Story of Indian Tricolour

The first national flag in India is said to hoisted on August 7, 1906, in the Parsee Bagan Square (Green Park) in Calcutta now Kolkata. The flag was composed of three horizontal strips of red, yellow and green.

The second flag was hoisted in Paris by Madame Cama and her band of exiled revolutionaries in 1907 (according to some inl9OS). This was very similar to the first flag except that the top strip had only one lotus but seven stars denoting the Saptarishi. This flag was also exhibited at a socialist conference in Berlin.

The third flag went up in 1917 when our political struggle had taken a definite turn. Dr. Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak hoisted it during the Home rule movement. This flag had five red and four green horizontal strips arranged alternately, with seven stars in the saptarishi configuration super-imposed on them. In the left-hand top corner (the pole end) was the Union Jack. There was also a white crescent and star in one corner.

During the session of the All India Congress Committee which met at Bezwada in 1921 (now Vijayawada) an Andhra youth prepared a flag and took it to Gandhiji. It was made up of two colours-red and green-representing the two major communities i.e. Hindus and Muslims. Gandhiji suggested the addition of a white strip to represent the remaining communities of India and the spinning wheel to symbolise progress of the Nation.

The year 1931 was a landmark in the history of the flag. A resolution was passed adopting a tricolor flag as our national flag. This flag, the forbear of the present one, was saffron, white and green with Mahatma Gandhi's spinning wheel at the center. It was, however, clearly stated that it bore no communal significance and was to be interpreted thus.

On July 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted it as Free India National Flag. After the advent of Independence, the colours and their significance remained the same. Only the Dharma Charkha of Emperor Asoka was adopted in place of the spinning wheel as the emblem on the flag. Thus, the tricolour flag of the Congress Party eventually became the tricolour flag of Independent India.

Chandrayaan-2

After the victorious launch of India's first mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is setting up to send its second lunar odyssey, Chandrayaan-2, an Indo-Russian joint venture, to be expected by the end of next year or early 2010. Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) is combining with ISRO for development of Chandrayaan-2 Lander/Rover.

Chandrayaan-2 will comprise the spacecraft and a landing platform with the moon rover. The rover would move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do a chemical analysis and send the data to the spacecraft orbiting above.

The rover will weigh between 30 kg and 100 kg, depending on whether it is to do a semi-hard landing or soft landing. The rover will have an operating life-span of a month. It will run mainly on solar energy.

Autonomous building

An autonomous building is a building designed to be operated independently from infrastructural support services such as the electric power grid, municipal water systems, sewage treatment systems, storm drains, communication services, and in some cases public roads.

Advocates of autonomous building describe advantages that include reduced environmental impacts, increased security, and lower costs of ownership. Some cited advantages satisfy tenets of green building, not independence per se. Off-grid buildings often rely very little on civil services and are therefore safer and more comfortable during civil disaster or military attacks. (Off-grid buildings would not lose power or water if public supplies were compromised for some reason.)

nal Reconnaissance Office

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. It designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the United States government. It also coordinates collection and analysis of information from airplane and satellite reconnaissance by the military services and the Central Intelligence Agency. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, which is part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program. The agency is part of the Department of Defense.

Logic control

Pure logic control systems were historically implemented by electricians with networks of relays, and designed with a notation called ladder logic. Today, most such systems are constructed with programmable logic devices.

Logic controllers may respond to switches, light sensors, pressure switches etc and cause the machinery to perform some operation. Logic systems are used to sequence mechanical operations in many applications. Examples include elevators, washing machines and other systems with interrelated stop-go operations.

Logic systems are quite easy to design, and can handle very complex operations. Some aspects of logic system design make use of Boolean logic.

System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE)

System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE) is a set of developing processes and methods for designing and implementing solutions to System-of-Systems problems. SoSE is relatively new term being used in Department of Defense applications, but is increasingly being applied to non-military/security related problems (e.g., transportation, healthcare, Internet, search and rescue, space exploration). SoSE is more than systems engineering of complex systems because design for System-of-Systems problems is performed under some level of uncertainty in the requirements and the constituent systems, and it involves considerations in multiple levels and domains. Whereas SE focuses on building the system right, SoSE focuses on choosing the right system(s) to satisfy the requirements.

Anthrozoology

Anthrozoology is the study of human-animal interaction ("animal" referring to all non-human animals), also described as the science focusing on all aspects of the human-animal bond.

Anthrozoology is a modern interdisciplinary and burgeoning field that overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology. A major focus of anthrozoologic research is the quantifying of the positive effects of human-animal relationships on either party and the study of the reality of their interactions.