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Friday, July 18, 2025
TopicBeating Retreat ceremony

Topic: Beating Retreat ceremony

End the obscenity called Wagah-Attari parade. Right-wing, liberals, retd officers—all agree

Attari-Wagah border parade is just too undignified to survive. Some wounds require reverence, not a carnival.

Beating Retreat to resume at Pakistan border after almost 2-week hiatus, handshake remains suspended

The scaled-down ceremony is being resumed after it was halted on 7 May, when India launched Op Sindoor, and Pakistan retaliated, resulting in escalated tensions at the border.

Navy set to withdraw its ceremonial uniform ‘No.2’, replace it with half-sleeved shirt & trousers

‘No. 2’ worn during formal parades, commissioning of ships, court martials. The ‘8A’ or half-sleeved shirt & white trousers, is already worn by naval personnel during day-to-day duty.

‘Ekla Chalo Re’ to ‘Saare Jahan se Achha’ — military bands to play Indian tunes at Beating Retreat

At this year’s Beating Retreat ceremony, Indian tunes based on classical ragas will be performed by military bands. There will also be 3-D anamorphic projection and drone shows.

The ‘make in India’ dream of an IIT-Delhi startup whose drones lit up sky at Beating the Retreat

The drones are the brainchild of BotLab Dynamics — a startup led by 2 IIT Delhi & a University of Illinois alumni. Even the drone body was made by a Seelampur fruit basket maker.

A plinth for every problem & merging ‘acche din’ with real life

The best cartoons of the day, chosen by the editors at ThePrint.

‘Abide With Me’ dropped from Beating Retreat ceremony, ‘Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon’ to replace it

Iconic hymn, said to be a favourite of Mahatma Gandhi, has been played to conclude Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950. Decision taken for ‘all tunes in line-up to be Indian’.

On Camera

Critical minerals are the new oil. India can’t afford to depend on China

Mineral security is no longer just an economic concern but a national security imperative, underpinning the country’s ambitions in clean energy, defence self-reliance, and advanced manufacturing.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

RSS chief Bhagwat draws the line at 75. India’s politics stares at the Modi Exception

BJP has no dynastic succession, at least not at the top. You can trace this back to Vajpayee-Advani era. This act of spotting, empowering younger talent is even more striking with the choice of BJP presidents.