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New Delhi: A French judge has been appointed to lead a "highly sensitive" judicial investigation into alleged "corruption and favouritism" in the Rs 59,000 crore Rafale fighter jet deal with India, French investigative website Mediapart reported. Following the development, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come forward and order a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale deal.

"Corruption in the Rafale deal has come out clearly now. The stand of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi has been vindicated today after the French government has ordered a probe," he told reporters at a press conference. However, there was no immediate reaction from the Indian government or the BJP. The Mediapart said the probe into the inter-governmental deal signed in 2016 was formally opened on June 14.

Congress on Friday demanded probe on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's order into the Covaxin deal with Brazil as it focussed on the probe ordered also in the recipient country. Raising Bharat Biotech’s controversial $320 million dollar deal to supply 20 million doses of Covaxin to Brazil, the Congress party on Friday asked why the Narendra Modi government was “conspicuously silent” on the serious allegations concerning the deal. 

The Congress argued that since Covaxin was developed along with the Indian Council for Medical Research, “It is important for us to raise these questions because Bharat Biotech may be a private entity but public funding was diverted for the development of this vaccine, tax payers money was put into this, which is why we have a right to question,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate told reporters at a press meet.

Lauding doctors for saving lives of lakhs of people during the Covid pandemic and paying homage to those who laid down their lives in “service of humanity”, PM Modi on “Doctors’ Day” said that despite the limitations of long-neglected medical infrastructure and pressure of population, India’s per lakh population rate of infection and death rate is still manageable compared to developed countries.

“Losing the life of even one person is very saddening but India has also saved the lives of lakhs of its people from coronavirus. Credit for those goes to hard-working doctors, healthcare workers, frontline workers for saving many lives,” Modi said while addressing an event organised by the Indian Medical Association.

India on Wednesday formally requested the European Union member states to include both Covishied and Covaxin in their exemption list for the vaccine passport which is likely to come into effect from July 1, even as it made it clear that the failure to do so on their part will force it to implement mandatory quarantine rules for EU citizens.

Only four vaccines — Comirnaty of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Vaxzervria by AstraZeneca-Oxford and, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen — have been approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Only those inoculated with these vaccines will be given vaccination passports and allowed to travel within the EU during the pandemic.

India has identified the system and technology to tackle "rogue drones" and soon a massive, comprehensive counter-drone policy would be rolled out to avoid terror attacks like the one on Sunday at Air Force Station Jammu, according to high-level sources.

In a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, measures and strategies to counter "weaponised drones used for terror purposes against strategic and commercial assets" were discussed. The meeting attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, among others.

In what is believed to be the first use of drones in a terror attack on an Indian military facility, two blasts took place at the Air Force base on Sunday.