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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

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  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
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DRDO's Rustom-II maiden flight successful

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UAV Rustom-2 

Rustam-II is a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the three Armed Forces with an endurance of 24 hours



 India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Wednesday conducted successful maidan flight of indigenous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) TAPAS 201 -- RUSTOM – 2, a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV.



Rustom-2 
The test flight took place from Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, 250 km from Bangalore which is a newly developed flight test range for the testing of UAVs and manned aircraft. The flight accomplished the main objectives of proving the flying platform, such as take-off, bank, level flight and landing etc.

TAPAS 201, the MALE UAV has been designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), the Bangalore-based premier lab of DRDO with HAL-BEL as the production Partners. The UAV weighing two tonnes was put into air by a dedicated team of young scientists of DRDO.

It was piloted (external and internal) by the pilots from the Armed Forces. It is also the first R&D prototype UAV which has undergone certification and qualification for the first flight from the Center for Military Airworthiness & Certification (CEMILAC) and Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance (DGAQA).

UAV Rustom-2
Rustam-II is a multi-mission UAV is being developed to carry out the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the three Armed Forces with an endurance of 24 hours. It is capable to carry different combinations of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO), Long Range Electro Optic (LREO), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Electronic Intelligence (ELINT), Communication Intelligence (COMINT) and Situational Awareness Payloads (SAP) to perform missions during day and night. 

A senior officer of ADE informed that the development of UAV immensely contributes towards the Make-in-India initiative as many critical systems such as airframe, landing gear, flight control and avionics sub-systems are being developed in India with the collaboration of private industries. 


Defence Electronics Application Laboratory (DEAL) of DRDO have developed the Data link for the UAV. Rustom-2 will undergo further trials for validating the design parameters, before going for User Validation Trials.

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