SOURCE: ANI

Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane is leading the Indian delegation to Kazakhstan’s Astana from April 25-26, 2024 for the Annual Meeting of the Defence Ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Member States, the Ministry of Defence said in a release on Wednesday. The meeting will review the regional security issues within the SCO, including the defence cooperation initiatives.

Giridhar Aramane will deliver the India statement at the ministerial meeting, the Ministry said in its release. He will also hold meetings with Defence Ministers of the friendly countries of the SCO to discuss issues of bilateral defence cooperation, it added. Earlier this month, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval led a delegation at the 19th Meeting of Secretaries of the Security Council of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Astana.

SOURCE: PTI

Security personnel on Wednesday recovered three powerful Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) during an anti-Maoist operation launched in the extremist-hit Jimki Ikir village in West Singhbhum district, police said in a statement.

The village falls within the limits of the Tonto police station of the district. The security forces comprising CRPF, Cobra, Jharkhand Jaguar and district armed police were engaged in a combing operation in the core Kolhan area of the district following intelligence inputs on the presence of top proscribed Maoist leaders, including Misir Besra, the Superintendent of Police (SP) of West Singhbhum district, Ashutosh Shekhar, said.

SOURCE: PTI

Separatist Amritpal Singh, who is currently lodged in a jail in Assam under the National Security Act, will fight the Lok Sabha polls from Punjab’s Khadoor Sahib seat as an Independent candidate, his counsel claimed on Wednesday. However, his father, Tarsem Singh, said he would comment on the matter only after meeting his son on Thursday while asserting that Amritpal Singh had earlier not shown any interest in joining politics.

Amritpal Singh’s legal counsel Rajdev Singh Khalsa claimed that he met the separatist in Dibrugarh jail on Wednesday and requested him to contest the polls.

SOURCE: PTI

Production house Excel Entertainment on Wednesday said it is joining hands with Sunshine Digimedia banner for ‘Operation Trident’, a film based on the Indian Navy’s attack during the 1971 India-Pakistan War.

The movie, backed by Excel Entertainment in collaboration with Sunshine Digimedia, was announced at the Nausena Bhawan, the new state-of-the-art headquarters of the Indian Navy here. According to the makers, the event was attended by Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar, producer Ritesh Sidhwani, co-producers Kassim Jagmagia and Vishal Ramchandani of Excel Entertainment, and producer Abhinav Shukla and co-producer Priyanka Belorkar of Sunshine Digimedia.

SOURCE: TASS

Azerbaijan cannot simply stand by and watch as France, India, and Greece arm Armenia against it, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said. “We cannot sit idly by while France, India, and Greece arm Armenia against us. They are doing this openly and demonstratively, obviously trying to prove something to us in this way. We cannot just sit back with our arms folded,” he told a conference at ADA University.

According to Aliyev, the Azerbaijani side made this absolutely clear to the Armenian government and “the sides which are trying to take care of Armenia.”

SOURCE: PTI

A unit of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully developed the lightest bulletproof jacket in the country for protection against the highest threat level 6, an official statement said on Tuesday. This jacket is based on a new design approach where novel material along with new processes has been used, the statement issued by the Ministry of Defence said.

“DRDO’s Defence Materials and Stores Research and Development Establishment (DMSRDE), Kanpur has successfully developed the lightest bulletproof jacket in the country for protection against 7.62 x 54 R API (level 6 of BIS 17051) ammunition. Recently, this bulletproof jacket was successfully tested at TBRL, Chandigarh as per BIS 17051-2018,” it said.

SOURCE: PTI

India believes that a strong and unified Asean can play a constructive role in the emerging regional architecture of the Indo-Pacific, External Affair Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday while underlining that a “multipolar Asia” and a “multipolar world” are increasingly self-evident today.

In his virtual address at the 1st Asean Future Forum, he also said “we believe that Quad compliments the Asean and the Asean-led mechanisms” in their effort to make the region prosperous through delivery of people-centric benefits.

SOURCE: PTI

Police on Tuesday claimed a foreign terrorist codenamed “Abu Hamza” of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved in the killing of a government employee in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district and announced a Rs 10 lakh reward for information on him.

Mohammad Razaq (40) was killed on Monday in the Kunda Top village of the Thanamandi area. Razaq worked in the government’s Social Welfare department while his brother Mohammad Tahir Choudhary is a soldier in the Territorial Army.

SOURCE: L&T

Larsen & Toubro’s (L&T) Heavy Engineering vertical has manufactured a mammoth Hydrotreating Reactor for the Antonio Dovali Jaime Refinery at Salina Cruz in Mexico. At 1,751 MT, it is one of the heaviest reactors in the world.

The mammoth reactor has been despatched for Mexico from L&T’s A M Naik Heavy Engineering Complex at Hazira in Gujarat. Equipped with critical Cr-Mo-V metallurgy, the Hydrotreating Reactor is based on a technology developed by France-headquartered Axens. It has been manufactured at the Hazira Complex in a record 15 months by leveraging high-tech engineering, Industry 4.0 manufacturing and worldclass quality processes.

SOURCE: ANI

The US on Tuesday (local time) warned Pakistan of “potential risk of sanctions,” adding that they will continue to disrupt and take actions against proliferation networks considering business deals with Iran.

Emphasising the US imposing sanctions on suppliers to Pakistan’s Ballistic Missile Program, US State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said “We’re going to continue to disrupt and take actions against proliferation networks and concerning weapons of mass destruction procurement activities wherever they may occur…Just let me say, broadly, we advise anyone considering business deals with Iran to be aware of the potential risk of sanctions. But ultimately, the government of Pakistan can speak to their own foreign policy pursuits.”

SOURCE: PTI

India is set to receive the remaining two regiments of S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems from Russia by next year under a new timeline that was firmed up following some delays in the supplies in view of the war in Ukraine, authoritative sources said on Tuesday.

Russia has already supplied three units of the long-range missile systems to India under a USD 5.5 billion deal. Russia has already supplied three units of the long-range missile systems to India under a USD 5.5 billion deal.

SOURCE: ANI

In a major capability boost, Indian Air Force has carried out a successful test firing of an air-launched ballistic missile that can hit targets at over 250 Kms. The missile tested by the Indian Air Force in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is the Israeli-origin Crystal Maze 2 air-launched ballistic missile which is also known as ROCKS.

The missile was successfully test-fired by a Su-30 MKI fighter jet last week at a test range in the island’s territory in the Andamans, senior sources in the national security establishment told ANI. The preparations for the testfiring were made in the area which falls under the tri-services Andaman and Nicobar Command headed by an Air Force officer presently.

SOURCE: PTI

The previous UPA government decided “not to do anything” after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks with the justification that “it would cost more to attack Pakistan than not attacking it”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar claimed on Tuesday.

Describing India as a voice of the ‘Global South’ (comprising about 125 countries), he said the countries of the Global South trust India to take up their cause and positions in the world. Addressing a gathering at a talk on ‘Foreign Policy the India Way: From Diffidence to Confidence’, the minister said that the country has a moral obligation towards some of the countries, which were under colonial rule and could not recover, rebuild as quickly as India did.

SOURCE: IANS

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar on Tuesday termed China as the biggest challenge for India as he blamed the policies of the first Prime Minister of India, the late Jawaharlal Nehru, for many problems on the foreign policy front.

He said while China had been the biggest challenge, India pretended as if it wasn’t. “Not just today but for many years, our biggest challenge has been China. We at times pretended as if it wasn’t. We looked away, we rationalised it, we justified it, but the reality is from the very beginning, it has been the biggest challenge,” the Union Minister said while speaking at an event on the theme ‘Foreign Policy the India Way: From Diffidence to Confidence’, here on Tuesday.

SOURCE: IANS

Punjab Police has averted possible target killing planned by cross-border operatives with the arrest of a man linked to a Pakistan-based terror module, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said here on Tuesday.

The accused has been identified as Lovepreet Singh, alias Picho, of Udho Nangal village in Amritsar. Police teams have also recovered a .30-bore automatic Chinese pistol along with a magazine and four cartridges from his possession.