Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan (ANI image)

NEW DELHI: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday assured strict action and justice for the family of Ram Narayan Bakel, who was killed in a mob assault in Walayar in Palakkad district, calling the incident unacceptable in a progressive society like Kerala.In a statement issued by the CMO, Vijayan said a special investigation team led by the Palakkad Superintendent of Police has been formed to probe the case. “Justice will be ensured for the family of Ram Narayan Bakel, who was killed following a mob assault in Walayar, Palakkad. Strict action will be taken against those responsible,” the statement read.The CMO added that instructions have been given to thoroughly examine the case, initiate necessary legal action and review compensation for the victim’s family. “Such acts, which tarnish the reputation of a progressive society like Kerala, are completely unacceptable. Everyone must remain vigilant to ensure that such incidents do not recur,” it added.The chief minister’s assurance comes after a chilling case of mob violence was reported in Palakkad. Ramnarayan Baghel (31), a Dalit migrant labourer from Chhattisgarh, was allegedly beaten to death by a group of people in Walayar. According to initial reports, he was mistakenly suspected of being a Bangladeshi national or a thief following a local theft incident.Baghel, a resident of Karhi village in Sakti district of Chhattisgarh, had arrived in Palakkad on December 13 in search of work and was employed as a daily-wage labourer at a construction site. Family members said he was extremely poor and is survived by his wife Lalita and two young sons, aged around eight and nine.Police said the incident occurred at Attappallam East in Walayar, where a group of residents allegedly assaulted Baghel with sticks, causing severe injuries. He was taken to Palakkad District Hospital in critical condition, where he later succumbed to his injuries. Before his death, Baghel reportedly told hospital staff that he had been attacked by a mob accusing him of theft.Preliminary postmortem findings revealed that Baghel died due to excessive bleeding caused by severe blunt-force injuries to the head and other parts of the body. The autopsy was conducted at the Government Medical College Hospital in Thrissur.Kerala police have arrested five people in connection with the alleged lynching. Those arrested were identified as Attappallam residents Anu (38), Prasad (34), Murali (38), Anandan (55) and Bipin (30). They were produced before a local court and remanded to judicial custody. Police said further arrests are likely as the investigation progresses.A case has been registered at the Walayar police station under Section 103(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Investigators are examining CCTV footage, videos circulated on social media and witness statements to identify others involved in the attack.Following the incident, tension prevailed in the area, prompting police to step up security to prevent any escalation. Police confirmed Baghel’s identity through his Aadhaar card and informed authorities in Chhattisgarh.

Lucknow has witnessed many histories. Whispers of nawabs and poets, of rebellion and resilience, have seeped into its very essence. The Ganges, not far away, flowing steadily southward, is bearing witness to the birth of something unstoppable—a supersonic force that is redefining the skies, seas, and soils of a nation on the cusp of global reckoning. This is not a factory; it is a crucible. Sprawling over 200-acre canvas on the city’s outskirts, the state-of-the-art BrahMos Aerospace Integration and Testing Facility , India’s most formidable conventional deterrent—the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile—is being born, assembled, and given its wings.

The making of a supersonic citadel

The journey began in 2018 when the Uttar Pradesh government offered 200 acres of prime land along the Lucknow-Kanpur highway as part of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC). BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL), the Indo-Russian joint venture between DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya, had outgrown its Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Pilani and Nagpur’s production and system integration units. Orders were pouring in: the Indian navy wanted more ship- and submarine-launched missiles, the air force was integrating the air-launched version on forty Su-30MKIs, the army needed extended-range land variants, and — most importantly — export enquiries were turning into hard contracts.

The Philippines had already taken delivery of its first battery in 2024 under a 375 million USD deal. Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were in various stages of negotiation. By 2025 BrahMos Aerospace had firm orders for over 800 missiles in the next five years. Existing facilities simply could not cope.So, Lucknow happened.Built at a cost of around Rs 380 crore, the new campus is a city within a city: massive integration halls, a booster production block, a warhead mating facility, long high-speed sled track for subsystem validation, and an environmentally controlled pre-dispatch inspection bay that looks more like a spacecraft cleanroom than a weapons factory.

Every variant of the BrahMos family — from the original 290 km land and ship versions to the 600 km extended-range and the lighter BrahMos-NG under development — will roll out from here.

Inauguration and production

This year on May 11, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh virtually inaugurated the facility, the crown jewel of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor (UPDIC), was conceived with a singular, powerful objective: to become the epicentre for meeting the soaring domestic and international demand for the BrahMos weapon system.

“The state-of-the-art BrahMos Integration and Testing facility in Lucknow has been set up to cater to the growing demand for BrahMos weapon systems in the domestic and international markets. Its strategic location, a logistical advantage with seamless access to national freight corridors, ensures that the fury assembled here can be dispatched with efficiency to any frontier,” said an official source.

On October 18, the Defence Minister in presence of Chief Minister Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath, Department of Defence R&D and Chairman DRDO Samir V Kamat, and DG BrahMos Jaytirth R Joshi, flagged off the first batch of missiles to the Indian Armed Forces, sleek and lethal in their transporter canisters, it marked a paradigm shift. For decades, defence manufacturing was perceived as the preserve of coastal or traditional industrial hubs. Lucknow’s roar announced a new geography of power.

Built at an estimated cost of Rs 380 crore, the campus is described as a “city within a city,” designed for end-to-end integration and quality validation. Key components mentioned include:

The aim: produce and support multiple BrahMos variants—from legacy 290 km versions to extended-range and the under-development BrahMos-NG.

BrahMos Aerospace employs around 300-500 people directly at the Lucknow unit today, but the ripple effect is staggering.A senior BrahMos official explained: “A missile is an extremely complex system that draws on diverse industries, advanced materials, chemicals, rubber, electronics, mechanical subsystems, precision machining, welding, and more. Today, BrahMos works with over 200 private and public-sector industry partners across India who supply components, sub-assemblies, off-the-shelf items, and specialised fixtures to build the complete weapon system.“

“With demand rising sharply, both from the Indian armed forces and export orders, we need to significantly diversify and expand our supply chain. The new Lucknow facility, located at the heart of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor, offers the ideal platform to onboard many more MSMEs and manufacturers in the region. Proximity will enable tighter project monitoring, faster iteration, and even higher quality standards,” added the officialThe official added that the company is actively scouting new vendors in and around Lucknow to support production targetsFurther, the human capital powering this enterprise is as meticulously curated as the technology. BrahMos Aerospace, as a world-class defence entity, adheres to a creed of pure meritocracy.

“We recruit highly skilled professionals involved in designing a very high-end weapon system. We adhere to the same standards for Lucknow,” stated the official source. There is no quota for locality; excellence is the only passport.For a young engineer dreaming of contributing to missile technology, the path is clear and demanding.A stellar academic foundation in aerospace, mechanical, electronics, or computer science is the entry ticket. The recruitment funnel—through national vacancies and elite campus placements—involves rigorous technical assessments, multiple interview rounds, and stringent security clearances. The promise of “huge employment opportunities” is real, but they are opportunities earned in the most competitive arena.

The numbers that matter

At present, the Lucknow facility will roll out the existing BrahMos missile to meet increased demand, but its specific purpose is to manufacture the BrahMos NG missile—NG stands for next generation. The BrahMos NG will have a 300 km range, equal to the current missile, but will be significantly lighter, at 1.2 tonnes (1,200 kilograms) compared to the existing model’s 2,900 kilograms.The new BrahMos NG would be integrated on Sukhoi 30. Currently, the Su 30 can integrate only one missile, but with the NG version, five missiles can be integrated: four on Light Combat Aircraft. On land and ship versions, instead of three missiles, six or eight can be packed, thanks to the reduced size. This approach aims to maintain effectiveness while increasing numbers and reducing costs, ensuring steady supply to the armed forces. The Lucknow facility will be its birthplace.An official source summed it up: “The BrahMos Integration and Testing Facility is an ultra-modern manufacturing unit designed for the production, assembly, and integration of all BrahMos variants, including the advanced air-launched version. It will also serve as the hub for the next-generation BrahMos in the foreseeable future.”

Sunday Times ‘honours’ the newsmakers who spiced up 2025. We hope the awards are taken in the spirit in which they’re givenChance pe Dance AwardTo Shafali Verma who unexpectedly waltzed into the Women’s T20 World Cup squad as an injury replacement, scored a match-winning 87 runs off 78 balls and took two crucial wickets in the finalPortfolio Diversification AwardTo Smriti Irani for effortlessly slipping in and out of her roles in the saffron parivar and the Virani parivarKaam Sutra AwardTo the L&T Chairman for his suggestion that people should work 90 hours a week, preferably also on Sundays. His rhetorical “how long can you stare at your wife?” was the icing on the workaholic cakeHawa Hawaii AwardTo IndiGo, which seems to think taking people for a ride is the same as flying, and that additional pilots will appear from thin air to ensure new rest time rules can be metOppn-heimer AwardTo Rahul Gandhi for promising bombs, hydrogen bombs, and then some, on electoral roll ‘fraud’, only to be dismissively defused by the electorate of BiharGPS AwardTo the vandals who threatened comedian Kunal Kamra but couldn’t figure out how to find him.“Abhi Tamil Nadu kaise pahunchega bhai,” asked the befuddled goonsMission Impawsible AwardTo the courts for ordering that all of Delhi’s stray dogs should be inside animal shelters within eight weeks. Thankfully, the order was toned down on appealSeeta-Geeta AwardTo diabetes drugs that are pulling off a splendid double role as weight-loss stars. Why sweat it out when some pills can do the heavy lifting?Stung Parivar AwardTo the Lalu clan which took the Bihar election rout all too personally and drove sibling rivalry up several notchesHum App Ke AwardTo the communications ministry for being so concerned about our cyber security that it insisted on preloading the Sanchar Saathi app on all new phones. Knowing how careless we can be, it even ordered that the app couldn’t be deleted till carping critics forced it to withdraw the orderOmkara AwardTo Saif Ali Khan who proved he’s ‘sabse bade ladaiya’ by fighting off the thief who broke into his house in Mumbai. And then hailing an auto to the hospital. Who said nawabs can’t be down to earth?Light Year AwardTo Bengaluru traffic , which astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla discovered on his way to a tech summit in Silicon City. “You can reach space faster,” he said, and all of the city nodded in agreementBungee Jump AwardTo Jagdeep Dhankhar’s health which apparently nosedived so dramatically that he had no option but to hang up his boots as Vice PresidentDeja Woe AwardTo the Congress in Karnataka , where the game of musical chairs threatens to become a franchise reboot of the MP, Punjab and Chhattisgarh sagasComeback Nitish Kumar: Tossing aside a familiar opponent and a new challenger, Kumar became Bihar CM for a record 10th termHimesh Reshammiya: Packed stadiums and the return of his trademark cap marked the comeback of ‘Lord HR’, as both millennials and GenZs gave in to ‘Capmania’Akshaye Khanna: His career as a main lead might have never taken off, but 2025 cemented his status as Bollywood’s new favourite baddie. Not only did he star in two of the year’s most successful releases, but also dominated social media with memesKiran Desai: After nearly 20 years, her much-awaited novel ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ arrived —and immediately shot into the Booker shortlistKyunki Saas Bhi Reboot: The sanskaar-laden soap, which broke TRPs and made Smriti Irani a household name, returned to TV screens with nearly an unchanged castShein: Five years after its ban, the Chinese fast-fashion giant made a quiet re-entry in partnership with Reliance RetailGoodbyes Ro-Ko: A year after withdrawing from T20s, India’s star cricketers Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket too in a move that surprised both fans and foesRohan Bopanna: The 45-year-old tennis player, one of only four Indians to win a Grand Slam, hung up his boots in Nov, bringing an end to a career spanning over 20 yearsBluSmart: The EV cab-hailing app promised cleaner mobility. But it found itself caught in murky waters after allegations of fund diversion forced it to suspend operationsReal money gaming: A new law proved to be a blow for apps like Dream11 and MPL, which relied on monetary stakes in games such as poker and rummySkype: The app, which once connected friends and relatives across continents, was shut down, as Microsoft shifts attention to its cooler cousin, TeamsMIG-21: The country’s once iconic and controversial Soviet fighter jet took its last flight after six decades in the sky