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- May 2019
Index
Toppers Talk
Art & Culture
Polity
- Judicial Appointments in India, Executive vs Collegium
- What is Vacation Bench of Indian Supreme Court?
- State Funding of Elections
- International Religious Freedom 2019 Report
- Election Commission invokes Article 324 in West Bengal
- Difference between exit poll and opinion poll
- Madras High Court verdict on Puducherry LG Kiran Bedi
- Zero Pendency Courts Project
- ECI & Dissenting opinion controversy
Governance & Social Justice
- Supreme Court upholds Karnataka law for SC ST reservation in promotions
- Under 5 mortality & low birth weight, Analysis of Lancet Global Health journal
- US public healthcare system
- Women Workforce Participation, Issues faced by Working Women in India
- What are Small Water Enterprises?
- Cancer-causing substance found in Johnson & Johnson’s
- Age of consent & age gap under POCSO Act
- Sub-categorisation within OBCs
International Relations
- Booming Population of Africa, Can Africa reap benefits of Demographic Dividend?
- Developments in Indo Pacific Region
- Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 2015 explained
- Pakistan to Accept $6 Billion Bailout From IMF
- USA ends waiver for India on Iran Oil
- What is US Executive Privilege?
- Presidential Impeachment in the USA
- Belt and Road forum,2019
- India re-elected as observer at Arctic Council
- US Iran Tension
- India Cuts Communication with UN Human Rights
- Russia’s Sovereign Internet law
- Narendra Modi Swearing in Ceremony
- Sri Lanka signs Port Deal with India and Japan
- China’s Rare Earth Minerals
- US removes India from Currency Monitoring List
Economy
- Banking crisis in India, How bad is Non Performing Asset issue?
- Boosting Private Investment in Economy
- Economic Slowdown in various sectors
- India US Trade Dispute, Is India a Tariff King?
- India USA pact to check tax evasion by MNCs
- PepsiCo vs Potato farmers controversy
- Record GST Collections, Rs. 1.13 trillion collected in April
- Rise in Foreign Exchange Reserve of India
- SBI links interest rate of large Savings Accounts to Repo Rate
- SEBI fines NSE over unfair broker access
- Trade Policy of India, How India can mitigate Global uncertainty?
- What are PSU Telecos & their issues? Should government shutdown BSNL & MTNL?
- What is Phased Manufacturing Programme?
- What is Seed Sovereignty? PepsiCo Vs Gujarat Potato Farmers Controversy
- Why India needs a dedicated Industrial Policy?
- Why India needs a new Poultry Policy?
- WTO Appellate Body Dispute Controversy
- Dollar Rupee Swap tool of RBI
- National Anti Profiteering Authority how it works?
- Tourism boost in India, Impact of Tourism on GDP
- Urban Development Schemes in India
- US trade order bending Global trading system
- What are Social Impact Bonds?
- Is India’s GDP data accurate?
- Middle income trap
- Ban on Chinese milk products in India
- Analysis of Draft Rules for Poultry Farming
- Economic Priorities for Modi 2.0 Government
- RBI draft Liquidity Risk Management Framework for NBFCs
- SEBI panel bats to ease FPI regulations
- USA bans Huawei
- What is Regulatory Sandbox?
Defence & Security
- Gadchiroli Naxal Attack, Is India fully prepared to eliminate Naxalism?
- Government extends ban on LTTE for another 5 years
- India Signs ‘Christchurch Call to Action’ Initiative
- White House bats for declaring Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organisation
- 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings
- ISIS influence in India
- Designation of Masood Azhar as global terrorist
- ISIS in Jammu & Kasmir
- Influence of Islamic State in India
- Human Rights Violations in J&K
- What is Skimming? Can ATM steal users personal data?
- Kashmir’s Most Wanted Militant Zakir Musa Killed
Disaster Management
Science & Technology
- India gets its First Apache Guardian Attack Helicopter
- Asteroid Apophis will flyby Earth
- Blockchains for Internet of Things
- ISRO’s 5 satellites saved many lives from Cyclone Fani
- Made In India Aerial Target Drone ABHYAS DRDO
- NASA Dart Mission क्या है ? Asteroid Impact Mission of NASA
- Project Blue Moon क्या है? Know all about Jeff Bezos’ mission
- Project MANAV: Human Atlas Initiative क्या है?
- Radar Controversy Explained
- Scorpene Class Submarine INS Vela Launched
- World’s first Malaria Vaccine
- Economic Impacts of Antimicrobial Resistance report by IACG
- Monkey pox infection
- India to buy kamov 31 helicopter from Russia
- Indian scientists discover how serotonin helps brain cells cope with stress
- Genetic study on people of Lakshadweep Islands
- DRDO successfully test fires AKASH MK-1S missile
- Facial Recognition Technology how it works, What are its Pros & Cons?
- Indian Airforce to Use Biofuels
- Kilogram’s New Definition
- RISAT 2B Earth Observation Satellite launched by ISRO
Environment
- UN report- One million species at risk of extinction
- Indonesia will move its capital
- Antarctica’s Emperor Penguin population declines
- Ross Ice Shelf
- Chinese ban causes re-routing of plastic waste
- Hangul or Kashmir Stag’s rapid population decline
- Indian bullfrogs take to invasive behavior early in Andaman
- Ishad Mango Facing a Threat In Its Homeland
- Lakshadweep recruits Barn Owls to fight rodent menace
- Sunscreen Killing Coral Reefs?
- Yeti footprints spotted on Himalaya claims Army
- India, China lead global greening effort
- Herbivore census in Gujarat’s Gir forest
- Karnataka declares Bukkapatna as 2nd Chinkara Wildlife Sanctuary
- Do ‘Russian poplar’ seeds cause May illness in Kashmir?
Spice of the Month

Tag: GS 3 || Science & Technology || Defence || Military Technology
Why in news?
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment about how he gave the go-ahead for the Balakot airstrike despite bad weather as the clouds would enable Indian Air Force fighter jets to evade enemy radars, has raised a storm on social media.
What is a radar?
- Radar stands for radio detection and ranging.
- Components of radar: A radar typically has a magnetron, transmitter, receiver, and a screen.
- Basic principle of a radar: The magnetron generates radio waves which are released through an antenna in different directions at certain time intervals.
- If there is an object in the air, an aeroplane for instance, the radio waves hit it and bounce back, to be caught by the receiver of the radar.
- By mapping the reflected waves on a screen with a grid map, the aeroplane is displayed as a blip on the screen and its movement is shown as the radio waves strike it at intervals. This is the basic principle of a radar.
- Over the decades, there have been tremendous technological advancements in radars, making them highly sophisticated and powerful.
Do clouds hinder radar?
- By virtue of being radio waves, radars can see through cloud cover, and during day and night. In fact, that is what they are meant to do.
- Commercial flights continue taking off and landing at the airport despite the rough weather and overcast skies over a city. This is because the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) across the world depend on radars.
- All ATCs have two radars – primary and secondary.
- The primary is a classic radar based on the principle described above.
- The secondary radar identifies the details of the aircraft by communicating with the transponders on the aircraft.
- Thus, radars enable continuous airport operations in cloudy conditions.
- And that goes for military radars as well, including those of Pakistan, which has an advanced military.
Origin of Radar
- The origin of the radar goes back to World War II, when the first radar was demonstrated in Britain in 1935. By the time the war began, Britain had a chain of radars along its coast to detect intruders. And by the end of WW-II, all major countries involved deployed radars.
- Ground based radars have limitations primarily due to the curvature of the earth. So radars were mounted on aircraft which fly thousands of feet above the ground with 360-degree coverage. These are known as Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), and are major force multipliers in today’s battlefields.
- During the Balakot airstrike on February 26, IAF had fielded both indigenous and Israeli AWACS to direct the fighters jets on their strike mission and monitor the skies for any movement by Pakistani jets.
Clouds can affect weaponry
- While radar can see through cloud, there are weapon systems that are affected by clouds, such as television-guided missiles.
- A TV-guided missile is an air-to-ground missile, controlled remotely by a pilot, who steers it using the live images it sends. Clouds could also affect “scene-matching weapons” fired from an aircraft. The missile matches pre-programmed images to its live feed.
- In Balakot specifically, the air force’s SPICE-2000 missile–made in Israel–was used for the air strike. This is a precision weapon that –
- uses satellite data in the initial phase of its flight after release;
- towards the terminal phases of the flight, it uses a digital map to strike the target.
- Such missiles use a combination of satellite and pre-programmed guidance and may be affected by low-lying clouds during its “terminal stage”.
Additional info
Radar evasion
- Over the years, as radars have improved so have the technologies to evade them. There are many ways of evading radars or reducing the radar cross section or foot print.
- That’s where the concept of stealth comes in. Stealth is a relative concept and not absolute.
- Radars essentially identify an object by the reflected radio waves. So if the radio waves can be deflected away from the receiver, that reduces the footprint.
- A classic example for this is the US F-117 which is now out of service.
- Another way is to absorb some or most of the radio waves with radar absorbent paint, and changing the shape to minimise the cross section.
- The iconic US B2 bomber is a perfect example for this.
- The latest stealth planes F-22 and F-35 use a combination of these to evade radars.
Mains question
- What is radar? Describe the working of radar. Also enumerate its various applications.