Agni-1 successfully test-fired

India on  12-Sep-2014 successfully test-fired it’s indigenously built nuclear capable Agni-I missile, which has a strike range of 700 km, from a test range off Odisha coast as part of a user trial by the Army.

The surface-to-surface, single-stage missile, powered by solid propellants, was test-fired from a mobile launcher at about 11.11 hrs from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Wheeler Island, about 100 km from Balasore, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) spokesman Ravi Kumar Gupta said on Thursday.

Describing the trial as fully successful, Gupta said the ballistic missile was launched by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the army as part of a training exercise.

"The entire exercise was conducted in a perfect manner and the trial was totally successful," he said

WHO sounds alarm over Ebola infections as deaths top 1,500

World Health Organization said that the number of Ebola cases was increasing rapidly and could exceed 20,000 before the virus is brought under control, as the death toll topped 1,500.

New figures showed the massive scale of the crisis, which the WHO said indicated a "rapid increase still in the intensity of transmission" that could cost at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said it could take six to nine months to bring Ebola under control, by which time the number of infections could have passed 20,000.

Indian American V A Shiva Ayyadurai invented email in 1978

Email turned 32 today but how many of us know that this quick method of message transfer was invented by Indian American V A Shiva Ayyadurai when he was just 14.

In 1978, Ayyadurai created a computer programme, which he called "email," that replicated all the functions of the interoffice mail system: Inbox, Outbox, Folders, Memo, Attachments, Address Book, etc.

These features are now familiar parts of every email system. On August 30, 1982, the US government officially recognised Ayyadurai as the inventor of email by awarding him the first US Copyright for Email for his 1978 invention.

At that time copyright was the only way to protect software inventions. Email wasn't created, with a massive research budget, in big institutions like the ARPANET, MIT or the military.

Such institutions had thought it "impossible" to create such a system, believing it far too complex, Huffington Post said.

Ayyadurai was born to a Tamil Family in Bombay.

World Bank pledges USD 200 million to fight Ebola

The World Bank has said that it would provide up to USD 200 million to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to help the West African nations contain a deadly Ebola outbreak.

India is the largest consumer of antibiotics in the world

India has emerged as the world's largest consumer of antibiotics followed by China and the US, according to a new study which quantifies the growing alarm surrounding antibiotic-resistance.

Global use of antibiotics is surging, according to Princeton University researchers who have conducted a broad assessment of antibiotic consumption around the world.

The study, "Global Trends in Antibiotic Consumption, 2000-2010," found that worldwide antibiotic use has risen a staggering 36 per cent over those 10 years, with five countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) - responsible for more than three-quarters of that surge.

Among the 16 groups of antibiotics studied, cephalosporins, broad-spectrum penicillins and fluoroquinolones accounted for more than half of that increase, with consumption rising 55 per cent from 2000 to 2010.

New vaccines to be part of govt's immunisation programme

Vaccines against rotavirus, rubella and polio (injectable) will collectively expedite Indias progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goal 4 targets to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015 and meet global polio eradication targets.


These new vaccines to be introduced as part of the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), government will be providing free vaccines against 13 life threatening diseases to 27 million children annually, the largest birth cohort in the world.

In addition, an adult vaccine against Japanese encephalitis will be introduced in districts with high levels of the disease.

Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System(IRNSS-1B) launched

The  scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)  successfully launched its second Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System(IRNSS-1B) from Sriharikota  in Andhra Pradesh on 04-April-2014.

With this successful launch, the second of the seven satellite system, India inches closer to a select group of countries that have such a navigation system.

The 1,432 kg satellite was blasted off by the  rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C24)  at 5.14 pm from  the launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Center. IRNSS-1B is the second navigation satellite of the seven satellites constituting the IRNSS space segment.

Its predecessor IRNSS-1A was launched in July 2013

Soon after the ejection into the orbit the satellite’s solar panels were deployed.

The satellite control was taken over by the Mission Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.
IRNSS-1B carries two  types of payloads — navigation payload and ranging payload. The IRNSS  system will provide two types of services — Standard Positioning System provided to all the users and the Restricted Service provided only to authorised users.

Besides applications in surveying,  mapping, archaeology, satellite navigation has also proved useful in the fields of maritime, aviation, automobiles, disaster management operations and tracking services. In June Isro is expected  to launch the country’s heavier rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle – Mark III (GSLV-Mk III).

India’s largest solar power plant at Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi launched a 130-MW solar power plant at Bhagwanpur in Neemuch, about 400 km from Bhopal on 26-02-2014.

The Welspun Solar MP project, the largest solar power plant in India set up at a cost of Rs. 1,100 crore on 305 hectares of land, will supply power at Rs. 8.05 a kWh. 

Launch of the GSLV-D5 Called off

The Launch of the GSLV-D5 scheduled for 1650 hrs today (August 19, 2013) is called off, as a leak is observed in the UH 25 fuel system of the liquid second stage during the pre-launch pressurization phase on the vehicle just two hours before the scheduled lift-off.

New mammal species olinguito discovered

The olinguito, a small mammal native to South America, was announced as the first new carnivorous mammal species discovered in the American Continents in 35 years today.

Colin Michael Foale, the First British to Perform a Space Walk, Retired from NASA

Colin Michael Foale, is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut retired from NASA in the second week of August 2013.

Nuclear-capable Prithvi-II missile successfully test fired

The country’s first nuclear weapons-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile, Prithvi-II, was successfully test-fired for its full strike range of 350 km from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, off  Odisha coast 

INS Arihant nuclear reactor activated

 In a major step towards completing its nuclear triad, India activated the atomic reactor on-board the indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant paving the way for its operational deployment by the Navy.

INSAT-3D Satellite Successfully Placed in Geosynchronous Orbit

India’s advanced weather satellite INSAT-3D, launched in the early hours of July 26, 2013 from Kourou, French Guyana, has successfully been placed in Geosynchronous orbit after three orbit raising manoeuvres commanded from ISRO`s Master Control Facility at Hassan.

The Orbital parameters of INSAT-3D are:

• Apogee (farthest point to Earth) – 35,799 km
• Perigee (nearest point to Earth) – 35,469 km
• Inclination (of the orbit with respect to the equator)- 0.23 deg
• Orbital period – 23 hr 48 min

HAL to produce cryogenic engines for ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation is setting up a Rs.139-crore facility at the Bangalore unit of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. to produce cryogenic engines and complex components for its GSLV and future rockets and it will be ready in three years.

At present, ISRO is developing cryogenic engines with a consortium of Godrej and Hyderabad’s MTAR. HAL is said to have been approved as a second source of assemblage by the Space Commission last month.

NASA launches three smartphone-powered satellites into space

NASA has successfully launched three smartphones into space to snap images of Earth, and the handsets may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites ever flown into space.

Each smartphone is housed in a standard cubesat structure, measuring about 4 inches square. The smartphone acts as the satellite’s onboard computer. Its sensors are used for attitude determination and its camera for Earth observation.

The smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites rode to space on Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corporation’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.

The trio of “PhoneSats” is operating in orbit, and may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites ever flown in space. The goal of NASA’s PhoneSat mission is to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used as the main flight avionics of a capable, yet very inexpensive, satellite.

NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components for the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project between $3,500 and $7,000 by using primarily commercial hardware and keeping the design and mission objectives to a minimum.

The hardware for this mission is the Google-HTC Nexus One smartphone running the Android operating system.

NASA added items a satellite needs that the smartphones do not have — a larger, external lithium-ion battery bank and a more powerful radio for messages it sends from space. The smartphone’s ability to send and receive calls and text messages has been disabled.

Defective valves delay plant commissioning at Kudankulam

The commissioning of the Kudankulam atomic power plant has been delayed as the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board found four valves “deficient” during tests ahead of firing the reactor. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India is replacing the components.

Russia launches bio-satellite

Russia launched an ’orbital Noah’s Ark’ to space — a bio-satellite packed with an array of mice and other small creatures to study the effects of long flights on living organisms. Russia’s latest BION-M1 biological research capsule carrying 45 mice, eight Mongolian gerbils, 15 geckos, snails, fish eggs, micro-organisms and plants blasted off aboard the modernised Soyuz 2 rocket from the Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan.

Megadeltas vulnerable to rising sea level

R.K. Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said here on Saturday that cities such as Kolkata, Shanghai and Dhaka, which were located in the coastal areas, were most vulnerable to the rising sea levels due to climate change.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri has been serving as the chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2002, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 during his tenure.

President Obama pledges $100 million for BRAIN Initiative

President Obama unveiled the “BRAIN” Initiative—a bold new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.

The BRAIN Initiative — short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies — builds on the President’s State of the Union call for historic investments in research and development to fuel the innovation, job creation, and economic growth that together create a thriving middle class.

The Initiative promises to accelerate the invention of new technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur at the speed of thought. Such cutting-edge capabilities, applied to both simple and complex systems, will open new doors to understanding how brain function is linked to human behavior and learning, and the mechanisms of brain disease.

The BRAIN Initiative is launching with approximately $100 million in funding for research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget.