Category: Others

Amaravathi – The Capital of Andhra Pradesh

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AmaravathiThe Government of Andhra Pradesh has named the new capital city as Amaravati. The first phase of the capital city construction will be completed within four years. Amaravati has historical, spiritual and mythological significance as below:

It was the capital of Satavahanas, the first great Andhra kings who ruled from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, after the downfall of Maurya empire.  After the decline of Satavahanas, Andhra Ikshvakus and later Pallava kings ruled Krishna river valley. Subsequently, Eastern Chalukyas and Telugu Cholas held sway over the region. Kota Kings were in control of Amaravati during the medieval times. Kota kings were subdued by Kakatiyas in 11th century CE and Amaravati became part of the unified Telugu empire.

After the declaration of Hyderabad as the capital of former Andhra Pradesh, the Guntur and Krishna region had been neglected for several decades. With the bifucation of united Andhra Pradesh state as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (residual state of AP), the andhrites started looking for a new capital as the existing capital Hyderabad had been made the capital city of Telangana. This inevitably driven the government to the cradle of AP, i.e. Guntur – Krishna region, which also happens to be centrally located in residual state of AP. Considering that Amaravathi had been the capital of Satavahana kings, and the spiritual importance associated with the region, the government aptly named the new capical city of residual state of AP as Amaravathi. This should not be mistaken with the Amaravathi town that is closely situated to the capital Amaravathi. Over a period of time, the town is likely to become part of Andhra capital due to close proximity.

The capital city will be situated on the banks of river Krishna combining the districts of Guntur and Krishna.

AP Capital Master Plan

1) Cities comes under Capital region: Vijayawada, Mangalagiri, Guntur, Tenali, Sattenapalli, Nandigama, Nuzvidu, Gudivada and Gannavaram.

2) Proposed Urban Regions: Vijayawada, Mangalagiri, Gannavaram regions comes under capital core region. The region will be extended with the areas Sattenapalli, Nandigama, Nuzvidu, Gudivada, and Tenali.

3) Proposed Industrial Corridors / Regions: Sattenapalli, Nandigama, Guntur – Yadlapadu, Pamarru, Tenali, Ganavaram, Kondapalli, Nuzividu, Mangalagiri, Amaravathi along with Nizampatnam and Vadarevu ports.

Growth Corridors: Following are the growth corridors in the proposed capital city master draft plan – I. Airport is also proposed at Mangalagiri.
1) Nizampatnam Port – Tenali – Capital City
2) Telangana border – Nandigama
3) Narasaraopet – Sattenapalli – Amaravathi – Capital City
4) Vissannapet – Nuzvidu – Capital City
5) Gundugolanu – Eluru – Hanuman Junction – Gannavaram
6) Machilipatnam – Pamarru – Gudivada – Gannavaram
7) Martur – Chilakaluripet – Guntur – Mangalagiri

Gujarat IT/ITES Policy : 2014-2019 For Ten Fold Increase In Turnover.

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Gujarat government has introduced an innovative IT/ITES policy for the period 2014-19 with the following features:

  • duly facilitate allotment of land for IT/ITES units investing in the state.
  • For those interested in developing IT/ITES technology parks the state government will give a 50 percent exemption in the fixed capital investment (cap of Rs 2.5 crore) in buildings and infrastructure facilities.
  • State government will also provide all new IT/ITES companies with 100 percent relief in electricity duty for a period of five years from the date of commencement of operations.
  • IT/ITEs units will also be given 100 percent exemption in stamp duty and registration fee for the sale/lease/transfer of land which will be limited to the first transcation.
  • 100 percent reimbursement will be given to the units on EPF deposited for women employees and 75 percent reimbursement in case of male employees (ceiling of Rs 5 lakh per annum).
  • interest subsidy for five years, seven percent subsidy on a sum of up to Rs 25 lakh annually and a five percent subsidy for up to Rs 35 lakh for IT/ITES MSMES.

The new IT policy comes just days after the state government had announced an Electronics Policy which targets an investment inflow of USD 6 billion by 2020. Other states may emulate the policy for job creation and economic development.

ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission – A Big Success

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mars_img Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), an inter planetary mission to planet Mars, has become a huge success with the satellite entering the designated MARS orbit, a few days back. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi himself witnessed the final orbital maneuvers and congratulated the ISRO and other scientists and engineers who contributed to the successful launch.

Indeed, the MOM experiment is a giant step forward for India. It is notable that India achieved the success on its first attempt itself whereas more advanced countries like, USA took several attempts before realizing the dream. It is widely acknowledged that the mission is very complex in nature, and it took about an year to achieve the feat.

The brief time table for the mission is given below:

It has been configured to carry out observation of physical features of mars and carry out limited study of Martian atmosphere with following five payloads:

  • Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
  • Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS)
  • Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM)
  • Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA)
  • Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP)

Various dimensions of the rocket used for the mission are as given below:

Lift-off Mass 1337 kg
Structures Aluminum and Composite Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) sandwich construction-modified I-1 K Bus
Mechanism Solar Panel Drive Mechanism (SPDM), Reflector & Solar panel deployment
Propulsion Bi propellant system (MMH + N2O4) with additional safety and redundancy features for MOI. Proplellant mass:852 kg
Thermal System Passive thermal control system
Power System Single Solar Array-1.8m X 1.4 m – 3 panels – 840 W Generation (in Martian orbit), Battery:36AH Li-ion
Attitude and Orbit Control System AOCE (Attitude and Orbit Control Electronics): with MAR31750 Processor

Sensors: Star sensor (2Nos), Solar Panel Sun Sensor (1No), Coarse Analogue Sun Sensor

Actuators: Reaction Wheels (4Nos), Thrusters (8Nos), 440N Liquid Engine
Antennae: Low Gain Antenna (LGA), Mid Gain Antenna (MGA) and High Gain Antenna (HGA)
Launch Date Nov 05, 2013
Launch Site SDSC SHAR Centre, Sriharikota, India
Launch Vehicle PSLV – C25

aamangalyan
image courtesy:
http://swapsushias.blogspot.in/2013/11/things-you-must-know-about-isro-mars.html#.VCgpsFJoFxA

Timeline:

Phase Date Event Detail Result
Geocentric phase 5 November 2013 09:08 UTC Launch Burn time: 15:35 min in 5 stages Apogee: 23,550 km
6 November 2013 19:47 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre Burn time: 416 sec Apogee: 23,550 km to 28,825 km
7 November 2013 20:48 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre Burn time: 570.6 sec Apogee: 28,825 km to 40,186 km
8 November 2013 20:40 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre Burn time: 707 sec Apogee: 40,186 km to 71,636 km
10 November 2013 20:36 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre Incomplete burn Apogee: 71,636 km to 78,276 km
11 November 2013 23:33 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre
(supplementary)		 Burn time: 303.8 sec Apogee: 78,276 km to 118,642 km
15 November 2013 19:57 UTC Orbit raising manoeuvre Burn time: 243.5 sec Apogee: 118,642 km to 192,874 km
30 November 2013, 19:19 UTC Trans-Mars injection Burn time: 1328.89 sec Successful heliocentric insertion
Heliocentric phase December 2013 – September 2014 En route to Mars – The probe travelled a distance of 780,000,000 kilometres (480,000,000 mi) in a parabolic trajectory around the Sun to reach Mars This phase plan included up to four trajectory corrections if needed.
11 December 2013 01:00 UTC 1st Trajectory correction Burn time: 40.5 sec Success
9 April 2014 2nd Trajectory correction (planned) Not required Rescheduled for 11 June 2014
11 June 2014 11:00 UTC 2nd Trajectory correction Burn time: 16 sec Success
August 2014 3rd Trajectory correction (planned) Not require
22 September 2014 3rd Trajectory correction Burn time: 4 sec Success
Areocentric phase 24 September 2014 Mars orbit insertion Burn time: 1388.67 sec Success

Top Ranked Universities in the World – A Critical Review

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Now that the top ranked universities list has been published by QS, not surprisingly, the list doesn’t include any Indian universities, a country where the world’s first known university was established (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda) . The criteria for selecting world’s top universities is as given below:

  1. Academic Excellence – Based on global survey of academics; Weightage: 40%
  2. Employer Reputation – Based on global survey of graduate employers;.   10%
  3. Faculty/Student Ratio – 20%
  4. Citations per Faculty – An indication of research impact 20%
  5. International Student Ratio – Measures international diversity of students, 5%
  6. International Staff Ratio – Measures international diversity of faculty, 5%

None of the Indian universities are in the top 200, which surprises many people who are aware that IIT’s (Short for Indian Institute of Technology) are among world’s best institutes. The IIT entrance exam is conducted in 2 stages. 1. JEE MAIN, 2. JEE Advanced (JEE stands for Joint Entrance Exam). For 2013, the number of candidates appeared for JEE MAIN stands at around 1.5 million as against an intake of about 10,000 by all IITs in India. Successful candidates, may appear for IIT Advanced. The number of students who appeared for IIT Advanced in the year 2012 stands at 506,000. That is one student is selected out of 50, just to get entry in an IIT, irrespective of the branch of study. Apart for IITs, there are other primier institutes like NIT (National Institutes of Technology) and BITS (Birla Institute of Technology), and others.

The very fact that none of these institutes appear in top 200, one wonders if there is any improvements that need to be done.  It may be necessary to include the following in selecting the best universities:

1. Competition that a student has to face to get selected (total number of students applied to the number of seats available)

2. Competition that a faculty member has to undergo for getting selected (number of applications received for a faculty position).

3.  The international staff ratio may be waived for universities in India because being a populous country, lot of talent exists withing the country.

4. Number of entrepreneurs created over the past 10 years or so on a rolling average basis.

On the other hand just see the stats released by PitchBook Data, a US-based private equity and venture capital research firm.  Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are ranked fourth on a list of 50 best entrepreneurial undergraduate institutes in the worl

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/iits-among-worlds-5-best-entrepreneurial-undergraduate-institutes-smriti-irani/1290813

Indian look forward to a more inclusive stats during the years to come.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/ng-interactive/2014/sep/16/-sp-qs-world-university-rankings-2014

 

 

India Successfully Fires GeoSynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle with Indigenous Cryo Engine.

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GSLV-1

The figure shows the GSLV D5 launch just a few seconds after ignition. GSLV is a three stage vehicle, 49 m tall with 414 t lift off weight. It is capable of placing satellites weighing 2-2.5 tons into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO)

On January 5, 2014, India successfully launched it’s rocket to put a 2000+ KG satellite in geosynchronous orbit. So, what is so special about it? To answer this question, we need to go back in time. The entire space program had started in early 80′ where the actual planning took place. India contemplated to achieve mastery over space technology in four stages over a period of 15 years. The various steps involved are:

  1. SLV (Simple firing of a Satellite Launch Vehicle)
  2. ASLV (Short for Augmented Satellite launch Vehicle)
  3. PSLV (Short for Polar Satellite launch Vehicle) – objective is to put sun synchronous satellites in orbit
  4. finally, GSLV (Short for GeoSynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) – to put communication satellites in a Earch Stationary Orbit.

We had developed and achieved self sufficiency in the first 3 categories of satellites fairly quickly, and almost as per the planned schedules. India had sought the help of USSR (then) in mastering the GSLV technology, as it requires putting a satellite in an orbit that is 36,000 KM above earth, and requires a technology, known as Cryogenic Engine Technology and uses liquid Orxygen and liquid Hydrogen at temperatures far below normal temperatures. Russia (Formerly USSR) agreed to initially supply a few engines and then deliver the technology (technology transfer) in stages. However, after supplying 2 or 3 engines, Russia gone back on their promise under extreme pressure from other developed nations. Under these circumstances, coupled with sanctions from USA and other countries against supply of any space related components or technology to India, India was left all alone with very few friends to rely on.

The success is not without failures. Several missions with indigenous and imported engines had failed, with many people doubting whether India could achieve this mile stone at all! Originally, India’s self reliance in launching GSLV rocket was supposed to be achieved by 1995. However, given the circumstances, the indigenous development had been delayed significantly due to failures in perfecting the Cryo engine technology.

Hearty congratulations to Dr. K. Radhakrishnan and his team for successful launch of GSLV D5. India is looking forward to many more such achievements from our distinguished scientists and technocrats!

Visit official website here: http://www.isro.org

 

SWregn.com Website Update

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SWswregn-logoregn.com, a software download and registrations website has been updated recently. It is expected to provide improved performance, and user experience. The website offers CCNA Tests download, CCNA/CCENT Network Simulators, and Exams Simulators for various certs. Currectly, the website offers download and registration services for CCNA Exam Simulator, CCNP Route, CCNP Switch, A+ Essentials, Network+, Oracle OCP Java Programmer and others.

The website features online activation using program interface. Customers will be able to activate the software automatically after installing the trial version. The online activation is automatic, and seamless.

Cloud Computing and Services

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Cloud Computing is a technology which uses internet (or the public Internet) and central servers to provide computation, software, data access and storage. End user does not require any knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services. It provides an always available service for the users, provided that the user takes care of the last mile connectivity.

With cloud computing, user can perform routine computer tasks anywhere, at any time, without installing applications on the local computer. All users need a computer connected to the internet (or public Internet as the case may be) and a compatible application (say, a browser) running on the computer.

How Cloud computing works: Cloud means a grid of computing machines that deliver the solution to the customer. Most websites and server-based applications run on particular computers or servers. The applications are stored on these cloud platforms and accessed by the user without knowing specific server configurations.

Types of cloud computing: Based on where the cloud is hosted also referred as Cloud computing Deployment models:

Public Cloud: This is standard computing model. The computing infrastructure can be shared among several people or organizations with similar requirements. The user need not worry about the stability or up-time of a specific machine in the cloud-computing infrastructure and it is transparent to the user. Several public cloud services offered free of charge to Internet users and discussed in the article.

Private Cloud: Computing architecture is dedicated to the customer and is not shared with other organizations and managed internally or by a third-party. A private cloud may be hosted internally or externally. They are expensive and are considered more secure than Public Clouds.  RackSpace cloud computing is among the first to introduce cloud computing, and is widely used by many organizations due to robust and effective security mechanism that comes with their service.

Community Cloud: Community cloud shares infrastructure between several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (security, compliance, jurisdiction, etc.). A Community cloud may be hosted and managed managed internally or by a third-party. The costs are borne by several organizations, thus reducing the running cost significantly and providing better security and resources compared with a Public cloud.

Hybrid Cloud: Hybrid cloud is a combination of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. It can also be defined as multiple cloud systems that are connected in a way that allows programs and data to be moved easily from one deployment system to another.

For a complete article on Cloud Computing, please visit TutorialsWeb.com. The contents of the article include Introduction to virtualization, description of cloud computing, differences between virtualization and cloud computing, different types of cloud models, and some prominent cloud service providers including RackSpace, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Broadband Internet: WiMAX, LTE, and 3G/3.5G – Article

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An article on broadband technologies, specifically, WiMAX, LTE, and 3G/3.5G has been published in tutorialsweb.com website. Though, we can find each of these technologies described separately in their own context, it is hard to compare and contrast the same. The article aims at bringing out the similarities and differences between these technologies.

WiMAX is a wireless digital communications system, also known as IEEE 802.16 that is intended for wireless “metropolitan area networks”. WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 – 10 miles (5 – 15 km) for mobile stations. In contrast, the WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 – 300 feet (30 – 100m).

The contents of which include WiMAX and its features, architecture, how it works, advantages and disadvantages in comparison with with 3G, 3.5G and LTE. Intel (INTC), Sprint Nextel (S), Motorola (MOT), and Clearwire (CLWR) are all WiMax partners and provide various components of WiMAX such as WiMax chips,  WiMax equipment and handsets.

WiMax is considered most useful for “last mile” connectivity in rural and emerging markets where laying fiber, cable, or DSL is cumbersome or economically not feasible. xDSL is widely used by carriers, because it can provide high data speeds over a dedicated telephone line. ADSL and SDSL reach speeds up to 6 Mbps.

The article also provides a list of broadband equipment providers and service providers such as AT&T, Verizon Communications, Vodaphone, NIT, Earthlink, O2 Broadband, and others.

Read complete article  by visiting  Broadband Technologies WiMAX, LTE, and 3G/3.5G

More articles are available in TutorialsWeb.com