Women shine at Smart India Hackathon at IIT Kharagpur
Kharagpur, June 22: Coimbatore's Whistling Cookers of Avinashilingam Deemed University for Women bagged a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh by winning the Smart India Hackathon 2018 - Hardware Edition on Friday.
The first runner-up was from the same college -- Team Buddies. And the second runner-up was Team Askurvara from the Silicon Institute of Technology.
The winner and runners-up were all women's team, a IIT Kharagpur release said.
The two runner-ups were richer by Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively.
SIH2018 - Hardware edition is the first-of-its-kind innovation challenge initiated by the Union Human Resource Development to provide a national platform to young technical minds of India to showcase their disruptive innovations and creative products which can bring about revolutionary changes in crucial sectors like agriculture, health, clean water, waste management, automotive, smart communication, and education.
The event has seen unique student innovations in smart drip irrigation, technology-powered mechanical harvesters and soil testing, and cost-effective detection of the status of fruits and vegetables.
The winning team designed a prototype for "non-destructive estimation of sugar content of fruits using visible-light imaging".
Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur and Chairman, SIH2018, said: "I think innovation challenges such as SIH2018 are going to bring a new era in innovation and transform the process by which we teach engineering."
The nine competing teams at IIT Kharagpur were judged by an external jury made up of some of the top entrepreneurs and partners of leading business incubators in the agri-tech sector, such as a-IDEA, Omnivore, AgNext, Bharat Innovations Fund and Ankur Capital.
Nine teams worked continuously for five consecutive days to build their hardware solutions as a working prototype.
Said Pranav Gawande and Chirag Patil of Team Scrap Stars of G.H. Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur, who devised a sugarcane cutting machine: "The competition was stiff as all the teams had great potential. Irrespective of the result, it was great to be in IIT Kharagpur."
M. Charugayathri of Team Buddies, one of the two all-women teams from Avinashilingam Deemed University for Women, Tamil Nadu, said: "Making it to the finals itself was a great experience."
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Jharkhand horror: Man kills live-in partner, chops body into 40 pieces
Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.
