NEWS

New Delhi: Pope Francis on Thursday performed another first, a wedding ceremony for a steward and stewardess, aboard a plane taking him between two Chilean cities.

Paula Podest Ruiz, 39, and Carlos CiuffardiElorriga, 41, told the pope they had been married in a civil service but their planned religious ceremony in their parish church in Santiago could not take place because it was heavily damaged in the country's 2010 earthquake.

They asked him to bless their marriage. But he had something else in mind.

New Delhi: NirmalaSitharamanhas soared high on a Sukhoi-30 MKI jet, the first Indian woman defence minister to go on a sortie on the all-weather, long-range fighter.

The supersonic jet took off from the Air Force station at Jodhpur, where one of the Sukhoi squadrons is based, at 1 pm, rose to a height of 8000 metres and broke the sound barrier.

After a 45-minute flight on the India Air Force (IAF)’s frontline jet over the Western sector of Rajasthan bordering Pakistan, Sitharaman was back at the Air Force station.

New Delhi:General BipinRawat has asserted that the Army does not think about any "serious trouble" post-Doklam episode as the border forces of India and China are holding regular exchange and the earlier "bonhomie" has returned, but the forces are prepared for any exigency.

Rawat also insisted that the PLA soldiers were not in the same numbers in the North Dolam (Doklam) area as they were at the time of the (India-China military) stand-off

"They have carried out some infrastructure development, most of it is temporary in nature. But while their troops may have returned and the infrastructure remains, it is any body's guess whether they would come back there, or it is because of the winter they could not take their equipment away," Rawat said

New Delhi: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu pointed out that India has a large number of illiterate population and that is a huge challenge not being adequately addressed.

"We have come a long way since we attained Independence 70 years ago. We have expanded our school system, created a number of institutions of excellence. However, we have a huge challenge that has not been adequately addressed," Naidu said at the ThinkEdu Conclave organised by The New Indian Express newspaper in Chennai.

"The largest number of illiterate population, most of them women, live in our country. Only about a quarter of children in the country were having access to pre-primary education”.