IRGC attacks US bases in Jordan after US bombs Larak Island
Tehran: Iran launched ballistic missiles at two US-operated air bases in Jordan on Sunday, state media reported, hours after US forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, in the first American strikes on Iran in a month. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the missiles targeted technical infrastructure, maintenance facilities and…
Pessimists Silenced
For years, one familiar refrain dominated discussions on Bharat’s defence manufacturing: Bharat cannot even make a decent assault rifle on its own. The critics had a point once. Bharat’s small-arms story was hardly inspiring. The INSAS, despite being an indigenous effort, acquired a reputation for reliability problems, while the armed forces remained dependent on imports…
Deepti Sharma becomes leading women’s T20I wicket-taker with 171 scalps
Dubai: Veteran Indian all-rounder Deepti Sharma on Sunday became the leading wicket-taker in women’s T20 Internationals with 171 wickets, during their 94-run rout of Thailand in the Women’s Asia Cup here. Deepti achieved the feat in her 150th T20I for India, becoming only the third Indian after Harmanpreet Kaur (203) and Smriti Mandhana (172) to…
Pak, Saudi Arabia agree to boost agricultural, food exports to USD 3 billion
Islamabad: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have agreed to increase Islamabad’s agricultural and food exports to Riyadh to USD 3 billion over the next two years, according to a joint statement on Sunday. The agreement was reached during Saudi Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdulrahman A Al-Fadley’s visit to Pakistan from August 26 to 28….
Don’t abuse our nation, will cost you dearly: Rijiju warns NY protesters ‘desecrating’ Indian flag
New Delhi: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday took serious exception to protesters allegedly desecrating the Indian flag outside the New York venue where RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat addressed an event. Posting a purported video of the protest on X, Rijiju said, “We always said, you have freedom to criticise RSS, BJP or government. But…
Odisha and Hyderabad: Two Cricket Associations, One Governance Crisis
Special Correspondent Indian cricket may be flourishing on the field, but the picture off it is becoming increasingly uncomfortable. The latest controversy surrounding the Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) and the continuing turmoil in the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) may appear, on the surface, to be two separate disputes. In reality, they expose a strikingly similar…
India Builds Its Own AI Backbone
MS Sparsha For years, the equation was brutally simple. If India wanted advanced artificial intelligence, cloud computing and massive computing power, it had to largely depend on technology companies from the United States and other global giants. The servers were owned by companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Computing power was rented, often in…
Bhagwat’s Message: Time for Congress to Reconsider Its RSS Narrative
MS Shanker The Congress and its political allies may not like it, but they can no longer conveniently dismiss the RSS as a communal organisation without confronting a rather uncomfortable question: what exactly does its chief, Mohan Bhagwat, mean when he unequivocally says that a Hindu who believes Muslims should not live in Bharat is…
The World Rewires
Why has the ongoing US-Iran confrontation suddenly gone strangely quiet? The thunderous rhetoric has faded. The threats have softened. Washington is no longer shouting from the rooftops, while Iran’s spiritual and political leadership appears equally reluctant to keep the microphone switched on. What happened? The simple answer is that geopolitics is not cricket. There are…
Bharat Is Rising
There are some infrastructure projects whose importance goes far beyond the concrete, steel and wires that go into building them. They change the destiny of an entire region. The Srinagar–Alusteng–Drass–Kargil–Khaltsi–Leh 220 kV Transmission Line is one such project. On February 3, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally dedicated this remarkable piece of high-altitude infrastructure to…