Forget the US versus Russia. The real space race is taking place in Asia.” This comment came in from the CNN soon after ISRO’s (Indian Space Research Organization) recent launch. Considering the cartoon released by The New York Times after ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission launch in 2014, this news story is indeed a step in the positive direction.

Itanagar is among the list of 11 cities, also including Shimla, Jammu, Bangalore, Patna, Amaravati and Srinagar, which have been given wildcard entries to the Government of India’s smart city mission. While several discussions, competitions, polls have been announced to spark up the Smart City Itanagar initiative on the Government’s website (www.mygov.in), further details will be uploaded on the website in due course to invite public opinions on the proposed projects for the city.

In its unending quest to bring affordable health care solutions and diagnostic practices CSIR-CCMB is working towards “Affordable clinical diagnostic using paper-based Microfluidics devices using micro and nanotechnological approaches”, such as blood typing, ESR, pregnancy kits (livestocks), cholesterol, low temperature molecular diagnosis (nucleic acid detection) etc. apart from tools such as non-expensive subtract for surface enhance Raman spectroscopy (SERS).

With the continued support of MyGov and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), anchored by T-Hub Foundation, #IFDIChallenge2.0 has revealed its top 3 winning teams. Allizhealth, iNICU & iCHR and Banyan Nation are the top three teams of the Intel & DST – Innovate for Digital India Challenge 2.0 (Challenge 2.0). They will receive a grant worth INR 5,00,000, per team.

Situated at an altitude of 5200 feet above the sea level in Sub–Himalayan Shivalik (the three peaked Trikuta hills) range is the world famous cave shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji. The pilgrims have to trek nearly 12 Km from the base camp at Katra for the darshan at sanctum sanctorum which remains open round the clock throughout the year.

As per the Smart City Mission Guidelines citizens engagement is mandatory activity at all level with respect to preparation of smart city challenge stage 2 proposal. The following activities have been taken by MCS/WAPCOS-OASIS:

Faridabad Smart City Limited conducted a concept design competition for (1) Street: street connecting old Faridabad railway station to old Faridabad metro station (2) Lake front Development: Bhadkal Lake (3) Parks & water body: Barahi Talab Area.

Indian urbanization level amongst comparable countries is one of the lowest in the world. At the same time it is a fact that Indian cities are growing at a rate that outpaces our population. At present 31.75% of India’s population lives in cities and approximately 60% of GDP of the country is derived from the Indian urban economy.

The gift of sight is god-given. CSIR-CSIO team has developed “Divya Nayan” a personal reading machine for visually impaired to access printed or electronic textual information. The device is useful for the targeted disability group for accessing printed and digital information.

Soleckshaw, a Pedicab, is an optimally-designed, pedal-operated as well motor-assisted, zero-carbon emission urban transport vehicle. The concept of Soleckshaw owes its genesis to the realization that the dignity of human labour needs to be upheld while ensuring sustainable environment and that all devices must be designed to decrease human strain and also greenhouse gas emission.