Centre revokes security clearance of Turkish firm Çelebi Aviation amid India-Pakistan conflict
The decision comes amid growing demand of boycotting the firm headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, the country that sided with Pakistan in the recent escalation of tensions with India after the Pahalgam terror attack and 'Operation Sindoor'.
India's Bureau of Civil Aviation Security informed through a notification about the 'revocation of security clearance in r/o Celebi airport services India Ltd,' which is a subsidary of Çelebi Aviation Holding, a Turkish company.
Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) has demanded an immediate termination of a ground-handling company Çelebi's contract at Mumbai's international airport. Citing national security concerns over Turkey's alleged support for Pakistan in recent drone-related activities from across the border, Shiv Sena leader Murji Patel led a delegation to Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL), calling for an end to its association with Çelebi NAS Airport Services.
The Sena has given Mumbai International Airport a 10-day deadline to cancel the contract, warning of protests if no action is taken. Patel said the party has already met with the airport's CEO, who has promised to review the matter and respond within the timeframe.
The ultimatum comes at a time when social media is abuzz with boycott calls for travel to Turkiye. This, because, Turkiye and Azerbaijan are accused of providing military assistance to Pakistan as it tried to swarm the Indian air defence system after India struck terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) during Operation Sindoor on May 7.
Çelebi has presence at 9 airports in India – Mumbai, Delhi, Cochin, Kannur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Goa, Ahmedabad and Chennai. It provides ground handling as Çelebi Airport Services India and cargo services as Çelebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India at Delhi.
(This is a developing story. Check back for updates)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
27 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Why Trump talk of Pak's ‘massive oil reserves' is hot air — not much else
US President Donald Trump's announcement on Thursday that the Americans will work with Pakistan to develop the latter's 'massive' oil reserves came as a bit of a surprise, as Pakistan is not exactly a country synonymous with oil exploration and production, unlike Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Venezuela. Far from it, Islamabad depends heavily on energy imports, has dwindling hydrocarbon production, and a rather inconsistent and uninspiring record of oil and gas exploration. There have been a few preliminary studies and reports of potential reserves over the years, but they have remained inconclusive, and the world's oil majors have so far largely steered clear of hydrocarbon exploration in Pakistan. But Trump appears convinced, at least on his own social media platform, that Pakistan is sitting on huge oil reserves. He went to the extent of saying that 'maybe' Pakistan will be 'selling oil to India some day', a remark that many have interpreted as a veiled jibe at New Delhi over its heavy imports of Russian oil, which has surfaced as an irritant in the India-US relationship. The backdrop also features the heightened tension between India and Pakistan following their military conflagration in May due to the Pahalgam terror attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he brokered the ceasefire between the two countries, while India has maintained that there was no mediation by any other third country. To be sure, Pakistan's proven recoverable conventional crude oil reserves are pegged between 234 million and 353 million barrels by various estimates, while India's proven reserves are estimated at 4.8-5 billion barrels, or nearly 14 times of Pakistan's. By proven oil reserves, Pakistan is ranked between 50 and 55 in the world, compared to India's ranking in the early 20s. As for natural gas, OPEC's latest annual statistical bulletin pegs India's proven reserves at 1.15 billion cubic metres (bcm), 2.7 times of Pakistan's 0.43 bcm. Pakistan's oil production is estimated at around 60,000 barrels per day, only about a tenth of India's domestic oil output of over 580,000 barrels per day. Both Pakistan and India are heavily reliant on energy imports to meet their domestic demand, and oil is among the top imports for both countries in value terms. Going by this current data, it is hard to fathom a scenario wherein Pakistan would be in any position to sell oil to India, barring a realisation of Pakistan's hope of some miraculous, fate-altering hydrocarbon discoveries. Theoretically, at least, impossible is nothing, although exploration efforts so far in Pakistan have yielded very limited success. Then what is the source of this hypothesis of Pakistan sitting on 'massive' oil reserves that Islamabad, and now Trump, appear to be proposing? The basis of this premature assessment might lie in a decade-old report. In 2015, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report that estimated around 9.1 billion barrels of 'technically recoverable' shale oil resources in Pakistan based on available data and technical analysis, but without any exploratory effort. The same report had pegged India's technically recoverable shale oil resources at 3.8 billion barrels. These estimates, however, cannot be equated to proven reserves, which rests two rungs higher on the ladder of hydrocarbon resource recoverability. In fact, only a fraction of such technically recoverable estimates might eventually be produced, if at all, according to experts. Technically recoverable resources mean the oil and gas that can theoretically be produced based on current technology, industry practice, and geologic knowledge. A much smaller subset of these are what are known as 'economically recoverable resources', or oil and gas that could be produced without incurring a loss. Again, not all of these estimated economically recoverable resources may actually be produced due to various technical and economic considerations. A much smaller subset of these resources is what are known as proven or proved reserves—'the most certain oil and gas resource category'. 'Proved reserves are volumes of oil and natural gas that geologic and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions,' the EIA said in that 2015 report. Notably, the American agency also stated that the recoverability of shale oil was quite low—ranging from 3 per cent to 7 per cent of the oil in-place with exceptional cases being as high as 10 per cent or as low as 1 per cent. Suddenly, the 9.1-billion-barrel technically recoverable resource estimate doesn't appear as big. Also, given that all the assessments were based largely on available geological data and without any real exploratory data or exploration effort, it is anybody's guess how much shale oil production may actually be economically viable and feasible for Pakistan. While nothing can be ruled out from the realm of possibility, experts believe that it is highly improbable that Islamabad will win an oil lottery big enough to offset its own oil imports and then be left with excess volumes to export to India, the world's third-largest consumer of crude oil. A few reports of hydrocarbon discoveries have appeared in the Pakistani press over the past couple of years, but there is little data available in the public domain to back those claims made by officials in that country's establishment. And again, much of the claims are reported to have been based in surveys and studies, and without any significant exploratory effort. It is also worth noting that hydrocarbon exploration itself is an extremely expensive and long-gestation endeavour that could last multiple years, which is usually followed by another years-long development phase, before commercial production can start. For Pakistan, this would mean a significant lead time before any of its potential oil reserves can be tapped into, apart from billions of dollars' worth of investments that its fragile economy may not be able to afford. Perhaps that is where one or more of the American oil majors might come in with their deep pockets.
Time of India
35 minutes ago
- Time of India
Instant answers: India's fintechs harness GenAI
Bengaluru: Generative AI is rewriting the rules of finance, and nowhere is the upheaval sharper than in India's booming fintech scene. Brokerage chatbots that speak four languages, payment assistants that fix errors in seconds, and back-office engines that close two-hundred-million credit accounts before dawn are steadily stripping cost and friction out of money management—and propelling a new breed of startups onto the world stage. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now That momentum explains why Tiffany Bloomquist, who runs the startups business for Amazon Web Services (AWS) across Asia-Pacific and Japan, now touches down in India almost every quarter. Meeting founders in Bengaluru during a recent visit, she said GenAI has quickly become the fastest route to improving customer experience and urged entrepreneurs to weave the technology into every layer of their products. Three local tail-winds, she said, are fuelling the surge. F irst, the govet's India Stack gives developers ready-made digital rails for identity, payments and data-sharing. Second, Nasscom counts more than 240 Indian GenAI startups today, up from just 66 early last year. Third, AWS's ten-week GenAI Accelerator—supported by a $230 million fund—offers up to $1 million in credits, matches mentors and organises brisk "speed connect" meetings with big corporate buyers. Seven Indian firms have already won places on the current cohort. What, then, are those firms actually doing? Stock-broking platform Dhan, serving roughly three million traders, was drowning in know-your-customer (KYC) checks. By training a language model on its own policy documents, it now answers a quarter of those queries automatically, halving average wait times and cutting support costs by nearly a third. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Payment specialist Easebuzz faced merchants who repeatedly rang in with integration snags. Its new assistant, ERA, reads each message, compares it with technical manuals and suggests step-by-step fixes in real time. Redundant tickets have dropped by 80% and responses that once took 20 minutes arrive in seconds. At banking tech company Zeta, the numbers are bigger still. Every night the firm must post millions of transactions that merchants queue during the day. A cloud-based processing engine—reinforced with AI routines that predict the heaviest bursts—now reconciles 208 million credit accounts in about 40 minutes, a feat that would once have demanded a nine-figure hardware budget. Debt-marketplace Yubi uses large-language models to refresh credit scores. Feeding the software a lake of public filings and bank statements lets risk models update in hours rather than days, trimming a third off the time borrowers wait for funding offers. The common recipe is simple: distil company knowledge into an AI model, surface it through a chat-style interface and run it on servers that expand only when the rush arrives. "We used to automate servers," Bloomquist said. "Now we're automating compliance, advice, and trust. Founders who seize that shift will shape the next decade of finance."
Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Trump Cannot Dictate': Putin & His Top Ally Unite Against U.S. Over Ukraine Ultimatum
Praniti Shinde Refuses to Apologise for 'Tamasha' Remark on Op Sindoor After PM Modi Takes Dig Congress MP Praniti Shinde's 'Tamasha' comment on Operation Sindoor sparked outrage across party lines, but she's not backing down. Even as PM Modi condemned her remarks as an insult to the 26 lives lost in the Pahalgam terror attack, Shinde doubled down: 'We'll apologise 1000 times to the victims' families, but never to the BJP's andh-bhakts and trolls.' Shinde further questioned the lack of transparency in Operation Sindoor, asking how many terrorists were neutralised, whether jets were lost, and what India truly gained. The BJP called her stand disrespectful to the armed forces. #operationsindoor #pranitishinde #tamasharemark #congressvspm #pmmodi #pahalgamattack #loksabhadebate #modivscongress #modivspranitishinde #andhbhakts #bjpcongressclash #indianpolitics #breakingnews #trending #mediaoptics #nationalsecurity #operationmahadev #modispeech #bjpvscongress #parliamentdrama #expungedremark #toi #toibharat #bharat #trending #breakingnews #indianews 9.8K views | 2 days ago
