Chinese SIGINT (listening station) on Great Coco Island

China established a SIGINT intelligence gathering station on Great Coco Island in 1992 to monitor Indian naval activity in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The station is also said to allow China to monitor the movement of other navies and ships throughout the eastern Indian Ocean, especially in the crucial point in shipping routes between the Bay of Bengal and the Strait of Malacca. It may also be used to monitor activities at the launch site of the Indian Space Research Organization at Sriharikota and the Defence Research and Development Organization at Chandipur-on-sea. The were rumours that the Chinese Army is also building a maritime base on Little Coco Island, but as can be seen on by satellite pictures, there is no proven military activity nor a maritime base.


Physical Geography:
Geographically, the Coco Island group is a northern extension of the Andaman and Nicobar chain.
The group consists of three main islands and several small islets. They lieabout 250 kilometres south of  burma’s Irrawaddy River delta and are separated from India’s North Andaman Island by the 20 kilometre wide Coco Channel. The Bay of Bengal lies to the west of the islands and the Andaman Sea to the east. The largest member of the group is Great Coco Island, which is about 10 kilometres long and 2 kilometres wide. A few kilometres to the north, across the Marshall Channel, lies the much smaller Table Island. Little Coco
Island is situated across the Alexandra Channel, approximately 15 kilometres to the southwest of Great Coco Island. Little Coco Island is about 5 kilometres long and one kilometre wide.3


The ‘Chinese Bases’ Claim:

The second development which attracted attention was the claim, first made by a Japanese wire service in 1992, that China was helping Burma to install radar or upgrade the base on Great Coco Island.24 It was later reported that China was building another base on Little Coco Island.25 As the years passed, stories about these ‘bases’ proliferated and grew in scale, with activists, journalists and popular pundits making increasingly dramatic claims. The small naval base on Great Coco Island was somehow transmogrified into a large
Chinese signals intelligence station, manned by 70 members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and hundreds of Burmese servicemen.26 Ten years after the first stories appeared in the news media, it was routinely being described as a comprehensive electronic intelligence collection facility, China’s largest base in Burma, and the PLA’s most important listening post outside China itself.27 At first, the main purpose of the Great Coco Island facility was reportedly to monitor regional military activities, especially air and naval movements in the Bay of Bengal.28 Before long, however, journalists and academics beganclaiming that the base was also established to conduct surveillance of India’s strategically important tri-service facilities at Port Blair, on South Andaman Island. Some suggested that the Chinese, and their Burmese allies, were monitoring submarine activity around the Indian Navy’s base at Visakhapatnam (Vizag) in eastern India.29 In an elaboration of this theme, a number of commentators claimed that the Great Coco Island base was built
and equipped by the Chinese to analyse telemetry from Indian missile tests. These included flights by ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles over the Bay of Bengal from ranges in eastern India. The electronic intelligence gathered, it was suggested, was shared with Pakistan to help it develop counter-measures against new Indian weapon systems. 

CHINA PLAN TO BIG RAIL NETWOK IN THE WORLD


 1)China to London

2)China to Europe (Through Russia)

3)China to East Asia (Thailand,Singapore,Malaysia)

China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that capable of running at over 200mph within the next ten years. 


The network would eventually carry passengers from London to Beijing and then to Singapore. It would also run to India and Pakistan, according to Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior consultant on China's domestic high-speed rail project.
A second project would see trains heading north through Russia to Germany and into the European railway system, and a third line will extend south to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia. 
Passengers could board a train in London and step off in Beijing, 5,070 miles away as the crow flies, in just two days. They could go on to Singapore, 6,750 miles away, within three days.
"We are aiming for the trains to run almost as fast as aeroplanes," said Mr Wang. "The best case scenario is that the three networks will be completed in a decade," he added.
Mr Wang said that China was already in negotiations with 17 countries over the rail lines, which will draw together and open up the whole of Central, East and South East Asia. Mr Wang said the network would also allow China to transport valuable cargoes of raw materials more efficiently. 
"It was not China that pushed the idea to start with," said Mr Wang. "It was the other countries that came to us, especially India. These countries cannot fully implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hoped to draw on our experience and technology," he said.
China is in the middle of a £480 billion domestic railway expansion project that aims to build nearly 19,000 miles of new railways in the next five years, connecting up all of its major cities with high-speed lines.
The world's fastest train, the Harmony Express which has a top speed of nearly 250mph, was unveiled at the end of last year, between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou. Wholly Chinese-built, but using technology from Siemens and Kawasaki, the Harmony Express can cover 660 miles, the equivalent of a journey from London to Edinburgh and back, in just three hours. 
Mr Wang said the route of the three lines had yet to be decided, but that construction for the South East Asian line had already begun in the southern province of Yunnan and that Burma was about to begin building its link. China has offered to bankroll the Burmese line in exchange for the country's rich reserves of lithium, a metal widely used in batteries.
Currently, the only rail line that links China to South East Asia is an antiquated track built by the French in Vietnam a century ago. The Asian Development Bank has recently agreed a second £27 million loan as part of the £93 reconstruction of Cambodia's network, which should finish by 2013. The cost of the lines from Cambodia to Singapore and then from Vietnam to China could be roughly £400 million.
"We have also already carried out the prospecting and survey work for the European network, and Central and Eastern European countries are keen for us to start," Mr Wang said. "The Northern network will be the third one to start, although China and Russia have already agreed on a high-speed line across Siberia, where one million Chinese already live." 
One stumbling block is China's desire for the high-speed tracks to run on the same gauge as China's domestic network. Vietnam has agreed to change its standard gauge, but other countries are still in negotiations.
"From our point of view, the biggest issue is money," said Mr Wang.
"We will use government money and bank loans, but the railways may also raise financing from the private sector and also from the host countries. We would actually prefer the other countries to pay in natural resources rather than make their own capital investment."
As for passengers, Mr Wang predicted that in a decade's time, visa restrictions on travel through Asia "will be further lifted". 
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

India Expanding Military Nuclear Site


Google Earth recently posted satellite imagery from GeoEye taken on March 3, 2010 of the Rare Materials Plant (RMP) in India (see figure 1).  This is the site of India’s military gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program.  In the new imagery, initial excavation and construction of a large building or buildings can be seen.  While the construction is in its early stages in this image, the size of the building or buildings to be constructed indicates that these will be large industrial buildings.  A DigitalGlobe satellite image from 2005 shows the same area as undeveloped with several adjacent ponds (see figure 2).
Based on procurement data and public advertisements for bidding requests, ISIS concluded in 2006 that India was on the verge of adding at least 3,000 centrifuges to the RMP1.  If the construction seen in the March 3, 2010 imagery is for a new gas centrifuge hall, India’s uranium enrichment capacity at RMP will be greatly expanded
Figure 1.  March 3, 2010 GeoEye satellite image of Rare Materials Plant (RMP), India’s military gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility.  The construction of one or more large industrial buildings can be seen in this image.
Figure 2.  April 28, 2005 DigitalGlobe satellite image of Rare Materials Plant (RMP) in India.
Source:http://isis-online.org/isis-reports 

சீனாவை பின்னுக்கு தள்ளும் இந்திய பொருளாதாரம் :2050

2050 -இல் இந்தியாவின் மொத்த உள்நாட்டு உற்பத்தி () சீனாவின் மொத்த உள்நாட்டு உற்பத்தியை விஞ்சும் என்று பிரிட்டன் நாட்டு பொருளாதார அமைப்பு ஒன்று செய்தி வெளி இட்டு உள்ளது.
சீனாவை விட இந்திய மக்கள் தொகையில் பெரும்பாலானோர் 30 முதல் 40 வயதிருகுட்பட்டவர்களாக இருப்பதும் மேலும் அதிக வேலை வாய்ப்பும்
இதற்கு காரணமாக கூறப்படிகிறது.சீனா 2020 -இல் அமெரிக்க பொருளாதரத்தை மிஞ்சும் என்பது உறுதி அதைபோல் இந்திய பொருளாதாரமும் 2050 -இல் சீனாவை மிஞ்சும் என்பது உறுதி .தற்பொழுது உலகில் இந்திய பொருளாதாரத்தின் பங்களிப்பு 2% ,2050 -இல் நமது பங்களிப்பு 13 %.
இந்திய பொருளாதார உற்பத்தி என்பது அதன் ஒப்பந்த சேவை அமர்த்தம் ,எற்றுமதி ,பொறியல் மற்றும் கல்வி அறிவு அதிகரிப்பு இதன் மூலம் இன்னும் அதிகம் வளர்ச்சியடைய வாய்ப்புள்ளதாக தெரிவித்துளது.
http://www.pwc.co.uk/economic 

GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN)

2008-09-11 The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs today gave its approval for implementation of GPS (Global Positioning System) Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) project for seamless navigation over Indian airspace at an estimated cost of Rs.774 crore.

The project involves development of indigenous technology in frontier areas. Project has numerous benefits to the aviation sector and would enable aircraft to navigate on a straight path/route instead of navigating in zig-zag path over land based stations. This system would also enable multiple approach capability.


Further, with the help of GAGAN, it would be possible to provide coverage of oceanic areas, which is not possible by terrestrial systems; improve airport and airspace access in all weather conditions; enhance reliability and reduce delays; provide uniform and accurate navigation performance over the entire airspace; provide fuel efficient air corridors and provide CAT-I approach without ground element support.

Broadly, the project would result in fuel savings/efficiency for airlines and enable higher air traffic within the limited airspace.

SOURCE: http://www.india-defence.com/reports-4012 

INDIAIN GOT OWN NAVIGATION SYSTEM


IRNSS in India by ISRO

The IRNSS is an autonomous regional satellite navigational system that is developed by the ISRO, which would be controlled directly by the Indian government.
The Indian regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) is a constellation comprising of seven other satellites with an objective of providing access to the Global Navigation Satellite System at the most hostile situations too. The project had been developed with an intention to enhance the quality of Indian security system, as it can track the accuracy of the position within a region of 2000 km. The ISRO had decided to launch in all the seven satellites by the year 2014 with a gap of 6 months between each launching activities, the first one of the satellites has yet to be launched in the year 2011 and it is being developed with a cost estimation of around $342 million. The significant features of the IRNSS have been portrayed as follows:
  • On the completion status, the IRNSS would be covering all weather conditions over the Indian landmass, round the clock and further up to extended distance coverage of about 1500 km.
  • If compared with the existing constellations, the IRNSS would be superior in the sense of its independent functioning features and thus it would be under the direct control of Indian central government.
  • The IRNSS on its accomplishment would enter into the competitive ground with the two space navigation system in the world, i.e. the U.S. Global Positioning System and the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System, which would be another successful milestone in the Indian space history.
  • The system can operate independently without any necessary influences from other satellite systems, besides transmitting continuous navigation signals, which are powered with powerful electronic equipment and atomic clocks.
  • It could be of much help in acting as the best surveillance system, tracking in the border activities that are happening through the mountains, terrains, and deep under the sea… Thus, it can be equivalent in its functions to the security personnel, especially in tracing down the infiltration activities across the boundaries.
  • Further, the ground center of the IRNSS consists of Master Control Center to estimate the satellites’ orbits, their quality, in addition to following up the health of the satellites.

The IRNSS signals are said to consists of precision strength and special positioning service attributes and both the signals are said to be on the ‘L’ and ‘S’ bands. Further the navigational signals are said to be transmitted in the ‘S’ band frequency, which are then broadcasted through the array type antenna to achieve the maximum strength and signal coverage. The ground functionality of the IRNSS comprises of the user segments with dual frequency receiver, which helps in receiving the signals from the other constellations of the system and will be having a minimum of G/T of -25 dB/k which would be similar to that of the GPS.
SOURCE:http://www.irnssindia.com/

TIPPING POINT

It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.I recommend to you.. buy the book and read it........Awesome...!