BMW RELEASES NEW DETAILS ON UPCOMING I3 ELECTRIC CAR

The hotly anticipated 2014 BMW i3 electric car is set to be revealed on July 29. If eighteen days seems like too long to wait, you're in luck, as BMW has released a slew of new details on the vehicle, including a ballpark price and on-sale date.

The rear-wheel drive electric car will be powered by a rear-mounted electric motor, which BMW says will produce 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. With moderate driving, the i3 should be able to go 80 to 100 miles on a full charge. BMW says using the i3's ECO PRO setting, which greatly increases regenerative braking, can improve range by as much as 12 percent.
The i3 will also be available with a range-extending engine, which will keep the battery powered after it is depleted below a certain level. It's a similar powertrain strategy to that employed by the extended-range electric Chevrolet Volt.
BMW has included some impressive connectivity features with this car as well. For instance, an embedded SIM card unlocks a world of exclusive apps for navigation, concierge and emergency services that make EV transportation as easy as possible. One interesting feature we're looking forward to testing is the intermodal route planning, which includes options for public transportation, in addition to driving, when planning a trip in your i3.
The i3 will also come with the BMW iRemote app, which will allow owners to remotely access all kinds of information. With iRemote, drivers can turn on heat/AC, send their car a driving route, get charging information and find EV charging stations from their smartphones.

MRF adds muscle to IAF Sukhoi

MRF is set to emerge as a major supplier of tyres for the Indian Air Force (IAF) as the country’s leading tyre maker has now created yet another record of supplying aircraft tyres for the defence.
After successfully producing and supplying tyres for Indian defence helicopters, the company has now started supplying indigenously developed tyres for Sukhoi 30 MKI, the most advanced fighter aircraft group in the IAF fleet. The main wheel tyre for the Sukhoi was unveiled on Saturday.
The development marks one of the significant steps in defence’s indigenisation programme. MRF’s supply is to result in significant savings as its tyres will be priced 30-40 per cent lower than the tyres the IAF used to procure from outside the country.
“We are the only Indian company to make tyres for Indian defence helicopters and aircraft, and with this, we will be among the very few global tyre OEMs that supply aviation tyres,” said Arun Mammen, Managing Director, MRF Ltd.
Though MRF has been supplying tyres to various vehicles of Defence Forces, its journey to supply aviation tyres began in 2001. After meeting all requirements and securing approvals from various authorities, it started supplying helicopter tyres for Chetak fleet in 2008. In the same year, it took up the project of developing main wheel tyres for Sukhoi 30 MKI. By working with various entities of Defence Department, the company came up with indigenously developed fighter tyres, which have been tested for ground speeds of up to 420 kmph with loads in excess of 18 tons per tyre.
After completion of the tests, the product has been cleared by CEMILAC (The certifying authority for Military aviation) for commercial production in 2012. These tyres are being produced at its facility at Medak (Andhra Pradesh).

Russia offers to develop supercomputer with India to counter Chinese supremacy

Russian supercomputing company RSC group and the Russian Academy of Sciences have proposed collaboration with India to set up advanced supercomputing facilities that willrivalChina’s Tianhe-2, the world’s fastest supercomputer.

“India has many skills for building supercomputers. It is very strong in software,” said Alexey Shmelev, co-founder and chief operations officer of RSC group and delegate to the Russian Academy of Sciences. “I am ready to share technology with India. I guess there would not be many players

who are willing to do so.”

In a letter last month, Boris Shabanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences has invited a delegation from the Indian Institute of Science and the Karnataka government to explore the possibility of a supercomputing centre in Bangalore. CNR Rao, a Bharat Ratna awardee who heads the scientific advisory council to the prime minister, said it is difficult to assess a potential collaboration right away, but was of the view that “the Chinese are way ahead”.

Tianhe-2, developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, retained its position as the world’s number one system according to TOP500 project which ranks the most powerful computer systems in the world. It beat TitanBSE -2.70 %, a US supercomputer which briefly held the world speed crown. India’s supercomputer Param Yuva-II is ranked at 83 while Russia’s Lomonosov supercomputer is ranked at 37.

If the joint cooperation between Russia and India is found viable, it can result in a computing system as big as a basketball court that can perform approximately as many operations per second as several million personal computers.In 2009, India had taken a huge leap in supercomputing with EKA which was then the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world and fastest in Asia. “But in the next few years, China took over and it has retained its position as the world’s number one system,” said Vipin Chaudhary, former chief executive of ComputationalResearch Laboratories, a subsidiary

of Tata Sons that built the EKA supercomputer.

U.S. Defense Secretary Hagel gets Aircraft Carrier Tour on First Visit to China

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will get a rare tour of China’s first aircraft carrier a day after warning the Communist Party-led nation not to use coercion to settle territorial disputes with its neighbors.

Hagel will be the first foreign visitor to get such access to China’s aircraft carrier, according to a senior U.S. defense official. The ship, Liaoning, is based at Qingdao naval base.

A day before leaving for China, Hagel met in Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera to assure him that the U.S. would stand by him if China forcefully grabbed Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea claimed by China. He linked Russia’s annexation of Crimea to the island dispute.

“You cannot go around the world and redefine boundaries and violate territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations by force, coercion and intimidation, whether it’s in small islands in the Pacific, or large nations in Europe,” Hagel said while in Japan. Hagel called China a “great power” and said that with such power “comes new and wider responsibilities as to how you use that power.”

Hagel leaves Tokyo today for China, his first visit there since becoming U.S. defense secretary last year. He is arriving in Qingdao, southeast of Beijing and home to China’s North Sea fleet on the East China Sea. Later, he goes to Beijing for two days of meetings with his counterpart and other Chinese officials. Hagel’s visit to the aircraft carrier was closed off to U.S. news media traveling with him.

Aircraft Carrier China built its Liaoning aircraft carrier from an unfinished Soviet-era hull and commissioned the ship in September 2012.

The ship has undergone sea trials and the People’s Liberation Army has landed its J-15 aircraft on the carrier deck.

China is building up its navy as President Xi Jinping seeks to position his country as a maritime power. China’s second aircraft carrier will be completed in 2018, the South China Morning Post reported Jan. 19, citing a regional Communist Party chief. Liaoning is some way from combat-readiness, General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, commander of U.S. air forces in the Pacific, said Feb 9.

In November as Liaoning was deployed to the South China Sea area, China unilaterally declared an air defense zone over parts of the airspace used by South Korea and Japan. In December, the U.S. Navy’s guided-missile cruiser USS Cowpens got too close to Liaoning in the South China Sea, according to China’s Global Times newspaper.

“America is clearly right up against the front door of China,” the Global Times said in its editorial. “The American ship coming close to the Liaoning for reconnaissance is already not ‘innocent passage’ — it is already a threat to China’s national security.”

India refused to consider Devyani Khobragade episode as closed

Ignoring the US viewpoint, India has refused to consider the Devyani Khobragade episode as “closed”, saying there are “residual” issues which need to be addressed.Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said India has made its expectations clear to the US on the issue and hoped that it will be resolved.

“There are residual issues,” she told PTI in an interview when asked whether the Khobragade episode was a closed chapter as was being treated by the US. However, she refused to elaborate further on what steps were needed from the US to satisfy India.

Singh said the US interlocutors were conveyed India’s expectations on the issue and expressed unhappiness over the filing of second indictment against Khobragade on charges of visa fraud. “We would have preferred that it (second indictment) did not happen,” she said.

A 1999-batch IFS officer, Khobragade was arrested in New York on December 12 last and was strip-searched, triggering a row between the two countries with India retaliating by downgrading privileges of certain category of US diplomats among other steps.

Khobragade was released on a USD 250,000 bond and was later granted full diplomatic immunity following which she flew back to India on January 10. She has since been transferred to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.

Though, the first indictment against her was rejected by a US Court, prosecutors last month re-indicted her on visa fraud charges and accused the diplomat of “illegally” underpaying and “exploiting” her domestic maid.

The US State Department has officially said, “This has clearly been a challenging time in the US-India relationship.

The US State Department has officially said, “This has clearly been a challenging time in the US-India relationship.

We expect and hope that this will now come to closure and the Indians will now take significant steps with us to improve our relationship and return it to a more constructive place.”

On whether the incident had affected relationship between the two countries, Singh replied: “To an extent, yes. But that is the strength of the relationship that in spite of having something like the Khobragade incident, you can sit down and talk to each other.”

The Foreign Secretary said as strategic partners both the countries were interacting with each other “too closely” on a number of issues and that their will be “differences” in such a relationship.

Asked whether there was a breakdown in Indo-US relationship following the episode, Singh said, “When you are actually in the business of interacting and in the business of continuing that relationship you don’t get into all these terms warmth, cordiality.

“You just carry on, not withstanding what has happened. You are conveying your views, you are trying to get a resolution and that you continue with other business as usual and try to insulate the rest of relationship from it.”

However, she insisted that there was no any diminution in cordiality in ties. “Otherwise how we would have dealt with it in the manner that we did.

We got her back and dealing with all these issues.”

Rejecting that India and US was moving apart compared to the cordiality they had following signing of the nuclear deal, she said, “The closer you are the more differences you have”.

“As strategic partners you interacting with each other too closely on such a number of issues that their will be differences,” she said.

Talking about broad contours of the Indo-US ties, Singh said economic issues have come to the fore and the two countries are expanding deepening cooperation in diverse areas including defence and energy.

“Issues related to the pharma companies, issues related to not just the Americans but foreign investors wanting a further opening in the Indian economy, tax issues, domestic content issues. So all this issues have come to the fore and the focus has shifted.

“At the time of the civilian nuclear deal emphasis was on something else but don’t forget that after that India-US bilateral partnership in itself grew enormously in terms of everything that followed after that and all that is still progressing very well,” she said.

Chinese ship searching for missing MH370 jet detects signal

A Chinese ship searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 detected a “pulse signal” in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, state media said, but it was not yet clear whether it was linked to the missing plane.The signal had a frequency of 37.5kHz per second — identical to the beacon signal

emitted by flight recorders.

A black box detector deployed by the Chinese search ship Haixun 01 picked up the signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east

longitude, the official Xinhua news agency said.

It is yet to be established whether the signal detected by Haixun 01 was related to the missing jet.

Malaysian authorities believe satellite readings indicate MH370 crashed in the Indian Ocean, far off Australia’s western coast, after veering

dramatically off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. But no proof has yet been found that would indicate a crash site.

Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished, and warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.

Auto Expo 2014: Mahindra unveils Mojo 300cc bike

Mahindra Two Wheelers has unveiled two bikes at the Auto Expo. The much-awaited 300 cc Mojo premium bike has been showcased at the Auto Expo and will be launched later this year.

Quite different from the original concept, this 300cc motorcycle will be the manufacturer's flagship bike in the country. The engine that the Mojo gets is a liquid-cooled, 4 stroke, single cylinder engine that puts out 27bhp. The Mojo also gets a 6-speed transmission.

The Mojo also gets radial brakes, USD forks and Pirelli Sport Demon tyres. As expected, Mahindra has given the Mojo a digital speedometer with an analogue tacho with a shift light and low fuel warning indicators.

Mahindra plans to launch the Mojo in June 2014 and we will see it pitted against the likes of the Duke 390 and the Ninja 300.

Mahindra also showcased the Mojo 300 race version. The bike features a two-toned white and red paint scheme from Mahindra racing and while the performance figures are not out yet, the race version is sure to be track scorcher. The bike gets race spec exhaust, sticky tyres and an upgrade to the 295cc engine.

Mahindra Mojo 300 will be launched by June this year, while prices will be declared nearing the date. Expect the motorcycle to carry a price tag of Rs. 1.5 lakhs and will be competing against the KTM Duke 390, Honda CBR250R and the Ninja 300 when launched.