Kabul forwards a request letter to India for launching an exclusive satellite for Afghanistan:

Three months after the successful launch of South Asian Satellite, India now has got a request to launch a satellite for a foreign country. As per the reports, the Afghanistan government has asked Indian officials to launch a special satellite for their specific use only. The Government official said in a letter that the request is made by the Afghan Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology to the Indian officials.

The request was made during the meeting between Afghanistan minister Syed Ahmad Shah Sadat and Indian Ambassador Manpreet Vohra in Kabul. The motive behind the launch of a special satellite is yet nit clear, however, the speculations are that Kabul needs a satellite to find out the terrorist hideout. The two ministers also discussed India opening a terminal in the South Asia Satellite for Kabul only. The South Asia Satellite currently assists small Indian projects.

 

There will be soon a MoU signed by the Afghan government which would let them use the South Asia Satellite. There are total 12 transponders in the website out of which, 2 will be offered to Afghanistan. The country has its plan to employ these transponders in the field of telecommunications, television services, agriculture, mines and others. The construction work of a special satellite station in Kabul has already started.

In May earlier this year, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani joined the rest of the South Asian countries that supported the launch of South Asian Satellite. The satellite is aimed to benefit all the major South Asian countries and was thus welcomed by major South Asian nations warm heartedly. This was appreciated as a huge regional step by most of the Asian countries.

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A big shipment of heroin caught at the coasts: The coastguards seize 1500 Kg drugs

The latest national news is coming from the western state of Gujarat where the Indian naval authorities have seized heroine worth of Rs. 3500 crore ($550m). The coastguards said that the heroine drug was found in a naval vessel and is estimated to be worth Rs. 3500. In his interview with the press, D K Sharma, the spokesman of Navy described this as “the largest single haul of narcotics to date”.

To furnish the further investigation, the vessel is now been taken to the city of Porbandar.

“The NTRO shared the intelligence about the suspect vessel on July 27 and the Coast Guard was notified. Intelligence suggested the crew was negotiating the mode of payment for the contraband and its intended destination,” a navy official told on the condition of anonymity.

 

In past some time, India has been struggling to touch the transit state for drug trade and abuse. India faces a big threat for drug abuse because of its close proximity to Afghanistan which is in known to be the primary manufacturer of the drug. The primary produce here is heroin.

As per the report of the UN office on Drugs and Crime, large shipments of heroin from Afghanistan are smuggled from Afghanistan to many east & south African cities through the Indian Ocean.

The advent of drug abuse in India has already affected many young and adults. India has recently started to address the issue of drug abuse in India. It was earlier an issue spread in the male community, however, in recent times many cases of female drug addicts have come to light.

Also, there are many cases recorded in which the guilty was under the influence of drugs like cocaine and heroin while committing the grueling act. Also as per a study, 860000 men in India from the age group of 15 to 35 are addicted to drugs out of which 53% are addicted to heroin.

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PM Birthday wish to Chinese President doesn’t earn much:

The Chinese consulate has dropped some hints that there can be a bilateral meeting between the National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chinese state councilor Yang Jiechi. The prediction of the hints so far indicates that the meeting would be conducted in the sidelines of the meeting of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) NSAs in this week in the Chinese capital.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu Kang told the media that it has been an old tradition that at the past the two meetings- BRICS NSAs, are held simultaneously and the two leaders would meet. However, he did not confirm whether this will be a possibility this time or not. The BRICS NSAs, meetings are scheduled on 27-28 July.

 

Beijing has denied any conversation with India related to the Doklam region, where India troops are deployed. Doklam is a region between China & Bhutan that juts Sikkim.

Amid all the controversial states, the India Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on their birthdays through Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Modi wished Xi on his birthday, his post read; “I met him in Astana SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) summit a few days ago, and we had effective talk on how to develop Sino-India relationship,”

PM Modi has a huge fan following on the platform with over 1, 69,119 followers. A total of 1089 Chinese responded to his post. One of the users wrote, “Narendra Modi, you should call for the complete withdrawal of troops now!”

Modi also wrote about the International Yoga day and expressed his pleasure as Chinese are practicing yoga. He also expressed grief for the deadly mudslide in Mao Xian area that took many live on June 25th.

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Security forces will hunt down the culprits who are responsible for the lives of the innocents; Army Chief:

Addressing the press on Tuesday, the Army chief General Bipin Rawat said that the security forces of India in Kashmir will hunt down the terrorist who are behind the “dastardly” attack on the innocent Amarnath Yatra pilgrims. He also has instructed his commanders to pursue a relentless pressure on the terrorist in counter-militancy as well as counter-infiltration operations.

General Rawat visited the attack site on Tuesday. The attack on the Amarnath Pilgrims at Anantnag district of Kashmir made the latest national news as 7 pilgrims were killed while 12 were injured. The army chief had some serious talks with the J&K Governor NN Vohra and the CM Mehbooba Mufti. He also addressed a security review meeting with his high ranked army official. State chief secretary BB Vyas and director general of police SP Vaid were also the part of the security review meeting.

 

The main custody of the security of Amarnath Yatra, where more than 2.5 lakh pilgrims come every year, is with central armed police forces (CAPFs) which have 300 companies (over 30,000 troops). However, this year, the army has also deployed five battalions including 5,000 soldiers for the security of the pilgrimage.

Three units of the Army safeguard NH-44 from Jawahar Tunnel to Srinagar and one unit each ensures safety at northern and southern routes, from Baltal and Chandanwari respectively, to the cave shrine.

Meanwhile, the survived Amarnath Yatra pilgrims have thanked their bus driver Saleem for making them out safe. As the fire broke, Saleem kept driving the bus to save as many lives as he could save.

However, the tragedy could have been saved if the driver has had followed the security restriction, i.e. no vehicle must be on road after 5 p.m.

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GST is the biggest and the most critical economic reform of India, says PM Narendra Modi

On Thursday, addressing a press conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that GST is till date the biggest business and economic reform of India and that with steps like GST the country is moving towards a modern tax regime, that will be transparent, stable as well as predictable. This is the latest national news today.

“We have resolved a number of regulatory and policy issues facing businesses and companies. We have worked very sincerely for ease of doing business. We are positioning India as a global manufacturing hub. This is necessary for us to take advantage of youth energy. For this, we have launched Make in India,” Prime Minister Modi said, addressing the first joint meeting of Indo-Israel CEO’s forum.

 

PM Modi also invited the Israeli industry to take part in the “Startup India initiative”. For this, the Prime Minister launched an India-Israel StartUp Bridge with the motive of encouraging the startups from both the countries to come up and work together; find out the solutions for the challenges in many industries like agriculture, water & healthcare.

“There is a lot of potential for India-Israel partnership and I am happy that startup bridge has been formally launched today. Israel is known as a startup nation. It has a unique sense and ecosystem for innovation and incubation. Credit must go to the Israeli entrepreneurs,” the PM said.

With high hopes that both Indian and Israeli entrepreneurs would come ahead to touch new heights of innovation, the PM said. “The driving force is opportunities for the betterment of lives of people.” Both the Prime Minister asserted, “Innovation is life” while inaugurating the Innovation Bridge. The CEOs Forum has made a new target for bilateral trade this time and the two countries are targeting on the business of $5 billion to $20 billion in next five years.

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India’s latest communication satellite GSAT-17 launched from French Guiana

India has successfully launched its latest communication satellite GSAT-17 today in a heavy-duty rocket of Arianespace from the spaceport of Kourou in French Guiana. This is the latest national news from India that boasts of the technical excellence of the country.

The satellite is configured over I-3K extended bus & has a lift-off mass of over 3477 kg. It carries the heavy payload of Normal C- band, Extended C-band and S-band that will provide assistance to many communication services.

GSAT-17 also carries heavy equipment for assisting meteorological data relay and is also enabled to offer satellite-based search and rescue services like all earlier INSAT satellites.

The European launcher Arianespace Flight VA238 took off from the Ariane Launch Complex No 3 (ELA 3) at Kourou, which is a French territory located in the Northeastern coast of South America. It was scheduled at 2:29 hrs IST but was delayed by a couple of minutes.

 

The GSAT-17 injection was done soon after it orbited the co-passenger Hellas Sat 3-Inmarsat S EAN after a flight of 41 minutes.

The Indian headquarter of ISRO confirmed the launch with an announcement “GSAT-17 successfully launched by Ariane-5 VA-238 from Kourou, French Guiana,”

The satellite will strengthen the fleet of ISRO as the organization now has 17 super powerful communication satellites. The recently launched GSAT-17 was released into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

This is the third achievement of ISRO this month, earlier ISRO launched GSLV MkIII and PSLV C-38, both from Sriharikota spaceport.

Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel confirmed the launch of the satellite and tweeted: “Confirmed: GSAT-17 has successfully separated from its #Ariane5 launcher #VA238 @ISRO “

Dr. K Sivan, Director Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre thanked Arianespace and quoted the mission a “textbook mission”.

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Apple is working on automated system for Car Driving; confirms Tim Cook

 

In the latest interview, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook confirmed that Apple is working towards developing an “automated system” that can empower a driverless car.
In an interview with a leading channel, Tim said, “Autonomy is something that’s incredibly exciting for us, but we’ll see where it will take us. We’re not really saying from a product point of view what we’ll do, but we’re being straightforward that it’s a core technology we view as very important.” The CEO further added, “We sort of see it as the mother of all AI (Artificial Intelligence) projects. It’s probably one of the most difficult A.I. projects actually to work on.”

Apple was since long working on developing a car under its own name. The project was better known as “Project Titan” but it has to face some major changes when Cupertino giant started recalibrating its resources. This made the latest national news back then.
This is when the company started working on making an autonomous system, however, there were no confirmation whether the “Project Titan” was abandoned. This is the first time Tim Cook has spoken publicly about Apple’s future plans.

Bob Mansfield, the one man who engineered the iMac, iPad and the MacBook Air was made the head of the “Project Titan” team in 2016. While there was no official confirmation from Cook or the team, it was reported that Apple has obtained a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles in April silently to test three driver-less vehicles.

There is no doubt that Apple is the market leader in the Smartphone market, and with its driverless cars coming up, it will soon lead the automobile sector too.

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Peeved over the “Poor India” remark, hacker releases data of more than 1.7 million Snapchat users.

The Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s comment on restricting the mushrooming of the app in India has garnered a rather agitated reaction by Indian users and as per the latest update, a group of hackers has claimed to have leaked data of more than 1.7 million Snapchat users.

As reported by a Leading Indian News Source, an anonymous group of hackers has claimed that they hacked the data last year.

This was a reaction that came to the Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel’s remark on restricting the expansion of his app business in “Poor Countries” like India. The hackers claimed that they got their hands on the database of Snapchat and were able to siphon the data of 1.7 million app users. The data was released in the darknet which was a step of retaliation

Indian hackers are bug bounty hunters and they said that they had found the bug in Snapchat’s database last year but never thought to use the data until the arrogance of the CEO was out.

Snapchat haven’t confirmed any leak in their records. The comment of the CEO has already offended the India Users and this cam is seen on the social media as well where many antiSnapchat campaigns are running. As a result, the rating of Snapchat on app store has rolled down to 1 star from a shining 5 star. Even hashtags like #Uninstall-Snapchat and #BoycottSnapchat were trending on Twitter.

It was a former employee of Snapchat who disclosed that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said this statement in a meeting in 2015.

Offering their share of clarification an international spokesperson of Snap Chat said, This is ridiculous. Obviously, Snapchat is for everyone! It’s available worldwide to download for free,” “Those words were written by a disgruntled former employee. We are grateful for our Snapchat community in India and around the world,” the statement added.

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Death Sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav, India reacts:

As soon as the news of the death penalty awarded to Kulbhushan Jadhav came out, India reacted to the decision of Pakistan Government sternly. The Pakistan Government declared that an Indian arrested last year, Kulbhushan Jadhav would be hanged till death, a result of the charge of espionage, on which India refused to set free the 12 Pakistani prisoners who were declared free to return home.

Pakistan announced that Kulbhushan Sudhir Yadav, the 46-year-old man has confessed to spying for Indian intelligence agency. Thus, he was facing a trial in a military court where he was found guilty and sentenced to death. The court was close to public and had a private session.

The Pakistani army statement did not clear the place of the execution, the statement read, “Today, (army chief) Gen Qamer Javed Bajwa has confirmed his death sentence,”

This invited stress between the two neighbors and the Indian foreign ministry released a statement saying, “If this sentence against an Indian citizen, awarded without observing basic norms of law and justice, is carried out, the government and people of India will regard it as a case of premeditated murder,”

Jadhav, a former naval officer, was arrested in March last year by Pakistan. As per the claims, he told the Pakistani army that he was on a mission set by India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency which was to plan, coordinate, and organize espionage/sabotage activities aiming to destabilise and wage war against Pakistan” in the port city Karachi and in the province of Balochistan.

An insider told a leading Indian news source that the court martial was a secret affair and even many in the ranks were not aware of it.

Hassan Askari, a Pakistani analyst expressed his doubt on the decision and its effects on the two countries. He said that the execution of Jadhav would “further increase tension between the two countries”.

He told a leading Indian news aggregator that “The military has given a severe punishment which is according to Pakistani law,” he further added, “But we will have to see if Pakistan can sustain the political and diplomatic fallout.”