Visit: https://acclasses.viden.io
Delhi- Most polluted city
Breathing in the Indian capital this month was like smoking 50 cigarettes a day. Delhi has earned the unenviable distinction of becoming the most polluted city on Earth this month, as air quality has reached epically bad proportions. On November 8, pollution surged so high that some monitoring stations reported an Air Quality Index of 999, way above the upper limit of the worst category, Hazardous. (An extra-sensitive air quality instrument at the US embassy got a reading of 1,010, as you can see in the chart below.) Javier Zarracina United Airlines canceled its flights to India’s capital because of poor air quality. Visibility was so bad that cars crashed in pileups on highways and trains had to be delayed and canceled. The airborne particles and toxic chemicals that make up the smog have choked the 19 million residents of the metropolitan area, where merely breathing the air was, at its worst, like smoking 50 cigarettes in a day. Hospitals reported a 20 percent surge in patients with pollution-related illnesses, and doctors have declared a public health emergency. “You can’t see very far ahead of you,” Manon Verchot, a former colleague of mine who leads the 20-person video team at the Hindustan Times, told me. “In terms of how it effects people in Delhi, everyone is sick. Half of my team is down right now.” The gray smoke and haze was so terrible that the US State Department, which has its own air quality monitoring stations in India, installed air filters for its staff at in their offices and homes. Costa Rica’s ambassador to India, Mariela Cruz Alvarez, described in a viral blog post how she developed a serious respiratory infection and had to decamp to South India. “I´m used to living in paradise and suddenly India has become a threat to my health and the health of my friends and colleagues,” she wrote. More than an inconvenience, air pollution is indeed a major medical hazard. The Lancet Commission on pollution and health reported 9 million premature deaths stemming from air pollution in 2015. More than 2.5 million of these deaths were in India, the most in any single country. As of November 21, the air quality index was at 326 — far below the peak on November 8, but still in the Hazardous category. Yet Delhi is not out of the woods. The Business Standard reports that Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain warned in a letter that “...ambient air quality may once again worsen in the coming weeks.” This is the third year in a row that air pollution in Delhi has become very severe, despite the Indian Supreme Court’s attempt to mitigate it in October with a fireworks sales ban ahead of Diwali, the festival of lights. Measuring Delhi’s air against some of the other most polluted cities in the world, however, is difficult. Not everyone tracks pollution as well nor is it tracked by the same metrics. The World Health Organization, for example, ranked Zabol, Iran, as having the worst particulate air pollution in the world, but that was an annual average, the number was from 2012, and it was extrapolated from another measurement. World Health Organization Meanwhile, the highest daily particulate pollution record was set in Shenyang, China, back in 2015. So why did it get so bad in Delhi this year? Turns out this oppressive smog is a pungent combination of an ancient farming technique and the residues of modern urban living. But the Indian government has also failed to find ways to control the well-understood sources of pollution, which has allowed the situation to grow progressively worse over time. How Delhi’s air got so toxic, and why it won’t go away You can see India’s pockets of pollution in this live map from Berkeley Earth, an independent research consortium. The map shows airborne concentrations of particles with diameters of 2.5 microns or less, also known as PM2.5. These particles can come from different sources — diesel exhaust, natural dust, wildfires — and can lead to heart attacks, strokes, breathing difficulties, and cancer as they penetrate deep into lungs. The concentrations are reported as micrograms per cubic meter. According to the US Embassy’s measurements, air in New Delhi reached PM2.5 concentrations of more than 1,200 micrograms per cubic meter, 48 times the guideline value established by the World Health Organization. This is still short of the record set in Shenyang, China, where concentrations topped 1,400 micrograms per cubic meter. You can see in this screenshot from November 8 how Delhi became the epicenter of hazardous air quality in North India: Air quality measurements in India on November 8, 2017. Berkeley Earth “One of the things that’s so fascinating is how the pollution is not contained in the cities and it doesn’t even seem to be coming from the cities,” said Elizabeth Muller, executive director of Berkeley Earth. In fact, much of the pollution is coming from farms in nearby states of Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. With the rice harvest over, farmers are burning crop stubble — specifically the remnants of the rice crop to prepare the fields to plant wheat and return nutrients to the soil. NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite was also able to capture the crop fires in India and Pakistan creating a plume of gray haze during a flyover in October: The red outlines show the approximate locations of active fires on October 25, 2017. NASA But what’s unique about Delhi’s smog is that the smoke from the burning outside the city is mixing with pollution inside the city — from construction, vehicles, and fires the poor use to cook and keep warm. This mix of rural and urban pollution intensifies in the cooler winter months and this year’s air currents through the region have been unusually slow, allowing the dirty air to linger. North India’s topography also acts as a basin that traps pollution — making it impossible for the millions of people in the region to escape the toxic air. It’s why there are now reports of reverse migration: People retreating from Delhi to rural areas outside the pollution zone so they can breathe cleaner air. The government is failing to control the pollution, which is leading to popular unrest Protests have erupted out of anger with the government for failing to deal with the air pollution. Hundreds of people, including children whose schools were closed, took to the streets earlier in the month. India’s pollution has its roots in politics, as this great piece by four researchers writing in the Washington Post explains. Rural farmers and city dwellers are important constituencies for different parties, and neither side wants to make concessions. Crop burning is often the cheapest way to clear fields, and farmers don’t want to spend more to appease Delhi’s denizens. At the same time, the country’s Nation Green Tribunal ordered construction to stop in the capital for a few days earlier this month, drawing the ire of construction workers. The tribunal also broached and then, after severe criticism, dropped a car rationing scheme that would let cars with odd-numbered registrations drive only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and even-numbered registrations to drive on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. There are other pollution control laws, but enforcement has been lax for fear of alienating important voting blocs. Government officials from neighboring provinces have held tense, fruitless talks on the causes and liability for the pollution for years, but the atrocious air quality in the capital has added a new sense of urgency. "The country wakes up only if something happens in Delhi," Jairam Ramesh, a member of Parliament and former Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, told the Economic Times. Technology fixes for pollution also remain a tough sell. As Brad Plumer has explained for Vox, there’s been a lot of discussion about cleaner stoves in India, but for now burning wood or coal in traditional stoves is considerably cheaper than the alternatives. Meanwhile India’s environment minister Harsh Vardhan downplayed the risks from Delhi’s dirty air, telling CNN-News 18 that while high levels of particulates could be harmful, "no death certificate has the cause of death as pollution.” In fact, researchers say that the links between reduced air quality and premature death are robust. “There are all kinds of things that have been linked pretty convincingly to high levels of air pollution,” said Jason West, an environmental engineer at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “There’s pretty good evidence that lower levels of air pollution are still detrimental.” The situation is going to get worse before it gets better West noted that cities in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan have also struggled with deadly air pollution, but the air has cleared as these regions became wealthier, invested in cleaner technologies, and citizens called for stricter regulations on emissions. “Economic development was important, but economic development by itself didn’t solve the problem,” said West. “People demanded cleaner air and cleaner water.” Environmental activism is growing in India, but there are still other factors that make its situation unique. One is the sheer number of people — 1.3 billion and growing — and the staggering patterns of rural to urban migration. More Indians are cramming into smog-shrouded cities, which means more people who need housing, more people buying and driving vehicles with few pollution controls, and more people making fires in the city to cook and keep warm. The increasingly polluted air means people spend more time indoors, which increases energy demand from lighting and air conditioning, leading to more coal and wood use. That creates a feedback loop that exacerbates the whole situation. “All the suggestions are that India will likely get worse before it gets better,” West said. The epicenter of global air pollution is also likely to shift further South, and soon cities in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa may start coughing and wheezing as populations grow and energy consumption ramps up. The World Health Organization projects that air pollution will continue to be a major killer in years to come, and the world’s poorest will be left gasping. But in Delhi, life still sputters on. The Delhi half-marathon had a record turnout over the weekend with some of the 34,000 runners showing up to the starting line wearing masks.
Mayank Jain
100 MBA interview questions from Mechanical Engg.
Top 100 Mechanical Engineering Questions for MBA Interviews What is Carnot cycle? And what is the difference between a car and a mini bus then? Did you study Fluid Mechanics? Explain the basic principle of refrigeration. Explain the refrigeration cycle. Does more engine volume also mean more power? How is one gear box different from another? Tell us about the working of Petrol and Diesel Engine. Give one practical application of thermodynamics. What is bending moment? Diff. between 4 and 2 stroke? How are these processes used for combustion in engines? How is horsepower different from torque? Law of thermodynamics? So you are a mechanical engineer. What is the difference between a mini bus and a large bus from an engineering point of view? How many kinds of efficiencies are there to define the performance of engines? If we open a refrigerator's door, will the temperature of the room drop? Which type of transmission is better in terms of fuel efficiency: Manual or Automatic? How many types of gears are there? What are the three laws of thermodynamics? Name a few companies manufacturing bearings. What are the forces acting on a ball when it is in the air? What are the Bharat III norms? What are 'making capacity' and 'breaking capacity'? Which are your favorite subjects? (Mechanical Engineering) State the laws of thermodynamics and give equations? Can you explain to me the swinging motion? Have you heard of LHC (Large Hadron collider)? Ok so tell me what is an IC Engine and what problems does it face? Prove that a one sided infinite turning machine has same power as two sided. What are IC engines? Tell us about some new technologies in passenger car industry. What happens to fuel economy when number of cylinders is increased? What are the special features of NANO? What do you know about the Nano? What have you studied in Kinematics of Mechanics? What does 2.4 l written on a car indicates? What is a warm gear and can we use it in steering? What is a V-Tec engine? In a heat exchanger, if I have given pressure on tube side, can I perform hydro test of shell side simultaneously? Why? What is a synchromesh gear? What is the difference between a blower and a fan? What is Horse Power and how is it different from Torque? What is hot rolling and cold rolling? What is venturimeter and orifice plate? What is the difference between Reva and Hybrid Cars? What is the difference between precision & calibration? What is the difference between carburetor and fuel injector? What is the difference between gear hobbling and gear shaping? What is the biggest cost in manufacturing a car? What is the BHP rating of the Yamaha superbike R1? What is the difference between adiabatic and isothermic reactions? What is the study of behavior of materials at sub 0 temperature called? What is Total Internal Reflection? What is a Turing machine? What will happen if diesel is used in a petrol engine? Which of the two has more power: A petrol or a diesel car of the same volume? Why 2-stroke is more harmful to the atmosphere than the 4 stroke? Why did you take up a job in IT after pursuing mechanical engineering? What is rolling? You are a mechanical engineer and you are in analytics. Does your engineering help you in your job? You are the only girl in Mechanical Engineering branch, how did you manage? Explain the effect on the basis of which the cricket ball swings. What is difference between rack and pinion? What is K-series engine? What is MPFI? Explain bending moment. Differentiate between a shaper machine and a planner machine Explain the importance of Thermodynamics in the field of Mechanical Engineering? What is the nomenclature of a 6203-ZZ bearing? Give the full form of SCADA, DCS and HMI. How does the failing of Knuckle pin occur? What is the heat rate of a power plant? Which of these have a higher efficiency: Diesel engines or Petrol engines? What are the points in the stress/strain curve for steel? What is ductile-brittle transition temperature? Differentiate between Relay and Conductor? Differentiate between shaper and planner? What is the immediate superclass of Menu? State the laws of conservation of energy. What is a gear box and what are its applications? What is Carnot engine? Which formula forms a link between thermodynamics and electrochemistry? How will you calculate the tonnage of Mechanical Press? What is maximum continuous rating? What is the difference between Critical speed and Whirling speed? What is plant load factor? Which of the two is harder: cast iron or mild steel? How would you find the amount of natural gas required to produce 1 KWhr of energy? What is annealing? How do you measure temperature in a web bulb thermometer? What is the purpose of governor in automobile? What is the function of EGR value?
Mathematics of Group Discussion
What are the different types of Topics in a Group Discussion? A Group Discussion may be based on two kinds of topics: Factual: Such topics require familiarity with facts/information on static/dynamic components of the environment (such as social, political, economical, etc.). These topics can be further categorized into the following: Factual Generic - These topics require a basic level of awareness with respect to the various segments of our environment. They test you more on interpersonal skills, behavior and your ability to generate points, rather than discrete sectoral information. Examples: Cricket and India Issues of managing diversity in a country like India Honesty is the best policy Living in a joint family is better Guessing is an act of intelligence Factual Specific - These topics assess you on specific challenges in gathering and analyzing information on select areas. A thorough understanding of current affairs can ensure a high comfort level in handling such topics. Examples: WTO and its impact on the Indian Economy The Jasmine revolution and implications for the Arab world GAAR The Euro crisis: issues and challenges Coalgate Abstract: Such topics are based on your perception. The way you look at the topic decides your subsequent participation and performance. The challenge here is to put forth multiple implications of the topic and then evoke a discussion on some of them. Idea generation and ability to add a tangible angle to an otherwise abstract topic are the hallmarks of success here. Examples: Pigs can fly And the clock struck 13! Pink pyjamas over the Red Fort Red is red, blue is blue and never the two shall meet Black Handling Factual Topics: The first step towards approaching factual topics is to look at the topic from multiple perspectives. Try to get the reasons behind the topic/issue. This would help in covering more areas of the topic. It is highly recommended that one should not take a pre-mediated stand before the start of the topic, as it may restrict one to contribute new ideas to the topic and also the discussion becomes more of a debate. Factual Topics can be further classified into the following categories: Current Affairs Economic Education Environment IT Management Political Social Sports The techniques that you can adopt to manage factual topics are: Try and find the stake holders in the given issue- try and figure out those elements that have been responsible for the occurring of the problem. Also, figure out the elements that are going to lose or benefit from the issue A good way to start is asking why- Try to find the root of the topic i.e. what has caused this issue Try to explore the history of the topic- find the people/events that triggered the issue Discuss the Pros and Cons and offer your perspectives Give examples relevant to the issue Techniques to be used for idea generation for factual topics: SPHELTIR (Example: Reservation in India) Social- Inequalities in rural and urban India like Untouchability, Reservations for socially and educationally backward classes (Art. 15) Political- Caste based vote-bank politics Women Reservation Bill? Historical- Genesis of Caste System in India. Was there a timeline set by constitution? Economic- Creamy Layer Reservations in jobs and educational institutes Legal- Indian Constitution, Right to equality (Art. 14). However, ‘positive discrimination’ is allowed (Art. 15) Technological- Reservations in private sector like IT/ITES. Is Reservation in IITs/IIMs killing merit? International- Is Reservation making India less competitive in world? Similar policy of Affirmative Action in USA too Religion- Reservations for Minorities; Sachar Committee Report Handling Abstract Topics: The techniques that you can adopt to manage abstract topics are: Creativity and Lateral Thinking: Focus the Group on thinking as creatively as possible and then translating that thinking into concrete ideas and words Linking to factual issues: A creative idea is best if linked to a factual issue and preferably a matter currently in news Ability to understand and develop: Paying close attention to other people’s points so that they can be developed further Linking abstract concepts: Connecting two concepts to form a third one and creating a new area of thought is an impressive way to take forward the discussion Funnel Approach: An advancement of the above idea where the participant combines not just 2 or 3 but a whole range of diverse ideas to find common grounds between them and bring them together Techniques to be used for idea generation for abstract topics: POP-BEANS Example: BLACK People- corrupt/ dishonest people Objects- Black hole, manipulated balance sheet (commerce point) Place- Historical monuments, graveyard, South or North pole Behaviour- rude and aggressive behaviour Event- 26/11, other tragic events Actions- Honour killing, female foeticide , Negligent behaviour Nature – environmental degradation, catastrophic events, Society- Decline in values, morals
IOCL Interview questions
Excerpts from Interview #1: (NIT Nagpur student having Xth score 91.4%, XIIth score 89.8% and graduation score 79.2%) Personal Interview: Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to join IOCL? Briefly describe the project that you have done in your training period? According to you which is the most important OSI layer? Justify your performance in college Excerpts from Interview #2: (NIT Nagpur student having Xth score 96.8%, XIIth score 93.8% and graduation score 88.32%) Personal Interview: Introduce yourself. Tell me something about data mining? Where is it used? Can you tell its 3applications? Who is your role model and why? Can you name all the physical layers in networking? Excerpts from Interview #3: (CGPA 6.85 in Graduation, 90% in 12th and 84% in 10th.) Personal Interview: Can you explain the difference between LIFO and FIFO? Where these two terms are implemented? Some theory of computation questions. What do you prefer- Hard work or smart work? Are you ready to relocate if required? Excerpts from Interview #4: (NIT Nagpur student having Xth score 92.2%, XIIth score 79.08% and graduation score 71.36%) Technical interview: Do you know the concept of hashing? What do you know about IOCL? Why do we mostly prefer to generate and distribute electricity in 3 phase and not in 4 phase or 5 phase? Which motor connection is preferable star-delta or delta-star? Any questions? Excerpts from Interview #5: (NIT Nagpur student having Xth score 94%, XIIth score 92.6% and graduation score 87.5%) Personal Interview: Can you name the different types of processor? What is the difference between alternator and generator? Where do you see yourself in next 5 years? What are your present hobbies? How do you manage time in college between studies and extra-curricular activities? Excerpts from Interview #6: (A CGC landran student having 10th grade- 82% 12th grade-70.3% and graduation score-70.56%) Personal Interview: What is the minimum cetane number for the diesel used for naval application? Name the hydrocarbon having the poorest oxidation stability. What is Materials Requirement Planning? What is Just In Time? Which fuel exhibits the property of Aniline point? Why is tetra-ethyl lead added to gasoline? Why did you apply for this particular job? What is your greatest weakness? Are you satisfied with your academic performance till date? Tell me something about yourself. Can you brief us about your hobbies and interests?