1) Indian Railway’s launches Mobile ticketing app for suburban commuters in Mumbai.
- Indian Railways launched a mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets for commuters in Western Railway. It was launched by Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
- This mobile ticketing service will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate -Dhauroad and facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Key facts:
- The app is based for both Android and Windows platforms and it can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
- The app provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process. Payment for booking the ticket can be done through railway wallet feature in the App.
- Passenger will get ticket confirmation screen after booking the ticket. Apart from this service, Railway Minister also launched two other IT-based initiaves viz. SMS destination alert service for premier trains and Hindi e-ticketing portal.
2) Electronic Nose for environmental monitoring jointly developed by CSIR-NEERI & C-DAC.
- An Electronic Nose (E-Nose) was jointly developed by Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) of CSIR and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). The development was announced by CSIR-NEERI and C-DAC.
- E-Nose technology will help monitor the surrounding environment to sniff out dangerous gases.
Key Features of E-Nose:
- It is a portable device and measures odour concentration as well as odour intensity.
- It uses an array of sensors that function on the principle similar to that of human olfaction (sense of smell). The sensor array generates a pattern based on the type of aroma.
- It is possible to train the software by feeding information based on observation of experts.
- It is the first of its kind of technology to be developed in India that makes use of intelligent software to identify odorous molecules.
3) Indigenously-built supersonic surface-to-air missile Aakash inducted in IAF.
- The indigeniously-developed supersonic surface-to-air missile "Akash" that can target aircraft upto a distance of 30 km, was formally inducted in the Indian Air Force by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
- The missile system can target aircraft upto 30 km away, at altitudes upto 18,000 metres. It has the capability to neutralise aerial targets like fighter jets, cruise missiles and air-to-surface missiles.
- The Akash system has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) is the production agency.
4) ISRO successfully launches PSLV-C28 carrying 5 UK satellites.
- ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-28 has successfully put five satellites of United Kingdom into designated orbits.
- They were successfully put designated into orbit after its lift off from first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikotta, Andhra Pradesh.
- For this mission, ISRO had used high-end XL version of PSLV as it was its biggest and heaviest commercial launch with overall lift-off mass of all 5 satellites was 1,440 kg .
Applications:
- Surveying the resources on earth, urban infrastructure management and monitoring of disasters.
- CBNT-1: It is an optical Earth Observation technology demonstration micro satellite, weighing around 91 kg.
- De-OrbitSail: It is an experimental nano satellite. It will be used for the demonstration of large thin membrane sail and drag deorbiting using this sail.
- All of the five satellites belonged to UK’s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL). They were launched as part of commercial launch arrangement between SSTL and ANTRIX, the commercial arm of ISRO.
5) Large heart-shaped feature found on Pluto: NASA.
- NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft beamed back the most detailed image yet of Pluto, showing a large heart-shaped bright area measuring some 2,000 kilometres, across the dwarf planet’s surface.
- After more than a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to Pluto, it is show-time for the spacecraft, as the flyby sequence of science observations is officially underway.
6) Pluto starts revealing secrets as spacecraft draws closer.
- NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is closing fast on an unexpectedly spotted Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored.
- From New Horizon’s position more than 4.88 billion km from Earth, radio signals that travel at the speed of light take nearly four and a half hours to reach the ground.
- With its closest approach to Pluto slated New Horizons is running on auto-pilot to gather as much scientific information as possible leading up to its one-shot punch past Pluto and its entourage of five known moons.
- Data will be radioed back to Earth over the next 16 months.
7) Indigenously developed Nag anti-tank missile tested from helicopter platform.
- An fresh trials, India has test-fired its indigenously developed Nag anti-tank guided missile, which can hit a target upto seven km, from a helicopter at a firing range in Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
- Three-round trial of helicopter-launched Nag (HeliNa) missile were conducted at the Chandhan firing range.
- HeliNa is a helicopter-launched version of Nag and has been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).
- The missile was aimed at hitting targets at varied distances of upto 7 km.
9) `Operation Talaash` for missing Dornier ends.
- Thirty-five days after a Coast Guard aircraft on a surveillance sortie disappeared off the Chennai coast with three crew, the search operation has been “terminated” after recovery of human remains, parts of the plane and personal effects.
- The authorities have called the families of the crew for carrying out DNA tests for identification of the deceased and collecting the remains and personal effects.
- The Coast Guard was in consultation with the Tamil Nadu Forensic and Science Laboratory to carry out the DNA tests.
10) Defence Acquisition Council approved defence proposals worth 30000 crore rupees.
- Defence Acquisition Council approved defence proposals worth over 30000 crore rupees for buying four more P81 long-range maritime patrol aircraft for the Indian Navy and to replace Indian Army’s vintage air defence guns of 60s.
- The Council was chaired by Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Detailed Proposals:
- Acceptance of necessity (AON) to replace L70 and Zu 23mm guns for Indian Army’s air defence under Buy-and-Make category. Now, army will buy 428 guns at a total cost of 16900 crore rupees. It will now pave the way for issuance of a Request for Proposal (RFP).
- Acquisition of 4 more P81 aircraft at a cost of 4380 crore rupees. These aircrafts are based on the Boeing next-generation 737 commercial airplane. It is a variant of the P-8A Poseidon used by the US Navy.
- Upgradation of weapon and sensor suite of the Delhi and Talwar class ships at a cost of 2900 crore rupees.
- Moreover, Six ships will see new surface-to-air missile system that would be bought from Russia, besides new radars.
11) Scientists CERN’s LHC discovers new class of particles called Pentaquarks.
- Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered a new class of exotic subatomic particles called the Pentaquarks.
- The discovery was made by the scientist’s after watching the decaying of a subatomic type particle known as the Lambda B baryon.
Facts about:
- Pentaquark was first predicted to exist in the 1960s and its name was coined by Israeli theoretical physicist Harry J. Lipkin.
- It is a particle consisting of five quarks (any of a group of subatomic particles carrying a fractional electric charge) bounded together.
- These quarks are elementary particles that exist in six variations known as flavors having unusual names of up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm.
- These elementary particles bind together in different combinations to form a range of composite particles.
- Most commonly known combinations are neutrons and protons, consisting of three quarks each.
Applications:
- This discovery will allow physicists to understand the quantum chromodynamics (i.e. study of strong fundamental force describing the interactions between quarks and gluons which make up proton, neutron and pion).