Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Defence Ministry approves projects worth 2420 crore

News:

The Defence Ministry gave final approval for the procurement of simulated training solutions for the Navy’s P-8I long range maritime patrol aircraft and electronic warfare systems for the Army at a combined cost of 2419.32 crore.

Beyond News

• Defence Ministry said in a statement that,the P-8I training solution, along with 10 year comprehensive maintenance service, will be brought from Boeing for 1949.32 crore.
  This training solution accurately simulates P-8I aircraft and mission systems
• This will help Indian Navy train and realistically rehearse for sophisticated missions involving P-8I aircraft, at a fraction of the cost of live aircraft training, the statement said.
• The deal was cleared in the past by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC).

Another Proposal

• The second proposal was for the procurement of Low Intensity Conflict Electronic Warfare System (LICEWS) for the Army.
• These will be procured from Bharat Electronics Limited for 470 crore.
• This system will equip the Army with upgraded communications infrastructure that will help the forces to effectively deal with the advanced communications systems being used by terrorist groups, the statement added.

Lok Sabha passes bill to hike salaries of judges

News

The Lok Sabha passed a bill to hike the salaries of judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

Beyond News

The Bill proposes to hike the salary of the Chief Justice of India to 2.80 lakh a month, and that of judges of the Supreme Court and Chief Justices of High Courts to 2.5 lakh a month.
Judges of High Courts will draw a salary of 2.25 lakh a month once this Bill becomes law.

The salary hike, in line with the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission for officers of all-India services, will come into force with effect from January 1, 2016.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

NASA to launch two missions to explore nearest space

News

NASA has announced that it would launch two missions to explore the little-understood area of 96 km above Earth’s surface.

Beyond News

• US space agency said that the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will be launched in January 2018, and the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) will be launched later this year.
• GOLD and ICON will team up to explore the ionosphere, a boundary area between Earth and the space where particles have been cooked into a sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions by the Sun’s radiation, reports Xinhua news agency.
• These layers of near-Earth space are increasingly becoming a part of human domain as it is home to radio signals used to guide airplanes, ships and Global Positioning System satellites.
• NASA said that the two missions were complementary. ICON will be in low-Earth orbit, at 560 km above Earth, like a close-up camera while GOLD will be in a geostationary orbit over the Western Hemisphere, about 35,398 km above the planet’s surface.

It will help in full-disk view of the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere beneath it every half hour.

Gujarat-based cardiologist uses robotic technology to conduct angioplasty

News

In a move that can change the norms of cardiology, Gujarat-based interventional cardiologist Dr. Tejas Patel has developed robotic technology for coronary intervention, a first in Asia.
With the help of a robot, Dr. Patel has started robotic-assisted stenting on heart patients in his Apex Heart Institute in Ahmedabad.

Why this News Important

This is the first and the only Vascular Robotic system outside the United States.

Beyond News

• The USFDA-approved robotic technology for coronary angioplasty or stenting provides accuracy of sub-1 millimetre, as against maximum possible 5-10 millimetres in case of humans.
• The robotic system comprises of three parts namely a cath lab-integrated robotic arm, a cockpit — from where the cardiologists will command the robot through joystick — and a replaceable-cassette that carries the clinical materials for each individual case requirements.
• Costing about US $1.5 million, the robotic system has in-built artificial intelligence which helps cardiologists take sound clinical judgements

In India, an estimated 50 million people are suffering from the heart diseases, while only 500,000 angioplasty surgeries were conducted in 2016, suggesting a huge scope for widening of the treatment.

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