Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao followed the high court's orders and ensured that the official Republic Day parade took place at Raj Bhavan on Thursday. But he did not turn up for the flag-hoisting nor send any of his cabinet colleagues for the event, further straining the relationship between him and governor Tamilisai Sounderarajan.

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has claimed that India, which has charted an independent course on foreign policy, was forced to change its strategic posture and join the four-nation Quad grouping due to China's aggressive actions. In his latest book, Pompeo called India the «wild card» in Quad because it was a nation founded on socialist ideology and spent the Cold War aligning with neither the US nor the erstwhile USSR.

Screenings of the blocked BBC documentary on PM Narendra Modi continued on campuses and public places in parts of southern India, with SFI organising its second show in a week at the central University of Hyderabad on Republic Day and taking on ABVP at Pondicherry University the night before after at least five students watching the film there were allegedly injured in an assault.

NHRC has asked chief secretaries of states and Union territories to submit an action-taken report within six weeks on why patients cured of mental illness were being kept illegally in hospitals. The patients are to be sent home or to halfway homes, it said. It also criticised the Centre and the states for the poor state of infrastructure and shortage of manpower in mental health institutions.

Yoga guru Ramdev on Thursday said many people are making controversial remarks against «great men» of sanatan tradition and termed them as «anti-India». «Insulting remarks are being passed by many people against great men associated with the sanatan tradition... They are all anti-India and acting at the behest of international forces by showing disrespect to the country. They should be strongly opposed,» Ramdev told reporters in reply to a question about self-styled godman and Bageshwar Dham chief Dhirendra Krishna Shastri.

Nari Shakti dominated the 74th Republic Day parade as women officers led the marching contingents of the armed forces, CRPF, Akash missile system and Army’s Daredevil team. Also, women empowerment was the main theme of tableaux of several states. Though the focus of the Modi government has been to put women in the leading roles in the R-Day parade for the last few years, this was the first time they were seen in large numbers dominating the majestic parade on Kartavya Path.

In an apparent rebuttal to his former deputy, Sachin Pilot, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said the Congress returned to power in 2018 because of the work done by him in his previous dispensation.As he said this, he set the target of winning 156 seats in the assembly election due later this year.

Fifty aircraft took part in the 74th Republic Day celebrations that included an aerial display by Rafale, Mig-29 and Su-30 MKI fighters as well as C-130 Super Hercules and C-17 Globemaster transport planes. People stood at their places with their phone cameras open but faced trouble capturing aircraft formations due to the layer of fog and smoke cloaking the capital.

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday said that in a democratic set-up, everyone has the right to carry out the propaganda of one's political party and work towards the growth of the organisation. He was responding to a query on Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray's visit to Thane city during the day. It is Thackeray's first visit to the city after Shiv Sena's split last year.

Centre on Thursday launched India's first nasal Covid-19 vaccine iNCOVACC. Bharat Biotech's Incovacc received government approval for use as a booster dose in the country-wide mass inouclation program. iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

On the occasion of Republic Day, India got its first-ever intranasal vaccine iNCOVACC, which will be manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.The vaccine, dubbed «game changer» by some experts, was launched by Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and science and technology minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday.

Telangana Governor also felicitated Golden Globes award-winning and Oscars nominated 'Naatu Naatu' song's composer MM Keeravani and lyricist Chandrabose -at the Republic Day function in Hyderabad.

Foreign minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday slammed former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo for his remarks on Sushma Swaraj describing her as a «goofball» and a «heartland political hack», saying he deplored the disrespectful colloquialism used for her. In his just-released book, Pompeo has said Swaraj was not an important player on the Indian foreign policy team, and he worked much more closely with NSA Ajit Doval.

Celebrating Republic Day in a befitting manner is the bounden duty of all constitutional authorities and it cannot be skipped by the state government, the Telangana high court said on Wednesday while directing the state administration to hold the ceremonial parade at any place of its choice. Following the HC order, the Telangana government has decided to hold a guard of honour, officials said.

SP ex-chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, iconic architect Balkrishna Doshi and pioneer of ORS Dilip Mahalanabis have been posthumously awarded Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award. Other recipients of the award are tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and mathematician Srinivas Vardhan. Padma Bhushan has been conferred on industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, philanthropist and Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy.