THE SPOKESPERSON

The MoU on using national currencies will put in place a Local Currency Settlement System (LCSS) to promote the use of the rupee and dirham. The agreement covers all current account transactions and permitted capital account transactions.  India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed agreements on trade settlement in national currencies and setting up a real-time link for cross-border transactions as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Abu Dhabi on Saturday to bolster cooperation in areas such as trade, energy and climate action. Educational authorities of the two sides also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on establishing a campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi in Abu Dhabi after Modi arrived in the capital of the Emirates following a visit to France. The UAE has had a special place in India’s efforts in recent years to increase its engagement in areas ranging from trade to security with West Asian states. The Emirates is home to 3....

Riots convulsed French cities over several days after a police officer shot and killed Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy who was driving away from a traffic stop. The protests, which have pulled in large numbers of young people, have been driven by longstanding grievances in France’s more deprived suburbs, where many people of immigrant origins live, feeling cut off from opportunities and discriminated against by the police. Here is what we know: Who was Nahel Merzouk, and what happened to him? Mr. Merzouk, a French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent, lived in a working-class area of Nanterre, a Parisian suburb, and was an only child being raised by his mother. He had dreamed of being a mechanic, his grandmother told and he played on a local rugby team. A prosecutor said the teenager had been driving in a bus lane and, when officers tried to stop him, drove through a red light to get away. He then got stuck in traffic, and officers approached the car. The prosecutor said ...

The deepening economic crisis in Pakistan is leading to a large number of school dropouts. With surging inflation and shortage of essential items including food, many children are now being pulled out of schools as thousands of parents struggle to make both ends meet.  A large number of these children are being pushed into employment by the parents. “Children going to school for many in Pakistan is now a luxury as the situation in the country is much like Sri Lanka. For many arranging food is therefore becoming a priority,” an analyst told India Narrative. A Human Rights Watch report in 2018 said that about 22.5 million Pakistan's children were out of school and majority of these children were girls. These figures were before the Covid pandemic but the worsening of the economic situation in the country has only pushed the number of school dropouts exponentially. As the Shehbaz Sharif government hiked fuel prices to meet the demands of the International ...

Visakhapatnam: The indigenously built missile corvette INS Kirpan entered Cam Ranh international port on July 08 and was ceremoniously received by the Vietnamese People’s Navy (VPN) signifying strong and vibrant bilateral navy to navy relations with the Indian Navy.  The warship flying under the Indian Tricolour undertook her final passage from India to Vietnam, proudly displaying the Indian Naval Ensign at sea for the final time. The ship will be handed over to VPN in end of the July , 2023 after completion of the training of the VPN personnel. Ministry of Defence said that progress on various bilateral defence cooperation initiatives was reviewed during the meeting, with both sides expressing satisfaction at the ongoing engagements. "Both ministers identified means to enhance existing areas of collaboration, especially in the field of defence industry cooperation, maritime security and multinational cooperation.  The Defence Minister also announced the gifting of...

In her work spanning more than 32 years, Dr Tessy Thomas has contributed in various fields such as Guidance, Control, Inertial Navigation, Trajectory Simulation and Mission Design. She was leading a major project AGNI-4 as Project Director, for a state-of-art system with many new technologies for the first time and successfully flight tested and proven and was also Project Director (Mission) for the long range AGNI-5 system and successfully flight tested and proven.    Tessy Thomas was born in April 1963 in Thathampally of Kerala. Growing up in a modest family, Dr. Tessy Thomas developed a fascination for science and technology from a young age. Growing up near the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Stations attracted towards the rockets and missiles. She did her schooling from St Michael Hiigher Secondary School and St Joseph Girl's Higher Secondary School.  Dr Tessy Thomas did B.Tech in Electrical Engineering in 1983 from the University Of Calicut and then pursued DRDO-...

  BrahMos Aerospace, a Russian-Indian joint venture, is in talks with six countries about selling BrahMos medium-range supersonic cruise missiles, according to Praveen Pathak, the company’s chief general manager.  “BrahMos is negotiating missile sales with six countries.” “There are countries with whom we are negotiating at a more advanced stage; it is almost pre-contact work,” Pathak said on the sidelines of the International Maritime Defence Show in St. Petersburg, adding that the countries interested in contracts were from the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East. The BrahMos (PJ-10) is a medium-range Ramjet Supersonic Cruise Missile that may be launched from a submarine, ship, plane, or land. The BrahMos is the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile. BrahMos Aerospace is a collaboration between the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Russian Federation’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya.  The name BrahMos is a combination of two riv...

  As Afghanistan continues to grapple with the extreme food crises, India has donated 10,000 meric tonnes of wheat to the landlocked country.  The 10,000 metric tonnes of wheat reached the Herat city of Afghanistan on Tuesday, United Nations World for Food Programme (UNWFP) said in a tweet. "Wheat donated by the Government of #India @MEAIndia @dpa_meato @WFP arrived in Herat where it was milled for distribution to hungry families across #Afghanistan. This wheat is part of an in-kind contribution of 10,000 metric tons from India on top of 40,000 tons in 2022," UN WFP stated in the tweet. Last month, the Indian government sent another 20,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan amid a humanitarian crisis in the country using Iran's Chabahar port, Afghanistan-based Khaama Press reported. Earlier, another wheat assistance delivery of 40,000 tons was carried out through Pakistan's land border. India shows its dedication to promoting the stability and prosperity of ...