SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AFFAIRS NOVEMBER 2009

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AFFAIRS NOVEMBER 2009

• The Union Cabinet gave its nod for the Headend In The Sky (HITS), a digital delivery platform to distribute multiple channels through satellite straight to cable operators.
  
• The cultivation of Lotus plants were banned in Kanyakumari as these plants would prevent sunlight entering into ponds.
  
• The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) unveiled China's fastest supercomputer, which could rival the world's most powerful computing devices. The supercomputer, named Tianhe,meaning Milky Way, is theoretically able to do more than 1 quadrillion calculations per second (one petaflop) at peak speed.

• According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Ma fourth of India’sgeographical area, or 81 million hectares, is undergoing a process of desertification. It reveals a first-of-its-kind ‘desertification status map’ of the country created in collaboration with several scientific institutions across the country. Changes in rainfall pattern and over-exploitation of natural resources are the main reasons for this change.
  The spatial inventory, which uses satellite imagery from an Indian Remote Sensing Satellite,Resourcesat, also reveals that a third of the country’s area (or 105.48 million hectares) is degraded.
  The research paper depicts that about 15.8 per cent of the country’s geographical area is arid, 37.6 per cent semi-arid and 16.5 per cent falls in the dry sub-humid region. Put together, about 228 million hectares, or 69 per cent of the country constitute ‘dry land.’
  
• The Government of India has approved a new policy on development of solar energy in the country by launching of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. It is one of the eight key National Missions which comprise India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change.
  
• The first night trial of the nuclear weapon capable Agni-II failed,with the missile not achieving the mission objectives. The 2,000 km range Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) was fired from a mobile platform from the Wheeler Island, off the Orissa Coast.
  
• The fifth nuclear reactor of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station(RAPS-5) at Rawatbhatta, with a capacity of 220 MWe, reached criticality. This is the 18th nuclear power reactor to be commissioned in the country. With its commissioning, the total nuclear power-generation capacity now stands at 4,340 MWe.
  RAPS-5 is an indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR). It uses Russian fuel and will come under the IAEA safeguards.
  
• NASA had launched Atlantis with six men to ISS from Kennedy space center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. The shuttle carries nearly 13,610 kg of equipment and Ammonium tanks.