The 12th DefExpo is scheduled to held from October 18 to October 22, 2022 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It is the largest exhibition on Land, Naval and Homeland Security systems in India. During the five-day, three days will be allotted for business while two days will be allotted for public days.

• Year 2022 will mark the 12th DefExpo, during which equipment and skill set of Armed Forces, DPSUs and Industry will be demonstrated live at Sabarmati River Front.
• Expo will be held in a three-venue format at Helipad Exhibition Centre, Inaugural event & seminars at Mahatma Mandir Convention & Exhibition Centre and Live demo at Sabarmati River Front.

Nagasaki Day is observed on 9 August. On this day US dropped an atomic bomb on the Nagasaki city of Japan in 1945 during World War II. 

The first bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima and the second was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August which killed around 74,000 people or more.

After six days of the Nagasaki bombing, the Japanese Emperor Gyokuon-Hoso speech was broadcast to the nation, addressing the surrender. The devastation caused due to the bombing led Japan to surrender in World War II.

Recently, member of NITI Aayog V K Saraswat suggested the government to focus on setting up small modular reactors (SMRs). This move will help in meeting India’s energy needs and replace the thermal power plants.

• V K Saraswat also suggested to accelerate nuclear power plant projects, set up under fleet mode production, in order to meet India’s base load requirements at the earliest.
• Small modular reactors will help in meeting requirements in distributed manner.

About Small modular reactors (SMRs):

Small modular reactors are advanced nuclear reactors, with the power capacity of 300 MW(e) per unit. This equals to 1/3^rd of generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors.

The nuclear plant is likely to be built in a period of 5 years, under fleet mode. An important aspect of the advanced nuclear reactor is that, it is factory fabricated. It can be operated by any agency. Thus, it would attract larger participation of private sector.

Currently, 22 reactors are operational in India, with a total capacity of 6,780 MW.  

Nallathamby Kalaiselvi has been appointed as the “first woman director general of CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research). She is the senior electrochemical scientist and has been appointed for two years.

• Kalaiselvi will succeed Shekhar Mande, who retired in April 2022.
• On Shekar Mande’s retirement, Rajesh Gokhale, secretary to Department of Biotechnology was provided with the additional charge of CSIR.
• Kalaiselvi is famous for her work in lithium-ion batteries.
• She is currently holding the office of director of CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Tamil Nadu.
• Apart from the director general of CSIR, she will also hold the charge as secretary to Department of Scientific & Industrial Research.
• In February 2019, she became the first woman scientist to head the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CSIR-CECRI).
• She is currently developing the practically viable Sodium-ion or Lithium-sulphur batteries and supercapacitors.
• As of now, she has published over 125 research papers and holds 6 patents.

The Indian Army in collaboration with the Drone Federation of India has launched the ‘Him Drone-a-thon’ programme on 08 August 22.

This initiative in line with Atmanirbharta in defence manufacturing is aimed to catalyse and provide focused opportunities to the Indian drone ecosystem to develop path-breaking drone capabilities for meeting requirements of frontline troops.

The Indian Army’s support to the indigenous drone ecosystem is based on the principle that ‘good available indigenously’ is better than the ‘best available globally’.

The ‘Him Drone-a-thon’ programme is pan India sustained connect between all stake holders including industry, academia, software developers and drone product manufacturers.

It will be conducted in stages with quantifiable parameters (like altitude, weight, range, endurance etc) being progressively enhanced based on demonstrated capabilities.