NewsBytes

India's rice stocks in government warehouses climbed over 14% from a year earlier to a record high for early September, while wheat inventories reached a four-year peak on stronger buying from farmers, official data showed on Wednesday. Record rice stocks will support higher exports by the world's biggest supplier, while improved wheat inventories give the government room to curb potential price spikes later this year through open market sales. State reserves of rice, including unmilled paddy, totalled a record 48.2 million metric tons as of September 1, far exceeding the government's target of 13.5 million tons for July 1. Wheat stocks stood at 33.3 million tons on September 1, well above the government's target of 27.6 million tons, the data showed.

The Titagarh Rail Systems Ltd (TRSL) has delivered the first indigenously designed and manufactured diving support craft DSC A20 to the Indian Navy, an official said on Wednesday. DSC A20 is designed to undertake diving operations in coastal waters and is being fitted with state-of-the-art diving equipment, an official statement said. The Ministry of Defence had awarded a contract to TRSL for constructing five diving support craft in February 2021. The vessel, which was delivered to the Navy on Tuesday, has a catamaran hull, with a displacement of approximately 380 tonnes, it said.

A deep-tech startup based in Odisha has inked a Rs 66-crore contract with the Indian Navy to manufacture indigenously developed Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles. The start-up, Coratia Technologies, signed the contract last week to supply home-built underwater robots specialising in cleaning ship hulls, conducting minor salvage activities and performing surveys and inspections of submerged infrastructures. In January 2023, the company won the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) challenge which is aimed at creating an ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in the defence and aerospace sectors. Currently, the Indian Navy has commissioned the flagship product of Coratia Technologies called Jalasimha, which underwent rigorous testing and certifications to pass Technology Readiness Level-9, enabling its induction into Indian Naval operations, Pradhan said. The deep-tech robotics startup, incubated at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, will supply and maintain its indigenously developed Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (UWROVs).

The European Union laid out Wednesday its toughest plan yet to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza as Palestinians fled en masse from Israeli tanks, drones and troops pushing deeper into the coastal enclave ravaged by 23 months of war. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, urged the 27 member nations to increase tariffs on some Israeli goods and impose sanctions on 10 Hamas leaders, Israeli settlers, and two members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet: National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. “We are proposing this measures not to punish Israel or Israel people, but to really try to pressure Israeli government to change course and to end the human suffering in Gaza," Kallas said. The sanctions would freeze any of the individuals' European assets and ban travel within the EU. The EU is Israel's largest trading partner, so the tariffs might have far-reaching effects on Israel's economy, which is already rattled by the cost of a long war. Roughly 32 million euros (USD 37.5 million) in bilateral funds controlled by the European Commission would be immediately suspended. The commission also gives support to the Palestinian Authority.