Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port authorities said the high-tech Chinese research vessel that was to dock there on Thursday won't reach the port as scheduled, according to a media report, days after India expressed security concerns over its presence in the island nation.
To threaten China and Pakistan, and then to sharply cut back on military funding, bespeaks a remarkable trust in Beijing and Islamabad that is not borne out by anything they say or do, notes Ajai Shukla.
A number of "encouraging leads" of electronic pulse detected in the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday prompted multinational search teams to rush their hi-tech ships to the area to determine if these signals came from the black box of the crashed Malaysian plane.
The southern deep-sea port of Hambantota is considered strategically important for its location.
India's combat capability and readiness to confront any multi-dimensional security threat was elaborately tested at a four-day mega military exercise conducted in the Creek sector of the Kutch peninsula that concluded on Monday, military officials said.
Two pieces of plane debris found in Mozambique arrived in Australia, where experts will determine whether they are from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The southwest monsoon season concluded on Saturday with India receiving 'below-average' cumulative rainfall -- 820 mm compared to the long-period average of 868.6 mm -- in an El Nino year.
Grieving families of the 239 people on board flight MH370 on Sunday marked the first anniversary of the world's biggest aviation mystery with Malaysian Prime Minister vowing not to give up on the search for the wreckage of the aircraft that vanished midair over the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka has decided to impose a one-year moratorium in allowing foreign vessels to conduct research in the island nation's territorial waters, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has said, amidst frequent docking requests from Chinese surveillance ships.
Distraught relatives of several passengers aboard Flight MH370 on Sunday launched a $5 million (about Rs 29.48 crore) reward to "entice" a whistle-blower who can provide key information and help their search to trace the Malaysian jet that vanished mysteriously three months ago.
It has been a year since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, carrying 239 passengers, disappeared without any trace.
The National Security Strategy document should flag all major issues concerning security strategy and provide guidelines to concerned departments to work out suitable action plans. Since the global and regional geopolitical canvas is dynamic, the NSS document should be deliberated at length before formulation and should be reviewed periodically, recommends Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
Five Sri Lankan fishermen have been arrested on charges of stealing an Indian tsunami warning equipment, police said on Tuesday. The arrested men were produced before the chief magistrate in the southern town of Matara, who remanded them in custody till April 30, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.
The IMD said that rainfall over India in August and September would be around 106 percent of the long-period average of 422.8 mm.
In an interview with France24, Wickremesinghe said, "We are a neutral country, but we also emphasise the fact that we cannot allow Sri Lanka to be used as a base for any threats against India."
It turned out to be a memorable evening for the players, many of whom experienced such a rapturous welcome for the first time in their lives.
The search for flight MH370 is yet to target a "hotspot" most likely to be the crash site in the Indian Ocean as priority was given to investigate "pings" that has led to a dead end, a United Kingdom satellite firm claimed on Tuesday.
The first joint theatre command would be responsible for the border against Pakistan in what the military refers to as the "western theatre"; while a second command -- the northern theatre command -- would be responsible for the border with China. A third, navy-heavy theatre, called the "maritime command" will be responsible for the security of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR); and an island command, already functional and called the Andaman & Nicobar Command (ANC), would project power into the eastern Indian Ocean.
Foreign minister Ali Sabry told the cabinet that the Chinese vessel had only asked for a refuelling visit.
The newly discovered debris, found over the weekend, is on its way to Malaysia for further examination. The wreckage is a piece of horizontal stabilizer skin, CNN reported, quoting an unnamed US official as saying.
Defence Minister A K Antony will on Monday inaugurate an airbase in Thanjavur to house squadron of IAFs lethal Su-30 MKI combat aircraft, making it the first fighter squadron in south India that will help maintain vigil over the Indian Ocean region.
The avoidable stresses and strains in ties helped in one way. It showed for the entire region how a matured India handled diplomatic relations, especially with a smaller and suspicious neighbour, with practised dignity and patience, unruffled by provocations in word, deed and action, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Indian Navy rescued an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel with 19 Pakistani crew members and a Sri Lankan trawler in two swift operations after armed pirates hijacked the boats in the Arabian Sea amid deteriorating security situation arising out of Iran-backed Houthi rebels targeting various cargo ships in the region.
Suspected floating debris of the Malaysian jet may have sunk in a remote part of southern Indian Ocean as a multination team failed to spot them, dashing hopes of a breakthrough in locating the aircraft which mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago.
'"I think the message has gone across to them very unambiguously that do not mess with us at sea and also at land for that matter'
The El Nino impact on the Indian monsoon typically manifests by way of extended break in rainfall.
Cyclone 'Biparjoy', the first storm brewing in the Arabian Sea this year, has rapidly intensified into a severe cyclonic storm, with meteorologists predicting a 'mild' monsoon onset over Kerala and 'weak' progress beyond southern peninsular under its influence.
China is scouring its territory in Tibet and Xinjiang for the Malaysian jetliner missing for 11 days, a senior diplomat said as international efforts to locate the plane failed to achieve any breakthrough.
According to rescue officer Phil Gaden in Australia, Tomy had a severely injured back.
All arrangements, including heavy security, are in place for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 45-hour stay at the famed Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari on Thursday, as he would sit on meditation at the place named after the revered Hindu saint.
'Although he was bed ridden most of the time he was in the vessel and unable to move on the upper deck, his condition is stable.'
Not to be left behind, the armed forces have planned yoga sessions on board warships and even at Siachen, the world's highest battlefield, to celebrate the first International Yoga Day on June 21.
India has received 20 per cent less rainfall since the start of the monsoon period on June 1, with the rain-bearing system making no significant progress between June 12 and 18, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
In the wake of the crash of flight MH370, Malaysian authorities have issued new security instructions ordering that the pilot and co-pilot are not allowed to be left alone in the cockpit, even when one of them is taking a toilet break.
Malaysian authorities are probing new information that the missing plane with 239 people on board dropped to an altitude of 5,000 feet or possibly lower to evade radar detection after it turned back midair.
The hunt for the missing Malaysian jet was on Thursday narrowed down drastically to a targeted patch in the Indian Ocean after fresh underwater signals possibly from the plane's black box were picked up this week.
The robotic mini-submarine deployed to search for the crashed MH370's debris on Thursday resumed the hunt after eight days of suspended operations ahead of its final week of scouring the Indian Ocean seabed, which will now be mapped to locate the final resting place of the jet.
The Indian Navy continues to monitor the situation very closely with all stakeholders and remains committed to ensuring the safety of merchant shipping in the region, it said in a statement.
Autonomous underwater vehicle Bluefin 21, a US Navy probe equipped with side-scan sonar, has focused the search on an area in the southern Indian Ocean where four acoustic signals were detected that led authorities to believe that the plane's black box may be located there.
Multinational search teams were racing against time to locate the black box of the crashed airliner, as Malaysia revised the account of the critical final communication received from the jet.
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