THE SPOKESPERSON

 Taking a cue from the Netherlands and France, India is now training birds of prey to take on enemy drones. The move comes in the backdrop of incidents of unmanned aerial vehicles bringing drugs, arms, and ammunition across the border more than doubling from 2021The nearly two week exercise is aimed at enhancing interoperability and sharing expertise between both the armies in peacekeeping and disaster relief operations. That the Indian Army would train kites to counter enemy drones makes sense given the renewed threat from drones coming from across the border. The BSF, which guards over 3,000 km of the India-Pakistan International Border running across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Jammu, recently said incidents of unmanned aerial vehicles bringing drugs, arms and ammunition from across the border have more than doubled from 2021.Border Security Force director-general Pankaj Kumar Singh described the frequency of incoming drones as a ‘bombardment’. Though authorities have built

  India and the UAE had already signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in February to give a fillip to bilateral trade and economic ties.  The Central banks of India and UAE are discussing a concept paper on promoting bilateral trade in rupee and dirham with a view to reduce transaction cost, a top official said on Friday.India's Ambassador to the UAE Sunjay Sudhir said that the concept paper for trade in local currencies was shared by India. The Central banks of both the countries will discuss the standard operating procedures and modalities, he told reporters here. The objective of the exercise is to reduce the cost of transactions, he added.India and the UAE had already signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in February to give a fillip to bilateral trade and economic ties. The free trade agreement was aimed at providing significant benefits to Indian as well as UAE businesses, including enhanced market access and reduced tariffs. Following the free trade pact, bilateral trade

  The bilateral training exercise “AUSTRA HIND 22” between contingents of the Indian Army and the Australian Army is scheduled to take place at Mahajan Field Firing Ranges (Rajasthan) from tomorrow to 11th December 2022.  This is the first exercise in the series of AUSTRA HIND with the participation of all arms and services contingent from both armies. The Australian Army contingent comprising soldiers from the 13th Brigade of the 2nd Division has arrived at the exercise location. The Indian Army is represented by troops from the DOGRA Regiment. Exercise “AUSTRA HIND” will be a yearly event that will be conducted alternatively in India and Australia. The aim of the exercise is to build positive military relations, imbibe each other’s best practices and promote the ability to operate together while undertaking multi-domain operations in Semi deserts terrain under a UN peace enforcement mandate The Indian and Australian armies will participate in the bilateral training exercise “

  The second stealth-guided missile destroyer of Project 15B, which was built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, was delivered to the Indian Navy on Thursday. When commissioned, the ship will be christened INS Mormugao. The contract for four ships of Project 15B was signed in January 2011. This project is a follow-on of the Kolkata-class destroyers built under Project 15A commissioned over the last decade. The lead ship of Project 15B, INS Visakhapatnam, was commissioned into the Indian Navy in November last year.Designed by the Warship Design Bureau, Indian Navy’s in-house organisation and built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd in Mumbai, the four ships of the project are christened after cities from four corners of the country — Visakhapatnam, Mormugao, Imphal and Surat. The keel of Mormugao (Yard No 12705), named after the port city in Goa, was laid in June 2015 and the ship was launched in September 2016. “The design has largely maintained the hull form, propulsion machin

  General Bajwa family wealth news: In what could have serious repercussions in a country which is already facing tumultuous political scenes, a report has emerged claiming that Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's family amassed billions in a short period of time.  Pakistani journalist Ahmad Noorani, in a report published in Fact Focus, has claimed that General Bajwa's immediate and extended family members made billions of dollars within a span of six years through new businesses. The report underlined that Bajwa's family members purchased farmhouses in top cities of the country as well as bought properties in foreign countries. Based on tax returns and other financial statements, the Pakistani journalist noted how between 2013 and 2017, Bajwa revised the wealth statement for 2013 three times, after being appointed country's army chief. "In the revised wealth statement for the year 2013, General Bajwa added a commercial plot in phase VIII of DH

  Some watchers claimed that the jet is overhyped and issues with poor Chinese manufacturing have begun to show. The Generation 5 stealth fighter has been displayed to the public for the first time in this year’s ongoing Zhuhai Air Show, where the fighter landed, taxied, and parked before the public for a closer view. Usually, the fighter only conducted flypasts and aerobatics. Now opening the ‘Mighty dragon’ for the audience indicates China’s and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) confidence in the aircraft.The rare public display also led to some close-up photographs being clicked, showing its brake parachute, part of the cockpit, and the enclosed air-to-air refueling probe. The fine workmanship and finishing of the plane’s body were also visible, baring the highly sophisticated metallurgical, forging, and precision cutting processes.J-20 Breaking Down? The video showed a puff of black smoke being released from a small exhaust in the bottom spine of the plane, jus

  MEA issues strong warning to Canadian government, calling the referendum ‘deeply objectionable’ Stepping up pressure on Canada to stop the upcoming  November 6 “Khalistan referendum” , India on Thursday called on the Trudeau government to ban the organisations behind it, in line with India’s own terrorist listings. “We find it deeply objectionable that politically motivated exercises by extremist elements are allowed to take place in a friendly country. You are all aware of the history of violence in this regard,” said MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. “We will continue to press the Government of Canada on this matter, and call upon them to prevent anti-India activities by individuals and groups based in their country, and to designate as terrorist, under their law, individuals and entities who have been declared as terrorists under Indian law,” he added, referring to the second round of a “referendum” this weekend organised by the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) group, which the gover

  New Delhi:   To say that Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, was wealthy, would be to put it lightly. The richness of his treasury was, in fact, legendary. So much so that he used the   Jacobi diamond , a 185-carat gem the size of a lime, as a paperweight. The Nizam’s family had ruled Hyderabad since the early 18th century; yet he was the only ruler in British India who  enjoyed the title of Exalted Highness  owing to his contribution of £25 million to the British exchequer during the First World War.And a few days ahead of India’s independence, he deposited an amount of £1 million in his account at the Westminster Bank in London. The money remained untouched for nearly 71 years and accumulated to about £35 million, or Rs 306 crore as valued in 2019, when a British judge finally ruled for the Nizam’s descendants to collect it from London’s National Westminster Bank. Yet the man had an oddly modest appearance — wearing the same tattered fez for 35 years and mostl

  Police in Pakistan's Punjab province have arrested two more suspects, who they believe had sold the pistol and bullets for PKR 20,000 to Naveed Mohammad Basheer, the assailant who tried to assassinate former premier Imran Khan during a political rally, according to a media report on Friday. Mr. Khan, 70, suffered a bullet injury in the right leg on Thursday, when Basheer fired a volley of bullets at him in the Punjab province, where he was leading a protest march against the government.Police sources said that two other suspects — Waqas and Sajid Butt — sold Basheer a pistol and bullets for PKR 20,000, adding that the pistol did not have a number or license, Geo TV reported. the attacker said that he tried to kill Imran Khan because he was "misleading the people". “I did it because he [Imran Khan] was misleading the people. I wanted to kill only Imran Khan and no one else...I came alone on my bike. I made the decision when he left Lahore. I acted alone, nobody el

India conducted the first successful flight test of the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor missile capable of neutralising long-range missiles and aircraft, from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast on Wednesday. “The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a successful maiden flight-test of phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor AD-1 missile with a large kill altitude bracket from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha on November 2.The AD-1 (Air Defence) is a long-range interceptor missile designed for both low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft. The missile is propelled by a two-stage solid motor and equipped with an indigenously developed advanced control system and a navigation and guidance algorithm to precisely guide the vehicle to the targets that move at very high speeds. During the flight-test, all the subsystems performed as per expec

  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced on Monday that from November 1, 2022, it will begin pilot launches of the Digital Rupee (eâ1) for specific use cases. According to the notification, the first Digital Rupee pilot will be in the Wholesale segment (eâ1-W) and will begin on Tuesday. According to the RBI, the nine banks include State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, and HSBC. RBI, which has repeatedly expressed its opposition to private digital currencies, proposed to the government in October last year to broaden the scope of the paper rupee to include digital currency. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had earlier announced that the RBI will launch a CBDC in 2022-23, which is the first official statement from the Union government on the much-anticipated digital currency's launch. According to the FM, the introduction of CBDC will boost the digital economy and will be base