Fantastic plastic

15-year-old Angelina Arora wins top young innovators prize for her eco-friendly plastic developed from prawn shells

BY JYOTI SHANKAR

Would you say it is possible to make a pliable substance from the hard shells of prawns?

Plastic seems so essential to all aspects of our life today but its ubiquity has become the bugbear of every person concerned about its environmental impacts. Is it ever possible to find a replacement for plastic that is eco-friendly?

Fifteen-year-old Year 11 student of Sydney Girls High, Angelina Arora, has managed to do both of this. She will soon be on her way to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the USA where over 1,800 high school students from 75 countries, regions and territories are given the opportunity to showcase their independent research.

This journey has been made possible as Angelina is one of six prestigious winners of the 2018 BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards. The awards are a partnership between the BHP Billiton Foundation, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and country-wide Science Teacher Associations (STA). Since 1981, these awards have been supporting pioneering research of young people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

Other amazing winning inventions this year includes a bionic arm that can detect and disarm landmines without putting human lives at risk, a picnic rug that repels ants, a biochar product that can filter water and also be used as a fertiliser, a flood warning device and a robotic window cleaner.

Indian Link spoke to Angelina at the national camp of top 26 finalists of these awards where she participated in a series of lab and science activities and presented her project to judges. “I tested the strength, elongation, clarity, solubility, deconstruction and endurance of the plastic that I created from prawn shells and protein from the cocoons of silkworms, as well as other plastics made out of potato, corn and tapioca,” said Angelina, launching straight into the details of her creation. Angelina said that she was first made aware of the harmful effects of plastics when a shop attendant said that she had to pay for the plastic bag, which until then was given for free. The attendant explained that it was because plastic was bad for the environment and we need to reduce its use. This was trigger enough for Angelina’s questioning bent of mind.

She delved further into the extent of ill-effects of plastic and found that plastics have now found their way into the oceans and the creatures that live in water. As seafood consumers, humans are not far removed from ingesting plastics indirectly, she learnt.

Angelina wanted to find a sustainable alternative. With the support of her school teachers, a lot of experimenting - and patience! - Angelina was ready to present her findings.

The first part of her project was to examine different breeds of fish for micro-plastics, for toxics that leach from plastics into their flesh and enter the human food chain. The second was to research options for bioplastics made from starches extracted from corn, potato and tapioca which would be environmentfriendly as they return to nature when they disintegrate. Current plastics made from petroleum products stay intact in nature for hundreds of years, even after they disintegrate.

Angelina’s initial experiments led to her picking up the first prize in chemistry in her age bracket at the STANSW Young Scientist Awards 2016. As a result, she was introduced to top scientists at CSIRO who are now mentoring her through her current project of turning discarded prawn shells into bio-plastic. The spur for this idea was a visit to her local fish and chip shop and the sight of discarded piles of crab and prawn shells, smelly and destined for the bin. Surely there had to be a better, more sustainable way of disposing them, thought Angelina. So she took some of this waste to her school lab and began experimenting.

“Prawn shells consist of a hard yet flexible protein called chitosan. I combined this with fibroin, another sticky protein extracted from the silk of silkworms. This shrimp plastic was sturdier than the corn-starch bioplastic I made from plant sources. It does not disintegrate in water. And when it finally disintegrates, it doesn’t leave harmful substances in nature. In fact, it can act as a fertiliser for plants,” explains this young scientist. “Right now, I have got offers for developing this product commercially for packaging products.”

Angelina has, in fact, been declared the winner of the Innovator to Market award for the 2018 BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards and this will make her research a practical reality. She hopes this new plastic could replace plastic shopping bags and other packaging to reduce the environmental impact on landfills and oceans.

Angelina acknowledges that she couldn’t have done this all alone. “I am lucky to have people in the CSIRO and Sydney University, my parents and school science teachers to guide me,” she says. Time management seems easy for this young lady who balances inventing, school work, swimming, cricket, playing the clarinet and piano, public speaking, dance, drama and volunteering.

Angelina says she hopes to be a role model for other young girls considering a career in science. “I am not sure if I want to be a doctor or an environmental engineer yet. All I know for now is that I would like to help people and nature,” she says, revealing the mind of a confused teenager, just this one time.

PLASTIC 2.0

• Prawn shells consist of a hard yet exible protein called chitosan.

Angelina combined this with broin, another sticky protein extracted from the silk of silkworms

• It is sturdier than the corn-starch bioplastic Angelina made from plant sources. It does not disintegrate in water.

• When it nally disintegrates, it doesn’t leave harmful substances in nature. In fact, it can act as a fertiliser for plants

• Angelina has had offers for developing this product commercially for packaging products

PNB fraud: CBI arrests five staffers of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi

The CBI on 20 February arrested five employees of diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi in the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.

Those arrested include three employees of the Nirav Modi group of companies and two of the Choksi-owned Gitanjali group.

Nirav Modi’s Firestar International firm’s President Vipul Ambani, its Senior Executive Arjun Patil, and Executive Assistant and authorised signatory of the diamond merchant’s three accused firms, Kavita Mankikar, were arrested after daylong questioning.

Chief Managing Officer (CFO) of Gitanjali group, Kapil Khandelwal, and its Manager Niten Shahi were also held.

The arrests were made in two cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 14 and 15 February against Nirav Modi and the Gitanjali group of firms respectively.

The CBI had earlier arrested five PNB officials and one authorised signatory of Nirav Modi.

Meanwhile, the CBI on 19 Feb sealed the Brady House Branch of the Punjab National Bank as multiple probe agencies continued with their probe into the Rs 11,515 crore fraud, according to officials.

The Central Bureau of Investigation pasted an official notice outside the branch in Fort - the bank’s flagship lending window in Mumbai and its second largest national outlet.

All have been barred from opening or entering inside this branch without prior permission of the CBI or the CBI Special Court or the CBI Competent Authority.

The central agency also questioned 10 Punjab National Bank (PNB) officials, including an Executive Director, and 18 employees of Nirav Modi and the Gitanjali group.

A CBI team also conducted raids at diamantaire Nirav Modi’s Alibaug farmhouse near Mumbai which has a palatial bungalow, an official said.

The CBI also questioned 10 employees of Gitanjali group firms - Gitanjali Gems Ltd, Gili India Ltd, and Nakshatra Brands Ltd.

Gitanjali group and its India-based 18 subsidiaries are headed by Mehul C. Choksi.

The central agency is also said to have seized some significant documents from the Navi Mumbai, Andheri and Dombivli residences of three PNB officials arrested on 19 Feb.

The CBI had raided these places on 19 Feb after the arrest of Brady House branch’s Chief Manager Bechu B Tewari and two colleagues Yashwant Joshi, Scale II Manager (Forex Department), and Praful Sawant, Scale I officer (Export) after daylong questioning.

While the CBI is scrutinising the details of LoUs and FLCs submitted by the PNB, the bank’s head office too has scrutinised the documents and submitted a report to the CBI. An LoU is a guarantee by the bank that should the borrower default on repayment, it would pay back the money to the original lender.

An FLC is a sort of guarantee to a third part or vendor that money for the goods supplied would be paid.

The scam surfaced when officials of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi groups approached the PNB’s Brady House Branch in January to seek LoU for making payments to suppliers. Shetty had retired last May and the new PNB officials demanded margin money to issue the LoUs.

However, they were told by Nirav Modi group officials that they had been getting such a facility for years without any margin money. Once the PNB officials checked, the whole fraud unravelled.

Rotomac took Rs 2,919 cr loan for wheat export but failed to execute business: CBI

Rotomac Global Private Limited cheated a consortium of banks to the tune of Rs 3,695 crore (including interest) by siphoning off loans sanctioned to the company for procurement of wheat and other goods for export.

No export was undertaken, though, according to officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who referred to details given in the Bank of Baroda complaint.

The central agency filed an FIR on 18 Feb in the case after getting a complaint against the Rotomac Pen company’s chief Vikram Kothari, his wife Sadhana and son Rahul. The complaint said that the consortium of seven banks had extended credits to the Kanpur-based firm and its related companies from 2008.

Kothari is the Chairman and Managing Director of Rotomac while his wife and son are directors of the company.

Kothari had obtained Rs 2,919 crore from the consortium of seven banks - Bank of India (Rs 754.77 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 456.63 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 771.07 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs 458.95 crore), Allahabad Bank (Rs 330.68 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs 49.82 crore) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rs 97.47 crore), the FIR by the CBI said.

CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal, quoting the Bank of Baroda complaint, said, “Rotomac cheated the consortium of banks by siphoning off bank loans.”

Interestingly, the official said Rotomac was working for interest rate differential in local and foreign currency. “A number of front and fictitious companies were formed to carry out illegal activities by Rotomac which submitted forged documents to obtain the money from the banks,” Dayal said.

The official said the credit disbursed and sanctioned to the company was utilised for the purposes other than executing export orders.

“For example, credit sanctioned for export order received from Singapore for supply of wheat was diverted to a Singapore-based firm Bargadia Brothers Pvt Ltd but the money was later remitted back to Rotomac,” he said.

“In other cases, the money disbursed by bank for procurement of goods and some other export materials was not utilised for this purpose and no export order was executed by the Rotomac.”

The official said “this misappropriation of funds” violated the FEMA (Foreign Exchange

Management Act) guideline.

Bank of Baroda also alleged in its complaint that “most of the transactions of Rotomac are with limited number of buyers, sister companies and sellers and no genuine business transactions were carried out,” according to another CBI official who did not want to be named.

Coming close on the heels of the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank’s fraud, the Rotomac case that surfaced had fanned speculations that Kothari too, might try and flee the country. However, the CBI could reach Kanpur and question the three accused.

‘Each year, 600,000 newborns die within 28 days of birth in India’

A quarter of global neonatal deaths happen in India where nearly 600,000 newborns die within 28 days of their birth every year, according to a new UNICEF study.

The study, which found the number of newborn deaths in India was one of the highest in the world, says the causes of such deaths are preventable and treatable as 80 per cent of these fatalities happen for no serious reason.

On a brighter side, the study says, India has remarkably reduced the under-five mortality.

“Though infant mortality in the country has declined considerably, the number of newborns dying each year remains unacceptably high. India, with nearly 600,000 newborn deaths each year, accounts for a quarter of the global burden of neonatal deaths,” said UNICEF in its global report on neonatal mortality “Every Child Alive” released on 20 Feb.

Of the 184 countries, which the report covers, India’s 31 rank with 25.4 neonatal mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) kept the world’s seventh largest economy below 153 countries who have better survival rates for their newborns.

A year earlier, India was the 28th worst country among 184 nations in terms of neonatal mortality.

The first 28 days of life - the neonatal period - are the most vulnerable time for a child’s survival. Children face the highest risk of dying in their first month of life, at a global rate of 19 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Globally, 2.6 million children died in the first month of life in 2016, most of which occurred in the first week, with about one million dying on the first day and close to one million dying within the next six days.

“Among those children, more than 80 per cent died from preventable and treatable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia,” says the UN children’s agency.

Affordable and quality healthcare solutions should be there for every mother and newborn. It includes steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, disinfecting the umbilical cord, breastfeeding within the first hour after birth and skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child, it said.

“India is currently off-track to meet the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) target for neonatal mortality of 12 by 2030,” said the report. However, the country has made impressive progress in reduction of underfive mortality and with the current rate of decline “is on track to meet the SDG target for the under-five mortality of 25 per 1000 live births by 2030.”

India registered a reduction of 66 per cent in under-five deaths during 1990 to 2015, nearly meeting its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target. In comparison, the decline in under-five mortality for the world was 55 per cent.

The recent progress is even better, with 120,000 fewer deaths in 2016 as compared to 2015. The number of annual under-five deaths in India has gone below one million for the first time in 2016, said the agency.

On the policy front, introduction of conditional cash transfers, provision of free transport services - 102 and 108 - and making free healthcare an entitlement for every women and infant have led to doubling of institutional deliveries from 39 per cent in 2005 to 79 per cent in 2016.

However, the progress has been inequitable for girls, with under-five mortality rate for girls being at 41 per 1,000 as against 37 per 1000 for boys. India is the only big country in the world to have a higher mortality for girls as compared to boys, it said and added girls are biologically stronger but socially vulnerable in India.

IT exports growth likely to be 7-9% in 2018-19: Nasscom

India’s IT exports are expected to grow at 7-9 per cent to be at $135-$137 billion in 2018-19, the industry outlook by the National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) said on 20 Feb.

The IT exports during the current financial year are projected to be $126 billion, a growth of 7-8 per cent over the previous year.

The domestic revenues, excluding hardware, are expected to grow by 10-12 per cent to be at $28-29 billion in the next financial year against $26 billion likely in FY2018.

During 2018-19, the industry is expected to add 100,000 new jobs, the same numbers added during the current year.

Nasscom announced the key trends for the current year and the outlook for the next year on the sidelines of the special edition of Nasscom India Leadership Forum in conjunction with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT).

Nasscom president R Chandrasekhar told reporters that the positive outlook is based on global economic growth and growth trends of digital spending.

“The year 2017-18 began on a muted note, but driven by a better growth in the second half of the year is expected to clock revenues of $167 billion, representing a growth of 7.8 per cent for export revenues and 10 per cent in domestic revenues. E-commerce sector is expected to grow by 17 per cent in GMV terms,” he said.

Nasscom expects that the future of the industry will lie in ‘Digital at Scale’ as global digital spending is growing at 20 per cent annually. India’s digital revenues grew at 30 per cent in FY 2018, demonstrating the base for a solid foundation in digital capabilities built by the sector.

“It’s a great milestone for the software and services industry to cross $150 billion - tripling in size in less than a decade. The growth of the B2B startup sector also represents a unique opportunity for India to build innovative solutions for India and the world. However what lies ahead is even more exciting. From small digital pilots, to POCs with product players, we are witnessing industrialisation of digital as the wave ahead,” said Raman Roy, Chairman, Nasscom.

Indian-American teacher hailed for saving students during Florida shooting

A quick-acting Indian-American maths teacher is being hailed for saving the lives of her students during the shooting rampage at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

When an alarm sounded for the second time on 14 Feb, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

“She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids,” Dawn Jarboe, the mother of one of Viswanathan’s students, told the newspaper.

When an elite police contingent known as a SWAT team came and knocked on the door asking her to open it, “Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn’t a trick by the gunman to get in” the newspaper said.

“She said, ‘knock it down or open it with a key. I’m not opening the door,’” Jarboe quoted her as telling the police.

“Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room,” Jarboe’s son, Brian, texted his mother, the newspaper said.

A former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, barged into Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine’s Day and killed 15 students and two staff members with an AR-15 automatic rifle.

Iconic Howrah Bridge turns 75

Kolkata’s British-era Howrah Bridge, which ferries over 100,000 vehicles and over 150,000 lakh pedestrians daily, has turned 75.

On 3 February 1943, the bridge was thrown open to the public, replacing a pontoon bridge linking what was then Calcutta and Howrah.

The steel colossus - christened Rabindra Setu (in 1965) after one of Kolkata’s greatest sons, Nobel Laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore - has become a symbol of the city over the decades, connecting the bustling eastern metropolis with the terminal Howrah station over the Hooghly river - a distributory of the mighty Ganges.

However, the beginning of the journey, of what was the world’s fourth-longest cantilever suspension at that time, was unheralded, amid the dark days of World War II.

The 26,500 tonne structure, which finds mention in Rudyard Kipling’s works, was “thrown open to the public of Calcutta, as the city was then called, in the dead of night... a tramcar rolling down from the city end to the station,” says a commemorative coffee table book Howrah Bridge: An Icon in Steel brought out by Tata Steel.

“The eerie silence upon completion was a testament to the terrifying oppressiveness of the War. The Howrah Bridge was the targeted bridge for bombing.” The Japanese attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, “weighed heavily on every mind”.

The work at the site began in October 1936, and it took around six years to make the bridge ready for traffic.

And the construction work brought together all communities. “(It was) built in an environment of religious bonhomie between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. There were also the Nepalis, Gurkhas and even Pathans making valiant contributions... and never was a day lost to labour trouble,” the book says.

It needed special legislation to begin with - The Howrah Bridge Act, 1926 - as the structure involved a plethora of laws to acquire land, levy taxes, employ people and ensure maintenance. The Act was replaced later with the New Howrah Bridge Act of 1935.

The bridge aroused much interest worldwide. The London-based monthly magazine The Engineer - considered the voice of authority on all matters related to engineering, technology and innovationfollowed and reported every major discussion on the upcoming structure.

Rendel, Palmer and Tritton were the civil engineers, and the British company Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company Ltd secured the contract for the whole work. The Calcutta-based Baithwaite, Burn and Jessop became the sub-contractors for the fabricated steel work.

The Tata Iron and Steel Company supplied 23,500 tonnes out of the total 26,500 tonnes of steel for the project. The remaining 3,000 tonnes were made in England.

With the completion of the bridge, where not a single nut or bolt was used, the Kolkata skyline changed forever. It is now the sixthlargest bridge of its kind in the globe.

The Kolkata Port Trust is the custodian of the bridge that stretches for 2,150 feet and rises up to 280 feet from its foundation.

On June 24, 2005, a private cargo vessel had its funnel stuck underneath for three hours, causing Rs 15 million worth damages. Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, the original bridge consultants, were called in, and they provided matching steel used during the construction, for the repairs.

Corrosion, bird droppings and paan (beetle leaf) mingled spit have damaged the bridge. In 2011, an inspection showed that, between 2007 and 2011, spitting had reduced the thickness of the steel hoods protecting the pillars from six millimetres to less than three millimetres.

Remedial measures were taken and regular painting done. “In 2014, Kolkata Port Trust spent Rs 6.5 million to paint 2.2 million square metres with a whopping 26,000 litres of lead-free paint.”

“Between 2013 and 2016, the average annual expenditure on engineering maintenance was Rs 2.5 crore,” said the book.

The bridge has featured in numerous films by Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Raj Kapoor, Roland Joffe and Mira Nair, to name just a few. Shakti Samanta’s Hindi film Howrah Bridge, with the beautiful Madhubala in the lead, was a huge box office success.