Isro to Launch IIT-Bombay Students' Satellite 'Pratham' on Monday

executive@coastaldigest.com (Agencies)
September 25, 2016

Sep 25: Indian space agency Isro will shoot off the "Pratham" satellite designed and built by students of the IIT-Bombay among the eight satellites including its weather satellite on Monday, an official said in Mumbai.

Pratham

Conceptualised in 2008 with the aim of making IIT-B a centre for space science and technology research, the satellite weighs just 10kg, is designed to fit within a cube of 30cm, and has a life span of around four months.

"The objective of Pratham is to empower the students involved with the skill set required to develop a statellite through various stages of design, analysis, fabrication and testing," said the official.

The project will also kickstart a collaboration between IIT-B and other Indian universities keen to contribute in the space sector and to share knowledge and facilties.

This has led to completion of ground-stations for tracking the satellite in several college, including the Atharva College of Engineering here.

The IIT-B has collaborated with some international universities like UCL, London and IPGP, Paris for the project.

Pratham will transmit data when it passes over India and any university with a small ground station can detect its signals and measure the total electron counts (TEC) above the ground station as part of the education process to spread awareness among the students.

The student-designed satellite's mission is four-fold: acquiring knowledge in the field of satellite and space technology, to fully design it by the students of IIT-B, launch it and measure TEC of uonosphere above India and Paris, and involve students from other universities in the satellite project, said the official.

Pratham's payload instrument comprises two monopole antennae transmitting at 145.98MHz and 437.45MHz.

Measuring 30.5cm by 33.4cm by 46.6 cm, it weighs 10.12kg, is made of aluminium alloy and other space-grade materials, and has an on board computer.

It has three monopoles, GPS, magnetometer, sun sensors, magnetorquers and is powered by Li-ion battery and four solar panels.

It will be positioned in a sun-synchronous orbit around 670 km away and will pass over India around 11.30am.

For the project, entirely funded by the IIT-B, the Isro has provided lot of technical help in terms of testing and guidance and the integration of the flight model of Pratham for which tests have been carried out in ISAC, Bangalore and SHAR, Sriharikota.

Each year in September, a rigorous selection test was conducted for all IIT-B students from which they were inducted into the Pratham team and formalized after ascertaining their satisfactory work.

The current strength of the team which has completed the project after more than eight years is around 30, the official said.

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Agencies
March 3,2020

Facebook on Monday launched a new consumer marketing campaign in India titled 'More Together'. India is the first country in the Asia Pacific region where such a campaign is being rolled out.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

It is also the first time that Facebook is rolling out a 'high decibel campaign of this stature in India', the company said in a statement.

"India is at the heart of Facebook and one of our focus areas this year is to tell the exciting story of a service that is deeply embedded in the fabric of India," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

The campaign would have multiple campaigns over the next few weeks in eight languages and the one will be set in the context of Holi.

Facebook in 2019 introduced a new company logo to further distinguish the company from the Facebook app.

The company recently announced the appointment of Avinash Pant as the Marketing Director for India operations, to drive the consumer marketing efforts across the family of apps.

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News Network
February 21,2020

London, Feb 21: Scientists have discovered a new species of land snail, and have named it Craspedotropis Greta Thunberg in honour of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg for her efforts to raise awareness about climate change.

According to the study, published in the Biodiversity Data Journal, the newly discovered species belongs to the so-called caenogastropods -- a group of land snails known to be sensitive to drought, temperature extremes, and forest degradation.

The scientists, including evolutionary ecologist Menno Schilthuizen from Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, said the snails were found very close to the research field station at Kuala Belalong Field Studies Centre in Brunei.

They added that the snails were discovered at the foot of a steep hill-slope, next to a river bank, foraging at night on the green leaves of understorey plants.

The effort aided by amateur scientist J.P. Lim, who found the first individual of the snail said, "Naming this snail after Greta Thunberg is our way of acknowledging that her generation will be responsible for fixing problems that they did not create."

"And it's a promise that people from all generations will join her to help," Lim said.

The researchers said they approached Thunberg who said that she would be "delighted" to have this species named after her.

The study work including, fieldwork, morphological study, and classification of identified specimen was carried out in a field centre with basic equipment and no internet access, the scientists said.

According to the study, the work was done by untrained ‘citizen scientists’ guided by experts, on a 10-day taxon expedition.

"While we are aware that this way of working has its limitations in terms of the quality of the output (for example, we were unable to perform dissections or to do extensive literature searches), the benefits include rapid species discovery and on-site processing of materials," the researchers wrote in the study.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

Unnao, Feb 26: Ever heard of someone wishing a 'bright future' for the dead? In a bizarre incident in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district, a village head issued a death certificate with the wish for an elderly man who had died last month.

The incident took place in the Sirwariya village in Asoha block where an elderly person Laxmi Shankar died after a prolonged illness on January 22.

His son went to the village head Babulal and requested him to issue a death certificate that he needed for some financial transactions.

Babulal not only issued the death certificate, but also 'wished' 'a bright future for the deceased' on the document.

The village head wrote in the death certificate -- "Main inke ujjwal bhavishya ki kaamna karta hoon (I wish him a bright future)."

The letter went viral on the social media on Monday after which the village head apologised for the error and issued a new death certificate.

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