By Kalyani Shankar The Congress split in Tamil Nadu spells trouble for the 129 year old Congress party. Although the Congress high command has described it as a result of factional fight, there is more to it than meets the eye as it has far reaching impact on the state as well as national politics. With the state assembly elections scheduled for 2016, political parties […]
New Delhi: India is not likely to get a futuristic stealth fighter anytime before 20242025. Technical and price wrangles continue to bedevil the joint project with Russia to develop the fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA). India, in fact, has conveyed its deep concerns to Russia about being denied “full access“ to the FGFA project despite the fact that it is supposed to be an equal partner in […]
Delhi: The infamous VVIP helicopter scandal has claimed another victim. The defence ministry has ejected the European NH-90 chopper, linked to Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica, out of the race to supply 16 multi-role helicopters to the Navy . The commercial bid of the other contender in fray , American Sikorsky-70B choppers, will now be opened this month after a long delay. “Both NH-90 and Sikorsky-70B choppers had […]
New Delhi: The attorney-general (A-G) has recommended cancellation of a proposed defence deal for the acquisition of eight minesweeper vessels, estimated to be worth about Rs 6,000 crore, from the South Korean Kangnam Corporation after allegations of involvement of middlemen, official sources in the ministry of defence (MoD) have confirmed. The MoD had sought the view of A-G Mukul Rohatgi in the matter. The government may […]
Demonstrators protest outside a Labour gala dinner, which Ed Miliband attended Photo: Getty Images Professor Brian Cox has made explaining the inexplicable his life’s work. In recent episodes of his television series – Human Universe – the physicist has tramped from Ethiopia to Peru, via Morocco and Ohio, in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. He has asked whether we are alone in the galaxy, […]
By Harihar Swarup Can government ever find out black money deposited by Indians in foreign banks, particularly in Switzerland? Judging by records of the past governments, one wonders if Modi government can perform a feat—unearth back money stashed in foreign banks. Making election promises is one thing and fulfilling them is another thing. One of the main electoral promise of Narendra Modi was to unearth black money […]
By Barun Das Gupta The Union Cabinet has just cleared a Rs. 80,000 crore proposal for modernization of our defence forces. Earlier it had sanctioned another Rs. 40,000 crore for the same purpose. The decision has come not a day too soon. Defence has been the proverbial Cinderella of the Government ever since independence. Even the Chinese aggression of 1962 failed to make us realize the importance […]
India will launch an unmanned crew module in December onboard a heavy rocket to test its re-entry into the atmosphere for the country’s future maiden human space flight, the space agency chief said Thursday. “We will send an unmanned crew module on the experimental GSLV-Mark III rocket in December and test its re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere for a human space flight plan in future,” Indian […]
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Oommen Chandy Government has, for once, been constrained to act on an adverse verdict from the Kerala High Court, this time in the infamous ISRO espionage case. In the normal course, the Chief Minister would have chosen to ignore the HC verdict. He has done so on many earlier occasions despite public profession of having the greatest respect for court verdicts. […]
Israeli police officers arrested a right-wing activist on Thursday after he tried to access the sacred plateau revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary in the Old City of Jerusalem. By ISABEL KERSHNER and JODI RUDOREN October 30, 2014 JERUSALEM — Under heavy pressure and the threat of new Israeli-Palestinian strife, Israel announced on Thursday that it would reopen a contested holy site in […]
New Delhi: The geopolitical wrangling and heartburn over India’s mother of all defence deals, the lucrative $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project, is still not over. First, it was the Americans, then the Europeans and now, the Russians. Even as India and France inch forward to stitch up the contract for acquisition of 126 Rafale fighters for the IAF, Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin last […]
Mumbai: In the first big boost to the government’s “Make in India” initiative, aimed at making India a manufacturing hub, Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) on Tuesday announced a joint bid for a government contract to supply military aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF is looking to replace its fleet of Avro aircraft and the joint venture will supply Airbus’ […]
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters are headed to Kobani to help Syrian Kurds who have been fighting Islamic State militants since September for control of the town just south of the Turkish border. Saleh Moslem, co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Reuters that some peshmerga fighters were expected to arrive in Kobani late Tuesday. Kurdish officials said 80 fighters, equipped with artillery and machine guns, […]
By Nora Chopra Rahul Gandhi will contest the party president post next year. Before July 2015, Sonia Gandhi is likely to abdicate In favour of her son and will hold the post of some kind of local guardian of the party depending on the name being given to her position on the liens of the kind of a Marg Darshak in the BJP. In a meeting with […]
FRANKFURT: Twenty-five banks including Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA failed a stress test led by the European Central Bank, which said almost half of them must act to raise more capital. The central bank in Frankfurt identified a 25 billion-euro shortfall ($32 billion) for the region’s lenders, and said 12 of them have now raised enough funds. Eleven banks need more capital, including Monte […]
News Analysis By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK October 24, 2014 CAIRO — The British police arrest four men accused of plotting a bombing on the scale of the Mumbai hotel attack six years ago. The Australian authorities arrest a ring of 12 accused of plotting daring murders, including a public beheading. In Canada, a gunman assaults the Parliament building and kills a soldier guarding a war memorial, and a motorist strikes […]
The atmosphere at Westminster has always been more to Alex Salmond’s taste Photo: Getty Images So, will Alex Salmond make that return trip to Westminster, again? And does anyone care? His almost coquettish refusal to say for definite, on BBC’s Question Time, whether he plans to swap the IKEA-like backbenches of Holyrood for their green-leather equivalents at Westminster created a fair old stir in certain quarters yesterday. And, […]
By G. Srinivasan The upcoming G-20 Heads of State meeting in Brisbane, Australia in mid-November is being convened when urgent policy actions from major economies, advanced and emerging, call for coordinated and focused approach to get the world economy out of the anemic recovery. Latest economic data from global financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, OECD and the WTO do not inspire hope that […]
MUMBAI: Foreign funds are buying more Indian corporate bonds as there is no sign that the $25-billion limit on government securities — close to being exhausted — is going to be raised. Overseas portfolio investors have used up nearly half the overall investment limit in corporate bonds compared with 37 per cent four months ago. But foreign portfolio investors, or FPIs, can invest another Rs 1,23,580 crore […]
NEW DELHI — The Indian Defence Ministry — faced with a shortage of ammunition for its Russian-made T-90 tanks, coupled with an inability to produce ammunition at home — has no choice but to give in to Russian terms and purchase marked-up ammo from Moscow, an MoD source said. The MoD reluctantly agreed to the deal last month, despite the fact that Russia hiked the price […]
By Harihar Swarup Results in assembly election in Maharashtra are on expected lines: no party got majority and the BJP emerged as the single largest party, having secured only 121 seats in 288-member house, falling short of 22 seats to get majority. But in Haryana it was a real surprise: few expected clear majority for the BJP when in the last election the saffron party could […]
There were six in contention; four were dropped, and one became the Chosen One: The Rafale. In French, ‘Rafale’ poetically means a ‘sudden gust of wind.’ It was one of the six fighter aircraft in competition for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, MMRCA, when the Indian Air Force wanted to acquire 126 polyvalent fighter planes. In April 2011, the IAF shortlisted two birds — […]
By Barun Das Gupta KOLKATA: One of the first priorities of the NDA Government on coming to power was to address the task of speedily narrowing down the asymmetrical gap in India’s defence vis-à-vis China along the entire Himalayan border. In fact, this should have begun in right earnest more than half a century ago, immediately after India’s disastrous military defeat at the hands of the […]
MUMBAI: At one of the customary premonetary policy meetings with industry, former Reserve Bank of India governor Duvvuri Subbarao wanted to know how many of those present would benefit from an interest rate cut. Almost all hands went up. The next question was how many would pass on the lower cost to customers. Almost no one raised their hands. Subbarao kept interest rates unchanged. The voice of […]
