Turning an optical microscope into a nanoscope

Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been equally divided among the Laureates Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner for having bypassed a presumed scientific limitation stipulating that an optical microscope can never yield a resolution better than 0.2 micrometres (half the wavelength of light).

Using the fluorescence of molecules, scientists can now monitor the interplay between individual molecules inside cells; they can observe disease-related proteins aggregate and they can track cell division at the nanolevel.

Living organisms were studied for the first time in the 17th using an optical microscope. The instrument opened a new window to studying living organisms non-invasively.

Despite the advantages, the optical microscope suffers from a major drawback — a physical restriction as to what size of structures is possible to resolve. Ernst Abbe in 1873 said that microscope resolution is limited by, among other things, the wavelength of the light (0.2 micrometres).

While Abbe’s microscope resolution limitation still hold true, the Laureates have successfully demonstrated ways of bypassing the limitation. The three have taken optical microscopy into a new dimension using fluorescent molecules. Two different principles have been able to do this and they developed independently of each other.

Stefan Hell who was a student in South-western Finland was looking at ways of bypassing Abbe’s limitation. In 1993, he got a brilliant idea when reading a textbook on quantum optics. He soon found himself working as a part of research team using fluorescence microscopy — a technique where scientists use fluorescent molecules to image parts of the cell — at the University of Turku.

Hell was convinced that there had to be a way of circumventing Abbe’s diffraction limit, and when he read the words stimulated emission in the book on Quantum Optics a new line of thought took shape in his mind: “At that moment, it dawned on me. I had finally found a concrete concept to pursue – a real thread.”

Using fluorescence microscopy it was possible for scientists to see where a certain molecule was located. But only clusters of molecules, like entangled strands of DNA, could be located. The resolution was too low to discern individual DNA strings.

But Hell realized that it should be possible to devise a kind of nano-flashlight that could sweep along the sample, a nanometre at a time using stimulated emission.

By using stimulated emission scientists can quench fluorescent molecules. They direct a laser beam at the molecules that immediately lose their energy and become dark. In 1994, he published an article outlining his ideas. In the proposed method, so-called stimulated emission depletion (STED), a light pulse excites all the fluorescent molecules, while another light pulse quenches fluorescence from all molecules except those in a nanometre-sized volume. Only this volume is then registered. By sweeping along the sample and continuously measuring light levels, it is possible to get a comprehensive image.

The smaller the volume allowed to fluoresce at a single moment, the higher the resolution of the final image. Hence, there is, in principle, no longer any limit to the resolution of optical microscopes.

He soon shifted to Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. In 2000, he was able to demonstrate that his ideas actually work in practice, by, among other things, imaging an E. coli bacterium at a resolution never before achieved in an optical microscope.

Single-molecule microscopy

Unlike the STED microscopy, the single-molecule microscopy entails the superposition of several images. Eric Betzig and W. E. Moerner have independently of each other contributed different fundamental insights in its development. The foundation was laid when W. E. Moerner succeeded in detecting a single small fluorescent molecule.

Using absorption and fluorescence, scientists were able to study only average molecules; measuring single molecules was not possible. As a result, it was difficult to get detailed knowledge of things, for instance, how diseases develop.

Therefore, in 1989, when W. E. Moerner as the first scientist in the world was able to measure the light absorption of a single molecule, it was a pivotal achievement. At the time he was working at the IBM research centre in San Jose, California.

Eight years later Moerner took the next step towards single-molecule microscopy, building on the previously Nobel Prize-awarded discovery of the green fluorescent protein (GFP).

In 1997 W. E. Moerner had joined the University of California in San Diego, where Roger Tsien, Nobel Prize Laureate to be, was trying to get GFP to fluoresce in all the colours of the rainbow.

W. E. Moerner discovered that the fluorescence of one variant of GFP could be turned on and off at will. When he excited the protein with light of wavelength 488 nanometres the protein began to fluoresce, but after a while it faded. But he found that light of wavelength 405 nanometres could bring the protein back to life again. When the protein was reactivated, it once again fluoresced at 488 nanometres.

Moerner dispersed these excitable proteins in a gel, so that the distance between each individual protein was greater than Abbe’s diffraction limit of 0.2 micrometres. Since they were sparsely scattered, a regular optical microscope could discern the glow from individual molecules — they were like tiny lamps with switches. The results were published in Nature in 1997.

By this discovery Moerner demonstrated that it is possible to optically control fluorescence of single molecules. This solved a problem that Eric Betzig had formulated two years earlier.

Near-field microscopy

Eric Betzig was working on near-field microscopy in the early 1990s at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. In near-field microscopy the light ray is emitted from an extremely thin tip placed only a few nanometres from the sample. This kind of microscopy can also circumvent Abbe’s diffraction limit, although the method has major weaknesses. For instance, the light emitted has such a short range that it is difficult to visualize structures below the cell surface.

Eric Betzig concluded that near-field microscopy could not be improved much further. He quit Bell Labs.

Inspired by W. E. Moerner, among others, Eric Betzig had already detected fluorescence in single molecules using near-field microscopy. He began to ponder whether a regular microscope could yield the same high resolution if different molecules glowed with different colours, such as red, yellow and green.

The idea was to have the microscope register one image per colour. If all molecules of one colour were dispersed and never closer to each other than the 0.2 micrometres stipulated by Abbe’s diffraction limit, their position could be determined very precisely.

Next, when these images were superimposed, the complete image would get a resolution far better than Abbe’s diffraction limit, and red, yellow and green molecules would be distinguishable even if their distance was just a few nanometres. In this manner Abbe’s diffraction limit could be circumvented.

However, there were some practical problems, for instance a lack of molecules with a sufficient amount of distinguishable optical properties. In 1995 Eric Betzig published his theoretical ideas in the journal Optics Letters, and subsequently left academia

Lured back

For many years Eric Betzig was entirely disconnected from the research community. But one day he came across the green fluorescent protein for the first time. Realizing there was a protein that could make other proteins visible inside cells revived Betzig’s thoughts of how to circumvent Abbe’s diffraction limit.

The real breakthrough came in 2005, when he stumbled across fluorescent proteins that could be activated at will. The fluorescent molecules did not have to be of different colours, they could just as well fluoresce at different times.

Just one year later, Eric Betzig demonstrated, in collaboration with scientists working on excitable fluorescent proteins, that his idea held up in practice. Among other things, the scientists coupled the glowing protein to the membrane enveloping the lysosome, the cell’s recycling station.

Using a light pulse the proteins were activated for fluorescence, but since the pulse was so weak only a fraction of them started to glow. Due to their small number, almost all of them were positioned at a distance from each other greater than Abbe’s diffraction limit of 0.2 micrometres. Hence the position of each glowing protein could be registered very precisely in the microscope. After a while, when their fluorescence died out, the scientists activated a new subgroup of proteins. This procedure was then repeated over and over again.

When Betzig superimposed the images he ended up with a super-resolution image of the lysosome membrane.

Its resolution was far better than Abbe’s diffraction limit. An article published in Science in 2006 subsequently presented the ground-breaking work

Microscope work wins Nobel Prize,chemistry

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to a trio of researchers for improving the resolution of microscopes.

Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner used fluorescence to extend the limits of the light microscope.

The winners will share prize money of eight million kronor (£0.7m).

They were named at a press conference in Sweden, and join a prestigious list of 105 other Chemistry laureates recognised since 1901.

The Nobel Committee said the researchers had won the award for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy".

Profs Betzig and Moerner are US citizens, while Prof Hell is German.

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Committee chair Prof Sven Lidin, a materials chemist from Lunds University, said "the work of the laureates has made it possible to study molecular processes in real time".

Optical microscopes had previously been held back by a presumed limitation: that they would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light.

This assumption was based on a rule known as Abbe's diffraction limit, named after an equation published in 1873 by the German microscopist Ernst Abbe.

This year's chemistry laureates used fluorescent molecules to circumvent this limitation, allowing scientists to see things at much higher levels of resolution.

Their advance has even enabled scientists to visualise the activity of individual molecules inside living cells.

Addressing the news conference in Stockholm, Prof Hell, from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Germany, explained: "I got bored with the topic; I felt this was 19th century physics. I was wondering if there was still something profound that could be made with light microscopy. So I saw that the diffraction barrier was the only important problem that had been left over.

"Eventually I realised there must be a way by playing with the molecules, trying to turn the molecules on and off allows you to see adjacent things you couldn't see before."

Designed in India There is one route that takes advantage of India's global competitiveness in software. The role model has to be Apple and not Sony

Red tape, corruption and poor infrastructure are cited most often as causes of India's manufacturing backwardness. These are important, but there are several other critical areas with deficits - areas where it is easier to act, as there is little dispute over what needs doing. To get a hang of this, and put policy in sharper focus, we need to add three words to the new slogan so that it reads, "Make in India, not in China". The winning attributes of Chinese manufacturing are, among others - economies of scale (large production runs), use of very current technology, high productivity enabled by a healthy, skilled and disciplined workforce, and continued technological lead maintained by a powerful research-oriented higher-education system.

Focus must also dwell on an area of supposed Indian advantage - entrepreneurial robustness born out of several indigenous merchant traditions. Sure, netas and babus have let us down, but business leaders represent a very mixed bag. To make manufacturing succeed it is also important to highlight where India's businessmen have fallen down.

There are several manufacturing sectors where India has succeeded like pharmaceuticals, automobiles and auto parts, and textiles (spinning, knitting, weaving) up to the stage of garment making, which has more recently become a pure "low wage, low cost" play. Why are there globally competitive Indian businesses in all these sectors and not in others? The most powerful play has been put in by auto-component manufacturing that sits at the heart of manufacturing, and in which there are a large number of Indian companies that have won Deming Prizes for quality. From this, India has now evolved into an attractive geography for manufacturing smaller cars and bikes. Bajaj Auto's overseas earnings make up a third of its total earnings, and Hero seems to be taking the right steps in innovation and design. Global auto makers like Suzuki, Hyundai, Ford and General Motors all see their Indian manufacturing base as serving more than just the large domestic market.

Against this has to be placed India's abysmal performance in consumer electronics. When colour TV sets first began to be assembled in India, major foreign players like Philips were not allowed to use their brand names. But this infant industry protection got the sector nowhere. It is not as if there were no serious major manufacturers early in the game. In the 1980s, BPL was a respected name both because of its range of products and their quality. Some Indian names in TV sets are still around but with a minuscule share of the market. Indian business families in this sector did not deliver. Where is the commitment to quality manufacturing that the TVS group has displayed?

It is not as if there is a dearth of innovativeness in consumer electronics. Brand names like Micromax and Karbonn have been established by importing virtually off-the-shelf handsets that will suit Indian needs and wallets and by fixing labels on them (though they claim to do a bit more). What is important is to move backwards and start assembling some of those handsets. Both the Japanese and the Koreans went step by step up the manufacturing ladder by making incremental progress in adopting leading Western technologies and then improving upon them.

It is absurd to try to exactly retrace the footsteps of the Asian Tigers. Taiwan, which is a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, is crying because the margins in it are now narrow - and, what is even more distressing, youngsters don't consider the innovative atmosphere in the country adequate. Why subsidise the manufacture of semiconductors in India at this stage, particularly when it is a water and power guzzler?

There is one route that takes advantage of India's global competitiveness in software. The role model has to be Apple and not Sony. Apple conceives of and oversees the design of the products that the consumer loves, owns a lot of the intellectual property in them, gets them designed and manufactured by others, and walks away with the lion's share of value.

Indian software firms are now actively engaged in not just writing software code but designing the product (engineering services) that extends to the highest level - semiconductor design. Bits of intellectual property in individual products are owned by these original designers. What Indian companies do not own is the brand and do not play much of a role in is in conceiving the product. This is where the likes of Micromax come in. They own the band but that's it.

There is no point in reinventing the wheel by getting into conventional manufacturing now. Indian business houses should own the brands, conceive the products, get them designed in India or wherever, and get them contract manufactured from wherever. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd manufactures aircraft parts, facilitated by offset requirements. Tata Consultancy Services designs parts of aircraft, as also avionics. A business house has to come forward and use such expertise to manufacture aircraft like Brazil's Embraer. That's the way to go.

Depression intensifies into Cyclone ‘Hudhud’, storm likely to cross AP, Odisha on Oct 12

The deep depression in North Andaman Sea and its neighbourhood intensified into a cyclonic storm on Wednesday and is likely to cross Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast on October 12.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reviewed the situation with concerned departments and said all preparation have been made on par with those made to deal with Cyclone Phailin last year.

“The Cyclonic Storm ‘Hudhud’ lay centered at 0830 hours over North Andaman Sea and adjoining Southeast Bay of Bengal near latitude 12.30 N and longitude 92.90 E, about 1150 km Southeast of Gopalpur,” the latest bulletin issued by IMD here said.

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It is now crossing Andaman & Nicobar Islands close to Long Island, the IMD said, adding the system would thereafter continue to move west-northwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm in next 24 hours and subsequently into a very severe cyclonic storm.

“The system would cross north Andhra Pradesh and adjoining Odisha Coast between Visakhapatnam and Gopalpur by noon on 12th October,” the IMD said.

Under its impact, the region is likely to experience rain or thundershower at one or two places over Odisha during the next 24 hours, it said.

The MET office advised hoisting of storm warning of distant cautionary signal number two (DC-II) by replacing the earlier distant warning signal number one (DW-I) at Paradip and Gopalpur Ports in Odisha.

It also advised fishermen in deep sea to return to the coast immediately.

Patnaik, who held a review meeting during the day, told reporters, “I reviewed the situation with concerned departments. All preparation have been made on par with the one made to tackle Cyclone Phailin last year … Go for evacuation of people if required.”

Departments have been asked to implement the contingency plan, he said.

A press release issued by the CMO said as per its information the system remains 1170 km from Gopalpur and will cross Visakhapatanam and Kalingapatanam in Andhra Pradesh on October 12.

Though Cyclone Hudhud is most likely to make landfall in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, southern parts of Odisha could experience heavy rainfall along with wind at the speed of 100 kmph to 140 kmph, the release said, adding the state government was ready to face the situation.

The IMD model, which is based on latest analysis, suggested that the gusting speed would be 85 kmph as soon as the deep depression takes the shape of cyclonic storm. The wind speed would remain at about 90 kmph all along the day and it would continue till tomorrow.

The cyclonic storm would, however, further intensify and take the form of severe cyclonic storm tomorrow with gusting speed of 110 kmph, the IMD bulletin said.

On October 10 the severe cyclonic storm will take the form of very severecyclonic storm with gusting upto 125 kmph on October 10, it said. The very severe cyclonic storm condition would continue till October 12 when the maximum speed could reach 145 kmph, the bulletin said. However, the wind speed would come down to 100 kmph and the system would take the form of a cyclonic storm on October 13, it added. Odisha government has already taken steps to deploy personnel of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) in vulnerable places and NDRF and fire service personnel have been alerted to face the situation as and when required. “Our men are already in Puri and Balasore. If required we will seek more personnel from Delhi,” NDRF commandant M K Yadav, who attended the review meeting, said. Official sources said people have been asked not to panic as the administration is well prepared to face the situation and the state government has cancelled the leaves of its employees. “Ganjam is likely to be worst hit in the cyclone  as the system will make landfall close to the district. The government has already sent a group of skilled workers to Ganjam district to immediately restore power if the supply is damaged due to high speed wind of about 140 kmph,” said a senior official of the energy department. Patnaik has asked the chief secretary to take up with the BSNL authorities immediate restoration of communication system if it is hit by the cyclone. The chief minister also said that the Election Commission should be approached to ensure return of officials engaged in elections outside the state. - 

Getting to Mars through ‘jugaad

India’s Mars mission was made possible by less expensive engineering talent willing to work round the clock and the use of ingenious improvisation to cope with resource constraints

Ten months after its flawless launch on November 5, 2013, when India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) successfully entered orbit around Mars, most of the western world greeted the event with astonishment. A cartoon in the New York Times even went on to ridicule India’s effort to enter the global space elite — of the U.S., Europe and Russia — by symbolically referring to it with the image of a farmer, accompanied by a cow, knocking on the door of the elite space club. The newspaper has rightly apologised for its portrayal of India.

The country’s technological feat, accomplished two days after U.S.’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) project MAVEN orbiter reached the Red Planet, might well have some lessons to offer to other developed countries on the Indian style of innovative fix or ‘jugaad’ as they call it.

Lessons from India

What made it possible for India to become the first Asian nation to accomplish its Mars mission on its maiden attempt? What fundamental strength of the Indian way of getting things done, and approach to innovation, accounts for this achievement on a shoestring budget: only $74 million compared to NASA’s $671 million for the MAVEN project? What can NASA learn from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)? What can the mature developed economies of the world learn from what has been accomplished in the resource-constrained environment of an emerging economy?

A few months ago, I was invited to brief the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) project team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The NISAR team is working on a joint mission between NASA and ISRO to design and launch by 2020 a satellite with advanced radar imaging that will provide the capability for a unique space-based platform for long-term observations of the natural processes of the changing earth. The purpose of the briefing was to create awareness of cultural differences in thinking, communication, ways of working and management style that could potentially affect the success of this high-stakes bi-national undertaking.

At JPL, I met Alok Chatterjee, NISAR Mission Interface Manager and the main architect of this collaboration with India. He is also the man behind the earlier successful NASA-ISRO collaboration on the Chandrayaan-1 mission, and also helped set up JPL support on trajectory, navigation and manoeuvre validation and deep space coverage for ISRO’s MOM mission. He had also worked at ISRO for ten years before joining NASA/JPL.

Mr. Chatterjee and I had the opportunity to discuss at length differences in how projects are planned and carried out in India and the U.S., with special reference to ISRO and NASA/JPL, and how to make such project collaborations successful. With the well-documented story of the parallel launching of MOM and MAVEN the previous November, we had a high-profile case in point for a fundamental aspect of the Indian mindset that needs to be understood, appreciated and negotiated on a daily basis by all those who work with Indian partners and counterparts. This approach and way of thinking is superbly captured by India’s art of ingenious improvisation: jugaad.

A double-edged sword

Jugaad has come to refer to a habit of mind, born out of historical scarcity and an environment of uncertainty, which emphasises ad hoc improvisation and flexibility as a way of getting things done. Jugaad means different things in different contexts, but it’s fundamentally the art of “making things work” in the immediate present circumstances, without necessarily being concerned about long-term sustainability or systemic impacts. Jugaad enables people to come up with quick, innovative and low-cost ways of solving problems, and to make something works even when conventional wisdom says it isn’t possible. It’s a philosophy that is at the heart of Indian entrepreneurial energy and optimism.

There are myriad examples of jugaad in action in India at the level of everyday work style as well as fundamental attitude and belief. What each reveals is that in the Indian environment, flexibility and “playing it by ear” is not only habitual, and often a matter of necessity, but is considered a strength rather than a weakness. Historically, under feudalism, colonialism and — later on — the “bureaucracy raj” of the first 40 years of independent India, the ability to work around the system, to improvise and to circumvent the rules, was often required for any kind of success.

Of course, jugaad is a double-edged sword. Social commentators and management theorists in India line up on opposite sides of an ongoing and heated national debate about the pros and cons of the jugaad approach. For some, jugaad is “an Indian commodity ripe for export,” while for others it’s an attitude that can mean choosing expediency over long-term effectiveness.

It’s not surprising then to see Indian commentary on the Mars Orbiter Mission phrased in terms of jugaad. But for Mr. Chatterjee, “Jugaad is the Indian approach of getting the maximum out of spending the least amount of resources, including time. And while jugaad cannot defy the laws of physics in getting a complex space mission like MOM accomplished, it is definitely a time-tested approach that has proved applicable to processes for achieving the mission’s accelerated goals.”

India’s “space venture on a shoestring” was thus made possible not only by less expensive engineering talent willing to work around the clock, but also by using ingenious improvisation to cope successfully with resource constraints and exceptionally tight timelines. ISRO built the final model of the orbiter from the start instead of building a series of iterative models, as NASA does. They limited the number of ground tests. They used components and building blocks from earlier and concurrent missions. They also circumvented the lack of a rocket powerful enough to launch the satellite directly out of the earth’s gravitational pull by having the satellite orbit the earth for a month to build up enough speed to break free from the earth’s gravitational pull.

Right now, in the afterglow of India’s space age triumph, the strengths of the jugaad philosophy seem vindicated. But had the MOM story ended differently, in failure, as have 30 out of the 51 attempts the world has made to reach Mars, the talk in India today would be far different from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hailing of the mission as “a shining symbol of what we are capable of as a nation.” There would be questioning of whether the national genius for low-cost improvised innovation and ingenious workaround solutions — jugaad — is indeed the key to a successful future.

Issues of surrogacy

With a range of alternative medical solutions to childlessness becoming available, surrogacy has emerged as one route for many couples. While some countries have banned the practice, commercial gestational surrogacy, in which a woman is paid to have a baby to whom she has no genetic link, has caught on in countries such as Mexico and India. After the first surrogate delivery in India in June 1994, India has steadily emerged as an international destination. Relatively inexpensive medical facilities, know-how in reproductive technology, and the availability of women, largely from poor socio-economic situations and who are willing to take up the task, have aided the growth. Today there are thousands of clinics in India that offer such services. From what was generally confined to close relatives or friends in altruistic mode, the network has become extended, with payment of money to surrogate mothers becoming the norm. Services are even being advertised. Such commercialisation of motherhood has raised ethical, philosophical, and social questions and raised fears of the exploitation of women as baby-producers, and the possibility of selective breeding. In several instances, complications have arisen regarding the interests and rights of the surrogate mother, child, and intending parents. Yet, there are no clear legal provisions in place yet. The Indian Council of Medical Research in 2005 issued guidelines for the accreditation, supervision and regulation of surrogacy clinics, but those remain on paper. An expert committee drafted the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill, 2010.

The Union government is now set to table in Parliament the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Bill 2013. Letting single parents and foreign nationals to have children through surrogates in India is one issue in focus. The question relating to the citizenship of children born through an Indian surrogate and claimed by a foreign couple is one outstanding issue. Unscrupulous or mismanaged agencies could wreak havoc with lives. Many surrogacy agencies claim they are offering a legitimate service but in truth they operate in a grey area. The absence of appropriate legal provisions to ensure that surrogate mothers, who often enter into loosely drafted agreements with commissioning parents, do not become vulnerable is a serious issue. Right now, the surrogate mother could find herself with a child she did not plan for, should the clients change their mind. On the other hand, the big worry of the intending parents would be that the baby may not be handed over to them. A comprehensive regulatory framework and binding legal provisions could bring order to the field, but the larger moral question whether human reproduction should be commercialised would still remain.

Power Ministry Initiates Several Measures for Promoting Energy Efficiency in Lighting Sector

BEE & EESL to Develop Business Model for Procuring Led Bulbs

Light Emitting Diode (LED ) are emerging as the most energy-efficient source of lighting, with a LED bulb using 1/10th as much energy as a normal incandescent bulb and half as much energy as a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) to produce the same amount of light. However, the major challenge has been its high cost. The first LED lamp made in India, in 2010 was sold for Rs.1200. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the Ministry of Power initiated a systematic process to exploit the energy saving potential of LEDs, and to bring them into large scale use as soon as possible. Consequently, a roadmap was prepared, in close cooperation with the lighting industry, which sought to: (a) ensure the quality and reliability of LED lamps; (b) reduce the price of LED lamps, initially through large scale public procurement and then through a labelling programme; and (c) facilitate awareness and demonstration of this lighting through its technology. BEE simultaneously promoted demand for LED bulbs and for LED streetlights by providing financial support to all states to set up demonstration projects to highlight the lighting quality and energy savings of this technology. Further, in order to enhance demand for LED bulbs , the Ministry of Power, decided that henceforth all bulbs provided to below-poverty line households at the time of connection, estimated to be about 3.4 million, under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyuthikaran Yojana (RGGVY) would use LED technology. At the same time, a number of electricity distribution companies have also entered into agreements with LED manufacturers for the supply of LED bulbs at preferential prices to their consumers. All lighting manufacturers have established manufacturing facilities for LED-based lighting system in India, and have started training programmes for lighting engineers and demonstration programmes in various buildings to showcase this technology. BEE together with EESL (Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a joint venture of 4 power sector central PSUs) have worked with electricity distribution companies to develop a business model under which EESL procures LED bulbs in bulk and sells them to households at Rs.10 instead of the market price of Rs.400. The electricity distribution companies then repays EESL, over a period of 5 to 8 years from the savings that accrue due to use of this energy efficient lighting technology. EESL has already completed a number of projects to retrofit existing streetlights to energy efficient LED streetlights as well as a 7.5 lakh LED bulb replacement project for households in Pudhuchery. This resulted in reduction of cost of LED bulbs from Rs.400/- to Rs.310/- inclusive of warranty. Recently in August this year , following the signing of MOU between EESL and Government of Andhra Pradesh, EESL completed the procurement process of 20 lakh LED bulbs last week. Almost the entire lighting industry participated in the bid and the lowest quoted price was Rs.204/- per LED bulb. This is almost 35% less than the Puducherry LED price and about 50% below the price at the beginning of the year. The rapid price reduction as a result of aggregation of demand augurs well for promoting energy efficiency in lighting sector with the state of the art LED technology. At a price of Rs.204, LED are just 30-40% costlier than CFLs. As compared to CFLs, LEDs are 50% more energy efficient apart from not using mercury as is the case with CFL. Also, LEDs have life that is 4-5 times more than CFLs and therefore are cheaper option on life cycle cost basis. A barrier of use of LEDs in household sector is the lack of standardisation and awareness. BEE will now be launching a labelling programme, coupled with an outreach and awareness campaign, to drive the LED demand significantly. The present demand of ICLs and CFLs is more than 1.1 billion units every year. Increase in domestic demand would further reduce cost of LED bulbs with larger production capacities getting created in India. Also, along with standardisation and awareness generation, bulk public procurement could also spur demand and lead to price reduction in an accelerated manner.