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Three Indian vessels left Seychelles on 15 October after a four-day port call that included joint drills at sea with the islands’ coast guard and training ashore for Seychellois forces, the Indian government said. Image Source: @hci_seychelles on X The ships — the naval vessels INS Tir and INS Sujata and the coast guard ship Sarathi, which make up the Indian Navy’s First Training Squadron — arrived at Port Victoria on 12 October during what the ministry described as an ongoing training deployment. The squadron’s senior officer and the commanding officers of the three ships called on Major General Michael Rosette, chief of the Seychelles Defence Forces. The two sides discussed bilateral cooperation. Indian personnel conducted firefighting and small-arms training for Seychellois troops, and the two navies ran cross-training visits. The squadron carried out a passage exercise with the Seychelles coast guard ship Andromache involving joint patrolling, communication drills and coordi...

India’s defence minister said on Friday that some of those behind two weeks of protests over the country’s electoral rolls were seeking a change of regime on the Bangladeshi model and accused them of making young people instruments of what he called the politics of anarchy Representational Image Source: @rajnathsingh on X Speaking at a news conference in Lucknow, Rajnath Singh said one person had openly told a press conference that she drew inspiration for regime change from Bangladesh while another had spoken of bringing down the government. Their only agenda, he said, was to destroy democratic institutions and set the country alight. He was referring to remarks made this week. The student leader Neha Bora has reportedly said she is influenced by the movement that removed Sheikh Hasina from power in Bangladesh. The advocate Prashant Bhushan told a news conference on Thursday that a change of government was the declared aim, that this is the purpose of any opposition in a democracy...

India commissioned the first of class Multi-Purpose Vessels (MPVs) built by a private company for the first time. This is being seen as a shift in a naval shipbuilding programme that had run for decades almost entirely through state-owned yards Image Source: @VPIndia on X INS Samarthak entered service at the navy’s base at Karwar on the Arabian Sea coast at a ceremony presided over by Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan and attended by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, Karnataka’s labour minister Santosh Lad, and executives of Larsen and Toubro, the engineering group that built her. Swaminathan described the ship as the first major warship contracted to and constructed by a private shipyard. Indian private firms have supplied the navy with components, smaller craft and dock infrastructure for years, but the warships themselves have come from government-owned yards. The admiral was measured about what follows. Shortening the journey from prototype to pr...

India’s statutory press regulator has issued guidelines instructing journalists how to cover protests safely, nearly two weeks into a confrontation in the capital during which some reporters were detained. The guidelines are addressed to the press Representational Image The Press Council of India adopted the Guidelines for Journalists Covering Protests and Demonstrations at a meeting on 14 October and released them, citing what it called the prevailing scenario and the need for orderly and effective coverage.  They seek, the Council said, to promote the safety of media personnel, responsible reporting and better coordination among journalists, media organisations and law enforcement. Much of the document is practical. Reporters are told to keep a safe distance from confrontations, to take short steps in crowds to avoid falling, to keep an escape route in mind and update it as conditions change, and in tear gas to use visible landmarks to leave rather than move deeper into a crowd...

India marked the 95th birth anniversary of A P J Abdul Kalam on Thursday, with tributes from the prime minister and senior ministers to a rocket engineer who became the country’s eleventh president and remains one of its most widely admired public figures File Photo Via: @sameer_kasture on X PM Narendra Modi described him as a visionary who ignited young minds and inspired the nation to dream big, and said his life showed that humility and hard work matter. Home Minister Amit Shah said Kalam had dedicated a rare scientific genius to making India a significant strategic power. The defence minister, Rajnath Singh, called his contribution to self-reliance in defence unforgettable, and the foreign minister, S Jaishankar, said his vision and dedication continued to inspire. Tributes crossed party lines. Akhilesh Yadav offered what he called a hundredfold salutation, and Pawan Kalyan said Kalam’s journey showed the power of education, discipline and perseverance. Kalam was born on 15 ...

A phrase with a long and loaded history entered India’s street confrontation over electoral rolls on Thursday, when advocate Prashant Bhushan said a regime change was a democratic right and the ruling party said the remark proved the protests had never been about voter lists at all Representational Image Via: @DrMeenaJangid on X Speaking at a news conference in Delhi alongside the student leader Neha Bora and the youth organiser Abhijeet Dipke, he rejected the government’s characterisation of the campaign. “This government keeps on saying this is the opposition’s operation of regime change. We are only appealing to save the electoral democracy in this country,” he said. Then came the conditional, and then the assertion. “If such barbarism continues, there will definitely be a regime change. We all want a regime change. Is there anything wrong with that? Regime change is a democratic right of every citizen, and creating disaffection against the government is not an offence.” He s...

India’s Supreme Court issued notices on Thursday across a cluster of cases arising from nearly two weeks of protests over the country’s electoral rolls, and one of the petitioners said the court had indicated it may frame guidelines to protect women demonstrators and women journalists Representational Image Via: @INCIndia on X The court issued notice to the Election Commission and its commissioners on the opposition petition over the revision of electoral rolls.  Petitions concerning the police operation of 10 October were heard together. The advocate Shailendra Mani Tripathi, one of the petitioners, said the court had taken cognisance and indicated it intended to issue guidelines, particularly for women protesters and women journalists.  The Delhi High Court separately declined to restrain a protest called for Friday at Central Park in Connaught Place, on an application by a licensed street vendor who said his business would suffer. The court recorded an assurance from t...

The foreign ministers of India and Canada met in New Delhi on Wednesday to discuss defence, energy and a trade agreement both governments want concluded this year, three years after an assassination allegation reduced relations between the two countries to their lowest point in decades. Image Via: @DrSJaishankar on X EAM S Jaishankar and Anita Anand reviewed what India’s foreign ministry described as efforts to strengthen bilateral relations across the India-Canada strategic partnership. The two had a detailed exchange on security and defence cooperation and on expanding energy cooperation, the ministry said, and discussed trade, education, science and technology, people-to-people ties and cooperation in multilateral bodies. They welcomed progress towards an early conclusion of negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and said the momentum in high-level contacts should be translated into tangible outcomes. Anand also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who d...

India’s Supreme Court is due to hear on Thursday an opposition petition seeking disclosure of the Election Commission’s internal files on a revision of electoral rolls that has allegedly removed about 130 million names Representational Image: @RahulGandhi on X The petition filed by Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the lower house, and other opposition leaders, asks the court to order the release of the files, agendas, minutes, notings and objections recorded by the two election commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. It asks the court to examine those records to establish whether Chief Election Commissioner acted arbitrarily and unilaterally, and seeks an interim order suspending the revision while the case is decided.  The two commissioners are central to the dispute. The Indian Express reported earlier that they had raised concerns with the chief election commissioner at least 14 times over ten months about decisions on voter registration and deletion...