With Pakistan saying that there was no delay on its part in prosecuting people behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, India on Wednesday said Islamabad should not try to score "petty points" on the issue and help in bringing the perpetrators to book.
"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.
Not willing to give up on the age issue, General V K Singh has filed a statutory complaint with the defence minister seeking a reexamination, in a first by an army chief.
India on Thursday ruled out the possibility of carrying out any surgical strike on terror camps inside Pakistan, but asserted that adequate measures will be taken to ensure that its interests are protected. "No, no," Minister of State for Defence M M Pallam Raju.He told reporters, "We will take adequate measures to see to it that our nation is safe, our citizens are safe, and our interests are safeguarded."
India on Tuesday said that Pakistan was failing miserably in controlling terrorism by categorizing terrorists as "good" and "bad" and that it needed to deal with the terror issue in an even-handed manner.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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 Railways, Kotla Jaya Surya Prakash Reddy, on Friday resigned from his post in protest against the Union Cabinet's decision to go ahead with the proposed bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While 39 members of the all-important panel are general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As the Congress and United Progressive Alliance government appear to be veering towards formation of a separate Telangana state, ministers and MPs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday opposing any division of Andhra Pradesh.
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