Paris, Feb 13 G LOBAL economic outlook is showing tentative signs of im- provement, with the momen- tum shift spreading from the United States and Japan to other developed countries, the OECD’s December sur- vey of growth prospects showed on Monday. The survey picture was mixed in the euro zone, where seven countries were now “pointing towards a pos- itive change in momentum” while the region’s overall readingdippedmarginally. The OECD said its leading indicator pointed to a “posi- tive change ... for the OECD area as a whole, driven pri- marily by the United States and Japan, but similar signs are beginning to emerge in a number of other developed economies”. The reading, which seeks to flag turning points, im- proved for the OECD group of industrialised economies as a whole, rising 0.2 points in December to 100.4, versus its long-term average of 100. India and Russia showed evidence of improvement while encouraging signs that appeared a month or two pre- viously in Japan and the United States were con- firmed, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said. The US reading rose for a third month running, this time by 0.7 points to 102.0, while the Japan reading, which stopped dropping three months earlier, rose 0.2 points to 101.9 in December. India’s reading rose 0.6 points even if, at 95.6 in De- cember,itwasstillwellbelow its long-term average. Rus- sia’s reading rose 0.2 to 102.4. The readings for China, Brazil and the euro area con- tinued to drop, however, with China down 0.5 points at 99.3, Brazil down 0.1 at 93.7 and the euro zone down 0.1 as well at 98.3. Reuters INDIA’S READING IN OECD’S SURVEY OF GROWTH PROSPECTS ROSE 0.6 POINTS TO 95.6 IN DECEMBER. HOWEVER, IT IS STILL WELL BELOW ITS LONG-TERM AVERAGE. MEANWHILE, RUSSIA’S READING ROSE 0.2 POINTS TO 102.4 NEW DELHI l TUESDAY l FEBRUARY 14 l 2012 News www.financialexpress.com 2 FROM THE FRONT PAGE Political... “Now the ball is in the DMRC court. We will urge them to come out with the DPR at the earliest,” he said. Last week, after a meeting be- tween Pulok Chatterjee, princi- pal secretary to the Prime Min- ister and Kerala chief secretary P Prabhakaran in Delhi, the Centre had given the green sig- nal to Kerala to continue with the project. The proposed corri- dor would span 560 km, set up on 13-metre wide pillars. However, as a public-private participation project (PPP), the plan needs Opposition LDF's support in a state that tends to change its leadership every five years. Opposition leader VS Achuthananthan, while giving in-principle agreement to the project, had a volley of ques- tions about it. Achuthanandan had sought details on the compensation package for potential land- evictees. He had also wanted to know the interest rate of the loan that would fund the ambi- tious infrastructure project. The government tentatively plans to tap the Japan Interna- tional Cooperation Agency (JI- CA) for credit and Indian Rail- ways and DMRC for technical support,thechief ministersaid. “Butthefundingpatternisyetto be finalised,” he added. About 552 hectares will be needed for the project. For this, 4,500 fami- lies will have to be displaced. The UDF government told the Opposition that it will work out more details on the compensa- tion package, alignment of the rail corridor, interest payment and modalities to pay back the credit and get together for an- other round of all-party brain- storming in a fortnight or two. With the rail corridor, a trav- eller from the business city Kochi could reach capital Thiruvananthapuram within 20 minutes, instead of the pre- sent four to five hours. The cost of this journey, by 2011-based calculations, is likely to be ap- proximately R1,000 per ticket, says T Balakrishnan, chairman and managing director, Kerala High Speed Rail Corporation. According to the project imple- mentation calendar, the high- speed rail corridor will formal- ly take off on April 2013. When it is fully commissioned by March 2020, the train will be able to carry 817 passengers per journey. All... The strategy seems well-con- sidered. In fact, telecom minis- ter Kapil Sibal had said after the judgment that companies which have been affected by the verdict may approach court for redressal of their grievances. Later,Telenorwhose22licences will get cancelled in the next four months and Tata Teleser- vices which loses three CDMA licences in North-East and Jam- mu and Kashmir have said they will be filing review petitions before the SC. The telecom regulator, meanwhile, has come out with a pre-consultation paper on auc- tion of spectrum and will come out with a consultation paper by the end of the month. Finmin... While taking it out of the cur- rent account would help lower CAD, it would simultaneously lower the net surplus on the cap- ital account, Pan said. Sen, however, said the idea is fundamentally flawed. “In the BoP, the distinction between current and the capital ac- counts has nothing to do with consumption or investments. What the capital account tells us is whether any transac- tion results in creation of liabilities or assets for a coun- try vis-a-vis the foreigners,” he said. Basically, the capital ac- count of BoP measures how much liabilities a country is building up vis-a-vis the rest of the world. Whether you are con- verting it into a productive as- set or not is not the question, Sen added. For instance, an NRI deposit- ing money into an NRI account in India creates a liability on the country, and therefore is cap- tured in the capital account. But if the NRI sends money to his relative, then it is not a lia- bility; but it is counted as remit- tances in the invisibles head in the current account. Expert groups of the Inter- national Monetary Fund have debated this subject in the past. Apparently, the reason why UK, Switzerland and Japan treat non-monetary gold is because of massive trading – including overseas – that happens on this underlying asset. Since much of gold these countries keep in their vaults or lockers support the trading done by foreigners on this underlying, it results in creation of liabilities vis-a-vis the foreigners. India's gold imports are esti- mated at $50 billion in 2011, up from $38 billion in 2010, with jewellery accounting for around 65% of the country's gold demand. SBI scrip... SBI's exposure to companies whose 2G telecom licences have been cancelled, is R4,600 crore of which Rs 1,200 crore is fund-based. While the bank's operating profits grew at just 7.7% y-o-y to R7,260 crore in the three months to December, the management pointed out that this had been due to a one-time hit of R870 crore on equity investments. SBI's tier I capital adequacy ratio slipped to 7.59% at the end of December, 2011, but Chaudhuri was confident that it would be above 9% by March 2012 after profits for the year were accounted for and the government putting in around R8,000 crore. “We will approach Moody's and ask them to reconsider the rating at least in terms of capital adequacy,” Chaud- huri said. SBI’s net interest income rose 26.7% y-o-y to R11,466crore, with the bank now less depen- dent on costlier wholesale de- posits. Its income from treasury rose to R693 crore. Yields on ad- vances rose to 10.93% at the end of December from 10.8% in Sep- tember while the cost of funds rose to 6.1%. Chaudhuri observed that while the bank did not intend to lower its base rate it would consider select lowering of rates for products like educa- tion loans. Jose Manuel Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, shares a light moment with S Ramadorai, chairman of the Bombay Stock Exchange, outside the stock exchange in Mumbai, on Monday. Barroso was in India after Friday’s one-day India-EU summit PTI W hen you bend a rod, say made of aluminium, and then straighten it back, why doesn’t it get back to its perfect shape, unlike a metal spring that retains its original frame even after being tampered with? Also, why is it easy to bend a thin rod? The answers to these questions have been around since the 1930s, when researchers in the field of micromechanics of materials first suggested the concept of dislocations, which are defects in the crystals or grains within the material. These dislocations not only weaken crystals, but also cause deformation by moving and leaving the crystal, the effect being permanent, in contrast to the spring which is elastic or reversible in nature. Now, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, (IIT-K), have come up with a new concept about these subtle goings-on inside the crystals of the materials that challenge some of the ideas that have been around over the past six decades. In this, the researchers also attempt to take forward the work on micromechanics of legends from the 1950s, like John Douglas Eshelby. A dislocation introduces energy, and this energy is released when it reaches the surface, thus making plastic deformation irreversible. The IIT-K researchers have suggested that the slip of these dislocations might be reversible. “We discovered something which is a double oxymoron — reversible plastic deformation due to elasticity. In the process, we discovered a new class,” says Anandh Subramaniam, assistant professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, IIT-K. Two papers that Anandh co-wrote with fellow researchers Prasenjit Khanikar and Arun Kumar were published last year by The Philosophical Magazine, one of the oldest scientific journals in the world. Research into the micromechanical behaviour of materials, which includes areas such as dislocation dynamics, is crucial to their usage in industrial applications such as fashioning a car door out of metal. “The motion of dislocations is what allows change of shape, and impeding the motion of dislocations is what gives strength to the material. So, these are two opposite sides of the coin,” explains Dipankar Banerjee, former chief controller, R&D, at the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and currently professor with the Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science. While dislocations cause deformation by moving, and finally leave the crystal, it doesn’t always require an external force for them to do that. That’s because they are automatically attracted to free surfaces, a phenomenon explained by a concept known as ‘image force’. It is called so because a hypothetical negative dislocation is assumed to exist on the other side of the free surface, causing an attraction towards it. This ‘image construction’ is usually used for the calculation of the force and ‘image forces’ can lead to crystals becoming spontaneously dislocation-free. “Over the past 60 years, people have known this concept called image force and have developed theories, etc,” says Anandh. “So, the first of the two things we showed is that the image force construction theory actually breaks down when we actually want it to work.” The reason, he explains, is because when the dislocation is less than about 100 atomic spacings from the surface it causes small deformations to the surface, partly relaxing the energy and hence altering the image force. In a nanocrystal, the entire domain can deform. For example, a thin plate would bend in the presence of a dislocation. In such cases, the standard formula cannot be used, he says. The more interesting thing their computer simulation models showed was that the image force can also be zero in some cases. This means that a dislocation moving inside a crystal can be in neutral equilibrium just like a ball rolling on a plane or an Anglepoise lamp where mechanism of spring and lever allows it to be moved to various configurations without putting in any effort. “Over a range of positions, irrespective of where the dislocation sits, its energy does not change. So, this is the new concept we have found out,” says Anandh. “We can describe things between a material and a structure, which we call a structure ecause it has some geometry and a material because the defect has a crystallographic origin. So, we found out that actually we have to define a new term called material-structure, and that there can be neutral equilibrium or zero-stiffness material- structures,” says Anandh. He says further research also indicated that an edge dislocation is stable in a finite crystal, a question that’s some 60 years old. However, the research is at a very fundamental level and potential applications are still to be thought on, says Anandh. Computer simulation and modelling has been a key development over the past decade from the industrial standpoint of metallurgy, which earlier used an entirely experimental approach, says Dipankar Banerjee. “So, you substantially reduce your experimental costs and time in introducing new shapes and materials into service,” he says. While the materials used for structural applications are fairly mature, the key focus is to reduce the costs of applying such materials and also the timescale of engineering them, he says. — Ajay Sukumaran While dislocations cause deformation by moving, and finally leave the crystal, it doesn’t always require an external force. That’s because they are automatically attracted to free surfaces, a phenomenon explained by a concept known as ‘image force’ REINVENTING THE WHEEL FE Labs ■ Nanoscale computer simulations by IIT-Kanpur researchers yields new concepts of the structure and defects in materials ■ They say that existing theories about the force that causes deformations within the grain of a material may not explain certain situations ■ In the process, the researchers claim to have answered a 60-year-old question on whether an edge dislocation can be stable ■ While the materials used for structural applications are fairly mature, focus is on reducing costs of applying such materials Researchers at IIT-Kanpur give a new insight into micromechanics STATFACTS MICROMECHANICS ANANDH SUBRAMANIAM, assistant professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, IIT-K We discovered something which is a double oxymoron — reversible plastic deformation due to elasticity, and in the process we discovered a new class. DIPANKAR BANERJEE, professor, Department of Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science The industrial applications of metallurgy essentially demand that you shape the metal to the precise product shape that you want. The challenge of imparting the right shape and getting the right mechanical behaviour depends on understanding the micromechanical behaviour of the material because the motion of dislocations is what allows change of shape, and impeding the motion of dislocations is what gives strength to the material. EXPERTSPEAK PM: Growth not at cost of environment New Delhi, Feb 13: Underlining the principle of “equity” in climate talks, Prime Minister Manmo- hanSinghonMondaysaidgrowthshouldtakeplace in a way which does not harm the environment. During his meeting with Environment Minis- ters of BASIC countries, that is Brazil, South Africa, India and China, Singh said the principle of equity — equal per capita rights to the atmos- pheric space — should be the goal of future nego- tiations on climate change, sources said. India had successfully brought the principle of equity back to the table as one of the country's key non-negotiable principle during Durban Climate talks which were attended by environment minis- ter Jayanthi Natarajan. Environment ministers of China, South Africa and Brazil informed the Prime Minister that the BASIC nations played a “constructive role” in Durban and lso commended the role played by In- dia in bringing equity back on global climate ne- gotiation platform, the sources said. The two-day New Delhi meeting of the group will discuss a united strategy for the group in the future negotiations on climate change and focus of the discussions would be the question of equity, they said. Ahead of his meeting with the environment ministers of BASIC countries, Prime Minister said on Twitter that “Economic growth is essen- tial for the people, but we cannot allow growth to be pursued in a manner which damages our envi- ronment”. Environment ministers of Singapore, Qatar and Swaziland will also attend a separate meeting of the BASIC Plus nations during the two-day summit. Qatar is the host of the United Nations-spon- sored climate talks COP 18 in December 2012. This is for the first time that environment min- isters of the four emerging economies are meet- ing again after the December climate change meet in Durban. PTI Indian economy showing improvement, says OECD Gujarat emerges country’s top investment hub fe Bureau Ahmedabad, Feb 13: Gujarat has emerged as the most lucrative investment destination at- tracting the highest number of investment pro- posals worth R16.28 lakh crore in 2011, accord- ing to a study done by industry body Assocham. Gujarat has clocked a share of about 13.52% in the total live investments worth R120.34 lakh crore at the end of the year, according to the As- sochamstudy. “Out of the total proposals, Gujarat attracted 39.2% in electricity, 24.2% in manufacturing, 16.2% in services, 14.3% in real estate, 5.2% in irrigation and 0.9% in mining,” said Bhagyesh Soneji, chairperson of Assocham Gujarat Council. “Out of the 20 industrial states, Gujarat, Ma- harashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Kar- nataka have clearly emerged as the preferred investment destinations by attracting 53.56% of the total live investments,” said DS Rawat, na- tional secretary general of Assocham. Apart from Gujarat, Maharashtra attracted investments worth R14.14 lakh crore.
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Paris, Feb 13
G LOBAL economicoutlook is showingtentativesignsof im-
provement,withthemomen-tum shift spreading from theUnited States and Japan toother developed countries,the OECD’s December sur-vey of growth prospectsshowed on Monday.
The survey picture wasmixed in the euro zone,where seven countries werenow“pointingtowardsapos-itive change in momentum”while the region’s overallreading dipped marginally.
The OECD said its leadingindicator pointed to a “posi-
tive change ... for the OECDarea as a whole, driven pri-marily by the United Statesand Japan, but similar signsare beginning to emerge in anumber of other developedeconomies”.
The reading, which seeksto flag turning points, im-provedfortheOECDgroupofindustrialised economies as
a whole, rising 0.2 points inDecember to 100.4, versus itslong-term average of 100.
India and Russia showedevidence of improvementwhileencouragingsignsthatappearedamonthortwopre-viously in Japan and theUnited States were con-firmed, the Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and
Development said.The US reading rose for a
third month running, thistime by 0.7 points to 102.0,while the Japan reading,which stopped droppingthree months earlier, rose 0.2points to 101.9 in December.
India’s reading rose 0.6points even if, at 95.6 in De-cember,itwasstillwellbelowits long-term average. Rus-sia’s reading rose 0.2 to 102.4.
The readings for China,Brazil and the euro area con-tinued to drop, however,withChinadown0.5pointsat99.3, Brazil down 0.1 at 93.7andtheeurozonedown0.1aswell at 98.3.
Reuters
INDIA’S READING IN OECD’S SURVEY OFGROWTH PROSPECTS ROSE 0.6 POINTSTO 95.6 IN DECEMBER. HOWEVER, ITIS STILL WELL BELOW ITS LONG-TERMAVERAGE. MEANWHILE, RUSSIA’SREADING ROSE 0.2 POINTS TO 102.4
NEW DELHI l TUESDAY l FEBRUARY 14 l 2012News w w w . f i n a n c i a l e x p r e s s . c o m2
FROM THE FRONT PAGE
Political...“Now the ball is in the DMRCcourt. We will urge them tocome out with the DPR at theearliest,” he said.
Lastweek,afterameetingbe-tween Pulok Chatterjee, princi-pal secretary to the Prime Min-ister and Kerala chief secretaryP Prabhakaran in Delhi, theCentre had given the green sig-nal to Kerala to continue withthe project. The proposed corri-dorwouldspan560km,setupon13-metrewidepillars.
However, as a public-privateparticipation project (PPP), theplan needs Opposition LDF'ssupport in a state that tends tochangeitsleadershipeveryfiveyears. Opposition leader VSAchuthananthan, while givingin-principle agreement to theproject, had a volley of ques-tions about it.
Achuthanandan had soughtdetails on the compensationpackage for potential land-evictees. He had also wanted toknow the interest rate of theloan that would fund the ambi-tious infrastructure project.
The government tentativelyplans to tap the Japan Interna-tional Cooperation Agency (JI-CA) for credit and Indian Rail-ways and DMRC for technicalsupport,thechief ministersaid.“Butthefundingpatternisyettobe finalised,” he added. About552 hectares will be needed forthe project. For this, 4,500 fami-lies will have to be displaced.The UDF government told theOpposition that it will work outmore details on the compensa-tion package, alignment of therail corridor, interest paymentand modalities to pay back thecredit and get together for an-other round of all-party brain-storminginafortnightortwo.
With the rail corridor, a trav-eller from the business cityKochi could reach capitalThiruvananthapuram within20 minutes, instead of the pre-sent four to five hours. The costof this journey, by 2011-basedcalculations, is likely to be ap-proximately R1,000 per ticket,saysTBalakrishnan,chairmanand managing director, KeralaHigh Speed Rail Corporation.According to the project imple-
mentation calendar, the high-speed rail corridor will formal-ly take off on April 2013. Whenit is fully commissioned byMarch 2020, the train will beabletocarry817passengersperjourney.
All...The strategy seems well-con-sidered. In fact, telecom minis-terKapilSibalhadsaidafterthejudgment that companieswhichhavebeenaffectedbytheverdict may approach court forredressal of their grievances.Later,Telenorwhose22licenceswill get cancelled in the nextfour months and Tata Teleser-vices which loses three CDMAlicencesinNorth-EastandJam-muandKashmirhavesaidtheywill be filing review petitionsbefore the SC.
The telecom regulator,meanwhile,hascomeoutwithapre-consultation paper on auc-tion of spectrum and will comeout with a consultation paperby the end of the month.
Finmin...While taking it out of the cur-
rent account would help lowerCAD, it would simultaneouslylowerthenetsurplusonthecap-ital account, Pan said.
Sen,however,saidtheideaisfundamentally flawed. “In theBoP, the distinction betweencurrent and the capital ac-counts has nothing to do withconsumption or investments.What the capital accounttells us is whether any transac-tion results in creation ofliabilities or assets for a coun-try vis-a-vis the foreigners,” hesaid. Basically, the capital ac-count of BoP measures howmuch liabilities a country isbuilding up vis-a-vis the rest oftheworld.Whetheryouarecon-verting it into a productive as-set or not is not the question,Sen added.
Forinstance,anNRIdeposit-ing money into an NRI accountinIndiacreatesaliabilityonthecountry, and therefore is cap-tured in the capital account.But if the NRI sends money tohis relative, then it is not a lia-bility;butitiscountedasremit-tances in the invisibles head inthe current account.
Expert groups of the Inter-national Monetary Fund havedebated this subject in the past.Apparently,thereasonwhyUK,Switzerland and Japan treatnon-monetary gold is becauseof massive trading – includingoverseas – that happens on thisunderlying asset.
Since much of gold thesecountries keep in theirvaults or lockers support thetrading done by foreigners onthis underlying, it results increation of liabilities vis-a-visthe foreigners.
India's gold imports are esti-mated at $50 billion in 2011, upfrom $38 billion in 2010, withjewellery accounting foraround 65% of the country'sgold demand.
SBI scrip...SBI's exposure to companieswhose 2G telecom licenceshave been cancelled, is R4,600crore of which Rs 1,200 crore isfund-based.
While the bank's operatingprofitsgrewatjust7.7%y-o-ytoR7,260croreinthethreemonthsto December, the management
pointed out that this had beendue to a one-time hit of R870crore on equity investments.SBI's tier I capital adequacyratio slipped to 7.59% at theend of December, 2011, butChaudhuri was confidentthat it would be above 9% byMarch 2012 after profits fortheyearwereaccountedforandthe government putting inaround R8,000 crore.
“We will approach Moody'sand ask them to reconsiderthe rating at least in termsof capital adequacy,” Chaud-huri said.
SBI’s net interest incomerose26.7%y-o-ytoR11,466crore,with the bank now less depen-dent on costlier wholesale de-posits.Itsincomefromtreasuryrose to R693 crore. Yields on ad-vances rose to 10.93% at the endof Decemberfrom10.8%inSep-tember while the cost of fundsrose to 6.1%.
Chaudhuri observed thatwhile the bank did not intendto lower its base rate it wouldconsider select lowering ofrates for products like educa-tion loans.
Jose Manuel Barroso, chairman of the European Commission, shares a light moment with S Ramadorai, chairman of the Bombay StockExchange, outside the stock exchange in Mumbai, on Monday. Barroso was in India after Friday’s one-day India-EU summit PTI
W hen you bend a rod, say made ofaluminium, and then straighten itback, why doesn’t it get back to its
perfect shape, unlike a metal spring that retainsits original frame even after being tamperedwith? Also, why is it easy to bend a thin rod?
The answers to these questions have beenaround since the 1930s, when researchers in thefield of micromechanics of materials firstsuggested the concept of dislocations, which aredefects in the crystals or grains within thematerial. These dislocations not only weakencrystals, but also cause deformation by movingand leaving the crystal, the effect beingpermanent, in contrast to the spring which iselastic or reversible in nature.
Now, researchers at the Indian Institute ofTechnology, Kanpur, (IIT-K), have come up with anew concept about these subtle goings-on insidethe crystals of the materials that challenge someof the ideas that have been around over the pastsix decades. In this, the researchers also attemptto take forward the work on micromechanics oflegends from the 1950s, like John Douglas Eshelby.
A dislocation introduces energy, and thisenergy is released when it reaches the surface,thus making plastic deformation irreversible. TheIIT-K researchers have suggested that the slip ofthese dislocations might be reversible.
“We discovered something which is a doubleoxymoron — reversible plastic deformation dueto elasticity. In the process, we discovered a newclass,” says Anandh Subramaniam, assistantprofessor at the Department of Materials Scienceand Engineering, IIT-K. Two papers that Anandhco-wrote with fellow researchers PrasenjitKhanikar and Arun Kumar were published lastyear by The Philosophical Magazine, one of theoldest scientific journals in the world.
Research into the micromechanical behaviourof materials, which includes areas such asdislocation dynamics, is crucial to their usage inindustrial applications such as fashioning a cardoor out of metal. “The motion of dislocations iswhat allows change of shape, and impeding themotion of dislocations is what gives strength tothe material. So, these are two opposite sides ofthe coin,” explains Dipankar Banerjee, formerchief controller, R&D, at the Defence Researchand Development Organisation, and currentlyprofessor with the Department of Materials
Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science.While dislocations cause deformation by
moving, and finally leave the crystal, it doesn’talways require an external force for them to dothat. That’s because they are automaticallyattracted to free surfaces, a phenomenonexplained by a concept known as ‘image force’.It is called so because a hypothetical negativedislocation is assumed to exist on the otherside of the free surface, causing an attractiontowards it.
This ‘image construction’ is usually used forthe calculation of the force and ‘image forces’can lead to crystals becoming spontaneouslydislocation-free.
“Over the past 60 years, people have knownthis concept called image force and havedeveloped theories, etc,” says Anandh. “So, thefirst of the two things we showed is that theimage force construction theory actually breaksdown when we actually want it to work.”
The reason, he explains, is because when thedislocation is less than about 100 atomicspacings from the surface it causes smalldeformations to the surface, partly relaxing theenergy and hence altering the image force. In ananocrystal, the entire domain can deform. Forexample, a thin plate would bend in the presenceof a dislocation. In such cases, the standardformula cannot be used, he says.
The more interesting thing their computersimulation models showed was that the imageforce can also be zero in some cases. This meansthat a dislocation moving inside a crystal can be inneutral equilibrium just like a ball rolling on a
plane or an Anglepoise lamp where mechanism ofspring and lever allows it to be moved to variousconfigurations without putting in any effort.
“Over a range of positions, irrespective ofwhere the dislocation sits, its energy does notchange. So, this is the new concept we havefound out,” says Anandh.
“We can describe things between a materialand a structure, which we call a structure ecauseit has some geometry and a material because thedefect has a crystallographic origin. So, we foundout that actually we have to define a new termcalled material-structure, and that there can beneutral equilibrium or zero-stiffness material-structures,” says Anandh.
He says further research also indicated that anedge dislocation is stable in a finite crystal, aquestion that’s some 60 years old. However, theresearch is at a very fundamental level andpotential applications are still to be thought on,says Anandh.
Computer simulation and modelling has beena key development over the past decade from theindustrial standpoint of metallurgy, which earlierused an entirely experimental approach, saysDipankar Banerjee.
“So, you substantially reduce yourexperimental costs and time in introducing newshapes and materials into service,” he says.
While the materials used for structuralapplications are fairly mature, the key focus is toreduce the costs of applying such materials andalso the timescale of engineering them, he says.
— Ajay Sukumaran
While dislocations cause deformation by moving, and finallyleave the crystal, it doesn’t always require an external force.That’s because they are automatically attracted to free surfaces, aphenomenon explained by a concept known as ‘image force’
REINVENTING THE WHEEL
FE Labs
■ Nanoscale computer simulations byIIT-Kanpur researchers yields new conceptsof the structure and defects in materials
■ They say that existing theories about the forcethat causes deformations within the grain of amaterial may not explain certain situations
■ In the process, the researchers claim tohave answered a 60-year-old question onwhether an edge dislocation can be stable
■ While the materials used for structuralapplications are fairly mature, focus is onreducing costs of applying such materials
Researchers atIIT-Kanpur give anew insight intomicromechanics
STATFACTSMICROMECHANICS
ANANDHSUBRAMANIAM,
assistant professor atthe Department of MaterialsScience and Engineering, IIT-K
We discovered somethingwhich is a doubleoxymoron — reversibleplastic deformation due toelasticity, and in the process we discovereda new class.
DIPANKAR BANERJEE,professor, Department ofMaterials Engineering at theIndian Institute of Science
The industrialapplications ofmetallurgy essentiallydemand that you shapethe metal to the preciseproduct shape that you want. The challengeof imparting the right shape and getting theright mechanical behaviour depends onunderstanding the micromechanicalbehaviour of the material because the motionof dislocations is what allows change ofshape, and impeding the motion ofdislocations is what gives strength tothe material.
EXPERTSPEAKPM: Growthnot at cost ofenvironment
New Delhi, Feb 13: Underlining the principle of“equity” in climate talks, Prime Minister Manmo-hanSinghonMondaysaidgrowthshouldtakeplaceinawaywhichdoesnotharmtheenvironment.
During his meeting with Environment Minis-ters of BASIC countries, that is Brazil, SouthAfrica, India and China, Singh said the principleof equity — equal per capita rights to the atmos-pheric space — should be the goal of future nego-tiations on climate change, sources said.
India had successfully brought the principle ofequitybacktothetableasoneof thecountry'skeynon-negotiable principle during Durban Climatetalkswhichwereattendedbyenvironmentminis-ter Jayanthi Natarajan.
Environmentministersof China,SouthAfricaand Brazil informed the Prime Minister that theBASIC nations played a “constructive role” inDurban and lso commended the role played by In-dia in bringing equity back on global climate ne-gotiation platform, the sources said.
The two-day New Delhi meeting of the groupwill discuss a united strategy for the group in thefuturenegotiationsonclimatechangeandfocusofthe discussions would be the question of equity,they said.
Ahead of his meeting with the environmentministers of BASIC countries, Prime Ministersaid on Twitter that “Economic growth is essen-tial for the people, but we cannot allow growth tobe pursued in a manner which damages our envi-ronment”.
Environment ministers of Singapore, QatarandSwazilandwillalsoattendaseparatemeetingof the BASIC Plus nations during the two-daysummit.
Qatar is the host of the United Nations-spon-sored climate talks COP 18 in December 2012.
Thisisforthefirsttimethatenvironmentmin-isters of the four emerging economies are meet-ingagainaftertheDecemberclimatechangemeetin Durban. PTI
Indian economy showingimprovement, says OECD
Gujarat emergescountry’s topinvestment hubfe Bureau
Ahmedabad, Feb 13: Gujarat has emerged asthe most lucrative investment destination at-tractingthehighestnumberof investmentpro-posals worth R16.28 lakh crore in 2011, accord-ingtoastudydonebyindustrybodyAssocham.
Gujarat has clocked a share of about 13.52%in the total live investments worth R120.34 lakhcrore at the end of the year, according to the As-socham study.
“Outof thetotalproposals,Gujaratattracted39.2% in electricity, 24.2% in manufacturing,16.2% in services, 14.3% in real estate, 5.2%in irrigation and 0.9% in mining,” saidBhagyesh Soneji, chairperson of AssochamGujarat Council.
“Outof the20industrialstates,Gujarat,Ma-harashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Kar-nataka have clearly emerged as the preferredinvestmentdestinationsbyattracting53.56%ofthe total live investments,” said DS Rawat, na-tional secretary general of Assocham.
Apart from Gujarat, Maharashtra attractedinvestments worth R14.14 lakh crore.
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