Ekuverin
- It is the joint military exercise conducted between India and Maldives.
- It is being conducted every year alternatively in India and Maldives. The latest exercise was conducted in Maldives in Dec 2016.
- The Objectives are to enhance defence cooperation and interoperability between the army of both countries with emphasis on Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist operations under UN mandate.
Barak 8 Missile
- The Barak 8 Missile (Surface to Air) system is jointly developed by India and Israel and it is the upgraded version of Barak Missile system.
- Barak 8 Missile consists of Long Range Surface-to-Air Missile (LR-SAM) and Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MR-SAM).
- LR-SAM is the Ship Launch Version and Project MR-SAM is the Land Launch Version of Barak 8 Missile system.
- The MR-SAM detects the enemy aircraft over 100 km and destroys them at range up to 70 km.
- LR-SAM is capable to penetrate in deep water/land to intercept all types of aerial targets like Subsonic & Supersonic Missiles, Fighter Aircraft, Maritime Patrolling Aircraft (MPA), Helicopter and Sea Skimming Missiles.
Shifting from FM to Digital Radio
- Norway will become the first country in the world to begin shutting down its entire FM (Frequency Modulation) radio network and replacing it with digital radio,
- Digital Audio Broadcasting works by coding sound into digital signals, breaking them up, and then decoding and assembling them at the destination using digital radio receivers.
- In DAB, there is minimal loss of audio quality, and sound is reproduced in near CD-like quality. On the other hand, AM/FM suffers with loss of quality from interference caused by signals bouncing off buildings, towers and natural structures like mountains.
- Since Norway has many mountains, valleys and fjords, shifting to digital radio will give a steady signal in any topography.
- Though DAB has the potential to provide better sound quality than FM, filling up the DAB bandwidth which may divide the bit-rate i.e. the rate of data transfer among the broadcasts will result in drop in quality.
