Sunday, April 29, 2012

That's all, Your Honour!: April 22-28


1. In a major scientific achievement, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched their first Radar Imaging satellite (RISAT-1) on their Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C19) last week. This is a major achievement because, with this satellite, we can now image the earth under all weather conditions - rains, night time etc. Up until now, our remote sensing satellites could operate only in clear sky daytime conditions. We were paying Canada to provide us data during monsoons and during night time. Now, we can generate and process our own data. RISAT-1 will help us in obtaining better agricultural data too. Also, radar imaging can help in generating good data during floods. And another important function of this satellite is that it can spy too :). Though the need for a radar satellite was recognised much earlier, various considerations like cost, weight, operations etc took us this long to develop it. Not just these, radar imaging will find many other applications too - terrain mapping, geology, wind patterns along the oceans etc. This satellite has been placed at an orbit of 536kms. 

2. The Election Commission of India has announced bye-elections to 28 seats across the country. Out of these 18 are from Andhra Pradesh only! AP is now gearing up for it's "mini general elections" on June 12. Apart from these 18 seats, 1 lok sabha seat is also up for grabs. 17 MLAs were disqualified (16 from Congress, one from erstwhile PRP) from the assembly for failing to follow their party whip. Chiranjeevi resigned to his seat when he got elected to the Rajya Sabha. The congress party will face a rout in these elections, and therefore we might get to see a big change in the state political scenario after these elections are over. The TDP too is not in a strong enough position to give fight to the fledging YSR Congress party. More blogs on these elections to follow soon. Please stay tuned.

3. And finally, Abhishek Manu Singhvi resigned as the congress party spokesperson and also as the chairman of the standing committee of law, justice and personnel. Phew - what a relief it will be to not see him anymore on TV! That's all, your honour! 

0 comments:

Post a Comment