To counter the growing influence of China over the Indian Ocean region, the government has decided to perk its deep sea mining plans, with a fresh impetus on securing strategic ground.
This would also help the country in exploration of rare earth materials from the deep sea and catapult it into the select group of nations doing so, that include America and Russia.
“We have decided to allocate new vessels to the National Institute of Ocean Technology and enhance the human resource requirement in this critical area to ensure India stands among the top league of nations with the capability to extract resources through deep sea mining,” minister of state for science and technology Ashwini Kumar told reporters after a high-level meeting on the issue.
The meeting was attended by R Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the government, and the secretaries to the departments of science and technology, bio-technology, electronics, and information technology, among others.
Kumar also expressed confidence that with the development of super-computing capabilities in the country, monsoon prediction would become much more accurate from next year. “(We) will induct computers with speeds of 500-600 teraflops in the weather forecasting system in the next one year, that would help us to graduate to the dynamic model of weather forecasting, which is more accurate, “ he said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), the country’s main weather forecasting agency, had predicted a normal monsoon in 2012 with rains being equivalent to 99 per cent of the long-period average. However, till June-end, the southwest monsoon had been 31 per cent below normal. With the repeated IMD failure to forecast monsoon patterns correctly, it has raised a question mark on the weather office’s capability to predict long-range weather phenomena accurately.
“I hope that as soon as we develop the technological capability, the margin of error in weather prediction will come down,” Kumar said.
Delhi to get pre-monsoon showers in 48 hrs
Delhi and its adjoining areas should experience their first pre-monsoon showers in the next 48 hours. “According to the information supplied to me by the India Meteorological Department, conditions have become normal for entry of the southwest monsoon over much of northwest India, including Delhi, and some amount of rain should happen over Delhi in the next 48 hours,” said minister of state for science and technology, Ashwini Kumar. He said it should start raining in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh in the next four to five days.
