Important Facts for Prelims (30th July 2018)

• 30 Jul 2018

National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System-II (NASAMS-II)

• It is an advanced air defence system jointly developed by United States (US) and Norway.
• India is in talks with the US to procure NASAMS-II to defend the National Capital Region (NCR), Delhi from aerial attacks (9/11 type attacks). It is in the Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) stage now.

NOTE: 'Acceptance of Necessity' clears the way for the tendering process to start.

• India is deploying a multi-tiered air defence network to fully secure its airspace from incoming fighter aircraft, missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
• The system would complement other systems such as the medium and long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems that are under procurement in India.
• Apart from these imports, India is also developing an indigenous Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system.

‘DigiYatra’- A New Digital Experience for Air Travellers

• The Civil Aviation Ministry is close to rolling out DigiYatra service at airports which seek to make flying speedy and hassle-free.
• The basic objective is to reduce queues at airports and bring efficiency to the boarding process.
• The ‘DigiYatra’ is an industry-led initiative coordinated by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in line with Digital India’s vision to transform the nation into a digitally empowered society.
• The DigiYatra initiative envisages providing airline travellers in India, a pioneering ‘digitally unified flying experience’ across all stages of their journey. 
• It will deliver Indian customers a seamless, consistent and paperless service experience at every touch point of their journey.
• The platform will be built on 4 key pillars, like Connected Passengers, Connected Airports, Connected Flying and Connected Systems.

World Tiger Day

• Global Tiger Day, often called International Tiger Day, is celebrated on July 29 to give worldwide awareness about tigers.
• It was established at the St. Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010 as a means to draw worldwide attention to the global plight of wild tigers.
• The celebration is one of the many features of the Tx2 pledge by  13 tiger range countries who committed to efforts that would double the world’s tiger population by 2022.
• Out of 9 subspecies of Tigers, 4 have become extinct. The extinct subspecies are: Bali, Javan, Caspian and South China tiger. The remaining 5-- Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan, Sumatran and Amur tiger are still found in the range countries.
• India had launched Project Tiger in 1973 to conserve tigers.  Till now, the coverage of “Project Tiger” has increased from 9 reserves to 50 tiger reserves spread across 18 states.