The ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) and CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have signed MoU to make indigenous regional positioning system-NavIC independent from the US clock system.

Until now, the satellites on NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) managed by the ISRO relied on the US GPS to ensure that the clocks aboard were working at the high-precision required in satellite-based communication.

Significance of MoU

The MoU will help the NAVIC to get formally synchronized with the Indian Standard Time (IST) which is being maintained by the Delhi-based NPL – the timekeeper of India. It will also help in making NAVIC to get fully operational in the market for commercial purposes as time synchronisation is essential for all kinds of services such as financial transactions, digital archiving, stock handling, time stamping, national security or prevention of cyber-crimes etc.

NavIC

Formally called the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary. NavIC System consists of constellation of seven satellites (namely IRNSS-1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F and 1G) of which three are geostationary and four are non-geostationary.

National Physical Laboratory (NPL)

The NPL is part of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CISR). It is the measurement standards laboratory of India. It maintains standards of SI units in India and calibrates the national standards of weights and measures. It is only agency in India authorised to maintain Indian Standard Time (IST) and hosts most accurate clocks in the country with accuracy of ±20 nanoseconds through the Primary Time Scale (PTS), an ensemble of five caesium clocks and one hydrogen maser.

India has signed a loan agreement with China led-Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for financing of $329 million for Gujarat Rural Roads Project (GRRP).

 The objective of the GRRP is to improve the rural road connectivity and accessibility by providing all weather road connectivity to 1,060 villages in all the 33 districts of Gujarat, benefiting about 80 lakh people. It will also benefit the service providers such as public transport operators, hospitals, educational institutions, local markets and traders. 

About Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

AIIB is a multilateral development bank backed by China, seen as a rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). It was established to fund various infrastructure projects including energy, transportation, urban construction and logistics as well as education and healthcare in Asia-Pacific region.

The AIIB was officially established with 57 founding members and started to function in January 2016. But as of May 2017, the bank has 52 members. It has an authorised capital of US $100 billion. It is headquartered in Beijing.

Voting Share: China is the largest shareholder with 26.06% voting shares. India is the second largest shareholder with 7.5% voting shares followed by Russia (5.93%) and Germany (4.5%).

The Union Government is going to launch AGRI-UDAAN Food and Agribusiness Accelerator 2.0 programme in an attempt to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture. It will mentor startups and help them connect with potential investors. 

Key facts

The programme will help convert innovative ideas from India’s rural youth into viable businesses startups and help them connect with potential investors. It aims to attract the youth from rural India and elsewhere, and train them so they can add value to the farmers’ produce.

It is managed by ICAR-NAARM’s (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management) technology incubator, a-IDEA along with IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation.

Under the programme, start-ups will get incubation space to run their businesses and have access to research laboratories and libraries. It will also help the selected start-ups with regulatory services like company registration and environmental compliances.

In the first round of the programme 40 start-ups will be shortlisted who will pitch their ideas to a panel of evaluators. Out of these, 8 to 12 start-ups will be selected for the final capacity building workshop. Following an intensive training lasting six months, the new start-ups will be connected to investors for funding.

A High Level Committee set up to review the Institutionalization of Arbitration Mechanism in India has submitted its report to the Union Law Ministry. It was headed by Justice (retired) BN Srikrishna.

The Union Government is committed for speedy resolution of commercial disputes and to make India an international hub of Arbitration. So government has decided to look into the recommendations and amended laws according to need.

Key Recommendations

Arbitration Promotion Council of India (APCI): The committee has recommended for setting up APCI, an autonomous body having representatives from all stakeholders for grading arbitral institutions in India. The APCI may recognize professional institutes providing for accreditation of arbitrators. It may be also empowered to hold training workshops and interact with law firms and law schools to train advocates with interest in arbitration and with a goal to create a specialist arbitration bar comprising of advocates dedicated to the field.

Specialist Arbitration Bench: It also recommended for creation of a specialist Arbitration Bench to deal with such Commercial disputes, in the domain of the Courts.

Changes in Arbitration and Conciliation Act: It has suggested in various changes inprovisions of the 2015 Amendments in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act with a view to make arbitration speedier and more efficacious and incorporate international best practices.

National Litigation Policy (NLP): The Committee also has opinion that the NLP must promote arbitration in Government Contracts.

India’s first private sector missile sub-systems manufacturing facility Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems (KRAS) plant was inaugurated near Hyderabad, capital of Telangana.

It is 51:49 joint venture between India’s Kalyani Group and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd. It has been established line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative and Government’s policy to encourage private sector participation in defence production.

Key Facts

KRAS aims to be a one-stop solution provider to locally re-design, develop, re-engineer and manufacture various land and airborne products and systems in India. It has invested in designing, developing and manufacturing of weapon systems including Spike Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) systems and remote weapon systems.

Besides, it will develop a wide range of advanced capabilities that include command control and guidance, remote weapon systems, electro-optics, precision guided munitions and system engineering for system integration. It will be supplying defence equipment to the Indian Army and also export to South East Asian countries.

The plant would employ more than 300 engineers and provide indirect employment to 1,000 people. The localisation content of the plant is 90% and most of the vendors are in and around Hyderabad.

ISRO and NASA are jointly working on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission to co-develop and launch a dual frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite by 2021.

The satellite will be the world’s most expensive earth-imaging satellite till date, costing around $1.5 billion. It aims to study global environmental change and natural disasters.

Salient Features

• NISAR is a dual frequency (L & S Band) Radar Imaging Satellite. It will be the first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequency.
• In this joint mission, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JLP) will be responsible for design and development of L-band SAR, GPS system, 12m unfurlable antenna and data recorder.
• ISRO will be responsible for design and development of S-band SAR, Spacecraft Bus,data transmission system, spacecraft integration & testing, launch using GSLV and on-orbit operations.
• Mission Life: It is expected to be launched in year 2021. It will have mission life of 3 years.
• Operational orbit: The satellite is planned to be launched into a Sun-synchronous dawn to dusk orbit.
• Applications: It will provide an unprecedented detailed view of Earth by taking snapshots every week using advanced radar imaging.
• It is designed to observe and take measurements of some of the planet’s most complex processes, including ecosystem disturbances, natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.
• It will be used also for natural resources mapping & monitoring, estimating agricultural biomass over full duration of crop cycle.
• It will be also monitor floods and oil slicks, coastal erosion, coastline changes and variation of winds in coastal waters, surface deformation studies due to seismic activities etc.
• Implementation Process: Implementation Arrangement (IA) of mission, defining roles and responsibilities of ISRO and NASA was signed between two space agencies in September 2014.
• So far, ISRO has completed Baseline Design Reviews of satellite and S-band SAR payload. NASA’s JLP has successfully completed Mission Concept and Key Decision Point reviews. The first Joint Steering Group (JSG) meeting of NISAR was held in July 2015.
• Cost of the project: Costing around $1.5 billion, it will be world’s most expensive earth-imaging satellite till date.
• Space Diplomacy: The mission will establish a general pathway for future joint missions between ISRO and NASA for Mars exploration. It will also further strengthen the Indo-US ties.

The Union Government has proposed to establish an additional 14 new AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science) under various phases of Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) in different parts of the country.

It was announced by Union Health Minister JP Nadda while replying to supplementaries in Lok Sabha on AIIMS and related healthcare system in India.

Besides, Lok Sabha was also informed that under the national programme for prevention and control of cancer, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases and strokes, Government is going to the establish 20 state cancer institutes and 50 tertiary care cancer centres in different parts of the country.

About Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana

Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) was announced in 2003. Its objectives are correcting regional imbalances in the availability of affordable/reliable tertiary healthcare services and augment facilities for quality medical education in the country. It establishes AIIMS in various regions of India apart from different government colleges. It is funded from different centrally sponsored schemes relating to creating infrastructure on health.

Parliament has passed the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2017 after the Rajya Sabha approved it. The Lok Sabha has already passed it. The Bill amends the IIIT Act, 2014.

The IIIT Act, 2014 declares certain Institutes of Technology as institutions of national importance. It aims to develop new knowledge in information technology and provide manpower of global standards for the information technology industry.

 Key Features of the Bill

Appointment of Director: The Bill modifies the composition of the search-cum-selection committee which recommends names to the central government for the appointment of the Director of an IIIT. Further, it replaces the Director of an IIIT with the Director of an Indian Institute of Technology.

Appointment of Assistant Professor and other above posts:  The Bill permits the Board of Governor of Institutes to appoint Assistant Professors and all the posts above that level as well.

Incorporation of an institute:  It declares the Indian Institute of Technology, Design and Manufacturing (ITDM), Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh as an institution of national importance. Further it adds ITDM, Kurnool to the Schedule of the parent Act which consists of other institutions of national importance.

A team of researchers have discovered solar seismic waves which revealed that Sun’s core is rotating four times faster than its surface.  Earlier it was assumed that sun’s core rotate at same speed as the surface.

The discovery was made using 16 years of observations from GOLF (Global Oscillations at Low Frequency) instrument on Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, a joint project of ESA and NASA.

Key Facts

Researchers had use ‘Helioseismology’ to probe the solar interior by studying sound waves reverberating through it. They had studied surface acoustic waves in the Sun’s atmosphere, some of which penetrate to the Sun’s core, where they interact with low frequency gravity waves (g-waves) known as g-modes that have a sloshing motion.

From those observations, they detected the sloshing motions of the solar core. By carefully measuring the acoustic waves, the researchers precisely determined the time it takes an acoustic wave to travel from the surface to the centre of the Sun and back again.

On the basis of the signature of the g-waves, researchers determined that the g-waves are shaking the structure of the sun’s core. The signature of the imprinted g-waves suggested that the inner core of the Sun is rotating once every week, nearly four times faster than the observed surface and intermediate layers.

Significance of Discovery: The rotation of the Sun’s core may give a clue to how the Sun formed. It may also help to find linkages between the Sun’s core rotation and sunspots.

Maharashtra Government has launched two online portals MahaDBT and MahaVASTU to streamline the process of direct benefit transfer (DBT) and to bring in more transparency in construction sector.

With this, Maharashtra became first state in the country to launch such a system that will provide direct benefits with Aadhaar authentication.

Key Facts

MahaDBT portal: It is an Aadhaar-authenticated electronic mechanism that will enable direct transfer of benefits for over 40 schemes currently implemented by state’s various departments. It is based on Union Government’s DBT scheme and Aadhaar will be mandatory to claim benefits through this portal. It will help to speed up transfer of benefits and ensure transparency by minimising human intervention.

MahaVASTU portal: It is an online building permission management system, through which construction approvals will be sanctioned with full transparency. It will bring all building permissions online in all municipal councils of the state.