Militants strike in Kupwara hours before Rajnath's visit
Kupwara, June 8 : Militants attacked security forces in a north Kashmir village in Kupwara on Friday hours before Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited the border district.
Sources said there was a brief exchange of fire between militants and the army in Langate area of Kupwara -- some 100 km north of Srinagar. No casualties were reported.
Security forces cordoned off the area as the attackers escaped.
The attack took place some 20 km from Kupwara town where the Home Minister, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and MoS (PMO) Jitendra Singh met people from the border district amid elaborate security arrangements.
Kupwara is listed among the 115 inspirational districts where the central government has vowed to lay "special emphasis" on the overall development to fight poverty and backwardness.
Rajnath Singh, who began his two-day trip to Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, will fly to Jammu in the afternoon.
He is expected to visit R.S. Pura sector and some other places near the International Border where hundreds of people had migrated to safer places after Pakistani shelling of civilian areas.
He will fly back to Delhi in the evening.
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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.
