The Daily Brief – 12th January 2020

Indian satellites in low-earth orbits will be tracked by the Indian Data Relay Satellite System, which plans to set up a communication system between the space assets of India. This system is set to play a vital role in India’s space station as well as space docking and will also be instrumental to India’s Human Space Flight Programme – Gaganyaan. The IDRSS satellites will be launched on a GSLV launcher and will approximately weigh 2000 kgs, placed at an orbit of 36,000 km away from the orbit of the earth.

NITI Aayog drew up a list of medical devices that are considered to have high export potential such as surgical blades, orthopaedic implants, catheters, syringes and needles, X-ray machines, blood bags, MRI machines and CT scan. To boost their domestic manufacturing, the devices ought to be prioritized and the Government of India is set to create a framework to accelerate their standardization and certification. In December 2018, the think tank had announced that all medical devices will be governed under a uniform regulatory regime which will aid in boosting their export as well as fasten the certification process. Currently, the devices are governed by the Central Drugs Standard Control, which is a statutory body created under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Due to the collision of two neutron stars, the Laser Inferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, also known as LIGO, detected gravitational waves, for the second time. The mass of the neutron stars is estimated to be between 3.3 times and 3.7 times as that of the sun and scientists believes that the neutron stars that were separately formed, eventually drifted together to form a star pair. The neutron stars were at a distance of 520 million light years from the earth. The first neutron star detection was in 2017. The gravitational waves help to learn about the universe and its origin.

During a two-day official visit to Kolkata, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate colonial buildings – Old Currency Building, Metcalfe House, Belvedere House and Victoria Memorial Hall – to the country. These buildings were renovated by the Ministry of Culture, which is also working on developing other iconic buildings and cultural spaces in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Varanasi.

India’s Energy Policy Report was launched by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and this report insists that India should adopt NITI Aayog’s National Energy Policy. The report finds that oil demand of India will overtake China’s by mid-2020 and India is already the third largest consumer of oil after China and USA. India’s plan to increase its refining capacity to 8 million barrels per day by 2025 will make India an attractive market for investment in the refinery sector.