Prelims Focus 30th August 2025
Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) Missiles
In News: The United States has authorized the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) missiles to Ukraine.
- Description: A precision-guided missile of the next generation that is launched by air.
- Range and Warhead: These missiles may strike important targets, command centers, and supply dumps at a distance of 240 to 450 kilometers and with a warhead weighing 500 pounds. infrastructure located far within seized territories, such as Crimea.
- Direction: GPS, inertial navigation, and terminal seeker, with accuracy within 10 meters, even in the face of electronic interference.
- Launch Platforms: The modular design makes it possible to install it on Soviet-era planes or deploy it on Western fighter jets like F-16s.
Nuakhai festival
In News: On the occasion of Nuakhai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his sincere greetings to the citizens of India.
- The western districts of Odisha commemorate Nuakhai. “Nuakhai” is derived from two Odia terms: “Nua,” which means “new,” and “Khai,” which means “food” or “eating.”
- As a symbol of thanks for a successful crop, farmers present the deity with the season’s first grains on this day and ask for the elders’ blessings.
- The festival is celebrated the day after Ganesh Chaturthi and includes community gatherings with traditional dance, music, games, and feasts.
Nimbrix
In News: The Swedish defense company Saab recently announced the development of a new missile named Nimbrix, which is its first dedicated Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) missile designed to counter the growing threat posed by small drones on the battlefield.
- Nimbrix is a ground-based, fire-and-forget missile with a range of up to 5 kilometers (3.1 miles), utilizing an active infrared seeker for target tracking.
- It features a warhead with an air-burst mode capable of engaging and defeating drone swarms.
- The missile is compact, weighing less than 3 kilograms and measuring under one meter in length, allowing flexible mounting on vehicles or fixed positions.
- Saab designed Nimbrix to be cost-effective, employing additive manufacturing and low-cost commercial and military off-the-shelf parts to enable mass production for wide deployment.
- Development began in 2024 with trials conducted in mid-2025, and Saab aims for initial deliveries in 2026.
- The missile will be showcased at the DSEI defense exhibition in London in September 2025.
- It is intended to fill the gap between short-range gun-based systems and medium-range interceptors like Saab’s RBS 70NG missile, addressing the increasing use and proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles in modern conflicts.
Gangotri Glacier
In News: A study by IIT Indore, in collaboration with international researchers from ICIMOD and several US universities, reveals that the Gangotri Glacier—one of the largest glaciers in the central Himalayas that feeds the Ganga River—has lost about 10% of its snowmelt flow over the past four decades (1980-2020) due to climate change.
- Snowmelt remains the dominant contributor to the glacier’s annual discharge, accounting for about 64%, but its relative share declined from around 73% in the 1980s to 63% by 2010-2020.
- The study finds that rising temperatures (an increase of 0.5°C in mean temperature between 2001-2020 compared to 1980-2000) and reduced winter precipitation have led to earlier summer melting, causing the peak discharge of glacier flow to shift from August to July since the 1990s.
- This shift, along with decreasing snow cover and glacier thickness, has significant implications for hydropower generation, irrigation, and water security in the region.
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