Tag: InternationalNews

{No hostages were hurt after armed man barricaded himself with dozens in cinema in town of Viernheim.}

A masked and armed man barricaded himself in a German multiplex cinema with dozens of people inside before being killed by police, officials said.

No hostages were injured at the complex in the western town of Viernheim, 75km south of Frankfurt, Hesse state Interior Minister Peter Beuth said on Thursday.

“The assailant moved through the cinema complex, according to the information we have now, and appeared confused,” he said.

“There were hostages inside and there was a struggle [with police] until in the end he was dead.”

Beuth added: “We have no information that anyone [among the cinema-goers] was injured.”

A police spokeswoman in the nearby city of Darmstadt confirmed that “all the hostages were unhurt and led out of the building”.

Initial reports had referred to dozens of wounded people and several shots fired, and police dispatched heavily armed special units to the site equipped with helmets and bulletproof vests.

“There was an acute threat situation,” Viernheim police said in a statement.

Later accounts said that several people had been hurt by tear gas during the police raid but this was also denied.

Mass shootings are relatively rare in Germany, where gun ownership is prevalent but firearm sales and storage are subject to strict regulation.

In the worse case in recent years, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer went on a rampage with his father’s gun at his former school in 2009, killing 15 people before turning the weapon on himself.

{Syrian Democratic Forces enter the ISIL stronghold backed by US-led air strikes in the northern Syrian city.}

Kurdish and Arab fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have entered a key northern city of Manbij, an ISIL stronghold, the forces and monitoring group have said.

SDF was advancing slowly to the centre of Manbij on Thursday after entering the city backed by air strikes by the US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Nasser Haj Mansour, an adviser to the SDF, said the forces moved into the city on Wednesday from its northern edge, close to its grain silos which are still controlled by ISIL.

“Fierce street fighting between buildings” erupted as they entered the city, said Rami Abdel Rahman, the chief of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said progress was likely to be slow as SDF forces were facing booby-traps “planted by the jihadists to try to prevent the loss of the city”.

Abdel Rahman said tens of thousands of civilians were trapped inside the city, though some 8,000 had been able to flee since the start of the SDF offensive on Manbij on May 31.

There were fears that ISIL would use civilians as human shields inside the city, which had a population of about 120,000 before the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

The SDF managed to encircle the city on June 10 but its advance slowed as ISIL fought back, including with almost daily suicide bombings.

A major breakthrough

The advance marked a major breakthrough in the battle for Manbij, once a key link on the supply route between the Turkish border and ISIL’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa.

ISIL has held the city since 2014, the year ISIL seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its “caliphate”.

Formed in October 2015, the 25,000-strong SDF is dominated by the powerful Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) but includes an Arab contingent that has been steadily growing to around 5,000 fighters.

As well as air support, coalition countries have provided ground advisers to the SDF, including about 200 US special forces.

The Manbij assault has coincided with another offensive launched by Syrian regime forces against ISIL in its stronghold province of Raqqa.

Backed by Russian warplanes, government forces re-entered the province this month as part of an offensive to retake Tabqa, another key town on the ISIL supply route to the Turkish border.

But after advancing to within 7km of Tabqa airbase, they were driven back late on Monday in an ISIL counter-attack that killed 40 loyalists.

Three Russian soldiers supporting regime troops in the area were seriously wounded on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine, the Observatory said. They were recovered by Russian forces.

Syria’s conflict began five years ago with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations. It has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions.

{Rebels agree to lay down arms after more than 50 years of conflict that left 220,000 people dead and displaced millions.}

The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have signed a ceasefire, which includes the armed group laying down their arms after more than 50 years of conflict.

Negotiators signed the ceasefire agreement on Thursday in the presence of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo “Timochenko” Londono at a ceremony in Havana.

The historic event was also attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Chile and the Norwegian foreign minister.

The agreement is a final step in peace negotiations which have been going on since 2012.

Colombia’s decades-long civil war has left more than 220,000 people dead and driven millions from their homes.

“Colombia got used to living in conflict. We don’t have even the slightest memories of what it means to live in peace,” Santos said on Thursday in Havana. “Today a new chapter opens, one that brings back peace and gives our children the possibility of not reliving history.”

Santos has said a final peace treaty could be signed next month.

“It is truly a historic agreement and it shows the two sides were able to reach a deal on the most sensitive points still standing in the very long peace negotiations, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti, reporting from Bogota, said.

The means of implementation of the final peace deal remains to be settled.

The questions of disarmament and justice for victims make the road to peace and reconciliation a hard one.

The sides are discussing designating zones where the FARC’s estimated 7,000 remaining fighters can gather for a UN-supervised demobilisation process.

The Colombian president wants a referendum to put the seal of popular approval on its peace effort. But it faces resistance from some political rivals.

To hold a plebiscite, it needs the country’s constitutional judges to approve a law already passed in Congress.

Supporters of the peace process also fear that too many voters could simply stay home, threatening to leave the referendum below the participation threshold needed to be valid.

Momentum had been building towards a breakthrough in negotiations after Santos said earlier this week that he hoped to deliver a peace accord in time to mark Colombia’s declaration of independence from Spain on July 20. But the agreement signed on Thursday went further than expected.

In addition to a framework for a ceasefire, both sides agreed on a demobilisation plan that will see rebels concentrate in rural areas under government protection and hand over weapons to UN monitors. The peace accord gives the disarmament process a six-month time limit.

The deal also includes security guarantees for the FARC during its transition to a peaceful political party. A similar attempt in the 1980s led to thousands of rebels and their sympathisers being killed by paramilitaries and corrupt soldiers.

A peace deal won’t immediately make Colombia a safer place. The cocaine trade remains a powerful magnet for criminal gangs operating throughout the country’s remote valleys and jungles. And the National Liberation Army, a much smaller and more rebellious armed group, has not yet begun peace talks with the government.

A strong element within Colombia is opposed to a peace deal with FARC. They are led by popular former President Alvaro Uribe, who spearheaded the military offensive against the rebel group last decade.

“It damages the word ‘peace’ to accept that those responsible for crimes against humanity like kidnapping, car-bombing, recruitment of children and rape of girls don’t go to jail for a single day and can be elected to public office,” Uribe said on Thursday in reaction to the peace agreement.

But regional and international leaders were enthusiastic about the deal.

“The peace process can’t turn back,” said Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country was one of the guarantors of the talks.

In Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the “finish line is approaching and nearer now than it has ever been,” but that “hard work remains to be done.”

{Britons vote to leave the EU in referendum that could seal the fate of 28-nation union and high-profile UK politicians.}

Britain has voted to leave the European Union in a referendum, with the result throwing into question the fate of the 28-nation bloc and several high-profile British politicians, including the prime minister.

The official results were announced with Leave receiving 59,1 percent in Thursday’s historic referendum.

Prime Minister David Cameron had backed a vote to remain.

When asked whether Cameron should resign in case of a Brexit, Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP which had backed a vote to Leave, said: “immediately”.

At least 72 percent of 46.5m voters turned out cast their ballot.

{{‘Dawn is breaking’}}

Farage declared victory in a speech held in London as a Brexit looked increasingly likely.

“The dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,” he said to loud cheers at a Leave campaign party.

“I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation states, trading together, being friends together, cooperating together, and let’s get rid of the flag, the anthem, Brussels and all that has gone wrong.”

“Let June the 23rd go down in history as our Independence Day.”

Britain has voted to leave the European Union in a referendum, with the result throwing into question the fate of the 28-nation bloc and several high-profile British politicians, including the prime minister.

The official results were announced with Leave receiving 59,1 percent in Thursday’s historic referendum.

Prime Minister David Cameron had backed a vote to remain.

When asked whether Cameron should resign in case of a Brexit, Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP which had backed a vote to Leave, said: “immediately”.

At least 72 percent of 46.5m voters turned out cast their ballot.

‘Dawn is breaking’

Farage declared victory in a speech held in London as a Brexit looked increasingly likely.

“The dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,” he said to loud cheers at a Leave campaign party.

“I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nation states, trading together, being friends together, cooperating together, and let’s get rid of the flag, the anthem, Brussels and all that has gone wrong.”

“Let June the 23rd go down in history as our Independence Day.”

{California summit brings together hundreds of young business minds and investors to build a socially conscious world.}

Palo Alto, United States – American official Richard Stengel is known for many things throughout his diverse career, including working with Nelson Mandela on his definitive autobiography and as the managing editor of Time magazine for many years.

Now, acting as the US State Department’s Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Stengel sat down with AJ+ presenter Dena Takruri on Wednesday to discuss the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES).

The gathering brings together more than 1,000 young innovators, investors and government officials with the goal of establishing socially and environmentally conscious businesses around the world.

President Barack Obama launched the GES in 2009 in Cairo. It has also been held in Kenya, Dubai, Morocco, Malaysia, and Turkey. This year’s it is in the Silicon Valley in California, where technological innovation reigns supreme.

AJ+: What is this three-day summit all about?

Stengel: The Global Entrepreneurship Summit grew out of President Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009 where he said let’s figure out how we can have better relations with the Muslim world, with youth around the world.

And entrepreneurship was sort of a silver bullet for solving all kinds of the world’s problems: health problems, medical problems, economic challenges, community challenges. I actually think young entrepreneurs – way more than government – are the way to solve some of these problems because they’re faster, more passionate about it, more innovative. That’s why we convened this – 700 young entrepreneurs from 181 countries around the world together with each other, and 300 angel investors who might want to invest in their products, ideas, or their companies … We want businesses that are actually making some money, but doing good at the same time.

AJ+:This is a project of the US State Department. What kinds of conversations go on between the US government and countries that may not want necessarily to be supportive of these initiatives?

Stengel: Realistically, not every government is as hospitable to entrepreneurism as the United States. We try to create a level playing field around the world so there’s a rule of law, that you can go bankrupt without ruining your life and family. But there are certain parts of the American business environment that we think should be universal, including basic legal opportunities for people to start businesses and not being penalised for going bankrupt or losing money.

One of the things you see here in the Silicon Valley is people start things and fail multiple times before they create something that’s successful. Look, it may not work the first time, but try it again.

AJ+: Since Obama’s 2009 speech about hitting re-start with the Arab world, so much has happened, the Arab Spring, there’s a tremendous amount of unrest in the region. Was it still a worthy effort?

Stengel: It’s still a worthy effort because we so support a kind of progressive view in the Muslim world getting countries into the 20thcentury, not only with rule of law, but women’s rights, opportunity for women and youth. Women are under-represented as entrepreneurs around the world, under-represented on boardrooms. My boss, Secretary [John] Kerry, always says ‘You can’t win the game if you have half the team on the bench.’

So many of the world’s challenges are actually in the Middle East region right now. We want to have better relationships with those countries, and with Muslims around the world. We want to connect young Muslims in the region with young Americans here and with young people around the world. That’s a very worthy goal.

AJ+: The reality is there’s a lot of scepticism out there. There’s a lot of pessimism among young Muslims in the Middle East. How to you react to that?

Stengel: There is a lot of pessimism and one of the things I think is unfortunate is where people feel like the United States has to solve all the problems. Sometimes we get blamed because you’re not fixing this and you’re not fixing that. Part of President Obama’s idea of foreign policy is partnerships, not the US going it alone. Most Americans believe we benefit not only from relationships with Muslim countries but also Muslim immigrants to America.

AJ+: How do you respond to criticism that the GES is really an exercise in American soft power?

Stengel: I agree it is, I’m a soft power advocate and American soft power to me is one of the most positive things in the world, whether it’s Beyonce and American pop culture, American ideas – these values we talk about freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of speech. I think American soft power is a very positive light that people should look on that potentially benefits them and their country.

AJ+: We are talking here is about how to proactively use business to bring about change. There’s also the argument that one can withhold business to affect change. I know a lot of people have asked about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. What is the position of the State Department on that?

Stengel: That isn’t something we encourage. But of course this is people’s free expression. If people object to policies they make their own choices about that. The larger idea that we encourage is allowing people to choose their own destiny wherever they live around the world. There are people who live under harsh, repressive governments, and we talk to those governments about allowing free speech, freedom of assembly, allowing freedom of expression, so these are very important values. [BDS] that’s not something we support, but we support the right of people to be able to do that kind of thing. Non-violent resistance to ideas is something that free people should be able to do wherever they live.

I worked with Nelson Mandela on his book A Long Walk to Freedom. We became very close he’s the godfather to one of my sons. Nelson Mandela to me is a great model because what he campaigned for was the right of his people to decide their destiny, to be able to vote … which never existed before. He would say all of these things are universal values – the right of suffrage, right to express your opinion, freedom of religion – all of those things are not just American values, they’re universal values and he spent his life – sacrificed his life – for these values.

{Israel stands accused of using ‘water as a weapon’ as some West Bank homes have gone without water for a week.}

Salfit, occupied West Bank – Salfit sits atop an underground wealth of water, but the city’s residents are forbidden from accessing it – and they are now in crisis, as Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, has reduced water supply to the northern West Bank.

Since the start of the month, residents of Salfit have been receiving between 30 and 40 percent of their normal water allowance, said Saleh Afaneh, the head of the local water and wastewater department.

“On the first day of Ramadan, the water stopped for 24 hours, with no notice,” Afaneh told Al Jazeera. “Since then, it has been coming in at less than half the capacity. We’ve done everything we can to try and make residents comfortable, but this is a crisis.”

“He hasn’t slept in two days,” the city’s mayor, Shaher Eshtieh, cut in. “We’ve never seen anything like this; we are in full crisis mode, working around the clock to help our people, but we are doing this on our own … We’ve continuously reached out to the Palestinian government, the prime minister even, but they’ve been no help, and the Israelis are denying there is a problem.”

A Palestinian Authority spokesperson did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Water shortages and cuts have also been reported throughout the northern Jenin and Nablus districts of the West Bank, although Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, the Israeli body in charge of the occupied West Bank, denied water had been cut or reduced at all.

In a statement, COGAT said the shortages in the Jenin area were reported due to a broken water pipe that had since been repaired. COGAT also stated that a pipe had burst in Salfit, although local water officials said they had no knowledge of this.

The Israeli water company Mekorot, meanwhile, said that owing to shortages in the water supply, it had made “a broad reduction of the supply to all residents in the area”, referring to both Israeli settlements and Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank.

Camilla Corradin, the advocacy task force coordinator for the Emergency, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (EWASH) group, told Al Jazeera that Israel is using “water as a weapon”.

“EWASH believes that Israel has managed to achieve a water surplus, thanks to its advanced water and wastewater technology and its control over Palestinian water resources,” Corradin said.

“There are little excuses left not to give Palestinians back their water rights, so that Palestinian towns and villages will no longer be left without the most basic of rights – water – in hot summer months.”

While the city of Salfit goes through water shortages every summer, Eshtieh said he had never experienced such a dire crisis. “It’s an emergency situation; even right now our municipality building has no water,” he added.

Some residents said they had gone more than a week at a time without water in their homes since the start of this month. Sweat dripped down the face of Marwan Marayta, a resident of Salfit, as he walked home in the beating sun near the city centre.

“For the past three days, my house has had a bit of water, just enough for drinking and cooking – not cleaning or anything – but before that, we were without any water at all for more than a week,” he said. “It would be hard to live without water under normal circumstances, but during Ramadan we are all fasting and it’s so hot, this is miserable.”

Some residents have taken to buying water from trucks that come through the city, but the price of private water has skyrocketed since the start of the crisis.

“The trucks will fill up one water tank for between 75 and 150 shekels ($19-$25), but many of us can’t afford that,” Marayta said. “I filled one of mine up with a private truck once, but I haven’t been able to pay for it yet.”

Each house has between four and eight tanks on the roof to supply water. With the average monthly wage in the West Bank at around $600 a month, the costs of supplying a home with private water are out of reach for most residents.

Eshtieh accused the private water trucks of extortion, and outlawed them in Salfit for the time being.

“What used to cost residents nine shekels ($2) to fill a tank normally is now 100 shekels from a truck? No, I won’t have that in my city. I told the police force not to allow these water trucks in. Those kind of prices are not fair. It’s not right,” the mayor said.

Jameel Shaheed, a dairy farmer in Salfit, said he would have to shut down within weeks if the water crisis was not solved. “If there is no water, there is no milk from my cows,” Shaheed said. “Before I was using my trucks to deliver milk around the city, but now I am using them to bring water back and forth.”

Salfit gets most of its water from the mountain aquifer, the most significant of the three aquifers that supply water to Palestinians and Israelis. The vast majority of the mountain aquifer is within the West Bank, but under the Oslo Accords, only 17 percent of the aquifer’s water goes to Palestinians, while more than 71 percent goes to Israelis in Israel and its illegal settlements.

Even during normal consumption periods, Palestinians receive an average of 73 litres per capita per day, well below the World Health Organization minimum standard of 100 litres, and much lower than the 240-300 litres Israelis and Israeli settlers receive.

While Palestinians could theoretically build their own wells to access the plentiful groundwater, Israel rarely grants permission, Eshtieh said. In Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control, COGAT documented that on average, 99 percent of all requests to build wells are approved – but it did not differentiate between Palestinian requests and Israeli settler requests. Around 70 percent of Area C falls within the boundaries of illegal Israeli settlement councils.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, between 2011 and 2014, only 1.4 percent of building permit requests from Palestinians in Area C were approved by COGAT – including wells, homes, sheds and other structures.

“Salfit is one of the most water-rich lands in the West Bank, but look at us – we can’t access it,” Eshtieh said. “Water is running under our ground while our taps run dry … The people are getting angry. They won’t continue to accept this.”

{Peacekeepers reprimanded over “lack of responsiveness” during deadly attack on refugee camp in Malakal in February.}

The United Nations has said it will send peacekeepers home over a “lack of responsiveness” during a bloody attack on a UN-run camp in South Sudan in February.

UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous acknowledged on Wednesday that an investigation had found “inadequacies” in peacekeepers’ response when gunmen in military uniforms stormed the camp in the northeastern town of Malakal on February 17 and 18, firing on civilians and setting shelters ablaze.

The attack on the camp, where about 48,000 people were sheltering, left at least 40 dead and 123 wounded.

Nearly 20,000 people lost their homes after they were torched by the attackers based on the occupants’ tribal affiliation.

“There was a lack of responsiveness by some, a lack of understanding of the rules of engagement by some,” said Ladsous, who refused to single out any individuals.

“I will not name names but there will be repatriations of units and of individual officers.”

At the time of the attack, the peacekeeping force was made up of contingents from Ethiopia, India and Rwanda.

“I can assure you that there will be a follow-up as there has been in other theaters of operation,” Ladsous said.

Initial findings of an internal UN investigation found “there was confusion with respect to command and control” and “a lack of coordination among the various civilian and uniformed peacekeepers” during the attack.

A UN military official in Malakal told Al Jazeera that Ethiopian peacekeepers had abandoned their posts during the attack.

The same official said the peacekeeping contingent from Rawanda had asked, in writing, for permission to fire their weapons as the base came under attack, even though peacekeepers are licensed to use force to protect civilians.

“Attackers entered in the backyard of a UN base and proceeded to shot and kill civilians and to systematically burn down large parts of the camp, as peacekeepers responded slowly and ineffectively,” said Matt Wels, a senior adviser on peacekeeping at the Center for Civilians in Conflict.

The medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the UN had “failed in its duty to safeguard the people at the site and could have averted many fatalities”.

Many of those who sought shelter at the UN site in Malakal arrived shortly after Sudan’s civil war began in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar, who he had sacked earlier that year, of plotting a coup.

Civil war broke out when soldiers from Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group disarmed and targeted troops of Machar’s Nuer ethnic group. Machar and commanders loyal to him fled, and tens of thousands of people died in the civil war that followed.

A peace agreement signed in August collapsed and fighting continues in many parts of the country, despite both leaders joining a unity government two months ago.

The attack in Malakal threatens to deepen the conflict further. Leaders of the Shilluk ethnic group, the third largest tribe in the country who hail from Malakal, say that if they are not given their land back, fighting could ensue.

{More than 30 civilians killed and 150 injured in Russian air strikes targeting ISIL-held city, activist group says.}

More than 30 civilians have been killed and 150 injured in air strikes targeting areas held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL) in Syria, an activist group has said.

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently group said on Wednesday that 32 civilians were killed and 150 injured in Russian strikes on Raqqa city, the de-facto capital of ISIL.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, put the death toll at 25 civilians, including six children.

The raids came a day after ISIL, also known as ISIS, pushed government forces some 40km from the strategic city of Tabqa, an area west of Raqqa city that has Syria’s largest dam and an airbase.

Government troops and allied militiamen had reached within seven km of the airport on Sunday, according to the Observatory.

Tabqa airbase was the last position held by government forces in Raqqa province before ISIL overran it in August 2014, killing scores of detained soldiers in a massacre they documented on video.

ISIL has imposed strict rule in Raqqa city – home to more than 220,000 people before the Syrian conflict – and committed atrocities against the civilian population since its takeover more than two years ago.

The group has been under pressure in Iraq, Syria and Libya in recent weeks, but the recent gains in Raqqa show it is still able to take on Syrian troops backed by Russian warplanes.

But according to defence analysts at the think-tank IHS Jane, ISIL has lost about 14 percent of its territory in 2015 and is struggling to hold on to territory under bombardment from the coalition and having to fend off rival armies and factions on multiple fronts.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-on armed conflict.

United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimated in April that more than 400,000 Syrians had been killed, though he said that number was not an official UN statistic.

Almost 11 million Syrians – half the country’s prewar population – have been displaced from their homes.

{The rocket carries the highest number of satellites on a single Indian mission and the third highest in history.}

India has successfully launched a rocket carrying a record 20 satellites, as its space agency looks to grab a larger slice of the lucrative commercial space market.

The rocket carries the highest ever number of satellites on a single Indian mission and the third highest in history.

It blasted off on Wednesday from the southern spaceport of Sriharikota, carrying satellites from the US, Germany, Canada and Indonesia.

INFOGRAPHIC: India’s mission to Mars

Most of the satellites will enter orbit to observe and measure the Earth’s atmosphere, while one of them aims to provide service for amateur radio operators.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known to be highly ambitious about the country’s space research programme, described the launch as “a monumental accomplishment” for the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar told the national NDTV news network: “Each of these small objects that you are putting into space will carry out their own activity, which is independent of the other, and each of them will live a wonderful life for a finite period.” .
{{Frugal space programme}}

The business of putting commercial satellites into space for a fee is globally growing as phone, Internet and other companies, as well as countries, seek greater and more high-tech communications.

In 2008, India launched 10 satellites on one rocket, setting a world record that has since been broken by the United States and then Russia.

Pallava Bagla, a science editor with the privately run Indian TV channel NDTV, told Al Jazeera that it was significant feat and symbolised why big tech companies were flocking to India.

“It’s like dropping off, one by one, school children from a bus travelling at high velocity” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s a tricky maneuver because you don’t want the mothership and the ‘babies’ to collide with each other.”

“India offers launch costs that are fifty percent cheaper than the rest of the world, so if Space X, Arianespace or NASA can do it at $100, India is willing to do it at $50,” he added.

India is competing with other international players for a greater share of the commercial launch market, and is known for its low-cost space programme.

In 2013, the ISRO sent an unmanned rocket to orbit Mars at a cost of just $73m, compared with American space agency NASA’s Maven Mars mission that had a $671m price tag.

The successful mission was a source of immense pride in India, which beat rival China in becoming the first Asian country to reach the Red Planet.

In May, the ISRO launched a rocket carrying an experimental spacecraft it hopes will mark an important step towards the country’s first re-usable space shuttle.