1. About Astra Mk-1
It is a beyond visual range (BVR), air-to-air missile i.e, BVM missiles are capable of engaging beyond the range of 20 nautical miles or 37 kilometers.
• The range for Astra Mk-1 is around 110 km. The Mk-2 with a range over 150 km is under development and
Mk-3 version with a longer range is being envisaged.
• It has been designed and developed by the DRDO).
• It will used for deployment on fighter jets like Sukhoi-30 MKI and Tejas of the IAF and the Mig-29K of the
Navy.
• The missile can travel at speeds more than four times that of sound and can reach a maximum altitude of
20 km, making it extremely flexible for air combat.
2. Cosmic Cannibalism
It is a cosmic phenomenon where a star is ending its life so violently that the dead star is left behind, called a
white dwarf which is formed when a low-mass star like our sun exhausts most of its nuclear fuel.
• This white dwarf is disrupting an entire planetary system by sucking in debris from both its inner and outer
reaches. It is consuming the rock-metallic and icy material, both of which are “planetary components”.
3.D2M Technology
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Prasar Bharati are exploring the feasibility of a Direct-To-Mobile’ (D2M) technology.
• The technology is based on the convergence of broadband and broadcast, using which mobile phones can
receive terrestrial digital TV.
• It would be similar to how people listen to FM radio on their phones, where a receiver within the phone
can tap into radio frequencies.
• This technology allows to broadcast video and other forms of multimedia content directly to mobile phones,
without needing an active internet connection.
Significance of D2M Technology is that it can possibly be used to directly broadcast content related to citizen-centric information and can be further used to counter fake news, issue emergency alerts and offer assistance in disaster
management, among other things.
4. National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
launched by Government of India in 2015.
• Under NSM, the plan was to connect R&D institutions and academic institutions in the country using a supercomputing grid with National Knowledge Network (NKN) as the backbone.
• The mission was planned in three phases:
✓ Phase I: Assembling supercomputers,
✓ Phase II: Manufacturing certain components within the country.
✓ Phase III: Where a supercomputer is designed by India.
• An indigenously developed server platform called ‘Rudra’ is being tried out in a pilot system, with an interconnect for inter-node communication called Trinetra also having been developed.
USA’s Frontier supercomputer (1.1 exaFLOPS) was officially ranked as the most powerful supercomputer in the
world. It outperformed Fugaku, the second most powerful supercomputer.
• Japanese supercomputer Fugaku (442 petaflops), IBM’s Summit (148.8 petaflops), Chinese Sunway
TaihuLight (93 petaflops)
5.Supercomputer In India
Recently, IISc Bengaluru installed the supercomputer ‘Param Pravega’. It has a supercomputing capacity of 3.3 petaflops.
• Mihir (Ranked 146th): Mihir clubs with Pratyush to generate enough computing power to match PARAMSiddhi.
✓ Pratyush (Ranked 78th): It is a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
• PARAM-Siddhi (6.5 petaflops): It is the second Indian supercomputer to be entered in the top 100 on the Top 500 list. In 2020, PARAM Siddhi, the High-Performance Computing-Artificial Intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer, achieved global ranking of 62nd in Top 500 most powerful supercomputers
• India’s first supercomputer was PARAM 8000.
• PARAM Shivay: It is the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by PARAM Shakti.