Internet access can offer life-changing opportunities and experiences to all of us, but there are still 4 billion people around the world missing out it with an estimated 1.6 billion of those living in remote areas with no access to mobile broadband networks.

After revealing that it wants to use unmanned drone airships to beam the internet down to the estimated four billion people worldwide without it two years ago, social media giant Facebook on Thursday announced the first full-scale test flight of its solar-powered craft, Aquila.

“After two years of engineering, I’m proud to announce the successful first flight of Aquila — the solar-powered plane we designed to beam the internet to remote parts of the world,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post.

Zuckerberg added, “On June 28th, we completed the first successful flight of Aquila — our solar-powered plane that will beam the internet to remote parts of the world and eventually break the record for longest unmanned aircraft flight.”

According to the post, the flight took place before dawn in Yuma, Arizona. Facebook’s original mission was to fly Aquila for 30 minutes, but things went quite well for the company and it decided to keep the plane up for 96 minutes.

While in the air, the eco-friendly plane was consuming just 2,000 watts of power – around the same as a hairdryer. Eventually, the plane will consume around 5,000 Watts once it’s reaches it cruising height and speed.

We gathered lots of data about our models and the aircraft structure — and after two years of development, it was emotional to see Aquila actually get off the ground, Mr. Zuckerberg noted

He said that “Our goal is to have a fleet of Aquilas flying together at 60,000 feet, communicating with each other with lasers and staying aloft for months at a time — something that’s never been done before.”

The company is working on to make the aircraft more efficient and doing necessary changes in that direction.

“Over the next year, we’re going to keep testing Aquila — flying higher and longer, and adding more planes and payloads. It’s all part of our mission to connect the world and help more of the 4 billion people who are not online access all the opportunities of the internet,” Mr. Zuckerberg concluded.

Hyderabad: Hyderabad Metro Rail Services, a first of its kind in the country involving private-public partnership, have crossed a total 100 days after it was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 18, 2017. It has managed to serve for more than 80 lakh plus passengers.

Hyderabad Metro Rail was in newslines for breaking many records, including in terms of patronage. And, in tune with overall performance, overwhelming statistics are surfacing out from Hyderabad Metro Rail book records totally after 100 days of operations.

Greetings with these statistics on the video screens are being installed in the services inside the Metro Trains for the Passengers to see. A total of 10.2 lakh kilometres of operations have been convered during this period of 100 days and a total 36,186 train trips have been operated bringing the passengers on a great platform which helps them reach destinations with out any discomfort or inconvenience.

High precision was priority for the authorities concerned during the services all these days and the officials informed that the punctuality rate for train timings was 99.2 percent. Considering the greate patronage received, HMR authorities are under pressure to increase the number of trains, besides frequency.

In the present scenerio, Metro services are under operation on the 30-km stretch from Nagole to Miyapur and nearly all 400 services are under operation with all 18 trains everyday.

HMRL is making all of its efforts come true to be able to increase number of trains from the existing number of 18 to 22 from April after getting all necessary clearances from Metro Rail Safety Commissioner.

Along with this, there is strong demand for operating a train with frequency of 6.5 minutes for the convenience of passengers. As of now more than 70,000 passengers are believed to be travelling in Metro services every day and it peaks to 80,000 passengers specially on weekends and holidays.

In order to make everything convenient for all the passengers like ensuring last mile connectivity, bicycles have also been introduced by a couple of companies, besides this bike taxi services will also be provided.

Hyderabad Metro is a rapid transit system which was introduced to serve the city of Hyderabad. It is being run entirely on public-private partnership (PPP) type of basis with the state government which holds a minority equity stake. The total 30 km stretch from Miyapur to Nagole, having a total of 24 stations was inaugurated on 28 November 2017 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is no rapid transit metro service in all India opened for public operations on such a long stretch of 30 km till now. It is estimated to cost about rupees 18,800 crore. Metro Trains are moderately crowded during the morning and evening timings, when employees travel to and from work, but they run nearly empty early in the morning, afternoon, and at night.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative to promote electric vehicles (EVs), L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited has teamed up with the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited to facilitate the provision of electric vehicle charging stations at Metro stations.

Miyapur and Balanagar Metro Stations will be charging stations at the beginning and subsequently, the Power Grid will provide similar electric vehicle charging stations across the entire Metro corridors. The initiative has been taken to promote these electric vehicle charging stations for first and last mile connectivity at Metro stations.

In a statement, LTMRHL Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer KVB Reddy said, “We are committed to providing best-in-class eco-friendly green Metro services to citizens of Hyderabad and this is a step in that direction.”

EVs can also assist in stabilization of grid further with Vehicle to Grid (V2G) concept, improving the per capita electricity consumption substantially.

Also, the running cost is considerably low compared to the vehicles run on fossil fuels.

According to the press release, additionally, an app is being developed to help the consumers locate and share the status of availability of the charging station and facilitate online payment towards EV charging for seamless operation with least waiting time with these EV charging stations monitored and operated remotely by Power Grid.