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.
