India to produce lithium-ion batteries
NEW DELHI: The government on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding for the transfer of technology for India’s first indigenously developed lithiumion cells. Indian manufacturers at present rely on imports.
The technology was developed by Central Electro Chemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, in partnership with Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi; CSIR-Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Kolkata; and CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad.
The MoU was signed between the Union ministry of science & technology and the CSIR-CECRI in the presence of science & technology minister Harsh Vardhan.
“Lithium ion batteries are currently sourced mainly from China, Japan and South Korea among other countries. India is one of the largest importers of these batteries. In 2017, India imported batteries worth nearly 150 million USD,” said a government release.
The technology developed by the CSIR labs can be used in solar cells, medical devices, electric vehicles, power backups, and powering robots.
“It will give tremendous boost to the two flagship programmes of the central government — increasing the share of clean energy by generating 175 gigawatt by 2022, of which 100GW will be solar; and the second being switching completely to electric vehicles by 2030 under the National Electric Mobility Mission,” the minister said.
At present, CSIR-CECRI has a demo facility in Chennai that manufactures prototypes of the cells.
Indigenously manufacturing the batteries will also bring down the cost. NEW DELHI: Soon, it’s going to be Eid. Last year, public outrage spun around killing animals. Should this be a welcome debate again, ending the killing of thousands of goats? I believe not, although my personal beliefs are veganism and against animal cruelty.
Animals rights are best embraced by communities, not imposed upon them. Urban dogs are a case in point — we have a court order favouring them, but few ever nurture them. On the other hand, several rural communities give up land so wild animals are able to flourish.
Writer Janaki Lenin reveals several moving instances across India of people leaving in harmony with animals like the Deccani shepherds, Dhangars, who live cordially with wolves who eat their sheep, for example. This isn’t a legal requirement, but it’s what they do.
Having said this, cajoling (instead of bullying) communities not to eat meat or kill animals for food is not an option either.
What we eat, and enjoy, is our culture. We know culture is dynamic, it changes (that’s why we have widows, not satis, these days ). To move people away from meat means making everyone, including lakhs of Hindus — the originators of butter chicken— give up their delicacies of choice.
Being selective on Eid won’t help the animals. Instead of vilifying meat, fish, chicken — which many find delicious, shouldn’t anti-meat activists celebrate vegetables creatively? Cultures are embedded in an ecological past, sometimes redundant in the present. Celebrating newer cultures is a pragmatic way to make environmental shifts.