India is building its critical minerals value chain at home.

The Union Cabinet has approved the ₹2,814 crore Capex Support Scheme to Promote Critical Mineral Processing, a 30% capital subsidy for plants that refine lithium, cobalt, nickel into high-purity compounds in India.

#minerals #industry
Link: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?PRID=2332476&reg=48&lang=1

▪️Union Cabinet approves Rs.14,500 crore Viability Gap Funding Scheme for development of 92 GWh Grid-Scale Energy Storage Systems.

▪️Scheme to support 30 GWh Battery Energy Storage Systems, 60 GWh Pumped Storage Projects and 2 GWh emerging storage technologies

#battery #energy #infra

India could get its fifth S-400 system from Russia early next year

The last of the five S-400 systems contracted by the Narendra Modi government in 2018 at a cost of $5.43 billion is expected to reach India in January-February, according to government officials aware of the development.

A pre-dispatch team will visit Russia in December ahead of the delivery. Parts will likely begin arriving in January, the officials added. Earlier reports suggested the system could reach India in November.

#defence

📰Source - Hindustan Times

India’s #cybersecurity agency, CERT-In, has secured access to Anthropic’s restricted frontier #AI model Claude Mythos to test its ability to detect and potentially exploit system vulnerabilities, government sources said.

The model is being tested in a controlled environment without access to external digital systems.

It is being used to identify vulnerabilities and recommend fixes.

A senior official said CERT-In preferred a closed-door setup to avoid sharing sensitive information through cloud services.

CERT-In is also using other AI models that deliver approximately 80% to 85% of Mythos’s capabilities.

https://t.co/pB6eZ2W12L

🇮🇳 India unveils three indigenous #AI models under IndiaAI Mission.

🤖 Soket Labs launches 26.3 billion parameter EKA-1.

💻 ZenteiQ releases Dhīr 2B and 5B open-source models.

https://t.co/bx5wisNx0y

India and Kazakhstan Sign Extradition Treaty

Kazakhstan and India signed an extradition treaty in early November 2026 to strengthen cooperation against international crime and terrorism. Kazakhstan’s Prosecutor General Berik Assylov and India’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Y.K. Sailas Thangal, signed the document.

Scope and legal framework -

The treaty establishes a framework for extraditing people sought for criminal prosecution or to serve court sentences. It complements existing agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and the transfer of sentenced persons.

#policy #foreignaffairs

📰Source

Republican Party suffers major Electoral Defeat in the latest Mid-term Election losing 9 Incumbent Seats in the Upper House (Senate).

This includes traditional Red States like (Texas, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina) which have been Voting for the Republicans for multiple decades.

Senate 🔵 56 D – 44 R 🟥

#InternationalNews

Interesting all Major Republicans who were openly Racist towards Indians or wanted to impose Sanctions on India for buying Russian #Oil have been defeated across the United States.

P.S. – The Democrats are no saints.

Brent Crude #Oil crashed below $95

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri meets Nepal PM PM Balendra Shah in Kathmandu. #MEA

Chairman of Tata Sons, Tata Motors, N. Chandrasekaran meets Italian PM Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at Palazzo Chigi, residence of the prime minister of Italy.

Gujarat has relaxed school regulations, recognising #education as a business under its Ease of Doing Business policy.

No mandatory playground on campus. No 15-year lease requirement. No affiliation certificate at the application stage. More flexibility in infrastructure and operations.

🚨 Ahmedabad-based PierSight has successfully integrated and tested the structural qualification model of their first commercial SAR + AIS satellite, Varuna 2.0.

The company’s long-term goal is to build a 32-satellite constellation for persistent maritime surveillance. This is part of PierSight’s main philosophy of building Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems tailored to specific applications across sectors such as maritime, Earth observation, and more.

Use cases of the Varuna constellation include:

- EEZ surveillance
- Maritime insurance
- Illegal fishing monitoring
- Oil spill/dumping detection
- ⁠Identifying ship movements and patterns

#Space #Startups

Centre to set up panel to revisit UGC equity regulations, Supreme Court told

The Union government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it is contemplating setting up a committee to reconsider the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) 2026 equity regulations, which the court stayed in January over concerns that their vague provisions could be misused and have “dangerous impacts” on society.

"Why don’t you revisit these regulations so that the next generation is taken care of? They should protect the interest of every student,” the bench told solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government.

#policy #judiciary


📰Source - ANI

Update on the missile test!!

#defence #aatmanirbharbharat

DRDO successfully conducted the flight test of the indigenously developed Pralay Missile off the coast of Odisha today at 1110 hrs.

♦ The test was conducted as part of user evaluation trials and successfully met all the stipulated objectives.

#defence #aatmanirbharbharat 

🇮🇳 🌍 Adani Ports Agrees to Acquire Europe's Second-Largest Independent Liquid Storage Operator for $2.88 Billion

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has agreed to acquire 100% of Netherlands-based Evos B.V. at an enterprise value of €2.56 billion ($2.88 billion).

Key highlights:
8 terminals across the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Malta.
6.3 million cubic metres of liquid storage capacity.
37 million tonnes of cargo throughput in 2025.

The proposed acquisition would expand APSEZ's global network to 28 ports and terminals across 10 countries.

Evos also provides storage infrastructure for biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel and methanol, strengthening APSEZ's presence in Europe's energy logistics market. #Economy

India proposes 1% mandatory blending of green jet fuel from January

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has circulated a draft policy of sustainable aviation fuel usage which proposes an initial blending mandate of 1% for international flights. The proposal, a copy of which was seen by ET, has outlined a two-phase roadmap, with SAF blending targeted to rise to 5% by 2030 in the first phase, and then to 20% by 2040 in the second.

SAF is a liquid fuel that can be blended with aviation turbine fuel (ATF) without the need to develop new planes or engines. It can potentially reduce carbon emissions by up to 80%.

#aviation #policy

📰Source