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-Top News India News

Army to buy guns, drones from domestic manufacturers

The clearance for making these procurements was accorded to the three services in the last defence acquisition council held by the Narendra Modi government…reports Asian Lite News

With an aim to gear up for the future and fight future wars with indigenous weapons, the Indian Army has issued multiple tenders to buy guns, missiles, drones and many other systems from domestic manufacturers for meeting critical requirements under emergency procurement procedures.

“We have invited the Indian defence industry to offer critical defence equipment for emergency procurement. Proposals are being fielded for guns, missiles, drones, counter-drone, loiter munition, communication and optical systems, specialist Vehicles, engineering equipment and alternate energy resources,” the Indian Army said today.

The process will be based on compressed timelines, wherein the procurement window will be open to Indian Industry for six months and the industry would be expected to deliver equipment within one year of signing the contract. Procurement cases will be based on Open Tender Enquiry, the force said.

Under emergency procurement powers, the armed forces can buy equipment worth ₹ 300 crores under capital procurement cases and ₹ 500 crores under revenue procurement cases.

The clearance for making these procurements was accorded to the three services in the last defence acquisition council held by the Narendra Modi government.

The forces have been granted these powers for a six months window where they can buy any weapon system of their choice produced under the Make in India route.

However, earlier the services had the freedom to do deals with foreign vendors also directly and multiple contracts were signed post-May 2020 in which Heron drones, Spike anti-tank guided missiles and many other critical requirements of the forces were fulfilled.

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Categories
Crime USA

July 4 parade gunman considered 2nd attack

Police removed a collection of knives from the home but did not make any arrests. The knives were returned later after Crimo’s father said they were his…reports Asian Lite News

The 21-year-old man arrested for a deadly mass shooting at a July 4 parade in an affluent Chicago suburb has confessed and admitted he considered a second attack while on the run, officials said Wednesday.

Illinois State Police also addressed mounting questions about how Robert Crimo, who had a history of mental health issues and threatening behavior, was able to legally purchase at least five firearms.

After fleeing the parade shooting scene in Highland Park, Illinois, Crimo drove to Madison, Wisconsin where he thought about attacking another July 4 event, police said.

“He seriously contemplated using the firearm he had in his vehicle to commit another shooting,” police spokesman Christopher Covelli said.

Prosecutor Ben Dillon said during a bond hearing for Crimo that the suspect had confessed to carrying out the shooting in Highland Park, which left seven people dead and at least three dozen injured.

Among those killed were the parents of a two-year-old boy, Aiden McCarthy. A GoFundMe donation page set up for the child had raised over $2.5 million as of Wednesday.

Judge Theodore Potkonjak ordered Crimo, who has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, to be held without bail and to appear on July 28 for a preliminary hearing.

Crimo, dressed in a black shirt, attended by video and listened impassively as prosecutors recounted details of the shooting.

He was asked by the judge if he had a lawyer and responded that he did not. The judge appointed a public defender.

Dillon, the prosecutor, said Crimo had “provided a voluntary statement confessing to his actions.”

Crimo climbed on to a rooftop overlooking the parade route armed with a semi-automatic rifle, he said.

“(He) dressed up as a girl and covered his tattoos with makeup” to conceal his identity, Dillon added.

Crimo has several distinctive facial tattoos including the word “Awake” above his left eyebrow and the number “47” on his temple.

Dillon said Crimo fired three 30-round magazines from his rifle into the parade crowd before fleeing.

He dropped his weapon in an alley and then drove to Madison armed with another gun in his car.

He considered attacking a celebration there but “indications (are) that he didn’t put enough planning forward to commit another attack,” Covelli said.

Crimo returned to the Chicago area and was captured about eight hours after the initial attack following a brief car chase.

According to police, Crimo has a history of mental health problems and threatening behavior, but his firearms were purchased legally.

Police were called to Crimo’s home twice in 2019: once in April to investigate a suicide attempt and again in September because a relative said he had threatened to “kill everyone” in the family.

Police removed a collection of knives from the home but did not make any arrests. The knives were returned later after Crimo’s father said they were his.

In December 2019, Crimo, who was then 19, applied for a firearms permit which was sponsored by his father because he was under 21, police said.

Because no formal complaints had been lodged in connection with the earlier incidents, there were no grounds to deny the permit, police said.

Crimo subsequently purchased several other guns.

Crimo, whose father owns a deli in Highland Park, was an amateur musician billing himself as “Awake the Rapper.”

The authorities are investigating online posts and videos made by Crimo which include violent content alluding to guns and shootings.

One YouTube video featured cartoons of a gunman and people being shot.

“I need to just do it,” a voice-over says. “It is my destiny. Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, not even myself.”

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Categories
Defence India News

India clears purchase of indigenous air defence guns

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), in its meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, has approved proposals concerning capital acquisition…reports Asian Lite News

In a boost for the air defence system, the Defence Ministry on Friday approved the proposals concerning modernisation of the Army’s air defence guns.

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), in its meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, has approved proposals concerning capital acquisitions of various equipment for modernisation and operational needs of the armed forces amounting to approx Rs 6,000 crore.

Noting that there was a long-pending need of the Indian Army for modernisation of its air defence guns, the Defence Ministry said: “These had been earlier procured only from foreign sources. With the continued thrust of the Ministry of Defence towards ‘AtmaNirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’, an enthusiastic response from about a dozen Indian companies was received.”

All of them have expressed their willingness and commitment to manufacture this complex gun system and associated equipment by ensuring technology assimilation in India, it said.

Accordingly, the DAC accorded approval of procurement of air defence guns and ammunition at an approximately cost of Rs 6,000 crore under the Buy and Make (Indian) category.

Further to better equip the armed forces to meet the operational challenges and facilitate faster induction of required arms and ammunitions, the DAC extended the timelines for progressing urgent capital acquisitions under the delegated powers to the armed forces upto August 31, 2021. This will enable the armed forces to complete their emergent and critical acquisitions.

The Defence Ministry had earmarked around 64 per cent of its modernisation funds under the capital acquisition budget for 2021-22 — a sum of over Rs 70,000 crore — for purchases from the domestic sector. It was an increase from 2020-21, when a capital budget allocation for domestic vendors was first made. At 58 per cent, this came to an amount of Rs 52,000 crore.

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Categories
-Top News USA

US gun sales continue amid Covid, protests

The ratio of households owning guns is up from 32 per cent in 2016…reports Asian Lite News

Gun sales in the US have continued amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide protests, and about a fifth of all Americans who bought arms last year were first-time owners, a media report said.

The New York Times report on Sunday quoted research data from Northeastern University and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center as saying that 39 per cent of American households own guns, and of the new owners, half were women, a fifth were Black and a fifth were Hispanic.

The ratio of households owning guns is up from 32 per cent in 2016, The New York Times said, quoting the General Social Survey, a public opinion poll conducted by a research center at the University of Chicago.

“While gun sales have been climbing for decades, they often spike in election years and after high-profile crimes, Americans have been on an unusual, prolonged buying spree fuelled by the coronavirus pandemic, the protests last summer and the fears they both stoked,” said the report.

In March last year, the report added, federal background checks, a rough proxy for purchases, topped one million in a week for the first time since the government began tracking them in 1998.

And the buying continued, through the protests in the summer and the election in the fall, until a week this spring broke the record with 1.2 million background checks, it said.

“There was a surge in purchasing unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” Garen J. Wintemute, a gun researcher at the University of California, Davis, was quoted as saying.

“Usually it slows down. But this just kept going.”

Gun. (File Photo: IANS)


With the pandemic accelerating the trend of rising gun sales, the pace has continued this year.

Americans bought more than 2.3 million guns in January, the highest since last July, and overall in the first quarter, sales jumped 18 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2020, said The Trace, a news outlet that tracks gun sales.

Meanwhile, shooting incidents with four or more fatalities in the US in 2021 have reached 17, compared to the whole year number of 23 in 2020, and 36 in 2019, according to Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit research group.

Broadening the scope to include gun violence injuries, the GVA counted 610 incidents in which at least four people were shot last year, compared with 417 in 2019 and 336 in 2018.

Under the GVA definition, there have been 231 mass casualty shootings in the US so far in 2021, more than one per day.

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Categories
-Top News USA

Biden to curb US gun violence epidemic

Biden delivered a speech from the White House introducing new executive actions aimed at addressing rising gun violence in the country…reports Asian Lite News

US President Joe Biden called gun violence in the country an “epidemic” and an “international embarrassment”, as he delivered a speech from the White House introducing new executive actions aimed at addressing the issue.

“Nothing I’m about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment,” Biden said in the Rose Garden during an event on Thursday also attended by Vice President Kamala Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Further pushing back the idea that tighter gun control amid a recent surge in mass shootings will infringe Americans’ right to bear arms, the President said that “no amendment to the Constitution is absolute”, reports Xinhua news agency.

“So the idea is just bizarre to suggest that some of the things we’re recommending are contrary to the Constitution,” he added.

“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic. And it’s an international embarrassment.”

Laying out a set of executive actions, Biden said he wanted to tighten regulations for the so-called “ghost guns”, homemade weapons or firearms that are assembled from parts without serial numbers so that they are more difficult to track.

The President wants the Department of Justice (DOJ) to propose rules requiring that the gun kits be treated as firearms, so that they must bear easy-to-trace serial numbers, and that background checks are required for people purchasing them.

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He also directed the DOJ to propose model “red flag” legislation for states that could help keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous people, and to reclassify pistols modified with stabilizer braces to be subject to the National Firearms Act, meaning owners would have to register and pay a fee for the modifications.

The DOJ is also expected to issue a report on gun trafficking, and federal agencies will be paying more attention on using grant programs to intervene in community-based gun violence. Biden is set to nominate David Chipman, a gun control advocate, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Increasingly under pressure to take action after the back-to-back mass shootings earlier this month in Boulder, Colorado, Atlanta, Georgia, and Southern California, Biden urged Congress to move legislatively, especially calling on the Senate to pass the House-passed bills closing gun control loopholes and expand background checks.

The House-passed bills, however, face slim prospects in the evenly-divided Senate, as Republicans are almost unified in opposing most of the proposals

“Enough prayers, time for some action,” Biden said in his plea with lawmakers, conceding that stricter gun restriction proposals that have so far been to no avail even in the face of perpetuating gun violence are making it seem “like our entire political process is broken”.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters later in the day that “there will be more” executive actions by the administration on gun safety.

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