Cope India Exercise
- It is an air exercise between India and USA and first conducted in 2004.
- India, Japan and US are set to elevate this bilateral exercise to trilateral format.
- The next edition of this exercise is going to be held in December 2018.
- With this elevation, it is becoming similar to Malabar navy exercise among the three countries.
- Malabar exercise began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between India and US.
- In 2015, it was expanded into trilateral format with the inclusion of Japan.
India’s Longest River Bridge
- Union Government has recently announced that India’s longest river bridge across the River Brahmaputra is going to be commenced soon.
- It will run between Dhubri in Assam and Phulbari in Meghalaya, which is close to the Bangladesh border.
- At 19.3 km, the new bridge will be twice as long as the Dhola-Sadiya bridge, which at present, is the longest in the country.
- The new bridge is likely to be completed by the year 2026-27.
- It is going to be funded by Japanese funding agency JICA.
- The 6.2 km long bridge in Arunachal Pradesh, over the river Dibang, was opened this year. Currently, it is the second longest in the country.
World’s Longest Sea Bridge
- The world’s longest sea bridge was recently inaugurated by China after 9 years of construction.
- It is a 55-kilometre stretch that connects Hong Kong and Macau to Zhuhai in the Mainland China.
- It is part of China’s continued effort to drag the autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau closer to its orbit.
- Though the bridge aims to bring the autonomous regions closer to mainland China, it will be accessible only to a select few.
Signature Bridge
- The Signature Bridge is constructed over the Yamuna river, meant to link north and northeast Delhi with Ghaziabad.
- It is 675 metres long and has taken nine years to complete with a budget of over Rs. 6 million.
- It is expected to be thrown open to traffic next week, after several missed deadlines.
- It was first approved by the Delhi cabinet in 2007 and has missed five deadlines, the first being in 2010.
Fusion Energy Conference
- The 27th edition of fusion energy conference was recently organised in Gandhinagar.
- It is organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and hosted by the Department of Atomic Energy and Gandhinagar-based Institute of Plasma Research.
- It aims to provide a forum for the discussion of technology issues that are of direct relevance to the use of nuclear fusion as a source of energy.
- Innovative concepts on using nuclear fusion as a source of energy are discussed in this conference.
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
- ITER, the world’s largest experimental fusion facility is in France.
- It is the most complex science project in human history, started in 2010.
- It will use hydrogen fusion, controlled by superconducting magnets, to produce massive heat energy.
- This nuclear fusion facility is an international cooperation among the European Union, Russia, the US, Japan, China, India and South Korea.
- It is the first industrial-scale fusion reactor and it will illuminate the way to produce clean, cheap, and abundant energy for millions of years.
- It will start generating a molten mass of electrically-charged gas “plasma” inside a core by 2025.
Source: The Hindu, Economic Times
