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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, said that India will not tolerate nuclear threats or blackmail from Pakistan. He added that New Delhi had set a “new normal” of not differentiating between terrorists and those who nurture terrorism.

The prime minister also said that “blood and water cannot flow together”, referring to the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan.

During the speech, Modi also announced that the next generation of reforms in the Goods and Services Tax would be unveiled by Diwali. The reforms will provide substantial relief to small and medium enterprises, he said.

Modi also said that taxes on commodities used by common citizens will be reduced substantially, and that daily-use items will become cheaper because of the upcoming changes to the GST regime.

The prime minister also announced the formation of a “high-powered demography mission” to deal with “infiltrators” who were snatching away the livelihood of the youth in the country. Read more.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party is “now ready to stoop to any level of immorality to stay in power”. He said that his party’s campaign against alleged poll malpractices was not aimed at winning elections, but at saving democracy.

Kharge said that special intensive revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls was used to “openly remove” Opposition voters, and claimed that living persons were being declared dead during the process.

Earlier in the day, the Congress chief hoisted the national flag at the Congress’ new headquarters in New Delhi. He urged party workers to fight against electoral malpractices “with the same intensity as the way we fought for freedom”, and asked them to take an active role in verifying the voter rolls at the booth level. Read more.

The toll from the flash flood triggered by a cloudburst in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district has increased to 45, with over 50 persons still missing. Kishtwar Additional Superintendent of Police Pradeep Singh said that about eight to ten of those killed had been identified and the process to identify the rest was ongoing.

The cloudburst took place on Thursday at 12.25 pm, near Chashoti, the last motorable village on the way to the Machail Mata temple.

A large number of devotees were in the area for the annual Machail Mata yatra that began on July 25 and was scheduled to end on September 5. Read on.

NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer BVR Subrahmanyam has said that India’s annual Gross Domestic Product growth needs to be 8%, and not 6.5%, if it wants to become a developed economy by 2047. “It looks very small, 1.5%,” he said. “But the difference, I tell you, in 2047 is going to be immense… What looks very minuscule can have major, major difference at the end.”

In March, NITI Aayog member Arvind Virmani had said that India only needed an average real GDP growth rate of 6% to 6.2% to become a developed economy by 2047, the year India completes 100 years of independence.

The NITI Aayog is the main public policy think tank of the Union government.

On May 30, the Union government’ provisional estimates shoed that India’s real GDP grew by 6.5% in 2024-’25. Read on.

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