28 September 2015 Current Affairs
US – India bilateral meeting held at NewYork
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 September met the US President Barack Obama in New York during his US visit. Modi held a bilateral meeting with Obama. Indian Prime Minister Modi and US President Obama decided to ‘further refine’ the Indo-US strategic partnership while pushing ahead with cooperation in the areas of security, counter terrorism, defence, economy and climate change. US and India signed final agreement for the purchase of two of the most advanced 22 Apache and 15 Chinook American helicopters in a deal worth about 3 billion dollars. Modi held seperate meetings with his British counterpart David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande during which a host of bilateral, regional and global issues were discussed. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was present during his meeting with Mr Hollande.
Modi visited Headquarters of Google and Face Book
Modi visited to the campuses of Iconic Tesla, Face Book and Google during his west coast visit. The first day of Modi’s West Coast visit included a visit to Tesla Motors and a meeting with the chief executive, Elon Musk, where the two discussed renewable energy. Modi later met to Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive. Modi visited the Google headquarters and interacted with CEO Sundar Pichai, and Google co-founder Larry Page and former CEO Eric Schmidt.Indian Railways and Google will collaborate to provide wi-fi at 500 railway stations in India.In his visit Modi also visted the headquarters of Face Book . He was set to host an open town hall with Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Face Book.
ISRO successfully launched India’s first Space Observatory “ASTROSAT”
On 28 September, 2015 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the India’s first space observatory “ASTROSAT”. India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) -C30 successfully launched ASTROSAT along with six foreign customer satellites. ASTROSAT was injected into it’s orbit about 22 minutes after the lift off. The seperation of all the six co-passenger satellites was completed in the next three minutes. This was the 30th consecutive success of PSLV. The satellites of international customers included the 76 Kg LAPAN-A2 of Indonesia, 14 Kg NLS-14 (Ev9) of Canada and four identical LEMUR satellites of the US. 51 satellites have been launched by PSLV for customers from abroad.
NASA detects liquid water on MARS
Liquid water has been observed on the planet Mars by the US Space agency NASA. The rovers found that the soil of the planet us much more moist than anticipated. Scientists in 2008 confirmed the existence of frozen water on Mars. But the latest observations from an instrument abroad NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter support the long time theory that salt water in liquid form flows down certain Martian slopes each summer. Under certain circumstances liquid water has been found on Mars. Major climate change about three billion years ago is believed to be the reason.