Moving ahead towards cancelling the controversial chopper deal, the Defence Ministry on Wednesday said it has issued a final show cause notice to AgustaWestland for "violating" the terms of the Rs 3,600 crore contract for supplying 12 VVIP choppers to the Air Force.
In an apparent dig at Ajit, Pawar senior said if someone keeps saying he will take everything, people may not say anything but will disapprove of it.
A spate of recent orders under the Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) category have led to investor focus on defence stocks. Actually, the defence index has been an outperformer for a long while with public sector undertakings (PSUs) like Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), Bharat Electronics (BEL), Bharat Dynamics (BDL), Garden Reach Shipbuilders Engineers (GRSE), Cochin Shipyard and Goa Shipyard being beneficiaries of the policy.
The defence ministry on Thursday rejected senior Defence Research and Development Organisation scientist K Santhanam's assertion that the 1998 Pokhran II nuclear tests were not fully successful, adding that India has a meaningful number of nuclear weapons and an effective delivery system to go with it.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday held talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu and is learnt to have discussed the lingering border row in eastern Ladakh.
According to the latest report of the standing committee tabled in Parliament on Monday, the defence ministry says it is alive to the threats and is taking whatever steps that are required to secure the nation
Top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Mohammed Kobeissi was killed in the Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday, September 24, 2024.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday received a formal complaint from the defence ministry on the alleged violation of Official Secrets Act with regard to secret documents provided by arms dealer Abhishek Verma's estranged business associate which may result in another case against him.
'The central concern in the Services HQ over the last 40 years or so has been a frustrating lack of appropriate and timely government response to many crucial military issues, often till these turn into a full blown crisis.' Air Marshal Satish Inamdar (retd) discusses the many challenges and issues confronting India's defence establishment in the light of the recent Naresh Chandra report.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday received a fresh set of documents from the defence ministry related to the Rs 3600 crore AgustaWestland helicopter deal as it prepares to start from next week questioning of suspects over alleged kickbacks paid in India. CBI sources said the defence ministry has provided them with a new set of documents related to the deal but declined to give details.
Three personnel, including two of major-rank and one naib subedar, have been conferred the Kirti Chakra, the ministry said.
The mortal remains of former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh were consigned to flames at the Nigambodh Ghat in New Delhi on Saturday amid the chanting of religious hymns. The funeral pyre was lit by his eldest daughter Upinder Singh.
Pawar was amenable to increasing the height of the boundary walls of his house in Delhi as part of the enhanced security measures.
Terming Maharashtra government's objection to a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the Adarsh scam as "illegal and malafide", the defence ministry on Wednesday rejected the ruling by a state-appointed judicial panel that the land on which the controversial building stands belongs to the state.
Former city collector Pradeep Vyas on Saturday told the judicial panel probing the Adarsh Housing Society scam that the corrigendum issued by Maharashtra government on the ownership and possession of the land on which the society stands, was "factually incorrect". He also conceded that the land was in defence ministry's possession then, contrary to the corrigendum.
In a sensational case, defence ministry authorities have detected alleged bugging of the office room of Defence Minister A K Antony and Intelligence Bureau (IB) has been asked to probe the matter.
The Ministry of Defence would soon file a title suit in the Supreme Court to claim its ownership of the land on which the controversial Adarsh building stands, its counsel Aniket Nikam said on Wednesday.
Mukherjee said some state governments were not carrying out rehabilitation of ex-servicemen in accordance with the norms laid down.
Earlier in response to Iran's rocket barrage on Israel on Tuesday night the UN Chief had said, "I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.."
Though the deal was inked in 2008, the process had started much earlier.
The government has approved the construction of two indigenously designed nuclear attack submarines and is expected to ink contracts next month to procure 26 naval variant of Rafale jets and three Scorpene submarines, Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh Tripathi said on Monday.
The Israel Air Force fighter jets under joint intelligence guidance with the Shin Bet, killed one of the senior members of the Hamas terrorist organisation, Iman Nofal, according to Israel Air Force.
The conclave drew valuable insights from former athletes and Olympians, including celebrated ones such as Anju Bobby George, Mary Kom, and Tarundeep Rai, all of whom shared their personal experiences and perspectives on what it takes to excel at the highest levels of sports.
The American embassy in New Delhi was informed on Wednesday that two aircraft offered by the US government through the Foreign Military Sales process were not selected for procurement by the defence ministry, an embassy release stated.
"Today there is a government in the country which cannot compromise even on one inch of the country's borders," the prime minister added.
The IAF contingent participated in the exercise from June 4 to 14.
The admission came when the country's defence ministry told the Supreme Court it is not in a position to submit a reply on the Memogate scandal on behalf of the armed forces and the ISI.
China on Monday conducted day-long large-scale military drills aimed at surrounding Taiwan by deploying an aircraft carrier group, besides army, navy, air force and missile forces, in an apparent response to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's remarks that Beijing has no authority to represent Taipei.
After probing the role of its officials including a serving major general in the Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam in Mumbai, the army has submitted its court of inquiry report in the case to the Defence Ministry.
Five Army personnel were killed and as many injured on Monday when a group of heavily-armed terrorists ambushed a patrolling party in Badnota area in Kathua.
In the latest attacks, at least 20 people lost their lives and over 450 were injured, authorities said, according to a report by Al Jazeera.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested freelance journalist Vivek Raghuvanshi and former Navy commander Ashish Pathak for allegedly collecting sensitive information on defence matters and passing them on to foreign intelligence agencies, officials said on Wednesday.
Thakur will be part of the 21-member committee headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, according to a bulletin issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
The defence budget was increased to Rs 5.94 lakh crore for 2023-24, up from last year's allocation of Rs 5.25 lakh crore.
Why can't the Indian government propose to the Chinese a corridor circumambulating the Holy Mountain where people from both sides could perform the yatra again? asks Claude Arpi.
Over 100 writers, translators, and publishers have signed an open letter accusing the "JCB Prize for Literature" of hypocrisy, highlighting the British bulldozer manufacturer's role in demolitions across India and Palestine. They argue that the JCB's involvement in these projects contradicts its purported support for marginalized and diverse writers. The letter was released ahead of the announcement of the JCB Prize for Literature winners on November 23.
Though the government says public and private shipyards compete on equal terms, public shipyards feast at the high table with the defence ministry, with only scraps being tossed to private shipbuilders.
The industry ministry on Monday proposed foreign direct investment up to 74 per cent in the defence sector from the present 26 per cent, stating urgent upgrade of equipment in the armed forces was needed as a bulk of them suffered from obsolescence.
Everybody talks of China as the real threat, but we aren't even building a decisive capability against Pakistan, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
China on Monday said cooperation between countries should not undermine regional peace and stability and target any third party, as it reacted to a host of defence and commercial pacts recently signed between India and the US including joint production of jet engines in India to power military aircraft and a deal on armed drones.
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