The fourth flight of the Indian long range missile AGNI-3 with a range capability of 3500 km was tested successfully by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at 10:50 this morning from the Wheeler Island, in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Odisha. The AGNI-3 Missile tested for the full range, hit the target with pin-point accuracy and met all the mission objectives. Two down range ships located near the target tracked and witnessed the Missile reaching the target accurately.

The marker pen like AGNI-3 Missile is 17 meters long and 2 metres in diameter. The Missile is a two stage solid propellant system with a pay load capability of 1.5 tons. During the course of flight the Missile reached a peak height of 350 kms and re-entered into the atmosphere successfully tolerating the skin temperatures of nearly 3000 degree Celsius.

The missile is equipped with a state of the art computer system, navigated with a most advanced Navigation system and guided with an innovative guidance scheme. The Navigation system used for guidance is first of its kind. Number of Radars and electro optical tracking systems along the coast of Odisha have monitored the path of the Missile and evaluated all the parameters in realtime.

The launch is part of the pre-induction trial. Indian Army (the user) has carried out the total launch operations guided by the DRDO scientists. Now the Missile system will be fully inducted into the armed forces.

Mission Director Sri Avinash Chander and Project Director Dr V.G. Sekaran have guided and controlled the complete Missile integration and launch activities. Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister and Director General, DRDO Dr V.K. Saraswat have over seen the total launch operations.

Dr V.K. Saraswat and Sri Avinash Chander congratulated all the Scientists and employees of DRDO and the industry partners.
Source: pib.nic.in

Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore are among top ten cities generating the biggest amount of e-waste. According to the data released by Ministry of Environment and Forest on the basis of survey conducted by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) the amount of e-waste will increase upto 8,00,000 tonnes by 2012. This amount is over 570% higher than the amount of e-waste generated during 2005.

The e-waste includes useless computers, mobile, monitors and other electronic gadgets. Mumbai, Delhi, Banglore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat and Nagpur are top ten cities generating electronic waste in the country.

Nano science and Nano technology will be the major issues before the 97th Indian National Science Congress (INSC) going to start from Sunday. Though the main these of the 5-day meet of INSC is “Science and Technology Challenges of 21st Century: National Perspective” but Nano science and technology has attracted the Science Congress the most as the two symposia have been concentrated on the topics related to Nano science.

While ‘Engineering Science and Tecnologies: Nano and Macromolecules’ is the theme of symposium of Engineering section on one hand, ‘Spectroscopic Techniques: from astrophysics to Nano-science’ is the theme of symposium for Physical sciences on other hand. There will be 14 symposia in the meet. About 3500 students and 4500 scientists will participate in the INSC.

These include former President and noted scientist A P J Abdul Kalam, eminent scientist M S Swaminathan, Anil Kakodar, C N R Rao, M G K Menon and several others.

There will be a half day meet on science education in universities also. Vice Chancellors of various universities will participate in the meet and discuss the issue. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the Science Congress on Sunday at Kerala University Campus.

A team of young scientists of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has finally achieved completion of the ambitious first ever Human Genome Sequencing in India. With the completion of the project India has joined the prestigious league of few countries like US, Canada, China, UK and Korea.
According to S K Brahmchari, Director General of CSIR the decoding of human genome generated over 51 Gigabase of data. He said that the Human Genome has 3.1 billion base pairs. Addressing a press conference Union Minister Prithvi Raj Chavan said that it will open new routes for low cost affordable medicine and better healthcare in the future for the common people. Vice President M.Hamid Ansari too congratulated the CSIR for the achievement.

Prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is now available for legal studies too. Those who are interested in LL.B. degree may apply to IIT for the same. However, the programme is not available for the graduate of arts and commerce stream. Only engineers, doctors or post-graduate in science and pharmacy and management graduates will be eligible for the course.

The three year LL.B. (Hons.) course will be available at the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property law at IIT, Kharagpur. It will be a fully residential programme with specialization in Intellectual Property Law (IPR). Only those candidates who have completed their degree with first class will be eligible for entrance test. Last date for the submission of the form is 22 January for the course. Entrance exam will be organized on 21st march. Interested candidate may visit www.rgsoipl.iitkgp.ernet.in for details.