Thursday, November 30, 2017

5 Startups that VCs Think will Boom in 2018

ET scours the globe to bring you the latest and the smartest from the startup world

2018 is almost upon us and so it is once again time to predict which startups will take the tech industry by storm next year. Who better to ask than the startup experts, the VCs that watch the industry, guide the startups, hear their pitches, and invest in them?



Source: THE ECONOMIC TIMES-27th November,2017

'Panchayats must have CEO, engineers for key functions'

NEW DELHI: With panchayats woefully short in handling functions and finances that cash-intensive development schemes have brought under their mandate in recent years, an expert committee has recommended that they should have a "full-time CEO" and "engineer" to discharge administrative and technical work.

The recommendation forms part of a raft of radical changes that the committee has made about staffing and recruitment process of panchayats, saying they were required to beef up the quality of work done by village governments which handle multi-million schemes like MGNREGA, rural roads programme (PMGSY) and National Rural Livelihoods Mission among others.

The panel said that panchayats are not equipped to handle the workload relating to three key areas - engineering, accounting and data entry - which has increased manifold in recent years.
Every central scheme sets aside a percentage of funds towards "administrative costs" which would total to a whopping Rs 9,153 crore in 2017-18. The Bose panel has recommended that ministries should also fix a percentage for HR.

To address the deficiencies in panchayats, the committee has said that every village panchayat should have a full-time "secretary", who should be a graduate. He should be a permanent employee and function as its "chief executive" incharge of administration, including service delivery, citizen interface, finance and accounts.

Also, every panchayat should have a "technical assistant" to carry out its engineering functions. While for panchayats with a population of less than 10,000, the "gram rozgar sahayak" (which exists in every panchayat) can be trained as "barefoot technician", the bigger panchayats should recruit a qualified employee with diploma or degree in engineering.

The village panchayats require technicians with knowhow about common functions related to rural development schemes.
The "committee on performance based payments for better outcomes in rural development schemes", headed by former finance secretary Sumit Bose, found that support staff in panchayats was sub-optimal across states. The appointments are also done randomly without strict stress on merit.
Underlining that "recruitments should be transparent, merit-based, fair", the panel has said they should be done by "formal state institutions" like State Public Service Commission. Also, it has recommended that computer literacy be made mandatory for all employees up to Group C.

To institutionalise quality interface between people and panchayats, the panel has said that a day in a month should be fixed when all officials are asked to be present to respond to queries raised by villagers.

Source:THE TIMES OF INDIA- 26th November,2017





Pune Engineering College introduces "Combo Card"; how does it work

As India moves towards becoming a digitalised nation, an engineering college in Pune has launched an identity-cum-debit card concept for their students. The card will support them in making bank transaction and also connect them to various college facilities.

Key Highlight:
·         Combo card is an identity-cum-debit card
·         SBI recently introduced a combo card facility for Mumbai metro stations
·         Manipal University last year launched Combo card

An engineering college in Pune has introduced a unique concept of "Combo Card" which plays the role of both identity card and debit card.

This card has been distributed to more than 4,000 students of the college, having their identifications like photograph, biometric information, Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) details, blood group and college enrolment number.
B B Ahuja, director and professor of the college, said in a mid-day report, "After this idea of combining the identity card and bank debit card came to my mind, we collaborated with the State Bank of India. It took us three months to work on this project."

While using combo card, Pune College students will now have easy access to the library, laboratory and hostel. It will also help them conduct transactions related to the stipends and scholarships they receive.
Apart from having access to department of the college, these students will also be able to carry out bank transactions. The card has radio frequency identification chip which will scan all the necessary details.

Currently, SBI has Mumbai metro combo card which acts as a payment-cum-access card at metro stations in Mumbai and also functions as a standard shopping-cum-ATM debit card.

Under the SBI's Mumbai metro combo card, a customer can  shop at over 10 lakh merchant outlets in India. They can also book  movie tickets, pay bills and use it online purchases over the internet using Master Secure Code.
Moreover, a customer using this metro combo card can withdraw cash from any State Bank Group ATMs or other ATMs in India and worldwide.
Last year, Manipal University in tie up with SBI has launched the similar concept of combo cards for their students.

Source: ZeeBiz -27th November,2017

‘Engineers have a big role in nation building’

If every engineer works with a vision, the country can grow by leaps and bounds, Vishnukant S. Chatpalli, Advisor, National Assessment and Accreditation Council, Bengaluru, said.
He was speaking at the 6th Graduation Day at Poojya Dooddappa Appa College of Engineering in Kalaburagi on Sunday. Prof. Chatpalli said Indian engineers have done wonders in the field of technology and have a major role to play in the development of the nation.

With one of the largest and youngest populations in the world, India needs to create millions of good quality jobs in the future to ensure decent living conditions for the vast majority. India scores well in terms of access to finance for business development. He said India has for the first time broken into the club of the 100 nations easiest to conduct business in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create jobs Report’ released recently. India jumped 30 places to the 100th rank among 190 countries.
The nation has seen transformational reforms in the past year with two tectonic changes including the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax(GST) and the demonetisation of high-value currencies.

Prof. Chatpalli, underlining the role of each individual in nation building, emphasized that success is not inherited but achieved by hard work and enterprise. He called on outgoing students to choose opportunities to excel in their careers.

Naveen Jha,CEO, Deshpande Foundation, said the right attitude and discipline are ingredients for success.

Keetri from the Department of Computer Science bagged six gold medals, scoring the highest marks. Shilpa from electrical department won three gold medals. Twenty-one graduates from various departments of 2015-16 batch bagged 34 gold medals. T.Rajeshree won a gold medal along with a cash prize of ₹10,000. Srinath Patil, Niranjan Bhosle,Shwetha Kulkarni, Deepika, Ambika Patil and Pooja.P.Math, won one gold medal each.
Thirty gold medals were received by 20 students of the batch. Krishna Rathi of Electronics and Communication Engineering won five gold medals, while Savita from Civil Engineering department won three gold medals and a cash award of ₹10,000. Kavya Joshi of Electrical and Electronic Engineering bagged three gold medals. Aditi, Akash and Putnanja won one gold medal each.

Source: THE HINDU-26th November,2017


Navy gets its first woman pilot, 3 women NAI officers

New Delhi: In a first, a woman has been inducted as a pilot in the Indian Navy. Shubhangi Swaroop, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, will soon be flying Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft.
Three other women cadets, Astha Segal from New Delhi, Roopa A from Puducherry and Sakthi Maya S from Kerala, also created history by becoming the country’s first women officers at the Naval Armament Inspectorate (NAI) branch of the Navy
Swaroop, the daughter of a Naval commander is the first Naval woman pilot even though the Navy’s Aviation branch has had women officers operating as air traffic control officers and as ‘observers’ in the aircraft who are responsible for communication and weapons.

After their Naval Orientation course, all the four in their early 20s, had passed out of the Ezhimala Naval Academy at a glittering function here yesterday attended by Naval chief Admiral Sunil Lanba

All the four will be undergoing subsequent professional training in their respective chosen branches before being employed on duty, Southern Naval spokesperson Commander Sreedhar Warrier said. Swaroop will be trained at the Air Force Academy at Hyderabad which trains pilots of the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Swaroop has followed the footsteps Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh who were commissioned as Flying Officers in the Indian Air Force last year in July becoming the first women fighter pilots in the country.

Three other women cadets Rashi Raina, Shivangi Singh and Pratibha are currently undergoing the first stage of training to be fighter pilots.
The Indian armed forces have begun opening new roles for women that had been dominated by men for decades.

Source: DNA-24th November2017,


Mosques in Dravidian-Islamic style - Thekallupallisare reminders of the region’s cultural and architectural traditions

Among the many inscriptions at the Vaishnavite shrine of Adhi Jagannatha Swamy at Thirupullani, about 10 km from Ramanathapuram in southern Tamil Nadu, there is one about a grant for a mosque. This particular inscription of the late 13th Century by the Pandya King Thirubuvana Chakravarthy Koneri Mei Kondan, describes the grant made to the Muslim Sonagar, to build a mosque at Pavithramanikka Pattinam. While no one today has a clue as to the exact location of Pavithramanikka Pattinam, the region has many ancient mosques like the rest of Tamil Nadu. What is unique about these mosques is that they were all built of stone, in the Dravidian architectural style with Islamic sensibilities.

Unlike north India, Islam came to the south through maritime spice trade even as it was spreading across Arabia in the 7th Century. The Muslims who were traders enriched the country with precious foreign exchange, and hence were accorded a special place by the Tamil rulers of the day, and often received grants to build mosques, like the one at the Adhi Jagannatha Swamy temple.
As mosques are called Palli Vaasal in Tamil, and they were built of kal , the Tamil word for stone, they came to be locally known as kallupallis . These kallupalliswere essentially built more like mandapams, better suited to Islamic requirement for the congregation to assemble and stand together in prayer.
With guidelines for the construction of mosques being simple - such as prayer facing Mecca, no idol worship and clean surroundings, the masons who worked on these mosques under the supervision of religious heads restricted themselves to carving floral and geometrical motifs instead of human figures as in a temple. “While the raised ‘Adisthana’ of the Hindu temple was retained, there were no ‘Garbha Grahas’ and no figurines carved on any of the pillars” says Dr.Raja Mohammad, author of Islamic Architecture in Tamil Nadu .

For more than a millennium, hundreds of such mosques built in the Dravidian Islamic architectural style came up across Tamil Nadu, often with the help of grants from the rulers of the day, ranging from the Cheras, the Pandyas, the Venad kings and the Nayaks to the Sethupathis of Ramanathapuram. Across Tamil Nadu, wherever Tamil Muslims lived in large numbers, from Pulicat near Chennai to Kilakarai, Kayalpatnam, Kadayanallur, Kottar, Tiruvithancode, Madurai, etc., one finds these beautiful kallupallis .
Amongst these kallupallis , though not the oldest, the most beautiful mosque is to be found at Kilakarai, near Ramanathapuram. A medieval port town with a predominant Tamil Muslim population, Kilakarai has many mosques built during different eras spanning many centuries. The one built towards the end of 17th Century is the most beautiful of them all. It is believed to have been built by the great merchant and philanthropist Periathambi Marakkayar, also known as Seethakkathi, whom the Dutch records speak of as a great trader having considerable influence with the Sethupathis, the then rulers of Ramanathapuram.

The mosque built in the Dravidian architectural style of the late Vijayanagara period, has elements that are specific to native traditions. Like many other kallupallis, this mosque too has Podhigai, the floral bud detailing on the pillar corbels, which represent positivity and auspiciousness, an essential part of the cultural beliefs of the land. An interesting engraving found in this mosque is the Tamil calendar for prayer. What is unusual about this calendar is that, timings for prayers in the various Tamil months are marked in Tamil numerals, a rarity, found in just a few other mosques in southern Tamil Nadu.
These mosques, deeply embedded in the Tamil culture, were also places where Tamil flowered. Further down south, at the Kottar mosque in Nagercoil, an early Tamil Islamic literary work, Mikuraasu Malai, was presented to the assembled congregation by Aali Pulavar in the late 16th Century. Mikuraasu is a Tamilised form of Mihraj, and narrates a significant event in the life of Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh), his ascension to the heaven. Even after 400 odd years, the tradition of singing Mikurasu Malai on the eve of Mihraj continues to this day at the Kottar mosque. Other literary works such as Seera Puranam, a Tamil epic on the history of the Prophet, are also recited across mosques in Tamil Nadu.

The Kallupallis in Tamil Nadu stand as proud reminders of not just an architectural tradition but also of cultural traditions, where Islam effortlessly adapted itself to the native customs.

Source: THE HINDU-24th November,2017


Wednesday, November 29, 2017

‘I have never felt the need to portray a shy or meek woman’ - At 70, Rini Dhumal continues to lead a life of artistic abandon with a focus on multimedia

Unlike her contemporaries who focus on one medium, Rini Dhumal’s works personify the term ‘multimedia’. The 70-year-old pays homage to the spirit and indefatigable strength of women through ceramic, bronze sculptures, drawings, paintings, tapestry and silk in her latest ongoing show. Titled Parallel Wings - The Art of Rini Dhumal , the 60 works of the showcase features the central theme of the devi or divinity of women. The art, made over two years, attains a new meaning depending on the medium in which it is created. “Whether it’s tapestry or terracotta, multiple things are happening in various mediums which run parallel to each other,” says Dhumal. “For me, multimedia means using diverse techniques in the language of the medium. The theme underlying all the works remains the same and reflects my philosophy.”

The Vadodara resident, who has always celebrated the image of shakti in her work, is grateful for her upbringing. “I come from a household where many rituals would be held,” she remembers. “Every creative individual reacts to their surroundings. My grandmother was a strong woman. So, I have never felt the need to portray a shy or meek woman, but someone who is dignified with immense power.”

The tapestry or the woven pile rugs, as they are called, were created in Benaras using myriad hues of brown and maroon. Dhumal was clear that they would be different from the colour scheme of her paintings. “The tapestry is rustic and has a serene feel,” she explains. “Serenity has always underlined all my works but now it’s more pronounced. As one grows old, one wants to be meditative and seek solitude.”
As a student of Padma Vibhushan recipient KG Subramanyan, Dhumal had learnt to work in multiple mediums since an early age. Her time in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, taught her how art could be created outside the classroom in the lap of nature. “My mentors KG Subramanyan, Krishna Reddy and Somnath Hore had joie de vivre,” says Dhumal. “They taught me that I shouldn’t restrict myself to painting but explore different mediums and learn print making too. Also, India is diverse country. There is diversity in religion, food, clothing, thinking and this connotation of multiple mediums comes from that too.”

The former professor at M.S. University in Vadodara, has chronicled her works in books such as Drawn to Life: The Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal and Rooted Landscapes: The Art of Rini Dhumal . She continues the trajectory with her new coffee table book named after her current exhibition which explores the process of her creating these artworks and chronicles her life.

When the septuagenarian is not working, she likes to spend time with her family. “My life is well spent and I do what I want to do,” smiles the doting grandmother. “It doesn’t matter if it’s intellectual or if it’s wrong or right. When I look back at my artistic journey, I feel it has been interesting.”

Source:  THE HINDU-24th November,2017


Longest painting in U.S. restored

A museum has restored the longest painting in U.S. and Canada so it can share the story of American whaling with the public.
The 0.4-km-long panorama toured the U.S. after it was completed in 1848. A section was featured at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. But the panorama deteriorated after so much travelling on wagons and trains, rolling and unrolling. Paint dried up and flaked off, and the panorama was put into storage.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum enlisted the help of a textile conservator to fix the “Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Round the World.” Now it’s searching for a large venue to display it.

D. Jordan Berson, who’s managing the project, said he hopes this record of American whaling can eventually return to some of the cities that were stops on the national tour, including Boston; Buffalo, New York; and St. Louis.
“It’s a national treasure that’s been out of the spotlight for too long,” he said.
Benjamin Russell and Caleb Purrington created the panorama to capture all aspects of a whaling voyage.

The panorama would be mounted on a system of cranks and reels to go across a theatre stage as a narrator told stories of hunting whales and processing their carcasses. A poster for the Boston stop in 1849 advertises tickets for 25 cents.
The audience members would hear what it was like to round Cape Horn and visit Fiji and other far-flung destinations as they saw painted scenes of those locations. Most people hadn’t travelled to any of those places, and photography was in its infancy.

Source: THE HINDU-25th November,2017


Pune lab develops indigenous booster for BrahMos missile

Pune:The premier Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) unit High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune has developed a solid propellant booster of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which was successfully fired for the first time from a Sukhoi — 30MKI fighter jet in the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday morning.

“A BrahMos missile operates in two stages. In the first stage, a solid propellant booster pushes the missile to supersonic speeds and then separates. Thereafter, the second stage kicks in where a liquid fuel ramjet engine takes it to speeds up to mach 3 (three times the speed of sound),” a senior DRDO scientist said, explaining the significance of the booster.

Senior HEMRL authorities have said that the indigenously developed, cost-effective propellant booster will soon be inducted in the missile, and will help save a significant amount of money. As of now, India imports the boosters from Russia. HEMRL director K P S Murthy told TOIon Thursday, “We have developed the solid propellant booster, a key component of the BrahMos missile, and carried out the requisite tests recently. The results were positive and have been evaluated by the Russian experts. A final test, which relates to mechanical vibration, will be carried out in December to pave the way for the induction.”

The BrahMos missile is developed and manufactured by BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, a joint venture between the DRDO and Russia’s Reutov-based rocket and missile developers NPO Mashinostroyeniya (NPOM). “After completing the final test, through transfer of technology (ToT), the booster can be manufactured either by an ordnance factory board (OFB) factory or private manufacturers. Currently, India imports the booster from Russia, which is anh expensive affair,” a senior DRDO scientist working on the project said.

DRDO sources added that, in the past, they had requested their Russian counterparts to transfer the booster technology, but in vain. “It was important to develop an indigenous booster to avoid a further rise in cost. The HEMRL lab, which has expertise in the field, was assigned the task of developing the booster,” added another senior DRDO scientist.

HEMRL is a pioneer for research and development on energetic materials for defence applications. Many technologies have been successfully developed since its inception, as well as deployed in the production of military arsenals. Over the last five years, the laboratory has developed technologies such as pyro cartridges, amorphous boron powder, reduced sensitivity RDX, among others. A number of developed technologies have been transferred to the private sector.

Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA-24th November,2017


IIT-B students bag pre-placement jobs, software leads the numbers

Students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), are looking forward to having a great placement season this year with 137 pre-placement offers (PPOs) already in the institute’s kitty. The number has seen a good increase as compared to 2016 wherein the institute had got 119 offers.

The IT or Software sector has attracted the most number of offers like the last few year with 37 offers followed by core engineering and technology companies with 32 offers. This is followed by the Finance Sector from which the institute has got 29 offers so far. Tom Mathews, professor in Charge of Placements, at the institute, said overall pre-placement scene at the institute is better as compared to that of last year. “We are getting more offers this year and are hoping to get a good number of companies during the placement season” added Mathews.

So far, seven Fast Moving Consumers Goods (FMCG) firms have come up with PPOs at the institute. When asked about startups and Public Sector Undertakings, Mathews said many companies from both these sectors have shown interest but refused to share any further details. Mathews also confirmed that some offshore companies have shown interest this year. A member of the institute placement committee said that after the ban on startups was lifted, a good number of startups have shown interest in participating this year.

Source: DNA-25th November,2017


IIT-Bombay, IISc-Bangalore Make it to Top 10 of BRICS Universities’ List - 14 institutions from India feature in the top 100 this year; first four are from China

Mumbai: Two Indian institutions have made it to the top 10 of a ranking of universities in the BRICS bloc of nations, compared with just one last year.
IIT-Bombay has moved up to the 9th spot in the QS World University Rankings: BRICS 2018, from 13th last time, making its debut in the top 10. IISc-Bangalore has slipped four positions to the tenth from sixth.

Two more Indian institutions feature among the top 20 — IIT-Delhi, which has fallen to 17th place from 15th, and IIT Madras that climbed a spot to 18th.
As many as 14 institutions from India have made it to the top 100. Apart from the four in the first 20, these are IIT-Kanpur (21st), IITKharagpur (24th), University of Delhi (41st), IIT-Roorkee (51st), IITGuwahati (52nd), University of Calcutta (64th), Jadavpur University (74th), University of Mumbai (82nd), Anna University (85th) and IIT-Hyderabad (100th).

As many as 65 Indian universities have been ranked this time — more than Brazil (61) and South Africa (12), but fewer than Russia
(68) and China (94). The top four universities in the BRICS ranking are from China: Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University and University of Science and Technology of China.

India’s strength, relative to other BRICS nations, lies in the fact that its universities have high proportions of qualified faculty. Fifteen Indian universities have bagged a perfect 100 out of 100 for QS’s Staff with PhD indicator, said a statement issued by Quacquarelli Symonds, the British company that ranked the universities in the five BRICS nations.

Research productivity of India’s universities is also one of its strengths. Three Indian universities — IISc-Bangalore, Institute of Chemical Technology-Mumbai and IIT-Delhi — have received 100 out of 100 for papers-per-faculty. All of the top seven scores for this indicator are achieved by Indian universities.
Quantity of Indian research, however, is greater than its average quality, the statement added. QS’s Citations per Paper metric measures the impact of a university’s research output. No Indian entrant achieves a top-10 score for this indicator, which is dominated by Chinese universities.

Ben Sowter, research director at QS, said: “The 2018 edition indicates that Indian universities — should they wish to compete with the dominant Chinese system — need to implement frameworks that encourage the production of high-impact research. Creating extensive international research networks allows collaboration, and ensures that research receives a wider reach. Doing so will assist India’s best universities as they attempt to become more globally competitive.”

Source: THE ECONOMIC TIMES-23rd November,2017


Prices of ‘orphan drugs’ shoot up 12% post-GST

Mumbai: Prices of exorbitantly-priced life-saving medicines, used to treat rare diseases have increased by 12%, with implementation of Goods and Services Tax, resulting in skyrocketing bills and leaving many patients in the lurch. These high-value ‘orphan drugs’ used in bone marrow transplant, classical Hodgkin Lymphoma, Crohn’s disease and melanoma, prescribed usually lifelong with certain treatment running into crores, have now been burdened with the 12% additional levy, which was nil before July.
While no specific details are available, the market size is estimated between Rs 50-60 crore, with 100-odd life-saving drugs imported to treat rare diseases mainly genetic disorders, that affect a small percentage of population.
According to Rare Diseases and Disorders – Research, Resource & Repository of South Asia, 2011, there are over seven crore patients suffering from these diseases in India.
As against this, GST impact on drugs sold in the country has largely been neutral, with no significant increase in prices as domestic companies absorbed the increased tax liability of around 2.29%.

According to guidelines, patients can import these lifesaving medicines (for personal use) which are not approved in India, by applying for an import permit and custom duty exemption. In addition to the 12% levy, patients need to cough up the freight cost of 200 euros for normal, and 650 euros for cold chain shipment of the drugs being imported.
Often debilitating lifelong disease or disorder condition with a prevalence of 1 or less, per 1000 population is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a rare disease. Considering the sheer number of identified rare and ultra rare diseases and their varying prevalence, it becomes nearly impossible to ascertain the total number of rare (and ultra rare) disease patients in the world, experts pointed out.

“In most of the cases, the import quantity is not available, but the burden of additional 12% is high, when the patient has to take the medicine lifelong,” says Praveen Sikri of Ikris Pharma Network, a firm which connects patients with overseas suppliers.
In certain cases, life-saving drugs like Normosang, Cidofovir and Defibrotide which are required to be dispensed immediately to patients, are not available and take a minimum of four to five days to import, causing delays in treatment.

“The import of drugs for personal use is subject to exemption from basic customs duty like earlier if customs duty exemption certificate and import permit is obtained. However, the IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax) payable thereon has to be paid, as the same is not exempted in respect of drugs for personal use,” official sources said.


Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA-24th November,2017

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Maha FDA conducts workshops in Mumbai to sensitise pharmacists on GDP, GSP

The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rolled out a series of workshops in Mumbai a week ago to sensitise pharmacists in the medical stores on Good Pharmaceutical Practices (GPP), Good Distribution Practices (GDP) and Good Storage Practices (GSP). 

Till date 20 workshops have been concluded under the mentorship of Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Pallavi Darade covering areas like Bandra, Vile Parle, Andheri and Borivali in the city in which aspects on proper storage was touched upon for the sake of patient safety. 

During the workshops, the pharmacists were instructed to store the drugs at appropriate temperature at clean place away from direct sunlight. It was also clearly spelt out during the workshops that expired drugs, returned drugs, unsaleable stock or breakage should be stored separately and labelled as ‘expired drugs’ ‘not for sale’ and record of returns of such stock should be maintained and preserved for at least three years.

Veterinary medicines should be stored in separate compartment and display ‘Veterinary medicines’ ‘not for human use’. Insecticides / pesticides/poisons should be stored separately away from drugs to be taken internally and label it.

Laws governing drugs were also touched upon like Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 & Rules, 1945, Drugs Price Control Order, 2013, Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and Rules 1985, Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and Rules 1955 and Poisons Act 1919 and Rules there under.

Other laws related to pharmacy profession were also discussed like Pharmacy Act 1956Pharmacy Practice Regulations 2015, Code of ethics and laws related with business/profession.

It was instructed that retail selling to be done under direct and personal supervision of registered pharmacist, proper bills to be given after supply of any drug on a prescription of a registered medical practitioner and proper maintenance of purchase bills. All records should be made available to the inspector for inspection, whenever required and should be preserved for not less than two years from the date of the last entry.


Drugs specified in Schedule H, H1 or X shall be sold by retail in accordance with the prescription of a registered medical practitioner (RMP). There should be no substitution of Brand also. In case of drugs specified in schedule X- prescriptions should be in duplicate. The supply of above drugs to RMP’s, hospitals and nursing homes against signed orders; orders should be preserved for two years. The prescription should not be dispensed more than once.  Prescriptions to be stamped with the name, address and date of the supplier. Schedule X / Narcotic drugs to be stored under lock and key arrangement.


The licenses shall be displayed in a prominent and conspicuous place in a part of the premises open to the public in such manner as  Display ‘Chemist And Druggist’/‘Drug Store’/‘Pharmacy’ on the premises board and drugsneed to be purchased only from license dealers.


On sale bill, retailers should mention name and address of patient, name and address of doctors, name of drugs, dosage form (tablets/capsules /inj., etc), name of manufacturer, batch no., quantity, rate,  and signature of registered pharmacist for scheduled- h/h1 drugs and/or competent person approved by licensing authority.


For the sale of veterinary medicines, name and address of owner of the animal should be mentioned on the sale bill. Check all the details of the drugs before accepting and making available for sale. Allopathic drugs, cosmetics, ayurvedic or homoeopathic drugs available for sale should be manufactured by license holder manufacturers only.



Purchase bill should be maintained and preserved after giving chronological order of purchase. Scheduled – X and Narcotic drugs should be stored in lock and key arrangement. An inspection book has to be maintained in form 35 in the premises which can be purchased from FDA office.

Source: Pharmabiz.com-28th November,2017

Monday, November 27, 2017

Dubai ke bridge 3D printing se tayyar honge

Dubai ki Road And Transport Authority (RTA) ne elan kiya hai ke wo paidal chalnewalon ke liye pull,bus stop aur samandar mein waqey transport station banane ke liye  3D printing  ki technology istemal karegi.

Adare ki tararf se jari karda press release ke mutabiq ye Dubai hukumat ki janib se shaher ko ‘Smart City’ banane ki janib ek aur kadam hai.




Source: Inquilab-23rd November,2017