NEW DELHI: The defence ministry on Tuesday signed a ₹1,950-crore deal with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to equip the Indian Air Force with two mountain radars, associated equipment and the required infrastructure, strengthening the country’s air defences.. IAFto get mountain radars worth ₹1,950 cr. The contract is the last capital acquisition contract of financial year 2025-26.. This radar is indigenously designed and developed by DRDO’s Electronics and Radar Development Establishment and will be manufactured by BEL. “The installation and commissioning of these radars will boost the country’s air defence and strengthen national security. The procurement will also reduce dependency on foreign equipment,” the defence ministry said.. The contract was signed under the Buy (Indian-IDDM) category. This is the most important category of acquisition for indigenisation under the defence procurement policy. IDDM stands for indigenously designed, developed and manufactured.. According to official data, capital procurement contracts amounting to ₹2.28 lakh crore for 503 proposals were signed during 2025-26. Also, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for 55 proposals amounting to ₹6.73 lakh crore during that period. “Both the quantum of AoN given and capital contracts signed so far has been the highest in any given financial year,” the defence ministry said last week.. The DAC, headed by defence minister Rajnath Singh, on Friday approved a military capability boost worth ₹2.38 lakh crore to equip the country’s armed forces with more Russian-origin S-400 Triumf air defence systems, remotely piloted strike aircraft, transport planes, artillery guns and tank ammunition. 

 All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday took a jibe at the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu over the law and order in the state.. As he pinned down the ruling DMK government with several criticisms, the AIADMK supremo also assured support for the firework and match industries in the Sivakasi district. (PTI file photo). As Palaniswami addressed a rally in Tamil Nadu’s Sivakasi ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the state on April 23, he assured that if party comes into power, it would eradicate long standing projects and improve stability in the state, reported news agency PTI.. As he pinned down the ruling DMK government with several criticisms, the AIADMK supremo also assured support for the firework and match industries in the Sivakasi district.. Palaniswami lists allegations against DMK. Slamming the DMK for stalling the Cauvery-Gundar river linking project and asserted that his party – the AIADMK would implement it if it forms a government in the poll-bound state.. Targeting the DMK government on the Cauvery-Gundaru project, he said it was planned to fill canals, lakes, and ponds with surplus water from the Mettur Dam, PTI reported. The DMK government has put this project in cold storage, he claimed.. Talking of Sivakasi, Palaniswami said that the region is not just famous in Tamil Nadu but across the world for its firework industry. “When the firework industry faced a crisis while I was the chief minister, I led a committee of 20 MPs to meet the union minister to demand that the sale of fireworks should not be banned,” he said.. He recalled that it was the AIADMK that “voiced” in court to save the fireworks industry. “Thousands of people work in these industries, and there are many farmers and printing press workers here. If the AIADMK government is formed again, these industries will be protected,” he assured.. Hitting out at the DMK government once again, he pointed towards the establishment of a medical college and hospital at an outlay of ₹400 crore in Virudhunagar district during the previous AIADMK government, he said the DMK took credit for the project.. “When the AIADMK government returns to power, this project will be completed. For this, ₹14,000 crore was allocated and I personally laid the foundation stone. Before it could be finished, the government changed. Once this project gets completed, Virudhunagar district will be lush and green,” he added.. Attacking the DMK government over law and order situation in the state, Palaniswami alleged that the state was in shambles in this field and that there was no safety for girl child or to elderly.. “Do you want such a government to continue? A ‘Puppet CM’ who cannot even appoint a permanent DGP? A state will prosper only if law and order is good. The DMK’s only thought is commission, collection, corruption,” he argued.. Referring to a banner that was displayed by children when he arrived for c 

 A man brutally assaulted a four-year-old boy by lifting him up by his legs and slamming him into the ground, thereafter smashing the child’s head on an iron rod.. The incident, which was captured on the CCTV camera, took place in a housing society at Vasai on Monday night. (Screengrab). The accused, an autorickshaw driver, allegedly carried out the violent assault after an argument with the minor’s father in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, PTI news agency cited the police as saying.. In a video footage of the incident, the accused is seen walking towards his autorickshaw, following which he picks the child up from the ground and slams him. The driver is then seen picking the four-year-old up and running inside a building.. The incident, which was captured on the CCTV camera, took place in a housing society at Vasai on Monday night.. The accused was arrested after the incident, police said, according to PTI, while the child was critically injured and taken to the hospital. The four-year-old sustained head injuries and was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at a hospital in Mira road and is battling for his life, police added.. “The brutal incident took place around 8 pm on Monday. A minor argument between the accused autorickshaw driver Sandeep Pawar and the child’s father Atul Kondhare took a gruesome turn,” senior police inspector Balkrishna Ghadigaonkar told PTI.. The inspector said the child was playing with other children in the parked autorickshaw when the driver walked out to the three-wheeler. Ghadigaonkar said that after forcefully slamming the child, the driver “rushed inside the building while holding the child, and smashed his head against an iron rod before throwing him to the ground again.”. The inspector said that the assault was carried out solely to avenge a fight he had earlier with the boy’s father over a minor issue.” The accused was remanded to three days of police custody by a local court, after a case was registered against him under ‘attempt to murder’ and other relevant sections of the BNS. 

 A performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has flagged major lapses in welfare delivery for Odisha’s most vulnerable tribal groups, revealing that over half of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) remain excluded from key schemes, while the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has failed to provide the mandated 100 days of work to 90% of households.. CAG audit exposes gaps in Odisha tribal schemes (Getty/ Representative photo). The report, tabled in the state assembly, highlights that despite hundreds of crores in expenditure, 54% of the PVTG population—approximately 1.60 lakh people—were left out of welfare coverage, as the Micro Project Agencies, the primary institutional mechanism for tribal upliftment, failed to extend basic services to newly notified habitations populated by tribals of 13 PVTGs.. According to the report, a baseline survey in 2018–19 identified 1,138 new villages inhabited by PVTGs, yet these areas remained outside the reach of the Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihood Improvement Programme.. While 18% of these excluded households had access to safe drinking water, gas connectivity reached only 34% of them. In some cases, the report said that entire communities like the Birhors, identified as a PVTG in 1986, remained beyond the reach of benefits because the designated agency had not become functional.. A joint physical inspection of 69 drinking water projects showed that 55% were non-operational. Similarly, 58% of inspected irrigation projects were defunct due to a lack of maintenance and repair funds. In one village, a solar power irrigation project completed in 2022 was found defunct by 2024.. To combat malnutrition, the state established 116 Nutrition Resource Centres, yet 55 of these units built at a cost of ₹3.59 crore were found lying idle because the department failed to plan for operational expenses.. The state spent ₹48.29 crore on 229 processing units (such as oil extraction and dal mills) to boost tribal income. However, the audit found that 46% were non-functional, largely due to a lack of electricity or poor assessment of local capabilities.. The audit of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), a centrally sponsored scheme designed to provide a legal “guarantee” of 100 days of work per year, found that only 6.24% to 11.26% of households that demanded work were actually provided with the full 100 days of employment during the 2019–24 period. In some districts, this figure plummeted as low as 0.20%.. Furthermore, 1.22 lakh households in test-checked districts were denied work entirely, yet the state failed to pay the mandatory “unemployment allowance” required under the Act. The average annual income for households in some districts under the scheme was as low as ₹7,256, providing just 34 days of work. Beneficiaries reported a lack of interest in the scheme due to wages significantly lower than the state 

 The West Asia conflict figured at the centre of political speeches of PM Narendra Modi and Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday as both blamed the other for the domino effects on India.. PM Modi was in Gujarat and Rahul Gandhi in Kerala on Tuesday. (Photos: X/PTI). Speaking in Vav-Tharad, Gujarat, PM Modi said India’s “effective” foreign policy and the “unwavering unity” of citizens have kept the “situation under control” despite global difficulties regarding oil and related energy requirements.. Addressing a public gathering in his home state after inaugurating development projects, PM Modi said, “The situation unfolding in West Asia is having repercussions across the entire world. Difficulties regarding energy requirements — specifically diesel, petrol, and gas – have escalated globally. Yet, even amidst such a crisis, India has successfully kept the situation under control.”. He alleged that the Congress wishes for the West Asia conflict to escalate so they can “gain political advantage”.. “Congress is busy spreading fear and rumours. Congress is actively inciting the public. Like political vultures, Congress is waiting, hoping that troubles will escalate so that it can exploit the situation to gain political advantage,” the PM alleged, as per news agency ANI.. Earlier in the day, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, at a rally in Kozhikode district in poll-bound Kerala, warned that a “financial earthquake is coming”.. “You know better than me what is happening in the Middle East (West Asia),” he told the gathering, as Kerala sends a large number of workers to the Gulf region.. “You know the drama that is unfolding there. A tragedy is taking place. And nobody knows where it will end, where it will go. And the people of Kerala, the people of India, are going to be directly affected. Fuel prices are going to rise. Inflation is going to go up. An earthquake, a financial earthquake, is coming,” he said.. He questioned the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, as well as the Left front Kerala government, over their efforts.. “Modi cannot do anything. He is run by (US President) Donald Trump. But what is the Kerala government doing to protect you?” he said.. The situation escalated in West Asia after a joint US-Israel military strike on February 28 on Iranian territory resulted in the death of its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior figures, prompting a fierce response from Tehran.. As of now, reports suggest that the US is preparing plans for the possibility of extended ground operations in Iran for several weeks, as per The Washington Post. But mixed signals continue to come from Trump, while Iran has threatened to hit American companies, including Google and Apple, in the Gulf region.