New Delhi: Hitting out at his predecessors, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said he is still "still clearing the earlier mess" and has initiated a series of steps in areas like defence procurement, which will start yielding results from next year. The Defence Procurement Manual (DPM) would soon be changed to address the concerns raised by private players, but added that even they should rope in Medium and Small scale industries while carrying out their work, he said. Speaking about...Read More

New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has written to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressing "deep pain" over her allegations against the army for its recent exercise at toll gates in the state and said they can "adversely" impact the morale of the armed forces. In a strongly worded letter, Parrikar said that while political parties and politicians may have the luxury of making "wild and unsubstantiated allegations against each other", one needs to be extremely careful wh...Read More

Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said the armed forces in Kashmir have complete power to shoot at those wielding guns, instead of waiting for the terrorists to open fire and "getting martyred". "When I took over as the Defence minister, the first thing I told them (soldiers) that if you see machine gun or pistol in anyone's hand, don't expect that he has come to say hello to you. Before you get martyred, you should eliminate him," Parrikar said addressing BJP's election rally at ...Read More

Mumbai: Since the demonetisation of high currency notes terror funding has come down to zero and there hasn't been stone-pelting on security forces, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said here today. He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the "daring" move, which, he said, will also help clamp down on the narcotic drugs. "Earlier, there were rates: Rs 500 for stone pelting (on security forces in Kashmir) and Rs 1,000 for doing something else. PM has brought terror funding to zero," Pa...Read More

Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said 95 per cent of retired defence personnel have benefited from the implementation of the One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme and problems being faced by the remaining 5 per per cent will be resolved in the next two months. The comments by Parrikar came against the backdrop of a row over suicide by an ex-serviceman from Haryana over the OROP issue and amid the ongoing war of words between ruling BJP and Opposition parties, including Congress. ...Read More

Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today stressed that NDTV one was a security related issue and the channel appeared to have violated guidelines for coverage of terror attacks. "It is not a ban. They have been asked to put off the channel temporarily for a day," Parrikar told reporters here in response to a query. "When you show the anti-terror operation live, the handlers of terrorists get the information.... It appears that these guidelines were violated by the channel during the...Read More

Ahmedabad: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said the Indian Army was giving a befitting reply to ceasefire violations by Pakistan even as he hit out at those seeking proof of cross LoC surgical strikes. "Violations are regularly taking place for the last five-six years, you can take out figures. But the only thing that has changed now is that we are giving effective reply," he said. To a question on security lapses, Parrikar said, "When you are doing things and if there are lapses i...Read More

Mumbai:Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said he expects another Rs 50,000-60,000 crore worth of defence contracts to be signed during the remaining quarters of the financial year, taking the total orders to Rs three trillion since he took charge two years ago. "During the past 23 months that I have been in charge, we have signed contracts worth Rs 2.2 trillion. Recently, we signed a letter of intent with a government-run shipyard for about Rs 32,000 crore, taking the total orders to Rs...Read More