There was no need to be alarmed over reports suggesting that Pakistan was digging tunnels along its border with India, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said on Monday.
India is planning to expand the bluewater capabilities of the Navy with more indigenously built platforms, which can carry out underwater surveillance and anti-submarine warfare operations, minister of state for defence M M Pallam Raju said on Wednesday.
Aimed at boosting the Coast Guard's (CG) surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities along India's western coast, a new CG Air Enclave will be made operational on Thursday at Porbandar in Gujarat.
"The demand stands already examined in detail and was not found acceptable due to administrative, financial and legal reasons," minister of state for defence M Pallam Raju said in a written reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha. The minister, however, added that the government was examining if it can make improvements in pension given to pensioners.
Ruling out the possibility of Naxals shooting down the helicopter of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Union Minister M M Pallam Raju on Thursday said the mishap that claimed Reddy's life took place due to bad weather."The possibility of a Naxal strike on the chief minister's helicopter is ruled out completely. It was an accident due to bad weather. There is no hand of Naxalites," Minister of State for Defence Raju said.
The defence ministry is expecting a 15 to 20 per cent increase in its budget allocation for the next fiscal due to rise in expenditure on its modernisation drive and commitments following pay review.
With reports from Jammu and Kashmir indicating Chinese hold over Indian territory in Ladakh, Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju on Monday said India 'need not be alarmed' as talks were in progress to settle border disputes. He also gave the benefit of doubt to China on reports of Chinese produced arms finding their way to militants in the Northeastern states.
The first batch of India's indigenously built state-of-the-art T-90 main battle tanks, with features like protection from nuclear attack, were handed over to the army at a function in Avadi near Chennai on Monday. The batch of ten tanks, each costing around Rs 14-15 crore, rolled out of the Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF), Avadi and were inducted into the army by Minister of state for Defence M M Pallam Raju.
"The frontier of space, which includes utilisation of satellites, will continue to be a growing area of warfare. India has stated in the past that it is against militarization of space. But space assets have to be utilised in warfare in the years to come and we are also preparing for it to take adequate counter measures," Raju said.
The government will "not dilute" the presence of army in Jammu and Kashmir till the situation did not stabilise there.
"Army steps in only when things go out of control... It is not a situation the Army would like to be in. But whenever it is necessary and in the interest of the nation, we step in," Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju told media persons in New Delhi.
Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju said it has been recommended that provision be made for NCC junior division/junior wing in the private schools having classes VIII to X/XII at the time of application for registration by the education boards. The plan could be initially rolled out for CBSE and ICSE affiliated schools and later extended to schools under the state education boards.
Terming Pakistan's action against terrorism as an 'eyewash', India on Monday said the civilian government there was 'not strong enough' to act against terror on its own."What they are doing right now is not enough. It looks like an eyewash. I think the civilian power centre in Pakistan is not strong enough to act on its own. We are not confident and happy over the steps taken so far," Union Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju told reporters.
"One of the reasons we give aid and platform and radar and things like that is to make sure that we are the dominant powers in the Indian Ocean Region," Union Minister of State for Defence, M M Pallam Raju told reporters in Begaluru.
The Sukhoi crash on April 30 in Rajasthan today caused an uproar in the Rajya Sabha, forcing Defence Minister A K Antony to come out in favour of the air superiority of the IAF's fighter jet.
Two days after constituting a 10-member Group of Ministers on Telangana, the government reorganised the panel, dropping Minister of Human Resource Development M Pallam Raju and bringing in Defence Minister A K Antony. The number has also been brought down to seven.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Friday said he was not convinced about the bifurcation of the state and claimed that he has not changed his position on it.
Angry over the way the Telangana Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Union Tourism Minister Chiranjeevi threatened to stall the Rajya Sabha, where the bill would be brought on Wednesday.
Holding that there are severe shortcomings in the current form of Telangana Bill, Union minister M Pallam Raju on Tuesday said it should not be passed in a manner that sends a wrong message and permanently hurt sentiments.
Amid continuing protests over the creation of a separate Telangana state, Union ministers from the Seema-Andhra region met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi and expressed the "sense of deprivation" prevailing in Andhra and Rayalseema regions.
Rumblings within Congress over its decision to form Telangana grew on Friday with its seven MPs, a state minister and seven MLAs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions quitting amid indications that some more are likely to follow suit.
Thackeray and Pawar held parleys at a suburban hotel ahead of the 7.30 pm deadline set by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for the Sena to stake claim for government formation.
Union Minister K Chiranjeevi's youngest brother K Kalyan Kumar, alias Pavan Kalyan, is all set to launch his own political party IN Hyderabad on Friday.
Moving forward following the decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh, the Congress on Tuesday night appointed separate Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs for Seemandhra and Telangana.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said he agreed to attend the foundation-laying ceremony of the Aligarh Muslim University campus because it was he who had suggested Kishanganj as the venue.
Thirty-five of the 77 Union ministers have failed to file annual details of their assets and liabilities before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even over a month after the passage of the deadline.
Three bills were introduced in Lok Sabha on Tuesday amid uproar with members from Left parties trooping into the Well to protest against rising prices of onion while other members raised the Telangana issue.
Facing widespread criticism over the death of 23 children after eating mid-day meals in Chhapra, the Bihar government on Thursday denied receiving any alert from the Centre over shortcomings in its implementation and insisted that the food was 'poisonous'.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who leaves office this week, was tonight given a warm farewell dinner by Congress President Sonia Gandhi which was attended by a galaxy of party leaders and Union ministers.
Congress leaders from Maharashtra Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Balasaheb Thorat attended the meeting along with the top brass of the party, including Ahmed Patel.
Congress reached out to Samajwadi Party Supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav for his support for passage of the Food Security Bill which is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday coinciding with the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Union HRD Minister Dr M M Pallam Raju on Tuesday called for greater cooperation between the two countries in the education and knowledge building sector.
In the wake of the mid-day meal tragedy in Bihar, the Centre on Thursday decided to constitute a monitoring committee to look into the quality of food supplied even as it said that it had issued alerts to 12 Bihar districts after shortcomings were found in implementation of the scheme.
Veering towards conceding the demand for a separate Telangana, the Congress has convened a meeting of its working committee, the party's highest policy-making body, on Tuesday after deliberations on the issue in the United Progressive Alliance coordination committee.
Apart from debating the Rayal-Telangana issue, the Group of Ministers that meets on Wednesday night at 8 pm, will also look into the demand to make Hyderabad a Union Territory.
The Union Cabinet, which recently cleared the note on the formation of Telangana and paved the way for the creation of the new state, will do its best to ensure that the process is completed by December 9, when the chief minister of the state is likely to be sworn in.
Tamil Nadu, which boasted of as many as nine ministers in the UPA-II government in 2009, did not get any representation in Modi 2.0 government.
A bandh called by the YSR Congress, Telugu Desam Party and other anti-Telangana political parties is being observed in Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday to protest against the passage of the AP Reorganisation Bill-2013 in the Lok Sabha.
The United Progressive Alliance coordination committee will meet on July 31 to finalise its stand on the vexed Telangana issue amid indications from Congress that carving out a separate state out of Andhra Pradesh is a foregone conclusion and that complexities involved in the process will be adequately addressed.
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