Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez inaugurated the TATA Aircraft complex for manufacturing C-295 aircraft in Gujarat’s Vadodara on Monday.

Around 56 aircraft are there under the C-295 programme, of which 16 are being delivered directly by the aircraft manufacturing company Reportedly, Airbus from Spain, and the remaining 40 will be manufactured at the complex, which is the first private sector Final Assembly Line (FAL) for military aircraft in India.

It will include the full development of a complete ecosystem from the manufacture to assembly, test and qualification, to delivery and maintenance of the complete lifecycle of the aircraft. In 2021,the Ministry of Defence signed a Rs 21,935-crore contract with Airbus Defense and Space SA, Spain for the supply of 56 aircraft.

Addressing the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the aircraft manufactured at the Vadodara facility will also be exported in the future. He added that the Tata-Airbus manufacturing facility will strengthen the India-Spain relations and the ‘Make in India, Make for the World’ mission.

Narendra Modi also paid tribute to former Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata, who is said to be the brain behind the project. Remembering the industrialist, PM Modi said that if Ratan Tata would have been among them, he would have been happy, but wherever his soul is, he would be happy. 

In the inauguration event, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said the project was originally conceived by Ratan Tata in 2012. He said that he will fail in his duty if he forgets to mention that this project was originally conceived more than a decade ago, in 2012, by the then Tata Sons Chairman, Ratan Tata, who led the whole concept to build a relationship with Airbus and created this partnership with Airbus and laid the foundation stone for this opportunity. He also remembered him for his visionary leadership in this very path-breaking initiative.

Notably, the C-295 is a transport aircraft of 5-10 tonne capacity with contemporary technology that will replace the Indian Air Force’s ageing Avro-748 planes. The aircraft is known to be a superior aircraft used for tactical transport of up to 71 troops or 50 paratroopers and for logistic operations to locations that are not accessible to current heavier aircraft.

The C-295 aircraft, called robust and reliable, with a flight endurance of up to 11 hours, and can carry out multi-role operations under all weather conditions. It can also routinely operate day as well as night combat missions from desert to maritime environments.

Reportedly, all the 56 aircraft under the agreement will also be fitted with an indigenous Electronic Warfare suite manufactured by Indian DPSUs – Bharat Electronics Ltd and Bharat Dynamics Limited.

A terrorist was gunned down on Monday after an attack on an Army vehicle in Jammu and Kashmir’s Akhnoor sector. Currently, the security forces are engaged in gunfire with terrorists in the area.

Reportedly, around 7 am in the Batal area, three terrorists opened multiple rounds of fire at the Army vehicle. Sources said that the security forces promptly cordoned off the area and launched a manhunt. The incident occurred as security forces in Jammu and Kashmir had implemented elaborate security measures in the Jammu region in preparation for the Diwali festival season.

Army officials said that an army vehicle was fired upon in the Battal area of Akhnoor. They added that no injury or casualty was reported, and a search operation has been launched. Alert troops foiled the likely terror attack.  

Nonetheless, in a concerning development, nearly 12 people, including two soldiers, have been killed in multiple gunfights across Jammu and Kashmir, especially in the valley, over the past week.

The terrorists on October 24 ambushed an Army vehicle near Gulmarg in Baramulla, killing two soldiers and two porters. Earlier in the day, a Uttar Pradesh teenager was injured in a separate attack in Tral, marking the third assault on migrant workers in Kashmir within a week.

Additionally, on October 20, terrorists killed seven people, including a doctor and six migrant workers, at a construction site in Sonamarg, Ganderbal district. 

Furthermore, another migrant worker from Bihar was attacked two days before this incident. In view of these repeated terrorist attacks, a high level meeting was chaired at Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor’s house on October 24.

Officials said that an investigation into the attack in Gaderbal district has indicated significant gaps in intelligence and undetected infiltration since last one year along the Line of Control (LoC).

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said on Saturday that every drop of innocent blood spilt in the valley will be avenged and all capabilities will be used to dismantle the terror ecosystem.

The Congress on Sunday accused the BJP of distributing fertilisers to farmers in Madhya Pradesh only where bypolls are taking place and said that this shows that the BJP can stoop to any level for votes.

In a post in Hindi on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh shared a media report which claimed that while farmers across Madhya Pradesh are standing in queues all night long for Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP), the fertilizer is in abundance and even being distributed in advance to farmers of the two assembly seats Budhni (Sehore district) and Vijaypur (Sheopur district) where by-elections are being held.

“The supply of fertilizers only to the places where by-elections are being held in Madhya Pradesh is a betrayal of the farmers of the rest of the state,” Ramesh said.

Fertilisers are needed equally everywhere but the rest of the areas are not even getting five per cent of the required DAP, the Congress leader alleged.

“Supplying fertilisers in this manner for electoral gains shows the shamelessness of the BJP government. This makes it clear that they can stoop to any level for votes,” Ramesh said.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, on October 21, claimed that the BJP is the biggest enemy of Maharashtra’s farmers. He asserted that the state has concluded that farmers will benefit only by removing the double-engine government from power.

In a post in Hindi on X, Kharge criticized the BJP for the numerous farmer suicides in the state, stating that the promise of making the state drought-free is mere rhetoric.

“The BJP is the biggest enemy of Maharashtra’s farmers; 20,000 farmers have committed suicide. There has been a significant cut in funding for farming. The promise of a Rs 20,000 crore water grid turned out to be false. The promise of making Maharashtra drought-free is just a jumla,” he said.

Kharge also slammed the BJP for its refusal to provide compensation to farmers while showering insurance companies with Rs 8,000 crore.

On October 24, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait criticized the BJP-led governments, stating that they are “governments for businessmen and not for farmers.”

Addressing a Mahapanchayat of farmers at the exhibition ground in Bijnor on Thursday, Tikait said, “These governments are for businessmen, not farmers. Farmers should be prepared to engage in a tough fight to have their demands met. We will continue to fight for our rights.”