Activist Gautam Navlakha withdraws from SC plea seeking transfer to Delhi from Mumbai
New Delhi (PTI): Social activist Gautam Navlakha, accused of having links to Maoists and Pakistan's spy agency ISI, on Friday withdrew from the Supreme Court his application seeking to be shifted to Delhi from Mumbai under house arrest.
Navlakha is under house arrest in Mumbai in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case.
On November 10 last year, the 70-year-old was allowed by the apex court to be placed under house arrest owing to his deteriorating health.
His application, seeking to be shifted to Delhi, came up for hearing on Friday before a bench of Justices K M Joseph and B V Nagarathna.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed Navlakha's application.
Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for the activist, told the bench that Navlakha will look for some other place to stay in Mumbai. She said she would withdraw the application.
"Dismissed as withdrawn," the bench said.
Trashing NIA's apprehensions, the top court had on November 18 last year ordered that Navlakha be placed under house arrest "without fail" within 24 hours.
The bench, however, had ordered some additional security measures to be put in place at the building where Navlakha was to be kept under house arrest.
Prior to that, on November 15 last year, the apex court had cleared the hurdle for his release from Navi Mumbai's Taloja prison, where he was lodged in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, by waiving the requirement of a solvency certificate for availing the benefit of house arrest.
Noting that the activist was in custody since April 14, 2020 and prima facie there was no reason to reject his medical report, the apex court had on November 10, 2022 said Navlakha does not have any criminal background except for this case and even the Government of India had appointed him as an interlocutor to hold talks with Maoists.
Putting a number of conditions, including a deposit of Rs 2.4 lakh as expenses towards providing him security, the top court had said the order to place the activist under house arrest for a month in Mumbai should be implemented within 48 hours.
The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017 which the police claim triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.
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India to get first national security semiconductor fabrication plant
Wilmington (PTI): Under a transformative collaboration with the US, India will get a national security semiconductor fabrication plant that will produce chips for use in military hardware and next-generation telecommunications.
The India-US joint project was announced following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden in Wilmington on Saturday.
A joint fact sheet on Modi-Biden talks said the two leaders "hailed" the semiconductor project as a "watershed arrangement".
It will be the first ever India-US semiconductor fabrication partnership.
It is the first time ever the US military has agreed to do a partnership for these highly-value technologies with India and it is a watershed moment as it is as significant as the civil nuclear deal, people familiar with the matter said.
"President Biden and Prime Minister Modi hailed a watershed arrangement to establish a new semiconductor fabrication plant focused on advanced sensing, communication, and power electronics for national security, next-generation telecommunications, and green energy applications," the fact sheet noted.
It said the "fab, which will be established with the objective of manufacturing infrared, gallium nitride and silicon carbide semiconductors, will be enabled by support from the India semiconductor mission as well as a strategic technology partnership between Bharat Semi, 3rdiTech, and the US Space Force."
The Fab becomes not only India’s first, but one of the world's first multi-material fabs for national security, the people cited above said.
The fact sheet said Modi and Biden praised combined efforts to facilitate resilient, secure, and sustainable semiconductor supply chains including through GlobalFoundries' (GF) creation of the GF Kolkata Power Center in Kolkata.
It said the project will enhance mutually beneficial linkages in research and development in chip manufacturing.
"The leaders welcomed steps our industry is taking to build safe, secure, and resilient supply chains for US, Indian, and international automotive markets, including through Ford Motor Company's submission of a Letter of Intent to utilize its Chennai plant to manufacture for export to global markets," the document said.
It said Modi and Biden commended ongoing efforts to build more expansive cooperation around 5G deployment and next-generation telecommunications.
This includes the US Agency for International Development's plans to expand the Asia Open RAN Academy with an initial USD 7 million investment to grow this workforce training initiative worldwide, including in South Asia with Indian institutions.
