NewsBytes

India will put in orbit a constellation of 52 satellites over the next five years to step up space-based surveillance capabilities, Pawan Kumar Goenka, chairman, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) said. He said the move will see strong participation from the private sector. The satellites will help the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force track enemy movements, monitor borders, and improve real-time coordination during military operations. "The private sector will deliver half of the 52 satellites, while the rest will be built by ISRO," said Goenka, who heads the space sector regulator and promoter. He said ISRO is also in the process of transferring the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology to the private sector. The SSLV is developed to launch small satellites into low earth orbit at a shorter notice, a key capability required by the defence forces in times of emergencies. They are capable of launching satellites weighing 10-500 kilograms into a 500 kilometre circular orbit.

The Supreme Court held that the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) can only condone delays in filing appeals up to a maximum of 15 days. A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) prescribed strict timelines for filing appeals and taking legal action to ensure insolvency proceedings were not misused to recover time-barred debts. Condonation of delay means allowing a court or authority to overlook a delay in filing an appeal or application, even if it's beyond the prescribed time limit. "The proviso to Section 61(2) clearly limits the NCLAT's jurisdiction to condone delay only up to 15 days beyond the initial 30-day period. Where a statute expressly limits the period within which delay may be condoned, an Appellate Tribunal cannot exceed that limit," the bench said. The top court said the appellate mechanism under IBC is strictly time-bound by design to preserve the speed and certainty of the insolvency resolution process.

The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter. The ‘high-level’ consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a U.S. official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarized and stabilised, and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged, the sources said. According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a US-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.

After the UAE, India has opened its central government procurement for British companies under the free trade agreement (FTA) announced, an official said. The official said British firms would be allowed to participate in the procurement of goods and services of the non-sensitive central-level entities only. However, access to state and local government-level entities will be excluded. Earlier, India opened the government procurement segment in the comprehensive trade pact with the UAE. Under that pact, UAE firms are allowed to participate in procurement tenders worth over Rs 200 crore. In 2020, the government modified public procurement norms to give maximum preference to companies whose goods and services have 50 per cent or more local content to promote 'Make in India'.