SOURCE: PTI

Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Tibet last week is a threat to India, an influential US lawmaker has said, accusing the Joe Biden-led administration of not doing enough to stop the Chinese “march”. Xi on Wednesday last made an unannounced three-day trip to Nyingchi in Tibet, close to the border with Arunachal Pradesh. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China, met top officials of the Tibet Military Command and reviewed development projects in the region.

In an interview to Fox News, Republican Congressman Devin Nunes said: “Just last week, you had Xi Jinping, the Chinese dictator, on the border with India, in Tibet, claiming victory. This was the first time in 30 years, I believe, that a Chinese dictator had been to Tibet, and also threatening India, over a billion people and also a nuclear power; threatening India that he’s going to build a big water project, possibly cut off water to India.”    

SOURCE: IndiaToday

Minister of State (MoS) for Defence Ajay Bhatt informed the Parliament on Monday that as many as 29 women Army officers, who did not opt for permanent commission in the Indian Army, have been relieved from service.

“29 women officers who did not opt for permanent commission in the Army Special Selection Board No 5, have been relieved from service. Of these 29, three were relieved from service without a pension, as per the option chosen by them. These officers have served for around 10-14 years in the Army,” Bhatt said in a letter to Rajya Sabha.

SOURCE: NEWS18

After India, Pakistan has been reporting the highest viewership of the YouTube Channels of Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) for four straight years, Parliament has been told. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) said Prasar Bharati has over 170 YouTube channels of its AIR and DD network for viewers and the digital channels of Prasar Bharati are popular in other countries too.

Furnishing details of the top five foreign countries in terms of viewership of the YouTube channels, the ministry gave figures showing Pakistan has been topping the charts since 2018, according to YouTube analytics, implying Pakistanis watch India’s government-run channels the most on YouTube after Indians.

SOURCE: OUTLOOK INDIA

Several tribal community leaders of Tripura have cautioned the union Home Minister and expressed their concern over ‘growing influx of Chakma community including some with arms’ especially in Gandacherra subdivision under Dhalai district bordering Chittagong Hill Track (CHT) in Bangladesh.

Apex body of Tiprasa societies, that consists of majority of tribal communities, under the banner Council of Tiprasa Hoda, in a letter addressed to Amit Shah, Home Minister of government of India, said that, “due to incessant flow of Bangladeshi nationals, mostly Chakma community, through illegal routes and the facts shall be established by the census figures of Gandacherra in 2001 and 2011.”

SOURCE: ANI

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is set to leave for Dushanbe, Tajikistan to participate in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers meeting. Tajikistan is this year’s chair of the grouping and will be holding the SCO heads of state summit in the month of September. Rajnath Singh’s Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe will also take part in the meet. However, there is no planned meet between the two ministers like they met on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Moscow last year.

Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar was in Dushanbe for the Meeting of Council of Foreign Ministers of SCO States.

SOURCE: IANS

A total 333 private companies have been issued 539 industrial licences for defence production in India and out of these, 110 companies have started production.

In a written reply to Vijay Pal Singh Tomar in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, Minister of State for Defence, Ajay Bhatt, said that the defence industry sector, which was hitherto reserved for the public sector, was opened up to 100 per cent for Indian private sector participation in May, 2001. Thereafter, many measures have been taken by the government to promote private sector participation.

SOURCE: PTI

A total of 355 personnel of central paramilitary forces and the Assam Rifles were killed in the line of duty in the last five years, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. The maximum personnel were from the country’s largest central armed police force — the Central Reserve Police Force — at 209.

The data was provided by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai as part of a written reply to Lok Sabha. These personnel “sacrificed their lives for the nation” between 2016-2020. The Border Security Force lost 78 personnel, Indo-Tibetan Border Police 16, Sashastra Seema Bal 8, Central Industrial Security Force 7 and Assam Rifles 37 personnel during this time period, the data said.

SOURCE: TIMES NOW

Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that there have been some reports of CPI (Maoist) inducting children in their outfit in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and giving military-style training to them.

Reports also suggest that the CPI (Maoist) is recruiting children and using them for cooking, carrying daily use material and collecting information regarding movement of security forces, the MoS said. There has been a steady decline in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) related violence and geographical spread of LWE influence in the country. The number of deaths (civilians and Security Force personnel) in LWE related violence has also reduced, Rai informed.

SOURCE: ANI

As China continues with hydropower projects on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, concerns are rising in the lower riparian nations regarding the impact of these projects on the river, which is one of the crucial sources of freshwater for India and Bangladesh.

Yarlung Tsangpo is a lifeline for a significant population in these countries. It originates at the southeast of Mount Kailash and Manasarovar in Tibet and is the upper stream of the Brahmaputra river. It later flows through the South Tibet Valley and Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon before passing through the state of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman G Sateesh Reddy recently in an interview said that works on core technologies of India’s 5.5Gen Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) has progressed well and the program is on track as nodal design agency ADA has frozen its final design configuration after AMCA was seen with noticeable design changes earlier this year at Aero India 2021.

Reddy also confirmed that the talks are being held with foreign engine manufacture for the development of a new engine for the AMCA program. British Rolls-Royce and French Safran Aero-engine manufacturers have emerged as two front runners in the development of a new power plant for the AMCA program along with India’s DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) and State-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

SOURCE: INDIA TODAY

De-escalation between the Indian Army and Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in eastern Ladakh is far from complete. Both forces have been engaged in an intense military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) since May of last year.

The Indian Army has now deployed motion-sensitive cameras and sensors to monitor Chinese activity in forward areas along the LAC. The equipment includes PTZ (pan tilt zoom) cameras and sensors, sources told India Today. Such state-of-the-art equipment will not only enable the Indian Army to keep track of the adversary but also send out a timely warning in case of any escalations.

SOURCE: ZEE NEWS

The Afghanistan government has informed the Indian side that Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba is shifting base inside the country. The development comes even as the Taliban makes territorial gains in the country and the fear is that ungoverned places may be used by international terror groups.

India has been in various private meetings with various regional capitals has been raising this issue, especially the use of these places by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. “The trend we have seen for last one year is that Pakistan has been trying to shift, all these international terror groups out north and south Waziristan into Afghanistan”, officials said.

SOURCE: Tribune News Service

To maintain a credible deterrence in eastern Ladakh, India has moved key elements of the Army’s “1 Strike Corps”, otherwise tasked westwards, to eastern Ladakh.

The resources of the corps, which is headquartered at Mathura with ‘strike’ elements located across Indo-gangetic plains, has been tasked to the Northern Command. These resources include armoured formations and infantry combat vehicles, besides troops. Without getting into specifics, sources said the 1 Strike Corps had already moved its elements to eastern Ladakh.

SOURCE: ANI

While the Army is facing a shortage of over 7,900 officers, more than 90,000 vacancies for soldiers including junior commissioned officers are also lying vacant, Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt said in a written reply to the query raised the Rajya Sabha.

The Navy, which is considered third in terms of the size among all the three defense forces, stands second in terms of manpower shortages as it is short of 1,190 officers and 11,927 sailors in its ranks. Mr Bhatt informed that the Army was short of 7,912 officers and 90,640 soldiers in its ranks and efforts are being made to fill up these vacancies.

SOURCE: IANS

China has been perturbed about the incident leading to the killing of 9 Chinese citizens in a suicide blast in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The deep-rooted fear that the Chinese have of such incidents being repeated has led them to discuss the issue with Pakistan Foreign Minister Mahmood Kureshi and ISI chief Faiz Hameed, who visited China on July 23. Besides a number of issues discussed by both sides, the safety and security of Chinese workers dominated the meeting.

The Chinese have been wanting assurances for the safety of the Chinese nationals consistently and the Pakistan establishment has found it to be most challenging to ensure this in a landmarked by the presence of various militant entities and consistent violence and terrorism, intelligence sources said.