The authorisation to increase the weapon and ammunition reserves to minimum 15-I levels from the earlier existing 10-day stocking is to prepare the defence forces for a two-front war with both China and Pakistan.
No Service Chief to date has had the guts to streamline the procedure in conjunction with the Election Commission and ensure every soldier votes in his/her place of posting, observes Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Fifteen Cabinet ministers and 28 Ministers of State were sworn-in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday evening.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unfurl the national flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Sunday to celebrate the country's 75th Independence Day and two Mi-17 1V helicopters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will shower flower petals at the venue for the first time ever.
The Indian Army has been losing more personnel every year in suicides, fratricides and untoward incidents than in any enemy action and over half of its soldiers seem to be under severe stress presently, said a study by think tank United Service Institution of India.
Rs 111,294 crore has been allocated for army salaries. The Rs 113,278 crore allocated for army pensions surpasses that. Army planners are worried about this drain on funds that could otherwise go towards equipment modernisation.
The Taliban is showing its strong discontent as the high hopes given to it by the Pakistani military have been dashed, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Having already received and deployed the first lot of around 72,500 Sig Sauer assault rifles from the US for counter-terrorist operations, the new batch of these assault rifles would be given to the soldiers deployed on the front with China in Eastern Ladakh.
"Numerous rounds of talks have taken place with the Chinese counterparts to deescalate the situation without compromising on India's stand of 'complete disengagement and immediate restoration of status quo ante'," the defence ministry said.
The Akash missile systems have over 96 percent indigenous components and the weapon can hit targets at a range of 25 km.
The utility helicopters will be used in attack missions as well as for search and rescue and surveillance operations.
Jaitley's tenure as defence minister saw clearance of a number of big ticket reform measures and simplification of military acquisition process.
The talks between Singh and Esper came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a telephonic conversation with US President Donald Trump.
'Why wouldn't so strategically-minded an adversary, such as China, not militarily exploit to the maximum Indian timidity, stupidity, and cupidity all along the LAC and legitimate, as it has done so often in the past, the fait accompli of incremental territorial grabs which, by the way, is its strategy and policy as implemented on the ground?'
The tunnel would reduce the travel time to the Ladakh region by 15-20 per cent and would come up close to the Atal tunnel near Rohtang Pass, reports Megha Manchanda.
A fresh political war of words erupted on Tuesday over the Rafale issue as the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress leadership of corruption citing claims of a French media report on 'commissions' being paid during the United Progressive Alliance rule and said the Indian National Congress should be renamed 'I Need Commission' party.
The approval to the proposals come amid increasing hostilities by Pakistan along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as well as China's aggressive posturing in several sectors along the nearly 4,000-km-long Sino-India border.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre on a batch of pleas seeking an independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter, making it clear that it did not want the government to disclose anything which might compromise national security.
The long-pending proposals were cleared at a meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), the defence ministry's highest decision making body on procurement.
As defence minister, Singh's most crucial challenge will be to speed up the long-delayed modernisation of the three services besides ensuring overall coherence in their combat readiness.
The Chinese and Indian armies continued with the disengagement process in the North and South banks of Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh as per plan and the entire pullback exercise is expected to take another six-seven days, sources in the defence and security establishment said on Monday.
When corruption eats into the vitals of a nation, the State structures decompose and collapse. And when the leadership loses respect of the people, the war is lost, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar, who played a stellar role in beginning India's systemic dealings in Afghanistan in 1994.
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