Mars Orbiter Mission is India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The Mission is primarily technological mission considering the critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of spacecraft.

It all started when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh near Chennai, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket C25 at 09:08 UTC (2:38 PM IST) on 5 November 2013. Itt was launched into an elliptical parking orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 248 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 23,550 km by India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV on November 5, 2013. Following this, the apogee height of the spacecraft's orbit was successively raised through a series of seven altitude-raising orbital manoeuvres (instead of earlier six planned) to nearly 1,93,000 km before trans-Mars injection on 30 November 2013 (UTC).

Having woken up to the progress made by countries like China in developing indigenous engines for military aircraft late, the Union government has directed the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to fast-track the ‘Kaveri’ engine project conceived as the power plant for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). Much of the criticism for LCA Tejas can be contributed to Kaveri engine. The indigenous engine development somesaulted many target dates, that it was finally jettisoned from the LCAs project officially in september,2008 and is generally written off as a 25-year, Rs. 2,100-crore drain on resources. But now it looks set to resume where it left off two years ago and complete the last lap of its development. GTRE (Gas Turbine Research Establishment , a lab under the DRDO in Bangalore is the developer of the kaveri engine) is now running two separate successor engine programmes, the K9+ programme and the K10 programme.

'Tejas' is the smallest , light weight, single engine tactical, supersonic, multirole, combat aircraft, best in its class in the world and is being developed by ADA, DRDO and HAL in single-seat fighter and twin seat trainer variants for the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy. This programe which was initiated in the 1980s crops up in news now and then where critics questioning the delay/capabilities and admirers lauding its strengths/technologies come up in equal voice. I am one of those eagerly waiting citizen of India to see the Tejas flying high bringing laurels to the nation. As I keep searching the web to know what is happening with the Tejas - I am just presenting the information I came across

Most of the highest peaks of the world stand tall in the chain of The Himalayas. The peaks of the Himalayas are a modern remnant of massive tectonic forces that fused India with Asia tens of millions of years ago. The Himalayas believed to have into existence because of collision of Indian and Asian plates engulfing thethys sea and island arch in between. Previous estimates have suggested this collision occurred about 50 million years ago, as India, moving northward at a rapid pace, crushed up against Eurasia. The crumple zone between the two plates gave rise to the Himalayas, which today bear geologic traces of both India and Asia. Geologists have sought to characterize the rocks of the Himalayas in order to retrace one of the planet’s most dramatic tectonic collisions.

Now researchers at MIT have found that the collision between India and Asia occurred only 40 million years ago — 10 million years later than previously thought....

India on 21 December 2012 test launched its indigenously developed beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air interceptor missile Astra at the interim test range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha. The missile was fired from the launch pad number two of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) run missile testing centre at around 13.30 hours to confirm its reconfigured propulsion, control and guidance systems.

What will you do if you are happy? – You may smile, laugh and even cry. What if you are very, very happy? You may sing. What if you are very, very, very … happy? You must be dancing. I feel dance is the ultimate expression of joy, a joy which is beyond all calculations. Dance may also be the expression of other emotions but the joyful dance  is more predominant and versatile. Its a state of eternal bliss where you get lost and rediscover yourself. Animals may not smile or laugh, but they also dance to communicate and express their joy. It is the animal instinct surviving predominantly in man however civilized he may become. It preceded all civilized inventions like language, culture, art and civilization. There are various forms of dances all over the world and some new forms may be getting added. Dance is always accompanied by music. Dance and music must have evolved together entangling each other and might have got separated with evolution. Music can exist without dance but dance can't exist in separation. Dance played a major role in all most all civilizations

 It has been more than seven months that I am scribbling something on this website. Life has become busy with some bits and curves. So when I got some time and while wandering in my random thought sphere - I just checked the Google Analytics of this website. The figure even though low, made me a bit happy -

In the last one year http://dilipkumar.in/ has reached One Lakh thirty thousand (unique) visitors across the globe - not a boast worthy feat (facebook may be doing it in milli or micro seconds :D) , but a bit happy to know that this layman's musings have been heard by so many ...

Interested in launching new website - on environment, energy and society related issues and broaden the existing one. Will be glad if any one is interested and (serious!) to join ...