NEW
DELHI - China was accused by Taiwan of trying to impose
censorship in India after its embassy in New Delhi advised journalists
to observe the “one-China” principle after newspapers carried
advertisements for Taiwan’s national day.
Coming
just months after deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops on
the disputed Himalayan border between the two Asian giants, the
controversy has flared at a time when Indian sentiments toward China are
filled with antipathy and suspicion.
China’s
hackles were raised on Wednesday by advertisements placed in leading
Indian newspapers by Taiwan’s government to mark the democratic,
Chinese-claimed island’s national day on Saturday.
The
advertisement carried a photograph of President Tsai Ing-wen and hailed
India, a fellow democracy, as a natural partner of Taiwan.
China,
which claims Taiwan and regards it as a wayward province, made its
displeasure evident in an e-mail sent by its embassy on Wednesday night
to journalists in India, including Reuters.
“Regarding
the so-called forthcoming ‘National Day of Taiwan’, the Chinese Embassy
in India would like to remind our media friends that there is only one
China in the world, and the Government of the People’s Republic of China
is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China,” the
embassy said.
“We hope Indian media can stick to Indian government’s position on Taiwan question and do not violate the ‘One China’ principle.
“In
particular, Taiwan shall not be referred to as a ‘country (nation)’ or
‘Republic of China’ or the leader of China’s Taiwan region as
‘President’, so as not to send the wrong signals to the general public.”
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu scoffed at Beijing’s advice to Indian media.
“India
is the largest democracy on Earth with a vibrant press &
freedom-loving people. But it looks like communist #China is hoping to
march into the subcontinent by imposing censorship. #Taiwan’s Indian
friends will have one reply: GET LOST!” he said in a tweet.
New Delhi has no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, but both sides have close business and cultural ties.
India’s
government has carefully avoided upsetting China over Taiwan. But
relations became fraught after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash
with Chinese troops in June, and there have been calls from some Indian
nationalist groups for a boycott of Chinese goods.
“The
Chinese government behaves like a street goon, not like an aspiring
super-power. It threatens us,” said Nitin Gokhale, the editor of a
defence and security website, after receiving the Chinese embassy’s
email.
The Tamil Nadu company has now set a target to sell the pistols to civilians by the end of March 2021.
By Tanmay Chatterjee
The Glock is sold to citizens in many countries, including the USA. (Courtesy- https://eu.glock.com/en)
Currently serving with the military, police and special forces
in more than 70 nations, including India, America, England and France,
the famous polymer-frame Glock pistols from Austria may soon be
available to Indian citizens in non-service calibres.
In
2019, the Tamil Nadu-based Counter measures technologies pvt. ltd.
(CMT) and Glock Ges.m.b.H, Austria, entered into a partnership to
produce the pistols at the CMT plant in Tiruvallur district, which is
part of the state’s defence industrial corridor planned by the Centre.
The
joint venture was initially signed for supplying Glocks only to the
government. With permission from the Centre, CMT has now set a target to
sell the pistols to civilians by the end of March 2021, one of the
Indian company’s directors and major shareholder, Jayakumar Jayarajan,
told HT.
For India’s civilian arms market, the arrival of the
Glock will be a game changer, stakeholders feel. The pistol is sold to
citizens in many countries, including the USA.
“The
Covid-19 lockdown delayed our project by more than six months. We are
trying to pick up speed. Our first priority is to supply the 9 mm
pistols to the armed forces. Civilians will get the .22 LR, .380, .357
Sig, .40 and .45 calibre pistols. We have permission to set up our own
proof testing facility,” said Jayarajan.
“A team from Glock
landed in Chennai in January 2019 and flew to Delhi to meet Union
defence ministry officials after visiting our site. In the delegation
was a man who was part of the team that helped the designer, Gaston
Glock, make the first pistol in 1981,” said Jayarajan.
Today, Glock produces fifth generation pistols with competitors following its polymer technology.
In
India, the majority of licensed firearms owners are saddled with old or
antiquated foreign handguns imported before 1984 or the ones being made
by government ordnance factories. The erstwhile Congress government at
the Centre banned import of all types of firearms in 1984, giving
exemptions only to national and international shooters and state
agencies.
Though out of reach of India’s gun owners till now, the
world’s first military service pistol to sport a light polymer frame
and trigger safety feature, is a familiar name to the nation.
A
9 mm Glock 26 compact pistol was the only weapon wing commander
Abhinandan Varthaman was armed with when he was captured in Pakistan in
February 2019 after the Balakot air strikes.
Glocks
also went into action with National Security Guard (NSG) commandos
during the terror attack on Pathankot air force base in 2016 and in
other operations.
“We support any initiative that promotes the
‘Make in India’ programme and moves us closer to an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’
(self-sufficient India),” said Delhi-based Abhijeet Singh, spokesperson
for National association for gun rights India (NAGRI), the only
pan-nation organisation fighting for liberal gun laws for citizens.
Prakash
Simson, owner of Simson gun house in Mangalore, Karnataka, said,
“Indians still pay a premium price for 50 or 70-year-old handguns
because of their reliability. The India-made Glocks have to meet
people’s expectations. But before that, the government must ensure that
law-abiding citizens get gun licence without being caught in red tape
for years. If licences are not issued there will no market. The
companies will wind up their business.”
A
gun owner and sports enthusiast, Yuvraj Yograjsinh of Mansa, Gujarat,
said, “Glocks are not made in .32 ACP which is the most popular pistol
calibre in India because the ammunition is made by our ordnance factory,
the other one being .22 LR. Ammunition for the rest of the calibres
being offered to civilians by CMT is not made here. Imported ammunitions
are frightfully expensive. This needs to be addressed first.”
Jayarajan
said CMT has been given permission to manufacture ammunition of all
calibres, ranging from the small .22 LR to the 12.7 x 108 mm heavy
machine-gun cartridge used by the army. “We plan to make the ammunition
factory operational by the end of 2021,” he said.
Everyone,
as the saying goes, has a plan until they get punched in the face. By
the same principle, the time for Rahul Raju, to make an honest
assessment of his career would have come in his fourth professional
mixed martial arts fight. Competing in the Philippines against Reydon
Romero, Raju caught a punch in the first round, shattering an orbital
bone. Fighting on with a facial fracture, Raju recalls thinking to
himself, "Well, this is the path I chose, now I have to deal with it. I
finally realized what I was there to do," he says.
There wasn't a
movie-quality happy ending to Raju's tale of perseverance on that day in
January 2017. He fought through three rounds of agony and still ended
up dropping a unanimous decision to the local fighter. But he saw a
silver lining through it all. "Despite the injury, I fought one of my
best fights ever. It was really painful and I had to have surgery
immediately afterwards. Until that moment, there is always a question
how badly you want something, and at that moment, I realized I really
wanted it," says Raju.
'It', for Raju, was the dream to be a mixed
martial arts fighter. Raju is a seasoned competitor now. Next Friday,
he'll be looking to extend a two-fight win streak at ONE Championship
and improve on a 7-4 record, when he takes on former title contender
Amir Khan in a lightweight contest. When the 29-year-old, who goes by
the moniker 'Kerala Krusher', thinks about his dream, he admits it was
an unlikely one for a Kerala native who'd studied engineering and
already had a well paying, white-collar job as a technician in a
semiconductor plant in Singapore.
Kerala
might be home to the ancient martial art tradition of Kalaripayattu,
but there isn't much of a modern combat sports culture. Certainly not in
the town of Pathanamthitta, in central Kerala where Raju grew up.
"There were some boxing and wrestling training facilities but compared
to North India or the North East, these were really few," he recalls.
The
lack of opportunities didn't stop him from idolizing martial arts -
usually in the form of movies. "I'd watch all the movies I could which
had Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan," he recalls. His parents weren't too keen
about his interest though. "There was a kung fu coaching center near my
home and I used to beg my mother and father to let me join but they'd
always tell me to focus on my studies or tell me they'd think about it
later," he says.
Raju would get his wish through an unexpectedly
fortuitous beating. "I got into a school fight, which ended up with me
getting thrashed by a few seniors. I told my father it wouldn't have
happened if I'd only got some martial arts training and the day after
that incident, he enrolled me for my first class," Raju recalls with a
laugh.
While he became a devoted practitioner, studies remained
his first priority. He studied for a course in mechatronics - an
engineering field that combines robotics, electronics, computer,
telecommunications, systems, control, and product engineering. His
studies would take him to the Temasek Polytechnic institute in
Singapore, where he continued his training, albeit now in the Indonesian
martial art of selat, which was popular at his institute.
It
was in Singapore, in the final semester of his engineering course, that
he was first introduced to mixed martial arts (MMA). It came through a
poster that was put up in his selat training group, advertising an
amateur MMA competition. The only thing he remembers of what it said
were the words "no rules". "I'd never even heard of the sport until
then. But I was really intrigued by the "no rules" concept. I'd gone to a
lot of selat competitions but I felt there were too many restrictions.
But this poster said you could punch, kick, grapple," he recalls.
Raju
entered his name, and although he had never trained a day as a mixed
martial artist, ended up winning. "There were rules that made things
easier for me. You had to stand the fighters up after twenty seconds on
the ground. That worked because I'd only trained as a striker all my
life. In the final, I faced an actual MMA guy. I got taken down a couple
of times and it was just brute strength with which I threw him off.
After that fight I knew that if I had to beat others like that MMA
fighter, if that opponent was a little better, I had no chance. I had to
develop other skills. I had to learn jujitsu and wrestling," he says.
Raju
walked into an MMA gym soon after. His initiation into the sport
coincided with his first job, working in the semiconductor industry.
There was little to complain about the latter, which was what his
education had prepared him for. "I was an a senior technician in a chip
manufacturing plant, testing the microchips for mobile phones. It was an
interesting job," he admits. But even as his desire to excel in his
sport grew, he found himself struggling to find the time to do both.
"I
was doing my job but also training. I was also competing in my first
amateur bouts then. It was nearly impossible to find a balance. I'd
complete my shift and then rush out immediately to get to training.
Often times I'd train without sleep because there wasn't any time. That
caused so many injuries," he recalls. When I got the opportunity to
start coaching in the gym, I took it.
Raju struggled to juggle his
job and his passion for three years before eventually making the
decision to focus entirely on MMA. "I got a job as a trainer at the same
club where I trained and I made the decision to quit my job. My bosses
and colleagues and friends were not that surprised because they knew how
bad I wanted it. They saw I was coming to work without sleep and how I
was running to the gym right after work. My parents were not happy. They
told me to focus on my regular job. But I had a dream and I had to stay
strong," he says.
Having
made his choice, there were tradeoffs to be made. "The first few years
were a struggle. As a trainer, I wasn't making anything like the money I
did in my old job. I had to downgrade a lot of my needs and adjust my
budget. I also couldn't socialize with my friends. If I'd made a
decision to focus on my sport, I had to give it everything," he says.
The
learning curve was steep. Over the first few months of his career,
Raju's broken his collarbone and had several ligament issues. And that
orbital eye fracture in the Philippines. There have been setbacks in the
ring too. In his first fight at ONE Championship, a couple of years
ago, Raju was caught with a counter right hook and knocked out in the
first round.
His passion is undiminished though. "There have been
moments of struggle. Losing in the first round was one of the lowest
moments of my life. It brought out a lot of bad emotions, but as a
fighter you have to put these things aside and remember why you are
doing what you do. From my childhood, I wanted to be a fighter. More
than just a profession, I wanted to be the alpha male in a group. I had
to be the best. First, it was to be the best at the gym, and then it was
to be the best in Singapore. Now it's to be the best at ONE
Championship," he says.
On
a two-fight winning streak now, Raju believes his career has turned the
corner. His grappling game has improved significantly and he now has a
brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. "I'm probably one of only a handful
of Indians who have this," he reckons.
His parents too have come
around to their son's career choice. "It's taken time but they realized
that I wasn't giving this up. They've become very supportive since
then," he says. It wouldn't have mattered even if they hadn't, he says.
"There are parts of India where a career in combat sports is considered
acceptable. It's not the same in Kerala. It's a gradual change and while
I'm happy when I am supported, I don't expect much," he says.
For
now he's just glad to be chasing his own dream. "I don't regret
anything that's happened to me. I consider myself very blessed to have
left my old job. It's probably the best decision I made in my life," he
says.
Arising out of the smoke and rubble of Nikola's recent battle with
short sellers, one electric truck company has casually made its way onto
the public markets via a SPAC, making its 28 year old founder a
billionaire in the process.
Does it feel enough like 1999 yet?
“We were fortunate on timing,” Hyliion Holdings Corp. CEO Thomas Healy told Bloomberg. His
company, founded just 5 years ago in 2015, went public through a SPAC
with Tortoise Acquisition Corporation and started trading publicly last
Friday. Healy is now one of the world's youngest self-made
billionaires.
He started his company after watching Tesla while growing up and says
that spurred an interest in electric vehicles. "I thought: Why do we
have electric technology in cars and not in trucks yet, since trucks are
where you can have the biggest impact?" he told Bloomberg.
Healy had originally planned to go public at the time the coronavirus
struck. “If we were trying to close right when the stock market was on
that downswing, we might have been having different discussions,” he
admitted.
The deal has not only garnered scrutiny due to Nikola's recent fall
from grace, but also because the SPAC phenomenon is now being watched
closer and through a more skeptical lens. Recall, days ago, we noted that SEC Chair Jay Clayton had said on CNBC that the regulator would "look closer" at the deals.
Like many others who have used SPACs, Healy said the lack of regulation was an obvious benefit. He told Bloomberg:
In the first quarter, we kicked off our next financing round. Going
public and being able to bring in more capital than we would staying
private was attractive. From that, we considered: do we go down the
conventional IPO route? Or do we want a SPAC process? We saw a lot of efficiencies with SPACs.
You’re really negotiating a deal with an organization as opposed to
going on a roadshow for an IPO that may -- or may not -- be successful. We met with the Tortoise team introduced to us through investment bank Marathon Capital. That was the moment of ‘OK. Let’s do this!’
"From our end, it was a very natural process with Tortoise. We were
just going through a conventional financing fundraising process, and
then we saw this as the best path," he continued.
"Our goal is you’ll be driving down the highway and the trucks you
see will have Hyliion powertrains," Healy said. "There will be other
trucks that are electric as well, taking a different approach. We hope
all these technologies are successful as ultimately we’re trying to make
this shift to electric. The more people are focused on that, the better
off we’ll all be."
But don't worry Thomas - even if they don't - you'll still be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Oct 7- The Government of India has finalised the draft of the agreement to be signed with militant groups and civil society organisations of Nagaland, but the date for signing it is yet to be finalised. The government has also made it clear that it is up to the leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M) to decide whether they would sign the agreement or not.
Highly placed sources in the Government of India told The Assam Tribune that there would be no more talks with any group of Nagaland and the draft of the agreement is ready.
“The date for signing of the agreement is likely to be decided shortly. The talk process is over and there may be some delay in signing of the agreement because of the ensuing Bihar elections. However, the Centre is keen on signing the agreement as soon as possible,” the sources added.
The sources pointed out that the agreement would be the first of its kind as efforts were made to include all stakeholders in the process. The government had earlier signed a number of agreements with militant groups in different parts of the country. But this time, in addition to the militants, civil society groups including the Naga Gaonbura Federation and the Hohos of all the 14 tribes of Nagaland would sign the agreement to make it inclusive.
The sources revealed that the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG), an umbrella organisation of seven militant groups of Nagaland and civil society groups have already approved the draft agreement. “The decisions taken in the meetings have been incorporated in the agreement, which include creation of two autonomous councils, one each on Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh,” the sources added.
On reports that the NSCN (I-M) is still not ready to sign the agreement with the government if their demands for a separate flag and constitution are not accepted, the sources said that it is up to the leaders of the outfit to decide whether they would sign the agreement or not.
But the government has made it clear that it would not be possible to accept the demands for a separate flag and constitution.
Leaders of the NSCN (I-M) who are in New Delhi had several rounds of talks with senior officers of the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The IB officials also tried to persuade the leaders of the outfit to give up the demand for a separate flag and constitution. But the leaders maintained a rigid stand and the IB officials have stopped talking to them.
On surrender of weapons, the sources said that in any such surrender, the militants normally do not hand over all their weapons. The government will have to take administrative measures to recover weapons after signing of the accord, the sources added.
There is also a possibility of fresh elections in Nagaland after signing of the accord. It is a normal practice to go for fresh elections in any state after signing of such peace accords as those who sign the accord should be given an opportunity to join the political system, the sources added.
