AWARDS
Dan David Prize
Noted Indian author Amitav Ghosh has won the prestigious Dan David Prize for his remarkable reworking of the great tradition of the western novel in transnational terms.
The $1 million award is a joint international enterprise endowed by the Dan David Foundation and head-quartered at Tel Aviv University. It is annually awarded in three different fields—archaeology, performing arts and material science—in the three-dimension time framework of past, present and future.
Ghosh, 53, is the third Indian to win the award, joining an elite league comprising of chemist C.N.R. Rao and musician Zubin Mehta. The Indian author will be sharing the prize in the present dimension with Dr Gordon E. Moore, whose Moore's Law has become the guiding principle for the semi-conductor industry.
PM’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration
Gulshan Bamra has been given the award for his initiative to involve community in the Naxal-affected areas of Madhya Pradesh.
Commonwealth Prize, 2010
British-Indian author Rana Dasgupta (38) has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for ‘Best Book’ on for his second book Solo. Rana won a prize of £10,000 (Rs 8.5 lakh).
Solo is a story told by a 100-year-old Bulgarian, and includes a cast of riveting characters, among them talking parrots.
Though Dasgupta was born in Britain and holds a British passport, he has been based in Delhi for over eight years now. His first novel “Tokyo Cancelled” had also drawn enormous praise.
Australian author Glenda Guest’s “Siddon Rock” won in the Best First Book category.
CYBER SPACE
Browse at the speed of light
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a new infra-red laser made from germanium that operates at room temperature, which has made light-speed computing come one step closer to reality.
The research removes the cryogenic cooling systems previously needed for infra-red lasers and could lead to powerful computer chips that operate at the speed of light.
Until now, infra-red germanium lasers required expensive cryogenic cooling systems to operate. The new germanium laser operates at room temperature.
To create the germanium laser, the scientists take a six-inch, silvery-gray disk of silicon and spray it with a thin film of germanium. These same disks are actually used to produce chips in today's computers.
Domain names in Indian languages
If everything goes well as planned, India will be ready to have Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) on the internet in seven Indian languages—Hindi, Bangla, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati—by 2011. The Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India has submitted its proposal the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organisation responsible for managing the internet’s domain name system, including IP address space assignments, based in California, USA.
Domain names are entered in the address bar of the browser to access a web-site. The domain name provides a unique identity and on clicking on a given domain name, the web page of the particular site opens up. Initially, the domain name will be available to seven Indian languages and later on to the all the country’s 22 official languages.
Once it comes into effect, the user will be able to not only type out the address of a website in the scripts of any of the country’s 22 official languages, but also access sites under the domain name “bharat”. It is worth noting that in the past, IDNs were available only in Latin Characters (the script in which English and most other European languages are written).
DEFENCE
INS Chennai Missile Destroyer launched
Indian Navy launched INS Chennai, a missile destroyer in the Project-15 alpha class, at the Mazgaon Dock in Mumbai on April 1, 2010. Elizabeth Antony, wife of Defence Minister AK Antony, launched the warship.
Project 15 Alpha is code name for Kolkata-class destroyers that are being made in the Mazgaon dock in Mumbai. These are the largest warships ever constructed at Mazgaon, the oldest and the most prolific of all Indian naval dockyards.
Aimed at adding a new dimension to the country's naval warfare, India has launched the indigenous warship with enhanced stealth features and land-attack capabilities.
The 6800 tonnes Kolkata class (Project 15-A) destroyers incorporate Indian systems including the HUMSA-NG (Hull Mounted Sonar Array New Generation), 16 Brahmos missiles, torpedos and the Nagin active towed array sonar, jointly developed by the DRDO's Naval Science and Technology Laboratory in Visakhapatnam and Bharat Electronics Limited in Bangalore.
Russia is assisting Project 15-A with shafts and propellers. The propulsion package consists of four reversible gas turbines in combined gas-and-gas configuration.
INS Shivalik—India’s first indigenous stealth warship
On April 29, 2010, India affected a generational shift in its warship-building capability by commissioning INS Shivalik—the first indigenously built stealth frigate that is the biggest in its class in the world. The ship, which is 143 metres long, can tactically fire weapons even before the enemy detects it.
The hard-to-detect warship will form a crucial component of the Indian Navy. It is equipped with a mix of Indian, Russian, Israeli and western weapons and sensors.
Two other such ships—INS Satpura and the INS Sahayadari—would follow soon. Each ship would carry on board long-range surface-to-surface Klub missiles, area defence missiles Shtil and Barak, anti-submarine torpedoes, 100 mm mounted gun and six-barrelled 30 mm gun. Ships like these would form the core of the India’s battle fleet in the first half of this century.
A 250-member crew, including 35 officers, will man INS Shivalik. The new design features give the ship enhanced operational capabilities in terms of survivability, stealth, sea keeping, ship handling and weapons.
The sea king Choppers on board will carry torpedoes to target submarines which are out of the ship’s ranges. It will have an array of sensors and an anti-missile defence for its own protection and also coordinate the firing of on-board weapons.
In future the Navy is looking to have a data exchange system with the IAF’s Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). A system is being integrated with the AWACS to provide data that may be out of the range of the ship. This will provide an edge in firing of weapons.
The naval satellite to be launched in the near future will also help this ship to coordinate with other ships in the fleet for firing of weapons and will form the network centric operations. The combat management system developed by the Bharat Electronic Systems will give the ship’s captain a view of all weapons and data in one screen.
INS Shivalik can hoodwink enemy radars, sensors by concealing its size. It has three-dimensional warfare capability—surface, air, underwater. Its weapons suites have anti-ship, anti-submarine and air defence missiles.
The ship is powered by a unique combination of gas, diesel engines and can stay in sea for more than 3 weeks or cover 10,800 km without refuelling. Its filters can protect crew during a nuclear, biological or chemical attack.
Light Combat Helicopter makes successful first flight
On March 29, 2010, India entered the big boys’ league with the successful first flight of the prototype of its very own attack helicopter—Light Combat Helicopter (LCH).
The maiden test flight of the 5.5-tonne attack chopper, a derivative version of Banagalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) flagship product Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH)—Dhruv—was termed by pilots who flew it as “very good”.
The Shakti engine being used in the LCH has been jointly developed by the HAL and Turbomeca of France with primary focus on high-altitude operations. The rotor system has also been developed indigenously.
The helicopter is expected to meet operational requirements like air support, anti-infantry and anti-armour roles. The twin-engine LCH is a pure attack helicopter made by the design experience gained from the Dhruv.
Currently around 100 Dhruv helicopters are being used by the Indian armed forces and paramilitary forces like the Coast Guard and the BSF, civil operators like Pawan Hans and the ONGC. Dhruv is also being used by foreign countries like Ecuador, Nepal, Mauritius and Male.
Though LCH is derived from Dhruv, there are differences in design. While in Dhruv pilots sit side-by-side, in the LCH they sit one behind the other. All flight controls, hydraulics and fuel system have been redesigned for the sleeker, heavily armoured LCH.
OIL
Fourth discovery by RIL in Cambay Basin
Reliance Industries has announced its fourth oil discovery in exploratory block CB-ONN-2003/1, located on-land in the Cambay basin and named ‘Dhirubhai-47’. The block was awarded under NELP V round of exploration bidding.
This block is located at a distance of 130 kms from Ahmedabad and covers an area of 635 sq kms. RIL is the operator and has 100 per cent participating interest in the block. The block has 14 exploratory wells and the company is continuing further exploratory drilling efforts in the block. The company says that, based on the acquired 3D seismic data, there are several more prospects with upside potential have been identified in the contract area.
Cairn starts second plant
Cairn India has started the second crude oil processing plant at its giant Mangala oilfield in Thar deserts of Rajasthan, which will help the company ramp up output for the nation's most prolific oilfield.
Mangala currently produces about 30,000 barrels of oil per day (1.5 million tonnes a year) which is processed at Train-1 near Barmer before being sold to refiners. The Train-2 (second oil processing plant) has a capacity of 50,000 bpd (2.5 million tonnes a year).
Cairn output will help offset the decline in crude oil production at the ONGC that could not meet its targeted output in 2009-10 fiscal. The company can produce up to 2,40,000 barrels per day from Rajasthan fields, equivalent to output from the nation’s largest oilfield of Bombay High.
PERSONS
Kapadia, Justice S.H.
Justice S.H. Kapadia has been appointed the Chief Justice of India. He is the 38th CJI and will have a tenure of two years and five months. Justice Kapadia has vast experience in tax, finance and business matters, besides other civil cases and issues relating to crime.
Prahalad, C.K.
Dr C.K. Prahalad, a globally known influential management thinker, died on April 19, 2010. He shook the corporate world in the US and elsewhere during the past two decades with his offbeat but radical strategies for managing corporations. The most notable among them was his “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” through which he urged MNCs to evolve a business model that would cater to the huge market of world’s four billion poor. He firmly believed that such an approach would help eradicate the scourge of poverty.
He stole the limelight with his best seller book “The Future of Competition”. He stressed that it would not be worthwhile for the companies to foray into unrelated diversifications. The book is widely acknowledged as one of the world's most significant forces in corporate thinking.
He was a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission of the United Nations on private sector and development. He was also the first recipient of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for contributions to management and public administration, presented by the President of India in 2000.
Singh, Gen V.K.
Gen V.K. Singh is the Chief of Indian army. A third generation officer from the Rajput regiment, Gen Singh is a graduate of the Wellington-based Defence Services Staff College as well as the Rangers Course at Fort Benning, USA and the US Army War College, Carlisle.
He was commissioned into 2 Rajput Regiment in June 1970 and commanded the same unit when it was positioned along the Line of Control with Pakistan.
Experienced in counter insurgency operations, Line of Control and high altitude operations, Gen Singh was awarded the Yudh Sena Medal for his distinguished service during 'Operation Pawan' against the LTTE in Sri Lanka.
PROJECTS
RIL commissions India’s first one-megawatt solar plant
On April 7, 2010, solar energy initiative of Reliance Industries, RIL Solar Group, commissioned India's first one-megawatt solar plant to power a stadium to be used in the Commonwealth Games 2010.
Thyagaraj Stadium, where the plant has been commissioned, is planned to be a model green stadium. RIL Solar Group has also implemented power plants in the R.K. Khanna Tennis Complex.
The solar initiative is one of the major ones to compensate for carbon-dioxide emissions to be released through the game. The solar power generated at the Thyagaraj Stadium is expected to result in emission reduction of more than 1,200 tons of CO2 per year.
The power plant is expected to generate around 1.4 million units of electricity per year. It would cater to the power requirements of the stadium and the surplus would be fed to the grid.
Desertec Industrial Initiative
The Desertec Industrial Initiative has plans under-way to transform swathes of the Sahara desert into a glimmering sea of mirrors, with the goal of transmitting clean and efficient solar energy to Europe.
Desertec will create fields of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants—arrays of mirrors which focus the sun’s energy to turn water into steam, and so drive the electrical turbines. From there the power will flow through a network of low loss transmission cables to pipe electricity into the existing European grid, via Spain.
The $316 billion venture is designed to meet as much as 15% of Europe’s electricity demand by 2050.
20 years ago, the maximum efficiency you could get from the sun was 15-20%, compared to over 50% for fossil fuels. Today, CSP is closer to 40%. Large CSP plants can produce power at quarter of the cost of that generated by standard solar photovoltaic cells.
India can consider CSPs in the Thar Desert. Its conditions would allow 37.5 MW of power to be generated for each one square km of desert—and the Thar Desert has 228,000 square km area.
A single patch of Sahara Desert, just 114,090sq km in area, receives enough sunlight to meet the entire world’s electricity demand through CSP.
SPACE RESARCH
IKAROS—First solar powered spacecraft
Japanese scientists have developed a kite-shaped ‘space yacht’ that uses only solar power for propulsion. The spacecraft—IKAROS—would be launched into the space for a six-month mission to Venus. It is the first spacecraft to use such technology.
Its name is an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun. It also alludes to the Greek mythic hero Icarus who flew too close to the Sun and fell into the sea.
In space, the spacecraft’s short cylindrical pod will be separated from the rocket spinning up to 20 times a minute. This will help it unfold its flexible 46-feet sail, which is thinner than a human hair.
The square-shaped sail, equipped with thin-film solar cells, uses resistance created by the Sun’s energy in the same way as wind propels a yacht through water, thus providing the spacecraft with enough thrust to hover and rotate.
“Solar sails are the technology that realises space travel without fuel as long as we have sunlight. It is a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure. The availability of electricity would enable us to navigate farther and more effectively in the solar system,” Japanese Space Agency expert Yuichi Tsuda said.
NASA’s Solar Mission releases stunning pictures of Sun
US space agency NASA has released stunning solar images some of which highlight never-before-seen material streaming out of the Sun while others show extreme close-ups of activity on the Sun’s surface.
“These initial images show a dynamic Sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The images were taken by Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO that was recently launched by NASA. It is the first mission of the organisation’s Living with a Star Program or LWS—one of the NASA’s many missions to study the Sun and space environment.
The goal of LWS is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.
MISCELLANEOUS
Census 2010
The 15th national census exercise, the biggest census ever to be attempted in human history to cover India's 1.2 billion population, began on April 1, 2010 with President Pratibha Patil being the first to be enumerated in the decennial exercise.
The census is the most credible source of information on demography (population characteristics), economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, language, religion, migration, disability and many other socio-cultural and demographic data since 1872.
Census is the only source of primary data at village, town and ward level. It provides valuable information for planning and formulation of polices for Central and State governments and is widely used by national and international agencies, scholars, business people, industrialists, and many more.
The delimitation / reservation of constituencies—Parliamentary / Assembly / Panchayats and other local bodies is also done on the basis of the demographic data thrown up by the census. The census is the basis for reviewing the country's progress in the past decade, monitoring the on-going schemes of the government and most importantly, plan for the future.
The slogan of Census 2011 is 'Our Census, Our Future'.
National Population Register
The NPR would be a register of usual residents of the country. The NPR will be a comprehensive identity database that would help in better targeting of the benefits and services under the government schemes/programmes, improve planning and help strengthen security of the country. This is being done for the first time in the country.
While the census is a statutory exercise conducted under the provisions of the Census Act 1945, the NPR is being created under the provisions of the Citizenship Act and Rules.
All information collected under the census is confidential and will not be shared with any agency—government or private. Certain information collected under the NPR will be published in the local areas for public scrutiny and invitation of objections. This is in the nature of the electoral roll or the telephone directory. After the NPR has been finalised, the database will be used only within the government.
Unique Identification (UID) number christened Aadhaar
Aadhaar, or the 12-digit unique identification (UID) number that will identify the 1.2 billion residents of India on the basis of their biometrics, will have an additional four digits that will be hidden from the common man.
As far as people are concerned, there would only be a 12-digit number that would be relevant for their identification and use. However, a provision of extra four digits would be a post-fix for this 12-digit number for pin-based identification. So, UID will become a 16-digit number for use and the database that will maintain be maintained by UIDAI.
These four digits, which the authority terms a ‘virtual number’, will change as and when the resident changes his pin number or residence. The user, however, will only use the 12-digit number allotted to him.
The first set of Aadhaars will be issued between August 2010 and February 2011. The authority plans to issue 600 million UIDs over the next five years.
UIDAI, which is being headed by Nandan Nilekani, has been allocated Rs 1,900 crore for the financial year 2010-11. Of this, Rs 1,300 crore will be used to enable the registrars to enrol people in the system and the remaining Rs 600 crore will be spent for setting up the information technology infrastructure.
UIDAI estimates total annual revenue of Rs 288 crore from authentication services in the initial stages.
World’s smallest 3-D map
Scientists claim to have created the world’s smallest three dimensional map—a map of the Earth so small that 1,000 of them could fit on one grain of salt.
A team at computer giant IBM accomplished this through a new, breakthrough technique which uses a tiny, silicon tip with a sharp apex—1,00,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil—to create patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometre at greatly reduced cost and complexity.
According to the scientists, this patterning technique opens new prospects for developing nano-sized objects in fields such as electronics, future chip technology, medicine, life sciences, and opto-electronics.
The complete 3D map of the world measuring only 22 by 11 micrometre was “written” on a polymer. It is composed of 5,00,000 pixels, each measuring 20 NM2, and was created in only 2 minutes and 23 seconds.
Why volcanic ash is bad for planes
Aircraft avoid any airspace that has volcanic ash in it for a simple reason: The ash can wreck the function of propeller or jet aircraft.
The gas particles are actually silica so fine they will invade the spaces between rotating machinery and jam it—the silica melts at about 1,100 degree Celsius and fuses on to the turbine blades and nozzle guide vanes that feed fuel, which in modern aircraft operate at 1,400 degree Celsius.
This was discovered by the crew of two aircraft, a Singapore Airlines airplane and a British Airways Boeing 747, in 1982 which flew through an ash cloud from the Galunggung volcano in Indonesia. On both planes, all four engines stopped; they dived over 20,000 feet before they could restart them and make emergency landings.
Ash particles are razor sharp and can pit the windscreens of the pilot’s cabin, damage the fuselage and light cover, and even coat the plane so much that it becomes tail-heavy. At runways, ash creates an extra problem because takeoffs and landings will throw it into the air again—where the engines can suck it in and it will create horrific damage to moving parts that suddenly find themselves in contact.
Once ash has got into an engine, it is impossible to remove as it is so fine. It pollutes filtration systems, electrical and avionic units—and the accompanying sulphuric acid aerosol can eat into rubber parts.
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