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Meaning over metrics
By focusing on rankings, our current education model equates visibility with value and reputation with reality. -
Harvard the battle for thought
Trump's move to end Harvard's ability to enroll international students targets more than a university in perspective -
More Than Legacy: Stalins Political Formula That Keeps DMK on Top
Stalins mix of legacy, governance, and resistance seems to have struck the right chord with the TN electorate. -
Ahead of 2026 election, how can DMK retain credibility and control the narrative?
The path to Fort St. George lies as much through governance as through the peoples imagination. And in that realm, the verdict is never final -
Kerala schools to discuss drug abuse prevention, emotional well-being, digital discipline, legal rights and hygiene
With its high literacy rates and relatively strong infrastructure, Kerala is uniquely equipped to pilot such programmes, writes P John J Kennedy -
The right method of choosing good professors
Recruitment practices can sometimes leave students in the hands of professors who are experts in their subject but struggle to explain it clearly, writes P John J Kennedy -
Keeladi vs Vedic History: The Battle for Indias Past
Keeladi is not simply about pottery shards and drainage systems; it is about who gets to shape the story of India. -
Strained Symbiosis: AIADMK, BJP, and the Shrinking Space for Dravidian Politics in Tamil Nadu
In Tamil Nadu, the electorate still listens keenly for ideological clarity. The question is: will the AIADMK find the courage to speak? -
Necessary toolkit
The 2025 UGC notification and the proposed caste survey, one offering legal legitimacy, the other empirical clarity, are both necessary -
Women in STEM: Act beyond enrolment
While India boasts of a rising proportion of female STEM graduates, their participation in tech sector jobs remains low. This and other Asian examples show focusing on enrolment is ineffective in boosting equality without parallel efforts to dismantle workplace hurdles -
Indias Struggle Continues With Gender Equality: A Long Way To Go
While some countries inch forward, others remain stagnant or regress. India, unfortunately, falls into the latter group. Ranked 131 out of 148 countries, Indias gender parity score is just 64.1 per cent, making it one of the lowest globally -
The Curious Political Phenomenon of Shashi Tharoor's Praise For Modi and the Congresss Dilemma
If Tharoor is indeed preparing for a new political chapter, he should turn the page clearly. -
Looking beyond leadership mantras
The Key is not to Reject the Leadership theories, But to Supplement them with the Intellectual Depth that the Humanities and Social Sciences Can Provide, Writes P Jhon Kennedy -
Designer Crops for Biotic Stress Tolerance: Technologies and Applications
The interplay of population growth and climate change makes the creation of specialized crops in a context teeming with both biotic and abiotic hazards exceptionally challenging. Despite the optimism surrounding integrated pest and disease control based on host plant tolerance, the ongoing appearance of novel races and biotypes of major plant diseases and parasites poses a significant and growing threat to global agricultural output. Crop plants sustain severe harm from biotic stressors like diseases and pests. Managing these pressures has an influence on ecosystems and the environment in addition to raising production costs. Growers, exporters, and the health of both people and animals are concerned about the growing usage of chemical agents to combat biotic stressors. To address this, the most efficient approach is to employ resistant cultivars, as they offer cost-effectiveness, health benefits, and environmental friendliness. For enhancing global food security, the utilization of genome-editing tools requires close collaboration and dialogue among scientists, policymakers, regulators, and journalists. This concerted endeavor aims to simultaneously tackle public apprehensions about genetically modified crops. This chapter offers a comprehensive examination of the impact of biotic stress on crop plants and underscores the significance of developing crops with the ability to withstand such stresses. Additionally, it delves into diverse technologies created for crop enhancement and explores the economic significance of currently available engineered crops in the market. 2026 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. -
Silicene and Germanene for Biosensing and Imaging Application
The discovery of two-dimensional materials creates an immense effect in the field of biomedicine especially in sensing applications. Silicene and germanene are group 14 elements, analogs of graphene. Several experiments and theoretical information have proven the excellent properties of silicene and germanene as semiconductors, capacitors, photocatalysts, and sensors. Computational and other studies show the ability of these two-dimensional materials in biosensing applications. These graphene analogs have fascinating characteristics there are no band gaps in the semiconductors which leads to a lack of stability and is liable to oxidation. Since there is an essentiality of band gap for biosensing applications which can be corrected by making some modifications in these analogs using certain metal substrates. In this chapter, we will summarize silicene and germanene elements, their various properties and their applications in biosensing and bioimaging. This suggests silicene and germaneneas promising nanoelements for the evolution of new electronic equipment for biosensing and other uses in future. 2025 Scrivener Publishing LLC. -
3D-Printed MOFCuO/TiO2 Energy Device for Continuous Self-Charging Power Generation
The electric nanogenerator offers an easy and affordable way to capture energy and operates on the premise of energy conversion. Contact electrification-based tribological energy harvesting through the interaction between tires and road surfaces, represents a highly promising renewable resource with a significant estimated potential. One of the important factors that decides the performance and application of these nanogenerators is the material used for its fabrication. In this work, we introduced a novel energy harvester comprised of defect-engineered Metal Organic Framework (MOF) templated CuO/TiO2 (MCT) based triboelectric layer integrated with a 3D printed substrate for a smart power wheel. The comprehensive properties of the material are revealed by the surface potential, structural, morphological, and electrical studies, which validate MOF as a feasible choice for energy harvesting applications. The MCT-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) generate a sustainable output of ?1.6V in flexible cantilever mode. The smart power-wheel system successfully showed a ? 400% enhancement in the output performance due to the combined effects of heating and bending. The detailed density functional theory (DFT) insight in Cu/O vacancies synergistically promotes TiO2?CuO charge transfer through flexible Cu+/Cu2+ redox states, facilitates electron mobility, and enhances the overall energy conversion efficiency. Overall, this study broadens the range of functional materials available for 3D printing and promotes the adoption of 3D-printed triboelectric devices in batteryless intelligent applications within smart automobiles. 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH. -
Plasmonic Nanocomposite for Visible Light-Modulated Bimorph-Actuator
Soft actuators have great potential applications in sophisticated movement and sensitive devices due to their flexible nature, good interaction, and precise control. However, existing carbon-based optical actuators are limited in their response under visible light irradiation. The limited visible light absorbance of the carbon nanostructure brought the metallic nanoparticle into the soft actuators that can absorb visible light. This study introduces a new type of plasmonic photothermal-bimorph actuator, using graphene oxide (GO), reduced graphene oxide (rGO), and silver nanorods (Ag NRs) to overcome the limitations of traditional optical actuators. The bimorph film is actuated by visible and near-infrared light stimuli with various power densities showing reversible deformation behavior. The actuator shows significant bending associated with a ?50 change in bending angle under visible light irradiation with a response time of ?5 1 sec. Furthermore, a smart photo-controlled non-contact switch is fabricated based on photo-thermal conversion properties, demonstrating perfect integration of plasmonic bimorph actuators. The density functional theory based molecular dynamics calculations provide an additional understanding of the bending of actuators under external stimulus. Using illustrative demonstrations of actuators, these results hint at a method for generating multipurpose visible light-based soft robots, supporting a new approach to developing an optical locking system. 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH. -
Exploring the Influence of Etching media on the Electrochemical Behavior of Cr2CTx MXene
MXenes, a class of 2D materials, have garnered significant attention for energy applications due to their unique properties.This study investigates the influence of different etching media on the synthesis of 2D Cr2CTx MXenederived from cost-effective Cr2AlC MAX phase. Three etching solutions- hydrofluoric acid(HF), HF-forming (lithium fluoride + Hydrochloric acid, LiF+HCl), and non-fluoride (sodium hydroxide, NaOH) have been used to treat ternary carbide Cr2AlC MAX phase under varied reaction conditions. The MXenes, Cr2CTx-HF, Cr2CTx-LiF/HCl, and Cr2CTx-NaOH are structurally, and morphologically characterized using XRD, Raman spectroscopy, TGA, XPS, SEM-EDX, and BET-BJH analysis. Theelectrochemical performance of Cr2CTx MXene is assessed, focusing on its performance in water splitting and supercapacitive applications. The materials exhibitlower overpotential values for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and demonstrate improved pseudocapacitive behavior, with enhanced energy and power densities. The introduction of surface termination groups in Cr2CTx MXene (Tx = ?F, ?OH, ?O) resulted in a more open and accessible layered structure with an appreciable surface area, without any modifications. This enhancedelectrochemical kinetics, improved ion transport, diffusion, and storage capacity, which are beneficial for electrochemical energy storage and production. 2025 Wiley-VCH GmbH. -
Nitrogen-Oxygen Co-Functionalized Waste Cassava Peel-Derived Carbon Dots for White Led
White light emitting diodes (WLEDs)are most sought after, with the broad spectra ranging from cool to warm white light being skillfully utilized to create various modes of lighting effects. The fabrication of WLEDs is generally sophisticated, involving either multiple components emitting in different regions or single-component phosphors with complex elemental compositions. In the present work, WLEDs utilizing solvent-tuned carbon dots derived from waste cassava peel are reported through a facile one-step microwave-assisted solvothermal method. The carbon dots show evident UV absorption and correspondingly emit broad visible light spectra when dispersed in a dimethylformamide (DMF)-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)blend, making themselves suitable white lightemitting down conversion materials. The successful transformation of a 400nm UV LED into a WLED with a general colour rendering index (CRI) of 83 and colour correlation temperature (CCT) of 4426 K gives a promising future outlook toward developing eco and economic-friendly WLEDs. 2025 Wiley-VCH GmbH.