Nor’wester studies have a long history of climatological, synoptic and radar observations. These studies have been briefly mentioned and the field programs for the study of Nor’westers implemented in India Meteorological Department (IMD) from 1931-1941 have been touched upon. Indian atmospheric science community organized a multi-year STORM program during 2007-2010 to understand the formation of these severe local storms and also understand their dynamics through modeling. An attempt is made to use INSAT Infrared and Visible imageries to document the convective cells which developed over Eastern and North-East (NE) Indian states and adjoining countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal for the year 2009. Also convective cells which organized themselves into Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCCs) for the four years period 2007-2010 have been studied. It is found that by and large Eastern India (Jharkhand, Orissa, Sub Himalayan West Bengal and Bangladesh) is responsible for the initiation of convection. Development occurs as the cells propagate over the neighbouring areas of Bangladesh and NE India. Important observations with regard to initiation, maturity and dissipation etc. of the MCCs are provided. It is suggested that half hourly to hourly monitoring of convection can be accomplished by using INSAT imagery, along with multiple overlapping radar coverages, which could help in nowcasting of convective cells. Synoptic and thermodynamic forcing can help as broad guidance. The only effective way for effective warning is nowcasting using satellite and multiple radar coverage.

Satellite based Nowcasting technique is customized version of Forecast and Tracking the Evolution of Cloud Clusters (ForTraCC), it uses the extrapolation technique that allows for the tracking of Mesoscale convective systems (MCS) radiative and morphological properties and forecasts the evolution of these properties (based on cloud-top brightness temperature and area of the cloud cluster) up to 360 minutes, using infrared satellite imagery. The Thermal Infrared (TIR) channel of the weather satellite has been broadly used to study the behaviour of the cloud systems associated with deep convection. The main advantage of this approach is that for most of the globe the best statistics can only be obtained from satellite observations. Such a satellite survey would provide the statistics of MCSs covering the range of meteorological conditions needed to generalize the result and on the other hand only satellite observations can cover the very large range of space and time scale. The algorithm script is taken from Brazilian Scientist Dr. Danial Vila and implemented it into the Indian environment and made compatible with INSAT-3D hdf5 data format. For Indian region it utilizes the INSAT-3D satellite data of TIR1 (10.8 µm) channel and creates nowcast. The output is made compatible with GUI based software MIAS by generating the output in hdf5 format for better understanding and analysis of forecast. The main features of this algorithm are detection of Cloud Cluster based on Cloud Top Brightness Temperature (CTBT) and area i.e. ≤235 ºK and ≥2400 km 2 respectively. The tracking technique based on MCS overlapping areas in successive images. The script has been automized in Auxiliary Data Processing System (ADPS) and generating the forecast file in every half an hour and convert the output file in geotiff format. The geotiff file is easily converted into KMZ file format using ArcGIS software to overlay it on google map and hosted on the web server.

An important step in oral drug development is to identify drug candidates that show sufficient aqueous solubility and could resist or bypass first-pass metabolism in order to overcome bioavailability problems. Aqueous solubility is characteristically low for Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS) class II and class IV drug candidates. Several formulation approaches are being identified to overcome the low solubility aspect of a drug candidate such as particle size manipulation, solid dispersions, inclusion complexes and several of nanoparticle-based options. However, the formulation for drug candidates that in addition to low aqueous solubility shows high intestinal and first-pass metabolism is challenging. The self-emulsifying lipid formulations (SELF) provide a mean for sidestepping these factors and improve the bioavailability of lipophilic and highly first- pass metabolised drugs. Nevertheless, formulation of a successful SELF requires an exhaustive understanding of the component used to formulate them, the behaviour of the formulation within the gastrointestinal (GI) milieu and the mechanism by which the drug is released and absorbed. This review gives a brief description of the formulation aspects of SELF and their potential role to mitigate the bioavailability problem related to lipophilic and highly first- pass metabolised drugs.

The Advanced Dvorak Technique (ADT) has been installed in India Meteorological Department experimentally since 2014. There is a need to validate this technique before it’s used operationally. Hence a study has undertaken to validate ADT (V8.1.3B) & ADT (V8.2.1) based on all the TCs (34 Knots & above) over the North Indian Ocean during 2014 & 2015 (total 7 no.). The performance of ADT has been compared with manual T number. It indicates that ADT (V8.2.1) overestimates by about 1 T number as compared to manual T number of 1.0 to 2.5 and underestimates by about 0.5 to 1 T number as compared to manual T number of 4.0 to 5.5. Further comparison with CIMSS ADT indicates that IMD ADT underestimates by about 1 T number compared to T number based on CIMSS ADT.

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