Security concerns in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific were long ignored, but now the strategic region is a top priority for India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Kochi on Friday as he commissioned INS Vikrant — the largest warship to be built in the country — into the navy, with his comments coming against the backdrop of a firm Chinese push for greater maritime influence in the far seas

An influential Karnataka seer, who is accused of raping two minor girls, will have to stay in jail and can only be shifted to the hospital if his health worsens, a local court said on Friday, pulling up the police for shifting the head of the monastery out of prison for medical reasons within hours of his arrest.

The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to social activist Teesta Setalvad and directed her release by Saturday on the condition that she surrender her passport and cooperate with the investigation into the case lodged against her by Gujarat police accusing her of falsifying evidence in the 2002 riots cases.

The petition sought a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs in Jammu & Kashmir between 1990 and 2003

Ambedkar played a key role in pushing social-security legislation in 1948, paving the way for the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation in 1952.

India plans to buy 26 new fighters for INS Vikrant through a government-to-government deal, with US firm Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet competing with French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation’s Rafale-M for the order.

The government maintained that it was because of the Congress party that the country had to wait for 75 years to get its first indigenous aircraft carrier.

The eight officers featured in a brochure handed out to more than 3,000 guests at the INS Vikrant commissioning ceremony

The scheme, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018, is currently applicable to poor and vulnerable groups and provides an insurance cover of ₹5 lakh to 107.4 million families.