PIB Summary- 9th April, 2022 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)

Why in News?
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister has approved continuation of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), till March 2023.

About Atal Innovation Mission

• The Mission has been set up under the NITI Aayog, in accordance with the Hon’ble Finance Minister’s declaration in the 2015 Budget Speech.
• The objectives of the AIM are to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country via interventions at school, university, research institutions, MSME and industry levels.
• The AIM has focused on both infrastructure creation and institution building.
• The AIM has worked on integrating innovation ecosystem both nationally and globally

Major Initiatives:

• Atal Tinkering Labs: Creating problem solving mindset across schools in India.
• Atal Incubation Centers: Fostering world class startups and adding a new dimension to the incubator model.
• Atal New India Challenges: Fostering product innovations and aligning them to the needs of various sectors/ministries.
• Mentor India Campaign: A national mentor network in collaboration with the public sector, corporates and institutions, to support all the initiatives of the mission.
• Atal Community Innovation Centre: To stimulate community centric innovation and ideas in the unserved /underserved regions of the country including Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
• Atal Research and Innovation for Small Enterprises (ARISE): To stimulate innovation and research in the MSME industry.

Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet

Why in News?
Recently, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight tested Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR) booster at the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur off the coast of Odisha.

What is Ramjet?

• Ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward motion to compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor.
• Ramjets can be particularly useful in applications requiring a small and simple mechanism for high-speed use, such as missiles.
• Unlike conventional rockets that carry propellant and oxidizer, Ramjet uses the air as an oxidizer just like a jet engine.

About SFDR

• It is a missile propulsion technology jointly developed by India and Russia.
• It enables the missile to intercept aerial threats at very long range at supersonic speeds.
• The performance of the system has been confirmed from the data captured by a number of range instruments like Telemetry, Radar and Electro Optical Tracking Systems deployed by ITR.
• It will help both India’s surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles to perform better and enhance their strike range, making them more lethal.
• Possible usage of SFDR: These are to be used in the future variants of missiles, including an advanced version of the ASTRA, Beyond Visual Range AAM (BVRAAM) expected to extend the range to 150 km in the Mk-3 version.
• According to the DRDO, the SFDR has a range of 120 km with a speed range of 2.3-2.5 Mach.