PM’s address at the 100th Indian Science Congress

INDIA: The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, addressed the Indian Science Congress, in Kolkata. Following is the text of the address:

"As General President of the Indian Science Congress Association, it is my great honour to welcome our Chief Guest, the Hon’ble President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. Our President is a distinguished statesman. His wisdom, knowledge and vast experience of public life are great national assets. I also welcome the galaxy of luminaries, practitioners, policymakers and worshippers of science who have come together today to celebrate the centenary of the Indian Science Congress.

By selecting Kolkata as the venue of this historic occasion, the Congress is celebrating its 100th Anniversary at the original home of the Association. Modern Indian science was largely nurtured here in the soil of Bengal. Kolkata’s credentials in science are burnished not only by the impressive list of institutions it hosts today, but by the inquisitiveness, creativity and liberalism that have defined its residents for many generations. I thank the Government of West Bengal, particularly the Governor, Narayanan, the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, and the people of Kolkata for their unstinting support to the Science Congress.

I would also like to take this opportunity to felicitate the Executive Committee and Members of the Council of the Indian Science Congress Association for their work during the year and for achieving many of the initiatives I had outlined in my inception address in this very city seven months ago.

On the centenary of the Association, let us pause for a minute to recall the foresight and determination of its founding fathers – Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, Prof. J. L. Simonsen and Prof. P.S. MacMahon. We also salute the genius and dedication of other stalwarts like Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Sir RN Mookerjee, Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, Sir M Visvesvaraya, Sir CV Raman, Sir SN Bose and Prof. Meghnad Saha, who made this great institution a vehicle for the spread of knowledge and progress for the Indian nation. Let their commitment and social consciousness be the guiding spirit of today’s scientists.

The theme of this Congress, `Science for Shaping the Future of India`, reflects the dream of every generation of Indian scientists. Faster growth over the next few decades, more sustainable development based on food and energy security, and socio-economic inclusion made possible by rapid growth of basic social services, such as education and health, are all crucial for defining India’s future. Science, technology and innovation all have an important role to play in achieving these objectives.

Science and technology development have been central to the phenomenal material advancement and efficiency in the use of resources seen in the last hundred years. The pace of change has only accelerated in the last few decades, as globalization and new technology have enhanced people’s access to knowledge and their ability to leverage it through collaboration. India has benefited from this epochal transformation by embracing these trends.

Since technological changes typically emanate from established structures, they may at times re-inforce them and inhibit the advancement of equity and equality. As India seeks a sustained growth of its national income, we must endeavour to harness the tools of science to cater to the needs of the underprivileged and to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Nearly 65 percent of our people live in rural areas. The increase in their living standards depends greatly on the growth of agricultural production and productivity. The Twelfth Five Year Plan assumes that a sustained growth of our agriculture at the rate of 4 percent per annum is essential for the achievement of food security for our country. This growth is constrained by shortages of water and also of land. We need new breakthroughs in water-saving technologies of cultivation, enhancement of land productivity and development of climate-resilient varieties. This transformation of agriculture must be the top priority concern of our public policies, including science and technology policies.

In keeping with the theme of this Congress, the question naturally arises as to what we should do to build our future through science? I would like to share a few ideas.

First, we must, as a society, enhance the spread of what Jawaharlal Nehru used to describe as the scientific temper. Our younger generations must adopt a science-based value-system in order to benefit from what science can offer and to make up for lost time. Complex issues, be they genetically modified food or nuclear energy or exploration of outer space, cannot be settled by faith, emotion and fear but by structured debate, analysis and enlightenment. A scientific approach and understanding of these issues are therefore as vital as our core scientific capabilities.

For this, we must invest in popularizing science, not only in our schools and colleges – as we are doing through the INSPIRE programme – but also in our homes, workplaces and communities through all available communication methods, like the high-speed optical fibre National Knowledge Network. Eventually, science must help in establishing an inclusive society that seeks to solve major social problems through the application of science.

Second, our scholarship and research must be informed by a keen awareness of our basic social and economic realities. Given the limited resources that we, as a nation, are able to devote to scientific research, it is imperative that we give priority to meeting those challenges which are fundamental to the transformation of our economy.

I have already referred to the need to transform India’s agriculture. But there are other equally valid concerns as well which require priority attention. The quest for energy security, sanitation, provision of safe drinking water, labour intensive manufactures and universal healthcare at affordable cost are other areas of high priority concern. Our effort should be to carve out a niche for India’s leadership in some of these areas. Indian industry must play an active part in this process through in-house research centres and, more importantly, through enhanced academia-industry interaction.

Third, a holistic organizational approach is essential. There was a time when science took a lonely road, driven by individual enterprise rather than collective effort. This is sub-optimal in the innovation and knowledge-intensive world that is empowering the growth process today. We need cross-fertilization of disciplines and synergy among stakeholders. Government-sponsored research must be supplemented by research in private labs. Academic and research systems must foster innovation and entrepreneurship and therefore link up with those interested in commercial development.

In the last few years, we have taken some policy measures in this direction. We have encouraged sharing of and access to Government-owned data for research. We have also created new mechanisms like Innovation Complexes, Technology Business Incubator and Innovation Universities in an effort to bring about convergence of interests among the various players in science.

Fourth, international collaboration is vital for increasingly resource-intensive modern science to progress. Economic liberalization and economic growth over the last several years have made it possible for our scientists to collaborate meaningfully and confidently in the international arena. Let me cite only two outstanding examples. There was significant Indian collaboration with the European Centre for Nuclear Research on the Large Hadron Collider, which led to the discovery of what is believed to be the elusive Higgs boson. The other example is our work with a select group of countries on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.

We must partner not only with established leaders in science and technology, but also with emerging innovation powerhouses, many of them in our region. We must also offer our expertise to our neighbours for collective prosperity and progress.

Finally, the quality of our scientific institutions will depend upon the quality of the students we can attract into science, the freedom we give them in pursuing scientific research and the human resource policies we follow in selecting leaders. We must select only the best and we must expand our search to the many Indian scientists abroad who may wish to return to India at least for some years.

The solution of even the simplest of problems related to humanity’s pressing needs often requires first-rate fundamental research. During the last eight years, we have tried to fill this gap by expanding the infrastructure of our scientific research and innovation. We have established five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, eight new Indian Institutes of Technology, sixteen new Central Universities, ten new National Institutes of Technology, six new R&D institutions in the field of biotechnology and five institutions in other branches. It is my hope that all this will significantly raise the quality of scientific research in our country.

Given that science-led innovation is the key to development, the National Innovation Council has also brought the domain of innovation to the foreground, helping translation of knowledge into usable solutions.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 released here today aspires to position India among the top five global scientific powers by the year 2020. It is an ambitious goal. It aims to produce and nurture talent in science, to stimulate research in our universities, to develop young leaders in the field of science, to reward performance, to create a policy environment for greater private sector participation in research and innovation and to forge international alliances and collaborations to meet the national agenda. The Twelfth Five-Year Plan, which was approved by the NDC a few days ago, outlines a number of initiatives, which will make this possible.

An important step in this direction in the Eleventh Plan was the establishment of the National Science and Engineering Research Board as an autonomous funding body. As pointed out in the Twelfth Plan, this institution proposes to invest in researches of proven track record and establish about 200 to 250 centres based on a grant model with performance reward linkages.

I would like to conclude by recalling Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s immortal lines in which he prayed for a future India where, among other things, a “clear stream of reason” would prevail. I am confident that, in the next five days, this confluence of leading lights of science from home and abroad will throw up useful ideas on how science will shape the future of India. As the Indian Science Congress crosses another milestone, let us pledge to keep alive the passion of its architects for truth that is eternal and beautiful and their dream to lead India to greater heights of knowledge.

Helium-filled hard drives could lift Western Digital above competition in enterprise market

USA: Western Digital Corp.’s upcoming line of high-efficiency and super-capacity helium-filled hard disk drives (HDD) could elevate the company to the top of the enterprise HDD space, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space Brief.

A perennial runner-up in the enterprise HDD market, Western Digital—which recently merged with Hitachi GST—continued to hold the No. 2 spot during the third quarter of 2012, the latest period for which figures are available.

Western Digital had a 45 percent share of shipments, compared to Seagate Technology’s 48 percent, as shown in the attached figure. Western Digital’s portion of the market had been steadily increasing in the last few quarters as it assiduously courted the enterprise trade, which demands higher-performance hard disk drives than HDDs for the consumer market.

The enterprise HDD rankings could change, however, after helium HDDs are introduced into the market, an event projected to occur in the final quarter of 2013.

“Helium HDDs could propel Western Digital to the top enterprise HDD spot, dethroning Seagate in the process,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. “Western Digital says helium-filled HDDs can reduce power consumption—an issue of concern for enterprise HDD users—by more than 20 percent. And helium-filled HDDs can advance drive capacity by another 25 to 50 percent, without increasing platter density or drive thickness.”

Helium inflates HDD capacity
Current drives using perpendicular magnetic recording technology support up to 4 terabytes in capacity. Helium can extend that to 5 or even 6 terabytes. The weight or thickness of current HDD products can also be reduced by approximately 30 percent by stacking platters closer together.

The magic element here is helium, which is lighter than air and has a lower molecular weight. Given its nonreactive nature and lower density, helium is thought to improve the speed of the HDD tracking arm, enhance drive performance through faster spinning of the drive, and eliminate mechanical issues like noise, vibration and turbulence. A better conductor of heat than air, helium also helps produce a more uniform temperature on the platter to raise quality, and protects the coating of the hard disk head and disk to lengthen the life of the drive.

Such qualifications make helium-filled HDDs eminently suitable for storage-hungry systems such as enterprise servers and datacenters. Western Digital is likely to market a 5-terabyte version to these target markets, IHS believes.

Ballooning technology
Other HDD manufacturers—like archrival Seagate as well as Toshiba, the third remaining HDD player after Western Digital acquired Hitachi—could also develop their own scaling technologies to compete with helium filled offerings. However, technological difficulties and patent issues could present challenges and delay submissions from Western Digital’s rivals.

A potential obstacle to large-scale production is cost, owing to the complexity of the manufacturing process. But costs could come down with the continued involvement of major HDD and component manufacturers.

Helium-filled drives are projected to create new opportunities for the HDD industry by increasing drive capacity before next-generation technologies, like heat-assisted magnetic recording, become available.

Projections show the market for helium-filled drives will climb from virtually zero in 2012 to more than 100 million units in 2016, especially if the high costs of production are brought down.

Source: IHS iSuppli, USA.

Belkin debuts HD Bluetooth music receiver

USA: Belkin has announced its new HD Bluetooth music receiver to stream content from smartphones and tablets directly to a home stereo system or standalone speakers via Bluetooth wireless technology.

An embedded NFC chip also gives NFC-equipped phones tap-and-play functionality—instant connectivity by tapping the device to the receiver.

“The HD Bluetooth music receiver gives you the best of both worlds, exceptional audio quality and the convenience of accessing music stored directly on your mobile device or your favorite music service,” said Nate Kraft, director of product management at Belkin. “It even stores settings for up to eight different devices, meaning the whole family can stream their favorite music seamlessly to the best sounding system in your home.”

The sleek-designed HD Bluetooth music receiver sits near your home stereo setup and features a variety of connections for optimal audio output, either digital coaxial, digital optical, or a traditional 3.5 millimeter-to-RCA connection for older stereos.

Using Bluetooth or NFC, pairing your device to the receiver is simple and can be done from up to 30 feet away, so you can change tracks or browse playlists from across the room.

Belkin HD Bluetooth music receiver (G3A2000) is priced $59.99.

Software/OS trends in automotive multimedia and communications

USA: The Strategy Analytics Automotive Multimedia and Communications Service (AMCS) predicts an enhanced role and increased competition for infotainment software and operating system (OS) vendors as they become more important to infotainment system functionality, reliability, and updatability while promoting a safe and positive user experience in its report: “Software/OS Trends in Automotive Multimedia and Communications: 2012 Update”.

Multiple forecast scenarios and OEM strategies for software and OS implementation are expected as the industry moves to software, rather than hardware defined infotainment systems.

This report explores the market landscape, roadmap and competitive assessments of vehicle software and OS vendors including: QNX, Microsoft, Linux, Android and GENIVI. Supporting software vendors that remedy the shortfalls of generic Linux/Android/Tizen software including: Codethink, Jungo, Mentor Graphics, MontaVista, novero, Red Bend, Symphony Teleca, and Wind River are also outlined in the report.

“The consumer - more fickle and knowledgeable than ever before will ultimately decide which in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system suits their needs,” said Mark Fitzgerald, associate director of Strategy Analytics’ North American Automotive Services. “The winning IVI system will have a robust, safe and flexible OS that is easily updated to meet the current and future needs of the consumer.”

Microsemi and Intrinsic-ID deliver integrated security solutions for government apps

USA: Microsemi Corp. announced a product demonstration through its continued relationship with Intrinsic-ID offering top-level security solutions for government applications.

Microsemi's WhiteboxCRYPTO product is a software cryptography library generator that combines mathematical algorithms with data and code obfuscation techniques to transform a sensitive key in complex ways. This requires deep knowledge in multiple disciplines to attack.
The WhiteboxCRYPTO-generated key is never present on disk or in memory, forcing an attacker to reverse engineer a complex library of executable code. WhiteboxCRYPTO comes in two crypto-algorithm variants: WhiteboxAES and WhiteboxRSA.

Beyond simply protecting the cryptography operations in software, an application or key protected with WhiteboxCRYPTO can be bound to silicon by using the Intrinsic-ID Quiddikey product that is based on unique patented hardware intrinsic security (HIS) technology—also referred to as physical unclonable function (PUF).

"Using hardware as a root of trust is a critical layer in any system security solution," said Michael Mehlberg , vice president of product management for Microsemi. "PUF is one of the strongest hardware identifiers available to bind software crypto keys to hardware.

"Quiddikey installs seamlessly in a Microsemi SmartFusion programmable logic solution and strongly binds to a WhiteboxCRYPTO-protected key, forcing an attacker to peel back multiple complex layers of system security."

The main advantages of the Quiddikey SRAM PUF technology come from the fact that SRAM is a standard library component, which is available in every technology node. Another differentiating feature of this security IP is flexible key management; secret keys can be programmed into Quiddikey in a personalization phase by any trusted party in the value chain. This does not necessarily have to be the semiconductor supplier.

"Our IP has earned its stripes in markets and applications where security and reliability demands are second to none," said Pim Tuyls , CEO at Intrinsic-ID. "We have a strong intellectual property rights (IPR) portfolio of more than 10 patents and we continue to move forward in a very active IPR strategy that has resulted in granted patent families on all levels: for our core IP, as well on the level of security architectures, implementations and applications."

The combination of Microsemi's WhiteboxCRYPTO key protection technology with Intrinsic-IDs Quiddikey PUF technology binds sensitive data running in software to a Microsemi SmartFusion programmable logic solution.

Coalfire’s top five IT security predictions for 2013

USA: As the new year kicks off, Coalfire, an independent IT GRC auditor, compiled their predictions for cybersecurity in 2013.

“Last year was a very active year in the cybersecurity world,” said Rick Dakin, CEO and co-founder of Coalfire. “The Secretary of Defense announced that the threat level has escalated to the point where protection of cyber assets used for critical infrastructure is vital. Banks and payment processors came under direct and targeted attack for both denial of service as well as next-generation worms.”

What might 2013 have in store? Dakin predicts the following:

1. The migration to mobile computing will accelerate and the features of mobile operating systems will become known as vulnerabilities by the IT security industry.

Look out for Windows 95 level security on iOS, Android 4 and even Windows 8 as we continue to connect to our bank and investment accounts - as well as other important personal and professional data - on smartphones and tablets.

As of today, there is no way to secure an unsecured mobile operating system (OS). Some risks can be mitigated, but many vulnerabilities remain. This lack of mobile device and mobile network security will drive protection to the data level. Expect to see a wide range of data and communication encryption solutions before you see a secure mobile OS.

The lack of security, combined with the ever-growing adoption of smartphones and tablets for increasingly sensitive data access, will result is a systemic loss for some unlucky merchant, bank or service provider in 2013. Coalfire predicts more than 1 million users will be impacted and the loss will be more than $10 million.

2. Government will lead the way in the enterprise migration to "secure" cloud computing.

No entity has more to gain by migrating to the inherent efficiencies of cloud computing than our federal government. Since many agencies are still operating in 1990s-era infrastructure, the payback for adopting shared applications in shared hosting facilities with shared services will be too compelling to delay any longer, especially with ever-increasing pressure to reduce spending.

As a result, Coalfire believes the fledgling FedRAMP program will continue to gain momentum and we will see more than 50 enterprise applications hosted in secure federal clouds by the end of 2013. Additionally, commercial cloud adoption will have to play catch-up to the new benchmark that the government is setting for cloud security and compliance. It is expected that more cloud consumers will want increased visibility into the security and compliance posture of commercially available clouds.

3. Lawyers have found a new revenue source - suing negligent companies over data breaches.

Plaintiff attorneys will drive companies to separate the cozy compliance and security connection. It will no longer be acceptable to obtain an IT audit or assessment from the same company that is managing an organization’s security programs. The risk of being found negligent or legally liable in any area of digital security will drive the need for independent assessment.

The expansion of the definition of cyber negligence and the range of monetary damages will become more clear as class action lawsuits are filed against organizations that experience data breaches.

4. Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) will replace the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standard as the white-hot tip of the compliance security sword.

Banks, payment processors and other financial institutions are becoming much more mature in their ability to protect critical systems and sensitive data. However, critical infrastructure organizations like electric utilities, water distribution and transportation remain softer targets for international terrorists.

As the front lines of terrorist activities shift to the virtual world, national security analysts are already seeing a dramatic uptick in surveillance on those systems. Expect a serious cyber attack on critical infrastructure in 2013 that will dramatically change the national debate from one of avoidance of cyber controls to one of significantly increased regulatory oversight.

5. Security technology will start to streamline compliance management.

Finally, the cost of IT compliance will start to drop for the more mature industries such as healthcare, banking, payment processing and government. Continuous monitoring and reporting systems will be deployed to more efficiently collect compliance evidence and auditors will be able to more thoroughly and effectively complete an assessment with reduced time on site and less time organizing evidence to validate controls.

Since the cost of noncompliance will increase, organizations will demand and get more routine methods to validate compliance between annual assessment reports.