Current State of Higher Education in India: Issues and Challenges - Prof., Amity University Gwalior

In India, university education system is in the state of frustrate and disrepair.  Due to low quality education, the students’ enrollments in technical education are abysmally low in almost seventy percentages of the districts of India. In India, almost sixty six percentages of total universities and ninety percentages of technical colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters. There are so many institutes and university are facing acute problem of admission, placement, good faculty and are near to close down.

In India, Higher education system is suffering from several systemic deficiencies. As a result, these institutes and universities are continuously producing the graduates that are unemployable despite of emerging shortages of skilled manpower in an increasing number of sectors. The standard of quality education and academic research in higher education institutes and universities are low and continuous declining. There is, indeed, a multitude of interconnected problems that India faces in its higher education system; in a summary and particularly incisive diagnostic, one of the more thorough recent analyses of the situation describes both the scope and the seriousness of the challenge:

• The unwieldy affiliating system
• Inflexible academic structure
• Shortage of good academicians and researchers
• No policy or strategy for attracting good faculty, researchers, and students 
• Uneven capacity across various subjects
• Eroding autonomy of academic institutions 
• The low level of public funding
• Dysfunctional regulatory environment and low coverage of the accreditation system
• Absence of incentives for performing well in academic and research
• The quality and relevance of the curriculum in higher education with industry demand
• The role of assessment and evaluation in higher education
• The state of research both within and outside institutions of higher education.
• The High Level exploitations in private universities and institutes
• Non-uniformity and standard course structures, and non-updation of course structure on time
• Course contents are not designed as per the requirement of Industry 
• Lacking of infrastructure and environment for Research and Development

The quantity/quality, regulation, privatization, staffing, and studying in abroad are the prominent factors for seeding critical issues in higher education system in India.

1. Excellence and expansion 

It is evident that Department of Higher and Technical Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development of Government of India is facing major challenge in developing quality and quantity in education system in India.

2. Regulation and governance

The University Grants Commission (UGC) New Delhi is a statutory, regulatory authority of higher education in India.UGC is responsible for laying down the rules and regulations for the promotion and co-ordination of University education and for the determination and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination and research in Universities, and for the purpose of performing its functions. The current state of higher and technical education in India clearly shows that UGC is not doing its duty and responsibilities sincerely. The anxiety of society toward the higher and technical education has forced me to critically analyze the functionality of UGC and raised the voice of society in the form of some questions to UGC: Is the UGC doing its duty sincerely for which it was formed? Is UGC murdering the objectives, purposes for which it was constituted by parliament of government of India? Has the UGC empowered to only for making/laying down the rules and regulations not for their implementations? Is UGC closely monitoring the all university? Are all universities following the UGC norms on timely or not? If no, what actions have taken by UGC against university? Has UGC laid down the high quality standard, rules, and regulations for granting permission/recognition to any University and their strict implementation? Has UGC made any transparent system for recognition/ de-recognition? Why UGC is not making mandatory criteria for appointing/promoting candidates to Professor those who have at least 10 high quality research papers in SCI/SSCI/HSCI indexed nonpaid journals of high impact factors or having at least two/three patents? Is there any system that can honestly rate the university on the basis of quality of teaching and research, infrastructure, faculty and level of implementation of UGC rules and regulations? Does the all above mentioned activities not come in purview of UGC? Educationalist/ Academician/ Administrator who is responsible for this pathetic situation of higher and technical education in India?

3. The privatization of higher education

The private institutes and universities have entered into higher education system with an objective of enhancing the quality of education and research.  These institutes attempted to respond to the massive demand of technocrats, budding researchers. It is a good step for expanding the horizons of higher and technical education in India but there is sky height exploitation of their employees, students, society in private university. Some private institutes are also declining the quality of teaching and research and also producing the large number of graduates that are unemployable despite of emerging shortages of skilled manpower in an increasing number of sectors.

4. Staffing higher education

There is a strong need to form the large pool of highly capable scholars from both private and public sectors to provide academic leadership in teaching and research. These scholars should be promoted for their research work publication in SCI indexed journals. This strategy will certainly increase the country and university ranking in research in the world through recording the institute existence in world ranking database of Thomson Reuters.

5. The study in abroad

It is notable that Indian scholars are continuously moving to European countries for earning higher and technical education. European countries are expanding and enhancing the pool of qualified Indians for excellence in teaching and research. MHRD, Government of India has to think why are Indian scholars moving to European countries for study?

This article presents the current state of higher education in India. It can be concluded that the university education system in India is in turbulent, aggravate and disrepair state. This article shows the real and critical stage of higher and technical education in India.

This article pointed out that moving boldly in the direction of an international competitive system of higher education and research will be gainful, and overcome the current issues and challenges of higher and technical education in India and will help us in recording our existence in Times Higher Education World University Rankings database of Thomson Reuters. This article may be useful for MHRD for devising the new policy and strategy for enhancing the higher and technical education in India.

DR. M K PACHARIYA

Mathematics Is the STEM of Science by Dr. Prashant Shrivastava, Amity Gwalior

It is a well known saying that” Mathematics is the Mother of all Sciences”. Here in abbreviation STEM, S stands for Science T for Technology, E for Engineering and M for Mathematics.
Mathematics relies almost entirely on imagination and discovery that come from the human mind. There are no boundaries to mathematical ideas. From Ancient Times to the Present Age of Information a common man thinks that, mathematics is just addition, subtraction, multiplication and division but mathematics is rich in history and application. It is used:
• to break codes during war time
• to analyze documents
• to design transportation systems
• to compute missile trajectories and satellite orbits
• to handle complex management scheduling
From the ancient Egyptians to the robotics scientists of this century, mathematics has been integral to many technical advances in the history of humankind.
Mainly, mathematics is classified into two branches: pure and applied mathematics.
  Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that deals with mathematical methods that find use in science, engineering, business, computer science, civil, architecture and industry. From the ancient time linguistic is playing a vital role in the field of communication which distinguish human and animals ,beyond this when a cave man came out from the forest for the betterment of mankind unfold many fields like commerce transportation farming and industries. In each and every field requires direct or indirect application of mathematics. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge. The term "applied mathematics" also describes the professional specialty in which mathematicians work on practical problems by formulating and studying mathematical models. In the past, practical applications have motivated the development of mathematical theories, which then became the subject of study in pure mathematics where abstract concepts are studied for their own sake. The activity of applied mathematics is thus intimately connected with research in pure mathematics.                                      
Applied mathematics consisted principally of applied analysis, most notably differential equations; approximation theory and numerical analysis and probability. There is no consensus as to what the various branches of applied mathematics are. Such categorizations are made difficult by the way mathematics and science change over time, and also by the way universities organize departments, courses, degrees and applications of mathematics. The use and development of mathematics to solve industrial problems is also called "industrial mathematics".
The success of modern numerical mathematical methods and software has led to the emergence of computational mathematics, computational science, and computational engineering, which use high-performance computing for the simulation of phenomena and the solution of problems in the sciences and engineering. These are often considered interdisciplinary disciplines.
However, since World War II, fields outside of the physical sciences have spawned the creation of new areas of mathematics, such as Optimization Methods, game theory .Statistical theorists study and improve statistical procedures with mathematics, and statistical research often raises mathematical questions. Statistical theory relies on probability and decision theory, also in neural networks, which arose out of the study of the brain in neuroscience.
Academic status
In Amity, Academic Status is consistent in the way they group and label courses, programs, and degrees in applied mathematics. Many programs consist of primarily cross-listed courses and jointly appointed faculty in departments representing applications. Some Ph.D. programs in applied mathematics require little or no coursework outside of mathematics, while others require substantial coursework in a specific area of application. In some respects this difference reflects the distinction between "application of mathematics" and "applied mathematics”. Operations and management science are often taught in faculties of engineering, business, and public policy. Computer science relies on logic and algebra.
Mathematicians Are in Demand!
Career possibilities include work in finance, cryptology, computer graphics, medicine, robotics, economics, statistics, teaching, and management science.
Today, the term "applied mathematics" is used in a broader sense. It includes the classical areas noted above as well as other areas that have become increasingly important in applications. Even fields such as number theory that are part of pure mathematics are now important in applications (such as cryptography), though they are not generally considered to be part of the field of applied mathematics. Sometimes, the term "applicable mathematics" is used to distinguish between the traditional applied mathematics that developed alongside physics and the many areas of mathematics that are applicable to real-world problems today.

Innovation Of Innovativeness by Asst. Prof. Dr Prashant Shrivastava Amity Gwalior

Everybody is a born innovative thinker. Innovation comes from within an individual’s conscience. Just look at any child engaged in a tricky game and observe how he finds the way to solve it. Innovative thinking is present in all of us, but during the period of our initial years of our life, we are trained to hold back our uniqueness, our creativity, and our novelty. Our society believes that if we "fit in" and conform we will be happier in life. We are trained from the tender age to color always inside of the lines. As a result, we mislay our ability to express our creativity and innovation as adults.

The good thing is that there’s optimism in being creative. Like any other skill, innovation is a learned behavior whether it’s driving a car, playing the guitar, or just being a good performer. There are a few ways, in my opinion, to excel our innovativeness in any field:

• Give ourselves the time and the space to be imaginative and creative.
• Never stop the trait of inquisitiveness
• Constantly question ourselves and our working practices. Instead of adhering to stale techniques, one should always be thinking of alternative approaches when it comes to solving issues and problems.
• Put ourselves into a work individually at times and as well as in groups.
• Every idea is not liable to be the best one. One should allow the fresh air to flow in.
• Make the creativity a fun not a set target. 

Rethinking Education by Iti Roychowdhury Amity University Gwalior

The killing of 132 school children in Peshawar on Dec 16, 2014, at point blank range shook the sensibilities of the entire civilized world. That innocent children were made to sit with heads bowed, waiting to be shot, is a horror that refuses to go away. This was no collateral damage .It was  deliberate massacre. But  Peshawar does not stand alone in its infamy. News of killings of children has been on the rise in the recent past- shootouts in schools in US, killing of 186 children held as  hostages in Russia and others. And it is not happening only in far off distant lands. We have our own Make in India tales of horror – tales of negligence, callous indifference, disregards for the weak- children dying of poisoning in Mid Day Meal in Bihar, incidents of roof collapse of schools in UP and UK, rape of minor girls across the country and numerous similar stories.  This is alarming and in gross violation of the code of warfare and code of society, that forbids killing  of women and children.

That it should come to this! Religion, politics, economics – there are myriad reasons with one truth- man killing the young and weak. And this when all Mammals are biologically programmed to protect and nurture their young .We as a nation seriously need a social audit. What has gone wrong in the raising of our children that they have matured into such monsters?

One of the paradigm shifts has been in the system of education. We have completely done away with the tradition of Liberal Arts. The focus of learning has shifted from inculcating a  spirit of enquiry to skills development. The student, the teacher and the parents , each looks at a lesson and learning only from the perspective of its utility in procuring a good job-via a good college, good campus , good salary . The humanizing effect of poetry: reduced to learning by rote. Fascination for the natural world: reduced to learning of answers to expected questions in the competitive exams. Study of basic sciences leading to a thrill of discovery: reduced to mastering technology to satiate the consumer. The new age Mantra is:  Don’t sit and marvel at the glory of Daffodils in bloom in the poem. Read it, pick up the vocabulary, learn the language and get on with the earnest business of earning a living. Don’t learn of Plato or Socrates. That will beget you no job. Don’t waste time on Lands and People. You are not migrating to a remote country in the middle of deepest Africa, practice Math instead.
Christian Kopf says, “A society without trained workers will not get its work done. A society without educated citizens will collapse in times of crises, and will wither away in times of ease and prosperity.” It is important to strike the right balance. A child who starts preparation for IIT admission in Class VI may get a sound technical training, but his education would be skewed. When will we wake up? Insensitivity, cruelty, selfishness and outright animal violence are already taking root. Unless some remedial steps are taken as priority one, we may have own Peshawar tomorrow.

Vastu As Science By AR.MONIKA S. GUPTA, Amity University Gwalior

VAASTU IS A SCIENCE AN ART OF LIVING IN HARMONY WITH THE NATURE. IT IS BASED ON RESEARCHES, INSTRUMENTS, DATABASE CASE STUDIES.

Vastu is the scientific study of directions, which aims at utilizing the natural energies that are available free of cost, for the benefit of humans, by creating an equilibrium between man and material. As a science, it extracts the positive energy from the natural elements of the universe - the panchbhootas, namely, earth, water, air, sun and sky. It all these five elements, for creating a congenial setting or a place to live or work in, in most the scientific way, exploiting the benefits bestowed by the five basic elements.
Vaastu is a science of balancing building with the laws of nature. A Vaastu friendly or nature friendly building is perfectly balanced with nature, subtle energies around and five elements. Now a days we are having National Building code, which gives us certain regulations to construct building, whereas in past our ancestors were having Vastu Shastra as a religious code.Vaastu is known as Sthapatya Veda or the Science of architecture. In the ancient period, Vaastu and architecture were one. Vaastu is in fact an architectural science which focuses on designing building considering the latitude, longitude and altitude of the place, climatology, land, location, subtle energies around and psychology of occupants.  There are lots of benefits easily possible through Scientific Vaastu. Sound sleep, efficiency, comfort level, relaxation, concentration, mental stability, strong immune system, better energy levels, fresh active feel and improved relationships are some of them. Vastu can be used for every room, every house, every temple, every shop industry, town planning, tour, cities and even for earth. Vastu can be used for micro as well as for macro level.
 Vastu shastra is based on various natural energies, which are available in atmosphere, mainly:

• SOLAR ENERGY
• COSMIC  ENERGY
• MAGNETIC ENERGY

1. SOLAR ENERGY  Every creature on earth starts its life with sunrise as it performs day & night. Hence there is much importance of sun in every one life. It gives ultra violet rays in morning and infra red rays in evening which one basic need to reduce / generate bio-chemical germs, N2/ Oxygen / CO2 on earth.
Sun indicates light (illumination) will power, generosity, solar system, luck or fate, mobility and in body. It rules over bone, eye, heart, spinalcord, blood circulation and soul etc. Hence east direction is auspicious; it belongs to lord Indra. North is considered auspicious since magnetic lines of forced moves from North to South, thus origin of all the life.
There are three forces in action to create harmony. Wind, water and fire or, vaayu, jal and Agni. If these forces are kept in their appropriate places, then there will be no disturbance. But if water is put in place of fire and wind in place of water or in any other combination, the forces will start acting accordingly and create disharmony and unpeacefulness.

2. COSMIC ENERGY OR ‘PRANA’
Prana is the Sanskrit  for “vital life”.. It is an auto-energizing force which creates a magnetic field and permeates each individual as well as the Cosmos at all levels. This self-energizing force is is the bond between the galaxies, the planets, humans and molecules which keeps the whole Cosmos in order. All beings are born through it and live by it. When they die, their individual breath dissolves into the cosmic breath.
It is surprising that the Vastu pundits of ancient times knew of this ‘life-force’ and so, “Prana” or the cosmic energy was considered an important Vaastu factor and taken into account while designing buildings. One of the goals of Vaastu in designing, is to restore balance between the building structure and the cosmos because when buildings echo the underlying cosmic principles, they vibrate in harmony with the universe and these vibrations affect the inmates in a positive way creating peace, prosperity and contentment in their lives.
Restore the balance of cosmic energy “prana” in buildings In Vastu, the movement of cosmic energy also called ‘prana’ through a 4-sided building is believed to be similar to the flow of energy across the Earth. It flows in a definite direction – from the North-East direction towards the South-East and North-West corners before heading to the South-West. Keeping this flow in mind, Vastu Shastra prescribes an ideal plan called the “Vastu Purusha Mandala” to ensure that the ‘prana’ or ‘cosmic energy’ moves smoothly through a building and around it. In the Vastu Mandala, the main entrance door is positioned  in the North-East to facilitate the entry of prana into the house from the North-East. Also, there is a central open court which facilitates the flow of prana into all the rooms.

3. THE MAGNETIC ENERGY
The Earth’s magnetic field is similar to that of a bar magnet with one pole near the geographic North pole and the other near the geographic South pole. The Earth’s magnetic field is mostly caused by convection of molten iron within the outer liquid core, along with a Coriolis effect caused by the overall planetary rotation, which organizes these “electric currents” in rolls aligned along the North-South polar axis. The magnetic energy flows out of the stronger magnetic North pole (near the geographic South) into the magnetic South pole. To avoid confusion just remember that the magnetic energy is stronger in the South and flows to the North.
‘Earth’s magnetic field’ an important vastu shastra factor Though geomagnetic storms have a negative effect on humans, on the positive side, it has been observed that the stronger magnetic North pole (Earth’s geographic South) has a positive effect on the body while the magnetic South pole (Earth’s geographic North) has a negative effect. The reason for this has not been scientifically explained.
One of the goals of Vastu in designing buildings, is to ensure that humans are constantly aligned in the right magnetic axis while they are inside the house, so that the Earth’s magnetic field has a positive effect on them rather than the opposite.

Vastu Shastra take into account the earth’s magnetic field in the design of structures
Some of the Vastu Shastra principles that ensure humans benefit from the positive effects of the Earth’s magnetic field are explained below. Since Vastu is a science, every guideline is based on logic and reasoning. As an Architect, I have attempted to explain these guidelines rationally and scientifically, so that you can decide what you want to follow and what you don’t.
One should never sleep with the head in the North. In fact it was said that only a dead body should be allowed to lie with the head in the North. To make it easy for us to remember, Vastu Shastra likened the Human body to a magnet with the Head as the North Pole and the feet as the South pole.  Therefore, if the head is directed towards the Earth’s North Pole, the two North Poles will repel each other and cause tension, disturbed sleep and other related health problems. So, the Vastu rule is that one should always keep the head away from the North while sleeping or sitting for long periods.  The Scientific Explanation - Since the Earth’s magnetic North pole (situated near the geographic South) is stronger and has a positive effect on humans, especially on their brains, one should always try to sleep or sit with the head in the South. Also, because the magnetic South pole (located near the Earth’s geographic North) has a negative effect, we must avoid sleeping with our heads in the North.
When sitting at the dining table or in the living room, one should sit facing East, North or West but avoid sitting facing South: The Scientific Reasoning - When you sit facing South,  your head is effectively in the North and your feet in the South. So, this causes the negative effect described above.
In the Puja room avoid idols facing North because then the worshipper has to face South which is not advisable. The Scientific Reason – When a worshiper sits facing South, his feet are towards the South and his head is in the North. This causes the negative effect explained above.
  

From Change Watcher To Change Leader By Asst. Prof. Rajiv Kumar Dwivedi Amity Gwalior

In today’s dynamic world the only thing which is constant is change. Being a part of any business environment you can never remain a change watcher as it is going to affect you sooner or later. Moment this thing is understood by any employee of an organization in real sense there will be three things which will happen to him. Either to accept the change happily, or to accept the change unhappily or not to accept the change. In the last case in which the employee does not accept the change, either he will have to leave the organization of his own or he will be fired from the organization creating a Lose- Lose situation for the employee as well as for the organization.  In the second case in which the employee accepts the change unhappily, he will be affected by the change but he is not happy. In this case the employee will not be motivated for long and he will not be fully engaged with the organization, at least the mental disengagement is bound to happen creating a Win – Lose for the employee and the organization which in long run will create a Lose – Lose situation for both the parties. Now taking about the first case in which the employee happily accepts the change. In this case the employee is happy, motivated and fully engaged mentally and physically with the organization and this is actually a Win – Win situation for both ie the employee and the employer (Organization).

Now once we know the best situation than why not to become a change leader and lead the change instead of mere accepting the change? Once we are able to understand this concept, we surely know that that the best way to manage a change is to lead the change. This can surely open new success avenues for all of us as well as not only can create a Win – Win situation but can create a Twin Win situation for both the employee as well as for the organization (organization).

Emphasizing Agility in Medium Scale Manufacturing Industries -By Asst Prof Nasir Khan Amity Gwalior

In the past, economies of scale ruled the manufacturing world and everybody knew that mass production and full utilization of plant capacity was the way to make money. This style of manufacturing resulted in inflexible plants that could not be easily reconfigured, and were associated with swollen raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventories. Since the early 1980s, in pursuit of greater flexibility, elimination of excess in inventory, shortened lead-times, and advanced levels of quality in both products and customer service, industry analysts have popularized the terms `world-class manufacturing’ and lean production’ .

The aim is to generate a framework that will reduce wastes and subsequently increase the flexibility in production. Customer Demand Uncertainty including lean and agile paradigms has been widely investigated so far and there are available research studies regarding this area.

In the past, economies of scale ruled the manufacturing world and everybody knew that mass production and full utilization of plant capacity was the way to make money. This style of manufacturing resulted in inflexible plants that could not be easily reconfigured, and were associated with swollen raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventories. Since the early 1980s, in pursuit of greater flexibility, elimination of excess in inventory, shortened lead-times, and advanced levels of quality in both products and customer service, industry analysts have popularized the terms `world-class manufacturing’ and lean production’ .

The aim is to generate a framework that will reduce wastes and subsequently increase the flexibility in production. Customer Demand Uncertainty including lean and agile paradigms has been widely investigated so far and there are available research studies regarding this area.

To compete effectively in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century, manufacturing companies are trying to maintain a high level of flexibility and responsiveness to achieve agility and to remain competitive. Manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to improve productivity and quality while reducing costs. The new competition is in terms of reduced cost, improved quality products with higher performance, a wider range of products and better services all delivered simultaneously to enhance value to customers. In such environment providing good quality product at low cost for a medium scale industry has become very tough. To provide good quality product at low cost, small industries need a formulation of some manufacturing approaches like agile manufacturing to manufacture defect free products within their materials cost limit. Medium scale steel manufacturing industries are facing problems of higher rejections in form of wastes so as to increase their cost. This blog aims to analyze the application of agile manufacturing in Medium scale steel manufacturing industries in order to reduce wastages through implementing lean tools and techniques. An agility audit questionnaire is used for assessing the agility level of the company to identify the current level of performance within the company with respect to the key elements of agility. MSI’s agile experience is reported including a list of recommendation for improving its competitiveness to offer solution alternatives not only to the current problems but also to the ones that may be encountered in the future.

Once companies pinpoint the major sources of waste, tools such as continuous improvement, autonomous maintenance, just in time, fishbone diagram and others will guide companies through corrective actions so as to eliminate waste. Continuous Improvement is another fundamental principle of lean manufacturing. One of the effective tools for continuous improvement is 5S, which is the basis for an effective lean company. Japanese name of Autonomous maintenance is JISHU HOZEN. This pillar is geared towards developing operators to be able to take care of small maintenance tasks, thus freeing up the skilled maintenance people to spend time on more value added activity and technical repairs. Cellular manufacturing is one of the cornerstones when one wants to become lean. The Fishbone Diagram is an easy to use and effective cause and effect technique developed by Kauoru Ishikawa.

CLIMATE CHANGE, ITS EFFECTS & SOLUTION Prof. Y.P.Singh Amity University Gwalior

                            

Climate change is already harming people and ecosystems. Its reality can be seen in melting glaciers, disintegrating polar ice, thawing permafrost, changing monsoon patterns, rising sea levels, changing ecosystems and fatal heat waves.

Scientists are not the only ones talking about these changes. From the apple growers in Himachal to the farmers in Vidharbha and those living in disappearing islands in the Sunderbans are already struggling with the impacts of climate change.

 This is just the beginning. We need to act to avoid terrible climate change. No one knows how much warming is "safe".

Early effects of small to moderate warming

• Rise in sea level due to melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of the oceans as global temperature increases.

• Massive release of greenhouse gases from melting permafrost and dying forests.

• A high risk of more extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and floods. The global incidence of drought has already doubled over the past 30 years.

• Severe regional impacts. Example: In Europe river flooding will increase and in coastal areas the risk of flooding, erosion and wetland loss will increase substantially.

• Natural systems, including glaciers, coral reefs, mangroves, Arctic ecosystems, alpine ecosystems, Boreal forests, tropical forests, prairie wetlands and native grasslands, will be severely threatened.

• The existing risks of species extinction and biodiversity loss will increase.

• The greatest impacts will be on the poorer countries least able to protect themselves from rising sea levels. There will be spread of disease and declines in agricultural production in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

• At all scales of climate change, developing countries will suffer the most.

Solutions for the climate
• Make sure emissions peak in 2015 and decrease as rapidly as possible towards zero after that.
• Developed countries must make cuts of 40 percent on their 1990 carbon emisisons by 2020.
• Developing countries must slow the growth of emissions by 15-30 percent by 2020, with support from industrialised nations.
• Protect tropical forests with a special funding mechanism - forests for climate.
• Replace dirty fossil fuel energy with renewable energy and energy efficiency.
• Reject false solutions like nuclear energy.
Now a Lima Climate Change Conference - December 2014 held & made some decisions & Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the Minister of the Environment of Peru and the COP President, said: 
Lima has given new urgency towards fast tracking adaptation and building resilience across the developing world—not least by strengthening the link to finance and the development of national adaptation plans.
He said. The Lima Climate Conference achieved a range of other important outcomes and decisions and "firsts" in the history of the international climate process.
• Pledges were made by both developed and developing countries prior to and during the COP that took the capitalization of the new Green Climate Fund (GCF) past an initial $10 billion target.
• Levels of transparency and confidence-building reached new heights as several industrialized countries submitted themselves to questioning about their emissions targets under a new process called a Multilateral Assessment.
• The Lima Ministerial Declaration on Education and Awareness-raising calls on governments to put climate change into school curricula and climate awareness into national development plans.

EXTREME BIONICS - Asso. Prof., Amity University, Gwalior

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. “Fifty years out, I think we will have largely eliminated disability”  patients spending  months in rehabilitation rooms trying out prosthetic legs, but they are not as good as flash and bone of normal human being. And hence are unacceptable. Surely, there will be a time when medical technologists could build replacement parts that wouldn’t slow them down.

The goal of the NeuroMechanics & Biomechatronics section of biomechanical engineering is to improve the quality of life humans with a movement disorder. We develop new interventions and diagnostic techniques based on fundamental insight in (impaired) human motor control. This is accomplished through the combination of computational modelling of the neuromechanial system and experiments using techniques from system and control engineering, such as closed loop system identification. This enables the development of devices to contribute to the improved diagnosis and treatment of participants with movement disorders."...
Technologist developed advanced prosthetics that can be used to walk, run, dance climb stairs and even go for mountaineering and rock climbing. Center for Extreme Bionics, is setting out not just to reinvent themselves but the whole of society. Physical disabilities will be a thing of past. It is not just physical disabilities but many emotional and intellectual infirmities as well.  The solutions lie not in biological or pharmacological cures but in novel electromechanical additions to our bodies. Scientists are part of a movement aimed at ushering medicine into a cyborg age. Engineers are building electronics-based systems that communicate directly with the human nervous system, promising radically new treatments for a variety of ailments and conditions, both physical and mental. While focus is more on giving people better control of their prosthetic limbs, it is equally possible to give patients better control of their emotions. One promising experiment targets depression with deep brain stimulation (DBS), in which electrodes implanted in the brain send steady pulses of electricity to certain problematic neural areas. Others area of development is to compensate for intellectual deficits & to build a memory-augmenting prosthetic.
Surprising range of afflictions can be most effectively treated by learning the electrical language that the brain uses to govern our movements, moods, and memories. It’s entirely possible that neural engineers may be fluent enough to mimic those instructions, allowing them to repair a human being’s faulty systems by rewiring them.
The body is electric. Neurons in the brain send out pulses of voltage when they “fire,” and the patterns of their pulses make up our sensations, our musings, and our actions. The electric signals generated in the brain also travel through the spinal cord and along the peripheral nerves to instruct the body’s muscles and organs. Medicine primarily relied on pharmaceuticals that could chemically alter the action of neurons or other cells in the body, but with the help of extreme bionics health care may be defined more by electroceuticals: novel treatments that will use pulses of electricity to regulate the activity of neurons, or devices that interface directly with our nerves.
Advanced prosthetic legs will allow amputees to control a titanium-and-plastic limb as naturally as they would a flesh-and-blood leg. The goal is to record and understand the brain’s commands and then to send those instructions to the prosthetic. Early version of such integrated devices are already under test, in that patients flexed the muscles around his knee as if they were taking a step; then an electromyograph captured the electric signal in those muscles and translated it into a digital signal that made sense to the microprocessors in his artificial foot. Even more direct connection between brain and machine will be possible, when one succeeds in connecting prosthetics directly to the peripheral nerves in amputee’s residual limbs. Not only could such a system relay more precise commands to the prosthetic, it could also send sensory information back up the nerves. And when amputees actually feel the grass beneath their prosthetic toes, it will change the way humans view this technology. When that happens it will not matter what [the prosthetic] is made of, it will be you.
The problem with traditional prostheses has always been that the wearer does most of the work, particularly when walking uphill or over uneven terrain. That may soon become a thing of the past. Bionic leg is a motorized, prosthetic system for transfemoral amputees. Technology is different because it works with, not against, the wearer. Unlike passive lower limbs, the new bionics knee is capable of both active flexion and extension, which makes it more energy-efficient and enables a more natural gait.  Sensors in the amputee's shoes send signals to the knee's computer, which reproduces the appropriate walking pattern. Whether you want to climb stairs, walk quickly or slowly, sit or stand, it recognizes it in real time. The new bionic limb is now working on a motorized ankle and artificial muscles, as well as a neural implant to replace the bionic leg's external sensors.
Seattle Systems, in conjunction with Sandia National Laboratories, is still working on a Smart Integrated Lower Limb (SILL). The final version will incorporate multiple sensors that feed data on pressure, position, and speed to a central processor that will control the knee as well as the ankle, foot and socket. The leg socket will adjust to the changing diameter of the wearer's residual limb over the course of a day. Pressure sensors in the foot will deliver a mild buzz to electrodes attached to the residual limb. Using these cues, amputees will be able to train their limb to “feel” their prosthetic foot as it hits the ground. The basic concept of the SILL is common to the schools of thought behind all bionics: An artificial limb, like a healthy one, should function as a unit, rather than a group of parts. This is the definition of bionic technology, in the truest, simplest sense, ’Total Integration’ - a direct link between human and machine.
People with bodily disabilities typically have crushing emotional difficulty of depression and often don’t know when it started. Depression is just the state of mind they live with daily, stripping the present of all pleasure and the future of all hope. Neuroscientists discovered that existential dread can be treated by using electricity to alter the activity of neurons, and they are now putting that knowledge to use DBS (Deep Brain Simulation) as one of the most exciting experimental treatments for depression, and uses an implanted “brain pacemaker” that sends steady pulses of electricity to certain brain regions. It’s a technology that was pioneered to stop Parkinson’s patients’ tremors, but it’s now being explored for a dizzying array of neural and psychiatric disorders, including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and PTSD.
Parkinson’s patients have had electrodes implanted in the motor control regions of their brains, where the stimulator’s pulses reduce the activity of neurons that are misfiring. But for disorders like depression, both the target for treatment and the mechanism of action are considerably less clear. “The limiting factor is actually the neuroscience, not the engineering, brain imaging is used for studies to pinpoint a particular region, Brodmann area 25, as overactive in depressed patients, and implanted the DBS device in this region of the brains of patients who haven’t responded to a slew of medications and therapies. While antidepressant medications typically take weeks to kick in, many patients in the DBS experiments have reported a shift in mood instantly—literally the moment that the device is turned on. Most patients have chosen to keep their DBS systems activated after the formal experiments ended
There are many variables that can influence the effectiveness of DBS; even if the trial had targeted the correct region, the timing of the pulses may have been off. The neuroscience initiatives in brain engineering are trying to develop new tools that can better record and analyze brain activity. The Human Brain Project is using supercomputers to simulate a complete human brain so as to better understand how it functions. DBS and other electrical techniques will be part of mainstream psychiatry, Scientists try to know as much about the workings of a neuron as engineers do about the workings of an electrode. Once physical and emotional disabilities have been conquered, the intellectual failures associated with aging will be a natural next target. In fact, cyborg may simply be the sensible and economical thing to do. We’re living longer, so aging problems, and cognitive problems in particular, are going to be more and more prevalent.  It’s quite possible that Alzheimer’s patients will be equipped with memory prosthetics derived from the devices. Delicate electrodes inserted into a rat’s hippocampus, the brain structure responsible for encoding memory. The relationship between the input signals from neurons that process a brief learning experience and the output signals from neurons that send the information is deciphered  Once correlations has been mapped between the two electrical patterns, one could record an input signal and predict the output signal—in other words, the memory. Elderly people could have devices that they switch on to remember something as trivial as where they put their car keys or as meaningful as their grandchildren’s names.
Synthetic body parts could easily become more desirable than biological parts, especially as people age. Such physical and cognitive enhancements could benefit individual humans. While engineering will play a central role in future medicine, biological treatments will hardly vanish. Those treatments will be shaped by the coming ubiquity of cheap genome sequencing, which will enable a new model of personalized genetic medicine. The change will start in the maternity ward, where newborns in their bassinets will receive full genome scans, resulting in complete printouts of their genetic vulnerabilities. Then, as those babies grow up and proceed through life, their physicians can design custom-made health-care regimens to ward off trouble and can prescribe the medications that their bodies will respond to best.

Dr. SANJAY GOMASTA
Associate Professor
Mechanical & Automation Engineering
ASET- AMITY UNIVERSITY GWALIOR