1. Blackstone launches its Asian Data center business from India
Tags: place in news Economy/Finance Science and Technology
American multinational private equity investor Blackstone has started its data centre business in Asia from India. It plans to increase it to 600 MW over the next two years through presence in five locations in the country.
Blackstone launched its data center platform Lumina CloudInfra on 15 November 2022. The Lumina CloudInfra is owned and managed by Blackstone’s Real Estate and Tactical Opportunities funds.
Initially the data center will be set up in Mumbai and Chennai, and later on it will be set up in Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad and Pune.
National Data Center
The government data center has been set up and managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).The first Data Centre was launched in Hyderabad in 2008, followed by NDC Pune in 2010, NDC Delhi in 2011 and NDC Bhubaneswar in 2018.
It operates 37 small Data Centres at various State Capitals to provide services to the Government at all levels.
National Data Centre (NDC) at Bhubaneswar is a Cloud-enabled Data Centre which has been offering cloud services to Government Departments since its inception.
The National Data Centres form the core of e-Governance Infrastructure in India by providing services to various e-Governance initiatives undertaken by the Government of India.
What is a Data Center?
A data center is a facility that centralizes an organization’s shared IT operations and equipment for the purposes of storing, processing, and disseminating data and applications. Because they house an organization's most critical and proprietary assets, data centers are vital to the continuity of daily operations.
2. NASA launches its Artemis 1 mission from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida
Tags: Science and Technology International News
The US space agency NASA launched its Artemis 1 mission on 16 November, 2022 from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.
Important facts
About eight minutes after launch, the core stage's engines cut off and the core stage separated from the rest of the rocket.
After this, the Orion spacecraft was propelled by the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS).
NASA also deployed the four solar arrays of the Orion spacecraft.
After completing "translunar injection", Orion separated itself from the ICPS and is now on its way to lunar orbit.
About Artemis 1 mission
For the first time in 50 years since the end of the Apollo program, the launch of Artemis 1 is an ambitious US mission to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
The Artemis 1 launch will also be the first flight of NASA's 21st century moon-exploration program.
With Artemis 1 on the surface of the Moon, NASA aims to demonstrate new technologies, business approaches and capabilities that are essential for future explorations, including Mars.
The launch aims to further aid in the study of the Moon, its origin and history.
ISRO’s Moon Exploration Mission
Chandrayaan 1
Chandrayaan-2
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) recently announced India's third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3, which will consist of a lander and a rover.
3. Government has extended the term of DGCI V G Somani again by three months
Tags: Science and Technology Person in news
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has again extended the term of the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) Dr V G Somani by another three months. The extension will come into effect from 15 November 2022.
He was earlier given an extension in August this year for three months. His extended term was to expire on 15 November 2022.
Dr Venugopal Girdharilal Somani played a key role in the approval of covid-19 vaccine, approval of lifesaving drugs and ensuring its quality in combating the covid-19 pandemic.
About DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India)
The Drugs Controller General of India is the head of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, CDSCO is responsible for approval of Drugs, Conduct of Clinical Trials, laying down the standards for Drugs, control over the quality of imported Drugs in the country
Drugs Controller General of India: Venugopal Girdharilal Somani
Headquarters: New Delhi
4. Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal inaugurates international travelling Exhibition “Vaccines Injecting Hope”
Tags: Festivals place in news Science and Technology Person in news
Union Minister of State for Culture & Parliamentary Affairs Ajun Ram Meghwal inaugurated an international travelling exhibition “Vaccines Injecting Hope” at the National Science Center, New Delhi on 15 November 2022.
The exhibition “Vaccines Injecting Hope” has been organised by the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) and Science Museum Group, London.
The exhibition tells the story of the global effort to develop covid vaccine started on 15 November 2022 and will tour five cities of Delhi, Nagpur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata till September 2025 and is expected to reach out to more than 2 million people.
The exhibition has sections on ‘The Arrival of New Virus’, ‘Designing a New Vaccine’, ‘Trials, Results and Approvals’, ‘Scaling Up and Mass Production’, ‘Vaccine Rollout’, ‘Living with COVID’.
Novel Coronavirus or Covid-19
The novel coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan,China in December 2019 and was later declared a Public health emergency of International concern by the World Health Organisation on 30 January 2020 and a Pandemic on 11 March 2020.
The first case of the virus in India was confirmed in Kerala on 30 January 2020.
Bharat Biotech, Indian Council of Medical Research and National institute of Virology, Pune developed an indigenous corona vaccine called Covaxin.
The Covid vaccination in India was started on 16 January 2021.
National Council of Science Museums (NCSM)
It is an autonomous body under the Union Ministry of Culture. It is a premier body in the field of science communication.
It popularizes Science and Technology through a network of science centers, Mobile Science Exhibitions (MSE) units that visit rural schools and organise various activities for public and students in particular.
Headquarters: Kolkata, West Bengal
5. Jitendra Singh dedicates first Indian Biological Data Center to the nation
Tags: Science and Technology
Union Minister of state for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh dedicated India’s first national repository for life science data ‘Indian Biological Data Center’ (IBDC) to the nation on 10 November 2022 at Faridabad.
About Indian Biological Data Center
In this data centre Indian researchers will store biological data from publicly funded research.
The digitised data will be stored on a four-petabyte supercomputer called ‘Brahm’. A petabyte equals 10,00,000 gigabytes (gb).
The government has mandated that data on all publicly funded research should be stored in this central repository.
It will not only provide researchers a platform to securely store their data within the country, but also provide access to a large database of indigenous sequences for analysis.
The Bio-Bank currently accepts nucleotide sequences to digitise the genetic of humans, plants, animals and microbes.
The bio-bank now has 200 billion base pair data, including 200 human genomes sequenced under the '1,000 Genomes Project', an international effort to map genetic variations in people.
The project will also focus on populations that are vulnerable to certain diseases.
6. India announces additional contribution of ‘$ 5 million’ to ASEAN-India science and technology fund
Tags: Science and Technology Summits International News
The Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on 12 November 2022 announced an additional contribution of USD 5 million to the ASEAN-India Science and Technology Fund (AISTDF) to enhance cooperation in sectors of public health, renewable energy and smart agriculture.
The announcement came during the three-day visit of Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar to Cambodia for ASEAN-India and East Asia summits.
ASEAN India S&T Development Fund (AISTDF)
ASEAN-India Science & Technology Collaboration formally started in 1996 with the establishment of the ASEAN India S&T working group (AIWGST).
Initially, the collaborative S&T projects and activities between India and ASEAN were supported through ASEAN India Fund (AIF).
In 2008, a dedicated ASEAN India S&T Development Fund (AISTDF) with an equivalent amount of USD 1 million was established jointly by the Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Science and Technology (DST) to support Research and Development projects and associated project development activities.
The AISTDF was enhanced to an equivalent amount of USD 5 million through an announcement by the Prime Minister of India on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Summit in Malaysia in November 2015.
7. Google launches ‘FloodHub’, a platform to forecast flood
Tags: Science and Technology
In November 2022, Google launched a platform called 'FloodHub' to forecast floods. In this context, Google has expanded its AI flood forecasting services, which were first introduced in 2018 to an additional 18 countries in India, Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Important Facts:
The company also launched 'FloodHub', a platform that displays flood forecasts and shows when and where floods are likely to occur, so that people at risk can be directly informed of their needs and officials can help them effectively. be able to assist.
In 2018, the company launched its Flood Forecasting Initiative to help combat the devastating damage caused by floods.
The company has expanded its wildfire monitoring program to a few more countries after launching it in the US.
Using new AI models based on satellite imagery, the company detects the extent of wildfires and searches and shows their real-time location in a map.
Google said that since July, we've covered more than 30 major wildfire incidents in the US and Canada, helping people and fire teams search and view Maps more than 7 million times.
Wildfire detection is now available in the US, Canada, Mexico and parts of Australia.
Google:
Founders: Larry Page, Sergey Brin;
Parent Organization: Alphabet Inc.;
Established: 4 September 1998;
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States;
CEO: Sundar Pichai;
8. India's first private sector rocket Vikram-S to launch in November
Tags: Science and Technology
India's first privately developed launch vehicle - Hyderabad-based Skyroute's Vikram-S - is set to make its maiden flight from Sriharikota between November 12 and 16.
Important facts
Marking the launch of the private sector, Vikram-S will carry three customer satellites in a sub-orbital flight in this mission, named 'Prarambh'.
With this mission, Skyroute Aerospace will become the first private space company in India to launch a rocket into space, ushering in a new era for the space sector.
The launch date will be decided based on the weather conditions.
It aims to remove barriers to cost-efficient satellite launch services and space-flight while furthering its mission of making spaceflight affordable, reliable and routine for all.
About Vikram-S Rocket
It is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle which will carry three customer payloads and help test and validate technologies in the Vikram series space launch vehicles.
The Prarambh mission is aimed at carrying three payloads into space, including a 2.5-kilogram payload that has been developed by students from several countries.
Skyroute's launch vehicles have been named 'Vikram' as a tribute to Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme.
The initial mission and the Vikram-S rocket have been developed by a Hyderabad-based startup in collaboration with ISRO and IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre).
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
It was set up on 15 August 1969
It is India's national space agency. It launches its space rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Chairman: S. Somanath
9. Government notifies the use of drought resistant PB2 variety of Basmati rice for cultivation
Tags: Economy/Finance Science and Technology
The Union Agriculture ministry has notified the use of drought -tolerant basmati rice developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) for large-scale release.
The new variety of Pusa Basmati (PB) 1882 can withstand deficient rainfall during the flowering stage of the grain. In the traditional variety inadequate rain during flowering of plant leads to a drop in the rice productivity
Also there will be no need for transplanting of the rice as is done in traditional methods. This variety of rice can be sown directly in the field resulting in huge saving of water.
According to S Gopala Krishnan, principal scientist, IARI, rice grown through the transplanting method requires close to 3000 litres of water for producing one kg of rice, while the new variety sown through direct seeding method results in huge savings on water usage.
He also said that the new variety during two years of field trials had given an average yield of 4.6 tonne/hectare compared to 4.2 tonne/hectare reported for its parent variety PB 1.
Basmati growing region of India
The new PB.2 variety has been recommended for cultivation in key Basmati rice growing regions of India.
The areas of Basmati Rice production in India are the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand and western Uttar Pradesh.
India is one of the leading exporters of basmati rice in the world. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, U.S and Yemen Republic are the major buyers of basmati rice from India. (Source APEDA)
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)
It was set up as Agricultural Research Institute in 1905 at Pusa, Bihar. It was shifted to New Delhi in 1936.
After Independence its name was changed to Indian Agricultural Research Institute.
It is basically engaged in the research in the field of agriculture and its allied field for increasing crop productivity and developing integrated crop management technologies for a sustainable agricultural production system.
It developed the hybrid seeds of wheat and rice which led to Green revolution in India.
Headquarters: New Delhi
Director: Ashok Kumar Singh
10. Cordy gold nanoparticles
Tags: Science and Technology
Cordi Gold nanoparticles (Cor-AuNPs) which is the result of research by scientists from four Indian institutes have recently earned an international patent from Germany.
What are Cordy gold nanoparticles?
These nanoparticles, derived from the synthesis of the extracts of Cordyceps militaris and gold salts, could make drug delivery in the human body faster and safer.
Cordyceps militaris is a parasitic fungus. Gold salts are ionic chemical compounds of gold generally used in medicine.
Cordyceps militaris, known as the super mushroom for its tremendous medicinal properties, combines bioactive components in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles.
The wild Cordyceps mushroom is found in the eastern Himalayan belt.
Biosynthesized nanogold particles indicate a new application of nanoparticles in the development of therapeutic drugs that can be made into ointments, tablets, capsules and other forms.
