Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) "Tejas" inducted into no 45 Squadron of Indian Air Force

Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) "Tejas" inducted into no 45 Squadron of Indian Air Force

The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) "Tejas" inducted into No. 45 Squadron of Indian Air Force (IAF) on 01 Jul 2016. No. 45 Squadron, also called the "Flying Daggers", was last equipped with MiG 21 Bis Aircraft and operated from Nalia. It's motto is "Ajeet Nabha". The Squadron will operate from Bangalore for nearly two years before it moves to its designated location at Sulur near Coimbatore. It is the first fighter Squadron to be a part of the Southern Air Command of IAF headquartered at Thiruvananthapuram.

Group Captain Madhav Rangachari, an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, is the Commanding Officer of Flying Daggers. He flew the inaugural flight of LCA in 45 Squadron today. Apart from operational experience on Mirage-2000 and MiG 21, he also has considerable experience on flight testing of LCA prototypes.

Tejas is the first advance Fly-by-wire (FBW) fighter aircraft designed, developed and manufactured in India. Conceived as a MiG-21 replacement, the aircraft has been designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). It is to the credit of its designers, manufacturer, technicians and test crew, that LCA has flown more than 3000 sorties / 2000 Hrs till date without any accident. Tejas is a 4th Plus generation aircraft with a glass cockpit and is equipped with state of the art Satellite aided Inertial Navigation System. It has a digital computer based attack system and an autopilot. It can fire Air to Air Missiles, Bombs as well as Precision Guided Munitions.

The induction of the aircraft is being planned in a phased manner. The IOC aircraft are armed with Close Combat Air to Air Missiles, Helmet Mounted Display and Precision Guided Weapons like Laser Guided Bombs. These aircraft are also capable of dropping unguided bombs with much higher accuracy due to highly advanced indigenous mission computer. The FOC aircraft would incorporate Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles, improved and better stand-off weapons and air to air refueling capability. IAF is also pitching for additional LCA Mk 1A which would incorporate new generation Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar with simultaneous air to air and air to ground capability, an integrated advanced Electronic Warfare Suite, advanced versions of air to air and air to ground weapons and maintainability improvements.

With 45 Squadron commencing operations today, soon the Tejas would be employed to defend the Indian skies.

National Green Highways Mission

Shri Nitin Gadkari launches initial plantation drive on 1,500 km of National Highways under Green Highways Project

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari launched the initial plantation drive on 1,500 km of National Highways at a cost of about Rs 300 crore under the National Green Highways Mission in New Delhi today. The launch was announced at a workshop orgnized by the National Green Highways Mission on the theme "Green Highways Projects: Way Ahead. Speaking on the occasion Shri Gadkari said that the greening project has a huge potential to generate jobs and can prove to be a game-changer for agriculture and rural economy. Greening of one km of highway provides employment to ten people. Today's launch of 1,500 km under the Mission will employ 15,000 people . The Minister further said that the project may even be linked with the NREGA scheme.

Under the Green Highways Project, the government has made it mandatory to set aside 1 per cent of the total project cost of any NH contract to a Green Fund corpus that will be used for plantation purposes. The afforestation is expected to help in sequestering approximately 12 lakh mt carbon annually.
Organized in line with Green Highways Policy – 2015, today's workshop was a step forward in actualizing the vision of developing eco-friendly and green National Highways. The event saw the unveiling of Guidelines for Implementation, the Vision Document and the Knowledge Reports of the project.
The Guidelines document, developed by National Green Highways Mission is in compliance to the directives of Green Highways Policy (GHP) 2015 issued by Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. The document incorporates the recommendations of the GHP and acts as a comprehensive roadside plantation and management manual.
The Vision Document of National Green Highways Mission will essentially define the approach National Green Highway Project intends to take for planning, implementation and monitoring of Green Highways Project. The Vision document, comprising strategy, mission and action plan for 2016-2026, focuses on core issues, future roadmaps and success indicators for effective implementation of Green Highways Project
NGHM-YES BANK Knowledge Report on ‘Transplanting for Growth’ puts transplantation at the centre of discussion in the mission of greening our highways. The report presents a compelling case for taking up transplantation as the preferred technique for plantation along the highways.
The following MoUs were also signed on the occasion :
Partnering Organizations

Length awarded for Green Highways Projects
NGHM-NHAI and Haryana Forest Department

418 Kms
NGHM-NHAI Andhra Pradesh Urban Greening and Beautification Corporation Ltd

360 Kms

In addition to this a charter was signed between NGHM and YES BANK to create awareness on greening of highways and explore synergies between NGHM’s objectives and YES BANK’s CoP21 commitment of planting 20 lakh saplings by 2020. A testimony to this charter was the awareness program that was launched across 400 locations through YES BANK’s YES COMMUNITY initiative.

The event also saw the launch of ‘Adopt a Green Highway’ Program .The National Green Highway Mission initiated the program’ to engage corporates, Public Sector units, Government organizations and other institutions for developing green corridor along National Highways through plantation and allied activity on avenue, median and other available nearby land patches . Besides this ‘Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana’ was also launched on the occasion. The Yojana is a pilot scheme to extend green belt beyond the existing ‘Right of Way’ of highways by engaging farmers and providing alternative livelihood option to the nearby communities

India improves its ranking by 19 places on World Bank Logistics Performance Index

India improves its ranking by 19 places on World Bank Logistics Performance Index

India has improved its ranking in the World Bank Group's bi-annual "Logistics Performance Index 2016", jumping from 54th in 2014 to 35th in 2016. This was announced by the World Bank Group in its recent launch of the report. In the latest ranking India has gone past countries like New Zealand, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Latvia and Indonesia who were ahead of it in the index. India's jump of 19 positions in the ranking demonstrates the commitment of various Ministries and agencies of Government of India to make it easy to do business in India. Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of World Bank met the Prime Minister of India recently and congratulated him on this achievement.

The World Bank studies the policy regulation as well as supply chain performance outcomes across six sub-indices of the Logistics Performance Index and ranks countries based on their performance in all the indices. It is a perception survey based on the feedback of operators on the ground as they are the people who can best assess the aspects of logistics performance.Feedback of companies responsible for moving goods around the world like multinational freight forwarders and express carriers is taken on a structured online survey. Various aspects of international trade relating to streamlining border clearance procedures, ensuring access to physical infrastructure and quality of logistics services are assessed.

Among the six sub-indices of the Logistics Performance Index, India improved the most on "the efficiency of customs and border management clearance", jumping from 65 in 2014 to 38 in 2016. Recent reforms at Customs, such as the introduction of a Single Window Interface for Trade (SWIFT) and electronic messaging system between Shipping lines and Custodians for electronic delivery order,filing of import and export declarations and manifests online with digital signature,extension of Customs’ risk management system to other regulatory agencies to ensure risk-based inspection, reduction of documents required for export and import, extension of 24x7 customs clearance facilities to 19 seaports and 17 air cargo complexes, removal of limit on the number of consignments released under direct delivery,etc.,have resulted in improvement in the indicator.

India also improved significantly in the following sub-indices:

- The ability to track and trace consignments, improving from 57 to 33;

- The quality of trade and transport infrastructure, improving from 58 to 36; and

- The competence and quality of logistics services, improving from 52 to 32.

On the remaining two sub-indices - the ease of arranging competitively priced shipments and the frequency with which shipments reach consignees within scheduled or expected delivery times - by 5 and 9 places respectively.

The World Bank Group's bi-annual report ‘Connecting to Compete 2016: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy’, launched on Wednesday, captures critical information about the complexity of international trade. The Logistics Performance Index (LPI) within the report scores 160 countries on key criteria of logistics performance.

The scores are based on two sources of information: a worldwide survey of logistics professionals operating on the ground (such as global freight forwarders and express carriers), who provide feedback on the countries in which they operate and with whom they trade; and quantitative data on the performance of key components of the supply chain, such as the time, cost and required procedures to import and export goods.

Global trade depends on logistics and how efficiently countries import and export goods determine how they grow and compete in the global economy. Countries with efficient logistics can easily connect firms to domestic and international markets through reliable supply chains. Countries with inefficient logistics face high costs – both in terms of time and money – in international trade and global supply chains. India’s improvement in Logistics Performance Index is ample evidence that our competitiveness in manufacturing and services is also improving which will provide the required boost to the Make in India programme.

तेजस की पहली स्क्वाड्रन को आज भारतीय वायुसेना शामिल किया जाएगा।

हल्के स्वदेश निर्मित लड़ाकू विमान तेजस की पहली स्क्वाड्रन को आज भारतीय वायुसेना शामिल किया जाएगा। पहली स्क्वाड्रन दो साल के लिए बेंगलुरु में तैनात रहेगी, उसके बाद तमिलनाडु के सुलुर में स्थानांतरित कर दी जाएगी। स्क्वाड्रन के पहले दस्ते को फ्लाइंग ड्रेगर्स 45 नाम दिया गया है। वायुसेना तेजस को पाकिस्तान और चीन द्वारा संयुक्त रूप से विकसित किए गए जेएफ-17 लड़ाकू विमान से बेहतर मानती है। तेजस की आदर्श फाइटर स्क्वाड्रन में कुल 16-17 जेट और एक या दो ट्रेनर्स शामिल होंगे। तेजस मिग 21 और मिग 27 की जगह लेगा।

Two indigenously developed Tejas Light Combat Aircraft were on Friday formally inducted into the Indian Air Force at IAF's Aircraft Systems & Test Establishment in Bengaluru on Friday as part of the first squadron.

They will be part of the new Squadron 45 ‘Flying Daggers’, which will get the remaining 18 aircraft including four trainers in 2018.

A 'Sarva Dharma Pooja' (inter-faith prayer) was conducted before the induction. Such worships are customary at inductions and before staff training sessions, an IAF official said.

A Tejas aircraft flown by Commanding Officer Group Captain Madhav Rangachari performed a sortie during the induction ceremony, attended by Air Marshal Jasbir Walia, Air Officer Commanding-in Chief, Southern Air Command and senior HAL executives.

India today successfully test fired a new surface-to-air missile, from a mobile launcher in the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur

भारत ने आज चांदीपुर रेंज से सवेरे हवा में मार करने वाली नई मिसाइल का मोबाइल लॉंचर से सफल प्रक्षेपण किया। मध्‍यम दूरी की मारक क्षमता वाली यह मिसाइल भारत और इस्राइल ने मिलकर विकसित की है।
• India today successfully test fired a new surface-to-air missile, from a mobile launcher in the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur. The medium range missile, a product of joint venture between India and Israel, was successfully test launched.

India's 1st integrated ‪#‎defence‬ communication network.

India's 1st integrated ‪#‎defence‬ communication network.

ignore the supercomputer race

ignore the supercomputer race
What will matter is who invests most wisely in basic research—the kind of methodical, unglamorous science that might only yield results years in the future
A new list of the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers suggests that China might be speeding past the US in the race for technological supremacy. China now holds the two top spots, and placed a total of 167 machines on the list. The US had only 165 on the list, with its fastest placing a very distant third.

That’s leading some American commentators to wring their hands. Wired went so far as to declare a “blow out” in the race for supercomputer supremacy. But as impressive as China’s accomplishment is, there’s no reason to panic. The race for technological dominance won’t be won by measuring who can build faster computers. Instead, what will matter is who invests most wisely in basic research—the kind of methodical, unglamorous science that might only yield results years in the future.

The immediate goal of such research isn’t necessarily a product. But long-term, it might turn into many. Government-funded work on three-dimensional seismic imaging, for instance, helped lay the groundwork for the fracking revolution of recent years. The Human Genome Project, started in 1990, will provide scientists with raw material to cure diseases for decades to come.

“People cannot foresee the future well enough to predict what’s going to develop from basic research,” is how George Smoot, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, once explained it. “If we only did applied research, we would still be making better spears.”

In this, the history of supercomputers is instructive. Bell Labs was doing fundamental research on semiconductors all the way back in the 1940s. Eventually, what they developed was licensed to other companies, including Texas Instruments, which then developed transistors, integrated circuits and other components. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that such technology coalesced into an early version of the supercomputer.

The US dominated supercomputing for two decades, but it was only a matter of time before others piggy-backed on established technology to catch up. In 1981, Japan started a government-backed initiative to develop its own machines. China did the same in 1989. Russia and several European countries have joined the game.

Amid such competition, the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer tends to be a fleeting honorific. And the wisdom of engaging in the race has always been questionable. In 2010, US President Barack Obama’s council of science and technology advisers argued that a “single-minded focus” on increasing speed diverts resources from more creative approaches to computing. In most fields of science and engineering, for instance, performance improvements from more sophisticated algorithms—the mathematical rules used to solve a problem—have topped those from faster processors in recent years.

That kind of inventiveness is often the result of years of patient research—a lesson America shouldn’t forget. Although the US still leads the world in research and development (R&D) funding, as a percentage of gross domestic product, its efforts now lag behind South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The portion of the federal budget dedicated to R&D has been in decline since 1965.

Meanwhile, the competition for basic research is heating up. Chinese research programmes have historically focused on hitting clearly defined goals, which is one reason that supercomputer speed has been such an appealing benchmark: In 2012, 84% of China’s R&D went to the commercialization of technologies. But policymakers are starting to change their tune. In mid-June, China’s National Science Foundation announced big funding increases for basic research, including cosmic ray physics, mathematics, brain science and infectious diseases.

This is no bad thing. Invigorated competition for basic research would be far more productive than the race to soup up supercomputers. Fields such as synthetic biology, quantum computing and photonics all stand to benefit from a healthy international rivalry. And areas with less obvious pay-offs may prove even more important. Current mysteries such as dark matter might one day turn out to be just as fruitful as one-time mysteries like radio waves. The benefits may not materialize for years or even decades. But if history is any guide, it’s a good bet that they will be worth the wait