The closing ceremony for the 19th Commonwealth Games began at a crowded Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday with a dazzling display of martial arts from the far corners of India.Among the thousands who had packed into the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which was also the venue for the spectacular on Oct 3 opening ceremony, was Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the chief guest accompanied by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
After the glittering display of martial arts, the crowd's hair raising roar when the Indian Armed Force bands played "Kadam- kadam bhadeyega khusi ke geet gaaye ja, ye jindagi hai qaum ki, qaum pe mitaye ja" and "Saare jahan se accha Hindustaan hamara". The wonderful patterns formed by the school children of Delhi with National Song "Vandematram" is breath-taking.
Moreover, in the end the flag was handed over to the Chairman of Glasgow 2014 Common Wealth Games (Mr. Winter, Scotland).
The closing ceremony ended the 12 days of sporting glory that saw Australia take home the biggest haul of medals at 177, including 74 gold. For the first time in the history of the Games, India took the second slot with a rich haul of 101 medals, including 38 gold. England ended up with 143 medals, including 37 gold.
Canada with 75 medals, including 26 golds, came 4th in the games.
The gala was also a tribute to the 6,700 athletes of the 71 participating teams from Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and Oceania.
Today India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) successfully launches CARTOSAT - 2B Satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launch of PSLV - C15 was the sixteenth consecutive successful flight of PSLV. It had put the payload in 630 km polar Sun Synchronus Orbit(SSO).
Moreover, PSLV - C15 in its flight, alongwith CARTOSAT - 2B, carried four auxiliary satellites namely STUDSAT a pico-satellite weighing less than 1 kg, built jointly by students from a consortium of seven engineering colleges form Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, two nano satellites NLS 6.1 and NLS 6.2 from University of Toronto, Canada and ALSAT-2A, a micro-satellite from Algerian Space Agency.
CARTOSAT 2 - B
It is a 694 kg advanced
Remote Sensing Sattelite built by
ISRO. It is mainly intended to augment remote sensing data services to the users of multiple spot scene imagery with 0.8 metre resolution 9.6 km swath in the panchromatic band.
It carries a sate of art
Panchromatic Camera(PAN) and
Solid State Recorder with a capacity of 64 Giga Bits to store the images taken by its camera. Data from the satellite will find applications in
village level /cadastral level resource assessment mapping ,
urban and rural infrastructure development and
management,
transportation sysytem planning,
cartographic maps,
micro-watershed development plans and
monitoring them.
Furthermore, imagery can be used for preparation of
Forest Cover maps, tree volume, crop inventory, town and rural settlement planning and mapping, canal alignment, rural connectivity assesment, land use planning of coastal areas, monitoring coral and mangrove areas and the monitoring mining activities.
ALSAT-2A
It is a 116 kg Remote sensing satellite of Algerian Space Agency.
NLS- 6.1
It is
AISAT-1 weighing 6.5 kg satellite built by Space Flight Lab of University of Toronto, Canada.
NLS- 6.2
It is
TISAT-1 weighing 1 kg satellite built by University of Applied Sciences of Switzerland.
STUDSAT
Pico-satellite weighing less than 1 kg is built jointly by students from a consortium of seven engineering colleges from Andhra Prades and Karnataka.
