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Psychiatrists want new licensing authority
- The Indian Psychiatric Society has urged the Kerala State government to divest the Mental Health Authority of its powers to issue licences to mental health care centres and entrust the task to the Director of Health Services.
- reason was the long delay in issuing licences to mental health care facilities by the Kerala State Mental Health Authority (KSMHA).
- in many other States the responsibility of issuing licence rested not with their respective State mental health authorities, but with government agencies.
- Current system of licensing by KSMHA was inefficient as it was ill-equipped for the task. KSMHA met only once or twice a year. Moreover, KSMHA was not a government agency.
- Lack of early identification and treatment of mental illness is the main reason for these illnesses becoming chronic and resulting in permanent disability. The practical solution is making psychiatry a compulsory subject with examination in the MBBS course. This will enable all doctors to identify, treat, or refer mental illnesses for appropriate treatment. This single measure will drastically improve mental health care in the long run.
Abound Solar, Solarsis to commission solar plant
- Abound Solar, a leading manufacturer of next-generation thin-film photovoltaic modules, and Solar Integration Systems India Private Limited (Solarsis), today announced the commissioning of a 1MW solar photovoltaic plant in Kadiri.
- This project was commissioned under the Rooftop and Other Small Solar Power Generation Plant (RPSSGP) Scheme administered by IREDA under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).
- It is the first project in the State to use Abound Solar Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin-film modules. The combination of Abound Solar's low-cost modules, along with Solarsis' homegrown racking and mounting solution, cut down on the overall balance-of-system (BoS) cost of the project.
New species of scorpion found
- The biodiversity survey of the cotton project area in Warangal commissioned by World Wildlife Fund (WWF-India) has revealed a new species of scorpion
- scorpion is from the genus Heterometrus Ehremberg, 1828, and has been named Heterometrus Telanganaensis, after the region Telangana
