Biotz, a Kerala-based start up set up by Anand, has launched  the most affordable 3D printer Makifyer in India. According to Anand, times are near when kids will print their toys home. 3D printing is increasingly gaining acceptability to design and build prototypes and functional parts. 3D  printers work in additive manufacturing technology called ‘fusion filament fabrication or FF’.  Here the material is laid down in layers. A plastic filament  or metal wire is unwound from a coil and supplies material to an extension nozzle, which can turn the flow on and off. The base model costs Rs.1 lac. 3D printing is now moving from portotyping to large scale manufacturing. 3D printing will have applications in health care esp. to develop prosthetics, in automobiles to recreate car parts and create futuristic car designs, in designing, in movies and TV and is useful for both researchers and do-it-yourself enthusiasts.

Vajpayee opted for custom-made BMW in 2003. Since then, the government purchases have declined, and there is a steady, downhill for the Amby. In the mid-1980s, the company made 24000 units. In the 1990s, the figure came down to less than 12000. In the new millennium, the figure came down to less than 6000. There are some 2600 workers in Uttarpara plant who make in these final days just five cars a day.

‘ RIP , Amby, your time is up ‘.  HM has been referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction ( BIFR ). They have to restructure the organisation and get a strategic partner. However, the chances of revival are slim. Promoters manufacture cars for Mitsubishi and Isuzu at a plant near Chennai. They do not plan to introduce fresh investments. They tried to revive the company by introducing Contessa but after its failure, further investments were discouraged.

Even the taxi market has been tapped by Maruti Suzuki Dzire and Tata Indigo CS. HM introduced BS IV emission norms two years late.

The workers have not been paid regular salaries.

The Uttarpara plant dares back to 1942, making it the second oldest in Asia after Japanese giant Toyota.

As the ultimate aim of herbal products is to deliver the goodness of herbs to the consumers, regulations must be framed in consistence with this objective. A herbal product could be a cosmetic, an ayurvedic medicine, a drug, a food or food supplement  (neutraceutical ) , or a food additive. It is necessary to appreciate that regulations are not based on the herbal material per se, but on the intended use of the material.

Herbal cosmetics are formulated using permissible cosmetic ingredients to form as base in which one or more herbals or herbal ingredients are used to provide defined cosmetic benefits. The label must declare it as Herbal Cosmetic. The license is obtained from the state’s FDA under the Drugs and Cosmetic Act and Rules. There should be compliance with the GMP requirements for cosmetics manufacture. There are issues regarding whether a product is a drug or cosmetic, since at times the ingredients are mentioned as drugs in the authentic texts. A schedule has been introduced under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act mentioning ingredients and recommended for oral, skin, hair and body care in saundarya prasadak — husne afza.

An ayurvedic medicine is manufactured as per recipe or formulation listed in the Books of First Schedule of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, and the method of manufacturing / processing is as per the book. It is made under Ayurved Drug License. There is a provision for proprietory, Ayurvedic Medicine License for drugs which have one or more ingredients / herb mentioned in any one of the book referred above. These are classical / grantha Ayurvedic drugs. There are no provisions for New Ayurvedic Drugs / Medicines, and no provisions for the import of Ayurvedic drugs / medicines. The law is silent on these areas. Though there are manufacturing licenses required for Ayurvedic Medicines, there is no need for sale licenses for outlets that stock, distribute and sell Ayurvedic medicines.

A herbal product becomes a drug where drug’s definition under the Act can be applied to it. These products are approved if they satisfy the standards of purity and potency given in the official book or pharmacopeia. There were monographs for herbs / herbal products years ago in the I.P. However, in the last two decades, these have been deleted. More presence of the monograph does not mean they are drugs but these must be approved under Drugs Rules 122 from C DSCO and DCGI as a new drug. There is no bar for a herbal to apply for approval as a drug but the requirements here are tilted in favour of synthetic molecules. To overcome this, a definition of phytopharmaceuticals has been introduced. There are scientific studies on quality, system and efficacy on lines equal to a drug, but these are to be Gazetted yet. There are still many herbal products marketed as drugs on the basis licenses issued long time ago.

The Food safety Standards Act and Rules ( FSSA and FSSR ) govern herbal products as food or food supplement. Under the Act, food means any substance which is intended for human consumption. It could be processed or unprocessed. It includes primary food, genetically modified or engineered food, food containing such ingredients, infant food, packaged drinking water, alchoholic drink, chewing gum and any substance ( including water ) used into the food during its manufacture, preparation or treatment. It does not include any animal feed, live animals unless they are prepared or processed for placing on the market for human consumption, plants prior to harvesting, drugs and medicinal products, cosmetics, narcotic or psychotropic substances. Any other article can be declared as food by the Government. A food additive is only substance not normally consumed as food by itself or used as a typical ingredient of the food but is added intentionally to food for a technological purpose affecting the characteristics of such food.

There are 370 foods defined under the Act and standards are spelled out for them. Foods for which no standards have been specified can be manufactured and marketed as proprietary food.

It is proposed to market Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani ingredients known for their history as supplements. Herbal products marketed is food must meet the labeling requirements. There is no bar on herbs being added to food even if they are not known in India provided adequate data about its efficacy, quality and safety are available. Some of these can be classified as Novel Foods. Foods should not make clinical claims. The Export regulations are yet to be streamlined.

Herbal food additives merit attention. Food additives are gums, starches, oleo resins, food colours, distilled oils.

Herbal products for veterinary use should also be studied.

Herbal extracts ( standardised extracts ) are used. But the concept of active pharmaceutical ingredients does not exist in Ayurvedic drugs or foods. Thus manufacture of such extracts faces many problems.

Apple’s celebrated design team is a group of around 16  ‘maniacal’  individuals from all over the world, who spends a lot of time brainstorming around a kitchen table. iPhone and iPad design features owe a great debt to creative guru Jonathan Ive and his cadre of designers assembled from Britain, Australia, the US, Japan, Germany over more than a decade. Their role is to imagine products that do not exist and guide them to life. Ive’s team works out of a large, open studio on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California. Over the years, the team earned a reputation for blending the aesthetically appealing with the functional. Once a product design idea is solidified through a brainstorming session, the design team sketches those ideas and models it through a Computer Aided Design process.

Bitcoins, the digital currency, was created by a developer or developers going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. Bitcoin is an open source product. It is a digital coin. It is a private currency. It can be mined. Massive computer resources are needed to auto-solve complex mathematical algorithms. Once the problem is successfully solved a bitcoin is generated.

Source Forge, an on line platform enables the download of the Bitcoin mining programme.

Bitcoins are purchased and sold against real currency at the prevailing exchange rate. ( $ 8.06 in India ). On purchase Bitcoin moves from the wallet of the seller to that of the buyer. Each wallet has its own unique 33 characters.

Trading is done in pseudonyms. The wallet stores the history of every transaction.

Many initial holders of bitcoins

•  either mined these coins
•  or received it as fees from overseas clients.

Linden dollars is the game currently for virtual world. it is called Secondlife. It can be exchanged for Bitcoins.

Bitcoin Exchange

MtGox.com is the bitcoin exchange. You can sell the bitcoins through this exchange. The money will flow into your bank account in India.

Trading

Step 1

Network with experts and learn the trends

Step 2

Open a Wallet

Bitcoin.org or coinbase.com offer free wallet setups.Each wallet has unique id code. It is required for bitcoin buy and sell.

Step 3

Find a reputed Bitcoin exchange.

MtGox.com is the largest.

Buysell bitco.in is India centric.

Step 4

After creating an account with exchange, you can place a buy order and make payment to the exchange via wire transfer or other permissible payment mechanisms.

When the transaction is settled, the Bitcoins are credited to your wallet.

Snowden announced that he is ready to accept the donations in Bitcoins since the US has put a blockade on Wikileaks. That drew the attention of the world to Bitcoins. This protocol of Bitcoin was started by Satoshi Nakamoto, a mysterious person, probably a pseudonym derived from brands Samsung and Toshiba.

The Bitcoin algorithm produces 12 Bitcoins every few hours. It is designed in such a way that the total number of Bitcoins will never exceed 21 million.This figure will be reached by 2020. Today, each Bitcoin is worth $ 600 but it had touched a high of $ 1200. As a digital currency, bitcoins reached a value of $1,130 in 2013. Since then, the value has plunged to $ 326, a fall of 56 per cent in 2014. In other words, it becomes the the world’s worst performing currency.

Bitcoins are a store of value to the Web bucaneers and is immune to the government confiscation or deliberate devaluation. It, therefore, is the currency of choice for the old-fashioned money launderers and new age exotic salesmen. At the current value of $326, bitcoin as currency is deeply wounded.

There are estimated 5000 Bitcoins in India, and the number is increasing.

Bitcoins in its current form are bad since they use a protocol called TOR: The Onion Router that allows the giver and receiver to remain anonymous. This is the danger.

The underlying technology behind bitcoin is known as blockchain. IBM wishes to adopt it to crate digital cash and payment system for major currencies of the world.Cash can be transferred and payments can be made instantly without a bank or clearing party getting involved. An open ledger for the specific country’s currency will be maintained. Bitcoin’s main technological innovation is blockchain or a ledger. It allows users to pay anonymously and instantly without government regulation.This ledger is open and accessible to all participants in the bitcoin network.It is not strored on a separate server and controlled by an individual company.The proposed digital currency system will work on similar lines.

Instead of bitcoins, the dollars can be transacted. IBM is in talk with a number of central banks about the expansion of the blockchain technology of open ledger which could be viewed by eveyone using the system.The issues of money laundering and criminal activities will have to be addressed.Bitcoin is a decentralised network which has no overseer. Digital currency system would be controlled by central banks. Digital currency could be linked to a regular bank account of a person, possibly using wallet software.This could be integrated to the ledger.

Indian investors are taking a closer look at the online payment system to understand its global potential.An alliance of all bitcoin companies in India has been formed in March, 2015. It is called The Bitcoin Alliance India.This body will represent the Indian bitcoin industry to governments and other organisations. It will spread awareness, enable adoption and aid entrepreneurship involving bitcoin.Angel investors and VCs finally warm up to the idea of bitcoin.

Usually, 10000 to 12000 bitcoin transactions happen every day. Because of the Greek crisis, the transactions rose to 120,000 transactions per day in June-July, 2015. The price of bitcoin on June 1 was $220, whih rose to $285 on July 24. It is a 29 per cent rise. In Euros, bitcoin rose from Euro 213 on June 1 to Euro 260 on July 24 . It is a rise of 22 per cent.

The process of generating new bitcoins is called mining. It is governed by mathematical algorithms. The supply is controlled and increases at decelerating rate. Each coin is a unique number. A person can quote the same number twice. It is a common problem to all digital currency transactions. The matters are further complicated by the fact that the coins are anonymous — they cannot be tied to an owner for validation.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor has found a clever solution. Each bitcoin transaction is time-stamped and recorded in a virtual ledger — the blockchain. The blockchain confirms if a particular bitcoin is available for transaction. This blockchain is maintained by a peer-to-peer system of multiple computers. It can be downloaded by anyone. It can be cross-checked and so a fraud is difficullt. As Greek crisis increased the volume of transactions, blockchain processing slowed down, and a transaction which generally takes 15-20 minutes took over 5 hours.

A number of Chinese syndicates mine bitcoin, China contributes a huge number of transactions. The stock market melt down at Shanghai also increased bitcoin volumes.

City and Barclays propose to launch their own digital currencies.

Hackers seize files on millions of computers and then subject the victims whose files have been seized to ransom payment in terms of bitcoins — a virtual currency that can be held in a digital wallet. It has not to be registered with any government and can easily be exchanged for real money. It should be noted bitcoins have appealed to the criminal element. There was Silk Road dealing in narcotics online using bitcoins as currency, which was closed down by the authorities DD4BC is notorious for attacking the financial firms. Even prior to the emergence of bitcoins, online extortion was in vogue, but the payment modes were cumbersome, say through prepaid cards. Bitcoins have facilitated the transactions. Victims are directed to several websites where bitcoins could be purchased. There is an attempt to lock all the files on a computer, and a payment is asked to unlock it. The sooftware CryptoLocker has been traced to a Russian mastermind. It affected several lac computers. There are new versions of this malware — TorrentLocker and Dirty Decrypt.

With so much volatility seen in the real estate and equity markets, bitcoins have become a safer investment option. With Digital India initiative, money is bound to become virtual. It can be moved around easily.

Bitcoins can be bought and sold online and can be remitted abroad — all electronically. A customer can use a bitcoin wallet to transfer money. It is estimated that India has 30,000 users of bitcoins and there are transactions worth Rs 200 crore a year in bitcoins.

Bitcoin flounders in Australia as regulatory worries bite. There are concerns about the potential crime links of bitcoins. Businesses have stopped accepting it. There are 17 bitcoin exchanges in Australia of which 13 has  closed the accounts. It is the first coordinated shut down of bitcoin exchanges by a country’s banking system. It makes it harder for people to convert regular currencies in or out of bitcoin, threatening its long term value.

The very technology that makes Bitcoins appealing is also responsible for its weaknesses. Bitcoins today store up huge value, earning the name digital gold. So far there was concern about the volatility in the value of Bitcoin. The current concern is about its recovertability.

Block gain makes it decentralised and anonymous. As it is unregulated, it is attractive to many users. As we are aware, block chain carries a list of records or blocks which are tamper proof and revision proof. Each block contains a times-tamp — the encoded information of the time a transaction occured and a link to a previous block. The transaction takes place between two parties anonymously. The only identification is the digital signature. There is no mediator in the transaction.In financial transactions, a bank or a financial institution mediates. Block chain has open ledger design. It is cost effective as mediator attracts no fees. It is fast and transparent.

The drawbacks of this technology are

• the lost or forgotten password which cannot be retrieved. Thus Bitcoins stored in wallet becomes unrecoverable.
• Insecure password can render the Bitcoin stealable. Stolen Bitcoins can be diverted to another wallet due to hacking or dishonest trading partners. Such transactions cannot be reversed or recovered. As Bitcoin transactions are anonynous, there is scope for dishonest traders to scam.
• Hacking is common in the dark web or hidden web accessed by Tor.
• Drug transactions are made through Bitcoins.

There are suggestions to address the trust issue. Record of conventional currency swapped for bitcoin must be maintained. Reputation management programme should be implemented on the top of block chain. There should be tools to reveal the identity of one-use only bitcoin wallets. There should be tools to know the use of third parties to arbitrate. But such suggestion reduce Bitcoins to just digital hawala, and its attraction may fade .

The Union Finance Ministry has invited suggestions on whether digital currencies such as Bitcoin should be banned or allowed but regulated. If to be regulated, should it be self-regulation?

Bitcoin startups has jointly launched a Digital Asset and Blockchain Foundation of India (DABFI) as a self-regulatory body.

Over-regulation kills an industry. Had e-commerce forms be regulated from the start, the segment would not have the grown the way it has. The best way to regulate is to allow the crypto currency exchanges to operate.

These exchanges have KYC checks in place, anti-money laudering (AML) provision and suspicious transactions reporting  (STR) processes.

They can help build an identity layer on top of this technology. There is a trail of every transaction. It can be traced back to the identity of the person. There could be a long transaction chain that needs to be traced backwards before the culprit is identified. These digital traces can never be erased.

The self-regulatory body can co-ordinate with the government.

There are four major aorrencies globally–Bitcoin, Etherium, Litcoin and Ripple. Bitcoin’s biggest weakness is the system’s limited capacity which can handle only seven trancsactions per second, as compared to thousands of transactions in conventional payment systems.