Magnitude-6.6 earthquake hits South Pacific near Samoa
The quake occurred 440 kilometres (273 miles) southwest of the capital Apia at a depth of 314 kilometres (195 miles), the US Geological Survey said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Honolulu also assessed that there was no tsunami threat.
Samoa sits on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanoes are common. (ANI/WAM)
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New Indian Express
11 hours ago
- New Indian Express
India–US ‘scientific handshake' to track disasters, climate via NISAR satellite
NEW DELHI: A couple of days ahead of the launch of the NISAR satellite, Union Minister for Space Dr Jitendra Singh on Sunday described the mission as a "scientific handshake". 'NISAR is not just a satellite; it is India's scientific handshake with the world,' Dr Singh remarked, adding that the NISAR satellite is scheduled for launch on 30 July from Sriharikota. During a media briefing, Dr Singh explained that NISAR is designed to deliver critical global data related to natural disasters, agriculture, and climate for the benefit of the entire world. Calling it a global benchmark in Indo-US scientific collaboration, he emphasised that, as the first joint Earth observation mission between ISRO and NASA, the launch will mark a significant milestone in the history of Indo-US space cooperation, as well as in ISRO's broader international engagements. He further stated that the mission will be launched aboard India's GSLV-F16 rocket. The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite will provide observations that will be made available to policymakers worldwide, aiding in the formulation of more effective responses to challenges posed by climate change. Dr Singh said the mission embodies Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of India becoming a 'Vishwa Bandhu' – a global partner contributing to the collective good of humanity. 'NISAR will not only serve India and the United States but will also provide critical data for countries around the world, especially in areas like disaster management, agriculture, and climate monitoring,' he said. A key feature of the mission, Dr Singh noted, is that all data generated by NISAR will be freely accessible within one to two days of observation, and in near real-time during emergencies. He said the mission combines the technological expertise of both space agencies. ISRO, for its part, has contributed the S-Band SAR payload, the spacecraft bus accommodating both payloads, the GSLV-F16 launch vehicle, and all associated launch services. Weighing 2,392 kg, the satellite will be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit, enabling repeat imaging of the Earth's land and ice surfaces every 12 days. 'It will allow continuous monitoring of ecosystem disturbances and help assess natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and landslides,' Dr Singh said. One of the satellite's most notable capabilities is its ability to track even subtle changes in the Earth's crust and surface movement. 'The data from the satellite will also be used for sea ice classification, ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm tracking, crop mapping, and changes in soil moisture – all of which are vital for governments, researchers, and disaster management agencies,' he added.
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First Post
a day ago
- First Post
History Today: When we lost APJ Abdul Kalam, the 'Missile Man of India'
On July 27, 2015, India lost a visionary and leader in APJ Abdul Kalam, the 'Missile Man,'who collapsed while delivering a lecture at IIM Shillong. He passed away at 83; a moment that united an entire nation in grief and gratitude for his scientific legacy and inspirational life read more Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam arrives to caste his ballot at a polling station in New Delhi, May 10, 2004. File Image/Reuters As part of Firstpost's History Today series, July 27 has witnessed pivotal moments — from the passing of India's beloved 'Missile Man' APJ Abdul Kalam in 2015, to acts of terror and peacemaking on the world stage, and deep racial conflict in America. APJ Abdul Kalam passes away On July 27, 2015, India lost one of its most beloved and respected figures — Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, the 11th President of India and a pioneering aerospace scientist. Kalam collapsed while delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Shillong. He was 83. His sudden demise marked the end of an era that transcended science, education, public service and spiritual thought. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Born on October 15, 1931, in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Kalam came from modest beginnings. His father was a boat owner and imam of a local mosque, and young Kalam helped supplement the family income by selling newspapers. Despite financial constraints, he showed an early curiosity for learning and was especially drawn to mathematics and physics. After completing his schooling in Ramanathapuram, Kalam went on to study physics at St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, and then aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology. He narrowly missed becoming a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force — he was ranked 9th while only 8 slots were available — but fate had bigger plans for him. Kalam joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in 1958 and then the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in 1969. At ISRO, he was project director of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III), which successfully deployed the Rohini satellite in 1980 — a defining moment in India's space history. His contributions became even more prominent when he rejoined DRDO and spearheaded India's missile development programme under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). This earned him the moniker 'Missile Man of India.' Notable missiles like Agni and Prithvi were developed under his leadership. Kalam played a pivotal role in India's 1998 nuclear tests at Pokhran-II. As the chief scientific adviser to the Prime Minister and the head of the DRDO at the time, he was instrumental in the coordination and execution of the tests. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD From left to right, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Defence Minister George Fernandes, India's 'missile man' APJ Abdul Kalam and Atomic Energy chief R Chidambaram display the victory symbol during a visit to the Shakti 1 test site, where India tested nuclear device in Pokhran. File Image/AP The successful detonation marked India as a nuclear weapons state and significantly altered its global strategic posture. The Pokhran-II tests also cemented Kalam's status as a national hero. His ability to bridge scientific innovation with national policy was rare and essential at a time when India sought to assert itself globally. In 2002, Abdul Kalam was elected the 11th President of India with support across party lines. He was the first scientist and the first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan. During his tenure, Kalam brought a refreshing change to the ceremonial office, converting it into an active platform for outreach and youth engagement. He earned the sobriquet 'People's President' due to his simplicity, accessibility and dedication to citizens — especially students. Kalam made it a priority to meet with young people, listen to their aspirations, and encourage innovation and education. An Indian army officer (L) points towards the Line of Control (LoC) as Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam (2nd-L), Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Syed and V G. Patankar, chief of Indian army in Kashmir, look during their visit to the LoC in the Uri sector, 102 kms (63 miles) west of Srinagar, June 28, 2003. File Image/Reuters After his presidency, Kalam did not retire from public life. He became a visiting professor at multiple institutions including IIM Shillong, IIM Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD He also authored several influential books such as Wings of Fire, India 2020, Ignited Minds, and My Journey — many of which became bestsellers and were translated into numerous languages. Kalam was a strong advocate for India's development through knowledge, science, and technological self-reliance. His vision of India as a developed nation by 2020, although not fully realised, continues to inspire developmental discourse. On July 27, 2015, while delivering a lecture titled 'Creating a Liveable Planet Earth' at IIM Shillong, Kalam collapsed at around 6:30 pm. He was rushed to Bethany Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a sudden cardiac arrest. News of his death triggered an outpouring of grief across India and abroad. The Government of India declared a seven-day state mourning. His body was flown to his hometown of Rameswaram, where he was laid to rest with full state honours. Over 350,000 people attended his funeral, including political leaders, scientists and common citizens. Kalam's impact on India — and indeed, the world — transcended his technical achievements. He symbolised the power of education, the importance of hard work, and the potential of a visionary mind. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Among his numerous accolades are the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian honour), the Padma Bhushan, and the Padma Vibhushan. He received honorary doctorates from more than 40 universities worldwide. His birthday, October 15, is now observed as World Students' Day in many institutions, and India's DRDO has named its missile complex in Hyderabad the 'Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex.' His house in Rameswaram was converted into the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam National Memorial by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and inaugurated in 2017. Globally, he was remembered as a symbol of peace and development. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is felicitated by former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam during celebration of his 74th birthday in New Delhi, July 6, 2009. File Image/Reuters Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called him a 'great statesman and visionary,' while Nasa scientists lauded his commitment to science diplomacy. His quotes like — 'Dream, dream, dream. Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action' — are widely circulated in classrooms and textbooks. In an age of growing cynicism and division, Kalam remains a rare unifying figure. He was admired across the ideological spectrum — by conservatives, liberals, nationalists, and progressives alike. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Kalam once said, 'If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.' Olympic terror: Centennial Park bombing On July 27, 1996, a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during a free concert, killing 44-year-old Alice Hawthorne, causing the death of Turkish cameraman Melih Uzunyol (via heart attack), and injuring 111 others. Investigators inspecting the scene at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, where a pipe bomb exploded on July 27, 1996, disrupting the Summer Olympic Games. File Image/AP The bomber — Eric Robert Rudolph, a white supremacist extremist — later admitted responsibility, linking the act to opposition against abortion and globalism. He was captured in 2003 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005. Security guard Richard Jewell was initially hailed a hero, then wrongfully accused — a saga prompting FBI reforms and legal action by Jewell. The event shifted Olympic security, highlighting vulnerabilities in mass gatherings and civilian safety protocols. Armistice ends Korean War After nearly three years of intense conflict beginning June 25, 1950, the Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. US, North Korean, and Chinese forces convened, reaching a ceasefire effective at 10:00 am (signing) and formal cessation by 10:00 pm that night. UN delegate Lieut. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr. (seated left), and Korean People's Army and Chinese People's Volunteers delegate Gen. Nam Il (seated right) signing the Korean War armistice agreement at P'anmunjŏm, Korea, July 27, 1953. Image/US Department of Defense The accord established the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) near the 38th parallel and highlighted prisoner repatriation via a Neutral Nations Commission. Although the armistice halted active conflict, no formal peace treaty was signed — leaving North and South Korea technically at war. The DMZ has remained one of the world's most fortified and enduring cold war legacies. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Chicago race riot of 1919 ignites On July 27, 1919, racial tensions in Chicago erupted when 17-year-old Eugene Williams, an African-American, was struck and drowned after crossing an informal race line on Lake Michigan's South Side beach. White beach-goers had stoned him, triggering outrage. Over the following week, violence rocked Chicago — the dead included 38 (23 Black, 15 white), and more than 537 were injured. Image Credit: Chicago History Museum Property damage exceeded 1,000 homes, and Black residents retaliated following a lack of police protection. It became one of the bloodiest episodes of the Red Summer of 1919, illustrating systemic racism, segregation and the upheaval driven by the Great Migration — urban Black veterans resisting entrenched oppression. Also Watch: With inputs from agencies
NDTV
2 days ago
- NDTV
Earth Imaging Satellite NISAR Exposes NASA's Weaknesses, ISRO's Strengths
The upcoming rocket launch from Sriharikota can be aptly summed as 'NASA's envy, India's pride!' The rocket the Americans tried to kill will now launch a billion-dollar bird. The very unique Earth imaging satellite jointly made by India and US named the 'NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar' (NISAR) satellite, is a technological marvel and would be a game-changer in saving lives from impending natural disasters. That the world's oldest democracy, US, and the world's largest democracy, India, are working together on this most expensive satellite that has cost upwards of $1.3 billion. It is a testament to the growing Indo-US bonhomie and strategic ties. But this mission also exposes the double standards the US exercised on India in yesteryears and is also ironical that America's most expensive civilian Earth imaging satellite ever made will be launched using an Indian launcher - the same rocket Americans wanted to desperately scuttle and kill its development in the early nineties. ISRO persevered relentlessly for nearly two decades and succeeded so much so that now top officials from NASA will actually be present at India's space port to witness the historic liftoff on July 30. According to ISRO, the NISAR satellite weighs 2,392 kg, and it will scan the entire globe and provide all-weather, day-and-night data at a 12-day interval and enable a wide range of applications. NISAR can detect changes in the Earth's surface, such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement, and vegetation dynamics. It will be launched using the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 2 (GSLV Mark 2), which will be powered by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine - the same technology that the US administration, especially its Bureau of Export Control, wanted to deny to India by working overtime with the then USSR. It was the 1990s and India was steadily developing its rockets and wanted to acquire the sophisticated cryogenic engine technology from the then USSR. It was under American pressure that Russia did not do technology transfer to India, but instead gave about half a dozen ready-made cryogenic engines to India. Subsequently, India struggled for nearly twenty years before mastering the complexities of cryogenic engine technology. The Americans used all the power of technology denials, sanctions at their disposal to try and make sure India did not acquire this technology. But then these tech-denials turned a blessing in disguise, and the scientists at ISRO toiled hard, and today it is the home-made cryogenic engine which will launch the NISAR satellite. Some would say this is an irony of ironies, and some would say it is egg on the face of US. Dr V Narayanan, chairman of ISRO, had helped India master the cryogenic engine, which makes it a proud moment for him to see the NISAR sticker on the payload fairing of the rocket that houses the cryogenic engine inside. At the end of the day, the US scientists have swallowed their pride and are sheepishly going to watch the launch of a satellite where they have invested nearly $ 1.15 billion. It is this exorbitant cost by NASA that should also be a reason for Americans to squirm and be uncomfortable. Wendy Edelstein, NISAR's Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), asserted, "NISAR is a 50-50 partnership between NASA and ISRO. It represents the largest collaboration in space between the United States and India." Interestingly, India has spent about Rs 800 crores on the NISAR project, which works out a little less than $100 million. NASA confirmed that it included 'ISRO investment for development, launch operations, and mission operations'. NASA has contributed the L-band radar, which penetrates vegetation and soil to reveal subsurface changes, while ISRO has provided the S-band radar, optimised for detecting surface-level features like foliage and terrain. These radars are mounted on a 12-meter mesh reflector antenna, roughly the size of a school bus, allowing the satellite to scan nearly all of Earth's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. India has not only contributed the equivalent S-band radar, but is also providing the rocket and the launch port and launch services, so why NASA's cost is $1.1589 billion and ISRO's cost is just $100 million? Here lies the heartwarming tale of Indian frugal engineering and cost optimization: It shows the profligate approach to engineering adopted by NASA. When quizzed by the US media on the issue of costs, Nikki Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said at a briefing, "I will defer to them [ISRO] on their final costs". There are many reasons behind the huge cost incurred by NASA, one of them being that most of the development of the instruments and payloads they fly are made by huge multi-national corporations and they not only need huge profits but also need to share dividends with their share-holders. ISRO, on the other hand, being a national entity does these things in-house and has no reason to pad up the cost to share profits with share-holders. Additonally, an ISRO official said that when their scientists travel to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in California, they would stay in shared $100 a day room while the NASA scientists when they travel to the UR Rao Satellite Center in Bengaluru would stay in an over $500 a day room. This automatically inflates the costs. Also, India usually makes only one instrument the one that will fly into space, while NASA makes an engineering model and flight model, which leads to doubling the cost. The way human power is distributed is also very different between NASA and ISRO at the Indian space agency. In the case of NISAR, which has taken over 11 years to build, the teams at ISRO working on multiple satellites and the salaries in India also turn out to be much lower when converted into dollar terms. The top manager at ISRO also pointed out that ISRO engineers are willing to put in long hours and work over weekends, while the US contract engineers are reluctant to put in long hours. The premium for insurance also adds to the costs at ISRO since the government takes the full liability and no insurance is taken, In other countries, insurance premiums can be a huge cost. Incidentally, when India launched its communication satellite using the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket, India also took insurance. This huge difference in NASA's and ISRO's costs remains a huge enigma for the making of the NISAR satellite, which was made with an understanding of equal partnership. Not just NISAR, there are still many bitter-sweet oddities in the Indo-US space relationship. India's first rocket launched from Thumba on November 21, 1963. It was an American Nike Apache rocket and the world got its first direct-to-home television broadcast - thanks to the Satellite Instruction Television Experiment (SITE) in 1975 pioneered in rural India. Then came the era of sanctions, which ended only when the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal was inked in 2008. Despite the sanctions, ISRO opened its heart out and flew two American instruments to the moon on Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 free of cost. This is contrast with the 2025 Astronaut mission of Shubhanshu Shukla to the International Space Station using the Axiom-4 flight where India shelled out hard cash of about $70 million for this single seat to the Americans. Interestingly, when the two democracies have worked together, they have had fruitful outcomes. It was Chandrayaan-1 which discovered the presence of water on the lunar surface, opening up flood gates for the colonisation of the moon. And now, on the NISAR mission, when NASA had all but given up the making of this costly satellite as its other foreign partners had backed out, it was ISRO that stepped in in 2014 and said ,'let us forge this partnership to make the world's single most expensive civilian Earth imaging satellite'. Hence, today the $1.3 billion NISAR satellite, which is sometimes also referred to as the NISARGA satellite, has been conceived in the true spirit of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' or the 'world is one family,' concept, and sits atop the rocket ready for lift off from Sriharikota in the true spirit of 'vishwa bandhu'. The contrast in cost structures, the cultural differences in engineering ethos, and the historical ironies are a compelling story of resilience, frugality, and strategic partnership. Life, in a way, is coming full circle for US and India, as the friendship grows to explore the unknown frontiers of space. India's frugal technology development, when clubbed with the US high technology can lead to a huge cosmic leap.
