Sri Lanka: Suicide bomber's family also killed in blasts

Moscow, Jan 16: Russia's government resigned in a shock announcement on Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin proposed a series of constitutional reforms.

In a televised meeting with the Russian president, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the proposals would make significant changes to the country's balance of power and so "the government in its current form has resigned".

"We should provide the president of our country with the possibility to take all the necessary measures" to carry out the changes, Medvedev said.

"All further decisions will be taken by the president." Putin asked Medvedev, his longtime ally, to continue as head of government until a new government has been appointed.

"I want to thank you for everything that has been done, to express satisfaction with the results that have been achieved," Putin said.

"Not everything worked out, but everything never works out." He also proposed creating the post of deputy head of the Security Council, suggesting that Medvedev take on the position.

Earlier Wednesday Putin proposed a referendum on a package of reforms to Russia's constitution that would strengthen the role of parliament.

The changes would include giving parliament the power to choose the prime minister and senior cabinet members, instead of the president as in the current system.

China is aggressively pursuing a diverse range of tactics -- from cyber-attacks to recruiting insiders for economic espionage, Indian security agencies have warned. The specific alert circulated among key stakeholders suggests that Chinese operatives are not only planning to steal classified cutting-edge defense technology but also eyeing to recruit best academicians and researchers around the globe, especially from the US.

Sources said they have noticed that China has authorized an "aggressive program of stealing US science and technology information by recruiting Americans in the technology sector with access to trade secrets".

In the technology sector of the US, many Indians scientists are working at the forefront. "This is a serious matter for Indian government and security establishments," said a top source further adding that Chinese always pursue economic espionage because it suits their low cost manufacturing sector on the basis of stolen research and costly design developed by top companies across the globe.

"An alert was also issued in early January about Chinese cyber intrusion attempts at several companies where Indian researchers are working. The espionage attempt was to target UAV technology and certain top-end military equipment designs. After stealing the techniques and design, China starts producing these equipment domestically and sells at a cheaper rate, inflicting irreparable damage to the original equipment manufacturers," the sources in the security establishment observed.

Recently, the US accused China for targeting academia by sending researchers to American labs and using talent recruitment programme to steal scientific analysis. The US has also found that young recruits of the People's Liberation Army posing as students are entering into various universities across the globe to get research papers and recruit academia.

Earlier this year, the US charged a former Boston University student of visa fraud for failing to disclose the status as a lieutenant in the China's People's Liberation Army.

The US intelligence agencies have found that their "universities have become a soft target in the global espionage war with China".

In January this year, the US Department of Justice charged a leading academician at the Harvard University for hiding his alleged role in a Chinese government programme.

In July last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray had revealed that the FBI is probing nearly 1,000 cases of economic espionage and attempted intellectual property theft, nearly all of them leading back to China.

Accordingly, Indian Missions have been informed about the threats being posed by Chinese spies and attempts to recruit Indian scientists and technologists working in the US and other parts of the world.

Sources further stated that security establishments in India have informed the scientist fraternity to be on alert amid threat posed by Chinese spies.

The Chinese had earlier recruited a personnel, Dongfan Chung, working at Boeing for economic espionage. Chung had stolen secret technology to benefit Chinese government and during the raid at his house more than 2.5 lakh classified pages related to Boeing were recovered.

"There has been intense debate on the international platforms regarding Chinese-sponsored theft of intellectual property. American agencies have gone on record to say that China was targeting trade secrets. In the backdrop of pandemic and global health crisis, Indian establishments in defence and technology sectors have been told to be extra cautious as China is planning to become the most advanced economy while the other countries are crippled by the highly contagious virus," the sources further added.

Mumbai, Jun 14: A 42-year old man suddenly collapsed and died due to natural causes onboard Air India's Lagos-Mumbai flight on Sunday, the national carrier said.

The flight was part of Vande Bharat Mission, under which the Central government is operating special repatriation flights to bring back stranded Indians from abroad amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Air India's flight AI 1906 departed from Lagos in Nigeria at 7 pm Indian Standard Time on Saturday and landed in Mumbai at 3.45 am on Sunday.

"A passenger aboard AI 1906 of June 13 from Lagos to Mumbai passed away due to natural causes today.

"A doctor onboard along with our crew, trained to handle such medical emergencies, made a valiant attempt to revive the passenger, aged 42, who had suddenly collapsed, through resuscitation etc but all their efforts went in vain," the airline's spokesperson said.

He was declared dead onboard by the attending doctor. Mumbai International Airport Limited doctors attended to the passenger after the flight landed at 3.45 am and after all the procedures were complete, the body was sent to a hospital as per protocol, the spokesperson noted.

Relatives of the deceased were informed and aircraft was taken for full fumigation as per the norms, the spokesperson said.