15-Nov-2021: India launches the 41st Scientific Expedition to Antarctica

India has successfully launched the 41st Scientific Expedition to Antarctica with the arrival of the first batch of its contingent at the southern white continent. The first batch comprising of 23 scientists and support staff reached the Indian Antarctic station Maitri on last week. Four more batches shall be landing in Antarctica by air using DROMLAN facility and onboard chartered ice-class vessel MV Vasiliy Golovnin by mid-January 2022.

The 41st expedition has two major programs. The first program encompasses geological exploration of the Amery ice shelf at Bharati station. This will help explore the link between India and Antarctica in the past. The second program involves reconnaissance surveys and preparatory work for drilling of 500 meters of ice core near Maitri. It will help in improving the understanding of Antarctic climate, westerly winds, sea-ice and greenhouse gases from a single climate archive for past 10,000 years.  The ice core drilling will be done in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey and the Norwegian Polar Institute. In addition to accomplishing scientific programs, it will replenish the annual supplies of food, fuel, provisions, and spares for operations and maintenance of life support systems at Maitri and Bharati.

The Indian Antarctic program, which began in 1981, has completed 40 scientific expeditions, and built three permanent research base stations in Antarctica, named Dakshin Gangotri (1983), Maitri (1988) and Bharati (2012). As of today, Maitri and Bharati are fully operational. The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa—an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences—manages the entire Indian Antarctic program.

As India is committed to maintaining the continent of Antarctica free of COVID-19 and the highest standards of safety, the Indian contingent has reached Antarctica following a strict medical examination at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi; training for snow-ice acclimatization and survival at the Mountaineering and Skiing Institute, ITBP Auli, Uttarakhand; and a stringent sanitary protocol including a 14 days quarantine at Cape Town, South Africa.

The crew is expected to return to Cape Town in late March/early April of 2022, leaving a team of 48 members for over winter. It will also bring back the over winter team of the preceding 40thexpedtion. The 41st expedition is being led by Dr. Shailendra Saini, Scientist National Centre for Polar & Ocean Research (Voyage Leader), Shri. Huidrom Nageshwar Singh, Metrologist, India Metrological Department (Leader, Maitri Station) and Shri. Anoop Kalayil Soman, scientist Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (Leader, Bharati Station).

16-Apr-2021: India marks four successful decades of scientific endeavour in Antarctica with the return of the 40th Scientific Expedition to Antarctica in April 2021

The 40th Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (40-ISEA) hosted by the Ministry of Earth Sciences successfully returned to Cape Town on April 10, 2021, after completing a journey of ~12 thousand nautical miles in 94 days, including stopovers. This achievement concludes four successful decades of India's scientific endeavour in the continent of peace and cooperation.

The 40-ISEA comprised Indian scientists, engineers, doctors, and technicians, who began their journey from the Mormugao Port of Goa to Antarctica on January 07, 2021. The team reached its destination station Bharati on February 27, 2021, and Maitri on March 08, 2021. Bharati and Maitri are India's permanent research base stations in Antarctica.  The stations are approachable only during the austral summer season between November and March. On its way to Antarctica, the voyage team deployed four autonomous Ocean Observing DWS (Directional Wave Spectra) wave drifters between 35-degree and 50-degree south latitudes in collaboration with Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) Hyderabad. The drifters would transmit real-time data of spectral characteristics of waves, sea surface temperatures, and sea-level atmospheric pressure to INCOIS, Hyderabad, which will help validate weather predictions in a big way.

The 40-ISEA was onboard the MV Vasiliy Golovnin, a chartered ice-class vessel. It made stopovers at Cape Town for picking up helicopters and replenishing fuel and provisions and at the Indian research bases Bharati and Maitri for resupply and changeover of winter crew. The expedition positioned a team of 20 personnel at Bharati led by Mr. Atul Suresh Kulkarni from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism and 21 personnel at Maitri led by Mr. Ravindra Santosh More from the Indian Meteorological Department.

In the spirit of international cooperation in Antarctic science, MV Vasiliy Golovnin took a slight denture while returning to Cape Town in March 2021 and successfully retrieved two remotely operated Norwegian Ocean observing instruments (a sea glider and sail buoy) at ~67 degrees South. These Ocean observing systems deployed during the onward journey and retrieval during the return voyage will help to fill in the gaps of the scantily available information in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean.

The 40-ISEA was conducted under innumerable challenges due to the persisting Corona virus pandemic. Necessary measures were taken to keep the Antarctic free of coronavirus. The team was subjected to a stringent medical examination by the Goa Medical College before departure and was quarantined for 14 days before boarding the ship.

After accomplishing several scientific objectives, changeover of winter crew, and Bharati and Maitri's resupply, the 40-ISEA Indian contingent returned to Cape Town on April 10,  2021, marking four decades of success of the country's scientific endeavour in Antarctica.

4-Jan-2021: 40th Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica launched

India today launched the 40thscientific expedition to Antarctica. This Indian expedition marks four decades of country’s scientific endeavour to the southern white continent. The 40th expedition journey will be flagged off from Goa on January 5, 2021, with 43 members onboard. The chartered ice-class vessel MV Vasiliy Golovnin will make this journey and will reach Antarctica in 30 days. After leaving behind a team of 40 members, it would return to India in April 2021. On return, it will also bring back the winter team of the preceding trip.

The Indian Antarctic expeditions began in 1981. The first trip comprised of a team of 21 scientists and support staff led by Dr SZ Qasim. After a humble beginning, the Indian Antarctic programme has now credited to have built three permanent research base stations in Antarctica—named Dakshin Gangotri, Maitri, and Bharati. As of today, India has two operational research stations in Antarctica named Maitri and Bharati. The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, manages the entire Indian Antarctic program.

The preceding 39th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica was launched in November 2019. It mounted 27 scientific projects, focusing on climate process and its linkages with climate change, crustal evolution, environmental processes and conservation, the ecosystem of terrestrial and near shore regions, observational research, and polar technology. Two additional collaborative projects with the National Institute of Polar Research, Japan were also undertaken. After completing its mission mandate, it returned to India in May of 2020. It also replenished the annual supplies of food, fuel, provisions, snowmobiles, and spares for operations and maintenance of life support systems at Maitri and Bharati. It cruised a team of 48 members to Antarctica for winter operations.

The scientific and logistic activities of the 40thIndian Antarctic expedition are limited due to the existing challenges associated with COVID-19 pandemic. The focus is to support the ongoing scientific projects on climate change, geology, ocean observations, electric and magnetic flux measurements, environmental monitoring; resupplying of food, fuel, provisions and spare; and accomplishing the return of the winter crew. India is committed to maintaining the continent of Antarctica free of COVID-19. The expedition will duly follow all protocols for the deployment of men and material as per Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs(COMNAP). Extra precautions of sanitizing the cargo, mandatory fourteen days of quarantine (pre-, and post-expedition), and RT-PCR testing before boarding the ice-class vessel is also being conducted.

27-Jul-2021: Coal India Limited takes out of box initiative to produce sand from Overburden at a much cheaper price

Even as the mandate is to produce and dispatch coal to its consumers, Coal India Ltd. (CIL) has taken an out of box initiative to produce sand from overburden at a much cheaper price. This will not only help in minimising environmental pollution due to sand siltation from overburden, but will be also an option for getting cheaper sand for construction purpose. Production of sand has already started and a roadmap of next five years has been drawn to maximise the output of sand from different coal producing companies under CIL and to become one of the major suppliers of sand in near future.

In this effort, CIL aims to reach a production level of around 8 million tonnes of sand within the next five years by commissioning 15 major Sand Plants in its different coal producing subsidiaries. By the end of current fiscal, CIL envisages to have 9 out of 15 plants with a production of around three lakh cubic meter. This effort will not only help the society at large but will also help in minimising river bed mining of sand.

During opencast mining of coal, the strata lying above coal seam is known as overburden comprising of clay alluvial sand and sandstone with rich silica content. The overburden is removed to expose and extract coal from beneath. After completion of coal extraction, the overburden is used for back filling to reclaim the land in its original shape. While extracting overburden from top, swell factor of the volume accounts for 20-25%. Initiative has been taken to utilise at least 25% of overburden in converting to sand by crushing, sieving and cleaning.

The very first initiative of such conversion has been taken by Western Coalfields Ltd.(WCL), a subsidiary of CIL in its mines. Initially a Pilot Project was launched where sand was extracted through machines erected departmentally. This sand has been offered to Nagpur Improvement Trust at a much cheaper price for constructing low cost houses under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY). The price of sand is almost 10% of the market price with better quality. On huge success of the project and with growing demand of cheaper sand, WCL launched commercial production by commissioning the largest sand production plant of the country near Nagpur. This unit produces 2500 cubic metre of sand per day at about half the market price. Major chunk of the sand produced from this plant is being given to Govt. units such as NHAI, MOIL, Mahagenco and other smaller units at one third of the market price. Rest of the sand is being sold through open auction in the market which is helping locals to get sand at a much cheaper price. The use of overburden has minimised the volume of land required for overburden dump. This initiative also lowers the adverse footprint of river bed mining of sand. WCL is also selling overburden for road construction at a cheaper price to NHAI & others. Two new plants in Chandrapur District of Maharashtra have been planned by WCL, which is likely to be commissioned by the year end.