Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last month.
With both aircraft likely to meet the IAF's performance requirements, the winning bid could be the one that offers the lowest cost and the best industrial proposal.
The cancellation of the project has far-reaching implications for the IAF, for which this was once its high-tech future fighter.
Joined by his family, wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and sons Don and Eric, Trump will take the oath of office as the leader of the world's most powerful nation on Friday as hundreds of thousands of people descend on Washington to both support and protest his inauguration.
The India-Japan 2+2 dialogue added strategic heft to the special relationship in the wake of growing Chinese assertiveness on regional affairs, points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
Over 90 US Air Force officers, nearly half of the nuclear launch crew at a key base, have been suspended for cheating in exams after it emerged that answers were being sent in messages to their cellphones.
It has been a half-century since Neil Armstrong stepped out of a lunar module and onto the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969 and declared, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." The moment heralded a golden age of space exploration that was set in motion just eight years earlier in 1961, when United States President John F Kennedy promised before Congress to put a man on the moon before the decade was out. Here are some lesser-known facts about the historic first mission:
'Large-impact aerial weapons have no use against dictator regimes or terrorist entities,' says Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
Members of his team and industry were right now in India, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter disclosed, 'looking at the potential co-production of fighter aircraft.'
Unbroken's first half might seem a little vexing but the second one is where the actors' performances really shine through, says Paloma Sharma.
In contrast to the bare-bones price of $115 million for each Rafale fighter, the F-35A cost $94.6 million, reports Ajai Shukla.
A round-up of our favourite photographs from the week gone by
Trump trying to divide us, cries NBA star LeBron James even as Cowboys, Cardinals link arms amid anthem protests
Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39 is in the batch of 2017.
UAVs are an intrinsic part of today's technology driven battlefield. Indians don't seem to be taking the challenge with the degree of urgency that is required, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
'One of the great assets that India has is its enormous intellectual content, enormous intellectual developmental content, and some of the things we need to be working on are unmanned systems, for example, the enormous opportunities for us to jointly partner and develop -- not simply sell our equipment to India -- but actually partner and develop in areas like drones, areas like advanced aircraft and even areas around certain missile systems, where we can have a win-win.'
One Raj Shah has been the top Indian American in the Obama administration; the other Raj Shah is poised to play a key role in the Trump administration.
Negotiations are underway to have a "more practical and effective" mechanism to prevent face-offs between Indian and Chinese troops on the Line of Actual Control and efforts are being made to have confidence building measures, Defence Minister A K Antony said on Monday.
The J-20 fighter is called Beijing's answer to the US F-22 stealth fighter and the F-35 that will be soon deployed in the Pacific by the United States and Japan.
The Siang is a dramatic river that flows through a beautiful land. Rafting on it is a rare pleasure the state offers tourists, says Ajai Shukla.
Claude Arpi reveals how Wing Commander Jag Mohan Nath won a second Maha Vir Chakra in the 1965 War.
From her thoughts on a black woman becoming First Lady to marital struggles with her husband Barack, Michelle Obama hasn't held back in her memoir, which is being praised as honest and telling, Becoming.
In a powerful signal to New Delhi that the United States is a reliable defense partner, Senators Mark Warner and John Cornyn introduced US-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act in Senate
Lockheed Martin's offer involves transferring the world's only F-16 production line from Fort Worth, Texas, to India. Thereafter, every F-16 built, and a large share of the spare parts and sub-systems for every F-16 flying across the globe would come from India.
We bring forth to our readers the list of nations sitting on a nuclear stockpile, based on the study findings:
Carter has said India's designation as a 'major defence partner' would allow the US to cooperate with it --
The IAF has just 33 squadrons, 9 short of the 42 squadrons needed to tackle China and Pakistan together, says Ajai Shukla.
One of the most sought after exhibitions in Asia, as many as 549 companies are participating this year with 53 fighter aircraft on display.
Admiral Sam Locklear heads the US Pacific Command, making him the most powerful military commander on earth. With 60 per cent of the US Navy under him, PACOM oversees 52 per cent of the planet. Locklear is America's military pointsman for 36 countries, including India and China.
'One lesson to emerge out of the Modi-Putin summit is that India can be more self-confident that it possesses inherent strengths to leverage its interlocutors to influence Pakistani policies,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Rediff.com takes at look at the most popular UFO sightings and close encounters of our age.
Here is a recap of all the big events that shaped the world last week.
Former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sought American assistance and wrote to the then US president John F Kennedy to provide India jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression during the 1962 Sino-India war, according to a new book.
'IAF is expanding at a rapid pace'
'Other countries go out on a limb to save even a single life.' 'What to talk of civilian accidents and disasters, even our military does not have a priority for Combat Search and Rescue,' says Group Captain P I Muralidharan (retd).
'We use the word "historic" perhaps too much, but the prime minister's visit certainly was historic in so many ways.'
United States President Barack Obama has nominated Indian-American, Richard Rahul Verma, as the next US Ambassador to India, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington later this month.
'America's withdrawal from Vietnam was an inspiring moment for all of us. We believed that it was a glorious victory of ideology and spirit and as historic as the defeat of the Nazis exactly 30 years ago,' remembers Kumar Ketkar 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
It is time the new government, unencumbered with the burden of past, initiates a wide ranging review and open debate on the security issues to rectify our short term and long term shortcomings. It has taken some wise steps but has to go beyond this to identify the structural weakness and create systems, says Colonel (retd) Anil Athale.
