WORLD

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday carried out a series of raids across Tamil Nadu in a LTTE inspired arms seizure case, NIA said in a statement on Friday.

Raids were conducted at the premises belonging to suspects, including functionaries of the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK), a Tamil nationalist party which emerged as the third largest in the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu. The raids were conducted in Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Sivaganga and Tenkasi.

In a clear indication of its expanding global ambitions, India is flexing its naval prowess in international waters with anti-piracy patrols and large-scale deployment of warships close to the Red Sea to protect merchant ships from attacks in the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas.

On Friday, the defence ministry said that India has boosted naval deployment in strategic waters in Djibouti, Gulf of Aden, East Coast of Somalia as well as in the North and Central Arabian Sea.

In the last few weeks, India has deployed as many as 12 warships east of the Red Sea to provide security against pirates and has probed more than 250 vessels.

Brad Pitt is set to reunite with Quentin Tarantino for the director’s final film, The Movie Critic, according to Deadline.

This will be their fourth collaboration, after Pitt appeared in True Romance (1993), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), which earned him his first Oscar for best-supporting actor.

Tarantino has praised Pitt as “one of the last remaining big-screen movie stars”.

India and the US are continuing to hold negotiations to firm up a USD 3 billion deal for supply of 31 MQ-9B Predator long endurance drones to Indian armed forces and the US Congress is set to favourably consider it soon, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the US has its internal processes in place for such supplies and New Delhi is respectful of that.

"This particular matter relates to the US side. They have their internal processes in place and we are respectful of that. That is where I would like to leave my comment," he said at a media briefing.

Top executives from Meta, TikTok, X, and other social media giants faced tough questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the safety of children on their platforms.

Witnesses and lawmakers painted a stark picture of the online landscape, citing concerns ranging from sexual predation to cyberbullying, affecting young users.

The hearing unfolded with heart-wrenching stories from families, highlighting the personal tragedies tied to social media misuse.