​​The announcement was made on Twitter, albeit still using the Racing Point Force India account name.
It is unclear what exactly will be unveiled in Montreal, but the accompanying picture of a car under wraps suggests that it could mean more than just the new name and livery. Indeed, with pre-season testing not getting underway until February 18, and money clearly no object at this stage, it could well be that the Silverstone-based outfit uses the occasion to unveil its car, name and livery.

Interestingly, the wrap covering the car is not the pink of Force India sponsor BWT but red, red and white being the national colours of Canada. Speaking earlier this month, team boss Otmar Szafnauer, though refusing to say if the team name will be changed, admitted that on a personal level he very much hopes so. The drivers next season will be Mexican Sergio Perez and Canadian Lance Stroll. Last week, Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene announced that the Italian team's car will be unveiled on February 15.

HANOI, January 25 -- Indian officials say their country will set up a satellite tracking and imaging centre in southern Vietnam that will give Hanoi access to pictures from Indian earth observation satellites that cover the region -  including China and the South China Sea.

The move could heighten tensions between the two countries and Beijing. Both states have long-running territorial disputes with China.

India also extended a $100m credit line for Hanoi to buy patrol boats and is training Vietnamese submariners in India, while Hanoi has granted oil exploration blocks to India in waters off Vietnam that are disputed with China.

The facility will be equipped to receive images from India's Earth observation satellites that Vietnam can use in return for granting India the tracking site, said an Indian government official connected with the space programme.

"This is a sort of quid pro quo which will enable Vietnam to receive IRS [Indian remote sensing] pictures directly - that is, without asking India," said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media. "Obviously it will include parts of China of interest to Vietnam."
Earth observation satellites have agricultural, scientific and environmental applications, but can also provide military intelligence. Indian media put the cost of the station at about $23m.

India - whose 54-year-old space programme is accelerating with one satellite launch scheduled every month - has ground stations in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Brunei, Biak in eastern Indonesia and Mauritius that track its satellites in the initial stages of flight. The Vietnam facility will bolster those capabilities, said Deviprasad Karnik, an Indian Space Research Organisation spokesman, according to Reuters news agency.

Long-running disputes
India has 11 earth observation satellites in orbit, offering pictures with differing resolutions and areas, the ISRO said. Vietnam is one of several Southeast Asian nations involved in a territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea.

Beijing has accelerated its construction of man-made islands in the disputed waters to assert its claim to the sea, which is believed to hold vast oil and natural gas reserves. Earlier in January, Vietnam accused China of violating its sovereignty when it landed a plane on an airstrip built on an artificial island in the Spratly archipelago.
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China's foreign ministry rejected the complaint, arguing that the flight was a matter "completely within China's sovereignty".

MUMBAI, September 24 -- An Indian spacecraft has reached Mars and entered the planet's orbit, in a historic feat crowning India as the first country to execute such a mission in its maiden attempt.

Scientists in the command centre in Bangalore broke into wild cheers on Wednesday as the orbiter's engines completed 24 minutes of burn time and manoeuvered into its designated orbit.

Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, hailed the feat of Indian engineering: "Congratulations to all, to the entire country ... history has been created today. We have gone beyond the boundaries of human enterprise and innovation." 

The success of the Mars orbiter mission, lauded for its low $74m cost, has placed India in an elite club of Martian explorers with the US, the European Space Agency and the former Soviet Union.

"The amount our scientists have spent on this mission is even less than what they spend in making Hollywood movies," Modi said in a televised address to the mission scientists.

India has said the spacecraft, called Mangalyaan in Hindi, was chiefly meant to showcase the country's ability to design, plan, manage and operate a deep-space mission.

India has already conducted dozens of successful satellite launches, including sending up the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which discovered key evidence of water on the Moon in 2008.

The Mars probe is expected to circle the planet for six months, about 500km above its surface. Its scientific instruments will collect data and send it back to Earth.

Five solar-powered instruments will help determine how Martian weather systems work and what happened to the water that is believed to have once existed on Mars in large quantities.

The probe will also search for methane, a key chemical in life processes on Earth that could also come from geological processes.


Source: Agencies

NEW DELHI, September 18 -- India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on China to settle very soon border disputes along the Line of Actual Control that is a de facto border with China.

Speaking at a joint news conference upon the talks with Chinese President XI Jinping who is here with a three-day state visit, Modi said: “We have to address the boundary question very soon,” and called for a clear determination of the Line of Actual Control.

China’s President Xi Jinping confirmed that China was set to solve the issue by diplomatic means.

"China-India border issue is a problem which has troubled both sides for long,” Xi said. “It should be resolved in the foreseeable future. China is determined to demarcate the border in a short span of time.”

Modi confirmed India’s stance on Tibet that, as he said, was part of China and assured Xi that he would not allow Tibetans to carry out any anti-China actions in India.

The two leaders also discussed key issues of economic collaboration. China made public its intentions to invest $20 billion in India’s economy in the following five years, according to the Five Year Trade and Economic Development Plan that was signed during the visit of the Chinese president. China is due to support India’s bid to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO).

“China welcomes and supports India’s willingness to become a full-fledged member of the SCO,” Xi Jinping said.


Source: Agencies

The stampede appeared to have occurred when some of the Hindu devotees were rolling on the ground as part of rituals performed on the hill for the full moon day of Somvati Amavasya to honour Lord Shiva, reports said.
 
"In this pose, the devotees circumabulate ... The relatives and friends of the devotees help them to roll around," police inspector general Pawan Srivastava told the Times of India.
"Some of the pilgrims who were walking fell on the ground during the circumambulation and this triggered panic," Srivastava said.

Ropes set up to control the crowds gave way, with about 60 people also injured in the stampede, the official said. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan offered 200,000 rupees, equivalent to $3,300, to the families of those killed.

India has a long history of deadly stampedes at religious festivals, as large numbers of people pack into congested areas, often with few safety regulations in place. Monday's accident comes after about 115 devotees were crushed to death or drowned on a bridge near another Hindu temple in Madhya Pradesh last October.

Source: Agencies

ROTTERDAM, August 23 -- At least four civilians, two from each Asian nation, killed in new border clashes as tension rises between two rivals.

India has accused Pakistani troops of firing guns and mortar rounds on at least three villages in the India-administered Kashmir, killing at least two members of one family, while Pakistan has said that two of its civilians were killed in "unprovoked" India fire.

Dharmendra Pareek, a top official of India's paramilitary force, said that the firing early on Saturday was unprovoked, adding that one Indian border guard and three civilians were also injured in the incident, the AP news agency reported.

General Rakesh Kumar, an Indian military official, told Indian television NDTV that the unprovoked firing in Arnia and RS Pura sectors prompted India to retaliate.

"The firing started around midnight. Twenty-two posts and several civilian villages were targeted so we retaliated in equal measure. Several houses have been damaged. Firing is still on in some areas," he was quoted by NDTV as saying.

Pakistani officials said the latest incident occurred in Sialkot region, which faces the south of the India-administered Kashmir and where another civilian was killed by Indian firing last month.

"Today Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) again resorted to unprovoked firing in Chaprar and Harpal sectors on the working boundary near Sialkot. Two civilians including a woman and a 60-year-old man were martyred due to BSF firing," a senior military official told AFP news agency. "Intermittent exchange of fire is still continuing at this moment," the official said.

India and Pakistan often accuse each other of violating a 2003 ceasefire agreement.

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