'The strategic direction of the relationship will not be affected. But the perception has been affected.'
The plane, which took off from Jeddah around 11 am IST, landed in Mumbai at 3.15 pm, an official said.
Indian evacuation flights are operating out of Bucharest and Budapest. The government is not charging the rescued citizens for the evacuation flights.
India on Saturday 'strongly pressed' the Russian and Ukrainian governments through multiple channels for an immediate ceasefire in Sumy to ensure a safe passage for around 700 Indian students stuck there as it keeps focus on their evacuation from the war-hit city in eastern Ukraine.
From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned AI operate 64 flights till May 13 in the first phase to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.
Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh and around 200 Indians, mainly students, also returned to India on the flight that landed at 6.15 pm, they said.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours.
Heavy rains packed with gusty winds lashed Odisha and parts of southern West Bengal as the landfall process of the severe cyclonic storm Dana was complete on Friday morning with no loss of life.
Briefing reporters on the ongoing evacuation mission 'Operation Kaveri', Kwatra said approximately 1,700 to 2,000 Indian nationals were moved out of the conflict zones and they included the citizens already evacuated out of Sudan as well as those who are on their way to Port Sudan from capital city Khartoum.
The Indian mission in Ukraine on Tuesday said it has evacuated 52 out of the 75 Indian sailors stranded at the Port of Mykolaiv in the war-hit nation.
The Supreme Court on Friday took note of the Centre's submission that it has evacuated 17,000 stranded Indians from the conflict zone in Ukraine, saying it appreciated the efforts but was concerned about the anxiety of people.
After making landfall near Puducherry on November 30, Cyclone Fengal weakened on Sunday, but torrential downpour under its influence paralysed the union territory, with the Army stepping in to evacuate stranded persons in inundated streets.
'It was a terrible experience to survive the war for 13 days'
According to the police, the CISF received an e-mail warning of a bomb on the flight.
Wing Commander Pratap Marathe's story is one of dedication, bravery, and humour, a shining example of the spirit of the Indian Air Force. Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd) salutes Wing Commander Marathe who passed into the ages last week.
' We have run out of food items and there is no place to stock up again. When will this end?'
"But the completion by August 31 depends on the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those who were transporting out and no disruptions to our operations," US President Joe Biden said.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing that 1,396 Indians were brought back home in six flights in the last few days as part of the evacuation mission.
The landfall process of the severe cyclonic storm Dana was complete on Friday morning and the system took at least eight and half hours to enter the landmass, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
'The situation is very bad there. People are stranded'
Squadron Leader Kanwal Deep Mehra's daredevilry during the 1971 War brought down a Pakistani F-86 Sabre. But he had to bail out of his plane, was badly injured. Then a fierce band of armed guerillas evacuated him to safety at great risk to their lives.
The first attempt to evacuate students on March 7 failed, despite ceasefire and planning.
Anxious relatives of several Indians stuck in Sudan following the fighting between the Army and paramilitary forces are eagerly waiting for information about their relatives and appealed to the government to evacuate them from the strife-torn African country as soon as possible.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said that one person died in the state in cyclone Dana, even as the administration evacuated around 2.16 lakh people from the low-lying areas.
The Indian students who arrived in the city of Bucharest in Romania from Ukraine said that the national tricolour helped them as well as some Pakistani and Turkish students in safely crossing the various checkpoints in the war-torn country.
Panic gripped a Chennai-bound Jet Airways flight carrying 153 passengers after a fire alarm in the cockpit went off when the plane was on the taxiway for takeoff tonight and 30 of them were injured during evacuation by emergency chutes.
As many as 231 Indians, including 208 Gujarat residents, who were evacuated from strife-torn African nation Sudan under the Centre's 'Operation Kaveri', landed at Ahmedabad airport on Tuesday, said a state government official.
While the Gujarat government has not specified the exact number of students from the state still stuck in Ukraine, Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani gave an assurance on Thursday that the Centre as well as the Indian Embassy in Ukraine were doing everything possible to ensure the safe return of the students.
The flight was diverted to the Jamnagar airport following a bomb threat and made a safe emergency landing there at 9.49 pm on Monday, officials had said.
All airports and air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations from May 25. SOPs for passenger movement are also being separately issued by the ministry of civil aviation.
A special Indian Air Force repatriation flight ferrying 168 evacuees from Kabul landed at the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad on Sunday.
The eastern part of Ukraine has been witnessing intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
"It was a very proud moment for me as well as the entire Air India crew when we heard from Pakistan ATC praising our special flight operations to Europe," one of the senior captains of the special flight said.
Air India's jumbo B747 made two flights to Wuhan city -- the ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,380 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Mizintsev said that places for temporary accommodation and rest have been set up at the checkpoints.
Officials said passengers on board the two aircraft -- Royal Nepal Airlines (Delhi-Kathmandu) and Air India (Delhi-Bhubaneswar) -- were evacuated.
Yagi, the 11th typhoon of this year, made two landfalls in China on Friday, first striking Hainan and later Guangdong province.
A Goa Police officer said the flight which took off from Moscow and was supposed to land at the Dabolim airport was diverted to Jamnagar due to a bomb scare.
The Indian Embassy in Ukraine put out a series of tweets giving a sense of the challenging situation in which Singh was taken out of Kyiv.
Troops of both the countries are locked in a tense standoff in the disputed areas of Pangong Tso and Galwan Valley along the LAC.
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