In the backdrop of a lingering border row in eastern Ladakh, the Army has upscaled its efforts to impart Chinese language training to its personnel as part of the overall strategy to ramp up surveillance along the over-3,400-km Line of Actual Control (LAC).

A slew of measures has been undertaken to improve its in-house Mandarin expertise and the aim is to empower junior and senior military commanders to engage with Chinese military personnel as and when the situation demands.

Mandarin language courses are being run at the language schools at the Northern, Eastern and Central commands of the Army.

The Indian Army is also using artificial intelligence-based solutions for the translation of various scripts or literature from the Mandarin language.

The Army now has a significant pool of Mandarin-qualified personnel drawn from all ranks, including officers and junior commissioned officers (JCOs).

The Army has recently obtained the requisite approvals to induct Mandarin-trained personnel in the Territorial Army.

The Indian Army has already concluded a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU), the Central University of Gujarat (CUG) and the Shiv Nadar University (SNU) for imparting Mandarin proficiency to its personnel.

Hopes of finding those missing in the Amarnath flash floods alive are fading by the hour even as the rescuers are making last-ditch efforts to look for any survivor and the Army has pressed heavy machinery into service to restore the track to the holy cave shrine in the south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said on July 10 .

Besides sniffer dogs, the rescuers are also using hand-held thermal imagers and other sophisticated devices to check for any sign of life under the mounds of debris.

TMC MLA Babul Supriyo has been appointed as a national spokesperson of the party.

Supriyo, the former union minister, took to Twitter to thank the party supremo for giving him the new responsibility.

Supriyo, a former BJP MP, was dropped from the Union ministry last year, following which he switched over to the TMC.

 The hillocks at Haduklau, a tribal hamlet at Longterai range of Tripura's Dhalai district is now dotted with small houses, which are the new address for many of the Bru community, who fled their homes in Mizoram 25 year ago following ethnic conflicts

Over 400 Bru people left a relief camp to set up houses on land provided by the government as a move to permanently solve the `refugee' status of the community.

Thousands of the Bru tribal people have been living in relief camps in Tripura since 1997.

They had fled their ancestral homeland in Mizoram to reach the neighbouring state, victims of ethnic clashes.

By now, the number of the internally displaced people has risen to over 37,136.

Altogether 426 people belonging to 92 families living in Naisinghpara camp in Kanchanpur subdivision of North Tripura district were brought to Haduklau in Dhalai district.

Sub-divisional Magistrate of Kanchanpur, Subhash Acharya said more than 37000 Reang/Bru people from Mizoram were sheltered in seven camps for more than 25-years in Kanchanpur subdivision and with the rehabilitation package coming into effect all the displaced people would be vacated from the subdivision and rehabilitated in different parts of the state by August 31 this year.

They are the first batch, who were rehabilitated, following an agreement signed in January last year among representatives of the community, the Centre and the governments of Tripura and Mizoram.

A 1,200 square feet plot has been allotted to each rehabilitated Bru family and Rs 1.5 lakh provided by the government to set up a home.

The agreement guarantees a fixed deposit of Rs 4 lakh for each family, a monthly sum of Rs 5,000 and free monthly ration for two years besides setting up of schools in all cluster villages.

Dr Manas Dev, an officer on special duty (OSD), who oversees the entire rehabilitation process, said that 1,638 Bru families were rehabilitated at four places - Haduklau and Bongaphapara in Dhalai district and Cascao and Waimbukcherra-Ranipara in North Tripura district.

Altogether 6,959 families would be rehabilitated in 14 places of the state.

The SDM said, all Bru people would be rehabilitated on or before August 31 in different places of the state including in Kalajhari hills in Amarpur subdivision of Gomati district.

The vexed Bru issue started in September, 1997, following demands for a separate autonomous district council for the community by carving out areas of western Mizoram adjoining Bangladesh and Tripura.

A large number of Bru people fled from Mizoram to Tripura as ethnic clashes broke out.

The Centre, along with the governments of Tripura and Mizoram, had been trying to repatriate them to their home state over the past decade, with little success.

The first attempt to repatriate the Brus from Tripura was made in November 2009 and the last one in 2019.

Several Bru families have refused to return to Mizoram, citing security concerns and inadequate rehabilitation package.

Some have also sought a separate autonomous council for the community.

Zubair Ahmed, the Editor of The Sunday Islander, an online news portal from Andaman and Nicobar islands has died.

He was found dead at a school where he was working as a 'manager' on July 8.

His body was found lying on the floor with a rope around his neck.

He was a resident of Wimberlygunj in South Andaman.

Sri Lanka's opposition political parties will meet on july 10  to agree on a new government a day after the country's president and prime minister offered to resign in the country's most chaotic day in months of political turmoil, with protesters storming both officials' homes and setting fire to one of the buildings in a rage over the nation's economic crisis.

It was not clear if President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was there at the time, and government spokesperson Mohan Samaranayake said he had no information about the president's movements.

Protesters remain in the compound where they stormed the president's official residence, his office and the prime minister's official residence, saying they will stay until the leaders officially resign. Soldiers were deployed around the city with Chief of Defense Staff Shavendra Silva calling for public support to maintain law and order.

Opposition lawmaker M. A. Sumanthiran said all opposition parties combined could easily muster the 113 members needed to show a majority in Parliament, at which point they will request Rajapaksa to install the new government and then resign. He said the parties hoped to reach a consensus.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he will leave office once a new government is in place, and hours later the speaker of Parliament said Rajapaksa would step down on july 13 . Pressure on both men had grown as the economic meltdown set off acute shortages of essential items, leaving people struggling to obtain food, fuel and other necessities.

If both president and prime minister resign, Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena will take over as temporary president, according to the constitution. Rajapaksa appointed Wickremesinghe as prime minister in May in an effort to solve the shortages and start economic recovery.

Wickremesinghe had been part of crucial talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout program and with the World Food Program to face a predicted food crisis. The government must submit a plan on debt sustainability to the IMF in August before reaching an agreement.

India on july 10 handed more than 44,000 metric tonnes of urea under a credit line extended to crisis-ridden Sri Lanka, as part of New Delhi's ongoing efforts to support the island nation's farmers and help bolster bilateral cooperation for food security, the Indian High Commission  said.

Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Gopal Baglay met Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera to inform him about the arrival of more than 44,000 metric tonnes of urea.

Last month, Amaraweera had met Baglay and sought India's help for food security and environmental protection in the island nation, as it faces the worst economic crisis in its post-independence history.

In May, India assured Sri Lanka to immediately supply 65,000 metric tonnes of urea to avoid any disruption to the current Yala cultivation season in Sri Lanka. Yala is the season of paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka that lasts between May and August.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's decision last year to ban chemical fertiliser imports in order to turn into a green economy has caused a food shortage with crop losses amounting to 50 per cent. Rajapaksa had admitted his decision to ban chemical fertilisers to go 100 per cent organic was wrong.

Agriculturists have warned that the country may encounter a food shortage by mid-August in the ongoing economic crisis. India has committed more than USD 3 billion to debt-ridden Sri Lanka in loans, credit lines and credit swaps since January this year. Sri Lanka's annual fertiliser imports cost USD 400 million.

The consignment of urea comes after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa offered to resign on July 13, after thousands of protesters stormed his official residence on july 9 , blaming his government for an unprecedented economic crisis that has brought the country to its knees.

In a surprising move, billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani Group has confirmed its entry into the race to acquire the 5G spectrum. The company, however, denied that it will not be in a consumer mobility space. It said will participate in the 5G spectrum auction to own a private network Adani will pit against Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio and telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel. Telecom experts believe the entry of Adani Group in the auction, which is scheduled to take place on July 26, will intensify competition and bidding intensity of telcos as now there will be 3 players in the fray with deep pockets.

Adani Group; which has the business of operating airports and ports, generating and distributing electricity, and coal and gas; said its purpose to participate in the auction is to provide private network solutions along with enhanced cyber security in the airport, ports and logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution, and various manufacturing operations.

Spectrum award to the firm will align with its recent announcement of raising Adani Foundation’s investments in education, healthcare and skill development in rural areas, each of which stands to benefit from 5G technology