Indian Infrastructures and Capabilities
Earth System Science deals with the Earth system’s five components—Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Cryosphere, Lithosphere, and Biosphere, and their complex interactions. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) holistically addresses all the aspects relating the Earth System Science for providing weather, climate, ocean, coastal state, hydrological and seismological services.
Following the vision of ‘Digital India’ of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, Indian Railways has revamped & upgraded its e-ticketing website www.irctc.co.in and IRCTC Rail Connect Mobile App, which are used for booking of Railway tickets ‘online’.
The Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR), which operates trains and executes projects partially in Bihar and West Bengal besides the northeastern states, will link India with Bangladesh and Nepal via rail in the next nine months.
North East’s first-ever specialised “Ginger” Processing Plant at district Ri-Bhoui in Meghalaya is being revived and is likely to become functional in the beginning of 2021.
India’s space agency plans to build an additional fab at Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), its chip making facility in Chandigarh, in a bid to scale up capacity to meet the growing demand for chipsets for rockets and satellites as it opens up the space sector to private firms and startups.
The Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, has sanctioned Rs. 135 crores to IIT Hyderabad under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) to set up a Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation and Data Acquisition Systems (UAVs, RoVs, etc.). The Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation Systems for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Remotely Operated Vehicles at IIT Hyderabad, known as ‘TiHAN Foundation’ has been incorporated as a Section-8 company by the institute in June 2020.
Indian Railways has 13 Vistadome coaches that are currently operational in select routes in India, namely, Dadar and Madgaon, Araku Valley, Kashmir Valley, Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Kalka Shimla Railway, Kangra Valley Railway, Matheran Hill Railway, Nilgiri Mountain Railway.
Addressing at the event, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that Digital Ocean is a first of its kind digital platform for Ocean Data Management. “Digital Ocean is a big step towards Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India ie to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy”, Dr. Harsh Vardhan stated. He further added “In coming times, that nation will be powerful which has the gold mine of data and the capacity to process and interpret it meaningfully.”
Elaborating on the need for a Met Centre at Leh, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the Ladakh region has lofty mountains with high slopes and no vegetation and lot of loose soil and debris making the region vulnerable to various kinds of natural hazards like Cloud burst (of 2010), Flash Floods, Avalanches and Glacial Lake Outbursts, etc.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday inaugurated India’s first-ever driverless train operations on Delhi Metro’s Magenta Line. He also launched the National Common Mobility Card, an inter-operable transport facility that allows users to pay for travel, toll duties, retail shopping, and withdraw money using one card.
