The speakers in this session were Dr Dattatraya Kute, chairman, MED 25, BIS; Lokraj Meena, scientist B and assistant director, MED and member secretary, MED25, BIS; and Ashutosh Tripathi, principal research engineer, centre for flexible electronics, IIT-Kanpur.

The session was moderated by Shri Harjinder Singh, sectional committee member, MED 25, chairman, education and training, AIFMP and general secretary, LPA. 

The session started with the welcome remarks from Haroon Nomani, VP, LPA. 

The first speaker of this session was Dr Duttatraya Kute, who gave a presentation on the structure and activity of BIS. He spoke on the formation and work of BIS. This institution was born on 6 January 1947 as the Indian Standards Institution (ISI) and later was transformed into the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on 1 April 1987. 

He explained how the standards are prepared and circulated to the industry and users. BIS, according to him, plays a vital role in empowering consumers to buy and use quality products which are safe for use and the quality is tested and approved by BIS. 

He gave several examples so that the members of LPA understand about the importance of BIS like the hallmark on gold articles/jewellery and how to differentiate between bottled drinking water and mineral water. He also addressed the participants that BIS also undertakes regular training on the standards and the process. He said that the National Institute for Training for Standardisation (NITS) is the institute of BIS which is responsible for training all sectional committee members regarding how to prepare and write the standards. 

The next speaker was Lokraj Meena, who presented on the giving an overview of the sectional committee MED 25 which prepares standards on machinery used for printing, pre-press as well as post-press. The scope of MED 25 sectional committee is the formulation of standards on printing machinery and components covering terminology, dimensions, performance, maintenance and safety requirements. 

He gave insights about how all the standards are prepared and how these standards are useful for the printers. There are several factors to be kept in mind while preparing all the standards – the standards must be created keeping in mind the target users, health and other related safety and adaptability as per Indian conditions. However, every effort is made to keep the standards at par with the international standards while keeping in view the Indian conditions and the users. 

He gave several examples to the printers regarding the standards recently prepared like on rubber rollers of offset press, CTP plates and many others. He also talked about the standards under process of formation like offset press installation and inspection and many more under preparation. He also told the printers that there are certain sets of standards which are mandatory like hallmarks on jewellery, bottled drinking water and many more similar standards. There are also standards which are non-mandatory and are dependent upon the industry or user to abide by or use those standards. There is also mandatory compliance by the sectional committee to renew the created standards every five years so that the standards remain at par with the latest requirements as well as at the international standards. 

Dr Ashutosh Tripathi from the National Centre for Flexible Electronics at IIT-Kanpur spoke about emerging trends in flexible and printed electronics and the importance of proactive engagement of the Indian print and packaging industry in this field. The talk was well received by the audience. It was encouraging to learn that the print industry in India is giving it serious thought to getting more and more involved in emerging technologies such as printed electronics.

Printed electronics is exactly what it sounds like: printing of electronics. We are all familiar with common electronics such as solar panels, displays, LEDs, capacitors, ICs, sensors, etc. Conventional electronics manufacturing takes a capital-intensive route due to the limitations posed by the materials and processes being used. Moreover, the technology is proprietary to foreign countries and many of them are not readily available in India. It is evident from the fact that there is very little component-level manufacturing of key electronics products in India. 

On the contrary, Printed electronics require relatively small capex. In an ideal world, we could imagine a printing press which prints electronic inks, inks that behave like semiconductors, registers, capacitors etc., using conventional printing techniques and the outcome is an electronic component instead of a graphical one.