SOURCE: THE HINDU

The Indian Navy is likely to set up an advanced system for communicating with its fleet of submarines, including those propelled by nuclear reactors, at Donakonda in Prakasam district.

The Andhra Pradesh government offered about 2,600 acres for this high-security facility, for which soil testing is currently underway, according to Minister for Industries and Commerce Mekapati Goutham Reddy, who held parleys on it with top administrators in the Navy during his recent visit to New Delhi.

SOURCE: THE HINDU

In the backdrop of stiff opposition by employees of defence production units to the Centre’s move for corporatisation of ordnance factories, the Defence Ministry has unveiled a list of 101 weapons/platforms for indigenisation with specific timelines.

To a question raised by Rajya Sabha MP N. Siva in Parliament on Monday seeking information on the Defence Ministry’s decision to restrict import under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik, said 101 defence weapons/platforms had been listed to provide impetus to self-reliance in defence manufacturing.

SOURCE: NAVALNEWS

They are stationed near to the contested line of actual control. The border region has been the scene of heightened tensions between the two countries including several clashes.

The Type-928D assault boats are generally similar to the Swedish CB-90. They represent a significant increase in capability for Chinese forces on the mountain lakes along the contested border. The type was first deployed to the lake in October 2019.Based on satellite imagery analysis they began appearing at the western end, nearer the defacto border around June this year.

SOURCE: Hindustan Times

Four astronauts selected for the country’s first human spaceflight will return from Russia in March and undergo training modules designed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for the mission slated for December 2021.

While in Russia, their training is helping them get accustomed to conditions in space — the US, Russia and China are the only three countries to have conducted human spaceflights — the four astronauts will undergo mission-specific training back home.

SOURCE: BUSINESS TODAY

China suffered far fewer casualties than Indian troops, said Chinese media quoting a report on Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement at the Parliament. Editor of Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times said that no Chinese troops were captured by Indian soldiers but PLA captured Indian jawans.

Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said in a tweet, “As far as I know, the death toll of Chinese troops in Galwan Valley clash on June 15 is far fewer than 20 deaths of Indian troops. No Chinese soldiers was captured by Indian troops, but PLA captured many Indian soldiers that day.” Along with the tweet, he put up a picture of a report with the headline ‘India inflicted heavy casualties on Chinese forces at Galwan: Rajnath Singh’. The image of the report had ‘fake news’ stamped on it.

SOURCE: ANI

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has ordered a detailed investigation into the accident involving its under-development Howitzer that took place in Rajasthan’s Pokharan last week during the trial. The agency is developing the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun Systems (ATAGS) with private sector firms Tata and Bharat Forge. An accident involving the gun took place in Pokharan in Jaisalmer on Saturday.

“We are investigating to find the exact cause behind the accident. It is not a setback to the project in any way and it will help us and the industry to further strengthen the system (howitzer),” DRDO chairman Dr G Satheesh Reddy told ANI when asked about the incident involving the gun. The ATAGS gun has shown the capability to fire shells at distances beyond 50 kilometres and once inducted, would be one of the most advanced and capable guns of its kind in the world.

SOURCE: Express News Service

Indian Army has completed the creation of habitats for more than 20,000 soldiers foreseeing the tensions along the Eastern Ladakh getting protracted. There are two stage preparations right at the front, closer to the Line of Actual Control, and in deeper areas, to react as and when the troop beef up is required at the front.

A senior Army officer said, “We inducted more engineer troops to complete all operational requirements and have completed the temporary defence closer to the Line of Actual Control and also Arctic Tents have been erected to meet the conditions of high altitude and sub-zero temperatures.”

SOURCE: THE PRINT

The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s 36th escort task force, comprising a guided-missile destroyer, a missile frigate and a supply vessel, is understood to have entered the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) after having set sail on 3 September, ThePrint has learnt.

While the ships are meant for anti-piracy operations, the deployment comes as the PLA seeks to project its dominance in the IOR even as tensions run high between India and China along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

SOURCE:  The Tribune 

There are a few things about China that India needs to remember as it stares down the greatest power in Asia. China does not believe in any boundaries or maps created by the imperialist West which simply means that it will not agree to any map that came into being because of the imperial British, though the map may have been researched and drawn by an Indian working for the Geological Survey of India.

Throwing maps at China on the negotiating table has gained nothing in the past and will gain nothing in the future. Guided by historian Sarvepalli Gopal, the foreign policy makers used maps for over a decade to convince China to keep out of Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh. It did not work.

SOURCE: THE ASIAN AGE.

Chinese troops played Punjabi songs on loudspeakers at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, apparently for the listening pleasure of the Indian soldier posted to the frontier,  where for the first time in 45 years shots were last week.

While Indian soldiers are highly amused, this is a hark back to tactics employed by Chinese Han generals some 2,200 years ago during the so-called ‘Battle of Gaixia’. It was in this battle that Han king Liu Bang beat his Chu rival Xiang Yu and established the Han dynasty in China.

SOURCE: ANI

In a bid to break the Chinese monopoly on processing rare earth elements, the Indian-Pacific Quad comprising of India, Japan, Australia and the United States are working together and pooling resources to rapidly build collective self-reliance in the sector.

There are 17 strategic elements vital for the production of anything ranging from laptops, electric car batteries to missile guiding systems and lasers. “There are 0.15 grams of palladium (a rare earth metal) in an iPhone, 472 kilograms of combined rare earth in an F-35 fighter jet and four tonnes in a Virginia-class submarine,” the Sydney Morning Herald has reported.

SOURCE: TIMES NOW

India has made its stance on the issue amply clear, emphasising neither Pakistan’s government nor judiciary has a locus standi on the territories Pakistan has forcibly and illegally occupied.

With much of the national attention in India understandably focussed on China’s aggressive behaviour at the Line of Actual Control, China’s ‘all-weather’ friend Pakistan is continuing its mischief at the Line of Control and the International Border, with continuing incidents of firing and cross-border infiltration.

SOURCE: PTI

 Nepal has introduced new text books in the school curriculum that include the country’s revised political map showing three strategically-important Indian areas as part of its territory, amidst a border dispute with New Delhi. India has already termed as untenable the “artificial enlargement” of the territorial claims by Nepal after its Parliament unanimously approved the new political map of the country featuring Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura areas which India maintains belongs to it.

The curriculum Development Centre, under the Ministry of Education, recently published the books with the revised map, information officer at the centre Ganesh Bhattarai told PTI. The new books titled Nepal’s territory and reading materials for border issues for the 9th and 12th classes have a preface written by Education Minister Giriraj Mani Pokharel.

SOURCE: PTI

Decommissioned aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy, ‘Viraat’, will begin its last journey on Saturday from Naval Dockyard here for Alang in Gujarats Bhavnagar district where it will be dismantled. According to an Indian Navy statement here, the historic carrier was supposed to leave for Alang on Friday, but its departure has been delayed by a day.

Some paper work is still going on and it would take some more time. Hence, instead of today, ‘Viraat’ will be towed (to Alang) tomorrow (Saturday), it said. The vessel had served the Indian Navy for 30 years before being decommissioned in 2017 in Mumbai.

SOURCE: PTI

As many as 404 youths have been inducted into the Army’s Punjab Regiment in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district. The induction programme was held at the Kilahari Drill Square in the Punjab Regimental Centre here on Thursday, a statement said.

The jawans took oath on the Guru Granth Sahib and the Bhagwad Gita, after undergoing a nine-month training programme, it said.