Posts

Showing posts from June, 2024

Nalanda University - A quest to make India knowledge centre

Image
 latest news At present, the institution runs six schools. There are 137 scholarships on offer for international students For Nalanda Univeristy, named after the ancient seat of learning that drew scholars from far and wide around 1600 years ago, the sprawling state-of-the-art Net Zero campus is a big step forward in the quest for the glory that once drew scholars from far and wide. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed happiness that the university’s around 500 regular students are from 20 countries. “Nationality was not a criteria for admission in the ancient Nalanda and the new Nalanda will also develop on similar lines,” he said after inaugurating the campus. Though the university shifted to its new under-construction campus in 2020, the work went into completing the huge exercise. The university had once planned inauguration by the PM during 2022, but that could not materialise. But the PM made sure that he should inaugurate it in the very month of his third term. The infrastruct

Internal security crisis, diplomatic tussle threaten to stop Niger’s push to become an oil-exporting country

Image
latest news A China-backed pipeline that would make Niger an oil-exporting country is being threatened by an internal security crisis and a diplomatic dispute with neighbouring Benin, both as a result of   last year's coup  that toppled the West African nation’s democratic government. The group, led by Salah Mahmoud, a former rebel leader, took up arms after  Nigers's junta came to power, posing further security threats to the country, which is already struggling with a deadly security crisis. Analysts say the crises could further hurt Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries which funds most of its budget with now-withheld external support in the aftermath of the coup. Niger currently has a local refining capacity of only 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) for local demands while the pipeline is to export up to 90,000 barrels daily — a feat officials and analysts have said would help the country shore up its revenue and emerge from the coup sanctions that had isolated it from reg

Hat-trick for Pushpak: India’s Reusable Launch Vehicle aces third landing

Image
  latest news This mission simulated the approach and landing interface and high-speed landing conditions for a vehicle returning from space, reaffirming Isro’s expertise in acquiring the most critical technologies required for the development of a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The advanced guidance algorithm catering to longitudinal and lateral plane error corrections, which is essential for the future Orbital Re-entry Mission, has been validated, Isro said in a statement. The RLV-LEX-03 mission reused the winged body and flight systems from the LEX-02 mission, demonstrating the robustness of Isro's capability of design to reuse flight systems for multiple missions. This mission was a collaborative effort involving multiple Isro centers, the Indian Air Force, and other organisations. Isro chairman S Somanath congratulated the team for their efforts in maintaining the success streak in such complex missions. Dr S Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of VSSC, said that this consistent succe