy forest range officer and Akram’s father Sheikh Sahajahan Ali a farmer residing in Singur. The trio drew inspiration from Technotica 2012, the annual techno fest of MCKV staged in January last year. “My father who works in a hospital, identified the widespread need for an oxygen flow control device. So we set about finding ways to invent Oxy-Con to present at the techno fest,” says Nilanjan. The Oxy-Con machine bagged the second prize at Technotica 2012, and the Best Applied Technology Award of the Birla Industrial & Technological Museum, Kolkata. According to its inventors it can supply a controlled flow of oxygen as per each patient’s requirement. “It can be used at home, in nursing homes and hospitals for patients with chronic breathing ailments who require long-term ventilator assistance. The cost of continuous oxygen supply from unregulated cylinders is about Rs.50 per hour. By using Oxy-Con it can be reduced to Rs.17 per hour,” says Akram. The technical properties of this high-potential invention are elaborated by Dipayan. “The ratio between inhalation and exhalation is 1:2. By shutting off supply during exhalation, Oxy-Con can save large amounts of this life-saving gas,” he explains. Inspired by the prize money — a modest Rs.7,000 from the two techno fests — the threesome who also share a passion for cricket, football and music, are bitten by entrepreneurship. “Indian industry and the economy needs hundreds of time and money-saving inventions. By identifying need gaps and applying the knowledge we acquire in science and technology higher education, it is entirely possible to build large businesses,” says Nilanjan. Wind beneath your wings! Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
Social engineering lesson from America
Rahul Singh is the former editor of Reader’s Digest, Indian Express and Khaleej Times Considerable attention in both the print and electronic media has lately been focused on the poor and vulnerable status of Indian girls and women, following the gang rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi on December 29. Understandable outrage has been stridently expressed about this emotionally-churning incident, even though blinkered politicians like RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat have dismissed it as a phenomenon of ‘India’, rather than ‘Bharat’, where Hindu moralistic values prevail (never mind that facts on the ground are entirely contrary to his assertion). However, there is another deep-rooted social malaise that needs more urgent addressal. It is the centuries-old but still deeply-rooted malevolent discrimination against people of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs and STs) collectively known as Dalits (“the oppressed”). Despite sustained attempts of Hindu reformers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Mahatma Gandhi and well-meaning affirmative action measures, the socio-economic condition of the nation’s Dalits who constitute an estimated 25 percent of the population, is pathetic. Proof of this is provided by a four-month-long survey conducted by the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) on the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in government primary schools countrywide. The survey covered 122 schools across the seven most populous states of the country. Its conclusions are revealing and shocking. According to Nidhi Sabharwal and Dilip Dawarkar, the director and associate fellow of IIDS respectively, writing in the Indian Express (December 11, 2012), a substantial percentage of Dalit students are subjected to various forms of discrimination. They are given less food and served separately from upper caste children; they have to carry their own plates from home so they don’t get mixed up with those used by others, and they are not allowed to serve food. The report also recounts mortifying instances of how the food for Dalit children is dropped from a distance as if dogs are being served. Such shameless prejudice is bad enough, but its consequences are worse. Over half the parents of Dalit children surveyed said that humiliating in-school discrimination discourages their children from attending classes or adversely affects academic performance. The irony is that the prime objective of the mid-day meal scheme which is to improve school attendance and reduce drop-out rates has been achieved only among higher caste students. But prolonged discrimination has had the reverse impact on Dalit school children. A Unicef study (2006) confirms that drop-out percentages among Dalit students in primary schools are an unacceptably high 44 percent, far higher than that of upper-caste students with the difference widening since then. These are dismaying statistics and should set alarm bells ringing in the Union human resource development ministry. According to the 2001 census, the population of SCs aggregates 167 million. In addition, 70 million tribals (STs) face much the same discrimination as SCs, with their education standards diving even lower. Together, SCs and STs constitute almost a quarter of India’s population, of whom about…