F-35B fighter jet gets ready to leave Tvm
Sources said that the repair work was over and the plane might be ready for take-off soon.
A 24-member technical team struggled for close to a week to fix the hydraulic snag the aircraft developed.
The plane is in the hangar of the airport. This is the first time an F35 plane got stranded in a country.
The plane made an emergency landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport on June 14 after it could not land on the aircraft carrier from which it took off for a routine sortie. TNN
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Indian Express
43 minutes ago
- Indian Express
A boat, a legacy: A scrap dealer's tribute to Robert Bristow, the architect of modern Cochin port
The warm scent of teak wood and Fevicol greets visitors at a boatyard on the banks of the Vembanad Lake. Beneath a teal tarpaulin, two men work diligently on a weathered wooden boat, predominantly brown with patches of flaking polish. Surrounded by scaffolding and wooden supports, the vessel wears a modest sign at its bow: ML Vasco. But this is no ordinary restoration, and ML Vasco is no ordinary boat. More than 105 years old, it is the boat that once ferried British harbour engineer Sir Robert Bristow — widely acknowledged as the architect of the modern port in Kochi — after he landed in Kochi in 1920. Seethi Sajar, a scrap dealer based in Thoppumpady, secured it in an auction held by the Cochin Port Trust in 2010 for Rs 2 lakh, only to realise its historical significance later. 'It was only after a Port Trust official told me that this was the boat used by Robert Bristow that I knew of the value of my possession. It was then that I decided I would not dismantle the boat but keep it for future generations to witness and understand his contributions.' Bristow arrived in Kochi in April 1920 at the age of 39, under the direction of the then Governor of Madras, Lord Willingdon. Waiting for him at the waterfront was ML Vasco, which would become his constant companion during his mission to modernise the Cochin Port. Though the port had been a major trading hub even before Bristow's arrival, its expansion was hampered by the lack of a safe inner harbour for ships. 'The Cochin Port was a natural port, attracting Portuguese, Arabs, Jews, Dutch, and British at different periods. Over the centuries, shipping technology underwent significant changes. Sailing ships gave way to steamships. However, huge ships could not come close to the Cochin Port due to a natural sandbar, and cargo loading and unloading were being done using small boats,' says Bony Thomas, nodal officer of Cochin Heritage Zone Conservation Society. In 1926, Bristow brought a dredger, named 'Lord Willingdon', from Scotland to remove the sand and silt that prevented the entry of large ships at the port. Two years later, on May 26, 1928, a steamship, SS Padma, entered the inner harbour of the modernised Cochin Port, officially opening it to the world. This event is commemorated annually as the Cochin Port Day. But Bristow didn't stop here. He used the mud and materials dredged from the sea during the modernisation of the port to create Willingdon Island, the largest artificial island in India. He filled the area around Veduruthy Island, a pre-existing small natural island, to carve out Willingdon Island in a sprawling area of 775 acres. He owned the first building on the new island. 'He later connected this human-made island to the mainland of Ernakulam through the Venduruthy bridge. He also connected the island and the mainland area of Thoppumpady through the Old Harbour Bridge, which was called the London Bridge of Kochi. It was an architectural marvel as its middle portion could be lifted to allow ships to pass through,' says Thomas. In his book Cochin Saga, Bristow wrote how he marvelled at the scope of the Cochin Port when he touched down in 1920 and took the first trip on Vasco. 'It seemed all the blue lagoons of the southern seas had come to rest in the wide bosom of Mother India at Cochin, for each side there stretched an interminable vista fading only into the sky itself.' Over the next two decades, he transformed Kochi's landscape as the 'interminable vista' evolved into a bustling port city, complete with wharfs, cranes, roads, and bridges. He oversaw the extension of the rail line from the old railway station in Ernakulam to Willingdon Island and the establishment of Harbour Terminus railway station on the island in 1932, mainly for freight movement. Talking to the BBC in 1935, a proud Bristow said: 'I live on a large island made from the bottom of the sea. It is called Willingdon Island, after the present Viceroy of India. From the upper floor of my house, I look down on the finest harbour in the East.' Bristow also played a key role in building a civilian airstrip on Willingdon Island in 1936, which later proved to be a crucial aircraft repair yard for the British during World War II. In 1953, the facility was commissioned as INS Garuda, the oldest operating air station of the Indian Navy. Apart from his engineering laurels, Bristow, along with his wife, Gertrude, is credited with founding the inter-racial Lotus Club in Kochi. 'The Cochin Club in Fort Kochi allowed only fully British people. Gertrude had Belgian Jewish ancestry, making her ineligible. The couple opened Lotus Club to people from all races and backgrounds, almost like a statement to the British Raj,' says Stephen Robert, a Kochi-based heritage activist. Bristow returned to England in 1941 and passed away in 1966 at the age of 85. ML Vasco is unlike any modern vessel. Twenty-six feet long, six feet wide, and seven feet tall, with a two-cylinder diesel engine, it can accommodate 10 to 12 people. Built entirely from wood and copper, and without the use of iron, it has not rusted even after all these years. For its restoration, Sajar sought craftsmen skilled in repairing wooden boats. His search eventually led him to Jaison and Janappan from Mulvakukad in Kochi. The two men are as enthusiastic as Sajar about the restoration efforts. 'We had heard about Bristow sayippu (a loosely used colloquial term in Malayalam for people of Caucasian descent) and it is a great privilege for us to now work on his boat,' says Jaison, adding that the instruction from Sajar has been to stay true to the original design. The boat has two cabins separated by a central deck. A wooden ladder connects the central deck to the front cabin, which features two large oval windows on each side. The two men plan to install glass panes in these windows. The rear cabin has rectangular wooden panels and serves as the main seating area. The windows in the back cabin are rectangular and much smaller compared to those in the front cabin. They have reattached the loose steering wheel and plan to replace the engine cover. What lies ahead for them is the not-so-easy task of lifting the boat and replacing the missing wooden planks on the bottom. Sajar estimates the cost for the restoration work, which began over four months ago, to be around Rs 10 lakh. For now, ML Vasco remains at a rented yard in Karuvelippady. But Sajar has bigger plans: once restored, the boat will be mounted on trolleys and transported to a three-acre plot nearby, which he bought recently. He intends to display Vasco in a fibre enclosure and unveil it during Onam.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
NCERT calls Babur brutal: What history's shifting lens reveals about the Mughal emperor
NCERT describes Babur as 'brutal' If history had a Twitter bio, Babur's might read: Brutal conqueror. Poet. Exile. Book hoarder. Empire starter. Occasional librarian. In a move that has sparked more than just academic curiosity, the NCERT's new Class 8 Social Science textbook Exploring Society: India and Beyond introduces young minds to Babur not as a romanticised founder of an empire, but as a 'brutal and ruthless conqueror, slaughtering entire populations of cities.' His successors don't escape the editorial scalpel either: Akbar is presented as 'a blend of brutality and tolerance,' while Aurangzeb is noted for destroying temples and gurdwaras. For all the clamour around revisionism, the real story lies in how Babur has been portrayed over time—sometimes with awe, sometimes with apology, and often with discomfort. From the candour of Baburnama to the cold calculations of colonial chroniclers, and from nationalist historians to modern reinterpreters, Babur's historical image has been as mercurial as a Timurid prince wandering between exile and empire. Let's take a closer look at how history has handled Babur—warts, wisdom and war crimes included—and what this evolving portrayal means for the students now reading him in their first brush with Indian history. Baburnama: The brutally honest autobiography To understand Babur, one must begin with Baburnama (or Tuzuk-i-Baburi ), the emperor's own diary, written in Chaghatai Turkish and later translated into English by Annette Susannah Beveridge in 1922. It's often celebrated as one of the most brutally honest autobiographies in global literature—part military log, part poetry anthology, part confessional. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Sore Knees? These Foods Could Be Your Natural Solution Undo In his account of the 1519 Bajaur massacre, Babur wrote: 'As the Bajauris were rebels and at enmity with the people of Islam… they were put to general massacre… At a guess more than 3,000 men went to their death.' He didn't just stop there. The bodies were used to construct macabre monuments: 'On the walls, in houses, streets and alleys, the dead lay… We ordered that a tower of heads should be set up on the rising-ground.' But Baburnama also reveals an aesthete who loved gardens, books, and libraries, often raiding enemy libraries after conquests. The paradox is potent: a man who beheaded enemies by day and rearranged bookshelves by night. Colonial historians: Brutality as backdrop for British civility British historians like Lane-Poole and Smith emphasized Babur's role as a foundational figure while highlighting his brutal ancestry, often to justify British rule. The Imperial Filter: Stanley Lane-Poole's Dual Lens In Rulers of India: Babar and History of India, From the Reign of Akbar the Great to the Fall of the Moghul Empire , Stanley Lane-Poole (1854–1931) offered Babur a reluctant salute. He called him 'a soldier of fortune and not an architect of empire,' subtly denying him the title of empire-builder while grudgingly admitting he 'laid the first stone of the splendid fabric that his grandson Akbar achieved.' Lane-Poole, ever the Orientalist diplomat, cast Babur not as a destroyer but as a bridge—a connector of worlds. 'Babar serves as a crucial link between Central Asia and India, predatory hordes and imperial government, and Tamerlane and Akbar,' he wrote. Babur, in this version, is less a brute and more a hinge in history, though one still slightly untrustworthy. Vincent Arthur Smith: Lineage, Liquor, and the Lurid Legacy If Lane-Poole offered reluctant praise, Vincent Arthur Smith (1848–1920) came wielding a colonial cold shower. In Akbar the Great Mogul, 1542–1605 , he scoured Babur's bloodline and found only vice. 'Akbar's ancestors like Babar and Humayun were barbarous and vicious... Intemperance was the besetting sin of the Timuroid royal family... Babur (was) an elegant toper... Humayun, the son of Babar, was even more degenerate and cruel than his father.' If you can smell both the Victorian disapproval of alcohol and a fascination with dynastic decay, you're not wrong. Smith painted Babur less as a visionary ruler and more as a functional alcoholic in an inherited spiral of savagery—a sort of imperial soap opera with swords. For Smith, Babur's worth was best understood through the blood-soaked mirror of Timur and Genghis Khan. The sword may have been sharp, but so was the ancestral hangover. William Erskine: The historian as humaniser Enter William Erskine (1773–1852), a man who read Babur more closely than perhaps Babur read his own fate. In A History of India under the two first sovereigns of the house of Taimur, Báber and Humáyun (1854), Erskine built a more nuanced portrait. Having translated Babur's Tuzuk-i-Baburi into English as early as 1826, Erskine's Babur is less beast and more bard. He focused on Babur the Timurid prince—strategist, memoirist, nature lover. Here was a man who recorded the scent of melons and the feel of battlefields with equal literary grace. Erskine's approach was methodical, empathetic, and archival. He dug deep into Persian manuscripts and resisted the impulse to reduce Babur to a stereotype. In an era when brutality sold books, Erskine chose balance—a historian before his time. Elliot and Dowson: The imperial comparison set No imperial historical survey is complete without a bit of moral contrast. Henry Miers Elliot and John Dowson provided exactly that in their colossal eight-volume The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period (1867–1877). Their project was ambitious but not innocent. The explicit aim? To demonstrate 'the immense advantages accruing to [Indians] under the mildness and equity of [British] rule' as opposed to the so-called tyranny of earlier Muslim rulers. The duo collated Persian chronicles and battle records, often allowing the documentation of Babur's violence to speak for itself. Early Indian historians: A calculated distance Indian historians like Sarkar and Majumdar focused more on military strategy and administrative capability. Jadunath Sarkar: The military strategist Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958), knighted for his historical contributions and often lauded as 'the greatest Indian historian of his time,' was less interested in moral judgments and more in the mechanics of conquest. In works like History of Aurangzib and Military History of India , Sarkar treated Babur's campaigns with the cool detachment of a war strategist reviewing a chessboard. To Sarkar, Babur wasn't simply a conqueror—he was a tactician who outmanoeuvred larger Indian armies with superior artillery, mobility, and battlefield positioning. It wasn't just blood that secured the throne—it was brains, and lots of logistical foresight. R.C. Majumdar: The balanced chronicler If Sarkar was the tactician, R.C. Majumdar was the careful referee of historical contradictions. Majumdar's accounts resist simplistic binaries. His Babur was not just a warrior but also a man occasionally capable of restraint—though only when it didn't get in the way of empire-building. Majumdar doesn't erase Babur's violent streak—far from it. He acknowledges the blood spilled, the heads piled, and the strategy often wrapped in slaughter. But he also refuses to flatten Babur into a caricature of cruelty. Violence, Majumdar suggests, was not impulse—it was often calculus. Contemporary historians: Modern reassessments Modern historians show remarkable diversity—from Dalrymple's cultural humanist approach to Maldahiyar's harsh revisionist critique. William Dalrymple : The Cultural Humanist In his 2020 introduction to The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur , William Dalrymple doesn't so much chronicle Babur as he curates his contradictions. Dalrymple's Babur is the thinking man's warrior—the literary sovereign who composed verses even as he conquered cities. Describing The Baburnama as 'one of the greatest memoirs in any language and of any age,' Dalrymple reframes the text not merely as royal autobiography but as an archive of shared humanity—'a testament to humanity in which the personal becomes universal. ' This Babur was a connoisseur of beauty, addicted to books, and, amusingly enough, something of a bibliophilic bandit. 'His first act after a conquest,' writes Dalrymple, 'was to go to the library of his opponent and raid its shelves.' Imagine Alexander with a Kindle. Dalrymple's tone is reverent, but it also invites modern readers to ask: Can a man write immortal prose and still stain his legacy with imperial ambition? According to Dalrymple, yes—and that's precisely the point. Stephen Frederic Dale: The psychological biographer In Babur: Timurid Prince and Mughal Emperor, 1483–1530 (2018), Stephen Frederic Dale doesn't just look at Babur—he peers into him. This is less history than biography with a pulse. Dale's Babur is not an icon but a haunted émigré—a man carting the trauma of displacement across continents. He paints a poignant psychological portrait: Babur 'suffered the regretful anguish of an exile who felt himself to be a stranger in a strange land.' This is no conqueror reveling in plunder, but an uprooted soul trying to transplant a Central Asian dream into Indian soil. Abraham Eraly: The political realist Then comes Abraham Eraly with his sharp political scalpel, slicing through the romantic haze. In The Mughal World: Life in India's Last Golden Age , Eraly does not flinch. Babur, he argues, was not merely a tactician or a poet-in-armour—he was a man possessed by what Eraly calls 'ruthless machinations and brutal lust for power.' This is an empire as a crime scene. Eraly's Babur is neither nostalgic nor noble; he's hungry, strategic, and stunningly effective at dismembering opposition. Aabhas Maldahiyar: The revisionist critic If Eraly is blunt, Aabhas Maldahiyar is positively unfiltered. In Babur: The Chessboard King (2024), Maldahiyar doesn't bother with psychological nuance or poetic redemption. He opens with fire—and never lets up. To Maldahiyar, Babur is not just flawed; he is catastrophically unfit. 'A savage, weakened ruler,' he calls him. 'A dreadful administrator, an unwise economist, and a disastrous military commander.' There is no room for ambiguity here—Babur is not just history's anti-hero, but a cautionary tale. Between the textbook and the truth So where does that leave us—and our Class 8 students? NCERT's move to describe Babur as 'brutal and ruthless' isn't unfounded. But neither is the portrayal complete. Historical figures, especially those who built empires on bones and verses, deserve neither hagiography nor cancellation. They require context—nuance, if you will. Babur was a conqueror who wrote like a monk, a killer who composed couplets. Whether students are ready for that complexity is not just a curricular question, but a philosophical one. Perhaps the best way to teach Babur is to let students read his Baburnama , and decide for themselves whether he was a poet in armour—or a warlord with a bookshelf. Because in the end, the question isn't whether Babur was brutal. It's whether we're brave enough to teach the truth in full. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Time of India
12 hours ago
- Time of India
Wings clipped: Grounded helicopter takes road route to Mumbai
1 2 Kendrapada: While the British Navy's F-35 fighter jet continues to sit stranded on the tarmac at Thiruvananthapuram airport a month after developing a technical snag, a helicopter that carried chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi during his visit to Kendrapada has finally begun its slow road journey to Mumbai — ending more than 30 days of being grounded on a college playground and becoming an unlikely selfie hotspot. The helicopter was immobilised on June 9 after a lightning strike caused serious technical faults, forcing the CM to return by road. Despite a week of efforts by three aviation engineers, the problems proved too complex to fix on-site — mirroring the ongoing plight of the British F-35, which has remained grounded since June 14. Its removal came after a TOI report on July 10 flagged the stranded aircraft. "The authorities initiated action to remove the helicopter after the news was published," confirmed additional district magistrate Rabindra Kumar Mallick. Engineers dismantled the helicopter's blades before using an earthmover to lift it onto a trailer. "The road journey to Mumbai, covering about 800 km, will take around 10 days. Two escort vehicles will ensure safe transport," said a Mumbai-based aviation engineer involved in the operation, who did not wish to be named. For Kendrapada Autonomous College students, the chopper's presence meant their only playground was barricaded and guarded round-the-clock by police and fire services. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like [속보]'한 달만에 5cm 성장!?' 2개월치 무료증정 압도적 키성장 1위! 아이클타임 더 알아보기 Undo "Students and others were denied access for over a month. We're relieved it's finally being moved," said a college teacher, requesting anonymity. Like the British Navy jet that has become an unusual sight for flyers at Thiruvananthapuram airport, the Kendrapada chopper turned into a local spectacle — with students flocking for selfies and group photos. "I took my final selfie with the helicopter as it was being loaded onto the trailer," said Rahul Rout, a college student.
