India successfully test-fired its home-built nuclear potent Agni-I ballistic missile off Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island, Odisha coast.

Highlighting features of Agni-1:

• Strike range: 700 km
• Surface-to-surface
• Single-stage missile
• Powered by solid propellants
• Weighs 12 tonnes, 15-metre-long
• Carrying capacity: Up to 1000 kg (1 Tonne)
• With specialized navigation system

Objective behind the launch of Agni-1 Nuke Missile: 

• To train the army user team to launch the missile.
• The missile has already been inducted into the Indian Army.

• India and Singapore inked 3 major pacts including one on continuing the military training that Indian armed forces extend to their Singaporean counterparts. These agreements coincide with the state visit of Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong to India.
• India is already imparting training to the Singaporean air force personnel at the Kalaikunda air base in West Bengal.

MoUs on Co-operation in area of Vocational Education and Skill Development:

• A MoU was also signed b/w the Indian labor and employment ministry and Singapore's education ministry regarding cooperation in the area of vocational education and skills development.
• Another MoU inked b/w the Delhi government's training and technical education department and Singapore's Institute of Technical Education on cooperation in the field of vocational education and skills development.

• Indian Navy commissioned a Naval Base Station – INS Tanaji in Mumbai’s Eastern suburb of Mankhurd. 
• The base depot ship INS Tanaji will look after berthing and ship lift facilities of the Indian Navy.
• INS Tanaji is named after Maratha warrior Tanaji Malusare.

Who was Tanaji Malusare?

• Tanaji Malusare was a Maratha warrior and military leader in the army of Shivaji.
• Tanaji Malusare was also known as Simha (Lion).
• Tanaji was one of Shivaji's closest friends heralding from Malusare Clan; the two knew each other since childhood.
• Tanaji is famously known for the Battle of Sinhagad in 1670.
• At Shivaji's request, Tanaji pledged to recapture the fortress of Kondana near Pune.
• Tanaji lost his life in the battle of Sinhagad.
• Shivaji renamed the fort from Kondana to Sinhagad Tanaji’s honor.
• Shivaji’s words after hearing about the demise of Tanaji were "Gad ala pan Sinha gela"(Meaning: although the fort was captured a lion was lost in the battle).

The Navy has plans for expansion of its strategic Karwar naval base in Karnataka under the Project Seabird Phase IIA which involves construction of a wide range of new facilities and augmentation of certain existing facilities. The expansion project will cost over Rs 10,000 crore. Navy will be capable to berth around 30 major warships at Karwar after the completion of Phase-IIA by 2017-18.

What is Project Seabird ?

• First approved in 1985 at an initial cost of Rs 350 crore, since then it has been hindered by long delays and fund insufficiencies.
• Phase-I has already been completed, has made the Navy capable to deploy more than 15 warships at Karwar.
• Phase-II will empower the Karwar naval station with an airbase, armament depot, dockyard complex and missile silos, apart from additional jetties, berthing and anchorage facilities.

What are the objectives of Project Seabird ?

• The Project Seabird aims to ease the naval dockyards in Mumbai which is clogged due to increased traffic and pollution.
• Another major reason is to establish a major base at some distance from Pakistani cities and range of their missiles.
• The base will be used for deploying Russian-origin aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, Scorpene submarines and carry out military aircraft operations.

India is all set to take a giant leap forward with the development of multipurpose Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and submadrones, underwater drones.

DRDO) has come a long way in indigenously designing and building a batch of multiple AUVs to meet the Navy’s quality requirements of 10 such platforms primarily for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), mine mitigation and sensor deployment.

The Naval Science and Technology Laboratory (NSTL), a DRDO firm based in Visakhapatnam has transformed a bunch of AUVs from handheld slow-speed ones, to military-class with the competence to serve in the whole range of maritime security, spanning coastal and port defence to deep-sea operations.

For the time being, the NSTL’s motivated programme ‘Autonomous Sea Vehicle’ (ASV), strives for building under-water vehicles ranging from Micro-AUVs weighing 10 Kg to giant Unmanned Combat Undersea Vehicles (UCUV) weighing over 12 tonnes on the tune of the US Navy’s ‘Manta Unmanned Underwater Vehicle’ programme.