The beautifully handwritten note on the yellowing service record, compiled by the Punjab government in 1919 and now over a century old, is as brief as it is poignant.
In faded ink, the entry for Wasawa Singh, the son of Shera, a Jat from the village of Gaike in northeast Punjab, tells the story of a young life cut short in the service of an alien empire.
There are no dates, merely a rank — havildar, equivalent to sergeant — and the name of a unit, the 30th Punjabis.
The first informal set of rules of badminton — initially called ‘Poona’ – were formed in India by the British colonists in 1867. Later, as the British officers took the game back home, it acquired the name of Badminton after the country estate of Duke of Beaufort.
In March 1873, an English sports lover sent out a request to The Field: The Country Gentlemen’s Newspaper in England for information about the new ‘Badminton game of Battledore’ that, he had heard, was a favourite in India and was picking up in Britain.
The story so far: India’s defence exports have increased from ₹1,521 crore in 2016-17 to ₹8,434.84 crore in 2020-21. The figure stood at ₹10,745 crore in 2018-19. The Government has set an ambitious target to achieve exports of about ₹35,000 crore ($5 billion) in aerospace and defence goods and services by 2025.
According to the latest report of the Swedish think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), three Indian companies figure among the top 100 defence companies in the 2020 rankings — Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Ordnance Factory Board and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). “Their aggregated arms sales of $6.5 billion were 1.7% higher in 2020 than in 2019 and accounted for 1.2% of the top 100 total,” the report, released earlier this month, said.
Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor of the Mi-17 helicopter crash in which Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat and 12 others were killed last week, succumbed to his injuries early on December 15, the Indian Air Force has said.
The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) in Mysuru has prepared a slew of ready-to-eat dishes tailor-made for India’s space programme Gaganyaan.
The DFRL has prepared about 40 to 50 menus comprising both vegetarian and non-vegetarian items and the trials are in the preliminary stages.
The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) on Tuesday successfully flight tested the Vertical Launch Short Range Surface-to-Air Missile from Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, off the coast of Odisha.
“The launch was conducted from a vertical launcher against an electronic target at a very low altitude. The flight path of the vehicle along with health parameters was monitored using a number of tracking instruments deployed by ITR, Chandipur. All sub-systems performed as per expectation,” the DRDO said.
India and Russia have inked agreements for the procurement of nearly six lakh AK-203 assault rifles and also to extend military technology cooperation for the next decade from 2021 to 2031 as the two countries began their first 2+2 ministerial dialogue on Monday morning.
Another agreement for protocol on an amending agreement on cooperation in the field of Kalashnikov series small arms manufacturing was also signed. Defence minister Rajnath Singh met his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu and the two sides signed contracts for the manufacture of nearly six lakh AK-203 rifles under a joint venture in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh.
The deal is worth over Rs 5,000 crore and the project will be implemented by a special purpose joint venture called Indo-Russia Rifles Private Ltd.
This year also marks 50 years of inception of the Missile Vessel Squadron, also known as the ‘Killers’, which over the past five decades has maintained the capability of delivering a credible offensive punch from the sea, a Navy official said on Sunday.
Resuming pending tests of its key missile systems, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Tuesday successfully flight-tested Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile (VL-SRSAM) from a defence test facility off Odisha coast.
The indigenously developed missile was test-fired from a static vertical launcher positioned at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) on Tuesday afternoon. Launched from a canister, the missile, which is yet to get a formal name, intercepted an electronic target at a very low altitude.