The operational alert allows troops to get acclimatised to high altitudes, renovate the bunkers and trenches from which they would fight, break out ammunition, and carry out the coordination needed to fight an integrated defensive battle.
The artillery pounds targets and keeps the enemy's head down, preventing them from firing at attacking troops.
At war, the Jalashwa can carry and launch a full infantry battalion in a single wave. At peace, the Jalashwa can evacuate 1,000 people in a single trip. Ajai Shukla explains why the Indian Navy's new tender for more ships like the Jalashwa must be treated with special urgency.
General Mattis has been the most steadfast champion in Trump's cabinet of the US-India defence relationship. If Trump chooses a more pliable successor, the Pentagon's attention could go off India.
'While all would agree on the need to be ready to launch cross-border strikes on terror camps, there is sharp disagreement on how best to do it.' 'Through IAF fighters, or surface-to-surface missiles?' 'Or should army Special Forces be created to do the job?' 'If air strikes are the agreed priority, additional funding must be made available for the purchase of fighters and missiles.' 'If it is to be Special Forces, the army must be facilitated in raising a Special Forces Command,' notes Ajai Shukla.
Still, there remains a worrying shortfall of frigates, which are the navy's workhorses. 'We need to have at least 24 frigates,' says a senior admiral. 'Currently we are 10 short.'
'Prior to Pulwama, the BJP appeared to be on the defensive, uncertain of its stop-and-go development programmes, fearful of growing discontent among agriculturists and unemployed youth, and nervous of gathering steam among Opposition parties across regional and caste alliances,' says Sunil Sethi.
As a percentage of the military budget, the navy's share has fallen from 19 per cent in 2010-2011 to just 15.5 per cent this year. With the Indian Navy's annual budget declining steadily, security planners are reluctant to green light crucial projects, discovers Ajai Shukla.
With the IAF having rejected variants of 4 of the contending aircraft -- the Super Hornet, F-16, Gripen C/D and MiG-35 -- in flight trials carried out between 2009-2011 in the MMRCA tender, are the current contenders improved enough to pass flight trials conducted to the same standards?
Russia -- already India's biggest arms supplier from 2014-18, accounting for 58 per cent of India's defence imports -- eyes more, reports Ajai Shukla.
'The high court notice could go some way in easing the vitiated civil-military relationship, and the trust deficit between civil servants and the military.'
'What's on offer for India is to establish a production line here that would be the world's only production line.'
So keen is Moscow that India buy its helicopter -- Kamov-226T -- that President Vladimir Putin personally took up the issue with PM Narendra Modi during their summit meeting last year
Japan could soon be the second country after the US with which India has a logistics support agreement. Besides the LSA, India and Japan may also sign a maritime domain awareness agreement which would enable the two navies to share information. For example, if a Japanese P-1 maritime patrol aircraft detects a Chinese submarine in the Indian Ocean, it would pass on the information to the Indian Navy, reveals Ajai Shukla.
>Putin's last-minute intervention with PM salvages $5.43 bn pact.
HAL's HTT-40 aircraft have outperformed both Swiss Pilatus planes and the IAF's performance criteria. Why then does the IAF prefer the Pilatus to the HTT-40?
'The air force has treated the Tejas like a step child.' 'The Tejas has grown in capability, but the IAF has preferred foreign fighters like the Rafale.'
India's plan to buy futuristic tanks and infantry combat vehicles -- estimated to be worth Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 100,000 crore each -- will certainly intimidate Pakistan which already feels threatened by our vast tank strength.
The Indian Navy is constrained by its lowest budgetary allocation since 2011-2012, reveals Ajai Shukla.
French observers point out that Paris had no choice but to issue a denial given the importance of India's Rafale purchase for France's aerospace industry.
IAF pilots would no longer have to fly deep into heavily defended airspace to strike enemy bases, they can launch a Brahmos from as far away as 295 km.
Dassault Aviation chief Eric Trappier has made it clear it would take at least three years to deliver 36 Rafales to the Indian Air Force.
The cancellation of the project has far-reaching implications for the IAF, for which this was once its high-tech future fighter.
Beyond the British and Russian strands interwoven into the Indian Navy's equipment profile and the strong drive towards indigenisation evident today, its future in aircraft carriers appears increasingly linked with America.
Sitharaman has completed just 19 days as defence minister and is also pre-occupied with the Gujarat assembly election, notes Ajai Shukla.
The secretary defence production wants to make India (currently the largest importer of weaponry) one of the world's top five defence manufacturers and a global leader in artificial intelligence and cyberspace.
With the Rafale contract in limbo, the upgrade of IAF's Mirage 2000 and Jaguar fighters has become vitally important.
General Bakshi is understood to have been assured by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that the process was under way to appoint him as India's first tri-service commander, a post that would, at least nominally, place him senior to General Rawat.
Once in each President's term in office, he or she carries out a "naval fleet review", a deliberately public assembly of the entire fleet.
The DARIN-III navigation attack system allows a Jaguar pilot to feed in the coordinates of targets deep inside enemy territory.
The Agni-V can reach beyond Tibet to high-value targets in the Chinese heartland, even its northern-most provinces.
The Kamov-226T indigenisation has been complicated by an unusually detailed Inter-Governmental Agreement.
'It is nobody's contention that uncomfortable questions regarding national security should not be raised. But that is a topic for another day and another time when the immediate threat has faded,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
With India's political wheel turning full circle this year, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will negotiate from an expanding diplomatic space, writes Ajai Shukla
Boeing expects the IAF to soon place an inquiry for twin-engine fighter jets to bridge a 200-aircraft gap in its armoury. And the Super Hornet is ready to fly in.
The second SSN that India is negotiating to lease from Russia will only replace the Chakra, when its 10-year lease expires, reports Ajai Shukla.
'Since each chief single-mindedly pursues his service's interests in the competition for turf and in core matters such as budget share. The CDS, therefore, must act as an "honest broker" whose decisions serve the broader national purpose, rather than narrow service interests,' says Ajai Shukla.
Ex-servicemen say the government's award ignores five out of seven demands they had made and only partially meets the other two.
The Raksha Mantri was unable to address media queries about how much the Modi government was paying for 36 Rafales compared to what the UPA government had negotiated.
Since 2016, when India was officially recognised in US law as a 'major defence partner', Washington has purposefully upgraded the defence relationship.
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