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India US ink ten year defence framework

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Amid tense ties over trade and tariffs, India and the US on Friday signed a new 'Framework for the US-India Major Defence Partnership’.  Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who signed the document with his counterpart Secretary of War in the US, Pete Hegseth, said "Defence will remain as the major pillar of our bilateral relations".  The two had met on the sidelines of the ASEAN defence ministers summit in Malaysia.  This Defence Framework will provide policy direction to the entire spectrum of the India-US Defence Relationship. It is a signal of our growing strategic convergence and will herald a new decade of partnership, the Indian Defence Minister said. India and the US first signed a 10-year U.S.-India defence framework in 2005, second in 2015. Each one adds a layer to cooperation.

King Charles III's scandal-hit brother Andrew loses Prince title, to move out of Royal Lodge

Andrew, the scandal-hit younger brother of Britain's King Charles III, has lost his title of Prince and will soon move out of his Royal Lodge mansion on the Windsor Castle estate as he was removed from the official 'Roll of the Peerage' on Friday, Buckingham Palace has said. The King's decision on Thursday evening came days after Andrew voluntarily relinquished the title of Duke of York and all other royal honours after a “discussion” with the monarch, amid “continued accusations” around his association with American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation,” it stated. The palace notes that the “censures” are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that Andrew continues to deny the allegations against him. The scandal-hit 65-year-old former Duke had already stopped using the “His Royal Highness (HRH)” title, having stepped back as a working royal. Earlier this month, he announced that all his other titles will also become inactive, even as he continued to “vigorously” deny all accusations against him. 

Delhi's winter atmosphere unsuitable for cloud seeding: IIT Delhi report

Delhi's winter atmosphere is climatologically unsuitable for consistent cloud seeding due to a fundamental lack of sufficient moisture and saturation, particularly during the peak pollution months of December and January, according to an IIT, Delhi report. The report, based on a comprehensive analysis integrating climatological data (2011-2021) by IIT's Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, comes against the backdrop of the Delhi government conducting two cloud-seeding trials in Burari, north Karol Bagh and Mayur Vihar in collaboration with IIT, Kanpur, but there was no rain. The institute had earlier conducted successful trials in Kanpur in 2017-18, but this was the first such experiment in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) region. "While cloud seeding is theoretically feasible under specific atmospheric conditions, during Delhi's winter, its practical utility as a consistent and reliable air-quality intervention is constrained. The necessary atmospheric conditions are rare and frequently coincide with natural rainfall, limiting the potential marginal gain," the report said.