'An expanding army, rising salaries due to the 7th pay commission, and raised pensions due to OROP are consuming money at the cost of badly needed bulletproof jackets, rifles, artillery, submarines, warships and fighter aircraft,' notes Ajai Shukla.
Singh was speaking to reporters on board the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya which is currently sailing along India's western coastline.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The sprawling warship building facility caters to the combat vessel requirements of not only the Navy, but also the Coast Guard.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Babu Ram and Constable Altaf Hussain Bhat of Jammu and Kashmir Police were on Saturday posthumously conferred with the Ashoka Chakra and the Kirti Chakra awards respectively on the eve of the 75th Independence Day. While the Ashoka Chakra is India's highest peacetime gallantry honour, Kirti Chakra is the second in order of precedence of peacetime gallantry awards.
During a virtual meeting of the joint working group on fisheries on Friday, both countries agreed that the use of force could not be justified under any circumstances.
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India is increasingly a willing participant in the evolving US' Indo-Pacific strategy. While these developments are related to the perception of a growing Chinese security challenge, their implications for India's much-vaunted strategic autonomy should be a matter of deeper and closer reflection, asserts former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'Unlike on the western and eastern borders where there is an enemy at the gate, here there is an invisible enemy which is building its own capability and can come into play at a time and place of his choosing.'
Parrikar was originally scheduled to travel to Bangladesh much earlier this month but the visit was delayed.
Bangladesh hopes to procure a submarine to boost the capabilities of its navy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said at an event marking the induction of two patrol aircraft and three warships.
Afcons Infrastructure, whose chartered barge had sunk in the Arabian Sea due to a cyclone this week leaving at least 51 people dead, on Friday said it will provide compensation ranging from Rs 35-75 lakh to the families of the deceased personnel.
The thanks-giving activities will start with laying of wreaths at the police memorial in Delhi and in several other cities on Sunday morning to honour the police personnel deployed in enforcement of the nationwide lockdown, officials said. It will be followed by fly-pasts by fighter and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, covering a sizeable number of cities and towns across the country between 10 am and 11 am, officials said.
Faced with high-speed wind and swelling sea, the ill-fated barge Pappa-305, with 261 crew onboard, lost anchors and smashed into an unmanned platform before sinking in the Arabian Sea after its captain ignored weather warnings and chose not to move the vessel away from the path of severe cyclonic storm Tauktae, a survivor recounted.
The warships will be armed with BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles which can reach targets 295 km away.
As the weather cleared in the morning, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and Union Territory administration started a joint evacuation drive and brought back all stranded tourists to Port Blair from Havelock and Neil islands of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.
This upgrade will allow air operations by military and civil aircraft even in poor visibility and adverse weather conditions.
Residents in Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra continue to struggle as floods leave them in a watery hell.
This will be the first instance since Independence that two of the three service chiefs will be the government's chosen men.
Key to China's decision regarding Taiwan will be its leadership's assessment whether the US will come to Taiwan's defence, explains Jayadeva Ranade, the former senior RA&W officer and China expert.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said people living in the coastal belt would be shifted to safer places.
Meanwhile, the search and rescue team is seeking satellite imagery to find any clue of the plane that lost contact over the Bay of Bengal.
'Investment is the only way India can counter the Chinese influence in the region.' 'With more and more investments, you will have more and more stake; the strategic importance of Sri Lanka can be fulfilled with investments.' 'Investments should come because the void which is created by investments is always going to be filled by Chinese companies.'
Out of 67 fishermen, 49 are from Tamil Nadu, 13 from Kerala, four from Assam and one from Andhra Pradesh, they said.
The storm is likely to impact Mumbai, Thane and other coastal districts of Maharashtra like Raigad and Palghar along with Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bhavnagar and Bharuch districts of Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Preparations for the impending cyclone were discussed at a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, a home ministry statement said.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced a solatium of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of each of the victims
The Italian coastguard coordinated one of its largest rescue operations to date, saving 5,500 people on Saturday and Sunday as smugglers took advantage of calm seas to send migrants across the Mediterranean.
An ecological disaster is in the making in the Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest spanning across the Indo-Bangla border, after an oil tanker collided with an empty cargo vessel. The incident spilled nearly 350 tonnes of oil into the Sela river, threatening the survival of multiple species of flora and fauna.
Up to 700 migrants, including 40 children, are feared to have died this week while crossing the Mediterranean, based on the accounts that survivors told aid workers once they reached safety.
Around 12 lakh pilgrims and devotees took the holy dip at Gangasagar with the most auspicious time of Sun's transition to Makar Rashi (Capricon) continuing till 7.04 pm on Tuesday, officials said.
At any time, there is a need to operationally deploy two aircraft carriers in the vast Indian Ocean, asserts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
The UAE is the second country after France to send its troops to participate in the Republic-Day parade of India, a tradition started last year.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday reviewed the preparations for Cyclone Yaas including the evacuation of people on the high seas as well as in vulnerable coastal areas and the safety of COVID-19 facilities.
Rains will continue to batter Tamil Nadu for the next seven days and the next 48 hours are "very crucial", the IMD has said.
India on Sunday evacuated 670 more nationals, including 488 from Sanaa by three Air India flights, taking the total number of Indians rescued from war-ravaged Yemen to nearly 2,300 after the "largest" evacuation in a day so far.
Centre ordered release of Rs 1,086 crore to four states as advance financial assistance for undertaking preventive and relief measures to deal with the cyclone.
The National Disaster Response Force, Navy and Coast Guard officials have so far been able to locate only a signboard of one of the missing ST buses .
A fresh search operation involving multiple agencies and local divers was launched on Saturday morning.
Residents near the border have been asked to switch off lights at night. Farmers whose agriculture land is beyond the fencing wire were ordered not to visit their fields.
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