Apple stores get green signal in India.

It seems Apple CEO Tim Cook's India visit didn't go in vain. Decks have cleared for the setting up of Apple stores in India with the government announcing sweeping reforms to rules on foreign direct investment.
Apple is expected to be a beneficiary of a three-year relaxation India is introducing on local sourcing norms with an extension of up to five years possible if it can be proven that products are "state of the art".

Apple's plans to open stores in the country had suffered a setback as the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), under the finance ministry, red-flagged a panel's recommendation to relax the mandatory local sourcing norm for the Cupertino-based company to sell its products through the single-brand retail window.

Apple Stores in India: Will commerce ministry come to company's rescue?
The panel comprising representatives from departments of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) and information technology had recommended a waiver from the 30% sourcing norm on the ground that Apple's products were "cutting-edge", which allows for doing away with the domestic procurement rule.
So far, the government allowed 100% FDI in the segment but companies are required to seek approval if overseas holding exceeds 49%.

However, late last month, commerce & industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman had hinted at a review saying her ministry will discuss the issue with the finance ministry.
Sources had told TOI that the concern over the finance ministry's proposal has been flagged at the highest level and there has been a suggestion that the issue should be discussed at the level of officers.
Apple, on its part, had reportedly said that it won't set up company-owned stores in India if the government doesn't exempt it from sourcing materials locally.
The reports accrued this to the fact that Apple has no immediate plans to manufacture devices in India or buy parts from vendors in the country.
Apple Stores in India: Government may relax rules
During his recent visit to the country, Apple CEO Cook said that opening its own stores in India is a key element of the vision for what he sees as one of the most important markets for the iPhone maker in terms of setting benchmarks for sales and service.
Other single-brand retailers like furniture giant IKEA are also expected to benefit.
In other changes, India allowed 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in civil aviation, following on from last week's launch of a new policy that lowered barriers to entry for airlines that want to fly international routes.
The government also allowed foreign companies to own up to 74% in 'brownfield' pharmaceuticals projects without prior government approval. India already allows 100% ownership of greenfield pharma business.

Government to replace pen and paper with tablets for data collection.

  Pentium is mightier than pen - at last the government's army of data collectors have admitted to this. July will see the first data collection exercise ever that will substitute pen-and-paper with computing technology (tablets in this case), and this is a first step in what will be a quick digitisation of this vast government programme.

July's first quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) will be conducted by researchers using tablets, and guided by what's known as computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) technique. The statistics ministry has asked for around 700 tablets, at a per unit cost of Rs 20,000. Surveyors of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) will track and upload employment data, making huge time savings.
"We have moved a proposal to the finance ministry to get 700 of these devices for PLFS, which is in advanced stages of being implemented. We used to collect data on paper which was then sent to data processing centres and then uploaded, leading to delays. In a way, we are setting a precedent," said an official from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation. This officer and others who spoke to ET did not wish to be identified.

Use of technology can speed up data dissemination, they said.
For example, the government's employment data is available only once every five years from National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO).
Plus, its scope is limited to the coverage area of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). ASI looks at registered factories only. The labour ministry's quicker quarterly surveys, started since the global economic crisis of 2008, are also not broad enough in scope. The US produces monthly employment data, and India needs to get there, officials said. Technology is critical in achieving that.

Use of technology so far has been limited to back office. The statistics ministry runs portals that can process data. And postal department employees collect consumer price inflation data in rural areas and feed it into computers in back offices. But the interface of the surveyor and the surveyed has so far been pen-and-paper.

Those tablets in July will, therefore, represent a sort of a breakthrough. They will have data validation powers. They will come loaded with a schedule of questions and software that will, when data is fed, estimate critical indicators like unemployment rate and workforce participation.
Assessing officers will be able to edit data collected while conducting interviews and any anomalies, for example, expenditure exceeding income, will be highlighted immediately.
"Data validation will happen simultaneously and then transmitted online to the centralised data processing unit to process it," the official explained.

Stanford scientists develop new ways to produce clean hydrogen fuel using sunlight.

When sunlight hits the electrode, it generates an electric current that splits the water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen.
WASHINGTON: Stanford scientists have developed a new way to produce hydrogen fuel using sunlight, in an effort to tackle one of the world's biggest energy challenges - clean fuel for transportation.
Hydrogen fuel has long been touted as a clean alternative to gasoline.
"Millions of cars could be powered by clean hydrogen fuel if it were cheap and widely available," said Yi Cui, an associate professor at Stanford University in the US.
Unlike gasoline-powered vehicles, which emit carbon dioxide, hydrogen cars themselves are emissions free.

However, making most hydrogen fuel involves natural gas in a process that releases CO2 into the atmosphere.
To address the problem, researchers focused on photovoltaic water splitting. This emerging technology consists of a solar-powered electrode immersed in water.

When sunlight hits the electrode, it generates an electric current that splits the water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen.
Conventional solar electrodes made of silicon quickly corrode when exposed to oxygen, a key byproduct of water splitting. Several research teams have reduced corrosion by coating the silicon with iridium and other precious metals.
Researchers presented a new approach using bismuth vanadate, an inexpensive compound that absorbs sunlight and generates modest amounts of electricity.
"Bismuth vanadate has been widely regarded as a promising material for photoelectrochemical water splitting, in part because of its low cost and high stability against corrosion," said Cui.
"However, the performance of this material remains well below its theoretical solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency," Cui said.
Bismuth vanadate absorbs light but is a poor conductor of electricity. To carry a current, a solar cell made of bismuth vanadate must be sliced very thin, 200 nanometres or less, making it virtually transparent.
As a result, visible light that could be used to generate electricity simply passes through the cell.
To capture sunlight before it escapes, researchers created microscopic arrays containing thousands of silicon nanocones, each about 600 nanometres tall.
They deposited the nanocone arrays on a thin film of bismuth vanadate. Both layers were then placed on a solar cell made of perovskite, another promising photovoltaic material.

When submerged, the three-layer tandem device immediately began splitting water at a solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 6.2 per cent, already matching the theoretical maximum rate for a bismuth vanadate cell.