In a major decision for higher level military reforms and tri-service integration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday announced the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) who will be above the three Service Chiefs. The modalities are expected to be finalised in the next few months, defence sources said.

“I announce that there will be a Chief of Defence Staff going into the future who would be above the three service chiefs. This is going to make the forces even more effective,” he announced in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort. The creation of the CDS will eventually lead to the formation of tri-service theatre commands intended to create vertical integration of the three forces. However, it is not clear from the announcement if the CDS will be a four-star or a five-star officer.

In recognition of his stellar work in promotion of science and technology, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K Sivan was on Thursday awarded the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Award by the Tamil Nadu government.

Kailasavadivoo Sivan, who led ISRO's successful launch of Chandrayaan-2 mission recently, could not receive the award in person but will receive it from Chief Minister K Palaniswami at a later date, the government said.

The Kalam award is to honour those who work for promoting scientific growth, humanities and students' welfare and the awardees should hail from Tamil Nadu.

The award carries 8 gm gold medal, Rs. five lakh in cash and a citation.

A native of Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, the citation hailed him as "Rocket Man" and traced his humble origins to his splendid rise in career which includes a stint as director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Liquid Propulsion Centre.

For a younger lot of viewers, Vidya Sinha’s name might resonate for her TV appearances in shows like Kkavyanjali, Qubool Hai and more recently Kullfi Kumar Bajewala, but her glory days were in the 1970s when she rode the wave of the middle-of-the-road cinema that balanced itself ingeniously between the outright commercial and the resolutely arthouse.

The veteran actor passed away on Thursday.

The first film to get her noticed was Basu Chatterjee’s Rajnigandha (1974), officially credited as her debut though Raja Kaaka was the first film that she signed for. Her Deepa in Rajinigandha is a role any actor, past or present, would love to dig deep into. As a woman torn between two men with diametrically opposing personalities — one who comes back from the past (Dinesh Thakur) and the other who she is currently in a relationship with (Amol Palekar in his debut too) — Sinha got ample opportunity to make a strong impression even though she had absolutely no grounding in acting. Based on Mannu Bhandari’s story Yahi Sach Hai, the film captured the dilemmas of a young woman with subtlety and sensitivity as did the delicate title track by Lata Mangeshkar — Rajnigandha phool tumhare — written by Yogesh and composed by Salil Chaudhury.

Former India opener and national selector VB Chandrasekhar passed away in Chennai on Thursday following a massive cardiac arrest.

The dashing Tamil Nadu left-hander of yesteryears, who was only six days short of his 58th birthday, is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Chandrasekhar played 7 ODIs between 1988 and 1990, scoring only 88 runs, but at the domestic level he was prolific for a few seasons, aggregating 4999 runs in 81 games with a highest score of 237 not out.

A qualified engineer, Chandrasekhar made his first-class debut at the age of 25 and played in a formidable Tamil Nadu team, which comprised WV Raman, Diwakar Vasu, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Bharath Arun.

In a piece of big news for cricketing fans around the world, the Commonwealth Games Federation today announced that women's T20 Cricket has been confirmed for inclusion at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022. 

Eight teams will compete across eight match days, as cricket returns to the Commonwealth Games for the first time since 1998 when South Africa won the gold medal in a men's 50-over format competition in Kuala Lumpur. 

Edgbaston, the venue of England's semi-final victory over Australia in the men's 50-over World Cup, will play host to all the matches. The 2022 Commonwealth Games will take place in England from 27th July to 7th August.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Dynamic Facade Lighting of the Parliament House Estate yesterday. As many as 875 energy-efficient LED lights have been installed in the Parliament Complex. These are power efficient and uses only one-fifth of the electricity compared to other types of lights. 

The long-lasting, excellent intensity LED bulbs are capable of creating 16 million colour combinations and the LED lighting is programmable and electronically controlled through computers. The dynamic lighting system through intermittent multi-colour lights creates an aura and enhances the grandeur of Parliament House. These beautiful lights will illuminate the beautiful Parliament building all round the year. Earlier, such lightings were installed in North Block and South Block.
 
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, and Union Ministers including Hardeep Puri and Jitendra Singh were present on the occasion.

President Ram Nath Kovind will address the nation on the eve of the 73rd Independence Day today. It will be broadcast on the entire network of All India Radio and Doordarshan from 7 PM. This can be heard on FM Gold, FM Rainbow, Rajdhani, Indraprastha channels and all other additional frequencies of the AIR. It will also be relayed on the youtube Channel of AIR News NEWSONAIROFFICIAL. All India Radio will broadcast regional language versions of the President's Address from 8 PM onwards on its respective regional networks. 

All India Radio will also broadcast the message of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the eve of the Independence Day at 6.15 PM on Rajdhani, FM Rainbow and FM Gold Channels. It will also be relayed on the youtube Channel of AIR News NEWSONAIROFFICIAL.

India's second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 left the earth's orbit early this morning and is moving towards the moon following the successful completion of a crucial manoeuvre by the Indian Space Research Organisation. ISRO said, it has carried out the manoeuvre called 'Trans Lunar Insertion' at 2:21 AM, following which the spacecraft successfully entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory.

Chandrayaan-2 is expected to reach the moon's orbit on August 20 and land on lunar surface on September 7. After 13 days of Moon-bound orbit phase, the lander 'Vikram' carrying rover 'Pragyan' will separate and after another few days of orbiting will soft land on September 7 in the South Pole region of the Moon, where no country has gone so far. If successful, the mission will make India the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to pull off a soft landing on the Moon.

Following the landing, the rover will roll out from the lander and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days. The mission life of the lander is also one lunar day, while the orbiter will continue its mission for a year.

Cab aggregator Ola on Tuesday announced acqui-hiring' Pikup.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup based out of Bengaluru. Acqui-hiring is a term for acquisition plus hiring. As part of the deal, the team at pikup.ai will join Ola, the company said in a statement.

Ola announced earlier this year its intent to set up an advanced technology centre in the San Francisco Bay area in the US, to focus on developing next-generation technologies in mobility like Electric, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles.

"By bringing deep domain expertise to Ola, this acquihire will also deliver innovations that continue to improve safety and transform customer experience," Ola said.

Football player José Luis Brown, who scored Argentina's opening goal in their win against West Germany in the 1986 World Cup final, has died at 62.

The defender, known by his nickname "Tata", dislocated his shoulder in the match but refused to be substituted.

That was the only international goal of his career. Argentina, led by Diego Maradona, won the match 3-2 to secure their second World Cup title.

Brown had been battling Alzheimer's disease, media reports said.