Morning Brief: Rafale Jets To Be Delivered By 2019; Trump Meets Bibi; SBI Merger Approved

Good Morning, Swarajya Readers! Here's What You Need To Know Today.

Merger approved. The Union cabinet yesterday approved the proposed merger of State Bank of India (SBI) and five subsidiaries - State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Patiala (SBP) and State Bank of Travancore (SBT). SBI stood at rank 52 in the world in terms of assets in 2015. The proposed merger will take the lender among the top 50 creating a banking behemoth with assets of nearly Rs 30 trillion, more than three times the Rs 8.28 trillion assets of HDFC Bank which is currently the largest private bank in the country.

General warns 'innocent' civilians. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Bipin Rawat has said that anyone who obstructs the armed forces during anti-insurgency operations and those who are not supportive of the operations would be treated as ‘overground workers’ of terrorists. This statement comes in a day after Major Satish Dahiya of the 30 Rashtriya Rifles was martyred. Although he managed to neutralise all four terrorists before he succumbed to his death in a hospital, it is alleged that locals began pelting stones at the armed forces in order to give cover to the terrorists. Casualties are mounting in J&K due to the change in tactics by separatists. Here's how the Army can come up with a comprehensive plan to counter them.

BJP Makes a dent in Odisha. The party is making inroads into Naveen Patnaik's turf. In the first phase of the polls which concluded Monday, the BJP got 71 Zilla Parishad seats, second only to the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which won 103. The BJP swept Kalahandi district, winning all of the nine ZP seats there. In the second phase too which was held yesterday, the party is showing great promise in the trends that are coming. This is a significant improvement over what it achieved in the state back in 2012, when it won 36 seats of the total 851.

Giving it more teeth. BrahMos cruise missile, with an extended range of 450 Km, will be tested on 10 March. In its current form, BrahMos has a range of 290km, and developed by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India's DRDO and the Russian NPO. Land- and ship-launched versions are already in service, and the air- and submarine-launched versions are currently in the testing phase.

Rafale coming home soon. Dassault CEO Eric Trappier hasinformed that the first Rafale fighter jets will be delivered to India in 2019. He also said that France is in discussions to assist in the domestic next generation Advanced Multirole Combat Aircraft (AMCA) as part of the offset obligations of the fighter jet deal. However he believes that the current order of 36 jets would not be sufficient to transfer high-end manufacturing or technology to India, the Economic Times reported. "We want to continue beyond the 36 jets on order. The requirement is around 200 jets for India and a naval order as well," the ET quoted him saying.

New world record. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) yesterday launched a record number of 104 satellites including Cartosat-2 in one go on board a single rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Apart from principal payload Cartosat-2 series satellite and two more nano-satellites weighing less than 10 kilograms, 101 other co-passengers are from foreign countries including one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UAE and 96 from the U.S.

Trump meets Bibi. In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump softenedAmerica's stand on the two-state solution that's been its official policy for a long time and said that he is "looking at two-state and one-state formulations. I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one.” However, he told Israeli Prime Minister "to hold back on settlements for a little bit". He also told Bibi that Israel would have to be flexible if it wants to make any deals. “As with any successful negotiation, both sides will have to make compromises," Trump said.

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We hope you enjoyed reading our morning brief. Have a great day ahead!