Newspapers all cheer for INS Arihant and India’s nuclear triad
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Newspapers all cheer for INS Arihant and India’s nuclear triad

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing INS Arihant crew | @narendramodi/Twitter

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing INS Arihant crew | @narendramodi/Twitter

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Front pages today celebrated INS Arihant’s deterrence patrol, which marked the “long-awaited” completion of India’s nuclear triad, reports The Times of India, adding that the nation now has “the capability to fire nuclear weapons from land, air and sea”.

“This means that Arihant is now prowling the deep seas carrying ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads,” reports The Hindu.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear that the success of the “enemy destroyer” — the meaning of ‘Arihant’ — was “a fitting response to those who indulge in nuclear blackmail”.

The completion of Arihant’s deterrence patrol came a day after China backed Pakistan’s “quest for peace through talks” during Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Beijing.

Hindustan Times reports, “With an aircraft carrier and a strategic submarine at its disposal, the Indian Navy has now become a blue-water Navy with global reach and strike capability.”

Ruhi Tewari of ThePrint, meanwhile, sees this as an important development in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, saying the triad’s completion, at least in part, has “handed (the) narrative back to BJP”.

The Telegraph is less impressed, asking, “PM, why do you need a destroyer (Arihant) when you have temple torpedoes?” referring to the fresh bout of brouhaha at Sabarimala, where 2,300 police personnel have gathered to “ensure that if women, even one woman, want to pray at the temple, they should be able to do so in keeping with a Supreme Court order”. Not without opposition from devotees of the temple, of course.

Sabarimala makes it to The Indian Express front page too, with a headline that suggests the protests may not have been spontaneous. “BJP Kerala chief lets it out: Sabarimala protests planned by party…and all followed”. The report quotes BJP state president P.S. Shreedharan Pillai as saying, “Every one followed the agenda we had put forward. One after another, every one exited the scene after surrendering before us… the agitation in the Malayalam month was almost planned by the BJP.”’

Meanwhile, Delhi’s ubiquitous smog has also become a front-page fixture, with nearly every major news daily highlighting the capital’s deteriorating air quality on the eve of Diwali . “After cleanest Nov day in years, city sees worst pollution of the season” reads a headline in The Times of India; and “Thick smog hangs over Delhi before Diwali, Met office warns of poorer air quality” reads Hindustan Times. The Indian Express follows a “firecracker trail” in Delhi, finding itself in Sadar Bazaar, where firecrackers were recovered and destroyed last year.

The Indian Express also puts on its front page the ongoing spat between the government and the RBI, writing, “At the heart of the RBI-government standoff is a proposal by the finance ministry seeking to transfer a surplus of Rs 3.6 lakh crore, more than a third of the total Rs 9.59 lakh crore reserves of the central bank, to the government” — the central bank says no, it reports.

On a related note, The Times of India reports that despite the hostility, the government “reiterates differences with the central bank had been there before and governor Urjit Patel would not be pushed out”.

News it’s just kinda cool to know

This one’s for those who grew up in the 1990s. One of the biggest acts of 90s pop, Spice Girls, has announced a reunion tour, BBC reports. The tour will see Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Geri Horner (nee Halliwell) and Melanie Chisholm take the stage as a group for the first time in 10 years. Victoria Beckham won’t be joining in.