Around ten years ago, while she was roaming in the local area, she suffered a mild heart attack and collapsed.

Congress leader Karti Chidambaram criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for defending the ‘Agnipath’ scheme at an event to honour the Kargil War soldiers. Mr Chidambaram said that the Army should not be politicised and that the Agniveer scheme should be scrapped.

“Agniveer scheme should be scrapped. Modern warfare requires fully-trained soldiers, and the scheme does not give full-trained soldiers. The Agniveer scheme does not solve the needs of the Army,” Mr Chidambaram told NDTV.

“Indian Army has a glorious past and should not be politicised. We salute the army and not the other way around,” he added.

Another Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, echoed the sentiments and said that the government needs to mention what will happen to the Agniveers once they retire after a four-year service.

“PM is saying that we are spreading confusion. He is speaking about what will happen after 30 years. He should talk about what will after 4 years to these agniveers,” Mr Randhawa said.

Launched in 2022, the Agnipath scheme was designed to recruit personnel for short-term service in the armed forces, aimed at reducing the age profile across the services. Known as Agniveers, these individuals do not currently qualify for regular benefits such as pensions for their families in the event of their death in service.

The issue has sparked broader discussions, with a parliamentary panel earlier recommending that families of Agniveers who die in the line of duty should receive benefits equivalent to those provided to families of regular military personnel.

Earlier today, PM Modi accused the Congress of spreading lies about the Agnipath scheme to ensure that youths do not sign up for short-term recruitment in the armed forces.

“They (Congress) did not want our defence forces to have the latest fighter planes. They are opposing the Agnipath Scheme which is aimed at making our soldiers young and fighting fit for war,” he said at the Kargil War memorial.

“They are saying that the Agniveer Scheme has been floated to save on pensions by Narendra Modi. They forget that a soldier recruited today will be eligible for a pension after 30 years and by then Modi would be 105. They want people to believe that Modi is such a fool that he will play mischief with the country’s defence forces,” he added.

A huge row broke out earlier this month with the family of Agniveer Ajay Kumar, who died in the line of duty, demanding ‘hero’ status for him. The family said that the compensation money cannot replace Ajay Kumar.

France’s high-speed rail network was hit by “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system, train operator SNCF said Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

A source close to the investigation told AFP the attacks were coordinated acts of “sabotage”.

“This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network,” SNCF told AFP, adding that many routes will have to be cancelled.

“SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines.

“Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities,” it said, adding that traffic on the affected lines was “heavily disrupted” and the situation would last through the weekend as repairs are conducted.

Trains were being diverted to different tracks “but we will have to cancel a large number of them”, the statement said.

The southeastern line was not affected as “a malicious act was foiled”.

SNCF urged passengers to postpone their trips and stay away from train stations.

Olympics under heavy security

The attacks were launched as Paris was under heavy security ahead of the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, with 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs expected at the event.

The parade on Friday evening will see up to 7,500 competitors travel down a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine on a flotilla of 85 boats.

It will be the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside the main athletics stadium, a decision fraught with danger at a time when France is on its highest alert for terror attacks.

At Paris’s Montparnasse train station, dozens of passengers were waiting for more information about their trips after delays of 30 minutes to almost two hours were announced.

“Normal traffic is expected to resume on Monday, July 29,” read one of the signs in the departure hall.

“We arrived around 7:00 am but we were told that we might not be able to leave before Monday,” said 27-year-old student Jocelyn, who had planned to travel to Bretagne and refused to give her full name.

“We expected it to be a bit chaotic in Paris with the opening ceremony scheduled for this evening, but we didn’t think it could be this bad,” she said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)