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A space lift and cyber drag
India launched a successful bid to enter the exclusive Mars club, even as it commissioned a small submarine-based nuclear reactor, as well as a large one to provide electrical power.
It was an exciting year for tech companies. Tablets became slimmer (iPad Air); laptops lighter (Razor Blade, Chrome book), phones more competent (Galaxy S4), and most of all, high-performance chips became thrifty in using power, while delivering better performance (Intel's 4th Gen core processors). Wearable tech became real with Google Glasses and Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch. Google Chromecast neatly integrated TV with the Internet. Yet, what shook up the world was a series of leaks by Edward Snowden, an American who worked for the US National Security Agency. The data, stolen from NSA, revealed several secret US surveillance programs like PRISM, NSA call database, and Boundless Informant, the British-run Tempora, and Bullrun. The exposure damaged US' relations with several countries. India, too, was targeted by various programmes. While Microsoft, Google and Yahoo scrambled to assure sceptical consumers that their cyber activities were secure, lakhs of Amazon users found out that their security had been compromised by something as mundane as leaked passwords. As the year ended, a US$ 4 billion Boeing deal with Brazil was scuttled, in part because of President Dilma Rousseff's ire at spying. The phone continued to be a part of smartphone, which took different hues-many like Nokia's Lumia 1020 and Samsung S4 Zoom, became cameras that also make calls. Producing 41 megapixel camera phones, Lumia effortlessly retained its top spot.
Apple 5S took the biometric route and used fingerprints as the means to control access the smartphone. Cloud computing became mainstream; everyone wanted touch screens, even on laptops. Tablets continued to evolve into ever-svelte forms, with iPad Air setting new standards. Scientifically speaking, we discovered Kepler-62f, an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star about 1,200 light-years from the Earth; cloned human embryonic stem cells and saw the Voyager 1, launched in 1977, reach interstellar space. In India, we cut a wire that had, for long, been a means of communication — the telegraph became history after 162 years of heroic service. With wireless connectivity increasing in leaps and bounds, it is time for a change, many would say. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) took a tremendous leap with the successful launch and progress of Mangalyaan, the mission to Mars. India's first interplanetary mission is seen as a "technology demonstrator". ISRO has had a great year, and the mission to Mars has helped to establish its credentials of launching space missions in such a cost-effective manner that it is the envy of many other nations. In the process, India became the first Asian power to launch a successful space mission on its 300-day journey to Mars. The mission is scheduled to reach Mars next year, but it has already gone further than recent missions by other countries. Even as India banked on the continued success of its PSLVs, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, successfully demonstrated a range of defence missiles, including the long- range Nirbhay, the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos and the Agni II, Agni V, Pithvi II, etc. On the satellite front, the advanced multi-band communication satellite GSAT-7 was put into orbit for defence needs, while INSAT-3D is a meteorological satellite, IRNSS-1A is for navigation and Saral is for oceanographic study. The nuclear reactor on INS Arihant was energised. It has gone critical, taking the country closer to being the only one, other than the big five, to have a nuclear submarine. On the civilian front, Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) in Tamil Nadu was finally energised. Who says we can't innovate. A Malihabad-based nursery said that it had reared a variety of mangoes that was “sugar-free”. Any volunteers for the taste test?
Nature’s fury, Man’s follies disasters, especially natural, will take mankind by surprise every year, but two of them in 2013 were particularly educative in terms of both prevention and management. The floods in Uttarakhand demonstrated what could be the recipe for a perfect disaster, while the response to Cyclone Phailin that hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh contrasted in showing how to handle a calamity ideally.
The next failure came in realising the scale of the disaster. The first on the spot were the ITBP men owing to their proximity to the scene. As it realised the extent, the state government called for Army help, which came promptly too, but it was not until a couple of days later that the true scale dawned upon those at the scene. Thereafter it was war. The country threw in all it had. The courage and resolve of the men and women involved in disaster management was exemplary. In the end, the failure of the brain was overcome by sheer brawn. The disaster management lessons were clear: The movement of people (pilgrims in this case) was unplanned and there were far more than the roads could handle; the governance failure was obvious in the way illegal construction was allowed on riverbanks; the state departments cannot overcome any challenge when the physical terrain turns hostile; inter-agency communication protocols need to be fine-tuned, if not laid down from scratch. Prevention, as they have always said, is better than cure (It is the profound wisdom in certain sayings that perhaps makes them clichés!). And a perfect example of prevention was Cyclone Phailin. The events started unfolding with a metrological warning on October 9, a full three days before the furious weather system coming in from the Bay of Bengal hit land close to Brahmapur on the Odisha coast. The town suffered no casualty or serious loss of property. Therein lay the story of timely action. The state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha were well armed with information about the arrival time, location and intensity of the storm, and they made equally good use of it in taking precautionary measures. The event saw one of the largest evacuation operations in recent history with more than half a million people moved out of harm’s way. Medical supplies, food, power generators, fuel had all been stockpiled in time by state and city administrations, which ensured quick and effective relief once the storm had blown over. Even as disaster managers of the country will debate forever how best to go about this business, there is one controversial thought worth mulling over. There can be no force as effective as the combination of the Army, Air Force and the Navy. The sheer strength in manpower, equipment, training, discipline, command and control, planning and speed cannot be replicated by any
organisation, no matter how much the investment. It would be good to seamlessly integrate the Services in the larger scheme of things.
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The country also realised how exposed it was in the cyber world. Yet, even as people reeled under revelations about powerful electronic surveillance, they continued to buy more gadgets and devote more time to online activities. 
Uttarakhand could have hardly expected to escape the devastation because it never saw it coming. Heavy continuous rain hit the upper hills overnight in mid-June, a time when no one expected it. Therein lay the first lesson. Don’t take weather for granted. Metrological science may still not be advanced enough to tell you whether you should carry an umbrella to work on a particular day, but it is able to foretell disasters — even simple rain — that may brew in a particular region with a useable accuracy of timeframe. In
Uttarakhand, the Met Department failed to sound the alarm bells hard enough, and whatever little ringing there was the state government failed to hear it.