DR. ASHIQ HUSSAIN

(By Dr. Ashaq Hussain Astt. Professor (Chemistry) Govt. P.G.College Bhaderwah)

"It is impossible to deny that Chemistry has played a major part in determining the nature of the modern world." - Linus Pauling.

Chemistry has played a key role in determining the nature of the modern world. While defining chemistry let us consider a traditional definition which states 'Chemistry is the science of matter which undergoes changes during chemical reaction'. But in reality chemistry goes beyond its traditional definitions. From the evolution of mankind itself, chemistry had a close connection with the daily acts of human beings. So we cannot deny the contribution of chemistry. Every matter is related to chemistry; even we human beings are made of chemicals. Almost all changes that we see around are means of chemical reactions.

Chemistry has improved our quality of life, and made thousands of products possible. Unfortunately,  the very fact that every good thing has a bad side to it gives rise to the question, As there are two sides of a coin, chemistry if not properly used can become the cause of the 'death carrier' of the planet that we live in.

Thus this achievement has come at a price: our collective human health and the global environment are threatened .Our bodies are contaminated with a large number of synthetic industrial chemicals, many of which are known to be toxic and carcinogenic while others remain untested for their health effects. Many chemicals work their way up the food chain and circulate round the globe. However All in All, the Pros of Chemistry far outweigh the cons. The only thing that researchers have to care of is, misusing chemistry.Before going into the details one should know the famous quote of Albert Einstein, “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” While some efforts are underway to overhaul chemicals policy, the focus is also on overhauling the way chemicals are designed from the outset. This is what Green Chemistry sets out to do.

What is Green Chemistry?

Green chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is a philosophy of chemical research and engineering that encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances. The goal of green chemistry is to create better, safer chemicals while choosing the safest, most efficient ways to synthesize them and to reduce wastes. It aims to avoid problems before they happen. The focus is on minimizing the hazard and maximizing the efficiency of any chemical choice. Thus Green Chemistry is an innovative scientific movement aimed at replacing toxic chemicals with safe materials. It provides an overarching set of principles for chemists and others to develop products, processes and services that curb pollution, waste, and energy consumption.

Although Green Chemistry has been around for over a decade, however due to fuel prices rise, it is generating more interest from industries in search of sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based products and work processes that use a lot of energy.

The green chemistry program was begun shortly after the passage of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 and is the central focus of the environmental Protection Agency’s Design for the Environment Program. However, Green Chemistry was officially launched in 1998, when two US chemists, Dr Paul Anastas and Dr John Warner of the Green Chemistry Institute of the American Chemical Society published the “Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry.” These principles outline methods for designing energy-efficient processes for creating non-polluting products. The main concept of these principles is:

·         the design of processes to maximize the amount of raw material that ends up in the product;

·         the use of safe, environment-benign substances, including solvents, whenever possible;

·         the design of energy efficient processes;

·         the best form of waste disposal: not to create it in the first place.

The 12 principles are:

1. It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is formed.
2. Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.
3. Wherever practicable, synthetic methodologies should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment.
4. Chemical products should be designed to preserve efficacy of function while reducing toxicity.
5. The use of auxiliary substances (e.g. solvents, separation agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when used.
6. Energy requirements should be recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. Synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure.
7. A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting wherever technically and economically practicable.
8. Reduce derivatives - Unnecessary derivatization (blocking group, protection/ deprotection, temporary modification) should be avoided whenever possible.
9. Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
10. Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they do not persist in the environment and break down into innocuous degradation products.
11. Analytical methodologies need to be further developed to allow for real-time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.
12. Substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.

Thus chemists and corporations now view green chemistry as including broader concerns such as energy conservation and higher resource efficiency. Most attention has centered on designing chemicals, but researchers are gradually adopting a life cycle approach: targeting raw materials, pre-manufacturing and design, manufacturing, processing and formulation, product delivery and retail, product use and end of life. However, scientific and business leaders argue that green chemistry has the potential to transform many industries. Chemicals are used in numerous process industries such as steel and petroleum. They are used in – or in making – products ranging from electronics, furniture, paper and clothes to automobiles. Plastics are used in countless products. Chemicals are sold as cosmetics, cleaning agents, paints and other consumer products. The extent to which green chemistry can change industrial production is uncertain but potentially vast. Many older chemical processes have not been updated with environmental impacts in mind. Thousands of chemicals used in everyday products have not been evaluated for their health risks, if any. The pharmaceutical industry is notoriously wasteful because of its use of numerous manufacturing steps and batch operations. Generally, companies did not consider energy consumption when developing new processes and products. The ways in which green chemistry can propel changes can be summed up in the following major categories.

• Raw materials. Companies can change the materials that they use to manufacture chemicals. Instead of relying on petrochemicals, they can use renewable biomass feedstocks, develop new chemical building blocks based on biomass or copy chemicals that already exist naturally.

• Production. Manufacturers can achieve significant change in their production efficiency, costs and impacts by using alternative reaction pathways, solvents, catalysts, reactor technology and solvent less systems. In particular, they can gain dramatic decreases in energy use and waste output. Such changes are the most established green chemistry practices because of prior industry interest in pollution prevention.

• Products. Targeting products can help create green chemistry changes that propagate across the production system. Manufacturers can reformulate chemicals, or redesign consumer products or introduce new ones so that less toxic chemicals are incorporated into products.

• Energy:- The vast majority of the energy generated in the world today is from non-renewable sources that damage the environment. Green Chemistry will be essential in developing the alternatives for energy generation (photovoltaics, hydrogen, fuel cells, biobased fuels, etc.) as well as  continue the path toward energy efficiency with catalysis and product design at the forefront.

• Global Change:- Concerns for climate change, oceanic temperature, stratospheric chemistry and global distillation can be addressed through the development and implementation of green chemistry technologies.

• Resource Depletion:-Due to the over utilization of non-renewable resources, natural resources are being depleted at an unsustainable rate. Fossil fuels are a central issue. Renewable resources (Biomass, Nanoscience & technology, Solar, Carbon dioxide, Chitin, Waste utilization etc) can be made increasingly viable technologically and economically through green chemistry.

 • Food Supply:-While current food levels are sufficient, distribution is inadequate, Agricultural methods are unsustainable and the Future food production intensity is needed. The Green chemistry can address many  food supply issues by supplying  Pesticides which only affect target organisms and degrade to innocuous by-products and  Fertilizers and fertilizer adjuvants that are designed to minimize usage while maximizing effectiveness.

   The common example of utilization of Green chemistry is the Synthesis of Ibuprofen (analgesic, anti-inflammatory)

     Environmental Advantages of BHC Synthesis of Ibuprofen

•         Less waste

–        greater atom economy

–        catalytic versus stoichiometric reagents

–         recycling, reuse, recovery of byproducts and reagents (acetic acid >99%; HF >99.9%)

–        greater throughput (three steps versus five steps) and overall yield (virtually quantitative)

–        Fewer auxiliary substances (solvents separation agents)

Another example of the difference between traditional chemistry and green chemistry is the use of petroleum. Today’s chemical industry relies almost entirely on non-renewable petroleum as the primary building block to create chemicals. This type of chemical production typically is very energy intensive, inefficient, and toxic—resulting in significant energy use, and generation of hazardous waste. One of the principles of green chemistry is to prioritize the use of alternative and renewable materials including the use of agricultural waste or biomass and non-food-related bio products.

In general, chemical reactions with these materials are significantly less hazardous than when conducted with petroleum products. Other principles focus on prevention of waste, less hazardous chemical syntheses, and designing safer chemicals including safer solvents. Others focus on the design of chemicals products to safely degrade in the environment and efficiency and simplicity in chemical processes.

Conclusion

Consumers and business purchasing departments can promote green chemistry by demanding safer, non-toxic products from manufacturers. This will help give a competitive advantage to those companies who screen the chemicals used in their products and demand safer substitutes from their suppliers. Such demand will also help increase the number of green chemistry courses in universities, training the next generation of chemists to consider life cycle impacts of the chemicals they design. To what degree the chemical industry is actually adopting green chemistry principles is unknown because some of the most innovative examples are proprietary. Researchers at Yale are identifying the barriers within the chemical industry that prevent or slow the adoption of green  chemistry.13 Green chemistry awards help publicize the feasibility of green chemistry but much more needs to be done. Governments have a major role in adopting policies that promote green chemistry innovation and implementation in the commercial sector.

At the same time the chemical industry has a duty to integrate the principles of green chemistry into their manufacturing processes while product manufacturers and retailers have a responsibility to demand chemicals from their suppliers that have been tested and shown to be inherently safe. Green economic innovation for the 21st Century will require green chemistry Green Chemistry or environmentally benign chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that eliminates the use or generation of substances hazardous to human health.

In the end we can say that Green chemistry is not a solution to all environmental problems But the most fundamental approach to preventing pollution.

India has a unique and wonderful culture embracing the diversities of castes, languages and religions. It is a land of different castes, creeds etc. Inspite of these divergences there was always a general feeling of oneness and Indianness. All the cultural traditions of India are characterized by unity in diversity. The fundamental unity was never lost inspite of all changes and developments.

During the great Indian Freedom Movement people with difference of languages, regions, castes and creeds etc. joined their hands to drive out British power from the soil of India. It truly speaks of the concept of "United we stand, divided we fall".

But in recent years, unprecedented havoc of communalism, terrorism, caste-ism, lingua-ism and regionalism raised its ugly heads in different pockets of India. All these forces and factors do pose a challenge to India’s unity and integrity and therefore conscious efforts will have to be made by all concerned to preserve the same.

For binding the people in the sentiment of oneness i.e. in the bond of nationalism or what we call National Integration, it is necessary to all to eliminate and evaporate the feeling of regionalism, communalism, Lingua-ism etc. amongst themselves. In a contemporary society Media plays a very important role in this regard. Without Media, people in societies would be isolated, not only from the rest of world but from the Government, Law and Order, neighboring Towns and Cities. Media is the most powerful tool of communication. It helps promoting the right things on right time. It gives a real exposure to the mass audience about what is right or wrong. Even though media is linked with blaming fake news every time, for example, on terrorist attacks by saying directly Muslim fundamentalist hands in attack without properly investigating. But on the safe side, it helps a lot to inform us about the realities as well, for example, the Washington Post brought down President Richard Nixon; Indira Gandhi convinced the world’s press to support against Pakistan–in 1971 struggle to free Bangladesh; and it was newspaper coverage of the Bofors Gun Scandal that cost Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, then, his coveted portfolio. Blanket News coverage and, for the first time, graphic color Television pictures of the horrors and cruelty of the war in Vietnam helped in bringing that to an end – and it was partly West German’s television portrayal of life beyond the communist world that caused people of eastern Europe to rise up and end the cold war.

Thus media has a constructive role to play for the society; and so today the News Channels and even some Newspapers are mouthpieces of some social issues, which help us to estimate the realities of lives. It is the fact that in most of the eras, media were not being given free and fair chances to explore the issues of society more openly than it is being given now; but we can’t deny this fact that the issues were always raised in order to provide justice to the people.

But unfortunately the media is now fragmented. Today we have newspapers that have caste, community and regional favorites. We have News television channels that though do not come out publicly but vouch for a particular community, not to serve social interests but to serve the larger political interests. You have newspapers that claim to don the role of vanguard and trumpet to be independent yet pursue the agenda discreetly.

This fragmentation of media has become so serious that there are very few visible options left to conclude that a particular media house, newspaper or television is independent. Even if somebody is genuinely independent, it has become very difficult to prove its independence.

Amid all this comes the news value; or the value of commitment towards the society, commitment towards the Nation, and finally, commitment towards the National integration. Today every literate home needs a newspaper, when it comes to television set literacy does not matter. Circulation figures and television ratings apart, no media in this country wants to compromise on National Integration. Unity in diversity is the most popular phrase among the netas or neta-turned editor or owners of television channels or newspapers.

            So what do we do? Do we live with it? Certainly not! We cannot afford to accept divisive politics; it can be by anybody, media, executive or the legislature. A cautious editorial approach, that identifies the agenda of those pursuing divisive politics, is the way out. It is only possible when you have qualified independent editors (again a point for big debate); independent editor who ensure that it is the nation that comes first.

India needs a free press, or media, in particular the poor of India need it. If public attention cannot be drawn to problems – such as deep alienation of our people in the North East,  or the plight of the tribal peoples– the problems will not go away, in fact, they will fester and eventually blow up, blowing much of the country with them.

It is unfortunate that most of the press is biased. They are projecting what they want instead of projecting the reality. Access to people demands a very responsible behavior. Their role should be to spread love instead of cultivating hatred, which is of no use. They have to play crucial rule in educating the people and to provide them clear picture of what is going on in the world because ignorance is a major problem. They should not over proportionate. Factual reporting is the essence of journalism and if the press starts reporting facts there would be a lot of betterment in the society. These are the major drawbacks that have to be tackled for the media to be active participant in the National Integration process.

Thus the country and the people today need a free press even more than they did decades ago – during independence struggle, as other institutions that could ensure accountability – the legislature, the judiciary and so on – have become progressively ineffective.

So, at last to conclude, it can be said that Media can play an effective role in promoting national integration but only when the media, as well as Media men are committed and self dependable. They should express social responsibilities that would invariably sustain the growth of micro ethno systems in the nation, help the political terrain, and eliminate friction in human relationships and other sectors of the country. As the watch dog of society, media is responsible and accountable to the people and can also help in the elimination of social vices confronting humanity and National Integrity.

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Dr. Ashiq

In order to excel in your school studies, the very first step is to realize the difference between studying and learning. Learning is a natural mental activity that makes you to get familiar with certain ideas and theory and their practical usage. It is quite different from the study process which doesn't involve any active mental process rather it requires you to rote memorize things as they are mentioned in the course books.

Rote memorizing is not the right approach to learn things and ideas. If you really want to attain knowledge about a subject, your approach towards learning needs to be holistic. You need to increase your ability to interlink the ideas of various study material and to practice it in your mind so that the ideas, facts and theory may naturally get imprinted on your mind. By doing so, you will not only be able to get better grades at school, but also, you will be able to make better and practical usage of your education.

There are many e-books available that will provide you various techniques to memorize things, lists, theories, and a lot more. Yet, none of such books actually make you familiar with the means of learning. They try to help you in increasing your ability to memorize things without actually understanding them. Such strategies often fail to help you get better grades in school examinations. This is so because when you try to memorize ideas and theory without understanding them and making them your own ideas, you will remain prone to forget them or to commit mistake while copying the things that you stored in your memory. The learning process has nothing to do with memorizing things. In order to attain better grades at school you should try to learn more study less.

How to learn to get better grades

The correct way of learning is to break the study material in into easily understandable and practical partitions. Once you do so, you will be able to visualize the interlinking between the whole study materials. As you will start understanding the initial bits of your course, you will increase your potential to learn further with the help of the familiarity of the ideas of the study material. There is a good e-book that offers some of the best possible learning strategies to teach you how to learn more and study less to gain success.

Dr. Ashiq Hussain


Read more: http://drashiqhussain.webnode.com

Global Warming describes a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. This is permanently changing the Earths climate forever. The primary cause of global warming is from humans, mostly burning of fossil fuels to drive cars, generating electricity, and operating our homes and businesses. Global Warming is very real, and it is occurring every day.

The changes are small, so far, but they are expected to grow and speed up. Within the next fifty to one hundred years, the earth may be hotter than it has been in the past million years. As oceans warm and glaciers melt, land and cities along coasts may be flooded. Heat and drought may cause forests to die and food crops to fail. Global warming will affect weather everywhere, plants and animals everywhere, people everywhere.

One major cause of global warming is the use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas that were formed from the remains of plant material deposited during the earth's carboniferous period. We have known for only a few thousand years that coal, oil, and natural gas can be burned to provide energy. It was not until the mid-1800s, however, that we began to burn very large quantities of these fossil fuels. The worldwide consumption of fossil fuel has increased dramatically.

Unfortunately, burning fossil fuels is not the only thing that we humans are doing to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In many parts of the world today, forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Enormous numbers of trees are being cut down, both to provide timber and to clear the land for farming or ranching. In order to clear forests for agriculture, people cut down and burn all the trees in area. When the flames die down, nothing is left but acres of blackened, lifeless countryside. The fire destroys all the plants and kills or drives off the animals. Because there has been little attempt to replant trees in deforested areas, the world's forests are disappearing very quickly.

There are a number of things that we can do to prepare for the changes that are coming. If we act now, perhaps we can "soften the blow" of the greenhouse effect. If we can reduce the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere, we probably can slow the rate of global warming and climate. In the future, the weather cold change much more dramatically from year to year than it does now. As global warming alters habitats, many kinds of animals will be on the move, but all sorts of barriers will stand between them and a new place to live. To help animals get around these barriers, it might be necessary to set up migration corridors that connect natural areas with one another. Without human intervention, many kinds of plants also may not survive as the earth's climate changes. Forests, in particular, may need our help. If climate changes come rapidly, few tree species will be able to spread into new areas fast enough to keep up with changing conditions.

Dr. Ashiq Hussain