Additional second added to Indian Standard Time

Since the rotation of earth has become slow, an additional second was added to the atomic clock at India`s time-keeping centre at the National Physical Laboratory yesterday (1st January).

To account for earth’s slowing rotation around its own axis, time-keepers periodically add a leap second to universal time so that clocks remain accurate.

The adjustment is critical for applications like satellite navigation, functioning of communication networks, for tech companies and those conducting astronomical measurements.

As the leap second is added simultaneously across the world at UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) 23:59:59 hrs on December 31, 2016, New Delhi-based National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which maintains the Indian Standard Time, will count up the additional second at 05:29:59 hrs on January 1, 2017. This is because the Indian Standard Time is 5.30 hours ahead of UTC.