Samudrayan

Why in news?

• Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh launches India’s First and Unique Manned Ocean Mission Samudrayan at Chennai

More about the news:

• With the launch of this Unique Ocean Mission, India joins the the elite club of nations such as USA, Russia, Japan, France and China to have such underwater vehicles for carrying out subsea activities.

About Samudrayaan project

• The Samudrayaan is a part of the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ pilot project for deep ocean mining for rare minerals.
• The project proposes to send a submersible vehicle with three persons to a depth of about 6000 metres to carry out deep underwater studies.
• The project is undertaken by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai in line with the ISRO’s ambitious ‘Gaganyaan’ mission of sending an astronaut to space by 2022.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

‘Samudrayaan project’, recently launched by the government aims for:

(a) Naval expedition

(b) Deep ocean mining

(c) Repatriate Indian citizens from overseas

(d) Artificial island-building

Answer